Can an Apple TV 2 be operated without HDMI plugged in?

I know for sure Apple TV works fine with AirPlay to send audio out the Toslink (digital optical) with or without a HDMI cable connected.

The converter you linked to seems to take RCA (electric) digital signal and turns it into Toslink (optical) digital signal so I doubt that's exactly what you want to get to a headphone jack with analog stereo (electric) signal.

Since it's not clear what input your stereo wants, it's unclear if everything will work, but the Apple TV will work as you ask.

I have this setup (but Toslink to my speaker) as well as a second stereo connected via bluetooth and a Belkin receiver that connects to the normal 1/8" headphone jack. That might be cheaper than cables and an adapter if the distance is 30 feet or less.


Very quiet audio output under Windows 10 (Late 2016 MacBook Pro)

I have the same problem on a MacBook Air with the Cirrius drivers. I managed to get the volume to boost a little by checking the "disable all enhancements" box on the sound properties (as some online had suggested from a few years back), but still no where near as load as it gets on a Mac. It is certainly a driver issue but so far I've yet to find a fixed driver.


Why do certain apps fill the background of Mission Control in Mavericks?

This appears to have been fixed in either Yosemite or the latest version of Office. I've been using this combination for some time now and have yet to encounter this. (I haven't tried Skype, though.)


Cannot go fullscreen by dragging a app in mission control

This can be solved by enabling Displays have seperate spaces in System Preferences (Found under Mission Control). Then logout and log back in to apply the setting.


What could be the reason for dock icons to have disappeared?

That is a strange behavior which happens to many users. One way to fix that is to open a terminal and use the killall-command.

Because the launchpad is connected with the dock, you can just use the following command to get your icons back:

killall Dock

That should fix your dock and launchpad-problem. But I don't know if it will help for the missing Desktop-icons.


What devices are supported for bluetooth in OS X Mavericks

It depends on your hardware.

You can click on the Apple Menu - then about this mac then support (in the tabs in the window) then lastly User Manual.

From there, you can know your model year and model. Most OS X macs support the following profiles:

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10549

A2DP
AVRCP
DUN
FTP
HCRP
HSP
HID
OPP
SPP


Why can't I connect to local devices via VPN when IP subnet is the same between both networks?

In your Mac's network settings, the local network is probably set to 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0, this means that all IP addresses from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.255 are local. The option "Send all traffic over VPN connection" does not help here because it affects only non-local traffic.
What you might try (but I would not recommend it) is to change your Mac's network setup to manual, then change the network mask, so only your friend's router is left in the local network. Assuming the router has 10.0.0.1, then the mask should change to 255.255.255.254 to route all other IP addresses through the VPN. Note that this makes it impossible to reach any other device in the local network. Note also that this setting cannot work when you are back in your own network. Finally, note also that this is a theoretical solution which I haven't tried, and it may well be that it causes other problems that I'm not thinking of.
The correct and recommended solution would be that you change the IP range of your local network to something more unusual that is unlikely to collide with other local networks, like for example 10.99.111.0/255.255.255.0. This is how I solved this problem, and I've never had any network collisions any more, even though I've used VPN from many different networks in other companies, hotels etc.


MacBook Pro randomly waking up from sleep after Catalina update

After Catalina updated itself to 10.15.1 just yesterday, my iMac has slept through the night like a baby.... Hope it would be the same coming night.

[edit]

Didn't worked next night. Still waking up more then once an hour. Looks like it works once after a proper reboot, but then gets into some state where it wakes up more then once an hour. I have an external Monitor which wakes up too and brightens the bedroom with "not connected" message. Also, I can hear annoyingly loud 3T fusion hard drive of iMac.

I will try to reboot tonight and see if it would help the problem. Will report here.

[more research]

My iMac is configured to go to sleep at 10:00pm every day in Properties > Energy Saver > Schedule.

According to pmset -g log report, the first night (when it worked) it has the following message right before it goes to sleep:

2019-10-30 22:10:29 +1100 Sleep                 Entering Sleep state due to 'Idle Sleep': Using AC (Charge:0%) 29966 secs

And this is the same line for the next night where it didn't sleep through the entire night and were waking up periodically (It is configured to be allowed to sleep when the display is off, and the display goes off after 15 minutes idle.):

2019-10-31 22:10:29 +1100 Sleep                 Entering Sleep state due to 'Software Sleep pid=205': Using AC (Charge:0%) 1599 secs

Note that pid=205 is the loginwindow process running in user space.

