Had the same problem and it is a simple fix.

restart your computer
when it "chimes" hold down "command" and "R" until a menu pops up.
Go to "Utilities" at the top of the page menu bar
Go to "terminal"
In the terminal type "resetpassword"
Follow the instructions. You may need you Apple ID. My Administrator account does not have an Apple ID, so I just reset the Administrator password without needing an Apple ID.

If you are not able to sign in with other accounts on your computer, go to your administrator account and make sure to uncheck Enable parental controls for those accounts in under System Preferences - Users and Groups. Then the other accounts should work fine.


Prevent someone else from using my iCloud account?

To summarize what you should do in one single answer:

Change the rescue email associated with the account. You can do this by going to https://appleid.apple.com/ and clicking on Manage My Apple ID, logging in, and then making sure all the email addresses listed in Name, ID and Email Addresses section of your account are email addresses that only you have the passwords to access. In particular, the Primary Email Address associated with the account should be an email address that you and you alone control.

Under the Password and Security section in the Manage My Apple ID site, change your password. Do this after you change the email addresses on the account so you don't accidentally lock yourself out.

While you're in there, you should make sure your mailing addresses and phone number are also assigned to identities that belong to you and you alone.


What is the difference between backing up and syncing an iPad/iPod/iPhone?

A backup it part of a sync.  Synchronizing your iPhone:

Saves a backup of the installed apps and all personal data (contacts, saved games, documents, etc.)
Adds or removes music, podcasts, etc.
Copies the latest version of apps to or from your iPhone.
(I don't remember the rest of the steps off the top of my head...)

The backup is useful if your iPhone has to be reset to factory settings or is lost.  You can restore your backup to your fresh iPhone and it will reinstall the apps along with all of their data.  Without a backup, you would have to manually type in all of contacts, reproduce your documents, and start your games from scratch.  You'll still have to restore your music manually, but that's a minor issue.


Folder navigation using keyboard in Coda

Found it!

Cmd+Up and Cmd+Down to navigate between folders.


Checking for bad blocks without formatting

I'll answer the "bad blocks" tack and you can ask a follow on question if you still have slowness and you have concluded that it's not simply bad blocks. (Bad blocks is almost never a slow issue - since the system can remap blocks so rapidly, that you'd need rafts and rafts of them to actually impair I/O. If you do have bad blocks, they can corrupt some of the data on the drive and a reinstall not only fixes that, it forces writes to detect more bad blocks - kind of a win/win situation).

You need no extra tools to see the health of your drive.

Open Disk Utility and select the physical drive itself (not the Macintosh HD or whatever the partition/volume is) and select info.

If you record and watch the values under S.M.A.R.T. Status and see how they change over time, you can know pretty much anything that is detectable about storage degradation or partial failure.


SSH to VirtualBox Mac Host Linux Guest using NAT

After adding a port-forwarding rule (e.g. SSH TCP 10.0.0.10 2222 10.0.2.15 22) enter in the host's Terminal.app:

 ssh user_name@host-ip -p forwarded_port

Example with the rule above:

 ssh user_name@10.0.0.10 -p 2222

Don't use identical ports in the rule (host's port ≠ guest's port) like in your screenshot. user_name has to be the name of a remote access enabled account on the guest OS.

You may even skip the IP addresses (10.0.0.10 and 10.0.2.15) in the rule and either use:

 ssh user_name@10.0.0.10 -p 2222

or

 ssh user_name@127.0.0.1 -p 2222

or even

 ssh user_name@localhost -p 2222


Downloading/Sending video from my iphone to some other device in different ways

Try a peer-to-peer file transfer service to move the video directly from your phone to computer, like BitTorrent Sync. This would be faster then using a cloud solution like uploading to Dropbox or YouTube and then downloading it again. It's very simple to use too, just download the BitTorrent Sync app on your phone and Mac, turn on the Camera Roll backup feature from you phone, and then send the link to your Mac to begin the transfer. This is the probably the fastest way to transfer files with out a wired connection.


Mid 2010 Macbook Pro goes into an unresponsive hibernate state for unpredictable amounts of time

The problem was solved by doing an SMC reset. press Shift-control-option-powerbutton when the machine is off and plugged in. The indicator on the magsafe adapter will flash from orange to green and back to orange.


While simply copying the directories mentioned in the question does not help (presumably, there is some database somewhere containing the uuids to the calendars and one has to copy that as well), it is possible to manually import the *.ics files by simply opening them.

Update

It seems that copying the folders and then rebooting actually does restore the reminders (or probably logout-login will suffice).


How do I move a USB Time Machine backup to a Time Capsule?

Yes, it's straightforward to do it, even though it would take quite sometime to complete depending on the size of your current backups. Follow the detailed procedure at Copy  Local  backups to be used on a  NETWORK.

Here's a summary of what's required and the steps.

The backups go into a sparsebundle on a Time Capsule. So you need to create that sparsebundle on the Time Capsule, mount it in Finder and then copy over everything from your USB drive into the mounted volume.

Here are the basic steps with some additional information:

Configure Time Machine to back up to the Time Capsule and start a backup. This will make it create the sparsebundle.
Cancel the backup once the copying starts (as seen in the progress window).
Mount the Time Machine Backups sparsebundle in Finder by double-clicking it (or using Cmd+Down Arrow)
Delete the Backups.backupdb folder inside this volume (you'll be replacing it with the backup you already have).
Open your current Time Machine backup USB drive in Finder and copy the Backups.backupdb folder from it to the Time Machine Backups partition (mounted from the Time Capsule).
Enter your administrator password and accept the prompts (this may happen a couple of times).


Google Drive File Stream syncing forever

Try disabling spotlight for the newly created Google Drive Volume. It worked for me. Go to Preferences -> Spotlight and then to the Privacy tab. Add the Google Drive volume to the ignored volumes.

The problem is that the spotlight indexing process tries to access all the files in the cloud.

Any process that visits all files inside a drive might trigger this situation, e.g. an antivirus or similar stuff.

Hope this helps.


Why am I unable to set new command prompt for terminal?


How do I schedule Mac OS X Leopard to wake up multiple times in one day?

This app seems to be the solution to your problem. http://www.ibeezz.com/en/

Haven't tested it myself though.


In Screen Sharing, how do I stop the local Mac from grabbing Mission Control keyboard shortcuts meant for the remote Mac?

I have my local machine set to use Option for Mission Control.  I set the remote Macs to use Control.  This way, I have entirely separate key combinations.


I used Boot Camp Assistant and can't boot OS X

Windows can't read APFS.

To get back to macOS you need to hold the  Opt ⌥  key at startup.

BTW, don't ever let Windows adjust anything on your drive. Consider that Disk Management tool as a read-only utility. It doesn't understand how it's being fooled into thinking it's in charge & will break things.


Apple AppStore policy change with respect to CoreLocation

My app went live with CoreLocation Manager settings(which doesn't fetch location by default).


Reinstalled Mac OS X on my MacBook Air & now it won't let me install iMovie and iPhoto?

update

It's was just a glitch in the App store, the applications had been installed, it seems one hand doesn't know what the other is doing.


After update, now I'm getting "Disk not ejected properly" every time my Mac sleeps

I have the same problem with my LaCie 6TB drive which is used by Time Machine and is USB 3 connected. The problem only started after upgrading to 10.11.4. I don't have the problem with my 10.11.4 MBP using Wi-Fi to backup to my 3TB Time Capsule. I have reported the problem to Apple and await a solution.


How to export photos from the new Photos app in full quality?

File > Export > Export Unmodified Original...

will export a full size image to the folder of your choice.


Can I install 16GB RAM on quad-core MacBook Pro?

According to Apple the answer is no, but OWC has tested it and found that there are no issues putting 16GB (2x8GB) in the latest generation MacBook Pro. The upgrade doesn't come cheap, though - at this time 2x8GB modules will set you back $1599.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/1333DDR3S16P/


Do you use VPN ?
If so exit and try with your local access:
As soon as you change the VPN away from your local coordinates (to another country normally) the modern email provider will consider this a hacker connect and will either ask your password or does not connect at all.


How to remove the annoying quit message by closing iterm2 - prevent logoff/shutdown/reboot

Under "Preferences" -> "General" -> "Closing" was a "Confirm 'Quit iTerm2' command" checkbox which worked for me. The "Profiles" -> "Session" -> "Closing" -> "Do not prompt before closing" option did not help with the shutdown case.


Can apps purchased from one Apple ID be shared between multiple iTunes libraries?

Unfortunately the only way to share apps is to use the same Apple ID for purchases on every device.

You can use different IDs for iCloud, but you need to sign into the App Store with the same ID.

If you're signed in to the App Store with the correct ID you can download previously purchased apps for free, each person haven their own computer and iTunes library doesn't matter.


Does an iPhone 3GS running iOS 6.1.6 require SIM card setup after iTunes restore?

For whatever reason, the SIM card slot decided to work about a day before I did the restore. I don't what did it or why it happened, but anyways it works. To answer my own question: No, nowhere in the setup for iOS 6.1.6 after the restore require a SIM card for activation, I'm not so sure about other iPhone models running other iOS versions, though.


Reset/change Emoji color for human features

You need to long press on the emoji for which you want to change the skin tone, this will show a skin tone picker.

You can do this on macOS in the Emoji &Symbols picker, and on iOS using the Emoji keyboard.

Skin tone settings are saved per-emoji.

If long press doesn't bring up the picker, you have a different problem.


Why am I having this problem importing photos from iPhone to iPhoto?

I seem to have resolved the issue by connecting my iPhone 4 directly into my MacBook as opposed to using a USB hub which I connect everything to.

edit: I also found this to be the case after a long term problem with importing photos/films from my iPhone 5; it was intermittent and buggy, but I was using a simple USB extension cord from behind my computer and eventually removing; because of this, this answer solved the entire issue.


If you have an existing Photos library and you want to import an iPhoto library use File -> Import (shortcut: cmd+shift+i) and select your iPhoto library.

If you want a Photos library with just your old iPhoto library, hold alt (option) while starting Photos and select your iPhoto library.


How serious are occasional kernel panics?

