How can I disable iMessage suggestions in iOS 13’s share menu?

The only workaround I have found so far is by deleting the conversations with all the suggested contacts.

If you use Signal/Whatsapp to communicate anyway, it is not a big deal. But it is unbelievable that Apple does not allow you to disable this.


Is there a backquote on the iPhone keyboard?

The backtick/backquote was added to the iOS keyboard in 4.1. You need to switch to the numbers keypad and then press & hold apostrophe to access it. Once the variations show up - slide your finger without removing it from the screen. Remove your finger when it's over the correct ` key.


I've done something similar using apps in the one partition on the other. I erased the /Applications folder on one partition and symlinked the master /Applications folder in the other to the root of the partition it was erased from.

So, you could delete the com.spotify.client in all the users but one which will be the master, and then do something like this in terminal.

ln -s /Users/<master>/Library/Cache/com.spotify.client /Users/<nonmaster/Library/Cache/com.spotify.client

Not positive this will work, but assuming the permissions are correct, it might.


How can I restart an app game from the beginning

Deleting the game from iOS devices usually removes the game stored data, unless, those data are stored in iCloud. Here are the steps to delete saved games data in iCloud.

Make sure you’ve deleted the games you want to reset. Some of those games will push the local saved data to iCloud even if you’ve deleted the data in iCloud.
Access those saved games data in Setting > iCloud > Storage & Backup > Manage Storage.
Select Show All to view all the saved data. You’ll see non-games app in this location too because it shows all your iCloud storage.
Tap on the games you want to reset.
Tap Edit at the top right.
Tap Delete All to delete the saved games data.


What kind of "messages" does Activity Monitor track with the "Messages Sent" and "Messages Received" columns?

Those numbers match the Mach messages in/out counts, so you seem to be correct in not interpreting them as the objc_msgSend counts.

You can learn more about higher level message counts by firing up Instruments (part of the freely downloadable Xcode toolset) and digging into a specific application to see what messages are being sent and when.

It can filter all allocations as well as allocations relating to ObjC and you can dig into much lower level details than just message send counts. The canonical documentation that is part of Xcode will help you make sense of these statistics and how they relate to Activity Monitor.

Specifically, search for NSObjCMessageLoggingEnabled and objc_msgSend in the Mac OS X Debugging Magic - Tools Guide portion of the Reference Documentation to get at the objC counts.

Search for mach message in Xcode and look for the IPC/Message Queues section of the Kernel Programming Guide for mach message queue details and what makes them up. They are much lower level IPC kernel traffic as you have surmised.

You probably can find it on developer.apple.com as well, but having the documentation local from within Xcode has many advantages.


Trying to recover data from an external RAID drive

If your RAID is 4 TB from 2 x 2 TB then it is RAID 0, a stripe set where one 2 TB drive is an "extension" of the other. Each 2 TB drive won't work by itself. If any of them fails, the other is useless. This setup is useful for write and read speed, but it decreases confidence in the set.

So, if you pull any of the 2 TB drives from the set and tries to use it, it won't work. You need to repartition the drive as a single drive (no RAID), but then the other drive will be useless forever (you destroyed on of the drives in the set.

If it was RAID 1 (mirror), you would have 2 TB from the 2 x 2 TB set, but each drive would be an exact copy of the other and you should be able to use each one by itself. This setup seems a waste of space but it increases confidence in the set since any 1 drive failing would still allow you to access your data.


Using apple watch + nike + running without the phone

I think Apple's included Workout app can record activity and heart-rate data without the iPhone, but the Nike+ Running app can't (as of the 17th of November 2015).

Here's the info page from the iPhone Nike+ Running app (Nike+ Running > Settings > Apple Watch)..

Nike state that you need to have your iPhone on you.


Macbook Pro doesn't recognize USB devices through hub

This was solved by not using the hub and cables with the Mac. See the comments on the question.
Helpful commenter AndyP says:

I've the same problem with my Early 2015 MBP. My life has been limited to two usb devices at a time for about a year. This is the most comprehensive resource on the issue I've found: https://wls.wwco.com/blog/2016/03/20/usb-3-0-hub-stops-working-on-el-capitan/


standalone upgrade from older version to current version osx

You could get the installer from wherever you have a decent connection, and then create a USB key with the installer.

Once you have downloaded the installer on any machine, see the quick instructions here:

  Create a single GPT (GUID) partition on the USB key, and format it.
  Then run:

sudo "/Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia" --volume /Volumes/untitled --applicationpath "/Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app" --nointeraction

  "/Volumes/untitled" is the mount point of your USB key. For the
  verbose version with pictures, see here.


Magsafe light occasionally turns off while plugged in

Here is Apple's troubleshooting documentation: Apple Portables: Troubleshooting MagSafe adapters

I have a late-2011 MacBook Air, and I have never experienced this issue.


You can do this with Hazel:

  Create rules to automatically keep your files organized

  Hazel watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. It features a rule interface similar to that of Apple Mail so you should feel right at home. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, type, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Automatically put your music in your Music folder, movies in Movies.


How to completely delete and app from iphone (including all the data and history)

Try deleting the app from within Settings and see if that makes any difference?

More specifically:

Go to Settings
Tap on General
Tap on Storage & iCloud Usage
Under the Storage heading, tap on Manage Storage
Wait for your list of apps to populate
Select Tinder
Tap on the red Delete App option
At the next prompt, tap OK
Exit Settings
Reboot your iPhone (press the Power and Home buttons for about 10 secs)

Now reinstall the Tinder app and see whether this process has made any difference.


How to display Google App Contacts in a separate iChat list?

I actually just tried this and iChat does it automatically. As you can see I have a different window for each account, and I think you can actually set the window's title by setting the account description under Settings->Accounts. As you can see I even have different groups for each account.
Although I usually have them unified using Chax's feature Use All Contacts window as primary contact list


How to execute veracrypt on the command line?

The command is /Applications/VeraCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/VeraCrypt


How do I set up SSH to open a single application?

XQuartz, which is the OS X X-server implementation doesn't support native Aqua apps like Mail.app, just regular unix X-server apps - xterm, etc, so I don't think this will work for you.

However, OS X does come with VNC built in, if you want to share screens from Windows. It's under Sharing in System Preferences, check the box for 'Screen Sharing'. See this: Several users simultaneously on a Mac mini


What is the spinning circle on IPhone data

Yes it does.  To see how much, or to prevent data access to certain apps when on mobile/cellular visit Settings > Mobile (or Cellular) and scroll to the list of apps at the bottom, here you can see what is enabled for mobile access, and how much data has been used since the last reset point.

You can reset the stats back to zero from the same page any time you like.  This is useful if you know for example that your Data billing cycle starts on the 17th, and you can set yourself a reminder to reset it on that date.

Note that the above is only really useful on iOS7, you don't say what version you use, if you use an older version the same rough idea applies only it's not split by individual applications, and you can't get granular detail or control.


How do I transfer pictures from my iPhone 6 to my Mac while phone is water damaged?

If your iPhone has trusted your Mac, turn your iPhone on, plug it into your Mac using an USB cable, start the application Image Capture and from there you can import all your photos.

I have tried now on my iPhone and does not ask me to unlock my phone or any other stuff like that.

I guess the only condition is that your iPhone has been connected to your Mac in the past.

Please let me know if that worked for you.


I would like to delete some photos from my phone camera roll, that i have imported to my Mac, will they stay on my Mac?

Yes, in short, you are safe.

Depending on what software you are using, the only thing that could potentially happen is you delete your photo albums that you have synced to your iPhone, which is a manual process or you are syncing photos to your iPhone from your mac. However, since you stated you imported them, I don't foresee any issues.

NOTE if you are referencing iCloud, then also, you have nothing to worry about. iCloud stores all the files in your iCloud but if you delete them from different devices it only deletes it from that device, unless you haven't had time to sync it to your Mac, but again, strictly importing, meaning you dragging and dropping or clicking the import to iPhoto/Aperture etc button, than you are good to go.


iPad not playing compressed High Res videos?

Your suspicions on a 90mb file not being HD are correct. A 25 minute show that is HD would not be 90mb. Hell, that's even small for standard definition quality. Resolution and file size are very different. You can have a video file that is super compressed, but still runs in a higher resolution. The end-result will be a wide & tall, but blurry, picture quality.

As for why they are freezing on your iPad, it's possible that the conversion settings were a little off when someone created this file. I think this based on the small file size, mixed with high resolutions. It sounds like someone was trying very had to make a small file size and probably tweaked a bunch of settings on the export file to do so. It's possible the software you are trying to render it with (VLC, Infuse) are struggling to interpret the file. As you mentioned, the iPad can play other files fine.


There are tooltips. Keep the mouse hovering over any of the abbreviated strings and a tooltip will show you the full text. This works in most of the OS.


How to unlock an iPhone which locked to TalkTalk?

Carrier locking uses the IMEI number to white list and black list devices. Carrier locks are performed at all the cell towers and not in a specific device. Think of this like correcting your home address with several agencies that maintain shared databases of records, you're convincing them to change their records.

Start with the carrier that you want to pay for service - have them verify that your device is eligible for service. Since you are paying them, they should be able to explain exactly why they won't service your phone. If it was an error by TalkTalk - they have the capacity to request the other carrier fix the registration records on the shared database.

Apple lists carriers that perform unlocks at: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204039

You might choose a carrier based on their ability to help you with this problem or error. You might also need a copy of the original purchase if you believe Apple or the original retailer messed up the initial setup of the IMEI for your phone.


Can OSX still sync dropbox while "asleep"?

You might want to consult Apple's documentation about Power Nap.

Mac Minis (Late 2012 and later) are Power Nap compatible.