Note the sec value at the end of the log record. 29966 secs equates to 08:19:26, and 1599 secs is 00:26:39. So it makes sense. The second time it went for a shorter sleep despite my Schedule setting.

So it looks like between the fresh boot up state and the following (after wake up) state, there has some hand over of duties happened, and the other system failed to set up the sleep parameters the same way.

Note that on Energy Saver screen I have only 'Put hard disks to sleep when possible' checked, the other options like 'Enable Power Nap', 'Wake for network access' and 'Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off' are all OFF.


So to summarize, the app ipa is on the iOS device and you need more logs from iOS.
TestFlight is the solution to this sort of problem since it enables telemetry to the developer that you can’t get using iTunes or macOS Finder.
Tell the developer the app doesn’t launch when connected to the internet and to send a new build. Their code signing is being rejected. One reason could be your test device isn’t enrolled for non-production code entitlements. Since you don’t have a Mac, Xcode can’t help you read the specifics from your device. In this case, they should use TestFlight so that you don’t have to mess with these easily preventable failures and make it easier for them to collect failures from your test devices (IMO).

https://developer.apple.com/testflight/


You need to escape the non-printing parts of the prompt by surrounding them with \[…\].

export PS1="\[\033[0;34m\]\u:\W\[\e[0;32m\][\@]\[\e[m\033[0;34m$\033[m\] "

Otherwise, readline gets confused about the remaining space on the command line.


Mac doesn't show right information in Storage

iCloud storage isn't included in your Mac's storage at all - because it isn't on your Mac.
It's in a separate area in System Preferences > iCloud…


You can just select View -> Hide Toolbar in Safari... no extension required


Getting Time Machine backups working with an Iomega Home Cloud Edition NAS

It seems that TM is looking for an other/older backup drive.
You can check it in TM preferences, under select disks panel.
If you have 2 entry disk, remove the one you don't use.


can i put this ram into my imac 21.5 mid 2010 corsair cmso8gx3m2a1333c

A quick Google suggests that memory is two 4 GB SO-DIMM sticks of 1333 MHz DDR3, which matches the specs given by Apple and EveryMac.

It's possible that you've just got a couple bad sticks of RAM. I'd suggest testing them one at a time, rotating through the slots. If possible, test in another machine as well.


How do I maintain two different iOS devices on a single iMac

Easy way: create multiple user accounts on your Mac, a tutorial can be found here.

-or-

Hard way: create different iTunes libraries for your user account.  You'll need to:

Quit iTunes
Hold down the Option key and then launch iTunes
Click the "Create Library..." button on the dialog that is displayed
Once you've created the different libraries, you need to remember to use the Option key and then "Choose Library..." to switch between the two every time you start iTunes

A multi-part tutorial can be found here.


How do you access shared folders on a Windows machine from a MacBook Air?

Command-K in the Finder

The address should be smb://<Windows IP or Hostname>

Hope this helps!


Can I disable font antialiasing in Terminal.app on Big Sur?

I've seen a similar problem - though it behaves differently when terminal is restarted. For me, if I untick, then restart terminal, the startup sessions will render correctly. Adding further tabs or windows after restart will use the aliased font. i.e. will be inconsistent across sessions


Why isn't KeyRemap4MacBook's "PageUp/PageDown to Left/Right (only in iPhoto)" setting working?

I posted my question on the KeyRemap4MacBook Google Group, and got a reply from Takayama Fumihiko, the creator of KeyRemap4MacBook.  He had me send him the vendor ID and product ID for the device, and sent me back a private.xml file with a new setting that worked.  (The pre-defined "PageUp/PageDown to Left/Right (only in iPhoto)" setting only works with the vendor ID and product ID for the Kensington K33374 USB remote.)

