Running a linux Multiseat configuration on Mac Mini hardware

You can do something similar to Linux multiseat configurations with Lion Screen Sharing. If you have multiple user accounts on your Lion machine, you can turn on Screen Sharing in System Preferences>Sharing:

Then, in the sidebar of your Finder window, you can click on the name of your computer, and click "Share Screen". Enter the user id and password for the account you want to log into. If you screen share with a Mac that already has a user logged in, you have the choice use a virtual display, which will allow you to log in to a separate user account.


Does OS X Keep A Log Of Downloaded Files On My Mac?

Yes, at: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEvents.

OS X uses the data in this file for the warning messages that come up when you open a downloaded app.


Automate URL Redirection in Mac OS Automator

REVISED SOLUTION

This following solution is to be used with Google Chrome.

Paste this following AppleScript code into a new Script Editor.app document then save it as a "Stay Open" application.

Double-clicking this new application in Finder, will launch Google Chrome if it is not already running.  It will immediately then start monitoring the URLs of every tab in window 1 of Google Chrome.  Whenever the URL of any tab starts with https://www.amazon.com, is detected, it will automatically be redirected to https://smile.amazon.com .  When Google Chrome is no longer running, the application will quit on it's own.

The first time you open your new applet, be sure to choose the option for allowing it to run... on any system dialogs which may pop-up on first launch.

This AppleScript code works for me using the latest version of macOS Mojave.

on run
    tell application "Google Chrome" to launch
end run

on idle
    if application "Google Chrome" is not running then quit me
    tell application "Google Chrome" to tell window 1
        try
            set amazonTabs to (tabs whose URL starts with "https://www.amazon")
            delay 0.1
            if amazonTabs is not {} then
                set URL of item 1 of amazonTabs to "https://smile.amazon.com"
            end if
        end try
    end tell
    if application "Google Chrome" is not running then quit me
    return 0.5
end idle

on quit
    continue quit -- allows the script to quit
end quit

Due to some comments on the original code of my solution using too much of the computer resources, I believe the above code no longer produces those issues.

Safari Version

on run
    tell application "Safari" to launch
end run

on idle
    if application "Safari" is not running then quit me
    tell application "Safari" to tell window 1
        try
            set amazonTabs to (tabs whose URL starts with "https://www.amazon")
            delay 0.1
            if amazonTabs is not {} then
                set URL of item 1 of amazonTabs to "https://smile.amazon.com"
            end if
        end try
    end tell
    if application "Safari" is not running then quit me
    return 0.5
end idle

on quit
    continue quit -- allows the script to quit
end quit

To be able to control Safari using AppleScript, be sure to enable "Show Develop menu in menu bar" in Safari's Preferences.

You'll also need to select "Allow JavaScript from Apple Events" in Develop menu bar item.


How to get a higher res image in the Login page?

Unfortunately, you're right. The icons are just low-res, not up to snuff for how they are being rendered now. You can find them, and others, in this folder: /Library/User Pictures/Animals. Funny thing is, some of the icons, like the Zebra or Penguin, are much higher res. It seems Apple just added new, better icons without updating all of the old ones. However, if you were to replace the cat icon with another, higher-res icon of the exact same name, I'm sure it would replace it just fine.


Keyboard shortcut for closing the color picker & other tool windows? Command + W won't work

Often for these kind of 'popup'/'helper' windows, the keyboard setup to hide them is the same than to show them.

I tested it in xcode for which the shortcut is :
ctrl+shift+cmd+C
It's comportement is as i expected it, it work as a toggle 'on/off' window/shortcut.

EDIT: Forgot to add one thing, you can find that shortcut easily through the help menu of each app, i usually find myself taping 'show color' to actually see the shortcut and open the panel


No.

I am able to seemingly tag files with differently cased words by opening the Get Info window on each file in Finder. However after I save and close each window and inspect the tags for each file the tag that was saved first overrides the other differently cased tag.

Note: this is with the default case-insensitive filesystem. I have not tested this on a case-sensentive filesystem.


Macintosh HD partition missing from startup options

The second image you posted shows a partition type of DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC. This is for a Windows Recovery Environment type partition.

From Windows, you can open a Command Prompt window as an Administrator. Next, you could enter the commands given below to change disk0s2 to an Hierarchical File System Plus (HFS+) type partition.

diskpart
select disk 0
select partition 2
set id=48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC override
gpt attributes=0x0000000000000000
exit

  Note: This answer assumes you are not using Core Storage.

A more comprehensive solution is given as the accepted answer to the question: OS volume shows as type 'FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF'. Despite the fact that your partition type is DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC and the linked question partition type is FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF, the accepted answer provides a solution that would work in your case.


MBA displays the Question mark Folder on booting up

The question mark folder usually means:

The hard disk is failing or has failed
Your Mac can't find a System Folder to boot from

Try starting up while holding down the Alt/Option key. That should prompt the Startup Manager window where you can select the startup disk.

If that doesn't help, refer to this Apple KB Article.


You can put aliases on the Dock to the right of the separator line. Only applications can go left.


Is it possible to COMPLETELY delete a Book from my purchased books?

This has since moved from iTunes to within the iBooks app, but the procedure is exactly the same:

Open iBooks
Click iBooks Store in top-left corner
Click Purchased
Click the x in the top-left corner of the book you want to hide

And to unhide:

Open iBooks
Click iBooks Store in top-left corner
Click Account
Click Manage next to Hidden Purchases
Click Unhide below book in question


Yes that is possible. You can buy gift cards from other country iTunes Stores.

One quick search and I found https://japancodesupply.com/, where you can buy Japanese iTunes Gift cards. When you order it takes approximately 1 minute to send you an email with your code.

There are many other websites that offer iTunes Gift cards from other countries. So do a quick search, check the credibility of the website and buy a giftcard.

I'm not affiliated with japancodesupply.com


iPhone stores contacts in the location set by Settings → Contacts → Default Account. New contacts are stored on the internal storage of the device, and then synchronised with the account selected here. This can be iCloud if activated and selected.

Contacts can be imported from the SIM, but not saved to the SIM.


How to make the pcscd daemon load at startup on Lion?

The problem happens, because securityd (which is supposed to load pcscd) does not start it when you insert your card. Try editing /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.securityd.plist and add -s aggressive switch.

The section should look like this:

<array>
  <string>/usr/sbin/securityd</string>
  <string>-i</string>
  <string>-s</string>
  <string>aggressive</string>
</array>

and then reboot.

This should set securityd in aggressive card detection mode. If there is a -s off or anything like this, probably just removing it should solve your problem.

Hope this helps.


Removing multiple desktops at once in mission control

In the end I was able to hold option and click all the X's in about a minute or so, pretty hard to do with a trackpad but easy enough with a mouse.


What's the meanings of the Routing tables' data in the Mac OS?

This answer is a quick summary of what the fields mean in the routing table display of netstat.  You can find all this information directly from the netstat  man page (man netstat) or for an excellent primer, see FreeBSD's Handbook Chapter 31.2 - Gateways and Routes. (Apple's netstat is derived from the BSD version).
Flags
The flags field shows a collection of information about the route stored as binary choices. Following is extracted directly from the man page.
 1       RTF_PROTO1       Protocol specific routing flag #1
 2       RTF_PROTO2       Protocol specific routing flag #2
 3       RTF_PROTO3       Protocol specific routing flag #3
 B       RTF_BLACKHOLE    Just discard packets (during updates)
 b       RTF_BROADCAST    The route represents a broadcast address
 C       RTF_CLONING      Generate new routes on use
 c       RTF_PRCLONING    Protocol-specified generate new routes on use
 D       RTF_DYNAMIC      Created dynamically (by redirect)
 G       RTF_GATEWAY      Destination requires forwarding by intermediary
 H       RTF_HOST         Host entry (net otherwise)
 I       RTF_IFSCOPE      Route is associated with an interface scope
 i       RTF_IFREF        Route is holding a reference to the interface
 L       RTF_LLINFO       Valid protocol to link address translation
 M       RTF_MODIFIED     Modified dynamically (by redirect)
 m       RTF_MULTICAST    The route represents a multicast address
 R       RTF_REJECT       Host or net unreachable
 r       RTF_ROUTER       Host is a default router
 S       RTF_STATIC       Manually added
 U       RTF_UP           Route usable
 W       RTF_WASCLONED    Route was generated as a result of cloning
 X       RTF_XRESOLVE     External daemon translates proto to link address
 Y       RTF_PROXY        Proxying; cloned routes will not be scoped

So, looking at the first entry, the flags are UGSc meaning

U:  RTF_UP - Route usable
G:  RTF_GATEWAY - Destination requires forwarding by intermediary
S:  RTF_STATIC - Route added manually
c:  RTF_PRCLONING - Protocol-specified generate new routes on use

Refs, Use, & Expire
The refcnt field gives the current number of active uses of the route.  Connection oriented protocols normally hold on to a single route for the duration of a connection while connectionless protocols obtain a route while sending to the same destination.  The use field provides a count of the number of packets sent using that route.
Expire is a timeout - a period in which the host doesn't respond to that route.
MAC Address and Hardware Devices
The HEX address that you're seeing for the 10.1.0.10.1/32 network (bc:67:1c:40:3:f6) is a MAC address, not a IPV6 address.

A MAC address is a 48-bit identifier specific to  the hardware written in MM:MM:MM:SS:SS:SS  The first three bytes (MM:MM:MM) identifies (assigned to) the hardware manufacturer and the second three bytes (SS:SS:SS) is assigned to the device by the manufacturer.

An IPV6 address is a 106-bit hexadecimal identifier written as 8 hexidecimal numbers separated by colons:  Example:  2001:0000:3238:DFE1:0063:0000:0000:FEFB

The link#4 and link#12 refer to the network device (i.e. Ethernet Adapter, WiFi Adapter, VPN adapter, etc.).


