Laptop for travel and desktop for home. Options?

I need lightness and portability, don't mind external storage and virtual backup, and still want a desktop. I will treat the laptop roughly and subject it to high temperatures and humidity. Restricted funds preclude buying a desktop too. What about the newest 11" Air plus a monitor? Agreement? Dissent? Problems anticipated? Other suggestions?

imac is crashing on loading

My late 2011 imac is crashing on the loading screen about 1/3 of the way in. I had issues with it back in 2013 and ended up replacing the harddrive with an ssd. I'm not sure if the new hard drive has a recovery partition.

I tried to follow online instructions to boot into safe mode but it doesn't seem to work. I tried to hold shift after the startup sound but it doesn't do anything.

Is there anything I can do?

Thanks.

iTunes Says I Have More Photos Than I Really Do

Okay, I have a 5th generation, 16 gig iPod Touch that has iOS 8.1.0. I have a fairly recent version of iTunes. I recently deleted over 1000 photos off my iPod and also deleted them out of the Recently Deleted section. (Note: I also have the photo streaming thing turned off.) When I plug my iPod into my computer, it still says that I have over 2000 pictures that are taking up 4 gigs of space on my iPod! Please help me, as this is very irritating and I cannot find any other solutions. :-)

Why does Spotlight pick the DVD Player app when I enter the math equation 5*3?

I only use Spotlight for quick math. Because of that, I decided to modify my Spotlight preferences (System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Search Results) to only show results for Conversion and Calculator (everything else is unchecked).

However, when I enter the equation 5*3 it picks the DVD Player app. Note that if I do 5 * 3 (with added spaces) it shows the calculator results, which is what I desire. So far, only 5*3 triggers the DVD Player app.

I'm guessing Spotlights results are cached, and it's just using the cached results. Long story short: when trying to get Spotlight to show only calculator results, I unchecked everything in Spotlight's preferences except for Calculator. However, then Spotlight didn't work at all, even for simple equations. I tried to tinker, and checked Applications, and entered 5*3 and hit enter, assuming the Calculator would be used, but instead the DVD Player app was opened. I unchecked Applications and checked Conversion, which made the calculator work. But now 5*3 results in the DVD Player app opening, not the calculator.

Is my hunch that Spotlight caches its results correct? If so, how long is this cache valid for (i.e. when will 5*3 result in the calculator being used instead of the DVD Player)?

Simple screen capture:

Airdrop ios 8.2 to yosemite 10.10.2

I am trying to copy a photo that I just took with the ipad and I can't use airdrop. Is this a restriction from ios and osx?

Playing back a buffer of float values as audio

I am new to iOS programming and am trying to manipulate some audio characteristics of an audio file which requires the audio data as float values which am able to successfully obtain.

I am stuck on how to play back that float values as audio data. I investigated a lot of iOS frameworks using its documentation but most of them do not allow me to work on float data. Its mostly reading and playing back audio files & controlling some playback parameters.

In short:

Objective: Playback a buffer/array of float values (originally audio data) as audio.

Overall Process:Audio File -> Read to float buffer (done) -> manipulate (can do) -> playback as audio (do not want to store as file)

Apologies if the question is very naive. All help is appreciated. Thanks.

Songs deleted from iTunes Library after synced into iPhone(5)

Heard a song on my iPhone where, because of the size of my Library, iTunes auto selected about 2,600 songs. Heard a song that I wanted to add to a playlist. But when I went to iTunes Library, it wasn't there. Then I discovered a number (don't know total yet) were missing. How is this possible? Did transferring the songs from computer to device do this?

I have other problems with iTunes: making duplicates, creating new folders, some tunes can't be located so don't play but next or two or three times after re-opening iTunes they resume being able to be played. Don't get it.

OSX Hierarchy questions and organization

I've done extensive searching on these questions and have even come across others, however, they do not answer any of my questions.

• What are ~/Library and /Library for respectively? I can see they store certain applications, but why there and not /Applications or ~/Applications? I'm confused between the 4.


