Some songs are skipped over/broken on my iPhone; how can I find these?

Finally found an answer to this, thanks to Galley from iLounge!

Create a standard playlist called "Not Missing".
Drag your entire library into that playlist. Missing tracks cannot be copied to a playlist.
Create a smart playlist called "Missing" where:

Playlist - is not - Not Missing
(additional to this post)  Media type - is - Music

You now have a playlist which contains only your songs with the dreaded exclamation mark, and you can re-add them from your original source.


How can I download my contacts with the latest LinkedIn application version?

Considering that their mobile app page doesn't show the current version, and the current version doesn't have this feature anywhere that I could find, I'm going to say that they have removed this feature.

Try using their feedback page to request this feature in v4.x, or an explanation as to why it was removed etc..


OS X Firewall blocking external connections to NGinx Docker container

This issue is likely nothing to do with your local machine.

If you are behind a corporate firewall, that firewall is designed specifically (amongst other things) to prevent exactly what you are trying to do: set up an externally accessible server on the internal (protected, corporate) LAN

The only way to be able to access your Mac at work (no matter what it is running) is to ask if your IT department will allow it.

Personally if someone asked for something similar where I work, I'd laugh in their face. A corporate intranet (depending on what your company does...) is no place for a personal server of any sort.

They already (likely) have a number of externally accessible servers (EG email, remote access, etc.) that they spend a lot of time on making sure they are secure and safe. It is unlikely they'll let you do this.

Additionally they may block setting up servers like this at the network level. Again contact your IT department and tell them what you are trying to do.


Is there a standard uninstall procedure on Mac OS X?

Remember that (most) Mac OS X apps are installed self-contained; i.e., you simply drag a copy of the *.app folder into the Applications directory of your choice.

Once reason for this is to simplify the uninstall - delete the app folder; simple.


Why does iMessage recipient show as green when sending message thru Siri Shortcuts?

I had the same issue. I solved it by typing in the phone number rather than using the contact.


You can change the time format by setting LC_TIME to fr_FR:

LC_TIME=fr_FR exiftool -v '-Directory<DateTimeOriginal' -d ~/Pictures/Photos-Sources/APN/%Y/%Y-%m\ %B/%Y-%m-%d\ %A -r "$f"

$ LC_TIME=C date +%A\ %B
Monday November
$ LC_TIME=fr_FR date +%A\ %B
Lundi novembre

Terminal and iTerm 2 set LANG (which changes LC_TIME) automatically based on the region selected in System Preferences.

On my installations of 10.8 and 10.9, the Run Shell Script command uses the C locale by default though.


I downloaded macOS 10.13.1 Beta 2 two times but it isn't installing

In this case, the updater downloads to your Applications folder.  There you will see an icon there that you can click on to update.

You can use Launchpad to see the icon, or go directly to your Applications folder.


how to automate / run 'brew cask upgrade' as a cron job?

I have tried using cron as well but it just won't go as well. Instead I wrote a script called macupdate that held the instructions for homebrew to upgrade all installed apps as well as for the mac to look for and download any MacOS updates, made it executable and selected it as a startup application.

brew update && brew upgrade && brew cask upgrade --greedy; mas upgrade;
sudo softwareupdate -i -a --restart


Is there a ‘FileHippo.com Update Checker’ equivalent for the Mac?

Coincidentally, FileHippo isn't necessary for the vast majority of those apps you listed. Tons of Mac OS X apps use a framework called Sparkle for self updating.

Don't download Sparkle, it won't do you any good. It's a developer tool intended to be added as part of the application's code. The point is that Sparkle (or some other self-updater) is already part of the application.

VLC self-updates via Sparkle
I'm fairly certain uTorrent does (I'm a Transmission guy, personally, which also self-updates via Sparkle)
Firefox/Thunderbird each have their own self-updaters possibly written by Mozilla
Adobe has their own software updater framework
Skype self updates though I don't remember the process
and Safari updates come from Software Update/Mac App Store.

I don't personally know about CCleaner, DivX.

These apps "phone home" when you open them in order to determine if there is an update or not. If there is, you get a nice little dialog prompting you whether you want to update or not, and there is usually also a changelog to inform you of what's changed.

If you let it take it's course, the process begins:

And then you're done.

Yes, this is only one app at a time, but it only happens when you use it, which really is preferable IMO. Things that update versions automatically out from under you can really throw you off. At least with this process you know when it's happened.


An easier way probably does not exists "they would have it listed on the site if there was a fast track" you are going to have to read and understand many of the things listed under MacPorts Development. It is a complicated system, you have to take the time to understand how it works, and what the rules and guidelines are for using and working with it.

I am not currently a MacPorts developer but you could try asking / searching the archives for your question on MacPorts Mailing list, but I suspect if you do ask this question they are going to tell you the same thing I just did above. Either way if you want to get started developing ports for MacPorts getting started and having access to that Mailing list resource will help you go a long way.


Isn't it the advanced log out feature found under Advanced in Security & Privacy?

I've disabled "Log out after # minutes of activity" on El Capitan (see screenshot) to keep my desktop session open regardless of time.

I did check the "Require an administrator password" to prevent normal users to change a locked system.

You might also want to check your Energy Saver settings; particularly under the Schedule... button that could cause your system going to sleep.


How do I AirDrop from a MacBook to its tethered iPhone?

You will need to turn off Personal Hotspot before you can AirDrop.

AirDrop transfers data over Wi-Fi between the two peer devices (in this case, your MacBook and your iPhone). Since your iPhone is providing a Personal Hotspot via Wi-Fi, that connection is not available for AirDrop.

If turning Personal Hotspot off and on repeatedly is too cumbersome, you can provide tethering through USB instead. Then your Wi-Fi connection will always be available for AirDrop.


How do i connect 4 DVI monitors to my MacBook Pro 15 inch early 2013?

Hmmm, this is an interesting question because the monitors you want to connect to are only capable of a maximum resolution of 1280 x 1024.

Apple's official stance

Officially these MBPs can support up to one HDMI display (at 1920x1080 pixels) while simultaneously connected to a Thunderbolt display (at 2560x1600 pixels), OR being connected to two Thunderbolt displays (both at 2560x1600 pixels).

Unofficial real-life scenarios

However, unofficially you can exceed this. I'm not aware of anyone who has tried connecting these MBPs to four displays at a lower resolution. What I have seen instead are the following scenarios with the mid-2012 Retina MacBook Pro which uses the exact same setup (NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M and Intel HD Graphics 4000):

safely connecting two 27" Thunderbolt displays each at 2560x1600 pixels while also using the built-in display. Doing this results in about a 23% increase in the MBP's fan speed, but with no long-term damage/problems.
safely using a single Thunderbolt display at higher resolutions (e.g. 3440x1440) with the MBP in clamshell mode without any problems whatsoever.
safely using two 27" iMacs in Target Display Mode (one using a Thunderbolt connection and the other a Thunderbolt/DisplayPort connection) without any problems (both in and out of clamshell mode).
safely using a single Thunderbolt display at higher resolutions (e.g. 3440x1440) while also using the built-in display. This seems to work okay, although the fans do spin about 30% faster. This is probably the limit of how much I'd recommend pushing things at these resolutions.

I've also seen users connect three external displays while in clamshell mode. However, this resulted in the MBP's fans spinning at more than double their usual speed when watching videos etc. Not something I would recommend.

Your unique scenario

It's not clear from your question whether you were wanting to use the MBP in clamshell mode. If I assume you do, then you're in a situation where you want to use four external displays with a total of 5,242,880 pixels which is less than the official combinations supported by Apple. So the only problem you're likely to face is how you'd physically do this?

I see the following solutions for connecting four of these particular displays:

Option 1 - Use a combination of two Thunderbolt > DVI adapters, one HDMI > DVI adapter, one USB > DVI adapter.
Option 2 - Use a combination of two Thunderbolt > VGA adapters, one HDMI > VGA adapter, one USB > VGA adapter.
Option 3 - A combination of options 1 & 2 above (i.e. you could use one Thunderbolt > DVI adapter and one Thunderbolt > VGA adapter, and either of the HDMI or USB adapter options.
Option 4 - Utilise two USB adapters and two Thunderbolt adapters.
Option 5 - Utilise two USB adapters and one Thunderbolt adapter and one HDMI adapter.

Personally I would not recommend Option 4 or Option 5. Not only do these options use up your USB ports, they also double up on using an adapter that will have limitations. By limitations I mean the bandwidth provided by your USB ports will not work well with many games or anything that is graphics intensive. However, if you're just using MS Office or doing some basic web browsing, you should be fine.

Below are some links that may be useful:

Thunderbolt to DVI
Thunderbolt to VGA
HDMI to DVI
HDMI to VGA
NewerTech USB 3.0/2.0 to DVI, VGA, HDMI
Kensington Usb Multi Display Video Adapter

Finally, you may find the Matrox TripleHead2Go DP worth considering.


sudo: unable to cache user root, already exists

It seems that in my case I was able to repair the problem while writing my question, by reading the man pages more closely and running the following command:

sudo -k

This command revokes all outstanding sudo permissions and forces you to re-enter your password the next time that sudo is used.

However, I've been unable to discover why this issue presented itself in the first place, but wanted to post my solution nonetheless for the benefit of anyone else that encounters this problem. If someone knows why it might happen then please feel free to comment or add to this answer!


iMac: update OS X from 10.5.8 to 10.6 (and beyond)

When you say…

I remember for sure that the computer was bought around 2009-2010

…do you mean that the iMac was bought brand new (i.e., the newest model available in stores in the 2009-2010 time frame), or did you potentially buy an older model (i.e., from 2007-2008) in the 2009-2010 time frame?
Because you have OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard) currently, and assuming that you never downgraded your OS X, you can narrow down which iMac model you have. Since 10.6 (Snow Leopard) came out in August 2009, and since Unibody iMac [see 1st link in your question] was released in October 2009, it can be assumed that you don't have a Unibody iMac.
Thus, you must have what Wikipedia calls an Aluminum iMac [see 2nd link in your question]. If you are sure you bought it brand new in stores between 2009-2010, it was probably what Wikipedia calls the Early 2009 model.
Even if all of the previous deductions were incorrect, as long as you are 100% certain that the iMac has an aluminum housing (i.e., the outside is gray, and not white), then even in the worst-case scenario in which your iMac is from Mid 2007, you are guaranteed to be able to install OS X 9 (Mavericks).
So rest assured, you can upgrade all the way up to Mavericks if you so desire. I've outlined the steps below.

