Battery turned into X after Yosemite After I installed Yosemite on my MacBook Air, the battery icon is just an X.

I have tried restarting the computer, and turning off the computer, then back on, but nothing is happening! Even the charger won't recognize that it is plugged in. This Mac is less than two years old, the battery should be fine.

There is a circuit board on the battery itself that reports its presence and status to the OS X.

In OS X, there is a piece of hardware run by firmware called System Management Controller (SMC) that takes that information and processes it. Sometimes, the SMC gets confused and needs to be reset following instructions from Apple.

You can also look up your Battery information in the About This Mac, to see what it says.

What could cause the display of the X?

The circuit mounted on the battery itself could have malfunctioned. Normally, it will reserve a minimum charge for itself and not allow the battery to drain beyond that point. But, if the battery was drained to the levels that the built-in circuit can no longer function, it will not report the status and ask to be charged. If you were installing Yosemite, you should have gotten a warning that you are on battery. If ignored, the battery could have been drained completely.

So what can you do other than SMC reset or bringing it in for repair? You can try the coconut app to see if it does something. https://www.coconut-flavour.com/coconutbattery/

i did it by banging my laptop with my hand , it worked seriously , trust me.


Can I install Spaces and Exposé on Lion? Like many of you, I'm sure, Mission Control isn't quite cutting it for me in Lion. I much preferred Spaces and Exposé. So, naturally, I tried reinstalling them on Lion. I got Spaces.app, Expose.app, and Expose&Spaces.prefpane from a machine running Snow Leopard, and tried installing them in System Prefs and the Applications folder.

It didn't work. Every time you open up the Spaces and Exposé prefpane, it shows the Mission Control pane. Double-clicking on Spaces.app brought up Mission Control, even if you change the name.

Any idea on how to install Spaces and Exposé on Lion?

This is impossible because Mission Control / Spaces / Exposé are actually controlled by the Dock. And you'll certainly have no end of trouble if you try to transplant the Dock between OS versions.

I was having the same problem
but all is there,
just need to configure it [ I use the hot corner method]

Mission control Lion Tutorial


Curl from Pastebin messes with carriage returns Whenever I use curl to get a file like .profile from Pastebin, the .profile file isn't read properly. I did some checking, and it seems to be down to the carriage returns.

How do I solve this problem? Can I correct the carriage returns in transit?

For reasons that pass understanding pastebin.com raw mode uses Windows line endings - carriage return followed by linefeed - rather than plain linefeed that is used by all right thinking operating systems.

So you need to remove the carriage returns. The easiest way to do this is using tr.

curl https://pastebin.com/raw/qg0r3wt | tr -d '\r' > .profile

That will save the contents of the pastebin qg0r3wt into the file .profile with carriage returns removed.

The answer is to include the option --crlf in the command.

curl -o .profile --crlf https://pastebin.com/raw/...


Mac doesn't connect to university Wi-Fi I bought a MacBook recently. It connects to all other Wi-Fi and hotspot devices but it does not connect to my university Wi-Fi.

I have also done diagnostics; still does not become connected.

This isn't an Apple issue per se.  It's an issue with the organization's (in this case, the university's) security protocol not allowing you onto their network.

You indicate that your WiFi is functional

  it is getting connected to all other wifi and hotspot devices

It's not going to work everywhere and then suddenly stop working on one particular network.  A symptom like this points to an authentication issue.

More than likely, your Uni is using an accounting and authentication mechanism like RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service). True...nobody really uses "dial in" any more, but the acronym stuck.

You need to contact your organization's IT support department to assist you in getting your device(s) authorized on their network.  Once they do this, you will be able to access the resources you are authorized to utilize.

IF you have the choice of registering a device with your university network access setting. You can find your MAC address for specific USB ethernet adapter through advanced --> hardware and then copy that MAC address to manually register with your university network access. This is happening because of your laptop and USB adapter has different MAC address.


Do you know a simple sound booster app for Mac? Some videos on websites have the sound volume so low that even with all sound settings at maximum levels it's hard to listen.

I'm looking for an app that would allow me to boost the Mac's volume. Something similar to VLC volume controls.

I already looked at Audio Hijack, but it has way too much features for what I'm looking for.
Anything free of charge would be a plus. :)

You can boost the volume of videos playing in Chrome using free extensions. I found the Ears chrome plugin works quite well. Steps:

install the plugin
click the Ears extension icon in chrome
drag the baseline from 0 up to +5
click EQ this tab

Hear is a good option and has several different parameters to change and customize.  You can add special effects and adjust the intensity with sliders to suite your own preferences.  There are also predefined sets for specific music genres and wether you are listening via headphones or directly from your computer's speakers.  It gives you a lot of flexibility to change and set the sound to your liking.


iPad: export Keynote project to video Setup.

I'm running the most recent version of Keynote (as of April 3rd, 2014) on an iPad Air, WiFi-only version @ 16GBs.

Task/issue.

I would like to export the project/slideshow to a video file (to then be able transfer the movie to my desktop PC running windows).

Thoughts.

Is there any way to do this? I was thinking there must be a way to do it by using iMovie on iOS as a proxy somehow, but couldn't find any resources on the matter.

Keynote for iOS does not support this. Apparently Apple does not provide any mechanism for screen-recording (video) within iOS 7, and will not permit any third-party app that enables this. There have been some apps that can do screen recording on iOS 7, but they require jailbreaking the device, and are not authorized by Apple through the App Store.

The only way that I know to achieve this is by one of the following:

1) move your Keynote document that you created on iOS to Keynote on Mac OS X, which has a video export feature

2) If you have a Windows PC, you can use Reflector for Windows, which enables live video and audio recording of a "screen share" of what is playing on your iOS device. You establish a connection between your iOS device and your Windows computer, enable "Record" in Reflector, and then play back your Keynote document in full screen on your iOS device. You then have a video on your Windows computer that you can further edit.

It appears that one used to be able to export a Keynote Presentation to Imovie on the same Ipad. But sadly, it looks like Apple has has taken this opportunity away. Once saved in MP4 format, you should them be able to transfer it to your PC several ways.


Unlocking old Sprint iPhone 4s I have an old Sprint iPhone 4s that hasn't been under contract for around a year now and I have a friend on T-Mobile whose contract doesn't end for another year. He still has a flip phone so I want to give him the old iPhone. Is there a way to unlock the iPhone if it is no longer under contract?

Unlocking is trivial with carrier support.

Here is Apple's article on how to proceed technically once your carrier has unlocked the device:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5014

We have a nice thread on this Sprint to T-Mobile shift here:

Getting an unlocked iPhone 4/4S to work on T-Mobile

In order to unlock - you will need to jailbreak it first. If you did want to jailbreak your iphone 4s as well,then jailbreak gives you to complete control to download whatever apps you want. That information is best for you that have an to unlock their iPhone.


Deselect text using keyboard shortcut or prevent selection of word/link on right click I often copy links in Chrome with the context menu, to paste into a chat window (Adium). This process selects the link on copy. When I cmd+tab back to my browser window, the text is still selected and it interferes with keyboard control of the given website. This forces me to move my hand back to the trackpad, find some non-active space (page bg usually), and click to deselect. I'd rather not have to move my hand from the keyboard to do this.

I've tested this in Chrome, Safari, and TextEdit. I could maybe solve it in Chrome with a userscript, but I'd like a more general solution for other programs as well.

edit Another way of looking at this problem is that OSX selects the word or link on right click with a context menu, but doesn't clear the selection when the context menu is closed. Is there a way to force deselection of text on context menu close?

cmd+a (select all)
cmd+shift+home [at least tested on PC with control+shift+home]

Holding down the insert key deselected the item.


Display hidden files hot key on Mavericks gone? On prior versions of OS X, it was possible to display hidden files in a Finder dialog box (Open, Save, etc.) using Command-Shift-Period.

In Mavericks, that feature isn't working for me. Is there another command that one can use? I would prefer not to globally enable hidden files.

EDIT: I'm the one offering the bounty. It seems I cannot comment because I don't have enough rep now :)

So... yes, I'm also running 10.9.1 and it does not work. I have used it in previous versions of OSX and it worked fine. The script mentioned is OK to show the hidden files in Finder, but it does not work that well when using the open/save dialog.

My use case: sometimes I need to open/save files to the /tmp directory. In previous versions of OSX I just used the dialog to get to the disk root, and then press CommandShift. and then I was able to see the /tmp directory (actually /private/tmp).

So, if you guys are using the same version of OSX and it does work for you, I guess there must be a way to re-activate this. Any ideas?

The key bindings doesn't work in Column view mode on Maverick, but it works in e.g. List view mode. Switching back to Column view mode after doing the toggle in List view mode then shows the hidden files.

You can turn it on by default doing this Terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -boolean true
killall Finder

...but this is less than convenient compared to a keyboard shortcut... but you could create an Automator workflow which runs a service which runs a Terminal command all assigned to a System Preferences Keyboard Shortcut... but still not as convenient.


Compass in maps and app always wrong When I use the direction in maps the direction is almost always ~90° off, occasionally it will be 135-180° wrong but mostly it looks like I'm travelling sideways. The phone is flat.
Is there something wrong with the hardware? Or can I manually calibrate it (like tell it to offset by 90°)? Or tell it to ignore the compass and just use the direction of travel.

Also the compass app gives the wrong direction but it doesn't even match the incorrect direction in maps.

For example I was travelling along this road, away from the motorway.

I had the same problem, what you will need to do is re-calibrate the compass multiple times and it will get closer and closer with each calibration.

Make sure you are calibrating in the correct way, most people I have seen do it wrong, and it is not very clear from the diagram on the phone. There is a YouTube video which will show you how

I had the same problem and I came to the conclusion that the error was due to the magnet of my iPhone's wallet case.

Removing the case with the magnet is the solution!


Display playlist by album instead of by song on iPhone I have an iPhone 5S. I want to see my playlist by albums instead of by songs. When I add an album of songs to the playlist, it shows all the songs. I can do it on iTunes on the computer but it doesn't seem to allow you to show playlist by album instead of by song.