The first time you get a kernel panic, it is a reminder to make sure you have a regular backup system in place. Restart the Mac and check that your backup is configured. Check later that day to test restoring a files you need to be backed up.

The second time you get a kernel panic, decide how you're going to track when they happen. I use a 3 x 5 note card to document things like what I was doing when I noticed it in the date and time.

Other than that, until you lose real work, the occasional panic/error isn't a real concern as much an annoyance. If you end up annoyed or have recurring panics, gather objective data needed to solve most kernel panics. Apple documents their well engineered process for this:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT200553

Once you have a handful of events, checking with support is good since they are in a better position to weigh if hardware is suspected to be faulty or if your panics are software in nature.


Where did the ~/Library folder go in Lion?

The ~/Library folder still exists, but it is hidden. You can easily unhide it by running the following command in Terminal (/Applicatiions/Utilities):

chflags nohidden ~/Library

Note that you'll have to do this again after each 10.7.X update (credit to Vincent).

If you want to reveal it on a per-use basis, you can get in by holding down option and clicking on the Finder's Go menu.
Or, you can use Go-> Go to Folder and type in the path.
Or, you can open Terminal and type open ~/Library

The app Lion Tweaks gives you an easy GUI way to change this setting, as well as other hidden Lion preferences.


The songs that you are seeing aren't on your iPad - they are simply still downloading. I believe you can stop them from downloading from the iTunes Store on your iPad or your Mac.


Automatically relaunch a closed application

Here is my launchd script to keep SomeApp always running. It is in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ and called SomeApp.restart.plist

<?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>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>SomeApp.restart</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/path/to/SomeApp.app/Contents/MacOS/SomeApp</string>
        </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Load it once with

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/SomeApp.restart.plist

Launchctl will run this after reboots.

RunAtLoad will launch the application the first time launchctl runs this
KeepAlive will restart it if the application quits (CMD+Q or crash)

Should run forever. If you want a GUI tool to help, Lingon works even though development has stopped.


Remove menu bar apps from menu bar in OS X

I may be misunderstanding, but to remove items from Finder's menu bar is quite simple:

Hold down Command and drag the icon from the menu bar. Poof! It's gone.

This works for all Apple based menu bar items, and some third party items. Usually, when it doesn't work for a third party application, there is an option within the app itself to remove its icon from the menu bar.


Open HTML file with Google Chrome using command-line

There is no need to create or copy any file into /usr/bin directory. A simple solution would be create an alias as shown below:

alias chrome="open -a \"Google Chrome\".

Now you open the HTML file as you described by executing:

chrome foo.html

You may wish to export the alias to make the behaviour permanent placing the alias in .bash_profile in your home directory.


Is there some way to "de-register" Quicktime for MP4 files?

Find one mp4 file. Right click, Get Info or  Cmd ⌘   I

If not already set, select VLC in Open With, then click Change all...

There's also the old faithful, RCDefaultApp which reports have said no longer works in High Sierra, but I just tested & it appears to.


Macbook cannot find Magic Keyboard in Settings - Keyboard - configure bluetooh keyboard

It's not possible to do what you want with Apple's software:  System Preferences/Keyboard/Input Sources applies to all keyboards.  There may be a way to do it with the Karabiner app, see this earlier article:

Different key-maps/bindings for in-built keyboard and Bluetooth keyboard


Any way to use a scan as a signature in Preview (Yosemite)?

sadly the only ways to add a signature in Preview, is by using the two different ways you mentioned. You could type your name in pages, print it out and use the camera.


Working with subdirectories to classify apps on iTunes

That depends on what else you use iTunes for.  You can turn off the "automatically sort iTunes content" switch, which will allow you to spread files all over the shop, but be aware that fresh downloads, iphone purchase transfers, updates, and all sorts else may not honour your choice when doing updates and the like, resulting in potentially multiple versions of multiple apps in multiple locations, and also having potentially adverse affects on your other iTunes content such as music etc.

I'm not sure about the Windows 7 aspect of this next bit, but on Mac you could "label" your files into categories, and then make a smart fodler that searches out for apps in location X (default) with Label Y etc - I think Windows must have some similar tagging system, certainly it can handle the saved searches/smart folder equivalent ably enough to approximate the same behaviour.


Can I schedule startup and shutdown with different settings for weekdays and weekends?

You don't need 3rd party software. The OS X utility pmset allows you to schedule sleep/wake taking day of week into effect. I haven't tested it, but it appears you cannot schedule multiple repeating events on different times. You'll need to use cron to complete this task.

from man pmset

Schedules the system to automatically wake from sleep on
July 4, 2009, at 8PM.

pmset schedule wake "07/04/09 20:00:00"

Schedules a repeating shutdown to occur each day, Tuesday through
Saturday, at 11AM.

pmset repeat shutdown TWRFS 11:00:00


How to give Airplay traffic priority on network?

I don't know how to fix your issue but i can help you to go around it.
So if you have the wifi 5GHz (dual mode) you can put your playing device on that network and the downloading device on the 2.4GHz network. This somehow helped me to fix the dropouts while watching videos online.

my config is: iPad playing music via airplay audio, macbook Pro downloading a video. airport express with dual wifi.

It is not the final solution neither the solution you are looking for but it helps in some cases.


Download old version of Mac OSX legally as Apple Developer?

Log into your account and navigate to the summary account overview page:

https://developer.apple.com/account/#/overview/

Select Downloads
Scroll the page so you can see additional downloads at the bottom
Uncheck all but OS X category
Search for 10.9 and grab the combo you want.

At that point, open a case with developer support and ask them to send you a redemption code for 10.9 for your Mac App Store account.


When does Skitch use a transparent background?

I haven't used Skitch, but from the context (note it is indented under a checkbox) I think the option would apply to screenshots taken of whole windows.


Is keeping macbook battery 20%~80% good?

Apple Lithium-ion Batteries

See https://www.apple.com/batteries/ and https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/ for Apple's authoritative recommendations.

  They’re inside every iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch, MacBook, and AirPods, helping you do all kinds of things in all kinds of places. Find out more about your battery to get the most out of it throughout its lifespan — and beyond.


How can I turn off music automatically starting after phone call in iPhone

My guess is that it is a (typically) poor implementation in the bluetooth headset.

I have the same issue with two different cars that are connected to the iPhone via bluetooth. I guess the developer writing the code for the device couldn't imagine that anyone wasn't listening to music, so he hardcoded to start the music after the call ends.

I could not find a solution in many years, and have now disconnected my iPhone from the car for that reason. Obviously not useful for you, as a bluetooth headset that is not connected is useless (whereas the car still drives).


How can I switch applications on iPhone or iPad by keyboard like "Windows key + tab" on Windows?

For iPad, ensure that multitasking gestures are turned on in "Settings > General > Multitasking Gestures". Instructions to switch between applications are right below the button.

IPhones do not support task switching with a Bluetooth keyboard.

On iPhones equipped with a 3D Touch screen, you can switch applications by force pressing on the left-most corner of the screen. This will open the task switching view.


I had a similar problem. Brand new iMac that refused to detect my wired keyboard.

After a lot of experimenting, I resolved the problem by removing my bluetooth keyboard from the bluetooth devices list completely and then plugging in the wired keyboard.

Open System Preferences and select 'Bluetooth'
A list of the devices detected (both paired and unpaired) will appear.
Hover your mouse to the right of any connected bluetooth keyboard and press the 'x' that appears, to remove it from the list completely.
Finally connect your wired keyboard and hopefully 'voila'. For me, everything return to normal.

Good luck, hope that helps.

Sherie


This is not a problem. What matters is the serial.

The same serial should work with any language version of Office Mac 2011 which you can download from Microsoft's official websites.

I had a similar problem like you. I had purchased an English version via Ebay,  but I needed a German one. I downloaded the German version and used it with and US version serial without any problems.

In your case you can download the US version here: www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads


On your mobile device you open the icloud photo stream by its title, tap on "people", turn on "public website"  then tap "share" and send  the stream to your own email. In your email you will get a link to your photo stream under the title of the stream . When you click on the link from your laptop or desktop you will find a webpage with all items in that stream including your videos. Get a video web downloader add on extension for your browser and you can download the video once you've clicked on it to start. From there you can import it to iphoto and sync it with your iphone photos


Pressing and holding "e" over end of word that ends in a ":"

Aside from the author of the software addressing this, the following command turns off the press and hold, bring up the e's:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false


does the iphone do RGB sub-pixel rendering?

No, they don't:

  ...sub-pixel anti-aliasing is, ultimately, a clever hack that will eventually fall by the wayside as display resolutions improve.


How to create a greylist domain exclusion on 10.7 Lion Mail server?

As this is 10.7 Server, the 10.8 command:

$ sudo serveradmin settings mail:postfix:add_whitelist_domain = "yahoo.com"

can't be used in this case.

1. Create an exception file

$ sudo touch /etc/postfix/sender_access

2. Fill this file with domains that are OK to be excluded from the (greylist) policy

$ echo 'mail-out.ovh.net OK' | sudo tee -a /etc/postfix/sender_access

3. Create database from text file

$ sudo postmap hash:/etc/postfix/sender_access

4. Modify the Mac OS Lion SMTP server configuration

This configuration change allows the domains configured in the exception file to bypass running the greylist check. Therefore open up the main.cf, for example using the nano editor:

$ sudo nano /etc/postfix/main.cf

Search for the line that starts with smtpd_recipient_restrictions =, for example using the key combination Ctrl + W

The line might look like:

smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated permit_mynetworks reject_unauth_destination check_policy_service unix:private/policy permit

For readability I am writing this one line now as multiple lines:

smtpd_recipient_restrictions =
    permit_sasl_authenticated
    permit_mynetworks
    reject_unauth_destination
    check_policy_service unix:private/policy
    permit

After reject_unauth_destination and before check_policy_service unix:private/policy some new text has to be inserted. The new text tells the mail server to look in the newly created file. The magic words to insert are: check_sender_access hash:/etc/postfix/sender_access.