• In my personal system, I see go, git, and android-sdk directories in /usr/local for these programs. Why would these not be stored in those application or library directories I mentioned above?


• I know this is all down to choice, but where do I store, or what is a common place to store libraries such as boost that I would use across all of my C++ programs?


• in line with the question above, where should I store the projects/source files for my C++, Java, IOS, Android, etc. projects? I feel like my system right now is very unorganized with some projects on my desktop, home directory, etc. because of my ignorance on these things, I want to find a good, organized system.

How do I send a single contact from iPhone using Bluetooth

I have a new car with a Bluetooth Audio System. I have successfully paired with my iPhone5S, and transferred my contacts.

The Car has a "Vehicle phonebook" which can import selected numbers. This has a menu to "Import one phonebook entry". Unfortunately I cannot seem to find any way to send a single contact from the iPhone. (On my old Nokia there was a menu to do this).

How to increase max socket connections for Yosemite 10.10

I'm trying to test a network service app that allows for a large number of simultaneous socket connections.

I have adjusted /etc/sysctl.conf with the following:

kern.maxfiles=65536
kern.maxfilesperproc=65536
kern.ipc.somaxconn=10000

With this in place, ulimit -n shows I have a 65536 "open file" maximum. Yet my service still gets stuck around the 1000th connection.

Thinking that perhaps it's something specific to the platform (Node), I re-implemented a simplified version of it in Golang, but it exhibits the same problem.

It also happens if I split the "client" side up into several procs that each open a handful of connections. The service always get stuck around the 1000th connection.

lsof -p <pid> shows 1011 IPv6 connections like so:

gochat  25034 username  178u    IPv6 0x11c1273e19ee5c8f       0t0       TCP localhost:http-alt->localhost:50080 (ESTABLISHED)

What is imposing this maximum socket connection limit, and how can I expand it?

On iPhone, can you tell if group text messages were delivered?

The question is in the subject. Iphone 6 plus - ios 8. I know I can tell for individuals, but not for groups - or at least not obviously.

Can I?

Permanently disable time machine prompting for external disks

Is it possible to disable time machine prompting when inserting external disks?

I use an appliance with SATA disks that regularly formats the disks. Whenever I plug such a disk in I get prompted again for time-machine - since the time-machine opt-out file is deleted.

This can happen 10s of times per hour and is rather frustrating.

I'd be happy for total disable of prompting, but better would probably to make it per interface (ie USB - i use a USB->SATA device) or per device (ie just the SATA dock I'm using)

Advice for troubleshooting hard freezes associated with Safari? (Mid 2012 Retina Macbook Pro, 10.10.2)

I have a Macbook Pro 10,1 (Mid 2012) running 10.10.2. Over the last few months, I have had issues with the system suddenly hanging - mouse won't move, keyboard does nothing, and the clock is stopped. I have to hold down the power button and restart the computer when this happens.

I have been experiencing these freezes ranging from daily to weekly. There is no consistent action that reproduces the freeze on demand. At some point in the last few months, though, I did switch to Safari from Chrome as my primary browser because the battery life seems so much better when using Safari. I've been doing a project over the last week that is dependent on Chrome, and as such haven't been using Safari, and have had no freezes. In retrospect, I think the freezes began happening when I started using Safari regularly.

I'd prefer to not have to choose between using Safari and having a stable system. Is anyone aware of issues like the one I'm experiencing? Any suggestions for further troubleshooting?

Why did iMessage stop working after upgrading to iOS 8.2?

After updating to iOS 8.2 I got a message saying "Your SIM sent a text message." Then I tried to send someone an iMessage and it sent an SMS instead even though that person is able to send and receive iMessages.

What is AELWriter?

What is AELWriter? It's in my daemons and appears to be from Apple. What does it do? Is it part of Yosemite? Or something else? How can you tell?

I'm just a lifelong Mac user lost and confused amongst the arcane and cryptic names. Why they ever went away from plain English names for things, like they had in System 9 and earlier, is beyond me.

