Can I create Windows-style alias in Finder?

Click any file or folder, press and hold down the ⌘ Command + ⌥ Option keys, and then drag the file or folder while continuing to hold down the ⌘ Command + ⌥ Option keys.

An alias appears where you release the mouse button.


Can Pages '09 create a list inside a list?

Yes, changing the color is cheating and it's not an elegant solution...

In order to change the icon color, you need to open the inspector ⌥+⌘+I and go to T → List → Bullets & Numbering


NTFS Read-Write App for Snow Leopard / Lion

I've been using Paragon NTFS ( http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ ) which I've been using since Leopard and now with Lion. It's good, but I do get the occasional problem once every couple of months. I'd rather buy a supported product as I use it quite often. If it was occasional, I'd probably got for NTFS-3g or other free options.


Can I create/edit contact groups in iOS?

No, there is no way to create or edit contact groups on iOS. I share your frustration! The best workaround is to use iCloud.com (or your primary Mac, if you have it with you).

Also, there is a way to add contacts to a specific group on iOS, though it's not obvious:

In Contacts, tap the Groups button in the top left
Tap "Hide All Contacts"
Tap the group that you want to add the contact to (making it the only visible group)
Tap Done in the top right
Tap the Add button (+) in the top right

Now when you create and save the contact, it'll save it in that specific group. You can then go back to the Groups list and reenable all your groups.


"Smart" formatting (for lack of a better phrase) is added after the page is rendered and is not affected by CSS. Short of disabling the functionality completely, as shown in the other answer, you cannot affect it.

The reason the color works is because the colored text is part of the page being rendered - you are declaring during rendering that it should be black. The underline is not added until after the page is rendered, so you cannot affect it.


Unpairing the AirPods, restarting the iPhone, and pairing the AirPods again seems to have cleared this up.


The password hints are not stored on the local computer as such.

Instead for APFS it is stored on the encrypted drive itself in the "volume passphrase hint" key bag. You can read the specifics here APFS File  System Reference.

For HFS+ it is stored in the "PassphraseHint" entry of the "CryptoUsers" structure in the "com.apple.corestorage.lvf.encryption.context" structure in the CoreStorage XML plist on the encrypted drive. You can read the specifics here FileVault Drive Encryption

Note that password hints are only stored for passphrase (i.e. password) protected drives.

Therefore I cannot confirm your assumption. This is always the case.

Note: In the answer from lx07 I see that he concludes that the hint is not stored on the drive after looking for it with a hexeditor. That is not correct. The PLIST is compressed using DEFLATE and the hint itself might be base64 encoded. You'll need to decompress the data before searching for the hint, if you want to find it manually that way.

In addition take note of section 7 of the reference FVDE document (The encryption context plist) - namely that depending on your setup the PLIST containing hint could be located outside the encrypted partition, and instead be stored on the "Recovery HD" partition on the same physical drive. It can be stored either in unencrypted or encrypted form. In case of encrypted form, the AES-XTS key is the volume identifier of the encrypted volume (i.e. the key is stored non-encrypted on the drive).


Do I need drivers to use a full-sized Apple keyboard with my MacBook Pro?

Mac OS X home and end keys do not function the same way as they do on other systems.

  On Mac, the Home and End keys go to the top and bottom of a document, instead of to the beginning or end of a line.

Check out this Lifehacker article which shows how to remap the functionality of the home and end keys to make them perform like they do on other systems.


One option would be to use DefaultKeyBinding.dict, but it wouldn't work in all applications or text views.

{
    "^x" = cut:;
    "^c" = copy:;
    "^v" = paste:;
}

KeyRemap4MacBook would work almost everywhere, and it also allows excluding specific applications.

Here's the definition of the remapping selected in the screenshot:

<item>
  <name>Use PC Style Copy/Paste</name>
  <appendix>(Control+C to Command_L+C)</appendix>
  <appendix>(Control+V to Command_L+V)</appendix>
  <appendix>(Control+X to Command_L+X)</appendix>
  <appendix>(Except in Terminal, VM, RDC, Emacs, X11, Eclipse)</appendix>
  <identifier>remap.copy_paste_winstyle_no_term</identifier>
  <not>EMACS, TERMINAL, VIRTUALMACHINE, REMOTEDESKTOPCONNECTION, X11, ECLIPSE</not>
  <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::C, VK_CONTROL, KeyCode::C, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
  <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::V, VK_CONTROL, KeyCode::V, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
  <autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::X, VK_CONTROL, KeyCode::X, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>
</item>


Macbook startup disk full; GP shows 164GB of 'Miscellaneous used space'

I found the this link on MacRumors that sounds like the same problem you are having. The gist of it seems to be clearing the system cache using this command sudo rm -r /System/Library/Caches could help ( assuming that is where the issue lies). You should also be able to hopefully figure out what is using up all the space with this command sudo du -chxd 1 / to see what is taking up all the space.


How to give feedback for an Apple app not listed on the Product Feedback page?

After suggestion from @user3439894, I had tweeted Apple Support and here is their answer:

  We love feedback. If you don’t see the Apple app you wish to leave feedback for, you can leave feedback by choosing the device you are using here: http://apple.co/Feedback

So, following that, I had posted the feedback using one of my devices as a channel, explaining in notes why am I using the device channel, and also listing all the OSs that I mean this feature request for.


141gb System size, is there any way to find where all that clutter is coming from?

You should get a utility like Daisy Disk or Grand Perspective which will make a visual mapping of your disk drive so you can see what is taking up so much space. DaisyDisk is $10 but has a free trial period so you could use it to check your disk. Grand Perspective is Free.

You may want to check your Library folder as well. It can get quite big. I don't know if the Library folder is part of system. You have 2 library folders on your system. Be sure to check the one in your home directory.


How to define Lion’s key variations in a `.keylayout` file?

The special characters included in the popovers are defined in files like /System/Library/Input Methods/PressAndHold.app/Contents/Resources/Keyboard-en_US.plist, not in .keylayout files. (The popovers are also used with languages that have their own input methods like Vietnamese.)

I don't know how to add a property list like that for a custom layout though. I also tried copying the U.S..keylayout that comes with Ukelele to ~/Libary/Keyboard Layouts/ (without changing the name or id), but the popovers didn't work with it.


The geolocation of each photo is stored inside the photo file itself, and goes with the photo when it is transferred to a computer or another device. This information will remain visible after being transferred onto your new phone.


Command line utility to create screenshot

It sounds like you're looking for the command screencapture, which, according to its man page, is to "capture images from the screen and save them to a file or the clipboard".

It's been a standard part of OS X since 10.2.


Reclaim deleted partition now Free Space after Yosemite removal

I read a lot of blogs, tried different commands and finally got it fixed.

Reboot your Mac in Recovery mode using Command+R key combination during the boot up.
Start Terminal application from the recovery boot
Run command, diskutil cs list
See the last Logical Volume name, 76A3020B-B3C2-4905-9E09-2EBB5470261C

Use that in next command.
diskutil cs revert 76A3020B-B3C2-4905-9E09-2EBB5470261C

This should convert the CoreService Logical Volume to a Normal Disk partition.
Run command, diskutil cs list now, and you should receive message that no CS volumes.
Now, Reboot your MacOSX normally and once you login, start Disk Utility and resize your main partition "Machintosh HD" to claim all free space.


How to delete hidden login iterms from backgrounditems.btm? CML way is prefered

I don't think it is necessary to remove them using the commands. You can do it from settings.

Open System Preferences and click on Users & Groups, then click the Login Items >tab. You’ll see a list of apps (and even files and folders) that open every time you log in. - Macworld


FileMaker 6 and AppleScript: Deleting a Menu Item

It might be easier to change the user permissions so they can't delete records that the scripts use. Then you can remove the full access from those scripts. Hard to tell without looking over your shoulder or seeing something like a DDR for the database in question.


Mountain Lion: AirPlay doesn't show up (but it works in iTunes)

Airplay Mirroring in 10.8 is only compatible with machines that have a Core i-series processor. Your Core 2 machine is not on the supported hardware list for Airplay Mirroring with 10.8.

You should check out AirParrot, which is $9.99, but can do AirPlay Mirroring on older hardware (and OSes) as well.


2 phones using same Apple ID. What happens if I erase everything on one phone?

Apple give fairly detailed instructions on how to prepare an iOS device for another person here...

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201351

Basically, back it up, sign out of your iCloud account (and the App Store depending on the version of iOS you have installed) and then choose "Erase All Content and Settings".

Selecting "Erase All Content and Settings" on one phone will only affect that phone. It doesn't affect the content you have saved to another phone or the data in your iCloud account.


Why can I not backup my replacement iPhone after restoring an iCloud backup?

Go to Settings > General > Usage > Manage Storage (iCloud) and delete the backup for your old phone.   The new phone will overwrite it own backups, just like the old phone did.  It won't overwrite the backup for another device (I.e your old phone).


Extending a Time Capsule network with an AirPort Express connected by ethernet cable?

You're on the the right path.

Before I give you the complete answer I just wanted to point out that you're running Cat6a at the very limit of it's length. It's rated for 100m/330ft and your run seems to be exactly that length. It's never good to be at the limits of connections, so bear that in mind when testing. You might want to test it with a short cable run, say 20m or so, if it's not working with the long cable run just to make sure your problems aren't because of the physical limits of the Cat6a cable. Try it with a run of cable long enough to get your AirPort Express just out of the range of the Time Capsule network.

That being said, this Apple discussion board article talks about how you have to set up the AirPort Express to act as a wireless network extender when it's connected via Ethernet to your Time Capsule.

Let's make sure you have the connections set properly. You already know to use one of the LAN ports on the Time Capsule, but make sure you're plugging the cable in to the Ethernet WAN port on the AirPort Express. If you're looking at the back of the AirPort Express, it's the Ethernet port on the left, the one with the ring of dots around it. The port on the right can be used at your remote location to provide a non-wireless connection for a device like a printer, computer or switch (giving you even more wired connections at the remote location).

With the connections made, you want to configure the AirPort express to operate in bridge mode so it extends the network being provided by the Time Capsule instead of creating an entirely new network of its own.

