To-Do List App with Sync, Repeating To-Dos I'm looking for a To-Do list application with with following features:

Due dates
Notes
Sync to a cloud or web-based service where changes can be made
Able to repeat to-dos by due date and last-completed date
Prioritization
Groups / Filters / Folders such as Business, Personal, School
Badge for items due today
Projects (which incorporate other to-do items)

Can anyone recommend a to-do app with this functionality (especially the first 4 bolded items)?

2Do
has all the features that you require (and more):

Due dates ✓
Notes ✓
Sync to a cloud or web-based service where changes can be made ✓ (Dropbox, iCloud and other)
Able to repeat to-dos by due date and last-completed date ✓
Prioritization ✓
Groups / Filters / Folders such as Business, Personal, School ✓
Badge for items due today (tab for today)
Projects (which incorporate other to-do items) ✓

[pictures]

I would recommend adding Must Do Today to the list. It's a great app, simple and easy to use.
Must Do Today helps you organize your busy day.

http://mustdotoday.com/


How can I see all apps in 'Essentials' in Mac and iTunes app stores? A quick question: While navigating the Mac and iOS appstores, I often see some apps marked with a grey rectangular box with rounded edges called 'Essentials', which appears just below the rating of the app. The selection of apps marked in this ways seems quite well thought-out to me. Is there a way to see all these 'Essential' apps in one place?

For example, 'Day One', 'Evernote' and 'WolframAlpha' are all 'Essential' apps in the iOS store.

After a bit of research (in the stores themselves, using Google, and in the Apple Developer Program resources), I'm rather sure no list of these is available from Apple themselves or from any third party.

I found the best ways to find the apps tagged as "Essentials," is to look in these places:

Both the Mac App Store and the iTunes App Store have a link on their front page called "New to the (Mac) App Store?" Most apps listed there, which are not games, have the "Essentials" badge. It's not the way to find them all though, as e.g. the WolframAlpha app you mentioned is not listed on that page in the iTunes Store. There are also some apps which don't have the badge, e.g. Shazam is tagged as "Editors' Choice," but not "Essentials" in the Mac App Store.
The iTunes App Store also has a link "App Collections." Although the page this link leads to is titled "Essentials App Collections," quite a number of the apps listed in the collections don't have the "Essentials" badge. On the other hand, you can find a lot of "Essentials" this way.

My impression is the difference between the "Essentials" tag and e.g. "Editors' Choice" is not very well defined, and just picked by a specific Apple store editor. And I noticed some of those apps may be only essential to a very specific crowd. E.g. the djay 2 app, also tagged "Essentials," is most definitely the best and most popular DJ app for the iPad out there, but it's only essential to a select group.

In the end, although there is no definitive list, going though the various collections made by Apple editors, will lead you to a lot of "Essential" apps.


iPad Factory Reset Without iTunes I have a 4th gen iPad that I haven't used for so long that I forgot the PIN.  I  want to restore it to factory defaults as I plan to use it again.  Everything I'm finding on this topic suggests that I need to use iTunes on a computer to accomplish this.  Is this actually the case?  Can't I use some combination of powering off/powering on and physical buttons to accomplish the same thing?

No amount of button pushing reloads the OS.

You can try to brute force the pin, you can try to log in if you already have jail broken the device, the only option to bypass the pin is to connect to USB and have iTunes or a similar sophisticated program speak with the firmware.

Once you've loaded things with iTunes (or substitute) then you have to deal with activation lock if you have that enabled.

There is only one way to force your iPad to reset if you do not know the passcode and do not have access to a computer.  If you put in the wrong passcode 10 consecutive times, the iPad will automatically erase all data and then reset itself.  This is only if this feature has already been set up in your general settings.  It will take some time, because the more times you put in the wrong passcode, the longer the ipad will lock until you can try it again (1 minute, then 5, then 30, then an hour, then 24 hours for the tenth and final time).  then, you do not need a computer or iTunes to set up you iPad...it will be like it is brand new.


Connecting 2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro to Dell U2715H? What would be the 'best' way to connect the 2015 Retina MacBook Pro to a Dell U2715H monitor? If I wanted to use the monitors USB 3.0 ports and also output sound to a Dell soundbar, how many cables would I need?

I was previously considering getting a Thunderbolt Display, but the reasons against are:

Bigger and heavier than the Dell
Ugly wide bezels
Twice as expensive as the Dell
Uses more power than the Dell

I do wonder what functionality I'll lose though. Will I end up having to (dis)connect HDMI, USB and audio each time I (un)dock the laptop?

Would I connect the MacBook to the display using some sort of adapter, or just the HDMI port? UPDATE: The U2715H doesn't support 2560x1440 over HDMI, only using the MiniDP connection.

Do NOT use the HDMI video output!

Please buy a Mini DisplayPort cable connect your MacBook and U2715H.

U2715H has support for 2560x1440 over HDMI — tested with MacBook Pro Retina with NVIDIA 750M.


2017 iMac won't read SDXC Card I did not find any solution for my problem, so I'm asking this here:

My 2017 iMac won't read a 128 GByte SDXC Card (used to store photos in my Canon 5D Mk IV). It mounts and (most of the time) the files show up in Finder. But if I try to copy or import any of the photos from the card (for example into Lightroom), my mac tells me that it can't read the file because it's corrupt or something. I tried several solutions from this and other forums, but none fixed the problem.

The Filesystem is ExFAT and it's a Lexar (95 MByte/s) SDXC Card. My iMac has no problems to read from a 64 GByte SD Card from Samsung.

My PC and Windows Laptop can copy files from both cards without any problems (so it cannot be corrupt files or a corrupt filesystem).

Any ideas?

Kind regards,
Frank

I have a similar problem with my iMac 2017 and a 128 GB SD card (SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-1).

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250474343?answerId=250905207022#250905207022

My iMac (OS 10.14.6) refuse to mount the 128 GB card.

It's a brand new card and I use it in my digital camera. The card works as it should in my camera and I'm also able to mount the card on my Macbook Pro (2009) OS 10.11.6.

I have other SD cards (32 GB) that I can mount on my iMac, so I know that there is no hardware problem with my iMac's card reader.

It's weird that the 128 GB card works on an older Macbook Pro which is running an older version of Mac OS. But it doesn't work on a newer model (iMac 2017) which is running the latest Mac OS version.

I think it is a software bug that Apple needs to fix. Although I have a feeling that Apple does not prioritize it. So the best thing is to use another computer than Apple and their latest OS, or to not use 128 GB cards with your Apple computer.


Poor battery performance after SSD install I recently installed a Crucial SSD into my Macbook Pro (2.66 GHz Intel Core i7), and now the performance of my battery is probably about 50% of what it used to be.

I've tried to reset the PRAM, but the OS loads so quickly that it I've never been able to trigger, even though I'm quick with hitting the keys.

Any suggestions for improving performance, and/or resetting the PRAM?

Thanks

Modern Macintosh computers store very little information in PRAM so resetting it is seldom a useful troubleshooting step.

Have you checked the condition of the battery using System Information? (It's in the Utilities folder and also accessible from the menu: [Apple] > About this Mac > More Info… > System Report —assuming you're running Lion)

If you're seeing Service Battery under the Hardware > Power:Battery Information/Health Information section that's probably your issue.

You might improve the battery life with a System Mangement Controller reset. Assuming your MacBook Pro doesn't have a removable battery, the SMC reset procedure is:

  Shut down the computer. Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power
  source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected. On the
  built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and
  the power button at the same time. Release all the keys and the power
  button at the same time. Press the power button to turn on the
  computer.   Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change
  states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.

To reset PRAM you need to press and hold cmd+optn/alt+p+r right after pressing power button and wait till it restarts with startup chime.

This shortcut triggers PRAM reset during POST procedure. It doesn't matter how fast or slow your disk is because it happens before any disk activity at all. Try press the combination after you send system to reboot from booted state.


Weird output from ls command in Terminal I recently started customising my Mac terminal and adding Vim stuff. After some time I noticed that when executing ls command, I keep getting:

)<CR>?vnoremap <Space> zf??

along-with regular ls command output. For example:

$ ls
)<CR>?vnoremap <Space> zf?? Documents                   Movies                      Public
Applications                Downloads                   Music                       Workspace
Desktop                     Library                     Pictures

I have no idea where it is coming from. It happens only in ls command and it happens in both built-in Terminal.app and iTerm2 (zsh shell).

I have tried grep-ing <Space> pattern (etc.) in my Home directory, but there is no file with such string.

noremap - command from vim, so when saving file, the name has been assigned. A detailed ls would help or installing something like Midnight Commander, which runs with as simple mc command and helps to evaluate it visually.

Here are the terminal commands for working with the file.  the backslash \ is a way to escape special characters.  The tab key will expand the filename.

so you type
ls \(
then you press the tab key.  the ls the l is a lower case L

the rm is the remove command.  You need to be careful when using this command.  the files deleted are gone forever!

I'll put a space between the r and m, but you need to remove the space. The -i says to verify the delete. be certain not to have any other funny characters in the rm line. you cannot see it, but I typed ls (  then pressed the tab key.

mac $ touch \(abc
mac $ ls
(abc          duplicateOne  one           subdirD.app/  three         two
mac $ ls \(abc
(abc
mac $ r m -i \(abc
remove (abc? y
mac $


Remove suggested apps option in iOS 10 As far as I can tell, suggested apps show themselves based on location.

There are two places where these suggested apps show themselves to me:

At the bottom left of the multitask screen when I double press the home button
At the bottom left of the lock screen

CNET's Disable iOS 8's 'Suggested Apps' feature article describes how to get rid of the small app icon appearing in the bottom left. However, this method is for iOS 8, and I am now on iOS 10, where I am unable to find iTunes and App Store > Suggested Apps.

How can I get rid of these (in my opinion) annoying little things?

I may have figured it out myself:

To keep the Siri suggestions when you swipe right or down in the home screen, but to remove the icon at the bottom left of the screen when you double click the home button go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Location-Based Suggestions > OFF.

Since I did that I have not seen the little icons.

