iCloud stores data in many different ways so to explain about just transferring stored data would need more input on what you'd like to store.

There's nice instructions from Apple that you could read on the iCloud help page but just to break it down to you first of all what you write about the music which I believe you're referring to iTunes Match which has nothing to do with your iCloud subscription plan and has a limit of 100,000 songs and some other minor limitations.

Now about the iCloud subscription, you could setup in the iCloud settings under Backup that your phone should backup your phones content to iCloud at regular intervals which is explained here and you just need to make sure that you check on or off those apps you'd like to include or exclude getting your backup and that could be achieved by tapping into Storage within your iCloud settings then select the Manage Storage and under BACKUPS select your iPhone which should say underneath its name "This iPhone" there you'll be able to toggle them on and off.

The next thing is iCloud photo library where your device automatically uploads all photos and videos to your iCloud account which is all explained here, I personality love it knowing that my captured moments are always safe which is somewhat safer than having it only backed up at your regular iCloud backup intervals since this happens constantly while you're connected to WiFi.

And finally there's iCloud Drive where app developers could choose to save some of your data there and you could choose to disallow certain apps from accessing them (they could only access these data known to developers as iCloud Container) and if you have a Mac this comes in useful since you could save your files on your iCloud Drive on your Mac and access them on your iOS devices and vice versa.


How to shade region between polar curves in Grapher?

Grapher can do it. Using the conjunction r > 6 & r < 6 - 6 sin (theta), we get the following


Chrome on MacOS started rejecting self-signed certificates

Try to run the following command from the terminal and relaunch Chrome

defaults write com.google.Chrome EnableCommonNameFallbackForLocalAnchors -bool true

This can help you to solve your issue.

Or

If you need a workaround to get the site working without replacing the certificate you can do the following.

Download the certificate from the server (using another browser or with openssl)
Install the certificate into Keychain Access under the login store
Set the certificate to "always trust" by double clicking on it once it's been installed.


How to force Spotlight to index content inside a package?

Not a direct solution to this problem, per se, but a workaround: the (very expensive) software FoxTrot Professional Search finds files within bundles like the one used by Papers 3. It's very flexible and powerful for searching document contents in its own right, too.


How does one make screen captures with a shadow?

No, you do not need to. This feature is built into Mac OS X.

To do this, press ⌘+Shift+4 then press Space. The selector will then change into a camera icon, and you can take a screenshot of the selected window with a shadow.

(I couldn't capture the camera icon)

End result:


How to make emacs style ASCII-art table in Mail?

As suggested by patrix you could do that in Emacs. To automate it, you should use QuickCursor (available in the Mac App Store), and a special build of Emacs, which you can do by checking out the latest source code from ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest and then using the patches available from ftp://ftp.math.s.chiba-u.ac.jp/emacs

Instruction on how to build are available in the archive containing the patch file. Once you've done that, editing between Emacs and Mail (or whatever else), should be extremely easy.


How does one create a repeating location-based reminder on their iPhone?

If you don't mark the reminder as complete but simply dismiss the reminder, it will stay active and you will be reminded each time you arrive at (or leave) the location.


Alternatively there are apps that let you download texts off, such as PhoneView by ecamm but I heard they stopped working in one of the most recent updates, so I would check the demo first.


Create a zip file using an Automator Service

Why not just use the Create Archive action rather than shell scripting?

I created a quick one that has four steps.

selects a folder (Ask for Finder Items - Folders only)
selects the files (Get Folder Contents)
filters the items to not selects any subfolders (Filter Finder Items)
pass the files to the Create Archive action


How to make the Logitech 300s move wider?

Go to System Preferences - Mouse. Click on the "Point and Click" tab. In the middle of this pane is a slider for Tracking Speed.  By moving the slider to the right to make it faster will do what you want.  See the image below.


Issue installing BasicTeX with Cask under OS X

TLDR; Add /usr/local/texlive/2015basic/bin/universal-darwin to your PATH.

There is no BasicTeX.app. BasicTex is now installed at /usr/local/texlive/2015basic, wether you use Brew Cask or not (you can also find something files at /Library/Tex, but that's just a bunch of symlinks pointing to the actual installation directory). Just add the above path to your PATH and you should be fine.

Further reference:

BasicTeX installation guide
(non-Brew). aaa
https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/163849/mavericks-upgrade-screwed-up-my-pdflatex-command-not-found
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22081991/rmarkdown-pandoc-pdflatex-not-found


Is there a systemwide .bash_profile file?

The answer seems to be yes.

Check out the FILE section of Bash Man page

FILES
   /bin/bash
          The bash executable
   /etc/profile
          The systemwide initialization file, executed for login shells
   ~/.bash_profile
          The personal initialization file, executed for login shells
   ~/.bashrc
          The individual per-interactive-shell startup file
   ~/.bash_logout
          The individual login shell cleanup file, executed when a login shell exits
   ~/.inputrc
          Individual readline initialization file

In addition to that, shell paths are also loaded from /etc/paths and the files (if any) in /etc/paths.d by /usr/libexec/path_helper (which is executed as part of /etc/profile).

Lastly, there's also /etc/bashrc, intended for functions and aliases (while /etc/profile is designated for system wide environment and startup programs).


Automatic tracking of monitors in Health.app?

There are no "auto-track" devices per se. You have to go in and give certain apps or devices access to the Health data.

As detailed on Apple's website, you need to choose the fitness app or accessory you want to use, and this will connect it to your Health app.

When you connect apps as a source of data to your Health app, they should automatically push in the data, but you might have to open the app for it to trigger. On the other hand, there are many, many devices that support automatic synchronization, like the Garmin Forerunner 220.

Unfortunately there are too many devices supporting synchronization with an iOS device, but most apps or devices that are capable of synching with the Health app support auto-synchronization when in close proximity to the device.

You can see a list of HealthKit compatible devices here: http://www.applehealthkit.com/compatible-devices-apps/.


I can't enter Command+Shift+Up/Down on macOS Sierra

Since it works in Safe Mode (based on your comment) we know it's definitely a software issue.

Basically, when you boot into Safe Mode your Mac will check the startup disk, only load necessary kernel extensions, and disable third-party fonts and startup options. Put simply, it won’t load third-party hardware drivers or startup programs.

It's likely (although not certain) that something to do with your prior installation of Karabiner is causing the problem. Your question didn't specify what version of Karabiner you had installed (besides the fact you also tried Karabiner Elements) or how you removed it. Assuming you've removed and deleted the application itself, there may still be other files installed. I would do the following:

Check the top level 'Library' folder of your hard disk for anything that looks like it's associated with your Karabiner installation. In particular, look at the following locations:

/Library
/Library/Caches
/Library/Preferences
/Library/Application Support
/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/PreferencePanes
/Library/StartupItems

If you find anything, delete the files.

Now, also do the same thing with the same set of folders within your User's Library folder. To access this, within the Finder click on the Go menu while holding the Option key and select Library.

Let us know how you go.


New Computer bought will information be deleted?

On your iPhone go to Settings > iCloud > Storage and Backup and turn on iCloud Backup

It will save your configurations and pictures on iCloud. This is the same you do when you sync your iPhone with iTunes. In this way you can restore your data from iCloud.

Once you have done the first backup you can attach the iPhone to your computer without loosing data.


Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and you seem to have started off well, doing most of the obvious first steps. Below are some additional steps I'd try next, especially since reinstalling macOS only resolved the problem for a week or so.

Test your iMac in Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your iMac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. can you shut down normally or is the issue still present)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your iMac as normal
Now test again after the reboot

Now, depending on the above testing, we can narrow down how to proceed:

If the problem is still present during Safe Mode and afterwards, proceed to 1. Run Apple Diagnostics (see below).
If the problem is not present during Safe Mode then it's time to investigate login items, fonts, and kernel extensions. If that's the case, proceed to 2. Investigating login items, fonts, and kernel extensions (see below).

1. Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
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.

2. Investigating login items, fonts, and kernel extensions

Let's start with Login Items:

Startup normally
Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups
Select the Login Items tab
Take a note of your Login Items
Now remove all of them by highlighting them and clicking on the - button below
Restart your computer

Now your Mac will boot up without those login items loading. Test this and see if the problem persists:

If the problem goes away you know one (or more) of the Login items were causing the problem. You can then add them back in one by one until you've identified the culprit. Problem solved.
If the problem does persist, it's either a problem with fonts you've installed yourself or with a 3rd party kernel extension. A little more info below:

Fonts:- You can remove any of the fonts you've installed yourself to see if this makes a difference.

Kernel Extensions:- You can open Terminal (found within your Utilites folder) and enter the following command:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple

The above command will list 3rd party kernel extensions (you may need to stretch the Terminal window so it's easier to read). Look for anything you don't remember installing, or something that belongs to software you've removed, or just anything that looks out of place. Remember though, this is a list of 3rd party kernel extensions and therefore any of them could be causing the problem.


Are there any apps to improve wifi priority sorting in macOS?

i use this one for quick and easy on the road access, WiFi Scanner.app

http://wifiscanner.com/wifiscanner.html

it's worked from osx 10.11 to 10.12.3, if you have an older version of OSX, check out KisMAC

if you want to dig deep into the packets for collisions, injections, penetration testing, etc, checkout Wireshark


wget: ERROR cannot verify www.important_website certificate

It's not linked to wget but to your SSL certificates trust store (these are used to ensure encryption between client (you) and server via TLS). Either your store was damaged in some way, or the certificate in question is not valid anymore, and you receive this error as the connection can't be guaranteed. From testing, their certificate is still valid, so there are likely some issues with your ssl store.

You can also add this option --no-check-certificate to ignore such errors, which would solve your problems. However, do it at your own risk, as those certificates are there for a reason.


13 inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display + Adobe Creative Cloud

It's pretty trivial to open Activity Monitor and look at the RAM usage.

When the graph is in RED - you will have significant slowdowns and really need to take immediate action if you require performance from all the apps running. Usually a restart will let you know if the applications you run have memory leaks and need you to quit them often, log out often, restart the OS often. Or if those apps always use a lot of RAM memory and you should either find more efficient applications to do the same work or run less apps at once or find a Machine with more RAM (assuming your Mac doesn't allow user-upgradeable RAM).