1. Upgrading from OS X 10.5.8 to 10.6
You can up-grade from 10.5.8 to 10.6 by purchasing the installation DVD for $19.99 (w/ free shipping), then up-date 10.6 to 10.6.8, for free using the Apple Software Update application already installed on your iMac.
2. Upgrading from OS X 10.6.8 to 10.9
Though it goes against Apple tradition, Apple has (thankfully) released 10.9 for free as long as you have the system requirements to run 10.8; a simple Google search will help you determine that. If you do, then download and install it onto your computer.


iPhone 4S with latest update now charges very slowly

Plug it in and then power it off.

The charging circuitry runs from the firmware and not the OS - so you will either get a full charge and have a chance to reboot it in 2 or 4 hours to check on the charge status or know where the failure lies.

It's most likely a temporary CPU hog draining charge as fast as it can accumulate and a simple reboot (hold the home button, slide to power off, restart once it shuts down normally) is generally going to clear this up.


OS X Yosemite install error / Harddrive is used for backups?

I had the same problem. Turned out it had once been used for backups. I removed the folder Backups.backupd in the HD root and everything went fine after that. I assume you have solved it, but I'm writing this in case somebody else have the same problem.

It's unlikely you'll need to go though those complicated steps in the answers above.


How to delete system file in Mac OS Catalina 10.15.3?

I would boot to Recovery HD and use terminal (it is in the Utility menu) to remove the files you want to delete. SIP doesn’t need to be disabled on your system, just use a different system to do the delete and then restart back in the now modified system.

Keep in mind, deleting the file is easy to understand and execute. Making persistent changes (across updates or if Apple recreated the file you chose to delete) or effecting
permission changes is significantly harder on Catalina due to the system / data split.

Catalina not allowing to change read/write permissions despite having SIP disabled


How to Sync Notes El Capitan to iOS 9 via IMAP

For anyone else stumbling over this because Notes.app stopped syncing IMAP based notes in El Capitan 10.11.3, the solution which worked for me is the following:

Firstly, check that the IMAP Path Prefix is correct for the account. This can be done in System Preferences / Internet Accounts / (select your account) / Advanced or in Mail.app / Preferences / Accounts / (select your IMAP account) / Advanced. In my case, this was set correctly to INBOX, but sometimes requires different values, or no value at all.

Secondly, the solution given above by @rene actually works, but it's in French, so here's a step-by-step approach that worked for me.

Open Terminal.app to get a command prompt
Change directory to the following folder:

bash> cd ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/

Make a backup the file NotesV6.storedata so that you can restore it in case something goes wrong

bash> cp NotesV6.storedata NotesV6.storedata.old

Open NotesV6.storedata with sqlite3

bash> sqlite3 NotesV6.storedata

A new sqlite prompt will appear - you can always exit by pressing CTRL-D

sqlite>

(Optional) You can examine the table that we need to fix by entering the followoing command

sqlite> .schema ZACCOUNT

The ZACCOUNT table contains all accounts which Notes.app is accessing. However, in my case, the IMAP based account entry was missing information about username (field ZUSERNAME), hostname (field ZHOSTNAME) and path prefix (field ZSERVERPATHPREFIX). This is the information we need to update.
You can dump the whole table by invoking

sqlite> select * from ZACCOUNT

but it's probably easier to select a few relevant fields and identify the Z_PK id of your account

sqlite> select Z_PK,ZFULLNAME,ZPARENTACACCOUNTIDENTIFIER,ZUSERNAME, ZHOSTNAME, ZSERVERPATHPREFIX from ZACCOUNT;

This produced the following output for me:

1||
4|Exchange|EF792FA7-AAAA-CCCC-5678-123456789012|||
5|IMAPaccount|187229D1-BBBB-DDDD-1234-098765431287|||

As you can see by the field divider lines (|) at the end of the last line, fields for username, hostname, and prefix are empty for the IMAP account (Z_PK id 5) which is what needs to be corrected.

Update the table entry by invoking:

update ZACCOUNT set ZUSERNAME='email@example.com', ZHOSTNAME='imap.hostname.com',ZSERVERPATHPREFIX='INBOX.' where Z_PK=5;

You will of course need to set the correct field values and also adjust the Z_PK id with the correct reference, which you identified above.

As soon as I'd updated the table, Notes.app started magically syncing the notes from my IMAP based accounts.


How do I make my iPhone ring for phone calls but be silent for email?

Open up Settings > Notification Center > Mail, then change the Alert Sound to None. This will silence any sounds when you get an email.

By default phone calls make a sound, so there is nothing you need to change for that.


Will iOS backup include a paired Bluetooth keyboard?

Bluetooth pairing matches two hardware devices, so that pairing records are irrelevant if re-loaded on a different bluetooth adapter (on the new iOS device). Good thinking to get around a hardware repair - if you could somehow turn on assistive touch and try backing that up, you might be able to navigate - but I'm guessing that still needs some amount of digitizer functionality to restore the backup in the first place.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202658


Unable to mount Time Capsule / AFP-SMB sharing keeps loading

I'd go for the obvious - connect the TC to the switch.

You didn't say what IP addresses were being assigned to everything; whether the 2 nodes as you currently have them are on the same subnet; what the router is & how configurable... etc. so the simple fix is remove the router from the equation.


Does Adobe Photoshop CS (version 8) run on Snow Leopard?

It does run, but Snow Leopard does not install Rosetta by default. Rosetta is needed to run PowerPC applications on Intel Macs.

You can install Rosetta from the Snow Leopard disk. I believe you will be prompted to do this when you try to run Photoshop.


If there is a process that is preventing sleep (rather than a bug in the sleep implementation), you can use "pmset -g" in a terminal window to list the process that is doing that. This is covered over on superuser.

Here is an an example on my system. First, with nothing preventing sleep:

$ pmset -g assertions | egrep '(PreventUserIdleSystemSleep|PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep)'
     PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep             0
     PreventUserIdleSystemSleep              0
$

Then I start music in iTunes:

$ pmset -g assertions | egrep '(PreventUserIdleSystemSleep|PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep)'
     PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep             0
     PreventUserIdleSystemSleep              1
    pid 264: [0x0000012c00000108] PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "com.apple.audio.'AppleHDAEngineOutput:1B,0,1,2:0'.noidlesleep"
    pid 95390: [0x0000012c0001749e] PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "Nameless (via IOPMAssertionCreate)"


How can I make Time Machine do a full backup?

The mechanism to force a full backup isn't well documented, but it does get logged to the console logs as Forcing deep traversal on source: "Macintosh HD" ... but even if this happens, the system will base the storage of new copies of files on what exists on the backup volume previously.

I would add a new drive and back up to it once if you are concerned that your backup is no longer reliable.

From the command line, you can then check on things with tmutil compare or by using a tool such as BackupLoupe to convince yourself that specific (or ongoing) backups are correctly being made.

You can hint that a full scan is needed by excluding all the files you care about in options. Then run a backup, then remove the folders / files from the exclusion and then tigger or wait for the next backup.


I would sym link the scripts you place out of the path to /usr/local/bin so you don't need to reason with ~ expansion in .dot files for your shell.

It's possible to have a durable way to ensure your enviroment is set up to handle ~ - but I'm a fan of having absolute paths there to avoid problems when you su to other users and have environment cross contamination as well as issues like you face.

This isn't anything about homebrew - purely about bash or whatever shell you are using.


El Capitan update 10.11.1 stuck at installing update in app store

You mean you are still in App Store; you haven't actually launched the Install OS X El Capitan file yet [or it hasn't auto-launched]?

If the installer isn't yet running, you're safe to cancel it.

My App Store download errored at the last second & when I clicked the Update button again it suddenly realised everything was in fact fine.
Check if you have the installer app in your Applications folder. If you do, then it actually downloaded OK & you ought to be able to double-click it to continue.

As always on a major update, make sure your backup is up to date; & as a double safety-net, remove or disconnect your Time Machine drive until you are happy all went well with the update.


Add a song into a playlist while listening to it?

No - the playlists only get curated from the playlist tab.

The iPods with physical buttons have an "add to playlist" functionality that worked this way but there's nothing yet in iOS 4 or less to do a similar thing. The drawback there is everything got added to the "on the go" playlist - not an arbitrary one.


is there any way to have Facebook or Twitter update in the background on my iPod touch?

You can either leave one of the apps open at night so it will refresh or get something like Boxcar, which would be a solution more fitting to your needs. Boxcar will push notifications from facebook and Twitter, and then you can launch Boxcar to see the updates.


Try something like this:

Transcript:

Folder action receives files and folders to Downloads(default Folder Action script)
Run Applescript:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Finder"
        set filename to name of file input
    end tell
end run
Set value of Variable: fileName
Ask for Confirmation:
Title: Alert! The file fileName has been downloaded!
Body: A new file has downloaded

So if I add a file named "NewFile.png", I get:


How to lower the volume of Skype sound effects?

What you can do is to disable the sound effects, for each individual "event" (incoming call, new message received, etc).
Or, even better, you can associate to each event a different sound effect, maybe with a different volume.

To do this, you need to go to the preferences, and choose the "Notifications" panel. Then, you choose each individual "Event" for which you want to turn off the sound (via the first drop-down menu), and turn it off by means of the "Play sound" check button.
You can also choose a different sound effect (maybe with a different volume) by choosing a different audio file. This is done using the drop-down menu next to "Play sound", and selecting the last option: "Add/Remove...".
You can then select your file using the "+" button on the bottom-left corner of the small pop-up window.
To have different volumes you will need to create/edit the audio files, and change their volume, before you associate them to the Skype events.


iTunes unable to change Artwork for Albums

try change the image format in .png 'Important: iTunesArtwork icon images should be in png format, but name them without the .png extension.' source: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/qa/qa1686/_index.html

Edit: Ultimately ITunes used the cover of a pdf from iBooks as a generic image, to solve this problem I found this solution that works for me:
"Choose the 'Options' tab in Album Info. The media kind would be 'Mixed'. Change it to 'Music'. Now you can see a pdf as part of the album. If you delete the pdf, you can now set your album artwork."
source: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7127569


Getting iTune to add remote items to library

you can try  mt-daapd (firefly server) to serve media files to your
iTunes from your ubuntu machine.
Setup it on your server* and then add in Itunes Preferences->Advanced where your library is..

