What is a camera app for the iPod touch geared towards filming video?

When I need more control over the video I'm recording I use Canopy Camera Tools. The Canopy app lets you choose a separate focus and exposure point - unlike the stock Camera app. It also lets you lock the white balance once you found a good exposure. Those features are also available when you want to take a picture.
You can also make time-lapse video's with Canopy.

I'm sure there are alternatives to Canopy but this is the app I use.
There are also apps that - unlike the stock Camera app - let you zoom while you're recording a video but since any zooming is achieved through digital zoom and not optical zoom they will degrade the quality of the video.


To make this work again, are you able to boot into the recovery partition? (Try rebooting while holding Command + r keys). If not, try booting into Target Disk Mode using Boot Camp, and then try booting into the recovery partition.

Once on it, try using diskutil to see if the drive is functional.

Basically, (when on the recovery partition) launch Terminal and type diskutil list. It will give you a list of current disks. Please add that list, or even a picture of your screen with that list, so that I can identify which disk#s# you need to boot onto/repair/reinstall macOS to.

But, if you're lucky, booting into Target Disk Mode and then into the recovery partition will fix this.

As for why Caps Lock and "that key between o and q" (I don't know what that is) weren't responding, that may be a keyboard issue, I don't really have any way of knowing without checking it out.


Should I format my disk when reinstalling macOS?

Yes - it’s the perfect time and often sets you up for the best experience.
Your question is hard to answer absolutely since it does take a bit more time and some people don’t have confidence or skill in their backups. You can’t get the image Apple provides since it has non-registered versions of the free apps to claim. But on all the supported OS (N-2 with N being Catalina on October 1, 2020) are free and you can download them easily after an erase. I especially recommend an erase install if you want to be sure the hardware isn’t the cause of issues. You don’t have a better test than this in my experience.
Installing on top of a corrupt partition / volume / system won’t fix that, but will restore the OS cleanly. Make a backup and check your important files are intact on the backup and erase-install is my go to move.
You get to test a clean slate and then do the erase a second time if needed then restore files back. It takes a little extra time, but you never have to redo a step and build confidence the hardware is good sooner than an overlay install.


How can I use Google shortening service (http://goo.gl) in Twitter for iPhone?

You need to add a wildcard to the URL to tell the application where to insert the original URL.
Your custom url should look like this:

http://myshortener.com/shorten?url=%@

However, it looks like this isn't as simple as this on goo.gl. I'll update when I find a way without any proxy-site or other things.


I got the machine to boot by starting up in recovery mode and turning off encryption on the drive in mention. Not sure what the implications of not being encrypted is though...

useful links:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2011/11/23/using-disk-utility-to-unlock-or-decrypt-your-filevault-2-encrypted-boot-drive/


How Can I Copy files to a Mounted Drive using AppleScript?

Finder

tell application "Finder"
    duplicate items of home to disk "WD" with exact copy
end tell

with exact copy preserves owner and group, like Paste Exactly.

cp

do shell script "cp -a ~/ /Volumes/WD"

cp -a is equivalent to cp -Rp. -p preserves times, mode, owner and group, extended attributes, ACLs, file flags, and resource forks.

rsync

do shell script "rsync -aE ~/ /Volumes/WD"

-E preserves extended attributes, ACLs, file flags, and resource forks.


How to disconnect iPhone from WIFI without 'forgetting' it?

Turn off auto-join.  I’ve searched for this several times and always thought it was a stupid design by apple but I finally worked it out.
In your iPhone settings, turn WiFi off then back on again. If it connects to your home WiFi automatically, click on the i (information) symbol next to the connection. Turn off the ‘auto-join’ option. Then you can turn WiFi off then on again to drop the connection without forgetting it.
As the original post I’m replying to is five years old now maybe I’m the only one dumb enough to still be having this problem. But maybe not.  :)


Does charging to 100% damage an iPhone battery

No it doesn’t. Any 2018 or newer hardware and iOS can handle kiosk mode / constantly charged batteries much better than the old controllers so you should just keep it charged if you like that.
Your XR can be kept 100% topped off without any long term harm.
I disagree with Mac World and only think you should shut down the phone if you don’t regularly do that from time to time (you should do that weekly IMO) and it’s no problem to connect to charge and then power it off. The charging runs without the OS but there’s no benefit to being off while charging in all but some weird edge cases (where the software is so broken it’s running CPU constantly).
Also - some older questions here have old advice for the previous design, when this was in fact a problem if you didn’t care about having a fully charged battery and only cared about years and years between the battery being consumed.

What are the best practices for battery longevity?
Is charging my iPhone all night harmful?

Those above questions should probable be locked as “historical” and not used for the iPhone X and newer and corresponding new MacBook / iPad / Apple Watch and more smartly engineered devices that preserve the battery longevity much better than could be accomplished in the past.


Is the first boot after a full system restore from TimeMachine supposed to take a long time?

Sounds like you have a problem.  Have a look at this apple support document on what to do if this happens.


Do I need to go through all Mac OS upgrades?

The latest macOS is High Sierra. You can directly upgrade to High Sierra from Sierra with few steps. Follow the steps below:

Open the App Store app on your Mac.
Search the App Store for macOS High Sierra, or go directly to the macOS High Sierra page.
Click the Download button on the High Sierra page. If your Mac is compatible with High Sierra, a file named Install macOS High Sierra downloads to your Applications folder. (It's the offline installer file)
After download is complete, the installer opens automatically. Click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.

If you are asking about Mojave, it's a beta and now available only to Developers now.

Source: How to download macOS High Sierra


How to resize Safari address bar on macOS Sierra or newer?

Right-click on an empty area at the top of Safari’s window and select Customize Toolbar.
You’ll see two “flexible spaces” on each side of the URL bar. 2 tranparent boxes.
Remove these boxes (by dragging them out of the toolbar), and you should wind up with a larger URL entry area.


The guidance is really quite straightforward. You need to do what is listed under "Next steps" and/or communicate with the Apple review team to solve the issue, primarily

  When creating multiple apps where content is the only varying element, you should offer a single app to deliver differing content to customers

Basically you're in violation of the guidelines as having multiple identical apps with only color theme variations is not allowed. You could instead create a single app where the user can select the color theme they wish if you agree with the characterization of multiple similar apps.

If you don’t agree then a chat with Dev support or a formal appeal would be your next step.


Cannot remove DevonThink Pro from menu bar

The menu you are seeing is actually the AppleScript system menu. It gives you a handy way to launch applications when you're in an app.

To turn it off:

Select the option in the menu Open AppleScript Editor.app
Open the Preferences menu
Unselect the Show Script Menu


How can I move videos from Google Drive to Apple Photos on iPad?

From this Google article:

  Open the Google Drive app.

  Next to the file you want to download, tap More.

  Tap Send a copy.

  Depending on your file, tap Save image or Save video.

If you want to save multiple at once you will need to move the files to Google Photos and have them in a folder.

Then:

  On your iPhone or iPad, open the Google Drive app.

  Tap Menu and then Settings.

  Under Google Photos, turn on Auto Add. At the top, tap Back.

  Find and open the Google Photos folder.

  Select the folder you want to download.

  Tap More and then  Select All and then Download.


Yes, this can be achieved with the NOPASSWD directive in the /etc/sudoers file. Editing this file should only be done by an experienced user, because it is a system-critical file and mistakes could be difficult to troubleshoot.

Edit the file from the terminal with sudo visudo -f /etc/sudoers
Add this line under the user privilege specification section, %admin ALL= NOPASSWD: /absolute/path/to/your/program
Save the file.

The visudo command uses your editor set in the VISUAL variable or if that is unset, the EDITOR variable. Please refer to the visudo(8) man page.


Repair shop suggests to solder new graphics chip onto a used graphics card

Speaking from experiences in the repair community: Its unlikely that its actually a new unused chip. A lot of sellers try to find working chips and clean them and brand them as new. (Some even going as far as lasering in a new date code to make them look like they came from a recent batch, even though the chip has not been produced for a while).

Even if the graphics chip would be new it has the same design faults in there that made it die in the first place. That combined with being unsure about the practices, heat settings and how the chip was stored makes it very uncertain for how long it will last.

My advice: If the store is willing to do this for less then $80 you might want to give it a try (while also saving up for a new device), higher then that and I personally wouldn't risk it.

To answer your second question, there aren't many safety concerns. If a graphics chip shorts out the system will just disable power. I would say the electrical risk is close to none and not more then it has always been


iPhone alarm clock sometimes doesn't work

I have written up a procedure for you to try:

Restore your phone.
Test - if successful go to last.
Take your iPhone to the nearest Apple store and tell them what's happening.
Test the issue with the refurbished iPhone they gave you to replace the one that was malfunctioning - if successful go to last.
Enjoy your "15 more minutes" feeling.

Failing all of these, your alarm is going off and you're sleeping through it because you stayed up too late playing WoW, drinking, coding, whatever. It eventually stops making noise and leaves the message on the screen. Try placing the phone across the room so you have to get up to turn it off. See if that helps. Either way, now you have a newly refurbished iPhone 4.

Please forgive the snarky nature of this answer. I wrote it after my alarm didn't go off in the morning due to a push notification.


Safari - How to search on a web page from the current selection onwards

You can easily search from the point of selection using the following approach.

Immediately after selecting the string to search, use the keyboard shortcut Command + E to record the search string into find buffer.

Now press the keyboard shortcut Command + G to search from the selection point in the forward direction. To search backward, use the keyboard shortcut Command + Shift + G.

This works in most other apps apart from Safari.


How to get keyboard shortcut for downloads folder work again after deleting downloads folder?

⌥+⌘+L is the default key but if it is not working, I would suggest you create a new service in Automator.

Set the dropdowns to Service receives to no input, in any application, or limit it to just the Finder if you like.
Add the "Run Shell Script" item, and set the content to open ~/Downloads
Save the Service, name it whatever you like.
In the keyboard shortcuts preference pane, select "Services" from the source list.

Find the service you created at the bottom of the list on the right, and give it whatever shortcut you'd like. I hope this will help you.


