Table of Contents
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OS X Annoyances
Macbook
See also Linux Annoyances for Terminal on Mac
Change default application
Suppose you want all .xlsx files to open with LibreOffice instead of Numbers. Do the following.
- Find a file with the extension (.xlsx), right click, and Get Info.
- Under Open with, open the dropdown, find the application you want to open this type of file (LibreOffice), and select it.
- Click the Change All… button.
- Confirm that you want to make the change.
From this point on, all files with the same extension will open with this application.
Reset Printing System
From https://www.lifewire.com/reset-mac-printing-system-to-fix-os-x-printer-problems-2259970
If something goes wrong with printing, for example a bad file descriptors error, you need to reset the printing system. If you reset the printing system, you will
- lose all print queues and pending print jobs
- remove all printer preference files
- removes all printers currently in the Printers & Scanners preference pane.
To Reset Printing System:
- Launch System Preferences
- Select Printers & Scanners
- In the Printers and Scanners preference pane, place your cursor in an empty area of the printer list sidebar (where the printers are listed) and right-click; select Reset Printing System from the popup.
- You're asked to confirm. Press Reset.
- You may need to enter administrator password or finger.
The printing system will be reset and you will need to add back your printer.
Determine IP address of Samsung M2830DW printer
- Turn device on
- Press and hold the Cancel (X) button till green light blinks 5 times, then release
- Output is printed. On second page you'll find the IP address.
Play a DVD .iso image
Leawo Blu-ray Player works.
- Mount the .iso (right-click on .iso file, )
- Run Leawo
- See: Open File and the DVD you've mounted
- Right-click on the DVD you want to play
- Play Disk
MacBook Beeps Often
This is likely an alert that you have received new mail. To check and remove this:
- Open the Mail app
- Select Mail > Preferences
- General tab
- In the drop-down menu next to the New messages sound, select your favorite sound or None.
iTunes Playback skips -- skims -- music
20190905 Have seen videos that playback super fast when there is audio in the file. Also happens when watching YouTube videos.
Problem solved by https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/29/macos-fast-video-playback-bug-fix-coreaudiod-video/
- Open Activity Monitor
- Under CPU tab, find coreaudiod process, and click to select it.
- Click the X-in-stopsign button upper left of the Activity Monitor screen, and Force Quit.
- coreaudiod will restart and videos will play just fine.
20190923, happened again. Did the above, problem solved.
See all running applications with force-quit
This from http://osxdaily.com/2013/05/17/see-all-running-apps-mac-os-x/
- Force Quit Applications window: Command+Option+Escape to summon the basic “Force Quit Applications” window (a simple task manager for OS X). Only shows windowed-applications.
- Activity Monitor: Shows all applications in addition to windowed ones. Command+Spacebar type “Activity”. Select an app, use the X n upper left to bring up dialog allowing quit and force quit choices.
- top: Run Terminal, command=top. Sort by cpu or memory usage:
top -o cpu
[or]top -0 rsize
- ps: Run Terminal command=ps
ps aux
[or]ps aux | grep process
View or Change a Program's Properties
Property files are stored in /Library/Preferences. Run Terminal to work with. From https://www.amsys.co.uk/time-machine-10-8-part-3-advanced-features/
Following is example for Time Machine, limiting its disk use.
Time Machine by default will use all the available disk space on your backup drive. The good news is that you can setup a maximum limit that Time Machine can use. All you need to do is specify in megabytes the maximum space limit. You can do this by multiplying your Gigabyte preference by 1024 bytes. For example if I wanted the maximum backup space to be 100GB, I would multiply 100 by 1024 which equals 102400. I can then enter this terminal command:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize 102400
This preference can be viewed within the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist file by
sudo defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine
To remove the limit, use the following command:
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine MaxSize
Can't Delete File Because There's Not Enough Space
You want to delete files because the disk is full, but OS X won't let you do this because the disk is full.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201583
- Reboot the Mac, and while it's rebooting press and hold Command-R
- When the MacOS Utilities window appears, select: Disk Utility and click Continue
- In Disk Utility, select the disk that's causing the issue, and use First Aid to look at and repair the disk.