Unfortunately you can't do this on your iPhone, but on a mac when you select the playlist you can go to the top right corner and change it from songs to albums for them to be sorted by album.

This option needs to be added on the iPhone.

I like sorting through the music on my phone in Album view and its a big hassle when I have 800+ single songs in my "Gym" Playlist that get lumped in with the full albums I have on the phone.

This has led me to make a separate playlist for the full albums...but you can't view them in any other way except as a list of SONGS in the playlist....its like..damn you can't win.


Moving Messages History from Macbook to iPad Mini I have my messages synced with my iPad Mini and computer, but I've had the computer longer and I want to copy my message history from my computer over to my iPad. What's the easiest way to do this?

Follow these steps to back up and restore Messages (and other app data) from one iPhone to another:
1. Connect the old iPhone to a power source and turn on Wi-Fi.
2. On the old iPhone - assuming you're running iOS 8 or later - tap Settings > iCloud > Backup. The Backup switch is near the bottom of the large group of controls. (On iOS 7 or earlier, you should tap Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup.)
3. Make sure iCloud Backup is turned on.

Tap Back Up Now, and wait for the backup process to complete. You'll need to remain connected to Wi-Fi for the entirety of this process.
Turn on your new iPhone. If you haven't done so already, you'll need to go through the setup process. When asked, tap Restore from iCloud Backup and Next. If you've already been through the setup process, you'll need to reset your iPhone. Tap on Settings > General > Reset and > Erase All Content and Settings.
Enter your Apple ID and Password.


When plugged in, does the iPhone use the battery or the external source during heavy use? I love to play games and do other tasks that quickly drain the iPhone's battery. Sometimes I'll use the phone while plugged into a power supply. Does the iPhone still use the battery when performing these high-performance tasks while connected to the power source?

When you're plugged in to a power source, the iPhone will not use the battery unless for some reason you are using more power than the charging source can provide.

Normally, unless some process is hitting the CPU and GPU and all radios (such as a GPS mapping app), even a computer USB port at 500 mA will both power your games/apps and charge your battery at the same time.

Even if your game takes more current than the charge is providing, using all the wall power will reduce the amount of battery being consumed which will certainly save your battery.

Of course, you should expect hundreds of full charge/discharges and as long as you are one a month draining the battery, you don't need to keep the electrons moving otherwise for good battery lifespan and health.

nonsense , the icon means nothing , i have my phone at 100% with the plugged in icon , i use it for awhile it goes back to lightning icon , i use r more it goes down to 99% , at 96% now having used it plugged in since 100% watching stuff in YouTube multitasking iPod etc

it shows Apple electronics suck that they are clever enough to implement this - or they prefer batteries have shorter life , to charge you more money


Copy a file's NSURL to clipboard I am trying to do a rather simple thing: in the context menu I want to have an action (e.g. with Automator) that gets and copies the file's NSURL to clipboard.

The solution seems simple, but it does not work (some unspecific error).
Here is what I have so far:

on run {input, parameters}

   set p to POSIX path of (input)
   set nsu to current application's |NSURL|'s fileURLWithPath:p

   return nsu

end run

I am looking to get the file reference URL, like so: file:///.file/id=6571367.2773272/

I am on El Capitan.

Any ideas?

Here is the solution to the issue (from: http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=183164#p183164):

use framework "Foundation"

on run {input, parameters}

    set p to POSIX path of (input)
    set nsu to current application's |NSURL|'s fileURLWithPath:p

    set fru to nsu's fileReferenceURL()'s absoluteString() as text

    return fru

end run

I did not check jweak's answer. It may also work, after all.
The poster over at macscripter also mentioned something important: input may contain a list of items (multi-selected).

Hope this helps someone.

If you lose the parameters parameter, leaving only input, and if you start the script declaring the framework, it works.

use framework "Foundation"
on run {input}
   set p to POSIX path of (input)
   set nsu to current application's |NSURL|'s fileURLWithPath:p

   return nsu
end run


How to continue Time Machine backups from a previous computer? I had MBP 2015 in the past and used Time Machine on it. Last September, I switched to MBP 16'' 2019 and did a fresh installation / manual copy of most of my home directory files, maintaining the layout.

Note: I wanted to do a fresh installation for various reasons but if I were to compare the filesystems in the end, they are almost the same – my home directory is still /Users/borekb, the folder layout under it is exactly the same, etc.

Now I'm trying to set up Time Machine again but I'd like to continue with my previous line of backups – for example, I want to see last year's versions of files that are on the same path. Also, my first backup on this new Mac should be "incremental" – I'd like Time Machine to compare what is on my current Mac with the latest state of my previous backups (from September 2020) and does a diff as usual.
The key to this seems to be the tmutil inheritbackup command, which I've successfully ran:
$ sudo tmutil inheritbackup /Volumes/time-machine/Borek’s\ MacBook\ Pro.backupbundle
Password:
Mounting disk image...
Unmounting disk image...
Inheriting disk image for machine...
Successfully inherited disk image '/Volumes/time-machine/Borek’s MBP 16.backupbundle'

/Volumes/time-machine is a mounted network folder (I backup wirelessly to a Synology NAS) and the command seemed to work well – it did this rename:
Borek’s MacBook Pro.backupbundle → Borek’s MBP 16.backupbundle
I then went to Time Machine UI, selected the time-machine disk, entered my previous password for encryption, etc.:

Everything seemed fine so far.
However, when I start backing up, it does a full initial backup to a new folder inside the .backupbundle that is called after my new computer's name: Borek’s MBP 16. This is what it looks like after I mount the sparse bundle and browse the /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb folder:

I somehow want to tell Time Machine keep using the original Borek’s MacBook Pro folder (the one that was last modified on 22 Sep 2020).
How to do that?

UPDATE 1: I tried changing my computer's name to match the old one but Time Machine still insists on creating a new set of backups from scratch – it just calls the new "machine directory" Borek’s MacBook Pro 2:

I have also ran this script, found here (as Big Sur doesn't seem to support -a), to run tmutil associatedisk an all folders found under the original backup location:
for f in /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups/Backups.backupdb/Borek’s\ MacBook\ Pro/*; do
  if [[ -d "$f" ]]; then
    sudo tmutil associatedisk /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD "$f"/Macintosh\ HD;
  fi;
done

This also worked correctly but Time Machine still doesn't see my older backups and is attempting to create Borek’s MacBook Pro 2 when I try to run a backup.

UPDATE 2: I've successfully verified backups which was a solution in this answer. The preferences UI still report "no backups" so I'm now trying to run a new backup, which was Step 2 in that answer and the author wasn't sure if it's necessary or not. I'll report back in a few hours...

If you tap the option key while clicking the time machine icon in the menu bar, you can browse backups from previous or other computers.


Prompted to enter system lock PIN code to unlock Mac A former terminated employee Fedex'ed us his company Macbook Air. When we turn it on we get this screen you see in the photo below. We do not have this 6 digit "system pin", never set it up, and are unsure how to re-format it. I've never seen this before.

  Enter your system lock PIN code to unlock this Mac.
  Account Locked.

We do have proof of purchase from Apple for this computer and as I understand all Apple stores are closed now. Can anyone advise what can be done to unlock this laptop?

You have only two options:

Convince your former terminated employee to provide the 6 digit PIN. If you have a legal department or legal consult, they may be able to provide additional convincing with threat of a civil suit.
Schedule an in-person service appointment with an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. Bring your Mac to the appointment, and bring your original receipt or invoice as proof of purchase. (apple.com - How to set a firmware password on your Mac) If you choose this option, then you better hurry because Apple says "You can look up your passcode for a limited time".

Although first-party Apple Stores are closed right now because of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, some Authorized Apple Service Providers are still open. You can find one here: https://getsupport.apple.com/

This happened because your former employee attached an iCloud account to the Mac, enabled the Find my Mac feature, and then initiated a remote lock sequence from iCloud. The lock status is stored in the system firmware, and cannot be bypassed even by replacing the boot disk.

Apple has a great page showing all the possible boot screens for a modern Mac.

You have to get to inside the macbook then get the hardrive out, Access the hardrive from another PC and find the code from there.


iTunes Match mismatch between OS X and iOS Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and subscribe to iTunes Match. One of the first CDs I imported after having activated iTunes Match was a really old compilation CD, with various tracks from various artists.

Some of the songs were matched with songs in the iTunes Store (correct songs, but a different compilation album from the one I was importing), whereas most of them were just uploaded. In iTunes in OS X the album displays correctly, grouped together as the album I uploaded and with the album art that iTunes found for me. However, on my iOS device, all of the uploaded songs are grouped together, whereas the matched songs are displayed as separate albums, with the album art from the albums to which they were matched - albeit with the same album name as my uploaded tracks.

How it looks in iTunes:

How it looks on iOS:

Has anybody got any ideas about how to fix this?

The answer is here, there's error in iTunes Match since 27th of April.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7026755?start=15&tstart=0

DK


How do I create a Mac bootable USB drive using Windows? My MBA 2012 with OS X 10.9.4 Mavericks won't boot anymore - it simply freezes after the initial jingle. I already tried resetting NVRAM and SMC, but to no avail. I don't have any time machine backups.

However, I still have a disc image of Mavericks sitting on an external hard drive, a USB stick and access to a notebook with Windows 7.

I haven't yet found any tutorial on how to create a bootable USB drive on Windows in order to reinstall OS X on my beloved Macbook Air.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

According to the first answer here, https://superuser.com/questions/383235/create-a-bootable-usb-drive-from-a-dmg-file-on-windows, there's a tool with a free trial called TransMac that can do it. Just make sure the USB drive is formatted with GPT and not MBR.

What might be easier, however, is that that model has support for Internet Recovery. If you boot holding Command-R and you have a WiFi connection, it can actually boot into recovery mode without a recovery partition on a drive (or even without a working drive).

Having said that, your description of a crash right after the boot chime could signify a more serious hardware problem and you may not be able to boot anything. If you boot holding the option key down, the startup disk selection screen should appear. If it crashes anyways, you may be looking at a hardware problem.

