How to downgrade from El Capitan to Snow Leopard?

As Monomeeth pointed out, a firmware update which requires 10.6.3 might have prevented me from installing from the CD and bootable USB.
I was able to get an image of 10.6.8 and restore it to my hard drive, and I am now finally running Snow Leopard!


If you are planning to use a new Apple ID with your MacBook Pro you will have to do the following:

  Pull down the  Apple menu and go to “System Preferences”
  Choose “iCloud”
  Click the “Sign Out” button to log out of the existing Apple ID on that user account – note the message that logging out of that Apple ID may impact iCloud Drive documents and data, if you don’t want to do that, don’t log out, and instead use a different user account in OS X

When iCloud finishes logging out of the Apple ID, the iCloud preference panel changes to a simple login screen
Log into the other Apple ID you wish to change to on the active Mac user account
Log in to a new Apple ID on Mac OS X>


Can't use CMD+V Shortcut to copy paste into certain apps, but right click menu works fine

With help from @user3052786 , I've found the issue.

The reason why many (but not all) apps were failing to paste with the shortcut (but Edit menu -> Paste or Right click -> Paste worked fine) is because I previously followed the following tutorial on how to make my clipboard content attempt to match the output document's text style on paste.

https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/set-paste-match-style-default-mac-osx/

I did this because I was using OneNote for Mac and pasting a lot of content between different documents for note-taking.

The fix: Simply remove the 'CMD+V -> Paste and Match Style' mapping from Keyboard shortcuts in MacOS Settings, as shown in reverse by the tutorial.


Why does McAfee Endpoint Protection keep auto installing?

More than likely, you are on a corporate owned/controlled computer and they have installed the ePO (ePolicy Orchestrator) agent deployed on your machine.  This is a mangagement tool that allows your organization to ensure that end point security is installed and updated.  Additionally, it will reinstall the software if it happens to be uninstalled.

It's working as it should.

From McAfee's web page:

  The McAfee Agent is the distributed component of McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (McAfee ePO). It downloads and enforces policies, and executes client-side tasks such as deployment and updating. The Agent also uploads events and provides additional data regarding each system’s status. It must be installed on each system in your network that you wish to manage. The agent collects and sends event information at intervals to the McAfee ePO server. It also installs and updates the endpoint products, and applies your endpoint policies. Systems cannot be managed by McAfee ePO unless the McAfee Agent is installed.

(Emphasis mine).

Unless you have rights to remove the ePO agent, you won't be able to uninstall the software.  Even if you were able to uninstall the software or boot from a different drive to which you had rights, the ePO server would, after a predetermined amount of time, alert the admins that your machine is no longer checking in at which point they would find out what/how you circumvented the security.


Upgrading from OS X El Capitan to macOS High Sierra

All the software installed in macOS (along with the ones you mentioned) remain intact between OS upgrades.

However, it is advisable to keep an up-to-date backup before performing the upgrade.


How to create a cache server with osx server?

The OS X Cache server is for caching only Apple products. For having web caching you can try something like Squidman


Is it possible to view files stored in iCloud Backup?

No and no, I'm afraid,

You could restore the iCloud backup to the device, then back it up to the computer and use a 3rd party tool to dig into that backup file, but you won't be able to get at the iCloud backup contents directly.


Is there an OSX workaround to configure a "unifying" receiver without Logitech's control center?

Apparently the only "workaround" is to install Logitech Control Center, use it to pair the devices with the receiver, then uninstall the LCC software.I tried both USB Overdrive and MouseSteer first, but neither seems to include the necessary pairing functionality. I uninstalled each, then found an older version of LCC (version 3.3.0) that was compatible with my operating system and processor, used it, took careful note of what and where it was installing on my system, used the included uninstaller, and voila!Actually, there was some residual stuff that I dug up and deleted manually. I should mention that the LCC installer had a pretty good and thorough ReadMe that actually listed what files would be installed in what locations. It did omit a couple files that I found with a sudo find, but the whole thing was pretty painless.And now I have a keyboard I like and a scroll-wheel on my mouse! I've been living in the dark ages with the one-button magic mouse for a long time :)


We had the same problem.  Communication stops briefly on extended transfers of any kind.

I contacted Apple Senior support who were actually able to reproduce the problem. I was told that Apple will release an update after they solve the issue.

Obviously until then we all must wait.


Why won't iPad connect to my mail server?

I did originally fix this problem, but it has resurfaced.

I have written a great deal about this problem at my blog... (would paste directly, but pictures will not show up).

http://blog.williamhilsum.com/2010/11/ipad-update-and-more-problems-with-mail.html

The blog will show how I fixed the original problem, therefore is an answer, however, it also shows the new (related) problem.

If anyone has a good fix that will solve everything once and for all, please write another answer!


This is not possible in iOS 9. Only one instance of an app can run at any given time.

There is a small change in iOS 10 allowing two instances of Safari to run concurrently, but that is a special case. To do that, long-press a link, and select Open in Split View.


To disable, open Terminal and run

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

This disables the Launch Daemon that starts and keeps it running. You can also run:

sudo mdutil -a -i off

but from looking online in a few places, this may give you an error like 'Spotlight server is disabled'

If you disable though, it will continue to use an old cache, or not work at all. Therefore, the launching applications as you mention will no longer work. It also may break other functions related to the OS, like the Mac App Store (to know whats installed, etc), and LaunchPad.

If you still need an application launcher, you can use applications like LaunchBar and Quicksilver.

After seeing your update (espc. on how to stop it indexing so much), there are two things to check:

Are you running something like a virus scanner or other application constantly accessing files on your drive? This will force spotlight to keep indexing. A network share would also be a culprit.
You can also filter what folders Spotlight should index, and by configuring this, can limit how much has to be indexed. Do do this, go to System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy.

Re-enabling would be running

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

or

sudo mdutil -a -i on


Can I open files in TextEdit from the Terminal in Mac OS X?

open -a TextEdit filename should do the trick.
The -a flag specifies any application you want, so it's applicable to any number of situations, including ones where TextEdit isn't the default editor.
Other relevant options

-t  opens in the default editor (i.e. if you use BBEdit, TextMate, etc.)
-e will open the file specifically in TextEdit


How to use process sample in order to find high cpu usage in Chrome?

You can view Chrome's page memory usage by pressing the button in the top right of the Window. There you will get this menu:

When you click 'View Background Pages' you'll see a window like this:

This obviously narrows down page and extension usage by memory and CPU. This should help finding out exactly what's going on with it.

The 'Stats for nerds' link sends you to chrome://memory-redirect/ which breaks down their memory usage even more.

Side note when I notice chrome using a lot of memory and open /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app I typically see it is caused by PepperFlashPlayer (Chrome Plug-In Host) which is Chrome's built in Flash player. It is known for hogging CPU


Missing text highlighting Color when selecting it in Preview

If I understand your question..

The text highlight (select) color for Preview is set in your

System Preferences > General

You can customize it by selecting Other then choose the color and how dark you want it by moving the slider.


Unable to connect to a website on some WiFi networks?

It's a fairly common practice for schools and universities to block sites that they deem inappropriate. For example here's a snippet from Azusa Pacific University's Internet Filtering policy:

  Background

  APU’s internet filtering is performed through a
  subscription service. The hardware and database, referred to as an
  application in this policy, is developed and maintained by a
  nationally recognized, publicly held company.

  How Filtering Works

  The internet filtering mechanism uses several
  categorization technologies to group URLs. These include human review,
  a licensed contextual URL filtering engine, internally developed
  neural net analysis programs, and automated recognition of content
  labels generated by the Internet Content Rating Association that web
  developers often put on their sites. In addition, to ensure that
  categories are continually refreshed with new URLs, the mechanism
  relies on a technology called adaptive filtering, which automatically
  logs accesses by existing users to URLs that are not included in the
  existing categorized database. These URLs are then sent to a central
  repository, where they are reviewed along with the requests of other
  filtering appliances that subscribe to this service on a daily basis.
  The URLs are then categorized, added to the database, and an updated
  database is automatically sent to APU’s filtering appliance. The same
  process works similarly in reverse when a legitimate website has been
  labeled inappropriately—the customer appliance marks the URL as
  legitimate, and the URL is uploaded to the central repository and
  evaluated.

So your blocking is likely being done by your College.

If you're still unsure you can also use an online service such as downforeveryoneorjustme to also confirm if the website you're trying to access is actually down or if it's just your college that's blocking it.

Eduroam

Based on one of your updates to your question I was able to find some additional information regarding Eduroam. Here's an excerpt from their FAQ.

  Does eduroam monitor or filter access?

  eduroam provides authenticated
  network access at any location where the service is enabled.

  Each participating organisation offering network access to
  authenticated users is able to apply its own filtering policies as
  long as it is clearly informing users about the filtering rules.

And also from their legal disclaimer:

  GÉANT may add, revise or remove any content, and vary the site’s
  navigational structure, without notice.

Methods to further test

To investigate your supposed filtering you can attempt to look up the IP address of the website's domain and then use ping and curl to verify if you're being filtered at a particular point or if you're having a legitimate technical difficulty.

For example, using the command host to look up the IP:

$ host nytimes.com
nytimes.com has address 151.101.65.164
nytimes.com has address 151.101.129.164
nytimes.com has address 151.101.1.164
nytimes.com has address 151.101.193.164
nytimes.com mail is handled by 5 ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
nytimes.com mail is handled by 10 ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.com.
nytimes.com mail is handled by 1 ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
nytimes.com mail is handled by 5 ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.com.
nytimes.com mail is handled by 10 ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.com.

And you could also use ping to see if you're able to ping the IP addresses and/or hostname of the domain you're attempting to view.