To do this:

Fire up the AirPort Utility on your Mac or iOS device and connect to your AirPort Express
Use the Base Station section of the AirPort Utility to set up a name for the AirPort Express and that it's configured with password and what not;
Under the Wireless section of the AirPort Utility:

Create a new wireless network
Give the network the same name as the network being provided by your Time Capsule
Make sure "Allow this network to be extended" is unchecked
Set the radio mode for the AirPort Express to 802.11 n (b/g compatible)
Set the channel for the network to Automatic
For the wireless security and password set them to the exact same thing Time Capsule's network

Under the Internet Connection section of the AirPort Utility:

Set the connection using to Ethernet
Set connection sharing to Off (Bridge Mode)

Save all those changes and restart the AirPort Express by powering it off and then back on. You should now be able to deploy your AirPort Express out of the range of your Time Capsule's wireless network and, when you move between the two zones, any devices that use the wireless network will automatically switch to whichever devices is providing the stronger signal.


How do I modify the alt+[key] special character mappings?

The simplest way to do what you need is probably to just set up text replacements in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Text > Replace With

If you really want to change key mappings, you can use Ukelele, or possibly Karabiner.


Any Drobo product will do, but it’s possibly more expensive than a single Time Capsule. The advantages are a lot tho. :)

You can compare the different models. I have used a Drobo (not pro, not fs, not anything) and it had problems with certain reliability, but I’ve heard nice things about Drobo FS and even Drobo Pro.

There are other NAS out there, so find one that you can afford, seek for reviews and go ahead :).

The nice thing about (Drobo in this case) is that you put “normal” drives in there, if one fails, you just replace it. BOom. That simple. It works in practice too. I’ve had two drive failures while using the Drobo.


Can you set up a table format on Pages documents from the beginning?

Create a Pages document with the desired table (and any styles you want).

Then save as a template.

New documents created with the template should meet your needs.


Received a FaceTime call from unknown person

Block that caller! And if he or she calls again just contact Apple and they will help you resolve the problem! Just follow my steps and you will be fine!


how do I get a Quicktime video window to play on an external monitor, simultaneously using the laptop for something else?

In Quicktime Player, go to Preferences. Under "Full Screen", there is a picture of your screens similar to the Displays pane of System Preferences. If you click on a screen, a picture of the QT Player logo will be overlaid on that screen. The screen that has the logo is the active screen for Full Screen Mode.

EDIT: I don't know if you can still do other things while QT Player is full screen.


Nano Memory card does not show up in Finder nor Disk Utility

Working as designed.  macOS doesn't support the linux filesystems that linux uses to boot.  The one I use for booting is ext4.

check what filesystem you formatted flash driver with.

For ext4, you can install one of these drivers.

http://osxdaily.com/2014/03/20/mount-ext-linux-file-system-mac/

https://www.paragon-software.com/us/home/extfs-mac/#


Is there a free, actively developed IRC client for Snow Leopard?

Try Adium, which has IRC support and a lot more all free and its still under active development. Also it supports Snow Leopard on the current 1.5.3 version, as long as your up to at least OS X 10.6.8.

  Supported services

  XMPP ("Jabber"), including

  Google Talk
  LJ (LiveJournal) Talk
  Facebook Chat
  Gizmo5

  MSN Messenger
  AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), including

  MobileMe (formerly known as .Mac)

  Yahoo! Messenger, including

  Yahoo! Japan Messenger

  ICQ
  Bonjour, compatible with iChat
  Twitter
  IRC
  MySpaceIM
  Gadu-Gadu
  IBM Lotus Sametime
  Novell GroupWise


According to a thread in the Ukelele group, changing the key layout ID before installing can cause OS X to load the new layout. This should be done on a working copy of the layout bundle, not an installed one, and may not work in newer versions of OS X (I could not get it to work under High Sierra). If changing the ID doesn't work for you, logging out and back in again should reload keyboard layouts.
Steps:

Open a working copy of the layout bundle in Ukelele. Note this can't be an installed, active layout (i.e. one in a relevant "Library/Keyboard Layouts" folder).
Generate a new ID:

In Ukelele's list of keyboard layouts for the bundle, right-click the layout and choose "Set Keyboard Name and Script…".
Change the script (e.g. from "Unicode" to "Roman"), taking note of the original value.
Click OK
Repeat the last 3 steps and change the script back to the original value.
Save the layout.

If an older copy of the layout is installed, remove it from the relevant "Keyboard Layout" folder.
Copy the updated layout to the relevant "Keyboard Layout" folder.

Under the hood, this changes the "id" attribute of the root <keyboard> element in Contents/Resources/<name>.layout within the bundle.


Why does my Mac not see my external drive as a boot option unless connected via an Apple-branded dongle?

Low quality USB bridge.

Inside the dongle, there's an IC (integrated circuit) that bridges the USB bus on your computer with the peripheral device.  Off brand manufacturers look for every edge to increase their profit margin so they use components that aren't exactly up to par.

Personally, I'm very wary of plugging in an off brand, low cost peripheral device into what is the highest priced laptops/desktops on the market today.

There was a time when USB cables were being made so poorly they could actually kill your device.  This is why you go with reputable brands.  I'm partial to Anker (they make an equivalent to the Multi-Port AV Adapter) because they offer an 18 to 24 month warranty on all products.


How well does Apple Remote Desktop work over the Internet?

Apple Remote Desktop will involve either having a VPN or open ports and static IPs. I think you will be much better off with LogMeIn.com's free version, which will require zero intraction from your family members and open ports are not necessary. You will need to know a user's credentials on their computer. If they require more privacy they can disable LogMeIn from the menu bar item, as it will always be on as long as they are connected to the Internet. I suggest adding a user to each computer with your name and one password—that will be one less thing for you to remember and if they change their password or don't remember it you can still help them.

I use both ARD and LogMeIn daily, but ARD is more than you need.


How to remove cloud songs from Music app?

Launch the Settings app then go to "Music" and toggle the "Show All Music" switch to "Only music that has been downloaded to this device will be shown."

This same feature is available for the Video app.


Can an iPad be charged while acting as a USB host?

Personal experience, I've never it.

But USB specification actually has defined such standard, under USB On-The-Go (OTG). A connector named Micro-AB plug will allow a device to be charged and enter host mode. This is also mentioned here on another Stack Exchange site.

Back to the question, is it possible? Probably no. According to this Wikipedia article about Lightning. A lightning-enabled device can act as host to power accessories or as client to be charged, but it uses either...or, so not at the same time.


How can I find all *old* Keynote presentations on my computer?

A Smart Folder is probably the easiest way to find all your old Keynote files. To create one:

Open a Finder Window
Click "File" > "New Smart Folder"
In the search box, type "key" and then select "Keynote Document" from the dropdown
If you like, you can add a last modified filer by clicking the "+" sign under the search box.
If you want to save the Smart folder, click the "Save" button


Best way to have script start up for all users in Mountain Lion?

Save a property list like this as /Library/LaunchAgents/test.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>test</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>say</string>
            <string>aa</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</plist>

It should be loaded automatically on the next login.

See man launchd, man launchctl, and man launchd.plist for more information.


To what application does com~apple~shoebox belong to?

According to @Cocoanetics, Ole Begemann (under ShoeboxUISerice and WebViewService) and this SO-answer, "Shoebox" was Apple's codename/inside name for Passbook!


I think this one has to do with your iCloud account.
First of all you need to be up to date to all of your Apple devices under the same appleid (your appleid). Then my suggestion is to log out of your iCloud account to all of your devices and login back again. Also check Photos location services (that’s under settings/ privacy / location services/ photos) should be “ WHILE USING”.  Reboot your devices and see how it goes. Cheers.


Why would Exchange account work in Lion Mail and not Snow Leopard Mail?

SnowLeopard was the first version of OS X to have built-in support for Exchange 2007. Lion Mail officially added support for Exchange 2010 (according to the Lion Wikipedia page). If the Exchange server is running Exchange 2010, it's possible that contacts and calendars were compatible enough on Snow Leopard to just work, but Mail was not.


I am not able to see the website title in Safari on macOS

Safari displays the website title in what it calls the Tab Bar. You apparently have the Tab Bar set to hidden.
To show the Tab Bar, open Safari on your computer, select View → Show Tab Bar in the Safari menu and the Tab Bar should now appear.

Selecting Show Tab Bar would enable Safari to always display the Tab Bar. It would work even after you quit and relaunch Safari.
You should now be able to see the website title easily.


MBP with Serial ATA hard drive vs PCIe-based flash storage

The only measurable difference aside from storage space is that the SSD version will be slightly more secure from data loss from the occasional fall. SSDs don't suffer from disk drive failures of scratched disks. But if your not clumsy, that's not a problem. Go with the 1TB drive. 128gb is pitiful in this day and age.


This is not a answer, but I have to use it to explain the process.

It is difficult to find out using the description of a sound like "gong".

You can do some investigating by playing system sounds then reporting which one was it.

To do that go to following folders:

/System/Library/Sounds/
/Library/Sounds/
/Users/< username >/Library/Sounds/

Now just click on the Space bar to have the QuickView play it.

Start with the System/Library.

I would guess the "gong" is the Sosumi sound. But you can enable the screen flash that will flash the screen when a system sounds occurs..

Open Syst pref and click on Accessibility. Now click on the Audio and select the Flash the Screen.

Also go to your Notification center and turn of sound for apps one by one to find out which one is it, if it comes from there.


You might have accidentally show the hidden files in Finder. Try this command to hide all the hidden files:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool NO

To show it again, change the BOOL value from NO to YES:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool YES


How do I answer a phone call and use car speakers with Ford SYNC under iOS 5?

I had this same issue. Here is what I did to fix it.

Remove the bluetooth device from the Ford Sync. Dont just turn it off, actually delete the device from the car

Remove the Sync device from your iPhone. Again, delete the entry from your phone.

REBOOT THE iPHONE (don't forget to do this).

Resync your phone with your car


External storage device formating error?

You could easily wipe the drive and start fresh - use care that disk 3 is really the disk you wish to erase everything.