Show installation date of packages installed with Homebrew?

brew ls -lt lists installed packages, sorted by last modified date of the package installation directory, newest to oldest.

Equivalent results can be obtained with:

find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -lt

With this incantation, sort order can be changed by adding -U (creation date) or -u (last access date) to the ls -lt

$ find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -ltU # creation aka *installation date*
$ find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -ltu # last access aka last use date

Add -r to ls -lt to reverse order, oldest to newest.

brew ls -l lists installed packages in alphabetical order.

It's unknown to me whether Homebrew affects a package folder's creation date during brew upgrade, so be aware that learning the first installation date of a package may be elusive.

The -a option for brew ls -l appears to be no longer available.


only 8GB diskspace, iCloud keeps downloading iCloud stuff!!! help!

The answer for me is to turn OFF the Optimize setting (see image). It seemingly stopped filling up the harddrive after I changed that setting.


How to get MacBook Leopard installation disks?

Apple doesn't technically sell operating system software discs anymore. If you call AppleCare will often mail you replacement DVDs for what shipped with the system depending on how old it is (1-800-APL-CARE).

If you are looking for the DVDs for third party software AND you have the valid serial numbers for said programs, sometimes the software manufacturers will send you replacement DVDs.  That is as long as this system is the only one that they will be installed on.

Otherwise you can look on ebay/amazon for slightly out of date software that may well work for your needs.

If you need a very capable free office package you can try http://www.openoffice.org.  There are many very capable open source programs that you can use on the Mac as well: http://opensourcemac.org


This appears to be covered in detail (without an answer on the Apple discussion forums (thread 1 and thread 2).

The second link in particular goes on a long way, with rumours of a workaround (though not what the workaround might be), ways to disable fsck so that it boots (though what the point of a safe boot without the fsck is I'm not sure), that it may be related to the RAM installed on the Mac, and that it may be fixed in the 10.8.3 seeds.

Good luck until it clears up.


Spotlight / Show in Finder / in new Tab instead of new Window

Same thing bothering me. As far as I can tell, there is no 'native' Finder solution.

However, as a (belated) suggestion to OP, or anyone else with the same problem, here's how I solved it for myself -- sort of a 'hack', but better than Finder default behavior:

Use some keyboard customization software (I'm using Karabiner), and define a (user activated) shortcut that triggers two other keyboard shortcuts that are executed automatically, and in sequence. The shortcuts that do the trick are: (1) Reveal in Finder, (2) Merge all windows.

Details: "Reveal in Finder" is already bound to a shortcut natively (cmd-R), but "Merge all windows" is not afaik. Since adding menu items in Karabiner is a bit tricky, probably the easiest way is to assign a shortcut to "Merge..." in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App shortcuts. I picked cmd-shift-M. You can then make use of this (OSX) shortcut in the definition of a Karabiner shortcut.

In Karabiner, I then defined a custom shortcut (cmd-R), triggering cmd-R and cmd-shift-M.

The effect is pretty close to what I wanted to see in the first place: in a Finder search tab/window, I select an item, press cmd-R, which reveals the item in a new window, which is immediately merged into the existing window as a new tab.

Focus remains on main window, the new tab goes to the end of the tab bar, and I can continue revealing other items immediately without having to cycle tabs.

The one thing that still bothers me: the "merge windows" animation is slow-ish, and I can't find a way to speed it up (or disable it).

Like I said, not perfect perhaps, but it's reasonably close to what I had in mind.


hdiutil: Creating case-sensitive image fs for Steam

It's a better practice to leave all uppercase variables for the shell and use lower and or mixed case for user variables in scripts. You need to preface the hdiutil attach ... command too with sudo if using /.000 as the mount point.

Here's my version of the script which works.

#!/bin/bash

set -e

mountpt="/.000"
sparseimg="/Users/Shared/Steam/steam.sparseimage"

[ ! -d "$mountpt" ] &&  sudo mkdir -m0777 "$mountpt"
[ ! -e "$sparseimg" ] && hdiutil create -type SPARSE -fs 'Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+' -size 32g "$sparseimg"

sudo hdiutil attach -mountpoint "$mountpt" -nobrowse "$sparseimg"


Go to Settings / General / Reset / Reset All Content and Settings.
This will wipe the device and restore it to a factory-settings state.

If you do this, nothing will be left on the device (data, settings, accounts, etc) and you'll have a fresh start with the phone.


Apple doesn't allow user to rename any app that comes with the O/S


Removing right-command as "show desktop"

For those who like me didn't find the right answer ;-).
I accidentially turned on "Show desktop" on left "Command" key.
It has nothing to do with "Keyboard shortcuts" preference!

Go to "Preferences" -> "Mission Control" and change "Show Desktop" key from listbox to something useful.

Remember even if it doesn't show "left Command" key it uses it ;-), so change it.


How can I show Growl notifications on both displays?

Currently there is no way to accomplish this. The Growl mailing lists have discussed allowing Growl to always place the notification on the display that you have a window focused in.

For example, you have 3 displays, oriented in a horizontal line, and you're doing some file management on the far-left display and web browsing on the far right. If Finder has focus, the notification will be shown on the far-left display, if Safari/Chrome/Firefox/$BROWSER has focus, the notification will be shown on the far-right display.

But this feature has not yet been implemented, so you are limited to explicitly configuring Growl to send notifications to a single display.

This feature has been written up on their Google Code Project page, so you can star the issue in order to receive further notifications.

Note that you can star it on an issue detail page by clicking the star outline to the left of the title "Issue 122: [...]", or at the bottom of the page just above the comment box. After clicking the star in either location, it will turn yellow and have a thicker blue outline, that means you've subscribed, and in essence, "voted" for the feature.


What does the undocumented switch, `-v`, do for `tmutil restore` command?

The tmutil commands restore verb syntax is:

restore [-v] src ... dst

The use of the -voption produces verbose output during the restore, i.e. additional information about the restore that's not outputted without it.

As a side note, tmutil -v will output the version of tmutil.


Can my MacBook use F2-5300CL5S RAM from my HP laptop?

Apparently they are compatible. I just tried it and the machine is zipping along now. It seems that the difference between the modules is latency and caching, which are close enough that the RAM will still work just fine.


How can I get zsh to show the current path in the prompt?

Oh my, omz is setting the PROMPT variable. Let's get you a temporary bash-like prompt in your current zsh session.

PROMPT='%m:%1~ %n%#'

Your omz installation is hosed. I recommend that you uninstall it. Install it again, if you want to or read the following sections of the zsh manuals.

man -P 'less -p "EXPANSION OF PROMPT"' zshall

to craft your own custom prompt in your .zshrc and if you are interested in themes

man -P 'less -p "PROMPT THEMES"' zshall


Is there a script I can use to download the Mojave installer without being signed in to the App Store?

There is a very well documented open source script that reads the software update catalogs and parses them for the major macOS installer components, prompts you which build and version to download and will then commence to download each portion to your filesystem and then build an installer application or image based on the options you choose.

https://github.com/munki/macadmin-scripts

The python script named installinstallmacos.py has this description:

A tool to download the parts for an Install macOS app from Apple's
softwareupdate servers and install a functioning Install macOS app onto an
empty disk image

This tool is updated for macOS 10.15 Catalina.


compress Long size file into multiple limited size xz file

Use split.

Example:
xz -e9vfc < yourFile.vdi | split -b 1024m - yourFile.vdi.xz.

This will split yourFile.vdi into compressed chunks of 1GB, suffixed by aa-zz.

To reassemble, do cat yourFile.vdi.xz.* > yourFile.xz

7-zip is MORE capable, but less ubiquitous. You'll want to checksum your backups and verify it every once in a while. Have a look at a GUI package of p7zip. It will let you select compression levels and volume sizes of 1GB... If you're doing this in an unattended batchjob, p7zip is dirtier. I can find one of my snippets if you need it.

A nice thing about xz though, is that you can assign n cores to a job. I believe it's the -T flag. Remember to nice it to 20 if you intend to use that mac for something other than a big paperweight if you use all cores at once.


Disable sleep when nobody is logged in to MacBook

Go to System Preferences → Energy Saver and disable Put hard disks to sleep when possible.


iPad Pro 10.5" down to 92% battery health after 6 months of use (update: 84% after 1.5 years)

The battery health (beta) feature is currently only supported on iPhones as far as I know. However, a battery condition diagnostic can be run by apple support over wifi either by AppleCare over the phone / online chat, or of course in store at a genius bar.

If the battery has degraded to that percentage of original capacity, according to coconut, it's always a good idea to verify this with the diagnostic tools that apple support use.

iPad batteries are not replaced at Apple stores due to the nature of their manufacture being sealed units. Most 3rd party (and usually not apple authorised) repair places that offer this service will not replace with apple certified batteries and this will therefore invalidate any warranty status you probably still have if it was brought new in October 2017.

As far as I know the current capacity of your battery will be considered within specification as it's only 80% and lower that is considered failed or consumed. Batteries that pass this condition test may not be eligible for in warranty service from apple.

However, it may be on it's way to early failure if coconut stats are accurate. To quote www.apple.com/batteries/service-and-recycling/; "iPad Owners
Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1000 complete charge cycles. The one-year warranty includes service coverage for a defective battery."

It could be that your battery may be defective if it has degraded to 92% of original capacity after only 63 charging cycles. Again verify this with apple support, but also consider if usage or environmental factors may have contributed to this seemingly rapid degradation.

Check out www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/ to see if there are any pointers or tips that might help, otherwise contact apple support to log your battery issue whilst still within warranty. This will give you, and them, better options in the future if issues persist or worsen.

Hope this helps.


UPDATE

Developer Jeremy Huddleston Sequoia announced yesterday that this problem is solved in XQuartz 2.7.8_beta2:

  XQuartz 2.7.8_beta2 is available for download.