From what I can see, the only services which are available when a Power Nap compatible computer is in sleep mode are Apple-only:

If your Mac supports Power Nap, these activities can occur while your Mac is asleep:

Mail receives new messages.
Contacts keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Calendar receives new invitations and calendar updates.
Reminders keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Notes keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Documents stored in iCloud keep up to date with changes made on other devices.
Photo Stream keeps up to date with changes made on other devices.
Find My Mac updates the location of the Mac, so you can find it while it's asleep.
VPN on demand continues working so that your corporate email updates securely. (Power Nap supports VPN connections that use a certificate to authenticate, not VPN connections that require entering a password.)
Mobile Device Management can remotely lock and wipe your Mac.

And these activities can occur while your Mac is asleep and plugged in to an AC power outlet:

Software updates download.
Mac App Store items (including software updates), download in the background.
Time Machine performs backups.
Spotlight performs indexing.
Help Center content updates.
Wireless base stations can wake your Mac using Wake on Wireless.

Content lifted directly from the Apple Support document linked above.


How to share internet connection via thunderbolt?

I don't think you can do this. Thunderbolt doesn't really have a "native" protocol like Firewire or Ethernet, it's just fancy PCIe transport. It might be possible in the future, but it would require Apple to add the functionality.

However it's worth noting that it's unlikely Thunderbolt would speed up your connection at all. Unless you have a seriously heavy duty internet connection (think corporate/university fiber), the limiting factor in your internet speeds won't be the connection between local machines, it's the cable/dsl your ISP provides. It's possible wifi could be limiting if you have a bad connection with a lot of interference, but most wifi should be able to keep up with your internet connection.


Is there a way to change the order in which the finder alphabetizes?

Unfortunately, no.

Since Mac OS X 10.0 "Cheetah", when sorting items by filename in Finder, files are sorted using the Unicode Collation Algorithm, with an additional specification that numeric substrings are sorted by numeric value, i.e. if multiple files exist whose filenames are of the form xny, where x is a susbtring that does not end with a digit, n is a substring which only consists of digits, and y is a substring that does not begin with a digit, then each such n is treated as a numeric value rather than a sequence of bytes, and the files are sorted accordingly. There is no option to disable this "natural canonical sorting", as some refer to it. This is stated officially in Apple's File System Programming Guide for macOS (§ File System Details):

  The Finder

  Because the Finder is the user’s main access to the file system in macOS, it helps to understand a little about how the Finder presents and works with files.

  Filename Sorting Rules

  The Finder’s sort order for file and directory names is based on the Unicode Collation Algorithm (Technical Standard UTS #10) defined by the Unicode Consortium. That standard provides a complete and unambiguous sort ordering for all Unicode characters and is available on the Unicode Consortium website (http://www.unicode.org). The Finder alters the default sorting behavior of this algorithm slightly by taking advantage of some sanctioned alternatives, specifically:

  Punctuation and symbols are significant for sorting.
  Substrings of digits are sorted according to their numeric value, as opposed to sorting the actual characters in the number.
  Case is not considered during sorting.

Note that this behaviour is only exhibited by Finder itself. Other programs, such as the plain old BSD ls that comes packaged with macOS, behave in their own ways; typically, such BSD utilities abide by the Unix-style convention of sorting "lexicographically", i.e. by character encoding value.

As for sorting such that folders appear first, this can be done using the "Arrange/Group by Kind" option, but this then applies to other categories of files as well, not just folders. There is no way to sort a directory in Finder so that it is grouped into folders and non-folders.

As a workaround to both of these issues, you can use an alternative file browser such as Path Finder, which was partially designed to cater to these specific use cases.


Managing giant eBook collection with iPad after iTunes update broke compatibility with Calibre?

I had the same issue when iBooks got updated. The way I access Calibre when on my iPad is to put my Calibre library in Dropbox. Then, I can just access ebooks in Dropbox and 'Open With…' iBooks, read them, and delete them again. I used to do the same thing but using the CrashPlan app; either would work (it basically depends on what cloud storage system you have the most space with).

It's inelegant, but there's no more elegant way that I can think of.


excluding Windows 7.pvm from Time Machine

Yes they should get backed up, since your MS Word and Excel files are located in your Mac User Documents folder and not the Parallels .pvm. If they were located within your Parallels .pvm and it's excluded, then they would not be backed up.

The .pvm file essentially acts as the hard disk drive for Parallels, and is basically a separate container that exists somewhat isolated from your Mac's environment. It can share files and folders with your Mac, although anything outside of it's .pvm belongs to OS X.


Keyboard remapping SHIFT_L to '(' and holding SHIFT_L to normal SHIFT_L)

To change the behavior of SHIFT_L (and SHIFT_R) download, install and start Karabiner.

Open the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences... in the menubar, search for shift and enable the custom key binding like in the example below (FYI KeyRemap4MacBook shown in the screenshot is the predecessor of Karabiner):

This enables writing ( by simply pressing SHIFT_L and ) by simply pressing SHIFT_R using an us-american keyboard layout with the keys 9|( and 0|). In combination with letters the common function is kept.

If you have a different keyboard layout (e.g. german with 8|( and 9|) you have to create a custom key binding. Open the tab Misc & Uninstall. Then open Open private.xml and add:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Change Shift Keys</name>
    <item>
      <name>Shift to Shift</name>
      <appendix>(+ When you type (left or right) Shift only, send the appropriate parenthesis on german keyboard)</appendix>
      <identifier>remap.shiftparensgerman</identifier>
      <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::SHIFT_L, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SHIFT_L, KeyCode::KEY_8, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L</autogen>
      <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::SHIFT_R, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_R | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SHIFT_R, KeyCode::KEY_9, ModifierFlag::SHIFT_R</autogen>
    </item>
  </item>
</root>

Save the file, switch back to Change Key, press ReloadXML ad enable the new key binding. Usually it's the first one listed.


How to reset security questions if I forgot them

The following is a way that - seemingly - not even Apple Support knows about, I've found it myself after I got told that my account's situation is hopeless and I cannot get it back.
I forgot the answers to all of my security questions and did not have a rescue email. There is no way to reset the questions in that scenario, your only option is to get rid of the questions altogether - and you can do that by enabling two-factor authentication. The catch is that you must answer some security questions to enable it from Settings.
And here is the interesting part: if you log in with your Apple ID on a device (I did it with an iPhone 5 running iOS 10, but any iOS 10+ device should work), log out and do that several times, you'll eventually get a popup to enable 2FA... and it will let you do that without answering a single security question! I got the popup after logging in and out just once, but your results may vary.

Others have confirmed that this method still works in March 2021:

I had a very old Apple ID with remaining credit that was only used for iTunes and not yet activated for iCloud. I had already changed the password via the email address some time ago. But resetting the security questions was not possible anymore, because I could not answer enough questions for that. And after several attempts even this form was blocked for the meantime.

On an old iPhone 4s (iOS 9.3.6) the Apple ID was still stored under iTunes & App Store (I don't know if it is required to use a device which was already linked to this Apple ID). I also entered the same Apple ID under iCloud to activate iCloud for this Apple ID. I then entered my phone number under iCloud > Apple ID > Contact information (confirmed by code from SMS). Entering an additional email adress was at this stage not possible. Thereafter, under iCloud > Apple ID > Password & Security, the two-factor authentication could be enabled for the same phone number (eventually an unlock code has to be set prior under Settings). I had to confirm the activation via the code sent by SMS. Logging in to icloud.com was then possible again and I was able to update all account information.


The plus and minus keys are for next and previous song. Double clicking the middle button will start calling the last person in the "recent calls" list.


How can I use Automator to open a website & log in everyday at a certain time?

if you can use firefox instead of safari you can use:

set firefox with iMacros
set a cronjob with croonix that launch firefox


Apple ID replaced with someone else's after iOS 6 upgrade (Security breach)

This is not as serious as it appears as signing into a device using a different Apple ID does not give one access to all the data on your device. What happens when you launch an app that you have officially purchased from the App Store? If it asks for the password of your proper Apple ID, then I would skip to the end of this answer and call Apple because that means the rogue account is actually signed in. If, however, it launches, then you are in fact logged into your proper account.

First, sign out of that Apple ID. Then sign into your existing (proper) one. Once done, sign out and then proceed to change the password on your Apple ID: https://appleid.apple.com/ as a proactive measure. And I would strongly advise you to use Apple's two-step verification if it is available in your country.

There exists no known way to hack into an OTA firmware update and hijack a system. iOS is actually quite secure. While I can explain how that email got there, I can say that it's likely an Apple server side error. Or someone local got a hold of your device and is messing with you.

Lastly, if you are 100% sure it occurred without explanation, I would contact Apple and not send emails to the iTunes Team, as they falls outside the scope of anything they can help you with. International contact info can be found here: http://support.apple.com/kb/he57


How do I prevent iTunes from syncing 400 apps to my new iPad?

Unfortunately iTunes doesn't support selecting multiple applications, apart from manually selecting each one. The best option would be to disable syncing of Applications on iTunes.

For iTunes sync to work correctly you either need to use it to manage your applications, or only use the iPad and download all the applications you want directly to the iPad using the App Store on the iPad.


First of all, what you downloaded was only the service pack and not a full installation of 10.9.4. This means that you have no means of installing it directly. That said, even if you do manage to get 10.9.4 installed, you will not be able to migrate your profile from your Time Machine backup because the Migration Assistant can only migrate from older or equal OS versions. Which means you can go laterally or from older to newer, but not from newer to older.

If you have an up-to-10.9.4-specific Time Machine backup that you've archived, you may be able to use that to do a complete system restore, including your profile and applications, but you would then be looking at the likelihood of losing changes to your profile in the meantime. It may be possible to manually copy things to mitigate the damage, but I'm not sure how successful that would be.

You will probably get more mileage out of asking questions on how to fix problems that were brought about by installing 10.9.5 rather than try to revert to 10.9.4. YMMV, of course, but that would be my approach.


Maybe this is a hardware error. Heat or memory related issues?

You should try the hardware test using your Install CD.


Adjust Proximity Sensor back to iOS6 levels for iPhone 5

No, currently there is no way to change the proximity sensor sensitivity in iOS.

