How do I properly force osx to reload the Info.plist file of an application?

I way trying to use defaults to modify the Info.plist file of an app, but after such command, osx does not reload modified Info.plist.

I've tried to move the app around and reboot, as mentioned somewhere else as a way to force osx to reload Info.plist, but failed.

So here's the problem, How do I force osx to reload the Info.plist file of an app?

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Specifically here is what I want to achieve:

Currently the flash in Firefox runs in low resolution when in fullscreen mode, to fix this I need to make the http://ift.tt/1wDzInj HiDPI compatible.

According to this, after this command:

defaults write /Application/Firefox/Contents/MacOS/http://ift.tt/1wDzIDz NSHighResolutionCapable true

I should be able to uncheck the "Open in Low Resolution" checkbox. But no, modifed plugin-container.app still has a greyed-out checkbox in its info panel. Rebooting does not solve the problem.

Here's the wired part: I moved the modified plugin-container.app to somewhere else, then I was able to uncheck that checkbox. But I moved it back and that checkbox became greyed-out again.

An work-around I found is

• copy another app to /Application/Firefox/Contents/MacOS/ and renamed it to plugin-container.app (I call this the "fake plugin-container.app"),


• then replace fake one with the modified one.

In this way I can have the "Open in Low Resolution" checkbox back and am able to uncheck it, but system doesn't update the app icon after replacing, so now the app icon of the modified plugin-container.app is still the one of the fake plugin-container.app. A problem is fixed but another is created.

So what is the proper way to have the system reload the Info.plist?

Password prompt before OS is boot

My Macbook previous OS is Mavericks,one day, i use find my iphone to lock my macbook and the Computer started to prompt me enter password(not the lock my mac Firmware password, i removed it right after the first Firmware password prompt) before the OS start to boot(It's like asking for password on BIOS if it were a PC).Then i upgraded to Yosemite and it's no longer ask me for password before system start booting up. The question is how i can get back the old password prompt, or is it just me confusing that the password is prompt before system start.

Help - Dropbox109 process asking to access firewall on Yosemite

As the title says, I have a process called Dropbox109 asking to access the internet. I have denied it. I have Dropbox installed since Mavericks, and its been working fine (uploads/downloads/sync). What's suspicious is I got this Dropbox109 internet- access request for the first time in a year of having Dropbox installed, and I couldn't find any information online.

Does anyone have any idea if it is a malicious program or a MacOS virus?

Disk Utility: Invalid Disk Label @ cksum mismatch

I have a WD external hard drive. I've been running the routine tests to make sure all my stuff is safe lately. In Disk Utility, I did Verify Disk on both the disk itself as well as the main partition, which is in the encrypted HD format.

I ran across this error on the partition:

Invalid Disk Label @[number] cksum mismatch

Which didn't seem very good. Resources online have close to no information, and I don't know what this is. It went away after I scanned again, but that is a common occurrence and other posters said that I should keep an eye on it.

I ran Repair Disk and it went without a hitch, but Verify Disk after that still showed the error.

I ran SMART Utility with the SAT-SMART Driver to enable SMART on external USB drives, it passed with 0 bad sectors and stuff.

Any ideas?

MacBook Air - Mavericks 10.9.5

iphone 6 find my iphone

i bought iphone 6 from someone and the phone is still logged into his icloud and find my iphone is still on. I need to reset the phone if i restore the phone using the home button and then connect it through my itunes will it ask me for the the icloud password of the previous owner .

iMessage and facetime not displaying my number

I have an iPhone 5 running iOS 7.1.2, I recently turned off the iMessage and FaceTime and then ejected my SIM card and inserted SIM card of another network. After few hours I again switched my SIM again to previous network.

After that I am trying to activate my iMessage and FaceTime but no luck. It is not displaying my number in address. I checked my number in Phone but there my number is correct.

I have tried network reset, phone reset, hard reset, turning on and off both services but no luck. How do I go back to using FaceTime and iMessage on my original network?