In my humble opinion, the easiest and a free solution for creating bootable drives is Rufus.


Are there viable and cheaper alternatives to Photoshop? Is there any software like Photoshop that can also open .PSD files? I don't need an enterprise / extremely feature laden editor, but I do wish to have the following required features at a price point less than a Photoshop license:

Able to crop
JPG compression optimization
Work with layers
Able to open PSD format files
Save in PDF format

I think you'll find Pixelmator a good substitute for Adobe Photoshop. It will do everything on your list and it costs $14.99.

For the past year I have used www.photoshoponlinefree.com which is a browser-based, online, Photoshop-style, image manipulation web app.


iPhone 4 stays linked to a previous Apple ID after restore to iOS 7 I bought a used iPhone 4 from a mobile shop in Abu Dhabi, UAE. It was in good condition but there was a Find my iPhone lock. I thought this is a normal thing, and can bypass it if I restore the phone - that's why I bought it.

I used the iPhone for one week, then tried to restore it with iOS 7.0.3 but after the restore, the activation screen showed "This iPhone is locked with an apple id  s.....@gmail.com". Then I tried my Apple ID instead, but was unable to use another id.

I went back to the mobile shop for help. He tried for one day but with no success. He said he bought it from Dubai from a person he doesn't have contact address or number.

How do I get the iPhone unlocked and can use my Apple ID with it?

It may not be your fault, but s...@gmail may be missing photos of his family and other stuff important to him. Maybe not. At least, send him an email explaining what happened. Maybe he will be ok with this, maybe he will thank you, it's just the right thing to do..

You won't be able to do nothing for the moment.


Group windows in Mac OS X Is there a way to group 2 or more windows so that they act together? If I drag one, they all move. If I hide one, they all hide. If I alt-tab to one, they all come in focus, etc.

These windows might be in different applications

I do believe I understand what you are requesting, and actually find it very interesting. However, this functionality does not exist in the base OS itself (10.5.x | 10.6.x | 10.7.x). An alternative to grouping windows in OS X, that you be interested in, is to utilize Mission Control (10.7) and Expose. In Mission Control you can add a new Desktop and drag your window(s)/Applications into that new Desktop thereby grouping them. They do not have to be like items and this can be done a number of times. Expose does not really cover what you have requested, but still is beneficial in terms of grouping like items.

Have you seen Optimal Layout? I've never used it so I can't comment from experience, but the features list in the Mac App Store states:

  Windows can STICK TOGETHER

So, it might have the functionality you're looking for.


Macbook pro Mid-2012 camera not working Recently replaced HDD to SSD. After replacing it the camera stopped working - green light not showing up. When opening the FaceTime app I only see a black screen.

I would check the webcam connection first maybe even disconnect and reconnect. If you can't do this, a local IT guy or apple store might do it. Google it to find what it looks like.


After deleting an app, can you (much) later reinstall it and restore its data from iCloud? I have several games that, combined, use up a pretty good chunk of my iPhone's flash.  I haven't played some of them for a while, and would like to remove them.  However, at least before iCloud, deleting an app also deleted its data.  Since I may go back and play them again, I'd rather not lose said data.

After backing up to iCloud, can you delete an app, and (possibly much) later reinstall it and restore your data from the iCloud backup?

The answer is yes and no.

What happens quite easily after a restore (for example after an update) is that iTunes restores the save data for all applications, but not the applications themselves. Therefore as soon as you install them, the old save games will be available (this applies to all apps, not just games). Just by itself nothing will be saved without backup.

BUT: If the application supports iCloud sync and stores it's data in iCloud (which has to be explicitly supported), your data will be still available after deleting and reinstalling the app.

In short: You should be really careful and unless you're absolutely sure the application in question does support iCloud for your saved data, don't delete it without backup.

And the answer is Yes! Before I upgraded to iOS5, many games I didn't play had been deleted.

I reinstalled those games from the cloud after the update (I did not sync with my Mac's iTunes) and I had all my scores saved! That data was not backed up anywhere on my Mac (How do I know this? iTunes was eating a lot of space on my HDD, so I obliterated all the apps and games I had backed up in it pre-iOS5 a few days ago).

That tells me my data was in the cloud even before I went down the iOS5 lane.

BTW, these apps that you install and delete, I don't think they take up extra space in the iCloud. Correct me if I'm wrong.

But I'm sure of one thing - go ahead, delete your games, your scores will be recovered when you re-download the app.


Is it possible to use a Verizon CDMA iPhone 4 with any other carrier or Pay-Per-Use carrier? This is probably seems like a FAQ but I haven't seen anything definitive as of today.

I have a CDMA-Only Verizon iPhone 4 (not a 4S) that recently came off contract. I'm aware that it's CDMA only and GSM carriers like AT&T can do nothing with it other than admire it as a thick iPod Touch. I'd like to explore options, mostly to lower my bill (I have no vendetta against Verizon, it's purely a cost issue).

So, network wise, are there any networks I can port to? I don't think Verizon has a MVNO in the Chicago area. Other than frequencies, is there anything I need to do to check compatibility with another network?

As far as unlocking, do I need to jailbreak my phone to change carriers? Or is this something Verizon will do (since it's off contract).

If I need to jailbreak, is it a permanent jailbreak, or is it possible to change a couple settings and then I can revert back to tracking current iOS?

Are there any US carriers that can use the phone? Cricket seems to restrict it's network to Cricket-sold phones. Can Straight-Talk handle it? Virgin?

Not likely unless Verizon agrees to release that phone for another carrier. Have a look at this guide on identifying iPhone models:

Identifying iPhone models

The iPhone 4 you have is model A1349 (that should be printed on the back of the device), and if so, it is a pure CDMA phone so you cannot connect it to a GSM carrier due to differing radio technology.

Even if you were to jailbreak it or get Verizon to unlock it, it's only going to work with another CDMA carrier.

So in the USA - you need to find a carrier with coverage in CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz) and that's primarily Sprint and Verizon. Since there is no SIM card in this device, you might not need to get it unlocked, but that will be a dialog between you and your potential carrier if they can provide coverage to it at the same time as Verizon may have it registered as "their locked device"

Due to bilateral roaming agreements - each CDMA tower in the US can and does serve multiple carrier devices - so it's likely that Verizon could prevent you from using your device on a competing carrier until you fulfilled your contract or convinced them to release that device's status in the common database for cell phones.

There are well over 50 regional and national carriers providing CDMA coverage according to this wikipedia article so you might have considerable options in some regions of the US.

Nore some of the information is old due to consolidation. Your main bets are C Spire, Sprint and Verizon.

Try Page Plus Cellular, no problem transferring a verizon iphone 4 to page plus as long as it has a clean ESN / MEID. Page Plus Cellular is a Verizon MVNO and uses the Verizon Network. I have activated 4 iPhone4's (plural, not 4s) that were originally Verizon phones. The activation process was painless and you can get a variety of pre-paid (purchase minutes) or plans (starts at $12/month). For example I'm paying $29.95 / month for 1200 minutes talk, 3000 messages (txt and multimedia) and 250MB data.  Unfortunately Verizon owns the WiFi Hot Spot app and its not available for use on MVNOs.  I don't know if any third-party WiFi aps or hacks are available or may be available in the future.


Access Application Menu Item with AppleScript I am trying to create a global hotkey for a function of an app by building an AppleScript in Automator.app and then assign a hotkey to it in Service. But the AppleScript doesn't work.
Specifically, I'm trying to click the Set as system proxy item of ClashX.app.

and the item path is showed as below:

My AppleScript (sorry IDK the corr. syntax highlight):
on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "ClashX"
        tell process "ClashX"
            click menu item "Set as system proxy" of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
        end tell
    end tell
end run

and it comes out
Syntax Error: Expected end of line but found “"”.

Note: the process name seems to be "ClashX", but I'm newbie to OS, so I post it here FYI.

The following example AppleScript code is how you'd click that target menu item:
tell application "System Events" to tell application process "ClashX"
    click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
    click menu item "Set as system proxy" of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2
end tell

That said though, sometimes there can be a delay of several seconds, or more, between the first click and the second click. If you find that to be the case, then try the following example AppleScript code instead:
ignoring application responses
    tell application "System Events"
        click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2 of application process "ClashX"
    end tell
end ignoring
do shell script "killall 'System Events'"
ignoring application responses
    tell application "System Events"
        click menu item "Set as system proxy" of menu 1 of menu bar item 1 of menu bar 2 of application process "ClashX"
    end tell
end ignoring

However, assigning a global keyboard shortcut for an Automator Service/Quick Action can be difficult at best because finding a keyboard shortcut that will not step on an already assigned keyboard shortcut in every application that you could trigger the Automator Service/Quick Action in will not be easy.
Additionally, every application you do successfully trigger the keyboard shortcut in will have to be added to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility, and that can be such a pain. Also, you actually may not want a given application to have accessibility privileges for security reasons.
To work around the accessibility privileges issues in a use case such as this I avoid Automator and just use an AppleScript script triggered by a keyboard shortcut using e.g. FastScripts, or a similar type of application. Using FastScripts I find that I typically only have to give it accessibility privileges and not the application that was frontmost when the keyboard shortcut was triggered.
This still leaves the global keyboard shortcut issue though and you may end up having to use four or five keys and the non-modifier key will most likely have to be a symbol.

Note: I am not affiliated with the developer of FastScripts, just a satisfied user of the product.


How to clear iCloud Music Library? I didn't know this iCloud Music Library thing was automatically turned on in iTunes on my iMac. I do like this feature but I only want to have it turned on with my Macbook and iPhone. Now I have a lot of tracks from my iMac mostly recording or audiobooks that cluster up my iCloud Music Library. I don't see an option to clear the iCloud Music Library, and manually deleting 1,201 tracks would take me two and half hours. Is there a way to remove all tracks from iCloud Music Library?

Instead of deleting tracks one by one, you could take another approach.  Select a genre, delete it (that is, all the tracks of that genre), and repeat.