*this is a tutorial on how to install mt-daapd on your ubuntu server

http://all-tech-thoughts.blogspot.gr/2010/09/how-to-setup-firefly-mt-daapd-on-ubuntu.html

Also bear in mind sometimes for some versions of itunes mt-daapd compatibility breaks.
Updating to current itunes version usually helps...


Why is email being downloaded every time I (dis)connect VPN?

It does that likely because you told it to do and it has lots of work to do before actually disconnecting.

For example with those settings:

Since you have 6 accounts with lots of activity, that can take a while.

To see more details for what it is doing, use the menu bar Windows and Show Activity.

A new window will pop up showing you exactly what is going on.

Sometimes using the Activity window you can see which one of your 6 accounts is doing it.

Your email will open 12 communication channels in network (Internet).
2 for each email account, one for sending and one for receiving, as you can imagine that's a lot of traffic than needs to be shut down orderly.

You can use the Connection Doctor- located in the Windows tab in mail (i do not know why is it called Doctor), but there you can see the communications going on, and maybe the one that is having trouble.

The pic you are showing is typical for a email account that has not been give a chance to finish updating, but once it is done it should stop doing that.


I am not so much familiar with Dropbox, but I'd assume an encrypted sparsebundle image would be suited quite well fro your task. For instance this site explains the procedure.

In essence you have to:

Open Disk Utility
Click File > New > Blank Disk Image...

Customize your encrypted image file. I'd suggest to use sparsebundle disk image since it consists of smaller files and will probably result in better syncing performance with Dropbox.
Choose a strong password (and optionally save it in your keychain)
Now you can double-click the image file and it will open as a volume.

This is very safe and efficient. I even use a sparsebundle image for my TimeMachine backups.


Is there any way to dock the Adium buddy list to the side of the screen?

You can certainly achieve "something similar" if you tell it to be above other windows and don't hide when in the background (options I don't use or like)

Of course it won't be a real "docked" app like the DOCK, but it will behave mostly like it.

You can control the vertical and horizontal size:

And here's how mine looks:

UPDATE to be honest, I use it on the right side, but Adium will "stick" to the Screen side when close to it. The position in the above screenshot was for the purpose of showing you how it "docks" :)


How to correct macOS Sierra photos people identification

Found out maybe 10 minutes after I posted this.

Go to your photos.  Find the one with the bad tagging.  Make sure Face Names are shown (go to View menu), edit as needed


How do I switch between signatures when modifying a PDF using Preview?

First, click the Annotations button

Then click the down arrow on the Signatures button

You can then select the signature you wish to use.


How to install OSX El Capitan downloaded from ftp server?

When you download the installer from the AppStore, it is saved as Install OS X El Capitan.app in the Applications folder. Behind the scene .app files are really just folders which are treated as a single file by the OS. My guess is that you either have an incomplete file or something has gone wrong when you copied the file to the ftp server.

If you compress the .app (control+click > Compress "Install OS X El Capitan") and then copy the resulting archive to the ftp folder your other macs will be able to download the archive, uncompress it and run the app.
Or you can just copy Install OS X El Capitan.app to a USB drive or even create a bootable USB drive which you can then use as a rescue installation drive.


_complete:96: bad math expression: operand expected at end of string in iTerm and Terminal on Tab kypresses

A basic shell error message consists of a comand, a colon, a operand/filename, a colon, and a message, like

command: operand/filename: error message

as an example

ls foo
ls: foo: No such file or directory

These error message may contain multiple commands and/or error messages, as an example

ls | fake_command
-ksh: fake_command: not found

and without a operand/filename. But they are usually not that difficult to digest. In your case, your shell completions are producing the error message.


Time Machine restore stuck on “Preparing ” for more than 24 hours, how can I diagnose the nature of the problem?

I have since discovered that Apple has fully deprecated support for the APFS and that consequentially restoring from a network-attached device (as is my Synology NAS) requires re-sharing with the SMB protocol.


Strange folder in trash does not delete even in safe mode

I just had to use rm -r on the directory without root.


I would highly recommend Carbon Copy Cloner. I believe it copies invisible files.


Tool to transform text to all caps or lowercase

You can set this up as a right click service in automator as @Matthieu Riegler suggested.

Open up Automator.app and create a “Service” with this workflow.

Pay close attention to the checkbox up top, “Output replaces selected test”.  After the workflow is in place and saved, navigate to “System Preferences-->Keyboard.”  On the left hand side select “Services”.  On the right hand side you will see the Service you created, in the example its saved as “UpperCase”.  Then give it a shortcut by pressing “Add Shortcut” and give it what you would like.  Tested in TestWrangler and TextEdit.

Script used in Automator:

on run {input, parameters}
set upperCaseString to ¬
    (do shell script ("echo " & input & " | tr a-z A-Z;"))
return upperCaseString
end run


Can I wake up my Mac wirelessly over the internet?

OSX has a feature called Wake on Demand (Apple's version of Wake on Lan) which does work over Wifi but:

  Wake on Demand requires an Apple AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule
  with firmware 7.4.2 or later installed. To use Wake on Demand
  wirelessly with a WPA or WPA2 network, the AirPort base station or
  Time Capsule must be hosting the network.

Instead you can use the traditional Wake on Lan, however this requires an ethernet connection (AFAIK)...


AppleScript : Set do script result as variable

You want the brand and the country_name from the JSON data, you can use a JSON parser.

Here is an example of parsing JSON in python

-- Get https://www.binlist.net/json/431940
set cc to the clipboard as string
set finalresult to do shell script "curl https://www.binlist.net/json/" & cc & "  |  /usr/bin/python -c 'import json, sys; obj=json.load(sys.stdin); print obj[\"brand\"],obj[\"country_name\"]' "
display notification "Result is " & finalresult --> "Result is VISA Ireland"


How to add AAAA flag (IPv6) to DNS resolver configuration on Sierra?

This was a huge hassle to figure out, so I wrote up a little guide in hopes that others would find it helpful:

How to convince macOS to do IPv6 DNS lookups when your only IPv6 address is via a VPN or tunnel of some sort

The Problem

macOS's domain name resolver will only return IPv6 addresses (from AAAA records) when it thinks that you have a valid routable IPv6 address. For physical interfaces like Ethernet or Wi-Fi it's enough to set or be assigned an IPv6 address, but for tunnels (such as those using utun interfaces) there are some extra annoying steps that need to be taken to convince the system that yes, you indeed have an IPv6 address, and yes, you'd like to get IPv6 addresses back for DNS lookups.

I use wg-quick to establish a WireGuard tunnel between my laptop and a Linode virtual server. WireGuard uses a utun user-space tunnel device to make the connection. Here's how that device gets configured:

utun1: flags=8051<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1420
    inet 10.75.131.2 --> 10.75.131.2 netmask 0xffffff00
    inet6 fe80::a65e:60ff:fee1:b1bf%utun1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0xc
    inet6 2600:3c03::de:d002 prefixlen 116
    nd6 options=201<PERFORMNUD,DAD>

And here's a few relevant lines from my routing table:

Internet:
Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
0/1                utun1              USc             0        0   utun1
default            10.20.4.4          UGSc            0        0     en3
10.20.4/24         link#14            UCS             3        0     en3      !
10.75.131.2        10.75.131.2        UH              0        0   utun1
50.116.51.30       10.20.4.4          UGHS            7  2629464     en3
128.0/1            utun1              USc             5        0   utun1

Internet6:
Destination                             Gateway                         Flags         Netif Expire
::/1                                    utun1                           USc           utun1
2600:3c03::de:d000/116                  fe80::a65e:60ff:fee1:b1bf%utun1 Uc            utun1
8000::/1                                utun1                           USc           utun1

10.20.4/24 is my local ethernet network.
10.20.4.5 is my laptop's LAN IP address.
10.20.4.4 is my gateway's LAN IP address.
10.75.131.2 is the IPv4 address of my end of the WireGuard point-to-point tunnel.
2600:3c03::de:d002 is the IPv6 address of my end of the WireGuard point-to-point tunnel.
50.116.51.30 is the public address of my Linode server.

This should be enough to have IPv6 connectivity, right? Well, name resolution works when host talks directly to my name server:

sam@shiny ~> host ipv6.whatismyv6.com
ipv6.whatismyv6.com has IPv6 address 2607:f0d0:3802:84::128

Pinging by IPv6 address works:

sam@shiny ~> ping6 -c1 2607:f0d0:3802:84::128
PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2600:3c03::de:d002 --> 2607:f0d0:3802:84::128
16 bytes from 2607:f0d0:3802:84::128, icmp_seq=0 hlim=55 time=80.991 ms

--- 2607:f0d0:3802:84::128 ping6 statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/std-dev = 80.991/80.991/80.991/0.000 ms

And HTTP connections by IPv6 address work:

sam@shiny ~> curl -s 'http://[2607:f0d0:3802:84::128]' -H 'Host: ipv6.whatismyv6.com' | html2text | head -3
                 This page shows your IPv6 and/or IPv4 address
                          You are connecting with an IPv6 Address of:
                                             2600:3c03::de:d002

However, HTTP connections by IPv6-only hostname don't work:

sam@shiny ~> curl 'http://ipv6.whatismyv6.com'
curl: (6) Could not resolve host: ipv6.whatismyv6.com

The result is the same in wget as well as in GUI apps like Firefox: connecting by a literal IPv6 address works fine, but connecting by a hostname that only has an AAAA record (and no A record) associated with it does not.

Interestingly, ping6 is able to do a DNS lookup and get an IPv6 address back:

sam@shiny ~ [6]> ping6 -c1 ipv6.whatismyv6.com
PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2600:3c03::de:d002 --> 2607:f0d0:3802:84::128
16 bytes from 2607:f0d0:3802:84::128, icmp_seq=0 hlim=55 time=49.513 ms

--- ipv6.whatismyv6.com ping6 statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/std-dev = 49.513/49.513/49.513/0.000 ms

Why can ping6 do this when nothing else can? It turns out that when ping6 calls getaddrinfo it overwrites the default flags. One of the default flags is AI_ADDRCONFIG, which tells the resolver to only return addresses in address families that the system has an IP address for. (That is, don't return IPv6 addresses unless the system has a (not link-local) IPv6 address.) Most other programs add to the default flags rather than clobbering them, which I suppose is sensible.