What is SiLabsUSBDriver.kext?

What is SiLabsUSBDriver.kext? Is this part of the official Yosemite system and if so, how do you know? Where can someone go to find this out from Apple directly? Thanks.

Dire need to make Bootcamp work with Thunderbolt Display

According to this Apple KB article, it's not possible to re-connect a Thunderbolt Display to Windows Bootcamp without restarting the computer.

A directly-connected Thunderbolt device that is removed by disconnecting the Thunderbolt cable will not be recognized until you restart the computer.

But if the reboot sequence is able to send a signal to the display to power up, surely it must be possible to write some code that will run in Windows and do the same thing?

Are there any tools out that can do this, or anyone with competence on the area that would be interested in writing a tool to do so?

Mount sparsebundle with a NAS WD My Cloud ex2

I use TimeMachine with a NAS. It work well and it mount a disk image when doing backup or when I enter timemachine.

When the disk image is mounted, I can access all the directories of my backups.

However, I can't mount myself the disk image from the sparsebundle. If I try to mount it, the finder shows an error after few minutes (I don't know what is the exact name of the error in english).

Is it a simple way to overcome this drawback ?

I have got a WD Mycloud ex2 and a MacBookPro with snow leopard.

Is JMicronATA.kext part of Yosemite? And others

There is a file JMicronATA.kext in my GF's iMac in /System/Library/Extensions ... is this an official part of OS X? Or can it be deleted? I ask because its modification date is 2012 and in System Report it shows that it's Not Signed and not loaded.

As well there are these kexts in /Library/Extensions which do not show to be from Apple, are not loaded, and many are from 2013:

ACS6x.kext AcrMSR.kext ATTOCelerityFC8.kext ATTOExpressSASHBA2.kext ATTOExpressSASRAID2.kext CalDigitHDProDrv.kext HighPointIOP.kext HighPointRR.kext PromiseSTEX.kext SoftRAID.kext

What are all these and why are they in /Library/Extensions instead of /System/Library/Extensions if they are officially part of OS X Yosemite? If they're not, how can I identify where they came from? Why would they still be there after I just reinstalled Yosemite yesterday?

How can you tell what's an official part of the system, and what isn't? How can you uninstall 3rd party crap, short of rooting out individual files from within alllll of the folders in the three different Library folders, not to mention anything hidden in the /private directory??

Thanks.

Enabling tether no jailbreak

I'm looking for an effective way to enable factory tethering on my iOS 8.1.2 device without jailbreaking. I have sprint as a carrier, and I found a Redmond Pie article related to an older OS that mentioned modifying a plist file in order to enable the tethering option on the iPhone directly. This article does not appear to apply to the latest iOS versions, however.

So mainly, I'm looking for any and all methods to enable tethering on my iOS device for free without jailbreaking. I'm comfortable playing with plist files and I also know my way around terminal pretty well, so I'm fine with any answers that may involve digging through system files.

Does anybody know where I could begin to look to solve my quandary?

Edit:

Here's a link to the article on Redmond Pie:

http://ift.tt/12kpYNH

How does USB-C on the new Macbook Air Retina (also called the Macbook) connect to multiple devices?

It seems that the new USB-C connector is good for charging, good for HDMI output, good for connecting to new devices that use USB-C connectors, and good for older USB devices like an old scanner, printer, external hard drive, and video capturing box.

I suppose the older devices can be connected by using a USB-C to multi-port USB hub. However, I wonder how this USB-C connector can be connected to multiple USB-C devices, HDMI output, and older USB devices? For example, let's say an HDMI output adaptor is plugged into the Macbook, then how do you charge the Macbook, and how can another USB-C device as well as an older USB device be both plugged in?

Warranty on replacement phones

having recently taking my phone into an Apple Store with what was a manufacturing fault,2 months before the warranty ran out they exchanged it without hesitation,

12 weeks on and now the new replacement phone has a number of faults now happening, Did the warranty begin again on the new replacement phone or does it just transfer over meaning the warranty ended in January as it would have on the original phone?

