Unfortunately you can not reorder sections in Lion as of 10.7.2. You can only reorder items within the sections. You can also remove items by holding Command and dragging the icon off the Finder window.

I'll create a Apple bug report about this because I think it would be nice to rearrange the sections too!

Update: It looks like you can hack a plist to enable this reordering functionality but do so at your own risk. This will also likely be overridden in a future OS X update.


Is there a way to delete the last 3 backups from Time Machine?

To answer your direct question, yes, you can delete backups by going into Time Machine, clicking on the backup in question (on the right-hand column), then right-clicking on your computer's name in the sidebar in the Finder window and choosing Delete Backup.

You should be able to downgrade without deleting backups, though. In order to do so, you'll need to do a few things.

First, disconnect your Time Machine drive so nothing happens to it during the following process.

Next, if you have any critical files that were created since you installed Sierra, copy them to another drive or a cloud service like Dropbox.

At this point you'll need to create a bootable USB flash drive with the El Capitan installer on it.

Download the El Capitan installer from the Mac App Store again. When's it done downloading it will try to run, and that will cause an error that it can't be run - don't worry about it. Just move to the next step.

Format the USB flash drive as HFS+ and name it whatever you like, but don't include spaces - the example used here is ElCapInstaller. If you change the name of your drive, change that name where it appears in the below command.

Once you have your USB flash drive ready, create the installer by opening Terminal and copying and pasting the following command:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/ElCapInstaller --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app --nointeraction

(Again, replace ElCapInstaller with the name of your USB flash drive if you changed it.) This may take up to 30 minutes or more but it will tell you in Terminal once it's complete by showing "Copy Complete" and then "Done". Wait for "Done".

Reboot your computer with the flash drive still attached and hold Option as it's starting up. You will be shown options for startup disks. Select the flash drive you previously created by double-clicking on it.

At this point you want to reinstall El Capitan by erasing your hard drive. Otherwise you won't be able to proceed. Remember, you have a Time Machine backup in case anything goes wrong.

An OS X Utilities window will appear. Select Disk Utility and click Continue.
Once it launches, select the Mac’s hard drive in the left column. Click the Erase tab, and in the windows that appears, name your hard drive and select one of the OS X Extended formats, then click the Erase button to wipe out everything on the hard drive.

Once Disk Utility is done reformatting, quit the app. This will take you back to the OS X Utilities window.

Select Install OS X, click Continue, and proceed through the installation process.

Once the installation is complete and you're at the desktop, re-connect your Time Machine drive and run Utilities/Migration Assistant in your Applications. This will walk you through the procedure of restoring your files from your Time Machine backup. Obviously you will need to select one from before you upgraded to Sierra.


How do I move files to external HD via Terminal?

Based on your question it appears the problem you're having is related to the use of ~ in the external drive file path in the terminal commands you're trying to use.

Basically, the tilde symbol (~) in macOS command line usage refers to your home directory, e.g /Users/Veronique.

So, if you're trying to run a command such as: cp ~/Desktop/*.jpg ~/Volumes/1 this won't work because it's looking in the wrong place for the drive named 1. Instead, the command you need to use would be:

cp ~/Desktop/*.jpg /Volumes/1

Remember also that if your external drive name has a space in it, then you need to factor this into your command. For example, let's say you're trying to copy a file called ATM.jpg from your user Desktop folder to an external drive called Backup Drive, then your command would be:

cp ~/Desktop/ATM.jpg /Volumes/Backup\ Drive

Note the use of the backslash and space to denote the space in the external drive name.


How to compile apps with g77 on OS X Lion?

g77 is not part of Xcode. You may have a look here http://hpc.sourceforge.net/ which provides a version compatible with Lion and XCode 4.x.

  On LION, with XCode 4.3 you will need to download the command-line tools as an additional step. You will find the option to download the command-line tools in XCode 4.3's Preferences


modprobe: FATAL: Module wl not found.on Macbook Air running Kali Linux 4.3 trying to setup Wifi

I was having the same problem, and finally found a way to fix it. Run this script that download the necessary headers the missing module.

https://gist.github.com/speeddragon/2d4ea420a8a53407cb8218fa28c2a74b

I didn't test the script, but it should work.

The issue is the following. Kali doesn't show available the 4.3.0 linux-headers and necessary packages (like kbuild) to build the module when you install "broadcom-sta-dkms".

After install the necessary things for 4.3.0 kernel, you install the "broadcom-sta-dkms" again and "modprobe wl" should work.


How do I dual-booting Ubuntu on a Macbook pro?

rEFIt is the best way to allow dual-booting on a Mac. I use it to boot Ubuntu from a partition on my external drive, and it works perfectly. Be sure to back up your hard drive before proceeding.

  Install rEFIt and make sure it is working (you should get a boot
  chooser on startup) Use Bootcamp or Disk Utility to create a partition
  at the end of the disc. Don’t worry about what format, just make it
  the size you want for Ubuntu and your swap partition. If you you are
  using OS X Lion which comes with Bootcamp 4.0 you will need to use the
  Disk Utility. Boot Camp 4.0 will only allow you to resize if you
  provide a Windows 7 installation disk. Boot the Ubuntu desktop CD, and
  select "Try Ubuntu. Start the partition editor (gparted) under System
  -> Adminstration. Use gparted to delete the partition you just made in OS X. It should be the last partition on the disc and follows after
  the HFS+ partition (OS X). Deleting it will leave an area called
  unallocated. This is free space, and exactly what you want. Use
  gparted to manually partition the space on your drive for Ubuntu.
  First create a SWAP area of about 1GB. Then the rest of the
  unallocated area format as EXT4. Apply changes and take note the label
  of the EXT4 partition such as /dev/sda3.

  Start the Ubuntu Installer from the desktop icon. When prompted,
  choose to manually partition. Select the EXT4 partition and click
  change. Select to use the space as EXT4 and root (/) as the mount
  point. You will also want to check the box to format the partition.
  Reboot when done with the install, and in the rEFIt menu, choose the
  partition tool. It will attempt to sync the partition tables on your
  disk. Then SHUTDOWN the computer (not reboot), and start it again. You
  should be able to boot to Ubuntu now. If it seems to freeze on the tux
  logo, completely shutdown again and try one more time.

This is a summary of a process described by the detailed how-to process here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MactelSupportTeam/AppleIntelInstallation#Detailed_How-To


Trying to backup MacOS on a USB key get error 254?

Make sure you've selected the volume, not the disk, in the list on the left. I saw the same error when I tried using the disk selected.  Also note, making a copy of a booted system may not produce the best results...


Does iMessage cost extra if I have another device?

Messages is free if you are texting someone with the email address ( which is the only thing available on the iPad). If you are on the iPhone and texting another phone, then it will count as a text for the service provider. However, any iOS 5 and above device has messages installed and it is free.


Applications occasionally start showing "The document could not be autosaved" dialogs

It seems that this is actually a bug in Apple's sandboxing implementation. This means that none of the steps above should help. We had the same console output in one of our applications (including the inability to save text) and spent quite some time on finding the cause of the bug (see this radar). From what we've found out, it seems that after retrieving the recently opened documents for a number of times, the application cannot save files anymore because it does not get the permission to do so. You could try clearing the recently used documents menu, maybe this helps.


Can I use an iPad effectively without a computer to dock it to?

If you get a 3G iPad, I think the 3G data plan has to be activated through iTunes.  If you get Wi-Fi-only iPad, this isn't an issue.

Note that you can probably get by if you have a friend with a Mac or PC who will let you sync once in a while for these rare needs.

Syncing is also useful for these needs:

Backup
Transferring photos (although you can e-mail them instead)
Syncing calendar and contacts
Getting music, videos, and books from iTunes Music Store (you can d/l songs over the air, but I think the other media types have to be done through desktop)

But if you don't need those areas of functionality (and many people won't), then you won't miss syncing.  Basically, if you don't expect to use Apple's built-in apps, you won't need sync.

MobileMe is really only useful if you have a Mac or PC.  It makes it easy to sync calendar and contacts across multiple machines over the air.  A few third-party apps use it as well, but not many.

Third-party apps typically sync over the air, because Apple's sync is not very open to third-party developers.

FWIW, since getting my iPad, the only time I turn on my MacBook is when I want to backup/sync purchases or charge my iPad.  I'm not saying that the iPad is a complete substitute for a laptop, but it is definitely a useful device all by itself.


How does FileVault 2 recovery key stored in iCloud work?

The recovery key absolutely isn’t stored locally by Apple, so you either need a safe place to store it where you won’t lose it or Apple will help store it for you to recover later when you choose to unlock the Mac by reading the key from iCloud.

in a nutshell, your iCloud password gets you your key back instead of you needing to choose where to store it (paper in a safe, 1Password app, word document, under the keyboard, screen capture of the image of your key on screen, etc...)


iCloud Keychain out of sync after Mac user password change

Probably I found an acceptable workaround:

disable the iCloud Keychain (keeping a local copy)
change password,
log out and log in again into your User account
re-enable the iCloud Keychain

It seems to work with any need to log out from iCloud and/or loose data.


sounds like you are using an image as your background screen. Go to the iTerm2 menu and select Preferences. Under Preferences select Profiles and then go to the Window tab. See the image below. Check if you are using an image for your background. If you are click the enable box to turn it off.


How can I install Fritz 16 on a Mac running macOS Mojave?

There is a repository of the state of Wine support for a lot of applications on https://www.winehq.com. The entry for Fritz is here.

PS: Current state of support deliberately not included in the answer because it can change anytime.


Updates impact on /usr with SIP Disabled

There is no way of knowing in advance. Security and minor upgrades replace these parts of the system which Apple considers relevant/in need of fixing. While the chance that the whole /usr gets replaced is probably small it may not be very wise to rely on it.


It's not worth the potential fire hazard. If you go to Apple.com and look at the reviews on the MacBook chargers, people are very frustrated with the need to replace the chargers so frequently due to wear exactly where you described it. I would highly recommend replacing the charger over repairing it.


How is OS X able to authenticate to my router even when the disk is removed?