Here's the private.xml file contents:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>

  <devicevendordef>
    <vendorname>Tenx_Technology_Inc</vendorname>
    <vendorid>0x1130</vendorid>
  </devicevendordef>

  <deviceproductdef>
    <productname>Tenx_wireless_USB_gadget</productname>
    <productid>0x6604</productid>
  </deviceproductdef>

  <item>
    <name>PageUp/PageDown to Left/Right (only in iPhoto)</name>
    <appendix>(This is effective only with "Tenx_wireless_USB_gadget")</appendix>
    <identifier>private.pageupdown2leftright_iphoto</identifier>
    <only>IPHOTO</only>
    <device_only>DeviceVendor::Tenx_Technology_Inc,DeviceProduct::Tenx_wireless_USB_gadget</device_only>
    <autogen>--KeyToKey-- FROMKEYCODE_PAGEUP,   KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT</autogen>
    <autogen>--KeyToKey-- FROMKEYCODE_PAGEDOWN, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT</autogen>
  </item>

</root>

See the "How to add new settings" section in the KeyRemap4MacBook documentation for instructions on what to do with the private.xml file (except replace the file instead of editing the original one with a text editor).


Well, as a workaround, you could use Xmarks.

Syncing your bookmarks with Xmarks works with both Chrome and Safari, so anything you add in Safari will appear in Chrome and visa versa.

That way you can also add a bookmark in Chrome, it will sync to Safari over Xmarks and then out to your iOS devices with iCloud.

Probably not what you wanted, but it will work. It's what I ended up doing.


How to get photos to sync in order on iPhone?

They are sorted in order of EXIF creation date, which is not necessarily the same as the Date Created shown by the finder.

You can use exiftool to view and also set these dates to sort your images...

exiftool -overwrite_original_in_place -CreateDate="2008:12:18 12:34:56.78"  MyImage.JPG


Time machine backups on external HDD over WiFi

Time Capsule (networked Time Machine) relies on the share being AFP.  If you can get your router to share the file via AFP everything should work.  My guess is that that will take quite a bit of work though.  You might start with DD-WRT.


Would Apple (UK) change a part with another for you?

I'd be very surprised if they would - there's no standard Apple product to replace an optical drive with an SSD.

You'd either need to do it yourself using any one of the third-party optical bay solutions (see this question) or have a third party hardware repair firm do it for you. In both cases, however, you'd be voiding your Apple warranty as the optical drive is not a user serviceable part.


Always open PDFs from one path with a non-default program

Using Finder for file management?

Drag your program of choice into the toolbar and drop it there:

  Add a file or an app: Press and hold the Command key, then drag the item to the Finder toolbar until you see a green plus sign.

Now double click on a PDF will open the PDF still in Preview.

You can select your other PDFs and then drop them on the Toolbar icon for the program of your choice.

Using a more programmery way would be to make an alias to

open -a YourAlternativePDFViwer.app

Then you type in Terminal your alias, drag&drop all your special PDFs on the Terminal. Terminal then expands all the paths to your PDFs and upon hitting Enter your preferred viewer should open all those PDFs.

Even easier would be an alias that reads as follows:

open -a YourAlternativePDFViwer.app /path/to/your/SpecialtyPDFS/*.pdf

If more automation is required, then you might have a look into Folder Actions Reference.

For double-clicking AFAIK it's either one or the other. But depending on  special filetype characteristics  RCDefaultApp might be worth a look.


That sounds like you had "Find my iPad" enabled in iCloud. It's made to protect your iPad against theft (or at least make it potentially useless to thieves). You won't get around logging into your iCloud.
If you also have it on a Mac you could check if your password is stored in the Keychain (located in Applications/Utilities).
Else you'll have to reset the password, you can do that on Apple's iForgot page. If none of the options on that page help you, you'll have to call Apple and they'll try to verify that you're the owner of the account and help you reset your password.

As a hint: your Username is usually you're E-Mail address.


Chrome putting itself in the Dock whenever it wants.

Make sure the chrome auto updates are not running - it could be adding itself back when it checks for updates.


Can I use my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) with 4k (3840x2160) LG 40" ub800t TV @ 60Hz refresh rate?

No, while the LG 40UB800T TV claims that it can run at up to 100Hz as a TV. It does so through internal interpolation which adds latency and is unsuitable as a computer display.

When you run this LG TV as a computer monitor you will only be able to get 30Hz out of it at full UHD (3840x2160) resolution across an HDMI cable. To drive the LG display at UHD@60Hz you need HDMI2.0 with HDCP2.2 support.

Apple does NOT support the HDMI2.0 or HDCP2.2 standard at this time. As of late 2015 the HDMI connector from ANY Mac will only drive a UHD display at 30Hz max according to Apple. To drive a UHD or true 4K (4096x2400) displays at 60Hz (with full color resolution) you MUST use DisplayPort with a monitor that supports 60Hz.