Wineskin: Don't quit on close

I made a wineskin app in Mac. But when I hit the red close button it quits the app, rather than hiding it like other mac apps. Can this behaviour be changed?

I installed Foobar in mac using Wineskin. When I hit the red close button, I would like the windows to hide, rather than quitting Foobar, so the music continues to play.

Thanks a lot!

iMessage hacking

I recently found a rather romantic exchange on my boyfriend's iPad. He insists that he does not have any record of this exchange on his iPhone (which is linked to his iPad) nor does he know the phone number that sent the messages. The iPad has the other person initiating the conversation and his responses. Is it possible that he was hacked, or is he simply lying?

How Imessages come up on the phone bill? As texts oor data/emails?

How can I force Terminal.app to take up exactly half of my screen?

I'm using Spectacle for Window Management and I regularly use the commands to split my screen horizontally for exactly two windows. It works quite well for most things, but not for applications like Terminal.app or Emacs, which size themselves down just a little bit so that the window size goes together with their monospaced text view. I see Spectacle resizing them to exactly half of the screen, and then the windows resizing just a tad right after.

Emacs on the left, Terminal.app on the right:

Is there any way to force these windows to stay the size that Spectacle is trying to set?

This seems like a non-issue, but it quickly becomes one when I have a more colorful desktop background. It's then quite distracting to have e.g. bright orange pixels all around those windows.

GUI based emacs

I picked up emacs for first time in decades last night on ubuntu. It was sweet: opened up in a GUI and I was able to set up CUA mode - but still able to access the CTL-C and CTL-X actions via META-X. Nice.

Now I am trying to achieve the same on mac. But here we end up back with the terminal based version. This is a serious downgrade: e.g. Clipboard c/p does not work properly.

So is there a simple setting I am missing to launch the emacs in its own window and with full gui support?

I did do the brew install thign:

 brew install emacs --HEAD --cocoa --srgb

But this is still the same terminal based version.

How to fix Samsung MFC scan to SMB "Authenticating user" "Account Error" error?

The not so Mac compatible (understatement, see the bottom of this question) Samsung MFC printers - for example the CLX-6260ND - do have an option to scan to an SMB share.

When setting up all devices (Yosemite Macs and Samsung) with fixed IP addresses, having created a new Mac share, created a new Mac sharing user, allow both read and write access on the Mac folder share, in Mac "Sharing Options" enabled Windows File sharing for the specified test users (including re-entering the password and noticing the warning message about the reduced security in the stored password mechanism), using "WORKGROUP" as the domain, having tried both SMB protocol version v2/3 (10.10 default) as well as SMB v1 using SMBconf, giving everyone read/write access to the shared folder, tried to connect as "Anonymous user" to the SMB share, the situation is still that the Samsung SyncThru Web Service SMB server Test results in:

1. Connecting To Server = OK


2. Authenticating user = Account Error


3. Result = Fail

Any suggestions how to fix this, and create a Scan from Samsung MFC to a Mac shared (SMB) folder?

---

*) no Scan to Mac software, only Scan to PC, no (working) firmware update from Mac, not connecting "Easy print" software for Mac, failure to read the status of Samsung printer supplies from the Mac OS print queue, etcetera.

External hard drive deep freezing Macs

A quite nice problem: I have an external USB 2.0 harddrive (Lacie Starck with 512GB) which was working fine during the last years. But now everytime I connect it to a Mac 3 seconds later a total crash of the system follows and the Mac needs to reboot.

I tried with OS 10.10, 10.9 and 10.6 on three different devices. All systems crashed, so it's not my Mac.

I removed the harddrive from it's case and put it into a new external case. Still crashing, so it's not the controller.

If I start the Mac into Recovery Mode and plug in the external harddrive there is again an immediate crash.

The disk itself still produces a good spinning sound but it's a killer-disk now... Problem is: I don't have any other PC with Linux or Windows and I want to get some files from the disk. Any suggestions?

