iPad apps randomly going gray screen or Home

The iPad 2 is an old device. This lends itself to many crashes.

What you are describing are app crashes. It happens on all devices, but much more frequently on older devices. Since the apps have been updated for never iOS versions, like iOS 10, the iPad is not technically supported by the apps that you're trying to use.

Also, having some extra storage space never hurts, so try deleting some apps to clear up some space.

Beyond deleting apps, the only advice I can give you here is to upgrade to a newer device. Your device is 6 years old, which is a long time for mobile devices.


Badge disappears for an app after an hour of no usage?

My understanding of iOS is that apps in the background will be “killed” if the OS runs into memory pressure.  Could it be that after that hour (is it exactly an hour or is the time random), the app gets killed, and the badge goes away?

You can test this by ending the app yourself.  With your phone unlocked, double click the home button.  You’ll see the last used apps at the very bottom of your phone.  Hold it for a minute and it’ll start wiggling.  Press the (-) sign and if your badge goes away, you may have found your problem.

Hope that helps.


Can I fix VMware Fusion to correctly map the tilde / back tick on a British keyboard?

Install VM Tools from the Fusion Menu (ignore notice about using open-vm-tools)
Select keyboard & mouse from the VM settings
Highlight Profile - default on the list of profiles
From tools (cog below list of profiles) - select duplicate and name 'Debian Profile'
From tools - set profile as default
Double click profile and select Keyboard and Mouse
Make sure Enable Key Mappings is *checked
Make sure Language Specific Key Mappings is not checked
Use the '+' to add a new mapping of From: § To: `
Use the '+' key to add a new mapping of From: ` To: §

e.g. for the first mapping:

That should then take effect once you have a session running.
On the Debian side, you may have to configure the keyboard from the command line if you have not set it up / not running multiple languages.
First check if cat /etc/default/keyboard gives you:
# KEYBOARD CONFIGURATION FILE

# Consult the keyboard(5) manual page.

XKBMODEL="apple"
XKBLAYOUT="gb"
XKBVARIANT="mac"
XKBOPTIONS="lv3:ralt_switch"

BACKSPACE="guess"

If so, ignore the rest and pat yourself on the back / get a cuppa :-)
If not install the command line configurator:
sudo apt install keyboard-configuration

Then execute it:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

Select:

Keyboard Model: Apple
Keyboard Layout: English (UK) : English (UK, Macintosh)
AltGr: Right Alt (AltGr)
Compose Key: ???? - I do not use one - select as needed
Control+Alt+Backspace to terminate: ???? - your choice

Then REBOOT
The other way is to add the Keyboard Layout Handler into a panel BUT this sticks a big blob of text on your menu bar!  If you are happy with this (or are switching languages) then the UK keyboard can be set as:

Note the checkboxes for do not reset options and keep system layouts are clear.


I know what you want because I had that in Opera a long time ago, but then I switched to Mac full time and dropped Opera. Safari lacks in that aspect.

I don’t know if there’s a specific extension for that, but you might want to take a look at tools like LaunchBar ($$) or Quicksilver (Free).

I use Launchbar and I type ‘goo’ and then whatever I want to type and enter. I Have searches for StackOverflow, Wikipedia, Amazon, etc. You can add whatever you want.

After some time doing that, it becomes extremely much more natural, because you can invoke either of those from anywhere in the system. You just invoke Launchbar, goo + xxxxx and you’re done.

Give it a try, I believe is a much more natural workflow than having to find safari, going to the search box and typing there.


How to draw a curved arrow in Keynote 09?

Create the Arrow

From the Insert Shape menu choose the "Draw with Pen" tool:

Click once at one end of your curved arrow:

Click and drag at the other end of your arrow:

Hit the Escape key to stop drawing.
From the line ends menu, choose an arrowhead you like:

Edit the Arrow

To reshape the curve, click on it once, then click on it again;
When the endpoints turn red you can change things:

Click and drag the round circles at the end of the gray Bezier
handles to reshape the curve (a little practice makes perfect):

Click and drag one of the red endpoints to change the start or end:


What are the implications of leaving the XHC20 interface "up"?

Yes, you can leave the interface "up" when not actively sniffing it.

The interface is actually a sort of pseudo interface based on BPF. Those are generally very performant, and have little to none implication for performance and memory usage.

In terms of security, you could be exposing the your USB traffic to other users on the same Mac that have access to the interface, but not otherwise to your USB traffic. This is not commonly the case on macOS installations in homes / offices.


Connecting Two Thunderbolt Displays to a Single MacBook Pro

That symbol you see is the Mini DisplayPort icon (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204149).

Apple has stated that Mini DisplayPort adapters won't work in a Thunderbolt chain.


Google reckons it's Notifyr - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/notifyr-receive-ios-notifications/id873639935?mt=8

JWVD is probably the app author's initials - https://twitter.com/JWVD


How to force iOS to install iPhone Apps?

If an app is "Universal," then it will contain code for both the iPhone and the iPad.  When launched, iOS detects this, and the app will automatically display a UI that is appropriate for that device.

The only way to change this behavior would be to modify the core system behavior, which could be done only on a jailbroken phone.

The exception is found in applications where the developer has two completely separate applications for iPhone and iPad.  In that case, you could force the iPhone app to be installed on an iPad.


Yes you can.
Here is a post on the Parallels Forum that will show you how:
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?113931-Convert-Physical-Lion-Drive-to-virtual

In a nutshell:

1) Clean up the system hard drive

2) Run Time Machine on a fresh drive

3) Created a new VM, using the Install Mountain Lion package.

4) The installer lets you use an existing Time Machine backup (actually, you pick the option that says "Existing Disk" or something like that, which also happens to work with Time Machine backups). This doesn't work, however, because it says the backup was from a different machine.

5) Let the ML Installer go through its paces. It asks again if I want to migrate existing data, and this time the Time Machine backup works just fine.

-OR-

Use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a .dmg of the original drive and do some juggling.


The reason is that disk0 contains your actual drive. If you look there, you see that only 125.4 GB of space is allocated to the "Core Storage". Disk 1 is the logical volume (Macintosh HD) which resides in disk0s2 (also named Macintosh HD) so deleting disk1 won't be what you want to accomplish and the tool is preventing you from deleting that "logical device".

You can fix this with the cs subcommand of diskutil in terminal to remove the core storage and put things back on disk0s2 in a none-CoreStorage format.

For safety's sake, make a good backup before continuing and then revert the core storage volume:

diskutil cs revert 8F5A679C-06AB-44CC-BD46-33E327446D80

Now let the machine revert to none-CoreStorage layout. Once that's done, you can use the Disk Utility and or diskutil to resize disk0s2 to take up all the space. Then you would re-enable file vault if you want core storage going forward. This may take more time than wiping the drive and reinstalling the OS and restoring your backup - but you will learn more by using diskutil and not need to test your backup now if you've never restored it.

I personally don't see any benefit to using Core Storage unless it's for encryption, but you're free to do so. Also, there is an undocumented diskutil cs resizeStack operation that I'd be hesitant to rely upon, but if you don't care to lose the data, might be a one trick pony to get your resize done.

I'd just revert the core storage to normal storage and then grow your normal partition using Disk Utility from reading the various comments and your initial post closely.


Can't connect user without the home directory to Mac OS Server

When you set a user to services only this limits them to no login.  As you can see in your Advanced Options the login shell is set to /usr/bin/false.  This will deny login.  If you want to share a folder with them setup File Sharing in the Server.app and give them permission to the file share.


IMessage not activating and can't select number to receive

Apple servers need time to verify your information and to Activate iMessage uses, that can be as fast as 1 hour, or up to 24 hours in rare cases.

Some patience is required since it is your privacy apple is working on to protect.


Unable to edit .bash_profile file on mac

Run /usr/bin/vim ~/.bash_profile and fix whatever is wrong in the assignment to PATH.


Water spilled into the keyboard of my Macbook - would this affect the quality of the files saved on it?

It's highly unlikely that spilt water on your keyboard will result in your photos becoming pixelated. Instead, it's much more likely that spilt water will damage some of the components of your MBP (depending on what you did immediately after the spill and how long it's been since).

If your internal drive was damaged, then you'd have all sorts of problems reading from and writing to the drive, which means it wouldn't still work the way it used to (as per your question).

As a test I would copy some of these photos onto a USB drive and try viewing them on another computer just to see if they still look pixelated:

If they do, then you know your data has been corrupted.
If they don't, then you know you've most likely got another problem with your MBP (e.g. damage to the graphics card, damage to the screen, etc).

If you don't have access to another computer, then email the photos to your smartphone and view them on that.

As an additional step it would be worth testing your hardware.

Testing your hardware

You don't specify your model of MacBook Pro, so it's not clear whether you need to use Apple Hardware Test or Apple Diagnostics to do this. If your MacBook Pro was introduced:

before June 2013, it uses Apple Hardware Test. Follow these steps.
after June 2013, it uses Apple Diagnostics. Follow these steps.


How do I turn off App Store notifications in Mountain Lion

You can now simply go to System Preferences > App Store, and turn off "Automatically check for updates."

No messing with firewalls, and just works with App Store. So just remember to check every now and then manually to find out when you have updates!


Where are iCloud documents stored in the file system?

The following website suggests iCloud documents are stored under:

  ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents

https://www.macworld.com/article/2310807/how-to-access-icloud-files-from-your-mac.html


How to send non-HTML mail from Apple Mail?

The alternatives are described as Plain Text or Rich Text - however I am reliably informed that 'Rich Text' is, in fact HTML.
(Thanks to @TomGewecke for correcting me on that in comments)

Swap permanently in Prefs > Composing, or as a one-off in Format Menu, last item, or  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧
  T

To prevent replying in HTML to an HTML mail, also uncheck 'Use the same Message format...'


Is there a way to revert OSX Snowleopard to a clean fresh install?

If you bought your Macbook new then it should have come with a set of recover DVD's that look like this :

You need to locate this media and use the disk marked "Mac OS X Install DVD" to reinstall the OS. Remember to take a backup of all user data beforehand.


Why won't my Mac Pro wake from sleep at the scheduled time?

Try resetting the System Management Unit (SMU); the SMU is typically responsible for tracking when your Mac is scheduled to wake up.

With regard to your Mac Pro appearing not to keep time, this is not a problem. It is expected behaviour for the menu bar clock to update a few seconds after your Mac has woken up.

The process controlling the clock needs to get a change in time notification before updating; it will not match your Mac's internal clock immediately upon waking up.