When the graph is in yellow - you're unlikely to be able to measure slow downs, but it's a signal to quit any apps you don't need (email, web browsers with dozens (or more) tabs open, social media, music streaming apps, chat apps (cough slack, cough) and let the system focus all resources to the main apps you need.

When the graph is in green - no worries about RAM being what's causing your workflow to not run at full speed. The constraints you have at that point are network, CPU, or just the apps aren't making use of the machine resources at all and need to be redesigned / updated.)


The Magic Keyboard has rechargeable batteries that cannot be replaced by the user. If you're running low on batteries, plugin a lightning cable to recharge the batteries.

You pair it with the iPad by first turning it on (move the slider on the back from the off-position to the green on-position). Then on the iPad open Settings > Bluetooth. Ensure that Bluetooth is enabled, and wait for the Magic Keyboard to appear in the list of devices below. Tap it to pair.

If the keyboard does not pair, you might have it paired to another iPad or computer that is nearby. Ensure that you're a good distance from any such device before pairing - or turn those devices off before pairing with your iPad.


Make OS X Mail show the most recent message in conversation

In Mail preferences, at the bottom of the Viewing pane, under Viewing Conversations, there is a checkbox to Show Most Recent Message At The Top. I think that's what you want.


Why does my AirPort Express keep disappearing?

Save configuration and replace it with another one from those that have their radios disabled. Maybe this will be enough of a solution.

Why would this be happening? I don't know but it's either power supply or its OS crashing. Or both.


Is there any way to search for text in the *body* of a message in Sparrow on the iPhone?

From my experience, and at least with Sparrow for iPhone 1.3.2 build 507.11, All does not refer to FROM+TO+SUBJECT, but all available fields, including the email body.


Time Machine - Bootcamp and Virtualized operating systems?

Boot camp does NOT backup files that it is not programmed to backup. If you set up Time Machine to backup Macintosh HD, it will only backup Macintosh HD. Also, Time Machine probably will reject backing up a Windows system. In order to backup your Windows, you either need to get another backup disk or partition your current one. Then, you can use the system Windows backup.


Just Upgraded to Mojave and started getting the Out of Application Memory box

You are NOT out of memory !

That notification is false.

It shows you are using 3.1GB out of 8GB, so you have 5GB free Memory.

So your hardware is fine.

That must be a bug in Mojave, not sure which one. For some reason the Applications are reporting wrong Memory usage, even so the Activity monitor does not show that.

You also have a lot 3D party apps running. Some might not be Mojave compatible, so for now Just turn them all off, Presto Scan...and others.

It is also advised to completely remove MacKeeper, since it has been reported as Malware, and Mac OS X is perfectly safe without it.

Possible fix:

Go to Dropbox icon > Cog wheel at the bottom left > Preferences Disable "Enable Finder Integration"


Got it. All you have to do is add multiple Ethernet interfaces in Network Preferences. And then just configure each one to the correct settings and you're set to go. I tested this by hosting two different websites on two different IPs by multihoming my iMac and it worked!

System Prefs -> Network dialog
Press the + button and select the interface you want to add to (you may need to go back  and identify which one if you have multiple Ethernet ports).
Name the service and press "Create"
Configure the new service as you would a static (manual) interface
Click "Apply"


No connection to network drive MacOS 10.15 (Catalina)

I was able to resolve this (temporarily) by restarting my Mac. I later discovered that I could restart the Finder to resolve it. Apparently the Finder app is responsible for network connections for other applications too.

While this does not prevent the reoccurrence, restarting Finder is a minor inconvenience. Hopefully this is a bug that Apple will resolve.

How to Relaunch the Finder

Hold ⌥ while right-clicking on the Finder dock icon → Relaunch
Open  Menu → Force Quit → Finder -> Relaunch


iPad/iOS full tutorial for seniors in Chinese?

The official iPad user guide is available in lots of languages:
https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/welcome/ipados/localeselector
For example, zh-cn:
https://support.apple.com/zh-cn/guide/ipad/welcome/ipados


In order to access a raw disk device /dev/rdisk1s2, it should not be mounted. Open Disk Utility and unmount it first. Otherwise you would get a Permission denied error when you try to access it as a raw device.

If you wish to (or need to) have it mounted and use the block device, remove the "r" from the disk name, making it /dev/disk1s2 (notice the missing "r" before "disk1s2").


How do I get different colors for directories, etc. in iTerm2?

You have to do two things:

set the LSCOLORS environment variable
create an alias for ls so that it shows colors by default

In your ~/.bash_profile add the following:

export LSCOLORS="EHfxcxdxBxegecabagacad"

alias ls='ls -lGH'        <-----This shows in list format, follow symlinks colorized

The the colors are set by each bit above; the first being foreground and the second being background.   The first two characters refer to directories having a bold blue foreground and a light grey background.

However, there's a great online utility to see what each of the colors mean and look like in real time.  It will even generate the "code" for you.  (I am not affiliated with this at all).  It will work in both MacOS/FreeBSD and Linux.  Make sure you select the BSD option for macOS.

LSCOLORS Calculator

The order of the attributes are as follows:

1.   directory
2.   symbolic link
3.   socket
4.   pipe
5.   executable
6.   block special
7.   character special
8.   executable with setuid bit set
9.   executable with setgid bit set
10.   directory writable to others, with sticky bit
11.   directory writable to others, without sticky

The color designators are as follows:

a    black
b    red
c    green
d    brown
e    blue
f    magenta
g    cyan
h    light grey
A    bold black, usually shows up as dark grey
B    bold red
C    bold green
D    bold brown, usually shows up as yellow
E    bold blue
F    bold magenta
G    bold cyan
H    bold light grey; looks like bright white
x    default foreground or background


Does the firmware impact how / if the Hard drive will function (Mac OS X 10.6)?

For the Model WD WDBMYH0010BNC

I found multiple places that claim it will work on 10.6.8.

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-2-5-Inch-Mainstream-WDBMYH0010BNC-NRSN/dp/B00D901NX6

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8433785


What extra hardware do I have to buy if Mac Mini is my first Apple product?

The only things you absolutely need that isn't already included are:

The monitor that you have already identified.
A keyboard; a Mac specific one would make sense, but any PC USB keyboard will do you just need to be careful to use the right settings as the layout will be subtly different
A pointing device of some sort.  If you are coming from PCs, you may hate Apple mice (I do), but again any PC mouse will work just fine.  Having said that, the Magic Trackpad is fantastic.  I use one on my iMac and do not use a mouse ever on a Mac any more.

Things you don't not need but are highly recommended would include:

A backup drive!  Backup your stuff!  Make it big (2x your internal drive at least) and make it fast (USB 3 or Thunderbolt if you have too much money)

Things which you might fancy but aren't really needed:

A headset/headphones of some sort (iPhones headphones with the 3 pin jack work fine)
An external DVD reader/writer (any brand, USB)
USB cup warmers (any brand)
Novelty stickers (any brand, except Microsoft Plays for sure! and Windows license keys)


Xcode update would not work, and now won't leave the App Store update queue

I was able to fix this problem by correcting the permissions for Xcode. Run this from your Terminal:

sudo pkgutil --repair com.apple.pkg.Xcode

It actually installed as I was doing this. Many of the permissions reported as "should be drwxrwxr-x , they are drwxr-xr-x".


How do I transfer my Disney Digital Copy movie to iTunes using Lion?

I agree 100% with Adam's answer that DRM is a horrible thing, and "Digital Copy" in particular is a bad joke; see here.
However, I'll point out you can still watch your Up! Digital Copy on your Mac, even if OS X Lion doesn't support the PowerPC-based installer software on Disney's antiquated disc.  I had the same issue and solved it as follows:

Launch iTunes.
Put the disc in your Mac's DVD drive.
In the left navigation area, select the disc.
You should see a page on the right asking you to Enter Code.  Enter the unique activation code that came with your copy of Up!, then click Redeem.
Authenticate with your iTunes credentials, when prompted.  (Assumption: You have an iTunes account, a working Internet connection, and your Digital Copy code is valid, not expired, and not yet redeemed.)
After authenticating with iTunes (the service), iTunes (the program) will proceed to copy the now-authorized movie content from your Up! "Digital Copy" disc to your Mac.
Find the new title in your "Movies" library.  Watch it on your Mac*.

All the details, including screenshots, can be found at:

Apple Support - Transferring or downloading an iTunes Digital Copy.

* Worth mentioning:  Even after you get your "Digital Copy" into iTunes on your Mac, it remains protected and can only be played back on a device authorized to play back purchases from your iTunes account.  Consequently, you may still prefer using another extraction method on the original movie, in order to yield a liberated version of your content unencumbered with such restrictions.
Summary: DRM is still a horrible thing, even with the workaround above.
(p.s. FWIW, this method also worked (for me) for non-Disney titles such as Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, from Twentieth Century Fox, and Despicable Me, from Universal Studios.  Mentioning this in case somebody else finds this answer but has a non-Disney disc; i.e. it doesn't seem to matter whether the "Digital Copy" is Disney or not, the above method should work to authorize & copy the content to iTunes.)


Well, there is a way, actually. Invoke Spotlight, then type in your text as above. Then use the arrow key to move to near the bottom of the menu, and choose Search Web For... This will do a Google search for your conversion, and you'll get a figure and a graph.


Your ideal deployment scenario depends heavily on a few factors:

Budget for App purchase and volume of apps that will be installed.
Backup solution you choose for each Mac and whether that will facilitate moving apps when a computer is reassigned or hinder that movement.
Whether all the computers will have an identical (or very simiar) app allocation or whether you will have a lot of individual needs and purchase patterns.
Cost of labor and whether you want to hire an employee to manage things or outsource some or all of the planning and assistance.
Availability of Apple Business staff to get free assistance in planning this as well as extremely inexpensive Joint Venture training, support and customized assistance.