There is not even any way to change it currently in iOS 6 jailbroken, so even if a jailbreak is developed for iOS 7, it would not mean that the proximity sensor could then be customised.


Isolating power supply issue to USB-C cable

Is there a way to test for faults (power supply and/or data transfer) in a possibly failing USB-C cable, by plugging each end into different ports on the same machine (2018 MBP) and sending traffic from one port to the other?

Unfortunately, no.  There is nothing that operates at the (using the OSI model as an analogy) application layer that will diagnose the physical layer connections.  To properly diagnose a cable, you need to, at minimum, use a multimeter to check for continuity and resistance on each conductor in the cable.  A better option would be to use an oscilloscope to check for noise and signal quality.

However, attempting to “break out” the individual conductors to get a probe tip in there (as well as the cost of the diagnostic equipment) far outstrips the idea of simply getting a known working cable and seeing if it solves your problem.  This should’ve been your first action.

  My money is on the USB-C cable.... USB-C is the flimsiest of the cables, and gets the most abuse, so it's the prime suspect.

Yes, I agree.  The easiest (and most effective) solution is to replace it with a known working cable.  I personally don’t use the cables included with my Apple devices because of their low quality.  Instead I get high quality reinforced (usually braided) cables like Anker USB-C cables.

Could it be the ports and/or logic board?  Possibly, but again, you can diagnose with items you probably have on hand.

Try a different port, especially on the opposite side.  The 2018 MBP has 4 ports, meaning separate USB controllers and power rails for each side. If the results are the same, look to the charger/cable
Try a known working charger and cable.  If the symptoms persist, it’s likely the computer
Try plugging in an accessory device like a flash disk.  If it works, your port is physically good.
Try charging/powering a downstream device (like a phone or even another USB-C Mac).  If it works, it tells you that the port is physically good and that the USB controller and power rail (for that side) are functioning.  The port wouldn’t be able to negotiate and deliver power otherwise.

As for diagnosing your USB-C charger, this is even easier; it’s not limited to charging Macs or even solely Apple products in particular.  Just try charging another device like a phone or tablet.   It’s ideal if you can test with a known working cable, but you can narrow down the issue to “the charger and cable” with what you have in your possession by attempting to charge something  different.


how to track the pid of a process using mDNSResponder?

To enable mDNSResponder logging, run

sudo killall -USR1 mDNSResponder  # enable Warning and Notice log level
sudo syslog -c mDNSResponder -w   # enable syslog logging for warning messages

followed by grep DNSServiceQueryRecord /var/log/system.log to see all DNS queries:

Aug 28 19:20:11 Fourecks.local mDNSResponder[53]:  25: DNSServiceQueryRecord(api.droplr.com., AAAA) STOP PID[18](configd)

The pid at the end (18 in the above example) is the pid for configd who requested address resolution in this case.

Turning on logging generates a lot of entries into system.log so it's probably a good idea to only use it if needed. To turn it off again, just rerun sudo killall -USR1 mDNSResponder.


What kind of servers does Apple have in their NC datacenter?

I have read that Apple uses Microsoft Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services as at least part of their software platform for iCloud. Sounds like heresy, but there appears to be some evidence to support this.


After trying to reboot, your main partition (disk0s2) won't be recognized as APFS container because the partition type is wrong (FFF...) and consequently your Mac won't boot to the login screen.

You have to boot to Internet Recovery Mode and remove the Apple_Boot volume (now disk0s4 - after a reboot probably disk0s3), repair the partition type of disk0s2 and finally expand the APFS container.

Under certain circumstances SIP has to be disabled to modify the GUID partition table.

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode (or a third party drive).
Open Terminal in the menubar Utilities > Terminal
Get an overview with diskutil list
Get an overview of your internal disk with the disk identifier found in the previous command. Below I assume the disk identifier of your internal disk is disk0 (SSD) (replace it with the one you have found in your environment).

gpt -r show disk0

Remove the 134 MB "Apple_Boot" partition:

diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" %noformat% /dev/disk0s3

Unmount disk0 with diskutil umountDisk disk0
Then remove and re-add the second partition with the same size but proper type (APFS):

gpt remove -i 2 disk0
gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 774363776 -t 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

Verify disk and volume:

diskutil verifyDisk disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

Expand the APFS container to fill the free space.

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

Verify disk and volume:

diskutil verifyDisk disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2


Can't connect to TimeCapsule Wifi network from Ubuntu

On OMG Ubuntu is a blog post about how to set this up. I myself have been using this solution in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS 64-bit.

The blog post explains everything you have to do step-by-step.

How to connect to your Apple Time Capsule in Ubuntu

64-bit Ubuntu

Download the source code from here.
Make sure you have build-essential installed
In a new Terminal session enter and install:

sudo apt-get install libgcrypt11 libgcrypt11-dev libgmp3c2 libgmp3-dev readline-common libreadline6 libreadline6-dev libfuse2 libfuse-dev

In a terminal type the following commands one after another:

tar -xzf afpfs-ng*
cd afpfs-ng*
./configure –prefix=/usr
sudo make install

Now follow the 32-bit instructions, skipping the need to install the .deb

32-bit Ubuntu

Download the .deb from here.
Install by double clicking the .deb package.
On the Mac used to setup the Time Capsule, go to Airport Utility to find the IP of the Time Capsule.
Back in Ubuntu open up a Terminal and type:

mkdir ~/capsule

Followed by:

mount_afp afp://user:password@server_host_or_ip/Data ~/capsule

Filling in the user name you use to connect along with the password and the IP address you located earlier.
To unmount the drive use:

afp_client unmount ~/capsule


External drive for Time Machine and sharing files cross platform

I would suggest using Mac Drive by Mediafour: http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive

I've used their product for years and it has always been rock solid. I'd say at $49.99, it is reasonably priced too. And honestly, you may find a free solution, but to me, data integrity will always trump a slight to the wallet.

That is if you absolutely want one partition, but considering that one is a dedicated Time Machine repository, I would advise against it. While Time Machine makes a simple folder with all the backups (Backups.backupdb), it is ill-advised to store anything else on that particular partition. I know people that do it without problems, and all Apple says about the practice is the following:

  Note: Time Machine works best if you use your backup disk only for
  Time Machine backups. If you keep files on your backup disk, Time
  Machine won’t back up those files, and the space available for Time
  Machine backups will be reduced.

But again, it's just good to keep things separate in my opinion. I'm not one for arbitrary compartmentalization, but in the case of backups, maybe letting them have their own room might not be such a bad thing.


Water damage on an iPhone 6s - Sound not working (Locked into Headphone mode)

I had the exact same thing happen to me. Got water spilled on my iPhone 6s. I immediately wiped it with a tissue paper and let it dry.

Immediately afterwards I noticed that while the phone rang fine for incoming calls, other sound (media) didn't play through the speakers and the microphone stopped working. The iPhone was basically locked into headphone mode (noticed via the volume change HUD), where and sound was not playing back through the speakers.

I was able to revive it by doing the following two things:

Blowing compressed air into the headphone jack.
Repeatedly plugging/unplugging the 3.5mm pin of the Apple EarPods in the headphone jack.

After a while, I was able to get the iPhone out of the headphone mode (I think primarily due to the second approach) and the speakers and microphone started working alright.

However, in my case, the Taptic engine took the toll of water damage and it stopped working after a while (I was never able to get it to work).

P.S.: When it happened to me, I search the Web and found a lot of posts where people have narrated the same issue (making me believe that its particular with iPhone 6s). For most cases, plugging/unplugging the EarPods/headphone resolved the issue.

P.P.S.: Here's a Apple Support document which discusses water and other liquid damages to iOS devices and the built-in indicators.

Water and other liquid damage to iPhone or iPod isn't covered by warranty

  Phone and most iPod devices are equipped with Liquid Contact Indicators (LCIs) that you can see from the outside.

  An LCI will activate when it contacts water or a liquid containing water. The indicator's color is normally white or silver, but when it contacts water or a liquid containing water, it will turn fully red. An LCI won't activate because of humidity and temperature changes that are within the product's environmental requirements.

  To find out if the LCI in your device contacted liquid, find your product in the table (in the linked document) and locate the LCI or LCIs in your device. To help you see the LCI, use a lighted magnifying glass and angle the light or the device until you can see the LCI.


Apple Press Info contains a bunch of pictures you can probably use. Depending on the nature of your website you want to clarify copyright issues with Apple before. The Apple trademark page is a good place to start and contains wording that you cannot use Apple images without express written permission, but the contact information is also provided in this link to ask for that permission. As long as you are an Apple developer, you can use photographs of Apple's products with a few restrictions, so that might be a good place to start.


How can I not have Command Line Tools installed, yet still have it?

Git being there means some part of the CLT is there, since the shim doesn't come up, and since Xcode is not installed.
It is a known problem that the receipt for the CLT may disappear.  One documentation of this is by MacPorts, linked here.

Download the command line tools package from the Apple Developer site.

If the version of the CLT you need is not listed at the developer site, but an older version is, reinstalling that will restore the package receipts. Then just run Software Update to trigger the update to the newer version.

Or, on Mac OS X 10.9 or greater, Software Update can reinstall the package:
sudo touch /tmp/.com.apple.dt.CommandLineTools.installondemand.in-progress
softwareupdate -l

Run Software Update
sudo rm /tmp/.com.apple.dt.CommandLineTools.installondemand.in-progress


What is x3d? Help needed deciphering console crash log

Try clearing all your cache files for your browsers. I was having the same issue with the same crash log for the last few days. I took it to the Apple Store for that and another unrelated issue with my display. They cleared out the cache folder for Chrome, and the issue quit just like that. No more freezing browser, no more crash logs. I was a little embarrassed I hadn't tried that, when I'd tried just about everything else I could think of. There seemed to be a chrome and/or x3d daemon that was hanging. Hopefully that will clear up your problem as well.