  You can see http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/X112.7.8 for a
  full set of changes, but most noteworth ones are:

  1) xauth now correctly parses the Yosemite launchd $DISPLAY socket path
  2) libGL has been updated to Mesa 10.4.4
  3) Various exploits were fixed in xorg-server, freetype, and libpng
  4) A bug preventing automatic updates in some cases has been fixed

The bug report is closed and marked as fixed:

If you can't (or don't want to) install the beta, you can still use the workaround I explain below.

ANSWER

Analysis

(scroll down for the workaround section)

My first thought was "the DISPLAY variable is wrong". But it's not.

As it turns out, on OS X 10.10 Yosemite (and back to 10.8 Mountain Lion) the DISPLAY variable stores a launchd socket path:

/private/tmp/<socket name>

instead of the familiar display name:

hostname:displaynumber.screennumber

(I've added some information about the hostname:displaynumber.screennumber format at the end of this answer.)

This  means that xauth has to know how to deal with this special incarnation of the DISPLAY variable, and as of Mavericks, it did, but the socket used in Yosemite has a different path (more precisely: /private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.XXXX instead of /private/tmp/launch-XXXX), and xauth breaks.

This bug was reported to the XQuartz team on Nov 18 2014 (3 months ago) (http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/ticket/2068):

  The xauth program has code in both gethost.c and parsedpy.c to look
  for $DISPLAY names that start with "/tmp/launch", and to treat that as
  a local socket. However, the location seems to have changed, $DISPLAY
  now starts with "/private/tmp/com.apple.launchd", so the code that is
  looking for /tmp/launch doesn't catch it. (...)

According to the bug description it is to be solved in XQuartz 2.7.8, which is 4 months late (see the project roadmap page at http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/roadmap).

The patch that fixes the problem was committed on Dec 31 2014 to the freedesktop.org project (http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/app/xauth/commit/parsedpy.c?id=f990dd936b5fd1a40290bb88cde517a0ac38f823):

diff --git a/parsedpy.c b/parsedpy.c
index c591b77..7365224 100644
--- a/parsedpy.c
+++ b/parsedpy.c
@@ -42,6 +42,9 @@ in this Software without prior written authorization from The Open Group.
 #include <X11/Xauth.h>         /* for FamilyLocal */
 #include <X11/Xmu/SysUtil.h>

+#include <sys/stat.h>
+#include <sys/syslimits.h>
+
 #if defined(UNIXCONN) || defined(LOCALCONN)
 #define UNIX_CONNECTION "unix"
 #define UNIX_CONNECTION_LENGTH 4
@@ -158,8 +161,32 @@ parse_displayname (const char *displayname,

     if (!host) return False;

-    if(strncmp (host, "/tmp/launch", 11) == 0) {
-        family = FamilyLocal;
+    {
+        /*
+         * If using launchd socket, remove the screen number from the end
+         * of $DISPLAY and check if it is a path to a socket.
+         */
+        char path[PATH_MAX];
+        struct stat sbuf;
(...)

So it's only a question of time until this patch finds its way into the next release of XQuartz.

Workaround

(tested on OS X 10.10.2 Yosemite.)

Add:

alias ssh="ln -fs $(echo $DISPLAY | sed 's:\(/private/tmp/com\.apple\.launchd\.[^/]*\)/.*:\1:') $(echo $DISPLAY | sed 's:/private/tmp/com\.apple\.launchd\.\([^/]*\)/.*:/private/tmp/launch-\1:'); ssh"

to ~/.bashrc and either start a new Terminal window or source it (. ~/.bashrc) in your current Terminal session.

This alias first symlinks the socket path to /private/tmp/launch-XXX (for example ln -fs /private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.GuewxwWwKS /private/tmp/launch-GuewxwWwKS) and then starts ssh:

For the curious, traditionally, the X server's display name has had this form (from man X on Ubuntu):
The X server's display name has this form:

hostname:displaynumber.screennumber

where:

   hostname
           The hostname specifies the name of the machine to which the display  is  physically
           connected.   If  the hostname is not given, the most efficient way of communicating
           to a server on the same machine will be used.

   displaynumber
           The phrase "display" is usually used to refer to  a  collection  of  monitors  that
           share a common set of input devices (keyboard, mouse, tablet, etc.).  Most worksta‐
           tions tend to only have one display.  Larger,  multi-user  systems,  however,  fre‐
           quently  have  several  displays so that more than one person can be doing graphics
           work at once.  To avoid confusion, each display on a machine is assigned a  display
           number (beginning at 0) when the X server for that display is started.  The display
           number must always be given in a display name.

   screennumber
           Some displays share their input devices among two or more monitors.  These  may  be
           configured as a single logical screen, which allows windows to move across screens,
           or as individual screens, each with their own set of windows.  If  configured  such
           that each monitor has its own set of windows, each screen is assigned a screen num‐
           ber (beginning at 0) when the X server for that display is started.  If the  screen
           number is not given, screen 0 will be used.


iOS auto-erase after 10 wrong passcode attempts: will the iCloud activation lock still work?

Activation lock happens regardless of the content on the device.

You are protected since any wiped phone needs to check in with Apple's activation servers to determine if the device was purchased through DEP or is covered by an existing activation lock.

You don't have to worry about enabling a wipe conflicting with the inability of someone to activate the device down the road - they were designed and implemented to not conflict. Activation Lock works whether you wipe or not and without regard to how the wipe actually gets triggered.


Using tracks from Apple Music in iMovie project

It seems like I would keep that as it is exported as separate file.

Yes, once you export from the iMovie project, you'll retain the audio tracks.

  What if these videos have been uploaded to Youtube?

You'll most likely end up with an automated Content ID claim. If you used a substantial portion of a copyrighted material in your video verbatim, your uploaded media may automatically get deleted from YouTube.

However, in most cases it is generally not troublesome if you have created some original content. Quoting from the linked article:

  Am I in trouble?

  Probably not. In most cases, getting a Content ID claim isn’t a bad thing for your YouTube channel. It just means, “Hey, we found some content in your video that’s owned by someone else.”

  It’s up to the copyright owners to decide whether or not others can reuse their original material. In many cases, copyright owners allow their content to be used in YouTube videos in exchange for having ads run on those videos. These ads may play before the video or during it (if the video is longer than 10 minutes).


How do I achieve find . -name "*.py" in finder

The asterisk is not a glob in Finder/Spotlight search.
Try the search without the asterisk: type .py then choose ‘Name matches: .py’ from the dropdown.
However, searching for file extensions is not the usual way to use Spotlight search, and you can't pin the filename search to the end of the filename using Finder. Instead, Spotlight can understand what a Python source file is, so you can search for python and choose ‘Python Source’ for more accurate searches.


ICS invites are added to calendar, but no acceptance sent

Open the Contacts app, select your own email address in the list of contacts. In the menu on top of the screen, go to "Card" -> "Make this my card". Ensure your email address is entered as part of your card. Reload calendar. Then it should work, you will get a notification popup with accept/decline buttons. (I just had the same problem, on a Mac running Yosemite)
Source


sudo -s is far easier than enabling the root user since it just starts up a shell with root permissions as a one step, on demand action. Not only is it fast, but it doesn't need to be reconfigured when you don't need the root user and doesn't expose the server to any more risk or vulnerability that adding a root user would entail.

Of course for npm you could just follow the directions and type:

sudo -H npm "install" "." "--force" "--global"

That still makes the npm command "root" and skips the log out step to get back out of root.


Change to a second language dictionary while readinjg

With the French keyboard activated, type a French word in Notes and then select it and do Define.  Hopefully it will let you download a French reference dictionary.


Cannot fully use Apple Shake application in macOS 10.13 High Sierra

Your question answers itself.

  Apple Shake was built on 32-bit Carbon API. I surely understand it's not 64-bit Cocoa API

Leaving aside the 32 bit versus 64 bit argument; Cocoa is entirely different than Carbon.  It's not going to run because the APIs that Shake is referring to (Carbon) are not compatible with what you are running now (Cocoa).

It's important to note that Carbon was deprecated in 2012 with the release of Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8.x).  Remember, why and when Apple adds/removes features is entirely their prerogative.

  In 2012, with the release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, most Carbon APIs were considered deprecated. The APIs are still accessible to developers and all Carbon applications will run, but the APIs will no longer be updated.

As for Shake running in Terminal, this is an entirely different scenario - Cocoa and Carbon do not come into play - it's strictly a text based interface.

UPDATE:  After a bit of research, I discovered two things:

Shake has been relegated to "incompatible software" and Finder will not launch it.  Period.
There's a workaround (see below) to get it functional in El Capitan because the Carbon libraries are still included, though deprecated.  Note:  This has not been tested/confirmed in Sierra/High Sierra.  As this is deemed "Incompatible Software" by Apple, there's no guarantee that the workaround will fully work or for how long.  YMMV.

Work Around

Right-click Shake.App
Go to Show Package Contents.
Go to Contents --> MacOS --> shake (select shake not tshake);
Double-click shake. It should first open a Terminal Window and then Shake should be running.
Create an alias (a shortcut) of the file and place it whenever you want. Launchpad will not be able to see it, though you can have the shortcut/alias in your Applications folder.


Extracting files from partial downloads on Mac

You can't just change the extension on a .download 'file' & expect it to be seen as anything else, because it's not a file, it's a folder - or strictly, Package, like an app or your Photos library etc.

If you right click it & select "Show Package Contents" then you can see inside it - though if it'a a partial file there may simply be nothing to see. tbh, I don't know how it handles the contents internally, but they're not even visible with 'show hidden' switched on.

If you double-click it, or right click, Open, it will attempt to complete the download.


Preventing other network users installing Remote Desktop 3 via the AppStore

How are they supposed to know the login credentials for the other machines? And if they do know the credentials, they could probably do whatever they want with ssh, vnc, afp, etc… anyway, so no need to prohibit ARD, really.

To make it more precise: if you cannot trust your users not to spy on each other, don´t let them know each others passwords!


Can I play YouTube video in background on iPad ?

Like @Ermiar said, yes, but if the app in the foreground wants to play music or sounds itself, the sound from the Youtube app will be stopped.

Also, the Youtube app can, like iTunes, continue t play if you lock your iPad with the lock key, and you can also control it by double clicking the home button while the iPad is locked.