Now the smtpd_recipient_restrictions looks like:

smtpd_recipient_restrictions =
    permit_sasl_authenticated
    permit_mynetworks
    reject_unauth_destination
    check_sender_access hash:/etc/postfix/sender_access
    check_policy_service unix:private/policy
    permit

Or written as a single line, it looks like:

smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated permit_mynetworks reject_unauth_destination check_sender_access hash:/etc/postfix/sender_access check_policy_service unix:private/policy permit

To save the change press Ctrl + O, and to exit the nano editor press Ctrl + X.

5. Make the configuration changed become effective

$  sudo postfix reload

And presto, now the web form mail messages arrive without greylisting delay.

PS You can also use the sender_access file to reject users, by adding lines like: user@abadboy.com REJECT


My iPad2 will not print to my HP wifi printer since the IOS8 update

I don't know why it has stopped working. You should file a bug report with Apple. In the meantime, I use an app on my Mac Mini called HandyPrint which allows iOS devices to print wirelessly to non-Airport printers and I suspect this might resolve your issue.


upgrade iphone 4 to latest iOS as 9 or 10

If you check the iOS Support Matrix, you will see that the latest version of iOS that supports the iPhone 4 is iOS 7.

You can't upgrade to a version of iOS greater than that - so iOS 8, 9, 10, 11, or the upcoming 12, are all out of reach for that phone.


No, /usr/local is not a per-user folder. It's the same directory for all users. I've been down this road with homebrew and done the chown to /usr/local on a laptop that only I use, but my other non-homebrew-aware Macs all show permissions similar to this for /usr/local:

%ls -ld /usr/local

drwxr-xr-x   213 root     wheel    578 Aug 28 11:58 /usr/local

And they work just fine like that.


Resize 'Macintosh HD" into unallocated space vacated by Bootcamp partition

Change partition size only with Bootcamp Assistant.


How to read car charger input current specification?

No, you have to read the description different:

#1) Input 12-24V means it is capable for normal cars (12-14V) and Trucks (24V) and the 5.6A Max. is most likely the maximum allowed current before the internal fuse blows off.

#2) Input 11-15V means it is only usable for cars (no Trucks) and a maximum current of 10A before the internal fuse blows off.

so ... they are both usable for your need unless you own a Truck, then you should take #1.


There are several ways to clone your drive. One way is to use the app Super Duper. The app is not free but has a free trial version that you can download from the link above.
You'll need to start with a clean drive and you can make a clone of your internal drive. It is a simple procedure and the complete instructions are given here. This link is dated 3/2020 so it is recent. The instructions will tell you how to make a bootable clone.
After making a bootable clone, the linked article has a section telling you how to restore your Mac from a clone if necessary. And there are other features given in the article as well.


Customise drop shadow size (larger) in Preview.app

Preview doesn't support this.
I solved it by drawing a square inside of a fully transparent image, adding the drop shadow, saving it, closing it, reopening it, then rotating and resizing the drop shadow until it fit my needs and copy/pasting it into my original document.


My keyboard (numpad) overwrites everything

I was having the same problem with my HP SK-2028, and I found something that at least sort of works. If you turn on 'slow keys' in the accessibility settings and play with the settings a little bit, eventually there is a sweet spot where you will be able to type your numbers in, albeit a little slower, but at least it will function like it is supposed to. I found a spot in between the first two bars so I don't have to type tooooo much slower than I usually would. You can press alt+command+F5 to bring up the quick-accessibility options pane to quickly deselect or re-select slow keys as needed

-Amy


Enable click-through, preferrably for all applications

The short answer is "no", there is no general way to do this.  To quote from The Mac OS X Human Interface Guidelines

  Click-through is not a property of a class of controls; any control, including toolbar items, can support click-through. This also means that you can support click-through for any subset of items; you do not have to choose between supporting click-through for all items in a window or none.

  [...]

  Avoid providing click-through for an item or action whose result might be dangerous or undesirable. Specifically, avoid enabling click-through for an item that:

  Performs a potentially harmful action that users can’t cancel (for example, the Delete button in Mail)
  Performs an action that is difficult or impossible to cancel (such as the Send button in Mail)
  Dismisses a dialog without telling the user what action was taken (for example, the Save button in a Save dialog that overwrites an existing file and automatically dismisses the dialog)
  Removes the user from the current context (for example, selecting a new item in a Finder column that changes the target of the Finder window)
  Clicking in any one of these situations should cause the window that contains the item to be brought forward, but no other action to be taken.

  Note: Programmatically, supporting click-through is a matter of disabling click-through for items that should not provide it. This is because click-through is supported by default in all Cocoa controls.

In other words, click-through is enabled (or not) on a control-by-control basis with thoughtful consideration as to the consequences of allowing it. It is not a general property of a window or the window manager.


Can I use a Thunderbolt 2 device with my 2011-era MacBook Pro?

Thunderbolt 2 is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 1. So it should work no problem unless the product manufacturer says otherwise. Thought you only gets half the speed since the port on the computer only have Thunderbolt 1.


Primary User missing after macOS Sierra Update

This can happen when some users are not FileVault Enabled. Log in with another user and then check out security system preferences.

Thanks for the help, @bret7600. FileVault pointed me in the right direction; the solution was the same as here User account doesn't appear on first login screen I also had to recreate the other account (Account B) which showed up on first login screen but not in User & Groups to get everything back to normal.


Try moving the plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons/. Agents (other than pre-login agents) are run only after a user logs in and they are owned by the user. Also the UserName key has no effect for agents.

See the Daemons and Agents tech note.


iTunes Connect data not updating since 2 days?

I've have the same problem on the webpage but on the iPhone app the service works fine.


Set Specific Podcasts to Show as TV Shows in iTunes, using AppleScript

The problem is that you can't change the "Media Kind" of a podcast track via AppleScript. For whatever reason, it seems to be some sort of special type that isn't exposed in the AppleScript dictionary.

The closest I've found to a method for doing this is this script in the Apple Support Forums that changes the Media Kind via GUI scripting. It seems to be set up for changing it to an Audiobook, so you'll have to modify it a bit, but it may be a decent starting point.


After months of digging I found out what was my problem. As I visited this page like a million times I'll leave here my story as it may be helpful

My issue was related to the new "Secure Input" feature of os x. When Secure Input is enabled, apps like HyperSwitch, Contexts etc... will not be able to grap hotkeys.

Some app may be bugged and not release the secure input lock, or (like in my case) you may have some issue with Iterm2. In this case just disable it, Iterm2 menu -> Secure Keyboard Entry and you have your life back!


In technical terms it is "messed up too much" for disk utility to handle. You now have two choices. Do as it suggests, back up and reformat or use a third party disk utility that might fix the issue.

I'd do the latter but then I always have an up to date copy of diskwarrior already on hand. There are other disk repair utilities, that one is my personal favorite YMMV.


iMac - Can't install a Supplemental Update (10.8.5)

As the dates on the pages for both the Combo & Supplemental updates are identical, the chances are the Supplemental may have been later rolled into the Combo. The Supplemental was released on 3 Oct 2013, which is the last modified date on both pages.

Check About this Mac > system report > software [names may be slightly different, I've not seen 10.8 in a while]
10.8.5 should show build number 12F37, the Supplemental 12F45 in brackets after the System Version.

Initial research done using Wikipedia : OS X Mountain Lion

After comments & further research, Build 12F25260 is a specific build for iMacs with NVidia GPUs & does include the Supplemental update.

Refs :

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7292272?start=0&tstart=0
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/aug15/081715.html
http://www.nvidia.co.uk/download/driverResults.aspx/89564/en-uk


How can I make a copy of a dvd made with imovie?

My presumption is that when you burned the DVD using iMovie - it was encoded within a VIDEO_TS folder and you will need some software to move the video and sound files (which are hidden and obscured on the filesystem) back into a format that can be played on your Mac and/or burned back to a fresh optical drive.

Depending on the version of software that wrote the DVD to disc, you might be able to locate the raw video files (or find them on a backup). Barring that, using Disk Utility to simply clone the volume onto a new drive isn't a good choice, but I've had great luck with programs like the little app factory's RipIt.


The commands are provided with a g prefix:

Mithos:~ verence$ ls -l /usr/local/Cellar/findutils/4.4.2/bin
total 1328
-r-xr-xr-x  1 verence  admin  233400 Nov 13 05:03 gfind
-r-xr-xr-x  1 verence  admin  143620 Nov 13 05:03 glocate
-r-xr-xr-x  1 verence  admin  229704 Nov 13 05:03 goldfind
-r-xr-xr-x  1 verence  admin    9837 Apr  3 15:09 gupdatedb
-r-xr-xr-x  1 verence  admin   49796 Nov 13 05:03 gxargs
Mithos:~ verence$ type gfind
gfind is /usr/local/bin/gfind

If this is the first time you are using brew to install software, make sure to include /usr/local/bin in your PATH. There is no need to add other paths for brew.


Install wine via Homebrew: Problem with zlib

brew rm libpng
brew install libpng --universal
brew install wine --with-gcc


Is my iPhone 5S draining battery too fast (and is it due to process mediaServerD?)

It looks like a bug in mediaserverd.  Upon rebooting the phone the process returns to sane CPU use.  I have filed a Radar.


Does Find My iPhone still work with a SIM block?

In the limited sense that Find My Phone needs a data connection, blocking the 3G (or whatever G) data connection via the carrier would prevent a remote erase / location while the device is outside Wireless range of a known hotspot.

Find My iPhone relies on a connection to the Internet, through any medium. Wi-Fi, cellular or cans with bits of string. If the thief connects it to the Internet, then it should be picked up by Find My iPhone, even if they don’t connect it via 3G.

If the thief turns the device on and connects it to the Internet, Find My iPhone will kick in.

You can check with Apple whether your Find My Phone enrollment should prevent activation of the device if they restore it to factory settings. Anyone running the publicly released iOS 7 version would not need to block the SIM as the activation lock would prevent removing the Find My Friends association by preventing an erase / restore cycle.

Finally, the cell company still could locate the device by their cell towers whether the IMEI/SIM is blocked or not.


Apples publishes the objective and subjective app review criteria publicly at:

https://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html

I see nothing that currently prohibits gambling apps. Also, open up the App Store and search on the term "gambling" and you'll see there are dozens of apps that appear to be identical in function.