Did you try disabling the Trackpad? One of my colleagues had this exact problem, and found out that it's actually an issue with the trackpad.


How can I get IRC Colloquy to catch up history of a channel when I reconnect?

A friend just said:

  I'm on a Mac but I shell into a remote server and run irssi in screen, most
  people I know do that.  The second most common, and what I think you
  are looking for is: http://wiki.znc.in/ZNC


Terminal/iTerm2 issue: reverse-i-search trims off command

It's your $PS1 - it's not properly escaped. You have to escape all non-printing characters with \[ and \]. For example, if you have

PS1='\e[32m\u \W\e[0m $ '

you have to change it to

PS1='\[\e[32m\]\u \W\[\e[0m\] $ '

or your cursor will appear far to the right because your shell thinks your prompt is that long, and when it retypes the command it can't find it. Annoying, I know. In zsh you need to use %{ and %} IIRC.

And while you're considering switching to another shell, I'd suggest fish. It's a bit more of a jump, but it keeps me sane.


You can use ProxyCommand option to ssh, which does exactly what you want in ssh_config:

Host target # or all
  ProxyCommand /usr/bin/nc -x IP:port %h %p

Or directly on command line:

ssh -o ProxyCommand='nc -x IP:port %h %p' user@host

The OSX netcat might have a bit different switches, but conceptually it works this way.

Credits: SuperUser question


What software has the features I need to replace Skype?

At the moment, I am sticking with uninstalling "new Skype" and going back to the old Skype.

But, VBuzzer is also a very good choice. They are based on open standards and can do most of the above, including video conferencing without a download (i.e.; in browser). (No Skype-in type number though). They also have mobile applications for both iOS and Android.

Google Voice + Gchat + Google Plus hangouts is always an option as well


How do I capture the log output from Airport Utility?

You're probably way over this, by now, but I just set up log capture from my 5th gen Airport Extreme to my Mac Mini (running Mavericks), so I'll chime in for posterity.

Syslog Destination Address does expect an IP address. The computer at the end of that ip address has to be configured to be a log server (and OSX can be configured for this... see below).
I've only just started forwarding the logs, but I've looked at the logs before.
AFAIK, apart from more directly viewing/exporting a recent sample of the logs through the "Logs & Statistics" button on the advanced tab, there isn't another way to access them.
Apple removed log access (along with many other useful feature) from the Airport Utility 6 because...I dunno...they're hateful succubi seeking to relieve everyone of both money and control. You'll have to stick with 5.6.1 as long as you can.

Configuring OSX (Mavericks) to record the logs

As for configuring my Mavericks Mini to be a log server, I followed the instructions here (which I think is the same blog post that @drevicko mentioned, only in a different location).

To briefly summarize, you need to add the following to the Sockets section of /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist :

<key>NetworkListener</key>
<dict>
    <key>SockServiceName</key>
    <string>syslog</string>
    <key>SockType</key>
    <string>dgram</string>
</dict>

Editing the file requires that you convert it from binary to text and then back to binary once you are done.  The blog post has instructions to do this using plutil -convert

After the changes have been made, you need to restart the syslogd Daemon (instructions also in the blog post):

$ sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist
$ sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.syslogd.plist

Notes

When you configure the airport to send logs to a particular IP in your network, you should keep in mind that it may very well be a dynamic IP. In my case, the Airport could (and would) one day decide that my Mac Mini should be 10.0.1.5 instead of 10.0.1.2. Fortunately, you can create a DHCP reservation, in the Airport, to always give a particular machine a particular address.
Once set up to receive the airport logs, you can view them using the console application on OSX. They'll be mixed in with everything else (in the "All Messages" view), but you can find them all in the "system.log" section.


How do I export mail.app rules to other filtering solutions such as procmail?

You can find them in plist format (just an xml flavor) in:

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

You can write a script in the language of your choice to parse this file and produce rules suitable to procmail.

Here is a python draft:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import plistlib

pl = plistlib.readPlist('/Users/<user>/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/SyncedRules.plist')

for rule in pl:
    print
    print ':0:'
    mbox = ''
    for key in rule:
        if key == 'Criteria':
            for c in rule[key]:
                print '^%s:.*%s' % (c['Header'], c['Expression'])
        if key == 'CopyToMailbox':
            mbox = rule[key]
    print mbox


Don't have audio or video symbols on my Facetime

This Knowledge Base article from apple should help you. I believe the following section from the article should resolve your issue.

  Wi-Fi network issues

  If you encounter issues using a Wi-Fi network, use standard Wi-Fi network troubleshooting to resolve interference and other issues.
  If you are using router, firewall, or security software that restricts Internet access, verify that the ports documented in Using
  FaceTime behind a Firewall are open.
  FaceTime requires a broadband connection. Performance may vary according to network throughput and usage.

Read more of this Knowledge Base article - http://support.apple.com/ts3367


How to allow the "Word of the Day" screen saver to fetch the words with LittleSnitch?

I believe you should be allowing connections from the ScreenSaverEngine.app, which is located at

/System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app


When trying to upgrade osxfuse, I get "missing DEVELOPER_DIR path" message

Upgrading Xcode to 6.1 with the link provided by pczora in fact resolved this problem for me:
https://developer.apple.com/downloads/download.action?path=Developer_Tools/xcode_6.1/xcode_6.1.dmg


What utilities assist in taking and annotating screen captures for local (clipboard) reuse?

Pix.am! meets all your requirements. And since it's a lesser-known service, it has shorter URLs than services like droplr.com or Cloudapp.


How do I launch shell applications after changing shell to MacPorts bash?

I've just changed the login shell and left Terminal's settings unchanged.

Set the shells open with setting back to the default login shell in Terminal's preferences
Add /opt/local/bin/bash to /etc/shells
chsh -s /opt/local/bin/bash
Open a new tab and check echo $BASH_VERSION


Can anyone recommend a good tutorial for writing (from scratch) a cron-style launchd job?

launchd runs Daemons (/Library/LaunchDaemons or /System/Library/LaunchDaemons) as root, and will run them regardless of whether users are logged in or not. Launch Agents (/Library/LaunchAgents/ or ~/Library/LaunchAgents/) are run when a user is logged in as that user. You can not use setuid to change the user running the script on daemons. The /System directory is reserved for Mac OS X tasks so I recommend putting your launchd plists into either the /Library or the ~/Library folder as it makes sense.

So the first step is determining if you're making an agent or a daemon.

The second step is to make your .plist file. You can use GUI-based programs such as Lingon to help with this or just use your favourite text editor:

A sample .plist for running a script every hour (StartInterval or StartIntervalCalendar are the keys we want - StartInterval for an item to happen every x seconds, StartIntervalCalendar for a specific time and/or date. See 126907 on SuperUser for an example I made with StartCalendarInterval):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>local.IDENTIFIER_HERE.SOMETHING</string>
    <key>OnDemand</key>
    <true/>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <false/>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>USERNAME HERE</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/PATH/TO/SCRIPT</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>Argument_1</string>
        <string>Argument_2</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>3600</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Modify the .plist as necessary to point to your script and any arguments as necessary (arguments are on separate lines) and save the file with the same name as the Label value but with .plist at the end. (for example, local.my-mac.flickrstats would be saved as local.my-mac.flickrstats.plist). If you haven't already, move that .plist file to /Library/LaunchDaemons when making a Daemon (runs all the time) or to ~/Library/LaunchAgents (only you're logged in) or /Library/LaunchAgents (any user is logged in).

To start the job you want to run launchctl as necessary to load the file. For items in /Library, you should use sudo: for example, sudo launchctl load -w /PATH/TO/PLIST

For reference also check out the following questions on Super User: Launchd command as root, Load a system wide daemon, and How can I get a script to run every day


imagent constantly sucking network bandwidth, won't die

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.imagent.plist

.. this WILL break your ichat/messages application though, so to put it back do:

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.imagent.plist


The best bet is to change some shortcuts while observing the content of your Preferences folder sorted by modification date.

In my system (10.7.5 Lion) the relevant files are com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist, com.apple.universalaccess.plist and pbs.plist as well as probably somehow related plists like com.apple.systempreferences.plist/com.apple.ServicesMenu.Services.plist.

If both of your Macs have the same system/apps installed simply copy the files you found.


Apple Silicon: port all Homebrew packages under /usr/local/opt/ to /opt/homebrew

According to https://docs.brew.sh/Installation, /usr/local is for Intel binaries, /opt/homebrew for ARM. So you may want to reinstall instead of just migrating.
You can dump the list of currently installed packages with brew bundle dump. To duplicate your current installation, you'll need to

run brew bundle dump to create a Brewfile

install ARM Homebrew into /opt/homebrew by following the instructions in https://docs.brew.sh/Installation
cd /opt
sudo mkdir -p homebrew
sudo chown -R $(whoami) homebrew
curl -L https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/tarball/master |\
    tar xz --strip 1 -C homebrew

make sure that the ARM version is at the beginning of your PATH
PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH

Reapply the brew file created in step one
hash -d brew
brew bundle install --file /path/to/Brewfile`

Optionally run brew analytics off to turn of the tracking/analytics gathering done be Homebrew (https://docs.brew.sh/Analytics)

PS: Some formulae don't seem to work on ARM yet


Excel for Mac (15.33) not remembering recently used files

I decided to pin a document in the File Open dialog:

after doing so, the Open Recent menu was populated.

** edit **

After closing and restarting Excel, the problem reoccurred.


How to map the F11 and F12 keys to Volume Up/Volume Down

With FunctionFlip, you can individually remap the function keys.


Rebuilding iPhoto library causes issues with iTunes photo sync

Hopefully you have the run of the mill, the iPod Photo Cache is now stale issue which is easily remedied.

iTunes: Understanding the iPod Photo Cache folder - TS1314

Since you are on Mountain Lion, this is just a folder in the "iPhoto Library" and you can right click on it, and show package contents. Just drag that folder to trash and then quit both iPhoto (and Aperture if you have it) as well as iTunes.