Replace text in Firefox, Pages, Terminal, BBEdit

The specific parameter is Substitutions > Text Replacement, which isn't actually in System prefs at all.

It's usually in the View menu of individual apps & as far as I'm aware needs to be specifically enabled wherever it appears.

Apps that don't have that menu item won't do replacement. BBEdit is one of those. Most Apple apps have it, but not Terminal.


Airplay icon disappears after mac wakes up from sleep

Try cycling your MBA's Wi-Fi? I would expect powering your machine's antenna down and then back up would re-engage the Airplay internals.


How to access the "Deleted Photos" Album on an XR running iOS 13.3?

Flip the phone so that it's in the vertical orientation. The tabs will appear at the bottom.


Notification Center: Sparrow notifications not removed automatically

You could just use temporary screen pop-ups, and disable the notification center:

You can set this per app.

Apple Menu -> System Preferences -> Notifications

Then, for Sparrow, choose Banners, not alerts.


How does MacOSX 10.5 chose between networks with the same SSID?

No - the timing of the beaconing signals and whichever is the strongest SSID in the limited window it looks gets chosen. It's a flip of the coin most times. The N does win out more than the G - but it's not a surefire thing by any stretch.


Intermittently cant connect to VPN from Laptop, but always works from iPhone

Why don't you upgrade to the latest version.
Did you try turning off your wifi on Mac and turning it on again? After that try connecting one by one. You will find which one is causing the issue. Try killing them as well.
Try restarting your machine if 1 and 2 don't work.
Worst case, remove all the configurations, add one by one and observe over a period of time.


How to share photos from Photos.app to Flickr retaining title, description and tags?

Nearly a year later you would expect Flickr integration to have improved. As of February 2016 I have the exact same experience. To investigate further I opened this forum thread:

https://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157665235195925/


iCloud connection after upgrade to High Sierra

I had the same issue and fixed it as follows:

In your user folder, go to ~/Library/Keychains/ (hold down the "option" key when clicking in the "Go to" menu to show the Library folder).

In that folder, there are the regular keychains, plus some folders with monstrously long names like F2555809-AAC0-5CFA-BEF6-57BB56345BIUR or some such.

I deleted those folders only.

After a restart, my email accounts and everything else had been logged out and the system requested a log-in password to my Apple ID. I was able to re-enter it, and since then, all iCloud services have worked fine, including Photos, iCloud Drive, iMessage, etc. - even text replacement is now syncing fine.


Move Secure Notes items from Keychain of one Mac to another?

Keychain Access.app > File > Add Keychain…

You got it half-way right.

Quit Keychain Access.app, just to be safe.
Locate your keychain file, named whatever.keychain-db as you mentioned.
Get a copy of that file onto your new Mac, perhaps via a thumb drive.
Put that file in your home folder, in Library folder, in Keychains folder.In other words: ~/Library/Keychains/your_keychain_name_goes_here.keychain-db
Open Keychain Access.app on that new Mac.
Choose File > Add Keychain….
In the file-picker dialog, choose the file you just placed in the Keychains folder.

We are not really importing or doing any processing here. We are merely informing the Keychain Access app about the existence of this additional keychain file.


FileVault: What exactly is the optimizing step about?

FileVault 2 is optimizing data on your system drive before it gets full disk encryption (FDE) to speed up encryption/decryption process. Sometimes optimization stage can take a very long time to complete. It depends on a capacity of your disk and an amount of data it stores on.

You can use coreStorage command in Terminal to see the status of encryption:

diskutil cs list

or:

diskutil cs list | grep -e "Conversion" -e "Volume Name"

To see the other useful commands look at this page: Set a FileVault recovery key for Mac .


How does my iPhone change time zones automatically?

It uses a combination of GPS and the date/time sent to the iPhone from the cell towers.

There's several questions here about this same topic (different carriers and different iPhones) and they all have very similar responses to what I've said.  If you search for this topic, you can see all the different questions and answers; I just combined them all.


When that occurs, you can move your cursor to the screen with the presenter view (in this case the one that everyone could see); some options will appear, including the ability to swap the displays. This will cause your computer's display to become the presenter display and for the "public" display to just show the slide content.


How can I transfer music from one iphone to another if it has NOT BEEN purchased from iTunes (ie., songs that were put on there from cd's I own etc.)

Only one "library" or subset of one library can exist on a single mobile  device. You can manage your non-iTunes purchased music and move it to your device through iTunes.  But you can not move it from device to device, or device back to PC.  Why not?  Doing so could promote piracy of songs (media).

You can only normally transfer music in one direction: iTunes -> Device. The reason for this is to limit music sharing, this follows the model apple created to satisfy the recording industries demands as apple demanded an end to DRM encrypted files.

Additionally, related but not part of your question, you are essentially prohibited from transferring songs from someone else's iTunes library directly to your phone.  If you attempt to do so it will warn you that you are about to replace the existing library on the device with a new one, meaning all song currently on the device will be wiped if you continue.

If the original iTunes files are not available on the computer, you can't just transfer them from the device back to iTunes. There are however apps in the app store that allow you to transfer music back to a PC, at that point you can use iTunes to put it on the new phone. I can't personally suggest any of these as I've never used them. Google the term iphone transfer music to pc to learn more and read reviews.

Another method if the original CD's are still available you could use iTunes to re-rip them to iTunes on the computer, and then move them to the new phone.

Apple also sells an add-on called iTunes Match that will allow you to download songs in your ripped library directly to your device.  However this service isn't a necessity at all, it just adds convenience over managing your library directly thru iTunes.

This is my opinion on the subject, but if a person understands how the system works, it's not hard to follow the rules, but it does seem confusing when a person is replacing their phone and doesn't know the rules.  I would also rather have this system in place than DRM encoded music downloads from the app store.


How to prevent ssh from adding my key to ssh-agent on Snow Leopard?

Automatically Added Keys

There are three ways SSH keys are added to ssh-agent in Snow
Leopard.

manually, with ssh-add,
automatically, by ssh when you supply a key’s passphrase via
the GUI prompt, and
automatically, by ssh-agent when it first starts.

The last two methods are Apple extensions: there are no “automatic”
additions with stock OpenSSH. All references to ssh, ssh-agent,
and ssh-add below are to Apple’s Snow Leopard versions unless
I prefix the program name with the adjective “stock”.

You can disable all of Apple’s keychain-oriented SSH modifications
with a (undocumented?) preference setting:

defaults write org.openbsd.openssh KeychainIntegration -bool false

Keys Added Automatically By ssh

(This is the part I missed in the previous version of my original
answer since I usually use a “stock” ssh.)

Whenever ssh tries to use a passphrase protected SSH key to
authenticate itself to a remote host, it will issue a GUI prompt for
the SSH key’s password. The key is also loaded into the agent (if
the passphrase is correct) whether or not you mark the “Remember
password in my keychain” checkbox.

There are two (undocumented?) ways to prevent ssh from issuing
this GUI prompt (and thus adding the SSH key to the ssh-agent):

A preference setting:

defaults write org.openbsd.openssh AskPassGUI -bool false

An
ssh_config
entry (or -o option to ssh) that specifies AskPassGUI no.

(see keychain_read_passphrase in
keychain.c;
the oAskPassGUI parameter comes from the AskPassGUI
configuration setting)

When AskPassGUI is disabled, ssh will prompt you in the normal
way for the key’s password (i.e. through the tty).

You could also avoid automatic adds from ssh by using a “stock”
ssh (e.g. OpenSSH compiled by
MacPorts,
Homebrew “duplicates” from
homebrew-alt, or
Fink).

Keys Added Automatically By ssh-agent

The keys that ssh-agent automatically adds are those that have
their passphrases stored in a keychain.
These “remembered keys” are automatically added when a new
ssh-agent starts.
There is no command line or configuration option (other than
KeychainIntegration, described above) to prevent ssh-agent from
automatically loading the “remembered keys” (see the call to
process_add_from_keychain (defined in
keychain.c) from main in
ssh-agent.c).
If, however, you can arrange to lock the keychains that store your
SSH key passphrases, you can click Cancel when ssh-agent asks to
unlock the keychain(s) and effectively get ssh-agent to skip
adding these “remembered keys” when it first starts.

If there is no ssh-agent running, your first use of ssh will
likely trigger launchd to start an ssh-agent which will load all
the “remembered keys”. This makes it seem like ssh is loading the
keys into the agent, but it is really the agent itself that is
loading the keys. It only does this automatically when it first
starts.

The -k option of ssh-add provides a manual way to add the
“remembered keys” (see add_from_keychain in
ssh-add.c
which ends up as a message to the agent which calls
process_add_from_keychain from process_message in
ssh-agent.c).

launchd Configuration

You are right that a system update could overwrite your modification to the file in /System/Library/LaunchAgents/. You should always avoid changing things under /System/; most things can be (re)configured without making changes there. In this case, it looks like you should be able to override the system default launchd job specification on a per-user basis with a file in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/.

From what I can tell1, entries are loaded in this order2:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/
/Library/LaunchAgents/
/Network/Library/LaunchAgents/ (not present on most systems)
/System/Library/LaunchAgents/

It does not seem to be documented, but only the first job configuration for each Label (e.g. org.openbsd.ssh-agent) will be kept. Any configuration from a later directory with the same Label as a configuration from an earlier directory is effectively skipped.

1
See
NSStartSearchPathEnumeration used in launchctl.c
and defined in
NSSystemDirectories.h/NSSystemDirectories.c.

2
launchd also looks in the LaunchDaemons/ directories next to the various LaunchAgents/ directories for other types of jobs.


Why do I see this port as a leave? How to know if I really can get rid of it?

Perl is a build dependency for curl-ca-bundle. Build dependencies are only needed at build time and can be removed afterwards, which makes perl5 a leaf in your case.


"On my phone" Account option greyed in notes app - os10

Oh. You don't need to be worried about that. That simply says that there is "On my iPhone" section turned on but you haven't saved any note on that section Folder. All your notes are saved in the iCloud section folders.

There is nothing to be worried about. That is normal since you haven't saved notes on your phone but in iCloud section folders.

So if you want to make that toggle not greyed out, just goto Notes app -> click on left upper corner "<" mark.

1) Then you would see ICLOUD and ON MY PHONE sections and under both of them some folders named Notes or whatever. ( if you see folders under ON MY IPHONE section, just avoid 2) and goto A )

2)Or you may see no folders under On My iPhone section. If you see no folders, then create one using any name.