New Mac Pro: Setup/Migration Assistant never finishes

I am trying to transfer my existing (Early 2008) Mac Pro to a new (refurb) 2013 Mac Pro. I'm still in "setup assistant" mode.

The amount of information being transferred is about 120Gb. I've tried transferring over a direct-connected Ethernet from Mac-to-Mac, as well as a brand new Time Machine backup to an external SSD connected via a Thunderbolt 1 breakout box.

Every time I try to transfer, the transfer makes it to the applications stage in a reasonable amount of time. The progress bar is almost full. Then it starts doing the applications. At first, the screen shows "Transferring Applications"/"Transferring files to support applications" pretty fast. Then it starts getting slower. And slower. All the while, the completion time (which was "about a minute" starts creeping up.) The first time I let it run all night. By morning it was saying there would be over 250 hours to completion.

I've tried it 4 times since then (including a complete system reinstall), and the same thing happens every time.

I feel like I'm down to 2 scenarios:

1. 
   

   The Mac Pro has a hardware issue. I've already run the hardware diagnostics, but nothing shows up. That being said, this is a refurb, it's possible something is wrong that only affects the new machine during long transfers.

   
   


2. 
   

   There's something in the backup or my applications setup that's causing the migration to get stuck in a loop. I've looked on the system drive for a log, but I haven't found one.

   
   

Here's where it gets really, really bizarre: I can't find any sign of the files transferred on the new Mac after I've stopped it. Not a single file appears on "Macintosh HD" on the new Mac.

Any ideas? Apple can't help me in the store until Monday, so I thought I'd ask here.

How do I connect a bass guitar to my iPad to use with Garage Band

Garage Band for iOS has a mode to use real instruments. The documentation is unclear, however, how to connect those instruments to the iOS device. What options exist to connect an electric bass guitar to an iOS device to use with Garage Band?

How to transfer Clash of Clans acct frmone one Game Center user to another

My kid has started to play Clash of Clans on my iPad - under my own Game Center account. Now I have reconfigured an older iPad for him to use, with his own account. How do I transfer his CofC village from my Game Center account to his?

Retrieve Passcode from iphone backup files

This is the scenario in front of me.

An iPhone 4s is available with enter passcode. I have its backup taken from iTunes. I have extracted all the files (*.plist, *.db, *.sqlite, etc.) from those backup files.

Now my job is find the passcode from the backup. I no longer have access to the iPhone.

I have viewed almost all the files and still unknown with the file that contains the passcode. It would be great help if anyone would point me into the right direction.

If any other security app such as Applock is present, where does its passcode resides.

Moving the treeview to the left side in QuollEyeTree

Is there any way to move the treeview to the left side in QuollEyeTree? By default the treeview is located at the top half:

For example in Macintosh Explorer the treeview is on the left side by default:

Strange padlock icon on status bar (not rotation-lock!)

I recently noticed that a strange padlock icon with a "T" in it on my status bar. It is not rotation-lock tho. What exactly is this?

iPhone 5s, iOS 7.0.6

Installing ML 10.8 Using Internet Recover? HELP PLEASE

I changed my Mac HDD because the other one was corrupted. BUt when i do the internet recovery install, the bar on OS X Mountain Lion Istall Page (Downloading Additional Components) goes all the way to the end when it says remaining 0 seconds and then the minutes go up again like 43 min remaining but the progress bar is stuck at the end of the bar. Like it is in a download loop.

Needing help with Sound and Preferences on Macbook Pro after updating to Yosemite

Since updating to Yosemite last week my macbook pro cannot play sound. When I check the sound preferences I have only a digital output listed for the "Output device" which does not support sound what can I do?