A re-launch of iTunes should see that the folder is missing and clear any sync tokens, and proceed to rebuild a list of pictures, albums and events. Usually, there isn't a second step needed as this folder is designed to be safe to delete at any time to save space on a drive and exists to speed up syncing.

As always, kicking off a backup when looking into deleting things is never a bad idea in case the corruption is deeper than expected or just a sign of a failing storage device.


How do I re-download songs I purchased on the iPad, after formatting the iPad?

Yes the purchased tab in the app stores should allow you to re-download most if not all of your purchases. If you have previously hidden some purchases, you may need to access your Apple store account (Apple ID) to see the unfiltered list of past purchases.

Please see this link or this link on Apple's website for more details. You can edit your question or ask another if you find a problem on a specific step.


Can I use my Macbook Pro Retina as extra monitor for my iMac through Thunderbolt

If you really don't want to do it over the network, the retina MBP's display uses DisplayPort internally. You could disassemble your machine and use this pinout to connect it via Thunderbolt.


How to make a script which runs on login?

Yes that script should run on OS X. It is a .sh file and it's using the bash shell, so I'd assume that it would run, unless it requires programs that aren't installed on OS X by default.
To have it run on login:
Just go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and click on the user that you want the script to load. Click the + button to add a login item and navigate to your script. The script will load automatically on login.


Can't delete Logical Volume Group on Fusion drive

If all other means fail to remove a CoreStorage Volume Group you can always use gpt to remove the CS partition (or the CS partitions if it is a Fusion Drive).

Preparation:

Detach your backup drive
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.

The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan). If you boot to a full system and login as admin you have to prepend sudo to execute some commands like gpt ... or newfs_hfs ...!

Modify the GUID partition table and replace your current LVG

Enter diskutil list and gpt -r show /dev/diskX (with diskX: the disk identifiers of your internal disks (probably disk0 SSD/disk1 HDD) to get an overview. In the commands below I assume the disk identifiers are disk0/disk1.
To delete a partition use:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk2 #unmount the Logical Volume(s)
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk1
gpt remove -i index_number /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i index_number /dev/disk1

Usually the Physical Volumes of a Fusion Drive have the index number 2:

gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk1

Re-add the partitions with the same start block and sizes as they had previously

gpt add -b StartBlock -i 2 -s size -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
gpt add -b StartBlock -i 2 -s size -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk1

Format the new partition:

newfs_hfs -v "SSD" -J /dev/disk0s2
newfs_hfs -v "HDD" -J /dev/disk1s2

Create a new Logical Volume Group (or "Fusion Drive"):

diskutil cs create name disk0s2 disk1s2 #name: name of the future LVG (e.g. FusinDrive)

Create a new Logical Volume:

diskutil cs list
diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID jhfs+ name 100% #lvgUUID: the UUID of the Logical Volume Group, name: name of the future LV (e.g. MacintoshHD)

or

diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID jhfs+ name size #size in t, g, m (e.g. 3100g)

To quit Terminal enter:

exit

and quit Terminal
Open Disk Utility to verify the new LVG/LV
Attach the backup drive
Open Time Machine and restore your backup


Error trying to access Gmail on all browsers, "bad_mac_alert"

Seems like it is a pretty common issue.  Have you tried clearing your cache and browser data?  Also do you get the same error with different browsers?  Try Safari and see if you get the same error.


You now have to manually enable it.

Go to Universal Access in System Preferences
Turn on Zoom with the radio button.
Click on Options and tick Use scroll wheel with modifier keys to zoom.


Best way to see multiple Microsoft Word windows?

App Exposé
Trigger using swipe gesture:

System Preferences → Trackpad → More Gestures → App Exposé

Trigger using keys or mouse:

System Preferences → Mission Control

Dock Icon:

You can trigger App Exposé by right-clicking the Word icon in the Dock and choosing the option Show All Windows.

Alternatively you can cycle all Windows of the same application using:

⌘+~ (US keyboard layout)


Mac Terminal "find" command : What does a double slash in the result output mean?

find is rather literal. When you tell it to search within "~/Downloads/", it uses that (including the trailing slash) as the prefix for whatever it finds. Since there's an unnecessary and irrelevant slash at the end of the path you gave it, you wind up with an unnecessary and irrelevant extra slash in the output.

Solution: remove the trailing "/" from the search directory:

#> find ~/Downloads/ -iregex ".*some.*"
/Users/michael/Downloads//subDirectory/some_file.pdf
#> find ~/Downloads -iregex ".*some.*"
/Users/michael/Downloads/subDirectory/some_file.pdf


How do transfer mp3 files to iPhone that is configured with iCloud Music Library

I ran into this myself, came across your question while seeking the answer, but have since figured it out.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204926

The key is to enable iCloud Music Library under Edit > Preferences > General in iTunes.  That then enables the "Add to iCloud Music Library" right click option over albums and individual files.

Items you "add to iCloud Music Library" will then automatically appear in the Music app on your iOS devices.


How to use cd with shell variable containing spaces

Besides the first assignment, all three work in assigning the correct value to $temp. But due to the way bash parses the command line, you need to write

cd "$temp"

afterwards to make it work (which also means that it is a good idea to always use "$var" in shell scripts).

It might be easier in your case to make an alias with

alias cdtemp='cd "/Users/username/Dropbox (Personal)"'

for use with cd.

For cp you still need to add the "" though. To avoid this, either name your folders without using characters with special meaning to the shell or create a symlink with ln -s ~/"Dropbox (Personal)" ~/DP.


iPhone SE (iOS 10.3.3) - Music stuck on repeat

It is likely that the repeat mode is set in the Music app. The repeat mode is still available in the Music app, albeit little hard to locate.

To check for repeat status, in the current playing view, scroll down (as depicted in the image) and check for repeat setting.

Image Source: How To Shuffle Songs in the Music App in iOS 10


Typing Pinyin with tone marks doesn't work

If your purpose is to type Latin script pinyin, then ABC Extended is the right keyboard.  Chinese Pinyin input is only for Chinese script and does not use tone marks.


Weird hidden folder and file on desktop as old as the computer, what for?

They are for deleting. They don’t ship with the os and aren’t worth worrying about since they are machine generated and you’d need to use the command line or a hex editor to examine the binary file for clues.

If you’re super worried, set up Time Machine to back them up, then delete them.

Your home folder wasn’t created until after you received your Mac and chose your short name, so it came from a program or transfer you made soon after this mac was customized for you.


Power Manager

If you are happy to use a third party application, Power Manager can do exactly what you want.

There are lots of recipes to help create your schedule. For your situation:

Create a Scheduled Power On/Start Up
Create a Scheduled Application Launch

By default, Power Manager will power on a sleeping Mac to perform scheduled events. The recipe above for launching an application will automatically wake a sleeping Mac. You can adjust the event to power on a shut down Mac, if desired.

Power Manager will launch your application behind the lock screen. This is possible because Power Manager has a helper agent running within each user session. The main scheduler works with the agent to make sure the application is launched in the right user session.

Disclosure: I work for DssW, who make Power Manager; so feel free to ask technical questions.

Fast User Switch

If you are concerned about security, consider having the user be switched back to the login window with Fast User Switching.

While Fast User Switched, your Mac can wake to schedule, run the AppleScript, and complete its task while not risking unguarded access to the Mac.


iMac running on external SSD won't boot from it after upgrade to Catalina

UPDATE
I found that I can boot from my external SSD reliably as long as my external HDD for Time Machine is not connected. No need for the extensive process below - just power down, unplug external HDD, and my Mac can boot from the external SSD.
---ORIGINAL POST BELOW---
I had the same issue and neither the SMC reset mentioned here or the NVRAM reset discussed here worked.
But the workaround I found to reliably boot off the SSD is:

Power off the computer
Disconnect the external SSD
Power on the computer (which will boot off the internal hard drive's OS)
Connect the external SSD
Login and shut down
Power on while holding the option key
Select the external ssd from the menu and the computer will boot off the SSD


I'm not able to search for specific files in a folder saved on SD card on Macbook air

You should try the cool, (and free,) app EasyFind by developer Devon Technologies. It searches for files where Finder can't search well, or can't search at all. I use it at work for searching for files in very complex macOS folder structures shared on Windows servers, and it is fast.
Alternate download site.
Disclaimer: I'm a very satisfied user of EasyFind and other Devon Technologies apps, and have no financial or other involvement in the company.


Mount password protected Samba share with Kerberos ticket

We use the dsconfigad tool - to enable single sign-on we need to fire the dsconfigad -enableSSO command, after that there is no need to retype the passwords, Kerberos tickets are being reused.

To mount a Samba share subfolder automatically, you need to enable "Show connected servers" in the Finder preferences, then use cmdK to connect to the subfolder in Samba share, and create an alias on Desktop or wherever you want, after you can disable showing connected servers on Desktop. Then you can just click on the alias and it will open the shared subfolder.


How to configure Apple Mail on iPhone XR (iOS 12.4) to download emails from mailserver but not delete them on it?

Sure. Have Apple mail client use IMAP protocol to leave a copy on the server and just don’t delete on iOS.

Next time your machine deletes things off the server, the next IMAP sync will clean up things on the iPhone automagically.


xQuartz is an open-source X windowing system for macOS. I managed to run x2vnc on my mac:

Install xQuartz.
Download x2vnc.
Within the x2vnc directory, run ./configure
Edit the Makefile to include X11 (sorry I don't know the more elegant way to do this)

On line 7, add -I/opt/X11/include making the full line INCLUDES = -I/opt/X11/include -I. -DVERSION=\"$(VERSION)\"
On line 16, add -L/opt/X11/lib making the full line LDLIBS=-L/opt/X11/lib -lX11 -lm

make and sudo make install


I experience the problem of tabs not working when making math tests. The problem is very repeatable, and can be replicated in the following simple experiment:

Get a new document and set one tab (say a left tab at 3.0 inches).
Type "Solve " and insert a formula, say "2x=6".
Use the right arrow to exit from the formula.