Which MacBook models support (directly or indirectly) dual DVI monitors, for a total of three screens?

You only have two options, and they're both supported by all current MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models:

Use a DVI splitter to spread a single DVI output across multiple monitors (which will look like a single external monitor to the OS). The maximum resolution for an external monitor on all MacBook Pro or Air models is 2560 x 1600, so your maximum for the split displays will be 1280 x 1600 each (or maybe 2560 x 800).
Use a USB graphics adaptor for the third monitor, which will thus not have hardware graphic acceleration.


The apparent issues seems related to FileVault. The following steps seem to be the cure:

Go to “System Preferences” – “Security and Privacy”, click on
“FileVault” tab, click the lock icon on the bottom left to unlock,
then click on “Turn Off FileVault”. The decryption process will
take a while (hours).
When the decryption is done, reboot into Recovery HD.
Use Disk Utility to verify OS X Partition, this time the process
will take much longer and it will give you the same error message.
Click on “Repair Disk”.
DONE!
(Optional) Re-enable FileVault.

Source: http://alanhan.net/how-to-fix-volume-bitmap-needs-minor-repair-for-orphaned-blocks-on-os-x-10-8/


Photos stopped uploading to iCloud. What can I do?

The surest way to resolve this is to create a fresh Photos Library by following these steps:

⌘ cmd-Q out of Photos.
Go into  → System Preferences → iCloud → Photos Options… and uncheck iCloud Photo Library.

Reboot if you want to be safe, though it shouldn’t be necessary.
Launch Photos with ⌥ opt-click.
Click Create New… and name your new Photos Library.

Go into Photos → Preferences → General and click Use as System Photo Library.

Go into Photos → Preferences → iCloud and check iCloud Photo Library.
Wait for your photos to be redownloaded from iCloud.

If you’d rather try to keep your existing Photos Library, follow these steps instead:

⌘ cmd-Q out of Photos.
Create a backup of your Photos Library.photoslibrary file.
Launch Photos with ⌘ cmd-⌥ opt-click.
Click Repair.

Wait for macOS to repair your Photos Library. A full sync should take place once the repair has completed.

Some screenshots courtesy of OS X Daily.


How to have multiple icons for multiple instances of the same program?

There are easier ways to switch windows/apps than using the Dock. Most native, is  by using the Mission Control. You can activate Mission Control several ways, on laptops it's usually F3 (without the Fn key), from Trackpad/Keyboard (check preferences) then select which app and window you want. You can also group windows by app: Mission Control > check "Group windows by application." Use two-finger scroll to zoom-in on specific app when grouped.

Couple useful shortcuts:

⌘+Tab: Switch between apps, use w/ Shift(⇧) to go in other directions.
⌘+`: Switch between windows of current app, use w/ Shift(⇧) to go in other directions.

Check out Keyboard Preference Pane for other shortcuts, or customise any.

You should use spaces, if you already aren't, this will help you sort out apps and create a better workflow.

EDIT: I forgot to answer your big question. To have multiple icons for each window, though it's not recommended; it'll mess up the mission controls and confuse you, you'd have to do it through Terminal:
open -n -a Google\ Chrome; -n for new instance, -a specifies the name of app. You can also supply files after that so it'll open those files with the default or app supplied. Do man open to read more about it.


How is Find my iPhone still working even when phone is turned off?

Perhaps it's out of cellular reception (or has had the SIM card removed) but has an active data connection through WiFi.


Is there any way to get the Multi-Safari version of Safari 2 working on Snow Leopard?

Safari 2, sorry, why would you need to test for that? It's REALLY not in use by anyone anymore.

Anyway, the best way I can think of running it is to virtualise an earlier version of OS X - Tiger or Jaguar.


Does iCloud web mail not have an "organize by conversation" feature?

iCloud Mail doesn't have a feature "organize by conversation".


You won't be able to erase the boot disk since you're currently booted into a partition on the same drive (which will result in the unmount failure).

Try Internet Recovery. Boot with ⌘⌥R until you get a spinning globe, then follow the instructions.


How to get BSD FTP and Telnet back in 10.13 (High Sierra)?

Apple's Telnet and FTP programs are back in High Sierra thanks to this homebrew pull request (by yours truly). Both the client and server of each one are back, and these are Apple's original versions of these programs.

inetutils unfortunately exhibits some bugs on High Sierra so this will be a better solution and should make everyone happy.

To install ALL the formulas in that PR, run this at the command line:

brew install tnftp tnftpd telnet telnetd

Of course you can install each of these separately as well:

# TNFTP client & server (formerly known as LukeMFTP, presumably due to being developed by Luke Mewburn
# and has been the default FTP for default FTP client included with NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFly BSD,
# Darwin (macOS), and MidnightBSD):
brew install tnftp
brew install tnftpd

# Telnet client & server:
brew install telnet
brew install telnetd


Is it bad to format your ssd many times?

Formatting your SSD is not particularly different from writing to it. I wouldn't worry about it.

If you'd like to know more about SSD lifetimes, check out this question:How long will an Apple SSD last?


cp- copy a file in many folders, but only if it already exists there

I would not parse the output of ls, use the find command instead:

find . -type f -name "info.txt" -exec cp -v ../y/info.txt {} \;

Note that the -v option with cp isn't necessary, I just like to see what's being copied where.

To address a comment, the find command shown above searches the entire PWD. If you want to limit the the search to just first level subdirectories of the PWD then add -maxdepth 2 to the find command, e.g.:

find . -maxdepth 2 -type f -name "info.txt" -exec cp -v ../y/info.txt {} \;

In this scenario:

.
├── a
│   ├── 1
│   │   └── info.txt
│   └── info.txt
├── b
│   └── info.txt
└── c

Only ./a/info.txt and ./b/info.txt are replaced, ./a/1/info.txt is not.


How to view hidden files when viewing a mac through target disk mode?

Basically, the same way you would view those hidden files on your machine. You just have to go to the correct spot.  Volumes mounted via Target Disk Mode can be found in /Volumes of the filesystem.

Three common options:

From Terminal.app (found in your Applications folder, under Utilities, you can navigate to the target mode machine starting in "/Volumes". So in Terminal.app do a cd /Volumes to see the target disk and navigate to where you need to go.
From the menu bar of Finder.app, select "Go", then "Go to Folder..." and type in the path you are trying to get to.  e.g. "/Volumes/<target mode HDD>/usr/local/"
Turn on the ability to view hidden files in the Finder. In Terminal.app enter defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true && killall Finder and then point & click your way to what you need.


How to download and install updates to these Apple apps in this macOS without an Apple ID? Can I download the installer? If so, from where exactly?

The linked question bypasses the App Store, because merely owning a Mac entitles you to macOS. You can also get any of these through Software Update in the Control Panel. You'll note you can only get delta & combo updaters there, not entire installers for the whole OS - for that you need the App Store, or to boot from Recovery.
To update any app from the App Store, first you need to be signed in to the Apple ID that "purchased" it, even if that purchase was free, or it came pre-loaded on the Mac. The only exception I can think of to this might be Safari, which seems to come through the Software Update channel rather than the App Store.


Is there a totally 'clean' full-screen mode web browser?

Have you seen Vimium for Chrome?

I'm not sure if there is a way to hide the toolbar in Chrome, but the vim extension for Safari might be the last step you need for navigating using only the keyboard.


Prevent Finder from truncating tag names

If I understood your question correctly, you need to increase the width of the column. You can increase the width of the column by dragging the on the right border of the column:


This usually happens to me when the wifi connection is established without Internet connection. Also when the Internet involve passing credentials through a proxy server.

You claim that you're able to send messages but not receive them. Did you verify if those messages are sent? They are usually stored in the outbox waiting to be delivered.


How do I access the backup of my iPod Touch?

If you are using Windows 7, the backup file is located here:
C:\Users\[yourusername]\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

If you are on Windows XP, I'm sorry, and your backup file is located here:
C:\Documents and Settings\[yourusername]\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

The backup file is a database file. You won't be able to browse it manually. You can either restore it to another iOS device, or you can use specialized software to extract the data for you. This is but one example of software that does this: http://www.iphonebackupextractor.com


Windows Dissapear in Mission Control (Mac OS Catalina 10.15.5)

This is terrible, the issue resolved itself and I do not know what did it. My general usage and workflow did not change. No restart was done since posting this question, and I've attempted to recreate my previous usage.
Apologies to any who come across this issue expecting a satisfactory solution.


Buzzing sound through MBA earphones while charging

Sounds like an earthing issue. If power supply & mains plug and socket are all correctly earthed, this should lessen or disappear.
Some PSUs aren't earthed - this I've always considered a manufacturer failing.
Technically it's not 'dangerous' as the mains leakage from a switch-mode power suppy is a known quantity, but it does upset people.


Well, part of learning to use Unix is to figure out what existing scripts are doing. In this case you need to know a bit about how awk works to understand the code. I will focus on describing the awk part, this should get you started in figuring out the rest.

Basically awk is a pattern-driven scripting language, where commands consist of both a (search) pattern/condition and a corresponding code block. During execution, any input files are read line by line and if the pattern/condition is true for a line, the code block is executed. There are special patterns BEGIN and END which are used to trigger code to get executed before the first line or after the last line is read.

In your example you have three pattern/code lines:

NR==FNR {a[i++]=$0};

NR and FNR are two special variables set by awk. You can look up their meaning with man awk to see that

NR     ordinal number of the current record
FNR    ordinal number of the current record in the current file

so basically this condition is true while lines from the first line are read (which means that a[i++]=$0 is executed once for each line from the first file) and false for all additional files. $0 is the current line of input.

        {b[x++]=$0;};{k=x-i};

This code block has no condition/pattern so it gets executed for every line read (from all files including the first one).

END     {for(j=0;j<i;) print a[j++],b[k++]}'

This part runs after the last line of the last file has been read and processed.

With these basics you should be able to figure out the meaning of the different code blocks and variables yourself.