- When this finishes, you can First Aid another disk.
- Then quit the disk utility and restart your Mac.
- Then empty the trash.
How much space is each subdirectory using?
For example, you have lots of subdirectories in your Videos directory, and how can you determine which is using the most space?
- Start Terminal
- Change to the directory you want to look at (for example,
cd Videos
) - Enter the command
du -hcd 1
du
disk useh
human readable formc
show a total for the directoryd 1
depth, 1 means only top level, the subdirectories in the current directory
Burn ISO file to Bootable USB
Digested from link
20191213 This did not work for me: I'd downloaded the Win10 ISO and followed instructions to create a boot USB stick. The USB stick wouldn't boot. However I was able to use [[https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/]] on a Windows machine to create a bootable USB stick.
You have an ISO file and you want to make a bootable USB stick from it. You will need a USB stick larger than the ISO file (e.g., ISO is 6GB, you can use a 8GB or larger USB drive. When done, the drive is completely full.)
- Run terminal
diskutil list
- Find name of the USB stick (e.g., /dev/disk4; we'll use /dev/diskX here)
diskutil unmount /dev/diskX
or if that doesn't work do
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX
you should see a message saying unmount was successful.
- Now go to finder and locate the ISO file. Right-click, and Copy <filename> as Pathname.
- Back to terminal, enter part of command (don't press enter yet)
sudo dd bs=1m if=
and then paste the pathname of the ISO file to the command and then add of=/dev/rdiskX
- For ISO file in smi's download directory with name silly.iso the command will look something like
sudo dd bs=1m if=/Users/smi/Downloads/silly.iso of=/dev/rdiskX
- When it completes, type
diskutil eject /dev/diskX
see “ejected” message and unplug the USB stick.
bs is block size
if is input file
of is output file
Takes about 2 minutes to write a 6GB ISO file to a USB 3.1 drive.
20191213 I downloaded a Windows 10 ISO file from
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO
You can find other Windows versions to download, see https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/
Burn the ISO to Bootable CD/DVD
From Umass link
- Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
- Insert blank CD/DVD
- Drag the *.iso file from a Finder window to the Disk Utility window, drop in left pane in the empty area below the Mac drive names.
- Select the .iso file name in the left pane of Disk Utility, and click Burn (top left).
- The Burn Disk In: window opens and shows your CD/DVD as destination
- Click Burn
- When done the disk will eject
Active Window is Covered
Suppose you're running Resolve and trying to archive a project, and maybe try to rename it. You can see that the Finder window for storing the project is the active window and it's also covered by the View Projects window, it's impossible to get to it. I figured out what to do on 20200105.
- Hold down Alt/Option key, move mouse to the Corner of the (Resolve main) window; see double arrow ←→ appear, double-click.
- Move the main window out of the way (to another monitor for example)
- For the monitor with the View Projects window is covering the Finder window, switch desktops away and then back.
- The Finder (hidden) window will appear; quickly drag this so it's outside the covering View Projects window.
- You can then work on the no-longer-hidden Finder window and continue.
Enter/Exit Full Screen Mode
To enter full screen mode:
- Press green button in upper left
- Control-⌘-F
To exit full screen mode:
- Control-⌘-F
- Move mouse to upper-left corner and let it sit. You'll see green button, press it.
To work in bigger window without going full screen
- Press and hold Option key while click on the green button in upper left
- Window expands, menu and dock remain visible
- To exit, press and hold Option key and click on green button again
- Or double-click on the app's title bar
exiting full screen mode in DaVinci Resolve isn't working – once you're in full-screen, I can't get it to exit full screen mode. [20200207]
Interesting Software and Applications
Monkey Bread Software. Has TreeSize and Show IP in menu bar.
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