How can I access my GMail contact groups from my iOS 7 device? I really need to be able to access contact groups in the Contacts app on my iOS 7 device. How can I do this? In the side bar, all that is available is "All GMail", nothing else. However, under iCloud, there are several groups. Suggestions?

As far as I know the (becoming deprecated) exchange-based sync that gmail used never did it.  And the newer carddav sync doesn't support it "yet". I believe the spec they wrote for the protocol does provide the means for contact groups, but google simply has not implemented everything yet.

Google  does provide such features in their APIs which is a long way of saying you can find a few third-party solutions at the AppStore for the time-being that will sync your gmail groups bi-directionally.  Not sure if there are any free ones and haven't tried any to recommend, unfortunately.

I use www.memotoo.com I love it as I can sync my contacts from linkedin, xing, fb etc. with my google account and my devices and groups are taken into my contacts on the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
If I open the address book, synching is done automatically.
It is not free but really worth the 1€ a month :-)


How do I print a selected email to PDF using Automator? I can't for the life of me figure out how to print a selected email to PDF using Automator.

Example - iTunes invoice arrives as email text (not an attachment) and I want to save it as a PDF to a specified folder for tax time.

How do I print a selected email to PDF using Automator?

You're on the right track, and @mankoff's answer is spot on. I'll elaborate in case you need more details.

For reference, you could read Apple's developer document on PDF workflows or, more simply, this great step-by-step guide to creating the sort of PDF workflow you want.

As a summary...

First open Automator and create a Print Plugin.

Then select an action to move your PDF to a folder of your choice.

Save the workflow with a meaningful name. It will automatically be placed in the correct folder (~/Library/PDF Services).
Now, when you are in Mail, you can select your workflow from the PDF menu of the Print dialog box. Your PDF will be generated and automatically filed in the folder you specified.

Here's a keyboard shortcut I use for creating PDFs quickly. Select a file, email, webpage, (hit command, p, p), done:

http://macsparky.com/blog/2008/3/19/keyboard-shortcut-for-save-as-pdf-in-os-x.html


Can Time Machine back up to an external HD connected to another Mac? Is it possible to use Time Machine to back up to an external hard drive connected to a Mac on same wifi network?

Yes. I've been doing this since Snow Leopard. All my MacBook Pros in the house do their Time Machine backups to an external USB drive that's hanging off an iMac running the standard OS X install (i.e. not Server). At the time of writing the iMac has been upgraded to Lion as has one of the MacBook Pros.

First, configure your target machine (the one with the USB drive attached):

Format the drive as OS X Extended Journaled. Give it a useful name. I use 'Remote Backups'.
Go to System Preferences -> Sharing
Make sure File Sharing is turned on and has a check mark next to it
Under the 'Shared Folders' list click the + button and add your newly formatted USB drive to the list of shared folders
Select the drive in the list and under 'Users' make sure everyone shown has read/write access to the drive.

Now you need to configure your source machine (the one you want to keep it's Time Machine volume on this drive):

Open Finder on the machine. Find your target machine and click on it. Mount the drive on this machine.

If you're asked for a user name and password use the user name and password on your target machine that you used to login and setup the share. Make sure you save this user name and password to your keychain

Go to System Preferences -> Time Machine
Click Select Disk...
The list should include the mounted drive, select that. Pick your encryption options and hit the Use Backup Disk button

You're now all set up to use this remote drive as your Time Machine backup location. When Time Machine runs you'll see this drive appear as a mount on your system, and when it's done the mount will go away.

If you browse this drive from the target machine you'll see sparsebundle files, one for each machine that's doing a Time Machine backup to this drive, on the disk. These are the actual "disks" that Time Machine is using on each machine to keep the incrementals. If you click on one, it should mount and you should be able to browse it like normal.

If you have a complete disaster and need to do a fresh OS X install and recover from Time Machine you can point the recovery process at the remote drive and it will ask you to pick a sparsebundle from the drive to recover from. Or, and this is what I recommend, you can unattach the drive from your target and attach it via USB to your machine and do the restore over USB which is much faster.

I can confirm that complete restores from Time Machine backups kept in this manner work well. I've had to do two of them in the past few years on machines that keep their backups this way and both went smashingly well. Browsing Time Machine history in the Time Machine viewer can be a bit laggy, but it does work.

Not possible that I know.

Only if connected to AEBS (Airport Extreme Base Station)
or server as far as I know

see : https://help.apple.com/machelp/mac/10.7/help/index.html?lang=en#mh15139

GreetZzz


Switch internal monitor off by software (script/terminal/shortcut/…) I’m using my MacBook Pro (OS X 10.6) standing in a shelf with an external screen on my desk so I don’t use and need the internal screen. But if the internal one is on it’s shown in spaces.

It is possible to use the MacBook with the internal screen switched off by putting it to sleep and wake it with an external input device while the Book is close. But this way always needs a short sleep and interrupt working. So I wonder if it’s is possible to switch off only the internal screen by software (an app, via Terminal, AppleScript, a keyboard short cut etc.) without switch off the external screen?

I know that there’s a shortcut for “sleep screen“ but this affects all screens including the external one.

To disable the internal screen for OS X Lion based laptops, launch the Terminal and enter the following command:

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

You’ll need to reboot for changes to take effect, and the internal display will then be completely disabled regardless of whether the Mac is open or closed.

To undo this, you can go back to the Terminal and enter:

sudo nvram -d boot-args

Then reboot again, or you can just zap PRAM by holding down Command+Option+P+R during reboot, which clears out the boot-args as well. If you were to disconnect the MacBook Pro from an external video source, zapping the PRAM would be how you’d want to reenable the internal display.

This is the opposite of “clamshell mode” – where the Mac laptop is closed and the screen is still turned on. Clamshell can look nice, but without adequate air flow the Mac may overheat, thus running the computer with the display open is recommended. If you’re going to do this, be sure to set the primary display so that the menubar, Dock, and alert windows go to the proper screen.

Source: OSXDaily

I wanted to do similar thing and this is what I found. Clamshell is the answer but an overlooked step of clicking a mouse button to switch on the external display worked.
I found this at:
http://osxdaily.com/2012/06/08/quickly-enter-clamshell-mode-with-an-external-display-in-mac-os-x/


Can I charge a 2017 MacBook Pro with a third-party USB C power adaptor? I've got a 2017 MacBook Pro which comes stock with an 87W USB C Power Adapter.

I want to purchase an additional power adapter, but I don't require an official Apple one. I notice that Anker make one with 60 W power output over USB C.

Other than charging my laptop at about 2/3rds the speed of the Apple Power Adapter, (2/3rds = ca. 60/87 w), would there be any effect / damage on my machine?

The USB-C plug is not the problem, but the charger is.
It is underrated, so it will never manage to completely charge your battery while the Mac is in use, or supply enough when needed.
With that said, you can use it to charge battery overnight to use it during the day.
To verify it is best to take occasional look at the battery charge condition in "System information" (hold the "option" key and click on the apple symbol on the top left corner on the menu bar).

This indicated value will be negative if charger is not plugged in or not sufficient.

It will be positive if charger is sufficient.

No damage to your Mac will occur in any case.

Sure. But using an Apple adapter is always recommended over 3rd party ones. Yes, Apple's adapters are expensive but they are of high quality and are the best for your MacBook.


How can I see the phone number dialed after I initiate a call? In the Phone app (iPhone 5, iOS 6.1.2), I click on a contact's number, the call is initiated and starts ringing.

For a brief moment at this point, the label of the number (home / work / etc…) is displayed alongside the contact's name, but it quickly is removed and replaced with the call timer counting up and only the name (and picture of the contact) are shown.

How can I see the number that is being called during a phone call?

You can't - in a straight-forward way.

The best work-around is to tap the "Contacts" button on the call screen. This will bring up your list of contacts which you can then select to see the number(s).

The good news: iPhone remembers you position in the contacts when you initiated the call so you don't have to scroll down all the way from "A" contacts.

The bad news: Hopefully you don't have more then one number for a contact. If you do (and most probably do), there is no way to know which of those 2 or 3 numbers you choose when you called the contact.

Interestingly enough, iPhone is nice enough to tell you which (of several under a single contact you are calling) number you are calling when you add a second call. Apparently as of iOS 6.1.3, iPhone no longer does this.

Enter a phone number in the dialer like you normally would.
Tap and hold the * key until you're able to select a comma (,).
After the comma, add the extension.
Save the number into your contacts.


Why is iMovie muting detached audio? I am using iMovie '11 on my MacBook Air. I am editing two video sources (used to capture the same action from different angles) together into one video, using the audio from one video source as the source throughout. This involves inserting Video B in place of Video A, and then detaching Video A's audio and expanding it so that it syncs up with Video B. I always detach Video A's audio, thus muting the clip's audio and creating an editable version of Video A's audio that I can then stretch out to sync with the inserted Video B footage.

Except now when I detach Video A's audio, it mutes both the clip AND the detached audio. The audio is still at 100% (I can see the waveforms too). It is not muted, as I tried muting and unmuting it. I have shut down iMovie and restarted it, as well as restarting my computer. None of this is fixing it. And it's vexing, of course, since I haven't changed any of my editing methods and this problem has just arose, and it's never happened before.

This is a fairly time sensitive problem. Does anyone have an idea?

Open a new project , make your audio changes, share into mov and move the new clip into your events to make your project. This isn't really the answer buta way around it tip some one hasan answer.


How do I change parts of my terminal prompt? In Terminal it says

Last login: Mon Jan 13 00:00:14 on ttys000
Logsdon:~ DomGomez$

How do I change the DomGomez part in Terminal?

If you're familiar with customising your .bashrc, I would suggest customising your prompt(PS1). Here is a tutorial among (a lot of) others about it.

first and foremost, that is not your host name as I believe.

Logsdon is your hostname, DomGomez is your username.

To change your hostname, Logsdon to something else, just go to Sharing under System Preferences, and you will find an edit button on the upper panel.

To change your username, here's a official Apple documentation detailing how.

Do backup before proceeding as the apple doc suggests.

I personally don't suggest doing that as I have failed before.