You will run into problems using one Apple ID for deployment as well as licensing issues since multiple installs for one Apple ID is only allowed for personal use. I would start by reading Apple's standard software license agreements and decide if you want to have a layered deployment where some apps come from corporate and some personal Apple ID or if you need to do a little more planning before knowing what option fits your needs best.

The cost of labor calculation is the one I see businesses mis-estimate substantially as they sometimes fail to estimate how interested or capable their employees are in self-servicing their computers as well as how effective iterative solutions and building a team that can self-solve and self-train is not only for making good choices for trivial tasks like app updates, but also for productively using technology to solve business problems in general.

By managing the attention and energy of employees, sometimes you will want to make different choices and looking at computer management in isolation can yield a good solution, but taking a broader view and self-assesing where the business needs to head can color the tactical choices you make for managing computing assets.


Shortcut for bullets/numbered formatting in Powerpoint for Mac

Because PowerPoint brings up a dialog showing several options, it seems the best that can be done is to create a custom shortcut to the dialog then select the desired formatting.

To create a custom keyboard shortcut for PowerPoint:

Open the System Preferences either by searching Spotlight, clicking the  Menu, selecting from the dock or your favorite method of getting to it.

Select Keyboard in the settings (Typically on the second row of icons)
Select the Shortcuts tab
Select App Shortcuts from the list on the left
Click the + button at the bottom
Change the Applicaton: to Microsoft PowerPoint.app using the dropdown
type EXACTLY as the command appears in PowerPoint's Format Menu. In this case Bullets and Numbering… ← Note that is not 3 dots but an ellipsis.  Type ⌥+; or use the Character Viewer if needed to get it.
In the Keyboard Shortcut input type the desired shortcut.  As an example: ⌃⌥B

Now, back in PowerPoint select the paragraph and evoke the dialog with the shortcut.  Unfortunately, Microsoft does not allow (that I can find) keyboard navigation of this dialog to select the desired bullet style so one will have to use the mouse at this point.
EDIT: Note that one can change Full Keyboard Access in the Keyboard settings.  Changing to All Controls may allow navigating using the tab key in the bullets dialog box.

See illustration below.


How to connect USB hardware to a MBP via an external monitor

I think your problem is that USB is not carried over Display Port/DVI. I have an older Apple Cinema Display that has USB ports on it and the cable has both DVI and USB ends that get plugged into the Mac.

That DELL monitor has an upstream USB port (and I would be very surprised if that is not connected to your docking station for the PC). Connect a cable between that and the Mac and the keyboard and mouse should work.


Fully displaying volume size info on the desktop

For string to be as wide as possible change "Grid spacing" in Show View Options

but in case when the whole info string become 25 characters or more it will just become truncated anyway. On the next screenshot I have 104.69 GB available.


Extreme slowing down of MacBook Pro due to pkd process

According to the man page, pkd is a:

management and supervision daemon for plug-in services

You can stop it with:
launchctl stop com.apple.pluginkit.pkd

It will restart automatically when needed.


How do I turn off scroll for page navigation on the mouse, but not the trackpad

It looks like the solution in this case was to turn down the sensitivity on the side scroll wheel for the mouse.  This way you must scroll very quickly before it reads as a swipe.


From all my research your request is not possible. Only wireless via internet sharing on your windows 7 machine or the mac.


Restored from iCloud - asking for old friends account constantly

This article from Macworld.com last week addressed this issue. I enclose a link, as the technique is too long to describe...and I haven't tried it.


MBP 2013 becoming unresponsive to keyboard and mouse

I had a similar issue and I stopped having it by turning off bluetooth.
I had no bluetooth device connected when the problem happened.


How to transfer movie from android to ipad

I think this can help

Download Shareit app on both the devices.
Click the send button on your android device and receive button on the iPad.
Select the file you want to send and it creates an hotspot and click
the receiver's name

Usually, this sends the files with blazing speed if it's a movie so it should be completed in 1 or 2 minutes.
Hope this helps.


How to combine unzip and cat to work as one in the terminal

So I've done some testing, and it seems that gzcat (and event zcat) on OS X only work for gzipped files, and not files using standard zip compression.  That being said, I believe this is what you are looking for:

"sub.domain.tld.ssl.zip" contains 2 files:

"sub.domain.tld.crt" (SSL certificate)
"sub.domain.tld.key" (RSA private key)

In order to print all files to STDOUT, you would use unzip -p

To "cat" the certificate, you could use the following command:

unzip -p sub.domain.tld.ssl.zip | sed -n '/CERT/,/CERT/p'

To "cat" the private key, you could use the following command:

unzip -p sub.domain.tld.ssl.zip | sed -n '/KEY/,/KEY/p'

Afterwards, of which you could do what you wish, such as create a little script or function:

#!/bin/bash
unzip -p "$1" | sed -n '/CERT/,/CERT/p' > "/etc/ssl/Certs/${2}.crt"
unzip -p "$1" | sed -n '/KEY/,/KEY/p' > "/etc/ssl/Private/${2}.key"

The above script would take 2 arguments (which should ideally be enclosed in quotes):

File name of zip file
Naming convention of cert/key files

If the name of the script was sslinstazip.sh, you would run it like so:

./sslinstazip.sh "sub.domain.tld.ssl.zip" "sub.domain.tld"

There are obviously many ways you can modify this to fit your own personal needs, but in this case, unzip is actually your friend.


OSX file navigation for pictures like windows

I often select images to keep or delete by generating HTML files like this:

printf %s\\n ~/Pictures/folder/*.jpg|while read l;do printf %s "";done>/tmp/a.html;open /tmp/a.html

Then I for example move the files I opened in tabs to another folder:

osascript -e 'set text item delimiters to linefeed' -e 'tell app "Safari" to URL of tabs of window 1 as text'|cut -d/ -f3-|xargs gmv -t ~/Desktop


iPhone 2G, iOS 3.1.2 and YouTube doesn't work

It's clear now after all these years of observing how Apple handles support of YouTube and similar services, including their own Home Sharing feature, whether it's iOS or OS X, that sometimes the company is focused only on latest versions of OS or hardware. It's a sad fact of life that they don't support every single device or version of iOS/OS X but you have to give it to them because they do a very good job overall. Most of their product lineup is supported well and it just happens so that I have the first iPhone and the very first iPad that in a way were slightly experimental and very few people apparently use those devices today in 2016... so, no wonder that some features don't work at all, or well 8-6 years after the release of those devices.

Google (YouTube) is also known for changing YouTube in a way that requires applications be rewritten to remain compatible with their API. This affects not only iOS but also OS X apps, as well as programs written for Linux or basically any other OS. That's just how things are but if you run more or less recently purchased device you should be good.


Time Machine not detecting changes in certain folders

What actually helped was to identify the folder inside which no file changes were detected, and then rename that folder and force a backup. Then all new content inside it got added to the old backup. After that, I renamed the folder back to its original name, added another file inside and did another backup - again, the new file got backed up.

So, somehow, that folder got stuck, and by renaming it, I could reset the backup for it.

Still, I will keep an eye out for other folders that may not get backed up, using the tmutil compare command regularly.

You just can't trust Time Machine.

That's why I also use CrashPlan as a secondary, and offline, backup.


Limit the size for backups on a Time Capsule

I've been looking at this as well to limit the space a single machine can use when sharing a time capsule (slightly different application, but same concept). Here is what I found:

External Drive - The quickest and easiest solution. The backups and data are completely separate and won't interfere with each other. The main disadvantage is having the clutter of extra devices and cables.
Partition - This is probably the best option to ensure dedicated space for the backups and the other data. As such it is the least flexible if you want to reallocate space at a later date. The other disadvantage is that it is difficult to do in that you aren't able to do it from within the Air Port utility.
Sparse Bundle Size Limit - At first I thought this would be the best option because it is self-contained within the Time Capsule, is flexible, and not to difficult (though perhaps a bit tedious). However, it seems that there issues with some versions of Mac OS X not respecting the size limit. I am not clear yet on whether this is a bug or a feature. When moving my sparse bundles to a large Time Capsule, at first they all appeared with the smaller size, but then they were resized to the capacity of the larger Time Capsule.

Those options cover the 'prevention' approach to make sure that no more space is used than allocated. Another approach is to just let it be and then prune backups when needed. This a good way to go if you have a lot of room. I tried this before getting a new Time Capsule but it was just too tight of a squeeze in my case.

tmutil - As bmike points out, tmutil can be used to clear out old back ups, but was introduced with Lion so may not be an option for some people.
Delete Files - You can delete files from a backup by entering Time Machine, browsing to the file or folder, and selecting the option to delete from backup in the gear icon.
Force Thinning - By artificially increasing the backup space required, you can force Time Machine to run its thinning procedure deleting older backups. I attached a large external drive to my mac and removed it from the exclude list in Time Machine options. This allowed me to clear space from one machine's backup image to make room for the others. It worked, but the downside is that it can take a very long time. I imagine tmutil would do this more efficiently.


OSX cmd+tab behavior with multiple windows of same application and monitors

You're trying to fight the basic paradigm. Bringing an app to the front… brings it all to the front, no matter which screen it's on.
The simplest workaround I could think of would be to use a different browser app on each screen.


Does TextWrangler 4 break BBAutoComplete 1.5.3?

Yes, it breaks version 1.5.3, and yes, there's a workaround. But now it's unnecessary, because version 1.5.4 has been released and it solves the problem.

If for some reason you want to still use 1.5.3, you can do the following:

In the script ~/Library/Application Support/TextWrangler/Scripts/BBAutoComplete, there is a function canCompleteInWindow(w). This function needs to be modified to work with TextWrangler 4.

Open the script in AppleScript Editor.

As it ships, there is a function in the script that reads

on canCompleteInWindow(w)
    tell application "TextWrangler"
        return class of w is in {text window, disk browser window}
    end tell
end canCompleteInWindow

Change it so it reads

on canCompleteInWindow(w)
    tell application "TextWrangler"
        return class of w is in {text window, disk browser window, project window}
    end tell
end canCompleteInWindow

Save the script. BBAutoComplete should now work with TextWrangler 4.