The information is stored in your NVRAM and potentially in a keychain on the Recovery HD. You can clear it like this: How to Reset NVRAM on your Mac

See this for more details: How to prevent storing the WiFi password on the recovery partition?


Why have 5 different iMacs developed corrupt OS X partitions when the physical drives are fine?

HFS Plus (HFS+) is a fragile and a little outdated filesystem. If you google it, you'll find many reports of filesystem corruption.

Rebooting without unmounting the filesystem is the best way to corrupt it. This happens when the mac freezes for some reason (in my case it's the nvidia video card) or power failures.

Here are some tips, that IMHO should lower the chance of filesystem corruption:

When system freezes, try rebooting from ssh. When the graphics subsystem of my mac freeses, it's still accessible via SSH - try opening ssh connection from your network and reboot it. You could use Apple Remote Desktop (€62) for this task. You should enable ssh access first.
Do diskutil verifyVolume / periodically. Yes, even if HFS+ is a journaled filesystem, corruption is possible. You could use Apple Remote Desktop to run this on all classroom computers at once.
Use multiple volumes. Using multiple volumes should reduce chance for corruption. Splitting / from /Users/ should make restoration easier (either / or /Users will be corrupted). Note that this probably could complicate things with Bootcamp.
Mount partition(s) with options, which reduce writing. Mounting partitions with noatime option should reduce writing on it. By default every time  a file is accessed, it's access timestamp is "touched".
Make sure there are no attempts to mount HFS+ partition from other os-es. Is it possible that someone is starting a linux distro from usb/dvd and mounting / in rw mode or playing with journal settings?

Hope my answer is helpful.

PS: corruption usually is gradual not sudden. There is a possibility that something specific is causing this, software or workflow. My mind is at Parallels 5, but it should corrupt the bootcamp volume, not the MacOS one. Searching their KB does not reveal anything useful.

PPS: it is fragile because it has no actual system to correct corruption within a file. A journal records transfers and attempts to recopy data in order to return the filesystem to a consistent state but if the file lost is vital (like actual filesystem structure data) then there is no recourse. In fact, because the Catalog File (which is lists all the logical data information) is stored as a file, if it corrupted in certain places your entire filesystem is rendered useless garbage data, or partially tended garbage in the event that it is corrupted and the a journal replay occurs which causes it to restructure the filesystem in a way that is not consistent with the data (e.g. file a and b are 1MB and 2MB respectively  but the replay changes them to be 2MB and 1MB resulting in half of the contents of B being inside A).


Onyx (free)

Verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its System files, to run misc. tasks of system maintenance

Configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, QuickTime, Safari, Mail, iTunes, Login window, Spotlight, and many of Apple’s applications

Delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome, and more.

...

Removing duplicate files is not supported by Onyx.


An endless supply of 1's for securely overwriting and erasing a disk

The file for endless ones is located in /usr/bin/yes 1 - you can often use the backtick character ` to execute that program in place, but you could also set up a named pipe if you really wanted a place to get ones.

Rather than use dd - you might have much better luck with a tool designed specifically for the task.

https://github.com/rentzsch/stressdrive - source code to verify 100% overwrite
diskutil zeroDisk disk3
diskutil secureErase 4 disk3

The level for secureErase can be 0-4 according to the man page and your taste for the number and types of overwrites.


Convert a date string for date or systemsetup command

To properly set a more or less current system date and time with date and wget use:

sudo date -f "%d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z" "$(wget -qSO- --max-redirect=0 google.com 2>&1 | grep Date: | cut -d' ' -f5-9)"

Using ... cut -d' ' -f5-8)" (see your comment) will omit the time zone and you would have to add 1 or 2 hours depending on the state of the day light saving time to adjust your local time.

The result of wget -qSO- --max-redirect=0 google.com 2>&1 | grep Date: | cut -d' ' -f5-9 is something like 12 May 2017 12:17:00 GMT.

So the date/time format of the date command to set date/time has to be %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %Z. Since May is the short as well as the long name of the month and we don't really know the format of the month's name in Google's reply, %b may have to be replaced by %B in June :-).

Due to retention and other deficiencies this is not very accurate and the ∂ is up to 3.5 seconds (usually 0.32 seconds here) compared to the time received via ntp.

To get rid of the sntp error mentioned in your comment, do the following:

sudo touch /var/db/ntp-kod
sudo chmod 666 /var/db/ntp-kod

Now sntp fr.pool.ntp.org and sudo sntp -s fr.pool.ntp.org should work.


Prevent page reload in safari due to excessive power usage

I found this apple support discussion on the matter:

  Well, my "solution" so far has been to run that process in Chrome
  instead of Safari. Not only does Chrome let it run for as long as I
  like, it turns out that it's able to execute it more than twice as
  fast (for this particular case).


Where does this "delayed send" capability in Mail come from?

It looks like you must be using the Mail Act-On 3 Mavericks beta.

They have a link on their page to it and some what's new info.

  What is new in Mail Act-On 3

  Mavericks Support Mail Act-On 3 now supports OS X 10.8 and 10.9 New
  interface Reply Templates Composer options including setting delivery
  times specifying outbox rules to apply specifying archive mailbox for
  sent mail


Open Terminal.app and enter:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -I

You have to be connected to a wireless signal. The output will look similar to the following:

     agrCtlRSSI: -64
     agrExtRSSI: 0
    agrCtlNoise: -91
    agrExtNoise: 0
          state: running
        op mode: station
     lastTxRate: 130
        maxRate: 144
lastAssocStatus: 0
    802.11 auth: open
      link auth: wpa2-psk
          BSSID: 28:cf:da:b1:6:77
           SSID:
            MCS: 15
        channel: 6

Most of the data is self explanatory. agrCtlRSSI is the signal strength; the closer it is to 0, the stronger the signal. agrCtlNoise is the noise on your Wi-Fi signal; you want this as low as possible. Finally, maxRate is the maximum rate at which your Wi-Fi signal can run at, and lastTxRate is the last transmitted rate.

You can also use this Terminal command to scan the airwaves for other Wi-Fi signals to connect to (I believe this is what you were looking for):

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -s

This returns something like:

            SSID BSSID             RSSI CHANNEL HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group)
             28:cf:da:b1:06:78 -73  100,+1  Y  GB WPA2(PSK/AES/AES)
           dlink 00:19:5b:de:4e:36 -90  6       N  -- WEP
    FON_BELGACOM 06:19:70:1e:c3:6e -77  1       N  BE NONE
      bbox2-f279 00:19:70:1e:c3:6e -77  1       N  BE WEP
   telenet-6F8E6 5c:35:3b:1e:88:20 -91  11      Y  -- WPA(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/TKIP,AES/TKIP)
             28:cf:da:b1:06:77 -65  6       Y  GB WPA2(PSK/AES/AES)

If you’ll be using these commands a lot, you might want to add /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources to your $PATH, like this:

# Place this in your `~/.bash_profile`
export PATH="/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources:$PATH"

That way, you can simply use the airport command without typing the full path to the binary every time:

airport -I
airport -s

Source


How to access ITunes Store in foreign country

It depends on the country you will plan to open the account on.

For example, if you want to open an account on US or UK, you could select None as payment method. Payment methods you can use in the iTunes Store, Mac App Store, App Store, and iBooks Store, same website for UK.

If you want to open in in Spain, you don't have this option. ¿Qué métodos de pago puedo usar en el iTunes Store?.

Best option is to open any websites I post before, go to the bottom of the page, select the country you want and check available options.


Our iPad is asking for a 4 digit passcode that it never asked for before

Check that your iPad is not in lost mode by going here. If so, disable it by going to Find my iPhone on another iPad or iPhone or going to icloud.com on a computer and then go to Find my iPhone. Click on the device on Find my iPhone and click Lost Mode and then turn it off.

A more likely story is that someone could have enabled "Restrictions" on your iPad. There are some ways to find out this code, or to disable Restrictions all together.

Before you do any of this, just make sure that you have Restrictions enabled by going to Settings → General → Restrictions and then click on that and if you are prompted to enter a 4 digit code, just try once more at guessing the 4 digit code.

If it still does not work, plug in your iPad to a computer. Make a backup on iTunes with the current settings. Then follow this tutorial. This is for both Mac and PC.

Cheers and good luck!


Make existing PDF searchable ( OCR ) via command line / script

What you want is Tesseract OCR. It's an open source OCR that is maintained by Google and supports a variety of platforms.  It also has a native command line interface.  It's exactly what you're looking for and available from the Mac ports project as well as homebrew.

Project Home: https://github.com/tesseract-ocr

How to install on OS X: http://blog.matt-swain.com/post/26419042500/installing-tesseract-ocr-on-mac-os-x-lion

Usage Example: tesseract -l eng input.pdf output


How to Show Virtual Keyboard in El Capitan?

System Prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard > Show Keyboard, Emoji & Symbol viewers in menu bar.


Terminal - don't require password for shell script to run

You can add a rule to the /etc/sudoers file to give your user access rights to networksetup without a password.

Note the user name of the user account which should be allowed to run the command (you can get the user name by running whoami in Terminal)
Log in as an admin user
Open Terminal
VISUAL=nano sudo visudo - opens the sudoers file in a kind of friendly editor
Jump to the bottom
Add

USERID-FROM-STEP1 ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/networksetup

followed by an empty line(!)
Save and quit

You should now be able to run networksetup as the user from step 1 without a password prompt by simply entering sudo networksetup.


Not getting new voice mail after switched iphones/sim card

Ring your provider - sounds like something needs to be switched over from their end.
[I've had similar happen with an updated SIM, same phone, same number.]


How can I get admin access to a Mac without knowing the current password?