OS X restarts every app when waking up When my MacBook Pro (late-2013, Mavericks) wakes up, it restarts all apps after a few seconds. After a wake up, firstly I see all apps running normal then all apps begin restarting. I think I accidentally changed a preference but I can't find it.

I presume you're talking about Resume, a feature that will cause apps that were left open when you logged out to open again when you login.

From your explanation, I presume you see a window of an app, but then it will fade out and appear to 'restart' — in actuality the app hasn't loaded once yet, and is loading, not restarting.

You can stop Resume by unchecking the Reopen windows when logging back in option in a log out or shutdown dialog.

This might be due to a bug in OS X Mavericks with no permanent solution so far. A temporary solution might be given here (at least worked for me);https://discussions.apple.com/message/23638089#23638089#23638089


Why can't I disable my iPhone's (iOS 5) new mail sound? I have an iPhone 4 running iOS 5.

In the last month or so, it has developed an annoying habit. When a new mail arrives it makes a "boing" sound and a vibrate.

It does this, even though the New Mail sound setting in Settings is switched to None. It does this, even when all sounds are switched off, via the mute button!

It is very annoying! Does anyone else see this bug, and does anyone have a suggestion (short of a clean install) to fix it?

I had this problem. It was caused by the Gmail app. If you have it installed, go to your phones Settings and find the Gmail app in the list. Turn off Sounds and that should fix your problem.

I found the solution on my IPHONE4 (IOS 5) here:

Settings --> Sounds -- New Mail -- and set it to "NONE" ... :)


How do I share my Wi-Fi connection through USB to my MacBook Pro without using cellular data or hotspot? I have a MacBook Pro (running OS X and Windows) with a broken Wi-Fi card. I plan to get the Wi-Fi card fixed soon, however I want to back a few things up on the Internet before I hand off my Mac to the Genius Bar.

The last time I had this issue, I had an Android phone and was fairly easily able to download an app (FoxFi, if I remember correctly) and share my Wi-Fi connection with my laptop via a USB cable.

From reading answers to similar questions, it seems that according to Apple a Wi-Fi connection cannot be shared. I understand why a Wi-Fi connection might not be possible if you're using the antenna to broadcast a Wi-Fi hotspot, but why would you not be able to share a Wi-Fi connection over USB? It seems like it must be technically possible for an iPhone and not something that would be restricted due to carrier concerns about cellular tethering.

I basically want to use my phone as a Wi-Fi USB dongle and don't want to buy a USB dongle because I'm planning to fix my Wi-Fi soon anyway. Also, I don't have easy access to Ethernet at the moment.

Note: I do not want to use cellular data, only Wi-Fi. I would prefer a solution that doesn't involve jail breaking my iPhone. I do not wish to enable hotspot if I have to pay for it (I am on Verizon, which does not allow free cellular tethering).

First, turn tethering on. Then, plug your phone via USB. Open system preferences on your Mac. Click network, then check the left side for your iPhone. If it's there, you're good to go. Else, click the '+' button. Set the name to whatever you want and set Interface to iPhone USB. The, restart tethering on your phone.


2012 macbook pro 13" sound drops out I am a dj playing live in a club.  after playing live music with traktor software for a couple of hours sound gets muddy and starts getting muffled then fades out/drop out.I am using a s4 mk2 traktor controller which has a sound card.  When i closed the program the let the system's quick player run it did the same time, but it was still running through usb controller.

The solution I found was to hook up my traktor 2 audio interface, which not only corrected the problem but gave me a bigger better sound.


Trouble Installing Pygame on Mac - error code 255 in None I need to install pygame on my MacBook for a class, I was able to get it installed fine on my Windows machine, but the OSX installation process has been much rougher. The error I'm getting when try and clone the mercurial repository:

pip3 install hg+bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame
Command "hg clone --noupdate -q http://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame /var/folders/97/gp7g9lv51w92vlqkbskfx55c0000gn/T/pip-zu8qunw4-build" failed with error code 255 in None

Also all of the other steps in the installation worked fine and Mercurial is properly installed.

Using brew and not hg fixed the problem, I used this line for installation:

brew install homebrew/python/pygame


Find & Recover correct iTunes ratings etc. & Library from Time Machine I have at least 13 backups of my entire 7000 song iTunes library on an external drive using Time Machine. Unfortunately, a Sr. Rep. at iTunes support was misinformed and had me delete a folder that I later discovered contained all of my ratings, etc. Whoops. I do not know the date this folder was deleted as I didn't realize I had been a problem until later.

I have since continued backing up to Time Machine and replaced my internal hard drive, and now download new songs to a new iTunes library on my Mac. This library and my original 7000 song library and a copy of the deleted folder are on my Time Machine backup drive. The music library only is also on a second external drag-and-drop backup drive.

Another Sr Rep. suggested that I actually move EVERY huge iTunes library one-by-one from TM to my Mac to find the last one that included the ratings. It sounds like it would be easier to look for the folder with the ratings on Time Machine.

Is there an easy way for me to find the ratings folder that went with my large iTunes library on Time Machine — I backed up my Mac with TM prior to deleting the folder and continued to use Time Machine regularly. I am not even certain what to search for or what that folder is named or what it contains.
Once I find that folder that contains the 7000 song ratings, etc (what is the folder called and where is it nested?), what other folders do I restore?
How do I add the additional songs to that library from my new library on the Mac?  I assume I need to rename the new library first — There are fewer than 250 "new" songs in the current new library.

http://macs.about.com/od/itunes/tp/Restore-Your-Itunes-Music-Library-By-Copying-The-Music-From-Your-Ipod.htm

I know this isn't the answer you are looking for, but maybe it will help.


With Mac Pro, is software RAID 0 worth it? Does anyone have any reason to believe RAID 0 is any faster than independent drives on a Mac Pro?

I have always run my Mac Pro with all five drives in RAID 0.  I recently decided to try out Bootcamp for running Windows & Linux, which, I believe, does not work with RAID.  I decided I would remove at least one drive from the RAID array, but now I'm reconsidering RAID altogether.

My next post on here will be, what's the easiest way to remove a drive from RAID 0 on Mac Pro.  :-)

TIA

Yes, RAID 0 is faster than using the drives independently of each other. Whether or not its noticeably faster depends on what kind of application you're looking at. Some setups benefit hugely from a RAID 0 setup, while for others, its pretty marginal.

There's also the convenience of everything being treated like one big drive.

I will however say that spreading your data like this has one huge disadvantage. You've multiplied the number of potential points of failure by increasing the number of drives in your array, and the data isn't being protected by any sort of mirroring or large scale redundancy. When a RAID 0 array fails, it fails hard, and you'd be well served by having a very robust backup scheme.

For the record, my Mac Pro's drive are not in a RAID configuration.

You will be fine, raid0 with an external 8TB time machine will serve your purpose. You have to be a retard if you don't have a backup solution to any raid0 configuration.


2015 MacBook Air fan constantly turns on after upgrading to OS X El Capitan Fan constantly turns on after installing El Capitan and opening a few applications. Any fixes for this or should I roll back the OS.

Check whether any applications are constantly running and burning CPU by using Activity Monitor (Located in /Applications/Utilities).

If there are no applications burning CPU, try resetting the SMC:

Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe or USB-C power adapter to a power source and to your computer.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.

Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

Safari seem to be the prob....with chrome no heating or fan crazy speed....


How to install Windows 10 partition on macOS X Server 10.6.8 without bootcamp? I have a Mac Pro with macOS X Server 10.6.8. I want to install a Windows 10 partition without Bootcamp. Is there a way to do that?

Installing Windows without using the Bootcamp app is risky. However, I will guide you through the correct steps to accomplish this.

Please Note: This method is not encouraged by Apple and may lead to your Windows OS to fail, resulting in a major loss of data. Please perform these actions at your own risk. Only do the following if you are the administrator and owner of your Mac. Be sure to back up your Mac to prevent any major damage.

Back up your Mac with Time Machine - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250

Let's start off by opening disk utility. Select the Hard Disk of your choice, and select the "Partition" Tab. Once on the tab, select the "+" button, a pop-up screen will appear. If you are using a more recent version of macOS, you will have an option to choose the size of your partition. Please be sure to choose a minimum of 30GB for your partition size, as this will be the boot of your new Windows Partition. If you are using an old version of MacOS X, you might not have the ability to choose the size of your partition.

Name your to partition whatever you want, I named mine Win10. Make sure to choose the "MS-Dos (Fat)" or "ExFat" option for your format. Once the partition has been created, you now want to boot into Windows 10. This part may be more complicated. To boot into Windows 10, you need a Bootable Media Device. This device could be a USB or DVD. Please follow the steps below to find out how to create a bootable media device for Windows 10.

USB Device: (Use another device to do this) (Recommended for newer Macs)

Before you begin: Make sure you have a USB Drive with at least 8GB of storage. When following the steps below, your device will be formatted. Please be sure to back up any files on the USB. Make sure you have a reliable Network Connection before downloading the ISO.

Download the Windows 10 Installation Media Tool from the link provided.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Download, Install and Run the tool. Agree to the Terms and Conditions. You will be taken to a page where the tool will ask you what you want to do. Select "Create installation media for another PC". Select "Next". On the next page, choose your language. For the remaining boxes, be sure to select "Windows 10" for Edition and "64-bit (x64)" for Architecture. Select "Next". On the next page, select "USB flash drive". Select your drive and begin the installation. This download may take a few hours depending on your bandwidth and internet speed.

Once the download is complete, follow the remaining steps to finish off creating your bootable USB.

DVD: (You may use the same device to complete this) (Recommended for older Macs) (Must have internal or external DVD reader)

Before you begin: Make sure your DVD has at least 4.5GB of storage. When following the steps below, your device will be formatted. Please be sure to back up any files on the DVD. Make sure you have a reliable Network Connection before downloading the ISO.