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ UntitledUFS disk3

If that fails, you likely have a hardware error (unless the failure is your OS or not using an account with sudo permissions). If that succeeds, you could then use Disk Utility to rename things as you please or learn more about diskutil and use it to rename / repartition / reformat the drive going forward.


Brother Scanner does not work with macOS Catalina

"The Brother ControlCenter2 is not supported by macOS v10.15.
Use the Brother iPrint&Scan as an alternative function."
Source Brother macOS Catalina Support Statement

Control Center was a 32-bit application that Catalina wont run. Update MFC-8890 DW drivers provided at Brother website for 10.15 support.


FaceTime not working on iPhone 6 Plus purchased from Dubai

Sorry, Facetime is not available on devices purchased in the United Arab Emirates and therefore in Dubai, as stated in these KB articles:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3367

FaceTime might not be available, or might become unavailable, on devices purchased or used in certain countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1937

I recommend that you contact Apple support in Sri Lanka at http://www.apple.com/lk/support/contact/ or a local Apple reseller, they may be able to help you.
To find a reseller near you visit https://locate.apple.com/lk/en/sales/?pt=all&lat=6.9270786&lon=79.86124300000006, press New Search:

and type in your address.


How to setup Mac mini server for remote access?

I am basing my answer what your requirements are

Web Development.  Developing websites or web apps that typically run off a server; typically Apache/PHP/MySQL
Access the server remotely to edit/develop

I belive this is much more than just screen sharing as you don't want to share your screen, just the website you are developing for a client.

You will need the following:

Web service listening on the appropriate port
Open/forwarded port on your router
Dynamic DNS (DDNS) with the ability to update your record

Web service listening on the appropriate port

Typically, when doing Web Dev, this is Apache listening on the correct IP/Port.  Assuming that you have just one network adapter, you have to make sure that Apache (or whatever else you are running) is listening so that other computers on your LAN can access it.  If you can do this, then you are good to go for the next step

Open and/or forward the port on your router

So, you can get to your service from inside your network, but now it's time to get to it from the outside.

Determine your local IP.  Using terminal, issue the command ifconfig en0 grep inet.  The line should start off with inet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.  That's your local IP address
Forward HTTP traffic to that port.  There are many routers on the market and each have different user interfaces, but they are all technically doing the same thing:  taking traffic bound to your IP and port and forwarding it to an address you specify.  You will have to check your user manual for the specifics on how to do this.

But, basically, you are going to forward port 80 traffic (HTTP) to the IP address you found in step 1.

Next, you are going to want to test this out.  Use a service like IP Chicken or WhatIsMyIP to find your public IP.  You can even type the search directly into Bing and have it return your IP address.

Once you have that, you need to browse to it.  A smartphone NOT connected to your WiFi makes a good choice.  Point the browser of the smartphone to the public IP address you just obtained.  If you can see your page/application, your router is working.  If not, you need to go back and make sure your port forwarding is set up correctly.

Setup DDNS

This is the final step.  Dynamic DNS allows you to use a domain name to access your IP even though it changes.  Many newer routers support DDNS in their firmware - you will need to check with your specific manufacturer and or model.

Even if your router dosen't support DDNS, you are still in luck.  All you need is a DDNS client to update your record and it can run on any computer on your network.  For example, on FreeDNS's website, they provide a number of different clients you can on virtually every platform from Windows, to Linux and even iOS.

So, what you will need to do is install one of these clients on your Mac server so that it can periodiocally update your DDNS record


ssh is no longer working from the commandline

You may need to load the service again.

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist


Is it possible to add description of an app when creating by Platypus?

It seems I have found the solution:
"If you add a file named Credits.rtf or Credits.html to the bundled files list, it will be displayed in the About window of your application.":
http://www.sveinbjorn.org/files/manpages/PlatypusDocumentation.html#817


Explanation
That's because the file you created through the terminal using the touch command was named that way by you (not the system) upon creation. What happens is that upon creation, the system interprets your chosen filename and checks whether it contains any "illegal characters".

In macOS, the only "illegal" filename character is colon symbol (:). This is because macOS use these in path names e.g. Macintosh HD:Applications:Safari.app. Additionally, file and folder names may be up to 255 characters in length.

The replacement of : into / is an automatic function built-in to macOS to prevent file path corruption through inadvertently placing a colon in the middle of a file name - which would change the entire path. You will not be able to adjust this behavior.

What about Screenshots?
As for the screenshots, their file names do not contain any so-called "illegal;" characters and are hence valid.

Additionally, changing the screenshot file name is also very easy in macOS. In Terminal, run defaults write com.apple.screencapture name "Some Name" - replacing Some Name with your own text.


How do I get my iPad running iOS 6.0.1 to connect to my MS Exchange mail server?

You've got a 50 / 50 chance it's the device or the server at this point.

If you have access to the server logs, you could know exactly what is wrong. Alternatively, you could set up a different exchange account on your iOS device and use that to rule in or out the device and/or the account+server.

As there is so little you enter on iOS, apart from the date/time zone being wrong, or making a typo in the password or server settings, the problem is most likely on the server and of things with that account.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2480

I have also had luck choosing one item only to sync initially - so if your Mail is hanging, the next time you attempt, do not enable Mail and instead just try contact or calendar data.


Which programing languages can be used for publishing to the Mac App Store?

The rules for the Mac App store are converging towards that of the iOS App store.  The iOS App store currently allows the use of almost any programming language (even Basic or Assembly), as long as everything required for that language (code, interpreter, runtime, libraries, etc.) is bundled with the app.  For instance, many iPhone games have a built-in Lua interpreter or a C# runtime.

If a language used by an app requires any separately installed support other than that built into the Lion Mac OS distribution, the review guidelines say that app will be rejected.  Cocoa and webkit (for Javascript) are currently built into the Mac OS X distribution.

So, if you want to use Java, you might be able to get away with including your own complete JVM and all needed runtime support libraries for Java in the app bundle.

BTW, XCode supports using C++ and Objective C++ code, as well as Objective C and its plain C subset.  But you may have to use some Objective C APIs to make an application compliant with all the UI guidelines, even in a mostly C++ app.


Suggestions for an iPhone app for contacts

Here's one that appears to do what you want, and happens to be free:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ycontacts/id340140852?mt=8


AirDrop fails to transfer files from MacBook Pro to iPhone

It appears that you are attempting to copy audio files from MacBook Pro to iPhone using AirDrop. It is not possible to transfer audio files this way. The way to get audio files from MacBook Pro to iPhone is to sync them via iTunes.

Using AirDrop, you can transfer photos, videos, locations, to an iOS devices or share a URL to open in iOS Safari. For more details, please refer to the Apple Support article, Use AirDrop to send content from your Mac.

However, it is possible to transfer an audio or any other type of file without restriction from one Mac to another using AirDrop.


my local development /etc/hosts redirect works only on chrome

I think I just found the answer to this problem. If you are working on a virtual machine, as I am, and you change the /etc/hosts file in your virtual linux machine, only chrome will detect that. You will need to change the hosts file in windows (c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) in order to force firefox to check the table. The moment I change that file, firefox recognized the new mapped names.


How to disable Apple Wireless Trackpad from recovery mode?

Try moving the computer to another location a good distance away from where the trackpad may be located. The theoretical maximum distance for Bluetooth is actually far larger than what I thought. See this page, and this one for more info about Bluetooth ranges.


Someone has created an Apple ID using an email address in a domain I own

I think this may be a phishing. I advise you to check the 3 following key
points:

Within the headers of the 2 E-mails you received, verify
they are really originating from apple.com .
Verify the included URL is really within the apple.com domain.
Within the headers, verify there isn't any Return-Path: outside of apple.com .


Localized app name does appear in English only via App Store app on iPhone

This is intentional behaviour.
From this Apple page:

Localize your app name and update your App Store metadata, such as your app description, keywords, and screenshots, for each of the countries in which you offer your app.

It has probably been updated automatically.


Bootcamp - Lost 200GB as Bootcamp froze on "while partitioned" for 5~ hours

The 200 GB of your hard drive spaces were partially formatted with NTFS and went unrecognized due to a failed installation. There are couple of options which may work out. First: A fresh install of the OS X after you have backed up the Macintosh HDD. Second, a third party software that can reformat the 200 GB of HDD space to OS X Extended Journaled.


Probably your trash folder is broken. There are a lot of solutions of this problem in the internet, but in short you may need to remove your trash folder sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash and let Finder create a new one by restarting your Mac.


iMessage and FaceTime not working with Apple ID any more

This sometimes happened to me when I reset my iPhone/iPad and have to activate them again. Most of the time it was due to connection issues with Apple activation servers. I would just switch from WiFi to 4G/LTE (vice versa) and it works. Or maybe you can test with another Apple ID, or try to reset your network setting.


Is this nice extension of Mac OS 9 still available on OS X?

Not exactly the same but if you drag any file or folder to the dialog panel then it will jump to the location of the dropped item


Make sure you have turned off Siri & Suggestions under Settings → Siri & Search → Safari.

Additionally, go to Settings → Safari and toggle off Safari Suggestions to disable Siri Knowledge from appearing in Safari.

Alternatively, you can also choose to browse in Private mode to disable all kinds of Siri suggestions.


iPad PDF Reader with annotation support?

GoodReader $4.99

I can't compare it to any other PDF reader for the iPad, but I've been very happy with GoodReader.  From the marketing spiel on iTunes:

  Annotation is a feature long sought after by users who want to add their own mark-ups to PDFs, especially those collaborating as a team on shared documents. The types of annotations that can be created and edited in GoodReader include typewriter text boxes, popup comments ("sticky notes"), text highlights, freehand drawings, lines, arrows, rectangles, ovals, cloudy shapes, text underlines, strikeouts, text insertion marks.


What's taking up all of this "Other" space on my iPhone?

This space is taken by Application Metadata, and is also taken by Jailbreak applications since iTunes doesn't know that these are regular apps. Doing a full restore of your iPhone through iTunes should clear up this space. There aren't any utilities like DaisyDisk for iOS and the closest thing is iFile on Cydia, an application for managing the files on your device.