App Store is stuck in a loop trying to download a free app -- how do I make it stop?

Apple's servers were very overloaded with the iPhone 6 preorders.

http://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/

The official system status page for Apple shows that things have cleared up, so most people with problems installing or downloading things can reboot their devices and then try again to get proper download and purchase behavior.

Expect some slowness this next Wednesday the 17th through Friday the 19th of September with iOS 8 coming out and iPhone 6 being delivered and activated. iCloud backups and restores should be slower than normal as well as possible store and purchase / AppleID slowness if the authentication servers come under large strain again.

In the short term, you could pause the download or turn off your networking and then sign out of the store. At that point, rebooting and trying again - waiting longer between attempts is a good first attempt. Also, Apple does support users on store download issues - so if you've waited several hours/days, contacting store support might be a next step.


Is there a way to disable all scrolling online? (for desktop)

I think what you're most likely interested in is disabling a certain animation.
I'm on Mojave, but the following command supposedly works since Mountain Lion (I tested it with Numbers and Safari):

defaults write -g NSScrollAnimationEnabled -bool NO

In case you don't know how to enter this: Open the Terminal application (it's in Applications - Utilities, or you just open it using Spotlight) and enter the command there. You will need to restart an application for it to have an effect (e.g. Safari won't only change behavior after you do that).

This should affect all applications unless the developers did some weird custom stuff to move around a scroll view.

What it does is, I think, exactly what you want: It disables the scrolling animation when you press the "PageUp" and "PageDown" buttons.

Actually I guess it disables animations during scrolling in general, but when using the scroll wheel or the regular arrow keys the jumped distance is so small that subsequent jumps result in a "manual animation" anyways (animations are after all just a row of still images with small differences shown quickly one after another).


Installing Windows on External SSD on MacBook Pro

I think you have a misconeception of how BootCamp and virtualization works.
BootCamp: Only on Intel Macs!
With BootCamp you can install Windows on your Mac. The guide you mentioned shows how to install it onto an external drive, since usually Apple only suggests partitioning your internal drive and installing Windows there.
After installing Windows on that drive or internally you have to shutdown your mac and press cmd + opt while starting up to access the boot menu and select the external drive, i.e. Windows. You will then only run Windows and can't switch back to macOS unless you shutdown Windows and restart into macOS.
With BootCamp you are running Windows natively on the Mac, i.e. your Mac basically works the exact same way as an equally spec'd "original" Windows Laptop. I.e. all hardware (including 16GB RAM) will be used. This is also the reason why you cant run Windows natively on an M1(ARM) Mac because it is written for x86 and not ARM.
Virtualization
There are multiple programs like Parrallels VMWare,... that allow installing a so called virtual machine. This virtualization allows you to run windows inside macOS, i.e. you basically have access to macOS and Windows at the same time. Windows will run in a seperate window, but if you make that fullscreen it looks like you are only running Windows.
However, since you are running Windows virtualized on top of macOS you have to assing a certain amount of RAM, CPU Cores,... to the virtual machine. This creates performance losses. In this case you would actually not be able to use all 16GB of RAM on Windows (but thats not what they explain in the linked article).

To briefly answer your questions:

If I do not have the SSD plugged in, will I be able to login to my MacOS smoothly?

Yes. You will simply boot into Mac and since there is no other startup device you dont have to choose macOS in the boot menu. Simply hit the startup button.

How much of the RAM will the windows use when run using the SSD? all 16 gb?

If you go the BootCamp route Windows will use all 16GB of RAM.


Go to system preferences/keyboard/input sources and make sure that only Turkish Qwerty or Turkish Q - Legacy is on the list and everything else is gone.


Mirror number of unread mails in title bar

You can obtain the number of unread items with the following AppleScript:

tell application "Mail" to get the count of messages of mailbox "INBOX" of account "Me"

As you mentioned you could write a menu bar item, you could use this AppleScript for it.

Alternatively, you can do this with Mail Unread Menu.
However, I'm not sure if it works with Mavericks.


ffmpeg working from command line in Terminal but not in an Automator shell script!

The Automator script does not automatically share your Terminal.app profile. Paths to additional tools may not be found because Automator's script can not find them.

Try expanding your script to include the absolute or full path to the ffmpeg you want to use:

for f in "$@"
do
    /opt/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "$f" -c:v copy -c:a aac -b:a 384k -strict -2 "${f%.*}.m4v"
done

Alternatively, bring in your Terminal.app profile using the approach to this question, My Automator Workflow fails because it fails to find the git command within the 'Run Shell Script' command? Need help.


Mac Book Pro 2013 connect to projector with resolution bigger then laptop screen

According to everymac.com, your particular MacBook Pro will display 2560x1600 maximum resolution (Thunderbolt) and 1920x1200 via HDMI.

If your projector supports 1920x1080, and it being "Full HD" as you described, it will most likey have an HDMI port.  All you will need is a quality mini Display Port (mdP) to HDMI adapter


No longer receiving iMessages from an iCloud email address

If another iCloud account can’t see your messages, it could be as simple as they have blocked you. It could be more complicated that Apple thinks they blocked you so they would have to work with Apple support, but you can’t really tell what’s happening to someone else’s iCloud account by design.
If you send them a message that’s about all you can know was Apple accepted it from your device.


How to change Artist Name tag from uppercase to capitalized in iTunes?

Use Doug Adams' free Proper English Title Capitalization AppleScript.


Have second user in window and not whole desktop

OK - I have found a solution using Real-vnc.

Install Real-vnc version 5.3.2 from their download site. It is important to not install a newer version, as this seems to be the last version which supports User-mode for the server without a paid subscription!
As the server stops when a fast user switch occurs it is important to change the following setting (from the real-vnc knowledge base):

  ... setting the option "StopUserModeOnSwitchOut" to "No" in the Expert tab
  (VNC Server > Options > Expert tab).

Quit VNC server (this is the service). We don't need the global VNC server service as we will use the User Mode.
Now switch to the other user and login
Start VNC server (user mode). If you want to, you can add it to the Login Items to have it autostart upon login.
Switch back to your main user
use Screen Sharing app or the VNC Viewer app to connect to localhost. It is possible that you have to set a password in the VNC server, but I am not sure (the viewer will tell you).

That's it - it works perfectly for me, even with multiple monitor setup.

What I didn't manage, was to setup that the viewer uses both monitors - but I can live with that.


Boot from external drive using rEFInd only if external drive is connected

Currently, you have rEFInd as the default to boot. Below are some ways to change this to the internal drive macOS.
When selecting macOS on the internal drive from the Mac Startup Manager, hold down the control key. This will make macOS on the internal drive the default to boot.
Or
From the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences in macOS, select the internal macOS as the default.
Or
From the Windows Control Panel, open Boot Camp and select macOS on the internal drive as the default.


How does iPhoto synchronize photos between my macbook pro and my wife's one?

There are two possible answers here:

You are both sharing the same iCloud/.me/.mac account. Look in System Preferences > iCloud > [Account Details] on both systems to compare.
That your wife has shared a Photo Stream with you. Run iPhoto and look at the left hand sidebar in the section named 'Shared'.


You get this error message because whatever device you have plugged in wants more power than the USB bus on Mac can deliver - this is about 500mA or half an Ampre.
Can you damage your Mac?  No.
You can't damage it because macOS is letting you know it disabled the port.  This is the safety feature built into the system to prevent you from damaging your Mac.
To solve this, you want to get a powered USB hub.
Would a powered USB hub solve the problem of two external disks randomly losing connection or being slow?.
In that and your scenario, the issue can be solved by supplementing the limited power from the USB port with a hub that has an external power supply.


How can I tell if one iPhone receiver works as well as another?

You can do some work to narrow down performance, but you'll need carrier help if you find that there's an issue with one device.

Use Safari to do a speed test http://fast.com on both devices - even if you are using different devices, different cell towers (just because two phones are in the same place - they can negotiate different frequencies, different towers or get different levels of service from the same tower at the same frequency).

By focusing on measuring the flow of data - you can over time know if one device has hardware limitations or hardware issues.

Next, put each device in field test mode: Dial *3001#12345#* - if you can see in the menu bar a number like -76 then record those for each device and then call your cellular company to help determine if you have coverage issues or need to update your phone's settings or software.

_Note: not all carriers have a useful field test mode. See this and this and that for more details.
Basically, each cell tower is a time share. It juggles all the devices in range - tells some to be on LTE, others to be on 3G, others to be on EDGE. Unless your phones don't work at all - the cause of differential service is almost always a device that's stuck and needing reboot or a congestion issue on the carrier end. Apple can also run diagnostics if you believe the hardware is faulty - but that's usually a low chance of being the cause.


Remote app won't connect, says "Turn on home sharing"

I play a song on my phone and then close AirPlay and select Apple TV which wakes the device. This works most of the time.


Change text/font case ANYWHERE including chrome input fields

I think what you're asking for is a context menu (i.e. right-click) service that will allow you to toggle text case, yes?

If so, what I use for that purpose is a bit of freeware from DEVONTechnologies called WordService. They describe it, thusly:

  WordService

  WordService provides a large number of commands for working with selected text. Extend your favorite word processor, email app, or web browser e.g. with functions for reformating text paragraphs, cleaning up tabs, quotes, or line endings. Remove unwanted text parts, sort lines or paragraphs, change case, and do much, much more with text.

The services install to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services -> Text and you can toggle the ones you want/don't want on/off and set key command shortcuts for them.

In the right-click menu, the services will appear similarly to the below (minus my additional services):

And will easily let you transform text field input:

You can download WordService, either, directly from DEVONTechnologies' site or from the Mac App Store and it is also available via the homebrew command: brew cask install wordservice.


iPhone won't turn on and I am unable to put it into DFU mode

The only thing you really can do is get someone to replace the home button ribbon cable for you, sorry.