Download the Windows 10 Installation Media Tool from the link provided.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Download, Install and Run the tool. Agree to the Terms and Conditions. You will be taken to a page where the tool will ask you what you want to do. Select "Create installation media for another PC". Select "Next". On the next page, choose your language. For the remaining box, be sure to select "Windows 10" for Edition and "64-bit (x64)" for Architectue. Select "Next". On the next page, select "ISO file". Select your file location of choice where to download the ISO file. Keep in mind, the ISO file is very large. (About 4.5GB) Please make sure to choose a file with enough storage. Begin installation. This download may take a few hours depending on your bandwidth and internet speed.

Once the ISO file has been downloaded, burn it to a DVD. Please make sure your DVD is in the tray at all times during burning the ISO file. For more information on how to burn a file to a DVD, please see the link provided.

https://www.seagate.com/us/en/support/kb/how-to-burn-an-iso-image-onto-a-cddvd-rom-201431en/

Using the bootable media:

Once you have successfully made your bootable device, follow the steps to add the Windows 10 partition to your Mac Pro Server.

For USB: When starting up the Mac, hold down the "Option" key down while on the white screen. When several options appear on the screen, let go of the option key. Use the arrows to navigate to your USB name and select the Return key. You should soon appear on the screen to install Windows 10.

For DVD: (Make sure your DVD is in the DVD tray for your Mac!) When starting up the Mac, hold down the "C" key while on the white screen. This will automatically boot your Mac from the DVD. After a while, you will be taken to a screen to install Windows 10.

I hope this helped you! :)

Cheers, John Williams


How to reduce lag when scrolling in Preview? I have a large pdf file and I was wondering how I could decrease the lag when scrolling.

I tried breaking the file into smaller sections (roughly 20 page chunks) but that didn't help. I'm thinking scrolling is so slow because each page is some sort of image.

Are there any other steps I can take to reduce the choppiness when scrolling?

How is the PDF compressed? If it is black and white only, it may be using a compression method that leads to choppy behaviour.

I was recently dealing with a product manual that was a black and white only scan. It was compressed using JBIG2, and it stuttered enormously when scrolling, even on a top-of-the-line MacBook.

I opened the document in Adobe Acrobat, and recompressed it using ZIP, and the scrolling problem went away entirely.

If you have Acrobat Pro, the steps I took were: Open the file -> Save As -> "Optimised PDF" -> Change the "Monochrome Images" compression dropdown to "ZIP" -> Ok.

It does increase the size of the file (from 1.2 MB to 3 MB), but I can actually skim the document now.

I think it mostly boils down to the fact that JBIG2 is compute-intensive, and Most PDF applications don't render the document much ahead of the current page.

If you don't have Acrobat, and you can post the PDF, I can take a look at it for you.

"Print to pdf" then open result in Preview again. It is a temporary fix or you could resave it this way for a permanent fix.


Where Exactly are Apple Diagnostics Results Stored on Disk I know that on macOS you can access the last run Apple Diagnostics test in System Information, as seen in the image below.

You can also access reference codes in the Terminal using system_profiler SPDiagnosticsDataType | grep "Reference Code".

Where on disk is this information actually stored? Or how could I use Finder to access this information? I understand there are a few other questions that are asking about software diagnostics, but I am looking specifically for hardware diagnostic results. I have checked the following directories already, and have not found the Apple Diagnostics results.

~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

~/Library/Logs

/Library/Logs

/private/var/log

Thanks in advance!

Have you tried?:

/Private/var/tmp

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/02/29/sysdiagnose-system-diagnostic-mac/

How do you get system diagnostic files from OS X?

I usually dont just post links but there are several things in this post that you can see if they are locatable on your system. If not feel free to let us know so we can search for you.


Chrome Mac - NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID About This Mac: OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 & MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013).

While trying to access GitHub · Build software better, together. (using Google Chrome Version 41.0.2272.43 beta (64-bit)), I'm getting following error:

  NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID

I'm able to access same site using Safari and/or Firefox.

Chrome is reporting that DigiCert High Assurance EV Root CA root certificate had expired on July 2014. This issue can be address by following these steps:

Manually deleted my local copy of DigiCert High Assurance EV Root CA

(open Keychain Access, select keychains:login, select category: certificates, search for DigiCert, right click, delete)

Downloaded the real cert(s) from DigiCert Root Certificates - Download & Test | DigiCert.com

Root Certificate Authority that the sites use:

DigiCert High Assurance EV Root CA

Intermediate Certificate Authorities that the sites use:

DigiCert SHA2 Extended Validation Server CA
DigiCert High Assurance CA-3

Added these certs to Keychain Access simply by double clicking them
If that doesn't work you can manually import via File > Import.

Use following link to test it:

DigiCert Root Certificates - Download & Test | DigiCert.com

Google changed the way that Chrome handles HTTPS connections to servers that have invalid or out of date SSL certificates, and Chrome will reject the connection with the error you're seeing. I've dug around in Chrome's advanced settings and there isn't an option to allow you to selectively opt to accept the connection, though there are options to add certificate files - I haven't dug deeply enough to find the details about how one would add site certificates so that they are accepted.


What iOS apps read health records from Apple Health? Apple's website says that "third-party apps can request access to your health records" but I can't find any apps in the app store that read them. Are there any apps that read health records (e.g., allergies, medications, or immunizations, lab results, etc.)?

Here's an app that appears to match: ClinicQ by Health Here.
The fourth screenshot on the AppStore claims:

CliniQ can import your allergies, medical conditions, procedures and medications from Apple Health

In the process, I found how to add an institution as a data source (Apple Health can pull records from a compatible portal) although this is not yet enabled in Australia, probably because currently only US, UK and Canada have participating sources.
I also learned the difference between Health Records and the older Clinical Documents.
Finding apps that DO NOT access Health Records was quite easy.  For Aussies, the Healthi app can connect to MyHealthRecord records, but doesn't integrate with Apple's Health app.
Around launch time (2018), A tale of two hospitals mentions Johns Hopkins and Penn Medicine as early adopters.  The same article mentions 'EMR vendors such as EPIC, Cerner, Athenahealth, Meditech and AllScripts'... these are potential sources for more examples of apps that DO use the Health Records.

As shown in Apple's official docs, it is completely possible for an app to request permission to read these. However, as Apple suggests, apps will only request this data if they need to, especially with Apple's new privacy labels.
I don't see the purpose of searching for an app for the sole reason that it uses these, but you may want to check out the apps of health databases or of medical companies.


How to use terminal to copy a file to the clipboard? I got a file on desktop, file name is ded.html. To copy the file, I click the file and press cmd+c.

Now how would I do the same thing using terminal ?

If I'm understanding the question right, what you're after is pbcopy and pbpaste.
Open a terminal and run:
cat ~/Desktop/ded.html | pbcopy

The file is now in your clipboard.
To put it somewhere else (i.e. paste it) run:
pbpaste > ~/Documents/ded.html

Now you should have a copy of ded.html sitting in ~/Documents.

You can use cat 'originfile' > 'destinationfile' on unix environments;

copy originfile destinationfile on windows.


How to archive iOS notifications? I'd like to record/save my iOS notifications (e.g., games and apps) as they come in as part of a statistics project, and would prefer to have them automatically recorded rather than taking manual screenshots. (Ideally, I'd like to pull them into IFTTT and then push them to a Google Spreadsheet.) Some apps may let me switch the notification method in-app, but that may also change the frequency of the notification, and in any event, it won't work across all apps and I'm looking to track the phone notification frequency. Is there some way to do this without jailbreaking? If I were to somehow push the notifications to macOS, is there a method for automatically recording them on the computer? If the version matters, I'm on the latest iOS.

Due to iOS restrictions, apps can't read notifications. This means you can't run an app to automatically gather notifications without jailbreaking.

1.Launch the Settings app on your iOS.
2.Tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3.Tap on any of your accounts that you want to use archive options with under the Accounts section — if you're using iCloud mail, scroll to the bottom instead and tap on Mail under Advanced and skip to step 5.
4.Tap on Account at the top.
5.Tap on Advanced at the bottom.
6.Under Mailbox Behaviors, make sure you have options set for Deleted and Archived boxes to where you want the


Can Apple block someone for updating? My friend violated Apple's NDA a while back with the beta of OS X Mavericks 10.9.4 Now he can't update.

He was stupid and now he freaks out because he can't update to the final version of OS X 10.9.4. Should he contact Apple? Or is it just his Mac? Like an server issue or something.

The Problem is, he is using 10.9.4 - which is the newst OS Release.

Public BETA Release was the same as the Final one
He has a newer Seed Number or Same Build Number so he don't have to update

he can try the Combo Update but on his own riskt. Make a Backup bevore.

And in the Other Answers are some huge misunderstandings:

OS X 10.9 is and will be FREE FOR ALL
Apple Changed nothing for 10.9 user to Yosemite Servers
there are now Public Betas for everybody
Apple is still seeding beta updates for Mavericks

I think according to your Mentions he is still using the Beta, and not a normal Version of Mavericks. I think apple doesn't seed any Updates for the Betas anymore. They have a new Beta OS now.

It could be that Betas have its own Appstore/Update Servers and Apple maybe lately have taken them down or changed to Yosemitte Servers.

If he was in the Beta Programm or downloaded the Beta from Dev Center (Free Download) he doesn't automatically get access to the Final release of Mavericks for free he has to buy Mavericks from the Appstore like every one else, then he can install the non Beta Mavericks and then get the Updates.


Why is iOS 5 draining my battery so fast? My wife's phone went from lasting a full day to needing a recharge every few hours after upgrading to iOS 5.   Mine still works fine after the upgrade.  What might be causing this?

I think I've found the answer for my case. Location services were completely innocent, and I've returned them to default settings. My phone synchronises with a Zimbra server, set up as an Exchange account. The update enabled sync of Reminders, but the Reminder sync didn't work. Removing Reminder sync from the Exchange account setup has stopped the battery level dropping while I watch.

My general advice is to check your mail accounts to see if anything new is being synchronised, and then disable it if you're not using it.

Edit: added image showing Reminders control.

GPS tracking does consume indeed a lot of power. Therefore disabling location based services should do the trick.

Somebody suggested to switch off iTunes WiFi sync - however this should not matter, because it gets activated only when your iPhone is plugged in to power.