A: Then simply make a new note in any folder under  ON MY IPHONE section and save on that folder (just simply get out of that note. It would be automatically saved). Then check the settings. Greyed toggle may normal now.

Use this link to lean more about Notes : https://support.apple.com/en-lk/HT205773


Can I use the same Lion OS X license on a home and a work machine, or do I have to buy one for each?

Since you purchase it from the Mac app store the licensing is the same as other Mac App store purchases. I can't find the exact resource but I believe you can install it on up to 5 Macs.

Here is an article with some information about licensing in Lion. http://osxdaily.com/2011/06/07/single-purchase-of-lion-installs-on-all-macs/

Update: I found some clear language from Apple's Lion press release

  The Lion upgrade can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs


There are many things that 'other' could be. This Apple KB article details what 'other' space is:

OS X: What is "other" space in About This Mac?

…but basically, there's not only one thing that it could be, or one thing that everyone's suffered from.

Your best bet is probably to run something like Daisy Disk or similar to find large files to delete. Alternatively, use Finder and search for large files sorted by Date Modified so that you can see recent files that might be taking up large quantities of space.


Two solutions:

(A) This one (Being a few terminal commands you can run)

OR

(B) Buying this app called Insynchq for $25/yr (15 day trial avail.)


If anyone still cares about downgrading Java on Snow Leopard, the answer that advises removing Java manually and reinstalling from download or Snow Leopard DVD doesn't work for Snow Leopard, but it can be made to work.

Instead of using the freestanding Java packages on the DVD, use the app Pacifist to open the main Snow Leopard installer .pkg. Then search for "java" and install every item that matches (you can skip the JavaScript items, obviously). This fixes the error reported in the linked article (which is offline but available at archive.org):

"Error occurred during initialization of VM
Unable to load native library: libjava.jnilib"

Apparently there are additional pieces to a functioning Java install not included in the separate .pkg files.


Do these iPhone log messages indicate spyware?

No, these messages do not indicate that anyone is using spyware on your iPhone.

These messages are indication of the Apple provided software is functioning as it should collecting analytics/diagnostics data stored on your phone. This is not an indication of anything malicious.


How do I delete Albums from Photos for synced folders that don't exist anymore?

What I did to erase photos in my iPod Touch synced to a non-existent folder.

Created an empty folder in my Pictures directory (eg. Temp)
Plugged in my iPod Touch, opened iTunes and went to the Photos tab and synced to the empty folder
Opened the Photos app in iPod Touch and album I wanted to remove was removed


How do I browse files in my `.backupbundle` backup?

Try right-clicking (or Ctrl-clicking) on the bundle in the Finder and choosing "Show Package Contents".


Macbook Pro Retina 13" Touchpad not responsive

I'm never really into answering my own posts but after calling AppleCare (even though I had no longer valid AppleCare I still tried it) it turns out to be a hardware issue.
My macbook is going away for repair on next monday and it will take up to 5 working-days before I get my Macbook back with functioning trackpad!

The steps we've taken during the phone call:

Shut down the Macbook, connect the charger and perform a SMC-reset. (The led indicator on the magsafe will turn from orange to green and back to orange if successful)
Boot with Command + R - this step was taken to check if the touchpad works in Recovery Mode, ruling out Mavericks being the issue.


Is Thunderbolt on the same bus as FireWire and Ethernet on a late 2012 Mac Mini

After a lightning strike the Mac Mini FireWire and Ethernet ports do
  not work.

The Mac mini got hit by lightening and still functions?  I am surprised that you only lost two ports

  Is it likely that the Thunderbolt port is also burnt out.

Likely, but it's  impossible to tell from this distance.  To know for certain, you need to plug in a device to test functionality.

  I am proposing to use a TB/FW adaptor.

This sounds like an excellent idea.  If you plug it in and it works/doesn't work then you have your diagnosis.

The only other suggestion other than trying things to see if it works is to run Apple Hardware Test (AHT).  Hold the D key while booting from a powered off state with the AC adapter connected.

However, it sounds like you lost some key functionality when the Ethernet port died.  It's probably a good time to take it in for service or upgrade to a newer model.

On a side note, a good (and cheap) bit of insurance is to get a UPS Back-Up Power Supply with surge protection.  I personally use CyberPower UPSs on all my Apple gear (APC everywhere else) because they are compatible with macOS.

Speaking from personal experience...in 25+ years in IT in the lightning capital of the US (Florida), I have been hit by lightning twice and never lost a single piece of gear.  I did lose two APC units to lightning strikes (both at work), but I never lost any equipment.


I called Apple support, and they almost immediately established there was an error in the setup of my accounts. They fixed this, and everything works well.


Installing two DDR3 SO-DIMMs as non-matched pairs in a MacBook

In a testing lab with unlimited funds, matching RAM (matching CAS, the controllers and the size perfectly) can benchmark faster than non-matched RAM of equal total size.

In the real world, you get a max of two RAM slots on the MacBook line and most people don't a) wait on their RAM for any significant amount of time ever b) don't throw away good RAM just because it doesn't match another chip they might put inside. (Also, I'm not saying no one waits on RAM, but that the matched vs unmatched situation doesn't cause people to wait)

For MacBook that are now vintage (especially the plastic MacBook with the removable batteries in black and white case) - the VRAM was part of the RAM and having matching chips was actually noticeable when you didn't get it right. Games might even be unplayable vs playable in some cases.

For anything Mac that is Unibody (not with a removable battery / frame is solid Aluminum) - just buy the most RAM you can afford from a vendor that will accept a return within a week if you mess up picking the right CAS latency and it doesn't work when you insert it. I run Mac Mini servers hard with constrained RAM and just buy a pair of 8 GB sticks for each pair of Macs. They come with 2x2GB so the macs have 10 GB of RAM and there is no measurable speed difference between a matched 8 GB and a non-matched 10GB and since the initial 2 GB stick is free I would never go with a pair of 4 GB sticks in that computer.

As a rule of thumb - adding more total but unmatched memory is always faster than adding less total matched memory on aluminum case Apple products released between 2009 and 2014. (And let's exclude the Mac Pro since that can have enough RAM slots and CPU to complicate the generalization I just made)


Download speed of an app at the App Store?

The download speed on the App Store depends on two things: speed and size. If you have a DSL connection (the average connection is around 128kbps to 3000kbps (3mbps)), it is going to be very slow to download an app. If you have fiber optic internet (which can range from 10mbps to a Gigabit) it is going to be a hell of a lot faster.

If you are downloading El Capitan, which is 6.2GB, and you are downloading on a 5mbps connection, then it will take almost 3 hours to download.

You should take a Speedtest here and see what your speed is, you can also see if you are getting what you paid for. Go to this link and input your download speed here.

I have found that if you have inputted DNS servers in System Preferences, remove the DNS servers and that should make it a little faster.

Happy downloading!

Cheers

EDIT: If you want to see how fast it is downloading, try Rubbernet which shows how much bandwidth a process or an app is using. Another app (which I use), is iStat Menus. It only shows processes that are using most of the bandwidth. The process that you are looking for is "storedownloadd" which downloads apps on the App Store. Sorry for misunderstanding you.


Cannot Upgrade jailbroken iPod touch 4.3.3 to iOS 6.1.2

I finally resolved this. It turns out I had 6.0 (I didn't know because my friend was the one who got it and Apple isn't signing it anymore). I downloaded 6.1.2 and then my IP got blocked for too many requests. So I used a VPN for verification and then it worked.

So, like @Chris A said; You don't need to do all that TinyUmbrella crap (unless you're downgrading). If you have the current iOS offline (like in my case) or updating to the recent firmware, it'll work just fine.

Thanks to all that stared at my question.


Replace Recovery HD with a “bootable drive” formatted partition?

If you've installed Yosemite it will automatically have created an invisible recovery partition and so you may as well delete the recovery partition you created. Keeping a copy of the Yosemite installer on a USB stick is definitely a good idea though in case your drive ever dies or you need to perform a clean install (on an SSD for example).

Alternatively, you can hide volumes/partitions using the Utilities>Visibility function in Onyx.


How to disable screenshot option shortcut in Mojave CMD+Shift+5

Go to: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Screenshots

Uncheck: Screenshot and recording options


Word 2016 - Can't save to AFP share (El Capitan)

In case anyone else stumbles over this:

It turned out that Word had saved state to a '.TemporaryItems' folder right at the root of the share.

Apparently its contents were corrupted, causing the described problem.

Deleting the folder resolved the issue.


Why is my husband's iphone now getting my call history

If you both have iPhones the only way your husband can see your call history is if both phones are using the same iCloud account.


The deleted certificate will be restored after rebooting. But why?

I had a possibly similar problem, related to a PPTP VPN and user certs.

Be sure to delete all old certificates from each keychain in Keychain Access. Also: be sure to choose "All Items" as the category.

In any case, I'm curious to hear whether you came up with a solution, so please remember to log any remarks on this page.


How to Retrieve the Wi-Fi Password of a Connected Network on a Mac

If the password is stored, you can find it using the program Keychain Access.

If you open /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access, it will show you a list of stored entries. If you click the Kind column header, it will sort by kind, go to the section where AirPort network passwords are stored. On Yosemite, you may have to select "Local Items" rather than "login" under Keychains in the upper left.

Double-click the name of the network you are using (if you don't know the name of the network, you can find it in the WiFi menulet (the concentric quarter circles toward the right side of your menu bar).

Check the Show password box, enter your system password, and click the Allow button.

That should show you the password for the wireless network you are on, if it is stored on your computer. If no such entry appears, it means the password is not stored on your computer.

Note that you can also use this technique to find saved passwords for websites or other passwords that you computer has stored but you have forgotten.


How to get OS X out of a strange debug mode

Your kid managed to activate VoiceOver. To turn it if, go to Preferences/Accessibility (or try Command-F5 first)


Power Line Adapter (PLA) network reducing Macbook Pro's battery life

How do Powerline Adapters Work?
Powerline Adapters are, in effect, baluns1 that embed an RF frequency on electrical wire.  What they are doing is taking the unbalanced CAT5 signal (which requires a ground connection) and converting it to a balanced RF modulated signal that is transmitted over the building's copper electrical wiring.  At the other end, it does the opposite to convert it back to CAT5
Why should this affect your battery?
The powerline adapter doesn't affect your battery per se.  What affects your battery is how much power is required to make your connection and how much traffic you send/receive.  The more power required, the less life on your battery.
Ethernet (CAT5) is designed for "high speed, long distance, and high reliability (noise immunity).  All of these features generally require trade offs in power consumption."2  Additionally, if the SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio3) is high, it will increase power and/or lower transmission speeds to accommodate
WiFi is basically the same but with the benefit that it will adjust its power based on the quality of the signal unlike Ethernet.    Where your signal is excellent, your WiFi adapter will lower its transmission power as extra power would simply be a waste.  Where the signal quality is poor, it will increase the transmission power to ensure connectivity.
This is also why your cell phone's battery also doesn't last when the signal is weak.
Conclusion...
In your scenario, you may have a WiFi signal that is excellent and for the work that you do, you don't see an impact in terms of speed or reliability going over WiFi.  Your upside is longer battery life.
However, should you have the need for higher speeds (like "moving" vast amounts of data), WiFi simply won't keep up with the transmission requirements.  CAT5 will be the advantage here.  Whether it's on a power line adapter or on a switch will not change the power consumption of Ethernet.