After you change your settings, restart your phone by pressing the home button and the power button at the same time. Bc right away your settings won't change everything for you


From which year do MacBook keyboards have no issues? Firstly, apologies for the somewhat vague, somewhat subjective question. I search for this question on Google and have spent the past 20 minutes wading through clickbait and misinformation along the lines of:

Define issues:

Dust accumulation behind keys causing a single keypress to cause n != 1 keypresses to register (mostly 2 or 0).

Define no issues:

What is considered normal for any properly functioning hardware (my guess is 1/10,000 perhaps? - so 1/10 devices would definitely be problematic)

Question

Starting which year can someone buy a MacBook Pro and be sure with a high degree of certainty that they're getting a functioning keyboard?

Generally speaking, any Apple laptop available for sale from May 2020 comes with a comparatively reliable keyboard.

To elaborate, the distinction you should be looking for is whether the laptop comes with a Butterfly Switch key mechanism vs Scissor Switch key mechanism.

When it comes to recent generation of Apple laptops, there are basically categorized into three distinct classes (increasing order of performance, decreasing order of portability):

MacBook (marketed as New MacBook released between 2015-2019)
MacBook Air
MacBook Pro

Apple first introduced Butterly Switch keyboard design with 2015 MacBook. Butterfly Switch keyboard featured flatter key design with lesser key travel, and an entirely new internal mechanism. Butterfly Switch design was then incorporated in the re-designed 2016 MacBook Pro lineup (13" and 15") and subsequently into 2018 13" MacBook Air.

Apart from having difference in terms of tactile feedback, key travel and user experience compared to the predecessor Scissor Switch design, (which could be subjective) Butterly key design, in general, performed poorly in terms of reliability compared to their ancestor Scissor Switch design.

Due to growing user concerns, the Butterly Switch design saw iterations over four generations where the internal mechanism was tweaked and new materials were used, but the reliability issues still persisted to an extent, causing Apple to launch the Keyboard Service Program. Under the program, customers are eligible to get a service or even a replacement of keyboard if needed, free of cost.

However, starting recently with the introduction of Late 2019 16" MacBook Pro which was released in November 2019, Apple attempted to address the issue with an entirely overhauled and enhanced keyboard design based on Scissor Switch and re-branded it as New Magic Keyboard. The general response for the said Magic Keyboard has been

This scissor mechanism has been further adopted into Early 2020 13" MacBook Air, released in March 2020, and subsequently in Mid 2020 13" MacBook Pro release in May 2020.

With this last release, the transition of the entire lineup of Apple laptops to use scissor switch is complete and they are all re-branded as the New Magic Keyboard.

Apple has discontinued MacBook from its laptop lineup in June 2019.

It depends what you mean by "bad" in terms of the failure rate, and on how much you believe the hype around it. I have a MacBook Air with one of the butterfly ("bad") keyboards and have had no problems with it at all. I'm sure most people with the the same keyboard also have had no problems. I think it's too early to determine whether or not the new designed keyboard is more reliable since it's only been out for a month or so.


Dock crashes on network aliases to offline server I have several shortcuts to network folders in my dock. Since I'm running El Capitan, the Dock crashes and will not restart properly after killing it when those network connections are not available (the server is either off, or I'm on another netowork).

Is this a known issue? Are there any workarounds? I can't find any related topics.

In my case, I removed the passwords and the servers from the Keychain access.

And El Capitan doesn't try anymore to auto-connect to the servers.

This in not the perfect solution because I have to tape the password each time, but for now, it's better.

First solution, not the best, but it's works for me.

If the passwords are not in memory, the servers are not auto-mounted !


Applications Don't Show Up in Spotlight Spotlight has stopped showing any results for my Applications. I've tried reindexing and removing the index so it rebuilds it. No change. I've tried adding Applications to the Privacy tab and removing it, no change.  I tried repairing disk permissions and redoing the above, no change. I've tried removing everything from the index except Applications and then I just get nothing for any search at all (except dictionary entries).  I tried adding a symlink in my homedir to Applications and reindexing, but no change.

Any ideas on what to do?  I'm running Snow Leopard.  This is driving me crazy!

Update: I've noticed that when I start a reindex with sudo mdutil -E / and then immediately do a Spotlight search for an app that the app shows up temporarily until Spotlight gets disabled due to active indexing.  After the indexing is done, the app entries go away.

Loading the metadata plist worked for me:

Turn off spotlight:

sudo mdutil -a -i off

Unload it:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

Load It:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

Turn on spotlight again:

sudo mdutil -a -i on

Now everything is being reindexed as expected.

In newer versions of macOS, just turning indexing off then back on again resolves the issue.

For me, it was as simple as opening terminal (use command + space, then type terminal)
Then simply
sudo mdutil -a -i off

It will ask for you password, enter it and hit enter.
Then
sudo mdutil -a -i on


iTunes only showing Purchased Music My iTunes is suddenly only showing music purchased through iTunes.  I have tried renaming the files per as mentioned on this Apple Support Communities thread and had no luck.  I am also not using iTunes Match.

In iTunes go to "File" -> "Import Folders" then simply select all the folders from your "iTunes Music". They will be sent to your library!


How to fix slow trackpad: OSX 10.12.2 I just installed the latest patch for Sierra, so am now on 10.12.2. Post-upgrade my pointer controlled through trackpad runs very slow when I open the laptop. I can fix it by opening System Preferences -> Trackpad -> Point & Click, and just moving the "Tracking speed" slider a notch and then back to where I want it. But the fix doesn't seem to persist, so I have to do this every time I wake the machine. Does anyone know how to fix the issue permanently?

Update: using a mouse works fine regardless of trackpad state. Further, opening a full-screen application resets the trackpad back to being slow, so it's not just when the computer goes to sleep :(

I would try resetting both the SMC and PRAM/NVRAM.

SMC

The instructions for resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) will differ depending on whether your computer:

runs from a built-in battery?
runs from a removable battery?
can only run from power off a wall socket?

Since you haven't specified your computer I will provide the instructions for all three possibilities.

For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own (i.e. it's a built-in battery), here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (or power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

For MacBook Pros, MacBooks etc that you can remove the battery from, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Disconnect the MagSafe plug (power cable) from the computer
Remove the battery
Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
Put the battery back in
Reconnect the MagSafe cord (or power cable)
Turn your computer back on with the power button

For iMacs, Mac Pros, Mac Minis, etc that only run from a power point in the wall

Shut down your computer
Unplug it from power
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds
Plug it back in and turn it on.

PRAM/NVRAM

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). Regardless of what Mac you have, the instructions for resetting this are as follows:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. mouse speed, time and date/timezone, etc).

Empty your Mac’s cache, by using the Finder window and selecting Go to Folder in the Go menu. Next, type in ~/Library/Caches and hit enter to go to that folder and empty it.
2) Try holding down command + option when you launch the app.
3) Another explanation could be an issue with your Mac’s security settings. Go to the Security and Privacy system preferences, and check the Allow applications downloaded from: Anywhere setting.
4) Try resetting your computer’s PRAM. To do this, shut down your Mac and turn it back on. As soon as you hear the startup sound, hold down command, option, P and R. Hold these down until you hear the computer restart and the startup sound playing for a second time.


How to force Finder to update file thumbnails? Recently I updated album covers in most of my mp3s, but their respective thumbnails on Finder did not get updated.

Things I tried:

Removed (rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist) without solving the issue at all
"touch"(ed) the files, which refreshed some - not all - the thumbnails

Any ideas on how to force a refresh of my mp3 thumbnail icons in Finder?

See the manifestation of this issue below:

Thumbnails are generated by QuickLook. You can reset its cache by typing qlmanage -r cache.

If this didn't work reset it completly with qlmanage -r.

I found this thread on the Apple forum where one guy said he had the same problem as you with Finder not showing the cover art on MP3 icons.  He said he fixed the problem by going into iTunes and deleting all his Voice Memos (apparently you have to delete them from both the Playlist and Genre sections in iTunes) and then restarting iTunes.  A bunch of people replied to him saying that solved the problem for them as well.  If you need your voice memos then back them up to a different location before you delete them from iTunes.


How to disable iChat's popup "You are not connected to the internet"? I am tired of seeing the "You are not connected to the internet" message from iChat every time after I open my macbook. I use iChat for screen sharing. Is it possible to disable the annoying popup or should I just use another app for messaging and screen sharing?

You should probably use another app for screensharing and messaging.  If you choose to do this, I reccomend Adium for messaging and TeamViewer for screensharing.  I searched the contents of the whole iChat application, and I couldn't find anything, which leads me to believe that the pop up (I've had it too) is not actually part of the iChat application, but used by iChat.

Open ichat, close windows, logout. That fixed it for me.


A keychain cannot be found to store "NETWORK." I just recently purchased a refurbished MacBook Air from Apple running Sierra.

For the most part it is functioning just how I would expect it to, except for the following: for certain networks (it appears to be limited to just wpa2 personal networks. wpa2 enterprise with RADIUS authentication connects automatically just fine) it will not remember the pass.

I leave the network, rejoin, and get prompted with the message:

  A keychain cannot be found to store "NETWORK."

It gives me an option to reset the keychain, which I would love to do (there are no custom CA/client certificates on here yet, just a stock certificate bank), but when it prompts me to put in my password, I can't type anything in the box.

I have tried the solution listed here, but still get the same result.

A restart after applying system updates fixed this issue.

There might be some system update which must be waiting, try restarting the Mac.


Disable swapping on Yosemite Under OS X Mavericks and below we just could launchctl unload the dynamic_pager plist, but trying to unload this plist doesn't have any effect since OS X Yosemite.

What is the new way to disable swap files now with OS X Yosemite?

Have you tried something like this?

# Check installed RAM, disable VM if 8Gb or more.

mem_inst=`/usr/sbin/sysctl -n hw.memsize`

if [ "$mem_inst" -ge "8589934592" ]; then
    echo "8Gb+ Memory installed."
        if [ "$action" == "unload" ]; then
            sudo nvram boot-args="vm_compressor=2"
            sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
            echo "vm.compressor_mode set to 2"
        else
            sudo nvram boot-args="vm_compressor=4"
            sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3
            echo "vm.compressor_mode reset to defaults"
        fi
            launch_control $action /System/Library/LaunchDaemons com.apple.dynamic_pager
    else
    echo "Less than 8Gb memory."
fi

This isn't something I wrote, was information I found.