Touchscreen troubles

I recently had my screen replaced on my I phone 5c from a vender in our local mall. The screen had been previously cracked for about 6 mnths and functioned fine until I dropped the phone after being outside in freezing weather for a few hours. At any rate now it is acting all hay wire like my touch screen doesn't always work properly... I press one thing I get another... Especially if the phone is cold or my hands are hot then the touch screen doesn't work at all... My question is should I be heading back to the mall and asking some questions about my repair? I was reading previous post on calibrating touch screen and I tried a couple ideas... It mentioned something about it being in the front panel which I just had replaced so I'm wondering if I got a faulty repair or if it's something else entirely?

Ridiculous number of unnecessary empty birthday calendars that can't be deleted

I have an iPhone 5 running iOS 8.1.1. My Calendar app is showing me a ridiculous number of birthday calendars ("Friends' Birthdays" under Gmail, "Birthdays" under Facebook, and 8 separate calendars named "Birthdays" under "Other"). This is what the list of calendars looks like:

I have no idea how they got there. I am syncing the Calendar app with Google, Facebook, and Meetup, but I can't imagine how that would produce such a ridiculous number.

What can I do about these? I would like to delete or merge some of them but the app is not giving me the option. Is it possible to delete most of them without losing anyone's birthday?

If I look at the Calendar app on my Mac (which is running Yosemite), I don't see all of these calendars. I only see one under Google that says "Birthdays", another under Google that says "Friends' Birthdays", and one under Other that says "Birthdays".

EDIT: I did some looking around and it seems like the "Birthdays" calendar under Gmail has my contacts' birthdays and the "Friends' Birthdays" calendar has my Facebook Friends' birthdays. But all of those "Other" birthday calendars don't seem to have a single birthday in them. I think I can delete them safely without losing anything. I just need to know how.

I logged into iCloud using the iCloud website. I clicked on the calendar icon and all I saw was two empty calendars called "Home" and "Work". I did not see all the empty birthday calendars. I didn't see anything useful or meaningful, but I wouldn't expect to because I am syncing all of my calendar events with Google, not iCloud.

Solid state hard drive—Haven't been able to do a clean Reinstall of Operating System.

Any suggestions?

Going to try to be linear in explaining what I did:

-Have a 2010 Macbook Pro 7,1 / I swapped out to a solid state drive.

-I have to try to get to at least Lion: It had it, but then crashed, and it would only reset to the original operating system, Snow Leopard. But I need at least Lion for security issues, etc. I'm trying to get Yosemite on it, but all is failing.

-error with trying to boot from the original OX 10.6.3 disk. Won't do it.

-won't do a recovery install from command-R / ****I can't find out whether I can even do that on a newly formatted SSD on this older Mb Pro model. I'm not sure if it's just not going to happen and I need to try to do an install of the original operating system somehow.

-Made a bootable USB thumb drive with Yosemite, but just crashed it to the 0 with slash sign through it.

If anyone has any suggestions, much appreciated. I would try to clone the old hard drive, but the reason why I can't is that I couldn't verify permissions, etc. the hard drive seemed to have issues, and/or the software OS seemed to be an issue to, therefore the clean install.

Apple ID on apps

So my iPad in setup to my newest Apple id. Every time I try to enter an app like Facebook it asks me for my old Apple id that I don't use anymore. I can't enter the apps without it. Does anyone know what to do? Thank you.

Alternatives of BitThief to Download Torrent Files Sequentially

I have reasons to modify my Java 6 (legacy) runtime resulting at the torrent client BitThief failed to run. I didn't like the application anyways so I am looking for an alternative. I did a Google search and found a few torrent clients on OSX that supports sequential download but I still like to get some experienced opinions. What I am looking for is a less resource intensive and stable client. Thanks.

What would be a stable OS upgrade for my mid/late 2007 Mac Book Pro?

Can anyone advise what a stable OS version would be for my mid/late 2007 Mac Book Pro? I am running Snow leopard 10.6.8 and know I can upgrade to Yosemite but have my hesitations after reading many comments on blogs. I've started to notice the effects of Snow Leopard being fazed out and want to upgrade but don't want to kill my machine while doing with a OS thats too much for it. I also don't want to lose apps in the process due to incompatibility.