MacBook Pro Mid-2012 SSD suddenly extremely slow

I've also struggled with the same Macbook type and encountered a similar problem. Replaced the HDD with a SSD and it worked for almost two years, until the Mac became really slow.
Looks like the SATA cable is broken and needs replacement. See these ifixit instructions for the replacement.
The SSD I've used was a SanDisk SDSSDA-480G which is really slow now, even when I put it in an USB enclosure on another Mac. Writing is now limited to 2MB/s, while reading is still faster (around 250MB/s). I've verified with a different SSD and HDD that the enclosure isn't the problem for those low speeds. Looks like the disk is also damaged as side effect from the SATA cable.
I've replaced cable and SSD with new components and the same machine is now fast again.


Want to increase spead and reponsiveness in older Mac

Upgrading to Lion or Mountain Lion would not improve your Mac's performance. It may actually decrease performance as the newer versions of Mac OS X seem to require/want more RAM to run smoothly. Apple has increased the minimum amount of RAM in almost all of their line up to deal with this issue.

You currently only have 1GB of RAM... upgrading this would probably be the cheapest and most efficient method of speeding up your Mac. Freezing and unresponsiveness can be caused by lack of RAM.

Check out this Apple support article that will teach you how to use OS X's Activity Monitor to check whether RAM would improve performance.

After determining whether or not you need more RAM (you do!), you can find out what kind by following these steps:

Click the  in the Menu Bar
Click "About This Mac"
Click "More Info..." in the About This Mac dialog box
Click on the "Memory" tab

Listed will be what type of memory you have and how much. In the lower right hand corner is a link to "Memory Upgrade Instructions" — follow these instructions.


xcode 5.0.1 and 5.0.2 crashing when creating new project everytime

The same happened to me, when i was set name for new xcode project "SendTweet", it crashed while creating. But when restart my guest mac on windows the project created. Then i try to create project with different name, this time no problem, it worked.

Again I used a name "Tweetbot", This time again crashed. Just try to create with different project name, it worked.


Regarding Observation 1:

As far as I understand, this is a long-standing bug in the way Spotlight is constructed (going back to Lion or even earlier). In Sierra it has just been acerbated to the point, where I have completely abandoned Spotlight and am using the Find (CMD+F) function in Finder. With this function I find all the files I am expecting to find and have also a larger array of options to choose.

According to my understanding the issue arises as Spotlight searches by strings and has some odd rules for defining strings, which appear to not be consistent at all.

Regarding Observation 2 and 3:

If a Spotlight search has been started the CMD-F function only returns the same as the Spotlight search. I can't figure out why it does do so. So you need to shut down the Spotlight search first to get a result with Find that is different from the Spotlight search result. It looks like the search results are not refreshed in between the two searches.

Further Observation to the issue of not refreshing search results:
You search a file with Spotlight. Upon locating it you move it to a different folder. You use undo. From now on the file is found by Spotlight in the original folder even if it is moved again. But don't delete it - it is not a copy - it actually has been moved, Spotlight just refuses to acknowledge this.


Can't delete 'cloud calendar' from my iPhone

Subscribed Calendar can't be deleted directly from the Calendar app.

Go to Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars and you can unsubscribe from it.

Sometimes subscribed calendars on OS X can't be deleted on iOS.


troubleshoot applescripted typing missing shift key and numerics in windows xp under parallels 8?

It's a problem that i have brought to their attention on multiple occasions.  and as of right now, they still haven't even fixed the problem in v9 betas.  so, if this is a deal breker for you (as it was for me), keep using parallels v7.  it's the last one that they have that applescripting still works properly in.


How can I remove Photo Library from iCloud

Yes you can!
Go to Settings > iCloud > Photos.
Make sure you have selected "Download and keep originals" turned on rather than "Optimize [device] storage". This way you'll have full resolution copies of your pictures on your device. You will have to wait for all pictures to download if "Optimize..." was on.
If there is more data to download than space available, you'll have to find a different route to keep your full resolution photos.

Or you may just turn it off and it will ask you to save the data if you had "Optimize..." on.

Then check Settings > General > Storage & iCloud Usage > Manage Storage and check that your pictures are being backed up.


Macbook Pro unable to use the internet while connected to IPSec VPN

IPSec connections to Cisco routers are only allowed split routing based on the configuration of the router.  I don't know what kind of router you are connecting to,b ut an example is shown here.  Basically whomever is running the router would need to configure it to allow this behavior.


How to find IMEI serial number on a WiFi Only Device

The settings app has a general section where you can get all the various MEID / IMEI / ICCID and serial numbers. If you are being forced to make up a number, perhaps the listing isnt correct for a WiFi only device or you need to find a seller that can properly classify your hardware as WiFi only.

If you did have a cellular capable iPad, and you can’t find the information in the about section, it might need a restore or repair.


The easiest thing to for you to do is to go to the Apple ID management page and reset your password for your Apple ID associated with email address 1.


How to clear up space on 16GB iPad for iOS upgrade?

If you have an iCloud account, you can enable Photo stream and sync it to your Mac or PC, then delete them on iPad, and you can upgrade.

BTW iOS 7.0.2 to 7.0.3 OTA only takes less than 1GB of space, so you can just delete some music or apps you don't want.


You can use the union option available in OSX's mount:

sudo mount -t hfs -o union /dev/disk9s1 /tmp/union

See also: http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx/arch_fs.html


Move dock between displays keyboard shortcut (or keep on both displays)

I thought perhaps the default [Opt + Cmd +D] to toggle Turn Dock Hiding On/Off would work. I considered that, depending on which display was active, that toggling the dock would cause it to appear on whichever display was active at the time. However, I find that dock remains on the given display.

However, I believe the solution is simply to explain how the mouse or trackpad is used to move the dock.

The rule is that by moving the cursor 1" below the bottom of the given display, the dock will then move.


You're looking in the wrong section.
Photos & their sync options are in the main Summary section for that specific device

Click the Device icon in the header bar to get there - you get a drop menu if you have more than one device, otherwise it just switches...


This is currently not possible because Chrome does few things its own way. Here is the bug that tracks this

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=42434

Still if you dream about adding a comment there forget it, even if Chromium is Open-Source the team decided that they don't need external feedback and disabled the commenting.

There is also a thread on Google Forums about this bug. But again, Google closed the topic in order to avoid other comments.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/CAv_4eUkhzk

I guess that your only option would be use Twitter to tween about this issue. Be use that you mention @Google in your tweet. You will be surprised how reactive are big companies when their PR is affected by their poor experience.


NFS, AFP, SMB... Advantages and drawbacks on a Mac OS system

Essentially, NFS is the Unix way of doing network shares, AFP is the Apple way, and SMB/CIFS (they're basically the same thing) is the Microsoft way. AFP will generally work best with a MacOS system (except that most third-party implementations are currently struggling to catch up with a change made in Lion where an older and less secure authentication method was dropped) because it's better integrated with OS X authentication and with Time Machine.


Thunderbolt Adapter

Pros

Cheaper
No software configuration
Faster (although depending on the speed of the internet connection, this may be less of a factor)
More reliable (no interference, etc.)

Cons

Only usable with Macs with Thunderbolt
Mac is physically tethered to the cable
Sharing connection with other devices requires leaving the Mac on all the time

Airport Express

Pros

Works with any device that has Wi-Fi
Multiple devices can be connected at once, without additional setup
Allows your device to be free of wires

Cons

More expensive
Requires some configuration
Requires an additional power outlet
More gear to keep track of
Subject to interference from other Wi-Fi networks

If all you need to do is connect to a wired network, the Thunderbolt Adapter is probably the way to go. It's really no different than plugging into a dedicated ethernet port on older machines.

You should really only consider the Airport if you definitely need wireless capability or other devices need access when the Mac may not be available. Your Mac can create its own hotspot to share the ethernet connection with other devices, (like an iPhone).


I need to put a video in an iPhone 5s frame? How is this done?

You could download one of the product images available at: http://www.apple.com/pr/products/

And then simply overlay the video in iMovie or another video editing software. Those images have special licensing requirements on them so know what you are getting into.


How do I back up my iPhone contacts to iTunes over USB?

Connect your iPhone to your computer. Open iTunes and select your iPhone in the sidebar on the left. Select the Info tab and choose from one of the available options based on your operating system.


Disk utility on Mac and free space dispatching

I would say that this is not a common task: it's actually quite complex.

The issue is that partitions are filled up from beginning to end, so the free space in your third partition is at the end of it, so it's not adjacent to your second partition.

What you need to do is to move the data from the third partition to another hard drive (or back up your entire disk to another, which would be preferred). Once that's done, delete the third partition in Disk Utility. Expand the second partition into this free space (leaving enough room for the third partition) and re-add the third partition. Finally, copy the files back to the third partition from the copy made in the first step.


You can't.

The seven colours are unchangeable, because this is needed to provide backwards compatibility with earlier versions of OS X (where they were called labels, you could only have one, and you couldn't change the colour).

If you want a detailed explanation of why tags were implemented this way, and why that restricts the tag colours to the default, then I suggest reading page 9 of John Siracusa’s Mavericks review.


How to move spotlight back to the top right corner in El Captain?

You can click and drag the Spotlight search field anywhere on the screen and it will stay there.


On Yosemite Safari opens randomly, why? and how can I stop it?

I was having the same problem, about twice a day. I installed Little Snitch to see what servers were involved, and I noticed a Dashlane server was one of them. I disabled the Dashlane extension in Safari and it hasn't happened for the last 24 hours.


If Windows 8 has been released in your country, you should be able to find a reseller with the System Builder version available as a DVD. Local system builders is a pretty big business in most countries so just look around for someone offering custom built Windows systems.  A quick Google search on "create a DVD ISO on OS X" shows lots of how-to articles for that step.

You can either use an external DVD reader (maybe $30) or get somebody with a DVD to create the ISO for you.


How do I refresh the graph in the iOS 9 Stocks app?

It seams like the only option is closing the app via multitasking and reopening it again.

A "swipe down to refresh" function could be useful to have in this case.


Mid-2012 MacBook Pro hard drive failure (maybe? not really.)

Since only one drive gives you a flashing ? when mounted internally, you've pretty much ruled out hardware failure of the controller and the cabling.