$ ping -c 3 151.101.65.164
PING 151.101.65.164 (151.101.65.164): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 151.101.65.164: icmp_seq=0 ttl=56 time=26.398 ms
64 bytes from 151.101.65.164: icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=20.649 ms
64 bytes from 151.101.65.164: icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=21.376 ms

--- 151.101.65.164 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 20.649/22.808/26.398/2.556 ms

Lastly you can use curl to see if you have physical access to the website's ports 80 and 443 which are where web content is typically served.

$ curl -v telnet://151.101.65.164:443
* Rebuilt URL to: telnet://151.101.65.164:443/
*   Trying 151.101.65.164...
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Connected to 151.101.65.164 (151.101.65.164) port 443 (#0)
^C

NOTE: Use Ctrl+C to stop the curl command. If you see Connected ... then you know you at least have physical access to the server's port 443.


How to tag files (with Finder tags) using parts of a file name?

orig=/path/to/tagged-file
folder=/path/to/folder
string=*abc*
find "${folder}" -name "${string}" \
                 -exec xattr -wx com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags \
                       "$(xattr -px com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags '${orig}')" \
                       {} \;

Create a file with the tags that you wish to apply to a certain set of files that will match a search string. In the script above, this file is located at /path/to/tagged-file and is set on the first line of the script to the orig variable. Replace this with the path to the file that you've created.
On the second line of the script, change the path to the path of the containing folder that you wish to search through. This will be set to a variable called folder.
On the third line, set the string to search for in the name of the file. *abc* will match 123abc123.txt.
The fourth line and beyond is actually a single line that runs the find command to find the matching files then xattr to copy the tags from that original file to every file found.


How can I import OS X Mavericks server accounts from a CSV file?

Three sources I've poured over when developing my own processes for importing users include: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH15663 and the man pages for dsimport and dsexport.

For OD, it appears you have to define the format of the file you're using to import records. While the help page above indicates there are a handful of required attributes, I found I could import just the two fields you described above and the system automatically assigned UID information.

The top line of the file being used to import the records defines the format. It includes four hex codes, the record type, the number attributes, and a list of the attributes.

The default hex codes work nicely for me:

0x0A       End of record is indicated by a new line
0x5C       The escape character is defined as \
0x3A       The field separator is a : (not a comma)
0x2C       Each value in the field is separated by a comma

For your purpose, the record types are standard users, dsRecTypeStandard:Users.

Your number of desired attributes is 2, and their values are: RealName and RecordName.

So, the file that should work for you is:

0x0A 0x5C 0x3A 0x2C dsRecTypeStandard:Users 2 RealName RecordName
User One:user1
User Two:user2
...
User XXX:userX

Please be aware though that Server.app can fill in some but not all of the missing data. I recommend building an import file that includes all the required attributes.

Also, dsimport provides the --template option that obviates the need for field descriptions if your file has all seven standard fields.

I realize the question is a few months old, but hopefully this will help someone in the future.


How to revert this defaults write command?

When you’ve written a boolean value, you can choose to write the opposite value, replacing yes with no. Usually, to reset a preference, you delete the preference so the default takes effect, which you can do with defaults delete:

defaults delete com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing


Hotspot WiFi (built-in) to WiFi (usb wifi card), how to?

Your build in WiFi card can only work one way.

So if it is receiving the WiFi than it can not broadcast (share) it at the same time.

But if your Internet connection comes in via USB WiFi or cable then you can use the build in WiFi to share (it is sending).


2007 Macbook shows black screen and cursor when woken from sleep. What should I do?

I've had this happen too.  Solutions that occasionally work:

Close the lid, wait for the 'sleeping' light pulses from the front of the laptop, then reopen and try again.
Type my password (I have password protected sleep/screensaver) and hit enter blind.
Wait a few minutes
Sleep the computer by hitting the power button once (not holding it down), then waking it up.
Swearing profusely

Solutions that almost always work:

Force rebooting.


MacOS Messages App Won't Send to Non-Apple Phones

I just toggle the switch in my iPhone's iMessage settings, iMessage


So many questions, but I'll try to break them down:

Leaving in the current 2x2GB that it has is good, it's better than
2x0GB.
All 20GB will be recognized, the only reason you'd want to replace the current 2x2GB chips with 2x8GB is purely for the additional RAM.
I recommend you pair the sticks up into the dual channel configuration for your iMac (as can be found online), so that one 8GB module and one 4GB module is on each of the two channels, enabling the use of dual channel memory speeds.


How should I configure my Audio settings for the highest quality sound?

48000Hz is more than adequate for the audio range as there are not going to be any pre-recorded formats above this, and the human ear can only hear around 20000Hz anyway. CDs are only 44100, most DVDs now are at 48000, and while BluRay supports 96000 it's unlikely the audio is actually recorded in that quality.

24bit integer vs 32bit float is actually the same quality, the 8 floating bits on the later are for other things which generally come into play with music production I believe.


Xcode: Archiving a project to generate .ipa but export is not an option in Organizer

So unless I am mistaken, with Xcode 10.1 on High Sierra at least, you will not find an Export button after running Product -> Archive in the process of generating an .ipa.

When you get the pop-up Organizer, instead, you want to click on the Validate button and just follow the prompts, once successful, then you can click on the Distribute button which will direct you to a pop up prompt asking you for method of distribution.


what is Siri consuming? is Wifi enough? or 3g celluar data is involved while Siri searches online?

You will save on data usage if you only use Siri at home with a wifi connection. Siri sends the raw audio of your talking to its servers, so the data usage will be comparable to using VoIP. Although that's only if you talk constantly to Siri (which I'm actually seeing some people at work doing these days).


How to add tags to mail messages in Maverick?

You can do a Spotlight Finder search, and specify that you want to look for mail messages, and then include words from the subject of your email to locate the message you're looking for (e.g. "kind:mail news"). Spotlight will find the underlying file in which the message is stored, and then you can tag it - for example with the word "stuff". Although this might be a bit clunky, you will then be able to use "tag:stuff" in the search box within the Mail app itself, and the Mail will find it.

Even better is if you use Alfred (the app launcher). Someone recently created a workflow for it which enables you to tag messages from WITHIN Mail (i.e. bypassing the Spotlight step) using a hotkey: http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/3383-mavericks-tags-file-and-email-tagging-with-alfred-2-updated-to-v14/

Hope that helps,
Geoff


iPartition

For all my partitioning, I use and recommend iPartition. It will allow you to resize partitions without deleting any data. It will automatically move partitions if necessary to allow resizing into free space that is located after a second partition.

  With iPartition, resizing a partition is as simple as selecting it, grabbing the resize handle and dragging. Not only that, but if you have several operations to perform, iPartition lets you queue them up and run them one after another, so you can have a cup of coffee while iPartition works. This feature, coupled with iPartition’s ability to automatically rearrange your existing partitions when necessary, makes iPartition the easiest partitioning tool that you’ll ever use.


Can micro-USB android device (Redmi 4 (India)) be charged using a hybrid converter (USB type-C to type-A) with MacBook Pro high watt charger?

No, it will not damage your phone.

Whether or not it will charge quickly depends on the specific kind of hybrid converter you have. Most likely it will not charge quickly, as the USB Type-A port is most commonly just at 500 mA, or 900 mA for some ports that USB 3.0. It is not common to see dedicated charging ports with higher amps in such hybrid converters.


How do I make my list filter in Java usable in Automator as a service?

You will need to use the Run Shell Script task within Automator. The tricky bit will be choosing and passing in the various paths.

Here are a few tutorials for creating this kind of Automator Workflow:

Automator Programming Guide: Creating Shell Script Actions
Creating a Shell Script Automator Action
How to build Mac OS X services with Automator and shell scripting


Force my MacBook Air that uses external USB as boot drive to hibernate/suspend to disk?

pmset with hibernatemode=25 might work.

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25  #to change to "safe sleep", aka, hibernate
pmset sleepnow                  #to make it sleep now

And, to put it back to "normal" laptop mode, use sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3.


a problem with the area locked SIM card, how can I unlock my iphone?

You should be able to just call up your network carrier and they can unlock it. I had the same thing. Just be prepared to wait couple weeks as the carriers say it takes up to 3 weeks to unlock. Or you can use a third party site like http://unlockingofficial.com I used this site couple times and worked great. It still takes a few days to get unlock though.


Is there any way in mountain lion to change copy paste shortcut keys?

If you want the copy shortcut to be command-C, map the physical alt key to control in Windows using https://stackoverflow.com/questions/229633/how-to-globally-map-altgr-key-to-alt-key#396859.

If you want the copy shortcut to be control-C, change the Control key to be the Command key in OS X in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys..., and then change the Windows key using the same method as above.


Go to the Applications folder and start up the Font Book app and do File > Restore Standard Fonts and restart.

If that doesn't work, try a Safe Boot.


How can I easily share clippings across platforms and networks?

Evernote (free, $5/month or $45/year for premium)

  The Evernote family of products help you remember and act upon ideas, projects and experiences across all the computers, phones and tablets you use.

Simplenote (free)

  An easy way to keep notes, lists, ideas, and more...Keep notes on the web, your mobile device, and your computer.


If you have another device you could try a remote connection. Personally I would be tempted to SSH into the Macbook and see what processes are at play.

This will of course only work if you have 'remote login' enabled on your Mac.

  System Preferences > Sharing > Remote Login

From an iPhone you could then install an SSH client (search: ssh) from the App store and try connecting in.

After login you could try

$ ps -A |more

to list all processes currently running a page a time (space to advance)
or

$ top

this will give you a list of processes (q to quit)


Ports closed on macOS Sierra Can't Use Apple Services -- Terminal Help?

Check the ports. This might help -- not sure how to proceed after: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202078


The camera app that comes with all iOS devices with cameras can magnify images.

If you want a live preview, you can also use accessibility on the iPad to zoom the display in many, many ways, as documented by this article by Apple on the accessibility features that iOS includes.