I used a program called Onyx to disable my swap file.
& I have 16GB of RAM.


Safari (and system) share menu - Messages and other items missing in Sierra System configuration

Running Sierra (10.12.5)
MacBook Pro 13" (Early 2015)

Issue

Messages and many other options are missing from the system Share menu, both in Safari and in the Share Menu extensions pane.

These among others are missing:

Messages (most annoying)
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Vimeo
Flickr

Here's what I've tried so far with no success:

Update to latest Sierra 10.12.5
Run this command line to force-reload launch services
Disable and re-enable iCloud contacts
Disable and reenable System Integrity Protection

Related observations

Under Preferences -> Internet Accounts, I cannot check the box next to 'Share Menu' for Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo etc, even though accounts are correctly configured.

Really appreciate any help!

Update 7/11:

I just got an old 2011 MackBook Pro repaired, and upgraded it from El Capitan to Sierra. The Share menu works as expected, with Messages as an option. Still not working on the machine with the problem.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203129
This is the fix according to apple. I have a very similar problem but this fix enabled only one or two extensions for me. I ran it 3 times. I'm still looking for more info

After running the lsregister command from the link I had to log out and log back in again for the share menu to change.


Errorr kernel SMC::smcReadKeyAction in Console I have OSX 10.9 Maverics on my iMac and I got this message (in Console) every few seconds:

kernel[0]: SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR TH0P kSMCBadArgumentError(0x89) fKeyHashTable=0x0xffffff802af9b000

Any idea ?

The culprit can be a fan controll program you may have previously installed.

To my knowledge there are two possible candidates (FanControl & smcFanControl but there may be more that have the same problem).

You can verify if you have them installed and eliminate if needed.

NOTE: this problem is similar but not equal to this one Kernel SMC::smcReadKeyAction error The other one is for another version of OSX.

Procedure to check & eliminate FanControl

Open terminal and search for FanControl:

$ ps -ef | grep -i fan
0   145     1   0 Gio12am ??         3:58.07 /Library/StartupItems/FanControlDaemon/FanControlDaemon run

This tell you that you really have FanControlDaemon running as pid 145 as PidNumber

To eliminate it :

$ cd /Library/StartupItems/
$ sudo rm -Rf FanControlDaemon/

and then kill the daemon:

$ sudo kill PidNumber

WARNING: if you replicate this procedure replace PidNumber with the PID you get from ps -ef

This eliminate the messages for me.

Procedure to check & eliminate smcFanControl

I also try to run the current version of another fan controll utility called smcFanControl (version is 2.4) and it seem to not work in Maverics (no window) but it produce near the same message in Console:

15/11/13 14:19:35,000 kernel[0]: SMC::smcReadKeyAction ERROR TC0F kSMCBadArgumentError(0x89) fKeyHashTable=0x0xffffff802af9b000

Note that for smcFanControl you got "ERROR TC0F" instead of "ERROR TH0P".

If you have this problem you can try to find and kill the process "smcFanControl" instead.

$ ps -ef | grep -i fan
501 45716   254   0  2:44pm ??         0:00.38 /Users/dave/Downloads/firefox/smcfancontrol_2_4/smcFanControl.app/Contents/MacOS/smcFanControl

If you find it then kill the rogue process as explained before.

I too have the same error and I am using smcFanControl 2.4 with Maverics. The fan control seems to work just fine. I tested all three fans and they all did what I programed them to do, so I am not sure what issues you were having with the program.


Converting .rtf to .doc/.dox with a service I like to write in rich text with textedit and then do more complicated formatting tasks with Pages 5.0. However, Pages doesn't open rich text. To get the text into pages I either have to copy and paste, or laboriously duplicate the file in textedit and save it as .doc/docx. On top of that, I then have re-save to file in the .pages format to be able to edit it with Pages.

What I would like is a simple automator workflow to save the foremost textedit .rtf file to a .doc/.docx format, which can then be opened by Pages and saved to the .pages format.

I think there is a built-in program called textutil which could be used in the workflow.

Here is a wrapper of the textutil utility. Download this workflow to convert various file types. It's very useful when converting in batches. Download it from the below address.

http://automatorworld.com/download/convert-text.zip

I use Convertio.co to convert RTF to DOC files. It's a free online service you might want to try it and see what you get.


reattach terminal tab to another window Suppose you have a terminal with two tabs. You click, drag, and let go one of these tabs and it becomes an independent terminal window. After a while, you want to take this terminal window and reattach it as a tab to the previous window. How do you do it ? I have seen the merge windows option in the menus, but that merges all windows into one, which I would then have to revert.

You need to, in the window you want to move, go to View-> Show Tab Bar (if the tab bar isn't showing already).

Then, drag the tab of the window you want to move onto the window you want to move it to.

Update for iTerm 2: In iTerm 2 the setting is no longer exposed in the View menu.  Go to iTerm > Preferences > Appearance > Tabs and check "Show tab bar even when there is only one tab". Note that in early releases of iTerm 2 the setting was "Hide tab bar when there is only one tab".

I had troubles merging windows with the Hotkey Window profile.  I eventually found a way to un-split the windows by doing the following:

Preferences > uncheck Hide tab bar when there is only one tab
Set Tab position to Bottom
Press your hotkey to show the Hotkey Window
Click & drag the tab into the Hotkey Window's tab bar


How do I move a window whose title bar is off-screen? I encountered a strange problem today. I downloaded FileZilla and on first launch the title bar was above my mouse pointer's reach. Making the window unmovable.

Here is a screenshot of my situation.

Is there a way to fix this? I've tried reopening the application and rebooting.

Hold on option (or alt) while clicking the Window menu.  This should change Bring All to Front into Arrange in Front, which did the trick for me.

This worked for me on OSX 10.9.1

Pressing alt while resizing actually also changes the location of the bar to make it visible! It worked


Temporary Folder Path for Apple Script set targetFile to (path to temporary items as string) & fileName

I am trying to download a web image to temporary folder by curl in a Apple Script.

According to the above code, the curl downloads it as correct but the targetFile is currently as:

Macintosh HD:private:var:folders:...TemporaryItems:image.png

But after download, I need the downloaded image path as a correct file path like:

/tmp/image.png

How can I set targetFile as a string that have slash containing file path? Or how can I get the file path of the image after it is downloaded by curl?

Try this code:

set targetFile to quoted form of ((POSIX path of (path to temporary items)) & filename)

That will give you a proper POSIX path to the standard temporary folder. On my machine, for instance, this gave me:

'/private/var/folders/rl/zwlvv_hd6ss4c4yhb6nxxfz80000gn/T/TemporaryItems/<somefilename>'

I've used the quoted form of command in case the filename used contains a space or other special shell character.

You could also use System Events.app, like so:

tell application "System Events"
    set targetfolder to quoted form of (get POSIX path of file filename of temporary items folder)
end tell

Other answers are good, but do not address security issues.  Other users of the machine can see files in /tmp.  Combining the question and accepted answer yields (IMHO) a better answer:

set fileName to "output.txt"
set targetFile to (path to temporary items as string) & fileName
log POSIX path of targetFile

This yields /private/var/folders/m1/ldn6fy6n38d52b1fmztr99br0000gp/T/TemporaryItems/output.txt


MacBook Pro 16" running hot I have a MacBook Pro 16 inch base model. I am a programmer, which means that it is running hot when I am working. When I am working it is between 70-80 degrees celsius, but when I open activity monitor only like 10-15% of the CPU is being used.

So my question is, how can so much of the CPU be idle but it is still run at 70-80 degrees celsius

Idle does not mean the CPU stops. The CPU can never actually stop. At best, the CPU can go into a continuous loop, but this still requires the use of electricity. This use of electricity produces heat.

Idle means the operating system is waiting for something to do. In this case, the CPU may be use less electricity, but the electricity usage does not go to zero. I would image the temperature is more a function of the fan speed, which I assume in a correctly working Mac is high enough to protect the hardware.

I'm having all sorts of issues with MBP 16"
Why don't you check this out, try charging with the right side :
How to find cause of high kernel_task cpu usage?


How can I execute sudo commands as a cron job? I'm trying to execute a shell script as a cron job. The problem is that my script needs to be run as a super user. I tried it with just writing sudo infront of the command in my crontab file, but it didn't work.

Cron is not in any way deprecated, but LaunchD has more versatility and is used, and actively maintained/supported by Apple.  Their best practices guide is here

LaunchDaemon jobs(versus LaunchAgents, which take on a users id) run in root's context without needing to enable the root user. All that is required is a properly formed XML file(you can just copy-paste pre-existing ones in /Library/LaunchDaemons, substituting your script for the ProgramArguments with the applicable schedule keys) with the proper ownership/permissions.  An older writeup can be found here:
afp548's launchd-in-depth article

Comment "Defaults    requiretty" from /etc/sudoers using visudo.


Should I turn my iPad off to replace the MicroSIM? Should I turn my iPad off to replace the MicroSIM card?

If by "3g chip", you are referring to the iPad MicroSIM card, then no, you do not need to power off the device to switch it out. However, if you're referring to the actual 3G radio inside the iPad, my advice is to take it to an Apple store and have the repair done by an Apple technician, as operating on the device yourself is likely to void the warranty.

It always better to switch off such devices before replacing SIMs.  With the exception of USB ports found on computers, its always recommended to turn off devices before connecting or replacing cables and chips.


How can I check if an iPhone is new or refurbished based on its serial number? I want to make sure that the replacement iPhone I am being given is new, not refurbished.

Given the serial number, is there any way to tell if an iPhone is new or has been refurbished?

I don't think you can do it with the serial number, but if you were given a replacement in a box that looked like the original packaging, then it's new. Else it is a refurb — at least, that has been my experience with Apple so far. This thread also supports that:

  If the replacement was from a black box (with the iPhone pictured on it), that's a new one. If you need to have your phone replaced in the first 14 days, it should be done as a retail swap. After that, for warranty replacements, you'll be given a refurb (assuming they are available, they take a while to get into the pipeline). Generally, replacement iPhones are packaged in plain white boxes with no accessories. New ones can be packaged like that too, for Genius Bar replacements, but after the phone has been out a while they will mostly be refurb units.

