How do I check the memory usage from a certain time in macOs? I had a website which was using massive amounts of memory on my MacBook but I was unable to take  a screenshot of the total memory usage from Activity Monitor to file an issue with the website. Is there any way I can see the log of the Activity Monitor from a specific time?

No, Activity Monitor does not store historic information about memory usages anywhere.
The system also do not by standard log such information into log files or databases or anything like that. So the information you seek is gone now, I'm afraid.

If you want to redo the issue and collect data:
Download Xcode from  https://developer.apple.com

OS X Yosemite Xcode update stuck on 'Waiting'

Use Instruments.app with "Activity Monitor" instrument.

https://help.apple.com/instruments/mac/current/#/devc63117d3

Choose all processes. Hit the red button to start recording.


Could Not Sign In: A server problem is blocking Apple ID sign in. Try signing in later." My father's iPhone 7s shows such message:

Could Not Sign In:  A server problem is blocking Apple ID sign in.  Try signing in later."

The passcode screen does not even come up. I have search the Apple Community but there is no answer. Anyone knows how to fix it?

I had the same problem. I found that if I set up the Touch ID and Passcode, it went through. I then could turn off these features after. Hope this helps.


Dead battery is replaced and recognized on MacBook Pro – processor speed is still cut Just replaced dead battery on MacBook Pro Late 2011, and it is seen by OS (el Captain) and charging OK.

Though, processor speed is still being cut and ticks only at 0.8 ghz and Apple Hardware test shows 4xxx error with the battery.

Did reset to all that possible, any ideas how to make Macbook see battery on a hardware level?


Is it possible to know the last time my iPhone was online? My iPhone was stolen about two months ago, and the company wants to know the date which I lost it.

Is it possible to recover information to the last time it was turned on?

Go to iCloud - Find My iPhone, and select your device. You can also see where it is right now, and you can lock and erase it.

What's required though is that you have to had iCloud set up before it got stolen.

It doesn't show where the phone was last if it's been offline more than 24 hrs.

(I wonder why?)


Temporarily disabling RAM to mimic a lower spec machine? I've got two 2009 Macbooks. One has 4 gigs of RAM and runs os 10.10; one has 2 gigs and runs os 10.5.

I'm considering upgrading the latter machine to Yosemite (10.10), but I'm worried that it will run slowly with so little RAM. In order to get a sense of what the performance would be like, I'm wondering if there's some way I could "turn off" half the RAM in the higher spec machine. If I did this, I could get a sense of how Yosemite would run on the 2 gig machine before actually doing the upgrade.

Is there some way to temporarily disable RAM without physically removing the chip?

There's no need to take out RAM, create a RAM disk or use a VM.  Simply boot the OS using the maxmem= boot flag value that's been created for this purpose and been around for decades.

Simply open Terminal as a sudoer and enter

sudo nano /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

After entering your password change

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs$
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Kernel Flags</key>
        <string></string>
</dict>
</plist>

to

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs$
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Kernel Flags</key>
        <string>maxmem=2048</string>
</dict>
</plist>

and write the changes to disk with ctrlo and quit nano with ctrlx

Restart your Mac to apply the changes.

To revert the changes remove 'maxmem=2048' with nano again.

To TAKE OUT RAM, you can:

If your macbook is Aluminium, you take the whole bottom off and the RAM should be right smack in the middle.

If it's white, take of the little compartment in the corner and access the ram that way.

Source: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT1651


Apple charger port magnet has lost it's pull My friends laptop was dropped and fell directly on the power charging connector as it was connected to the charger.  Now the port still works, but the strength of the magnet that holds the connector is very weak, as if it has lost some of its magnetism.  That sounds pretty ridiculous of course, so I'm wondering if it's possible that the force of the drop dislodged the magnet so it is no longer close to the surface?  There is still some "pull in", but so little that the slightest tug on the cable pulls it off.  I've never seen the inside to know what the magnet looks like.  Is my theory plausible?  Any remedies short of opening the case?

That internal MagSafe port is fairly inexpensive and rapid to exchange. The likelihood is that either part of the internal magnet has shifted or the entire unit has moved internally.

If the magnets inside are loose they could short a more expensive part or be a fire hazard. Best to get it in the shop.

The strong rare earth magnets won't demagnetize from a physical shock so it's likely there is internal dislocation or damage.

Magnets will lose their magnetic force when struck with a great force on contrast to it's size.

Dropping a magnet around 5 times will start to weaken it's pull while if you spike it (throw it on the ground with all the force you can muster) it will lose it's magnetic force completely.

You can restrengthen magnets by rubbing it between 2 other magnets but that's not advised.

You probably dropped it too many times or have internal damage.

The repairs may be a bit pricey. sorry :T


How to resize Safari address bar on macOS Sierra or newer? It seems that the Safari address bar width is locked to a maximum size that may make some URL impossible to read, especially if the domain part is longer, like in many intranets, or when the the of the URL is longer and when it  contains essential information near the end.

I fount no way to change the width of the bar using Customize Toolbar option.
I am using Safari 11 on macOS 10.13 (high-sierra) but I am pretty sure that the same problem would apply for macOS 10.12 (Sierra).

Right-click on an empty area at the top of Safari’s window and select Customize Toolbar.
You’ll see two “flexible spaces” on each side of the URL bar. 2 tranparent boxes.
Remove these boxes (by dragging them out of the toolbar), and you should wind up with a larger URL entry area.

Click default bar first, it will shorten the address bar, then build your own layout to you liking.


Freeing Space in iOS I know this has been asked a zillion times and there are many search results all over the web.  However, I have never found any answer that actually fixes the problem.

So, to restate: I have an iPhone 5C (model 1532) with 8G (says 5 available).  I'm running IOS 9.2.1.  My storage says I have 0 bytes available, and I can't do anything that changes it.  I've tried a reset (power+home).  It says I have 180M in photos, however I did go delete a bunch and the number didn't change.  I don't have iTunes, it's not connected to a PC, I don't have music or videos on it.

How can I free up space?  How can I delete files (pictures, apps) and have the system acknowledge the change?  This is seriously frustrating that I can't manage the space usage on the device.

For anyone else in this situation, I'm posting my experience.  I did install iTunes and do a backup/restore, but that didn't fix it.  It did help me see that, in fact, there was a huge chuck of data marked as "other" - this is what most forum posts describe.  I began deleting apps to see if I could figure out which was responsible, but nothing reduced that wasted space.  Finally, I was forced to accept the unpleasant reality.  Yes, you have to wipe your phone. Since I had a backup, I went to Settings -> General -> Reset (at the bottom) -> Erase All Content and Settings.  After, I used iTunes to do a restore. This brought back pretty much everything the way I had it.  However, apps that I deleted I had to search and reinstall from the AppStore.  (Why don't they have a "my apps" list like Amazon does?)

Don't worry. There are several questions for you: Have you updated your iPhone to latest iOS version? Have you checked your "Recently deleted" album and deleted them? Have you installed the app "WhatsApp"? Seems it was the app "WhatsApp", creating lots of cache files and stealing storage from the phone. You can try to install the update and see whether the storage came back to a normal level. Also you can read this thread that someone who has similar problem with you. Hope it helps!


Hard Disk problems, unsure of how to proceed A couple of days ago, I closed the lid on my 2012 MBP running El Capitan with Samsung Pro 830; it had nearly no power left. Power ran out while I was closing the lid, I suspect, so I plugged it in, and it wouldn't come back up. So I powered it on. It wouldn't then boot.

Tried NVRAM and SMC resets; no success.

Startup key combos:
Tried starting up in safe mode; no success.
Tried startup manager; no success.
Tried Diagnostics; no problem reported.
Tried Single user mode; no success.
Tried verbose mode - got EFI error.

Swapped in another disk to try and restore from an SL DVD from my older MBP; no success (apparently you can't install an older version of OSX than that it shipped with).
Put knackered disk back in, tried System Restore - success! This got me into Disk Util for ML (original OS for the 2012 MBP) where I could repair the disk. Diskutil found some problems with the EFI, and it booted into My ElCap OS, everything seemed ok. Ran diskutil again for good measure, no problems reported.

I turned it off so that I could secure the hard disk and the bottom cover of the machine.

It then wouldn't boot again.

I then tried internet recovery and got an error with an exclamation mark over the little globe on the restore screen with an error 'apple.com/support: -2105F'

This was now a little beyond me, and Google wasn't helping, so I phoned Apple. They suggested that I try a new disk, as mine was completely bajanxed.

So then I got my 2010 MBP (also running ElCap) and downloaded the 'Install El Cap' program from App store with a view to creating a local boot USB drive to attempt recovery.

I have borrowed a (120Gb) SSD from work, formatted with a GUID partition type and OSX journaled FS, and plugged in and booted from USB drive.

The install process nearly completes and then fails, not really giving me any error info.

Tried this a few times, same results, reformatting new SSD on second MBP, also via USB El Cap Diskutils. No problems showing on the new SSD.

Internet restore also fails on new SSD (with the same '-2105F' error.)

The only thing I've got going for me right now is that I managed to mount the broken boot disk onto my 2010 MBP and decrypt the volume, figuring that one less obstacle can only help (took 8 1/2 hours, but completed successfully!). I can read the files on this drive, so I haven't lost data per se. Once decrypt was done, I ran repair_packages from terminal on 2010 MBP on the mounted (broken boot) disk - it found some errors and repaired them. fsk_hfs also completed fine with green lights.

The last attempt at El Cap install completed successfully (tried whilst writing this), and it restarted - white screen, with the no entry symbol. The strange thing was that I didn't get the 'traditional' pop up with the 4 choices when trying to install ElCap, just went straight into install.

Wondering whether there was a setting saved somewhere, have now reset NVRAM and SMC again, and trying install. The pop-up menu has now appeared, and am trying again.

Has anyone got any suggestions, as I'm running low. I'm starting to wonder as to whether I've got a hardware problem.

Latest attempt has also failed - 'An error occurred while updating system extension information'.

Edit: So have now successfully installed another copy of ElCap connected via an external drive from my 2010 MBP. It booted fine. I then put the hard disk into the 2012 MBP, and...nothing. So I hooked it externally from the 2012 machine, and it booted. Put my old hard disk (that started the problems) into the external hard disk cradle, and the 2012 machine booted. So I guess it's a hardware issue. AppleCare ran out 6 months ago :(

Edit2: Just to confirm, it was the cable that was the problem. New one fixed the issue.