Anyone else having problems joining domain in OS X 10.10.2?

I am (have confirmed I have rights since I can remove and join a Windows 7 box) having problems joining a Yosemite OS X 10.10.2 to the domain--I receive a "authentication server encountered an error while attempting the requested operation (5202)" no matter if I use the GUI to join the "Network Account Server" or use DSCONFIGAD command-line command at Terminal.

I was able to join two Mac Minis on 10.10.x a few months ago but I am having problems with a new-out-of-the-box Mini right now. Even tried erasing and reinstalling from a OS X 10.10.2 thumb drive.

Simple 3 line applescript - Error -128

I have a scenario where I'd like 2 separate applescripts.

The idea is super simple. 2 Applications, but only one runs at a time.

Example: Close application 1, launch application 2 (and vise versa)

Here are the 2 scripts I have:

A.) OpenSteam

tell application "Plex Home Theater" to quit
delay 5
tell application "Steam" to activate

B.) OpenPlex:

tell application "Steam" to quit
delay 5
tell application "Plex Home Theater" to activate

The script "OpenSteam" works perfectly fine. It does exactly what I want it to do. However, the same script in reverse (OpenPlex) does not seem to work.

Steam closes, but my script then gives me the following error *Note, Plex is not launched:

error "Steam got an error: User canceled." number -128

I have no idea what this means, and was hoping someone could help me out.

--

I got my initial information from here: http://ift.tt/1AewhC3 I have revised the example scripts to fit my needs.

Mac OS X dosen't recognize hard disk

I have replace my cd drive with hard drive (western digital 750gb) using the iFixit guide.

My mac for some reason throws error on any interaction with the hard drive, for example on disk utility (when I tried to create 1 partition of fat) -

When I try to setup BootCamp I get this error -

I have managed to erase the hard drive while booting up to GParted (and GParted successfully formatted), but I want to install windows on it.

Do you have any suggestions? Ideas?

New 12'' macbook 2015 + Thunderbolt display, how?

How to connect new 12'' macbook 2015 to Thunderbolt display, what do you think about it?

TextEdit turned HTML file into RTF while open - how to undo?

I was on a Mac with no plaintext text editor installed, and needed to make a very quick change to a HTML file saved on a shared drive. I opened it in TextEdit, set it to "Plain text" in Preferences (which had no effect), hit Format > Make Plain Text, hit undo since that didn't help, then I closed TextEdit without saving.

It gave some warning about not being able to store previous versions of the file because the shared drive doesn't support that, and wouldn't quit until I chose "okay". I thought this would be fine since I hadn't saved any changes.

Somewhere along the line, TextEdit had quietly deleted the original HTML file and created an RTF version. This unwanted RTF's creation date was from around the time I opened it.

There's nothing in trash, and I've tried "Revert to" in TextEdit (no previous versions).

Is there anything I can do to get the original file back?

Operating system is 10.9.5 if that's relevant.

How to Transfer Contacts, Text Messages from iCloud to Android?

Are you looking for an simple way to transfer data from iCloud backup files to your Android devices, including phones and tablets? Or are you wanting to restore your contacts and other important data from iCloud to Android?

In fact, what your need is just an effectively tool which named Mobile Transfer. The program allows you to Retrieve Data from iCloud Backup to Android with ease. You can retrieve data from iCloud backup to any supported Android phone, transfer contacts, text messages, photos, videos, calendar and more with a click.

Read more: How to Transfer Data from iCloud to Android

Read more from: http://ift.tt/18ygHug

My gMail messages bear "Macbook Pro" rather than my name

A few days ago I purchased a Macbook Pro 13.3" and now notice that gMail messages I send from it do not bear my name but instead say "Macbook Pro."

How can I replace "Macbook Pro" with my name?

Thanks

Is there a Sonos widget for iOS 8 and/or Mac OS X?

At home I have a Sonos system. The only thing is to change the track/volume you've got to unlock your phone, open the app, make sure your on the correct group then click the next/previous along with the volume.