So in short, if you're looking at replacing an iPhone just a few weeks or a couple of months after release, then it's most probably a new stock. If it's been a while since the model released, then it's most probably a refurbished phone.

Yes, there is a way: if the starting four digits of serial numbers are continuously letters or numbers, then that is a refurbished device.


Remote access of an iPad display from another iPad I've got an iPad and I was searching for new applications with new features. Currently I'm searching for an application by that I can remotely access another iPad screen just like Teamviewer.

Is there any iPad application available which can be useful to access another iPad's screen.

The iOS security sandbox will prevent any App store app from sharing the screen of any other app on a stock iPad.  However the built-in AirPlay mirroring will allow a user to send a mirror of their iPad display to an Apple TV.

Zoom lets you share pictures, and other thins - but, not the desktop.


IOS 8.1.3 - Return to Inbox After Deleting After deleting an open e-mail, is there a way to return to the inbox by default instead of opening the next e-mail in the list?

I kno. I want tha same thing. Don't think it can be done.


How to run a Tiger 10.4.11 virtual machine? I need to access some .omf files, which were originally created in an old version of AVID DV. As far as I know, this software only ran on Tiger PPC Macs. The PowerMac PPC G5 I originally used is on it's very last legs & will not reliably start up. An AVID rep told me that these old files would not be accessible with a current version of AVID and I have discovered that these files cannot be accessed with Final Cut Pro. What is my best option for getting this software running so I can access these OMF files in an AVID DV timeline?

What I have to work with:

a white Intel Santa Rosa Macbook [3,1 - Build 9L31a] running Leopard
the original MacBook Leopard install discs
a variety of non-bootable disk image clones of a PPC G5 Tiger drive w/ AVID DV installed
the dongle required for AVID DV to run
the original G5 PPC Tiger install discs
the original AVID DV install discs
a Mountain Lion / Yosemite dual-boot Mac Mini
a 2TB blank external USB drive
a 1TB external Firewire drive that I can erase & reformat if necessary
Parallels & Fusion for Mt. Lion

You could try using the PearPC Emulator running on Linux or Win32 (Bootcamp?) to emulate a PPC and boot your drive images.

http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/installmacos.html


How can I "automatically" get a reminder that day is done? I many times forget time and stay long hours in the office.
Is there any kind of app that would automatically set a reminder when computer starts + X hours passed?
Now I try to set a reminder (native app) but many times I forget, and it is a bit tedious.
I was wondering if there is somekind of automated way to get some kind of reminder that the day is done?
Has anyone had a similar issue and solved it with some other approach?

Go to the built-in Clock app and add an alarm for the time you want to go home or log off your computer. Select repeat and choose the weekdays that you want it to go off. You can choose a ringtone or song (We Gotta Get Out Of This Place) instead of one of the standard tones if you want.

The Timer tab in the Clock app can sound an alarm after 8 hours if that's what you want instead.

You have some great productivity soft like that :

  THE ULTIMATE TIMER. IT'S INSANELY SIMPLE. Toggl’s time tracker is
  built for speed and ease of use. Time keeping with Toggl is so simple
  that you’ll actually use it. Toggl drives a stake in the heart of
  timesheets.

https://toggl.com

  Find your ideal work‑life balance. With so many distractions and
  possibilities in your digital life, it's easy to get scattered.

  RescueTime helps you understand your daily habits so you can focus and
  be more productive.

https://www.rescuetime.com

  Start putting your time to good use with My Minutes. Wasting too much
  time browsing the web? Put a cap on your web surfing by setting a goal
  of "at most 45 minutes".

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-minutes-simple-personal/id553366149?mt=8

An exhaustive list here :

http://www.fastcompany.com/3024249/10-time-tracking-apps-that-will-make-you-more-productive-in-2014


Time Machine Backup over WiFi Causes Erratic Magic Trackpad Behavior My Setup
I have a mid-2010 13" MacBook Pro running OSX 10.4.8.
TimeMachine is configured to run hourly backups over WiFi to a TimeCapsule.
I also have a Magic Trackpad linked to my computer via Bluetooth.

The Problem
When TimeMachine begins its backup, if my computer is not connected via ethernet (WiFi connection only), the cursor controlled by the Magic Trackpad moves erratically to the point of being unusable for the duration of the backup.  When the TimeMachine backup completes, normal movement/responsiveness to Magic Trackpad gestures is restored.

Current Workaround
If I repeat the process but use an ethernet connection, there is no erratic cursor movement.

What I've tried
At first I presumed a hardware issue was to blame, but I tried with my dad's trackpad and got the same behavior.

--

Has anyone else experienced this?Is there any workaround besides keeping my laptop connected via ethernet?

Try connecting to 5GHz channel. Rumor has it that the trackpad is sensitive to interference with 2.4GHz wifi.


Why can't I select tracks in Apple Music? If I search for a song and select it from the search results, it starts to play as expected. But for some reason, if I open an album, I can't select a track to play, I can only shuffle the album and skip tracks until I get the one I wanted. The tracks are greyed out.

Why can't I directly play tracks from albums? I'm currently on my free trial.

Edit: This does not happen only on explicit tracks, and I have restrictions off, so it's not that.

The problem is indicated by the track names being grey.

Something is preventing your device from connecting to the store.

Try another network connection
Try on cellular data
Try powering off phone
Ensure that you were allowing cellular data to playback iTunes music from the cloud
once you've ruled these out, consider filing a bug or feedback to Apple

You will know that you solved the problem when you see the track names in bright white just like the rest of the text on the page. Compare the shuffle text with the first track name in your screenshot for example.

I'm dealing with this myself. I selected the triple dots in the upper right and selected to make the album available offline. I'm hoping to see the songs show available when we connect to wifi


Full Wi-fi/ethernet signal but no internet I'm really hoping someone here can help me, as I'm getting pretty frustrated with my macbook now.
I have a late 2011 model 15" macbook pro running OSX 10.9.5 that refuses to connect to Internet on my home network. I have the same problem whether it's WiFi or through ethernet cable, I have full signal but not getting online. Every other device connects fine; android phones and tablets,xbox one, iPhone and other macbooks, all online and browsing the net.
I have had no problems connecting to other networks with my macbook pro before and I just tried at a friend's house to check, with no problems.
A little something, that may be a clue to someone: when I open network diagnostic tool, my macbook pro connects for something that seems like a microsecond and it tells me I'm connected to Internet and everything seems fine.
My IP is 192.168.0.5 subnet mask 255.255.255.0 and IPv6 is set to automatic. None of the options are checked under the proxies tab.
Now I've tried the following, in different order and a number of times, to no avail:

Renewing/turning off&on/inputting manually DHCP.
Restarting/resetting the router and the macbook.
Turning WiFi on/off.
Remove & add services (WiFi & ethernet).
Checked and copied all network settings from another macbook pro that's connected and online on my network.
Ran network diagnostic and assistant tools
Duplicated/removed/added location
Removed the /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration folder.
Removed network password from keychain.

I've tried other things too, but can't remember what else right now.

Response from ifconfig en1:

en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        ether 28:cf:da:e6:95:0a
        inet6 fe80::2acf:daff:fee6:950a%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5
        inet 192.168.0.5 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
        nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>
        media: autoselect
        status: active

I'm praying that someone out there has the magic words or the 2-click solution for me, but I would be grateful for a long thorough guidelines to solve it too! <3

Regards Trond

Here is a step-by-step guide for you:

Temporarily disable any Firewall/Internet Security solution/packet filter on your Mac (like LittleSnitch/Hands Off!/Kaspersky Internet Security etc.)
Connect to the administrative interface of your router with a working Mac.
Make a note of the internal interface (probably 192.168.0.1 in your case)
If your router uses MAC-filters to control access, check that the Mac in question isn't blacklisted or is whitelisted if you use whitelists. To get the MAC-address of a Wi-fi interface, open System Preferences -> Network -> Choose "Wi-fi" -> Advanced -> Hardware -> MAC Address on the Mac without internet access.
On the Mac without internet access disable all interfaces in the network preferences pane except the Wi-fi interface by choosing the interface and clicking on the little gear -> "Make Service Inactive". You might have to unlock the lock in the left bottom corner first.
Choose the Wi-fi interface and click 'Advanced'
Choose the TCP/IP settings, choose to configure IPv4 manually and enter the proper IP-address, netmask and gateway address (enter the IP-address found in step 2 as gateway address). In your example  this should be any address not already in use in the range of 192.168.0.2-192.168.0.254 as IP-address, 255.255.255.0 as netmask and 192.168.0.1 as gareway.
Choose the DNS tab next to the TCP-IP settings.
Enter 8.8.8.8 as DNS server. This DNS server is a public one from Google.
Save/apply the settings
Open Terminal.app
Flush any existing routes by entering route -n flush several times.
Flush DNS cache with dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder. You have to enter your admin password to complete the task. This works with Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) only. If another OS X is installed use the appropriate command.
Now ping the gateway address and the DNS server with ping -c 5 192.168.0.1 and ping -c 5 8.8.8.8. The command sends 5 pings to the specified address. To stop pinging - if you didn't include the -c  option - just enter ctrlC.
If you get a successful answer, quit Terminal. If you didn't get an answer, enter ifconfig en1 and re-check the proper settings of your Wi-fi interface. en1 should be your Wi-fi interface.
Return to the network preferences and reenable all other interfaces. Check that the Wi-fi interface is on top of the list. To reorder the list click on the little gear -> "Set Service Order..." and rearrange the interfaces.
Now open a browser of your choice and try to connect to an arbitrary site.
If you have internet access now, you may replace the Google DNS server with DNS-servers of your ISP or simply add them.

This guide didn't solve the problem.

After some very deep investigations (kudos also to John Keates) we found out that a misconfigured dnscrypt/dnscrypt-proxy was the culprit.

Try turning off any anti-virus software you have on your computer. That worked for me.


Disable the guest user completely in El Capitan without having to disable 'Find My Mac' I know it should be straight forward but unfortunately, it  isn't.

I did disable the guest user in the System Preferences by unchecking the checkbox for Allow guests to login in to this computer, but it still shows up on the login screen.

I have heard that disabling 'Find My Mac' would fix it for OS X Lion, but I want to keep it.