  Zoom

  Zoom is a built-in screen magnifier that works wherever you are in iOS. And it works with all apps from the App Store. Turn Zoom on for full-screen or picture-in-picture view, allowing you to see the zoomed area in a separate window while keeping the rest of the screen at its native size. You can adjust the magnification between 100 and 1500 percent and access multiple filter options in either view. While you’re zoomed in, you can use all the familiar gestures to navigate your iPhone. And Zoom works with VoiceOver, so you can better see — and hear — what’s happening on your screen.

You probably don't need to invest in any third party apps until you've exhausted all of the built in capabilities of iOS and the associated hardware.


iOS Notes only supports syncing with iCloud or an IMAP email account, according to their
Syncing Notes support article.

If your Exchange server allows IMAP access, you could create another account on your iOS device that only syncs the notes for your account.  You'll have to ask your Exchange admin whether they have enabled IMAP access and what the settings are for it.

There are a handful of iOS apps which claim to sync Exchange notes, but their reviews indicate that they're unreliable, and it doesn't appear that any of them support Exchange 2010 or 2013.  As of this writing, the IMAP workaround appears to be the best option.


The battery is failing/dead, the circuitry inside may be damaged, or both. You need to have this iPad serviced and needs to be opened and checked out by an Apple Tech. If it is out of warranty, any reputable 3rd party Apple Tech fixit shop should be able to help.

There's nothing anybody can do remotely - the device has obvious hardware issues. I've handled enough iPad minis in similar shape to be certain of it.

Your best bet is to get a new (or newer) iPad. If funds are tight, Apple has pretty good refurbished models in the Apple Store (US link).


Location based homekit automation is not triggering

I was fighting this exact same problem for a while, myself - everything except location automation was functioning.  My troubles were in my iCloud settings - my location was determined based on a device which was no longer in service, instead of my iPhone.  So, HomeKit interpreted things as if I was always away from home.  After updating the location settings to track on my iPhone, the automations fired back up properly again.

Hopefully this helps a few others out, ha.


How to find all macOS applications which are not from the App Store?

The screenshot below shows how to use a Finder search query to find all applications that are not from the App Store. The “Raw Query” condition is kMDItemAppStoreHasReceipt != 1. This is the same, I think, as testing for a directory named “_MASReceipt” as in the answer by patrix. But using a Finder search query should be easier for people not comfortable with using Terminal.


Can my daughter's iPad mini upload photos to Photo Stream without downloading photos from my devices?

No, this is not possible. Enabling My Photo Stream to allow photos to be uploaded to the Photo Stream also enables downloading of the Photo Stream to the device.


Scroll to old messages while in edit mode

Tap the Edit button, the keyboard will then hide letting you see the previous text message.

Just be careful to Cancel and not Clear All ;)


OP here, it was actually pretty simple to fix. I just hard reset it and try again. Had to hard reset twice before the setup succeed.

I don't know why but my guess is that El Capitan is quite newer than my laptop so it takes a few tries to iron out all the conflicts.


Were the 2009 MBP's affected by the NVIDIA problem?

The 2009 models do not have the affected chipset.

Apple publishes all repair extension and other "recall" type news at this page:

http://www.apple.com/support/exchange_repair/

You can use a tool like the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive to look at the contents of that page back to at least 2007 if you are curious if there was a program earlier and it's no longer on the main site.


If it's mis-oriented in Safari that means the original is formatted that way.  Safari only provides a "quick viewer" of sorts for PDF files and is only rendering what was provided.
What you need to do is open it in Preview.

Simply right click anywhere on the PDF in Safari and select "Open With Preview."  Once you're in Preview, you can rotate the PDF with ⌘ CommandL or ⌘ CommandR to rotate left and right respectively.


I just installed the latest update for iBooks and the problem is fixed.


MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) won't go to sleep, nor will it wake up from sleep

Try to reset the SMC as well as the PRAM.


Free presentation helper that shows keystrokes

OS X comes with such a tool.

To activate it, you should go in System Preferences --> Keyboard and select Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar, see screenshot below.

Then in the top menu bar, ext to the clock, you should have a new icon.

Click on it and select Show Keyboard Viewer, now each time you press a key, the Keyboard viewer will briefly display that key. You will have something similar to this:

I hope this was what you were looking for.


Is there a way to get my wife's iPhone to go on silent automatically during the time?

You can try using Do Not Disturb (Settings->Do Not Disturb) feature on the iPhone. It allows scheduling as well.


How to Page Up/Down on Anker Bluetooth Keyboard?

Karabiner and BetterTouchTool can remap keys to do this, but since the Fn key doesn't seem to be standard you may have to remap it to another key. BetterTouchTool is much more simple by the way.


What version of Silverlight works with the latest 10.7 release?

Silverlight - 5.0.61118.0

MacBookPro9,2

50 - 10.7.5(11G63)

5 - 10.8.2(12A269)

Silverlight Prefs come up just fine.

Installed programs:

Chrome 24

Safari 6

Firefox 18

All updates

iLife

iWork

Office 2008

Adobe CS3

VLC

Smart Notebook


Start by  clicking on the folder, select Get Info under Sharing & Permissions and grant yourself read permission.

Try to access the folder via Terminal. Use sudo if required.

If you can read the files this way, copy them over to your home directory and change the ownership to yourself using chown command.

You should be able to gain access to the files this way.


Mail App in Mac (unable to Verify Account & Password after upgrade to OS Sierra

I had this - I found that if you put your password into the little dialogues that Mail pops up, it always fails. If you instead go into Mail settings and enter the password in the server settings tab for the account and save, it works.

Incidentally I have yet to see a config that works correctly with "Automatically manage connection settings" enabled.


I'm assuming the paths to the python script and its parameters are valid, otherwise you'd most likely be seeing errors in the Console instead.

The last time I saw that error was because there were spurious characters in the plist, e.g. extra spaces, causing syntax errors and therefore making it fail to load. If you run plutil -lint on your plist, this will check the syntax for you and also handily report back the line on which the error occurred.

plutil -lint com.sickbeard.sickbeard.plist

If that doesn't help, the (OSX) How To Start SickBeard at Login or boot on OSX thread on the sickbeard forums has a slightly different plist to yours (sickbeard running from /usr/local as opposed to /Applications - so it could be a permissions thing) and also some people with seemingly the same problem as you


Preview voice reading will happen after selecting the text you require to be read first / as mentioned above it needs to be selectable and recognisable text - then proceed with previous steps: Edit -> Speech -> Start Reading

Hope this helps


At how many battery cycles should I consider replacing my battery?

You haven't mentioned what's the model of the Mac you are using, Apple's Determining battery cycle count for Mac notebooks  will tell you more about the Charge Cycle.

Also in case you are still in warranty, which I assume you are not cause of so many charge cycles, you can go to the Apple Store and get the battery diagnosed, if they find a problem they will replace it.


This app can do the same for the new Notifications Center:
https://apps.apple.com/cz/app/glimpse-2/id1524217845?l=cs


Is it possible to schedule my laptop to mute and unmute based on calendar events?

Open Automator app

Click on Calender and find and Drag the Find Calender Events

Select the Event has attendees! (obviously :) !

On left select the Utilities and find drag the set computer volume to the right.

Run a test in Automator to verify the Mute is activated, and save the file.


Following Seth Warburton's steps on Install Jekyll in OSX Mavericks, try adding sudo to the install command:

sudo gem install jekyll

If you need to update or re-install Ruby, consider using an isolated edition via brew.


In 10.8, running killall Dock seems to bring back trackpad gestures.

When a reboot didn't fix this, I went to System Preferences → Trackpad → More Gestures and changed

Mission Control to ‘Swipe up with three fingers’, and
App Exposé to ‘Swipe down with three fingers’.

Those gestures now worked with 3 fingers. Then I changed it back to ‘Swipe up/down with four fingers’ on both and they started working again using the four-finger gestures.


There is a 3rd party StartupSound.PrefPane for this.


How do I find and remove a download that was interrupted and is not in any downloads or cache folders?

Let’s assume you just need to locate files larger than 3 GB - here’s an answer on the site for searching 1 GB - so you can adapt that for your case.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/53036/5472

The finder size search is easy to see how to change 1 GB to 4 GB - and here is the command line option for 3 - change up or down based on how many results come back to filter through.

mdfind "kMDItemFSSize >$[3*1024*1024*1024]"


iPhone 6 stolen. Did I accidentally cancel my pending data erase by removing account from iCloud too soon?

It was really wrong that you have choosen to remove device from account. If you have passcode on it your data is probably safe but since you have removed it from your account it can now be restored as new without any iCloud lock whatsoever.


If you want it to launch at login (which I don't recommend, and I'll explain why), add it to your login options. To do this, open System Preferences -> Users and Groups. Select your name in the sidebar, then select Login Items in the main pane.

Next, hit the + button and navigate to wherever you have TardisGlow and hit add.

Now it will launch whenever you login.

However, I'm not sure I would recommend this, for one simple reason: the way the script works (though completely harmless) is by dimming and raising the backlight, which will be extremely distracting if you want to use your computer. Admittedly, as configured, it only runs for 7.2 seconds before resetting it to normal (after playing some sounds)–but if you want to keep running that effect, it will need to keep running.

If, however, you decide that you do want to have it continually run, you'll need to change the line repeat 4.5 times to repeat in the script. To do so, go to the app, right click it, and hit show package contents. Next, navigate to Contents/Resources/Scripts/main.scpt and open it. Then, change the line as noted before and save.


What models of iPhone 4S are for sale in the US

All models come in white or black at the same price, so we'll list them by capacity and locking status by increasing price.

Unlocked GSM Phones

All these ship without a micro SIM (Coming in November)

16 GB - $649 - GSM unlocked - no contract or subsidy
32 GB - $749 - GSM unlocked - no contract or subsidy
64 GB - $849 - GSM unlocked - no contract or subsidy

AT&T

AT&T iPhone 4S will be configured to use GSM domestically and GSM roaming.