The physical home button is likely not the problem. On the other side of the iPhone screen is a sensor which detects if the button was pressed. This is the likely the problem, and you can find them on eBay as a home button as a home button ribbon cable. However, it may be that the connector terminals on headphone jack are no good and that needs repair. I'd strongly advise trying to find a pro to do this repair for you, the iPhone 5C is no fun to work on, the screen is hard to reconnect "just right". So, if you have little to no experience in iPhone repair, you'd be better off seeking a pro.


Mac OS disable shutdown prevention when user is logged in

There’s rarely a good technical question to a purely human problem. I heard one company change every account to the cell phone of people that don’t clean up so that everyone would call that number any time someone forgot to log out. Until the person paying the salaries resolves if it’s always IT’s responsibility to clean up after other people or set a standard for people to clean up after themselves, you’ll be stuck. A bit brutal, but it’s better than them losing their data by an unclean shut down.
The technical solution would be to trial the feature to log out idle connections and see if that works.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/set-your-mac-to-log-out-when-not-in-use-mchlp2443/mac

Barring that, you would enable a non-admin account to force power off / shut down but again, without them taking over the accounts that are logged in, you are left with the damaged app data or unsaved work dilemma. For that, an admin resetting the password would let someone take over the accounts to exit them cleanly, and then presumably lock that person out the next day since they wouldn’t know their password.
If you want to go down the path of a command you could enable a non-admin helper account, here are several options:

Way to logout a user from the command line in OS X 10.9

I prefer you take the tack of explaining the issue, why it’s disruptive when people leave before they clean up and then let the manager manage.


How can I regain the Instant Hotspot feature in Yosemite after noticeable errors?

While other answers here may help troubleshooting other causes of instant hotpsot failure, mine was caused by having two iCloud accounts used for keeping some syncing features separate.

Steps I took to get it working:

Turn on bluetooth and wifi on both devices
Connect both devices to same home wifi connection
Sign out of all icloud accounts on both devices
Restart both devices
Sign into both icloud accounts on iphone
Sign into both icloud accounts on OS X
Restart both devices
Sign out of main icloud account on mac
Restart mac
Sign into main icloud account on mac
Restart mac
Sign out of main icloud account on iphone
Restart iphone
Sign into main icloud account on iphone
Restart iphone
Check wifi on mac, profit

In my OS X console, See confirmation of Handoff:

AppleIDAuthAgent[285]: SERVER AppleIDAuth: Adding certificate for "<my-apple-id>@?????.???", "<certificate number>" to keychain, serial#="<iOS device serial number>" (updateAccountWithCertificateResult()/AppleIDAuthenticationImpl.cpp #225) accountCheckDispatch

Note that correct Instant Hotspot functionality is as follows

Instant hotspot should show up even if "Personal Hotspot" is turned off on the iPhone
Instant hotspot should show up even if Mac and iPhone are connected to other Wifi networks
Instant hotspot should show up even if phone is locked and in your pocket
Instant hotspot should show up even if iPhone has never been paired to the mac before
Instant hotspot will not show up if bluetooth is turned off on either device


Is there a disk space analyzer that lets you save the disk image?

You could simply take a picture of a portion of the window that contains what you want with command + shift + 4, and use the cursor to select, or use command + shift + 4 then space bar and select the entire window.


First: do you have a good backup? If not, make one before doing anything else. If you have one, make sure it's up to date (but don't delete the old backup history -- it's possible you'll run into other disk errors, and you don't want to overwrite your last good backup with a corrupted one). Multiple independent backups are also a good idea. Testing your ability to restore from it/them is very good idea.

Read errors that make it through to the OS are a very bad sign for your drive's health. SMART will try to detect drive problems, but it doesn't always work (and Disk Utility doesn't really know how to interpret it very well), so not seeing any problem there doesn't mean there actually isn't a problem. I remember we had a drive come into our shop that sounded disturbingly like a coffee grinder when spun up, but the SMART status came back as verified. We replaced it.

Your drive might run fine for quite a while... but I wouldn't count on it.

Once you have your backups in order, you can delete & rebuild the spotlight database with these commands:

sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo rm -Rf /.Spotlight-V100
sudo mdutil -i on /

It'll ask for you admin password after the first command (note that it won't echo as you type). Be sure to type the second command very carefully. Anytime you see the rm command used with either sudo or -R, that's an indication you're doing something potentially dangerous and should make sure you know what you're doing; in this case it has both, so you should be really awake. For example, if you typed a space (instead of a period) between "/" and "Spotlight-V100", it would immediately set about erasing the entire volume. Did I mention you should make sure you have a good backup first?


OS X copy paste into Terminal adds fdbf bfb9 b083 to beginning and end of selection

Answered here:

https://superuser.com/questions/1045432/os-x-copy-paste-into-terminal-adds-fdbf-bfb9-b083-to-beginning-and-end-of-select/1047996#1047996

This error has to do with a feature known as bracketed pasted mode[1]. Neovim does not support it yet[2]. You get the error above if an application acts like it can support that mode, but fails to support it.

In neovim open a terminal window. With 'always' in the clipboard, run the following:

pbpaste | xxd

There should be no errors. Now run the following:

cat | xxd

Enter ⌘-v followed by Ctrl-D.

You should expect to see the errors. In the second case, input is being handled by the application, which wraps the input with special bytes. The padded bytes are sent as stdin.


Some podcasts missing from Smart Playlist

This appears to be a bug in iTunes 12.3.1.23.

I created a similar playlist to the one in my question, but I replaced the "Rating" condition with "is equal to one star".

This new playlist contained all the "missing" podcasts. However, the "Get Info" for many of these podcasts indicated that the rating was NOT one star. These podcasts showed in the playlist with a grey star. Podcasts, which were actually rated with one star, showed in the playlist with a black star.


Is there a way to switch virtual desktops on my monitors SIMULTANEOUSLY?

Option 1: Mission-Control Setting "Displays have separate Spaces"
I'm not entirely sure if this is what you're looking for:
If you go to "System Preferences" ➝ "Mission Control", then uncheck "Displays have separate Spaces":

This will couple the spaces of all screens. So if you swipe or switch to another space on one screen, the other screens will also switch to the corresponding space.
Option 2: Use a window manager
If you would like to configure the behaviour and the keyboard shortcuts exactly the way you want and you are willing to spend some time to configure it, consider using a window manager. A nice window manager for macOS is yabai.

yabai is a window management utility that is designed to work as an extension to the built-in window manager of macOS. yabai allows you to control your windows, spaces and displays freely using an intuitive command line interface and optionally set user-defined keyboard shortcuts using skhd and other third-party software.

Install the homebrew package manager
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Install yabai
brew install yabai

For switching spaces to work, you might also need to disable the system-integrity protection: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/wiki/Disabling-System-Integrity-Protection -- Maybe have a look at the wikipedia article to decide whether you are ok with that.

Make sure to install and load yabai's scripting addition
sudo yabai --install-sa
sudo yabai --load-sa

Depending on whether you would like to use window tiling, window-focus features etc., configure yabai in the ~/.yabairc file.

In order to bind window-manager commands to keyboard shortcuts, install skhd:
brew install koekeishiya/formulae/skhd
brew services start skhd

Configure shortcuts in ~/.skhdrc. For example, to bind Command+Ctrl+1 to switch to spaces 1 (on screen 1) and 6 (on screen 2), and to bind Ctrl+1 to switch to space 1 (on screen 1) only, use this configuration:
# ~/.skhdrc
ctrl - 1 : yabai -m space --focus 1
cmd + ctrl - 1 : yabai -m space --focus 1 && yabai -m space --focus 6


Intermittent failure of certain keys to respond

If you have this problem, prepare yourself for a long session of searches and partial answers. I wish Apple would summarize all the different possibilities in one page.

In my case, out went the "p" and then the ENTER key. (Survival trick: use the Keyboard Viewer to enter ENTER or any other key. If you are logged out I was not able to figure out how to enter "p" in my password using and ALT-### format ...).

So ... I did all the recommended resets (PRAM,SMC,safe mode reboot,upgrading to High Sierra). I checked that no System Settings were incorrect, added other language keyboards, upgraded to High Sierra.

Finally, I decided to risk going with the tools for the first time into my keyboard, removed and cleaned the "p" with help of this YouTube video, the best among many I saw. (Note not all keys are created equal and that several articles say the control keys —SPACE, ENTER, SHIFT, ALT, OPTION— are harder to put back in as they have a pin).

And ... nothing.

One article (which I cannot find now) had very useful pictures of the transparent film under the keys, which explains why keys that are in the same row tend to fail together. This film has gold conductive paint that follows a horizontal serial path on one side, so if there is corrosion or a mechanical problem in one key, it is likely to affect (or start affecting) keys in the same row, like when a bulb fails in a Christmas light with only two cables.

As the problem is intermittent, I discovered by chance that closing the lid, and putting the laptop vertically and putting pressure on both ends fixes the "p" and ENTER problems temporarily. I think my problem is the battery, which is 2-3 years old and at some point I've read that they start swelling.


Directly switching (without pressing OPTION) between AIFF and mp3 iTunes libraries

Try this.

Unfortunately, there is no direct method to use AppleScript to load a library, so this method instead adjusts the the iTunes preference file via AppleScript. I just verified that the method works in 10.8.4.

You'll want to follow the procedure once for each library, then export as an application from AppleScript Editor. Once you create the applications, you can simply doubleclick on the appropriate application to load your chosen iTunes library.

I made one slight addition to the AppleScript in order to make it the frontmost application:

tell application "System Events" to set frontmost of process "iTunes" to true


How to assign Kana (かな) key in Japanese keyboard to another Language?

You can do it with karabiner. I have changed my kana key to simple Chinese input method.

Here is the website: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner


I just bought an iPhone SE. It came pre-installed with iOS 9.3.2. I set it up from an iPhone 5s iOS 8.1 iTunes backup. When the restore was complete, I was greeted with the "slide to upgrade" message. I slid it, and a loading bar with the Apple logo was displayed. When it was finished loading, a message appeared saying "upgrade complete." When the setup was finished, I went into Settings; it was still on iOS 9.3.2. It is now asking me to update to iOS 9.3.3.