You may now type any non-tab characters that you wish, but hitting the "tab" key does not insert a (tab) character.

To fix the problem, do any of the following after leaving the formula:

Type (spacebar) (left arrow) (tab), OR
Paste a previously copied (tab), OR
Click to place the cursor at any point not within the formula, and click to place the cursor at the end of the line. Now type (tab).

My theory is that a flag is set to keep the (tab) character from being used within formulas, and that exiting the formula using the right arrow key does not reset the flag, but clicking outside the formula or backspacing does.


Is there an Iphone key logger for non-jail broken phones?

In the practical sense, yes you can. You can use an exploit for the iPhone software to gain access to install the keylogger. If you want me to tell you how, I can't/won't.

On the nitpicky "theoretical" side - no, you cannot. If you use an exploit for the iPhone to gain access to install the keylogger, you could say that you have really jail-broken the iPhone. Thus you cannot install a keylogger on a non-jail broken iPhone.


What is this new voice control thing Siri?

Is it really only for voice control?

Think of Siri as your personal assistant. It listens to your commands, learns from your tasks & contacts & replies to voice commands.

  Don't we already have one of those on the previous iPhones?

Well, they're no longer available for the previous iPhone as the app has been taken down.

The new, improved Siri was developed after it's acquisition by Apple, so I'm pretty sure they would have added their Patented SecretSauce(tm) and in typical Apple style, the details are a secret.


There's an access door on the bottom of the Mac which can be unscrewed.

For further access, you need to take the glass off, which is fixed with fourteen magnets.

Source: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iMac+Intel+20-Inch+EMC+2133+and+2210+Hard+Drive+Replacement/1008


Are iPhone apps required to work on iOS 5 if it works on iOS 6?

Apple's App Store requirements are very vague.  Here is a good resource for learning how to get your app rejected from the App Store.

In short, it says nothing about backwards compatibility.


Given a uniform distribution of bytes in your file, and analyzing the data for entropy, the file looks random. The entropy (for 1-tuples) is 7.61 Shannon. This is really near 8 Shannon, the redundancy in your data is insignificant und looks like random error. Of course your file is way too small for proper analysis, but it looks as if

Your file was compressed before, which is unlikely if the file extension was txt and no (known to me) compression header is present.
Your file was encrypted.
You chose to secure erase the disk while formatting.

I think it's most likely the third option. No way to restore it.


Change Snow Leopard Login Wallpaper w/ Terminal

The login screen background image is located at /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg — you can simply sudo cp another jpeg image to replace it (though I'd recommend backing it up first!).


iOS 8.4 Apple Music App: How to shuffle all songs by an artist?

Instead of selecting the artist to display the albums and songs of the artist, tap the image of the artist and the artists songs will play shuffled.


How to boot OSX into desktop from single mode?

The exit command will continue the startup process where it left off, leaving you in the normal graphical environment. But note that you will not be logged in as root, it'll take you to the normal login screen. If you want to log in as root in GUI mode, you'll need to set a root password (which you can do in single-user mode with the command passwd root).


Does deleting user account on macOS also deletes their installed apps?

On macOS, an app bundle (.app file) can technically be located anywhere. Although, in the most general case, apps are installed in the shared /Applications directory and in some cases in the directory with same name in the users Home directory ~/Applications (or more completely /Users/<username>/Applications).

Deleting a user account deletes the users Home directory. Thus, all the app installed by user in the root /Applications directory remain unaffected.

Usually, when deleting a user account, macOS gives an option to preserve their Home directory contents. Any app installed in the Home directory can technically be carried over and used.

In short, to put it simply, since users files are hidden from each other, if you were able to use an app installed by other user, you will continue to have access to it even after their account is deleted from macOS.


As a troubleshooting step I would start with booting into Safe Mode to see if the behaviour is replicated there, and also to see if the behaviour continues again afterwards when you've logged back in normally.

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 secondary click still opens Mission Control?)
Now exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Log in normally and test again

Once you've booted into Safe Mode, let me know how you went and we'll go from there.

Trash your Mission Control preferences

Now that we know the problem isn't caused by a 3rd party extension etc, let's trash the preferences for Missopn Control and see what changes that maes.

Go to Finder
In the menu bar click on Go > Library (Note: If the Library option doesn't appear, hold down the option key while clicking on the Go menu)
Within the Library folder, look for and open the Preferences folder
Now look for com.apple.spaces.plist and move it to Trash
Restart your Mac
Log back in and empty your trash

Now test again and let me know how you went and we'll go from there.


Well, there is no real way of restoring it with one click. You could restore your iPhone with the latest backup file. So if you backed up your phone after you had that conversation, you could restore that back up, and you would have your conversation back. However, if you added any new things to your iPhone after your latest backup, they will be erased.


Internet keeps timing out on Yosemite 10.10.5

It was a strange issue with my configuration as far as I know. I ended up simply moving /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ to another location (or just renaming/deleting) and rebooting my MBP. Everything has worked fine ever since.


Moving mail from 10.6 to 10.8... new computer

If you're talking about the people that appear because they're previous recipients…

You can move these people by selection them from the Previous Recipients list (Window → Previous Recipients) then Add to Contacts.


iCloud backups the following:

Photos and videos in the Camera Roll
Device settings (for example: Phone Favorites, Wallpaper, and Mail, Contacts, Calendar accounts)
App data
Home screen and app organization
Messages (iMessage, SMS, and MMS)
Ringtones
Visual Voicemails

It might be due to your app data size and also if this is the first time backing up then it will take a bit longer. Have a look at this link, it will explain why else it might  take longer.


nsurlsessiond hogging on internet when running iOS simulator

Either one of these will fix it.

rm /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Profiles/Runtimes/iOS.simruntime/Contents/Resources/RuntimeRoot/usr/libexec/nsurlsessiond

rm /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/CoreSimulator/Profiles/Runtimes/iOS.simruntime/Contents/Resources/RuntimeRoot/usr/libexec/nsurlsessiond

If you can't find the nsurlsession binary at these places, I'd suggest you do a search using Finder, or grab the path using htop


Seems someone had been fiddling with the DNS server :) All good now!


Is there a shortcut to move to the item being highlighted by the search help?

If you slowly move the mouse horizontally to the menu item that is highlighted, the menu will stay open.

You are, most likely, having trouble with highlighting another choice on your way to the menu item of interest.  Don't let your mouse leave the highlighted row while traversing to the open menu and you should not have any problems.

This works this way on OS X 10.8.5.


How can I force the Photos app on my iPhone to recognize faces

The only way I know to force it perform face recognition is to open Photos, Lock the iPhone, plug it to the charger, and let it locked and plugged for some hours.


Enable screen sharing on mac w/o display

Your going to have to get into your machine to set up screen sharing. The only way that I can figure is to take the drive out and place it in some other machine.  I suggest placing the drive in an external drive enclosure.  I set my mac mini machine up with a static ip address. Once you get this to work, you would move the drive to the old machine.

I use Realvnc client and Realvnc server.  They have a free version, but may be slower than you want. https://www.realvnc.com/en/connect/docs/faq/pricing.html I pay for the local lan version.  I turn off encryption.  Not seeing a connected display, vnc will use software drivers.  You'll need to reboot about once a day as the display will get messed up.  For those with working video hardware, you can attach a dummy hdmi plug. This will speed things up a bit and avoid display mess ups. I'm connected to my mini via 100meg ethernet.  Works well enough.

Does this machine work in safe mode?

You may have a problem with the video chip.

Here is how to tell...
  Shutdown your machine.  Hold down the shift key.  Poweron.  Bootup will be longer.
    Wait awhile while you harddrive is being checked.
  An article on how to boot into safe mode.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455

Runs OK in safe mode...
Running in Safe mode leaves out some video drivers.  Which results in your machine not using advanced video hardware. As luck would have it, you can run the safe mode video drivers in normal mode.

Here is how:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16057567#16057567

Look through the above thread.  See the second page.  You don't have to read through the first page.  Just go to the part where I try a solution that works.

Using the safe mode video driver results in these limitiations:
  -- OpenGL acceleration is not supported on this mac
  -- Your mac lacks quartz extreme acceleration

Summary of G5 problems. Includes instructions on a hardware fix for the brave at heart:
See -Rotten Apple- articles in both of these threads.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4023152?tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/message/18700825#18700825

Robert

R


Should I be concerned about graphics switching for battery life?

Absolutely ! http://codekrieger.com/gfxCardStatus allows you to lock your graphics card to use only the Intel integrated graphics. It makes a big difference when you need to squeeze every last hour out your battery.

The other thing that helps if you have a ton of startup items for everyday use is to hold down shift when you log in, so there are not extraneous processed running in the background.

And also keep the screen brightness at the minimum acceptable level.

This way I can get 9 hours out of my 17 macbook.


Organizing bookmarks in Safari for Windows

If you go into preferences, you should be able to tell safari which bookmarks folder to use for the Favorites Bar.
I don't have a PC, but on Mac this setting is under General in Safari.
After going to each website, the black boxes should go away, and be replaced by screenshots of the website.

Go into Safari Settings.
There is an item called Favorites Bar.
You should be able to change the Fav Bar folder to the on you imported from Chrome.


Unable to create folder in root of 'Macintosh HD'?

In Catalina the primary volume is read-only. This means it is not immediately possible to create new folders here.

In order to get around that, the system provides what is known as synthetic firm links. This allows you to create what appears to be folders at the root of the file system.

You need to create the file /etc/synthetic.conf, which should be owned by root and group wheel with permissions 0644.