With macOS Catalina and many recent macOS - the built in tools guide everyone how to reset admin permissions without needing any of the single user mode boot tricks of old (left at the bottom for posterity and people running OS that were shipped before 2015)

Now - follow the official Apple triage steps: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202860

Instead of single user mode, boot to recovery and use the Terminal Utility. Then you can remove the .AppleSetupDone file from:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD\ -\ Data/private/var/db

There are many ways to reset the login password without installation media, here are three:

Change the password in single user mode

Hold ⌘+S on startup
mount -uw / (fsck -fy is not needed)
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist (or /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist in 10.6)
dscl . passwd /Users/username (without a trailing slash) and enter a new password. You can ignore the error about com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist.
reboot

Create a new admin account

Hold ⌘+S on startup
mount -uw / (fsck -fy is not needed)
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot
Go through the steps of creating a new account. You can leave all fields in the personal information step blank.
After logging in to the new account, go to the Users & Groups preference pane
Select the old account, press the Reset Password... button, and enter a new password

Restart and enter Recovery mode (for 10.7 Lion and newer OS only)

Hold ⌘+R on startup
Open Terminal from the Utilities menu
Type resetpassword and follow the instructions

Using iCloud Recovery Mode (10.9.x & newer)

After incorrectly entering a user password three times at the Mac login screen, a message appears saying "If you forgot your password, you can reset it using your  Apple ID"
Click the arrow button to bring up a "Reset Password" dialog
Enter the Apple ID login information that is tied to the OS X user account and click “Reset Password”
Click “OK” to confirm the new keychain creation
Enter and verify a new password, fill out the password hint field, and again click on “Reset Password”
Click “Continue Log In” to login as the user account with the reset password


How do I change/delete alias in OS X permanently?

I just solved it.
In order to make permanent change to alias, I need to edit a config file.

nano ~/.bash_profile

Than I enter the GNU nano editor window, then I make the change to the line that I want, maybe delete a line or change a line, for example:

alias name='/Applications/FunProfile/GoodProgram'

Then press control+o to save it, next press control+x+enter to exit it.


iMac running High Sierra is very slow — photoanalysisd can't be killed?

If you use iCloud  photos and sync with another device, you can turned off the photos sync on Mac. In case you go to turn it back on and it gives storage full error, do as suggested in download iCloud photo to mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 in second paragraph.

However this will bring the problem back if you would want to use photos later. So best shot can be leaving it on overnight by disabling sleep in System Preferences and keeping it plugged in. This might give it enough time to complete the analysis.


Stop Mail from previewing pdfs and images in the body of an email

It seems that the display of images (including PDF documents) can be disabled using this Terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing 1

The display of images/PDFs can be re-enabled by using this command:

defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing 0


iMac 2006 stuck at grey screen with apple and spinner

I removed the new hard drive and re-installed the original drive. It booted up with no issues. I connected the new drive externally and checked it under Disk Utility. It appears the hd was corrupt and needed repair. I verified the new drive when I originally cloned it so not sure where things went wrong. Anyways I erased and recloned the drive. All is good.


Why does an empty `~/Movies` folder take up 273 GB?

Based on the suggestions in the comments, I performed the following commands in the terminal:

~ $ cd Movies/

Movies $ du
0   .

Movies $ ls -la@
total 0
drwx------+  2 administrator  staff   68 Jun 11 13:41 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 23 administrator  staff  782 Jun 11 21:31 ..

Movies $ touch file

Movies $ ls -la
total 0
drwx------+  3 administrator  staff  102 Jun 12 10:20 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 23 administrator  staff  782 Jun 11 21:31 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 administrator  staff    0 Jun 12 10:20 file

Movies $ rm file

Movies $ ls -la
total 0
drwx------+  2 administrator  staff   68 Jun 12 10:20 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 23 administrator  staff  782 Jun 11 21:31 ..

Movies $ mkdir dir

Movies $ ls -la
total 16
drwx------+  4 administrator  staff   136 Jun 12 10:20 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 23 administrator  staff   782 Jun 11 21:31 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 administrator  staff  6148 Jun 12 10:20 .DS_Store
drwxr-xr-x   2 administrator  staff    68 Jun 12 10:20 dir

Movies $ rm -r dir

Movies $ ls -la
total 16
drwx------+  3 administrator  staff   102 Jun 12 10:20 .
drwxr-xr-x+ 23 administrator  staff   782 Jun 11 21:31 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 administrator  staff  6148 Jun 12 10:20 .DS_Store

Movies $ du
16  .

Movies $ du -h
8.0K    .

Movies $

Get Info on the folder now reveals it to have 6K (for the .DS_Store that showed up with the folder creation, no doubt). Honestly, I didn't check the Get Info after each command, so I don't know which, if any of the above fixed it.


Whole disk encryption. How can the kernel be encrypted?

At the most basic level, Apple controls the firmware and stores the absolute minimum information needed to present the illusion that an OS is running at the pre-boot log in screen when FileVault is enabled.

This is documented quite extensively by Apple:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201159 - Product security certifications, validations, and guidance for macOS
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837 - Use FileVault to encrypt the startup disk on your Mac
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862 - Mac Computers that have the T2 chip

Prior to the T2 chip which serves as a sort of trusted module to authenticate if the OS being booted is properly signed / encrypted and/or not tampered with, this pre-boot information can be stored in NVRAM as well as the EFI / recovery HD which don’t get encrypted with a key that needs a user password/passphrase to unlock the main storage.

When you change the background or users that are allowed to unlock FileVault - this cached data is saved outside the encrypted portion of the disk so we are presented with the icons and graphical log in screen. When I see Apple say the startup disk is encrypted, I take that to mean the Macintosh HD logical volume only which stores all user data and all OS but not the firmware and pre-boot data. (except for the T2 chip enabled hardware which are special cases and not the norm yet)

You can confirm this with either commend below based on whether your OS supports APFS and APFS containers which is the new standard for volumes and encryption or HFS+ and Core Storage containers.

diskutil cs list
diskutil apfs list

The other exciting change that’s in progress relating to the T2 chip on the new MacBook Pro and the iMac Pro is that it can enforce encryption to the internal storage whether or not anyone takes the second step of FileVault encryption. Specifically, it will generate an encryption key and start encrypting all data before the user account is even created. An SSD from any of these will not be readable if taken to another computer whether that computer has a T2 chip or not. The keys needed to decrypt the entire drive are stored solely in the Secure Enclave.


Which 8GB iPod touch do not support iOS 5?

I will attempt to straighten all this out. Apple has a nice tool to enter a serial number into a web site and it will look up what model you have for you.

http://support.apple.com/manuals/#

You can even paste your serial number after the # sign above rather than pasting it into the search field. This is generally all you need to determine which generation of device you are being sold or have been sold.

The simple answer for OS levels for a specific device is to trust iTunes to always update a device if it is capable of a newer OS than it detects: If you connect your iPod touch to iTunes on a Mac or PC and click on the "Check for Update" button, and it does not indicate that there is a new iOS update for your iPod touch, then your iPod touch is already running the most recent version of iOS that it can run. Thus, it cannot run iOS 5.1.

I own a 4th Generation 8GB iPod touch, model MC540LL, and it does indeed run iOS 5.1.1. So it is not true that there is no 8GB iPod touch that can run iOS 5.1.1.

It appears from MrDaniel's link to everymac.com that the 8GB iPod touch owned by @Harriz_shiddiq does not run anything higher than iOS 4.2.1. Here is further evidence:

According to the complete history of model releases of the iPod touch, there is no such thing as a 3rd Generation iPod touch in the 8GB size. The 3rd Generation of the iPod touch only exists in 32GB and 64GB sizes. You can see for yourself in the internet archive's way back machine by examining the treatment of the model comparisons at the bottom of this page. The tech specs make you choose between identically sized models (visually identical externally) to see the specs for the 8GB model for sale or the 32/64 GB model for sale. The latter ones allow for headphones with remotes - the former ones do not. As far as I can tell, this also is a nice way to tell apart 3rd gen and later iPod touch as they can all use headphones with Apple remotes. All 2nd generation devices can not.

The downloadable free app MacTracker provides a database of comprehensive specifications of all the iPod touch models along with their chronological release history. From using this app, I've found the following information.

September 2007: iPod touch 1st Generation in 8GB and 16GB sizes (iOS 3.1.3 maximum)
February 2008: iPod touch 1st Generation in 32GB (iOS 3.1.3 maximum)
September 2008: iPod touch 2nd Generation (MB model designation) in 16GB and 32GB  (iOS 4.2.1 maximum)
September 2009: iPod touch 3rd Generation in 32GB and 64GB (iOS 5.1.1 or latest)
September 2009: iPod touch 2nd Generation (MC model designation) in 8GB (iOS 4.2.1 maximum)
September 2010: iPod touch 4th Generation in 8GB, 32GB and 64GB (iOS 5.1.1 or latest)
October 2011: iPod touch 4th Generation in 8GB, 32GB and 64GB in white color (iOS 5.1.1 or latest)

I cannot find Apple model number MC086ID/A, reported by Harriz_shiddiq, within the MacTracker database. MacTracker reports that there were two Apple model numbers for the 2nd Generation 8GB iPod touch: MB528LL/A, released September 2008, and MC086LL/A, released in September 2009.


If the drive started out on Vista I'd assume it has been formatted using the NTFS filesystem. You can confirm this by selecting the drive in the Finder, right-click it and selecting "Get Info" from the menu. The Info window will list the format under General.

Unfortunately on Macs by default NTFS is always mounted read-only.

There are a number of options to enable write access on OS X. There are commercial products like Tuxera NTFS for Mac  and Paragon's NTFS for Mac OS X. There are also free open source solutions like NTFS-3G and if you are confident in using the Terminal you can use something like brew to install NTFS-3G.


AirPods only note their location in Find My iPhone when they pair with your device. They have no built in location tracker and no way to communicate to the internet except through your paired iPhone or iPad or Apple Watch.

The person may have reset them, but even if they didn't you wouldn't get any location updates unless the thief walked by and remained in range of your device long enough for the AirPods to pair.

The reset doesn't change the identity of the bluetooth module so that may have nothing to do with locating them, either.


hfs-bless / Booting into MacOS / Windows directly from Ubuntu (triple boot, MacPro 4,1 -> 5,1)

I know it's an old thread but for your information: you can still download mactel-boot .deb package from this link http://ppa.launchpad.net/detly/mactel-utils/ubuntu/pool/main/m/mactel-boot/mactel-boot_0.9-1~xenial_amd64.deb (Xenial version). It's install smoothly in Ubuntu 2018.04.3 LTS correctly and, apparently, works.