1Balun - Balanced/Unbalanced. A device that links together dissimilar wire types and attempts to minimize any negative effects to the signal that would normally result from the dissimilarity. Dictionary of Networking Terms
2 Microchip - high power consumption in ethernet mode
3 In an electromagnetic signal, the ratio of the amplitude (strength) of a signal to the amplitude of the ambient radiation and other signal disturbances that are present, usually expressed in decibels (dB). Dictionary of Networking Terms.


Denied file read access on file I own and have full r/w permissions on

From debugging a different problem (which showed up as deny file-read-data in the Console, see the other answer), it seems that sandboxd prevents sandboxed applications from reading quarantined data, so I think you'd need to remove the attribute with:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/file

(see for instance https://superuser.com/a/28394/46794). You'd need to prefix the command with sudo if the file didn't belong to your user, but according to your info it does.

The other user reported that using a non-sandboxed application fixed the problem, and this would confirm that sandboxing is at fault.

An aside: When ls reports extended attributes with @ next to the permission field, you don't need ls -le file, but instead ls -l@ file.


Why not have the Air repaired or replaced if it’s causing you interference?

I don’t think we’ll be able to review all the extensive work you’ve done without being in the room with you so unless you think you have marked something as DID NOT WORK when you really didn’t complete those steps, I think this is pretty clearly that you need a router that can accommodate interference from a device that’s failing or you need to remove the failed device from the environment that can’t tolerate it.

Also, a proper wireless survey might find out the details, but the costs and experience are high to do a proper analysis of the actual radio transmissions with WireShark or actually measuring the RFI.


Required: Contacts App for iPhone 5c (IFTTT Compatible)

The IFTTT recipe gets information from a specific source (channel) that is defined in the recipe. In this case I assume that you use a recipe which imports contacts to a spreadsheet on Google Drive and then it only imports contacts from the contacts application (the built-in one).

From what I am aware of there isn't any application currently that offers this synchronisation with Google Drive via IFTTT other than the iOS built-in one.


What do the small-sunrise / big-sunrise icons mean on F5 and F6 on the MacBook Air?

These are for decreasing and increasing the brightness of the keyboard backlight. When the system senses low light and the keyboard is allowed to illuminate, the keys will work. Otherwise, they silently do nothing at all.


Why Did Time Machine Delete My Old Backups?

After a full restore, a full backup is preformed (always). It's by design. This is also documented on the wonderful Podini - About Time Machine site, section TM is doing a full backup for no good reason. Other circumstances, that may trigger full backup, are listed too.

I quote:

  And Time Machine may do a full backup after any of the following:
   * A full restore, whether from Time Machine or a "clone" (probably)


If you absolutely must do it by AppleScript, the simplest way is just to concatenate your textToType with ready-inserted returns.
If you copy/paste multi-line text, AppleScript will insert new line characters \n but these don't actually translate well in other apps

set textToType to "NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE" & return & "Notice 2" & return & ¬
"Notice 3" & return & "Notice 4" & return
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke textToType
end tell

The little 'sideways L' ¬ just tells Applescript that this new line is not a new script line but a continuation of the previous one - so it doesn't scroll right off the page.

Without it the line would look like this

set textToType to "NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE" & return & "Notice 2" & return & "Notice 3" & return & Notice 4" & return

Personally, this is the kind of task I would give to Apple's built-in text replacement function rather than AppleScript.

System Prefs > Keyboard > Text

Hit + at the bottom, type in your trigger word, then copy/paste from something like TextEdit, which will correctly keep your carriage returns.
[You cannot add carriage returns directly in that pref pane, you have to copy/paste an existing source. You also cannot see a multi-line replacement correctly in the pane - but it will be exactly as you copied it, in use.]

Then, every time you type your trigger, it will replace it with your multi-line paste.

After comments - if you need a delay between each line, then you cannot concatenate & must send each call separately

tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE" & return
    delay 5
    keystroke "Notice 2" & return
    delay 5
    keystroke "Notice 3" & return
    delay 5
    keystroke "Notice 4" & return
end tell


Bootcamp issue: The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition

I had the same issue. I solved it with following steps:

Stop Bootcamp Assistant
Eject all external drives (USB sticks and
mounted ISO files)
Restart Mac
Relaunch Bootcamp Assistant

Normally you will be able to follow restore the previous state without Bootcamp partition.

By the way in my case the origin of the problem was probably the use of a MSDN ISO of Windows 10 including multiple installs.

I downloaded an ISO from https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/software-download/windows10ISO and could complete the Bootcamp Assistant.


Is there any way to output to two 1920x1200 external monitors with any of MacBook Pro or Air?

Yes you can, you can run one monitor from the normal monitor port and another from a USB port but you need a special connector which makes the Air think it has a 2nd monitor attached.  Here's an example on YouTube

You need something like the Matrox Dual Head 2 Go which allows you to have multiple monitors with your MacBook.  The performance of USB-attached monitors tends to be worse than those connected with display cables so they would be fine for regular computer use but probably not for gaming for example.

EDIT

With the release of Thunderbolt-capable Macs, you can now drive dual external Thunderbolt displays from MacBooks which have a separate graphics card.


Problems creating Yosemite USB bootable drive

Change

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled 2 --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app --nointeraction

to

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume "/Volumes/Untitled 2" --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app --nointeraction

or

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled\ 2 --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app --nointeraction

and it should work.

You have to escape spaces in paths in the command line either with a \ or quotation marks.


No, there's no authorisation required (besides being logged in on iCloud for Find your Friends on the other phone, which you already indicated is the case). There's no message sent to the phone that was previously the source of the location info.


What are some good resources for learning Dashcode?

There are a bunch of resources available from the Apple Developer Site.

Here is a small list of stuff available:

Dashboard Widget Tutorial

Mobile Safari Web Application Tutorial

Starting a Project


How to create an encrypted volume on an external drive or flash drive

The best way to do this is via Disk Utility in the Application/Utilities folder.
Review pictures for better understanding

Select the disk you want to encrypt

Choose the format method as in the picture, making sure you choose the option with Encryption

Next time you connect the disk, you will be asked to enter password.


Print to File list of media file names, types and most importantly length

You may install the command line utility exiftool.

Then open a text file and copy/paste the following bash script:

#!/bin/sh

find "~/Movies/" -name "*" -not -name ".*" -type f | while read file
do
    FILETYPE=$(exiftool  -p "\$FileType" "${file}")
    FPS=$(exiftool  -p "\$FrameRate" "${file}")
    TOTALFRAMES=$(exiftool  -p "\$FrameCount" "${file}")
    DURATION=$[TOTALFRAMES*FPS]
    echo ${file} ${FILETYPE} ${DURATION} > output.txt
done

Replace ~/Movies/ with the full path containing the movie files and output.txt with your resulting file name.

Save the file to your user's home folder, as 'meta_generator' or by whatever name you want.

Then fire up /Utilities/Terminal.app and type:

chmod +x meta_generator
./meta_generator

Edit:
I just saw that you wanted the length in seconds, so I've replaced the Duration tag.

By multiplying the framerate and the total frame count, you'll get the desired seconds..

But you may find other easier ways though :)


Can Mac OS X Messages support more than one apple id?

AFAIK, this is not possible. You can add multiple E-Mail addresses to one AppleID (System Preferences -> iCloud -> Account Details -> Contact) , but you cannot use multiple AppleIDs for iMessage on one user account on a Mac.


Does Mavericks break the ability to create a wifi network that other devices can connect to?

It still works fine in Mavericks for me. All devices can connect to the networks that I create, so I don't think anything's changed in the OS with regard to this. Creating a non-Apple network should be the same process as creating any Ad-Hoc network.


You can not install CentOS on the internal drive because CentOS does not have a driver needed to access the internal drive. AFAIK, drivers only exists for macOS and Windows. The Windows driver is part of the Window Support Software which can be downloaded from Apple by using the Boot Camp Assistant. The startup manager rEFInd is an exception, because rEFInd uses UEFI based drivers.

You could try installing CentOS to an external drive.


I'm afraid you are correct in your assumption, once a number has been typed and a call initiated, it is not able to be edited within the phone app directly, and needs to be either sent to a new contact where you can then amend the number, or cut/paste elsewhere to allow you to make changes.


Why are Finder contextual menus different on different macs?

The “Make Alias” option doesn’t appear in the contextual menu if it’s not enabled in the menu bar (the option is in the File menu). You should find that the option is enabled on one Mac, but not on the other. The only explanation I can think of is that this is due to differing permissions or due to differing enablement of the new “System Integrity Protection” feature of El Capitan (if the latter is enabled, it prevents everyone, including the “root” user, from writing in the “System” folder). The “Make Alias” option puts the alias in the same folder as the aliased item, and therefore you need to be able to write in that folder to select the option.

An alternative way to create an alias, in a different folder, is to drag the item while holding down the Option (⌥) and Command (⌘) keys.

There’s an Apple support article titled “OS X El Capitan: Create and use aliases” you may want to check out.


Mac Book Pro 2012 Terminal Pass Recovery

This can be done by removing the .AppleSetupDone file, forcing the Mac to go back through the initial setup, part of which includes creating an admin account.  The following steps should walk you through that process:

Shutdown as normal
Power on your Mac while holding command+S to enter Single User mode
Type rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone and press return
Type reboot and press return
The Mac should now reboot and go through the setup assistant, allowing you to create a new admin account.

Once you have an admin account you should be able to use sudo elevation in Terminal and remove any other user accounts on the system.


What does XProtect protect/secure on Mac OS X?