Comes with AT&T micro SIM (all ship 1-2 weeks currently)

16 GB - $199 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy
32 GB - $299 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy
64 GB - $399 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy

Sprint

Sprint iPhone 4S will be configured to use CDMA domestically and GSM roaming.

Sprint iPhones may or may not be unlocked internationally out of the box Even in this article, there is currently some confusion and flip/flopping on this point.

16 GB Sprint CDMA - $199 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy
32 GB Sprint CDMA - $299 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy
64 GB Sprint CDMA - $399 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy

Verizon

Verizon Wireless iPhone 4S will be configured to use CDMA domestically and GSM roaming.

After 60 days in good standing, Verizon will unlock the SIM for international use upon customer request, but it remains locked within the US.

16 GB VZ CDMA - $199 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy
32 GB VZ CDMA - $299 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy
64 GB VZ CDMA - $399 - GSM locked - with 24 month contract & subsidy

This answer is community wiki - please improve it in any way you please


Can I make my website respond to Apple voice dictation for navigation?

I'm not sure how accurate or the usability of this would be, but it might be possible. On your website you would need a few things.

A textbox of some sort that one would be able to dictate the commands into
When the page loads, call the .focus() on the textbox, which will allow the user to call up dictation (Double press Fn) and tell you what they want to do.
Bind a jQuery .change() on this textbox, which would then parse what the user would have dictated in the textbox
jQuery action based on the command, whether it is a redirect, or scroll, etc.
Clear out the textbox and get ready for the next command

There are some shortcomings, such as

The user will still have to initialize dictation in some way (Double press Fn) whenever a new page is loaded, unless you are loading everything through AJAX in div.
Where should the textbox be, and should it be visible to every user at all times?
Teaching your users the proper commands to use
Would this work on a Windows or Linux PC?

It is definitely an interesting idea, but I don't think it has a very practical use, as there are many other accessibility programs on Mac such as VoiceOver that work very well. This is just a general overview, and there is a lot more complexity to it than shown above, especially when it comes to what commands do what and if you want to try and support natural language processing. I hope this helps!


Dual displays detected as singular display via usb c dock issue (MBP 2017, Dell)

What you ask is simply not possible with that hardware.

Due to the way the signal must be demultiplexed, you will need a Thunderbolt 3 dock instead of a USB-C dock to be able to drive the two external displays with separate content.

Alternatively you can connect one of the monitors directly to the MacBook Pro using a standard USB-C to DisplayPort cable.


Altering or touching a file does not always update the parent directory modification time?

Your observations seem to be off. In this respect macOS works the same as Linux - the modification time for the parent directory change when you add, remove or rename files/subdirectories in that directory.

The modification time is not changed when you alter the contents of files. Neither on macOS nor on Linux.


How can I pause animated GIFs in Messages.app on OS X?

You can not pause an animated GIF.

But build-in in your operating system is the power of App Nap which is developed just for your needs. Shamelessly copied from the 'Power Efficiency in OSX' PDF from apple.com. It is an easy read.

  App Nap

  While your Mac can run many different apps at the same time, the
  reality is that you’re typically interacting with only one of them,
  and in some cases (such as using a full-screen app), you can’t even
  see what the other apps are doing. App Nap takes advantage of this
  fact by putting applications that you can’t see into a special low-
  power state that regulates their CPU usage as well as network and disk
  I/O. App Nap can be automatically triggered in the following
  situations:

  • The app’s windows are not visible.

  • The app is not playing audio.

  • The developer has not explicitly made the app exempt from App Nap by using the existing IOKit IOPMAssertion API (currently used in OS X to prevent the system from sleeping while an app is busy).

  • An app is in background and hasn’t drawn recently.

Btw: GIF is pronounced as pronounced as ɡɪf or dʒɪf ;)


2010 Polycarbonate (White) MacBook: Has anyone tested to run with 2x1600MHz DDR3 16GB memory?

The people at OWC do this sort of thing on a common basis -- test to see what combinations of memory will work.

If I've figured your mac correctly, this page:  https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_White

says that the most you can have is 2 8GB sticks.

Haven't done it, so take this with a grain of salt, but most of the time using a faster stick is tolerated.  It won't run at the higher speed.

There are few cases where some odd combinations of memory work.  One instance where a mac could use a 4GB chip in the second slot, but only a 2 in the first.  I've also heard of combinations that had flakey performance  with certain size chips -- would boot, but crashed at random intervals.  I suspect that the chips drew more power than the main board could easily supply, and so were running at a marginal voltage.

More ram isn't a panacea. Fetching data from ram into cache still takes hundreds of CPU cycles.  At one point I analyzed a raft of test results spanning several years from tests on Tom's Hardware Site.  The major determinate of bench mark tests was front side bus speed -- usually a divisor of the clock speed.  This sometimes meant that under clocking the CPU could allow a lower divisor and a higher FSB.

Some apps are greedy.  Chrome on my mac will just use whatever its available.  As I speak, Chrome is 1 G, and has 14 helpers ranging form 2 GB down to 400 MB.

Certain apps can really use more ram.  Photoshop.  Final Cut Pro.


I tested passwords up to 480 characters (in OS X version 10.8.5) and it used all of them; around 480 the passwd command had a little trouble setting passwords, but it was slightly inconsistent, so I'm not sure if that's a real limit. I didn't test with the System Prefs interface, because it doesn't allow pasting passwords, and there's no way I'm typing something that long (twice!). Basically, it'll use as much as you can stand to type.


Stop mouse pointer from sticking to the edge of display in dual monitor setup

There is no snap-to-monitor-edge feature or anything similar built-in into macOS Mojave (or any earlier release of macOS). You are using an external monitor with extended display mode. As described, your setup is something like this:

The display on the left is your built-in display, while the one on your right is the external, extended display.

Now, notice the horizontal alignment of the displays. When moving the mouse from external to built-in display, if you are moving the mouse along the bottom edge, the pointer will have no path to move into the built-in display shown on left, as it hits the edge of the external display.

If you move the mouse pointer vertically to appropriate height, the mouse pointer will find a way to move into built-in display as soon as it reaches the corner of the built-in display. You can try this by dragging the mouse pointer along the edge of external display vertically, while attempting to move the mouse pointer towards left.

If you find this behaviour interfering with your workflow, you can easily adjust the relative placement of the displays by dragging them. There are a number of variations you can try as long as the two rectangles are not totally isolated (as separate islands). Even an alignment where just the angles of the two displays is touching is possible too :)

Refer to the Apple Support document, Use external monitors with your Mac for more details.


iPhone 3GS stuck on home screen after updating Cydia

Try booting into Safe Mode. Safe Mode disables all tweaks, and unless the tweaks use something else, will not start Mobile Substrate.

Force shutdown your phone. Now, turn it on. Hold down the volume up button until the phone turns on.

Now you are in Safe Mode. Delete all tweaks, and slowly install them back, one by one, so you can see which one is causing trouble.


Problems with the acceleration input can be faulty software (and usually it's some process going out of control and taking time away from the other tasks - not that it calculates up incorrectly), so that was a good first step to avoid telling you to seek hardware service.

At this point, unless you think the restore process was bad, it's almost entirely probable that the hardware is at fault and you'll need to take it in for repair.


FreeBSD, BSD and macOS is not the same.

The updates for macOS system utilities come from Apple and are included in both major and minor system upgrades for macOS that you install using the App Store.

There's no need to update these utilities through other means.

If you want other programs than the Apple-supplied ones, you can install for example Homebrew that allows you to install alternatives. Keep in mind though that even though two utilities might have the same name across different operating systems, they are not necessarily the same program. That is "tar" is not the same on FreeBSD as on macOS as on Linux (etc).


Best way to connect a MacBook Pro to a projector

HDMI will provide a higher resolution. You don't need to use any sort of special 'Mac' or Apple produced cable for this -  DVI to HDMI cables are widely available and affordable from the Internet retailer of your choice. Just hook it up and you're good to go.

(N.B. while HDMI is capable of carrying Audio as well as Video, the DVI output on your MBP does not output sound. If you'd like to connect your MacBook to the projector or some other external audio device, you'll need a separate, but again, quite standard, audio cable to do so.)


Auto-center mouse cursor on specific display, based on used trackpad

There are ways to center the cursor in either built-in or external display.

Apple SE: CatchMouse.

So first press a hotkey to switch to the desired display. The cursor is now on that display and app switcher is shown there as well.


The email feature while using Find My iPhone has been there for a very long time. The email notification feature was silently added as a feature way back in 2011. The email is sent sent when the device reconnects to a network.

There aren't options to turn this feature off.


Mojave OS Stealth mode: Is it compatible with Norton Security package?

Yes, enabling stealth mode on Mojave will not wreak havoc with Norton Security.

However note that enabling security features such as Stealth Mode or indeed the Norton Security Firewall itself does not magically give you "more security" or "better security". You'll need an understanding of what these features do or do not do in order to reason about enabling them. It might harm more than it helps in some cases.

Stealth mode works by blocking responses to ICMP ping packets as well as incoming requests for non-open ports. This means that you cannot ping the computer to get an immediate response, and if you attempt to connect to a service on the computer that is not offered, you'll not get a "closed" response, but instead nothing will happen.

The advantage is that if you have a scenario where you do not want others on your local area network to know that the computer is there or which services it provides, they could be "fooled" by not responding to these packages.

On a normal home user scenario the feature does not give you any additional advantage against probing from the Internet at large. It is only a protection on your local network. So if someone comes to your home and plugs in a computer into your local network, it will take them longer to map out which IP-addresses your computers have and which services they offer. In general, this is not a problem for home users at all.

In a mobile scenario where you take your laptop out in the world and connect to insecure (often WiFi) networks without forcing everything on a VPN, the feature does have some merit. Evil users on the same network cannot ping to discover your computers - although on wireless and especially wired networks, it is quite easy to discover your computer simply from the fact that it is itself sending out information onto the network. Similarly evil users will need more time to discover which services your computer offer.