Thus, "slide to upgrade" does not update your iOS firmware to the latest version, it likely just prepares the old backup data for use with with iOS 9.


My MacBook Pro is taking time to load after signin

It appears that there's some corruption in your old account.

What you need to do is two fold:

Make the new account your primary with the intention of eventually deleting your old account.
Incrementally copy of files and settings from the old profile to the new one until all the files are transferred.

You want to do this in small batches because you don't know what is corrupted and what isn't.  Now, it's highly likely you won't have a problem with documents, pictures, movies and music.  However, there may be a setting (file) for an application that is causing the issue.

If after a copy, things go awry, you will have narrowed down where the offending file is.

All in all, the solution was and is to create a new user account.


How to use (magic) trackpad scrolling to scroll only one page up/down with Preview?

I dont have a Magic Trackpad, but on my Magic Mouse its the same gesture that is used for forward and back in Safari. In the mouse its swipe two fingers to the left and right, so if the Trackpad is just like that of a macbook, Im 99% sure its swipe three fingers to the right or left.

Hope it Helps!
Kevin


What is `tic` and what can I do about it using 100% CPU?

man tic says:

  tic - the terminfo entry-description compiler

You can use it to enable features in you terminal (like italics) that Apple didn't include in the terminfo database.
See: How to show italic in vim in iTerm2

tic is a one-shot program and should not run in the background.
Open Activity Monitor, select tic & do ⌘-I, the first line  says Parent proces: followed by a (blue) name which is a link. This tells you what launched tic, you can click that link to dive deeper in the launchers (Parent Proces)  until you end up on kernel_task.

If the Parent process says launchd you may have an entry in either

/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchDaemons
~/Library/LaunchAgents/

Here there live .plist files which control the running of background processes.

You can use LaunchControl to see all such daemons or agents.


How do I restrict Internet access while still being able to make calls/receive messages?

Turn off Wi-Fi (in Settings > Wi-Fi), and turn off Mobile Data (in Settings > General > Network).

This will keep the phone off the internet, but still allow phone calls and texts. (iMessage and MMS won't work, however).


Put a preinstalled macOS SSD to another MacBook, will this occur any problem?

No, you should never experience problems with this. There will never be any damage from this kind of transfer or by doing a time machine backup after the transfer.

That said, depending on which apps you use, some apps and app licenses may have been tied to hardware information such as the old computer's serial number. I'd recommend using migration assistant from a time machine backup of the 2012 computer to make sure you don't have a problem with these licenses.


Chrome on Mac UTF-8 in URL strange behavior

It seems to be the case with all tall characters at the end, for example the dagger(†)(U+2020), the double dagger(‡)(U+2021) and box drawings light vertical and horizontal(┼)(U+253C) show the same effect.
My guess is that chrome doesn't handle those "tall" characters well and tries to show all characters in a "word", limited by for example a space or a comma, as the same height.
I also could not find another place in macOS where this was the case, so I guess it is a chrome Bug. You can file a bug report in the menu under the help section or in the google issue tracker.


Can I set Lion scrollbars to always be off? (Except when a mouse is plugged in)

The option you mention in System Preferences does exactly what you say (or its behavior was changed since your question).

The first option, "Automatically based on input device" does what you want (I think, but I may have misunderstood your question). When you have a mouse plugged in, it shows the scrollbars. When you unplug your mouse, it will revert to the default of only showing scrollbars when you are scrolling.

I hope this answered your question. Please let me know if it doesn't, as I probably misunderstood what you are asking.


Apple Mail keeps crashing frequently after RAM problem

Since you had a faulty RAM, the first target of corruption is the whole filesystem. It is a good point to have eliminated this possibility of huge trouble.

If your problem does only appears within Mail this could mean that one of the files Mail had to write back was corrupted (in RAM).

To confirm this hypothesis:

make a backup
quit Mail and make a local backup of your Mail library (the following are shell commands to type within Terminal):

cd ~/Library
mv Mail Mail.backup

start Mail, create you a minimal account configuration
and send yourself an E-mail

If Mail doesn't crash, the problem stands within one of your Mail library file

If Mail still crashes, report it.
quit Mail and put back in place the library you backed up at step 2:

cd ~/Library
rm -rf Mail
mv Mail.backup Mail

If step 3 confirms that the problem stands within your Mail library,
and if your mailboxes aren't too big, you could then make a rebuild of them:

launch Mail
select

Mailbox > Rebuild

be patient, don't corrupt its rebuilding task, open the activity window:

Window > Activity


Unable to send text to another iPhone on same account

To address this issue I'd recommend checking the iMessage settings on both phones. If they're both using the same Apple ID for iMessage, they may have trouble sending to each other. Changing the iMessage Apple ID will not mess up anything else (like the Store, iCloud, etc).

To check it, go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive

A button at the top of that screen will show you which Apple ID is being used for iMessage. If they're the same on both phones, you'll need to sign out on the one you wish to change. To do this, tap the "Apple ID: " button and then choose Sign Out.

Then you'll be able to sign in to iMessage with a different Apple ID, existing or new. I hope this helps!


Can't connect to wireless network at home with OS X 10.5.8

This issue can be caused by a SSID which contains special signs (e.g. - / ! : %)


How can I disable a pass code that I didn't intentionally set?

Has anyone else had access to your phone and played a prank on you? You should ask people who may have had access to your phone what passcode they set.

Does iTunes still let you sync? Normally if iTunes has never seen your phone before a passcode is put on it, it requires you to unlock the phone first. But if it had previously seen the phone locked, it may let you sync your phone to do one last backup of your data, because;

If there is no way can regain access to your phone, you must restore it.

There are two ways of doing this:
The easy way is, if iTunes lets you plug in your phone and click 'restore', then do that. Again, please bear in mind that you WILL LOSE ALL UNSYNCED DATA when doing this, see note #2.
Otherwise, you must put your device in 'DFU' mode in order to forcefully recover it. Again, because this is absolutely even more important:
After entering DFU mode there is absolutely no way to get out of it, as soon as you follow these instructions you will be on the road to completely restoring your phone. Again, see the previous bold/italics and Note #2.
Per Apple's Unable to update or restore support article (note also that you can click on the images in order to view them larger in this answer):

While pressing and holding the Home button, reconnect the USB cable to the device. The device should turn on.
Note: If you see the screen pictured below, let the device charge for at least ten minutes to ensure that the battery has some charge, and then start with step 2 again.

Continue holding the Home button until you see the "Connect to iTunes" screen. When this screen appears you can release the Home button:

If necessary, open iTunes. You should see the following "recovery mode" alert:

Use iTunes to restore the device.
If you don't see the "Connect to iTunes" screen, try these steps again. If you see the "Connect to iTunes" screen but the device does not appear in iTunes, see this article and its related links.
Additional Information
Note: When using recovery mode, you can only restore the device. All user content on the device will be erased, but if you had previously synced with iTunes on this computer, you can restore from a previous backup. See this article for more information.


Symantec alerted an attack: OSX Apple File Print Remote BO from TimeMachine

It's not necessarily a false alarm - the endpoint protection application is just looking for a packet that's addressed to a certain port and formed a certain way.

192.168.200.248 is a Time Machine device, so it very well could just be talking in a way that the EP program doesn't like, but it is possible, albeit very unlikely, that the time machine is compromised being used by an attacker as a foothold into your network. Are you getting any other alerts? If not, I think you can write this off as nonsense. Especially given the age of the vulnerability.

(Network security is great for ramping up your paranoia...)

In any case, even if you didn't have the endpoint protection, it's not a danger to you. This bug was fixed back in 2004 - no system from the last decade is even vulnerable to it.


Can I use the macOS from a late 2012 Mac mini on a 2011 Mac mini server?

Your Mac mini 2012 supports OS X 10.8.1 up to the current macOS (10.15.1 at the time of writing). The Mac mini 2011 officially supports OS X 10.7 up to macOS 10.13.6 (High Sierra).

After upgrading your Mac mini 2012 to 10.14 (Mojave) and further trying to upgrade to 10.15 (Catalina), the Mac mini 2011 won't boot with this system disk.

The Catalina installer can be patched to run on some officially unsupported Macs and install the latest system.

The Mac mini 2011 (Macmini5,2) is on this list of (patch-)compatible Macs (with the restriction: ...systems with AMD Radeon HD 6xxx series GPUs will be almost unusable when running Catalina.). The Mac mini 2011 Server (Macmini5,3) - also on the list - doesn't contain an AMD Radeon GPU.

I don't recommend to use such patch.


WiFi password is correct but it is telling me it is wrong

Try these in order:

Ensure Wi-Fi is turned on
Ensure your iPad can see the Wi-Fi network (SSID) you're attempting to connect to
Reboot your iPad & re-try
Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings. This also resets Wi-Fi networks and passwords, cellular settings & any VPNs that you’ve previously configured.


As you probably well understand it is likely to be a Java issue.

Unless there is a particular reason you want to use that version of Java you should get the latest Java version.

Download here:

http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp


Log in as different user without logging out

You can perform Fast User Switching.

  Switch by using a password

  Click the fast user switching menu in the menu bar, then choose your user name.

  The fast user switching menu looks like either a user icon or the name of the current user, depending on the setting in Users & Groups preferences.
  Enter your password, then click the arrow.

macOS Sierra: Switch quickly between users

If Fast User Switching is unavailable, it can be enabled by an administrator.

  If your Mac has multiple users, an administrator can turn on fast user switching to let more than one user stay logged in at the same time. To switch from one user to another without logging out, users choose their name from the menu bar, and then enter a password or use Touch ID.