The Xprotect "system" is not really an AV engine as such. It looks for a very limited number of text strings, or "signatures," in specific types of files. For this reason, it is far less useful than a real AV program (up to you if you think one is necessary). In addition, it only checks files downloaded with certain apps: Safari, Mail, Messages, and third-party apps that have activated a setting to use Xprotect to check their files as well. Also, it only sets a flag on files, and depends on user interaction for protection. So an un-savvy user may see the dialog warning that a file is dangerous, but still click the necessary button to open it.

As you say, it doesn't protect against BitTorrent downloads (though specific BitTorrent clients could use the feature), and doesn't protect from files copied from any kind of removable media or files copied over a network.


I cant get into my iphone 5c, becuase the screen doesnt work, and i want to recover my photos

Tyson 's answer will probably work, but it would require that you enabled photo stream before your phone broke. If you didn't, you're kinda out of luck unless you've backed up your phone to your computer previously.

If you have backed it up before, you can use tools like iExplorer (free demo, $35) to read the iTunes backups. They do, however, make you purchase the software if you actually want to pull the photos out, but it may be worth it to some depending on how much they want their photos. Best of luck.


Beeping iPad connects to iTunes in VMWare's Windows 10 but not in macOS

FIX: from: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5523411?start=0&tstart=0

"""tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Location & Privacy. This will also reset your location and privacy settings. You can also untrust all computers by tapping Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings on the ipad/iphone"""

I guess the last part is what fixed my problem as on macOS the question came up if I wanted to trust this computer. After that it worked again. I hope this helps other people looking for a similar problem.


How can I download something with display turned off (Ctrl+Shift+Eject)?

I always use this combo as well, however this does not immediately sleep my machine in ML.

I believe this is a separate issue at play here. According to Siracusa's ML review, unlike in previous OS X versions, in 10.8 your system is eligible for sleep immediately upon "user inactivity" (the inactivity delay being set in your energy saver settings) unless the currently running apps make "power assertions".

In this case, that key combo is signalling to the OS that "user inactivity" should be triggered right away. In such a case, if your particular app that's downloading stuff does not make power assertions, your system will sleep.

I have come across the same issue generally (not necessarily related to triggering the screen sleep combo). See: Mountain Lion sleeps too aggressively


I believe this is a bug in OS X 10.7. I also have a retina MacBook Pro. Mine is 2.6/16/512, and I noticed that there were 0 page outs but a very large swap file being created (mine was about 8 GB). Closing applications actively reduced the swap space being used. Again there were no page outs being recorded.

I believe this has to do with the sleep image file that also gets housed alongside the virtual memory files in /private/var/vm. When pmset hibernatemode is set to 3 (default for laptops, suspend to RAM and disk), sleepimage gets written upon sleep. This is why it takes a few moments for these laptops to go to sleep: it's writing up to 16 GB of RAM to the sleepimage.

However, changing this setting so that the RAM gets powered on sleep and NO sleepimage is written has resulted in no abnormal increases in swap file size. My suspicion is that the sleepimage is in some cases being preserved post-sleep and prompting the creation of swap files. Perhaps it is this incorrect behavior that is also resulting in the unusually large swap file sizes you are seeing.

From the manpage for pmset, to change to NO suspend to disk you would run in a Terminal:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

To delete the sleepimage (and reclaim 16 GB on your computer with 16 GB of RAM), run:

sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

I restart after these operations just to ensure there's no weirdness. On each power source, you can check the status with:

pmset -g

You should be aware that, in the event of a total power loss (battery dies and not plugged in) the contents of the RAM will not have been saved to the hard drive, and you will lose your work. For me, this is a small but calculated risk because the speed of sleep/wake, coupled with the great battery life and reclaimed storage space. Additionally, for me it seems to have mitigated this issue, which I have not seen on any other Mac laptop I've owned. I wish we had those battery indicator lights, though.


Snow Leopard Server 10.6.8 under Fusion 7.1.3 on Sierra 10.12.2

I purchased a Mac Mini version that will only install to a Mac Mini, and even there it was unlikely. So I purchased instead an unlimited version. I expect and hope that it will work along the lines @user3439894 suggests.


No internet access on MacBook Air, though I can connect to networks

Days later, I've finally figured it out.
The com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist file located in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ was corrupted, and for some reason attempts to reset it were not being saved.

I copied this file from a macbook that was able to connect, and, since I'm using Lion, added in the option to allow appending search domains by inserting the line

<string>-AlwaysAppendSearchDomains</string>

in the following position:

<string>/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder</string>
<string>-AlwaysAppendSearchDomains</string>
<string>-launchd</string>

I then restarted the machine. This appeared to do the trick.


I believe that CreateDesktop is set to false. Try running defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool YES in Terminal (unless you are on Mountain Lion or below, in which case the command is defaults write com.apple.Finder CreateDesktop -bool YES), followed by killall Finder. You should be able to view items on and drag items to your Desktop now, including drives.


By "disk on key", I assume you mean USB key?

Is your Disk on Key visible on the desktop? If so, can you right click on it, click Get Info, make a screenshot of it and paste it here?

If you don't know how to make a screenshot, click here

Then, edit your post and add the screenshot.

OK, from your screenshot, it appears your USB Key is formated in NTFS. Mac OS X can read it, but cannot write to it natively.

You have two options

installing MacFUSE and NTFS-3G.
Look here to find out how.
Backup all your data on your USB key and format it to a format that Mac OS X can read and write natively.
I advise you to use ExFAT, since both Windows and Mac (since 10.6.5) can write to it.
For that, use Disk Utility, chose your USB Key, select ExFAT, and format.

Don't forget to backup all your data before formatting!


Shell script to combine PDFs, renaming output

A linked question How can I combine PDF files and automatically create a table of contents? offers a program to do this. I don't know the syntax for scripting it with hazel/applescript/automator/ruby what have you though.


Random patterns all over the place on screen. Activity monitor shows cpu usage is 80% idle... not sure what's going on

Okay... so I found out what the issue was. If you're using a thunderbolt dock and one display cable is connected via the thunderbolt dock, you cannot then connect the other display directly to the macbook. If you do this, the drivers are not capable enough to prevent the pixel tearing effect due to the pictures being slightly out of sync. Once I connected both displays via the thunderbolt dock, it worked fine.


Ethernet connection turns off when my Mac idles

I had similar problem with the wifi I use.

It would disconnect me after certain time of inactivity.

So when downloading big stuff it would disconnect me, unless I was active on the computer/web.

To prevent wifi been disconnected during long downloads or me not interacting with it:

In Terminal I entered following:

ping -i600 google.com

That would send a ping to Google than wait 600 seconds to send another ping and on and on...till I hit the control-C to stop it.

That will tell wifi I am active so it will stay up all the time.

The 600 sec (10 minutes) is a choice, and it worked for me.
In my case it was the WiFi service provider that cut me off after been inactive for a while.


There are a couple of ways of acheiving this:
Adhoc, peer to peer, computer to computer
You can create a peer to peer wireless network between devices that does not require an Access point or other routing device.  This is usually known as creating an ad-hoc wireless network, or a computer to computer one, rather than an infrastructure one.
I currently only have access to a machine with Mountain Lion on, and things appear different (this method is unavailable), but in Lion or earlier you should be able to:

Go to the menu bar, go to your network indicator and choose "Create
Network..."
Enter a network name, and security settings if required
On your iPad, go to Settings, go to WIFI and choose the network you
just created. Enter the password if you set one and you should get
connected.

Any devices connected this network should only be able to communicate with other devices on the network, no routing or other traffic is available.
Internet Sharing
Another option is to use Internet Sharing.  On the off chance that you have free or cheap hotel internet:

Open System Preferences and go to the Sharing pane under the
Internet & Network heading.
On the list of services to the left, select Internet Sharing. Don’t
check it quite yet — there’s a few options that need to be set
first.
Depending on what your current internet source is, select it from
the menu next to “Share your connection from.”. Built-in Ethernet is
a good choice, but if you have a mobile broadband dongle you could
select that also.
In the “To computers using” box, select and check AirPort/Wifi from
the list.
Click on the AirPort/wifi Options button to configure security
settings if you want any.
In the window that pops up, type a basic Network Name, Click OK.
Setting up Mac OS X Internet Sharing
The configuration portion is finished, so the only thing left to do
is check the box next to Internet Sharing and enable it. A
confirmation message will appear — click Start to complete the
process.
Now that your Mac’s internet is being transmitted from your AirPort
WiFi card to other devices, you should see an different icon in your
menu bar. If you do, you’re in business!
On your iPad, go to Settings, go to WIFI and choose the network you
just created. Enter the password if you set one and you should get
connected.

Now any machine connected to the same wifi network can route through the ethernet or dongle connection on the air.  If you have no connection available through those connection, then the same peer to peer communications should be available still.


Hide iPad mail icon without jailbreaking

You can use restrictions in settings, but if you do you cannot access mail without re-enabling it.
To enable restrictions go to settings, general, restrictions and tap on enable restrictions.


Is $HOME/.MacOSX/environment.plist still used in OS X 10.9.2 for setting global environment variables?

You can yourself ensure that this file isn't anymore used with a command as simple as ls.

Just end your actual session, and connect back.
Open Terminal or xterm.
Run the following command:

$ cd ~/.MacOSX
$ ls -luT environment.plist
$

The output of this command will display you when this file was last opened for reading.
If it was opened by any process during your session start, you should
see it thanks to the u option.

To learn more about the investigation possibilities of ls just run:

$ man ls

BTW, your environment.plist file doesn't use the right syntax.
But this doesn't matter.


Messages app gives an upgrade notice but never finishes

I apparently deleted my messages using Onyx. Once I restarted my machine, messages works but fine but all my previous messages are gone.


How can I backup my system to a remote server (AFP, Samba, or NFS share)?

Setup a new volume on your Nexenta/OS box for your backup and set it to share out as an iSCSI LUN. Then use one of several iSCSI initiators for MacOS X to attach the backup volume on your back. On your mac, format the volume as HFS+. Now you can use CCC or rsync, etc. to do your backups.


MacOs BigSur update 11.2.3 hangs with Error Domain=SUMacControllerError Code=7749 in logfile

The solution to this was constantly trying to reboot.
I have left the Mac between 1 and 3 hrs between different attempts.
Then stopped the round and rebooted, retry.
On third attempt the OS was finally installed.
I do not know what the problem was.


Using iMac 27" for displaying HDMI output

It can't be done. The 5K iMacs only have MiniDisplayPort/Thunderbolt output, not input, because DisplayPort 1.2 can't handle video at 5K resolution and so it couldn't be used to drive the iMac as a display in Target Display Mode in the same way as some other iMac models. The 5K display on the iMac can only be used with the iMac, because it doesn't have any inputs capable of accepting a 5K input from another source.