How to recover lost partition after diskutil erasevolume noformat

The problem has finally been resolved... I went into Internet Recovery (but normal Recovery will do as well) and "reactive" the partition with Disk Utility. The old version of Disk Utility that is used when in Recovery mode allows to do this whereas the new version in System Preferences has pretty limited functions.

Basically, the partition had just disappeared before... When using the command sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0 I had 4 partitions, but one without any identifier. As a result, I was unable to either mount or restore this lost partition with diskutil, as there was nothing to identify it. Sorry for not being any clearer, but since I restored everything, I don't have the output to demonstrate it anymore.

I still thank you for answering back!


Is it safe to listen to Apple earpods at 75% volume?

While this is a little bit off topic, I'll provide some thoughts here.

you can't expect the percentage scaling directly with dB SPL. While both are surely nonlinear inside the affected electronics, the nonlinearity of Apple's percentage may not be logarithmic but dB SPL are.
sensitivity is dB SPL at 1 V. This usually has not much to do with the sound pressure level, your headset produces at 100%.
audio files and sounds from apps and programs may be scaled differently. Computer equipment and phones usually do not provide a compressor algorithm, so a setting of 75% yields totally different sound pressure levels for different sound sources.

Conclusion: No, it is not necessary safe to listen at 75%. It may or may be not healthy.


How can I make the new Podcasts app update iTunes played status?

I upgraded to iOS 6 yesterday, and it seems that this has been resolved itself, either through updates to iTunes or Podcasts.app (or both).

When I sync with my Mac, the podcasts I had listened to in Podcasts.app were correctly marked as played in iTunes.  Yay!


iCloud does not actually backup the videos, only the metadata. The Videos themselves still need to be synced via iTunes or the App Store/iTunes download on the device.

Like the old backups made in iTunes, the backup contains the metadata, settings and various other bits or pieces that is not part of a normal sync or purchase.

When you restore a backup it will afterwards start syncing the actual media and apps from iTunes, if it is done via iTunes, or start downloading the media and apps from the App Store if you haven't used iTunes for syncing. This does not include videos or music that was not purchased from the iTunes store.

The only videos that are backed up are those in the Camera roll as per this Apple support document. Also note the disclaimer at the bottom:

  Backup of purchased music is not available in all countries. Backup of purchased TV shows is U.S. only. Previous purchases may not be restored if they are no longer in the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBookstore.


iPhone: How to restore and update without using iTunes or iCloud

Restore iPhone not available without iTunes.
You can only do Factory Reset without iTunes.


iPhone backup data overwritten by mistake

With iTunes backups, there is only one backup (the latest) maintained per device at any point in time. Since you have overwritten the older backup with a new one from the fresh install, it's possible to recover only if you have a copy of the backup folder made before the install through the built-in Time Machine backup system on OS X (if you have a Mac) or any other solution.

Here are the iTunes backup folder locations on different operating systems:
OS X - ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Windows (XP, Vista and 7) -  %APPDATA%\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\

Since you do not have iCloud backups, you're completely out of luck if you didn't have backups of the iTunes backups. If you do back up your computer, simply restore the folder where iTunes stores iOS backups (after making sure you have a current backup for other devices if needed) and you can restore your iPhone from an older backup.

For more information, see these answers to similar questions - they provide details as well as recommendations for the future:
Restoring an OLD iPhone backup
Recover iPad Safari bookmarks overwritten by iCloud


How should I do my first Time Machine backups?

It is generally recommended to use an external disk or a folder on a shared storage of a server for performing backups of your Mac. Time Machine, an app built into macOS is the recommended solution for creating and restoring backups.

For starters. I'd like to point you to the wonderful web-page setup by Apple for users new to Mac & macOS and learning about backing up:

How to back up your Mac

  should the first backup be kept separate, in case you need to restore to the original condition of your system, and then do another backup which is then used to do hourly/daily backups/whenever backups upon?

You should be fine with a Time Machine backup. However, do ensure that the disk with Time Machine backup is kept secure and backup remains available for restoring.


How to partition free space in a Mac SSD

Do you have something like in the screenshot in your Disk Utility app?


FunctionFlip doesn't work. Alternative/fix?

I got tired of FunctionFlip not working right and finally found Karbiner does exactly what I want and works great.


Stop Safari from asking to be default browser

Without knowledge of your macOS version:

Open System settings
Choose General
Choose from the pop-up menu in
the default-Browser section your preferred browser.


Go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage.

The full file is around a GB but some people have partial files as small  as only 40 MB so You might need to carefully search for your download.

Tap Delete Update, and tap Delete Update again to confirm.
hope This will effectively remove the downloaded update from your device and prevent you from accidentally installing it.
if you are going to upgrade in future keep save the shsh blobs (ios 7) so you can downgrade to ios 7 later .


Trying to force update_dyld_shared_cache but having some errors

What fixed it for me was

update_dyld_shared_cache -debug

This is what you should see

update_dyld_shared_cache: adding root: /System/Library/...
...
...
update_dyld_shared_cache: /var/db/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_i386 is up-to-date
update_dyld_shared_cache: /var/db/dyld/dyld_shared_cache_x86_64 is up-to-date

to be sure it works I run

update_dyld_shared_cache

a second time


Time Machine back up to Time Capsule fails

Usually, I wouldn't post an answer like this  (rather, just delete the question) as my solution to this issue is so untechnical; however, I feel that it might just save somebody a head of hair.

It turns out that the Ethernet capable connecting the Time Capsule to the network switch was damaged. I never checked it initially because the Time Capsule was appearing on the network and my MacBook Air would back up to it fine, but all I can assume is that my MacBook Pro but more stress on the cable. Long story short, I've put a brand new Ethernet cable in and it worked first time, flawlessly.

Now, before I did so I had followed this tutorial to keep using the same machine after a change to the computer, so I don't know if that did have any effect or not.

I suppose the moral of the story here is that networking is a pain and you shouldn't overlook anything, even if it seems to be working perfectly!


Security issue on blocked screen in High Sierra?

Your picture shows "burn in" or "image persistence" where the physics of the liquid crystal elements that are held at one voltage level for a period of time tend to not relax entirely when that voltage changes.

This affects the polarization of the backlight and you will see ghost images.

Short term, you can reduce the backlight level so that it's not letting as much light through, but long term you can use a screen saver or just select a higher cost display that shows less of this inherent characteristic.

Other display technologies have similar effects, but they can be more permanent with CRT tubes or OLED displays. LCD generally recover over time, but can be permanently marked and need to be recycled or used in less discerning uses once they are used past the design life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_persistence

  Image persistence can be reversed by allowing the liquid crystals to return to their relaxed state. In other words, turning off the monitor for a sufficiently long period of time (a few hours or maybe days) will relax the crystals and eliminate image retention. For most minor cases, simply continuing to use the computer as usual (and thus allowing other colours to "cover" the affected regions) or turning off the monitor for the night is more than enough.


On the Now Playing screen in the Music app, scroll downwards and tap on the shuffle button to turn it off.

The shuffle button is concealed in the UI and it's placement isn't obvious.

Image Source: http://osxdaily.com/2016/09/16/shuffle-music-ios-10/


You should avoid using Apple's artwork for your own projects or where you need to re-distribute the files. Apple's legal department may have an opinion.

Rather than copy Apple's artwork, create your own. There are numerous collections of calendar artwork that you can build upon.

Use a scriptable tool like Gimp, Inkscape, or ImageMagick to create all 366 variations.


This thread on Google Groups may help.

You may also want to consider adding your feedback to that thread, too.


How to publish an app internally for users of my organisation and not publicly?

You are looking for Apple Developer Enterprise Program.

This program, created specifically with the said need in mind lets you distribute and manage apps internally in your organization, without going through public faing iOS App Store.


The problem was an intractably corrupt iCloud keychain.  The cure:

Disable iCloud Keychain Security code approval on every device.
Disable iCloud Keychain on every device.
Use Keychain Access to reset a Mac's keychain to the empty default.
Re-enable iCloud Keychain and security code approval on every device.
Use Keychain Access to manually move desired items from the corrupt keychain into the new pristine one.


How long can my MacBook Pro sustain greater than 100% CPU usage?

The thing is that 100% CPU usage refers to a single one of the cores in your CPU being fully loaded (or an equivalent load distributed among all the cores). I assume your MacBook Pro has a dual core CPU with HyperThreading; that's 2 physical cores plus 2 logical cores exposed by HyperThreading. Thus, you could in theory achieve as high as 400% CPU usage (4 cores times 100% each).

As to whether it is sustainable, in principle it should be, if the cooling system is in order and the cooling vents are not clogged with dust or blocked by any objects. Even if it's not and you reach supposedly dangerous temperatures, the CPU should throttle itself to prevent any damage.


I confirm that drives that use the FAT or the exFAT file format can’t be encrypted using FileVault.

Therefore, if this can help, I suggest you to create two partitions of the device using two different file format.


You can do this with Karabiner with a private.xml such as this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Forward Delete with ⌃⌫</name>
    <identifier>private.ctrlbackspace</identifier>
    <autogen>
      __KeyToKey__
      KeyCode::DELETE, VK_CONTROL | ModifierFlag::NONE,
      KeyCode::FORWARD_DELETE
    </autogen>
  </item>
</root>


If I restore from an iCloud Backup will my photos go back into Camera roll

Yes it will restore your photos from your camera roll

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12519?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


How do I tell beta app review to test on a compatible device?

All iPhone apps must be able to run on an iPad. If there is not sufficient technology in the iPad, an appropriate message needs to be shown. Your app cannot crash during app review for any reason. Apple may bring out an iPad which meets the device capabilities in the future and you shouldn't have to update your app before it works.


Unable to open any applications Terminal System Prefs

Any time the system itself needs to be reinstalled, you can safely boot to recovery HD or internet recovery or bootable install media and then reinstall the core OS. This functions like the archive install of the old days where it sets aside your running system. Then a fresh system is installed and all users and data are migrated in to the new system.