If you run scutil --dns it will tell you how the resolver is set up. Here's the output on my system (minus a bunch of mdns stuff that doesn't matter):

DNS configuration

resolver #1
  search domain[0] : home.munkynet.org
  nameserver[0] : 10.20.4.4
  if_index : 14 (en3)
  flags    : Request A records
  reach    : 0x00020002 (Reachable,Directly Reachable Address)

DNS configuration (for scoped queries)

resolver #1
  search domain[0] : home.munkynet.org
  nameserver[0] : 10.20.4.4
  if_index : 14 (en3)
  flags    : Scoped, Request A records
  reach    : 0x00020002 (Reachable,Directly Reachable Address)

Note that under flags, it says Request A records but not Request AAAA records. So it's left to us to try to convince macOS's resolver that we do in fact have a valid IPv6 address, even though it's on a tunnel interface.

SystemConfiguration

The "right" way for this to happen is for whatever program sets up the tunnel to use the bizarre and largely undocumented SystemConfiguration API to register the network "service" and its IPv6 properties. The Viscosity app does this. Tunnelblick does not, the official OpenVPN Client does not, and wg-quick sure as hell doesn't.

The scutil Kludge

We can create the same SystemConfiguration "service" strucures manually using the scutil command:

First we create the IPv4 part of the service:

sam@shiny ~> sudo scutil
> d.init
> d.add Addresses * 10.75.131.2
> d.add DestAddresses * 10.75.131.2
> d.add InterfaceName utun1
> set State:/Network/Service/my_ipv6_tunnel_service/IPv4
> set Setup:/Network/Service/my_ipv6_tunnel_service/IPv4

And then we create the IPv6 part:

> d.init
> d.add Addresses * fe80::a65e:60ff:fee1:b1bf 2600:3c03::de:d002
> d.add DestAddresses * ::ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:0:0 ::
> d.add Flags * 0 0
> d.add InterfaceName utun1
> d.add PrefixLength * 64 116
> set State:/Network/Service/my_ipv6_tunnel_service/IPv6
> set Setup:/Network/Service/my_ipv6_tunnel_service/IPv6
> quit

Once this is done, the output of scutil --dns (again modulo mdns stuff) changes:

DNS configuration

resolver #1
  search domain[0] : home.munkynet.org
  nameserver[0] : 10.20.4.4
  if_index : 14 (en3)
  flags    : Request A records, Request AAAA records
  reach    : 0x00020002 (Reachable,Directly Reachable Address)

DNS configuration (for scoped queries)

resolver #1
  search domain[0] : home.munkynet.org
  nameserver[0] : 10.20.4.4
  if_index : 14 (en3)
  flags    : Scoped, Request A records
  reach    : 0x00020002 (Reachable,Directly Reachable Address)

Now we see Request AAAA records in the flags! I'm not really sure what "scoped queries" are or why the DNS configuration for them didn't change, but things seem to work now so whatever:

sam@shiny ~> curl -s 'http://ipv6.whatismyv6.com' | html2text | head -3
                 This page shows your IPv6 and/or IPv4 address
                          You are connecting with an IPv6 Address of:
                                             2600:3c03::de:d002

When disconnecting from the tunnel, all you have to do is remove the SystemConfiguration keys you added:

sam@shiny ~> sudo scutil
> remove State:/Network/Service/my_ipv6_tunnel_service/IPv4
> remove Setup:/Network/Service/my_ipv6_tunnel_service/IPv4
> remove State:/Network/Service/my_ipv6_tunnel_service/IPv6
> remove Setup:/Network/Service/my_ipv6_tunnel_service/IPv6
> quit

A couple things to note:

The name my_ipv6_tunnel_service is totally arbitrary.
According to information I gleaned from the up/down scripts in the Mullvad .ovpn profile, you have to create both the Setup: and State: keys. I didn't verify this because I am lazy.
I have no clue where the IPv6 DestAddresses come from. I copied these from Viscosity because they seemed to work there. ::ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:0:0 for the link-local address and :: for the public
I don't even really know what DestAddresses means or what it's used for.

A nice script

I wrote a python script that gleans addresses and prefix lengths from ifconfig output. It requires Python 3.6 or later so make sure you've got that in your path. It's called wg-updown and calls its SystemConfiguration service wg-updown-utun#, but it's not really WireGuard-specific. You could call it as a post-up/pre-down script for any old VPN tunnel or run it manually. Call it like this:

# After tunnel comes up
wg-updown up IFACE

# Before tunnel goes down
wg-updown down IFACE

replace IFACE with the name of the interface that your tunnel/VPN client is using, e.g. utun1. It will print the commands that it's sending to scutil so you can see what it's doing in detail.

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import re
import subprocess
import sys

def service_name_for_interface(interface):
    return 'wg-updown-' + interface

v4pat = re.compile(r'^\s*inet\s+(\S+)\s+-->\s+(\S+)\s+netmask\s+\S+')
v6pat = re.compile(r'^\s*inet6\s+(\S+?)(?:%\S+)?\s+prefixlen\s+(\S+)')
def get_tunnel_info(interface):
    ipv4s = dict(Addresses=[], DestAddresses=[])
    ipv6s = dict(Addresses=[], DestAddresses=[], Flags=[], PrefixLength=[])
    ifconfig = subprocess.run(["ifconfig", interface], capture_output=True,
                              check=True, text=True)
    for line in ifconfig.stdout.splitlines():
        v6match = v6pat.match(line)
        if v6match:
            ipv6s['Addresses'].append(v6match[1])
            # This is cribbed from Viscosity and probably wrong.
            if v6match[1].startswith('fe80'):
                ipv6s['DestAddresses'].append('::ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:0:0')
            else:
                ipv6s['DestAddresses'].append('::')
            ipv6s['Flags'].append('0')
            ipv6s['PrefixLength'].append(v6match[2])
            continue
        v4match = v4pat.match(line)
        if v4match:
            ipv4s['Addresses'].append(v4match[1])
            ipv4s['DestAddresses'].append(v4match[2])
            continue
    return (ipv4s, ipv6s)

def run_scutil(commands):
    print(commands)
    subprocess.run(['scutil'], input=commands, check=True, text=True)

def up(interface):
    service_name = service_name_for_interface(interface)
    (ipv4s, ipv6s) = get_tunnel_info(interface)
    run_scutil('\n'.join([
        f"d.init",
        f"d.add Addresses * {' '.join(ipv4s['Addresses'])}",
        f"d.add DestAddresses * {' '.join(ipv4s['DestAddresses'])}",
        f"d.add InterfaceName {interface}",
        f"set State:/Network/Service/{service_name}/IPv4",
        f"set Setup:/Network/Service/{service_name}/IPv4",
        f"d.init",
        f"d.add Addresses * {' '.join(ipv6s['Addresses'])}",
        f"d.add DestAddresses * {' '.join(ipv6s['DestAddresses'])}",
        f"d.add Flags * {' '.join(ipv6s['Flags'])}",
        f"d.add InterfaceName {interface}",
        f"d.add PrefixLength * {' '.join(ipv6s['PrefixLength'])}",
        f"set State:/Network/Service/{service_name}/IPv6",
        f"set Setup:/Network/Service/{service_name}/IPv6",
    ]))

def down(interface):
    service_name = service_name_for_interface(interface)
    run_scutil('\n'.join([
        f"remove State:/Network/Service/{service_name}/IPv4",
        f"remove Setup:/Network/Service/{service_name}/IPv4",
        f"remove State:/Network/Service/{service_name}/IPv6",
        f"remove Setup:/Network/Service/{service_name}/IPv6",
    ]))

def main():
    operation = sys.argv[1]
    interface = sys.argv[2]
    if operation == 'up':
        up(interface)
    elif operation == 'down':
        down(interface)
    else:
        raise NotImplementedError()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()


Unable to open serial port using simply python script on macOS Catalina: [Errno 16] Resource is busy

This doesn't work with Catalina. It throws error as following when tried to install.
/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext failed to load - (libkern/kext) not loadable (reason unspecified); check the system/kernel logs for errors or try kextutil(8)

sudo dmesg
Notice - new kext com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostPlatformProperties, v1.2 matches prelinked kext but can't determine if executables are the same (no UUIDs).

UPDATE from FTDI
Apple are moving from what are called Kernel Extentions (.kexts) to what are called Driver Extensions (.dexts) for the implementation of drivers starting in macOS Catalina (10.15). Currently .kexts are still supported in macOS Catalina, however after the beta release they issued an update which stopped our driver from loading. This update required our driver (FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext) to be re-signed and notarized, we completed this process with an updated Apple Developer ID (as they lapse every two years). Unfortunately when Apple issued our new Developer ID to re-sign and notarize the driver package they did so without the .kext support option enabled (as .kexts are being deprecated it is no longer automatically included). This is why there is a code signature issue with our driver, currently we are waiting on Apple issuing us with the correct Developer ID to be able to sign .kexts for macOS Catalina.
As such our current VCP driver available on the website has a signature issue and wont load. However if the device you are using implements a default FTDI VID/PID combination it should be picked up by the inbuilt AppleUSBFTDI.dext driver and present accordingly in the ‘/dev’ folder on your system in the following form:
/dev/cu.usbserial-xxxxxxxx
/dev/tty.usbserial-xxxxxxxx
My FTDI module has default PID VID but still doesn't work. Apple needs to check.
UPDATE# FTDI 2.4.4 should work fine with Catalina now.


Pictures from photo stream back to camera roll?

Yes, you can it save to the Camera Roll with the Arrow in the left corner and choose "Save to Camera Roll". It's the last Menu Point.


alias youremail@me.com(icloud) from a custom domain (like Google Apps fyd)

iCloud is just IMAP under the hood.  It's not possible using the default configuration to use an email address that is now supplied by iCloud (whether using the old me.com or the new icloud.com), but it is possible to configure in a non-standard way to achieve the same effect, but it does require the use of a 3rd party SMTP server to achieve this.

Basically, on your device, setup iCloud as normal.  Then amend the preferences and turn off Mail and Notes
Then, in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars choose Add account > Other > `Add Mail Account
Enter your Name, the email address you wish to use, the password of your iCloud account and a descriptions along the lines of Custom iCloud Mail then Next
Leaving the top details as you entered them, and ensuring you stay on the SMTP tab, not POP, enter the following in the Incoming Mail Server fields:

Host Name: imap.mail.me.com
User Name: Your iCloud username as the full email address
Password: Your iCloud password

In the Outgoing fields, enter the details of your SMTP server, you may use gmail server addresses in here if you have a GMail account, or use a paid hosting company like I do.
Click Next, and it will attempt to verify the details.  Hopefully it will all work fine, and put a load of ticks next to all your inputs

That's pretty much it, you now have iCloud configured normally for everything except mail and notes, and mail should send through your own servers allowing you to use what you like as your email address for return purposes.  Don't forget to forward all your mail to your iCloud account.  Sent mail will still remain in your iCloud sent mail folder, regardless of the fact that is is being sent through a 3rd party server so there is no need to bcc yourself to keep a copy, unlike with some other solutions.