My basic specs are as follows:

Processor: 2.6 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo Memory: 4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM Hard Drive Capacity: 320GB (27GB available)

I need to upgrade to use apps like Teamviewer 10 for example (as it's not supported on 10.6.8) but as it is my machine has slowed down and hangs despite repairing the permissions, using maintenance in OnyX, using Preferential Treatment and DiskWarrior (I've not repaired the disk in DiskWarrior yet despite my graph showing 39% errors). I just don't want to upgrade too high and completely affect my computers performance. I am correct in assuming this? Any thoughts would be most appreciated!

Thanks

Paul

Install Ubuntu on Yosemite - no detected operating system

I have a 2012 MBP running Yosemite and a Live CD of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. It runs fine, but when I get to the install part it only gives me options to delete the hard disk (no operating system detected) or something else (which im not comfortable with).

I've googled for hours and still am no where. Has anyone had this issue/know how to get around it?

Macbook Air - Liquid spill - Keyboard and TrackPad not working properly

I accidentally spill some liquid on the keyboard, it wasn't too much and I turned off the computer right way. The computer works perfectly fine, but after I log in the keyboard and trackpad stop working. So... Does anyone has any clue on what is going on?

Batch command line "convert" tool corrupting first file in folder

-convert txt * -output *

I am batch converting some RTFs to TXTs. For some reason, the first (only the first and always the first) file in the directory does not convert AND gets corrupted by the conversion.

As a hack, I create another fake file and make sure it is the first file in the directory. I get my successful conversions; I then discard the fake file.

Is the command listed above the best way to say, "convert all files in this directory to text files"? What might be causing the first file to become corrupted?

I don't know if this might have anything to do with it, but the containing folder is on the desktop.

Any help is appreciated.

OSX hangs on startup after large file search caused a crash (Mavericks 10.9.5)

Well, my computer won't startup. Gray screen on regular startups, black screen with no cursor on safe mode startup.

It started after a everything froze while performing a massive file search in finder. I was looking through all pictures before Jan. 1st last year -- gigs and gigs and gigs of data -- and I was in the Cover Flow view. I noticed everything was slowing down, and while I was browsing, I tried opening a couple files, both in preview and in Photoshop. Both programs hung and eventually crashed.

Eventually, finder itself froze completely. I hard reset. Now, nothing boots.

I've tried moving the preferences files from Library/Preferences (finder, dock, systempreferences), no go. I tried moving the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist file and /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist file. No go.

I deleted all the caches from /Library, /System/Library, and /Users/myusername/Library/Caches.

Checked my hard drive with fsck and everything is fine. Also tried /usr/libexec/repair_packages --repair --standard-pkgs. Nada.

My last line in my boot log is UserEventAgent[11]: Captive: CNPluginHandler en1: Inactive.

If I boot to safe mode, the progress bar loads, it hangs on the gray screen for a while, it flashes blue for a split second and then hangs on the black screen.

Regular boot just hangs on the gray screen.

Any ideas?

Install maverick via an hd partition

I had a problem trying to clean the data from my mac and now I can not start it.

He ran the maverick. I tried to make a swipe date but did not work and lost the system. I have backups of my personal files more unfortunately I do not have the system.

Is there any way to install maverick again through a partition of an external hd?

I already have this hd two images of the maverick acquired in apple store. One is the .dmg extension and the other is in .iso extension that I converted in linux.

Is there any solution?

Can't remove rEFInd

I had installed rEFInd on my 2012 MBP, but would like to get rid of it. Using iFileX there are no traces of "refind", but there are probably some boot preferences or something it changed. When I restart I still get the rEFInd bootloader.