The advantages of the feature are very limited for most users in most cases.

The disadvantages are mostly concerning "debugging" i.e. when "finding errors". If you for example try to connect yourself to the computer via a network service that isn't working for some reasons, you might find yourself waiting for timeouts, non-responsive programs, etc. - instead of having a quick error message popping up stating the cause of the interruption of service.


Any known problems with Ruby/Rails in Lion -> Mountain Lion upgrade?

I'm not sure about Ruby or Rails development specifically, but here's some things I had to do after upgrading to 10.8. See also this question and this blog post.

I had to install the command line tools package from Xcode's preferences. Xcode no longer includes separate binaries of the LLVM compiler or make or utilities like SetFile by default.
X11.app is no longer installed by default. Some Homebrew formulas required installing XQuartz.
Configuration files in /etc/apache2/ were removed or overwritten. See this question.
ImageMagick didn't work until I uninstalled and installed it again with Homebrew.


What happened to jabber / hangouts options in messages?

Jabber and Google Hangouts was removed from Messages in Mojave. You might consider using Adium.


Full height window is not full height El Capitan

Apple designs the screens to leave a gap between the top window and the menu bar (especially noticeable with a dark menu bar and a bright background image) and also maintains a gap between the physical bottom of the screen and the window.

If I were to guess, it's to preserve shadows and "depth" of the interface and they made a conscious decision to implement windowing this way.

You might have to file some bug reports and gather use cases for how this is bad to get them to reverse this decision. It's hard to unsee once you notice it, but I don't think it's just a bug in their code.


What's this last device in AirPort Utility's Wireless Clients list?

To answer your question, I don't think that there is a definitive way to tell what is on your Wi-Fi connection, at least not without additional software (if such software exists). That said, here's what I would do to rule out products that I or my family own:

The MAC address pictured looked similar to my Apple Watch, with an Apple Watch very easily overlooked on a network. Like I said in the comments, it could be an Apple Watch, to test it just put the Apple Watch in Airplane Mode

and see if that mysterious MAC address disappears. Even if that's not it, you can test every device in your house this way.


Can't "Click lock to make changes" after update to BigSur

Ok so apparently this was easily solved by resetting the SMC (system management controller)
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/649884?login=true&page=1#618964022
Instructions on how to do this can be found here
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201295


Keynote keyboard shortcut for moving focus between slide canvas and slides drawer?

I was going to ask the same thing for Keynote 6 under 10.10, but I'll chime in here instead..

MacLemon's answer doesn't do anything helpful for me in Keynote on Yosemite.

One can switch between Navigator and Slide Only from the View menu (so shortcuts could be created via System Preferences), but:

I can't find out how to leave the Navigator visible but change focus
When the navigator is displayed, it doesn't get focus :(

There's a list of shortcuts here, but I can't find anything relevant..

Maybe an applescript / automator solution could be concocted.


This is the quick website search feature. You can disable it or remove the website: Link


The icon is not "wrong" : You just have to select "Folder" in the "Display as" menu, not the "Stack". Do this by right-clicking on the folder and select stack.

"

PS : Just right click on the icon in your dock to make this menu popup.


iPhone4s turned itself down then turned on by itself then turns off by itself again and again

A few ideas:

Try stopping all apps and then restarting your phone
Is this happening after you installed/updated a certain app? Try removing it
Backup your phone, reset it to factory settings, then restore it from the backup
Take it to an Apple Service Center


Lightweight "sounds similar" radio app (OSX)

Rdio is close. It does not have a menubar icon, but in app: ⌘F - search - Start station.

App supports fullscreen and play and skip buttons on Mac keyboard. Miniplayer can be on top but does not allow search described above.


How to ssh from iPad with external keyboard and Emacs?

Prompt is generally considered to be the best (or at least among the best) SSH clients for iOS. I've never used it specifically for emacs (as I don't use emacs) but I've never seen it send strange extra characters, even when sending control characters to, say, nano.

Edit: Prompt version 1.3.2 now has a feature where you can use the Escape key as a Meta key.


3rd party gaming mouse works before login but stops working afterwards

The first thing I would do is try booting into Safe Mode.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. does the mouse work properly, etc)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Test again when booted normally

Let me know how these steps went and we'll go from there.


There is a setting under Settings -> Messages -> Audio Messages section. There is an "Expire" option, where you can select 'after 2 minutes' or 'never'. That is why it disappeared from your message thread.

Your friend will have it in their message thread until they listen to it, and then the phone will either remove it after 2 minutes or keep it, depending on what their setting is.

So to be clear: what you see in your message thread isn't in any way linked to what your friend sees in theirs. If your message gets delivered to two Macs, three iPads and one iPhone, this concept applies to pictures as well. Each device that has the message handles deletions independently of the others.


creating a new user in Mac will it reset everything?

Creating a new user will trash all the configurations that are stored in the old user's home directory (i.e. /Users/old_username)

This does not affect configurations done in the system folders(e.g. /usr/, /etc/, /Libraries

So you need to figure out if you configured mysql in your home directory or in the system folders.

Typically if you had to use your administrator privileges to configure mysql then it's stored in system folders.


How to find the file address location for a file found in Spotlight

From Spotlight:

Show All in Finder -> ctrl+click the file -> Show in Enclosing Folder or select Get Info. Now you are at the file's location or have the files address (from Get Info) without opening the file.

UPDATE: OS X Yosemite changed Spotlight quite a bit. Now the the file location is displayed in the lower right corner of Spotlight and cmd+enter will open a finder tab with the searched file at the file's address.


Does Mail.app send or can request read receipts?

I tested this using Mail on Snow Leopard connected to Exchange 2005.

There is no ability to set a request to receive read receipts.

Reading an email sent from Outlook in Windows to mail on Snow Leopard with a read recipt requested, does not send a read receipt.

Lion may vary.


How do I enable "native" scrolling for Emacs?

I still have no idea how I managed to get it working on the Retina MBP, but I found this version of Emacs which supports native scrolling, much nicer full-screen mode, and more.


Contacts sync conflict with google and exchange

You need to change the default Contact account for each of your iDevices to point to a single service (i.e. Exchange, iCloud, etc).

The solution along with some screenshots.


OS X El Capitan download button is grayed out

Just restarted the machine and that solved the issue. Now it's downloading.


You should be able to do this by dragging the 'item' to the edge of the screen and waiting a bit for the space to switch. To me this works for folders and text as well as windows.


Is there an iOS program that performs multivariate linear regression?

I don't think Wolfram Alpha's main app or their Linear Algebra Course Assistant are there yet with general multivariate linear regression but their email support is great and you might ask them which product of theirs might get that first. These do not run offline - so you may have to wait for the whole enchilada to arrive.

In the mean time, you will need to use something like Matlab mobile to connect back to a computer that can actually run the numbers for you. This is a step better than just running screens as it lets you do input natively on iOS and shuttles forth and back the data to the main engine running remotely.

As you commented, you could get a matrix manipulation tool - both the Linear Algebra Course Assistant and a few other apps like matrix calculator plus will invert matrices for you.


Download a Free App published only to India AppStore while my primary iTunes account is US Appstore?

You can have multiple accounts, you just have to log in and out to switch between them.

After you created an India account, log out of your US account:

Settings -> App and iTunes Stores -> Apple ID -> Sign Out

Then sign in with your India account. Swipe close your AppStore app, then go into it again. Now you can download apps from your India account.


10.8.2 Finder windows: number of files in folder?

I guess the status bar was just hidden. You can show it by checking Show Status Bar from the View menu.


Backup Time Capsule to 'cloud' / online backup provider

Another way is to do a second time capsule backup to the cloud.  As long as you can specify the location "as a folder" to time machine, then you have time machine making 2 backups for you.

I do 2 backups, one to the Airport Time Capsule unit and one to a different network drive.  I know it is not in the cloud, but if you can do as I mentioned above, that is another way to do it.

I also use SOS backup to the cloud.  If I specify the time machine backup folder, it will do exactly as you are asking.


Performance hit of installing a new hard drive in a MacBook Pro

ATTENTION

You do not specify a MacBook pro, but mine (pre-unibody) it ca not take those drives as you can read it has 12.5mm height and the maximum of a MBP Drive is 9.5mm

That is why several 500Gb drives did not fit MBP's and the one you are mentioning will never fit your laptop.

added

Currently, the max capacity on a 9.5mm Hard Drive is 750Gb (WD Scorpio Blue 5400rpm), and SSD is 480Gb (OWC SSD Extreme Pro) --> I bought mine here but 240Gb, it's superb!

to learn how to swap them (unibody, late 2008 models), see this OWC video and if you want to check the performance from an SSD and a HHD, please check this video.

my own SSD:


Applescript: Automate Excel to convert .xls to .csv

For Excel V15, use a posix path, like this:

set theOutputPath to POSIX path of ((path to desktop folder as string) & "My Saved Workbook.csv")
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
    tell active workbook
        save workbook as filename theOutputPath file format CSV Mac file format with overwrite
    end tell
end tell

Edit 1 -

I test it on V15.15 and V15.16, it's a bug when the destination folder doesn't contains a recently opened Excel file.
So use it

set theOutputPath to POSIX path of ((path to desktop folder as string) & "My Saved Workbook.csv")
set parentFolder to (do shell script "dirname " & quoted form of theOutputPath) as POSIX file -- get the parent folder

tell application "Microsoft Excel"
    alias parentFolder -- a folder where to save a new file, workaround to a bug when the destination folder doesn't contains a recently opened Excel file
    save workbook as active workbook filename (theOutputPath) file format CSV Mac file format with overwrite
end tell

Edit 2 -

Or create an empty file like this

set theOutputPath to POSIX path of (path to desktop folder as string) & "My Saved Workbook.csv"
do shell script "touch " & quoted form of theOutputPath -- create an empty file
set theOutputPath to theOutputPath as POSIX file
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
    save workbook as active workbook filename (theOutputPath) file format CSV Mac file format with overwrite
end tell

Edit 3 : I had another idea, it would be the simplest script.

set theOutputPath to (path to desktop folder as string) & "My Saved Workbook.csv"
tell application "Microsoft Excel"
    alias theOutputPath --  workaround to a bug when the destination folder doesn't contains a recently opened Excel file
    save workbook as active workbook filename theOutputPath file format CSV Mac file format with overwrite
end tell


How to delete tags from a large number of files

You can delete custom tags you created by going to "Finder-->Preferences-->Tags"  Then highlight the tags you don't want.  (To select multiple at once click one and then shift+click the last one).  Right-click and "Delete # Tags".