One last thing, why include notes and exclude them from iCloud?  Because notes are just mail items stores in a special IMAP folder.  Turn them off in the new manual account you created, and you will see the Notes folder appear in Mail.app.  Turn it on, and that folder is hidden and the notes are shown through the Notes.app instead!  However, you will end up with duplicates, unless you turn off your iCloud version of the same folder.

Things to note, you can use this setup for pretty much any normally unsupported mail client, including the one in iOS4 etc in say in iPhone 3G


Mac (OS X 10.9.2) no longer saving screen shots

When I try to take a screen shot (Command + Control + Shift + 4)

That's the problem. The shortcut to put a screenshot on the desktop is just Command + Shift + 4 (or 3).  Don't press the control key; when you do, it copies to the clipboard instead.  That's why you're not getting a file on the desktop.


Macbook Air Magsafe 1 charging port burning out repeatedly

My theory is that is due to very high humidity.

It is 84% in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India right now!

Humidity can form conductive film between the pins that lead to continuous eddy currents.

So how does that apply to your situation?

Magsafe is a magnet (strong magnet). There is always a lot of microscopic particle attracted and magnetized. Normally that would not do anything, but with high humidity it dissolves the micro particles in the water droplets and allows them to flow between Positive and Negative pools of the plug, thus leading to burn marks.

Make sure your Magsafe plug is dry, and only charge it in low humidity environment.  Use Compressed Air can and frequently blow dry the magsafe.

Also put can put your Mac in a fridge YES fridge (not freezer) and charge it there.


How do you use Greek letters in pages, 5.5.2?

Open the Character Viewer and drag the letters from there in to your document.

If you have to use it more frequently you can set it up bit automated, in the syst pref- Keyboard- Text. Then assign a Greek letter to some word like when you type Beta it would be replaced with Greek β.


Not unless your Apple ID has been logged in for use with Find My iPhone. Chances are this hasn't happened, since the iPod can only be associated with a single Apple ID  at a time for the purposes of device registration and Find my iPhone.


OS X: Schedule Launchctl to quit application at certain time

One of these two methods should work, but I admit I have not tested them:

Either you could write an AppleScript a la

tell application "Caffeine" to quit

put this in a file, then either launch the file from an osascript command or  put it into Script Editor and save it as an application and launch that as a an app

or you could use the good old killall command. You would have to lookup the name of process of the Caffeine process and send it a

killall Caffeine

command, assuming that the process name of the Caffeine app is Caffeine (check  it from the Activity monitor or the ps command)


Navigate albums while playing music from iPod

Unfortunately, there's no way that I'm aware of around this—the reasoning being that you should have your eyes on the road, I suppose. However, if your stereo is intelligent enough to directly read music from your iPod, as it seems to be, you can usually navigate through your music with its interface. That's typically clunkier than the iPod interface, but it will probably get the job done.


Connect iPod Touch to WiFi with hidden SSID

If the SSID is hidden, that means you don’t see the network’s name, so the only way to connect is by manually typing the SSID.

You have to select “Other” from the list of WiFi networks.


Keyboard shortcut for jumping directly to a specific input method

One option would be to download changeInput and assign shortcuts to shell commands like changeInput U.S..

You could also use KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <vkchangeinputsourcedef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_HIRAGANA</name>
    <inputsourceid_equal>com.apple.inputmethod.Kotoeri.Japanese</inputsourceid_equal>
  </vkchangeinputsourcedef>
  <vkchangeinputsourcedef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_KATAKANA</name>
    <inputsourceid_equal>com.apple.inputmethod.Kotoeri.Japanese.Katakana</inputsourceid_equal>
  </vkchangeinputsourcedef>
  <item>
    <name>change_inputsources</name>
    <identifier>change_inputsources</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::E, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_ENGLISH</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::H, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_HIRAGANA</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::K, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_KATAKANA</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

See the private.xml documentation.

VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_ENGLISH is defined in vkchangeinputsourcedef.xml. You can see the IDs of input sources from EventViewer.app. Without | ModifierFlag::NONE for example the first setting would also apply to control-option-shift-command-E. See the source for the key code values and predefined settings.


Via ssh: Open remote pdf without saving locally

Take a look at SSHFS. This allows you to mount a filesystem over ssh. There's a good tutorial here.

Essentially, you will mount the filesystem from your office computer and it will appear as a mounted volume on your mac. Instead of file accesses reading/writing to a local disk, they read/write across the ssh connection to the disk on your office computer.

Since it's a mounted volume, all the local mac commands to open files work with native associated applications as you would expect. (e.g. in Terminal : open somefile.pdf)


What directory comparison tools can I use on OS X?

FileMerge (free), shipped with Xcode, offers a directory view.
A command line version is available through the Terminal application opendiff.

Here's how you can compare two directories with FileMerge:

⌘+space, type in "FileMerge" and open it.
Click the "left" button and choose the folder you would like to move items FROM. (The "old" folder)
Click the "right" button and choose the folder you would like to move items TO. ("new" folder) and click "Compare" button
In the right panel, choose to exclude: "identical" and "Changed right". This way you will only see files which are missing in the "new" folder and ignore files your may have added in the "new" folder.
Move files manually in Finder or let FileMerge do it, by choosing an option in the "Merge" dropdown in the right panel.


MacBook Hangs on Boot at seemingly different stages each time

Your problem seems to be bit deeper since you tried few options already.

You might or might not have the recovery installed!

You could get one and use it from USB, or if it happens so you might have bootable os on USB.

In none of the above is possible then try using the Target disk mode.

For that you will need a second mac (not many have that).

To some degree the Apple Hardware test could detect problems with hardware.

Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears.


Got an copy of DiskWarrior? (DiskWarrior usually fixes this issue for me)

Have you tried "Safe Boot" ?

What 10.3 and 10.4 install CD's are you using? Are they for the Cube? Another Machine? Generic installers?

May try booting to an external drive, and running the 10.3.9 or 10.4.11 combo updaters on the boot volume.


You have multiple ways of blocking the kids from accessing the printers:

Depending on the make and model of the printer, you could setup authentication on the printer. This way users will have to enter the username and password for the printer the first time they AirPrint something. This has to be done on the printer.

Depending on the make and model of your network equipment, you can set up a seperate network for the kids's iPads that is not allowed to AirPrint (i.e. has no network access to the printers). Even though the teachers are also using iPads, this can work, as you would still have the ordinary WIFi where the teacher's iPad can connect to access the printers.

Finally, as you indicate you prefer a solution where the restriction is done from the iPad, you can change the setup of the kids' iPads so that they're not allowed to AirPrint at all.

This can be done from a MDM setup, if you have one already. You can then specifically select a number of iPads, and then restrict access to AirPrint.

If you haven't got MDM, you can install "Apple Configurator 2" (free download from the App Store) on a Mac, and connect each iPad to set them up as supervised and block access to AirPrint. Note that usually iPads will be wiped when adding them as supervised devices.

You can find the user guide for "Apple Configurator 2" here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-configurator-2/welcome/mac


Can't install Find My iPhone app on iPhone 4 as it requires iOS 8

When attempting to download an app that has been updated and no longer supports an older version of iOS, you will receive the following prompt:

Download an older version of this app?
The current version requires iOS 8.0 or later, but you can download the last compatible version.
Cancel | Download

Tapping Download will download the last version of the app compatible with the version of iOS you are running.


I need to take 500 screenshots at 325x200 over and over. How can I do this on a Mac quickly?

If you know javascript you could use something like phantom.js feed it a list of urls to get screen captures

http://phantomjs.org/screen-capture.html


Which formats does Apple Newsstand accept?

The Newsstand is just a special "Store" where you can download a 'magazine' app and the Newsstand itself which tracks the "issues" that your magazines have available

So your Newsstand app can display anything it wants in any format it can decode and display - an issue is just a big bundle of data and the magazine app is just an app that decodes and displays that data.

Apple don't give you any information about content formats as they don't care and don't specify.

PDF is a popular format as you can easily display PDFs on iOS using WebKit, indeed most magazines seem to use Webkit for displaying their data since it allows you to show a bunch of formats and it works well with embedded links.


The problem was in the disconnected cable to the bluetooth module.
Fixed


How to import data into numbers properly

The datum need to be separated by commas, like so:

fam, lengte, gender, twin

1, 167, 2, 4

1, 167, 2, 4


Create new 'super-category' in iTunes heirachy

Select all the items and get the item information by pressing Command+I. Choose Options tab and change the Media Kind to the suitable category. It doesn’t let you create a new category, but the some of existing categories should fit to your media (perhaps using iTunes U or Audiobook).


Is it normal that External Hard Drives continue to be listed in Disk Utility / diskutil even after Eject?

This is completely normal and no issue to worry about.

When you unmount a volume you are just removing the read and write access to it but the computer knows that the HD is still conn cited to your computer you can always mount it again by clicking disk utility and click the volume and mount it to make the HD disappear from the list you have to physically remove it.


Can I daisy chain Thunderbolt to FireWire 800 to FireWire 400

Your setup will not work. You must have separate FireWire and Thunderbolt chains, and not connect devices to both interfaces simultaneously.


You can kill the CoreAudio process by opening Terminal and running sudo kill -9 `ps ax|grep 'coreaudio[a-z]' | awk '{print $1}'`. It will restart automatically after a couple seconds.

That fixes some problems my aging MBP has been having, where it sometimes fails to detect headphones or decides the speakers aren't connected. No guarantees it will work for every audio problem, but it's worth a shot.

Source: zakgreant on macosxhints forums.


How to replace the currently selected text in Applescript? How does Devontechnologies WordServices' do it?

You could use an Automator contextual workflow service.

Open Automator select Contextual Workflow

Enter the following settings

Workflow Receives: text
In: Any Applicaition
Check Output replaces selected text

Add the AppleScript Action

The selected text will be in the input variable. It will return the input variable at the end thus replacing the original text with the new text

The workflow can be accessed by selecting text, right clicking, and going to Services.