How can I export only my notes from the Notes app and import to another Mac?

Is there an option to save notes to iCloud?

Yes, in system preferences-> iCloud.

It seems I cannot import a pdf to notes.

You can. The regular method of File-> import->import file, won't work. You can drag and drop multiple files into a note.

Scripting.

That would be a task for AppleScript.

How to import the notes to new Mac?

If the same Apple ID is used on both Macs, turn on the iCloud for notes (see 1^). They'll sync. If different IDs are used, there is no easy method. You can add collaborators (or people) and send them the invite. Then they can import all the notes to their Mac.


Reduce the minimum iPhone volume (bluetooth speakers)

I was just here searching for a way to do exactly this (reduce the "Step" for volume adjustments).  I gave up and went to solve a couple more music/iPhone related problems.
Anyway, turns out that if you have the Apple Watch and use it's built-in volume control, there are no stops--even when playing through bluetooth it let me adjust all the way from really loud down to whisper.
Another thing to notice--after I adjust my phone volume with the watch I think it somehow affects the built-in controls and I'm able to get a different range but I can't put my finger on exactly what's going on--and after I leave it sit for a while it goes back to it's old behavior.


Can't set Live Photo as wallpaper, only Still and Perspective options

As Settings → Wallpaper doesn't have a Live Photo section, it would appear your device is not compatible with Live Photos. Live Photos are available on iPhone 6s and later.


Four 4k simultaneous playbacks from new Macbook Pro?

Yes.

Although you may be pushing the system to its limits, it's technically possible to drive 4 simultaneous 4K displays using the new 2018 15" MacBook Pro.

From the Video Support section of MacBook Pro Technical Specifications page:


How can I ask Siri to turn OFF Do Not Disturb mode?

In the past, You could ask Siri that all you want, but she wasn’t programmed to toggle that switch for you.

Until now on iOS 12 - we now have sweet satisfaction in voice mastery over this toggle.


IOs/phonegap - can't submit to itune - Invalid Segment Alignment

As it says in the message

  Try rebuilding the app with the latest Xcode version.


Does iOS download only changes or whole app when updating an app?

Starting with iOS 6, the app store will automatically produce an update package for all new versions of apps submitted to the store. This package is optimized for updating an app from one version to another and contains files that have changed between the prior version of an app and the new version of the app, excluding files that have not changed.

When used optimally, an update package is significantly smaller to download than the full package of the app and the update will install more quickly. Also, in many cases, this mechanism allows updates to large apps to be downloadable over cellular networks where app downloads are subject to a size limit.

In addition to new content, the update package contains instructions on how to transform the prior version of the app into the new version of the app. New files will be added, modified files will be replaced with their updated counterpart, and deleted files will be removed as part of this transformation. As far as the developer and user are concerned, this process is entirely transparent and the resulting updated app will be indistinguishable from a full download of the corresponding updated version of their app.

So, Delta updates are possible to set up in iPhone apps which totally depend upon the developer. H

Reference: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/qa/qa1779/_index.html


Will backing up using time-machine also backup all the users?

Time Machine backs up an entire drive/partition/volume unless you specifically remove files and folders under "Options".  All User accounts are included unless you uncheck them in Options.

All of this info is available in your Finder Help menu.


Possible to rip a DVD as an iTunes film?

You can rip a full disc as an ISO file or a folder structure. That will give you the exact contents of the disc that you can store on a hard drive (local or networked), but iTunes can't play those types of files. Other programs, such as VLC can play it back, with menus and all. You can rip to this format with RipIt, but there are others out there too.

Extras in downloaded iTunes movies (and the similar feature for music, iTunes LP) are built with a framework called TuneKit, for which Apple has posted some developer information. From what I can tell, it's basically all the media (videos, pictures, music) in iTunes-compatible format (i.e. H.264 m4v for video), tied together with some HTML and CSS for the "menus".

So if you're comfortable with web development, it looks like it's possible to create your own iTunes Extras to package the content from a DVD, but you'll need to recreate the menus on your own, they can't be ripped directly to this sort of format. Extra audio tracks, commentary, and subtitles can all be ripped by standard tools like Handbrake, and deleted scenes or other video features can be ripped as separate video files, then linked in via the menus you create. There are some tutorials from Gigaom and iTunesLP.net that apply to iTunes LP, but the format seems to be pretty similar, so they may help.