Notational velocity on the Mac, notes.app in iOS With the introduction of the iPhone 4S and Siri I really want to stick with notes.app on the iPhone. However I greatly prefer notational velocity on my Mac to using mail.app.

Other recommendations I've seen thus far has suggested using notational velocity on the Mac in conjunction with a third-party application for ios such a simple note or plaintext. Because of the native notes apps system level integration with the iPhone 4S and Siri I want to stick with notes.app on my iPhone while still syncing back to my computer and being able to use notational velocity

Anybody know of a way to do this? If not, let's try and come up with one as I imagine it would be useful for many people with the new iPhone 4S.

UPDATE: I bit the bullet and started using Mail.app for notes on my computer. It sucks, but is worth the price to be able to quickly add to and create new notes using Siri. Hopefully some solution to this will come along.

I use Notational Velocity and Simplenote apps on iPhone and iPad and the Simplenote web site as well and while I see you want to stick with Apple's notes.app I think you'll find Simplenote excellent, maybe better. I've been using it as long as it's been out and it's stable, simple, and has always worked for me.

If Apple mated the Notes app with something on the Mac I might never have tried Simplenote but it's cumbersome as you say to have to use Mail to deal with notes. Notational Velocity's integration with Simplenote is probably what you're looking for.

Simplenote is free, give it a go.


Remove hyperlink formatting from address I have created a Numbers spreadsheet containing a set of data including email addresses.

Some of these addresses appear as hyperlinks, and I can't seem to edit or change them.
Every time I try to select one it jumps to my Mail application.

I have tried to change formatting to "Text", but this seems to have no effect.

In the Numbers 3.5.3 this is extremely difficult to do. Thanks to @Vev for giving me the hint to discover how to do it.

First: expand the size of the cell so there is some white space
around the hyperlink.
Click once in the white space to select the
Cell.
Click once again in the white space, to enable the Text Cursor.
Right-Click on the hyperlink, which selects it and provides a context
menu. (If you don't have right-click enabled, use Ctrl-click on the
Mac)
Select "Edit Link" in the context menu.
Click the "Remove" button from the Edit Link dialog.

Cut column content with Command X, then paste without formatting by using CommandShiftV .

These are not dedicated Numbers but general Mac shortcuts.


How can I type the currency symbol for Costa Rican colón on my Mac? On OS X, how can I type the Costa Rican colón?

The symbol is:

₡

Add it to the Press & Hold character picker

You can add it to a letter's Press & Hold character picker.

Navigate to System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/Resources/.
Backup the Keyboard-en.plist file.
Append the following to the Keyboard-en.plist file (before the closing </dict></plist>).

<key>Roman-Accent-w</key>
<dict>
    <key>Direction</key>
    <string>right</string>
    <key>Keycaps</key>
    <string>₡</string>
    <key>Strings</key>
    <string>₡</string>
</dict>

Feel free to change the Roman-Accent-w to any character you wish, providing it does not already have Press & Hold keys assigned.

If you wish to use a character with an existing Press & Hold set, you can append the ₡ to the relevant <string> lines for that character.

you can use this key combination alt 0162 ¢


Can I clean my Macbook Pro keyboard with vodka? I don't have any cleaning product right now at home, and the only alcohol I have is vodka.

Can it be used to clean my keyboard and trackpad, or will it damage my laptop? (I think that alcohol is often used to clean computers, but I'm not sure that it's the same kind of alcohol)

The type of alcohol is less important than what other contaminants are in it.

Even strong vodka is 50% water and unknown contaminants.

After many comments & other answers on what may or may not be in vodka -
From The Chemistry of Vodka – Structure, Additives, and Impurities

  The final factor is additives. Though we think of vodka as just
  ethanol and water, it’s actually permitted in a number countries to
  add small amounts of other additives. Mostly, these are to improve the
  smoothness of the vodka, so they’re likely to be found in higher
  amounts in cheaper vodkas containing more impurities. Compounds used
  for this purpose include citric acid, glycerol, and sugar.

I'd wait until you have something better to clean it with, like perhaps a micro-fibre cloth [3 for a pound/buck/shekel in any supermarket] Get the general purpose fluffy ones with little loops of fibre rather than the smooth ones specifically for glass, as they're a bit hard for plastic.

Wet under the cold tap, then wring out as dry as you can possibly get it. It should be dry enough that you can barely tell it wets the surface... no dribbles.
Wipe gently, repetition is better than force.

Cheaper than vodka too... & you're even less likely to want to suck the cloth afterwards ;-)

See also Will alcohol or soap damage plastic or rubber? from Chemistry Stack Exchange for another good reason I recommend nothing more than water & a micro-fibre cloth.

I don't know is it possible to clean or not, but with VODKA answer for sure is NO. It's not worth it ;)


Do the intel Macbooks have an option for Hibernation? I noticed that Big Sur 12.3 update notes mention that Hibernation support has been added for M1 Macs. I have an intel MacBook Pro and have never noticed an option to Hibernate.
In contrast to Windows machines, In Intel Macs the only available options are are Sleep, Shutdown, and Restart.

Except in the most general way it is better not to translate terms like 'hibernate' and 'shut down' from Windows to macOS. Macs does not 'hibernate' in the same way as older versions of Windows - it is better to think of macOS having stages of sleep.  The final stage can be considered as hibernation.
Shutdown, too, is different on Macs and Windows. When you shut down Windows 10, it writes its state to disk (i.e. hibernates) ready for a rapid startup. On the other hand, macOS does a full shutdown, closing all applications, stopping system processes and halting.
Having got that out of the way:
On a MacBook there are these stages of sleep:

Sleep or memory sleep: This is what happens when you close the lid or let the computer idle for some time. Power to display, disk, and other systems is turned off;
Standby or Safe Sleep: Memory state is written to disk and after a certain period memory power is turned off (standard 3 hours);
Hibernation: All power is off, all state has been written to a disk image. You know this has happened if when you open the Mac you see the Mac icon, and then see a progress bar while it is loading state from disk.

Thus the macOS 'Sleep' action includes a hibernation phase as a final step.  Mostly macOS avoids the final hibernation stage to ensure rapid start when opening the lid.
My Intel MacBook never hibernates - it probably would if I left it for many days with the lid shut (but not turned off).
Though I don't have an M1 MacBook, I suspect that allowing a hibernate state will not make a lot of difference in practice.
At this point the question is answered, but to continue a somewhat further:
The pmset command does have an option called hibernatemode which is just one parameter for controlling sleep. This can have 3 values (this is an extract from man pmset:

hibernatemode = 0 by default on desktops. The system will not back memory up to persistent storage. The system must wake from the contents of memory; the system will lose context on power loss. This is, historically, plain old sleep.

hibernatemode = 3 by default on portables. The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless a power loss forces it to restore from hibernate image.

hibernatemode = 25 is only settable via pmset. The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery life, you should use this setting.

For MacBooks there are just the two values: 3 and 25.
My memory is that 25 was introduced about 15 years ago, but went out of favour for more recent Macs. It is strongly recommended not to use 25 as 1) it can cause issues when waking due to FileVault, and 2) makes for a slow restart.
To control the stages of sleep, it is best to leave hibernatemode as 3, and to modify other parameters of pmset. This is mostly to control the timing of sleep stages, but also whether the Mac wakes up for network activity whilst the lid is closed.
I am going to firmly consider tuning of sleep parameters as outside the scope of the question.
As a final point, you can investigate what macOS is doing while sleeping with one of these two similar commands:
pmset -g log | grep -e "Wake from" -e "DarkWake" -e "due to"
pmset -g log | egrep "\b(Sleep|Wake*|DarkWake|Start)\s{2,}"
You may be surprised at how much activity is going on whilst asleep.

Hibernation mode is activated when you fully close the laptop lid for a little bit. Hibernation mode is turned off when you open the lid.
Usually its seamless enough that you don't notice its happening. It's not always that smooth on windows due to the larger number of drivers and compabtability issues that windows has to deal with.


iOS App stuck in 'Loading...' I tried downloading Tumblr yesterday but it never completed. At the moment I have an App icon stuck at 'Loading...'.

I have tried restarting the iPhone (holding down both home and side buttons at the same time) and I have also tried shutting down the iPhone (holding the side button and swiping).

I have also tried deleting it as usual (holding the icon down and choosing delete but it doesn't go away).

Any ideas on what I can do to get rid of this icon?

Go to Settings → General → Storage & iCloud Usage → Manage Storage, select the app from the list, then tap Delete App.

I found out that the problem is caused because too many apps are being loaded at the same time.

What i have done is that i paused all of them and then load one or two and it worked!!


On the iPhone, can I let YouTube run in the background and play the audio while I use other apps? For example, if there is some live stream, or some videos that I can just listen to, and then I'd like to use other apps such as Gmail or Facebook, can I go to those apps without YouTube interrupting the video?

Currently YouTube stops playing the video when I go to another app.

You'll need to signup for YouTube Premium to have this feature. You can signup here:

https://www.youtube.com/premium

The price is currently 11.99$ per month.

A free method of achieving something similar is to use a non-Safari browser such as Opera Mini, and open youtube.com in that browser. Start the video, exit the browser and the audio stops. Then swipe up from the bottom to access the Control Center, you'll see playback controls in there for the YouTube contents. Press play to keep the audio playing.

You can still try different browsers to get this done.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=trC48_SZYss


Export MOV to MP4 with Quicktime on Yosemite I have a screen capture of my computer screen using QuickTime's Screen Recording feature, but that saves it to an MOV format. I'd like to export it to MP4. Is that possible without installing anything else?

I'm using Yosemite, and I'm pretty sure I could do that with Mavericks.

If you have ffmpeg installed, it is quite easy to do it

ffmpeg -i input.mov output.mp4

If you don't, install it as follows:

Press Command + Space, type "Terminal" and press enter/return key.
Run this command in the Terminal app:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

and press enter/return key.

If the screen prompts you to enter a password, enter your Mac's user password to continue. When you type the password, it won't be displayed on the screen, but the system would accept it. So just type your password and press ENTER/RETURN key. Then wait for the command to finish.
After that, run:

brew install ffmpeg

Done! You can now run ffmpeg -i input.mov output.mp4.