Because of this is there a widget to control the Sonos (1st party or not)? This is so I can control it without having to unlock my iPod and open the app.

I would like it if there was one for Mac (Yosemite) as well as iOS 8.

Thanks

IOS Google Maps Info Marker with Button

I am an iOS developer, I am working on Google Maps and I need to add a Button in Info Marker and its appear, but my problem that I cant handle The button because it call the function didTapInfoWindowOfMarker.

But I need to handle the button Not the delegate function, So please tell me what I need to do?

I try to put the button on change camera, but I did not love it so Please I need the Info Marker

Set timeout when falling asleep before network disconnects

I'm using OS X Mavericks (latest) on a 15″ 2014 MBP. There's an option to make the system not lock the screen for x number of seconds/minutes after the screen goes dim. I'm looking for an option to not disconnect the network for x number of seconds/minutes after the screen dims.

Here's the situation (happens a couple times a day): I'm VPN'd in somewhere and have a bunch of SSH and RDP sessions open. I then have to go sit in a meeting where I'd be busy talking to someone or looking at a presentation. I try to keep my screen awake but sometimes I catch it a bit late, often right as it's just going totally dark. When that happens I move the mouse and it wakes up and doesn't ask for a password (since it's only been a few seconds) but my VPN has disconnected and all of my SSH and RDP sessions are killed.

Is there any way to set a grace period for when the network goes down the way you can set a grace period for when the system is locked?

Phone shows 11 gb is used while only a little over 1 gb is used?

I added all up all of the usage data on my iphone 5s(16gb) and it came up to a little over 1gb, while it says 11 gb is used, with only 1.7 gb is free.

How to access the wifi password through terminal

I am at my school and the computer I am currently using is connected to a wifi network. I want to know the wifi password and I am on a mac. I know there is a way to do it through terminal. What I am using is "security find-generic-password -ga AirPort" I use that to find the password if it is in a keychain. But I know there is another way to do it. My friend who is a coder told me their is but they said they wont help me. All they told me was "generic" was a hint. I used "generic" in my command but I don't get it. If anyone knows how please tell me and if you would explain the process. Thank You.

What's the difference between Apple Watch and Apple Watch Sport?

Following the pricing announcements on Apple Watch, it seems that the "Watch" edition is priced 200$ above "Watch Sport" ($349 vs $549 for the 38mm model).

What are the features of "Watch" vs "Watch Sport" that makes it worth the extra $200 ?

I can read the spec sheet but apart from different band options and another type of front glass; I can't see what should justify such a large price gap.

iOS email flags with gmail via Exchange Activesync aka Google Sync

I sync my iOS (now v8.2) email to my paid gmail google apps account via Exchange Active Sync / aka Google Sync. This is accomplished on the iPhone / iPad by adding an Exchange account. All works fine but flag syncing seems to have been broken since the first release of iOS 8.

In the past, setting your email domain to either "Google" or "gmail.com" allowed for flag syncing but this seems to have no affect now. I can't say for sure that this is an iOS issue vs a gmail issue.

If I "star" a message via the gmail web interface, my iPhone seems to receive the push notification that something has changed (the spinner next to my connection type briefly spins) but messages are not flagged.

Any suggestions?

Partitions shows it is 2GB when it is actually 120GB

After messing with the partitions to install Ubuntu, the hfs+ partition which I use for my user data went from 130GB to 2GB (OSX is on a separate partition). Disk Utility shows this partition as inaccessible and cannot repair it. Software shows that the file system is bigger than partition, I have not overwritten the location so I hope the data is still there. I can only login to a guest account, not my user account. I can log into Ubuntu if anything can be done through there All my data, photos, etc are in the area. Please can someone help me restore it.

how do I sync my music library from my iPhone to my macbook air?

I just purchased a MacBook air and I'm trying to sync my music library from my iPhone 6 to the new Macbook and only music purchased from the Istore shows up on the Macbook although I have lots of other Albums on my phone?