Is there a way to do this?

@alan-shutko pointed out very important info about this in his comment:

  The point is to make Find My Mac work. If you turn Find My Mac off,
  the guest account will go away. The reason it's there if Find My Mac
  is on is that if someone steals your mac, it cannot report its
  position unless the thief connects it to a wifi network.

Looks like we should keep it on.

I did everything mentioned above and in the end, i created a new user, restarted the computer, then deleted the new user and the guest no longer shows at startup. :)


Apple Pencil life span Recently I bought Apple Pencil (1 with lightning charger) for my iPad Air 3. My question is relating to the life span of this pencil.   I use it about 5 hour a day usually.
Do we know how many years I could expect my pencil to work?

The pencil should last several years if you're careful with it. The two ways it will fail are physical damage and eventual consumption of the batteries. One way you won’t get long life out of a pencil is if you don’t use it and keep it charged monthly.

Avoid hard drops to the hard floor.
Avoid never charging it or letting the battery go totally flat

Things you can fix are overuse, the tips wear out in a year or so of moderate to heavy use. Apple sells replacement tips for your pencil at 4 tips for $19.  Apple also offers battery service for $30.
This link will describe how to tell if tip is worn. You may want to check it out.

I bought the apple pencil in 2019, and it worked great back that time. Then 2020 happened and I did not have the opportunity to use it for about 10 months. Now, when the classes are resuming I see the pencil is dead. The only option available is to buy a new one; as another user said you need to keep charging it. It seems nothing more than an expensive toy!


Using the option key in Apple Script. I am working on a script that puts in strings of text into a document, and I was wondering how you would have apple script input the keystroke "Option-Return"

keycode 58 + 36

tell application "System Events" to key code 36 using {option down}

a handy link on applescripty
 - http://eastmanreference.com/complete-list-of-applescript-key-codes/


Cannot connect to SAMBA shares drive after update to Catalina I have a raspberry pi 4b running raspbian buster lite, connected to this I have a 1TB HDD, on Mojave I was able to connect to the network folder and access the files on it, however with the new Catalina update I get this when I try to access it (I can still see it) "The operation can’t be completed because the original item for “RASPBERRY FOLDER” can’t be found."
Is there any way to fix this or connect to the folder/files a different way?

Turn off packet signing for SMB 2 and SMB 3 connections as described in
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT205926:

Edit /etc/nsmb.conf (create it if necessary)
Add

[default]
signing_required=no

Save file
Reconnect SMB shares (or reboot your Mac)

I had the same problem and solved it in a strange way,
As we are all aware Mac user has actually 2 names: one is the username (the profile name if i may) and the Display name.

Prior to Catalina , when authenticating with an SMB share from a Windows computer , I was using the display name (although it is a full name with a space) and everything was cool.

In Catalina , I found out I can only use the username, windows cannot authenticate with the display name.

of course , before I got to this point I have checked/enabled SMBv2, created the NetBios file in the MAC and all the other hints I could find, which obviously did not do the trick for me.

hope this helps


On iOS 8, how do I turn on spell check without turning on Auto Correct? On iOS 8, how do I turn on spell check without turning on Auto Correct? I just want the red line to appear on words. But autocorrect is terrible and ruins most everything I say. So I just want spell check only. But when I turn off autocorrect then spell check turns off also. How do I fix that?

I'm on iOS 8.3 on a 5S.

Settings ➙ General ➙ Keyboard:

Turn off Auto-Correction

Make sure Check Spelling (at the bottom of that same screen) is on

Your iDevice will no longer automatically correct misspelled words, but it will highlight them for you. As far as I know this is the only way to have spell-checking on without the Auto-Correct feature.

Predictive was off. Turned it on and now I have my spell check back. And I turned auto correction off.


How to tell can I tell if my iPhone 5c is 3G or 4G? I ordered an iPhone 5c for 4G usage. However, the phone I received displays a 3G on the top left of my screen.

Does 3G on the top left mean I'm using 3G?

Does this convert to 4G through proper configuration?

If you see a 3G at the top left it means that you are in an area which does not have 4G support.

When you are in an area with 4G (or, on Verizon, LTE) you will see that in the top-left corner instead.

Only some 5c models support LTE, and they are only provided in certain countries..

See this list of model numbers..
http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/


MBP security and safety At work, I rely on a public wifi and don't see any good security standards or requirements or tips from Apple. Are there some general tips on first steps to take for securing OS X - if so they would be of great help to me in learning how to secure my Mac.

Whats the best way to keep my late 2012 MBP safe and secure?

Enable the firewall (System Preferences > Security and Privacy > Firewall). Also click on the Advanced settings, and enable "stealth mode".  This will help a bit with protecting you on public WiFi networks by not acknowledging ping packets and similar.

Don't enable any Sharing options (System Preferences > Sharing) unless you're positive you need them. Things like Remote Login and File Sharing are especially dangerous if your passwords are insecure.

Be wary in general of things you see. If there's a page (fake) that states you have hundreds of viruses that need to be removed, don't believe it. Think before you act basically. Easier said than done, but it's really the best summary of best practices.

So many people also forget about the fact that your bank or other important institutions will NEVER ask for personal information via email or for you to "update settings". When in doubt, go directly to the relevant institution's site.


Is it possible to invoke play button using terminal? I want to control my media player (iTunes, Spotify, etc) using terminal. My goal was simply to trigger press on play/pause button using script. Is that possible?

You can control iTunes using AppleScript:

tell application "iTunes" to play

To run it directly from Terminal command line, you can use osascript:

osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to play'

To figure out what commands are available in iTunes, use the ScriptEditor app and open the dictionary of iTunes, see How do I find out the applescript commands available for a particular app?

osascript is depreciated in macOS 10.13 (high sierra) making the previous solutions unusable.

mischah has created a nice commandline that can be used to control (and search!) itunes from the commandline:

https://github.com/mischah/itunes-remote

it doesnt do Shuffle or Volume - but you can search, play, stop, next from the terminal.

i had to do brew install npm - to get it to compile, but brew is quite well supported in the terminal, and this provides a more than acceptable alternative to the lack of osascripting of itunes.

cheers from toronto island,
jp


Is there a way I can import ReadItLater's exported html file into my Instapaper? Is there a way I can import my ReadItLater's exported html file into my Instapaper?

Though I don't have a tool now, I guess it can be done in couple of ways. Yes, no one click solution.

Email each url to your personal instapaper id (Refer this Lifehacker article)
Can parse your export list and use simple API from Instapaper to add the links to your account. Refer API docs

Update:

As I said earlier, it is not a one click solution but doable. As a matter of fact, I did create an extension for chrome to do this. Here is the link http://minus.com/mc3va2C

Update 2:

The source of the extension is available @ https://github.com/palaniraja/RIL2Insta

No, there is no way of doing this. With those applications.


What actions are performed by Install OS X Mountain Lion.app that are not performed by InstallESD.dmg without the app? Recommended

Apple provides and recommends use of Install OS X Mountain Lion.app

that is, "the app" – in its entirety.

For Build 12A269 for OS X 10.8, the version of the app is 1.3.12 (351).

Known

Ignoring parts of the app – with InstallESD.dmg alone:

installation may succeed.

(The same is true for Lion when parts of Install Mac OS X Lion.app are not used for installation.)

Unknown for Mountain Lion

The full list of:

things that do not occur, things that may not succeed, when installation is attempted or performed with something other than the app.

My initial plan is to accept an answer that provides either:

the fullest list; or
the best set of evidence for a partial list.

Starting points

com.apple.Boot.plist(5) OS X Manual Page – page dated March 17, 2011 for 10.7.4, the same date appears on the page within 10.8.

For Mountain Lion on some types of hardware, there may be a unique distribution (ESD).

Food for thought, just part of the Lion experience: June 2012 discussion of Downloading Hardware Specific Lion Installers (cache)(copy).

My working theory is that there are no meaningful differences in actions performed under the app as opposed to the DMG.

One could argue at a low level that the difference is that invoking the Install OS X Mountain Lion.app bundle loads app and UI frameworks that simply mounting a DMG does not, but that's not exactly the intent of your question I'm sure.

Any meaningful installer-level actions should be identical in either medium, since the majority of the resources are in the DMG, and the DMG is in the app. The app must mount the disk image in order to get at the necessary assets.

There is no difference whatsoever. The app is just there to create an Installer image on your disk. It restores InstallESD.dmg to the target partition and moves the data to a temporary folder. Then it asks you to reboot, and the installer continues by booting from the target partition.


GUI written in python (with PyQT/PySide2) does not launch I just updated to Big Sur 11.2.1 and wanted to launch a python script that I wrote in a GUI with PySide2. When I launch the script, the terminals seems to be busy with the app:

However nothing more happens: the GUI doe not launch, there is no error message. and I have to kill manually the app. Here is the code
#!/usr/bin/python

# Import PySide classes
import sys
from PySide2.QtWidgets import *

# Create a Qt application
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
# Create a Label and show it
label = QLabel("Hello World")
label.show()
# Enter Qt application main loop
app.exec_()
sys.exit()

If a run the a script containing only print("hello") from the terminal, this works
Moreover in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk access, the app iTerm.app is selected (so iTerm.app should have permiession)

I just found the answer in this stackoverflow question. For some weird reason, one has to add the following piece of code at the beginning of the script.
import os
os.environ['QT_MAC_WANTS_LAYER'] = '1'

And that worked for me


Duplicate Photo library for Photos & iPhoto Just came across this, seems as Photos created a duplicate of the iPhoto database instead of just using that one.

Now I'm stuck here with two 50+ GB libraries, eating up space on my HDD.
I think iPhoto uses the Photos database, so would it be safe to delete the iPhoto database?

I'm still going to use iPhoto (because it's easier than Photos).

I'd say stick to the iPhoto Library if that's the app you're going to continue using for now.

When you eventually swap to Photos, do the import again.

The Photos Library is greyed out if you attempt to open it from iPhoto. Any changes you make to the iPhoto Library will not be reflected in the Photos Library, meaning you'll gradually go out of sync until such time as iPhoto no longer works (OS X 10.11, who knows?) & you'll need to reimport at that time.