How to stop announcing the time on macOS Big Sur 11.0.1

You can disable this in System Preferences -> Dock & Menu Bar -> Clock

The setting is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.synthesis.general.prefs.plist:
$ plutil -p com.apple.speech.synthesis.general.prefs.plist
{
  "SpokenUIUseSpeakingHotKeyFlag" => 1
  "TimeAnnouncementPrefs" => {
    "TimeAnnouncementsEnabled" => 1
    "TimeAnnouncementsIntervalIdentifier" => "EveryHourInterval"
    "TimeAnnouncementsPhraseIdentifier" => "ShortTime"
    "TimeAnnouncementsVoiceSettings" => {
      "CustomVolume" => 0.5
    }
  }
}

You can use any Plist editor (or defaults) to change the setting, it may require a restart (or killing the Dock) though to get activated.


Using Time Machine with a already used NTFS disk

Time Machine requires an HFS+ partition on the drive, it can't use an NTFS formatted one, even with MacFUSE installed. The way to do this would be to shrink the NTFS partition, then make a new HFS+ formatted partition to use with Time Machine (you can do this with Disk Utility). Unfortunately OS X can't resize NTFS partitions, you'll need to use a Windows machine to do it, then use OS X to create a new HFS+ partition.


How can I get Quicksilver to open bookmarked URLs in Chrome?

There is now a Google Chrome plugin for Quicksilver (with documentation). Version 1.0 was released on April 27, 2012.


How do I disable a password for already purchased apps

Have you tried Settings > iTunes & App Stores > Password Settings.

Under Purchases and In-App Purchases you'll have the option of either always requiring the password or to require it after 15 mins. (That is, you enter the password in once and for the next 15mins you won't be asked again).

Below those options you also have the Free Downloads setting where you can choose not to require a password at all for free downloads.

NOTE: If you don't see the password settings mentioned above, then you've got Touch ID turned on for purchases, in which case these settings aren't avaiable. To change this go to Settings > Touch ID & Passcode.


External Microphone input for MacBook Air 2012

That TRRS socket actually has of odd configuration of 4 pins so that you can use the genuine Apple headphone/microphone all-in-one 4-pin combo that comes with iPods & iPhones etc. Generally they look like this:

Here is your microphone, right? The Sennheiser ME3. Notice there is a locking ring on that plug? Also, notice how there are two little black lines on the end there? That is the insulation separating the 3 conductive contacts aka 3 pins This is a TRS plug: ( - )( + )(⏚).

It comes with the following caveats:

  1. The plug on your microphone has a rotating "locking ring", you have probably found that the microphone isn't working, or works only
  sporadically depending on the connection. The issue is that locking
  ring prevents the non-standard plug from fully engaging when plugging
  into your sound card.
  2. Please note that all versions of the Sennheiser ME3 are wired differently than usual headset microphones and are not electrically
  compatible with many computer sound cards.

First of all, you're probably going to need something like this:

  3. Additional Note:  This adapter does not change the unusual wiring scheme used by Sennheiser in the manufacture of the ME3.  The ME3 is not compatible with all sound cards.  If you are having trouble, we recommend you interface your ME3 with an external USB sound adapter, such as the Andrea Pure Audio (MA) adapter, Buddy 7G or the SpeechWare MultiAdapter.

I don't know what's up with the strange wiring scheme. Maybe it's a stereo microphone, maybe it has something to do with their noise cancellation feature, maybe they use some weird shielding in their cable, maybe they're using balanced cables, maybe they just decided to use an odd wiring scheme and call it a proprietary connector, preventing people from using aftermarket accessories, maybe it was an accident. I can only speculate without digging deeper or seeing a schematic or something. If it were me, I would probably cut the plug off and wire it in a traditional manner. Apparently though, these are compatible with the Sennheiser ME3. They are known as The Andrea Pure Audio USB-SA Adapter & The Andrea Pure Audio USB-MA Adapter, respectively.

If by some miracle you have an ordinary connector, or you find a suitable line-level adapter to make things "normal", you're probably still going to want one of these;
1/8" TRRS male to 1/8" TS female input & 1/8" TRS female adapters:
Yes, it looks and sounds weird. The 4-conductor TRRS plug on this cable uses the CTIA standard configuration, which puts the microphone signal on the sleeve (versus being on the second ring in the OMTP standard). The CTIA standard has always been used by Apple and HTC, while older Samsung, Nokia & Sony Ericsson devices (for instance) initially used the OMTP standard.

Plug the 3.5mm (1/8") male TRRS plug into the audio jack on your laptop.
The smaller of the two 3.5mm (1/8") female jack bodies is the TRS stereo headphone output. Plug your standard earphones, headphones, speakers, or other output device into this jack.
The larger of the two 3.5mm (1/8") female jack bodies is the TS mono microphone input. Plug your (hopefully, now) "standard PC style microphone cable" into this jack.


What external monitor to buy that has same clarity as the MacBook?

720, 1080, 4K or 5K are all measures that imply the
total pixel count of the display.

Retina is a marketing term that describes a pixel density that is high enough that an average user in normal conditions cannot see the individual pixels.

The short answer is you can go 4K up to about 25" but by the time you get to 27", the pixel density of a 4K monitor starts to get too low to be considered retina. 25"-27"+ you need to start looking at 5K monitors to get retina pixel density.

I use a 24" LG Ultra HD (24UD58-B) and I smile each time I sit at the computer because it looks so good and the price was right.

Hope that helps!


Remote controlling a Macbook Pro with the lid down?

There is probably not going to be an offical way to do this but, what you want to do is disable the laptop from sleeping when the lid is closed. And adujust the energy saver settings in System Preferences to never let the Computer Sleep. Then use your existing VPN  tunnel as expected.

See Is there any way to set a MacBook Pro to not sleep when you close the lid? for suggestions on ways to stop your Mac Book Pro from sleeping when the lid is closed.

  The top rated suggestion was downloading InsomniaX to disable sleep mode.


Mac Mojave : Permission denied error on creating Image using Disk Utility

I suspect that Disk Utility does not allow you to save an image inside the source of that image itself. How can it make an image that includes itself?

If you still get the error saving to another volume, then there may be some other issue.


This appears to be a bug with enterprise distribution in iOS 8. If you updated to iOS 8 and had an app with the same bundle identifier installed (i.e. the same app) then you'll be unable to install the app.

A workaround is to change the bundle identifier in the distribution plist. This doesn't require the actual bundle identifier of the app to change, just the distribution plist. Alternatively, you can wait until Apple fixes it.

SE have used the workaround to fix the iOS app beta distribution, as discussed in chat and on the aforementioned meta question.


Is there a way to split touch bar to have both function keys and touch bar utilities

BetterTouchTool can do this. You can add your own buttons to the Touch Bar, placing what you wish instead of the app controls area on the bar. To retain the control strip alongside BTT, select the app to customise on the left, then App Specific → Touch Bar Behaviour → ‘Show Better Touch Tool Touch Bar, show system control strip’.

Keep in mind the left half isn't always empty unless you're only using apps which don't provide app controls on the Touch Bar. Using Better Touch Tool for a certain app hides the app controls area.


How to enforce sandbox rules for the particular app?

Yes, you can change the binary, or even change the Info.plist, but like changing the binary you make will need to do this again each time the app is updated. There's no way to do this without changing the app in a way that won't be overwritten when it's updated.

You can automatically make your changes with a Launch Agent.
Save the following in ~/Library/LaunchAgents as com.yourname.youragent.plist, then run launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.yourname.youragent.plist.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.yourname.youragent</string>
        <key>OnDemand</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Program</key>
        <string>cp</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/Users/grgarside/test/MyApp</string>
            <string>/Applications/MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/</string>
        </array>
        <key>WatchPaths</key>
        <array>
            <string>/Applications/MyApp.app/Contents/MacOS/MyApp</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</plist>

The above script will watch the WatchPaths for any modifications (in this case, it's watching the binary for an app) and will run cp to copy your binary to the app in /Applications.


What version of Ruby ships with OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion)?

On my 10.8.1 system:

/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/ian [ian@Ian-Cs-MacBook-Pro] [15:48]
> which ruby
/usr/bin/ruby

/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/ian [ian@Ian-Cs-MacBook-Pro] [17:49]
> ruby --version
ruby 1.8.7 (2012-02-08 patchlevel 358) [universal-darwin12.0]


AppleShowAllFiles does not show hidden files

The bundle identifier is com.apple.finder in lowercase.

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES would also write the setting as a string, but it doesn't usually matter though.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
osascript -e 'quit app "Finder"'


No, when photos from the Camera Roll are added to an album, it does not result in double the storage space being used. The Photos.app just tracks those photos as being part of that album, in addition to being in the Camera Roll (which is the default album). Note that if you delete these photos from the Camera Roll, they will get deleted from the album too (because there's actually only one copy of the photos on the device).

If you add photos from the Camera Roll to another app and save, the other app receives its own copy of the photo. You can then delete the photos from the Camera Roll and have them only in the other app.


It's a good idea to keep the machine shaded, if only because it's very hard to read any screen in bright sunlight. Also, on my deck in  Carmel Valley California I've had a thermometer placed in direct sunlight read well over 100 deg F (37+ deg C) when the air temp has been around 80 deg F (26 deg C). Your Mac exposed in direct sunlight could well burst through Apple's upper limit even when the ambient temperature is below.


Spotlight finds Notes via magnifying glass, but not via Finder "Find" or mdfind

The Notes app in macOS does not display notes as files on your computer regardless of whether they are synced to iCloud or not.

The Spotlight service is designed to display relevant information to a user by having access to all Apple apps (and most App Store apps) and their content. Notes does not store its content as a simple .txt or .rtf files so it gets its information by querying the app for the content you provide it. The app responds and Spotlight will open the app for you.

This database of content is rebuilt every time Spotlight indexes your computer. You can force Spotlight to re-index your machine by following the steps in this article: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201716

Finder works differently as it will only search for physical files on your computer, meaning that notes will not show up.


How to fix links after importing a PPT onto iPad's Keynote?

Keynote for iPad doesn't support links inside the presentation itself (per Apple's Keynote for iPad FAQ). Or at least it doesn't currently; KN/iPad is already a lot better than it was when it first shipped.