This is super safe if you have a good backup and relatively safe even if you don't have a backup since it doesn't intentionally delete any user settings or data. You'd only lose your data and files if the system had errors anyway and that loss was just a matter of time.


What was the maximum screen resolution in Macs based on 68K CPU's?

If I recall correctly (happy to be corrected) the most powerful 68K Mac that was actually released commercially was the Macintosh Quadra 840AV. It was launched in July 1993 and discontinued in July 1994 and actually overlapped the period during which Apple transitioned to PowerPC processors.

Now, depending on what you're actually asking, the thing about this model is that it had the ability to support a second display because users could expand it by inserting a NuBus video card. Depending on the card and display being used, the amount of VRAM installed, and the numbers of colours being output, one could achieve a maximum resolution of 1,152 by 870 pixels.

For example, the Macintosh Display Card 24AC and the Radius PrecisionColor Pro 24AC displayed this resolution (1,152 by 870) at 75Hz. However, the 1,024 by 768 resolution used by most was supported at both 60Hz and 75Hz.

Finally, just as an aside, I refer to the following comment in your question:

  There are reports of Mac OS 9 going up to 1920 x 1200, but that is, of course, running on a PowerPC CPU.

I still have PowerPC based Macs that can run macOS 9 natively and display a resolution of 1,920 by 1,200 pixels, but this has nothing to do with the PowerPC CPU per se. Instead the displays are driven by the various NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards you could have it configured with.


How to pass keyboard hotkeys from VMWare Windows VM back to OSX host?

That's easy.

Disable the Auto Capture Keyboard.


how to run alias using bash -c from IDEA

The reason of your failure is that myapp is evaluated by bash at the time of the line evaluation, i.e. before its definition.
I suggest you to avoid aliases for this purpose (I can't find any easy method with aliases).

Here is a simple method.
If you don't have already one, create a personnal directory for all your
binaries and shell scripts:

$ mkdir ~/bin

Add this new directory within your shell standard PATH:

PATH=${PATH}:~/bin
export PATH

Create a new shell script to fire your application with all the
required arguments:

$ cd ~/bin
$ cat >myapp.sh <<eof
/somepath/app -arg1 -arg2
eof
$ make myapp

check that it is working from your actual environment:

$ myapp

Then call it from IDEA:

Program: myapp

check that it is working from within IDEA.


Will an Apple Airport router work better with my Macs?

It's not so much that AirPort routers will work "better", but I can guarantee that setup of AirPort routers when using Mac computers is much easier than other routers.  The AirPort Utility really makes setup a breeze!

This comes from years of experience as a network admin and having personally owned/used at least one of just about every major brand of home router.  If you can afford an AirPort router, you won't regret the purchase.


Recovery partition fills up half of the disk, cannot resize

I was able to fix it by erasing the recovery partition with diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ Blank disk0s3 and resiizng the main partition in Disk Utility, but I am still not sure why it got that big in the first place.


After some experimentation, I discovered that it isn't quite a double-tap that is required to activate the drag lock.  The second tap of the double-tap need to be held down until the drag is started instead of being released immediately.

So the sequence of steps look something like this:

touch trackpad
release after ~0.1s (or some short period of time)
wait ~0.1s
touch trackpad
begin drag
release touchpad

And then when I am done dragging:

touch trackpad
release after ~0.1s


Can I connect more than one external monitor with only one thunderbolt port?

thunderbolt dock will do it.  get one that adds dvi, hdmi or passthrough thunderbolt.

my caldigit does hdmi + passthrough thunderbolt so i can get 2 displays on there.


Without a jailbreak, iPhone Bluetooth only supports headsets and wireless tethering.  Developers can also use the Bluetooth API to allow apps to communicate but this has limited functionality.  So basically your iPhone won't discover your phone, laptop (unless it's a MacBook) or desktop because it's not designed to do so.  With the MacBook, it appears that the only functionality allowed is data tethering and no file transfers or other features are enabled.


How to close multiple tabs in safari iOS 8

The only (very slow and clumsy) solution at the moment is to clear your Safari browsing history via the settings. At the moment there is no other way to close all tabs at once.


How to change the password for my Apple ID from my iPad?

Go to App Store or iTunes Store and scroll to the bottom, then pick your Apple ID. Select View Apple ID and log in with your current password. Pick Apple ID at the top and change your password, then press Done.


Cannot seem to add internal testers with existing iTunes Connect accounts

You can use a "+" sign to add the same email to your desired iTunes Connect Account.

If the email is someone@gmail.com, you can add it like this: someone+0@gmail.com

The system ignores the "+" sign and any character after that, it works like a charm but you have to use the altered email for the login.


How do I get Time Machine to Show in Notification Center?

You don't need to add Time Machine to the list. Along with all other OS X system notifications, they are shown in Notification Center without any user intervention required to activate them. Conversely, you can't disable them either. This is the same with battery notifications, disk ejection notifications, etc.

If you want to disable Time Machine notifications, set the flags value for _SYSTEM_CENTER_:com.apple.TMHelperAgent in the app_info table in ~/Library/Application Support/NotificationCenter/<udid>.db to 12609 or 13639.

If you want to customise it further, change one of the other entries for Notification Center, then read the flags value for that app and save it as the flags value for TMHelperAgent.


USB keyboard acting strange with MacBook Pro

For anyone else with this issue...

Referring to the user manual for the Cooler Master Storm USB keyboard, check the N-Key Roll Over mode (NKRO) as OS X doesn't support NKRO.


Changing country or region without spending the remaining apple balance from gift card

You can’t use credit from your Apple ID’s previous country’s iTunes store in its new country. Because of this, you have to fully deplete the credit on your Apple ID before changing its country by purchasing stuff or giving it out as a gift to someone with an Apple ID with the same country. If the amount is too small to purchase anything or to give it out as a gift, you can contact Apple support.


Cannot take photos, message pops up that says "Not enough storage space"

This isn't referring to storage on iCloud but on your device itself.

Go to Settings > General > Usage
Under Storage (which is above iCloud) you will get a list of all the apps by size. If there is one you don't use you can delete it to get space to take a picture. If you don't see a list of apps, your phone is probably processing through and you will see a spinning indicator until it finishes:


The following assumes that neither file nor folder names contain comas (,) and that the exported CSV file uses , as the separator.

As small errors can lead to unexpected results and data loss it's recommended to make a backup first.

Remove any additional columns, header lines and empty lines at the end from your table (so it only contains two columns with file name and folder name respectively)
Export the data as a CSV file named files.csv into the folder containing the text files
Open Terminal
cd into/the/folder
Run perl -pi -e 's/\r\n/\n/;' files.csv to convert the CSV from DOS-like line ending to the standard Unix style
Copy/paste the following (test code, will not create/move anything)

while IFS=, read file folder; do
    # if the folder doesn't exist yet -> create it
    [[ -d "$folder" ]] || echo mkdir "$folder"
    # if file exists -> move it
    if [[ -r "$file" ]]; then
        echo mv "$file" "$folder"/
    else
        echo "Uups, $file not found"
    fi
done < files.csv

If the output looks ok (especially if no "Uups, xxx not found" output is shown, nor any other error messages), run

while IFS=, read file folder; do
    [[ -d "$folder" ]] || mkdir "$folder"
    if [[ -r "$file" ]]; then
        mv "$file" "$folder"/
    else
        echo "Uups, $file not found"
    fi
done < files.csv


Yes, the FAT is the problem. Time Machine needs an HFS+ formatted drive.

That's quite logical, since files copied from your HFS+ system have many attributes that could not be handled by the FAT filesystem, not even counting the files too long, or the characters that could not be accepted as a valid filename on FAT drives :)


Can an iMac connected via Ethernet to an AirPort Extreme participate in the Wireless network?

Actually you may have a minor, if understandable, misunderstanding of how a network works.

If you plug a Mac (or a PC, or anything else...) into a base station that other computers connect to wirelessly they are all on the same network.

Neither MacOS nor Windows, Linux or anything else differentiates a wireless network with a wired network coming from the same source.

Try it out, turn WiFi off on on your Mac and then try those things out, you will find that they still work just fine.

Note that the "green bubble messages" distinguish a text message (or SMS if you prefer) that goes over only your carrier's cellular network from the "blue bubble messages" (iMessage) which use your phone's 3G or 4G networking to send data through Apple's messaging servers. This is why your blue bubble messages never get to anyone who don't have an iPhone or a Mac.


How do I disable update warnings on my iPhone?

You don't get charged for app upgrades on iOS. You only get notification for free updates.


rsync in cron on Catalina no longer working

This requires adding cron to the Full Disk Access list.

Open System Preferences : Security & Privacy : Privacy : Full Disk Access

Both rsync and cron must be included on this list. Before Catalina, listing only rsync would work. On Catalina, rsync by itself only lets you run rsync by hand. For it to work within cron, cron must also be on the list separately.

(In the Full Disk Access preference pane, hitting Command+Shift+G will allow typing /usr/sbin/ in order to then choose cron)


Unfortunately, the Apple Wireless Keyboard manufactured from 2011 onwards swaps the special Dashboard key for a special Launchpad key. I don't believe this special key function can be changed.

If you have assigned the keyboard shortcut for F4 to Dashboard, you will need to press the function(fn) key while pressing F4 to open Dashboard. Additionally, you need to make sure Dashboard is enabled in System Preferences > Mission Control as either a space or an overlay.


Can I use my @me.com address as my primary email address?

Yes. iCloud has a good online email client and supports IMAP for clients like Outlook or Thunderbird.

However, you might want to use the new @icloud.com email alias.


Website hosted on Mac taking too long to load on the first access

Take a look a my question over here How to prevent Safari from stopping downloads?.  I would mark as an exact duplicate but it is not the same question, only the same answer.  The problem that what is occurring is your computer has to wake up from sleep. "But wait InsomniaX is supposed to prevent it from sleeping!" Yes it is. But it does not seem to work in this case.

Since you do not want specific times for the server to wake and sleep I would suggest these settings.