In your case, with 70+ tags, just use select all from the edit menu (Command A) to select all the tags. Then hold the option key to click the 6 tags you want to keep. Once the rest are selected you can mass delete them, leaving the few tags you prefer.


How does Safari name the 'Apple Touch Icon' files?

If you bookmark a page that shows an icon for it under the Bookmarks menu, it (the image) is stored in the ~/Library/Safari/WebpageIcons.db file, which is an SQLite version 3 database. Images stored within the database can be in different formats, e.g. .ico, .png, etc.

If you really want to change the icon, that's in the database, I've done it with DB Browser for SQLite.


You can use iStat Menus to read the sensor values, which include voltage, amperage and wattage of various components in the system.


How do I get an app from my old phone onto a new phone without updating the app (via IPA file)?

This can be done from Configurator 2 if and only if you already have the .ipa file.
iTunes used to sync .ipa files back from the phone as part of the backup strategy. This practise stopped some years ago & has since relied entirely on OTA downloads of current versions from the App Store.
It may be possible to use the older & now unsupported last version of iTunes that allowed this, to extract an .ipa from the current phone, which you could then re-sync to a newer phone… assuming it will run on the newer phone.
The link to the last version of this 12.6.x.x is here - Apple KB: Deploy apps in a business environment with iTunes however it appears it will not run in later macOS versions without some effort. See MacRumors: iTunes 12.6.5.3 on MacOS Catalina and also apparently will still work for an iPhone 8, but not an 11 - Reddit: Does iTunes 12.6.5.3 work with iOS 14?
All of this does imply it might be a tougher job than it once was. I cannot test any of this empirically, I'm afraid.
As a long shot, you may have the .ipa buried deep within Time Machine, if it goes back far enough. This was actually how I achieved a similar task a few years ago.


MacBook Pro 2015 13" vs MacBook Air 2019 for Final Cut Pro X

Generally speaking, a MacBook Air is not the best system for heavy users of CPU-bound applications like Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X. The primary reason for this is that the thinner chassis has less efficient cooling than a larger machine like a MacBook Pro, resulting in the CPU being more likely to throttle down to lower speeds more quickly when it gets hot.

If you can afford it, a better upgrade for your use case may be a 13" MacBook Pro but be aware that a refreshed model is rumoured to be being released this year, with an upgraded keyboard (the same keyboard as in the 2019 MacBook Pro 16" and 2020 MacBook Air).


How to find picture in Photos that shows up as wallpaper (after Systems Preferences work) in Mojave

Here's a different approach:
http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/20/show-the-location-path-of-current-wallpaper-in-mac-os-x/
In essence, type the following commands in Terminal.app:

Reveal the file path of the current wallpaper on the Desktop:

defaults write com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text -bool TRUE; killall Dock
Once revealed, hide the file path from the Desktop:

defaults write com.apple.dock desktop-picture-show-debug-text -bool FALSE; killall Dock

It works this way on all recent macOS versions from 10.10 Yosemite onward (including Catalina).


iPhoto is a digital photograph manipulation software, part of the iLife suite.

Photo Stream is functionality by which when you take a photo on one device, it will automatically appear on all your other devices, without syncing nor sending.

Image Capture is the Application developed by Apple which enables users to upload pictures from digital cameras, scanners, or iDevices.


Are old podcast episodes removed from the iTunes store?

If the podcast's feed has history archived in the Wayback Machine (which many are), you can use Backfeed1 to generate a feed which includes all current and often2, all historical episodes.

1. disclaimer: I created Backfeed, since I was annoyed at the same problem.
2. limited by what is available in the wayback machine within a sane number of API requests.


macOS - How do I remove the restart-time update installer?

Re-installing as suggested above will fix the problem - temporarily! The next day you will end up in exactly the same situation, unless you stop all automatic updates from taking place.

The cause of the problem is a BUG in the 2019-004 10.13.6 High Sierra update, affecting my Mac Mini Server mid-2011, and obviously more mid-2011 machines.

I have forwarded the info to Apple, but don't hold your breath wile waiting for a correction. Mid-2011 machines are close to extinct and all updates for those will soon, if not already (?) stop from being developed.


How can I make sure that all songs sync to my iPod?

Make sure that in iTunes that you have it set to sync your "Entire Music Library":

Open iTunes*
Connect your iPod
Select it in the iTunes sidebar
Click the "Music" tab
Ensure "Sync Music" is checked
Select "Entire Music Library"

*This assumes you are running a fairly recent version of iTunes.


macOS Big Sur creates duplicate versions of files

The problem seems to be that you're using git ontop of iCloud Drive. I.e. the problem is not with Time Machine and backups at all - it is instead that you have chosen to store your ~/Documents/ folder in iCloud Drive, which is not compatible with programs such as git.
The issue is that iCloud Drive treats each file as an individual and independent file, whereas git assumes a specific relationship between the files. Git uses hidden files that contain information about other files in the folder - it expects them to be "in sync" - and it expects it is the only program manipulating the files; this assumption does not necessarily hold here.
Imagine for example that you run a git operation that touches several files in your folder - it might move stuff around, delete and recreate, change access times, etc. It does so very quickly while keeping its own state. iCloud Drive is triggered by these changes and starts a sync - however there's a lag between git something and the sync being triggered. Then later iCloud Drive might have sent something to the server and received data back, and it goes to store it and sees that the file (or its metadata) has changed underneath it. Now iCloud Drive has a conflict that could be solved by overwriting your local file, trashing the file just received from the server - or as the case is here - preserving the new data by saving it with a "2", "3", "4", etc. suffix.
This problem is common with almost any file syncing system, so you would experience similar problems with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.
The solution to this is to not an iCloud Drive backed Documents folder, or move your git repository out of the Documents folder.


Set different keyboard settings for two different users or applications on Mac?

The Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys setting is applicable on a per user basis.

If the two users in your case have different user accounts, it will be very easy to enable/disable this setting for appropriate users.

It is not natively possible to configure this setting on a per app basis though.


Does " would like to access files in your Downloads folder" give complete access to directory, or just certain files in it?

No: the permission is for unlimited access to that folder.
There's nothing to stop an app secretly uploading all your files to some server, except that people would notice and denounce the company, and there's no commercial benefit in doing it anyway.
The Documents folder is another location that has  privileged access, but the trouble is that every app that can open and save files is likely to need access to it. If you create another user folder outside Documents, then it will be open to all user processes.
You can install something like Little Snitch, which will regularly worry you with information about all outgoing internet connections, and let you allow/deny them.


What's a good long-exposure app for the iPhone?

If you're on iOS 8, the new camera API made possible by Apple allows true manual exposure control over the pictures taken. I would suggest Manual - Custom exposure camera. It's a really good replacement for the native camera app as well.


Is it possible to Move a bootcamp partition from one drive to another?

It's a pleasure to tell you that it is, possible. I've done it successfully using Winclone

You can start rebreathing ;)


Try restoring the Apple TV to its factory setting via iTunes, Apple Support article here.  We've had a handful of Apple TVs with odd behaviour, and restoring via iTunes has fixed them.  You will need a micro-USB cable to do this.


"The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." How do I access info on USB flashdrive?

Since my HD was initialized with a Mac, I was able to use Disk Utility's First Aid functions to first verify and then repair the volume.


A restart fixed the problem. The installation worked without interruptions.


What is the difference between bootstrapping a service and bootstrapping a service into a domain?

Apple rewrote launchd in OS X Yosemite (10.10)

As far as I understand it, they added bootstrap | bootout as replacements for load | unload. load | unload are currently listed under LEGACY SUBCOMMANDS in the launchctl manual.

The main difference when you're just trying to load or unload an agent/daemon is that bootstrap | bootout forces you to be explicit about the target domain that the agent/daemon will be loaded into.

Check out this great Blog Post about some of the changes to the launchctl syntax in the OS X Yosemite launchd rewrite for more details about everything I just touched on.


Like any problem with an item you purchase, contact the selling organization when the delivery of the sale isn't per the terms you expected. Call 1-800-MY-APPLE and give them your web order number.

In this case, the developer program is sold exclusively through the Apple online web store, so start with calling the toll free or local number for your Apple store and give them your order number.  But it gets far more complicated as I am about to write down...

The problem is likely email or payment details typo, and you will be charged and only the store support has the tools to refund your purchase or push it through as you prefer. Here is how things are supposed to work.

You pick an Apple ID for becoming a developer and start the buying process on this site: https://developer.apple.com/programs/
It gets you to log in and then makes your Apple ID a "potential developer" account and pushes your to the Apple Store to pay for the first year.
You do not have to use the same Apple ID to pay for that account - you just have to pay Apple Store (http://store.apple.com) the money.
Once they have your money, they kick off the process to make sure they know who owns the Apple ID used to register in step one. You may have to fax or email them legal documents, a copy of your driver's license or other government ID. This process is emailed to you and you have to sign in using the Apple ID from step one - not the one from step 2 (should they be different).
You then have to agree to certain legal terms relating to NDA, tax rules, electronic communication legal agreements, etc... and use the original Apple ID to signify that you agree to all Apple's terms.