My iPhone won't show any Discord iOS push notifications, yet it will show them from other apps

This is a Discord “feature” that you can’t turn off. Discord will not send mobile notifications if the desktop app is open (official staff response). Here are some community posts requesting Discord to change this feature:

Allow 0 minute setting for "Push Notification AFK timeout"
Displaying Discord Notifcations on the Phone and the Computer at the same time.
push notifications not sent on android

Discord tries to avoid being annoying in the hopes that it reduces the chance that you uninstall it by not sending push notifications when it thinks you are active at your computer. There is a setting to set the number of minutes Discord waits after you become inactive at your computer prior to resuming push notification in the desktop app under Settings / Notifications. You can only set this down to 1 minute. So you won’t get push notifications until Discord thinks you’ve not been at your computer for at least a minute. But apparently Discord likes to think that many people are using their computers even when they aren’t much of the time.
People report that fully quitting the desktop app of Discord sometimes triggers Discord to start sending push notifications to your phone immediately. You can still use Discord from a web browser without affecting push notifications if you don’t need any features from the desktop app.


Boot into recovery mode and reinstall OS X on top of your existing installation. This shouldn't delete your data (but you have that on backups anyway, right?), just repair your OS.

If you also downloaded some random software from obscure russian servers as suggested in the link you posted and gave that software admin access to your computer, you might want to wipe your system and do a fresh install. It could easily have installed malware.

And maybe don't patch your kernel with instructions from YouTube without knowing exactly what you're doing in future? (And questions like this go on http://apple.stackexchange.com/ as it's not programming-related but just general how to use a Mac stuff.)


None of the services (except File Sharing of course) is required. The only thing you have to add are proper DNS server settings in System Preferences > Network > interface > DNS and the Mac OS X server's host name in your enterprise's DNS database.

For server notifications you can use any valid email account (e.g. your admin or a special notification/monitoring account) in your enterprise.


Starting MySQL produces "The server quit without updating PID file"

We (myself and Mr. Burning) did some diagnosis in chat, and I will detail what we did find:

The root of his problem was that MySQLd was already running in some capacity. This could have been a previous version of MySQL installed from Homebrew, still running after upgrading the binaries/libraries.

Our resolution was to simply kill all of the running processes. Then, OS X's launchd did it's work and restarted MySQLd, which was definitively running as installed by Homebrew.

That seemed to resolve the issue.


Does Apple Maps use Core Graphics internally?

Yes, Core Graphics – also known as Quartz 2D – is fast enough to render a map.
To prove the potential, find a vector representation of a map encoded as a PDF file. Using Preview.app, view the map. PDF rendering on Apple's operating systems uses Core Graphics.

Core Graphics
The Core Graphics framework is based on the Quartz advanced drawing engine. It provides low-level, lightweight 2D rendering with unmatched output fidelity. You use this framework to handle path-based drawing, transformations, color management, offscreen rendering, patterns, gradients and shadings, image data management, image creation, and image masking, as well as PDF document creation, display, and parsing.

You can prove Maps.app on macOS uses Core Graphics using the nm tool:
nm -m /Applications/Maps.app/Contents/MacOS/Maps | grep CG

The output shows numerous calls to Core Graphics:
(undefined) external _CGAffineTransformEqualToTransform (from CoreGraphics)
(undefined) external _CGAffineTransformIdentity (from CoreGraphics)
(undefined) external _CGAffineTransformInvert (from CoreGraphics)
(undefined) external _CGAffineTransformMakeRotation (from CoreGraphics)

You can see Maps.app is linked against the QuartzCore and CoreGraphics frameworks with otool:
otool -L /Applications/Maps.app/Contents/MacOS/Maps


Click a tab item in system settings using AppleScript in Automator?

You can use the AppleScript command from the System Preferences application instead of the GUI scripting

tell application "System Preferences"
    -- open the audio pane and select the "Audio in" tab
    reveal anchor "input" of pane id "com.apple.preference.sound"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Systeminställningar"
    -- do something in "Ljud in" tab
end tell


According to this site:

  If you see “Auto Unlock: Supported,” your Mac meets Auto Unlock hardware requirements. If not, you’re out of luck. As a rule of thumb, Mac models manufactured before 2013 cannot use Auto Unlock.

So it looks like it's telling you the Mac supports Auto Unlock.  I have a 2015 MPB with Auto Unlock turned on and my system report still says 'Supported'.


OSX 10.8 Contacts can't access Active Directory 2003 via LDAP

Try switching the port from 389 (Apple's default) to 3268.  I had the exact same problem until I switched the port number.

Credit the OS X Hints folks for solving this one.


The little text snippet application they are using is called DemoMonkey. It's actually a sample code project on developer.apple.com from 2010.


How to update my jailbroken iOS 6.1 iPhone to iOS 6.1.2?

It is recommended to update your Jailbroken iOS device by doing full restore form iTunes. In order to preserve your apps, contacts etc. perform a backup in iTunes by right clicking on your device and selecting back up option.


Probably too late but for anyone else who may look for info on this:

I have used the Blue 'Yeti' to do quite a lot of recording into Garage Band on an iPad2.
  don't know anything about the other mic you mention but the Yeti is great for that price range in my experience.

I used a Belkin powered USB hub (+CC kit)as a work around successfully until one of the recent iPad updates (I haven't used the mic for awhile til recently so not sure which update), but now it doesn't work anymore.

the message "device draws to much power" or something, remains and the mic doesn't work...

didn't think to try without the hub in the chain..


Can I download iphone apps from the online iTunes without having access to the iTunes program?

You can't buy without iTunes or an iOS device.

You can borrow someone else's device (iOS or computer) and sign in with your account to do the buying and then cancel the download / delete the app.

You could also gift them to yourself, but that is a bit more work and doesn't save you from getting to the point where you would just buy the apps.

As a last resort, you could call a friend and have them gift it to you and pay them later.


Why am I getting "Time Machine is backing up an encrypted disk to an unencrypted disk" when I'm not using encryption?

2018 Macs have Apple's T2 chip, which acts as the disk controller for the flash storage on the logic board. The data is encrypted, regardless of whether you've turned on FileVault. So, technically, the message is correct.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208344

  Data on the built-in, solid-state drive (SSD) is encrypted using a
  hardware-accelerated AES engine built into the T2 chip. This
  encryption is performed with 256-bit keys tied to a unique identifier
  within the T2 chip.

That having been said, I have a 2018 Mac Mini running Mojave and I don't get this error message, using a Seagate 4TB external drive directly connected to the Mac via USB. FileVault is off. There may be some other factor involved in getting the error message (which could still be erroneous).

How can I be sure I have have good backups?

Check if you can browse through the Time Machine interface and see the expected date ranges of backups, and try to restore a variety of files (as copies!).


How can I blacklist filetypes from Spotlight search results?

Find the importer used to import that type of file.

mdimport -d 4 -n /path/to/file 2>&1 | grep Imported

mdimport -d 4 -n ~/Desktop/avatar.png 2>&1 | grep Imported
2014-06-19 11:17:04.929 mdimport[30911:412893] Imported '/Users/grgarside/Desktop/avatar.png' of type 'public.png' with plugIn /System/Library/Spotlight/Image.mdimporter.

The above example shows the type as public.png in the Image.mdimporter importer.
Open /path/to/importer/Contents/Info.plist in an editor.
Find the item of the same type as the type of the file that you found from the above command and delete it.

Reimport the importer.

mdimport -r /path/to/importer

mdimport -r /System/Library/Spotlight/Image.mdimporter

Don't forget to have backups and note this procedure may be overridden on OS X updates.


MacBook Pro with retina display external monitor connections

Yes, that should definitely be possible, as both Thunderbolt ports are also mini DisplayPort ports and the other would be connected via HDMI.

See also this answer: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/54306/14994


YouTube disables PIP unless you are a premium subscriber to YouTube.
There are 3rd party apps available which support it
How can I run a YouTube video in Picture in Picture mode on iOS?


I'm going to lump together 1 & 2 because all shells read files at startup.

PATH is inherited from its parent process. This is a key concept that you need to understand.

The PATH is first hard coded into the kernel:

sysctl user.cs_path
user.cs_path: /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

launchd which acts as init can be configured to change this PATH. Generally it is not changed.

The loginwindow.app will setup an environment when you log into your computer. PATH will  be checked that it has been set or it will be set to the hard coded path in the kernel or a modified path set by launchd. It is like the loginwindow.app is calling login -pf <username>.

At this point, a user LaunchAgent or LaunchDaemon may modify the PATH.

This will be the PATH available to GUI applications from the Finder. (Early versions of OS X could use ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist to change the PATH for GUI applications). Now if this seems complicated, it's not and more that likely,like me, the PATH available is /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

When you start the Terminal.app, it first calls login (login -pf ) which triggers your shell to be treated as a login shell. The appropriate files in /etc and your HOME folder are read. Now, PATH should be different than set by the loginwindow.app. Remember we talked about inheritance? If you start a GUI app from within your terminal session then the PATH available to GUI application will be same as set by the shell.

As far as daemons, they are usually started by their absolute path.


With iCloud photo storage enabled, do the photos get saved locally on the device and uploaded to iCloud?

iCloud Photo Library is not a backup solution, it's a sync solution.

It can be used as a backup but I don't recommend it.  There's other solutions, like Dropbox or BackBlaze, that can serve as an offsite backup (using the 3-2-1 backup strategy).

When you use iCloud for photos, all the photos will be synced to each device signed-in with that iCloud account.  Deleting a photo/video on any of those devices will also delete it from all the other devices when they re-sync.  See this Apple Support site for more info.

  iCloud Photo Library uses your iCloud storage to keep all of your photos and videos up to date across your devices. You can make more space in iCloud when you delete photos and videos that you no longer need from the Photos app on any of your devices.
  You can also choose to save space on your device when you turn on Optimize device Storage in Settings. With Optimize Storage on, Photos will automatically free up space when you need it by replacing original photos and videos with device-sized versions. All of your original, full-resolution photos and videos are safe in iCloud and you can download them at any time. Learn more about managing your photo and video storage.