Further to @Allan's advice and @klanomath's help, the fix for the issue was to replace the Hard Disk cable.

MBP early 2011 model w/ SSD, Mavericks OS.

Allowing shutdown due to out of battery power, I had this twice, with different fixes:

SSD was trashed, un-recoverable. Replaced SSD, restored my backup. Back to normal. I fixed it myself; re: iFixit.com repair manifesto
Booting from backup would not complete startup (or appeared not to). Cause: Bad video card. My local repair guy said Apple knows this era MBP has defective video cards.

P.S. Turns out the SSD in this case was OK but now I have a more capacious SSD.
P.S. The repair guy surmised this in about 30 seconds simply by watching the screen as the machine started; the problem is so relatively common.


How to create a binary plist file from the command line on OS X? I am looking for a solution to create a binary plist file from the command line on OS X?

I want to create the ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist and setup the PATH there.

I know that this plist file has to be in the binary format and I know how to write to it using the defaults write command. Still, I do need to create the file before doing this, and creating an empty file does not work.

Note: I need a command line solution.

You could also create an XML or old-style property list and convert it with plutil:

plutil -convert binary1 test.plist

It modifies files in place by default. You can specify a different output file with -o or print to stdout with -o -.

This piece of bash solved my problem:

if [ ! -f '~/.MacOSX/environment.plist' ]; then
  mkdir -p '~/.MacOSX'
  defaults write ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist TEST_VAR 1
fi

Still, I have to warn others that OS X 10.8 seems not to be loading the file.


How do I disable mobile Youtube redirection on iPad? When I click a Youtube link, say, in the newly released Skype app, the iPad will open the link in Safari, which will load the mobile site. Also in Twitter's built in browser the mobile site is displayed. This sucks, because the site is slow and often fails loading a video at all.

Is there a way to stop Youtube redirecting to m.youtube.com on iPad?

In short: no, you can't stop it. It's Google re-directing you.

You can work around it though. You can scroll down to the very bottom of the page and tap the "desktop" link, which will take you to the full desktop version of the site. If what you want is the YouTube app to open, then all you can do is copy the name of the video from safari into the YouTube app.

I know what you mean about it not loading the videos. It's annoying!

Go to Settings, tap on General, tap on Restrictions, enable Restrictions if you haven’t already, and disallow YouTube.

Doing so has the dual benefit of redirecting all YouTube links to the mobile website and hiding the native app on the device, clearing up more space for apps you actually want to use.


How to completely uninstall iCloud? I know how to disable iCloud, but I want to completely remove the possibility of using the service from my Mac for security reasons. I tried to delete the related files, but I do not have permission.

So how can I make sure that no user or application or system process is able to access iCloud?

First of all, iCloud is built into OS X and iOS deeply and you can't just remove it completely, but you can avoid its use by disabling it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2613

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, select "sign out".

This way iCloud will not be used on your mac and could not be used by any application.

I already managed to delete iCloud.

Just found the way to search all files with iCloud text in his name, and deleted it.


How do I make full use of a generic 6-button mouse? Somebody gave me a 6-mouse button. I want to make full use of the extra buttons as opposed to just using the basic 3 ones (left, on-scroller, and right buttons). First of all, I want to know where the buttons on the mouse are mapped to currently. I'm having trouble finding an app that will let me see what functionality they are mapped in. Next is how do I actually remap them?

I'm on Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

You can use a tool like USB Overdrive to map various functions to the buttons on your generic 6-button mouse.

The 6th button bellow the scroll button is to toggle the movement of curser.


Can I safely charge a Galaxy S9 with a USB-C MacBook Pro charger? I have a Galaxy S9+ (with "fast charging"), which requires a USB-C charger. I also have a MacBook Pro with a USB-C charger.

I am curious whether I can (safely) charge my Galaxy S9+ with my MacBook charger. The phone shows that it is charging, and very fast actually.

However, I am not sure whether the charger has too much power and would negatively impact the battery on a short time (perhaps get too hot or even cause physical damage/explode) or long-term (decreased battery health).

All devices (Phones) are 5 Volt technology.

How fast it charges depends on....

Can the charger provide the power the battery is asking for.

Battery is a SMART battery type (it has a chip build in) so it will regulate the charging process safely.


How can I hide the onscreen keyboard in the iOS messaging app? When I enter the text message / SMS "app" and tap on the input field a keyboard pops up. When I'm done writing and have sent the message I would like to dismiss the keyboard again. I haven't found out how to so this.

The best work around I have found is to leave and enter the conversation.  But surely there must be a better way. How can you do this or is it even possible at all? I have tried almost everything.

This is not possible at all right now.
Like you said, you can back out and go in again to dismiss keyboard.
Other option is to tap the 'edit' button on top right. That will dismiss keyboard but it will go in edit mode. When you cancel out of edit mode keyboard will come back.

Apple should do something to easily bring up and dismiss keyboard...

Update: With iOS 5, you can swipe messages down all the way pushing the keyboard downwards. Initially I thought, "why not just swipe down the keyboard itself to dismiss?" But now it makes sense because you start scrolling down to see previous messages and keyboard naturally goes away when you do that.

Tap the area where the messages are with 2 fingers, this minimises the keyboard.


How to retrieve data from my old Apple ID? I want to retrieve data from my old Apple ID. I have signed in my iPhone with my old Apple ID, but iTunes displays an error:

"We cannot complete your iTunes store request. An unknown error occured (0x800B0101)"
"There was a error in the itunes store. Please try again later"

I have tried this many times only to get the same results.

First try changing your iTunes account password via your computer.

Then try logging in again.

If that doesn't work, then try changing the date on your phone temporarily. Go to Settings > General > Date and Time > Set Automatically > Off. Set the date one year ahead. Then try and see if it accepts your password.

If you still can't sign in, contact Apple Store Customer Service at 1-800-676-2775.


Will Apple service an iPhone previously repaired by a third-party? If an iPhone previously had its screen/battery/camera repaired by a third-party but it works fine afterwards, will Apple service the iPhone?
For example, let's say that my iPhone battery went bad so I went to a cheaper third-party store to have it replaced (likely with a non-OEM battery). I use it for a few months but it degrades much faster than an OEM battery. Can I take it to Apple and pay them the money to replace the battery with their own OEM part?
I understand a third-party repair will void the warranty on an iPhone, but I have not been able to find any definite information about whether they void all future repairs/servicing from Apple.
The reason I am asking about this is because of an article on the Verge published in March 2019 linked here. Here are some snippets (my emphasis added):

iPhones with third-party batteries are now eligible to be repaired at Genius Bars and Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASP), according to internal Apple documents reportedly obtained by MacRumors and French outlet iGen. Before, Apple policies stated that customers were ineligible to receive any kind of repair service if their iPhones were previously repaired with any non-original, third-party components, meaning you’d be taking a big risk by replacing an iPhone battery yourself.

Batteries are the latest third-party components to be accepted by Apple’s rigid repair policy, as the company changed its policy to accept iPhones with third-party displays for repair in 2017.

So this article suggests (without a source) that only recently an iPhone with a third-party battery or screen replacement is eligible for repairs. Is there any more information, perhaps directly from Apple, about what is allowed for servicing?

Apple has always reserved the right to only cover under warranty (and their service plans like AppleCare) authorized repairs that use certified parts. I’ve seen this language in the legal agreements since the 90s and can’t source earlier documents to see when it actually started.

https://www.apple.com/legal/sales-support/terms/repair/

1.11.6 Disclosure of Unauthorized Modifications. During the service ordering process, you must notify Apple of any unauthorized modifications, or any repairs or replacements not performed by Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (“AASP”), that have been made to your product. Apple will not be responsible for any damage to the product that occurs during the repair process that is a result of any unauthorized modifications or repairs or replacements not performed by Apple or an AASP. If damage results, Apple will seek your authorization for any additional costs for completing service even if the product is covered by warranty or an AppleCare service plan. If you decline authorization, Apple may return your product unrepaired in the damaged condition without any responsibility.

In practice, the worst that happens is you get a call mid-repair and an explanation why the repair will cost more or why the repair isn’t being completed. So yes, Apple typically does all it can to cover a repair even when it has the clear right to not perform service in my experience.
With batteries and hardware, as long as there’s not case or connector damage and the part is scrapped, there’s little benefit to Apple not doing the repair. The technician is on the hook for a limited warranty so the only time when Apple or a certified center rejects a repair is when they can’t guarantee the repair for the time Apple specifies or they can’t complete the repair with the parts budgeted for that repair. Also, if Apple subsidizes the cost of the repair parts since they can rework a portion of the failed ones and then certify them for repair use later, it seems fair to not pass that cost savings off to someone that isn’t returning same quality parts back into the “repair pool”. The source of those quotes is likely service bulletins that leaked on how Apple trains their staff to qualify repairs and label parts for return and inspection. Apple engineers analyze all manner of failed parts and if the technicians send back non OEM parts, that wastes time and resources on the quality team and also needs to be tracked for failure rate analysis.
But the official stance is they may not service any gear they can’t verify has correct parts and a properly documented service history if the original parts are missing when the repair starts. Apple doesn’t usually grill customers “Did you have any unauthorized repairs?” but it’s in the terms you sign before you hand off your gear if you read all the words.

"let's say that my iPhone battery went bad so I went to a cheaper third-party store to have it replaced (likely with a non-OEM battery)."
Even if you replace it with an OEM battery, your iPhone will not fully accept it. Many users are like "FU Apple" about that, for that sounds like Apple forces you to bring your iPhone to their authorized service providers. So, for sure Apple will be happy to service your iPhone, the discussion is more about why  "the latest version of iOS displays a new "Service" battery message in the Settings menu that suggests the cell has an undiagnosed problem, disallowing users from accessing Battery Health information." https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/08/08/new-service-battery-message-in-ios-pushes-consumers-toward-official-replacement
I like the following opinion in that regard: "I think that it is somewhat misleading for the iOS to say Battery Health – Service. Instead, it is better to say something like Unverified, or Third-party, or even just a question mark. It is misleading to say Service for any battery and compatibility." https://appleworld.today/2020/12/19/opinion-getting-back-to-the-iphone-battery-service-issue/
Again, this implies Apple will be just happy to get your iPhone fixed, for they are now facing lots of criticism by their users due to their policies.