Messed up color profiles in Mountain Lion

Eventually I had to fresh install Mac OS X to fix this.


Apple Hardware Disk Utility Unallocated Space on my Hard Drive

OS X Yosemite automatically converts hard drives to Core Storage volumes, whose sizes can't be changed. You need to undo the Core Storage conversion.

Here are instructions for making that happen. (source - this method worked for me). This method should be non-destructive, but as always, take a backup first!

Boot into Recovery HD. If for any reason you don't have Recovery HD, then you'll have to make a bootable Yosemite drive and boot into that.
In the Menu Bar, select Utilities > Terminal.
Run diskutil cs list. You'll get an output that looks like this (credits to the Ask Different user in my source):

Select your Logical Volume ID (the one highlighted in the screenshot) and copy it to the clipboard.
Run the Terminal command diskutil cs revert Paste-Your-Logical-Volume-ID-Here.
Run diskutil cs list to verify that your computer can't find any CS volumes.
You're done! Now Disk Utility should be able to resize your HD!


2007 Imac with 10.5.8 Leopard with mini-DVI port to HDTV not working

Apparently older Macs don't support audio through HDMI. Audio needs to be transmitted separately through the jack connection on your Mac, just as if attaching speakers.

Then depending on your TV could be jack or RCA.


Do you use more mobile data with Wi-Fi off than with Wi-Fi on (connected to Wi-Fi or not)

You can measure this yourself by going to settings app and using the reset option to then track data and watch how much you use over a set period and then again repeating the steps with Wi-Fi in the other state.

In general, you should leave Wi-Fi on so that it connects when it can if you are concerned with mobile data usage.

I can't see a situation where an app developer would notice that Wi-Fi was off and then send more data over mobile/cellular data, but it's something that a developer could in fact do.

You'd have to measure things to be 100% sure. My guess is even if there is a difference, it would be so small as to not matter, though.


Your battery is dying.  It's time to replace it.
You have very similar symptoms to the issue in this other post Fully charged MacBook Air turns off when power cord removed, but the major difference is that you have enough "juice" to allow macOS to suspend rather than just turn off all at once.
One of the biggest factors in batteries dying is it's age.  This is a 2013 MacBook Pro, so it's got 6 years on it.  The average lifepan of a battery is 3 to 5 years so (some last only 2 while some go 6 or 7), you're outside it's usable life.
Battery utilities
Coconut Battery, et. al. are neat little tools, however, they can only give a point-in-time calculation of your battery's heath.  It does it by measuring the current (volts and amps) and the current draw.  What it can't do is measure the charge like a fuel gauge in your car.
This is why you're seeing the (confusing and conflicting) "battery's ok but system sleeps when not plugged in" symptom.


Excel 2016. Automatically creating ranges based on cell contents then conditionally formatting the range

This is pretty easy in Excel 2016 for Mac.

Set up your grid and select the range.

Define your three color conditional coloring to the range.

Enjoy


What's the accepted "abbreviation" for the original iPhone?

Unlike the newer iPhone models, the first iPhone did not include UMTS/HSDPA - also referred to as 3G - but only GSM/GPRS/EDGE, which are referred to as 2G.

The terms 2G, 3G and 4G refer to the x'th generation of a cellular wireless standard.

Therefore, you can search for cases that refer to the iPhone 2G. If you want to be abosultely sure, use the model identifier number when searching: A1203.

Terms used for the first iPhone include:

original iPhone
iPhone 2G
iPhone EDGE
iPhone 1

Here's an overview of celluar standards from Wikipedia:


Catalina reopens app windows upon login despite turning it off

You probably have you login profile set to launch those apps no matter what. For example I want Mail.app and Calendar.app to launch even if I have reopen windows unchecked. Look in Preferences under Users and Groups


restore replacement iphone 5 from damaged iphone 5

Apple has created help for such situation.

If you forgot the Apple ID use the https://iforgot.apple.com/appleid

If you forgot the password or the Apple ID use the
Answer your security questions

Use these steps if you know the answers to your security questions:

Select “Answer security questions,” then click Next.
Select your birth date, then click Next.
Answer your security questions.
Set a new password and select Reset Password.

Manage your Apple ID primary, rescue, alternate, and notification email addresses

Add, change, or delete the several types of email addresses you can use with your Apple ID account. Primary email address

Every Apple ID account has one primary email address, and that address is your Apple ID. When you create an Apple ID, you enter the primary address to use as your Apple ID.

Your primary address is also the contact email address for your account. Check it regularly, because it receives email that you need to manage your account. For example, before you can use a new or changed Apple ID, you need to verify it as directed in a verification email that Apple sends to that address. Didn't receive the email?


Is the keyboard on the 15" Mac Book Pro with Retina display different than others in size?

No need to worry - at present, the only MacBook with a physically different keyboard size (in the US) than the rest is the 11 inch Air.

The small Air has a full sized "main keyboard" but the top row of function keys are slightly smaller than the top row of function keys on the rest of the lineup. I would presume that the same holds for international key layouts when they have different enter keys or additional physical keys, but don't know that fact for sure.

The cover you mentioned will fit the new retina MacBooks - both 13" and 15" - as long as the hardware is a US model.


Erase Data on my stolen phone without password

It's sad you learned a lesson the hard way.

Because the phone had no passcode, the thief (or anyone else who happens upon it) can see contacts, photos etc. When you get a new phone, it is highly advised that you add a passcode. The time and inconvenience of unlocking when you use the phone is worth the security.

As for the stolen device, It is recommended that you should at least change your Apple ID password.  Instructions can be found here at Apple Support.  I is unlikely that the thief will guess your old password, but if the current password is weak or can be easily guessed (or worse, you have it plain to see in the Notes app) he could do even more damage to your personal data.  If you have any other Apple device that uses your Apple ID this could be a serious problem.  He could even purchase apps at your expense, change the password himself and lock you out.

If you are still concerned and you have your original proof of purchase, a call to Apple Support may be an option.


How can I Playback video files with no stop?

Unless you are willing to edit the videos together in one long video. I would use VLC, or load them all into iTunes (if the videos are iTunes compatible) and make a playlist to playback your videos.

With VLC you you should see very little dead time between videos, but you might get some jumping on the screen if they are of different resolutions. With iTunes it can be hit or miss depending on the format of the videos.

Here's the VLC playlist setup instructions: https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Playlist/

You could do what you want with QuickTime, but it's rather tricky, and not as full proof as it was with QuickTime 7, or as easy as it is with VLC.

There's also the Elmedia Player, MPlayerX (which is based on open source), and 5KPlayer if you are looking for an alternatives to VLC or iTunes. I have used the Elmedia Player before when I needed to have Flash videos play in the mix. But I don't know if I would go with the 5KPlayer (even though it does supposedly have AirPlay support). It's from a Chines company that doesn't seem to be fully Apple Certified from what I can tell, so I'm not sure I would trust them.

I should also note that you will want the videos on a FAST SSD drive that's internal to your system, or connected over a fast connector. Otherwise part of the delay you will see between videos will be based on the load speed of the videos from whatever drive they are on.

I hope this helps.


Is there a way to generate random passwords in Safari, without iCloud?

No there is no way in Safari directly,

You can only go directly to the Keychain
(Spotlight -> Keychain // or via the Finder -> /Applications/Utilities/Keychain.app)

and create a new Key (CMD+N).

You will get the window with the little key icon and when you click on it, it will show you a little popup with the Password Assistant.


Early 2011 MacBook Pro 17" to 30" cinema display

Your particular model of MacBook Pro was equipped with an AMD Radeon HD 6750M dedicated graphics card and on-board Intel HD 3000 graphics card. In terms of VRAM you have 1 GB available on the AMD and 384 MB on the Intel (shared with main memory).

This combination is capable of up to 2560 x 1600 pixels on external displays that do not require a dual-link DVI connection.

If you're finding that the highest available resolution is 1280 x 800 instead of 2560 x 1600, this is likely due to you using a single-link DVI connection on a display that requires a dual-link DVI connection. Unfortunately, the 30" Apple Cinema Display is one such monitor.

You would need to connect this display to a dual-link DVI port to access the higher resolutions available on the 30" display. However, your model MacBook Pro does not provide a dual-link DVI connection without an appropriate adaptor and that is why it's not supporting the 30" Apple Cinema Display at its native 2560 x 1600 resolution.

For best results you will need to use a Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter.

You should refer to this info on Apple's website. Also of interest may be this Mini DisplayPort adapter FAQs page.


When will Finder use large amount of memory?

This  inconvenience is caused by a finder prefs entry:

"show in new window: all my files"
this is consuming too much mem. Select a different folder and all is fine


Things are way weirder than I thought!  The way that I access my three shares is:

afp://192.168.1.100/Share1
afp://192.168.1.100/Share2
smb://192.168.1.100/share3

With all the entries deleted from the keychain and I do a "Connect to server", I am prompted for the server side credentials.  If I enter them and do not check "Remember this password in my keychain", then all is well and I can correctly log into any of the shares.
The issue seems to be when I do check "Remember this password in my keychain".  From experimenting, the keychain only remembers the credentials per IP address and per protocol.  So that there was always only ever 2 different entries in my keychain: one for afp://192.168.1.100 and one for smb://192.168.1.100 and that the keychain would ignore the share name itself for a single protocol/IP pair when retrieving the server credentials.
So the sequence of events seems to be:

(no credentials in keychain)
Access afp Share1
Prompted for credentials for Share1
Check "Remember.." and the correct credentials are saved for share1 in my keychain.
Access afp Share2
The keychain gets excited and says "Hey I've got credentials for that IP address and that protocol - here they are!!!!!" and totally ignores the share name itself.
Somehow the system then connects to afp Share2, but with the wrong password.
With the wrong credentials applied, I end up with a read only access to the share.

I only noticed this because previously I hadn't saved the password for either of the afp shares.  Over the weekend I updated the server and as a part of checking that I could access the shares I finally checked the "remember .. " check box.  But I didn't get an error or notice that the second share was read only until today when I was trying to use the system.
I did check the smb share and this was connecting as read/write.
Note that I tried to fix things in my Keychain by renaming the afp share entry in order to disambiguate the two afp shares.  However this didn't solve anything.  It seems the keychain only cares about protocol/IP pairs


iMac display goes to sleep randomly during use -- how and why? Are there event logs?