If you didn't get the email to start step 4 - you have to deal with the Apple Store people at 1-800-MY-APPLE or your local store contact. If you got the email listing what you have to do to activate your Apple Developer account, you can deal with Apple Developer Support at 1-800-633-2152 (or your local developer contact)


How do I prevent iOS devices from being backed up in iTunes when plugging into a friend’s computer?

There are two viable options to prevent backing up to any computer.

Turn on iCloud backup and any iTunes will know not to make a duplicate back up and just get on with syncing.
Lock your device with a passcode so that no matter what the computer asks, the device won't enable a sync/backup session until the passcode has been entered.

You can also set a "don't sync" bit on a per iOS device, but that may not be respected by some computers and also won't help if the operator of the computer wants to try to save any information it can access. I'm fairly certain your photo roll is safe if you use the passcode option, but you might want to test that if you have any sensitive photos in the camera roll.


Safari on iPhone will always be redirected to the welcome page. AFAIK there's no chance to just access www.icloud.com with Safari.
However, you can try Google's Chrome Browser. It has an option to access a page in a desktop version. That will bring up the original iCloud page with the login dialog.


The hardware accidental damage coverage is only good for 2 incidents over the life of the AppleCare+.  Each incident is subject to a US$69 service fee + tax.

You don't have to accidentally drop your Watch, you can just tell them that the glass was accidentally damaged during normal use and you want to make a claim (assuming you haven't already made at least 2 damage claims so far).  You'll be charged a service fee and they'll either repair the glass or provide you with a refurb Sport watch.

There should be no need for moral quandaries while doing this.  You bought the coverage to help you for this very purpose.


Yes. In-app purchases are secure just as they are on the actual App Store. Apple provides developers the APIs needed for in-app purchases. My understanding is that one can do purchases in apps through the "official" in-app purchase system.

You should be able to easily tell the difference between a normal in-app purchase, and a third-party one (which should, but may not be secure). For the official in app purchase, it should prompt you (system type prompt) with the amount of payment and option to cancel. If you choose to pay, it should prompt you for your Apple ID password. You should not have to enter credit card information, or other personal information (if you already have that info tied to your Apple ID account.


Subversion - Homebrew vs. Xcode command line tools

No, there shouldn't be a problem having 2 different versions of Subversion installed at the same time. MacPorts and Homebrew will install their executable binaries to a different path.

The version which actually gets executed when executing svn in the shell depends on your $PATH environment variable, which contains a list of directories to search through, in order.

If your $PATH variable lists the directory where Homebrew installs binaries first (I believe this is the default configuration), svn will use the more recent version.


Internet not working well on MBA, after switching network?

I had Wireshark installed, and since I've removed it, everything works.


Preview application is not showing search results when I do Cmd + F to search a string

there are multiple type of pdf encodings, some of which disable text selection and thus searching strings, which under the hood selects text and highlights text, is disabled.

check by double clicking on any word.

1.) if the whole page becomes blue, that means you can't do searching on that page.

2.) if the word is selected, and still you're unable to search, do comment with details,

I'll be happy to help!


Ideally, you should set a longer spin-down time so that it is not occuring constantly. A time to spin down of after being idle for 4-6 hours would be better. This gives you the benefit of saving power for long periods when little is being done on the drives, e.g. during the night or while you are away from home at work, etc. Having longer times also allows for less slow down when you are using your drive since you will have a reasonable time-frame to get files and work done before the drive trys to spins down on you.

Use pmset from the terminal to set up a custom interval that works best for you.

Others our claiming that spin down or not is really not that big of a deal in a home / SMB environment.

As for the differences between the 3.5" and 2.5" drives its safe to  assume they are the same or similar. Even a comparison between what you said was a 3.5" server drives is not the same as a comparison between a 3.5" consumer desktop drive, they are not on equal ground just because of form factor. It really comes down to the manufacture quality and is really one of those you get what you pay for kind of situations and OEM drives even in Macs are still a lowest bidder kind or process. Here is a discussion on the reliability of 2.5" vs. 3.5" drives.

As for the differences in trying to set internal or external drives independently it looks like its not possible since the setting is really only intended for the startup disk according to The X Lab -- Hard Disk Sleep

  Another undocumented aspect of Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible is that this option generally applies only to the startup disk. Non-startup hard disk drives — external FireWire® or USB® drives or additional drives installed in a Mac desktop — may ignore this setting.


Possible to transfer an active, Verizon sim card to an unlocked iPhone 8 purchased from the Apple store?

In theory, that would be fine.

When you buy a phone from Apple it will be unlocked for use with any network so they can just put their network sim into it and be good to go.

They both use nano sims so the sim will be good to swap straight away.

The only issue is that Verizon have been using(and AFAIK are still using) a different model of iPhone to the rest of the US networks.

If you're buying it from an actual Apple Store you could ask them just to make sure 100%. As I'm not from the US, I'm not 100% sure what the deal is with CDMA/GSM models as they are all GSM in Europe.

Assuming Verizon still uses CDMA, you would need to make sure that the iPhone is a CDMA version.

More info


You should clear all the proxy settings unless you know you need to route some or all internet traffic through one single point of failure and slowdown.


Language Input Selection Dialog shortcut

Welcome to Ask Different.

You could enable/set keyboard shortcuts for changing input sources. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts settings, and in the left pane select Input sources. Then just enable the two command shortcuts for changing input sources. I've attached an image of what the settings looks like below. You can enable and/or change the shortcut to your liking.

When I use the shortcut, the input sources dialog box shows as long as you hold down the shortcut keys (see image below).

I'm doing all of this on macOS Mojave, but I think this works in Catalina too. Hope this helps!


How can I reduce timeout for ssh when network is down?

You need to set ServerAliveCountMax as well. The system works so that it after a timeout of "ServerAliveInterval" seconds, it sends a packet and tries for "ServerAliveCountMax" times before timing out completely.

So add:

ServerAliveCountMax 1

to the settings!

I would also recommend taking a look at mosh instead of regular SSH. This will enable you to keep the same connection to the server even between wakes, moves to the conference room, etc.


"Use Option as Meta key" with ability to type the # symbol

iTerm 2 can be configured to only use one option key as meta:


Which cable to use from iMac 5k to 30 inch Dell monitor?

I'd start with a dual link dvi adapter if you brought both to me.

Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter

If you have bought the display, dell support should have a KB article / manual explaining if dual link is needed for the resolution you want. If you haven't bought, make sure the pre-sales support can answer that.

That iMac can drive far higher resolution at 60 Hz:

  single-stream 4K (3840x2160) - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587

You might even get by with single link dvi - it will certainly work, just possibly at lower resolution if your overriding concern is saving $$


Installing nova client: PIP Permission Denied even as root

As per this StackOverflow answer, sudo pip install is a rather unsafe practice in that it attempts/allows/intends to modify system Python libraries. In this specific case, the command fails because an install script is attempting to modify the /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework directory, which as of macOS 10.11 is guarded by System Integrity Protection. Try using a virtualenv.


Pages: Change Body Style for Entire document

When you click on the font size selector, an Update button appears beside the style you have selected:

Click on it and the style is updated to the new parameters. Existing and new text with this paragraph style will adopt them.


Every iPhone requires a network ID (whether this is a SIM card or eePROM chip or whatever is irrelevant). Essentially, so long as the phone thinks there is a possibility of it getting a network connection, you're fine.


Trying to get things clear with iPod touch 3rd Gen 8GB MC model

Since I was once working as salesman in an Authorized Reseller in Australia, let me enlighten the essential parts :

Apple had implicitly mentioned in the press release that the MC model would not have the same spec as its sibling, which means the MC model is not the same with the 3rd Gen model.

So what is a MC model ?
MC model is a 2nd Gen iPod with a modified bootrom so it was meant to be UN-jailbreakable. But as you see, maniacs out there were able to jailbreak it too (this really bugs me). You may notice that the MC and MB models are quite different but they were the same since both of them were A1288 iPods.

Since the time when Apple made the press release, many stores advertise the MC model as the 3rd Gen. This is absolutely wrong ! Although my store didn't notice about the differences until iOS 4 was released, we took the liberty of advertising it as The New iPod Touch 2G 8GB in February 2010. Actually, Apple ever advertised in fine text that iPod touch 8GB won't support all features on iOS 4 in March 2010. The salesman at your store should've told you this before.

About the method, well, beats me. Most stores have their own way to distinguish such as the part number (MCXXXX and MBXXXX), however since part numbers are different in every sales region, Apple used a more common way which is the model number as shown in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1353#iPod_touch_late2009. However, you won't be able to check the model number unless you buy the iPod, opened the case, and use a magnifier on its backpanel. A lot of online websites made profit from this thing, since people bought the product and they complained 6-12 months later (assuming the purchase was done in late 2009 - early 2010), and they were terribly dissapointed.

If you carefully notice that the link in the webpage for the 4th Gen iPods was HT1353#iPod_4G while for the 3rd Gen iPods was HT1353#iPod_touch_late2009. See Apple designated the iPod touch which was released in 09/2009 (at the same time with the press release) only in 32GB & 64GB capacity. So what is the designation for the 8GB ones ?

They were just iPod Touch 2G 8GB - MC model, any other name for this iPod would be considered unlikely to be accurate.

The store where I worked once also experienced the same problem back in May 2011 where users who bought the product before our new advertising was launched. Well, we apologized because it was my store's mistake and told the customers why wouldn't they bring the problem back to us earlier ?. Well, that's not the important thing (as long as the customers were happy, it was enough for me). The customers demand the true iPod touch 3G 8GB in exchange for their old The New iPod Touch 2G 8GB. But there was no such thing called iPod Touch 3G 8GB, so we made a deal with them. We let them keep their iPods and offered them the new iPod 4G 8GB for only A$49 (about 20% of normal price at that time). since there wasn't a 3G 8GB. Fortunately, there were only 3 customers at the time and we revoke one of them because the iPod unit wasn't functional. They accepted the deal and we sold 2 iPod Touch 4G 8GB for A$98.