I would first try booting into the start up manager by holding the option key with the problematic drive on the internal bus. The ? can come up when the startup disk settings in NVRAM don't match the drive, but if any drive connected is bootable, it should show when you boot with option held down.

Your next step after making sure it's not startup disk settings would be to erase that drive entirely and try reinstalling OS X onto it. You could flip a coin and decide to do the installation internally or externally.


Does default e-mail port behave differently than custom?

You wouldn't get anything from port 465 at all as it's encrypted.

Various forms of encryption use various ports (not all the same port) and keep it that way to keep themselves identifiable. Some may do their own thing, but it's entirely up to them.

Here a quick list of providers and their various ports for reference.

Generic:
Unencrypted     25 (or 587)
StartTLS        587
SSL             465

Google:
SSL             465
StartTLS        587

Yahoo:
SSL             465


Slow network transfer to linux fileserver

Use iperf to check the raw speed between your Pi and your Mac (if that's slow you have other problems). Further, check what speeds you get between your Linux laptop and your Mac to further help diagnose issues.

Note: you should not base maximum speeds on what scp can do - encryption has an overhead so you are not only taxing your network card you are also (heavily) taxing your CPU too (and for a Pi CPU will be a bottleneck).


Reclaim unaccessable harddrive space on mojave

Just faced with the same problem. I have Yosemity, separated drive without any OS and Mojave on one SSD 250. And I cant add this free space to my Mojave. only to Yusemity. If I'm not mistaken the problem is that your OS is situated on the end of the disk. I dont know how to describe it correctly, so imagine it takes not 0-50% of SSD, but 51-100%.
IMHO its bullshit, but OSx developers sometimes doing things stupid AF.
Sorry for offtop, so you need to move this drive to the beginning of your SSD and then you can enlarge its space.
Honestly, I haven't fount the sollution yet, and I suppose I will not even search, cuz' its friday's evening=) But I suppose you'll manage that)
I hope it will help you, good luck!


Tinkertool.app is just a folder. You need to run it on the actual app. Your command should be shasum -a 256 /Users/douglas/Desktop/TinkerTool.app/Contents/MacOS/Tinkertool

You can get to the actual app by right-clicking on Tinkertool.app and selecting "Show package contents" and navigating to the actual app.


You'll need two product keys, applications are not tied to your Apple ID unless you've bought them through the Mac App store, and most applications ship with the general terms of license that it's one key per person/per machine. Not used Parallels for a very long time so not sure if they've changed it but it used to be one key per machine.


Computer shutdown while downloading mojave, and now there is not enough space to download

First empty your trash (just in case). Then open Finder and hit Command + F. You should now get an empty Finder window with the option to add search parameters:

The first one, Kind is Any is already there for you. At the right side of this row click the "+" icon to add a parameter. You can see the ones I chose are:

File Size is greater than 4 GB
System files are included
Content modified is today

You may have to go into the "other" section of the dropdown menu to find "System files". In sum, this Finder search locates all files, including system files, that are greater than four gigabytes in size and modified today. Tweak the parameters if you don't believe you've found what you are looking for, and carefully review any matches so you don't delete crucial system files.


Set Firefox as default browser to open links in Gmail

UPDATE:
As @Nimar points out, the method I show below is no longer required- the user can now set a browser preference directly in IOS' settings. No need anymore for the below hack- see @Nimar's Answer below-
The only way I found was through the "Share" facility. Basically, the procedure is to add Firefox (or a another browser of your choice) as a sharing option so it can be selected when the link in a Gmail message is long-pressed.
"Share" Menu Configuration:
The following illustrated procedure uses Firefox to modify the list of apps available as a source to share with to add Firefox. However, you can add Firefox as a sharing source from some other app if you care to.  Procedure will still be the same.  Please note the images are cropped to only show the parts of the interface you need to work with

Using Firefox with Gmail:
Using a Gmail message, I'll now illustrate how you can open links with Firefox using a long-press on the link:

That's how you can circumvent Google's restriction on using a browser other than their own and Apple's Safari.  Hopefully a future version of Gmail will make all this unnecessary, but until; they do...


Cannot Download or View Canadian Immigration Form

I was finally able to download the Canadian immigration .pdf document.

The solution was to use Firefox, and to reset FF's preferences regarding .pdf files from "Open in browser" to "save file." I have been unable to find a similar setting in Safari.


How do I access Itunes U Course Manager if my country isn’t supported?

Use a VPN.

You can use a service like TunnelBear (not affiliated) so that you can appear to be using the service from another country.

If you have a "friend" in the country of question, you can set up your own VPN (OpenVPN) between your and their locations.  This is obviously a DIY solution and you would need the requisite skills.


How to convert Audible AAX file audiobook M4B on a Mac using Terminal

How to convert Audible AAX files to M4B audiobook.

Open terminal by pressing CMD + Space and then typing "terminal".

Once terminal is open, paste the following command: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)" and click enter.

Follow the instructions given (pressing enter, typing password, ect...)

Once Homebrew is installed, paste the following command: brew install ffmpeg and press enter.
Now paste brew install cask and press enter.
Paste brew cask install chromedriver and press enter.
Paste curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py and press enter.
Paste python get-pip.py and press enter.
Paste pip install selenium requests and press enter.
Paste git clone https://github.com/inAudible-NG/audible-activator and press enter.

10b. If you have a one-time password, please use git clone https://github.com/weliveindetail/audible-activator/tree/pause-enter-otp instead.
Paste cd audible-activator and press enter.
Paste sed -i '' 's,chromedriver_path = "./chromedriver",chromedriver_path = "/usr/local/bin/chromedriver",' audible-activator.py and press enter.
Paste python audible-activator.py and press enter.
Now, enter your Audible account username and password.
Enter your one-time password (if you have one) and go to terminal and press enter.
Terminal should print your 8 digit activation key.
Paste ffmpeg -activation_bytes <<<YOUR KEY HERE>>> -i (replacing <<<YOUR KEY HERE>>> with your 8 digit activation key), then drag your Audible AAX file into terminal, paste -c copy ~/Downloads/output.m4b and finally press enter. You can use any path/name instead of "~/Downloads/output.m4b".  The command should look like this:

That's it!

Also, this is not a duplicate... I hope that people can see how it is different than other posts about this topic.


Mountain Lion Share Sheet Keyboard Shortcuts?

Though these actions can be given shortcuts for All Applications, it does not  appear that they will work in all apps. For example, Finder and Safari will not recognize them, but Preview will. I'm not sure if this is the intended functionality—due to some of the applications having application-specific sharing options—or a bug.


How to determine if there are public transit apps for your region?

This question is outdated as Apple Maps (iOS 10) now supports transit but an alternative to Apple Maps is Google Maps which in my experience is the best way to find transit to get from A to B but I encourage you to compare both based on where you live.


How to disable Open Directory to startup with Mac OS X

In my opinion - as a SysAdmin/Mac supporter - this is a really bad hack and it is not recommended. But it works!

You probably can forcefully unbind your Mac and reconfigure it by using the .AppleSetupDone method. This may "poison" the Open Directory though, because your Mac isn't properly unbound from the disconnected/non-reachable OD server.

Reboot to Single User Mode with cmdS
Enter /sbin/fsck -fy
Enter /sbin/mount -uw /
Enter rm -r /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/
Enter rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

On the first attempt this didn't work for me – I got some override root messages. Simply enter yes then. This doesn't remove the files/folder in question though. I repeated the last three steps but accidentally entered /sbin/mount -rw / (which doesn't mean read-write but read-only followed by a read/write) as first command.

Enter /sbin/mount -rw / (/sbin/mount -w / should also work but that's unclear)
Enter rm -r /Library/Preferences/DirectoryService/
Enter rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

After a reboot (shutdown -r now) you should get the Config Assistant and create a new local admin account.

After setting up the new admin user, open System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options > Network Account Server. You probably have to remove any listed OD to properly work with your local admin account.


Full Wi-fi/ethernet signal but no internet

Here is a step-by-step guide for you:

Temporarily disable any Firewall/Internet Security solution/packet filter on your Mac (like LittleSnitch/Hands Off!/Kaspersky Internet Security etc.)
Connect to the administrative interface of your router with a working Mac.
Make a note of the internal interface (probably 192.168.0.1 in your case)
If your router uses MAC-filters to control access, check that the Mac in question isn't blacklisted or is whitelisted if you use whitelists. To get the MAC-address of a Wi-fi interface, open System Preferences -> Network -> Choose "Wi-fi" -> Advanced -> Hardware -> MAC Address on the Mac without internet access.
On the Mac without internet access disable all interfaces in the network preferences pane except the Wi-fi interface by choosing the interface and clicking on the little gear -> "Make Service Inactive". You might have to unlock the lock in the left bottom corner first.
Choose the Wi-fi interface and click 'Advanced'
Choose the TCP/IP settings, choose to configure IPv4 manually and enter the proper IP-address, netmask and gateway address (enter the IP-address found in step 2 as gateway address). In your example  this should be any address not already in use in the range of 192.168.0.2-192.168.0.254 as IP-address, 255.255.255.0 as netmask and 192.168.0.1 as gareway.
Choose the DNS tab next to the TCP-IP settings.
Enter 8.8.8.8 as DNS server. This DNS server is a public one from Google.
Save/apply the settings
Open Terminal.app
Flush any existing routes by entering route -n flush several times.
Flush DNS cache with dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder. You have to enter your admin password to complete the task. This works with Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) only. If another OS X is installed use the appropriate command.
Now ping the gateway address and the DNS server with ping -c 5 192.168.0.1 and ping -c 5 8.8.8.8. The command sends 5 pings to the specified address. To stop pinging - if you didn't include the -c  option - just enter ctrlC.
If you get a successful answer, quit Terminal. If you didn't get an answer, enter ifconfig en1 and re-check the proper settings of your Wi-fi interface. en1 should be your Wi-fi interface.
Return to the network preferences and reenable all other interfaces. Check that the Wi-fi interface is on top of the list. To reorder the list click on the little gear -> "Set Service Order..." and rearrange the interfaces.
Now open a browser of your choice and try to connect to an arbitrary site.
If you have internet access now, you may replace the Google DNS server with DNS-servers of your ISP or simply add them.