Is it possible for an iPad to get a virus?

Yes, you can get malware on an iPad if you install apps from untrusted sources (Anything outside of the App Store).

However, you cannot get a virus from simply going to a website, as the process of installing an app from a third-party requires your interaction and can't be done in the background.


What is the maximum amount of file arguments I can pass to a command?

getconf ARG_MAX, or currently 262144 bytes.

If you get an argument list too long eror, try using find:

find . -type f -exec md5 -q {} \+

-exec md5 {} \+ and -print0 | xargs -0 md5 pass multiple arguments to md5, so they are usually faster than -exec md5 {} \;.


Fan on Mac Book Air & Finder crash always

First thing I'd try is to remove the saved state - assuming you can get that far…

navigate to ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.finder.savedState/
& delete that entire folder content.

If you can't get far enough to do that, it can be done from single user at boot, but I'd need someone smarter than me to fill the details, so post a comment or revise your question if that's the case.


Virtualization of OSX: Read-only main VM, delta stored separately?

Regarding the mounted ramdisk (tmpfs), it is possible, see some example:

$ hdid -nomount ram://256000  # 256000 (sector) * 512 (bytes/sector)
/dev/disk1
$ newfs_hfs /dev/disk1
Initialized /dev/rdisk1 as a 125 MB HFS Plus volume
$ mkdir /tmp/space
$ mount -t hfs /dev/disk1 /tmp/space
...
...
$ umount /tmp/space/
$ hdiutil detach /dev/disk1
"disk1" unmounted.
"disk1" ejected.


How can I restore sent mail from a backup?

Have you tried importing those .mbox files?

In the Mail.app menu bar:

File -> Import -> Import Mailboxes...

and point to your .mbox files


Can I restore items from a Mavericks Time Machine after upgrading to Yosemite?

There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to recover files from a Time Machine backup saved using Time Machine under Mavericks simply because you upgraded the Mavericks system to Yosemite. A system upgrade doesn't normally break continuity of Time Machine. There will likely be a lot more data backed up during the first backup after the upgrade, so if you don't have enough disk space for the new backup data, some older backup data might be removed to make room for it.

As long as you have credentials to access the backups, you can recover from your current Time Machine backup from another Mac that has been configured for Time Machine whether it was upgraded to Yosemite or whether Yosemite was originally or cleanly installed. Just connect your Time Machine backup to the computer you want to use to recover, hold down option, then click the Time Machine menu and choose "Browse Other Backu Disks...".


ERR_ADDRESS_INVALID from Chrome, but telnet works

This is probably something obvious that you've checked already, but do you have some wierd proxy settings in the OS or the browser?

Failing that, run the Developer Tools in Chrome and look at the 'Network' tab - does that show any redirects or anything?  Maybe the browser can connect to the first IP but fails when that sends you elsewhere?


Log in to iTunes Connect
Select My Apps

Press the '+' button at the top left and choose "New App" (for iOS) or "New Mac App" (for OS X)


2010 MacBook Air Black Horizontal Line Across the Screen

It's most likely your LCD screen.

Your MBA has a single integrated GPU that's used for both your internal screen and to drive an external monitor.  The fact that it's not showing up on the external monitor narrows it down to the LCD screen.

Additionally, if this is happening prior to boot up of macOS, it's happening outside of the operating system so it's definitely a hardware issue.

It's possible to DIY replace the screen (Apple PN# 661-5732), but be aware that iFixit.com rates it as "difficult"


VM running Sierra 10.12.3 in Parallels 12 stops responding to the mouse

A workaround with this is to open Apple Remote Desktop, and screen share the Mac VM. At least doing that will keep me from losing work that I have started in the VM.

I have contacted Parallels support about this many times. It happens on both of my Macs, and it has been going on since I upgraded to Parallels 12 last year. It's still happening with Parallels 13. Several people at Parallels claim that this is something that the engineering team is looking at, but if they are, it's low priority to them.


/Applications/Utilities/XQuartz.app/Contents/MacOS/X11 is just a shell script that executes whatever is defined as $SHELL in your environment:

case $(basename "${SHELL}") in
    bash)          exec -l "${SHELL}" --login -c 'exec "${@}"' - "${@}" ;;

(etc).

In your case, it look as though $SHELL is set to /usr/local/bin/bash, which doesn't exist. What's interesting, though, is that since you have a prompt at which you have typed xquartz, you clearly are running a shell of some description. However, it doesn't correspond to the value of $SHELL.

Two suggestions for how this might happen:

$SHELL will normally reflect the login shell for your user. You can set that in System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> right click on your username and choose "Advanced Options". If you set this to an invalid value, you won't normally be able to open a terminal... unless you go into the Terminal.app preferences and set the "Shells open with:" option to something which does exist. You'll then get a working terminal with a non-existent $SHELL.
Alternatively, it might be something in your shell startup scripts (.bashrc, .profile, etc) which export a misleading value of $SHELL to the environment. If you have customized any of these, take a look and make sure you're not setting things up incorrectly.


Can I stream movies from external drive to the new Apple TV?

My iTunes music folder and all of my movies (in separate folders) are on an external drive.  In fact, it's a NAS RAID box, but it's mounted on my Mac mini.

You just have to load the movies into iTunes.  When you do, they'll be visible to the Apple TV.  Of course, they have to be in the MP4/M4V favored by Apple.  If you want to watch AVIs, etc., you'd have to "hack" your Apple TV.  Haven't done this, but it sounds pretty easy these days.

Maybe we'll get an ATV Apps Store soon, and it will be easy to load other apps and stream all sorts of stuff to the ATV...


iPad - Battery symbol on centre of screen

The iPad battery has drained completely. Plug in the charger and wait for a few minutes for the iPad to turn on automatically.

If the iPad doesn’t turn on automatically, press and hold the power button after charging for 15 minutes to power it on.

To check if the battery is actually getting charged, plug in the charger, and press and hold the power button, the indicator on screen will show the device getting charged.


Is the iPhone X still waterproof if the glass over the camera is damaged?

The camera glass is an important part of the barrier that keeps water out of the iPhone. I would have it repaired soon if you can’t keep it scrupulously dry.
The physics of water meeting a small crack mean if you set this phone down on a wet surface, a large amount of water could wick into the case via capillary action.


Do adapters exist to install generic SSDs in MacBook Airs?

The air has no extra room for internal parts.

Unless the “generic SSD” is substantially smaller than the apple part, there would be no room for it. The adapter of choice would be an external adapter if you’re looking to cut costs.

External connection also simplifies things like whether the storage interface and firmware and controller are compatible.


Mail for Mac will not accept my password

You need to set up an app-specific password, which is now mandatory on anything connecting to iCloud that doesn't support 2FA. See Apple's current instructions here, but they may change over time and so shouldn't be included in an answer.
If the link no longer works, search for "icloud app-specific password".

You will need to set up two-step (not two-factor, which your iMac doesn't support) authentication on your iCloud account.


Open a program in finder with only keyboard

You can use cmd+O or cmd+↓ to open apps from the keyboard.

Other way is to use Spotlight cmd+space and type the app name, then hit enter.


Why can my iMac see my Macbook pro with 2 different icons on the network sharing? (as if it were 2 devices)

You answered it yourself. You had both AFP and SMB network sharing protocols enabled. Thus your mac was presented as two network devices. Notebook icon is for AFP shares and generic PC one is for SMB.

No need to worry about that since it is normal behaviour.


"o" before recent phone number, what does it mean

The letter 'O' before a telephone number is for OFFICE.
'F' for FAX


How to stop Safari on macOS from using https when I want http, when it's not in the HSTS listing

I believe I have figured it out:
The site is an .app domain, e.g. domain.app. And those sites are by definition https-only. See here.
So, it's still HSTS related, but not on an individual site but for the entire ".app" TLD. And for that reason I could not find the specific domain name listed in HSTS, not would deleting the HSTS.plist help.
Well, not sure if I should keep this question up. Maybe it helps others that run into this.
Background: It was my own site. I moved it, along with others, to a new server, and need to verify that they work with plain http. So I tested every site in http, and all but this one worked. So I assumed something wrong with the browsers.
And not only Safari but also Firefox and Chrome want to do https only.
Strangely, though, using other way to request the http site, such as the low level command wget, do not enforce the https requirement (they don't know about it, obviously), hence it misguided me into thinking the problem was a latent browser setting that I could fix.


How can I change my Apple ID region from Asia to U.S

I think this page can help you.
But I'll explain it here too.

On your device, tap Settings > iTunes & App Store.
Tap your Apple ID.
If you're not signed in, sign in with the Apple ID and password that you use with the iTunes Store.
Tap View Apple ID.

If prompted, enter your password again.
    Tap Country/Region. Learn what to do if you can't change your country.
    Tap Change Country or Region.
    Tap your new country, then tap Next.
    Review the Terms and Conditions and Apple Privacy Policy, then tap Agree if you agree to the terms and conditions.
    In the prompt that appears, tap Agree.
    Select a payment method and enter your payment information. Learn more about how to change or remove your Apple ID payment information.
    Enter your billing address and tap Next.

Your Apple ID country updates for all of your Apple services on all of your Apple products.

Open iTunes.
If you’re not signed in, sign in with your Apple ID.
From the menu bar at the top of your computer screen or at the top of the iTunes window, choose Account > View My Account.
    If you’re using Windows and can’t see the menu bar, learn how to turn it on.
    Enter your password, then press the Return or Enter key on your keyboard, or click View Account.

On the Account Information page:

To the right of Country/Region, click "Change Country or Region."
    From the "Select a country or region" menu, select your new country. Learn what to do if you can't change your country.
    Click Change.
    On the Welcome to the iTunes Store page, click Continue.
    Review the Terms and Conditions and Apple Privacy Policy. If you agree, select “I have read and agree to these terms and conditions.”
    Click Agree.
    Enter your payment method. Learn more about how to change or remove your Apple ID payment information.
    Enter your billing address.
    Click Continue.