The contents should look like this:

newfolder     Users/foo/bar

"newfolder" is the name of the virtual folder that will be created in the root of the file system. "Users/foo/bar" is the actual location of the folder. You need to ensure that this folder actually exists. It doesn't need to be inside Users, but can be anywhere in your system.

NOTE: It is important to ensure that the space between the two folder names is a TAB character, and not just a number of space.

After creating the file above with the specified contents, you need to reboot the system. After rebooting, you'll see the /newfolder folder.


How to build last version of Ruby for jailbroken iOS?

If you have OpenSSH, you may want to connect via SSH to a Unix based computer and run a full version of Ruby. For Mac there is MacRuby, for Linux just install Ruby via your package manager.


SHA1 hash for OSX 10.11.2 El Capitan public release?

Here it is,

2b11b8b618a2e5100507c3c432363081db65c4c8

Which is downloaded from Apple Store and server located in North America.


Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup: Two of the disks to back up have the same name. (Catalina)

I had the same issue but this because I truly had 2 "Macintosh HD":

I renamed one of the two and the problem was solved:


How to delete files in /System/Library/Desktop Pictures on Catalina?

As a general rule I do not recommend deleting system files, however, if you really want to remove the default wallpapers you can do the following:

Boot to macOS Recovery by pressing ⌘R when booting the Mac.
Using Terminal, from the Utilities menu, use the following commands:

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Desktop\ Pictures
rm *.heic
reboot


Bootable USB created on Mac to format PC

This won't work as you noticed.

I'd recommend using unetbootin from https://unetbootin.github.io/. Just follow the instructions there or use the instructions from the ubuntu page (https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-macos)

If you want to use the command line, do e.g. (MAKE SURE TO REPLACE WITH THE CORRECT PARTITIONS!)

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o destination_file.img source_file.iso
diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk2 1 "Free Space" "unused" "100%"
dd if=destination_file.img.dmg of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
diskutil eject /dev/disk2


Permissions errors after weird Time Machine restored backup

It ends up that you need to use the Mac Finder UI to set the permissions of the whole user home directory and not just the Music directory. I was able to fix the issue using the following steps:

Opening Finder, navigate to my user/home directory (/Mac/Users/MYUSER) and show the "Get Info" pane
Open the "Sharing and Permissions" drop down
Clicking the Lock Icon and entering the User password
Clicking the Gear Icon and selecting "Apply to enclosed items..."

This fixed all permissions issues I saw and iTunes was able to view and play music again.


Is there a clever way import my Mail.app rules to iCloud?

Try this. Go to iCloud.com and log in.

Select mail.

On the bottom left of the window, there is a cog:

Select that, and then Rules:

Finally, a window opens, and you can choose to sync Rules, or add specific rules just for iCloud.com (I think that's right.. not totally sure).

The help page is also useful.


How to get a service working upon launch

You can make this work with launchd. This requires two steps: First creating a script that invokes your service(s), and second creating a LaunchAgent plist file that will call the script at launch.

First step: Creating a script that invokes your service(s)

Write a text file with the following content, where ~/Library/Services/myservice.workflow points to the service you want to start (if you want to start more than one service, repeat the second line pointing to the different services):

#!/bin/bash
automator ~/Library/Services/myservice.workflow

Save the file, e.g. as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.launchmyservice.sh
Make it executable by issuing the following command in the Terminal:

chmod u+x ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.launchmyservice.sh

Second step: Creating a LaunchAgent plist that calls the script

Write a text file with the following content. You need to adapt the string /Users/myusername/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.launchmyservice.sh so it points to the script created in the first step. You cannot use a relative path with ~.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>me.myname.launchmyservice</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/Users/myusername/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.launchmyservice.sh</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Save the text file to ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.update-desktop-from-webcam.plist – the name should match the "Label" key in the file.
Load it by issuing the following command:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/me.myname.update-desktop-from-webcam.plist


How to enter in the apple symbol not in a web browser?

Neil's ⇧ + ⌥ + K might work in (presumably) the US, but the exact combination is keyboard layout specific. In addition, some keyboard layouts — Thai, for example — might not even have the symbol available.

E.g. I'm using a Finnish keyboard layout and  is typed simply by ⌥ + A.

To find this and other symbol shortcuts, you can enable the keyboard & symbol menulet from Preferences → Keyboard and use the menulet to open a virtual keyboard. Pressing any modifier key, or modifier key combination, will change the keys on the virtual keyboard accordingly. For example, here is how the virtual keyboard looks with Finnish layout while option/alt is being pressed:

To find the  from Special characters menu the fastest way is to type f8ff to the search box (this is its unicode-code; the  hasn't any other name assigned).

Other way is to change the view to glyphs or to code tables[1] from the drop-down list and browse the for the symbol manually — but this is not exactly user-friendly or fast, unless you know where to look for.

[1]: I don't know for sure if these are exact translations as my UI is also in Finnish. However, the items are (respectively) last and third-last in the list.


You might want to follow Apple's steps in troubleshooting generate Wifi issues.

In addition, try resetting the iPhone's Network Settings by navigating to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings, then restart the iPhone and re-connect to the WiFi network.


You can use xattr. This copies the tags from file1 to file2:

xattr -wx com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags "$(xattr -px com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags file1)" file2;xattr -wx com.apple.FinderInfo "$(xattr -px com.apple.FinderInfo file1)" file2

The tags are stored in a property list as a single array of strings:

$ xattr -p com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags file3|xxd -r -p|plutil -convert xml1 - -o -
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array>
    <string>Red
6</string>
    <string>new tag</string>
    <string>Orange
7</string>
    <string>Yellow
5</string>
    <string>Green
2</string>
    <string>Blue
4</string>
    <string>Purple
3</string>
    <string>Gray
1</string>
</array>
</plist>

If the kColor flag in com.apple.FinderInfo is unset, Finder doesn't show the circles for colors. If the kColor flag is set to orange and the file has the red tag, Finder shows both red and orange circles. You can set the kColor flag with AppleScript:

xattr -w com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags '("Red\n6","new tag")' ~/desktop/file4;osascript -e 'on run {a}' -e 'tell app "Finder" to set label index of (POSIX file a as alias) to item 1 of {2, 1, 3, 6, 4, 5, 7}' -e end ~/desktop/file4

xattr -p com.apple.FinderInfo file|head -n1|cut -c28-29 prints the value of the bits used for the kColor flag. Red is C, orange is E, yellow is A, green is 4, blue is 8, magenta is 6, and gray is 2. The flag that would add 1 to the values is not used in OS X.

Edit: you can also use tag:

tag -l file # list
tag -a tag1 file # add
tag -s red,blue file # set
tag -r \* file # remove all tags
tag -f green # find all files with the green tag
tag -f \* # find all files with tags
tag -m red * # match (print files in * that have the red tag)

tag can be installed with brew install tag or sudo port install tag.

$ tag -h
tag - A tool for manipulating and querying file tags.
  usage:
    tag -a | --add <tags> <file>...     Add tags to file
    tag -r | --remove <tags> <file>...  Remove tags from file
    tag -s | --set <tags> <file>...     Set tags on file
    tag -m | --match <tags> <file>...   Display files with matching tags
    tag -l | --list <file>...           List the tags on file
    tag -f | --find <tags>              Find all files with tags
  <tags> is a comma-separated list of tag names; use * to match/find any tag.
  additional options:
        -v | --version      Display version
        -h | --help         Display this help
        -n | --name         Turn on filename display in output (default)
        -N | --no-name      Turn off filename display in output (list)
        -t | --tags         Turn on tags display in output (find, match)
        -T | --no-tags      Turn off tags display in output (list)
        -g | --garrulous    Display tags each on own line (list, find, match)
        -G | --no-garrulous Display tags comma-separated after filename (default)
        -H | --home         Find tagged files only in user home directory
        -L | --local        Find tagged files only in home + local filesystems (default)
        -R | --network      Find tagged files in home + local + network filesystems
        -0 | --nul          Terminate lines with NUL (\0) for use with xargs -0


Who else besides Apple typically offers Iphone preorders?

The carriers pre-sell and also have pre-order queues from years past. It's not been something that other retailers have offered as the quantities sent through distribution channels is largely taken by large corporate buyers looking for as many devices as possible so until production catches up with demand, your best bet might be to pre-order directly from Apple and have home delivery scheduled if you don't want to try your luck with the waiting in line game. (You can always go wait in line if you care, knowing your phone has been pre-ordered but the reverse hasn't been true once the initial allocation of pre-orders sells out.)


Does Mac App Store provide an email support channel?

If you purchase an app from the Mac App Store, the purchase receipt you receive via email contains a “Report a Problem” link.  If Apple replies to your problem report via email, that email can contain a return email address for the particular Mac App Store problem you are reporting.

Each app developer is also required to have a support link for that app listed in the App Store.

For general support, Apple recommends using their Support App. See:
https://support.apple.com/contact

There are also Apple community support forums: https://discussions.apple.com/welcome

and https://discussions.apple.com/community/app_store/using_app_store


Airport Extreme suffering wildly inconsistent speeds between 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz

You are suffering from network congestion. Channel 11 is a very common channel and most 2.4GHz routers ship with that channel default. There are simply too many routers using channel 11 around your house.

However, not many people in your neighbourhood are using 5GHz channels, so that is free from network congestion.

The solution to this problem will be to change your 2.4GHz channel from 11 to something else.


Automator PDF text to Spoken Audio file: What's wrong with this script?

There might be nothing wrong with the script, but rather with the way the PDF is constructed. Text extraction from PDF is much trickier than simply reading in an RTF file. How has the PDF been created?

Due to lack of a better solution, I’d simply open the PDF in Preview.app, ⌘+A, open a new text document in your text editor of choice, ⌘+V, save the file, then use that as the text source instead of the PDF file.


I am summarising my answer from comments.

In your case it seems that something has installed a version of curl without into https support into your local folder. Maybe you tried to compile it yourself (the standard .configure && make && make install procedure installs programs into /usr/local for example.