Remap command-arrow key to the same as ctrl-arrow keys (moving by word)

You can change the default keybindings for OS X text editing with the DefaultKeyBinding.dict file. Make a new text file at ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict, with these contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>^&#xF702;</key>
    <string>moveWordLeft:</string>
    <key>^&#xF703;</key>
    <string>moveWordRight:</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Restart or log out and in, and controlleft and controlright should do what you're looking for. This will work in most OS X apps, but there are some (typically third party text editors) that use their own bindings, which will need to be switched on a case-by-case basis.


Create a pdf with just certain pages from a pdf

What you might want to try is this:

Duplicate the PDF you want to remove the pages from in the Finder
Open the duplicate file, show the sidebar
Select the page(s) you no longer want and press the backspace key
Once you have deleted the pages you no longer want, save the duplicated file.
If you like you can then open another PDF and drag the thumbnails from one sidebar to the sidebar of the other document, thereby adding pages from one PDF to another.

Hope that helps.


How do I change the shortcut for lock screen?

You can do this by following this webpage instructions :

Open System Preferences
Open Keyboard Preference Pane
Go to Shortcuts tab
Select "App Shortcuts"
Click "+"
Select "All Applications", "Lock Screen" and type your shortcut.
Quit System Preferences


Free viewer for Excel files other than OpenOffice

Isn't Quick Look enough?

You could also try to upload them on Google Docs.


What is the MakerNote Apple 0x0002 field in iPhone/iPad images? Is it a unique identifier for photos?

bplist would suggest it's a binary property list.

If you can pull out the raw binary, you can decode it. There are some command line tools available. Search for bplist online.

If that fails, a discussion of the format is available here:

https://synalysis.com/how-to-decode-apple-binary-property-list-files/

My guess would be that the excellent Exiftool will decode this field for you.

I maintain an image metadata software library (for Java and .NET) and would be interested in a sample image with this field. Perhaps I can add support in my software. If you have time, please open an issue and attach a sample image.


Using an iMac as a monitor for a mac mini

You could use the iMac to remotely connect to the mac mini over the network with apples remote desktop software. If you have a gigabit wired network between them then performance would probably be good enough to be usable for most tasks except 3d gaming or hd video I'd say. You cannot directly attach the iMac as an external display using a video cable however. Also, remote desktop access over wifi would probably not be ideal for everyday use

To actually perform this, just do the following:

In Finder, click the 'Go' menu option and then 'Connect to Server'
type in vnc://mac-name.local:5900/ or vnc://mac-ip-address:5900/

This will connect the two computers and you sign in with the credentials of the account on the remote Mac


Account username and password don't match on mac users & group on Mac

You need an admin user to manage this Mac, so why not create that first:

New MacBook had user accounts already; I deleted admin and can't get back in

I like my answer on that post (go figure) and then you can use the new admin credentials to fix your current user short name and home folder.

Lots of other good advice and answers here as well:

I don't have administrator account on my mac


I cannot see the body of my messages in Mail

This can sometimes be cured by removing mail accounts first and then adding all your mail accounts again. It won't affect your mail accounts in any way even if you remove it since the mail is on the server and mail will keep any messages downloaded permanently from the account.

You could make a backup if you are worried about losing mail.

Also - be sure a simple reboot doesn't unjam things.


On Apple Mail I get an error message "the attachments are still being loaded" - any fix?

The Photos library repair tool resolved the problem for me. Hold down the Option and Command buttons while opening Photos, then select the repair option.


How do I export BBedit Settings to another mac

To export your settings and preferences to a new Mac copy the following files and folders to it:

file:

~/Library/Preferences/com.barebones.bbedit.plist

folders:

~/Library/BBEdit
~/Library/Application Support/BBEdit

~ indicates your user folder.


Network Link Conditioner must be run from an administrator account to work properly.


Use Apple's Server Admin Tools to Force Inherit Permissions

Open Server.app and select your server from the services list.
Go to the Storage tab.
Browse to the folder location that you wish to inherit permissions from.
Click the gear at the bottom, and select Propagate Permissions…
Choose the permissions you wish to propagate and click OK.


How to set up Time Machine to back up to a specific folder in my Synology NAS?

Time Machine requires a drive or shared volume. Time Machine will not work with a nested folder. On your Synology, set up the destination directory as a shared volume to your Mac.
See Synology's How do I back up files from my Mac to Synology NAS using Time Machine?

This article will guide you through the process of backing up data from your Mac to Synology NAS using Apple's Time Machine, a backup utility included with macOS 10.5 and later.


How do you browse and upload a photo from an iPhoto Library to a website using a browser like Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc

The iPhoto Library folder can not be browsed directly. In Finder you can open/access it by righ-clicking and selecting the "Show Package Content" option, but this is not possible in the Open dialog.

But there is an easier way: you can access the content of your iPhoto Library directly from the file browser in the Open dialog:

This also gives you all your events, albums etc. to browse through.


Below is an example syntax for how you can manage this:

wget --tries 10 --waitretry=30 -—wait=20 --random-wait -—referer="" -i septweetsimages.csv

In the above syntax, if wget encounters a failure, it'll retry 10 times with a waiting period between each attempt of 30 seconds. It also waits up to 20 seconds before downloading each new image.

Using the man wget command in terminal will provide a description of many other options you can use to manage bandwidth, capture a log file, etc.


Frequent, lengthy voice recording damaging to iPhone?

Not likely. Use your phone to do whatever you want to do with it.

Per iFixit's teardown there's a Toshiba MLC NAND flash chip in there. You've got at least 10,000 write cycles for the flash, which means you could fill the phone up 10,000 times before you had any problems. If you're figuring a gigabyte of recording each day, a 16GB phone gives you 40+ years of recording time.

(If somebody can find a datasheet for the part, you could confirm the potential number of write cycles. My 10,000 is an educated guess based on typical MLC.)


It sounds like your battery is in bad shape. Your MBP goes to sleep and when it runs out of juice it simply dies.

If that's not the case - meaning the battery got's juice after a hard reset (holding power button for 5+ secs) without hanging to power supply then: First check if there are any Firmware updates. Then try the following:

Open up a Terminal in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal and to disable hibernation type:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

then remove any trace of previous hibernations:

rm /private/var/vm/sleepimage

After that reset the SMC aka System Management Controller:

MBP with removable battery:

Shut down the computer.
Disconnect the power adapter
Remove the battery.
Press and hold the power for at least for 5 seconds.
Release the power button.
Reconnect the battery
Turn on the computer.

MBP with non removable battery:

Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter if not already connected.
Press the Shift-Control-Option left side keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Turn on the computer.

The LED on the MagSafe may change states - if so it means your SMC reset was successfull. To enable Safe Sleep again open Terminal and sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3. Hope that help's.

Update
To have total control of Sleep try this http://semaja2.net/insomniaxinfo


Can't make WhatsApp calls over Wi-fi on iOS14

While not the same error message, a family member was having trouble with WhatsApp and it looks like a new feature of iOS14 is the culprit.
If you open up the Settings for WhatsApp and make sure that it has Local Network access that might solve your issue


Reformatting Mac... what are some files that are automatically saved?

When you reformat a Mac, nothing is really left over or "automatically saved". After formatting, every file on that volume is gone (in terms of being visible through ordinary applications - be aware that it is possible in some cases to perform recovery of the formatted drive, so it is not a safe way to ensure data is permanently deleted).

When you use the macOS Recovery system to format and re-install macOS, you're offered multiple ways of adding your data back to the formatted drive. This is mainly in the form of (a) restoring from Time Machine backup, (b) migrating data from another computer or (c) adding an iCloud account that could then sync over data from iCloud Drive (not in your case), and various other iCloud services such as Photos, Contacts, Mail, Keychain, etc.


Try the following:

Restarting iTunes
Restarting the Mac
Quitting iTunes and relaunching it while holding down the ⌥ key (to designate a different library), then quitting and relaunching it and re-pointing it at your real library
Selecting a completely different screensaver, then reselecting the iTunes Artwork screensaver.
Repair disk permissions


Putty - equivalent Mac SSH client and commands

This is standard ssh and covered in the man page for TCP forwarding.

ssh -f -L 8080:localhost:443 1.2.3.4 sleep 10

I changed as little from the manual page (8080, 443, 1.2.3.4) so you can find it and the explanation there on OS X. You will want to increase the sleep time if you browser isn't going to connect in the next 10 seconds.


Reinstall a clean copy of Mavericks AND migrate my Apps and Settings?

I advise the following:

Make a backup of the current state of the machine, this time using Time Machine's Exclusions Option to remove the offending files (e.g ~/Library/*/python) from the backup.
Holding down CommandR at the startup chime, boot into OS X Recovery and erase the startup volume using Disk Utility.
Cleanly reinstall OS X on the empty volume
Once complete, use Setup Assistant (not Migration Assistant!) to restore the Time Machine Backup.

Notes:

You can only restore complete backups -not incremental. The TM backup mentioned in (1) must be a complete backup.
Be wary of what you exclude and only exclude what is necessary. For example, excluding the /System folder will prevent you from performing a full restore via Setup Assistant.
Why not Migration Assistant? It's prone to cause problems when doing a clean restore.
The Pondini links provided are for Mountain Lion. All the instructions work exactly the same in Mavericks and are completely applicable.


spotlight does not find text in .docx files

There is a free Appstore app named Easyfind which enables you to set certain search parameters. When you open Easyfind you get the pane shown below.

Click on the Settings button in the top left corner and it opens the small additional pane on the left. You can set Easyfind to search files or folders or both and then using the small pane on the left you can click on one of the groups and be sure to add docx. After that just include your search phrase and hit the
return key.


Lion opens lots of windows automatically after a restart. How can I stop that?

What you are experiencing are the benefits of working with resume. A feature introduced with Mac OS X Lion.

It restores the state of the computer when shut down. Very useful, when having to restart because of some installation procedure.
It reopens the used windows of applications. Quite useful since you do not have to navigate to a files location. Instead, just open the needed application to open the file.

Unchecking the box does not have a permanent effect. This can be achieved by manual tweaking.
Disable Resume upon login permanently
Open the Terminal and enter:
curl http://goo.gl/Z4EFC -L -s -o ~/fixlogin.sh && md5 -q ~/fixlogin.sh | xargs -I % mv ~/fixlogin.sh ~/%.sh && chmod +x ~/121dca51e66073624da420b6e1be61d9.sh && sudo ~/121dca51e66073624da420b6e1be61d9.sh ; rm ~/121dca51e66073624da420b6e1be61d9.sh

This command downloads a script and fully installs it. Voilà, you are done.
If you want to revert to the default behavior of resume in lion, type this.
sudo defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook

Kudos to Hexbrain who wrote the script.