This guide didn't solve the problem.

After some very deep investigations (kudos also to John Keates) we found out that a misconfigured dnscrypt/dnscrypt-proxy was the culprit.


Partition issues after deleting Core Storage Logical Volume Group. Everything prompts an unmount error

Boot into Recovery Mode (hold down Command+R on startup) . Restore your computer or try to partion it through the Recovery HD.


Retina performance much worse than non-retina in Windows on Parallels and VMWare

I figured this out after a long time.

In MacOS under 'displays' I had 'More Space' selected under resolution - rather than 'Default' or 'Default for display'.

This scales the screen which works OK on MacOS and in the VM in non retina mode - but this is what drastically slows things in Retina mode. Set this to Default (it's actually faster, smoother & more crisp in MacOS like that too as it's pixel perfect not scaled).


Applescript to automate process for screen cast setup

You didn't say what version of OS X you're using, although I'm assuming it's OS X El Capitan, which is what this was tested under. This is kind of a kludge but it works nonetheless. Using Script Editor and the AppleScript code below, I made an AppleScript application that toggles the state of hiding/unhiding the Dock and Menu bar, as well as changing the wallpaper between the two states.

Here's where the kludge comes in. Because there is not one explicit way, that I know of, to code the script to do everything in the background as easily as toggling the state of the auto hide preference of the Dock and changing the wallpaper, a mix of methods needs to be used. One of which requires giving the application assistive access rights to perform the toggling of the "Automatically hide and show the menu bar" checkbox in the General section of System Preferences.

It'd be nice if something like tell menu preferences to set autohide to not autohide would work the same way it does for the Dock, but it doesn't and why using a UI programmatic method is required to toggle the state of the Menu bar.

Otherwise this could all be done in the background and not having to give the application permission to manipulate the UI. (There actually is a way, however it's not as clean as this way is, in that it requires programmatically killing Finder for the change to the global preferences .plist file to toggle the state of the menu bar to take effect. So I prefer this method as the changes appear more gracefully made, then... bam... done and now wondering what the heck just happened.)

Note: As coded I'm making the assumption that the state of both the Dock and the Menu bar are in sync. In other words, they are both always either showing or hidden together under normal usage and as such this script toggles the state of each to the opposite of the current state prior to its execution. If that is not the case, then additional logic needs to be applied.

In this example code, the wallpaper is set between the OS X El Capitan default and another in its Desktop Pictures collection. Obviously you can choose whatever you want for each state.

The only code you should have to change is the pathname of the image files being used for the Desktop wallpaper.

tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    reveal pane id "com.apple.preference.general"
    delay 1
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    click checkbox "Automatically hide and show the menu bar" of window "General" of process "System Preferences"
    key code 12 using command down
    tell dock preferences to set autohide to not autohide
    if (get autohide of dock preferences) is false then
        set picture of desktop 1 to POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures/El Capitan.jpg"
    else
        set picture of desktop 1 to POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures/Desert.jpg"
    end if
end tell

To use this code, do the following:

Open Script Editor.
Copy and paste the code from the Browser to Script Editor.
Edit the pathnames of the images to be used for the wallpaper.
Save the script as an Application.
Open a Finder window to the location you saved the application. (This it to facilitate giving it assistive access in the next instructions.)
Open System Preferences and navigate to: Security & Privacy > Accessibility > Privacy
Click the lock to make changes.
Provide proper credentials and click Unlock.
Drag and drop the application from Finder into the "Allow the apps below to control your computer." window and then check the checkbox next to the application's name.

Or if you didn't first locate it in Finder, click the [+] button and navigate to the location you saved the app, etc.

Close System Preferences.

That's it... It should now be ready to use.


Using dictation to transcribe audio files in batch?

You can use SFSpeechRecognizer (mirror) (requires macOS 10.15+): this is made for speech recognition and it's an SDK so you can write some code for batch processing.

  Perform speech recognition on live or prerecorded audio, receive transcriptions, alternative interpretations, and confidence levels of the results.

Note that
from https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/256/ (mirror):


How can I rename a Logical Volume Group?

If you have Yosemite installed, diskutil now includes the option to rename a Core Storage logical volume group (LVG) from the command line:

$ diskutil cs rename
Usage:  diskutil coreStorage rename lvgUUID|lvgName newName
Rename a CoreStorage logical volume group. Do not confuse this with LV names.
Ownership of the affected disks is required.

So use diskutil cs list to get a list of your Core Storage volumes, then diskutil cs rename "Crucial M4 SSD" newVolumeGroupName to rename the LVG.

I haven't tested this on a mounted volume, so I don't know if you can do it without unmounting the volume. That may mean that you need to boot off an external disk with Yosemite installed in order to rename the LVG.


How to restore pre-update OS from Time Machine?

If you’re looking for a certain file or folder, start by connecting the external drive that you use for Time Machine backups or by making sure that you can connect to your Time Capsule. Click the Time Machine item in the menu bar at the top of your screen (it looks like a clock with an arrow running counterclockwise around it), and choose Enter Time Machine. Here, all of your saved backups will appear in chronological order. Use the visual timeline on the right side to scroll through your backups and look for specific items or folders.

Select the file or folder you want, and press the Restore button. The file(s)/folder(s) will automatically be copied to your desktop or to the file’s original folder. This may take some time, depending on the size of the transfer.


Check these:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1846
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4410
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1461


Deleting a 'No such file or directory' file

Removing a .Trashes directory or a .Trash directory is the wrong approach. You want to just remove the files and directories within your .Trashes or .Trash directory. Assuming your shell is bash you can list those file system objects in your .Trashes directory with find. In this example the secondary hard drive is named backup.

find /Volumes/backup/.Trashes/"$UID" ! -name "$UID"

If the results are the files you wish to delete then you can add -delete to the find statement. Please be very careful applying this option.

find /Volumes/backup/.Trashes/"$UID" ! -name "$UID" -delete

For files in your home folder's .Trash directory

find ~/.Trash ! -name .Trash -delete


I just figured out that there is a special gesture to do that.

I need to swipe all the way to the bottom of the touchpad and then hold my finger for a while.

That gesture does the trick both on the secondary screen and on fullscreen applications.


How to synchronize new Notes from iPad to Mac

According to Apple:

  You can sync with the Notes app using IMAP or iCloud. Syncing Notes using iTunes is no longer supported on OS X v10.8 and later.

There may be a possibility that it could still work, as it is specifically mentioned later in the article:

  If you want to sync notes with iTunes instead of using the over-the-air feature, disable Notes sync for the account using Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars or Settings > iCloud.

Though when I disabled Notes on the iPad, then synced to iTunes, the info pane never showed Notes as an option. I would perform the following steps to give it a fair shot:

On the iPad -> Settings -> iCloud - disable notes
On the iPad -> Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars - make sure no other service is using Notes
On the Mac -> Notes -> Accounts - make sure Notes is turned off in all accounts.

According to the documentation, this should force iTunes to recognize that no sync options are available and provide some option to sync Notes, but it didn't "just work" for me.


Does Yosemite make my system run faster what about performance and
  heat?

Faster?  Not that you are going to be significantly notice.  If your apps were slow to begin with, they are going to be just as slow with an OS upgrade.

Performance?  Heat?  (I assume you are talking about efficiency here.)  You will probably notice increase stability in your apps. Any performance gains (speed) will be negligible. Again, if your app is slow on Mavericks, it will continue to be slow on Yosemite.

Heat is a topic that seems to get way more attention than it deserves.  The temperature of your CPU/GPU is dependent on how much work it's doing. If you have no processes running that consume CPU cycles, it won't generate any heat.  Conversely, if you have lots, it will generate lots of heat.  If the CPU gets too hot, it will shut itself down.  In large data centers we concern ourselves with heat, but not to the degree (pun intended, maybe) here.  Worrying about very minute temperature changes of a CPU is academic at best.

Should you upgrade?

Yes.  Beyond any perceived performance enhancements, you need to get security and bug fixes.  Holding on to an old version of an OS can potentially lock you out of important fixes.  That said, I have personally held off on Sierra because all the perceived benefits it brought are outweighed by the myriad of issues it has (El Cap is still current, so it's not a problem).

However, I wouldn't go to Yosemite;  I would go to El Capitan and be done with it (it's the highest OS supported by your MacBook Pro).  Personally, I have found El Cap to be extremely stable even on older MacBook Pros such as yours.

Although Apple has traditionally killed off the ability to download older versions of macOS unless you "purchased" it previously, they have made the El Captain installer available for users with Macs unsupported by Sierra.

On a side note, I suggest "purchasing" (aka downloading) every macOS version that comes out even if you have no plans on using it immediately.  This will link it to your AppleID and you will have access to it long after it's no longer supported.  You can delete it once the download is complete, but the "purchase" record will be there.

Upgrade your hardware.

If you want to see higher performance (and less heat), you should upgrade your RAM to the max of 8GB.1  This will ensure that more of your apps reside in RAM rather than on you hard drive (in swap).  You will also want to upgrade to an SSD which runs significantly cooler and faster than a traditional hard drive.

This, more than anything will give you a performance boost.  Basically, upgrade your OS to stay current.  Upgrade your hardware for performance.

1 Everymac.com Maximum RAM:  8GB.  RAM Type:  PC3-8500


Can't download DOC or PDF from iCloud web app

It seems to be enabled after having opened on iOS, my thinking is that it's something to do with the message you get when opening an iOS version of something created on OS X, which lets you open copy or open, saying that it may look different. Anyway, after opening on iOS, you can download from iCloud.com in all three formats, however, after saving or editing on OS X the PDF and DOC options are blanked again.


apps/music/photo sync **after** clean install of iOS 7

Yes. When you do a clean install of iOS 7 no to your device, iTunes will prompt you to set up your device. When asked to restore from backup, choose Set up as new iPhone. This will mean that you don't restore your data and preserve your 'fresh' install.

Use the tabs across the top of iTunes to select exactly what you would like to sync back to your device. Apps that you sync to your device using the Apps tab in iTunes do not restore the app data, unless the app data is stored in iCloud, or through some other method of syncing data (i.e. Dropbox content that is pulled from Dropbox servers).