System Preferences>Energy Saver

Computer Sleep: Never

Put Hard disks to sleep when possible: Unchecked

Wake for WiFi Access: Checked

Then open a new Terminal.app in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and enter the following command: caffeinate and leave it running.

You can also create a LaunchDaemon so that caffeinate will start automatically on restart.

P.S. I too use my MacBookPro 2011 as a server.  I use it with macOS Server to host websites, file server, VPN, and others.  Great use for an old computer.


I've had the same problem using the 2015 Outlook preview on a Mac.

Quitting (using the shift alt delete equivalent) and restarting the programme gets the ribbon back every time for me.


Update my jailbroken iPhone 4 iOS 4.2.1 to iOS 7.1.2

Back up your iPhone with iTunes.
Restore your iPhone with iTunes.

If you want your phone jailbroken with iOS 7.1.2, jailbreak it at this point.
Restore your iPhone from backup.


iPhone 4S crashed, Wifi crashed, Personal Hotspot gone

Since there wasn't physical trauma, you should try to restore its factory settings through iTunes.

You can try to restore your backup afterwards (iTunes will ask you if you want to or use the phone as a new iPhone), and see if it's still working. That should bring back your Personal Hotspot.

If not, re-restore it and set it up as a new iPhone. You'll lost your messages and some settings. But you should be able to keep your contacts (if sync through iCloud, Gmail, or other), and your mails.

If it's still not working, bring it back to an Apple Store, they'll most likely give you a new one.

Since the Personal Hotspot feature is controlled by your carrier, so you might also want to check with them if it's still activated on your account.


Is there an official direction for scroll zoom?

If natural scrolling is disabled, scrolling up zooms in in all of those three cases. Scrolling up zooms in the screen even if natural scrolling is enabled though.

Scrolling while holding control could be considered to be a separate gesture where enabling natural scrolling does not invert the scrolling direction. When using a multi-touch surface, I think it's more natural that dragging up increases the zoom level.

It's also possible that applications shouldn't invert the scrolling direction when scrolling is used for zooming, but many applications do. But I didn't find anything about it in the HIG, and I don't know any applications by Apple where scrolling while holding option or command would have a special meaning.


Automator service not showing in services menu

Depending on how your script is configured, by default, any Service requires to have an item selected / highlighted (in your case, an email) as they are context sensitive.
You can disable this behaviour by changing the drop down field "Service receives" and selecting "no input". This obviously only applies if your script fetches input itself or doesn't need it.

Unfortunately there do seem to be weird issues when services have spaces and/or numbers in their name.
As stated by @gerlos, renaming them should solve the problem, but a reboot might be required (Which was the case for me).

As an extra;
If you're now finding that you don't like the name of the new service, you can change it!
Just right click the .workflow file and select 'show package contents'.
Inside you'll find a configurable info.plist file.
Open it up with your favourite text or plist editor (Or just plain old TextEdit) and look for the xml key 'NSMenuItem', it should contain a key entry 'default' associated with a string, the string in question is the service's display name.

More information on everything that's configurable (e.g. a service description) can be found in the apple documentation here: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/SysServices/Articles/properties.html

Tested on OS X High Sierra


Is it possible to schedule running Mail.app rules?

Here is how I would approach this - note it is quite technical and is recommended only to people who know what they are doing.

1) Write an Apple Script to send the keystroke to apply your defined rules in Mail.app

2) Schedule a crontab to run that script at predetermined times

To start you off here is a sample script that I have written:

tell application "System Events"
tell application "Mail" to activate
keystroke "l" using {command down, option down}
end tell

Then to schedule your job (e.g. midnight) by adding a crontab entry - change the username to the user you are running Mail.app as - leave osascript as it is

* 0 * * * username osascript 'path to your script.scpt'

Alternatively use a GUI to schedule the above such as cronnix http://code.google.com/p/cronnix/


enable dictionaries in dictionary app under el capitan

Go to Dictionary > Preferences. That will bring up a window like this:

Then, check them off and they will appear on the Dictionary front-page.


After deleting the "/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist" file you will need to reset the Dock for it to take effect. You can do this simply in a Terminal window with killall Dock.

You could also just try editing the plist file in a text editor. The tilesize parameter is the one that determines the dock size. It should look something like the following.

<key>tilesize</key>
<real>50</real>

You should also be able to resize the Dock by clicking on the dividing line between the application tiles and the file/folder tiles.

If resizing just doesn't work at all, there is a way to prevent changes to the Dock by making the size "immutable". If that has happened you can re-enable changes by entering the following commands in a Terminal window.

defaults write com.apple.dock size-immutable -bool false
killall Dock


Can't update iPhone 5S to the last iOS version (Verifying update)

Restore is sometimes needed from iTunes when an over the air (OTA) update fails you repeatedly. iTunes restores have a couple of other advantages in addition to being far more reliable:

chance to back up locally instead of iCloud
less free space needed on the device (you don't need space to stage the upgrade and contain a download all on the device - just space needed to apply the change)


Attempt to download app, says it's already installed on my Iphone4

There is a difference between an app that has been purchased and one that is installed. To install a purchased app, open the App Store app on your iOS device.

Click on the Updates button in the lower right corner to advance to the Updates pane:

Click in the Purchased area near the top of the screen to advance to the Purchased pane:

Select the Not on this iDevice tab to see purchased apps that aren't currently installed:

Select the app you're looking for from the list and install it.


Safari 5.1 (OS X Lion) Inspect Element / Web Inspector always pops up and is not docked to main window

At the bottom left hand corner of the popup there is a little button that looks like a dark square with a white square in it. That button pops the inspector in and out.

Don't know if that will fix your problem but you can try


Where can I find information on comparing two MacBook Pro models?


Delete / Uninstall iTunes on macOS High Sierra (v10.13)

I'm pretty sure you have to disable SIP to uninstall pre-installed apps.

  System Integrity Protection is a security technology in OS X El Capitan and later that's designed to help prevent potentially malicious software from modifying protected files and folders on your Mac. System Integrity protection restricts the root user account and limits the actions that the root user can perform on protected parts of the Mac operating system.

  System Integrity Protection includes protection for these parts of the
  system:

  • Apps that are pre-installed with OS X


What are some good / feature rich mail clients that support Exchange?

I'll state the obvious one: Outlook:Mac supports Exchange natively, including support for Exchange's categories (which Exchange uses instead of tags)

There are third-party add-ins like MailTags which add support for categories/tags to Apple Mail.

Thunderbird + ExQuilla doesn't support categories/tags.


How can I stop or pause spoken text playback with Siri?

A partial solution is to tell Siri to "mute everything."
This will mute, but not stop the spoken playback, so you'll have to find your place again.


Unhide application from switcher and menu bar

User error ... I had to use the command+comma shortcut to change preferences. I had foolishly checked "Hide icon in Dock" not realizing that it would also hide it in the application switcher.


Why does the wireless disconnect when cooking?

This really has nothing to do with unibody or Macs, but is rather due to physics. I'm guessing that you're cooking using a microwave oven or have it running nearby when you're using your laptop.

The 802.11b WLANs operate in the 2.4 GHz band. Unfortunately, microwave signals also fall in the same frequency band, and hence can cause interference with your wireless signal. If the interference is too high (depending on how your home is setup, how close the microwave oven is, etc.), your receiver can drop the connection.

An alternative to this would be to use a routing device that uses 802.11a. This operates at 5 GHz, which is outside the interference band and you won't notice this problem. However, the drawback is that since it's higher it frequency, it attenuates faster. This means that it will not travel as far as the 802.11b and will not penetrate through walls, etc. So if you have a big house, this might not be feasible unless if you want to set up multiple hotspots. From the linked wiki article:

  Since the 2.4 GHz band is heavily used to the point of being crowded, using the relatively unused 5 GHz band gives 802.11a a significant advantage. However, this high carrier frequency also brings a disadvantage: the effective overall range of 802.11a is less than that of 802.11b/g.In theory, 802.11a signals are absorbed more readily by walls and other solid objects in their path due to their smaller wavelength and, as a result, cannot penetrate as far as those of 802.11b.

You can also programmatically test this. You can get your wireless details from the command line with

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

The entries corresponding to agrCtlRSSI and agrCtlNoise will give you the strength of the signal and interference respectively. Here's what a quick experiment in my house shows (explanation follows):

In the figure, you can see the change in wireless signal strength and interference as I walk from near the router (at time 0) into the room farthest away. The point to note here is that signal decreases, but noise background remains at the same level.

Then I return to the dining (next to the kitchen) and turn the microwave on for a minute (highlighted time periods). You can see how the interference increases and is higher in the next trial, when I move it to the kitchen (but not near the microwave). Note that these levels are in decibels, which means that a 3dB increase implies a doubling of interference.

The third time, I put it right next to the microwave and my laptop dropped the signal because the interference was just way too high. You can get a glimpse of how high it was, when you see it drop down to normal levels after turning the microwave off. All this while, the signal strength remained the same.

Summary: Your kitchen appliances are interfering with your signal and if you happened to be far enough from the router that your signal levels are also low, you can experience difficulties even without being that close to the appliance.

Obligatory XKCD:

  'Cheater!' 'Hey, gaming on wifi? You have only yourself to blame.'


Skipped iCloud Keychain configuration during install of El Capitan

Settings > iCloud > Keychain. You should be able to set it up from ther. Make sure your phone is also on iOS 9.


Is there a command line utility to display a string or an image in the status bar in Mavericks?

This is something that I looked for a long time ago and did not find a satisfactory solution to. Your question has inspired me to finish the project that I began back when I was searching for a solution to this.

Check out menubarnotifier on GitHub. You can display a notification in the menubar by passing a string to the script:

./menubarnotifier.py "Notification Text Here"

...and it will display in the OS X menubar. Clicking the notification will exit the application.

Add the location of the script to your path (or just create an alias to the script itself) and you will be able to use it from anywhere in the Terminal.

The problem with the existing implementation is that it logs using NSLog, which writes to stderr by default. You will need to suppress the NSLog messages to get any real use out of the script.