  Turn on fast user switching

  Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Users & Groups, then click Login Options.
  Click the lock icon  to unlock it, then enter an administrator name and password.
  Select “Show fast user switching menu as,” then choose how the fast user switching menu looks in the menu bar.

macOS Sierra: Switch quickly between users


How can I customize the Lion login screen to remove the vignette effect?

I suspect that the effect is actually something that's drawn programmatically. I dug around for a while and I can't seem to find it anywhere. My suggestion: Open your image in a graphics editor and modify it to account for the shadow.


Icons for Facetime and the App Store keep re-appearing in my dock after a restart. How can I get rid of them?

Do other apps remain in the dock after being removed and restarted?
Does this behavior also occur when you log out and back in?

I'll assume yes on both until more information is supplied:

Barring some extraneous application modifying the dock .plist (which is unlikely that you're unaware of) it might be locked or otherwise unwritable for you.  Check the permissions on your ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist file, making sure you have Read/Write.

If you want, you can modify the file directly to see if you have the rights to do so, but theres a whole lot that can go wrong with that.  Instead, modify your dock and see if the file's date modified changes.  If it doesn't, your dock isn't writing the plist correctly.

If it's not a big issue, you can simply back-up and delete the com.apple.plist file and reconfigure the dock to your liking.


Turns out the entire youtube app wasn't able to connect at all. No Featured Videos or anything. Makes sense why it couldn't log in. I ended up trying multiple reboots and nothing working. A full restore fixed it though. Annoying.


Where does OS X store mouse preferences?

The tracking speed is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist.

$ defaults read -g | grep mouse
    "com.apple.mouse.doubleClickThreshold" = "1.1";
    "com.apple.mouse.scaling" = "2.5";

The slowest speed shown in System Preferences is 0.0 and the highest is 3.0

You can change the speed by editing the plist directly or with defaults, but you have to log out and back in.

defaults write -g com.apple.mouse.scaling -float 2.1

This would change the speed immediately:

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal pane "com.apple.preference.mouse"
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences"
    set value of slider 3 of window 1 to 9.0 -- maximum, minimum is 0.0
end tell
quit application "System Preferences"


This bug appears to have been fixed in the latest macOS update (10.13.4, 17E199).


These symbols are displayed when a Mac boots into target disk mode. Usually you activate it by pressing T at startup (different startup key combinations). Another option is to go into settings → startup disk → target disk mode.
You can simply restart your machine and it should boot normal. If it does not, disconnect all peripherals (mice, keyboards,...) and try again.
Target disk mode makes your internal hard-drive accessible to connected Macs via Thunderbolt/FireWire. Read more about target disk mode here or here.

If this still boots into target disk mode, then your T is broken and continuously sending a pressed state to your MBA (MacBookAir) which can only be solved by repair.

Note: I assume by refresh you mean reboot.


Many Compile Warnings while Installing MacPorts

I encounter this most when I see compile flags including -Wall (warn all) which a great deal of open source devs tend to use.  Warnings are not always bad or even worrisome.

If you're paranoid, take the time to go through and investigate each of the warnings but before you do that try compiling some code of your own with the warn all flag set for gcc and see how many warnings you get.  They are quite common.


The Charging Adapter from Scosche should work for you. I used one of these in a car that had a iPod dock for the radio, but used the older Firewire pinout, and therefore would not work well with a newer iPhone.

This one looks slightly different than the one I had, but it should be the same thing. Griffin I think also makes a similar product. Its a common problem for car radios, so maybe searching for that will help find similar products.

Update: The Scosche Passport is what we actually have. This worked great connecting a newer nano, iPhone 4 and 4S to a Firewire charging deck.


Extracting zip does not store files in "today" in Finder

By unzipping the archive you did not modify any file or folder in it, hence the original creation and modification times are used.

In your example the Finder only sees "7 October 2009" as modification date for jquery-form-validate.

The only way to achieve what you want is to use a tool that updates all the modification times when unzipping.

In the terminal you could (untested)

$ find jquery-form-validate -exec touch {} \;


I had the same problem and found an answer on this site. Did you ever use Terminal to disable Notification Center in and earlier OS? I did, and this tip brought it back - How do I re-enable Notification Center in Yosemite or El Capitan post-upgrade?


Dual monitors Dell P2415Q 13" MacBook Pro 2018, 2.7 GHZ Quad Core i7, 16gb RAM, 256gb SSD

I'm using dual 4K Displays with my MacBook Pro 2017. The Performance is okay, no lags or problems with the fans.

It's the best Workstation I've ever had, so I hope you'll have fun with it.

Edit: I'm using two LG UltraFine 4K Display


The command you have given includes the "-l" option, which means to perform a "test-only check" and that "no repairs can be made". Essentially this means that it won't write to the file system, which explains your questions 1 and 4.

Regarding questions 2 and 3: The disk as such might be "OK" (i.e. usable) from the point of view of the filesystem even though a single bad block has been detected. As you have specified the "-S" option, fsck_hfs will attempt to match the bad block to a file name - it found not match. This could indicate that the bad block does not affect any of your files.

Consider replacing the drive when you start having bad blocks.


There is! launchd.info's cookbook has an example to keep Safari open. We can amend that to suit your, uh, anti-procrastination needs. Amending the original (Safari) version results in:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>local.freedom.keepAlive</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/usr/bin/open</string>
            <string>-W</string>
            <string>/Applications/Freedom.app</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
</plist>

Save that as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.freedom.keepAlive.plist. Check the last <string>... line - is that where Freedom is on your Mac? Edit the file if necessary and re-save it. Then use launchctl to load your anti-procrastination launch agent into launchd:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.freedom.keepAlive.plist

Check your launch agent is running with:

launchctl list | grep freedom

And finally - try quitting Freedom. If all goes well your attempt to procrastinate should be thwarted.


Why does my iPhone 4s resume playing a paused podcast after a missed call?

it's a bug they introduced in iOS6. drives my crazy.

Hope they fix it soon. No easy way to tell Apple they have a bug, unless you sign up to their developers program


How to Gift iTunes Songs from United States to friend in Vietnam

There is a Vietnamese iTunes Store that your friend (or you) can use directly. The only way for you to gift her a song is under one of the following scenarios:

You set up an Apple ID on the Vietnamese store and use that ID to gift her the song
Your friend sets up an Apple ID on the US store and you gift her the song to that ID

Both of the above are possible, but only you and she can decide whether it's worth the effort (while it's not hard to do, it's not exactly convenient). There is also the possibility that what you wanted to gift her is not available on the Vietnamese store.

My recommendation would be to contact Apple directly, probably best via this form, and explain what you wanted to do and ask them for advice about it. It may take them a couple of days to respond, but they will usually come up with a resolution (whether it is a credit on your account or some way of your friend being able to access it).


Whats the difference between backing up my photos on iPhone and storing them in iCloud?

iCloud Photos is for syncing between your devices and replacing your photos if you lose your device. It retains a full copy of your photos in iCloud (accessible on iCloud.com as well).
iCloud Backup is a one-way backup of your current photo library on your device. It can only be restored by restoring your entire iCloud Backup.
You can safely turn off Photos from your backup - unless you prefer to manually manage your photos, I'd recommend doing this instead of turning off iCloud Photos.
If iCloud Photo Library is on, there will be a note saying "Photo Library is backed up separately as part of iCloud Photos" - if you don't see this message, double check that your device is actually syncing with iCloud Photos. You can do this in the Photos Setting or in iCloud Settings > Photos.


macOS: Can I hide running apps with no active window from the Dock?

In general, majority of macOS apps are programmed to display it's icon in the Dock when it's running (exceptions are apps which display an icon only in the Menu bar when running).

If an app icon is not added permanently to the Dock, it's icon remains visible as long as it's running. The icon is removed from the Dock upon quitting the app by selecting App Name → Quit App Name from the app menu, or by invoking the keyboard shortcut Command + Q with the app in focus.

So, the only way to remove an app icon from the Dock is by quitting it.

Some apps are programmed to automatically quit when it's last visible window is closed either by clicking on the close button

at the top right, or when the close window keyboard shortcut Command + W is invoked.

Thus, it's up to the developer of the app to choose which of the two behavior to implement, and can not be changed by user.


No access to an old Apple ID due to incorrect information

Contact Apple Support, as they are are able to access and recover account details - something nobody outside of Apple can do for you.

Be prepared with any information you might have. Helpful details include (but are not limited to) current/previous addresses, credit card information, and purchase receipts that are automatically mailed to you following any (app/music/movie/etc) Store purchase.


BoxTone EMM does both.

  Configure device security with dozens of policy controls including encrypt device, disable iCloud, disable camera/wifi/Bluetooth, enforce strong passcodes, etc


Weather widget in notification center of iOS5

Considering that the iPod/iPhone Weather app has never existed on the iPad, the answer to this is an extremely simple, and extremely disappointing: "Nope".


Copy and paste entire song in GarageBand for iPad

Maybe your project is too big? I have heard that GarageBand, even on a Mac, has limitations when the project gets too big. It would refuse an operation or just hang or crash without much feedback. Try with a much smaller/simpler test song and see if you can accomplish what you want. Or try posting exactly the steps you do to copy and paste, and exactly what happens (what GarageBand does) after.


Forced switching between Spaces when opening Microsoft Office files

I've long experienced this problem, too. Haven't found any 'good' solutions, so put together some Applescripts that partially address the problem.  It's very much a kludge and not a perfect solution, and deploying the scripts in a given user's workflow is a matter of individual taste.