Yosemite 10.10.3 Beta not showing up on older MacBook Pro?

I have two MacBooks - both running the latest 10.10.2. One is a newer MacBookPro11,3 and the older one is a MacBookPro8,2.

I have enabled beta software on both laptops but the 10.10.3 update only shows on the newer MacBook. Is there any change in requirements that would exclude the older MacBook or some other possible issue?

I have tried:

1. Restarting.


2. Resetting the PRAM.


3. Deactivating beta updates, then installing it again.


4. Waiting a few hours.

App Store still shows "No updates available" on the older MacBook...

Itunes shows my Iphone 6 has several audiobooks and music from CDs but the phone itself says no content.

This happened with the most recent update. Tried reinstalling ITunes and shutting down phone without success. My audiobooks are downloads from public library as MP3s. Learned the convoluted and frustrating methods to make them be audiobooks rather than music and to not shuffle the chapters with "Get Info" and they are still listed in my ITunes library. Most of my music is from my own CDs.

I can get 1-2 audiobooks to download at a time if delete everything supposedly on my phone in ITunes then add to the phones playlist again. If add another book or album it deletes the previous ones. Suggestions? thanks!

Can I boot OS X or Windows Boot Camp from an external USB Type-C drive?

Currently I boot OS X and Windows Boot Camp from an external Thunderbolt HDD. LaCie just announced a new external USB-C (USB 3.1) hard drive enclosure. Will I be able to boot OS X or Windows Boot Camp from this or any other external USB-C HDD on the new MacBook?

How to recover data from MacBook which won't startup properly?

My 2012 MacBook Pro running OS X 10.7 Lion would not start up properly (it has the doomed flashing white question mark on a grey folder). I have tried the following: couldn't access Safe Mode; holding the 'option' key when turning on does not show 'Macintosh HD' only 'internet recovery'; there is no Recovery HD drive present; tried Internet Recovery -> Disk Utility, but my Startup Disk (named "Macintosh HD") doesn't appear in the left column (only SuperDrive appears, and disk0); and PRAM & SMC reset didn't help. I also tried booting a Linux OS from the CD Drive, but it would not boot as there was 'no bootable device, please insert disk and press any key'.

I do not have a backup of this data on Time Machine (my big mistake). My MacBook doesn't seem to recognise the internal hard drive.

Is there a way to transfer the files to another external drive or get my MacBook working again? or is the data doomed to be lost forever?

How to get correct file permissions from Macports pip installs?

Macports sets up the ownership of its Python site-packages directory as root.wheel with world-readable permissions. Python packages instally via port install have the same

# ls -l -d /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages
drwxr-xr-x  151 root  wheel  5134 Mar  8 10:56 /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages

This of course prevents individual users from using pip install to add packages, which is just fine since that really ought to be done as root.

However, if one uses sudo or a root shell to pip install, the packages are installed by pip as readable only by root.wheel (740).

% sudo pip install BeautifulSoup
...
% ls -l -d   /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/BeautifulSoup.py
-rw-r-----  1 root  wheel  79567 Mar  8 11:09 /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/BeautifulSoup.py

This precludes my user account from actually importing or using the package (*).

How can I get pip to always put reasonable permissions on installed packages?

Update (edit)

I have reworded the question to emphasize that it is about pip installs only. I would also like to emphasize here that the problem is not about needing write permission to the modules. The problem is that the modules are being installed without read permissions.

(*) A hack to fix it is to chmod a+rX the proper permissions (744/755) onto the newly installed package files

Update 2 (solution)

As suggested by both Mark and Ian, and confirmed in a quick test, this has to do with the umask for root. Here is the documentation on how to change /etc/sudoers for OSX. Note that it is not necessarily a good idea to change the umask for all sudo instances!

Connection failed

Can't connect on my iphone 5 after i followed all the configuration instruction.. it's saying "The PPTP-VPN server did not respond. try reconnecting. if the problem continue verify your settings and contact your administrator.