It’s a text autocomplete feature. You can type when and press Esc to shows all the available words. It’s available everywhere, not just Messages. But somehow Messages doesn’t act according to its function, I believe it’s a bug, or Messages uses different frameworks for the text field.


save or forward texts from an iPod touch

A rather easy way is to just take screenshots of the offending messages and syncing/mailing them to your computer for future reference.


External Hard Drive not recognized after using it in Windows

Can it still be recognized? Try First Aid or copying the files and erasing to ExFat so that you have access to large files on macOS and Windows.


Dropped computer. Will not boot. Unable to find driver for this platform \“ACPI\” MACOSX version

You should probably run 2 tests.

The Disk Utility Test (does not require restart).

Disk Utility.app is located in your Utility folder, use it to check the hard disk.

and the Apple Hardware Test. (does require restart)


Why does my MacBook Pro reach high temperatures when running?

160 degrees Fahrenheit, if it is CPU temperature, is normal for MBP.

MBPs are designed to run pretty hot, with the aluminum case as the main heatsink the casing gets uncomfortably hot sometimes.

If you want to remedy the problem:

use a laptop stand (I use Belkin Cushtops, they are really comfortable),
put your laptop on steady, heat-transducing surface (human skin, blankets or soft chairs are bad — wooden/plastic/metallic tables are good),
open up the casing and clean the dust (can make it ~10 degrees Celcius cooler)
or, use less video- or CPU-intensive application =)


How can I cancel/delete unsent E-Mails from iOS Mail?

Go back as far as you can in the Mail view. There should be an Outbox folder.

The unsent mail will be in there.

Then you can use the "Swipe to delete method" or tap "Edit" button and delete away.


How do I interpret the output of Mac's 'sample' tool

I just checked the Man page on sample
and it looks to me like a half-decent call-stack sampler.
It claims that its output is the call-tree, so that should not be too hard to comprehend.

I say half-decent because collecting call-stack samples is a good thing. The criticisms are:

It doesn't say if it collects samples when the process is in a system call, like waiting for I/O. It is important to do so, unless you want to be blind to needless I/O.
It falls for the fiction that what matters is accuracy of timing and you don't want to miss any functions, so samples have to be really frequent. It's a fiction because the goal is to find big stuff, not to measure little stuff. Any function that doesn't appear certainly doesn't cost enough to care about.
The consequence of this fiction is there are too many samples for you to look at, so it has to try to find a way to summarize them, so it chooses a call-tree. The fact is, if you are allowed to actually examine a small number of the samples (like 10 or 20) you will see exactly the reason(s) for the slowness. The summarization is the problem. It smears out and hides the information.

So, the long-and-short is, it appears to be a good tool for collecting call-stack samples.
If you can figure out how to actually see a selection of them, it will tell you what the problem is.


How to use a wired headphone AND a mic at the same time on the Macbook Pro Retina?

You will need the same type of headset that you use with an iPhone. It will have one 3.5mm plug that carries both the stereo audio and mic input (aka a TRRS plug). Some examples are apple's own EarPods, Sennheiser's PX 200-II i's, and any other iPhone headset.


No image conversion was necessary.  In Finder.app, just (control + click) on the file that you want to change its icon, and choose the "Get  info" command.  Next, just drag your icon file from Finder, directly onto the actual icon image in the get info window you previously opened... Then you're good to go


Macbook Pro Retina (early 2013) Trackpad Dead

Before you do anything hastily, try resetting your NVRAM: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

This will clear several hardware-related settings and may resolve your situation.

If not, try creating a bootable installer (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372), boot from it and check if your trackpad works there. If it does, backup and reinstall your OS.

The alternative would be to open up the device and check if the trackpad connection is properly attached. Sometimes (although very rarely) the plug can become loose, likely due to radical temperature changes. You should only attempt this if you're comfortable with electronics repair and following a guide on a site like iFixIt. They also have parts for self-repair.

If the latter doesn't help, sometimes disconnecting the battery and reconnecting it works, as this will clear any battery-buffered settings remaining.

In case all else fails, I suggest purchasing a replacement part through iFixIt and following a guide to exchange the trackpad – if you're at all open to self-repair. Having it exchanged by a shop is always going by to be vastly more expensive. The upside being that they're usually required to provide a certain warranty period for repairs. This is not a complicated repair, so you may want to try it yourself.


Honestly, I think it is a bug in the calculator, though possibly it could be defended as some sort of usability concession. Note: I am confining my analysis to the floating-point calculators. The programmer calculator behaves differently.
The general rules seem to be

If you do not enter a number between pressing an operator key and pressing =, the number on the display when you press = is used as the operand. In most cases, pressing -= yields zero.
After pressing = once, additional presses apply the last operator and operand to the displayed value.
The bug is that if there is a low-precedence operator (like +) being deferred because a higher precedence operator (like x) is computing, the low precedence operator moves to the end of the equation for the initial computation.

Examples from the original question
Input: 4+3x3x3x=
Output: 135
Explanation:

4+3x puts 4 on the stack while it computes the higher priority 3x...
3x3x3 is 27
When you end with x= it has to decide what to do for the final x to complete the equation. What it does is replace the final operator with the deferred operator and shift the rest left, then it takes the  currently displayed number, which is 27, adds it as the final operand.

you had 4 + (3x3x3x and a display showing 27
the calculator probably should convert that to 4 + (3x3x3x27)
instead it makes a bigger jump and converts it to (4x3x3x3) + 27

Like I said, probably a bug. You end up with
4x3x3x3 + 27 which is 108 + 27 which is 135

Input: 4+3x3x3x==
Output: 3645
Explanation:

From the previous example, the last entered operation is x and the last number used is 27, so you get 135 * 27 which is 3645

Input: 4-3x3x3x=
Output: 81
Explanation:

Just like the first example, except 108 - 27 is 81

Input: 4+3x3x3x==
Output: 2187
Explanation:

Just like the second example, except now it is 81x27 is 2187

Additional examples
Note: Below, ^ represents the xy power function, which has higher precedence than x.
Input: 4+3x2^=
Output: 38
Explanation:

Display shows "2" when = is pressed, so operands are 4,3,2,2 and operators +,x,^ become x,^,+
4*(3^2)+2 -> 4*9+2 -> 36+2 is 38

Input: 4+3x2^==
Output: 1444
Explanation: (4*(3^2)+2)^2 or 38^2
Input: 2x2x3^=
Output: 192
Explanation:

3 is on display when = is pressed , ^ has precedence over x, which shifts to the end, so operands are 2,2,3,3 and operators x,x,^ become x,^,x
((2x2)^3)x3 -> 4^3x3 -> 64*3 is 192

Input: 5+7x3^=
Output: 1718
Explanation: 5x(7^3)+3


What is proper way to get rid of quarantined files after ClamXav scan?

Assuming the infected files have been moved to a defined quarantine folder, i.e., e.g., ClamXav > Preferences > Quarantine Preferences > Set quarantine folder, then in Finder, select the files in the quarantine folder and right-click > Move to Trash, then empty the Trash.

Note: The *.emlx files are the entire email files, as ClamXav cannot just remove the spam/virus/malware/etc. portion of the email.  The *.partial.emlx file are partially downloaded email files that contain spam/virus/malware/etc.


Custom vibrate pattern for an arbitrary app

Unfortunately you can only set Native apps (provided via Apple) which were on your iOS on the first install.

Some examples:

Incoming call (does not work for skype or other external apps)
New email (only works from the mail.app)
Text messages
Tweet
Facebook

Since iOS6 it has Twitter and Facebook built-in, and that's why there two are visible there for example.

Developers have no access to this preference and cannot build anything (yet) to support customization of vibrate patterns.


Solution,
mount dmg file on mac, dump it to img file and extract HFS volume

open [path/to/dmg]
dd if="/dev/disk[number]" of="/extract/path/file.img"

and then on linux I looked up sector size and where HFS volume starts, by:

fdisk -l file.img

Example output:

Disk test.img: 1.3 GiB, 1391718400 bytes, 2718200 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Device      Start     End Sectors   Size Type
test.img1      40  409639  409600   200M EFI System
test.img2  409640 2456015 2046376 999.2M Apple HFS/HFS+

in this example, sector size is 512 bytes and hfs volume starts at 409640th sector and is 2046376 sectors long.

Now extract volume

dd if="path/to/file.img" bs=sector_size skip=sectors count=sectors >> output.hfs


Getting Apple Cinema HD Display working in Windows 7 x64

This question is old, but in case anyone is still looking, a driver that works is here:

http://www.holstschumacher.dk/p/brightness-controller.html

Look for the link to Beta Versions and Old Releases for the latest.

The beta version works with Windows 10 Creators update as of 12/25/2017.


Export all stickies at once on OS X 10.8?

Export stickies created by Stickies.app

Install Notational Velocity (NV) and start the application
In Finder open your Library folder and locate StickiesDatabase
Drag StickiesDatabase into the 'Filtered Note List' in the NV main window (see here for reference)
In NV select any number of notes and choose Export from the menu

If you prefer to write your own code, have a look at Learning Cocoa with Objective-C which explains how to reverse-engineer the StickiesDatabase format.
Export Dashboard stickies
Run this in Terminal.app
plutil -convert json -r -o - ~/Library/Preferences/widget-com.apple.widget.stickies.plist |
    awk '$1 ~ /-data/ { start=index($0, ":")+3
                        end=length($0)-2
                        sticky=substr($0, start, end-start+1)
                        gsub(/<.?.?div>/, "", sticky)
                        gsub(/<br>/, "\n", sticky)
                        print sticky
                        print "---" }' > ~/all-my-stickies.txt


Is it possible to open a Private Browser window in Safari using Terminal.app?

Note: This is only one possible method. It works by simulating the pressing of ShiftCmdN. You can also simulate the pressing of the menu item, but the script is longer.

Create a new file, and paste in these contents:

#!/usr/bin/osascript
tell application "Safari"
    activate
    delay 0.5
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "n" using {command down, shift down}
    end tell
end tell

Save it somewhere (here, I'll pretend it's called myscript).

In Terminal, find the file and make it executable:

chmod +x myscript

Simply run it to create a new private window in Safari

./myscript

If you want to be able to use this script regardless of your current working directory, create an alias OR move it to /usr/local/bin.