Could anyone help?

i accidentally deleted iWeb and iDVD. They were pre downloaded

When i got my macbook pro(the 1st version)last week, on OS X yosemite it came with iWeb and idvd but i deleted them and now i want them back. i haven't backed up on the Time Machine so please help me

iOS 8 for iPad 2: Closing a tab in private browsing causes me to log off from sites in other private tabs

I just upgraded my iPad 2 to iOS 8. I was previously using iOS 6, so bear with me, as I'm obviously way behind everyone else.

I find that when I'm using multiple tabs in private browsing while logged on to a social media site or a prescription newspaper site or whatever, if I close one of the tabs, I log out of the site. I used to be able to close individual tabs without logging off whatever sites I was on.

Is there any way around this?

Thanks!

Avoid stutter when watching Amazon Prime video on Mac Mini 32-bit?

I have a Mac Mini that's a few years old.

I'd like to use it for watching online video, because it's small, we're not using it for anything else, it fits nicely under the TV, and I can connect its video output to the TV. We've got a month's free trial of Amazon Prime Video.

It's 32-bit (Intel Core Duo) so it's running Mac OS X Snow Leopard (version 10.6), which I understand is the most recent version of OS X that it's possible to upgrade it to. It has 1Gb of ram.

I've upgraded Flash and downloaded Silverlight and although APV videos won't play on Chrome, they will play on Firefox. Which is ok.

But when I play them back I get stuttering. :( Sometimes it's ok for a minute or 2 and then we get a little stutter, other times its stuttering every 10 seconds. It seems to stutter mostly when there's a big change in the image and lots happening in the audio - that could be my imagination.

To give video playback the highest priority (the machine is not being used for anything else), I did a renice -20 pid for the Firefox process and for the Silverlight process which it spawned. That didn't seem to help.

I know that the problem is with this machine (rather than with our internet connection or our router) because I've tried watching the videos on my laptop, connected to the internet in the same way, and that works well.

I've rebooted the machine and I've made sure there's only 1 logged-in user.

Can you suggest things I could try in order to make Amazon Prime Video play back without stuttering? Thanks!

Ridiculous number of unnecessary empty birthday calendars that can't be deleted

I have an iPhone 5 running iOS 8.1.1. My Calendar app is showing me a ridiculous number of birthday calendars ("Friends' Birthdays" under Gmail, "Birthdays" under Facebook, and 8 separate calendars named "Birthdays" under "Other"). This is what the list of calendars looks like:

I have no idea how they got there. I am syncing the Calendar app with Google, Facebook, and Meetup, but I can't imagine how that would produce such a ridiculous number.

What can I do about these? I would like to delete or merge some of them but the app is not giving me the option. Is it possible to delete most of them without losing anyone's birthday?

If I look at the Calendar app on my Mac (which is running Yosemite), I don't see all of these calendars. I only see one under Google that says "Birthdays", another under Google that says "Friends' Birthdays", and one under Other that says "Birthdays".

EDIT: I did some looking around and it seems like the "Birthdays" calendar under Gmail has my contacts' birthdays and the "Friends' Birthdays" calendar has my Facebook Friends' birthdays. But all of those "Other" birthday calendars don't seem to have a single birthday in them. I think I can delete them safely without losing anything. I just need to know how.

Why is "my passport air" suddenly not coming up as recognized by my macbook air? The light is on and it is vibrating as it usually does

I had another external drive transferred to this one with all my data on it and now I can't access it.

What can I do to access the drive and data?

Why do Apple permissions keep getting messed up?

How come Apple machines will randomly need to have a repair disk permissions done and how are permissions always getting messed up to require this.

Is this a design flaw with Apple?

iMac retina 27" with Mac OS X Yosemite. Reduce space between lines in Pages

When using the Pages app, how can I reduce the space between lines of text to LESS than single spacing?

Should I worry about that error?

I was doing some GPU benchmark that I pushed really high but then I had an error panel (from OS X) telling me that a graphic error had occurred (and I could report it), and then, a few minutes later, after I did an other benchmark, a black line really quickly (something like 0.5 s) appeared on the middle of the screen and disappeared.