(For more information, you can refer to this site, or you can go directly to the official FFmpeg website: ffmpeg.org.)

Handbrake is the only tool you need for Mac OS X as it can covert pretty much any video format and it's open source and free.


Headphones only play right side My Macbook pro OS X 10.8.5 headphone jack seems to work - like it knows when I plug in the headphones - but it only plays out of the right side. I've adjusted the balance in settings but the left side stays silent. I've tried many different headphones and its always the same. Any suggestions?

I own a Shure headset with 3 connectors and it does not work on my MacBook Pro Retina 15''late 2013 nor does it with my iPhone 4S --- only the channel marked with 'left' works. And even the 4 connector versions are different among the various Notebook/Phone manufacturers compared to Apple. There are special Apple compatible versions advertised. Best, Peter

does your headphone come with three electrical connectors at the plug or with for? The newer generations of MacBooks require 4 connectors to be able to play on both channels. Best Peter


Turn on camera light but not camera Is it possible to turn on the light that indicates that the camera (on a MacBook) is on without turning on the camera? (Then it could be used as an indicator for something else.)

A couple years ago there was rumours about malware being able to run the camera without having the light on.  Both LED and Camera are driven by the Apple SMC (System Management Controller) and are linked together far below OSX user level.

Since then Apple most probably have put extra efforts to avoid usage of one without the other.


How to print to a Ricoh Aficio printer requiring authentication? I'm trying to configure a lab of OS X workstations to print to a Ricoh Aficio MP C5000.  The Aficio is configured to require user authentication (a 4-digit passcode) in order to print.

In Mac OS X System Preferences, I've created a printer (LPD connection to the Aficio's IP address).  When I print to it, OS X thinks the print job has completed successfully.

The job shows up on the Aficio, but immediately has status "Cancelled", with the error log message "You do not have a privilege to use this function.  This job has been cancelled".

How can I tell OS X to authenticate before sending the print job?  (I don't see any field for entering the passcode in the OS X printer settings.)

I've already tried:

Setting the "User ID" under "Job Log" in the Mac print dialog.
Setting the "User Code" under "Job Log" in the Mac print dialog.
Setting it up as a Windows printer but OS X is unable to connect to the Aficio using this protocol.
Using the Gutenprint driver but that makes no difference.
Using IPP instead of LPD, but that makes no difference.
All of the above on both Lion and Mountain Lion; neither works.

User codes are setup via either WIM (using the machines IP address in a browser on same network) or on the device itself it is called User code Authentication.

Now you can assign a prompt for a suer code on all services (Aside from printing as this is handled by pacing the code into the 'Valid access' tab on the driver.

On newer models you can edit the driver to force a prompt on the driver to access the user code.

To enable user code auth. see the following:

User Tools/123 key --> System Settings --> Administrator Tools --> Next --> User Code Authentication.

Select User Code Auth.

Select the options in which you require a user code to authenticate.

Press Ok.

Now you need to add a user code, select the previous key.

Address book management --> New Program --> Add a name --> Select the Auth info. tab --> Apply a user code.

Put in user code under job log and save the setup as a profile. User code remains embedded in that profile


How to speed up reading Blu-ray images? I have unencrypted .iso images of both DVD and BD (don't know how to check the UDF version used). When mounting and copying files off them, BD is around four times slower. Why? How do I speed it up?

The easiest solution to reach Blu-ray or DVD ISO on Mac is to digitize ISO image to readable file type for iMac, this is my suggestion.


Is it possible to use iTunes Match to replace my existing metadata with metadata from the iTunes Store? My music in my iTunes library has come from many sources over the years, and it's filled with incomplete or inaccurate or simply missing data, not to mention the fact that most of my stuff doesn't have album art associated with it.

I had hoped that as part of the 256kbps 'upgrade' functionality that iTunes would also upgrade the metadata on my songs to the metadata that they ship with the iTunes Store purchases. However, deleting and redownloading a matched song only upgrades the audio data, but keeps the metadata intact. Is there a way to upgrade the metadata as well?

No - the design clearly is intended to honor whatever set of metadata you have currently entered into your library. As you have discovered, the matching process can find songs based on other criteria and re-downloading the "canonical" AAC 256 kbps stereo will not currently fill in any metadata holes or correct parts of the metadata that do not match what Apple has in the store (or it's Match database for songs that are not for sale like the AC/DC catalog)

I can see two reasons for this:

Intentional - preserve user customization where the data may be better on the individual customer iTunes database.
Not automating the process of cleaning up songs that may have been passed or downloaded rather than ripped when connected to a metadata lookup server or otherwise encoded by the official artist when it was sold or released.

I specifically have hundreds of Hawaiian songs where I've entered the metadata with the help of a native speaker to have the correct punctuation (and that doesn't match Apple's punctuation). There certainly is a great need for a tool to help people manage this, but iTunes Match isn't that tool today.

I haven't tried iTunes Match yet, so I don't know if the following is already working.

Apple should give the users the ability to "Get track names" option in iTunes once you subscribe. For now that service is only allowed for CD's imported directly into iTunes.

That way would be the users choice to upgrade the meta-data of the matched songs. And almost everything they need to enable that is already implemented.

I have been able to fetch some album artwork directly from iTunes, so that part should work already. I suppose the albums it does not get the artwork for are not recognized in their database.


Edit phone number in phone app Is there a way to edit a manually dialed phone number before re-dialling? Occasionally I have a typo in the number or forgot to add the country code prefix.

The only ways to handle this I know so far is

write down the number and re-dial, or
copy the complete number, paste into a notes/text app, edit there, copy again and paste into the phone app.

Not exactly user friendly.

I'm afraid you are correct in your assumption, once a number has been typed and a call initiated, it is not able to be edited within the phone app directly, and needs to be either sent to a new contact where you can then amend the number, or cut/paste elsewhere to allow you to make changes.

I found that using VoIP apps, you can edit a number after copy/pasting into the calling/dialing field, but you cannot do this with the native iPhone app.


How do I update the primary email address used by my Apple ID when using Find My iDevice? I have an Apple ID that I use for both the App/iTunes Stores and for iCloud. Because I originally created it years ago, it's an email address I no longer use, let's call it dan@old.com. I would like to replace it with dan@new.com.

This is easy enough to do from the Manage My Apple ID web interface, however when I change the address and attempt to update my iPhone and iPad I hit a snag: in order to Sign Out of my Apple ID in iCloud Settings, I must first provide my Find My iDevice credentials, since that prevents a thief from simply punting me out of my device were they to steal it.

The problem is, it asks for the Apple ID password for dan@old.com, and when I enter that, it fails (with the incredibly helpful message "there was a server error"). I have to assume this failure is because that combination of email address and password is no longer part of my Apple ID.

Can someone provide me with a sane, step-by-step way to change my primary Apple ID email address from one email that I control to another, given the use of iCloud and Find My iDevice on multiple devices?

As Tyson says, this might help: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts5223

If you can make your AppleID change back to dan@old.com you should then be able to sign out of it on the iDevices. After signing out the iDevices - change the AppleID again to dan@new.com and you're good to go.

The place to change your AppleID (which is used by iCloud and iTunes and the Mac App Store) information is at https://appleid.apple.com/

All you have to do is sign out your old primary Apple I'd and sign in with your new one


How do you turn on "show pre-release updates" in yosemite? I accidentally turn off "Show Pre-Release Updates" settings in the system preferences. Change option does not appear in the relevant section.

What is your suggestion?

@Marksorry I can't comment your question directly, since I'd need 50 reputation to do so.For your question: Wen you quit your subscription for the seeds you basically uninstall a program on your Mac. You can re-download that program directly from Apple and install it. Since the Beta-Progamm is linked to your Apple-ID you have to log in with it. Once you downloaded that file (YosemiteBetaAccessUtility.dmg) you simply install it and you have access for the Pre-Release Updates again. Just open Appstore and install the updates.I found the file with the following steps:

Go to appleseed.apple.com
Click "first steps with OS X Yosemite Beta"
Scroll down the site till you find the button where you can download the Beta Access Utility.
Download and install
Restart if needed and it's finished

The download file can be found here.
You'll have to log in via your Apple-ID.


Windows 10 display looks too small I moved to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1 but the display at 2800x1800 looks too small in Windows 10. In Windows 8.1 the display was fine at 2800x1800. Also, before installing bootcamp drivers in Windows 10 the display was good(a little big and visible not too big, no back on top and bottom it was complete full screen clear display). How would I fix that?

Laptop: MacBook pro retina 15-inch.

Can't this be related to your MacBooks high screen resolution. Try with zooming your display in Windows. Zooming will make everything on the screen larger and will hopefully make everything less small for you.

The setting is in the control panel and display/resolution settings.

Also, check out this answer from the Apple support forum that gives a more step by step instruction: Link

  Right click on the desk and choose "Display settings"
  Click on the "Advanced display settings" link
  Click on the "Advanced sizing of text and other items" link
  Click on the "set a custom scaling level" link in the "Change size of items" paragraph
  Change to option in the drop down to 100%
  Log out and log back in

In the display settings, just switch off the custom layout, and choose 200%. Done


iPad 2 not updating to iOS 5.1 Please don't scold me because I know I broke the cardinal rule of updating...never shut down in the middle of an update. I was updating to iOS 5.1 over the air on my iPad and after the update downloaded it went to the screen with the white apple and the loading bar. After 15 min nothing had loaded and I force shut it down. Now when I go to try and update it says "Install Now" because the download file is still in the iPad, I believe. I tap "Install Now" and it says "Unable to Install Update an error occurred installing iOS 5.1" every time. I tried installing it through iTunes and it said my iPad 2 was ineligible for this update. My iPad is still working, I can play games and what not, so it's not "broken"

I backed it up to iCloud prior to updating. Do you think I should restore and reload from iCloud or can you think of a way I could somehow update it again from my iPad?

If you have it backed up. Restore it from the backup and then perform the update again. Following standard instructions for doing that.