You may have a Hot Corner checked. if your mouse touched a hot corner it will respond in a chosen way. One Hot Corner action is to put display to sleep. To check this go to System Preferences, Desktop & Screen Saver. Click on the Screen Saver tab and at the bottom of that pane is a button for Hot Corners. Click this and see if you hve a hot corner set up.


Apple Music: "For You" section not refreshing on iTunes 12.2

In iTunes, open the dropdown menu for your account (to the right of the apple logo at the top of the screen) and select "Choose Artists for You."
On the next screen (floating bubbles of "what you are into"), hit "next" without making any changes.
On the next screen (floating bubbles of "your favorites"), hit done.

On my Mac, this refreshes the "for you" every time. Pressing the "new" button as suggested by others has no effect on my Mac.


double-side printing: blank pages are not counted as even?

Preview should normally print blank pages in a PDF document. They are still valid page objects. There is no setting in Preview itself to skip blank pages.

It's most likely that your printer has its own setting to eliminate blank pages. You'll need to check its configuration to see if such a thing exists and is on.


Is 64-bit a requirement for publishing to the iOS App Store?

Apple just announced that starting 1. February 2015, apps have to support 64 bit. Source: https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=10202014a. So, it will then be a requirement.


What I believe you can do is to use VLC instead of the built-in DVD Player app to play your DVDs.

I've had a similar problem, because DVD Player always wanted me to pick one region. I then discovered that if I play the DVD in VLC it doesn't ask me about any region settings and just plays the movie.


I think your Mac book not providing proper current and voltages. A normal wired mouse requires 5 volts of voltages and 0.9 ampere of current to work properly


Serial terminal not taking keyboard input

Usually this means that either:

(a) the target device is not sending back any response to your keystrokes

or

(b) your flow control settings are incorrect

or

(c) you have a defective cable.

If (b) is the case, you'll to make sure that the settings XON/XOFF, RTS/CTS and DTR/DSR are set correctly. You can just try flipping them manually, as nothing "bad" happens if you set them incorrectly (except not being able to send/receive data).

If (c) is the case, try with a different cable. It is possible to have a cable that only works in one direction due to a hardware problem.


Is there an external battery available that is compatible with iPhone 4s and 5s?

Yes.  Most external batteries that are USB can be hooked up to both the 4S's 30-pin port and 5s's lightning port.  As long as one end of the connecting cable is USB and the other end is the corresponding type for the iPhone in question.  One example is:

http://www.mophie.com/shop/iphone-4s-4/powerstation-smart-phones-tablets


No. Messages are not synced in this manner. The only sync is whether or not a particular message has been read. Once a message is delivered to a device/computer, it stays on that device/computer until it is deleted specifically from that machine.


How do keep auto-correct from making one particular change

Add a text replacement for srs to srs. This appears to preempt autocomplete from changing it. The technique is the similar to this answer for how to choose the correction to a typo.

To suppress a specific auto-correction:

Open System Preferences
Open Keyboard
Choose the Text tab.
Click the + below the replacement list.
Add the same word to the Replace and With columns
Close System Preferences.


MacBook 2015 (model A1534) Compatible with 2016 Retina Display (model A1534)?

Just an update, I ordered a new Retina Timing Controller (TCON) Board Flex Cable and replaced the old one and the computer is back to perfect condition.  I thought this would be the case since I had a lot of trouble removing it from the original display assembly AND since after the original damage the screen was still getting power (light), but unable to display anything, however after going back and putting the original, damaged display on after the new one didn't get any power, the damaged one wasn't getting power either.


Cannot get duplication of screens to work with mini display between iMac & Macbook

The problem is that you need to use a Thunderbolt Cable to use your iMac in Target Display Mode.  From Apple's website:

From your original question, you mention that you purchased a "mini display" which I can only deduce is that you meant that you bought a "mini Display Port cable."  If this is in fact the case, it's the wrong cable; which is why it's not working.


Find my iPhone shows family members' devices

That’s due to Family Sharing, indicated by the “…’s Devices” header on each section. If you’re an adult member of Family Sharing, you see all the family devices on Find My iPhone.


The simply answer is, unfortunately, that it will likely not be possible to recover notes that were deleted through iCloud.

Your only possible way to recover the notes would be if you have Time Machine backup on a OSX computer that is logged into your iCloud account. Honestly, even for this to work would be highly unlikely.

In the future, check out Evernote, or Google Drive to store your important notes.


Did you go into Disk Utility to detect the drives?  Normally they would show up there although they'll need to be formatted in a Mac Journaled format or Windows ExFat one.  If you cannot see them in Disk Utility you may need to connect them to a Windows machine and do a format there. Hopefully not necessary and Disk Utility will sort you out ;-)


How can I find the serial number on a mac programmatically from the terminal?

The system_profiler command provides a direct answer that’s easily human readable (assuming you are on 10.3 or newer), but you can also use ioreg for the task as it generally completes faster.

system_profiler SPHardwareDataType is the data type that contains the core hardware information, and you can use grep or awk to pare things down further as needed:

system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | awk '/Serial/ {print $4}'

or

ioreg -l | awk '/IOPlatformSerialNumber/ { print $4;}'

Both of those commands take between 0.5 and 0.2 seconds to run on modern SSD Macs, so if you want to optimize the command and remove the " you can have your answer in 0.005s or so:

ioreg -c IOPlatformExpertDevice -d 2 | awk -F\" '/IOPlatformSerialNumber/{print $(NF-1)}'


How to save AppleScript Editor Documents?

To save it as a .scpt file for AppleScript Editor:

tell application "AppleScript Editor"
    save document 1 as "script" in file ((path to desktop as Unicode text) & "Hello.scpt")
end tell

To save as a plain .txt file, just change the middle line slightly

tell application "AppleScript Editor"
    save document 1 as "text" in file ((path to desktop as Unicode text) & "Hello.txt")
end tell


Why is the Turkish Government in my computer?

Per this list of "trusted root certificates in iOS 9" from Apple it seems this is just one of many of the trusted root authorities around the globe. While this is for iOS and not macOS, which you're asking about, I'd assume Apple would keep parity on these OS's.

If you were to untrust them I'd imagine some part of the internet (however small) may stop validating SSL certs on your machine.

Edit: Here's another list specific to macOS, straight from Apple.


Like Alan said, go to a repair shop or an Apple store and ask tell them what is wrong. I wouldn't take it apart yourself as you may damage it, unless you have experience with repairing stuff. To my knowledge, there really isn't an 'easy' way to fix it. If you want to try it yourself, here is a tutorial: http://www.imore.com/how-diy-repair-stuck-or-broken-iphone-4s-power-button


I am an iOS development engineer,but I can not find the questions about iOS

Stack Overflow is a question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. There is a search filter where you can find all your tag related questions and answers.

You can also find some useful links to learn things in ios by info tab:
iOS info


Is it possible to share iCloud Notes with non-Apple device users?

The web app for iCloud notes is quite accessible cross platform. I don’t think you can invite a random non-iCloud account, but have you tried that?

I do know photo sharing works for people on Linux / windows (pc and phone) and android using web version of the iCloud photos, so notes or files might be next to ship.

Worst case, get them to create an AppleID / iCloud and you’ll be able to collaborate with them going forward even if Apple doesn’t open up notes sharing more widely outside of registered accounts.


I would make a second user that just has the music for your playlist and is not an administrator.  You can then save that password so when you power on, that user auto logs in.

Unless you can relinquish the password requirement, this is going to be harder than you want. You need to be sure you power off or always have this second user active when it sleep.

You will have a lot better luck with iOS for this sort of alarm situation and even a several year old iPod / iPad / iPhone would do very well for this if you don’t want to compromise on macOS as an alarm clock / timed music player.


safari Version 10.0.3 (12602.4.8) and Os 10.12.3 hotmail will not allow login

found the problem java was not updated I needed to uninstall java then install the latest version it all works fine !!!!

more info :-

https://java.com/en/download/help/mac_uninstall_java.xml

https://www.java.com/en/download/help/mac_java_update.xml


When should we enable the `locate` command on a Mac?

Once created, according to the man page for locate, the database is updated, automatically, every day or week. I suppose it's one of the daily/weekly scripts that run automatically and that can be forced to run by the app OnyX.  As to the difference between find and locate; since locate is said to be a "find filenames quickly" command, I suppose find doesn't use the database. So I'd create the database at your earliest convenience and then it'll get updated automatically in the background.


Apple wireless keyboard + iPad 4: can I map a key to the home button?

This is an old question, but for anyone else coming across it, the answer is Command-H is the shortcut to display the home screen.

FYI

Command H displays the home screen
Command-Tab shortcut displays the task switcher
Command-Space toggles the search bar


Can not setup open directory due to host name

That "what I expected" part seems wrong.

LocalHostName + <your domain name> should equal HostName

so, if HostName is myserver and your domain is sample.com than
LocalHostName should be "myserver" and HostName should be
"myserver.sample.com".

In a terminal,

dig `scutil --get HostName`

should return the IP adress of your server.


I know the sudo password, can I use sudo and install software without logging out and switching to the admin user?

Yes, you can do it. You don't need to logout as both the GUI and the shell allow you to choose a different user to run in a non-admin account.

When it pops up for a password in GUI, enter the short echo $USER or long (what it shows in top right corner) admin account and then the admin password.
In terminal type, su username where username is your admin account name: echo $USER in admin account. After which, it will ask you to provide a password. This changes the shell to an admin shell and then you can sudo or just do. For spaces in username variable, for e.g. network accounts su "foo bar" to be used.

There are some more methods listed in these posts, like using sudoers, login etc.

How do I run sudo command from standard account?
Run sudo From Non-Admin Account


Turns out it was a hardware issue. Got a replacement from Apple, and it works fine!


Spotlight search result for contact does not open found contact in Address Book

I resolved it by brute force.