Homebrew warning: "No developer tools installed" even though Xcode is installed After installing Homebrew the "brew doctor" command returns:

Warning: No developer tools installed.
You should install the Command Line Tools.
Run `xcode-select --install` to install them.

…and I do have Xcode installed.

Anyway, after running xcode-select --install the Xcode installer appears, then I click "install" and the installer closes.

Is this normal? …and do I have to install Git from Homebrew, or can I use the one that comes with Xcode?

Yes, it is perfectly normal for homebrew to prompt you to install Xcode. That happened to me right after I installed Mavericks.

As for your question about git, it depends a lot on your usage. Default git (and almost every other tools) are not of the latest version. If you're OK with that, then of course you can just use the default one.

If you have Xcode installed this warning also appear even if make and gc is succesfully provided by Xcode itself. In this case you can just ignore this warning.


How can I change my sender name in iCloud email? I want to correct how my 'sender' name appears when I write mail with my iCloud account.

For some reason, iCloud shows my first name in all caps & I can't edit it.

iCloud is linked directly to your Apple account. You should be able to edit the details on your Apple ID here: https://appleid.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MyAppleId.woa/

There is many kind of methods to do this but none of them can do in one shot for all, means change in one place (ipad, iphone, mac pc) and them forget the other, it depends from where you would send your mails you have change in that place the id information, here is the tree methods whatever device you have.

FROM IPAD - IPHONE - IPOD TOUCH

OPEN SETTING (GEAR ICON)
GO TO MAIL, CONTACTS, CALENDARS
OPEN ICLOUD MAIL ACCOUNT
HIT ON "ACCOUNT"
INSIDE OF ACCOUNT WINDOW HIT ON "MAIL" OPTION
CHANGE THE "NAME" AS YOU DESIRE, THEN "DONE" (3 TIMES UNTIL EVERYTHING CLOSE)

FROM ICLOUD EMAIL (PC OR MAC)

OPEN "MAIL" ON ICLOUD (BLUE ENVELOPE ICON) (https://www.icloud.com/#mail)
HIT ON "GEAR ICON" (TOP RIGHT CORNER)
SELECT "PREFERENCE"
SELECT "ACCOUNT"
CHANGE "FULL NAME" AS YOU DESIRE, THEN DONE

FROM GMAIL ACCOUNT (YOUR ICLOUD ATTACHED TO GMAIL)

OPEN YOUR GMAIL ACCOUNT
HIT "SETTING" (GEAR ICON AT THE TOP RIGHT CORNER)
SELECT "SETTING"
CHOOSE "ACCOUNTS AND IMPORTS"
POINTING ON YOUR ICLOUD ACCOUNT HIT "EDIT INFO" (AT THE MIDDLE RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR SCREEN)
ON "EDIT EMAIL ADDRESS" SMALL WINDOW CHANGE THE "NAME" AS YOU DESIRE
HIT ON "NEXT STEP"
FINALLY HIT " SAVE CHANGES"

ALL DONE
HOPES THIS ONES HELP


Useless swipe in App Exposé in Sierra If I invoke Exposé and use the gesture to swipe between fullscreen apps, open windows from other applications will show (similar to ⌘+⇥). However, I cannot click on them to bring them to the front, so it is practically useless.

I noticed this behavior since Sierra and wonder if this is intended behavior or just a bug.

Bonus question (Since I don't have access to macOS 10.11 or lower): Has this behavior existed before?

i think i know what you're talking about. expose used to have this really annoying "feature" where it required a mouse move before it would register a click. so if i used expose and the window i wanted was right under my mouse cursor, i couldn't just click it. i had to move my mouse a little, then i could click it

but, i just tried reproducing this in macos sierra and the problem is gone!

When your are in the exposé view you can
do a four finger swipe down, then you get a soft of visual bump effect and afterword you can select the window of a other open program. This is necessary to click on it. Maybe this was made switch faster to your former window, but it doesn't´t feel natural.


Website gets blocked by webfilterproxyd even without website restriction I have a Mac Mini running Mac OS X 10.6.4 which has Parental Controls enabled for an account, but with Website Restrictions set to 'Allow unrestricted access to websites'.

However, there is one website (which I cannot specify for confidentiality reasons) which does not load at all. Instead I get the following error message in the system log every time I try to access the website:

sandboxd[12606] <Notice>: webfilterproxyd(712) deny network-inbound 10.1.1.3:49757

Obviously 10.1.1.3 is the machine's IP address and 49757 in this case would be the port that the request was sent from.

The website in question is in no way a bad/inappropriate/illegal website, so I don't see why it would be filtered.

Disabling Parental Controls completely for this account fixes the problem, but I'd rather not do that.

Any idea how I can fix this, or why it is happening in the first place?

In case someone else stumbles on this as I did...

Deleting webcontentfilter.kext is actually deleting part of Parental Controls. kext is short for kernel extension. It is better to turn Parental Controls off than to wreck it.

What was probably going on is that you need to, in the main firewall (under Security, in System Preferences), allow incoming connections from that IP address. You may need to configure the firewall manually, if so, consult a complete tutorial.

Also, 49757 is not the port the request was coming from, it is the local port the request is attempting to connect to.

Turns out it can be solved by doing:

sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/webcontentfilter.kext/

This might cause a few errors in the system log but appears to work fine for me.


Is it possible to use an iMac's screen as a second monitor? Is it possible to use an iMac (early 2008 model) as a second monitor (note: not with a second monitor)?

I have a Windows 7 laptop (for work) and when working at home it would be nice if I could somehow connect my iMac to act as a second monitor.

Of course, the Mini DisplayPort on my iMac can probably not be used since that is for connecting an extra monitor to the iMac, but maybe there is some neat cross-platform application to do dual-display over USB?

Also, any solution for the same thing between a MacBook and an iMac would be nice to know as well.

I don't know your iMac spec, but look at Apple knowledge base

  With Target Display mode, you can use your iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010) or
  iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) with Mac OS X as an external display.
  Connect any computer or other device with a Mini DisplayPort to your
  27-inch iMac using a Mini DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cable or
  using a converter that converts other electrical, video, and audio
  protocols from another source device to Mini DisplayPort compliant
  signals.  (Cables and converters available separately.)

This will not work unless your iMac is a 27" late 2009 or later, or an iMac 21.5" after late 2009.


Enable Voice Control without floating mic icon TL;DR I have searched to find a way to hide the icon but still have Voice Control enabled, or at least have a way to permanently move the icon to the dock/menu bar/Launchpad but have found this discussed nowhere.

Any suggestions on how I can have Voice Control enabled and have the floating icon permanently stored somewhere out of the way?

In the past year I discovered Dictation for my MacBook Pro. With Mojave the microphone icon was to indicate that dictation was activated. The Keyboard Shortcut I used to switch this on/off was to press either command key twice.

I was new to integrating this feature in my daily MBP use when I upgraded to Catalina. The Keyboard Shortcut no longer worked (wether the Voice Control was enabled or not) which was fine because I discovered Voice Control, which I began using and really enjoy. It expands Siri to not just transcribe dictation and enables voice control in every function of my MBP.

However, the floating mic icon is always on screen. No matter where I put it it is annoyingly in the way. I have searched to find a way to hide the icon but still have Voice Control enabled, or at least have a way to permanently move the icon to the dock/menu bar/Launchpad but have found this discussed nowhere.

Any suggestions on how I can have Voice Control enabled and have the floating icon permanently stored somewhere out of the way?

Not a cure, but a visual option:  I move the 'Voice Control' icon 99% off screen, you can select wherever you want to move it off screen

This following AppleScript code will hide the annoying floating Dictation window while using Voice Control.
After testing several scenarios, with previous versions of the AppleScript code in my solution, I stumbled across several situations in which the floating Dictation window would re-appear. When this happened, the code needed to be run again to re-hide the floating Dictation window.  To avoid having to run the code every time the floating Dictation window appeared, I decided to save the AppleScript as a stay open application with an idle handler whose function is to re-hide the floating Dictation window if it became visible again.
In Script Editor.app, save this following AppleScript as a stay open application
on idle
    if application "DictationIM" is running then
        hideDictation(true)
    else
        quit
    end if
    return 5 -- In Seconds
end idle

to hideDictation(|true or false|)
    tell application "System Events"
        try
            set value of attribute "AXHidden" of ¬
                application process "Dictation" to |true or false|
        end try
    end tell
end hideDictation

on quit
    --  Executed When The Script Quits
    hideDictation(false)
    continue quit -- Allows The Script To Quit
end quit

I saved mine as “Invisible Dictation.app”.  Since you are using voice control, you may as well make a new voice command to run “Invisible Dictation.app” while you are at it. With Voice Control currently enabled and activated, go to Finder and select the new “Invisible Dictation.app” applet and simply speak the command “Make This Speakable” and when it’s configuration window opens, assign it a “When I say” value and save your new Dictation Command.

There are some minor drawbacks which I have noticed when this stay open AppleScript applet is running.

It also hides some pop-up or dialog windows when they become visible.  For example if you use the voice command “Show Commands”, while your applet is running, the commands window will briefly appear then gets hidden along with the Dictation window.  This is why I added a return 5 to the code.  It gives a few seconds to see any pop-up or dialog windows when they become visible before they get hidden by the running applet.  BUT if you quit the running “Invisible Dictation.app", after seeing any pop-up or dialog windows that suddenly disappeared, they will become visible again.
If you try using the “Show Numbers” or “Show Window Grid” Voice Commands while your applet is running, the numbers and or the grid will be hidden also.


How to Stop Showing OS X Beta Software Updates in iOS I would like to stop installing beta versions on my iPhone. Without rolling back to an old version (as described by Apple) but something similar to http://osxdaily.com/2014/12/05/stop-os-x-beta-software-updates-showing-app-store/

In this particular case I would like to wait for iOS 9 and do not try the 9.1 beta.

You can simply hide those beta updates notifications through Apple's developers console.