Disable Resume when launching apps
You can also disable Resume for applications on a per app basis. See these answers here.


Reminder triggered when certain person calls?

I don't know of a way but when I need to do this, I change the contact name temporarily. Instead of "John" it would be "Tell John story".


The behaviour you are seeing is a bug and the comments confirm others can reproduce it. Given this, please tell Apple. Only Apple can fix the underlying bug.

Report to Apple

Use the feedback form to report this bug to Apple. Alternatively, if you have access, you can use Bug Reporter to tell Apple's engineering teams directly.


Yosemite: ssh slow to connect when using DNS alias

I found a “fix” for this, though it still doesn't explain anything.

In our organization, we have “standard” DNS arranged hierarchically for different sites, just as you would expect. We also have an Active Directory structure that is largely flat. The resolv.conf (actually defined in Network Settings) had my local DNS domain listed as a search domain. I discovered quite by accident that adding the AD domain as a search domain fixes the problem!

So now I have something like:

search mysite.example.com ad.example.com

Now ssh’ing to an unqualified alias takes no more time than any other form of the host name.

Really bizarre, and I have no idea why this fixes it.


UPDATE: the solution below, sadly, no longer works after update to Xcode 8, because Apple shut down plugins support :( If anyone knows a working solution for Xcode 8 and above, please, write a comment below this answer to notify me, I'll be very grateful!

It can be done using the ProjectWindowName Xcode plugin. You can install it via Alcatraz. Alcatraz is not officially supported, so sometimes plugins stop working after Xcode updates (reinstallation usually helps). Or some plugins might deactivate after an update, because the compatibility UUID for the new Xcode version is not listed among compatibility UUIDs for the plugin.

I'm writing it here, because I'm unsure, whether the ProjectWindowName plugin was updated to support the latest Xcode. So if you installed Alcatraz, installed the plugin, relaunched Xcode two times (I don't know why, but Xcode can't seem to be able to show recent project after the first relaunch), and still project name is not shown in the expose mode, run the script from the accepted answer in this SO question.

Because I'm running the latest OS X 10.11.4 with the latest Xcode 7.3 (7D175) at the moment, and project name in expose works fine :)


Lost Mail when removed pop account to re-add as imap account

You're going to have a hard time recovering the files and should power off the machine / only mount that drive in read-only mode until you have given up on the idea of data recovery.

I like Data Rescue 3 - but your tool will probably be mostly equivalent.

Look to recover ~/Library/Mail and ~/Library/Mail Downloads files if possible. Ideally you can get the computer friendly - human hostile directory structure back and recover all files with these extensions intact:

emlx
plist


After resetting iPhone, does Find My iPhone remain activated?

In iOS 7, Apple introduced a new feature called Activation Lock.

Activation Lock prevents someone from stealing your phone because they can't restore it and use it without your Apple ID and password.

So yes, Find My iPhone is still on because activation lock is still on. Find my iPhone can only be turned off by going to settings > iCloud > Find My iPhone, then flipping the switch and entering your Apple ID password.

You should need your password to activate the iPhone.


Yes. You could even get by if you had 500 GB of data to back up.

If you don't use Bootcamp, tell time machine to exclude the VM hard drives.

Wireless is fine - the initial backup could take longer and restores will take longer than a USB drive, but you'll get more backups if you don't need to remember to connect a USB.


Command+Up or Command+Left will take you to the beginning of the text field, while Command+Down or Command+Right will take you to the end of it.


Iphone: how to play a directory containing MP3 from OneDrive?

VLC allows to connect to various cloud services including OneDrive and can play MP3. You can download it from the App Store.


Album not eligible for iCloud Music Library. Why?

Ok, I've figured it out. iCloud Music Library supports up to 24bit@44.1KHz. The 96KHz is the problem


"Suspicious Activity Might Have been Detected" malware in Safari or other browsers

Here's the solution on iOS/Safari:

Close Safari
Open Settings
Look for the Safari settings, click it
Click Advanced (at the bottom)
There is a setting for JavaScript, turn it off
Close Settings
Open Safari
Close the message box if it is still open
Click on the "show me all the web pages" icon in the lower right (whatever it's called)
Close the page in question
Go back to Settings and turn JavaScript back on

All done!


Facebook birthday sync only working for some contacts

Facebook has an option for friends to Opt OUT of their birthdays being displayed to other people. So if I had you on FaceBook and I turned the option off to display to you what my Birthday is, the it won't sync to your Calendar.


shell script gives error [: !-z: unary operator expected while execute

There are three issues I can see:

The first line should be #!/bin/bash (which together with chmod pkill.sh will allow you to run ./pkill.sh mongod directly)
Whitespace is important in bash, try [ ! -z "$pro" ] :-)
-z tests for an empty string, so ! -z tests for a non-empty one. Ignoring for a moment that -n does the same thing: shouldn't you call kill if the string is non-empty?

PS: Also, using pgrep or even pkill instead of the pipes will make things a lot easier here.


No text alert for one person only - iPhone 8

Did you add yourself as a new contact then choose what ringtone you want and text tone? Alert tones is on, and vibration?


Using 'kMDItemContentModificationDate' in 'do Shell Script'

Came up with this solution with help of above script which works just fine:

set downloadPath to path to downloads folder from user domain as string
set posixPath to quoted form of POSIX path of downloadPath

--Date to search for:
set dateStart to text returned of (display dialog "Enter search date in form 'MM/DD/YYYY'" default answer "02/03/2015")
--date "Tuesday, February 3, 2015 12:00:00 AM"
set dateStart to date dateStart
--End date (Midnight on next day)
set dateEnd to (dateStart + 24 * 60 * 60 * 1)
--date "Wednesday, February 4, 2015 12:00:00 AM"

--Begin search to now in days (rounded)
set startRound to round ((current date) - dateStart) / 86400
--End search to now in days (rounded)
set endRound to round ((current date) - dateEnd) / 86400
--Search Item
set SearchItem to "."

set theFiles to (do shell script "mdfind -onlyin " & posixPath & " 'kMDItemDisplayName == \"*" & SearchItem & "*\"&& kMDItemContentModificationDate >= $time.today(-" & startRound & ") && kMDItemContentModificationDate <= $time.today(-" & endRound & ")'")


Purchase iTunes Match in countries that do not have it?

Nope, you can’t. Also, you have to have a US credit card to use iTunes Match in Sweden. Even if you do find a way to sign up for iTunes Match, there will be problems.

Once you switch to the Swedish Store, you will lose access to iTunes Match.


How to turn off repeated prompts to sign in to itunes store from Apple ID that is not mine on iPhone

I tried several things for weeks to fix this. Sadly, the only thing that worked was restoring my phone from iCloud backup.


OS X startup disk has no more space available for application memory

Absolutely run sysdiagnose the next time you run out of disk space so that you can find out which processes are leaking memory (and/or just using all that RAM). As the commenter above stated on the question - this is clearly something amiss with one or more programs and not something that should happen routinely.


Mute Outlook app on iPhone during holidays

If you do not want to receive notifications for the week you can simply disable notifications in the notification center.

Steps

Go to Settings (the settings app for the iPhone)
Tap on Notification Center
Find Outlook and Tap on it
Tap the slider next to Allow Notifications to turn it off.

This will turn them off so you do not receive any notifications. To turn them back on follow these steps.

Go to Settings (the settings app for the iPhone)
Tap on Notification Center
Find Outlook and Tap on it (This time it will be under the do not include section)
Tap on the slider next to Allow Notifications to turn it on.


Text messaging has stopped working on my iMac

After comments...

It's often good to just go through the old "switch it off then back on again" routine, no matter how trite it may seem ;)

In this case - sign out [from Prefs > iMessage] & then sign back in again.


How can I delete VMWare from my MacBook Air?

Here is how you remove VMWare Fusion as referenced here from VMWare: Manually uninstalling VMware Fusion

  Fusion 4.x

  In Fusion 4.x, there is no uninstaller. Most Fusion files are contained within the application bundle (that is, the Fusion application in /Applications). To uninstall Fusion 4.x, drag the application bundle from the Applications folder to the Trash.

  Also, ensure to delete these additional files and folders if they are present.

  Note: Depending on the environment, some of these files may not be present. Some files may exist only if Fusion 3 was originally installed on the machine that was later upgraded to Fusion 4.

  /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion
  /Users/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion
  /Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion
  ~/Library/Caches/com.vmware.fusion
  ~/Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion
  ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.LSSharedFileList.plist
  ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.LSSharedFileList.plist.lockfile
  ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist
  ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusion.plist.lockfile
  ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionDaemon.plist
  ~/Library/Preferences/com.vmware.fusionDaemon.plist.lockfile

  Note: In Lion, the Library folder inside your user directory is hidden by default. To access your Library folder:

  Click the Finder icon.
  While holding the Option key, click the Go menu. This reveals your Library folder.


What causes a random giant mouse cursor?

El Capitan introduces a feature for finding a mouse cursor you've lost. Shake the mouse around and the cursor will increase in size whilst you're shaking so you can find it.

Here's the moment it was introduced in the Apple Keynote at WWDC 2015:

You can disable this feature in System Preferences → Accessibility → Display.

  Shake mouse pointer to locate
  Quickly move the mouse pointer back and forth to make it bigger.


How can I change the shortcut keys for my MacBook Pro so it doesn't conflict with my remote Windows shortcuts?

You can disable some of the F-key shortcuts in System Preferences:


How can I download a iOS Shortcuts file to my Mac?

You can save a shortcut you have on your iOS device to a .shortcut file using this shortcut: Save .shortcut. This works with shortcuts you’ve created or imported from iCloud.
Run the shortcut to be prompted to choose a shortcut from your list of shortcuts, then the Quick Look action opens the shortcut as a file, and you can share the file using the Share button in the top-right to Save to Files, AirDrop or elsewhere.
Unfortunately it’s no longer possible to import .shortcut files back into the Shortcuts app by opening them on iOS.


What actually happens during "Waiting for changes to be applied" and "Waiting for items to copy"?