You can force the command to use system curl by replacing curl by /usr/bin/curl in it, thus use:

ruby -e "$(/usr/bin/curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

When you have Homebrew successfully installed you can re-install the curl in your local folder by using:

brew install curl

There might be some additional steps as you have to overwrite files that are already there. You might need to use the --overwrite option.


What type of font is this? -> Which Terminus font are you using?

If you are using indeed a font copied from somewhere that macOS can not deal with properly, and you are just looking for a version that displays OK under macOS, then you might want to take a look at a TrueType version of Terminus.

The actual outlines are very crooked in that font. Take a look at these with e.g. fontforge:
It displays OK in small sizes. Turn antialiasing on and off to see which version you like better. But a size >14Pt is almost unusable anyway.

In larger sizes it gets ugly fast.
The autotrace/potrace process, as used by the linked font, would need a lot of cleanup manually. If you insist on using this font and that it better upscales uncrooked you might need to clean it up. With FontForge or similar software that is a tedious process and will take a while.

Or you can try another conversion yourself. Starting with the xfonts-terminus package from your Linux installation in .pcf.gz-format might get you there a bit faster (/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/ter-u12b_iso-8859-15.pcf.gz).

You really have to love that font very much to do so. Another font will perhaps be the better option. But try this conversion if you do not need that many sizes.

Update:
A much better, ready made version of Terminus can be found here.

When using these fonts the so-called "OS-X-optimized versions" seem to be problematic.
The actual fonts to use are the "regular" ones at
http://misc.nybergh.net/pub/fonts/terminus/ttf/Terminus.ttf and
http://misc.nybergh.net/pub/fonts/terminus/ttf/TerminusBold.ttf

Unfortunately the bold variant has several issues that prevent a successful validation of the fonts. However they are accepted by the system and used for display. Only some characters have their glyph position misinterpreted by the system. To fix this one might simply save the bold variant as a newly generated font. That automatically reduces the most egregious character misplacements.

Using FontForge the visual improvement from a simple re-generation is obvious (but still not perfect and the validation issues are inherited):

This is done by installing FontForge, opening the bold version of the font, and simply choosing "File>Generate Fonts" from the menu (ignoring the validation error). If using the bold variant is important, a manual cleanup of the newly created file is still strongly advised.


How can I change OSX's spinning beachball pointer animation?

If you go to /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/cursors you'll might find something useful :

MBP-Thomas in ~
○ → cd /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/cursors

 MBP-Thomas in /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/HIServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/cursors
○ → ll
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  41 root  wheel   1,4K 13 sep  2013 .
drwxr-xr-x  39 root  wheel   1,3K 26 mai 23:30 ..
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 busybutclickable
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 cell
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 closedhand
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 contextualmenu
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 copy
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 countingdownhand
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 countingupandownhand
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 countinguphand
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 cross
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 help
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 ibeamvertical
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 makealias
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 move
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 notallowed
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 openhand
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 pointinghand
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 poof
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizedown
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizeeast
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizeeastwest
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizeleft
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizeleftright
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizenorth
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizenortheast
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizenortheastsouthwest
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizenorthsouth
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizenorthwest
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizenorthwestsoutheast
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizeright
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizesouth
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizesoutheast
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizesouthwest
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizeup
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizeupdown
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 resizewest
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel   170B  9 déc  2013 screenshotselection
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 screenshotwindow
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 zoomin
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   136B  9 déc  2013 zoomout

Which are a lot of folder containing cursor pictures


Create Message with Apple Mail from commandline

I haven't really tested this, but you could use AppleScript for it.

mymail() {
    osascript - "$@" <<-END
on run args
tell app "Mail"
set m to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:item 2 of args, content:item 3 of args, visible:true}
tell m
make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:item 1 of args}
if number of args is 4
make new attachment with properties {file name:POSIX file (item 4 of args)} at after last paragraph
end
end
activate
end
end
END
}


Apple Store Diagnostics say my hard drive failed but my computer works fine - Should I replace it?

First and foremost make sure you have a backup regime in place (e.g. using Time Machine).

Also, ensure you're backing up both the SSD and HDD.

My answers to your questions below assume you do have backups in place!

  Should I nonetheless replace my hard drive?

You're asking for an opinion here, so you risk getting different answers. However, if it was me I'd test both the hard drive and SSD with something better than Disk Utility (but that's easy for me to do as I own a whole range of diagnostic packages). In fact I'd test both of them at least twice, using different software.

Then, assuming all was okay, I'd likely replace the HDD with a fusion/hybrid drive and put the existing HDD in an external enclosure.

  Is there any possible damage the hard drives could have that I can't
  see, despite them working from what I can see?

Yes.


What is the use of selection like blue box in pdf apps?

It is used for selecting content in the PDF. The selected content could then for example be copied to the clipboard.

Note that not all PDFs have content which can be copied in this way.


No, these new apps are built using iOS-based frameworks that only exist on Mojave. These frameworks are located within /System/iOSSupport which is why you're seeing that error message, as that directory (and the files within it) do not appear in previous versions of macOS.


Equivalent of Ubuntu’s write-mime-multipart?

I’ve found a simple solution. Ubuntu’s write-mime-multipart command is actually a Python script, available here (or on an Ubuntu distro I guess).

I’ve simply downloaded this script to use. Perhaps not ideal with respect to version control, but okay for a simple script I think.

Better approaches welcome!


What to do after you lost restriction code on the iPad?

What amaksoud said is true. I have the original iPad on 4.3.1 and after trying other advice decided to "read" the com.apple.springboard.plist.

Here's how to do it and no need to jailbreak.

Download iFunBox; it's free and works for OS X and Windows. Choose Raw File System and navigate to var/mobile/Library/Preferences. Select the file named com.apple.springboard.plist and choose copy to Mac (in my case). Copy the file to your preferred location.

Then in Finder you select the com.apple.springboard.plist (that you just copied to your Mac) and look for <key>SBParentalControlsPIN</key>. The 4 numbers located between the tag <string> </string> are your Restriction passcode.

For example <string>1234</string> means your passcode is 1234.

Hope this helps.


What do the Terminal menu item icons under Window mean?

A diamond (♦) means the window is minimized (as user3439894 said in their answer). But a dot (•) means the window is "dirty" — that is, it can't be closed without potentially losing something. An app will typically ask for confirmation before closing a dirty window.

These conventions apply across macOS's UI, not just Terminal.

For Terminal, dirty means that there's a program running in the shell, other than the ones listed as safe in Preferences > Profiles pane > Shell tab > Ask before closing.


Sub-window hidden behind another window... any way to retrieve other than minimizing?

In current versions of macOS (the last few, in fact) allow you to tap the F3 key to show all windows of the current application. On MacBook built-in keyboards and Apple's own keyboards the F3 key has an odd looking icon that represents this. Similar to the F4 grid of squares that brings up Launch Pad.

Windows will shrink in size so they can appear all together on screen allowing you to tap on the window you want to restore the App with that window frontmost.


How to extract Software Update in macOS 10.14?

It seems to me the main goal here is that you need to regularly update multiple Macs and you'd like to do that without having to download them each time for each machine.

I see two potential options here:

Use content caching
Download from Apple's website manually

Content caching

According to Apple:

  Content caching is a macOS service that helps reduce Internet data
  usage and speed up software installation on Mac computers, iOS devices
  and Apple TV. Content caching speeds up downloading of software
  distributed by Apple and data that users store in iCloud by saving
  content that local Mac computers, iOS devices and Apple TV devices
  have already downloaded. The saved content is stored in a content
  cache on a Mac, and is available for other devices to retrieve without
  going out over the Internet.

Source: Apple - About content caching on Mac

In essence, you can enable Content Caching via the Sharing preferences pane in System Preferences to manage content caching on your Mac and select the items you want cached. Once cached, other Macs on your network can use this to perform updates from.

Refer to About content caching on Mac and Manage content caching on Mac on Apple's website for more info.

Download updates manually

You can download all updates directly from Apple by pointing your browser to: https://support.apple.com/downloads

From there you'll see the most recent software updates available for download, and you can also use the buttons at top to browse downloads by product. There's also a search field you can use to conduct specific queries.

Downloads will be in the .dmg disk image format and you can then keep and use these as required on your multiple Macs.


If you enable Notes under iCloud settings on your iPhone you will then have an iCloud section in the Notes app.  In the Notes app you will still have the section 'On My iPhone' with all your previously save notes in there.  You will not lose them be enabling Notes under iCloud settings.  After you enable the Notes feature under iCloud settings you can transfer the 'On My iPhone' notes by going into the Notes app, selecting that directory.  Then select edit at the top right, you will now have to option 'Move All' at the bottom left.  If you select Move All you can then select the iCloud notes directory to merge them with the rest of your iCloud notes.  They will then sync and show up on your iCloud account as well as any other devices using iCloud notes, including your Mac.


Does macOS Sierra support multiple users simultaneously connecting to the same machine using screensharing?

macOS Sierra still supports multiple simultaneous connected users. In the example below Sierra is running in a VM and admin is logged in. user is a remote screen sharing session from the VM host machine (10.9.5) – an iMac – and root is a remote session from a MacBook Pro (10.11.6):


Looking for a word processor with the power of Markdown

Texts is a strange hybrid between a text editor and what you are looking for.

Markdown visual editor

  Write using Markdown - without having to remember the markup. With
  Texts you can apply styles to words or paragraphs and immediately see
  the results. Your images and tables are displayed directly within
  Texts.

Well-structured content

  Use Texts to create structured documents. You set your titles and
  headings, and they will stay in place if you export your document to
  another format.

Blogging on GitHub Pages

  Content written in Texts can be easily published as a blog on GitHub
  Pages, with math, tables, footnotes etc.

Perfect for academics

  Developed to cover all your needs: formulas and footnotes,
  bibliography and citations, tables and links.