Photos Library Storage Space
The Photos Library is actually just a collection of hard links to the actual data on the disk & therefore is not taking up anything like the amount of space that Finder is reporting.

More on hard links from Ars Technica:

  A hard link is simply a reference to some data on disk. Think of a file as a combination of a name and a pointer to some data. Deleting a file really means deleting the name portion of that duo. When there are no more names pointing to a particular piece of data disk, then that disk space can be reused."

This means that so long as one of the pointers to the data still exists, the data is still in use. Only by deleting both will the data actually be deleted.

Ref: Apple KB - Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries

absolutely takes up double the space. My get info shows this. I called Apple and they said 'ignore get info'. Well, I can't ignore that my hard drive has less space on it!!!! This is so frustrating.


iPhone 4 is unable to connect to 3G network I am now unable to connect to a network to be able to use our internet provider or any other provider. It just keeps "looking" for a network however network options never appear. Despite manually asking to join a network we are still denied access to join despite entering in the correct network data and passcode. The phone is however capable of getting wi-fi but just exhausts all of our data on our plan. Any help to resolve this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Will better to do that issue is you need to try reset your network settings and its automaticaly regenarated from your network carrier..  Try it.. Maybe its work from your problem.


Bootcamp: My Mac Only Boots into macOS No Matter What Partition I Choose I have a 2017 Macbook Pro 15 inch running 10.13.5 and a bootcamp partition of Windows 10. I cannot boot into windows unless I select the windows partition from system preferences and restart from there.

If I try and hold down the option key on restart, Startup Manager opens but no matter which partition I click, it boots into macOS. It will not let me boot into windows this way.

Is there any way to fix Startup Manager/boot into windows?

Edit: Video on what is happening

AFAIK High Sierra already "introduced" APFS. The Bootcamp partition is formatted NTFS, I thought. If you set the startup disk to macOS in Settings (while in macOS), then, when you startup holding the Alt key, the boot window should let you choose between the two partitions. I cannot check now since I am a long way from base.
I am not sure when Startup disk is set to the Bootcamp partition, everything will work correctly as expected.

Which file system is on your HD? HFS or APFS? if you updated via the App Store, and you have an ssd, the update automatically changed your file system to APFS, for supported Macs. Run Disk Utility, it will say, also the "About this Mac," will say. The two don’t mix.


How do I change the location of macOS screen captures? As a developer, I take a lot of screen captures. I often take screen shots to share with Stack Exchange members in chat.

The problem is my Desktop is so cluttered with screen captures that they're now overlapping! I'd like to save all screenshots in a dedicated folder or directory.

In macOS, how do I change the default location where screen captures are saved?

These are the screen shots taken with CommandShift3 or CommandShift4 keyboard shortcuts.

I would prefer a solution which doesn't require installing any software.

According to this page...

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location <path>

Also, to turn on/off shadow:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool false

And to change file type:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type <format>

You'll want to

killall SystemUIServer

to make the commands take effect.

Use the screen shots from Preview. You can save to any place you like, change the screenshot's name or file type. It is under Previews File menu.


Unable to reactivate cancelled MobileMe trial account I tried MobileMe a while back but never subscribed.  I have since used the same Apple ID to enable Find My iPhone and this works fine.  I log in at me.com and get redirected to me.com/find.  However, no matter what I try there doesn't seem to be a way to reactivate a paid-for MobileMe account.  Am I missing something?

The support sites tell me to go to me.com/renew, but if I do this I get redirected to me.com/find.  I've checked https://appleid.apple.com and there doesn't seem to be any option for viewing or upgrading my MobileMe details.

Can anyone help?

That account shouldn't be burned since Apple explicitly allows for renewal of expired trials as part of the normal upgrade process. You will very likely lose your data if it has been expired past 15 days but you shouldn't lose the account if you still know the password and can answer security questions or account history questions if you get to a human for support.

The system is in the middle of a change where they are phasing out physical box with activation codes and moving to all online activations.

If you can't renew it following this link then hop on the Express Lane and ask for help with Mobile Me billing. You should get connected to someone that can look up your account and see why it might be blocked.

I have had success adding these accounts as a sub-account on a family pack as well, but that involves more money or finding a friend to "resuscitate" your account long enough to renew it as a stand-alone account.

I think if you have never subscribed, as your mobileme account is going to be an actual @me.com address,that you would need to actually sign up an account for the first time.


Change html files to txt on entire folder Is there a mac terminal command to change all .html files to .txt including the files in sub folders too?

I guess actually you just want to rename them. Run the following from inside the folder. If you do not trust the command, add echo before mv to see what it would do.

find . -type f -name "*.html" -exec bash -c "mv {} \`dirname {}\`/\`basename -s.html {}\`.txt" \;

This does the following:

Looks up every file (-type f) in the current folder (.) whose name is ends with ".html" (-name "*.html")
It than finds out the path of the file (dirname), adds a slash (/) and the name of the original file without the ".html" suffix (basename -s.html) and adds a ".txt" suffix.
Then it renames the original file (mv).

   Actually, the ` ` notation for using a programs output as part of a command is deprecated. $() should be used instead, but in the case of find the backticks are easier to use.

for-loop
for file in *.html; do
   mv "${file}" "${file%.html}".txt
done

This 'for loop' is just one way to do it.


How can I make all folders in Finder "snap to grid"? I don't like that files can be placed anywhere, even overlapping other files, in Finder. The files also don't reorganize to fit when resizing the window.

I do realize I can right click and select "Clean up", but I don't want to do that every time I drag and drop a file.

I found this setting to make everything "snap to grid" so it will stay organized in the Show View Options window. However, it only works for that specific folder. Is there any way to make it apply across everything in Finder? I tried clicking "Use as Defaults" but it appears to only apply to new folders.

The following steps applied "Snap to Grid" even for previously created folders.
Tested on:

10.6.x
10.7.3
10.8.x
10.9.x
10.12.5
10.15.7

Go to any folder control
Control click on the empty space
Click on Show View Options
In the "Sort by" drop down bar select "Snap to Grid"
At the bottom of the window click on the "Use as Defaults"
button

NOTE: Because this will become the default setup for ALL Finder windows you may consider manipulating the Icon size, Grid spacing, Text size, Label position, Background, etc... accordingly.
ALSO: If folders do not appear to have snapped to grid on a previously created folder, Relaunch Finder or you could try to toggle the "Icon size" down and back up too refresh the current window.
This is where it is on 10.15 Catalina:

Just highlight all the folders you want to clean up, and press clean up selection. It's that easy.


The C key stopped working, any workaround to emulate 'Command + C'? On a macbook, the C key isn't working anymore, so i was wondering if there was a way to trigger the command + c shortcut other than pressing the command and C keys

Thanks a lot

Yes, you can use the Edit menu and select copy

I believe the solution Apple recommends is to buy a new MacBook.


Using Automator CLI with passed file name I'd like to apply a quartz filter (Reduce File Size) through Preview Export using the command line while passing in the input and output filenames through CLI. I'm thinking the best way to do this is through Automator since it seems there isn't a way to access Preview through CLI.

I'm thinking it would look something like this in the end:

automator -i input=input.pdf output=output.pdf PDF.workflow

But I'm probably completely off.

Here's the basic workflow, which doesn't work as hoped:

MacOS (OSX) used to have a Terminal command quartzfilter, which would apply a Quartz Filter to PDFs and allow output names. Sadly, it was removed in Snow Leopard.

Here's a python script which works as a replacement.

The Automator action "Apply Quartz Filter to PDF Documents" applies the filter to the input, so your workflow copies the PDFs but then over-writes the originals with the Filter.


How do System Preferences remain unlocked? To make certain modifications to system preferences, you first need to unlock the preference pane. Some of these changes are done on a system level and the command-line equivalent would need to be invoked as the root user (via setuid). However, running sudo has an expiration (typically 5 minutes) before needing to re-authenticate again; how do system preferences assert their "open lock" state?

What you are describing is the standard way, the Mac OS X do it.
You have to do the following to get around the five minuts loop hole: Guide to lock system preference

It is assert by using plist files which I hold system times etc. or that is how it was done i Snow Leopard and older.


Boot Camp Low Audio Level Through 3.5mm Audio Jack Description:

When using the 3.5mm audio output while booted into Windows 10, audio is barely audible at max volume; built-in speakers work perfectly. That is, the volume is very soft when my headphones are plugged in. Windows partition installed through Boot Camp Assistant.

Device: 2018 15" MacBook Pro, Vega 20 GPU.

OS: Tested on Windows 10 1809 AND 1903 (Both fully updated)

Boot Camp Assistant Version: 6.1.0 (6067.230.4)

What I Have Tried:

Clean install Windows 10 1809 and 1903
Enable and disable Windows Sonic For Headphones
Cannot disable audio Enhancements (the tab is missing for some reason)
Reinstall Mojave
Reinstall Windows Support Software

Observation:

Cirrus audio driver does not seem to be installed, but rather Apple Audio Driver. I am assuming this is normal?

Comments:

Is this a driver issue or a "me" issue. Headphone audio level is normal while using macOS Mojave. Windows 10 installation went smoothly and was uneventful. I did not have this problem on my 2015 15" MacBook Pro.

I’ve tried reinstalling everything from the operating system to the audio driver. My current work around is to use a USB to audio output adapter.

Apple audio is the correct driver as they ditched cirrus in this model.


Do iOS apps crash regularly? Is this normal? I've been having some trouble with one of the third-party apps on my iPod Touch 4gen, and realized that a lot of apps I use (which isn't many) have been spontaneously exiting, recently.  Safari and Youtube both did this a few times today.

Is this normal?  iOS apps tend to go back to what they were doing, so it's not that big a deal, but perhaps it's indicative of some hardware or software issue.

I'm using iOS 4.2.1.  I don't remember it being quite this bad on 4.1, but that could well just be my imagination.

I looked for crash logs on my computer, but there's been no crash logs created in over a week, even for apps which I know have crashed many times since then.  I don't know what that means, if anything.

Should I be concerned?  Is there anything I can do?  Is there some kind of "is my iPod completely &#@!ed?" diagnostic I should run?  I realize this is kind of a vague question.

It could be a low memory issue. iOS is supposed to manage memory automatically, but I've found that it's not always perfect. Try quitting every single app and restart the device (hold the power button down for several seconds, then slide to power off, then power on again) to see if that fixes it.