I had a similar thing with an old pen drive that was faulty.
First thing I would do is go to the Console and check whether the OS complains when you insert the pen drive. In my case I would get a lot of I/O errors related to the USB device.
Reformatting and partitioning the thing with Disk Utility solved my problem (but I never trusted the drive again, I have to say)


Share sound output to other macs via wifi/bluetook/magic

There are certainly multiple ways to accomplish this, but what I figured out is the simplest free approach I know of: use SoundFlower (a free download from Cycling 74) to pipe your system audio to iChat, and use iChat to send the audio to another computer.

In your System Preferences go to Sound and set SoundFlower as both Input and Output. Note that this will make your system sound not go through your speakers, so to turn that back on also run SoundFlowerbed (the front end that comes with SoundFlower) and set SoundFlower's output to the speakers.

Now launch iChat and go to Preferences. In the Video/Audio preferences you can set what input to use; it'll probably be defaulting to your microphone but you can set that to SoundFlower. Now when you do a voice chat with someone else they will hear your computer's audio.


There's no way you'll be able to transfer the e-books from the old iPad mini to the new iPad mini 4. You'll at-least need access to the Amazon account that was used to sign into the Kindle app on the old iPad mini.

Kindle allows you to read personal documents and e-books which have been uploaded to the Amazon personal document storage service (without purchasing any e-book or paying anything). The content can be synced into the Kindle app installed on any supported device. But you'll need the login information of the Amazon account at a minimum.

Even if you manage to backup the old iPad mini and restore it onto the new iPad mini 4, the Kindle app will be installed alright, but you'll still need to log into the new iPad mini with the Amazon account credentials which was used to setup the iPad mini.

Once you manage to register the new iPad mini 4 by logging in, you'll have access to the entire library of e-books and personal documents linked to the Amazon account.

To make it clear, the Amazon e-books and personal document content is no way related/linked to your Apple ID and no corresponding data is store in iCloud/Apple's servers.


iPhone says "The Apple Id you entered Couldn't be found or was incorrect. Please try again."

This might have been some kind of outage in the App Store, because it works now, following the exact same steps with the exact same conditions (location, network, etc.).


I'd like to know if there is any way to change the currency of the App store without changing the country of the store?

The App Store uses the currency of the country which you are using to access the App Store. It is not possible to choose the currency at your will, i.e. using South Korea App Store while choosing to pay in USD.

The difference is rates appears due to the exchange rates used by Apple.


Is it normal to have same user logged in twice but from another TTY?

Here's a little more information about what is happening, from a lower level Unix perspective. It's long and goes beyond what you asked, but might be interesting to you or someone else passing this page.

If you look at the w command's manual (man w), it says that "The w utility prints a summary of the current activity on the system, including what each user is doing." That's a little vague, and a little misleading. Specifically what w does is to tell you about current logins. Logins are recorded in a file named /var/run/utmpx. There are common library methods for updating utmpx entries, so that every program that needs to record or remove a login uses the same procedure.

w reads the utmpx file using those common library routines and displays information about current login sessions, along with the foreground process. A login session can be doing many things at once, but only one program is in the foreground. All others are background, which is what happens when you put an & on your command or press control-Z while a program runs in a terminal.

A login session is created when you log in to your computer on the built-in display. If you have user switching enabled, a login is recorded for each user, and remains active until logout. And if you remote login (e.g. with ssh), a login is recorded for that. Each of these should appear in w's output.

Most terminal applications, including Terminal.app and iTerm, as well as xterm if you're using X11.app, are able to create login shells in a window or tab. When you create a new window in one of these applications, you can get another login session, which appears as another line in w. But these applications don't necessarily create login shells! Whether a new window/tab is a login shell is usually controlled in the preferences. For example, in iTerm2, you can choose in Preferences > Profiles > General > Command whether to launch a login shell or some other program. If you just put "bash" there, you'll get a shell, but it won't be a login shell.

So what's the difference? It's subtle, but useful to know about.

There's a good discussion of login shells vs. regular shells here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/38175/difference-between-login-shell-and-non-login-shell. But we can summarize as: a login shell is started as the first process after something sets up a login in utmpx. A non-login shell can be run any time by any program, but is not the first process after an entry in utmpx. (More technically, a login shell is the lead process in a process group. The fact that it usually has a utmpx entry is descriptive, not necessary.)

If your shell is bash, as most are, every instance of it reads and runs the .bashrc file. When bash runs as a login shell, it also reads and runs the .bash_profile and .profile files. Those files can contain instructions that should happen only for all new sessions. That's the main practical thing to know about login shells. That, and login shells appear in w.

Here's an experiment to illustrate. Open a new Terminal window, and run w. You should see something like:

11:57  up 7 days, 59 mins, 5 users, load averages: 3.58 3.53 3.91
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
dgc      console  -                16Aug18 7days -
dgc      s000     -                11:57       - w

s000 is the name of the terminal that you're running w in. It exists on the filesystem at /dev/ttys000. Usually there's a one to one relation between login shells and terminals, but not always.

Now open a new Terminal window. Switch back to the first one, and run w again.

12:09  up 7 days,  1:11, 5 users, load averages: 5.35 4.35 4.05
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
dgc      console  -                16Aug18 7days -
dgc      s000     -                11:38       - w
dgc      s001     -                11:57       - -bash

You see a new login on s001 — /dev/ttys001 — that's running -bash. That hyphen at the beginning is a convention telling you that bash is running as a login shell. There's no foreground program in that terminal, so w shows you the shell itself.

Now switch back to your second window and run bash. What do you expect to happen?

12:13  up 7 days,  1:14, 5 users, load averages: 5.61 5.07 4.41
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@  IDLE WHAT
dgc      console  -                16Aug18 7days -
dgc      s000     -                11:38       - w
dgc      s001     -                11:57       - bash

The hyphen is gone. That's because the same login session (terminal) is now running, in the foreground, a shell that isn't a login shell. It's a child of the original -bash. If you flip back and type exit to quit the child bash, you'll see the -bash again.

Finally, note the console login. That one will never change in ordinary use. It's running the desktop/window system usually. If you turn on your Mac and don't log in, but then you ssh in from another computer, you won't see that line at all. It will always appear idle, and will always appear to be running nothing — except with the hyphen, because it's a login session.

When a program that created a login session ends that login, it goes back and removes the entry from utmpx using the common library methods for it. And because utmpx resides in the /var/run directory, it gets automatically removed whenever your computer reboots — so if you suddenly powered off your Mac while logged in, you don't continue to see fake logins forever.


Mac Sudden Motion Sensor: Obtaining activation state

The Sudden Motion Sensor state is available through IOKit.

An open source library, SMSLib, provides an Objective-C interface and sample command line tool for accessing the state of the Sudden Motion Sensor:

  SMSLib is the software library used by SeisMac and SeisMaCalibrate to access the Sudden Motion Sensors in recent Macintosh laptops. Written in Objective-C, it provides easy and stable access, abstracting hardware differences across eleven different models of laptop. For better accuracy, you can use SeisMaCalibrate to calibrate your laptop's Sudden Motion Sensors. SMSLib is open source, released under the University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License.

Additional sample code and tools are available on Amit Singh's Sudden Motion Sensor page.

A relevant technical question was asked on StackOverflow about this topic, Polling the accelerometer/motion sensor in a MacBook Pro.


Windows print screen when using Boot Camp

Follow these instructions in order to map the F13-F15 keys on an Apple keyboard to the functions, Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Break commonly found on PC keyboards:

On your PC, copy the following lines into a text file.

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,46,E0,5F,00,46,00,5E,00,37,E0,5D,00,00,00,00,00

Rename the text file remap.reg
Double click on the file remap.reg and answer yes to the question about adding the information to the registry
Reboot

Function keys are now remapped to their PC equivalents

Source: MacWindows.com


Lost ability to boot into recovery and bootcamp after resizing partition

When using APFS, the built-in macOS Recovery volume no long appears when the Startup Manager is invoked. You should be able to boot the the this volume by holding down the ⌘ (Command)+R key at startup or restart.

If you can not boot to the built-in macOS Recovery, reinstalling macOS may solve this problem.  This website has a link that will take you to the High Sierra download in the Apps Store.  You should be able to keep all your old files and Applications.

If you still want to boot the built-in macOS Recovery volume from the Startup Manager, then you will need to install a third party boot manager. I have the rEFInd Boot Manager installed on my iMac. Basically, I first boot to the Startup Manager, then to rEFInd and finally to the built-in macOS Recovery volume.

If your Windows files are intact, your problem with Windows could be solved by reinstalling the boot code. The procedure for doing so is given here.

  Note: I have assumed you did not upgrade to Windows 10 from a previous version of Windows that use the legacy BIOS boot method. For example, upgrading from Windows 7. I base this assumption on the lack of a Boot folder in the root of your BOOTCAMP volume.

I should also mention that the 134.2 MB Apple_Boot partition is unnecessary. With the introduction of APFS, Apple has incorporated everything needed to use the macOS operating system into a single partition per drive. This greatly simplifies the process of adding, deleting and resizing APFS volumes. This physical 134.2 MB Apple_Boot partition has been replaced by the synthesized APFS volume named "Recovery".


What happened could’ve been because of different reasons. Certain old Macbook Pros had troubles with sleeping (hence why zneak wants to know about the model).

However I believe that your computer woke up (wake on lan? hung process?) during the night and it burned through your battery. What are your Energy Settings?

Also, get some sort of CPU meter like MenuMeters or iStats Menu (€) and make sure your CPU/Cores are not 100%, that indicates a process that’s using all your CPU power (and a lot of energy!)


How to transfer a Motion (5) project between Macs?

When you save you can save as a folder ("Copy Media"), and it will copy all the media into a folder in the folder of the project, allowing it to be moved around.


Is it possible to have bash escape spaces in pwd?

This command will escape spaces properly:

printf "%q\n" "$(pwd)" | pbcopy

You can alias it using something with history like cwd if you don't mind re-defining a different cwd

alias cwd='printf "%q\n" "$(pwd)" | pbcopy'

Ditch the pipe to pbcopy if you want it to work more like pwd and just print out the escaped path.

Or, to print the pwd while also copying it to the clipboard, use tee and an output process substitution:

alias cwd='printf "%q\n" "$(pwd)" | tee >(pbcopy)'


Is loading your desktop before login safe?