Single source publishing

  Writing your documents in Texts gives you a lot of flexibility. You
  can easily convert your words into clean HTML5, professional PDFs,
  ePub or Word format, or even a presentation.

Professional typesetting

  Texts produces immaculate PDFs. Everything you create — from
  paragraphs of text to mathematical formulae — is perfectly typeset.
  See some sample documents.

Cross-platform application

  Mac OS X or Windows? Doesn't matter, use Texts on both. The app has
  native look and feel on each platform, and the document format is
  common across platforms.

Custom themes

  Change the appearance of your text editor with themes.

Export templates

  Adjust style of any published documents with export templates.

http://www.texts.io/


Mac Book Air 13" (2011) - Wifi continuosly disconnecting

I've had this experience with my wife's MBA and discovered our wifi channel was to close to other access points in the neighborhood.  You would think this nearby interference would cause connection problems throughout the day but it actually occurred just like you've described.  Ok for hours than down hard.

I changed the channel on our access point away from the nearby channels and the problem went away completely.

You can use an app like iStumbler to view available networks and what channels they are using.  To view the wifi connection for your MBA, hold down the Option key and click on the wifi icon in the menu bar.


How to disable private browsing on iPad, iOS 9?

To make sure people are not browsing the web, disable the web. That is, set up a proxy server that blocks access to external websites – Squid or Privoxy would work – and configure the iPad to use that proxy server for everything. Then block direct connections (without a proxy) in your firewall.


Is there a keyboard shortcut for launching Activity Monitor?

Not by default, but you can create one in System Preferences --> Keyboard --> Keyboard Shortcuts.  Or you can use spotlight:

type ⌘ + space
start typing "activity monitor"
as soon as activity monitor is highlighted in the spotlight list, hit return


.DS_Store files are only used by the Finder to hold custom view settings for that particular folder. In most cases nothing will happen if you delete them, or at worst custom Finder view settings (icon size, position, background color, etc) will be lost.

If you are trying to maintain a 'spatial Finder' experience in OS X, you might care more, but for most users no change will be noticed.


Changed default mail client, but Spotlight still opens Mail.App; how to change it?

The best way I've found to set any default app is with RCDefaultApp - freeware - old but still works in Yosemite.

It installs as a Control Panel item called Default Apps; you can then set many defaults - simplest are the 'Internet' ones, first tab - dial in your preferred app from the drop menu.
e.g.


The macOS installation I never prompted, couldn't be completed

I can't answer all your questions, but we are seeing this issue fairly commonly in our workplace, with (I think) one specific update.  The fix is as you describe - choose the Startup Disk from the Utilities menu, select the main HD, and reboot.  It doesn't happen again.


Macbook: Flashing Folder with Question Mark At Startup

That's the most likely scenario.

Have you tried booting from a system disc? I'd recommend doing that, and then running Disk Utility and see what it says about the drive.


Customize title bar color of application windows

This is not possible. You could disable SIP and edit the System's CAR files with ThemeEngine, but this isn't recommended, since you could destroy your Mac's UI.


Apps folder: View settings are always being reset

Finder view settings are stored in invisble .DS_Store files, in the parent of the folder being set. So the settings for /Applications are stored in /.DS_Store, and /Applications/.DS_Store holds the settings for subfolders of /Applications, such as /Applications/Utilities.

Normally you have write permission to these files in one of two ways:

For system folders such as /Applications, the .DS_Store files have
write access for members of the admin group, i.e. administrators.
For folders that you create, you are the owner of the .DS_Store file.

The problem is that the permissions can get screwed up. One way is via the macOS Migration Assistant: the migration changes the permissions on some .DS_Store files to be owned by root, but with no write access granted to the admin group.  This results in the symptoms you describe.

A fix is to first run this command:

 sudo find -x / -name .DS_Store -user root -exec chmod -v g+w {} \;

which will give the group write access to any .DS_Store files owned by root.

That still won't fix all of the files; there may be a few stragglers (such as, /.DS_Store) where the migration has changed the file to the wrong group, such as wheel instead of admin. You can fix that with the chgrp command, e.g.:

 sudo chgrp admin /.DS_Store


Well, got this from ATTO tech support today:

macOS (macOS 10.14.x, macOS 10.15.x Catalina, & macOS 11.x Big Sur)
does not support SMB Direct, nor RoCE.

:-(
I sent a feature request to Apple. I'm sure that because I said so they'll get right to it.


Drag application window to another space

Go to system preferences -> Mission Control and uncheck "Displays have separate Spaces"

Now logout and login.

You now should be able to drag your windows between spaces like in (Mountain) Lion.


Is it possible to show the playlist and video for VLC at the same time?

Prefs > Video > Show video within the main window

Uncheck for separate playback window


Regain data from iphone 6s(not sure if plus) factory reset?

If you have not done a backup either to iTunes or to iCloud, then there aren't any ways to do retrieve that information. It is an Apple security mechanism. Hypothetically, let's say someone stole your phone, tried to guess your password over and over, it would disable it. There are programs to access a lower level of the phone, but they require it to be unlocked. The only thing I can think of is using major data recovery, like through DriveSavers or Kroll Ontrack recovery services. They're quite expensive though. It'd recommend attempting to restore from your most recent iCloud backup. It won't hurt.

Unfortunately, if that doesn't work, you will have to restore your phone, and there won't be a way to get that information back.


How can I install Octave with curl support via homebrew?

I had a similar problem a while back that was caused by having my proxies set up funny. I ended up disabling them to get it to install.

Also, are you sure curl is installed correctly? You could try installing it manually as well: http://curl.haxx.se/docs/install.html


After several days of trying all possible solutions I just restarted OS X in safe mode (restart and hold shift) then started iTunes just fine. Then when I restarted again everything was working as expected.

Hope this helps someone else having the same problem.


Is there a way to prevent iOS 7 from changing the colors of wallpaper images?

There is a toggle you can flip to increase this effect even further.

Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Increase Contrast

I'm a bit surprised the screen capture restores the original color, but I'm not surprised that on iOS devices with a powerful GPU that processing is happening on something as layered as the home screen / springboard view. That processing is one of the main design features of iOS 7 as I see it. Increasing text legibility on the home screen and the lock screen are clearly design considerations I would expect to see - even if they are subtle or slight as you describe for your current choice of custom image.


How to install uBlock Origin for Safari?

Now there is, thanks to a new fork of uBlock Origin for Safari by el1t. As of writing, as it's still in alpha, you will need to download the extension from GitHub and then install it by clicking on the downloaded file.


You can easily get this by running any text editor (even Mail would do) in parallel to the main app and then use the new (iOS 5/iPad 2) four finger swipe (or a double-tab on the home button to get the list of applications) to switch between the app and the note.


Select word under cursor using a keyboard shortcut?

I don't know a single shortcut to select the word, but you can do it in two steps, by first moving the cursor to the start of the word, then select the word.

1) Move cursor to left of word:

⌥←

2) Select word to right of cursor:

⇧⌥→

Of course you could do a similar thing with moving to the right of the word with ⌥→ then selecting the word to the left of the cursor with ⇧⌥← if you prefer.


Hiding items from the Applications folder without touching them

Go to the Applications folder, then do 'Find', and search for any application whose name is not (X, Y, Z).  Save the search, and add the search to your dock.


Mountain Lion 10.8.3 file sharing broken for particular named folder

I'm not sure what to tell you about the actual problem but I can share some insight that might help you track it down.  The iMac connecting to the lower case "flac" share but mounting it as "flac-1" tells me it's all ready connected to a volume named some form of flac.  It could just be that it's all ready connected to the SMB NAS you mentioned.

Regardless I've seen an issue where software expects a certain path and instead of throwing an error about not finding the path it just tried to create it which then leaves a sort of null path that you have to manually remove.  If you don't remove it then names like "flac-1" start appearing.  Re-reading that it may not make sense but regardless the steps I've used to see what's what are firing up Terminal (found in /Applications/Utilities) and typing:

ls -la /Volumes

If you see more listed here than you expect or can find through normal finder navigation then you can remove them (Only do this if you're 100% sure it's a path that contains nothing you ever want to see again!) by typing:

rm -rf /Volumes/NULLPATH

where NULLPATH is what you wan to get rid of.

Along these lines if the mini is all ready showing a "FLAC" or some such in /Volumes then you're not goign to be able to share a folder by the same name.  As in if the mini is connected to the SMB NAS then you're going to have to use a different share name.

Also you can turn ownership on, on your external HD by opening the get info window on the drive and checking the box at the bottom of the window to "Enable Ownership on this volume".  I'm not sue it will in any way effect your issue but might be something to try.


Is there a Windows remote desktop client compatible with Lion's virtual display feature?

I see some kind of ambiguity in answers here :-)

I'd suggest to tell technologies and underlying protocols apart.

VNC: uses RFB protocol.

Apple Screen Sharing [SS] (which is enabled by checking "Screen Sharing" in System Prefs): it is a vanilla VNC plus some Apple-specific extensions, e.g. pasteboard auto synchronization, display selection, screen locking, encryption, drag & drop and file transfer in latest servers. Another thing it has is the Apple-specific "codec", which is easy to recognize by JPEG-like artifacts. It also includes new authentication types (by username and password and by requesting permission from remote user) and the very feature you're discussing - Session Select, which allows you to log in as active user or to create invisible ("virtual") user session.

Apple Remote Desktop [ARD] ("Remote Management" in System Prefs): uses Apple Screen Sharing as a base for the screen sharing and another very different protocol (name it ARD protocol for instance) for computer management things, like performing spotlight searches, running shell commands, sending messages, transferring files and so on.

@zneak asked for a client that supports Session Select feature. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, even Mac OS X clients rarely support Apple Screen Sharing features. These are: first, Apple’s built-in Screen Sharing client; next goes Remotix for Mac, which seems to support almost all of SS features including Session Select; JollysFastVNC which supports Apple authentication, display selection and screen locking, and Screens for Mac that supports only Apple authentication.