I browsed on internet and found that app crashing is associated process to low memory and that's why to adjust the processing speed, it simply shuts off the process. Then reboot, refresh and blah blah blah....
I found 2 main causes:

Refreshing rate: I think iOS devices use Dynamic Ram which needs refreshing/rebooting. When we switch on the iOS device. iOS loads and we never shut it off so the OS stays in RAM. Considering this with PC. We boot and OS comes to RAM, we start process and then after using it we shut down. It means every process which was in RAM was sent back to permanent memory with OS as well.
We generally do not shut off the iPad and that's why the OS has a permanent sector in RAM, As the RAM is dynamic it needs to be refreshed but we do not do. Hence it's virtual memory becomes too low and hanging occurs.

Single tasking device: one process at a time. So earlier devices do hang and applications crash.

Let me know your comments.


Where in iOS 8 do I customize the notification centre? For some reason I cannot find Notification Centre section on my iPhone 6.

It's where you can set the today view to appear on lock screen, etc. I set it up a long time ago (probably in iOS 7), and I think there used to be a "Notification Centre" section in Settings. Now All I see is:

-Notifications (control notifications from apps)
-Control Centre
-Do Not Disturb

Where did it go? I searched online and tried to find it myself but it's taking too much time. Can anyone help?

Make certain your phone is unlocked and pull down the notification center.  When on the 'today' tab and unlocked, there is an 'edit' button at the bottom of the notification center that allows you to adjust what content is displayed and what order it is displayed.

I found it !

General > accessibility > zoom .. Then turn it off. then.. swipe down and see


MacBook as a handsfree headset Is there any way how to use laptop as a hands-free "headset" for my Android phone via Bluetooth?

Actually it's very nice to answer on calls directly from computer.

I have tried BluePhoneElite2 for that, but it is a bit slow. I'm thinking that for just a hands free headset, I should be able to use Snow Leopard without any additional software.

I have connected my phone and laptop over Bluetooth already, but what should I do to receive calls on the laptop?

OS X does not natively support the bluetooth headset profile, which is what a bluetooth device needs to support in order to act as a hands free device.

BluePhoneElite2 loads a special driver onto select phones that gets around this - likely by using a different bluetooth profile to deliver audio and phone actions.

There is currently no native solution in any version of OS X.

A bit late, but as of today it can be done with this application http://www.getdialogue.com/

With that application a pc running OS X can be used as a Bluetooth handsfree headset for ones mobile phone. Allowing one to originate and answer calls without reaching for the phone and then have the audio through the speaker and microphone of the PC or an attacted headset.


MacBook Pro OSX 10.6.8 - iPhone SE I just bought an iPhone SE and I want to synchronize it with my iTunes library but when I connect the iPhone to my Mac I get a message saying that the iPhone can't be used because it requires a later iTunes version. I have iTunes 11.4 and when I check for updates it says it is the latest. I have O.S. 10.6.8 and would like not to upgrade to the next generation as some programs are not compatible any more. Do I have an option? Thank you

According to the Apple Support Site:

  The SE requires iTunes 12.3.3 and in order to get it you will have to
  update OS X to El Capitan. This is how Apple designed it for better or
  worse, sorry.

Your iTunes IS in fact the latest version on THAT OS but not the latest overall.

If you really want to sync your iTunes library, you will have to update it. If you still don't want to do that, you can either borrow a friends' computer or just go to an Apple Store directly and let them do it for you.


How to hide computer name and user name in terminal command prompt How can I hide username and computer in terminal command prompt?

In Terminal it says

Last login: Mon Jan 13 00:00:14 on ttys000
Whatever:~ UserName$

Is it possible to show just the current folder and $ sign?

Change your prompt in your ~/.bashrc file. The example you asked for would be:
export PS1="\W \$"

It would result in the current folder you're in being shown plus a $ for the regular prompt and a # if you're root. Check out this guide for more examples of what you could show in your prompt.
Edit:
As per one of the comments below, you might need to source your ~/.bashrc from your ~/.bash_profile or even put this code in your ~/.bash_profile instead. You can read this article for a better explanation on which file to use.


Visual Voicemail Save Greeting: The operation could not be completed. (com.apple.mobilephone error 1035.) I have MetroPCS. I set up my greeting earlier this week. I had bad reception so called their support and they 'reset the network'. Now I can't save my voicemail greeting. I get this error. I took the phone to a MetroPCS store, but they couldn't fix it. They only called tech support too. How do I fix it?

Also, my visual voicemail is not showing new voicemails. I manually called my voicemail by holding down 1, sent a voicemail message to myself, and hung up. It doesn't appear in visual voicemail.

I also called my phone from another line and left a voicemail, but it doesn't show up or notify me of a voicemail.

iPhone 5, iOS 10.3.3.

Voicemail needs to be activated by carrier. I too had same problem, phoned my carrier and they activated it so I was able to record my greeting. Problem solved

Go to Setting -> Phone -> Change Voicemail Password


How to remove the "Could not connect to the iTunes store" error message when your network does not allow access to the iTunes Store Since the last update, iTunes is unusable for me on my iMac, because with every song change it shows a "Could not connect to the iTunes Store" error message. My network at work does not allow access to the iTunes store, but that is ok. I just want to listen to my local music connection there.
I have disabled the iTunes Store in the parental settings completely, but still, the error pops up with each and every song change. Any idea how to prevent iTunes from showing this popup?

There are two major annoyances here in iTunes imho
a) iTunes tries to access the store even if it is disabled completely in the settings and you're signed out
b) The error messages "staple" on top of each other, so iTunes diplays the same error 1000 times and you have to click them all away. This reminds me of Windows 95 times.

I traced the problem down to a TLS handshake (thanks to jonnydigitol below for the idea!) and a total of 63 packets between the host and 23.211.148.217, which is init.iTunes.apple.com - that is executed when iTunes is started. Once this handshake completes, all is fine and you can use iTunes. But you must tunnel traffic to this host on startup, otherwise you get the error with each and every song change as iTunes tries and tries to connect to init.iTunes and throws an error popup.

Consider the answer below by jonnydigitol - you can connect by mobile phone internet or a tunnel to init.iTunes.apple.com, start iTunes and never ever turn it off - then it keeps working without an internet connection "infinitely".

How to really 'fix' the issue by installing your own web server on localhost that answers the ping:

(Check that your iTunes is up to date, there might be a fix out already)

Open Applications->Utilities->Terminal and enter the following lines

If you do not have homebrew installed, first do this :

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

Make sure openssl and node.js are installed

brew install openssl node wget

To redirect init.apple.itunes.com to local

echo '127.0.0.1 init.iTunes.apple.com' | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

You will need to give your password. Next, create and register your own root certificate.

openssl genrsa -out rootCA.key 2048
openssl genrsa -des3 -out rootCA.key 2048

Enter any pass phrase you like

openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key rootCA.key -sha256 -days 1024 -out rootCA.pem

Enter your pass phrase. Leave all lines empty except

Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:init.itunes.apple.com

And the same thing once more (same passphrase, same common name)

sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k "/Library/Keychains/System.keychain" rootCA.pem
openssl genrsa -out device.key 2048
openssl req -new -key device.key -out device.csr
openssl x509 -req -in device.csr -CA rootCA.pem -CAkey rootCA.key -CAcreateserial -out device.crt -days 500 -sha256
sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot -k "/Library/Keychains/System.keychain" device.crt

Note response and start your own https server that takes the ping

wget -O response.xml "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/initiateSession?ix=1"
echo "var t=require('tls');var f=require('fs');var xmlresp = f.readFileSync('response.xml');var options = {key:f.readFileSync('device.key'),cert:f.readFileSync('device.crt')};var server=t.createServer(options, function (request,response) {request.on('data', function (chunk) {request.write(xmlresp);});});server.listen(443, function() {});" > ims.js
sudo node ims.js

Leave terminal open or minimize it, open Safari

Go to https://init.itunes.apple.com

If you get a trust certificate warning, change the policy to "always trust". If the page loads infintely, everything is fine.

Open iTunes. The error should be gone.

For the future, if you want to use iTunes, open a Terminal and run

sudo node ims.js

Then start iTunes.

Alternatively, revert to an older version.

I had given up on the issue, submitted a bug report to Apple, and, after hearing nothing from them, rolled back to the previous iTunes and rebuild by complete library in an hour long effort. Everything works now again, but I'm really disappointed by Apple here. I'm not (yet) used to them releasing such bad code.

The only way out for me was to use Pacifist to unpack an older iTunes pkg  which I downloaded from Apple and extract the App, and then rebuild the complete iTunes library (which is HUGE). This is a kind of hacking I got used to being necessary on Windows systems sometimes, but i cannot remember I had to do such a thing on OSX ever. Until now. What's next, disassemble?

Apple, you have a software quality problem. Just my 2 cents.

News - Apple has processed my bug report and assigned it status "duplicate of 29741441 (OPEN)".

Use either built-in firewall or third-party firewall to block iTunes traffic. Some of the well known firewall apps for Mac are LittleSnitch and HandsOff.

It used to happen to me too until I blocked all iTunes connections from firewall.


Create iCloud Mail account without an Apple device I have already an Apple ID through iTunes. I am a Windows user and have no Apple devices, but would like to have an iCloud.com email address.

How can I do that?

In addition to iOS devices and Macs, Apple IDs can be created on other platforms via Apple's native apps such as iTunes, Apple Music, and Apple TV+.

Create an Apple ID on your Windows PC

Open iTunes for Windows. Make sure that you have the latest version.

From the menu bar at the top of your computer screen or at the top of the iTunes window, choose Account > Sign In. Then click Create New Apple ID.

Create an Apple ID on another device
To create an Apple ID on an Apple TV, Android device, smart TV, or streaming device, you can usually follow the steps provided onscreen and enter your full name, date of birth, an email address or phone number, and a payment method. You need to create an Apple ID when you subscribe to services like Apple Music and Apple TV+, or when you download the Apple TV app.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204316

I googled around and no answer about this problem, the condition you can create iCloud email address is you own an Apple device.
On an iOS device, go to Settings > iCloud, turn on Mail, then follow the onscreen instructions. On a Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, select Mail, then follow the onscreen instructions.