As @eyemyth said above, the script above is the equivalent of choosing "Login Window..." from menu bar when you have user switching enabled.

The only security 'issue' I can see with doing this is that momentarily your desktop will be shown until the computer calls the script - depending on how many scripts you have or how busy your login is that may not be instantly.

Also, someone (correct me if I'm wrong) could boot into single user mode, delete the plist file and then reboot - though this is an extreme.


Best HandBrake-Settings to rip DVD (multi-language) for iTunes / Apple TV / Mac / iPhone etc

First of all "What are the best settings in HandBrake?" is really up to you...

But you can find a lot of good tips on the web, as an exemple from Handbrake: Complete Step-by-step Guide:

  The recommended settings for an x264 video encoding (which is the
  default on Handbrake) is RF (Rate Factor) 18 to 22 for Standard
  Definition. For higher definitions, you can play with the Quality bar,
  19 to 23 for High Definition, RF 20 to 24 for Full High Definition and
  22 to 28 for Ultra High Definition.

For a good quality, but a reasonable size, I'd say you have to have a size file to be at least 1280x720p

Remember to get the Encoder Preset to the slowest mode in order to have the better result in size/quality !

You can set a favorite language (english & german) for audio and subtitles in both tabs.

After finding the best settings that suite you, you can save the preset and let it be the one by default !


Is there any way to block automatic IOS updates?

Google-fu would seem to think the only way is to keep your device too full to take the download.
You can prevent it from downloading over 'mobile data' but not if it can see WiFi.

To prevent mobile downloads, go to Settings > App & iTunes Stores & disable the Use Mobile Data option.
The specific types above are to prevent the phone downloading other data types at all - meaning you will need to update via iTunes on your computer.

None of those options will prevent an iOS update from downloading [even Updates, which you may think would be the one] but the Mobile option will prevent it using your phone's data plan.


Upgrade Cost From Previous MacOS Version to Sierra

Apple last charged for upgrades at 10.8 Mountain Lion. Major upgrades have been free of charge since then. The system requirements are publicly listed.

https://www.apple.com/macos/how-to-upgrade/

  Mac computers introduced in late 2009 or later can be upgraded to macOS Sierra.

You can also rely on Apple providing you a clean copy of the OS that shipped with the hardware via support download if it's Lion or later.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204319


iPhone 3GS locked to at&t. How do unlock it?

You'll either have to get in contact with AT&T, pay a 3rd party to unlock it or jailbreak it.

If you're going to try and contact AT&T then you'll have to go to their website and fill out a form to start the dialogue. If you need a ZIP code Google the one for Grand Central or something.

The GiffGaff Unlockipedia is a good place to start when looking for a 3rd party to unlock the phone. http://giffgaff.com/unlock/apple-iphone-3g-phone

Not so up on the jailbreaking scene these days but Lifehacker is usually good for the information. http://lifehacker.com/5771943/how-to-jailbreak-your-iphone-the-always-up+to+date-guide-%5Bios-61%5D


Safari switching websites back and forth

Sounds like you installed some software that came with a PUP that acts like adware. There are many of these that try to install unwanted programs during an install. They know that people just click OK while installing so they bundle them into the installer for another program.

Read here and check out what programs you have installed over the past few weeks or months. Uninstall third party add-ones until it goes away.


Does Adding Memory to My MacBook Pro Void My Warranty?

No - a simple and properly done RAM replacement does not affect warranty coverage. You can have Apple do the work, or an authorized service provider to do the work or hire someone. Just understand what is covered if something happens before you pay for service.

When someone breaks a mac when it's used in a way not intended, that can result in a denial of warranty service. Also - using aftermarket parts that then damage your mac can also land you in hot water. Luckily with RAM, as long as you don't physically break the mounting brackets, usually the worst thing that happens is your mac is unreliable or panics until you get proper RAM.

The user manual for each Apple product will clearly explain which parts are user replaceable and which are not. You can look up your manual online if you care, but no portable machine other than the MacBook Air has ram that is not user-replaceable.


minimum MacBook and specs required for iOS development

If you want to develop apps for iOS 7 or later, you need to have the Xcode 5+ with Mountain Lion or Mavericks. Snow Leopard or later is required to run Xcode 4+.

Xcode 4+ == iOS 5, 6
Xcode 5+ == iOS 6, 7


What's the dot in the centre of the red window close button for?

Specifically, it means that hitting that button will produce a prompt rather than immediately performing the action of closing the window. While this is usually a save dialog, it could be anything requiring further user action.

In this sense, it is equivalent to ellipses on the ends of menu entries.


Utility to warn when process takes 100% CPU for x minutes?

I don't know if it will accept a time frame as a parameter, but atMonitor definitely will provide Growl notifications based upon specific criteria.

Triggers
Triggers can be setup to activate any script when a predefined value reaches its target. For example, a script could be written to email system administrator when the CPU usage goes above 90%. Two sample scripts, one basic and the other one a little bit more advanced using GROWL, are included.


iTunes suddenly rejecting mp4 downloads from torrent networks

MP4 is a media container format which can be encoded with many different video and audio codecs like DivX, Xvid, H.264, H.263, MPEG-4, AC3, WMA, AAC, etc. While iTunes only support few video and audio codec like MPEG-4 video codec and AAC audio codec; H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec. If the MP4 video is encode with iTunes unsupported video or audio codec, iTunes will not add and play it.

Sometimes, even if the MP4 is in the right video and audio codec that iTunes supports and we can successfully add and play MP4 in iTunes, but if the MP4 video does meet the technical specifications for iOS devices like video size, bitrates, sample rate and etc, we will fail to sync and transfer the MP4 video from iTunes to iPod, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV and etc.

A recommended solution is to convert iTunes unsupported MP4 to a more compatible MP4 video format using HandBrake.


I actually had to enable cua mode manually.  That had not been necessary on my other Mac - so it is strange.
~/.vim/plugin/cua-mode.vim

Taken from:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fabi1cazenave/cua-mode.vim/master/plugin/cua-mode.vim
"|
"| File    : ~/.vim/plugin/cua-mode.vim
"| Source  : https://github.com/fabi1cazenave/cua-mode
"| Licence : WTFPL
"|
"| This file brings Notepad-like CTRL-ZXCV shortcuts to Vim, while preserving
"| all other Vim shortcuts -- like the CUA-mode does on Emacs:
"|           http://www.emacswiki.org/CuaMode
"|
"| It is based on Bram Molenaar's mswin.vim, g:cua_mode sets the behavior:
"|   0. raw
"|   1. CUA mode     =   (default)  CTRL-ZXCV -- subset of mswin.vim
"|   2. mswin mode   =   CUA mode + CTRL-ASY  -- strict equivalent of mswin.vim
"|   3. Notepad mode = mswin mode + CTRL-QOF  -- superset of mswin.vim
"|

" don't load $VIMRUNTIME/mswin.vim
let g:skip_loading_mswin=1

" bail out if this isn't wanted (i.e. when g:cua_mode is defined to 0).
if !exists('g:cua_mode')
  let g:cua_mode = 1
elseif g:cua_mode == 0
  finish
endif

" recommended settings:
" set nocompatible   " required for a multi-level undo/redo stack
" set mouse=a        " enables mouse selection

" set the 'cpoptions' to its Vim default
let s:save_cpo = &cpoptions
set cpo&vim

" behave like xterm when not in GUI mode
behave xterm
if has('gui_running')
  set mousemodel=popup_setpos   " right-click displays a popup menu
  set keymodel=startsel,stopsel " shift+arrows triggers the select mode
endif

" backspace and cursor keys wrap to previous/next line
set backspace=indent,eol,start whichwrap+=<,>,[,]

" backspace in Visual mode deletes selection
vnoremap <BS> d

" don't mess with CTRL-* shortcuts on MacOSX
if has('unix') && (system('uname') =~ '^Darwin')
  finish
endif

"|    Common PC shortcuts: CTRL-ZXCV <=> Undo|Cut|Copy|Paste                <<<
"|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

" CTRL-Z is Undo
noremap  <C-Z> u
inoremap <C-Z> <C-O>u

" CTRL-X and SHIFT-Del are Cut
vnoremap <C-X>   "+x
vnoremap <S-Del> "+x

" CTRL-C and CTRL-Insert are Copy
vnoremap <C-C>      "+y
vnoremap <C-Insert> "+y

" CTRL-V and SHIFT-Insert are Paste
map <C-V>      "+gP
map <S-Insert> "+gP

cmap <C-V>      <C-R>+
cmap <S-Insert> <C-R>+

" Pasting blockwise and linewise selections is not possible in Insert and
" Visual mode without the +virtualedit feature.  They are pasted as if they
" were characterwise instead.
" Uses the paste.vim autoload script.

exe 'inoremap <script> <C-V>' paste#paste_cmd['i']
exe 'vnoremap <script> <C-V>' paste#paste_cmd['v']

imap <S-Insert> <C-V>
vmap <S-Insert> <C-V>

" XXX For CTRL-V to work autoselect must be off.
" On Unix we have two selections, autoselect can be used.
if !has("unix")
  set guioptions-=a
endif
" >>>

" Note: some shells may eat CTRL-S and CTRL-Q (= XOFF/XON) to suspend/resume
" the display.  This can be avoided by adding this to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:
"     stty -ixon

"|    #1 Use CTRL-S and CTRL-Q to do what CTRL-Z and CTRL-V used to do      <<<
"|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
" XXX: not working in gVim

" CTRL-Q <=> rectangular selection or special character insertion
noremap <C-Q> <C-V>

" CTRL-S <=> suspend Vim (resume with fg)
noremap <C-S> <C-Z>
" >>>

"|    #2 Alternative: mswin-like behavior for CTRL-SAY                      <<<
"|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
" This should be strictly equivalent to the $VIMRUNTIME/mswin.vim behavior.

if g:cua_mode < 2
  finish
endif

" CTRL-S is Save
noremap  <C-S>      :update<CR>
vnoremap <C-S> <C-C>:update<CR>
inoremap <C-S> <C-O>:update<CR>

" CTRL-A is Select All
noremap  <C-A> gggH<C-O>G
inoremap <C-A> <C-O>gg<C-O>gH<C-O>G
cnoremap <C-A> <C-C>gggH<C-O>G
onoremap <C-A> <C-C>gggH<C-O>G
snoremap <C-A> <C-C>gggH<C-O>G
xnoremap <C-A> <C-C>ggVG

" CTRL-Y is Redo (although not repeat); not in cmdline though
noremap  <C-Y>      <C-R>
inoremap <C-Y> <C-O><C-R>