Open Spotlight in System Preferences.
Remove everything except PDF.
Add my home folder to excluded items in Privacy tab.
Reboot.
Open Spotlight.
Remove my home folder from excluded items in Privacy tab.
Add Contacts to items indexed by Spotlight.

Presto, it's working again. I hope it keeps working.


Why is domain name resolution slow in Sierra

I assume you already executed all usually proposed mDSNResponder tasks to reset it, clear caches etc.

.dev is a proper "New gTLDs" since 2014. Probably you are using Google Chrome to access your site(s) which often uses its own DNS query service. The flaky name resolution management in OS X as well as the Google Chrome "service" (which both seem to ignore /etc/hosts entries sometimes and then fail to resolve a real firstdomain.dev in the WAN) suggest to simply use another TLD like .development, .devhome or .devwork.

And/or set up dnsmasq with homebrew and use localhost/127.0.0.1 as only DNS server in your network preferences. Setup proper IP addresses instead of a lot of 127.0.0.1 IP-addresses in the config files.


As long as the students don't have admin rights on the Macs:

Try this...

Go to System Preferences
Network
Advanced.. button
Select the WiFi tab
Require administrator authorization to:

[✓] Change networks

Click OK and Apply

If all goes as planned, unless logged in as an admin, users cannot join a new network.


Found a solution, used this command in terminal chmod -RN ~/Library/


Why is my MacBook Air is making ticking sounds?

You don't specify the exact model of MacBook Air, but if it's one of the first models, or one of the Late 2008 or mid 2009 models, then it's possible you have a HDD for storage instead of a SSD.

A hard drive starting to have problems could certainly explain the ticking sound (although you seem to provide very precise and regular intervals). Otherwise it could be a fan.

Regardless, I would strongly recommend you testing your hardware. How you do this will depend on your model, so choose the appropriate option below.

Run Apple Hardware Test for all MacBook Airs up to and including the Mid-2012 models

Your model uses Apple Hardware Test. To use this, follow these steps:

Shut down your MacBook Pro
Restart your MacBook Pro
Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears.
After a while, Apple Hardware Test (AHT) will start.
When prompted, select your language and click the right arrow.
When the AHT console appears, you can choose to run Basic tests by clicking the Test button. However, I suggest you select the "Perform extended testing" checkbox before you click the Test button.
Your test results will appear in the window in the bottom-right of the console.

Note 1: that the extended test will take some time. Take a note of the results and report back.

Note 2: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Run Apple Diagnostics for all MacBook Airs from Mid-2013 onwards

Your model uses Apple Diagnostics. To use this, follow these steps:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went.


10.13.4 = 1 fewer monitors on my MacBook Pro mid 2012 (non-Retina)?

Your problem is due to a bug in the DisplayLink driver used by your converter.

DisplayLink are aware of the problem,. They have issued a beta of a new driver that actually doesn't fix the problem. You can view their note on the problem at http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/macos It doesn't support multiple screens on multiple displays.

They have a mailing list supposedly for updates but have failed to notify the mailing list of the last two updates so I wouldn't bother.

I also wouldn't blame Apple. Both Apple and a number of 10.13.4 beta users (including myself) advised DisplayLink of the problem quite some time ago.

Update: DisplayLink have issued a second 4.3 beta that doesn't fix the problem. They have also removed the 4.1 version from their site. (4.2 has never been seen.)

(I will update this answer when DisplayLink put out a working driver.)


Smart folders — including Faces — on the Mac are (for now) local only. Not only will Faces not sync with iPads or iPhones, they won't sync with other Macs either.


It deletes the oldest backups, as well as deleting all old backups each day, to make one backup each day. Unless you don't want to backup any more, older backups must be deleted. If you really have important files, why are they just on the Time Machine drive?


How do I prevent iPhone USB "hotspot" from commandeering laptop's Internet connection?

If you have a laptop that you never want to utilize hotspot tethering, just delete the tethering interface from the Network control panel in System Preferences. Screen shot attached. This will prevent any network activity through your laptop, if for some reason the wifi or ethernet connection is lost.

If you want to tether in the future, you will have to add it back by hitting the "+" button.


Is there an app which allows sharing of an iPad screen to another iPad?

You could potentially use something like Reflector to mirror one iPad to a computer and then use a VNC client on the other iPad to view the computer, but I've never heard of any iPad-iPad direct sharing.


performance per watt
You want to know the 'performance per watt'. In computing, performance per watt is a measure of the energy efficiency of a particular computer architecture or computer hardware. Literally, it measures the rate of computation that can be delivered by a computer for every watt of power consumed.
2.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 = 21.05 pt/W
2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 = 33.4 pt/W
So, when only looking at the 'performance per watt' you would be better of with the 2.8GHz
Sources used: Wikipedia, cpuboss.com - 2.5GHz, cpuboss.com - 2.8GHz
note: not 100% sure if I picked the correct processor types.


What resources are shared in iCloud Family Sharing?

iCloud storage is not shared. Of course I realized this after upping my storage. Really this is an odd solution to use as just sharing an iCloud id between devices does the same thing AND let's you share the increased iCloud storage for backups and other things. Was hoping this would help my wife out since she hates getting my notifications and warnings every time I add a device/service or two-factor authenticate. Oh well, maybe in a future version they will refine and add features.


iCloud holiday calendar appeared in Calendar app

Managed to confirm this with a few admins in NZ/Aus. The Show Holiday Calendar is on and for users in NZ there doesn't seem to be a NZ Holiday calendar so we are getting results such as Hong Kong, Canada and Mexico...

Users in Australia are seeing the correct Australia Holidays calendar.

However we aren't exactly sure what triggered the calendars to show in the first place...


You should try to completely unload your iPhone. Let it go to 0 % (and shut down from itself), then plug it and let it charge completely. It should fix your problem.

See this articles from Apple for more information:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1476

The gists you need:

  For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).


after examining the issue under linux, i realized that the issue is not macos specific.
searching the internet harder, i found the solution

you can't get this feature in BASH at present because this feature hasn't been built yet into vi or emacs mode. As I commented above completion-ignore-case only applies to completion, not to isearch

~10 years after the accepted answer, it seems that it is still the case.
references:

Find out corresponding escape sequence for a given key combo
Search for a previous command with the prefix I just typed
In bash, how do I bind a function key to a command?


Full-screen apps and desktop arrangements

As far as I know, mission control is set up in such a way that the dashboard and the first desktop are immutable (i.e. cannot be changed). There might be a flag or something for it somewhere that you could disable that behaviour, but it would definitely require some serious digging since it's part of how mission control is written.


How do I control the image display duration in the Mojave screensavers?

You'll need to disable System Integrity Protection first(see here)(only need to do it temporarily)
Open Finder and hit ⌘-Shift-G to open the "Go to..." window.
Paste in /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Slideshows.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Content and hit "Go".
When changing system files, it's always a good idea to have a backup, so make a copy of the file EffectDescriptions.plist before editing it.
Open EffectDescriptions.plist in a text editor of your choice.
(Use ⌘-F to find it faster) find the key entry JustASlide, then find the child entry mainDuration below it.
The default entry should be 3, and you can change this value to whatever you want.
Save the file(you may need to provide your username & password because it's a system file).
IMPORTANT: Enable SIP again by following the same steps to disable it, except instead of typing csrutil disable, type csrutil enable.

If you are unable to open/save the file after disabling SIP, try opening the application from the terminal using sudo(ex for TextEdit: sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit)


this can be done using Apple Script after I did slight research.
Actually I cannot help you with it, because I am not experience in apple scripting, but if some would like to try, here is advisory:

Give your mac a more attention grabbing low battery warning


iPhone 5 sync won't complete, stalls at waiting for changes to be applied

From this macrumors.com post:

Close iTunes, unplug your device and reboot the computer.
On your iDevice, connect to your Wifi network & leave it on and reboot it too. Now plug your iDevice back to the computer.
If you have any voice mails, delete them first.
Everything will sync and the problem goes away.


There are multiple ways to Force Quit a application.

The following is probably easiest.

Bring Up the “Force Quit Applications” Window

Hit cmd+Option+Esc to bring up the “Force Quit Applications” window, then click to select the app name, followed by clicking the “Force Quit” button to end the app immediately.

Or, you could use the Activity Monitor to Force Quit application.

PS, it is also a quick way to see what apps are running :)


Internal Disk is locked and Erasing is taking for ever

thanks to my friend @At0mic who commented on my question.
by choosing "Show All devices" I was able to erase the parent disk and that went smoothly
and now I'm in the installation process :)))


My iTunes sync completes, but my iPod doesn't get any music. What can be done?

There is an Autofill button that you must select (click) before syncing to get the music onto the device.


How can I save my web access login on the iPod Touch?

This is included by Apple in the latest iOS. You want to list that network as Auto-Login in the preferences for that network.

When you are in range, you first have to go to the Wi-Fi Networks sheet in Settings.app, Press the white > with the blue circle and set your preferences for each network:

Auto-Login controls whether the log in credentials are saved, so turn that on. You don't need to enable auto-join, but it will reduce the taps to re-join this saved network if the device sleeps or is really out of range.

Turning on Auto-Login makes the device attempt to load www.apple.com and watches as you enter the wifi credentials needed for whatever web site is used to join the wifi network. Many open public sites are automated so don't worry if it sets itself up without prompting you at this point.


How to turn off screensaver automatically when "do not disturb“ is on?

If you're using the mouse &/or keyboard, it won't, of course, go to screensaver.

If you're not, try System Prefs > Desktop & Screen Saver > Hot Corners.

I have mine set like this... just shove the cursor to the top left of the main screen & no more nodding off...


Set a coloured text and send it to the clipboard

As I do not have access to the web app you are using, I really cannot test if this will work for you.

The example AppleScript code, shown further below, with limited testing works for me as coded under macOS High Sierra.

Overview: Gets the selected text in Google Chrome and places it on the clipboard in the chosen color as HTML data, and pastes it back over the selected text.1

It uses an Automator Service, set to Service receives selected text in Google Chrome, with [] Output replaces selected text left unchecked, to which a keyboard shortcut was assigned in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services as: ⌃⌘C

The Automator Service uses a Run AppleScript action with the default code replaced entirely with the example AppleScript code.