So all in all, it's possible to create a similar experience to a full DVD in iTunes, but it will take a lot of work on your part. Alternatively, if you use another application, you can get the full, bit-for-bit copy by ripping to ISO files.


How to systematically change a default app for files in a given folder

Save this following AppleScript code to…  /Users/YOUR SHORT NAME/Library/Workflows/Applications/Folder Actions ..folder as a script file.  You can name it something like “Change Default Application.scpt”

I don't have Acrobat reader on my system so I used TextEdit.app as one of my variables instead.  You can change that value in line 2 of the code, to suit your needs.  Line 3 of the code is what tells the script which application to use as the default app for the PDF files located within the folder that the folder action is attached to.

property Default_App_To_Open_With1 : alias "Macintosh HD:Applications:Preview.app:"
property Default_App_To_Open_With2 : alias "Macintosh HD:Applications:TextEdit.app:"

property Default_App : Default_App_To_Open_With2

property name_Extension : "pdf"

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving dropped_items
    repeat with this_File in dropped_items
        tell application "System Events"
            if name extension of this_File is name_Extension then
                set default application of this_File to Default_App
            end if
        end tell
    end repeat
end adding folder items to

After this code is tweaked to your liking, and has been saved to the previous mentioned folder, it will then be available to use within the Folder Actions Setup.app to to attach to any folder of your choice


Keyboard shortcut to select all text in a cell in Excel

The quickest way I've found is the following:
1) tab/select the cell,
2) hit backspace to delete the contents of the cell
3) type Cntrl+Z to undo delete

When the undo function puts the text back into the cell, all text within that cell is automatically highlighted.  Then you can just type Cntrl+C to copy text only.

I found that I needed to highlight all text in a cell in order to be able to paste it back inside another excel sheet whose cells already had other text that I had to leave intact.

Hope this helps!


Homebrew and existent software in /usr/local

It would probably work ok to mix the two, but to be safe I'd just put homebrew in a different directory.  You might run into conflicting files, perhaps in some supporting library.

I don't know what's special about your mysql build, but i'm sure homebrew has options to build different flavors.  do "brew options mysql" to see what is available, perhaps it has what you need.


How can I make compiled applescripts on $PATH be found and executed?

Since .scpt are not executable you won't be able to do this.

The shebang (!#) is not in the AppleScript syntax and therefore it won't do anything.


Max Heart Rate during Workout Apple Watch

You don't need any third party apps to have your heart rate sampled all the time and displayed on the watch. You can customize each workout type to include or exclude a dozen metrics for the Outdoor Run type. Indoor run is the same and I don't use it, but the treadmill integration is amazing from what I hear when you sync your watch to equipment that will visually show you what telemetry the watch is broadcasting (with your opt in permission, of course).

Here is what the phone interface looks like for you to alter what is shown during the workout image above.

So if you didn’t care so much about pace, you could edit out both pace items and see this instead during your run:

Garmin makes some great product, so I would choose based on where you want your data in the end - which app ecosystem is better for you. Heart Rate zones are going to be easy to set / manage / report on both platforms as it's so obvious and easy to measure.


Potential causes of trackpad problems on retina display macbook

Does it act the same on battery power?  Or, can you switch the powersupply plug to the long bulky power cord?

If being on battery clears up this problem, then you may have a ground problem (at least, I have identified this mouse-jerk issue on one mbp).  This is also the cause of the 'tingling' that is sometimes felt when you stroke the aluminium case.

A lack/failure to ground occurs under many conditions.  E.g., power supply uses the direct plug rather than the heavy power cord as the direct plastic power plugs don't transmit ground.  Or, there is a ground problem further upstream (dodgy power board or UPS, dodgy electrics in building).  Or, something metal being touched is actually charged (scary).  Or, some combination of effects.

If not grounded, the voltage inside the Mac "floats" away from ground, leading to weird effects when you touch the machine, as you are effectively a different ground competing for a different level.  And, touching is exactly what you do when using the trackpad.


I know this might sound unrelated but after moving my keychain from one machine to another I've had to fix permissions with Disk Utility in order to regain access to my keychain.

And in my experience it seems to be a bad idea to move your keychain from one machine to another when your password differs between machines.