If mac has the built-in backup tool time machine, why we still need mac data recovery?

Time Machine is a bit different from third party data recovery software. Here's how they work:

When your computer is connected to an external hard drive and Time Machine is turned on, every hour it backs up the files on your computer (or any files changed since the previous backup). In this way, you always have a copy of everything, including versions going back in the past (depending on how large the external hard drive is). Then if you lose a file, you can grab a copy from this backup. (As a side note, the latest version of OS X includes a Versions feature that makes locally stored backups of older versions of files, so if you change a document, you can still see what it used to be.)

Third party data recovery software, on the other hand, is what you use when you do not have an actual backup to rely on. It's also not very reliable. What this does is it tries to scan your Mac's hard drive's empty space for files that were deleted. This sometimes works because even though files are deleted from the hard drive, the hard drive isn't necessarily overwritten, so some deleted files may still be retrievable.


Are there any differences, feature-wise, between Firefox for Mac and Firefox for Windows?

There is a significant issue in viewing PDFs on web sites.

Adobe Reader for Mac has a browser plug-in for viewing PDF files. It's never been compatible with FireFox for Mac, or Safari 5.1 and higher for Mac.

With FireFox on Mac, there's no reliable way to view a PDF file that's on a link from a Web site within FireFox itself. The best you can do is download it and open it using a PDF viewer on your Mac.

With Safari, you can view a PDF file in the browser window with Mac OS X's built-in PDF display capability. It works well enough, but it isn't the Adobe Reader Browser Plug-in, and that can create some problems with services that depend on the Adobe plug-in.


Not a solution to the problem, but small tip to quickly change brightness and volume without waiting for full animation to expand or holding fn key to switch to the buttons.

Just quickly swipe across the icon in the direction you wan't to change (to the left - decrease value / to the right - increase)

or

You can tap&hold, and then swipe where you wanted (your finger should ended up being offset from where the knob is). In this case expanding animation will be played, but you save some time not needing to navigate to the knob or buttons


Unfortunately, top is not scrollable; you're meant to sort the process list to shorten it to what you want.

htop is a more-powerful alternative that is scrollable. Here's how to install it on Mac OS X.

Or, you could use Activity Monitor from /Applications/Utilities.


How do you find your facetime call history on iphone/ipad?

FaceTime history are stored into each device you make FaceTime calls with.
It looks like Apple don't let us see our detailed history, only a global one with recent calls. But there is something we can be 100% sure about : is that the complete logs are stored somewhere on your device.
In my case, even with Handoff and Continuity enabled, FaceTime calls made with one device won't show up on others after hang-up, expect when I make a classic phone call from my Mac using my iPhone.
The only way to find it, would be to extract your device's save file and browse it through a third-party-app.


How can I ignore DS_Store settings for a given drive?

Other than using the terminal command

sudo find /<volume> -name ".DS_Store" -depth -exec rm {} \;

and running it with cron on a regular schedule, you could use FolderWasher, and clean up the volume whenever you wish.

http://sw.ixoft.com/folderwasher/


How can I record a verbal or sound to use as a ringtone for specific numbers

I think this is two questions. How do I record ringtones? and How do I get a ringtone for non-contacts? I will address the second.

You cannot explicitly set a ringtone for numbers not in you address book. But, you can get this effect. Simply make sure all your contacts have a "custom" ringtone set. Then, set your default ringtone to something else. You can do this with only two ringtones, one for contacts and one for the non-contacts. Or, you could customize your contacts as much as you want. Just make sure that every time you add a contact you give them a rintone other than the default.


Creating a search engine within Numbers on a Mac

All steps in this answer need to be carried out on your Search sheet. There is no need to touch your Data sheet.

First make sure you have at least 4,506 rows available in your Search Sheet. The reason for this number is that we're allowing enough room below your search field for all of the corresponding rows of data you have.
In Cell G7 enter the following formula and press return:

=Data::Table 1::B2

NOTE: This formula is just telling Numbers to populate Cell G7 with whatever data is in Cell B2 in your Data sheet, since this is the first cell containing the data you want to be searchable.

Now select Cell G7 and you will notice a yellow handle at bottom centre of the cell. Drag this down to row 4,506. This will copy the formula down all the rows, incrementally changing each one to refer to Cell B3, B4, etc.
In Cell F7 enter the following formula and press return:

IFERROR(SEARCH($B$5,G7)+ROW()/5000,"")

NOTE: The $B$5 refers to your search field. You will need to change this if you decide to use a different cell for your search box. The 5000can be 10000 or 100000, it doesn't really matter.

Now select Cell F7 and drag the yellow handle down to row 4,506. Once again this copies the formula down all the rows, incrementally changing each one.
In Cell E7 enter the following formula and press return:

IFERROR(RANK(F7,$F$7:$F$4506,1),"")

Now select Cell E7 and drag the yellow handle down to row 4,506. Once again this copies the formula down all the rows, incrementally changing each one.
In Cell A7 enter the value '1', in Cell A8 the value '2', and so on for whatever number of search results you want returned. For example, if you want to have up to 10 search results displayed, then work your way down to Cell A16 which will contain the value ’10'.
In Cell B7 enter the following formula and press return:

IFERROR(VLOOKUP(A7,$E$7:$G$4506,3,FALSE),"")

Now select Cell B7 and drag the yellow handle down to whatever row corresponds with the last number you entered at Step 8 above. For example, if you opted for 10 search results, you’d drag the handle down to Cell B16.

Now all of the hard work is done. If you place the cursor into Cell B5 you should be able to enter a search term in order to conduct your search. Assuming you wanted up to 10 search results, when you enter a search term in Cell B5 you will get anywhere between 0 and 10 search results, even if your data contains more than 10. So make sure at Step 8 you’ve allowed enough rows for the potential number of search results.

Below is an animated GIF of how this works in a dummy workbook I created that resembles your description:

NOTES:

You may want to hide columns E, F and G so you don’t see the workings of the search functionality. Alternatively, you could format these columns so that all text matches the background colour of the cell, so that you don’t see all of the clutter.
If over time you add data to your Data sheet, then the number of rows in your Search sheet will need to change, as will the 4506 used in the formulas.


Mountain Lion Figlet through MacPorts error?

I figured this out by cleaning the port with

sudo port clean figlet

then installing using

sudo port install figlet

According to the Macports ProblemHotList, this error is typical of existing packages that have stored compiler locations that aren't current. Cleaning the package and reinstalling assures the package is rebuilt with the current compiler collection settings for MacPorts.


.profile configured, no error message, but no change

The following is an overview of the directories that you mentioned.

/bin  user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments

/usr/bin  common utilities, programming tools, and applications

/usr/local/bin  executables, libraries, etc. not included by the basic operating system

Since your application isn't delivered by a package, I would leave it in your home folder.


According to Apple Support System Status, now, the iTunes Store
Service may be unavailable for some users.


How to install Social Engineering Toolkit in mac

You don't need to compile the SET afaik, the install is:

    git clone https://github.com/trustedsec/social-engineer-toolkit
    cd social-engineer-toolkit
    python setup.py

now to start the setoolkit run

    ./setoolkit


Opening new Terminal.app window/tab with a certain profile from command-line or AppleScript?

Can you just run the startup command with do script?

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "emacs"
    set current settings of selected tab of window 1 to settings set "Grass"
end tell

If someone else doesn't need to run any startup command, you can use do script "" to open a new window:

tell application "Terminal"
    do script ""
    set current settings of selected tab of window 1 to settings set "Grass"
end tell

Or you could also use do script "" when changing default settings:

tell application "Terminal"
    set old to default settings
    set default settings to settings set "Grass"
    do script ""
    set default settings to old
    activate
end tell


How can I export SMS text messages from my iPhone?

Get /var/mobile/Library/SMS/sms.db
It is now exported.

What format do you want the export to be? The existing format is sqlite, so you can convert it to ASCII like so: sqlite3 sms.db .dump > sms.db.txt

For step one, you can jailbreak and then scp, or you can just search your backup folder for the file, no jailbreak required.

If your phone is not jailbroken, look on OS X in:

~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/<long_hex_string>/

And, in my case, and according to various web sources, although not in all cases, is named:

3d0d7e5fb2ce288813306e4d4636395e047a3d28

To answer your other questions: Any OS, Free, Successful.


How can I make Caps Lock work like it did prior to Sierra?

I think I may have found the solution:

It appears that in Sierra, the "default" behavior that I described above is possible, and is now "a feature". Only problem is it's turned-off by default (which is plain ludicrous).

There is now a new option in the input sources screen, which, when turned on, reverts the behavior to the desired one.

The Caps Lock key longer turns green when non-Latin languages are used, but the keys behave as expected. There's the annoying symptom of accidental switching between languages for those who use Caps Lock to Capitalize in English. Luckily for me at least, I switched to Shift for that early on.


Tip: you can go to any folder accessible from your Mac by hitting cmd+shift+G on your keyboard (whilst being in Finder)

According to this answer you can do the following:

• Quit Mail if it’s open.

• In ~/Library/Mail/V7/MailData, delete any file that begins with “Envelope Index,” such as Envelope Index or Envelope Index-shm.

• Your home Library folder is hidden by default. To display it, choose Finder > “Go to Folder” and then enter ~/Library

• Open Mail.

• Mail creates new Envelope Index files. This process may take a few minutes, depending on how many messages Mail is reindexing.


In APFS two boot containers (10.15.x on one and 10.14.x on the other) that share a common data container?

I would say you need 2 systems and one third volume to do this the right way. It’s long been possible and sometimes preferred to have your user home folder apart from the boot system.

10.14 has a combined default user data and system - add your main user with a home folder outside that, but shared with APFS so that all the free space combines.
10.15 has a read only system and a paired user data volume with firm links. Add the same main user outside these volumes.

You will certainly have some breakage and possibly much breakage when you use things like Photo Library, podcasts, music and more when the 10.15 system reads the data structure and modifies / migrates then in the user folder on disk to a newer structure. When the OS boots back to 10.14 this breakage will show and depending on your needs, you might need to keep two parallel home systems, so I would make a good backup of the 10.14 side before you boot to 10.15 and open anything more complicated than isolated documents.