Reconciling Chrome Shortcuts in Parallels

The best I've found is to go into Parallels Preferences and add the key-binds I use:

Cmd-Shift-R Full Refresh
Cmd-R Simple Refresh
Cmd-Shift-I Open Dev Tools
Cmd-O While Dev Tools are open, search for a file

Maybe others will have additional shortcuts that they use.


dual-boot (ElCapitan and Mojave) on a Mac Pro 5,1?

One possible solution is to install rEFInd Boot Manager. This is free software which can be configured many different ways. Below is a suggested configuration.

By default, rEFInd installs in the EFI partition. You can then configure rEFInd to either boot El Capitan or Mojave. The default operating system to boot can be set directly from the operating system. There is simple AppleScript application you can download which will do this. As example of the application is shown below.


Apple has ditched matte laptop displays: Display replacement options?

Apple sells an Anti-glare filter on the online Apple Store.

An alternative is the Moshi iVisor which you can find on Amazon.


AppleTV “Watch Now” doesn't recognize purchased content in library

Sometimes Apple stops selling an item in the iTunes Store (is it still called that?) and when they do Watch Now stops working as expected. This is the answer I've gotten from multiple chats with Apple representatives.


iMac 27" 5K i7 2017 starts to blow like h**l when Chrome Canary is open with just 1 tab

I resolved this issue by doing the following:

I checked my Wi-Fi and Ethernet connexions to spot if there was a problem there and I noticed that there where more than 5.000 mach thingys active and the number kept on growing on the Ethernet connexion.
I first thought that it was some kind of DDos attack...

To be sure, I reset my switch.
Once the switch was back up, the problem was resolved.
Now the 'SystemUIserver' is running at 0.1% and this with like 10 tabs open in Canary.


Apple does not provide an automatic function for this.

You can manually Use Airport Utility and its "archive disk" function to make a snapshot copy of the current Time Capsule drive to an external disk connected directly into the Time Capsule's USB port.

This can take several hours. But if your time capsule dies then you could copy these files back to a new Time Capsule or a repaired Time Capsule.

See pondini.org.


Recipients of my gmail don't see my address

They are almost certainly seeing the name you entered for yourself in settings. To fix this:

Open System Preferences app.
Tap on Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Tap on the account you are having the problem with.
Tap where it says "Account" followed by your email address and a right-facing arrow.
In the first box, "Name", it probably says Gmail. Change it to what you want to appear in your return emails.


Windows 8 RP says no network adapter found under boot camp in the new Retina MBP. Can anyone help me get the driver for the network adapter?

Okay, after a bit more of searching online, found the driver, installed it and it works. Here's the link for anyone else who might need: http://www.wireless-driver.com/broadcom-wireless-driver-utility-winxp-vista-win7-ver51001968/

Thanks.


Is there a way to dedicate the discrete graphic card to CUDA on a MacBook Pro?

The solution for that kind of problem is to shut down the graphical windows management and to use Mac OS from a TTY. This is cumbersome, but not as much as to dual-boot your machine and to switch from one OS to the other.

The way to do that is to go into Settings->Users and to set the login options to "username and passwords" (default is user list).
Then log out all users and go to log screen

In the login testbox, fill in >console
and type your password in the password box (you must have admin rights, but I assume this is already the case)

Here you go, you're in text mode and the GPU is fully available for CUDA. You gotta know the basics of the shell though...


Why the launchd has multiple instances per user (not only me and root, but also _spotlight and _windowserver)?

The clear answer is that by separating processes into users, you separate the permissions that each process inherits. This is a long standing unix idiom for security and control of resources by placing per user limits on things like open files and memory and even threads/processes.

On OS X - spotlight needs to spawn processes to index files, window server is responsible for bringing up the lock screen, and things to prepare for the first graphical user to log in. Root is the defacto admin account with broad levels of power and permissions. Each user process gets a launchd to start the programs and things they need.

As far as official documentation, I'd start with this article on Daemons and Services.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/Introduction.html

It shows the user vs system level split already in the first page. You can search for other launchd topics from that link if needed (or use Xcode to browse the documentation offline).


Backing up images that are in iPhoto Library

You can do so even without your back-up program.
Inside the Pictures folder you'll see a file called iPhoto Library. Copy this file to a location you find suitable for your backup and vwoila, there is your back-up!

And just for the record, why don't you use TimeMachine?


OneNote's box-outlines and text caret randomly become unresponsive on Sierra and High Sierra

I found a consistent workaround for myself:

Three-finger-swipe up (or any equivalent, to see your Spaces), select any other application, and OneNote should be normal again when you come back.

This issue may (or may not) be occurring due to using multiple desktops (Spaces), and possibly due to having multiple OneNote windows open (on different desktops).


Typing into Safari on iPad extremely slow

If you are only running iOS 9 or 9.1, upgrade to the latest version, iOS 9.2.1. This version improved performance on older devices. If you do happen to be running this version, I would suggest restoring the device and not restoring from a backup such as iCloud or iTunes.


Change mouse pointer in iTerm2 (or disable mouse pointer)

It's quite old, but...

Open finder (or mc or anything else) then go to /Applications/Iterm.app (press right mouse and choose "Show package content" if in Finder) Content/Resource/

IBarCursor.tiff and IBarCursorXMR.tiff are the cursor images. You can replace or delete them.


Is there a trick to making Adobe products play nice with Mission Control?

According to Adobe's support pages, more development is needed to support all the features of 10.7 like "Autosave, Restore, Versioning, Full Screen Mode, and more multi-touch gestures."  I think Mission Control is part of this.


Editing track names in iTunes made difficult by invisibility of text

Looks like a bug to me. I'd report it to Apple Bug Report

Only seems to do it in Album view when the album's background colour is dark enough that the inverted colour used would be light or white. Then as you edit, you get white on white.

In My Music/Album view, you can see against the album background how/why it may choose the highlight colour [not necessarily the best choice, as the edit background is always white].

In Playlists/Album view you can't see 'why' as the background is always white but it does just the same. It also seems to take a slight swing towards white text compared to the sometimes very light but just about visible colours it chooses in My Music view.

Easiest repro is on an album with no cover image. Does it every time.

Album with purple/yellow predominance as an example…

Music/album view, yellow text

Playlist/album view, yellow becomes white


I solved this by changing values under setting/messages/send receive.
For the iPhone enter the phone number then mark it with a check mark.
For the iPad enter your Apple ID.
My initial confusion stemmed from thinking that the Apple ID had to be used for both. It may have been that way long ago. I am not sure.
Good luck.

5/14/2016 Hi, your latest post says your husband has his phone number checked on his iPad. I have my Apple ID checked on my iPad. Also, I recommend deleting the old text messages as they might be giving false impressions. The original programmers are probably shocked that their strategy is being tested by families that have o many Apple devices!


Does my MacBook Pro (2016) supports CUDA?

CUDA is a NVIDIA technology and only exists on NVIDIA graphics cards. Your MacBook Pro has an AMD graphics card and therefore doesn't support CUDA.


Yes, you can!
--EDIT--
The below still works, BUT, turns out, JoyPixels (open source emoji and the closest Google emoji / Noto Font replacement) has multiple versions of their emoji set including a .ttc file directly for download on their website for free that you can simply download and install as a font easily: https://www.joypixels.com/fonts
Fonts are in a .ttf file format, but Apple compiles those files using a SBIX format and others use other methods, typically CBDT/CBLC is used. Because of this, even though you have a .ttf file, it has to be compiled in the SBIX format. There is a user (vXBaKeRXv) on Github who has compiled multiple emoji fonts using the SBIX format. There's a Github thread and a Medium article on what to do. Quoting from the Medium article:

The Step-by-Step

Head over to this Github repo and download the .deb archive that contains your emoji set of choice.
Extract/open the .deb archive. Once inside, extract the archive named data.tar.gz. You’ll now see a folder called var. Inside that is a folder called mobile. Keep on going deeper and you’ll eventually reach your destination: a font file named AppleColorEmoji@2x.ttf.
Rename AppleColorEmoji@2x.ttf by putting spaces between each word and removing the ending, so that the new file name is Apple Color Emoji.ttf.
Keeping that Finder window open, start up Font Book (the built-in app where you can manage all the fonts installed on your device). In the left side panel at the top, select the ‘Computer’ option to show all the fonts you’ve installed as well as the default system fonts. If you scroll down the list of fonts, you should see an entry called Apple Color Emoji close to the bottom. This is the font file you’ll be overwriting, but don’t worry, this process is easily reversible!
Drag the Apple Color Emoji.ttf from the Finder window into Font Book. You’ll be prompted to install the font. It may warn you about it being a duplicate, but we already know that, so keep on going. Once you finish installing the new emoji font, you’re good to go! Try out your new emoji set by opening up your browser of choice, selecting a text field, and press CTRL+CMD+SPACEBAR to quickly bring up the emoji picker.

For step 2, this works on a Mac to unpack a .deb file without installing it:
ar -x path/to/deb/file.deb


How can I set 4 x 6 as the default printer setting?

If you print from the command line with lp you can do something like:

lp -o media=Custom.4x6in filename

That will print at 6x4 on the default printer the file called filename.

On my HP inkjet that made it pick the photo tray over the main tray.

So, put the above in a script and have automator run it pointing at the directory with the files in.


Why are Chinese characters showing up as one of the text field menu buttons in iOS Youtube comments?

That button is to convert Simplified Chinese to Complicated Chinese.

So you select some Simplified Chinese text like:

我喜欢吃面包 (I like to eat bread)

Tap that Chinese pop up option and it converts it to:

我喜歡吃麵包 (I like to eat bread)

Which is the Complicated Chinese version of that sentence, but still retains the same meaning.

You can do this vice versa.

If you don't use Chinese at all, you can just simply ignore it.

Some additional information.
Complicated Chinese is the traditional Chinese used for thousands of years. China and Taiwan used to have it has their main language but now only Taiwan has it.

China uses Simplified Chinese to make writing simpler.

It's not very complicated to convert from one to another as there is hardly any grammatical changes. Just only the way some characters are written have been changed.