Also if your iPhone is currently on a beta version you may not be able to hide them unless you upgrade via iTunes to a public release of iOS ( i.e. IOS 9 GM ).

This should do it (it did for me)
https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/unenroll#ios
Restart your iPhone and Bata Update is gone


Can a 21.5 inch iMac (non-Retina late 2015 - 2.8 Ghz, Intel Iris Pro graphics, model 16,2) drive two external displays? I'm currently running a Dell U2715H at its native resolution (2560 x 1440) via DisplayPort as an external display, and I'd like to add another at that same resolution. The Apple specs on this model don't say anything about two external displays.

Is it possible to run two external displays with this model?

Not according to EveryMac who are usually spot on with their info, including unsupported 'hacks', none of which are mentioned for this model.

  This model can simultaneously support the internal display at full native resolution and up to 4096x2304 on an external display in both extended desktop (second workspace) and video mirroring (internal display duplicated on the external display) modes.

Yes you can run 2 displays

If you have an iPad pro

iPad

iPad Air 1/2

There's an app called duet display

11.99 GBP

Then a free download from duetdisplay.com to install the app on this model of iMac

Turn off iTunes backup to save space

Open the app on iMac

Connect lightning or 30 pin from usb on iMac to iPad model

Open app on iPad model

Et voila

2 displays

Not only do you have 2 displays but you also get lag free touch controls on your iOS device

It is very good

Check it out on your dell

It works with Windows too

All you need is an iPad lol


Yosemite bluetooth audio is choppy/skips On two separate MacBook Pros (one brand new, one several years old) running OSX Yosemite, all bluetooth audio devices are choppy (audio clicks in and out, skips like a scratched CD).

I have tried playing audio through Spotify, iTunes, YouTube with Beats Studio wireless headphones and a Big Jambox on both, in separate environments.  Sometimes the sound is perfect and clear.  Then it suddenly becomes choppy.

I've looked at Activity Monitor during choppy times, and nothing seems different from normal.

For the record, using the same Wifi and devices, iOS8 iPhone 6 and 5S both do not have this issue.

I'm curious how to even begin to troubleshoot the issue - It's hard to troubleshoot as there's no way of knowing if it's interference, app performance, etc.

It's an issue with the amount of power/bandwidth supplied to the BluetoothAudioAgent, the daemon in charge of streaming. Apparently most people have had success by entering the following command in terminal.app:

defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" -int 40

Source: http://lifehacker.com/fix-your-bluetooth-audio-in-yosemite-with-this-terminal-1670380974

The source article lists Yosemite as the specific OS this applies to, but I know that this fix also works back to Mavericks and (possibly) Snow Leopard (untested).

I am having this exact issue at the moment and entered that command with non-noticeable results. I'm going to reboot the machine and see if that takes the new settings into account. But it seems like this command is the way that the wide majority of people have resolved this issue.

EDIT: Just rebooted, the audio quality is significantly better. No noticeable choppiness whatsoever (knock on wood). It appears that the command I posted above does seem to resolve the issue.

EDIT 2 (2015-8-24): The above command does help in many cases and produces noticeable quality improvements. Unfortunately, however, Yosemite is very moody with regard to bluetooth audio. The problem compounds itself when in proximity of other bluetooth devices. To expand on my previous answer above, I highly recommend entering the following additional commands to increase other bluetooth audio parameters:

defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Max (editable)" 80
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" 48
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Initial Bitpool (editable)" 40
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Initial Bitpool Min (editable)" 40
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool" 58
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool Max" 58
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool Min" 48

EDIT 3 (2015-9-08): Alright. I'm sorry I keep updating this answer, but I keep finding more information about this issue (since improving bluetooth audio on Yosemite is a long-term effort, apparently). I've found several sources that cut straight to the mustard and set everything to 80 which appears to be the maximum allowable value for Bitpool settings. If the above settings don't work well enough for you, try the "All In™" approach.

defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Max (editable)" 80
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" 80
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Initial Bitpool (editable)" 80
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Initial Bitpool Min (editable)" 80
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool" 80
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool Max" 80
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Negotiated Bitpool Min" 80

To see your current defaults:

defaults read com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent

Edit 4 (2016-07-14): One more (hopefully last) edit. Make sure that you restart the bluetoothaudiod (or coreaudiod) service after making changes to these settings.

sudo killall bluetoothaudiod

Or, if you are on El Capitan:

sudo killall coreaudiod

Credit for this goes to the multiple wise nerds below who suggested it. (Thank you!)

For those, for whom dealing with com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent didn't had effect, for me reset of PRAM fixed the problem:

Turn off, then Turn on your Mac and hold down the Command+Option+P+R keys (hold all 4 keys at the same time)
Hold down all four keys until you hear the startup sound (Pauuuuum) twice.
The startup sound for the second time means you’ve reset the PRAM.

Source: http://www.guidingtech.com/30498/what-is-pram-smc-mac-reset/


iPhone Outlook app still fetches mail when in Low Power Mode, while the default Mail app doesn't I'm trying to compare the default Mail app that comes with iOS and Microsoft's Outlook for iOS.

The use case I'm particularly interested in is when the Low Power Mode is enabled. From what I understand, that feature disables some background activity, such as Background App Refresh and Push (not sure if there's a difference between the two, but anyway), which is supposed to pause the background activity of the apps installed. My concern is whether a non-default app would follow that. This article claims that:

  If I have Airmail or any other third party mail app running, that app will still push and fetch mail like normal. Unless I manually disable those features inside that particular app, I’m not reaping all the benefits of Low Power Mode.

And I can see where does that point come from, because when I enable the Low Power mode, the default Mail app does actually stop fetching e-mail, while Outlook doesn't.

So I searched Outlook's Uservoice iOS section and they do claim they actually addressed that, and all you have to do is just shut down Background App Refresh:

  completed Microsoft Outlook responded:

  You may disable Background App Refresh on your iOS setting.

  iOS Settings >> Outlook >> Toggle Off Background App Refresh

The thing is, Background App Refresh is already turned off and even grayed out because, again, I'm in low power mode. But Outlook still keeps somehow reciving e-mail immediately.

So this doesn't make any sense to me. I know Outlook could have some custom code polling mail servers in a loop directly, but since the emails arrive almost immediately, that'd be like constant polling which would kill the battery even faster. So that must be some kind of push, but again, it's supposed to be off while in Low Power?

There is a chance that support representative doesn't have a clue of what's going on - I had to call Microsoft once, ended up talking to their outsourced people, and that's the impression I got. So if that's the case, that means the issue is not fixed as he claimed, but that still doesn't clarify why Outlook keeps fetching mail while in Low Power.

I've tried to research as much as I can, but if I missed something, please clarify. Thank you.

If you turn off cellular data (open 'Settings' and select 'Cellular' then turn off 'Cellular Data' option which controls all the apps) this will prevent Outlook from fetching mail.  Yes, it will disable all other cellular data to all other apps, but there doesn't seem to be any other way to disable/change Outlook behavior.

Outlook still sends notifications in Low Power Mode, but it doesn’t download the new emails.


How do I delete forward on a Macbook Pro? I know this:

Fn + backspace - "del" key (delete letter to the right) <-- where's the Fn key in the MBP?
Alt + backspace - Delete last word
Command + backspace - Delete whole line

Now... there is no Fn Key on a MacBook Pro. What key combination should I use, or it's a matter of simply: It's not possible?

As an alternative to Fn+delete, you can also use control+D to trigger a forward-delete, at least in most places.  Some older apps may not support it, apparently.

Once again Keyboard Maestro comes to the rescue.  I set Shift-Delete as a hotkey to trigger a fn-delete keystroke.  Works a charm.

Keyboard Maestro is worth the price for the time saved.  For instance, I set 1 to backspace twice and type my email address,2 returns my wife's email address, etc, etc.


Toolbar keeps hiding on Safari I am trying to keep the toolbar visible all the time....when I select 'View' the 'Hide Toolbar' is grayed out.  My wife has the same machine, and her's has 'Hide toolbar' not grayed out which I assume she could select and would get the result I am getting.  Any help would be appreciated, it's getting annoying now.

If you're in full screen mode, this behavior is normal (the hide toolbar option greyed out, not the lack of visible toolbar contents). If your not in full screen mode, then:

Go to View -> Customize Toolbar...
Then, perform the "...drag the default set into the toolbar" option.
Now, go to the View drop down again and the Hide/Show Toolbar option should be accessible.

You are in "Full Screen" mode.

Hit "esc".


Updating Office 2011 on Mavericks I'm opening Microsoft Word (read; Office 2011 for Mac) for the first time after installing my new Macbook Pro Retina 13". However, if I check for an update there will be one.
After I update it, there is another update.

Why don't I get the latest update right away? Is there any way I can enter my current version number and get updates for the next x-updates?

I've updated 6 times already, and it's going to bug me because I have to do the same on another MacBook.

Microsoft has major and minor updates.  Major updates include all previous updates, minor updates only have what is new since the most recent update.  Their downloads website has all of the updates, both major and minor, that have been released for Office.  The most recent Office update is the top of the list.  As of this writing (Feb 2014), the most current version is 14.3.9.  Its knowledge base article says that it only requires that you have version 14.1.0 installed, which would require you to do two updates (but not more than that).  Sometimes, I've seen it not get the update order right if you haven't rebooted your machine between updates, although I've usually not found that to be a requirement.  I've also seen people run into problems on updating if their license key is a pirated one, but I'm sure you're not doing that. :)  So, for your other MacBook, you should only need to do two updates if you're installing 14.0.0: 14.1, and 14.3.9.

Microsoft Office 2011 updates only work when required version of software found. Also Office 2011 was released a long time ago. MS have been updating Office since then. They do not have Apple style combo updates for Office. You have to update one by one.


How do I download all PNGs on a page with iOS Workflow? I want to save all of the PNGs from this goofy website so I can turn them into a PDF. I thought I'd use Workflow for iOS, which I've never used before.

I get the contents of this page and then get all the links

Get Contents of URL
|> Get URLs from Input
|> Quick Look

But, when I want to filter or match those URLs for PNGs, I get weird applewebdata:// URLs, like

applewebdata://{guid}/path/to/PNG

I am currently using iOS and trying to make Workflow (or something similar) work for this task. Thanks for the other suggestions, but they won't work for me!