MacBook (13-inch, Late 2009) only boots up to Apple logo with little spinning wheel

This is your one and only hope that I know of.

Login Single User Mode and to repair a disk

Boot the Mac into Single User Mode by holding down Command+S during system boot. After you hear the boot chime, you know you will have successfully entered Single User Mode because you will see a bunch of white text on a black background scroll by.

When the Single User boot sequence has finished, you’ll find a small command prompt at the bottom of the screen prefixed by a hash sign (#), when you see that type the following command exactly:

fsck -fy

Once fsck completes, if you see a “File system was modified” message, then you should run “fsck -fy” again until you see a message stating “The volume (name) appears to be OK” – this is standard procedure of using fsck.

Type “reboot” to leave Single User Mode and boot the Mac back into OS X as usual.
Once OS X is booted again, it can be a good idea to confirm all is well by going back to Disk Utility and running the “Verify” tool to check on the drive's health.

If the above does not work

I hate to share this with you, but I have never seen a fix for this, other than connect the drive to another Mac and recover any files you can access at this point.

95% chance a reformat is the only solution.

Try to save what you can and hopefully there are no important files on the drive.


iPad Safari link: How to share it to Google Voice SMS Message

Normally what you would do is, with the web page/url you want to share in Safari, is to tap the share button and if the App is not listed scroll to the right and tap the "..." menu and add the Voice.app to the list.

From what I can see on my iPhone (iOS 12.4.1, latest G Voice) Google has not exposed the Voice app so that this can be done. There seems to be no options to add Voice to the share sheet, nor is there anything in Voice settings to activate that functionality.

Your only available method seems to be to just copy the link and then paste it into the Messages.app. At least until Google decides to change Voice to allow for it as a target for sharing.


How to open a URL without launching a new safari tab?

Replace your link with this one:

itms://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewRadioStation?id=ra.978194965

You can open it without open your safari. Of course, only works with iTunes installed.


select a menu item of a window instead of a process using Applescript

I must say that your question is rather elaborate and takes quite some reading and thinking ...

But here is a version of your last but one applescript that just MIGHT work a little better for you:

activate application "Fiji"
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Fiji"
    click menu item "Quit" of menu of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1
end tell

1) What you called "menu finder" actually is menu bar item
"File"

2) Menu bars with Apple (normally) don't belong to "window 1" (but to applications). You'd have to get a specific window to the front in order to process just that one.
But anyway, "Quitting" will close all of your windows ...


Does Garageband update with High Sierra updates

As far as I could see in the HighSierra installer there is no Garageband included in the apps list.
No guarantee, I did not try this:
You could download Garageband before the OS upgrade (in the Purchased list in Appstore), back it up.
Then "uninstall the actual Garageband in the Applications folder
Then download the HighSierra installer (Appstore Featured).
After updating to HighSierra it should not be there.
Then you install the backed up Garageband, I am not sure that it will install, but I suppose it does. Then try and see if it runs correctly, do not update.


SSH on Mac to fresh install of Firefox on 64-bit CentOS 6.4 runs but generates errors: RANDR and GLib-GIO-WARNING

For the first warning on RANDR, try installing a newer version of xquartz

Searching there just now, it looks like randr was added. I can confirm that on my system which is running xquartz 2.7.4 on OS-X 10.7.5:

$ xrandr -v
xrandr program version       1.3.5
Server reports RandR version 1.3
$ sw_vers | grep 'ProductVersion:' | grep -o '[0-9]*\.[0-9]*\.[0-9]*'
10.7.5

For the last warning, does "update-mime-database" exist on the system in the user's $PATH?


Ok, here's the deal: Keyboard is broken. Both ALT keys are broke.

Took the keyboard into the Genius bar and they verified that the keys were broken. Got a new one as it was still under warranty.


How to block updates to Mac OS X Catalina?

You can not block major updates after 10.15.5

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210642

Before that update (and similar Summer 2020 updates to older OS - namely the 2020-03 update for High Sierra and Mojave, this command no longer works), you can ask Apple’s Software Update to ignore specific available upgrades to macOS Catalina:

Open Terminal (in the Utilities folder in the Applications Folder)
Run sudo /usr/sbin/softwareupdate --ignore "macOS Catalina"
Enter your login password if asked, hit Enter and you should get confirmation that “macOS Catalina” updates will be ignored.

Later, when you decide you want to allow the updates again, you can use:

sudo /usr/sbin/softwareupdate --reset-ignored

(With the Software Update preferences pane open, you can see the effect straightaway.)


You can only downgrade if you saved an SHSH blob from the old version while Apple was still signing it. If you don't have an SHSH blob for 9.0.2 then it's too late now, and there's no way you can downgrade.


That is possible if:

You have a DVD drive with WiFi capability.

You could connect the DVD drive to your router and access it from your iPad.


Snow Leopard Server in Parallels with Retina MacBook Pro (No DVD Drive)

UPDATE: I totally read everything wrong. My mistake.

You should be able to install Snow Leopard Server by converting your DMG to ISO. See this OS X Daily article for full details:

Convert DMG to CDR or ISO with Disk Utility

If you'd rather create the ISO directly from the original disk, that's possible too.


MacBook Pro Motherboard Upgrade Compatability

I found this for you :

  I have an early 2011 model 15" MBP with a matte screen. I purchased a
  mid 2012 non-retina logic board (without the heat sink → reused my
  original one) and installed it successfully, upgrading my USB ports,
  Thunderbolt port, CPU, and GPU. It's like having a new computer!

  The display cable was a tight fit, but working carefully and with a
  gentle yet firm hand, I was able to fit it into the logic board port.
  The only other difference is that the new boards do not have the small
  heat sinks over the USB controller and one other controller (not sure
  what they are). I've read that one guy butchered his old board and
  superglued the screw mounts onto the new board. Another person
  reported superglueing the heat sink directly to the controller. Both
  of these ways seemed a bit barbaric and unclean to me, so I just left
  the two controllers be; figured they would have the screw mounts if
  they needed the brackets, but they don't.

  So over a week later, my laptop has been running completely fine.
  Actually super, because of all the upgrades! I have installed iStat
  Menus and have been monitoring my temperatures. Everything is within
  normal ranges during various workloads! I have also swapped out my DVD
  Superdrive with my original 750GB 5200RPM HDD, replacing the main
  drive with a 1TB Samsung 850 Pro. Oh, and my bluetooth module has been
  changed a long time ago, to allow AirDrop and Handover to work... as
  you see, just about everything in my laptop has been changed. I just
  really like my matte screen, and cannot believe they don't make them
  any more. These new "anti-glare" displays have nothing on the matte!

  So the answer to whether an early 2011 logic board (15" MBP) is
  swappable for a mid 2012 non-retina one is: It absolutely is, and
  don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!

SOURCE:


Stop Excel for Mac (2011) continuing formatting from last cell entered?

Found it! It's a setting under Preferences > Edit:

  Extend data range formats and formulas

Misread it as "date ranges" on the first trawl through preferences. Turning it off stops this happening.

The comment about formulas seems to only mean that it doesn't fill empty cells with formulas when it thinks it's seen a pattern. After turning it off, it still does other automatic format adjustment e.g. incrementing formulas copied across a range:


Want to upgrade to Mac OS High Sierra and it shows MediaKit reports not enough space on device for requested operation

Typically this means you need to erase your drive. It could be a permanent storage error, but most of the time you can fix things by erasing the entire drive and reinstalling.

MediaKit reports not enough space on device for requested operation
Unable to format Mac internal drive (disk0)

Do you need time to back up or instructions to erase and install macOS?


Before you continue, make sure you read all of the links I have posted in this answer below. The most important link is this one, which indicates that:

If an iPhone or iPod has been damaged by liquid (for example, coffee
or a soft drink), the service for such liquid damage is not covered by
the Apple one year limited warranty or an AppleCare Protection Plan
(APP). iPhone and most iPod devices that were built after 2006 have
built-in Liquid Contact Indicators that will show (as described below)
whether the device has been in contact with water or a liquid
containing water.

The Solution Everyone Does
Everyone that I hear who drops their phone into water (either submerged into the toilet or onto their screen) does something like this:

I immediately but the phone in a bag of rice for 4 days. When I took
it out I tried to turn it on but nothing. Then I tried plugging it
into my computer and nothing happened as well. I left the phone plugged
into the computer for about half an hour then all of a sudden the
computer recognized my phone. I then plugged my phone into an outlet
and it made the charging sound. I thought my phone was going to be
okay but then suddenly I realized that my screen was not coming on.
You have to turn the phone at a certain angle to see a part of
the screen. The strange part is the touchscreen still works.

Bottom line is, there is a 95% chance you won't be able to fix it. But try this, and you may be able to get it working at least partially. Make sure you take it an Apple Store first for advice. They may be able to let you replace it or at least charge a (somewhat) small fee.
Other Important Information Regarding Water Sensors
Apple has water damage sensors in their phone and if it is completely submerged, they will not replace your phone (probably). Submerging it into alcohol (see below) WILL trigger these sensors. Also, if your phone was completely submerged, the sensors would have already triggered. See this for complete information.
Risky Solutions
I'm going to list some solutions you can try (at your own risk). These are from people who have had similar issues as yours.

The water probably has left some minerals behind that is stuck in
crevices, causing the instability. You'll want to wash out the
residue. Get isopropyl alcohol, nothing below 95%, if you can even get
99% it would be best. Simply set your device into it completely
submerged for 15 minutes. Set back into rice for a night or two. The
alcohol will wash and push out the minerals left behind and the rice
will facilitate by absorbing it out.

Source: iPhone Water Damaged Screen


A quick and dirty solution would be to edit the slide master as follows: Resize the text field containing the slide number so it is small enough that you can add an additional text field in the freed up space and enter „of 11“ into it. If you align it properly, it should look like one string.


What safety precautions are needed when working on an iMac G3 with a CRT?