Text encoding problem with old files not newly created ones

If the data is still correct on other computers, your local Dropbox copy might have gotten corrupt for whatever reason.

Ensure that all newly created files are synced back (make a local backup if necessary)
Log out of Dropbox on the MBA
Delete the local Dropbox folder
Log into Dropbox again and let it sync the uncorrupted files onto your Mac


"Show In-App Purchases" Not Showing In App Store

I was having same problem for my new app - submitted a question to apple support - they replied:

  The In-App Purchases section of your app’s product page will contain
  the top In-App Purchases for the app only after a minimum purchase
  requisite has been reached. If the number of completed In-App
  Purchases doesn’t exceed the minimum threshold, this area will not
  appear.


Files Renamed in Finder not Reflected in iTunes?

Unfortunately, updating the files in Finder will not update the files in iTunes. This is because iTunes uses a file called iTunes Library.itl as a database of all your media.

You can however use the automator actions "Get Specified iTunes Items" and "Set Info of iTunes Songs" to automat the process of updating the metadata. There are some other good Automator actions in there too.


How can I transfer pictures from a USB flash drive with the Camera Connection Kit?

This can be done by imitating the folder structure of a camera's memory card.

First, find a flash drive that's compatible with the Camera Connection Kit (i.e. doesn't draw more than 100 mA).

Create a directory in the root of the USB drive named DCIM. Inside DCIM create a directory that has exactly 8 characters. Put your picture/video files inside this directory, ensuring that they have an 8.3 pattern filename (e.g. somepics.jpg).

You'll end up with a directory structure that looks like this:

USB drive root
  -\DCIM
    -\FAKECAM1
      -\pict0001.jpg
      -\pict0002.jpg
...


Is there a tmp directory that gets cleaned when user logs out or logs in?

path to temporary items or path to temporary items from user,local or system domain: there is no difference because this folder is not in the home folder.

I tested this by creating a folder named "xyz" in the temporary items, log out and log in, the "xyz" folder was moved to the Trash.


"Xcode is not installed on this system. Install from the Apple Appstore." message when installing Metasploit

I solved the problem! All I had to do was open the msf_install.sh file with Xcode. Then change the "com.apple.pkg.XcodeMAS" to "com.apple.pkg.Xcode". Thats it. The reason this problem occurs is because newer versions of Xcode don't use the "MAS" in the file name. The person who made the msf_install.sh file made it a while ago before the file name was changed.


Siri can not activate some alarms on iPhone 6S Plus with iOS 9.2

Be explicit when you ask for an alarm:

  Hey Siri, wake me up at 7:20am."

Also, what version of iOS are you using? There were some issues with alarms not waking people up in iOS 9.1. If you are running 9.1, update to the latest version, 9.2.1, and see if the issue persists.


Which iCloud service runs in background in OS X?

No it doesn't trigger to run any process.

Because the process is always running. The process for doing these kind of things is ubd.

Click here for more information.


Is there any screen with resolution of 3440x1080 that is supported by a mid 2012 13" MBP?

Intel HD Graphics 4000 supports resolution up to 1920×1200 through HDMI and 2560×1600 through DisplayPort.

Your Mac technically can only support it's own internal display and one external display.

I say technically, since people are creative and here is an example of 3 external monitors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8gE-ckBwjE


There is an App called Meteoric, which does exactly what you want. You can test the free version, which only supports 2MB downloads. And if you like it, you can buy the full version, which is with $1.99 quite inexpensive.

Here is a nice article with screenshots if you are interested (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-file-ios-device-meteoric/)


Mail.app has no built-in function to send scheduled mails. You can use Automator to achieve the same result, though.

Open Automator and select "New iCal Alarm". Drag "New Mail Message" to the workflow. It will bring up a small composition window, just like in Mail.app.

Drag "Send Outgoing Messages" to the workflow. You can test it at this point to make sure that it's properly set up.

Save it. iCal should automatically open, and you can drag the event wherever/whenever you like. The message will be sent when the alarm is triggered.


The recovery server could not be contacted

Simple fix, connect the ethernet cable directly to your laptop(use usb-ethernet adapter) or pc and reinstall mac OS from the internet recovery mode= restart and hold command-option-R.


System-wide shortcut to open a new window in Safari?

In Automator, create a Service workflow (pre macOS Mojave), or a Quick Action workflow in macOS Mojave.