If you want an alias, use

alias myscript='/path/to/script/myscript

You can add this line to ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile to automatically load this alias when you start Terminal.


How can I paste the selected text on macOS?

I found the answer on Stack Overflow: it's ShiftCommandV to paste selected text, without copying the text first. This might be all you need (I'm delighted it's even possible - I assumed it wasn't); however, you could if you wished remap this key combination to something more like ShiftInsert using one of the apps suggested in the answers to Re-map keys on keyboard.


It's fixed. The culprit appears to have been Adobe Acrobat Reader DC and was fixed with a recent update (version 2020.12.20043). You may have to quit Word and restart it, you possibly have to run Reader once before the fonts work again.
Not my observation, but taken from a discussion at a Microsoft board. Thanks to H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui for pointing me to his thread there.


When a file gets sent, you'll be given a popup menu with a list of apps in which to store the file. You have to pick one if you want to keep the file. If you just press Cancel, the file gets deleted. If the file(s) are photos or videos (compatible with ios) they end up in the photo album. If, however they are not compatible with any photo viewer installed, they seem to disappear without warning.


How do I install Flash in the guest account only?

Yes, Google Chrome has a sandboxed built-in version of Flash.

Download Chrome.
Navigate to: Macintosh HD> Users> Guests
Right Click and select "New Folder" and change its name to Applications
Open the Google Chrome disk image and drag Chrome.app to this folder

Google Chrome and its Flash player will only be accessible to the Guest user.


MacBook Air, Mavericks and two USB-DisplayLink-Adapters and position of monitors

The USB-Hub is not the Problem. If you only use one Displaylink Adapter, it works fine.
I have the same on MachBook Pro Late 2008 and 2 Adapters.


How can I stop brew prune and brew upgrade from fighting?

There is an inelegant solution to this bug/inconsistency in the two functions of the tools: put any file in the directories in question.

Then  brew prune will stop removing them because they will no longer be empty.  If brew prune is no longer removing them, brew upgrade won't create them.  If you're concerned about space, you could even put an alias file in the directories.

In the grand scheme of things, having these empty folders create and then removed is a harmless side effect and doesn’t really break anything functionally.


A "Library"-folder appeared in my Documents folder on Mac, Is that normal?

This was reported by several of our users as well so I did some digging.
The Library folder itself is owned by root and only root has rwx access. The only folder inside on three different machines I tested was a Logs folder. This Logs folder was empty. All three machines had the same behavior and a similar setup. Deleting the folder was only temporary as it would return after a restart.
After some more digging and some input from Reddit users with the same issue, I believe it has to do with Adobe CC. I removed CC completely, deleted the folder, restarted and it hasn't come back. Before then it was coming back after every restart.


A better place to ask is probably the programmer forum https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/osx

But offhand I think you can make a few different variants of your .app each one registering their own Services action.  Those variants could then launch your "main" app to do the heavy lifting.

These variants could be bundled inside the main application, like I see some examples here:

/Applications/Adium.app/Contents/Frameworks/Sparkle.framework/Versions/A/Resources/finish_installation.app
/Applications/Android File Transfer.app/Contents/Frameworks/Breakpad.framework/Versions/A/Resources/crash_report_sender.app
/Applications/Android File Transfer.app/Contents/Resources/Android File Transfer Agent.app
/Applications/Android File Transfer.app/Contents/Resources/Android File Transfer Agent.app/Contents/Frameworks/Breakpad.framework/Versions/A/Resources/crash_report_sender.app
/Applications/Google Chrome Canary.app/Contents/Versions/26.0.1400.0/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Resources/app_mode_loader.app
/Applications/Google Chrome Canary.app/Contents/Versions/26.0.1400.0/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Resources/crash_report_sender.app
/Applications/Google Chrome Canary.app/Contents/Versions/26.0.1400.0/Google Chrome Helper EH.app
/Applications/Google Chrome Canary.app/Contents/Versions/26.0.1400.0/Google Chrome Helper NP.app
/Applications/Google Chrome Canary.app/Contents/Versions/26.0.1400.0/Google Chrome Helper.app
/Applications/Quicksilver.app/Contents/Resources/QSDroplet.app
/Applications/Stainless.app/Contents/Helpers/StainlessClient.app
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/crashreporter.app
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/plugin-container.app
/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/updater.app
/Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Bundles/ActionScript.tmbundle/Support/bin/XTrace.app
/Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Support/bin/CocoaDialog.app
/Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Support/bin/CommitWindow.app
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Accessibility Inspector.app
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/FileMerge.app
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Instruments.app
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/OpenGL ES Performance Detective.app
…


I would suggest using the answer from this question to debug your USB devices. If it doesn't even show up there I'd assume the issue was on the controller's end. If it does show up there, it might tell you something about the controller that could help identify where the problem lies.


Process running for several minutes in Sleep mode

As of OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), there has been a feature called "Power Nap" that allows the Mac to periodically wake from sleep while connected to a power adapter to retrieve emails, calendar updates, iCloud syncing, or to back up to Time Machine. This would be my guess for the reason why your Mac is waking up and running during the night and not an indication of a bad process on your Mac.

If this is unwanted behavior, it's an easy setting to switch off in System Preferences > Energy Saver:

Note that another option here is "Wake for network access" - which would be along the lines of remote or local file/printer sharing while in sleep. I would doubt this is happening since you are asleep yourself while it's occurring :-)


What is iLifeAssetManagement, and can I delete it?

Yes you can delete it. I would make a backup of your Mac before deleting anything in ~/Library just in case you run into corruption.

This folder contains iCloud synced photos from your PhotoStream, so you might just have the folder fill up again unless you want to poke at that folder and make sure you turn off iCloud syncing before you do the pruning.

Does PhotoStream sync to my Mac when iPhoto is not open?

Deleting things from the iCloud photo stream directly will reduce the size footprint on all your devices so that's what I'd recommend in this particular case. You can sort things by size in Finder, so that might help you see if just a few large videos are responsible or if you instead have hundreds of small photos all adding up.


Activate app by pressing thumb on timeout / locked screen for few seconds

Without jailbreaking, no. Even with jailbreaking, quite possibly not (you'd likely have to keep the entire screen on, which would burn a lot of power). The capacitive screen is turned off until you wake the device, so no amount of touching it will do anything.

Additionally, there's no real way to "calibrate" for the owner's thumb: a touch is a touch (on iOS devices). Objects in your purse or pockets, though, are rarely noticed by the screen because it's detecting energy being drawn away from it by the touching object (your human body is serving as a capacitor); that's why you can't register a touch with, say, a plastic pen or a gloved finger: the electrical charge isn't being siphoned off because it can't be transmitted through the pen or glove. Nothing commonly found in a purse or pocket would serve as a capacitor, so that part's safe, anyway.


Why are some SMS-recipients reachable through iOS but not macOS?

On your computer, open the person’s contact card in Contacts/Address Book
Verify that the phone number you are attempting to use is classified as something other than “iPhone” (e.g. “Work” or “Mobile”)
Ensure you don’t have multiple contact cards for the same person, and create one for them if one doesn’t currently exist

If that doesn’t work, it might be worth trying to sign-out and back in to iCloud on both your computer and your iPhone, after re-booting both devices first.
(As for the messages when they were previously using an iPhone, the may have had “send all messages as SMS” enabled, or they didn’t a reliable mobile data connection while messaging you.)


LG Ultrafine 4K display - USB hub turns off when screen turns off / unplugged from MacBook

This is expected behavior.  According the LG specifications the maximum power supplied when in sleep mode is 1.2W and when off is .5W. (This is for the monitor as a whole, not just the USB ports. For this answer, let's assume all of the power is being redirected to the ports - for illustrative purposes only)

Using the formula for watts and converting to solve for Amps,

W = V * A  => A = W ÷ V

So, assuming that the 5V remains constant, the amps it's supplying is .24A in sleep and .1A off.  For the record, that's not enough to charge a Nokia 3310 from 2000 much less a smartphone from the last 10 years.

The power requirement for USB 2.0 is to supply upto 500mA (.5A), 3A for USB 3.1 and up to 5A for power delivery (the type C interface).

When you unplug your MacBook from the monitor, it goes into sleep mode and dropping power consumption which ultimately disconnects your devices.

My solution is to purchase an Anker USB charging hub that's designed for this type of task. I've purchased this exact charging hub and positioned it at the side of my desk to charge the myriad of devices.  Even when I need to connect my device to my Mac and charge simultaneously, I have a hub that's capable of delivering 10W on the port.


How long does it take to Erase All Content and Settings on iPhone 5?

So I verified that deleting the hardware encryption key should not take very long at all. My problem was that the phone was jailbroken on 6.1.2 (not sure what the EXACT problem was). By following this procedure, I was able to delete all content and settings manually, with the file browsers iFunbox and iTools. Unfortunately, it didn't delete the errant configuration profile that locked me out of my phone, so I still had to update to 6.1.4.

I wish I had the time to investigate the issue further, but as this is my primary phone, I just needed it back operational.


I recommend keeping git out of your ~/Library folders, both to keep things simple for people using your scripts, and for stability's sake (I'd argue that the Library's contents should be considered an implementation detail of OS X that you can't rely on not to change on you in future versions).

Instead, I would just copy all the scripts in their textual form into a separate folder for the git repo (~/applescripts, for example), share that, and include instructions for where the user should install the scripts in your README file.


Port Forwarding an SSH Connection on macOS

Create multiple forwarding rules in the router, one for each machine behind it that you want to SSH into. Use different high ports as the input for each.


Push the + at the bottom of the list:

Then select a folder or create a new one in your home folder, perhaps inside your Pictures folder.

There may be a way to put a picture inside the Apple desktop pictures folders, but this is the more standard way to go about it.


Is it safe to put ipad baseband 06.15.00 on iPhone 3G in order to unlock it when using iOS 4.2.1?

I believe the iPhone 3G and the iPad 3G use very different baseband processors and putting the firmware from one on the other, if possible, would probably brick it. It's akin to trying to put the BIOS for a Toshiba computer onto a Dell.

Then again, I'm not entirely sure on this one.


XMarks Safari constantly re-downloads old bookmarks

I seem to have solved my issue, as it's been quite a while now and the problem has not reappeared.