El Capitan and memory Since installing El Capitan on my mid-2013 27" iMac with 16 GB of memory I often get a "not enough memory" message particularly when using Word, but also some crashes when trying to print from Word or Adobe.  I was not having any of these issues before installing El Capitan.
Any suggestions.
Thank you

memory could mean two things. RAM memory will clear up after you restart. And physical memory is used to store things.

Your Mac sounds young, so it might be a RAM memory problem. Try restart a few times.

If that doesn't work, type sudo purge into your terminal. That will manually free your RAM memory.

Lastly, there is a option to clear up NVRAM memory. If you clear NVRAM up, it will clear up your settings for system volume and mirroring and stuff. The way to do that is restart, after you hear the boot-up sound, hold down following keys: Cmd + option + p + r

To clear out physical memory, in the other hand, is simpler. Move things to usb and delete unwanted apps and plugins.


IOS 7.0.4 Sprint 15.5 Unlocked, Data-Network not working I am using iPhone 5 16GB, IOS 7.0.4 Unlocked Sprint USA....my service provide is Airtel below are the problems I am facing: Network: Yes,Data Network: No,APN Setting Not Showing, carrier: sprint 15.5.
Can anyone guide me or help me plss...I am trying to find a solution to the problem.

From my understanding you can only use an unlocked sprint iphone 5 on tmobile with edge network connection. Here is the info that I have found.

  Sprint/Cricket/Virgin Mobile iPhone 5 can only be unlocked for T-Mobile / Simple Mobile and may only get Edge. It may also have issues with data/mms so you may or may not get internet or MMS (picture messaging). This is happening to some Sprint iPhone 5 devices and we are working on a fix. THERE ARE NO REFUNDS IF YOU HAVE A SPRINT iPhone 5 and experience issues with data/mms.


Why does it say I'm using more data than I am on my IPad? It says that I have used 12.1 GB of data, but when added all up, it's no where near 12.1 GB. Maybe 10 GB at most, and I recently deleted a BUNCH of videos to clear up space, but it did nothing!

I think it may be that it may be that your looking at the iCloud storage not the iPad storage (you probably haven't uploaded very much).


How do you take a Verizon iPhone 4 CDMA phone and get it connected to Straight Talk? I purchased a nice black Verizon iPhone 4 (CDMA) which has it's contract fulfilled.

What steps do I go through to get it connected to Walmart's Straight Talk on the Verizon towers?

The iPhone 4 built for Verizon's network is a CDMA-only device that is not capable of operating on a GSM network that requires a SIM card, such as StraightTalk (which uses T-Mobile's network). It will never work. It does not have the radios built into it that would be necessary.


Is it possible to adjust Lightroom settings with scroll wheel I'm using Mac OS X 10.7.2 "Lion" and Adobe Lightroom 3.5. On Windows, it was possible to adjust settings in the Develop module (exposure, contrast,...) by clicking on that setting and using the scroll wheel.

On my Mac, this doesn't work. Does anyone know if I can enable this?

I don't think it is easily possible to use your scroll wheel to adjust. The only way I can think of is writing a script that translates your scroll wheel action to a up and down arrow key action. but that would prevent you from using your wheel for other actions.

Possible alternative options are:

Clicking on the number besides the slider and by holding your (left) mouse button and moving your mouse you can now adjust the slider.
Click on the number then change the number with your keyboard arrow(up/down) keys. This works best for fine adjustments.
Click on the slider then change the slider with tour keyboard arrow(up/down) keys. This works best for making somewhat bigger adjustments.

use usb overdrive software...its incredible to do this!


What is the maximum capacity for a Time Capsule's hard drive? I am thinking of buying a Time Capsule with a small hard drive and upgrading the drive to something larger. There is ample documentation on the web as to how to do it, but I am having a hard time finding any details as to what the upper limits of drive size are. It's especially confusing since there are four generations of Time Capsule, and each one may have a different upper limit. So, what is the upper limit of each? And, if you only know the answer to one specific one, that would be great, too.

Nobody seems to know what the official drive size limits are, but I just connected an 18TB hardware RAID to a 1st generation Time Capsule, and it works. To duplicate my setup:

Configure a 4-drive hardware RAID using this enclosure:

https://www.newegg.com/sans-digital-tr4utbpn/p/N82E16816111149

(I used four 6TB drives and set it up as a RAID 5)

Connect the RAID enclosure to the SATA connector on the Time Capsule's logic board using this cable:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16812119251?Item=N82E16812119251

This Time Capsule has pretty much been gutted over the years, so the only thing left is the logic board itself. It's powered by a 2A 5VDC external brick, WiFi and routing are disabled. It's just a hack NAS at this point...but it handles an 18TB drive.

Time Capsule 802.11n (1st generation) introduced Jan 2008 is working with 2TB drive. I did not try larger (yet).


Mac Mail - Account already exists error when adding gmail I added a new gmail account to Mac Mail via the File> Add Account, but the mailbox does not show up in mail.

If I try to add it again, it says the account already exists. It does exist in System Preferences > Internet Accounts, but does not exist in Mail.

I am updated to 10.10.3 and Mail.app is Version 8.2 (2098)

Anyone have a fix?

Yes - this can be caused by three things. iCloud being messed up (and trying to sync your internet accounts) and corruption on the Mail settings and corruption in general in your user settings.

To troubleshoot this:

A. Write down your add/remove procedure and don't deviate from it. My guess is it should be:

Quit Mail and make sure it doesn't launch when you log in
Remove the account from system prefs
Reboot
Add the account in - optionally test something other than mail first like a bogus calendar entry to check the account and google servers.
Test Mail by enabling the account and then finally launching Mail

B. Set up a brand new user account - with no iCloud and no Apple ID. Try adding the mail account there from System Preferences - Internet Accounts Preference Pane

If that doesn't work - your gmail is messed up or you need to reinstall the Mac from scratch (i.e. something is really wrong with the OS - this would be my last resort - make sure Gmail settings are clear at that point before backing up and wiping the Mac)

C. Sign out of iCloud on your Mac with your normal account.

Get a good backup before you delete content on the Mac. You will want to delete anything that's synced to iCloud to let the system clear out data that depends on iCloud. If you're paranoid, export data like Contacts and Calendar to a stand alone export/backup before you take this step. Then repeat the remove/add procedure.

D. Go to the logs. You'll need to run sysdiagnose Mail and then get into Console app and perhaps Log Connection Activity by opening the Mail Connection Doctor and checking that option.

This helped me (and prevented me from doing a complete wipe out of my mac) : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7260368?start=0&tstart=0


How to find if a second-hand iPhone is stolen after purchase? I bought a used iPhone 4 with iOS 7 from a local shop. I am not sure as to how to be sure if it is not stolen. I was able to do a factory reset on the phone and use my own Apple ID to use the phone.

I tried going to iCloud to check if Find My iPhone was active on the device and I found out that it is activated but using my Apple ID only.

I know that I should do a proper verification before I bought it but I think it is too late now and nothing can be done about it other than checking next time I buy a used phone.

As proof of purchase the store owner wrote the Price on a Plain paper with his name and phone number and handed it to me.

Restoring an iOS device will remove any record of a previous owner on the device.

If the device was purchased from an Apple Store, then Apple may have record of it being set up even if Find My iPhone. This also applies to other retailers, however I am not certain if this is possible.


sourcing bash profile for root users Apologies in advance if this question is going to annoy the hell out of everyone as I appreciate, it's been asked in various ways many times before.  Please be assured, I have read the archives and have tried at least some of the suggestions but still cannot resolve the (simple) issue. Hopefully someone can provide an answer and I can feel appropriately humbled.  FYI, for the avoidance of any ambiguity, I'm going to use absolute rather than relative paths.

When I log in, I do so as user adam.  The aliases in /Users/adam/.bash_profile are loaded and I can use them immediately upon pulling up a terminal.  I don't use a .bashrc file and that's fine.

Every now and then, I switch to root by typing su into the terminal and then entering my password.  The prompt changes and I am now root user.  My question is this: immediately upon becoming root, can my root bash profile be loaded without me having to manually source the profile file?  The reason I know it doesn't happen automatically is because I have the same aliases in my root profile file and my /Users/adam/.bash_profile.  After becoming root user, unless I type in source [root_profile_file], they don't work.  I have tried setting up the following permutations and then switching to root via the terminal but none of them automatically source the profile/aliases (note, I don't have any of the options below set up concurrently so I don't think I'm confusing the system):

Option 1: put my aliases in /etc/profile

Option 2:

in /etc/profile, insert [ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
put my aliases in /etc/bashrc

Option 3:

in /etc/bash_profile, insert [ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
put my aliases in /etc/bashrc

Option 4:  put my aliases in /var/root/.profile

Option 5:

in /var/root/.profile, insert [ -r /var/root/.bashrc ] && . /var/root/.bashrc
put my aliases in /var/root/.bashrc

Option 6:

in /var/root/.bash_profile, insert [ -r /var/root/.bashrc ] && . /var/root/.bashrc
put my aliases in /var/root/.bashrc

Please note, with any of the above, if I switch to root and then type source root_profile_file the aliases are loaded but only if I do indeed source the file manually.  Perhaps I've totally misunderstood how bash works and it's not possible to source a profile file automatically after switching to root but I'm hoping there is a simple solution.  Thanks in advance to anyone who's taken the time to read this message.

The problem you are encountering is that when you run su by itself, you are not entering a 'login' shell. This means that your environment, working directory, and everything except uid/gid remain the same of the original user.

Login triggers do not execute, and you experience the issues you describe.

A simple solution to a simple problem:

su -

From the su(1) man page:

  The su command is used to become another user during a login session. Invoked without a username, su defaults to becoming the superuser. The optional argument - may be used to provide an environment similar to what the user would expect had the user logged in directly.

Also:

   -, -l, --login
       Provide an environment similar to what the user would expect had the user logged in directly.

If you su into a login shell, bash will behave as you expect, and automatically source the appropriate files on "login", without the need for overly hacky workarounds.

if you have only one 'default' user and the root user you can put alias su="su -" on .bash_profile of the 'default' user and you get the effect you want. Works and with no hacky things.