What a hot mess... I ended up using a number of "Get Component of URL" steps to extract the scheme and host from the Workflow Input and the path from the links to PNGs on the page (these were the ones showing as applewebdata://).

Once I had the parts of the URL to download, it went something like this

Get Contents of URL
|> Get Component of URL; Scheme
|> Save Variable 'Scheme'
<Input>
|> Get Component of URL; Host
|> Save Variable 'Host'
<Input>
|> Get URLs from Input
|> Repeat with Each
   |> If Input Contains '.PNG'
   |> Get Component of URL; Path
   |> URL <Scheme>://<Host>/<Path>
   |> Get Contents of URL
   |> Add to Variable 'Pages'
|> Pages
|> Filter Images; Sort by Name A to Z; File Type 'PNG'
|> Make PDF
|> Set Name <input.Name>
|> Quick Look
|> Save File

It seems like, if I didn't have to break down into procedural steps to extract and recombine a usable URL, I could have written a much cleaner simpler pipeline. Something like

Get Contents of URL
|> Get URLs from Input
|> Get Contents of URL
|> Get Images from Input
|> Filter Images; Sort by Name A to Z
|> Make PDF
|> Set Name <input.Name>
|> Quick Look
|> Save File

EDIT: If you have a Mac you can use Automator with the following workflow to accomplish this task.

 Try this, it worked for me! (Although you could just download these few images per hand by right-clicking on the links and choosing "Download linked file")


Mac terminal cd to folder IN current directory Let say my current directory in terminal is ~/Users/Desktop. On my desktop, there's a folder called "sample_dir". How can I cd in this "sample_dir" folder with typing: "cd ~/Users/Desktop/sample_dir"? There's gotta be a shorter way that looks at your current directory and appends that path to the directory you pass in to make things faster.

Thanks

There is. Type:

cd sample_dir

It checks for you. If for some strange reason that doesn't work, type:

cd ./sample_dir


Is there a way to disable the "enter a password to unlock the disk" prompt for a disk? I installed macOS on a partition in an external drive which is encrypted with FireVault. I don't want to mount it when I plug it in, but I get the "enter a password to unlock the disk" prompt whenever I plug the drive in (which is fairly often) and I need to escape out of it every time. Is there a way to stop showing this prompt, while not having to mount it? You can prevent it from coming up with the "[remember password in keychain]" option but that would mount it every time.

I found this, which is basically the same as the quora.com method (link above):

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/11/24/prevent-partitions-from-mounting-mac/

However, for me, although it DOES prevent the volume from being mounted on startup, so far it DOES NOT prevent the popup "enter a password to unlock the disk".


How does one view pictures fullscreen on iPhone 5? There is an annoyance in the iPhone 5 that the camera sensor is 4:3 but the phone display is 16:9. This makes photos not cover the entire screen.

Apple has now begun running a Thanksgiving commercial where they show the person viewing their photos and it takes up the whole screen of the phone.

Is there some setting configuration that I can change to display pictures fullscreen?

You can see the commercial here.

Double tap on the photo to make it full screen. Alternatively, you can see toward the end of the commercial, a simple swipe to the left or the right brings up subsequent photos full screen without the overlay of controls on the top or bottom.

Take a picture, stretch it to the size you want, when it fits nicely, take a picture of the screen by pushing the home key and on off button at the same time. Your photo will be put in your photos full screen... It is simple, you can do it!


Deleting Message cache Trying to delete all SMS and iMessage cache.  Other forums and research indicates a SYNC will do this.  Have tried, but old messages keep showing up in Spotlight search.  I want them deleted for good.  How?

Obviously, it’s a cache bug (or more like feature). If you find that it’s a little annoying, Apple does provide a way to remove this.

Here’s how to delete recent contacts from messages app (and other apps in iOS):

Go to the Messages app and tap on the New Message icon
In the recipient field, tap the name of the recently-deleted contact (or a part of the number)
When the contact shows up in the list, you should see a blue ‘i’ icon right next to the contact you just deleted
Tap on the ‘i’ icon. Next, tap on Remove from Recents
That’s about it. The contact will no longer show up.

It’s really that simple. This will remove the contact from the cache (of recent contacts) and it will make sure that the deleted contact doesn’t show up anywhere in iOS.

The problem doesn’t appear for contacts that you have not communicated with (via Email, Message or FaceTime). It’s mostly for contacts that you have communicated with via these services. The Recent Contacts list holds a cache of contact data (contacts that you have recently talked/messaged to) and it’s not available to modify.


Reset iPhone 5 without iCloud password First of all: No I didn't get the phone off of someone else and no I can't get the password by going to iforgot.apple.com (because the email address used for the account has been deleted, so emailing doesn't work)

The iPhone is currently in the state where it acts like you just got it (because I tried to reset the phone by typing the wrong passcode 10 times), but after going through a few steps it will ask for the iCloud username and password. I don't care about any of the data on it, I just need to delete everything off it, so I can actually do something with it.

Well if data on your iCloud account is not important to you, you can just simply create a new account and use it for your phone.

Just make sure you keep that email address this time! :)


iPhone cannot be synced because there is not enough free space to hold all of the selected items I'm trying to clean up some space on my iPhone, for this I need to sync it with a new Mac.
The Mac doesn't have the files on the device, so sync will erase everything on the device.
So I want to backup first, and then sync.
But the backup complains there's not enough space (where? Mac has 55GB free).
Errrrr. Pretty stuck here!

This is the message I get from iTunes (12.3.0.44) when trying to manually backup my iPhone 4S (iOS 8.1.2)
to my Mac (Mac Book Pro Yosemite 10.10.5).

This is what happened until now:

Last sync was on another computer (old Windows laptop), this is the
first time trying to backup/sync on this Mac
iPhone is full (I want
to backup the data and then to cleanup)
Mac has 55GB free space
Backup wouldn't start, reported not enough space (a different
message!) to sync
Cleaned the lockdown folder as suggested by Apple
Backup had started but reported an error about a "session could not
be started"
Restarted the device while connected to Mac (as
suggested on some forum)
Backup had started but reported this
message ("iPhone XXX cannot be synced because there is not enough
free space to hold all of the selected items.")

Any ideas?

EDIT 2017: I no longer use this phone, eventually I didn't find a solution.

When you start syncing your iDevice in iTunes and then you get this annoying message (especially when it tells you it needs like 1.4MB and there is 300MB available?!): 'The iPhone/iPad “iPhone(insert name)” cannot be synced because there is not enough free space to hold all the selected items'. What do you do?

Basically the problem, in many cases, seems to be that iTunes thinks it has too many updates to install on your iPhone/iPad and it isn't smart enough to load them one at a time when there's not enough space to do them all??

Fortunately it can often be side-stepped by just taking your iPhone/iPad and clicking on the App Store app,  then tapping on the Updates tab, and then tapping on 'Update All' at the top right. If that  complains that there's not enough space you can let do some updates then try again (and again) and will update the rest of the apps. Then the sync should be fine with iTunes.

figured it out, you have to uncheck the encrypt iphone backups.  give that a go and click back up!

I tried this and it seems to be working for me - I have NO idea why, but a dozen other ideas didn't work at all.  I untucked the 'encrypt' box, and tried sync again, and now it's proceeding as usual.  To be clear, I had the error where there was plenty of room for the back up and sync (asked for 1.1 Mb, said I only had 5 Gb) - but then it was saying that there wasn't enough room.  Once it's synced, I'll retick the box and hopefully it will all be back to normal.


Convert an already recorded stereo track to mono in Garageband I have a guitar track that I accidentally recorded in stereo.  I can't find anywhere in garageband to change it to mono after the fact.  Is this possible?

Panning the guitar track to the right silences the track, but if it's panned all the way to the left it's full.

Any ideas?

This was driving me mad, but I now use an very smooth way based on JHerran's answer. It has the virtue of only requiring Garageband and is quick.

N.B. I assume your track has a single region: if not you will have to shift-click to select all the regions in the track that you want to convert.

Click on the track that you want to convert. The single region should automatically be highlighted.
Command-D or >Track>New Track with duplicate settings to create a new track
Command-V to paste the original regions to the new track
Shift-Click on the original region(s) to highlight it again
Command-J to join the regions, select "Mono" for the mix-down
The mix-down will replace the original stereo track - you can now click on the temporary track and Delete it.

download Tipard All Music Converter and when exporting the original stereo file select settings and choose mono. This will blend whatever is on the R & L sides into the same output on each sides of the new file.


Open addresses in google maps instead of apple maps Street addresses in Messages, Calendar, etc appear as links to click.  But when I tap on these links, they open in Apple maps.  I prefer to use google maps (or citymapper, where available).

How can I configure my iPhone so that it's opening addresses in the maps application of my preference?

Unfortunately, you can't (unless you jailbreak your iPhone).
Anyway, from iOS 8, you are allowed to use your preferred navigator, once Maps has been opened:

Open an address (it will open with Apple Maps by default).
Tap the "car" button, as you do to get directions.
Tap the "share" button, then tap "Transport apps".
Choose the app navigator you prefer, among the installed ones (i.e., Google Maps). You will be redirected to the one you chose.

It's not as changing the default, but it's surely easier than typing an address manually in your preferred app.

Copy address, open Google Maps, paste address.


Printing full calendar invitation? I use OS X Mail and iCal connected to my company's MS Exchange server. Sometimes a co-worker sends a calendar invitation (using Outlook) with lots of agenda details in it. I'm trying to find a good way to print that.

iCal has an option to print the day's events in list format, but the output is in two columns and a few of the lines write over each other and are completely unreadable.

If I try to print the invitation as it came to me in Mail, the output has an iCal icon showing the attachment -- not the contents of the attachment.

So, short of copy/paste into TextEdit, Word, etc, is there a clean way to print this?

I asked this on superuser a few months ago and got no answers at all. Are the apple fanboys more active here?