First I turned off Safari XMarks' option to automatically synchronize, so that it wouldn't mess things up during this process.  Then t had to get my bookmarks in Safari all clean & perfect, and once I had that I manually overwrote the server bookmarks with the copy in Safari.  Since then, my old "bad" bookmarks have not reappeared.  I suppose it's possible that Safari is quietly in the background still downloading and overwriting my local with the server bookmarks from time to time, but since the server copy is now correct, if that's happening, I don't notice.

Everything seems fine now, I can use/update bookmarks in Chrome and Safari and they all stay in sync, though there is a definite lag in time for them to pick up changes made from one another, that's just a fact of the way the software works it seems.


Are there any global key combinations suitable or specifically reserved on OS X for user assignment?

Here are Apple's official OS X Human Interface Guidelines for Keyboard Shortcuts.

The document appears to be a current, authoritative, and complete guide to assigning keyboard shortcuts. It covers both the conceptual basis for using particular modifier keys, as well as the nitty-gritty of exactly which keys and which combinations are reserved system-wide, or likely to be reserved in the future.

Here's second Apple page showing a complete summary of existing keyboard shortcuts.


The iPhone 7 has four microphones (and yes, that grille is there strictly for symmetry):

Two of them are located on the bottom, on either side of the Lightning port. The one near the old headphone jack has been there since the original iPhone, but iPhone 6s added another by the speaker grille as well.
One is located on the back, between the True Tone flash and iSight camera. This microphone was added in the iPhone 5. You can check out photos of iPhones prior to the 5, and it is not there.
The last one is located inside in the earpiece. This microphone was also introduced in the iPhone 5, to perform noise cancellation on the voice coming in during calls. Phil Schiller mentioned both #2 and #3 during the iPhone 5 keynote.

All 4 microphones are used for active noise cancellation (reducing ambient sounds) and beamforming (detecting the location of the sound source), with one being picked as the most appropriate for recording (depending on closeness to the sound source, and on clarity). For instance, while shooting video, the rear microphone would usually be picked. Since iOS 10, you can record videos in stereo, so two microphones are picked in those cases.

Do note that all 4 microphones are always listening for “Hey Siri” functionality. You can test this simply by holding up any of the microphones to your mouth and whispering “Hey Siri.” No matter which microphone you whisper into, Siri will trigger. Whisper away from them, and Siri won’t come up. iOS picks the best microphone at any given time.

Finally, the microphone located by the speaker grille may be used to cancel out noise from the speakers while sound is playing, just as the one inside the earpiece does for voice coming in (and now also for sound playing on an iPhone 7). And of course, sound isn’t constantly playing through your speaker, so in most instances it can simply be used for regular noise cancellation and beamforming.

In summary:

iPhone 6s, 6s+, 7 and 7+ have 4 microphones.
iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, SE, 6 and 6+ have 3 microphones.
iPhone 4 and 4s have 2 microphones.
All older iPhones include a single microphone.

Since Apple has a tendency to remove technical specs for iPhones it no longer sells, here’s a screenshot of the iPhone 6s’s bottom dual-microphone setup, for posterity:

And iPhone SE:

PS: On iPhone 4 and 4s, the second microphone is also located at the top rather than by the rear-facing camera.


Replaced Screen "Searching..." - cannot find network provider

Chances are they ripped or damaged the antenna(s) for cellular service/WiFi.


Go to: /Library/Printers/
Delete the EPSON folder.
Add the printer from System Preferences.

This will involve your computer updating all the drivers from Apple and will take some time.


Clarification on 4k support for 60Hz Monitor

Monitors don't have their own refresh rates. They can SUPPORT higher refresh rates. So you always have to look at the weakest link between 1) what your computer can display, 2) what your cord can transfer, 3) what your monitor can display. For example, as is likely the case for you, if your monitor supports 4K at 60Hz and your cord supports 4K at 60Hz but your computer can only output 4K at 30Hz, then your monitor will only display 4K at 30Hz.

TL;DR: You'll only be able to see 4K at 30Hz.


Font rendering issue with Word 2011 and 3rd party font (Admiration Pains)

My workaround was to use FontForge to open the TTF file and then re-generate the font family in TrueType format. Now Word 2011 shows it correctly.


Can't see new SSD when connected via internal SATA port

It turned out that the hard drive cable was broken. Replacing it fixed the problem completely.


Keyboard Layout in Windows 7 with VMware Fusion 5

You don't give a lot of information about where you are based so I am making some references based on experience outside the US.

When setting up a machine here in South Africa, the system (even preconfigured ones) come with an additional keyboard layout (in our case US-International). We use US keyboard layout here. That layout causes the ' to require a double tap on the keyboard before it processes it. If we remove it so that it only has one layout and restart the machine the behaves correctly.

Check that you have the correct keyboard installed in Windows as VMWare tends to make some assumptions during VM creation.


First, check your iPhone:

For iCloud Calendar, check whether it is enabled on both devices under Settings > Apple ID > iCloud

For Google, check whether Fetch New Data is set to Push in Settings > Passwords and Accounts and also  under Gmail look, whether is it enabled or not.

For Exchange try the same.

Now check the same settings on your mac.


Yes, Apple does use its own payment system.

Using the Apple Store app, find the product you would like to purchase and add it to the shopping bag.

When done tap on the shopping bag tab at the bottom. You'll see a list of the products you have selected. Press the big black button named "Buy with (apple)Pay" (the button contains a graphical version of the Apple logo where I wrote (apple)).

Now you'll get a confirmation dialog and by confirming you can pay with Apple Pay.


Backup files from Terminal in Recovery Mode

My goal was to copy files to the external hard drive. They are stored in Macintosh HD (I originally thought I will find Macintosh HD in a subfolder of OS X Base System - wrong assumption). There was no Macintosh HD in Volumes folder, because I first needed to unlock it (I use FileVault).

First you need to find the lvUUID of your Macintosh HD. Use this command:

diskutil list // lvUUID

Look for text looking similar to this:

Logical Volume on disk0s2
4B2EFAAE-C871-4E6D-AB15-2DDE604B97CE // this is lvUUID
Unlocked Encrypted

To unlock use this command:

diskutil cs unlockVolume lvUUID #replace lvUUID by the one shown in the diskutil listing

You will be prompted with password for your user account.
After that Macintosh HD will be present in /Volumes/ folder.

All thanks to klanomath for enlightening me. See full Q&A here: No Macintosh HD in Volumes folder


If my iPad is dead/switched off, will I still get a FaceTime missed call notification if someone tries to ring me?

Yes, you'd be notified of the FaceTime call you missed while your iOS device was switched off.


Can't delete Linux partition with Disk utility

The partition type for the APFS partition has the incorrect value.

The simplest solution would be to use the gdisk command supplied with Ubuntu to correct this problem.

If you can boot to Ubuntu from either the internal drive or from a live version, then proceed as follows.

Boot to Ubuntu.
Open a Terminal windows by entering the key combination control+option+T.
In the window, enter the following command.

sudo gdisk /dev/sda

Enter the following commands into gdisk. Basically, you will be changing the partition type to the correct GUID.

t
2
7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
w
y

  Note: If you are using version 1.0.4 or newer of gdisk, then you can substitute af0a for 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

Quit the Terminal application.
Reboot to macOS. You may need to hold down the option key at startup and then select macOS.

Removing Linux without Using the Disk Utility Application.

When removing partitions, entering commands in a Terminal application window can provide more satisfying results than relying on the Disk Utility application.

A linux partitions can be converted back to free space by entering the commands below.

Use the command below to get the identifier of a partition.

diskutil list

Use the command below to remove the partition. Replace  diskXsY with the identifier determined in step 1.

diskutil eraseVolume free none diskXsY

When finished removing partitions, the free space should be allocated back to macOS. In your case, this can be accomplished using the command given below.

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

Alternate Method of Employing gdisk

The gdisk command can now be accessed by a rEFInd bootable USB flash drive. Below are the instructions for creating the bootable flash drive.

Goto the website The rEFInd Boot Manager:
Getting rEFInd.
Click on the link labeled A USB flash drive image file. Currently, this will download the file refind-flashdrive-0.11.3.zip, which defaults to the creation of the folder refind-flashdrive-0.11.3 in the Downloads folder.
Insert a flash drive in a USB port. Note: All the files on this flash drive will be erased.
Open a Terminal application window.
Enter the command below to get the identifier of the flash drive.

diskutil list

Enter the commands below to copy the image to the flash drive. If necessary, replace disk1 with the identifier from the previous step. Also, make the appropriate substitution, if your rEFInd version is be newer than 0.11.3.

cd ~/Downloads/refind-flashdrive-0.11.3
diskutil unmountdisk disk1
sudo dd if=refind-flashdrive-0.11.3.img of=/dev/disk1

Next, follow the steps below fix the partition type error.

Restart the Mac and immediately hold down the option key.
Select the external drive icon labeled EFI Boot.
From the rEFInd menu, select the icon labeled Start disk partitioning tool.
Enter the commands given below.

t
2
7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
w
y

Select the icon labeled Reboot Computer.


Photoshop not recognised as default app after OS update

Go to the file in Finder. Right click, and select 'Get Info'. This will open up a new window with all the file information. There are different sections in this window. Scroll down (or collapse the sections) until you get to the one titled 'Open with'.

There should be a drop down select menu that shows which program will be used to open the file. The default program will say "(default)" after the program name. Use this menu to select Photoshop. If it's not one of the options in this list, click 'other' to select it manually. If these are Photoshop files, OS X should recognize that Photoshop can open them, but if it is greyed out, select "All Applications" from the "Enable:" drop down menu.

Back in the file info window, below the program select drop down, it says "Use this application to open all files like this one." Click the button that says "Change All" (directly beneath this text) to make the selected program the default.

If any part of this doesn't work, my guess would be there is an issue with the Photoshop installation. Check that you can still use the application with other files. Reinstall the application and try this again.


How do I check if the battery has been calibrated on my Macbook Pro?