I can verify that the advise in that article is correct. I have discharged and serviced CRT Macs.

I personally am not going to give you any safety advise as it is a potentially dangerous process and should not be undertaken if not confident. I would avoid servicing these machines especially if you do not have access to the official service manual.


How can I use a TP-LINK WiFi USB interface in OS X Lion?

Update: The below hack worked when using D-Link's DWA-130 Rev. D drivers instead of the DWA-160 ones. Compatible drivers using the same chipset were identified with the help of the WikiDevi database.

A quick Google search shows that someone has had success in using D-Links DWA-160 driver (which uses the same chipset), although not without some minor hacking to make the driver recognize the different hardware IDs:

Install driver package
Extract kernel extension from installer:

Show Package Contents of the installer
unarchive Archive.pax.gz
grab AtherosOtusMac.kext

Edit plist and change or add your device id and product id converted to decimal (illustrated below):

Show Package Contents of AtherosOtusMac.kext
Open Info.plist within (using either Xcode or a text or XML editor)
Open System Information, find your TP-Link under USB and note down Product ID and Vendor ID
Convert both numbers from hexadecimal to decimal (you can use Calculator.app)
Replace idProduct and idVendor on the first model with your numbers

Use kext helper to install your modified AtherosOtusMac.kext
use DWA-160.app (in /Applications/Utilies) to connect

Although considering the price of a new Wifi USB stick with OS X drivers, this may not be worth the effort, unless you're doing this sort of thing for fun :-)

Illustration of the plist step (with my USB mouse as example, because I don't have a TL-WN821N laying around):


How to use MacBook pro internal mic and EarPods mic simultaneously?

You will need to use an external device one way or another if you want to either the internal mic or your headphone mic. Though, for decent recording I don't recommend either as they are (barely) designed for the most basic recording tasks.

The problem lies with the headphone jack.  There's a physical switch inside the port itself that disconnects the internal mic so, if you choose to use that port, the internal mic will get disabled.

If you want to aggregate two mics, here are some solutions:

Get two USB mics.  Any decent quality USB microphone will do.  You can then aggregate both into a single input.
Use a USB DAC. This is like a USB sound card for your laptop with both input and output.  You can use a mic with with a phono plug to a 2.5mm plug with the right RCA adapter which are very inexpensive.
Use a dedicated USB mixer. Personally, I wouldn't use anything "built-in" and instead opt for a mixer that allowed me to fine tune the gain on individual microphones.

I personally use the second option mostly as a USB DAC for connecting my Bose Wave radio to my iMac for quality sound, though I do use it on occasion when I want high quality recordings (either via microphone or line input)


Hide Adium (or any other app's) icon in the dock

I achieved this with a simple Terminal command:

defaults write /Applications/Adium.app/Contents/Info.plist LSUIElement true

Per defaults(1), "Defaults allows users to read, write, and delete Mac OS X user defaults from a command-line shell." So this is actually doing the same thing as the other answers here, but without manually editing the plist file, which makes it much safer, not to mention easier (and scriptable).


How do I get iPhoto's facial recognition to stick?

It didn't happen to me with the latest version of iPhoto yet. But the only solution I found to fix this kind of issues in iPhoto '09 without trashing the entire iPhoto library was to remove only the Faces related files. With the '11 version the procedure would be:

Close iPhoto
Find your iPhoto library
Right click on the photo library and chose "Show Package Content"

Navigate to the Database directory

Edit: If you save your iPhoto library regularly you can restore the files instead of deleting them. To open the iPhoto bundle in Time Machine follow the instructions in this answer.

Depending on your version of iPhoto you might have to right click on Faces.db and "Show Original"

Delete the original Faces.db in the newly opened folder.

Delete the 2 Faces files in the Database directory

Relaunch iPhoto
Go to your Photos library

Select all the pictures (click on a picture then  ⌘+A to select all pictures).
Then in the "Photos" menu select "Detect Missing Faces"

You could also try removing only some of the files in the Faces directory before and relaunching iPhoto to check which file might be corrupted in your case.


How can I password protect the web.me.com/USER?

It appears that .htaccess files aren't supported, so someone came up with a javascript solution:

http://leonstafford.com/wp/encrypt-web-pages-on-mobileme.html

Here's some information on how it was possible to password protect the public folder in the mac.com implementation me.com, it may be relevant.

http://homepage.mac.com/rfwilmut/notes/faq.html#3_Public_Folder


difference b/w various commands for getting root access in terminal

From man su:

-l      Simulate a full login.  The environment is discarded except for
        HOME, SHELL, PATH, TERM, and USER.  HOME and SHELL are modified
        as above.  USER is set to the target login.  PATH is set to
        ``/bin:/usr/bin''.  TERM is imported from your current environ-
        ment.  The invoked shell is the target login's, and su will
        change directory to the target login's home directory.

-       (no letter) The same as -l.

As for su versus sudo, it's generally accepted in Apple circles that sudo is the preferred method of working in root. By default, su is disabled on OS X (as is the root account). There are only a few occasions when I've had to enable root to get things done.

For more information, I recommend reading both manpages.

man su
man sudo


disable iMessage on one or more devices but not all

On the Macs, in Messages.app, go to the menu Messages > Preferences, select the Accounts tab, select your Apple ID in the column on the left (if it is there) and press the '-' button to remove it.

On the iPad, go to Settings, Messages, and turn off the iMessage switch there.


The Z shell (Zsh) is a Unix shell that can be used as an interactive login shell and as a command interpreter for shell scripting.
Zsh is an extended Bourne shell with a large number of improvements, including some features of Bash, ksh, and tcsh.

I may suggest you to install Zsh with framework for fancy managing your zsh environment and switch to iTerm2 for excellent terminal
replacement.

Install zsh using Homebrew:

brew install zsh

Switch current user from bash to zsh shell:

chsh -s $(which zsh)

Next install one of popular shell framework like Oh My Zsh or Prezto.

I like Oh My Zsh, so:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Download iTerm2 and after unpack .zip file, run it.


Is there some way to keep the mail.app always opened?

As the other answers mentioned, you can just add it to login items:

There is a bug (?) where Mail is not hidden at login even if the hide checkbox is checked though. And it doesn't prevent you from quitting Mail manually.

You could also add this to the crontab (EDITOR=nano crontab -e):

* * * * * open -jga mail

Or using launchd, save this as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/keep_mail_open.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>keep_mail_open</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>open</string>
        <string>-jga</string>
        <string>mail</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>60</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

You can load the plist with launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/keep_mail_open.plist or by logging out and back in.

This would disable ⌘Q:

defaults write -app mail NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add 'Quit Mail' '\0' && killall Mail

Adding <key>LSUIElement</key><true/> to an Info.plist normally hides an application from the Dock, but it also removes the menu bar. Since 10.8 some applications (apparently including Mail) crash on launch if the Info.plist is modified though.


For the 3rd monitor you'll need an HDMI to USB converter but make sure that the converter is Mac compatible, if it isn't I'm not 100% sure but you may be able to find a software to make it mac compatible with the type of converter like I did.


USB Optical Mouse not working with Mac Mini

Best way to see if they recognize each other:  Go to System Information.  You can do this a couple ways, but the quickest is to hold Option and click on the Apple icon at the top right. You will see "System Information" where "About This Mac" used to be.

On the System Information screen, along the left you will see these categories: Hardware, Network, and Software.  At the bottom of the Hardware portion, you will see the USB section.  Click here, and you will see your mouse if it is recognized by the computer.  It will be listed under one of the USB Hi-Speed Bus's.

You've already taken the other troubleshooting steps, so I'm guessing that it won't be there.  If that's the case, then the mouse doesn't work with your Mac, unfortunately.  I have only seen this on one other mouse, and it was a cheap Logitech.

I hope this at least confirms something for you, even though it may not be the news you wanted.  Might have to get a new cheap mouse, but at least they aren't too terribly expensive these days.


Is there a known issue with MacBooks and bluetooth occasionally restarting?

It's anecdotal, but I have never experienced such an issue on any of my Macs. I haven't heard others complain about it either.
As far as I understand, you're saying that Bluetooth stops working for a few minutes every once in a while - even with only a keyboard and a mouse connected - and it happens often enough that you're impacted even within a single conference calls.
I would try using wired devices and only having a single Bluetooth connected device. Try different combinations to see if you can single out a faulty device.
If that doesn't help, try going to other locations and see if the problems goes away. You might be dealing with interference from a noise source, which have affected all 3 Macs in the same way.


Forgot password to FileVault. Still got access to the machine

The only things that can decrypt a FileVault volume are

the passwords to your user accounts that you gave access during FileVault setup, and
the recovery key (24 characters) that you received (and should have written down) during FileVault setup.

If you no longer have the recovery key, and you're concerned about forgetting/losing your account password, you can go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > FileVault and click Enable Users... to allow more user accounts to decrypt the volume.

Alternatively, if you don't want other accounts to have that ability, you can disable and then re-enable FileVault to get a new recovery key (but that may take a long time).


How do I access the files in a deleted user account?

Here's a few different ways you can access the old user's files:

Recreate the deleted account, and log in with it:

In System Preferences > Users & Groups, click the padlock icon and then the plus button to create a new user
name the User "Abby" - the OS should ask you if you want to use the existing home folder - choose to do so
from the Apple menu, choose "Log out"
log in as "Abby" and you will have access to the old account again

Use the "System Administrator" account to access the files:

navigate to the folder "/System/Library/CoreServices/" and open "Directory Utility.app"
Click the padlock
in the "Edit" menu, choose "Enable root user"
from the Apple menu, choose "Log out"
log in as "System Administrator" (or "root") and you will have access to the files in "/Users/Abby"

Change the permissions of the old home folder:

Right-click the "/Users/Abby" folder and choose "Get Properties"
Click the padlock at the very bottom of the "Get Info" window
Click the "+" button at the very bottom of the "Get Info" window
Select your current account from the users list
Give your current user (at the very bottom of the "Get Info" window) to have "Read & Write" privs
From the gear menu choose "make (me) the owner"
From the gear menu choose "Apply to enclosed items..."