I am wondering is if it's normal that those sort of glitches appear ? Or is something damaged ? Is there any risk to push your computer at its limits ?

How can I make sure my iPhone uses UK spelling and keyboard?

I use an iPhone 4s, with iOS 7.1.2

I have two keyboards installed. The first is British and the second is Emoji.

When I tap the globe button it switches to emoji. When I tap it again it switches back to qwerty but the space bar will flash the text "English (US)" which then fades to the word "space". Tapping the 123 button in qwerty mode shows a £ sign; I have to tap the #+= button to show the € and $ signs.

The phone highlights colour as wrong, but not color. I want to force British English spelling.

How can force the phone to use a UK keyboard? How can I force the phone to only use British English spellings?

install an older version of xcode on mac lion 10.7

I want to install xcode on vmware image mac os x lion 10.7 .. I went to app store but it won't let me download because it's the latest version which not compatible with lion 10.7 .. I don't have an developer account .. So, is there any way to install an old xcode ?

I want to create a new calendar "on my mac" but the item is missing in calendar.app v. 8

I have migrated to yosemity. Sometimes I use an 'on my mac' calendar. I just wanted to create one for one of my projects, but I can only see "Exchange", "google" and "iCloud" but I don't want any of those, just a local one.

The menu item is not there anymore, what setting am I missing?

email BCC to show recipients

Ok, so I was thinking about this, but I couldn't find an answer on the internet..

Basically, when I send an email to someone as BCC, it looks like this:

There is no 'to' so I feel this is quite impersonal to the person receiving the mail.

But sometimes I receive emails that are addressed to me, but I know the email has several other recipients as well..

So the question is: is it possible to send a BCC email so that it looks like a normal personal email? For example, I send an email as [me] to [x, y, z] recipients.. it shows up as from [me] to [x] (respectively [y], [z] to every other recipient).

contents-immutable and locking the Dock

I have the following:

defaults write com.apple.Dock contents-immutable -bool yes
defaults write com.apple.Dock size-immutable -bool yes
defaults write com.apple.Dock position-immutable -bool yes

I can run them fine from the Admin account and it works, but is there a way to do this on a non-admin account? Even Sudo did not seem to work exactly.

Can I just do a chattr +i? what is the immutable string actually doing in the background?

This is running 10.9.x

Mac Air -first no sound, now it won't charge

First the sound went out on my macbook air. I was in the airport and tried everything I knew, nothing worked. Then I went to plug into an outlet I found, and realized it wasn't charging. It does supply enough power to use the laptop, but there is no light on the maglite charger. I tried SMC reset (pram as well), heating up the maglite unit, and a few other random things. Anyone have any ideas?

Locating Location Services

In System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> General, Location Services lists a variety of items that you can opt to give permission to accessing your location. I have listed in this pane an application which I deleted and which I am unable to find any other trace of on my computer. EasyFind usually works for me to find any hidden file, but it's not happening this time. I want to remove this item from the list of things I can grant location access to since it's not even installed anymore. How do I do this? Where is this item hiding?

Delete "Recently Deleted" album on iOS 8?

With iOS8, there was a new album called "Recently Deleted" in the Photos app. Is there any way to delete the "Recently Deleted" album or any way to disable this feature ?

I want the photos to get deleted as soon I delete them, I don't want to delete them twice. Jailbreak solutions are welcome too.

I can't install find my iphone to iOS 7

I can't download find my iphone to i4 iOS 7. Please help me.

MacBook Air running Yosemite won't shut down when external HDD connected

My MacBook Air won't shut down when an external hard drive is connected. The screen goes black, and the mouse pointer is still there. I think this started happening when I upgrade to Yosemite. Any suggestions as to how I might fix this?

Why are my events in iOS iPhoto in a completely random order?