Usage: After selecting text in Google Chrome then pressing ⌃⌘C a choose from list dialog box is shown where you can select which color to make the selected text on the clipboard. You do not need to use the mouse, just keystrokes, e.g. G-Enter for green, O-Enter for orange and R-Enter for red, or Esc to cancel the action.

At this point, if all works right, the selected text will have been replaced with the colored text from the clipboard.1 (You will have to give it a second to let the service complete.)

Yes, it's a few keystrokes, but once comfortable with it I believe it will become second nature and be faster then having to reach for the mouse, etc.

The usual caveats may apply for the use of this in: System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility

1Also note that the text box containing the selected text must allow pasting back the same HTML class data type and structure that was placed on the clipboard as given in the comments to the OP as answers to the questions I asked, otherwise this will not work as coded.

Example AppleScript code:

--  # Green HTML Color: #27ae60     '23323761653630'
--  # Orange HTML Color: #e67e22;       '23653637653232'
--  # Red HTML Color: #d35400       '23643335343030'
--  # sed command 'placeholder'     '706C616365686F6C646572'

property myBrowser : "Google Chrome"

property greenHTML : «data HTML3C6D65746120636861727365743D277574662D38273E3C7370616E207374796C653D22636F6C6F723A233030666630303B223E706C616365686F6C6465723C2F7370616E3E0A»
property orangeHTML : «data HTML3C6D65746120636861727365743D277574662D38273E3C7370616E207374796C653D22636F6C6F723A236536376532323B223E706C616365686F6C6465723C2F7370616E3E0A»
property redHTML : «data HTML3C6D65746120636861727365743D277574662D38273E3C7370616E207374796C653D22636F6C6F723A236433353430303B223E706C616365686F6C6465723C2F7370616E3E0A»

property tmpHTMLdata : "/private/tmp/tmpHTMLdata"

on run {input, parameters}
    activate me
    set selectedText to item 1 of input as text

    set chosenColor to (choose from list ¬
        {"Green", "Orange", "Red"} with title ¬
        "Color Chooser" with prompt ¬
        "Which color to make the selected text?") as text

    if (chosenColor as text) is "false" then
        return
    else if chosenColor is "Green" then
        my writeToFile(greenHTML, tmpHTMLdata, true)
    else if chosenColor is "Orange" then
        my writeToFile(orangeHTML, tmpHTMLdata, true)
    else if chosenColor is "Red" then
        my writeToFile(redHTML, tmpHTMLdata, true)
    end if

    do shell script "sed -i '' -e 's|placeholder|" & selectedText & "|' " & quoted form of tmpHTMLdata
    set the clipboard to (read tmpHTMLdata as «class HTML»)
    delay 0.25
    tell application myBrowser to activate
    delay 0.25
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down
end run

on writeToFile(theData, theFile, overwriteExistingContent)
    try
        set theOpenedFile to open for access POSIX file theFile with write permission
        if overwriteExistingContent is true then set eof of theOpenedFile to 0
        write theData to theOpenedFile starting at eof
        close access theOpenedFile
    on error eStr number eNum
        try
            close access file theFile
        end try
        display dialog eStr & " number " & eNum ¬
            buttons {"OK"} default button 1 ¬
            with title "File I/O Error..." with icon stop
        return
    end try
end writeToFile

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


CS:GO respects its own Vsync setting, which works while in fullscreen. You can edit this in the Video options:

Enabling this setting will prevent screen tearing, at the cost of performance. Typically, this is undesirable in a competitive game like CS:GO, but there's nothing stopping you.

Beamsync is Apple's implementation of Vsync, present in the normal desktop environment and, by default, most apps. As of OS X Mavericks, the ability to enable/disable it was accessible through the Graphics Tools for Xcode:

  Download Graphics Tools for Xcode - Late August 2014
  Install or just mount Graphic Tools
  Open Quartz Debug
  Go to Tools -> Show Beam Sync Tools
  Select Disable Beam Synchronization

Note that these changes are not permanent.

At some point however, this appears to have changed: disabling Beam Sync is no longer available through the Graphics Tools. Some tools (1 and 2) claim to disable it, but I haven't verified their integrity, and neither have been updated since 2015.

My recommendation given your use case is to just keep CS:GO in fullscreen and use their implementation of Vsync, toggling as you see fit.


Does IOS Dictation Database Contain “UGH”

Ugh / huh / aah is easily produced by dictation from similar sounds even in an exceptionally quiet environment with clear diction. (i.e. Works on iPad and Apple Watch and iPhone for me.)
How Apple engineered the system is probably a lot more complicated than you’ve written, but there’s no technical gotcha I can see that would reinforce any mistrust of said person.
In my experience, Siri is extremely flexible with accents and has to juggle many inputs / guess contextually what a sound actually means to produce text that in the end looks identical to a very intentionally typed statement.
For decades to come I think we all will continue to be part of experiments to help Apple wreck a nice beach.


Tools to support maintenance jobs with Finder tags

Vitag, a tool for batch tagging from the command line using your favorite editor, was released by Brett Terpstra yesterday.


Your user profile on your Mac might be compromised.

To test, create new user and try to access iTunes or App Store.

If it works lets try repair your user profile with permissions repair.

Restoring the OSX from backup will not fix that, it will keep your user profile as is.

Just as safety and unexpected problems, create second Administrator (full access) account.

Launch Disk Utility, located at /Applications/Utilities/.
Select the 'First Aid' tab.
In the left-hand pane, select a volume you wish to run Repair Permissions on. ...
Click the 'Repair Disk Permissions' button.

Also see this article to restore/reset permissions

But your problem might be even deeper. The certificates reside in KeyChain.

Repairing keychain it might be tricky so follow the instructions carefully (like FIRST make BACKUP).


Can't click with trackpad or mouse (OS X 10.9, MacBook Pro)

One of the most common causes of this is a magic mouse turned on in your laptop bag or somewhere similar.

Turning off bluetooth will ensure no remote button is being held down.


Simple electronics circuit simulation software for Mac

This is one of a kind App http://icircuitapp.com/

It has IPad app as well. with simulation capablities


Download the Git installer from https://git-scm.com/download/mac
Open the installer package with Pacifist
Copy the required binaries into ~/bin and update your PATH


Can I get my Google Calendar shown in my iCloud Calendar on my PC?

You need to "subscribe" to the iCloud calendar from your Google calendar.

In iCloud:

Click the Share button to the right of the calendar you want to share, then select Public Calendar.
Click Email Link.
Type your Gmail addresses in the To field, then click Send.

In Google:

Copy and paste the link from the email you receive into Google’s “Add by URL” field in the “Other Calendars” section.
It can and most often WILL take up to 24 hours for events from the subscribed calendar to display in Google.


iTunes 12.5.5.5 can no longer delete subscribed podcasts

Just click the podcast and press, "delete" (backspace)

I experienced the same issue, removing the podcast from the menu did nothing.


Apple Script - How do I check if a window with a specific title exists?

You can do this with the System Events application - for example:

tell application "System Events"
    if exists (window "Terminal — -zsh" of process "Terminal") then
        display dialog "Found"
    else
        display dialog "Not found"
    end if
end tell

Note that process is case sensitive while window is not.  Therefore this will work

if exists (window "TeRmInAl — -ZsH" of process "Terminal")

but this will not

if exists (window "Terminal — -zsh" of process "terminal")

If you are running from Script Editor you must authorise it in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility


2011 MacBook Pros can support Handoff/Continuity

After doing some research for the past few hours there might still be chance for the 2011 macbook pros to get the features that require bluetooth 4.0 / LE

As it turns out the 2011 MacBook Pro can use the same Airport/Bluetooth card as the mid 2012 Macbook pro and its user replaceable so by replacing the 2011 macbook pro Airport/Bluetooth card you should have the ability to use Handoff/continuity

After replacing your bluetooth card with a Bluetooth LE/4 card: Make sure the Bluetooth card is BCM94331PCIEBT4CAX (if it doesn't have the C then its a Bluetooth 2 card which wouldn't work)

And away we go!

on your desktop press command+shift+g
type: /system/library/extensions/
find: IO80211Family.kext in the extensions folder and copy it to your desktop
on the new copy, do show package contents > Contents > PlugIns > AirPortBrcm4360.kext > show package contents > Contents > MacOS > open AirPortBrcm4360 with HexFiend
Text search Mac- it should be followed by a number
type the below code in terminal this will show your board id example early 2011 macbook pro is Mac-94245B3640C91C81

ioreg -l | grep "board-id" | awk -F\" '{print $4}' ->  94245B3640C91C81 for mine

replace the first number in your kext with the number u get in terminal
save it
Restart your Mac and hold Cmd-R to boot in recovery mode
Once rebooted, open terminal and type in the following code: csrutil disable
Restart your Mac in normal mode
go to terminal and paste:

sudo nvram boot-args="kext-dev-mode=1"

delete the original IO80211Family.kext in system>library>extensions
restart
your wifi will not be working after restart
use kextdrop to install the modified kext
restart
your wifi should start working again after installing the kext and restarting
Restart your Mac in recovery mode again (holding Cmd-R when you reboot)
Open terminal and type: csrutil enable
Restart your Mac
go to system preferences > general and there should be an option to enable handoff

These are the exact steps I performed with OS X El Capitan on a 13 inch early 2011 macbook pro and got handoff working with my iPhone 6 running iOS 9.1

Good luck!


iMessages no longer working after Yosemite upgrade

After an hour long call with Apple, I was finally told to reset my default Keychain, and after a reboot, that worked. We diagnosed this as the issue because every time I rebooted, iCloud/FaceTime/Messages would ask for my password again, even though it had supposedly saved it.

This also came right after I had just reset the default Keychain to solve not being able to connect to my wireless network.


Printers are easy, they mostly all work with Macs. Scanners are another story, and drivers for those used to be complex to find and use.

However 10.6 introduced far better support for scanners and a number of those now work just out of the box. I recommend you go for one listed as compatible if possible as an Apple maintained driver is more likely to keep working when you upgrade.

You can find the list of all printers and scanners supported out-of-the-box by Mac OS X 10.6 in this knowledge base entry.