Better question: If the output from iCal was readable, would it be sufficient? The reason I ask, is because iCal word wraps within the two day columns, making the overlapping issue unusual. Perhaps the issue is with the iCal Application Support files or .plist

If we're talking about a single invite, and you wanted to go backwards in time and rely on paper (again) you could print the email invite. If you're wanting to print a collection of events you could make an applescript to do that quite easily. Drop the email onto your script have it open the attachment, screen shot the window of the appointment & overly that on top of the email. Screenshot the 2 together & print the png or drop it into a PDF to print it.


How do I change the login screen background in macOS Mojave? I just updated to macOS Mojave, and immediately noticed a couple of things:

My custom login screen wallpaper is gone.
When you click on a user's name in the login screen, it switches to their personal background (their usual wallpaper for the first space on the primary monitor).

I assumed it had just overwritten my cached image file. But when I went to replace it, nothing happened. It turns out that com.apple.desktop.admin.png is gone entirely!

Right after taking that screenshot, I decided to poke into Desktop Pictures and found my personal login screen background, which looks promising. It contains one other folder, which  probably  (edit: confirmed) contains the login screen background of my administrator account.

I've fixed it! You'll have to edit the dune HEIC picture though. If you're willing, follow these steps:

1) Go To: /Library/Desktop Pictures/

2) Find the file called "Mojave.heic"

3) Save a copy as a backup somewhere else

4) Select the picture you want to have instead

5) Edit image values (DPI, size, etc.) to fit

6) Rename this edited picture as Mojave.heic

This problem is driving me crazy for months!
Here is my solution
(no FileVault activated)
My wife and I are working together in the home office since Corona. We both have MacBooks. I noticed that her Mac immediately shows her background as wallpaper for the login - but not on my Mac. So what was the difference?
After looking at the solution in the various forums, I noticed that the login screen of macOS would change immediately the default wallpaper when selecting one user out of multiple users. so if there is only one user on the Mac -> its background is displayed immediately.
So there must be something on her Mac that is missing on my Mac! :-|
Apparently it was a folder that macOS probably can't (or doesn't want to) create itself when it is deleted from the cache (Library/Cache/Desktop Pictures)
TLDR:

Copy the UUID of your User-ID.
Go to "/Library/Caches/Desktop Pictures"
Create a new folder with your UUID.

now you should adjust the permissions for the folder so that macOS has write permissions there

If you change your background now, macOS should be able to create a "lockscreen.png" file here.


Only show active windows in the current space in Mac OSX when pressing CMD-Tab I'm new to Mac and have the following wish:

I would like to have one instance of an application (app1) on space1 and another application (app2) on space2. When I pres press CMD-Tab I see every open programs in every space. For example I'm in space1 and press CMD-Tab then I can switch between app1 and app2. But I would like to see only app1 when I'm in space1 and no app2 when I'm in space1.

Is there some setting where I can change this behavior?

Thanks for your help.

Matthias

I'm afraid you cannot do that, since the Dock (where this menu belongs) cannot be distinctly used on each space.

But, what it might be handy is to disable the option:

"When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application" from System Preferences > Expose & Spaces > Spaces.

That way, even if you select an application which is not present in the current space, you wont be moved to that space.

After all its just a matter to get used of it. After a while, even you'll be ok with it or you'll just deactivate spaces at all (the latter happened to me).

HyperSwitch is still in Beta, but I've been using it, and it is stable most of the time (sometimes I need to restart the Mac for it to work again, but it is not common). Look for it.

Really ill-designed, poor behaviour.


How will the cellular feature of the Apple Watch Series 3 work? If a user goes outside with the Apple Watch Series 3 and keeps their iPhone at home, how will the calling feature work?

The Apple Watch Series 3 GPS + Cellular has LTE built-in. Here are the bands supported by the USA version:

  LTE
  2 (1900 MHz)
  4 (AWS)
  5 (850 MHz)
  12 (700 MHz)
  13 (700c MHz)
  17 (700b MHz)
  18 (800 MHz)
  19 (800 MHz)
  25 (1900 MHz)
  26 (800 MHz)
  41 (TD 2500)

  UMTS
  800 MHz
  850 MHz
  1700 MHz
  1900 MHz

SOURCE

That same page also lists the bands for other countries.

The user receives the call on their watch since it has LTE hardware built in.


What is the quickest way to get to the Phone app's favorites list? I can no longer double-tap the home button to get to the iPhone's Phone apps' favorites list.

I'm looking for an alternative method to quickly access the favorites list, possibly using gestures?

The other answer (@Paul) seems confusing, but I somewhat get what he is saying. Basically, closing the Phone app after selecting the Favorites tab at the bottom of the screen, and then re-opening the app will return you to the Favorites tab.

It's probably a little off topic, however, you could have a look at my app phonetrait. This app tries to make it easier and faster to place calls.

The apps shows your contacts ordered by how often and how recently they are called, which creates an dynamic 'favorites' list.


OS X right click/context menu via keyboard Is it possible to access the right click/context menu of the currently selected item (not the item under the mouse) by way of using a keyboard shortcut?

If not, is there any way to achieve this, either by Applescript or utility?

The context menu can primarily be opened by a right mouse click (or a control click) only.

However, if you want to right click on a specific area on the screen without using the mouse, you may use Mouse Keys from Universal Access settings in System Preferences. With it, you can control the mouse by using the keyboard number pad. When activated, a right mouse click then can be achieved by Ctrl+5 on a keyboard with a numpad or Fn+Ctrl+i on a laptop. This will allow you to 'right-click' your word.

Go to System Preferences --> Universal Access --> Mouse --> Enable Mouse Keys (ON)

Found on: https://stackoverflow.com/a/11238186/1919382

I was actually looking for this shortcut to do quick grammar checking on a selected word in gmail. Usually, painted the word (option+shift+left arrow) and then right click to see the options (and I hate using mouse).

For this particular case, there's Chrome shortcut, which is [cmd + shift ; — or — cmd :] to display grammar check. Then you can cycle through suggestions using arrow keys.

That did the work for me for that specific issue.

Hope it helps.


How can I save tabs in iTerm 2 so they restore the next time the app is run? Can I save tabs on exit in my iTerm 2, so I don't have to open same directories again after restart?

Like Chrome does, for example.

I couldn't find such option in settings. Maybe "Arrangements" is what I want, but it seems that it requires me to explicitly save tabs.

You can Save and Restore Window Arrangement with ⇧ ⌘ S and ⇧ ⌘ R options under the Window screen in iTerm2

You can start the default Arrangement Option to enable are at Preferences -> General -> Startup  -> Open default window arrangement .

You can add arrangements with the ⇧ ⌘ S and manage them under Preferences -> Arrangements tab .

I found the solution in iTerm2's official website, check it out here  https://www.iterm2.com/documentation-restoration.html.

After setting iTerm2 restores last session just like Chrome. However the process(e.g. npm start) can not be restored.

Works perfectly under iTerm2 build 3.0.14 and macOS Sierra 10.12.6 (16G29). Hope it helps.


After resetting iOS 7, and having my volume disappear, how can I re-enable it? I just did a hard reset on my iPhone 4S by wiping the phone and restoring an iCloud backup. During that process, I used my iPad charger to make sure it stayed charged while it was being wiped and restored.

However, after the restore was complete and my phone was back up and running the volume control was gone. It was simply non-existent in Control Center, grayed out in Music.app, and the volume buttons didn't work. It looked like what happens when the phone is connected to a car stereo, for example. Interestingly, the ringer control in Settings -> Sounds, worked.

I have tried:

Rebooting the device
Playing music, and a video (which work through headphones, but not the speakers)
Tested Siri to confirm that it wasn't a hardware problem in the speakers actually malfunctioning.
Closed all apps, except one.
Tried testing sounds with an alarm app, which didn't play as well.

Any ideas on how I can fix this?

To fix this problem, I got my iPad charger (which was disconnected from any power source such as a wall outlet), and plugged it into my iPhone, and unplugged it twice. This process fixed the iPhone.

Try adding few drops of water, i had the same problem , and so i added a two to three drops of water both in the headphone jack and the charging slot, nd ta da da! It started working BUT dry it really quick before it hits the internal parts of your phone!


IOS Settings App Notification Acknowledgement (red dot elimination) The settings icon indicates a little red dot with the number of notifications.  How does one acknowledge the notification and turn off the red dot? I want to avoid upgrading IOS and would like to remove the red dot.  Suggestions are appreciated: thank you

The red dot in notification bar because of notifications in secure zone check it once


How to export photos from the new Photos app in full quality? I noticed that the new Photos.app reduces image size on export. If I drag & drop a photo from the Photos library, the size is reduced by at least 50%.

How do I get rid of this behavior and recover my original photo file?

File > Export > Export Unmodified Original...

will export a full size image to the folder of your choice.

right click and select displayn package content should do enable that.


How do I free up space (delete things) taken up by my iPad's Photo Library? I have an older iPad that I got in 2012. The iOS version is 8.1

A lot of space is used by my "Photos & Camera".  I clicked on my "Camera" icon and after clicking on its gallery, I clicked the "Trash" icon next to every item in there.  However, when I go into my Storage Settings, and drill down to my "Photos & Camera", it says "8.9 GB," but there's no where that allows me to delete the items used by the storage.

How do I actually delete things?  That is, I'm trying to free up storage, which I can't seem to do.

On the newer iOS versions, Apple initiated a delayed trash. This means that things are only truly deleted after they've been in the trash for 30 days.

To force things to delete, go to the photos app, then choose albums in the bottom right corner. Scroll down until you find the "recently deleted" album and click on it. Then click select and choose whether you want to delete or recover either all or just a few of the photos.

Go through general>usage then you should see where to delete the photos.  If not you can always go to the photos app then delete the photos there.


how to force sync of calendars on iPhone? I have various calendars from iCloud and Google and it's very often that an event will be deleted from Google calendar but the iPhone will still show it.  The same calendar is on iCal on my Mac and it shows it correctly there. If it doesn't, I can ⌘ + R or ⇧ + ⌘ + R to update it.

Maybe I'm missing the place or configuration to do the same on the iPhone calendar application.

In iOS 7 and later:

Open Calendar app
Click Calendars
Drag down to refresh

What solved this for me was:

Turn calendar sync off and back on again.
Re-enter your Apple ID password in settings.


Save screenshot with document name and page Is it possible to add the document name and document page when I do screenshots?