My approach is to add the following function to your ~/.bash_profile and then call the function when you want to add a notification to the menubar:

# menubarnotifier.py function
mn () {
    /path/to/menubarnotifier.py "$1" 2>/dev/null &
}

So you can use it with just:

mn "Notification Text Here"

And it will not log to stdout. It will also run in the background to not require Ctrl+C.

The script uses PyObjC, so you will need to install that if you don't have it already. I installed it using MacPorts easily with sudo port install py27-pyobjc* but I think you can get away with just sudo port install py27-pyobjc py27-pyobjc-cocoa.

The idea is to use NSStatusBar.systemStatusBar().statusItemWithLength_() to create a new item in the OS X menubar.

self.statusItem = NSStatusBar.systemStatusBar().statusItemWithLength_(NSVariableStatusItemLength)
self.statusItem.setTitle_(display_text)

I'll add more functionality later (such as images like you mentioned in your question). I also need to figure out a better logging mechanism so you can just run it and not see the NSLog output. For now, use the bash function that I wrote above to get this to operate the way you want it to.


Verify that you're using an 85W Apple MagSafe adapter, the 60W will not provide enough power to turn the MacBook Pro on.  Try with a known-good 85W MagSafe adapter, if that doesn't work, you'll need to take it into an Apple Authorised Service Provider (AASP) or the Genius Bar.

Good Luck!


Apple Watch can't send/receive SMS while using cellular plan

This isn't really a solution as much as an answer.  My girlfriend has a Series 4 LTE+GPS model on Verizon and a friend of mine has a Series 3 LTE+GPS model on Sprint.  I saw them over the last few days and they were kind enough to let me test things.
Both Apple Watches behaved in the same way.  Sending / receiving SMS while using a cellular connection was difficult and out of 10 tests per device, including mine, we only got them to send an SMS and receive a reply 4 times out of 30 tests.  Since 3 carriers and 3 different models had these same issues, I am personally concluding that it is some kind of software issue.  Since the devices are primarily designed to work with a cell phone within range, I expect that there is some as-yet-unknown issue in this specific though possibly rare use case.
We cannot packet sniff or do other advanced diagnostics on how the watch communicates with the cellular network to accomplish its tasks.  This fact combined with the fact that most tech support agents you can speak with on the phone at a carrier are simply running off of checklists without being knowledgeable in how their network actually works leads me to believe that this problem will have to wait for a carrier solution.
I believe the issue is with how it appears the watch sends and receives SMS while away from the phone.  The iPhone is required to be turned on and connected (I quote the article linked in my question):

Make sure that your Apple Watch can connect to your iPhone, cellular, or Wi-Fi. To send and receive SMS/MMS from cellular models of Apple Watch, your paired iPhone must be powered on and connected to Wi-Fi or cellular, but your iPhone doesn’t need to be nearby.
Even if your iPhone isn’t connected or powered on, you can send and receive iMessages on your Apple Watch when your Apple Watch is connected to Wi-Fi or cellular.

This indicates to me that the watch uses UMTS for phone calls but not for SMS.  Since phone calls with the watch under cellular can be completed without the assistance of the paired phone.  I tested this just to be sure and powered off my phone but could still make and receive calls on the watch perfectly.  It appears the watch intends to send it's SMS messages to its paired phone over iMessage to then be relayed through the phone's cellular connection.  Similarly the phone appears to receive an SMS first and then relay to the watch similarly.  I did delay testing using the watch connected to WiFi only and the phone only connected to cellular.  The phone would receive the SMS first and between 0.5 and 2 seconds later the watch and other iMessage devices would receive the message as well.  Likewise testing sending under the same conditions the watch would send a message, it would then hit the other iMessage devices in roughly about a second, then 3-4 seconds after showing up on iMessage devices connected to my iCloud account it would show up at the receiver.
If I turn off the phone sending and receiving SMS fails to work (as the Apple documents indicate) on any iMessage device (this includes my iPad which has its own cellular connection and my two MacBooks).
Given all of this, I am convinced that there is a relay problem due to network provisioning and connectivity issues for the SMS relay to take place while the watch is using cellular data.
This is backed up by an experience I had previously in testing the ability for a cellular device to run an internet service.  I had attempted to run a small web server on an Android device on my AT&T account and was unable to open a port on the Internet side of the connection.  The test was part of a University project and not part of this testing.  Technical support from AT&T indicated that they specifically make it difficult for devices on their cellular network to be directly accessed on the Internet unless the device has been specially provisioned.  It was also indicated that this was done in the name of security but in the same call such provisioning was possible under specific request for a business account holder and would cost extra to implement.
Given these factors I'm considering the issue closed.  I believe the watch uses iCloud to relay information to/from the phone for SMS (and possibly other) functionality and that cellular services make it extremely difficult to establish this kind of connection reliably for standard cellular clients.


Is there any way to turn an iPad screen off? (and not put it to sleep)

No. The way iOS is architectured, turning off iPad screen transitions the app to an inactive state. Only if your app supports iOS Background mode execution, can it continue to run.

  I want to turn the screen off but have it continue to run whatever app is running.

Only the apps that support background execution, such as music playback or VoIP calling can continue execution with the screen sleeping.


OSX programs crashing, 'Kernel: file: table is full'

I solved my own problem - but figured I'd answer for anyone else searching for the same thing.

I run CodeKit to help minimise CSS and JavaScript when building websites. The program works beautifully, but I had it monitoring all the sites (25 or so) I'd built over the past year or so for changes when it was open. I figure this was causing it to open (or at least monitor) thousands of files, resulting in the file table issue.

By only selecting the site I'm working on to monitor, everything is working perfectly (again) and as a plus - the CodeKit CPU usage has dropped dramatically.


Where to configure the default user group for file/directory creation?

I don't see a way to do this. Since network accounts have their groups managed by the network account server, it doesn't look like this can be overridden locally. And since the user is part of the network account server they are technically not part of a local user group.

As a test, I used Advanced Options to modify my network user to group 80 (local admins group). Upon reboot my user belonged to the AD group again.

If you want to change group ownership, you will probably need to use the chown user:group functionality in the Terminal on each file or folder you want to modify ownership permissions over.

Another option, of course, is to work off of a local user account and use your network credentials when accessing network resources. You will lose awesome things like single-sign-on though.


Is it possible to display the current state of modifier keys?

There is one native solution I can think of, and that's to show the Keyboard Layout window. This can be accessed through the input menu in the menu bar*, and will show you all keys and their current states. A bonus to this for normal circumstances is that you can see where option and shift-option special characters are mapped.

Another possible solution involves a third-party app such as Keyboard Maestro. If you create a macro triggered by the press of a modifier key, you can tell it to, say, display a Growl notification with a relevant message. I'm not exactly sure how you'd want to do this, or what exactly you'd want it to do in the first place, but many of these programs have tons of options.

*To enable this, go to System Preferences > Keyboard > "Show Keyboard and Character Viewers in menu bar"


After using fake charger with my Macbook Pro Retina 13, an original new one won't light up

Sounds like a DC-In board or logic board issue. It could be possible that the fake one cooked the parts of the logic board which provide the onewire communication between the SMC and adapter. Before you go replacing parts, make sure the contacts are clean on both the rMBP and MS2 adapter. Ensure no pins are pushed in and stuck on the adapter. Also ensure that the DC-In board did not get pushed in.

If it is new enough, it should still be covered under AppleCare, and you can take it into a ACSP for them to take a look at. Don't mention any fake charger should you take it in for service. If you're lucky, it's just a DC board, so here's hoping.

Sorry I can't provide much more help, it's hard to diagnose HW problems without having the machine in front of me with known-good parts to swap and test.


Is anyone else having problems with using htop on High Sierra?

I the meantime lots of people have reported the same behavior on GitHub.

Also, I'm 96.73% sure that htop does not crash when started with sudo. I guess that's the best workaround until someone gets around to fix the root cause.


There's a handy AppleScript that will identify files in your iTunes folder that aren't in the iTunes library: Music Folder Files Not Added.

Download the file, open the .dmg and add the script file to ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts (you may need to create that folder if it's not there already). Then it should appear under the script menu in iTunes (a scroll icon between the Window and Help menus).


As I mentioned in my comment, what you're trying to do is a system wide event that you want activated by a keyboard shortcut. These factors combine to reduce the overall response time.

To help reduce the response time, you could try using a different script to achieve the same thing and test that for a while to see if it runs more efficiently.

Your current Apple Script (based on what you've linked to in your comment to me) is:

tell application "System Events"
    set frontmostProcess to first process where it is frontmost
    delay 0.01
    key code 121
end tell

Basically the above is designed to have the frontmost app to do a Page Down (key code 121) after a delay of 0.01.

However, you could try this one line code instead:

tell application "System Events" to keystroke (key code 121)

This should achieve the same outcome and be more efficient. You could test it for a while and see if that's what you find. Of course, to page up you would just change the key code from 121 to 116.

However, as I mentioned previously, the fact you need to activate this via a keyboard shortcut will add to the time it takes for the whole thing to run. That is, you need a keyboard shortcut to be registered that then runs an Automator Service that in turn runs the script, so this isn't going to be as efficient as say just using the built-in keyboard shortcut for Page Up and Page Down.

Regardless, you may find that if the script is more efficient that it reduces the response time enough to satisfy you.


How can I save iOS Notes that maintain remain formatted?

The new version of iCloud Notes, available at https://www.icloud.com/#notes2, supports viewing rich text notes with formatting.
Notes in OS X, besides viewing and editing rich text notes, supports exporting notes as PDF. Select the note you wish to export and choose File → Export as PDF….


Is there offline alternative to Workflowy?

Workflowy has a desktop (electron) app with offline access as of October 2017 https://blog.workflowy.com/2017/10/19/the-workflowy-desktop-app-has-arrived/


iPad (12.3.1) not trusting certificate even after root cert has been added

iOS 13 have increased the security regarding both CA (i.e. what you call root) and server certificates:

You must ensure that your root certificate satisfies the following requirements:

If you're using RSA, the key size must be at least 2048 bites.
The hash algorithm must be SHA-2, and not SHA-1.