Although there is no official documentation by Apple, you can still get some information by watching iTunes and iOS doing their stuff. This can be done by monitoring log files of both, on the iPhone this can be done over an USB connection. Here's a couple of what I've already seen the iPhone doing in the "waiting for xy" sync stages:

After copying new media to the iPhone, the media needs to be indexed, e.g. there's metadata to be processed, thumbnails need to be created etc. Until that is done, the media can't be displayed correctly in the corresponding iPhone apps, so iTunes waits for the iPhone Media Indexer service to complete its work.
When copying new apps to an iPhone, the packaged .ipa-files need to unpack and install, e.g. register in the iPhone's homescreen, app lists, file extension databases etc, this is done during that stages of sync.
The spotlight search might need time to index new files, iTunes waits for this as well (not always, but sometimes!)
When iTunes transfers files to an iPhone, it always verifies the file's contents in several ways, being it archive integrity or hashes that are compared. These processes do need plenty of time, depending on the size of the transferred data, and iTunes waits for successful verification in order to complete the sync.
When there are copy failures detected by any of the verification methods, iTunes will copy the files again. Often these processes are not displayed by iTunes, it is done during the "Waiting for items to copy"-processing.
iTunes will also wait for copy processes to terminate successfully, there are streams and sockets to close when data is transferred between computers. Although this should happen instantly, sometimes there are failures and the iPhone needs some time.
In general, you can say that iTunes utilizes these stages for verification and error correction as well as doing "completional" work. They get extremely useful especially when using WiFi sync, which is much more error-prone than USB.

Edit: To view the log files of an iPhone/iPad, no jailbreak is required. The best tool probably is libimobiledevice, a bundle of free open-source software licensed under LGPL 2.1. It is capable of handling an iOS device without the need of iTunes, so even on Linux machines. Although being designed for Linux machines, it can be run on Mac as well, e.g. by compiling the source code, or, even easier, by installing through homebrew. Although I'm always using it on Linux machines, this should work the same way on Mac OS X.

You probably need to pair your iPhone first, use the idevicepair-binary for this. It should find your USB-connected iPhone on its own, if it doesn't, you can try passing the UUID of your device. After pairing succeeded (it will display a success-message to your terminal interface), use the idevicesyslog-application to view the log files of your iPhone. It will connect to the syslog-socket of your device automatically, if it doesn't, you may pass the UUID again. Then all log messages will get posted to stdout on your computer, e.g. to your terminal output.

There is proprietary software as well that allows you to read the logs on your iOS device, but libimobiledevice as a command line- and open source-tool should be preferred.


Normally this should do the trick:

"pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres -l /usr/local/var/postgres/server.log start"
Without the " " of course.


Is it possible to activate whichever mail client is connected by default to a mailto link in applescript?

Whatever opens MAILTO:// links is set from within the Mail.app itself Go to Mail > Preferences > General and the top pop-up menu lets you set any installed application that the OS recognizes as being able to respond to those links as the default email application.

There used to be hacks that let a web browser with a webmail client open respond to mailto links but I haven't used one of them in years so not sure if/how that would work.


Does backing up the single VMWare Fusion's virtual machine file to be suffecient to backup the entire virtual machine?

On a Mac, when you copy the virtual machine file, it is actually a directory with all the files included that you will need to run it on another machine.

Shut down the VM before you copy it otherwise it can give issues on the other system. If you look at the folder you copied afterwards, you will see a bunch of files. The important ones are all grouped with VirtualMachineName.vm* and VirtualMachineName.plist and VirtualMachineName.nvram

You can remove all the other files.

The one with the .vmx extension is the config for the VM.


The Apple input source called Swedish has ™ at Alt 2.  Same for Swedish Sami PC.

The one called Swedish Pro has @ at Alt 2.

So make sure the list at system preferences/keyboard/input sources has only Swedish Pro on it.


My Dock and Launchpad appear to have died

First off, I would install any macOS software updates from the App Store in case it's a weird, uncommon bug with that version. (Current version is 10.12.2)

If your issue is not resolved after this, I would highly recommend testing in a new user account to determine whether or not the issue is system-wide. You could also boot into Safe Mode to see if the issue persists there. This would narrow down the list of possible culprits immensely!

If the issue appears to be user-based not system-wide, and still occurs in Safe Mode, I would then recommend rebuilding the the Launchpad database if you haven't tried this already.

When an issue does not occur in Safe Mode and has not resolved itself after restarting out of Safe Mode (yes, it can happen - albeit not often), it usually points to an issue with a kernel extension, third-party font, or a startup/login item. So at least if this is the case, we'll know where to start looking.

To rebuild the Launchpad Databases:

Note: Having a backup of your system is highly recommended as some of the tasks you will be performing delete user library data; not to mention you will be working with a couple of Terminal commands which if typed incorrectly can cause issues with your system.

Click here for my reference

Quit Launchpad, if it's open. You can do this by clicking anywhere
in the Launchpad app, as long as you don't click on an app icon.
Open a Finder window.
You need to access your Library folder, which is hidden by the
operating system. You can gain access to this folder by using the
instructions in OS X Is Hiding Your Library Folder. Once you have
the Library folder open and visible in the Finder, you can continue
to the next step.
In the Library folder, locate and open the Application Support
folder.
In the Application Support folder, locate and open the Dock folder.
You'll find a number of files in the Dock folder, including one
named desktoppicture.db, and one or more files starting with a
dashed set of capital letters and numbers, and ending in .db. An
example file name is FE0131A-54E1-2A8E-B0A0A77CFCA4.db. Grab all the
files in the Dock folder with the dashed set of letters and numbers
that end in .db and drag them to the trash.
Launch Terminal, located in the /Applications/Utilities folder.
In the Terminal window, enter the following: defaults write
com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true
Press enter or return to issue the command.
In the Terminal window, enter: killall Dock
Press enter or return.
You can now quit Terminal.

I would suggest restarting your Mac at this point and then testing the issue. Keep in mind that the first time you open Launchpad it has to rebuild the databases it needs so it may take a bit longer to launch.


Well I was not able to solve this, but wiping the drive and re-copying from a backup worked.


Anyone know of a timecard app that uses GPS?

Another app that does this in a more generic, passive, long-term fashion is Placeme.


How to download WWDC 2011 session_310__whats_new_in_instruments

I try to inspect the html element

HD Video

and fint the HD resource is demaged . So I downloaded the SD m4v.


How to restore individual app data from iCloud while keeping all the other apps installed and new data created since the last iCloud backup?

My own answer will be not applicable to every situation, but here is how I solved the problem.

All the data I needed from app in question (X) can be easily extracted once the app (with its data) is installed on the device.

So I did the following:

Backup the latest state to iTunes (saving a previous backup with "Archive" just before doing that)
Restore to the previous iCloud backup where the X app was still installed and had data
Extract all the data I need from X (I'm my situation, via iTunes > (my device) > Apps > Documents section
Restore back to the latest iTunes backup made in step 1
Re-install the X app in question from the scratch.


Can I buy songs from iTunes within my iPhone appplication?

As far as I know, no you can't. Buying music from the iTunes Store is limited to the iTunes application. You can use a link which will pass the user to iTunes to look at that particular song but they can't buy it from within your application.


I was just looking for this exact question. Just got a brand new MBP, latest gen, 15 in with dedecated graphics card about a week ago. I was running games on it for most of its use, upon which a hot temperature is expected, but now I am running just chrome and skype and the laptop is continuing to burn up on my lap. I am used to MBPs before and have had them for years, so know what a normal temperature for them is while not running intensive programs (such as a game or some development environments)

On top of that, it does not seem like the fans are running at the appropriate times at all. I hear them spin up for 10 minutes or so, then seem to just give up after that letting it continue to get hot.

Right now, just with skype and Chrome open, it is running at 85-90C, which is way too hot to be acceptable. I am not very close to an apple store so would hate to take it in if this is normal, would like to hear what others say before making that trip.


How to block Angry Birds Toons movies in iOS App (like Angry Brids Go)

I was having the same problem.

This is a solution:
http://www.imore.com/how-block-specific-websites-being-accessed-safari-iphone-and-ipad

It was slightly different on the Air but very easy to figure out. I just checked "Specific Websites Only" and it was already populated with JUST kid friendly stuff that did not include the birds :)


Is there a way to force photoanalysisd to work harder than it does by default?

I had the same problem when I migrated all my photo library and here's the way I've found to make Photos analyze my gallery faster:

Open Photos.app preferences
Open the iCloud tab > click on Download Originals to this Mac
Wait for all the photos to download

The scan should be faster after this, it should scan ~50 000 pictures per day. Unfortunately, if you don't use iCloud or the "Download Originals" option was already clicked I don't think there's any other way to make it go faster.


After System Update last night, the system will not boot with IOPlatformExpert.cpp:1504 error

Tried clearing your PRAM? Hold down Option + Command + P + R before turning the mac on, keep holding them until the mac makes the startup chime again (twice in total).
Apart from that, boot off the recovery partition and reinstall over the top of your hdd. Your data won't be changed, the OS will just be repaired.


What are the implications in speed and battery life while using Filevault 2?

Other than making sure you have power available when you turn on or off the entire disk's worth of IO to encrypt/decrypt, performance and power deltas are barely measurable.

Less than 1-2% is what I'm seeing. Other than hammering large IO benchmarks, in practice it doesn't matter one bit whether FileVault 2 is on or off for the initial build of Lion.

As long as you understand the limitations of not being able to use file recovery tools, how people can circumvent your encryption by losing control of pass phrases or keys, it seems this lunch is free (or at least on Apple's tab).


Waiting for Review is the status after Waiting for Upload, this means your binary should have been uploaded correctly.

However, to be certain - why wouldn't you revoke it and upload it again?
Else you have to wait and maybe get a result that the binary is corrupted and you have to wait the usually pretty long period again.


Deleted /usr/local/bin and /usr/bin on OS X

/usr/bin is where most of the Terminal commands are stored (e.g. clear). When your brother deletes everything in /usr/bin, he basically deletes most of the executable files that the Terminal and the system use. So the only way to get them back is to reinstall the OS. To do that, boot into recovery mode by holding cmd+r during startup, then after it boots up, select Reinstall OS X and follow the steps to reinstall OS X. It will not erase all of the files that you have. It only writes some system files (all the files in /usr/bin for example) back to where they belong.


How to track stationary bike activity with the Apple Health App on an iPhone SE?

There is a chart I found on the American Exercise Council...step conversion table...minutes of lots of activities at various levels of effort convert to so many steps per minute...such as stationary bike...I bike for 40 min at a time..( 2 programs that automatically change resistance)...this converts to 19 steps a minute of s bike activity....I initially Googled something like Step/Bike Conversion)

So, if you like that sort of thing (manually calculating) there are ways to do that without the Apple Watch or third party apps.