So, if I open a PDF and do a screenshot at page 6, I will have:
Document Name | Page 6 | Screen Shot 2012-06-12 at 8.02.40 AM

Is it possible to add the document name and document page when I do screenshots?

Using just what's setup by default, no; however, aside from doing it manually, it can be automated to various degrees depending on what methods and applications are involved.

So, if I open a PDF and do a screenshot at page 6, I will have: Document Name | Page 6 | Screen Shot 2012-06-12 at 8.02.40 AM

As an example, using Preview and AppleScript along with an Automator Service/Quick Action, and assigning it a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, the example AppleScript code, shown further below, will take a screen shot of either the full window of the front window of Preview or just its document scroll area, depending on its settings.
The name of the screen shot will be in the format shown quoted above from your question.

Here is a sample file name and a scaled down image of the screen shot taken of the document scroll area in Preview of The Room Where It Happened and was saved as:
    The Room Where It Happened | 3 | Snap Shot 2020-7-7 at 8.55.30 PM.png

There are three variables at the start of the example AppleScript code that are user configurable:

saveToLocation - Where the screen shot will be saved.

The default is the users Pictures folder.

ssFileType - Which can be set to: png, jpg, pdf or tiff.

The default is: png

captureArea - Which gets set to to either whole window, or scroll area.

The default is: scroll area (of the document, not whatever shows in the Sidebar.)

You should not need to edit the code below these initial variables, unless necessary, and the code is lightly commented to help one understand what it is doing.

The following example AppleScript code was tested as an Automator Service in macOS High Sierra, and should also work as a Quick Action in macOS Mojave and later. The Automator Service was assigned a keyboard shortcut of ⌥⌘S and was pressed while Preview had focus and was frontmost.
--  # Set the save to location, screen shot file type, and the capture area.
--  # The code below these three settings should not need to be edited.

--  # The saveToLocation must be in the form of a
--  # POSIX path for the screencapture command.

set saveToLocation to POSIX path of (path to pictures folder)

--  # ssFileType can be set to "png", "jpg", "pdf" or "tiff".

set ssFileType to "png"

--  # Set the capture area to either 'whole window', or just the 'scroll area'.

set captureArea to "scroll area"

--  # Do not edit the code below this line unless necessary.

--  # In Preview, when a PDF document is opened, the 'window name' is in the
--  # format of 'filename (page x of y)' for multi-page documents, or
--  # 'filename (1 page)' for single-page documents, and the 'filename' may contain '.pdf'.
--  # Example: "The Room Where It Happened.pdf (page 1 of 570)"
--  # Parse the text items of the 'window name' for parts of the screen shot name.

--  # Get then name of the first window of Preview.

tell application "System Events" to ¬
    set windowName to ¬
        the name of ¬
            the front window of ¬
                application process "Preview"

--  # Check to see the document is a PDF, and terminate if not.

if windowName contains "(page" or windowName contains "page)" then
    -- # Document is a PDF file. Continue processing...
else
    return
end if

--  # Parse 'windowName' to get the doc name and page number.

set text item delimiters to "("

set documentName to ¬
    the first text item of ¬
        the windowName

if documentName contains ".pdf" then
    set documentName to ¬
        characters 1 thru -6 of ¬
        the first text item of ¬
            the windowName
else
    set documentName to ¬
        characters 1 thru -2 of ¬
        the first text item of ¬
            the windowName
end if

if the first word of ¬
    the second text item of ¬
        the windowName is "1" then
    set pageNumber to ¬
        the first word of ¬
            the second text item of ¬
                the windowName
else
    set pageNumber to ¬
        the second word of ¬
            the second text item of ¬
                the windowName
end if

set text item delimiters to ""

--  # Get position and size of the front window or the
--  # document scroll area of Preview for the screen shot.

if captureArea contains "whole window" then
    tell application "System Events" to ¬
        set windowPositionSize to {position, size} of ¬
            the front window of ¬
                application process "Preview"
else if captureArea contains "scroll area" then
    tell application "System Events"
        if exists scroll area 2 of ¬
            splitter group 1 of ¬
            window 1 of ¬
            application process "Preview" then
            set windowPositionSize to ¬
                {position, size} of ¬
                scroll area 2 of ¬
                splitter group 1 of ¬
                window 1 of ¬
                application process "Preview"
        else
            set windowPositionSize to ¬
                {position, size} of ¬
                scroll area 1 of ¬
                splitter group 1 of ¬
                window 1 of ¬
                application process "Preview"
        end if
    end tell
end if

set x to item 1 of item 1 of windowPositionSize
set y to item 2 of item 1 of windowPositionSize
set w to item 1 of item 2 of windowPositionSize
set h to item 2 of item 2 of windowPositionSize

--  # Build out the date time string for the screen shot file name.

set currentDate to (current date)
set d to day of currentDate
set m to month of currentDate as integer
set yr to year of currentDate
set t to time string of currentDate

--  # Replace ':' with '.' in the 'time string'.

set text item delimiters to ":"
set t to text items of t
set text item delimiters to "."
set t to t as string
set text item delimiters to ""

--  # Set the screen shot file name.

set ssFileName to ¬
    (documentName as string) & ¬
    " | " & ¬
    pageNumber & ¬
    " | " & ¬
    "Snap Shot " & yr & "-" & d & "-" & m & " at " & t & "." & ssFileType

--  # Define the shell command.

set myShellCMD to ¬
    "screencapture -R" & x & "," & y & "," & w & "," & h & " -t " & ¬
    ssFileType & space & (saveToLocation & ssFileName)'s quoted form

--  # Take the screen shot.

do shell script myShellCMD

For the Run Shell Script action in the Automator Service/Quick Action, replace the entire default code with the example AppleScript code, and then edit the first three variables as wanted, if the default values are not what you want.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.

You will have to do that manually. You can open screenshot in Preview and do a "save As". Add your desired info before the screenshot name and then save the file with your new name.


How do I combine two or more images to get a single pdf file? Say I have some image files (for instance, the result of scanning some sheets) and I want to combine them into a single pdf file, each image on a different page.
Is there a faster / more convenient way than converting each one to a pdf file and then combining those (say, as explained here)? Or, if this is more or less how it is to be done, which is the most intelligent and less tedious possible way to do it?

Here are the steps to save multiple images in Preview into a single multi-page PDF.

Select all of the images you want in your PDF, right-click and choose open with Preview
In Preview's Sidebar drag the images into the order you want them to appear in your PDF
Select/highlight all the images to be included in the PDF document; otherwise only a single image may end up the PDF document
Then from the "File" menu choose "Print Selected Images" (or "Print..." in recent OS X versions) and then "PDF > Save as PDF"

paste in word and save as pdf...best possible way


How do I make an app go full screen to the LEFT of my desktop? I only have one desktop in spaces, and when I take an app full screen, it always goes to the right of my desktop... I know I can re-arrange by hand in mission control, but I'd like to be able to skip that and have an arbitrary app open to the left of my desktop.

If I have understood your question correctly, you can achieve this by the following:

1. Launch Mission Control
2. Add a new desktop by clicking Add to the right
3. Drag the desktops in order of preference
4. Exit Mission Control
5. Navigate to the desktop you want an app to open on then right-click the app icon in the dock, choose Options and select This Desktop underneath Assign To (this assigns the selected app to the active desktop in either full screen or normal maximised views)

Note that when you drag the desktops, the naming will always be ordered numerically from left to right. So if you began with a single desktop, adding any subsequent desktops will change the name of the original desktop to Desktop 1. If you drag another desktop to the left of Desktop 1 then Desktop 1 will become 2.


How to simulate slow internet connections on the mac What's a good software solution to slow down internet connections on the mac for testing and simulations?

My primary need is when testing code in the iPhone / iOS simulator, so slowing down the connection for specific applications or processes would be great.

Apple’s official tool to slow down the network connections on you Mac for testing purposes is Network Link Conditioner

Additional Tools for Xcode [version].

Additionally, iOS has similar function accessible from within Xcode and iOS 6 or later.

Older versions of Xcode before version 4.3.2 embedded a copy of this tool. This SO thread documents some history of the tool in a similar manner to the iOS simulators and developer documentation.
There are 11 built in profiles from a Lossy Edge network with 400ms delay to a cable modem. If you need other limits, you can create custom profiles with your own settings or you can also use ipfw yourself as described in Craig Hockenberry's article slow ride, make it easy It also mentions the Speed Limit panel by Mike Schrag that is a smaller download than Xcode, but has fewer options than Apple's tool.
It slows down the entire network stack, so you can't throttle on a per app basis without doing things like install lion in a virtual machine and set that VM with a throttled stack.

For XCode 10.2, in More developer tools - Additional Tools for XCode 10.2, you will find Network Link Conditioner.


Can I safely charge an iPhone 4S with a 5V 2A source? I just bought a New Trent IMP99D external battery, to keep my phone alive while gaming during long-haul flights. It has two USB ports to connect to, one which supplies 1 amp at 5 volts, another which supplies 2 amps at 5 volts.

The instruction manual says to connect smartphones to the 1-amp port, and any iPad 2's to the 2-amp port.

Is there any harm, or do I incur any inefficiencies, if I connect my iPhone 4S to the 2-amp port instead of the recommended 1-amp port?

When I travel, I only bring my iPad charger and use it interchangeably with my iPhone 4 without noticing any battery life performance and by that extension it should be the same for iPhone 4s.

Apple's website seems to confirm this; For the 10W USB iPad charger - "It also charges iPhone and all iPod models with a dock connector."

It will destroy your battery if you do that for a long time... Mine exploded when I plugged it in after a while of using it! CAUTION!!!!


Do Macs in a corporate setting behave more erratically? I've used a MacBook Pro in my last two jobs (one was circa 2012, and my current one is 2015), and at home I have an iMac (circa 2009) and MacBook Air (circa 2013).  At home my Macs perform wonderfully - they hardly ever freeze or crash.  I use the iMac for multimedia applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, etc., and the Air is more for general purpose internet/office apps (although Lightroom is used on it as well).

The work laptops tend to experience login times of up to 15-20 seconds when connected to the corporate network (and this tends to get worse over time), and sometimes I'll open up the laptop and find it's unresponsive.  My current laptop has 16 GB RAM, and the most memory-intensive application I use is Excel, and even then I'm not manipulating huge files.