Everything you need should be here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1490

There is no indication as such that you've done it 'properly', other than your 'Cycle count' (in System Profiler -> Hardware -> Power) will go up by one. However calibration doesn't necessarily affect your battery capacity immediately; instead it improves the longevity of your battery, and the accuracy of the battery life readings (in your menu bar) when your laptop is unplugged.


How does one "Press 1 for English" using voice on iPhone during call with phone system menu?

If the numbers are in your contacts.

You can Edit the contact by adding another number with some controls in.

i.e if you are always dialling : (888) 555 1212

And you need to wait 4 seconds and then enter a (1) for the selection.

You can Edit the contact and duplicate the number.

Then press the symbols button.

which will give you two new buttons.

Pause and Wait.

Pressing the Pause button will add a "," at the end of the number.

AFAIK each "," will pause for 2 seconds. I am not sure about wait. Which I expect will be longer.

Once you have your pauses you can add the DTMF number as shown I have entered two "," to get 4 seconds and a (1) for the DTMF.

Repeat as needed for any other pauses and numbers and save. And dail.


iOS cannot play "slow" or "veryslow" h.264 videos

Use next parameters to ensure compatibility with apple devices.

-profile:v baseline -level 3.0

This disables some advanced features but provides for better compatibility. Typically you may not need this setting (and therefore avoid using -profile:v and -level), but if you do use this setting it may increase the bit rate quite a bit compared to what is needed to achieve the same quality in higher profiles.

Encoding video using H.264 compression:

H.264 Baseline 3.0: All devices
H.264 Baseline 3.1: iPhone 3G and later, and iPod touch 2nd generation and later.
H.264 Main profile 3.1: iPad (all versions), Apple TV 2 and later, and iPhone 4 and later.
H.264 Main Profile 4.0: Apple TV 3 and later, iPad 2 and later, and iPhone 4S and later
H.264 High Profile 4.0: Apple TV 3 and later, iPad 2 and later, and iPhone 4S and later.
H.264 High Profile 4.1: iPad 2 and later and iPhone 4S and later.

A frame rate of 10 fps is recommended for video streams under 200 kbps. For video streams under 300 kbps, a frame rate of 12 to 15 fps is recommended. For all other streams, a frame rate of 29.97 is recommended.

Encode audio as either of the following:

HE-AAC or AAC-LC, stereo
MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3), stereo


Using Only an External Monitor with a MacBook Air or Pro?

Set the boot-args NVRAM variable to iog-0x0

sudo nvram boot-args=iog=0x0

and restart to apply the changes.

It restores the pre-10.7 clamshell mode behavior where the internal display does not turn back on after you open the lid of a laptop. The laptop will also go to sleep when you close the lid even when an external display is connected.

To undo the changes, run sudo nvram -d boot-args and restart.


In iOS14, there is an additional network setting that offers extra privacy/security by providing a private wifi address individual to each wifi network you connect to, which is particularly useful when connecting to public wifi networks. However, there have been reports of connection/performance issues when using private wifi addresses, particularly with wifi networks that have multiple wifi access points.
So as a troubleshooting step, you may wish to disable the private wifi address for the particular affected wifi network. You can disable the private wifi address by going to Settings>Wi-Fi and press the ⓘ symbol of the affected wifi network (when you are connected to it) and midway down you will be able to disable the Private Address. Doing so will revert the wifi address to the device's default wifi address but only for that wifi network. This won't affect other wifi networks you have saved/connected to, but you can individually disable the private address for those too, when you are next connected to them. I'm not sure if this will fix your issue, but it is worth trying out.
Additionally, is it affecting other 5GHz wifi networks or just one specific 5GHz wifi network? It may have something to do with the 5GHz channel band the wifi network is on. If there's lots of other wifi networks (like in an apartment block) on the same channel band it can cause signal interference which is particularly worse on 5GHz networks than on 2.4GHz networks.
So, if it is just affecting the single wifi network, then it may be worth checking whether the channel band is on the same channel band as other nearby wifi networks and try change it to one that has the least amount of wifi networks on the same channel band. Hope this helps!


Where can I find a user forum for the brand-new Apple iBooks Author application?

There is a new Apple Support Forum for iBooks Author

https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_app_store/ibooks_author


Installing GarageBand on OS X Mountain Lion?

I found another Macbook that already had GarageBand running on and copied GarageBand right out of the Applications folder and into the shared folder of my newer computer that needed it.  My new machine also runs Mountain Lion.  Once it's in the shared folder of the new computer, then move it to the Applications folder of the new computer.


can I have mulitple apple ID's backed up to itunes?

This is a very common question and really there is no correct answer. iTunes belongs to the computer so you wouldn't run into an issue with less than five different accounts and even hundreds of devices would all sync with one PC and one iTunes library.

When I worked at a certain fruit stand, I would ask people to imagine for a moment sharing a sock drawer with the person(s) in question. Some people like their socks sorted by size and color or prefer them folded this way or that. Some people live on the beach where it's warm year-round and don't even need socks. Some like to keep everyone's stuff organized, others need space to do their own thing.

That being said, my default answer is to make each person their own user account on your computer and only connect one person's device to their account.

That way you can choose to share photos using a photo sharing option or share app purchases using family sharing or share music using home sharing. Throwing everything into one large pile is generally something that people regret and having things separate usually doesn't cause any practical problem whatsoever.  At worst, when you run into a practical problem, you'll have many options to solve that problem without throwing everything back together. Having things apart makes the problem clearer and the resolution smaller work to accomplish.

PCs work with multiple user accounts just about as easily as a Mac does in my experience, so I don't see any reason to deviate from my advice to Mac users if you're using the Windows operating system and iTunes. Also, you could try mixing everything if you make good backups of all the things before trying that option.


How to download iCloud Address book to Mac?

It takes a while for it to download. You have to wait. There is no indication that it is doing anything.


Selecting correct offline update file for iPad 2

iClarified just links to IPSW files hosted by Apple (note the apple.com URLs), so it's a reasonable place to find links to download these files.

Yes, #2 sounds like the correct choice for you. (Note that if you choose the wrong IPSW, iTunes will just give you an error message and not restore the device to it. And even if you could theoretically restore to the wrong IPSW, you can always start over and restore it again.)


Which directory does Mac OS X 10.10.x keep iPhone back up file？

Here is what you are looking for.

    ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/


Where in the iPhone file system is iPhone's "Photo Library" found?

In case you are still wondering where it is located inside your iPhone, as I just answered elsewhere, this is the place: /private/var/mobile/Media/Photos/ all files inside that folder are relevant. The actual photo data are stored on the Thumbs encoded as ithmb. You'll need some software to decode them.

/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/Sync/ is the correct path to "Photo Library"


As was suggested to you in the comments, you will need to provide more information in order to get some relevant help

Generally speaking the steps to follow are:

Change your password and write it somewhere. I suggest using a password manager.
Login to your google account from your phone with the new password.
Step 2 being a success mean that you indeed changed the password to the one you thing you did.
Add the account in the iOS Mail app and write again the same password carefully in order to avoid any typos.

If 4 failed, it means that you have 2nd factor authentication enabled for you google account.

This means that you will need to generate an application specific password from here and use that as your email password in the iOS Mail app.


Connect two VGA dell displays to my macbook?

You can use multiple displays with MacBook Pro. Retina version have two thunderbolt ports that you can use simultaneously to two external displays along with MacBook's LCD panel.

There are also USB cables which comes with internal display card attached, so it will not have the same speed the MacBook's integrated display card, but if it is compatible with your OS version, should work without any issues.


Database Migration from legacy app on old iPad

Unfortunately it is completely irresponsible to store patient records without regards for security, backups and vendor support, and without being aware of the fact that the vendor discontinued the product and removed it from the App Store years ago. In many countries you would risk being fined heavily by the authorities.
At this point, you have a few options:

Contact the vendor offering money to have them help you migrate the data.

Contract a third party developer or IT-professional that can help you migrate the data (you could be 'lucky' that the data is simply stored in a SQLite database on device)

Migrate the data manually

I would strongly suggest initiating option 3 immediately while simualtenously pursuing the first two options.
Migrating the data manually could be done by simply going through all data in the app and taking screenshots along the way. Make sure to handle those screenshots in a professional and ethical manner - i.e. ensure they're not synced with Dropbox or Google Photos or something like that - and transfer them to a secure PC, where you can transfer the data into a new patient records system.


To enable FileVault on a non-system disk you need an EFI partition, an HFS+ volume and a Boot OS X partition. The last one will be built while enabling FileVault.

Your disk contains none of them.

Open Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities), choose the appropriate disk (not any inferior volume!) and hit erase in the toolbar.

Choose a name, "OS X Extended (Journaled)" as format and "GUID Partition Map" as scheme. Then hit the erase button.

If the partitioning fails, close Disk Utility and open Terminal.app. Enter diskutil list. Then enter sudo gpt -r show diskX with diskX: the disk identifier of the stubborn disk. Below I assume the identifier is disk1.

If you are sure that you have chosen the stubborn disk (I.e. the one with the 2048  1953519616      1  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 partition) enter:

diskutil umountDisk disk1
sudo gpt destroy disk1

Enter exit to terminate the Terminal session and quit Terminal. Open Disk Utility again and repeat the steps to partition the disk mentioned earlier.


Does anyone know why I've been getting thin rectangular outlines all over my desktop?

Sounds like an OSX Failure. You should try to reinstall the operating system.


How can I recover when my iPhone isn't responding to touch when using Guided Access on iOS 6?

Seems like a solution is to hold home button + volume down + screen lock until device forcibly reboots.  After that, guided access began responding properly again and I was able to exit the app.

Edit:  Through trial and error, I felt this was home button + volume down + screen lock, but as comments  have noted, volume down is not necessary.


Installing Mavericks on a new Mac Mini (end 2014) shipped with Yosemite pre-installed?

The general rule is, you cannot instal an OS on a Mac that is older than the Mac itself.
See Don't install a version of Mac OS X earlier than what came with your Mac

That said, Cubase 7 should run OK on Yosemite, though you will need the Steinberg Installer patch. I don't know Studio One 2 so I can't say on that.
Google did find this from Presonus about it.

Edit: I also found this, officially qualifying Studio One 2.6.4 as Yosemite-compatible