" ALT-Space is System menu
if has('gui_running')
  noremap  <M-Space>      :simalt ~<CR>
  inoremap <M-Space> <C-O>:simalt ~<CR>
  cnoremap <M-Space> <C-C>:simalt ~<CR>
endif

" CTRL-Tab is Next window
noremap  <C-Tab>      <C-W>w
inoremap <C-Tab> <C-O><C-W>w
cnoremap <C-Tab> <C-C><C-W>w
onoremap <C-Tab> <C-C><C-W>w

" CTRL-F4 is Close window
noremap  <C-F4>      <C-W>c
inoremap <C-F4> <C-O><C-W>c
cnoremap <C-F4> <C-C><C-W>c
onoremap <C-F4> <C-C><C-W>c
" >>>

"|    #3 Alternative: Notepad-like behavior for CTRL-QSOAYF                 <<<
"|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
" This should be close to the Notepad behavior, though not equivalent.
" If you're looking for a more Notepad-like experience, try `vim -e` (Cream).

if g:cua_mode < 3
  finish
endif

" CTRL-B is Block selection
noremap <C-B> <C-V>

" CTRL-Q is Quit (unlike mswin)
noremap  <C-Q>      :quit<CR>
vnoremap <C-Q> <C-O>:quit<CR>
inoremap <C-Q> <C-O>:quit<CR>

" Next/previous with F3/Shift-F3
noremap    <F3>      n
vnoremap   <F3> <C-c>n
inoremap   <F3> <C-o>n
noremap  <S-F3>      N
vnoremap <S-F3> <C-c>N
inoremap <S-F3> <C-o>N

" Easy open/find/replace
if has('gui_running')
  " CTRL-O is Open
  noremap  <C-O>      :browse open<CR>
  vnoremap <C-O> <C-C>:browse open<CR>
  " CTRL-F is Find
  noremap  <C-F>      :promptfind<CR>
  vnoremap <C-F> <C-C>:promptfind<CR>
  inoremap <C-F> <C-O>:promptfind<CR>
  " CTRL-H is Replace
  noremap  <C-H>      :promptrepl<CR>
  vnoremap <C-H> <C-C>:promptrepl<CR>
  inoremap <C-H> <C-O>:promptrepl<CR>
else
  " CTRL-O is Open
  noremap  <C-O>      :edit .<CR>
  vnoremap <C-O> <C-C>:edit .<CR>
  " CTRL-F is Find
  noremap  <C-F>      /
  vnoremap <C-F> <C-C>/
  inoremap <C-F> <C-O>/
endif

" Bonus: word-by-word caret movements

" CTRL+arrow/backspace/delete
inoremap <C-BackSpace> <C-o>db
vnoremap <C-BackSpace> <C-c>db
inoremap <C-Delete>    <C-o>dw
vnoremap <C-Delete>    <C-c>dw
inoremap <C-Left>      <C-o>b
vnoremap <C-Left>      <C-c>b
inoremap <C-Right>     <C-o>w
vnoremap <C-Right>     <C-c>w
inoremap <C-Up>        <C-o>{
vnoremap <C-Up>        <C-c>{
inoremap <C-Down>      <C-o>}
vnoremap <C-Down>      <C-c>}

" ALT+arrow/backspace/delete -- meta sets the 8th bit
inoremap <M-BackSpace> <C-o>db
inoremap <M-Delete>    <C-o>dw
inoremap <M-Left>      <C-o>b
inoremap <M-Right>     <C-o>w
inoremap <M-Up>        <C-o>{
inoremap <M-Down>      <C-o>}

map <M-Left>  B
map <M-Right> W
map <M-Up>    {
map <M-Down>  }

" ALT+arrow/backspace/delete -- meta sends escape
inoremap <Esc><BackSpace> <C-o>db
inoremap <Esc><Delete>    <C-o>dw
inoremap <Esc><Left>      <C-o>b
inoremap <Esc><Right>     <C-o>w
inoremap <Esc><Up>        <C-o>{
inoremap <Esc><Down>      <C-o>}

map <Esc><Left>  B
map <Esc><Right> W
map <Esc><Up>    {
map <Esc><Down>  }
" >>>

" restore 'cpoptions'
set cpo&
let &cpoptions = s:save_cpo
unlet s:save_cpo

" vim: set fdm=marker fmr=<<<,>>> fdl=0:


What is kernel_task reading and writing?

As the name suggests, kernel_task is like a task master and does a lot of system tasks for the macOS kernel.

Reading and writing to disks is one of the tasks it performs, so a lot of system data or app data may be read and written through kernel_task. So obviously it will show a high count. One thing to particular check is RAM usage - if you don't have enough RAM for some task, macOS will create swap memory on your disks and that also will count towards the high read and write in disk activity for kernel_tasks. This can explain what you are experiencing - swap memory read / write are temporary writes and so don't show up as using your disk space.

Chrome is known to be both a CPU and memory hog. Dump it and switch to Safari or Firefox which use less resource.

Note that kernel_task also plays a role in managing the CPU temperature, which may show it as using high CPU in Activity Manager. So if it is showing as using a high percentage of CPU, you can temporarily kill other apps or processes using most of the CPU as they are the cause why kernel_task kicks in (higher CPU usage = higher CPU temperature).


Do I need Hibernate option ON for my Retina Macbook Pro?

No - almost no one is so starved for battery power that full on Hibernation mode makes sense for them. So for any Mac with a battery - keep with mode 3 and avoid modes 0 and 25.

I never change Apple's default settings unless I have a reason that I can write down in a sentence as to why I want it changed. In this case, there's no real benefit to me for the alternate modes (and certainly not for any further unsupported combination that the full man page and pmset allows)

Here is the manual page for pmset which has very excellent help and documentation on hibernate mode (I wish all man pages were this awesome):

 We do not recommend modifying hibernation settings. Any changes you make
 are not supported. If you choose to do so anyway, we recommend using one
 of these three settings. For your sake and mine, please don't use any-
 thing other 0, 3, or 25.

 hibernatemode = 0 (binary 0000) by default on supported desktops. The
 system will not back memory up to persistent storage. The system must
 wake from the contents of memory; the system will lose context on power
 loss. This is, historically, plain old sleep.

 hibernatemode = 3 (binary 0011) by default on supported portables. The
 system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and
 will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless
 a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.

 hibernatemode = 25 (binary 0001 1001) is only settable via pmset. The
 system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and
 will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If
 you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery
 life, you should use this setting.

So, as you can see - Mode 0 (binary 0000) is not really helpful for a retina MBP and doesn't save any battery. Mode 3 (binary 0011) is the default and what I recommend. If you didn't mind a slower sleep and higher amount of data written to the drive each time you enter sleep (as opposed to the write happening once sleep has drained the power to a low warning level around 5% reserve) you might try using Mode 25 to see if your slower sleep/wake is worth the extra battery life preservation since the Mac won't sleep but instead hibernates all the time with power off when the normal sleep time comes.


You can find a full list of what apps are operating and backing up to iCloud under Apple ID > iCloud on an iOS device. Like Notes, Safari, Home, Health etc etc


Moving websites saved to the iPad Home screen to Safari bookmarks on Mac

Follow these steps:

Tap on icon on Home screen of iPad to open in Safari.
Once the website is open in Safari, tap on the share icon and add the website as bookmark in Safari.
Repeat for all the website icons on Home screen one by one.
Go to Settings app → iCloud and turn on switch for Safari.
On your Mac, turn on iCloud sync for Safari.
The bookmarks should show up in Safari on Mac.


Why does .tar.gz automatically extract the GZip archive when I download it in Safari?

Disable 'Open "safe" files after downloading'.
Safari > Prefs > general


macOS Catalina has a new feature to further isolate the OS from data. In the APFS container it is installed within, an APFS volume for the OS is created alongside one for your data. The former is mounted read-only within Catalina, and the latter has the Data postfix containing your apps and data.

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/103/

Within Catalina, Disk Utility shows these volumes with a Finder icon and home icon to distinguish them. This does not appear in Mojave, showing as normal volumes. Keep in mind the release notes for the beta of Catalina, specifically dual booting and Spotlight indexing, which will heavily confuse Mojave with the cross-volume linking of various folders.


Apps:
All Apps that are eligible for family sharing will be available on a new AppleID that is added to Family Sharing.
Keep in mind that In-App purchases are not shared. More detailed info is available in the Apple Support Article.
A desktop computer (preferably a Mac) would probably be the easiest way to properly distribute the content. Set up both the new and old AppleID and then use the appropriate Apps to move/copy the calendars/events/contacts/...


Can i Print to a dell 3010cn from Snow Lepoard

I was able to achieve success.
On my Ubuntu box I got it to print over wifi,
And on the mac I could print through the Ubuntu Box as a print server.
I used the windows box I have as a server and it worked. No control of any options though.
 Never Could print directly though.


Yes, you can make the header row(s) or column(s) float on top of everything else.

Tap the information button (the circled i) in the toolbar at the top of the screen. Under the "Headers" tab, select how many header rows or columns you would like, and set "Freeze Rows" to ON.


Read the file, then extract the paragraph
Very simplified...
set theFile to open for access myPath
set fileContents to (read theFile)
close access theFile
set myParas to count paragraphs of fileContents
repeat with i from 1 to myParas
    set myText to myText & "\n" & paragraph i of fileContents
end repeat

tell application "app" to activate
tell application "System Events" to keystroke myText


MacOS Mojave Boot Camp: Your Disk Could Not Be Partitioned

Just found out why it wasnt working, there was partition called “Free Space” in Macintosh HD i removed that but now i have a new problem, im gonna search up how to fix it, and if none of it works, im gonna make a new question


How do I bypass "this connection is not private" warnings in safari?

Press "Show Details", then press "Visit this website" on the bottom, and the "Visit Website" from the pop up.
Note: if you're still getting this issue after installing the cert, try to edit in keychain access app: locate the cert that you just installed and double click to open the cert, expand "Trust" and change "When using this certificate" option to "Always Trust" close it and refresh the page again, it should work.


Icons in Finder, Safari, Mail, and Dock are not visible

Try Safe Booting once. It causes all caches(including icon caches) to be rebuilt.

Steps for Safe Boot here

Choose Apple menu > Shut Down.
After your Mac shuts down, wait 10 seconds, then press the power button.
Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold down the Shift key.
You should press the Shift key as soon as possible after you hear the startup tone, but not before.
Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple logo and progress indicator.
To leave safe mode, restart your Mac again, but don’t hold down any keys during startup.