If you want information on how this occurred, I just answered a similar question yesterday


How do I prevent an internal partition from mounting at boot

Traditionally, the file you have to edit to prevent automounting is /etc/fstab.

In your case, you would need to add the line shown below to this file.

LABEL=Shared\040user\040data none    hfs   rw,noauto

You can get more information on the /etc/fstab file, by entering the command man fstab.

This also works:

$ diskutil info disk1s4 | grep Volume
   Volume Name:              Shared user data
   Volume UUID:              3D9A5D0C-1307-3178-81FA-9245634906D5
   Volume Total Space:       0 B (0 Bytes) (exactly 0 512-Byte-Units)
   Volume Free Space:        0 B (0 Bytes) (exactly 0 512-Byte-Units)
   Read-Only Volume:         Not applicable (not mounted)
dmaestro$ cat /etc/fstab
UUID=3D9A5D0C-1307-3178-81FA-9245634906D5 /Volumes/Shared\040user\040data hfs rw,noauto

Note that the mount path must be created manually before using Disk Utilities to mount the partition manually, and Disk Utilities will destroy that mount directory when unmounting manually.


Can I simultaneously connect two pairs of AirPods to my Apple Watch?

No this isn’t possible and is a limitation with Bluetooth.

  No. Unfortunately this is a limitation of the Bluetooth Standard.  Only one device of a specified type of connection can be used at a time through bluetooth.  So while you could use Airpods, an Apple watch and a Bt keyboard with an iPhone all at the same time you cannot use more than one of each at a time.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8070777


Backing up External Drive without Time Machine

Time Machine use an incremental backup approach, where each backup only contains the differences since the previous backup. For a single, changing, file over time, Time Machine keeps state snapshots of the file so you can move backwards in time and see how the file was at previous, different states.

As the disk fills up, Time Machine will purge the oldest snapshots it has. Time Machine will do this opportunistically to ensure that your backup disk always has enough free space to store the next incremental snapshot of your live data it wants to make.

Time Machine doesn't back up everything. It has user-specific exclusion lists as well as a built-in exclusion list. Because of this, the target backup drive doesn't need to be many times bigger than source drive, only a few times bigger than the data set on the source drive that it will be backing up. You can exclude the operating system files for the most part.

For example, on this Mac, you can see that even though there's over 500 GB of storage used on the Main drive, the Time Machine drive isn't 100% full and actuall stores many, many months of incremental backups:

My rule of thumb is you'd like 2x the amount of data you have if you want a long history. But you can get by with 1.5x if all the files on your source drive aren't changing frequently which is true the vast majority of the time.

If you just want to make regular, scheduled, clones of your drive you can use something like Carbon Copy Cloner, which includes a feature for scheduling clones, to take a snapshot of your source drive to a target drive that doesn't contain incremental backups, but is made by taking an incremental update approach. It will only update files on the target if they've changed since the last backup was made and the target drive will only contain the state of your source drive as it was the last time a backup was done.


Does anyone know why my bootcamp partition shows up as a folder in Startup Disk?

I think Bootcamp showing up as a folder is normal...  Here's a screen grab from my system


Recover Deleted Data from Malfunctioning Hard Drive

Sorry to say this but not very likely.

Especially if the HDD was used after the deletion for any period of time. The problem is that once files and directories are deleted there locations are removed from a table that maintains where they're located on the HDD. When these items are deleted, it's often the case that the data will remain on the HDD but just the location information is deleted, but the space they were using is released back into the available pool for reuse.

As new files are written to the HDD, this space, or portions of it, will get reused by the system with newly written files and directories.

So even if someone were able to recover these files & directories, they'd be only able to recover portions of them if anything.


Why are my updating iPhone apps "waiting..." forever?

I get that problem sometimes too on my iPhone 4, especially if I'm updating an app and I lose network coverage.

Here's what I'll usually do, either:

Sync with iTunes
Restart my phone by holding down the power and home buttons.

Either of those fixes the problem for me.


Deleted /Library/Python folder. Is it possible restore?

I guess you may either restore from your Time Machine backup, or copy it back from another Mac running the same 10.7.2


Preview Bug with (Mountain) Lion -- hangs/crashes on repeat postscript openings

I eventually submitted an bug-report to apple.  According to them there was already one open for the same thing.  They wouldn't give me any information about the issue, but it was solved with version 10.8.2


Theme setting missing in iPhone Gmail app

Indeed there doesn’t seem to be a Gmail setting to turn off syncing to the iOS theme (I also looked within the settings of specific mail accounts). This is something Google would need to implement - you can provide this feedback to them from the Gmail app (“Send feedback” is below “Settings” in the side navigation).
As a workaround, you can add “Dark Mode” to your iOS Control Center in System Preferences. This will allow toggling the global theme quickly.
I also noticed that the Outlook iOS app supports overriding the system theme, if you’re looking for an alternative to Gmail.


Finding CodeBlocks that works or fixing bugs?

I was having the same issue.

A workaround / fix is to  disable the autocomplete plugin if you consider "works" without autocomplete.


How to present a keynote and start playing itunes music

Keynote can play audio across all slides, but it needs to be inserted differently. Rather than using the Media button to insert audio you need to insert your audio via the Document icon and then click the Audio tab, and drop your audio tracking this way.

This audio then becomes a "Soundtrack" and will play across all slides in the presentation.


I'm using git+notational velocity and want to know how to commit after I exit the program

You can use Keyboard Maestro to completely automate the task. Here's a screenshot of a macro doing just that :

You should adapt the bash script to suit your needs, I'm not sure how to include the date in the commit message (in addition, I forgot to put the git add command).


Newsstand magazine downloads very slow and halting

Your location doesn't matter, what matters is having a connection to the Apple service. Somewhere down the line something is getting messed up, below are the steps that I'll take to troubleshoot.

Reset networking settings on the iPad
Within the iPad try pinging a few domain names that Apple controls: "itunes.apple.com" is one of them.
Reset modem and reconfigure everything.


tar cvfz command not writing on iCloud Drive folder

You need to place the file in this folder instead:

~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs

This is where you can place generic files, similar to saving them in "iCloud Drive" in the Finder.

Also you seem to have the order of arguments to tar wrong, so that you're really creating a file named "z" instead of "Avid_Backup.tgz" that you thought you were saving to.

The commands thus needs to be:

  tar -cvzf "~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Avid_Backup.tgz" "~/Library/Application\ Support/Avid/Sibelius"


imovie picture-in-picture remove bottom border

You will probably need to crop your source video, which is quite simple to do. Here is a screenshot showing approximately what you're working with:

To crop the clip, first select the clip in the timeline. Then, click the  icon above the video preview, select "Crop to Fill", and resize the rectangle as desired. To prevent it from snapping to the borders, hold the Command key as you drag. Below is an example of what this might look like—though I've cropped it much more than you will, most likely.

Finally, here's what it should look like (I've selected the picture-in-picture tool to demonstrate the bounding box of the clip):


The GPS will still function, but it will take a bit longer to lock onto your location. Also, note that the built-in maps app doesn't have maps stored on the device. It downloads them real-time. This will work fine if you have WiFi, but not if you're offline.

To use the GPS for offline navigation, you'll need an app that stores the maps locally.

Here are some options:

NAVIGON Mobile Navigator has pretty good reviews. It's $59.99 in the US Store, and it also works with the iPhone.

CoPilot Live HD is half the price, but the reviews for it are pretty bad.

More info from Apple: (Click for source)

  Verify that you have a cellular or Wi-Fi network connection. This allows the Assisted GPS (A-GPS) on the device to locate visible GPS satellites faster, in addition to providing initial location information using the Wi-Fi or cellular networks.

So, in essence, it works with our without a cellular connection or WiFi. It's just faster with it.

One more source: A thread on this very question in Apple's support forums.


Listing all Openmeta Tags and associated Files

Some suggestions:
Tags
By CASEapps.

Lists all created tags and files associated with them
Can tag
Easy search filtration
QuickLook

Leap
By Ironic.

Lists all created tags and files associated with them
Can tag
Easy search filtration
Ratings
Heavier/more feature rich interface

TagLists
By Ali Rantakari

Free
Tags & Tag searches for file lists must be made manually

ie. doesn't list created tags, which was what you were after

but hey, the price is right!


How can I prevent iTunes from automatically downloading podcasts?

For anyone coming across this now, in the latest version of iTunes (~v12.5.1) it's much easier to prevent downloads for all podcasts you're subscribed to.

Steps:

Go to "Podcasts" in the menubar dropdown.
In the second column of your subscribed podcasts, at the bottom there's two buttons, "Refresh" and "Defaults...", click "Defaults..."
In the popup, set "Download Episodes" to "Off".


Using the external accessory kit could one iPhone charge another iPhone with a double headed dock connector?

I wouldn't recommend using this cable at all. The iPhone dock connector uses the pin 23 to provide 5V of electric flow. Since you're using a double headed dock connector, the most reasonable technique the manufacturer used is just to split the same cable that comes from the USB head into the four pins each dock connector should at least have to provide power and sync capabilities (or two pins if it only charges the iPhones).

Since the current must at least drop by half on each phone because of the splitting, neither would be properly charged. If both iPhones seem to charge, the least dangerous consequence would be that the charge time will be at least doubled.

Using this technique can (worst case scenario) disrupt the device's PMU. My advice: don't.


Why does three-finger swipe gesture not support natural scrolling?

This may be one of those things that is labeled as a "feature not a bug." It's possible that the swiping gestures that are the same as the gestures on Snow Leopard are considered "Legacy" gestures. If that's the case then it is possible that having it "backwards" Is the expected behavior. If it's a legacy gesture then it may be considered to ignore natural scrolling because that is a "new" feature. I'm not saying that's how it should work, if you ask me if you change the direction of scrolling, it should apply to all gestures, not just the scrolling ones. I've moved mine back to the two finger option for the moment. You should file it at http://www.apple.com/feedback to make sure that Apple knows how confusing this is.