Since upgrading to iOS 8, I've noticed that the Events list inside iPhoto is no longer in reverse chronological order. In fact, it's not in any order at all. This makes the events system almost completely useless for me.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Is it a bug, or is there a setting I need to configure?

iMessage query for iPhone 5

If you send a message on iMessage and it doesn't deliver and you then delete it, will the person you sent it to still revive it or not? I didn't try to resend the message I just deleted it straight away after it automatically came up with not delivered.

Syntax for "focused searches" on Finder

When I trying searching for a file/folder on Finder, I get way too many results. I know that I can narrow down search results by pressing the [+], but is there a way of narrowing the search results by typing something in the finder search box?

Thanks!

Reinstall free app

How do you reinstall a free app that you deleted on an iPad? I tried to go into the App Store and go to updates and purchased and went to not on this device - because it was not a purchase it just says open! I can't reinstall it!

can access mail on iphone 4s since upgrade to ios 8.1

When the mail icon button on an iphone 4s is hit the screen goes blank .The phone times out and goes back to home screen. i have tried restart and reset. problem still remains.what is the solution?

Mac OS X Applications Windows Stack Order

When you right click an application in the dock, a list including the opened windows for that application is open, like this: http://ift.tt/1DAjfq5

The problem is this: I would like to specify the ordering of these windows some way. Or at least understand what is the criteria for ordering these windows. I see no apparently logic for this window order.

Look the following: http://ift.tt/12TyKZt

The first window is in the desktop 3, in the second monitor. The second window in the desktop 4, in the second monitor. The third window is in the desktop 1, in the first monitor. There is no aparent logic, and they are not ordered by the most recent use, I'm sure.

Why does iPhone capture screenshots as PNG?

Is there a reason for iPhone to save screenshots taken as .PNG instead of .JPG?

Screenshots won't have transparent background anyways.

Why is Google+ not there in IOS share sheet?

In iOS 8, Apple introduced a feature where any app could use the share sheet. But I am not able to see Google+ on there. How can I share the content that I want to share on Google+?

Remove Verification Required

Verification Required

Before you can make purchases, you must tap Continue to sign in, then verify your payment info.

What can I do ...? Before , I can easily download. But now the verification required pops out ... What can I do to buy free apps ?

Am I supposed to buy a Macbook?

I'm a software developer, thinking about buying a new laptop. I've been using Thinkpad laptops (with Ubuntu)all the time, such as X220 / X240. This time I take Macbook as one of the options out there, but here I want to make clear some of my concerns about Macbook.

I mainly use laptops for: 1. Software developping C/C++/Python/Shell (under Linux OS). 2. Data mining, machine learning, nlp ... I need to run many algorithms and models about machine learning, so I expect the performance of the desired laptop being good (or at least not too bad). 3. Web browsing, music, video, rarely playing games

Concerns about Macbook: 1. Can I use it just like how I do in Linux? This may include, libraries and packages available in Linux also available in OS X, such as Linux multithreading pthread and Numpy stack packages. 2. The performance of MBA is much worse than MBP? I really really prefer MBA over MBP, because the design of MBA is so adorable, but I'm afraid that its performance is too bad. 3. Is it easy to install Ubuntu on a Macbook?

iPhoto and Yosemite

I hope someone can help with this. The Apple support board is currently down it seems, so I'll try here.

I was running 10.8 on a Macbook Pro (Identifier: MacBookPro7,1) before. Ever since I migrated to a new Macbook Pro Retina (MacBookPro11,2) and to 10.10, iPhoto won't run. I have tried uninstalling it and reinstalling using the App Store. The error I receive is this:

http://ift.tt/1wvxd7G

From what I can tell, there are certain libraries that can't be loaded. Apparently, simply reinstalling iPhoto does not do the trick. Is there anything else I can do?

Thanks in advance for any pointers!

Can't download from App Store

A click on "Install App" does nothing. No error message, no download. I am trying to download an app appropriate for my installed OS.

I've rebooted and signed out/in at the app store. No change.