Now since you would likely to demand compensation from your local Authorised reseller, tell them how we settle things here in Australia. Your local store might've misled you when buying your product, so you have the right to demand compensation even it's been 2,5 years since the released of the iPod touch 3G. I think that refund might be an overdo since it's been quite some time, so I suggest you demand for 80% discount for purchasing the new iPod touch too :).


How to stop Mission Control from rearranging screens?

Go to System Preferences -> Mission Control and uncheck: Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use.


Where are Mail.app rules stored? They got deleted and I want to restore them

The rules are stored in a property list at:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/SyncedRules.plist

Restore this file from a backup.
Restart Mail.app.
Re-enable the rules.

These days check for a V3 folder (El Capitan). Restoring only the SyncedRules.plist may not work as another .plist file indexes the active state of the current rules set. What worked here was to go back to an earlier version of the ~Library/Mail/V3/MailData directory (note that it is in the V3 directory-- not the V2 directory). This takes a few minutes as Mail has to re-import your messages, but it did restore rules which were not restored by restoring the just the ~/Library/Mail/V3/MailData/SyncedRules.plist file only.


Automate Fn key switch between finder and photoshop?

You could use Spaces.
Lock each app to its own space then use the built-in system hot keys to switch between those Spaces.

See my answer at https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/179403/85275 for some working methods.


How can I find the date that I upgraded to High Sierra?

Follow these steps:

Go to Apple > About This Mac
Click on the System Report button
In the lefthand Sidebar scroll down to Software and select the Installations option
In the righthand pane you will see a list of software. Scroll through the list until you see the macOS High Sierra installations (see screenshot below as example):


I'm experiencing a similar issue. I've been doing some reading throughout the morning, and one possible solution I've found was covered here: http://osxdaily.com/2015/07/05/resolving-mail-problems-os-x-update/

Disabling 'automatically detect and maintain settings' seems to have cleared it up for me, however I'm not 100% sure that this will be your solution, as your screenshot shows that box already unchecked.


Daisy chain Thunderbolt display to regular, fullsize DisplayPort monitor?

From Apple's Thunderbolt Ports and Displays FAQ:

Can I connect a Mini DisplayPort display to my Apple Thunderbolt Display for computers that support using more than one display?
Mini DisplayPort displays will not function if connected to the Thunderbolt port of an Apple Thunderbolt Display. Displays connected via Mini DisplayPort video adapter or cable to the Thunderbolt port of an Apple Thunderbolt Display will not work.

So as you guessed, you can't daisychain a non-Thunderbolt display to a Thunderbolt display. You can only do it with two Thunderbolt displays (or of course, two displays on different ports directly connected to your Mac).


iPhone 6S (iOS 9.3.2) starts switching off whenever battery is low

This happened to me when my iPhone 5 battery died. If it's less than a year old, take it to an Apple Store or Authorized Reseller for replacement.
If it's older and you don't have an AppleCare plan, you can buy a compatible battery from eBay; I did and has worked great for over a year.

It may even happen that Apple replaces it for free if it's a batch of defective batteries (mine was, but I replaced it before the announcement.

You can check the health of your battery with coconutBattery if you have a Mac.


List of specific apps on my iPhone with Siri integration

These two options may help, although it's not exactly what you're after.

One

When using Siri, at the bottom left of the screen, you'll see a '?'. If you tap on the question mark (?) Siri will list the apps you can use with Siri and tapping on an individual app will list some examples for you.

Another way to access this screen is to just say something like "Hey Siri, what can you do?".

Two

Go to Settings > Siri > App Support

This will list 3rd party apps that you can allow to process requests via Siri. For example, if you have LinkedIn installed, it should be listed here.

Summary

As far as an exhaustive list of apps and how they can be used with Siri, I do think this is an unrealistic expectation. After all there are over 2 million apps currently in the App Store. How would you make this work in a practical sense? How could it be populated/maintained in a timely and useful manner? I'm not saying it'd be impossible, just that it's not really practical and the benefits would not justify the effort involved.

Instead, as developers take advantage of the Siri APIs the onus is really on them to highlight and 'sell' the virtues of their product. I know that's what I'll be doing.


Am I able to retrieve document from time machine after a clean install and setup new account with same username?

You can drill down into the Time Machine folder hierarchy just like any other disk...

[Time Machine Drive] > Backups.backupd > [Computer name] > Latest - then you're into the old hierarchy as it was on your previous system.

if Latest has been overwritten by the new system then you'd have to dig by date or use search.


How do I get a bottom to top build in animation with Keynote?

If each section of the pyramid is a separate object then this shouldn't be too difficult to do via the inspector. All you need to do is select each object one at a time and add an entrance effect to it. Then in the animation tab of the inspector you can click on "More Options" (in the same place that the "Close Drawer" button is in the screenshot below)  and a drawer will slide out that allows you to change the sequence of animations (by dragging and dropping). Here's a screenshot of a simple sequence involving three objects.

It is also possible to control the animation of text boxes in a similar fashion (since they can be selected as individual objects). Additionally one can also set bulleted text to come in one bullet at a time with the following settings:

So instead of setting the "Delivery" occur "All at Once," change it to "By Paragraph."


Macintosh HD icon on desktop - make it open finder in desktop with toolbar?

I think I know what the issue is here. You need to change the view settings for Finder when you're in the Macintosh HD directory that you clicked on from your desktop. I think any view settings you've set for a particular directory (i.e. Macintosh HD) is applied to the child directories you've clicked on from the same window.

The reason a new Finder window doesn't have the issue is because by default it opens the ~/AccountName directory which had the view settings enabled for toolbar/path bar/status bar. So change the view settings when you're in Macintosh HD directory and it shouldn't have this problem in future. I've highlighted the view settings you need to enable in the screenshot below.  Let me know if this works for you.


Is there a way to entirely remove the Messages app from an iOS 12 device?

iOS 12 does not seem to allow Messages to be turned off. But this method should prevent messages from working.

Settings > Content & Privacy Restrictions

And set Account Changes to Don't Allow and password protect that setting by turning Content & Privacy Restrictions on at the top of that screen. She will not be able to add an account (EG iCloud/AppleID) that would allow iMessage to get messages.

Note that a clever and determined child will often find workarounds to anything and could easily find a web-based messaging service available via Safari.


Yes, it needs to be a Mac specific card. The Mac specific part is basically the firmware on the card - so some cards can be purchased in the PC/Windows variant and then you reflash the firmware to make it Mac specific again.


All applications got paused after disk space usage got near 99% and back to normal. What's next?

To un-pause those paused/not responding applications after you free up some space, try to run this command:

pkill -CONT -u $UID

or (as suggested here):

kill -CONT -1

If this happens very often, consider adding the following alias into your shell rc file, e.g.:

alias unpause="pkill -CONT -u $UID"


Is there a way to disable OS X auto termination of applications?

Your wish is my Terminal command ;-)

defaults write -g NSDisableAutomaticTermination -bool yes

Note that since Automatic Termination doesn't really quit the applications, but rather hides them, they must have been properly quit for this to take effect.


How can I change some of the system default preferences used for the guest and new user accounts?

First of all you may need to unhide the hiden files so open terminal and run those commands :

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

To switch back, do the same but substitute FALSE for TRUE.

Now
Login to your guest account, there set chrome as your default browser (or even Firefox)
Then do not logout ! This would erase your session, so use the  on the top right corner use the swich user drop down menue,
Now that you are back again in your Admin account,
Find the new temporary guest home folder, under

 Users/Guest

Select all the folders inside of it,
And copy them in :

 /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/

English or whatever your languish is if you are using your computer in french this should be :

  /System/Library/User Template/French.lproj/

as you can see in this folder there was the defaults folders for the guest account
By modifying them you have just modified default appearance of the guest user account
You may want to save this folder in a safe place before, in case you want to undo your work.

For reference ,
You just have to follow the steps as shown in this video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU-W2-_c5bA

Or if you prefer text version :

http://www.michaelsmac.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=394


What is the best MongoDB client for iPad

Any client for MongoDB from AppStore should work equally well for derived products, mLab, MongoDB Altas, some custom servers, etc.

Commercial Clients with a Free Option

MongoLime - Free version with one MongoDB connection

Commercial Clients

MongoMonitor - not free
MongoFly - not free

I suggest you take a look at MongoLime since I believe it the best (it has a built-in SSH tunnel), and I can get my job done with it.


Applescript: activating remote application failure

Thanks to @Tetsujin for this link which provided the details for the answer.

My script now looks like this:

tell application "iTunes" to quit
set remMachine to "eppc://user@0.1.2.3.4"
tell application "Finder" of machine remMachine
    open file "Macintosh HD:Applications:iTunes"
end tell

This does the following:

Quits the local instance of iTunes
Sets the details of the 'remmachine'
Opens iTunes on the remote machine


Macbook 2016 shutdowns during start, safe mode working

This looks like a hardware error, but it could also be a software error.

Jul 14 12:16:45 localhost kernel[0]: disk1: alignment error.
Jul 14 12:16:45 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 14 12:16:45 localhost kernel[0]: disk0s1: alignment error.
Jul 14 12:16:45 --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 14 12:16:45 localhost kernel[0]: disk0s3: alignment error.

Since you already tried formatting the drive (the software issue) i think you are only left with hardware issue. But just to be 100% sure, try repartitioning the drive again, it might be an issue with the partition table on the drive and not the filesystem itself.

Repeat what you did before, Internet recovery, Utils > Disk Utility -> Partition the drive as 2 or more partitions first, then after successful partition, go back to 1 partition. (Do not only format Macintosh HD). Try and reinstall OS and see if it works. Otherwise i would recommend an Apple Authorized Service Provider.


Make sure the power is on to your trackpad. You should have a BlueTooth icon on your menu bar.  Click on this icon and it should list all Bluetooth devices seen by your computer. Click on the Trackpad and then click on the connect button.