Here's code to open an MS Word document in a space that doesn't have any Word windows without first triggering a shift to a space with a Word window open:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Microsoft Word" to tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item 3 to tell menu 1 to click menu item 1 --open
tell application "Microsoft Word" to activate

And this script will close an MS Word document without triggering a switch to another space (if it was the last Word window open in the current space):

--Is there another window of the app in this space? If so, don't need to shift to another app before closing
tell application "System Events" to tell application process "Microsoft Word" to set _theWindows to name of every window as list
set WinNum to number of strings of _theWindows --(Office puts weird other things in the list)
if WinNum = 1 then --i.e., it is the only window in the space
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke tab using command down --switch to another app
    delay 0.1
    tell application "System Events" to set visible of application process "Microsoft Word" to true --in case there is a close dialog I still need to see
    delay 0.1
end if
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Microsoft Word" to tell menu bar 1 to tell menu bar item 3 to tell menu 1 to click menu item "Close" --close


iMac 27" model 2010 - speaker weird after exchange of logicboard

My problem was that I accidentally screwed the cable of the left speaker with a screw from the housing. I resolved the issue and sound is okay!


OS X Yosemite permanent environement variables

have you tried adding them to your .bash_profile?

assuming you know how to use the vi editor:

open terminal
enter vi ~/.bash_profile
add one line like the following for each environment variable you need to persist

export PS1='\[\033[34m\]\w\[\e[m\]   '

Save the file.
Restart your computer.

The only other thing would be to consider backing up your .bash_profile in case somehow you lose or corrupt it.


Command found with `which` at the new paths but still tries to run from the old path

The old path is still cached by the shell. Either open a new tab/window or run hash -r to clear it.


Does iBooks sync metadata across devices via iCloud?

Found a solution; not through iBooks but the Terminal instead (must install Homebrew first):

brew install exiftool
exiftool -Title="New Title" -Author="New Author" -Subject="iBooks Category" file.pdf

This actually edits the PDF metadata, and that will reflect in the Title, Author, and Category columns in iBooks.


It might have because Snow Lepoard doesnt work with USB booting. I tried with a torrent downloaded Lion and that worked along with "Lion Diskmaker" (Just google it).


iMessage conversations appear to be saved in ~/Library/Messages.

To see your Library folder, you'll need to use Go > Go to Folder... (⇧⌘G) and then type in ~/Library. If your new Mac doesn't have any messages on it, you should be able to just copy the folder over (but make sure Messages is closed while doing it).

Make sure to back up the destination Messages folder before copying if you are worried about losing data (just rename it Messages-Old or something). If everything works okay, you can trash it afterward.


How to copy all messages of a conversation in one folder?

The answer above about selecting all the messages in a conversation is good, but it forgets that you specified that the messages are not all in the same folder. What you need to do is create a smart folder first to get all the messages into a "virtual" folder, then select them. The smart folder could use a condition such as a specific word or string in the subjects of the emails, or you could simply grab all your emails (Sender contains @, for example), then use the Command-Shift-K shortcut to select the conversation, if they all come up as a single conversation.


Erase iOS device with recovery mode without updating to latest iOS version?

You can try to download the IPSW file and hold down Option key on your Mac (for Windows its Alt) on restore to open the link to restore from downloaded IPSW file.

I know it can be done with update but I'm not sure it can with restore.

You can get the IPSW file for your iPad on IPSW Homepage.


How to store SSH Credentials in Terminal

You can copy your public key to the remote machines. As long as they have public key authentication enabled, and your public key is present on the remote machine, you can ssh to the machines without having to supply a password.

First you'll need to generate a public/private keypair like so:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

Follow the prompts. When it asks if you want to protect the key with a passphrase say YES! It's bad practice to not password-protect your keys and I'll show you how to only have to enter the password once in a while.

If you already have keypair you can skip the step above.

Now, assuming your ssh key exists on your Mac as ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, you can install it on a remote machine by running:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh user@123.45.56.78 "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >>  ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"

For your specific server example cited above, the command would look like:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh -p 2200 root@123.456.789.012 "mkdir -p ~/.ssh && cat >>  ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"

You'll have to enter the password for root@123.456.789.012 to perform this copy, but this should be the last time you need to do this. Assuming the remote server's sshd is setup to do public-private key authentication, when you ssh to the box now it shouldn't ask you for a password for the root account -- instead it'll ask you for the password for your key. Read on for how to make this something you don't need to enter all the time.

Repeat the above for every machine you want to ssh in to with your keys instead of a password.

Please note, anyone who gets a hold of your ~/.ssh/id_rsa file can ssh to this machine as root without supplying a password for the remote machine. Password protecting the key file ensure they'd need to know the password for that key to use it. Make sure that file is secure. Use disk encryption on your Mac and keep the permissions on the file and the ~/.ssh/ directory tight.

To make it easier to use the key without having to enter the password every time, OS X runs an ssh-agent process in the background on your machine. This agent will cache the keypair the first time you use it so you only have to enter your password once in a while. If you only sleep your mac, never restart it, you can go long periods of time without needing to enter your password.

You can pre-cache all your SSH keys with the ssh-agent by running:

ssh-add

Now you only need to remember the key password, not the many different account passwords. I usually keep my key passwords in 1Password (no affiliation), further simplifying how many passwords I need to remember. Then I just look them up in 1Password and cut-and-paste them in the Terminal the odd time I restart my Mac and cause my running ssh-agent to be restarted.

If you combine copying your key to remote machines with the Terminal.app connection management solution in this question, you'll have something very close to PuTTY for GUI connection experience.

On the server side, check /etc/ssh/sshd_config and make sure:

PubkeyAuthentication yes

is enabled in the configuration (it is by default in OpenSSH). You may also wish to set:

PasswordAuthentication no

While you're there so password-based authentication is disabled and keys become the only way to access the machine.

You'll need to restart sshd on the machine if you make any changes to the configuration file.


Your SSHD is not corrupt in the sense that you lost any data but parts of the GUID partition table can't be read properly.

The SSHD either lost its GUID partition table or the USB/SATA controller in the external case reports a device block size of 4096 Bytes while your disk has a block size of 512 Bytes. In case of the latter you have to use another external case to mount the SSHD.

A common 512 Bytes Device Block Size GUID compared to a 4096 Bytes Device Block Size GUID differs like this:

             512 size number  4096 size number ("in block(512) numbers")
pMBR                1      0          1      0         0-7
Pri GPT header      1      1          1      1         8-15
Pri GPT table      32   2-33          4    2-5        16-47
1st "used" block          40                 6        48

If you mount a "512 Bytes device" in a "4096 Bytes case", the system expects the primary GPT header in block(4096) 1 (which "translates" to blocks(512) 8-15) and the primary GPT table in the blocks(4096) 2-5 (which "translates" to blocks(512) 16-47). This will fail because the primary header of the disk(512) is in block(512) 1 and the primary table starts at block(512) 2.

It's obvious that you can't rewrite a GPT(512) to a GPT(4096) because the last block of the GPT(4096) table would overlap the first useable block of the GPT(512) disk.

Try the following to restore the GUID partition table:

Open Terminal.app and enter the following commands to get an overview and fundamental data to recover previous partition tables if the following commands fail:

disktutil list
diskutil info diskX | grep "Device Block Size" # with diskX: the disk identifier of the SSHD

If the command returns: Device Block Size:   512 Bytes continue, if 4096 Bytes are reported stop here and get a 512 Byte-capable external case:

sudo gpt -r show diskX # with diskX: the disk identifier of the SSHD
sudo fdisk /dev/diskX # with diskX: the disk identifier of the SSHD

In your case diskX: disk2
Unmount the external disk (just to be sure that it is unmounted). Below I assume diskX is disk2:

diskutil umountDisk disk2
sudo gpt destroy disk2
sudo gpt create -f disk2

Now enter sudo gpt -r show disk2 if a new GUID partition table was created. It should look like this:

       start         size  index  contents
            0            1         PMBR
            1            1         Pri GPT header
            2           32         Pri GPT table
           34   1953525102
   1953525135           32         Sec GPT table
   1953525167            1         Sec GPT header

If you get an error or no GUID pt was created you have to force-destroy the MBR:

sudo if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk2 bs=512 count=1

The command directly overwrites the first block of disk2 (the MBR of the disk) with zeros. If entered wrong (e.g without the "count=1" or the wrong disk identifer), it overwrites the whole disk. The command above should completed after milliseconds. If not, enter ctrlC to stop the command immediately.

Then repeat:

sudo gpt create -f disk2

Recheck if it was successful now.
Add the partition one by one in the GUID partition table with gpt:

To add an partition with gpt use the following command

sudo gpt -i index_number -b first_block -s size -t partiton_type diskX

with index_number: ~the partition number; first_block and size in blocks (either 512 or 4096 blocks) and partiton_type: a special GUID

In your case that's:

sudo gpt -i 1 40 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk2
sudo gpt -i 2 409640 -s 1175509584 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk2
diskutil umountDisk disk2
sudo gpt -i 3 1176181368 -s 292707720 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk2
diskutil umountDisk disk2
sudo gpt -i 4 1469151232 -s 484372480 -t EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 disk2

Now the "lost" volumes should reappear. Check the disk and the volumes with diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk2, diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2s2 and  diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2s3.
Repair everything if necessary - but report back before starting the repair.

If you don't have an external case(512) but a second empty disk with at least 1 TB you should be able to recover each partition on disk2 by dd'ing each to a separate file (e.g sudo dd if=dev/disk2 of=/Volumes/Disk3/efi.rawdevice bs=512 skip=40 count=409600 to copy the EFI partition) on the empty disk. After dd'ing all four partitions to an external volume, repartition disk2 properly and restore  each of the four rawdevice files to its "new" partition.

The command gpt usually only writes to the first 34 and last 33 blocks and fdisk only to the first block on a disk with a block size of 512 Bytes. This will not destroy or modify your data. So everything you do is reversible.


How to configure OSX to not to sort new files in a folder and how to prevent new Finder windows pop-upping when unzipped?

Archive Utility can be lightly configured. The easy way to do it is to open an archive file and as soon as you see a progress dialog, hit Command (⌘) + , in order to bring up the app preferences.

Otherwise, you can manually open the Archive Utility alone by browsing to /System/Library/CoreServices and opening Archive Utility.app. Afterwards, you can use the Archive Utility menu to get to the preferences, or again use Command (⌘) + , to open the app's preferences up.