As for Windows, all I could find was already mentioned here Remotix for Windows, though it was marked as beta for a long time.

Probably all these things are obvious for some of you, but I spent a good couple of hours sorting it out. Hope this post will save some time to someone :-)


Is Safari, in incognito mode, saving its settings?

That is the point of Private Browsing (Safari's calls it Private Browsing, Chrome calls it Incognito). When you use Private Browsing, Safari shouldn't be saving anything at all. The whole idea is that it leaves no trace.


Not entering sleep mode while MBP's Lid closed while using external monitor?

Yes, it should work without any special extra configurations. You only need to have the macbook connected to an external display and also have an external keyboard (probably it also works without the external keyboard, but what will you do without it :p). If you have the lid closed and macbook is "sleeping", you can wake it up (by pressing any keyboard key) and start using it with the external display without requiring to open the lid.

Cheers!


So, apparently it was the new Umbrella client by OpenDNS causing this error. I uninstalled it and continued to get this error until I restarted, which was making me think that it was something other than this client. However, after some testing.. it's confirmed that it's this client that's causing it.

So, yeah.. This definitely wasn't a duplicate or related to any of the duplicates that have been posted in the comments in the question.


macOS 10.13.4 not installed and disappeared from AppStore

Problem is solved by booting in Safe Mode and install macOS 10.13.4 from there.


How to launch Gnumeric after installing using Homebrew

If you install XQuartz from Homebrew Cask with:

brew cask install xquartz

and gnumeric from Homebrew with:

brew install gnumeric

You can then just type:

gnumeric

on the command line and the gnumeric window will open.


Can't I use iTunes playlists from a shared library on another computer?

You can only sync local music (music that exists in the iTunes library on the computer you sync your iPhone with).


How to set up a local MySQL database for dev purposes in Sierra?

What about one of the memory databases available ??

HyperSQL (HSQLDB)

H2 Database Engine


With the release of iOS 5, this is now very simple. Dictionary functionality is available in any app that allows you to select text. Just highlight the text as if you were going to do a Copy and you will see a "Define" option next to "Copy". Tap "Define" and you get a pop-up window with the definition from the same dictionary built in to iBooks.


Transfer MKV files to iPhone using Airdrop on iOS 13 & iOS 14

It's odd that PlayerXtreme hasn't identified itself as a media player for mkv files.

I just tried it on my phone (iOS13) but I use VLC as my player.

Airdrop sent the file ok.
On the phone, the received file shows the VLC icon (showing that it recognises the file type).
It offers me the option "Open with Files" rather than "Save to iCloud Drive"

On selecting that, it opens the files app and I save the file to the VLC folder under the "On my phone" section of the Files app. The file then shows up in VLC.

"Save to iCloud Drive" is also (since iOS11) done via the Files App, so have you tried simply selecting that and then saving it to PlayerXtreme files location on your phone (if it has one, or a generic folder if not).

Obvious question, but did you update to the latest version of the player since the iOS13 upgrade?

Here's what my receive looks like, with saving to VLC folder in background:


How can I make an Ubuntu Samba Share **completely** writeable from Mavericks

Permission problems in Samba can be a bit tricky to diagnose.

What exactly is the command you are using to mount the share on the Mac?

At the command line could you go to the place where the share is mounted and do an ls -l@ so that the permissions there can be checked. Do the same in one of the directories that is giving you problems.

Are you sharing an ext3 volume and do you have Samba configured to use ACLs? If so then adding a line nt acl support = yes to your share definition will get them working and you get much nicer permission controls. They should be on by default but may not be.


Boot into Mac from Windows after failed Bootcamp

The "correct answer" to this turn out to be not so deep.  The wireless keyboard was not waking up fast enough on startup to get the key press to initiate any of the startup key combos.

Hitting a couple keys before hitting the power button on the mac mini allowed the keyboard to wake up first.  All key combos work.

I believe the fact that the Bootcamp control panel does not show up on the Windows side, is because it is Windows 8 and Bootcamp and it's Windows support drivers are meant for Windows 7.

Also plugging the wireless keyboard into the mac also sped things up


Use the Tab key to switch buttons then return to activate that.

I think all GUIs I have used - Windows, OS X, X11, old Mac all have this.


How to Set a Short User Password in macOS Mojave and Later (10.14+)

You can also use the much more straightforward command:

pwpolicy -clearaccountpolicies

to remove the 4-character requirement for all users.  The man page gives other useful examples if you want to change the policy on a per-user basis.


How do I sync my iPhone and 2015 MacBook

To Sync your iPhone via WiFi your iPhone needs to be connected with a cable to the MacBook once. Then in iTunes there will be an option on the main screen for the iPhone where you can select "WiFi Synchronization".

This will make it possible for the iPhone to be synced when on the same network and manually when navigating to Settings > General > Wi-Fi iTunes Synchronization.


specify Open With application for stacks

My Finder.app had become corrupted, I was able to re-install Finder.app (without needed to re-install my entire system) with Pacifist found at http://www.charlessoft.com/.


Return status of SleepDisabled in Applescript

The following works for me:

set SuperSleep to (do shell script "pmset -g | awk '/SleepDisabled/{print $2}'")

if SuperSleep is equal to "0" then
    do shell script "pmset -a disablesleep 1" with administrator privileges
else
    do shell script "pmset -a disablesleep 0" with administrator privileges
end if

NOTE: Do not use sudo in a do shell script command, Just use with administrator privileges as it's all that's needed when you'd normally do sudo in Terminal or a bash script. Additionally I would not include the user name "Myname" and password "Mypassword" as it is not encrypted in the file. Just type it into the dialog box brought up by the administrator privileges option.

Also note that SleepDisabled was not present in the output of pmset -g when I first tried in Terminal, and was not present until I used the sudp pmset -a disablesleep 0 command from Terminal. If this is the case on your system you'd need to adjust the code to handle that situation. You could use an if (compound) control statement.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


ssh terminal window closes immediately when opened

Here's what happened. On the machines I was trying to reach (10.x.y.182 and 10.x.y.194), in the time when I was not using them they had their hard disks replaced and the OS reinstalled. This gave them new SSH keys, invalidating the ones I had in my ~/.ssh/known_hosts file. Unfortunately, Terminal.app did not surface this problem to me.

By deleting the entries for those machines in ~/.ssh/known_hosts, I forced the system to pull down the new keys and ask me if I wanted to use them. With this done, connections worked perfectly as usual. Oddly, however, even before I changed ~/.ssh/known_hosts, connections using the DNS name of the machine (svr10 and svr20) worked. Weird.

Thanks, everyone, who looked at this problem.


As per the discussion above, changing the scaling to the default setting and back seems to fix the issue.


25+ inch monitor (Macbook Pro and Windows laptop)

This may have less to do with the monitor you get and more to do with how you hook up the laptops to the monitor. When using multiple desktops on a single monitor, I've found KVM switches extremely useful. If you were planning on using a single keyboard for the two laptops, I would recommend this approach. However, I'm not aware of a single keyboard that will give you OS-specific controls for both Mac (command, eject, volume, etc) and Windows (start, etc).


What data repair and recovery options exist for a missing APFS Volume?

How to Recover Lost Data from APFS Volume on Mac

https://recoverit.wondershare.com/harddrive-recovery/how-to-recover-lost-data-from-apfs-volume.html

It will cost you $40

or this one https://www.ibeesoft.com/data-recovery-software/mac-data-recovery.html

You can always try to do it your self with Disk Utility.

https://blog.macsales.com/44912-new-capabilities-limitations-how-disk-utilitys-restore-feature-changed-in-high-sierra


On High Sierra, how to make a writable disk image open a window automatically?

It appears that Apple fixed this problem in High Sierra 10.13.4.


Compare two folder structures and list files which exist in both, but are different

You can use diff for this after downloading the public folder:

diff -q -r working-folder public-folder

It will give you the list of files which are different, omit -q to also show a list of the actual differences.

To supress the listing of files only available in public-folder you can easily filter them via grep:

diff -q -r working-folder public-folder | grep -v '^Only in public-folder'

(make sure to replace the public-folder part with the real name in both occurances)


iPad Air - deleted photo appears over and over again and copies itself

i solve this problem :

1 open viber and find who send you this photo
2 delete the photo from the chat or the all conversation ( slide left + delete)
3 delete all copy of this photo in the gallery and from the deleted folder


How do I fix "could not activate cellular data network" problem when returning to US after traveling and using a different SIM card?

I called AT&T and was asked to see if there is a profile at the bottom of Settings->General. There was, and deleting it fixed the problem. Apparently profiles are often installed when using overseas SIM cards.


How to transfer photos from OS X Tiger to iPad iOS 7

No easy way no.

G4 with 10.4 means a (very) old iTunes version (9.2.1). For iTunes 10 you need a least Leopard.

To sync with iOS7 (the default OS of the iPad Air) you'll need iTunes 11.1.

Other options :

Use a another (more recent) mac to do it
send the images with an app or mail (veeeeeery long)


Is it possible to extend Quick Look to support h.265?

QuickLook's API is not all that great. It's meant for documents that can be displayed in a single frame, like text or photographs. There is no way that I know of (or apparently anyone else) to have QuickLook play movies. Apple obviously can, but they're clearly using APIs that the rest of us do not have access to.


Transfering small tidbits of information from Mac to iPhone

There's multiple options when you're using the same iCloud account on your Mac as on your phone:

Add it to a Notes note
Send it to yourself as a Message
Add it as a reminder in Reminders
Add it as an appointment in Calendar
Use Universal Clipboard to paste the content on your iPhone that you have copied on your Mac


Turn off wifi

Plug in Ethernet

Test a backup and restore a file it two
You should expect no problems whatsoever, you should expect significantly faster response times