Does anyone else have a similar experience with Macs at work?

No - Macs in enterprise are generally less erratic, more agile, less expensive, more productive and let people get work done with less unpleasantness like cryptic error messages, slow deployments, hard to diagnose issues, and things that require a large, IT support orgainzation.

In 2015 - IBM was 6 months in to a user choice program allowing their employees to choose a Mac or a PC and they had realized faster deployment, less support and cost savings of somewhere south of $300 per device.

https://www.jamf.com/blog/mac-ibm-zero-to-30000-in-6-months/

In 2016 - IBM is now betwwo 90k and 100k Macs deployed and is realizing savings of $250 to $500 per device type in cost to buy, support, provision Mac hardware versus PC hardware.

https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/events/jnuc/2016/246/keynote-a-user-first-mentality?view=info
https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/events/jnuc/2016/220/mac-ibm-under-the-hood?view=info

The videos from above should be posted within a month. Also keep in mind that this is a customer / partnership success story, but the hard numbers and experiences of people I spoke with make me feel these numbers are both fair and real as well as transferrable to many other enterprise organizations immediately with low risk if the company decides to support their employees and let them choose their platform to get work done.

If you are getting slow performance, it's likely due to something that can be fixed without a lot of delay if someone looks into the root cause and decides to support your location.

If you have stability issues - consider getting a good backup and wiping. Just add back the apps you need. My feelings are that the only changes that organizations make tend to increase stability of the Mac OS except for one.

antivirus software other than Apple's GateKeeper and Xprotect are huge sources of delay, slowness, resource usage and breakage. Kernel extensions generally are buggy, slow to be ready for new releases, etc...
Setting up restrictions like disabling iCloud sync generally make a Mac run better, not worse.
Setting up a server to delay or restrict updates and patches generally makes a Mac more stable.
Having IT to help you with backups and procedures to automate things like an erase instal and/or script setting things up like printers and such generally reduce the time you need to manage settings and don't cause any issues with stability.

An indirect answer is to break down the issues on a broad level. It's hard to say without more detail, but as a SysAdmin I would generally say "yes." OS X has difficulty on a Windows Domain, which is what most corporate networks consist of. I'm actually dealing with a Mac issue on our Windows Domain right now. Is that what you meant?


How do I keep an application running after logout? I would like my bit torrent client to continue sharing data even after my session times out and goes to the login screen. Running Lion.

If you need to logout so that another user can use the computer, you can enable Fast User Switching. The other user will be able to use the Mac, while your program still runs.

I don't think it's possible on OSX.
Better way is use transmission-daemon on Linux machine.
And then using remote gui clients (osx/win/linux/android/www) to manage your torrents.


Lion always explicitly moves files to and from external drives In Lion, whenever I drag and drop a file to or from an external drive to the local drive it always moves the file. If I'm not mistaken the default behavior is to copy the file right? Does anyone know why it might be doing this or know of a preference anywhere that I can set it to explicitly copy the files?

To copy files instead of move them, you can use menu items in the Edit menu, or their associated keyboard shortcuts. I am running Lion, and I have an external usb drive. If I select a file on this external drive and open the Finder's "Edit" menu, there's a "Copy" menu item with the shortcut Cmd-C.

Choosing that menu item, then selecting a folder on my internal hard drive, gives a menu item of "Paste" (again in the "Edit" menu) with the shortcut Cmd-V.

Also, dragging and dropping with the option key held down will copy a file rather than move it.


Macbook Air does not automatically connect to known networks after wake up I have a new 2012 Macbook Air (with 10.7.4) which doesn't connect to my own local network automatically after it wakes up. I have to choose my network manually and it works instantly.

Any ideas how to solve this problem?

I had similar issues with earlier versions of 10.7 as well as 10.6.  I can't guarantee that my problem is a match to yours, but I'll share what worked.

In both cases my network had somehow been lowered in priority in the list of "Known Networks" and the list had become a bit bloated in one instance. Ever since, I've made it a point to somewhat regularly visit and clean up my list of known networks.

Note: What follows may not resolve your problem, but it's a good step to take.  If it doesn't, I suspect that it's related to a more touchy Wifi issue for Macs running Lion. I recall that there have been at least 2 updates to 10.7 that addressed issues with reconnecting to Wifi when waking from sleep.  I've seen it, but it's rare for the Macs that I manage.

Here are the steps that worked for me:

Visit System Preferences -> Network,  select "Wifi" and click the lock (if needed) to authenticate.
Assure that "Remember networks this computer has joined" is checked
Note the order of the "preferred networks" (see blue box in the figure).  Re-order these appropriately.  If you'd like to start fresh, just clear the list.
Click "Ok" to accept the changes

Uncheck "Ask to join network". This will resolve your issue.


Is there a way to change the typeface used in Safari's "Reader" mode? The typeface used in Safari's "Reader" mode (on both iOS and OS X) seems to be some form of Palatino, which, while certainly not the worst screen face, isn't the best either. This used to be a limitation in iBooks as well, until the addition of excellent screen faces like Charter and Athelas.

Is there a way to change the typeface used by Safari's Reader mode?

The easy way is to click on the "Aa" on the right side of address window once you are in reader mode already, and choose font and background colors :)

It is certainly possible to make changes in iOS Safari without a Jailbreak. Don't know exactly about Reader View, but the general algorithm is:

make backup to your computer;
decrypt backup file with special tools;
find Safari and edit its contents.

Also for Safari you can use plugin CustomReader II.


VLC in Mac does not show video window I have just installed VLC for Mac, after I added a video file to my play list all I can see is this window + the audio played.

Please let me know how can I show the video playback?

That's the playlist window.

On Mac OS X:

Press CMD + OPTION + P to switch modes, or click on Window > Playlist.

On Windows:

Press CTRL + L to switch modes, or click on View > Playlist.

Go to the preferences and select "Show video within main window"


How to disable / change the photoshop cc splash screen (on Mac) When you open photoshop cc on mac you get this image: Photoshop CC Splash screen

I want to disable it, or (if impossible) to change it to my own image.

I know that is not something you can do by just change some pereference but i'm sure there is some kind of a hack that will do it...

Thanks.

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2043396 This maybe?

Or

Search the Photoshop Libraries for Image files. Most likely the image file can be replaced with a different file?


No spoken Siri feedback with Shortcuts actions I created some simple Shortcuts in the new iOS Shortcuts app (iOS 12) to be invoked by Siri.

Like: "Goodmorning Siri, start my morning routine" and then some actions.

Now I also would like to let Siri say some things to me, as simple as: "Hello Jeroen, I hope you have a good morning".

I am supposed to use the "Show result" actions for this, this action should result in spoken feedback if the shortcut is executed via Siri.

The problem is: "Show result" text is not spoken (Siri feedback) by Siri when the shortcut is invoked via Siri.
Actions that come after the Show Result action are executed.

Here is an example Shortcut:

I tried already:

turning Siri on and off
Soft reset
Reset network
Change Siri and iOS language

Update: I have a iPhone SE

Shortcuts allows for this, but not with the default Siri voice.

In order to add speech into your Shortcut, you need to add two objects into your script.

First: "Text".
Second: "Speak Text".

The following screenshot should help. Alter the contents of the Text box to your liking, and tweak the language, speed and rate to your liking in Speak Text. Hope this helps!

Hey Jeroen check here...

https://talk.automators.fm/t/show-results-only-give-me-a-text-alert/2025

guess it might solve your problem...


Can Messages display the timestamp of every incoming message? I was chatting with someone via Messages.app on my iPhone, and they sent me a message saying "call me in 20 minutes".  I was away from my phone when they sent it, so I didn't know when they sent the message, and therefore didn't know when to call.

I know that Messages.app displays a start time for new conversations, but I just want to get the time of a specific message.

Tap-and-hold and double-tap on the message just give a "Copy" context item.

How can I see the time of an incoming message?

iOS 7, which is now in the wild, can indeed show timestamps for every message. Just slide your finger right to left in a conversation.

Image: The Verge

(I literally yelled "finally!" while sitting at my desk when I read about this.)

Use the "Compact view". You'll see the time stamp of the message on the right hand side. View > Messages > Show as Compact


How do I do a pivot table in Numbers? I can't find any equivalent of the Excel Pivot Table or Open Office Data Table features. I'd like to sum up my data grouped by values in various columns.

For example, if I have

A       B       C
red     left    2
red     left    3
green   left    4
green   right   4

I want to be able to get

        red     green   all
left    5       4       9
right   0       4       4
all     5       8       13

Assuming the tables are named Original and Pivot,
the cells in Pivot are filled using this formula:

=SUMIFS(Original::$C, Original::$A, "="& $A2, Original::$B, "="& B$1)

i.e. sum values in Original::$C if

corresponding value in Original::$A = value in first column of Pivot
corresponding value in Original::$B = value in first row of Pivot

The 'all' values are just simple sums of those rows or columns.

Pivot table simply do not exist in Numbers and as far as I know they have never existed. In previous versions however there was a feature called "Categories" which used to serve almost the same purpose, but unfortunately in the more recent versions many of the features has been removed and "Categories" is one of them. The only possible way I have found to emulate a pivot table was to use formulas to categorize different values and run an aggregate on the them. This technique is explained here in the following blog post:
How to mimic pivot tables in Numbers 3


How can I get files on my iPad into my Dropbox? Let's say I get a file in an email, or have it stored in GoodReader, or find a link to it on the web, and want to put it into my Dropbox using the ipad app.

It seems like the only files you can add from the app are photos and video.  Am I missing anything?  Goodreader is a great example of how an app can "pull in" compatible files from emails, etc, but I can't find any similar capability in the Dropbox app.

I believe that whilst this capability is not included in the official dropbox app, it is possible to accomplish using GoodReader for iPad.

Open GoodReader on iPad and expand the section in the bottom right of the main screen which says "Connect to Servers"
Tap "Add"
Tap "Dropbox"
Enter your details and click add
Now tap the server you just added (I called it "Dropbox")
In the bottom right hand corner of the popover that just came up is a button saying upload. Tap it.
Select the files you want to upload and tap "Upload"

You will only need to do steps 5-7 the second time

Jailbreak your device and install iFile from Cydia.