In addition to the two requirements above, your server certificate must also satisfy the following requirement:

When used for TLS (as you do in Safari), the DNS name of the server must be in the Subject Alternative Name field

Note that this requirement also means that if you're requesting your web page using an IP-address instead of a name, then the IP address (without port number) should be listed in the SAN field.

And if the server was issued after the 1st of July 2019, also the following two requirements:

When used for TLS, the certificate must contain an ExtendedKeyUsage field with the id-kp-serverAuth OID (i.e. don't use a certificate listed as a client certificate, code signing certificate, email or VPN certificate, etc)
When used for TLS, the certificate must be valid for 825 days or fewer

You can read Apple's explanation of these new requirements here.


MacBook Pro 15" 2015 CPU throttles down to 0.8 GHz

Just to show that adding to a two year old question is worthwhile, imike's comment from only a month ago, was spot on for me (although waldgeist himself had already begun to suspect the same in his own comment from only a day after his original post.)

So I have this very same MacBook Pro model, and was seeing the very same issue. And that very cause -- an external HDMI-connected monitor -- is at play.

The following shows two instances of it happening. In each case: something has caused the frequency to flatline; I remove the HDMI cable from the Mac; and within a few seconds things return to normal.

I still don't know how the external monitor (Samsung U32J59x) is having this effect, but it's a step forward to at least know it is.

ADDENDUM

Red Herring alert. Sadly, whatever this is, it turns out it is not specific to HDMI. I have now seen it with an old Apple Cinema Display. I've even seen it while driving an iPad as an extra display using Duet. In each case, detaching the external device solves the problem and the frequency returns to normal. But in fact, I've even seen it occasionally with no external display at all. For example, it will sometimes happen during a video call (with Zoom, at least). There, I can solve the problem by turning off the video channel in my call (i.e. using only the audio channel).

So it may be as benwiggy suggested in a comment, something to do with graphics in general and the GPU. In other words, it's not an HDMI monitor, or even a monitor at all, but some function of an increase in graphics demand (which of course adding an external monitor would probably be an example). Push demand high enough and the CPU crawls into a corner and curls up; then remove the demand and the poor wee thing comes out of fibrillation and recovers. Sounds credible I guess.

One other point for anyone else chasing this thing. I can't be sure--maybe I'm now just fixated on it --but I could swear the problem is getting worse, week by week. If I do plug in an external display, it will happen, and fairly quickly. Five, maybe ten minutes at most, and then the frequency falls off a cliff and performance becomes barely usable. Then, detach the display and it will recover. It's less obvious when it happens when there is no display attached -- i.e. during a Zoom call -- but it's still highly likely.

So, what aspect of the machine could be deteriorating week by week and so could create this getting-worse effect? Well, the battery for one. And I recall that a battery issue was mentioned in a related thread. Also, I did have a power issue with this machine, about a year ago. While debugging that, I did get a couple of warnings that my battery needed replacing. In the end the problem turned out to be a PSU issue, and getting a new one did seem to solve it. And so I put the battery warnings down to mere bad-PSU-induced delusion on the part of the Mac's battery monitoring system. But it's perfectly possible there was indeed a battery issue beginning to appear, in addition to the main PSU one.

So I'd say that may be a worthwhile lead to pursue.

But for me: well I just didn't have time to keep debugging and so I went for a much more certain solution. A nice, shiny, brand new 16" MacbookPro! :-)


How can I make iPod 30-Pin cables last longer?

The answer to the question comes down to how the cables are treated over their life time.  This applies to pretty much all cables regardless of the manufacturer or type (USB, network, charging/power, etc.).  It's also important to note that Apple used a higher quality, more flexible cable (it feels softer and thusly, more premium in the hand).  The downside, it's not as durable the cheaper, more "plastic-y" cables.
Coil your cables
The cable will have a natural "loop" to it and if you coil it following that loop you will preserve it for years to come.

Follow the natural loop and coil your cables so that there's no strain on the adapter ends

Do not bunch them up in a tightly wound loop and don't "fold" them over.

Most importantly, never knot your cable into itself - it's not rope.

The photos above are of my actual genuine Apple 30 pin cable that must be pushing at least 10 years of age.  The top photo is the exact way that I store my cables even when traveling.
For reference, this is the exact same way I coil my cable on my Microsoft Surface Pro tablet that I keep in my briefcase.

Use strain relief where possible

Tie-wrap your cables in a bunch to prevent excessive strain being applied to the connector ends

Use cable management gadgets to prevent the cables from going over sharp edges

Use "service loops" judicially when routing cables behind a desk or furniture.  Loosely coiling the wire and loosely wrapping them with Velcro or plastic will allow for movement without binding on the connectors.

I've followed these practices for the better part of 20+ years (obviously not with just Apple cables) and can honestly say that I have a significantly greater likelihood of replacing a cable because I lost it versus it becoming damaged.


An Alternative is to use the Applescript.app Script menu.

Shown selected here in the menu bar

This menu is normally for easy access to Applescript scripts and will list and run them from the menu.

But a quick test shows that that it can also run Automator workflows.

To get the menu you need to open Applescript Editor.app which can be found in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder:
/Applications/Utilities/AppleScript Editor.app

Once open go to it Preferences and under the General Tab check:

"Show Script menu in menu bar"

You may want to uncheck "Show Computer Scripts"

You can now quit Applescript.app and the Applescript menu should be in the Menu Bar.

Now you select the Applescript Menu and it will have a sub menu "Open Scripts folder" to take you to the folder where you can place your workflows.

Select the "Open Script folders" and then it's sub menu "Open Users Scripts folder menu to take you to the folder where you can place your workflows.

A Finder window will open into the Users Scripts folder.  You can now place your .workflow file inside it.

The Applescript Menu is dynamic. So Each time you select it it scans its folders to see what is in them and populates the menu accordingly.

Your .workflow files should show up there. The Menu name will be the name of the file.

Selecting the Menu for your workflow will run it.


Is there a way to share a wi-fi connection over wi-fi?

In order for a Mac to create a local Wi-Fi network, it needs to have a wired Internet source. So what you need to do is:

Connect an Ethernet cable from the router (the wired source) to a Mac.
On that Mac, choose System Preferences > Sharing.
Select Internet Sharing.
Choose Ethernet from the “Share your connection from” pop-up menu.
Select AirPort in the “To computers using” list, then click AirPort Options and give your network a name and password.
Connect the other computers to the new Wi-Fi network you just created.

If needed, there are more details on this Apple help page: Sharing your Internet connection.


Does Apple Mail prevent duplicates from being created in the same folder when copying/moving messages and how?

Not only does Mail not prevent the presence of duplicate messages (2 messages with identical headers and contents, including time stamps), but it (or iCloud) sometimes creates duplicates (buggy behavior). These can be hidden in Mail.app but you will see them in iCloud-Mail (via Safari) or with another mail client such as Outlook.
If you need to delete duplicates you may want to have a look as https://www.macworld.com/article/2046576/how-to-delete-duplicate-email-messages.html .


Keyboard shortcut to turn off display not possible with MacBook Air

Just Shift + Control + Power works on my retina MBP, which also doesn't have an eject button.


What is the difference between -h, -r, -s, and -k, in the "shutdown now" command in single-user mode?

As stated in the shutdown manual page (man shutdownentered in a Terminal window):

 -h      The system is halted at the specified time.

 -k      Kick everybody off.  The -k option does not actually halt the
         system, but leaves the system multi-user with logins disabled
         (for all but super-user).

 -r      The system is rebooted at the specified time.

 -s      The system is put to sleep at the specified time.

So to shutdown the Mac the -h option is the proper one. -r restarts it and -s puts it to sleep. The -k option doesn't halt your system at all.


Rolling back to a previous version of OS X Mavericks

One of my pet peeves with O/S X is there is not an uninstall feature for patches, upgrades and even apps. One of the (VERY) few things that Windows has that I wish the Mac had.

Unfortunately the only real way to do this is to wipe the drive, install the pervisous version, assuming you have the installer or can find it and restore from backup.

What I usually do before a major OR point upgrade is to attach a USB HD and clone the drive. Then I verify it boots from the clone. Only then do I do an upgrade. So if the upgrade breaks something all I have to do is back up the few changed files and restore from my clone.

As for Time Machine, you can't restore an O/S from Time Machine as it does not backup system files. However once you have reinstalled the O/S Time Machine can take you the rest of the way.

Probably NOT what you want to hear but that's the only solution I have ever found...


All my music has been deleted off my phone, and I don't know how to get it back!

If your brother deleted the songs themselves they are gone unless your computer is backed up.

If your brother just deleted the playlist you need to recreate the playlist and then re-sync it.  Here is a how to article on how to do that. - http://www.ehow.com/how_2214496_sync-playlists-iphone.html


Automatically move iOS app icons to fill empty slots on previous page?

This is currently not possible within iOS. You can provide feedback to Apple here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html


How can I see the phone number dialed after I initiate a call?

You can't - in a straight-forward way.

The best work-around is to tap the "Contacts" button on the call screen. This will bring up your list of contacts which you can then select to see the number(s).

The good news: iPhone remembers you position in the contacts when you initiated the call so you don't have to scroll down all the way from "A" contacts.

The bad news: Hopefully you don't have more then one number for a contact. If you do (and most probably do), there is no way to know which of those 2 or 3 numbers you choose when you called the contact.

Interestingly enough, iPhone is nice enough to tell you which (of several under a single contact you are calling) number you are calling when you add a second call. Apparently as of iOS 6.1.3, iPhone no longer does this.


How do I change just one dimension in Preview, when dragging/using the mouse?

in Preview with the picture open:
when it fills the window completely, click on it with CMD - (command plus the minus sign).
this will give you manipulation space.
then place the mouse pointer inside the picture, a + sign appears, drag this to where you want to start, a blue drag line appears, place it around the picture completely; then when you want to the picture smaller drag that side, and click Tools->Crop in the menubar of Preview.