Add a Run AppleScript action, replacing the default code, with:

tell application "Safari" to make new document

The above piece of AppleScript code by itself will open a new window in Safari however, it will not have focus. If you want the new window to have focus then use a tell block, e.g.:

tell application "Safari"
    make new document
    activate
end tell

You can then assign a keyboard shortcut in the usual manner per information in the link within your question.


How do you delete albums (or large groups of songs) from your iOS device using iTunes Match?

First, turn off iTunes Match (temporarily) on your iOS device: Settings > Music > iTunes Match > Off

Connect the iPhone (or iPad) to iTunes. Under DEVICES, find yours and highlight Music. Manually organize and delete songs, albums, artists, genres, etc.

Once iTunes is done updating, disconnect. Reenable iTunes Match.


Cleaning off packages installed via Terminal on OSX

I can only speak for Homebrew but I would imagine the other utilities you used should have similar options. With Homebrew you can list everything installed by Homebrew with brew list. After this you can remove installed applications using brew remove <application-name>. Homebrew should have installed everything in /usr/local/Cellar/. I would recommend checking out the official FAQ to learn how to uninstall Homebrew altogether. I know this doesn't cover all of the tools you used but I hope it helps at least a little bit.


Monitor your Wi-Fi connection not found on High Sierra

I believe that it can be found in /System/Library/CoreServices/, but I'm not sure what it will be named in High Sierra, maybe Network Diagnostics.app


Is the font in Messages.app changed in iOS5?

Same font, but Apple added a very subtle text-shadow and tweaked the bubble reflection. That's the difference.

iOS 4

iOS 5


That's very strange. The only thing that I can think a bug in the version of iOS that your iPhone 4S is running. So try a software update and if iOS 8.4.1 doesn't solve your problem, then hopefully iOS 9 will when it comes out in a few weeks.

If you don't wish to update your iPhone now, you could try to backup your iPhone and all apps (make sure to check "Encrypt Backup") and then wipe your iPhone and restore the backup. This, however, is a lot more tedious than just updating it.

So you should probably update it and go from there.


How can I identify 3rd party kernel extensions in macOS?

You can identify 3rd party kernel extensions (Kexts) via Terminal.

More specifically:

Launch the Terminal app (found within your Applications > Utilites folder)
Type (or copy and paste) the following command:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple

Press Enter
Within moments Terminal will list all 3rd party kernel extensions (Note: you may need to stretch the Terminal window so it's easier to read).

If you’re having issues with your Mac, you can use the above process to identify any 3rd party extensions you don't remember installing, or something that belongs to software you no longer use.

Please note that this is a list of all 3rd party kernel extensions and any of them could be causing the problem.


Unfortunately, according to this article Office 2016 only supports Exchange 2010 SP2 or higher: http://machow2.com/review-office-2016-mac-beta/


You can leave your existing installations in place for the time being.  Homebrew will error if it has to overwrite an existing file in the process of installing a package.


What are ".com.apple.backupd.mdmv" files for and which tool creates them?

They're generated by backupd which is the main process for Time Machine for handling backups. The files themselves track items that have been moved or renamed, to prevent them from being backed up multiple times, and to track a file's history no matter how much you move it around.
I can't find a reference to what mdmv stands for exactly, but I'm confident it has nothing to do with Mobile Device Management; my best guess would be that it stands for something like "MetaData MoVed", rather than a proper acronym.
As for the file's content, it's actually fairly straightforward. For example:
<?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>DateStarted</key>
        <date>2020-07-09T21:00:07Z</date>
        <key>FileID</key>
        <integer>174035141</integer>
        <key>NameSpaceID</key>
        <integer>2140396991</integer>
        <key>NewPath</key>
        <string>Movies/TV/TV Shows/Vikings/Season 5/02 The Departed.mp4</string>
        <key>SourcePath</key>
        <string>Movies/TV/TV Shows/Vikings/Season 5/2 The Departed.mp4</string>
</dict>
</plist>

This has the following important elements:

DateStarted: Appears to be the time that the move was detected (presumably by fseventsd which is the process that tracks file system events)
FileID: Seems to be a unique ID for a file, it doesn't appear to be an inode number so is likely specific to Time Machine.
NewPath: This is the current location of the file, or at least where the file was located the last time that Time Machine was run.
SourcePath: This is where the file was previously located, probably in reference to its location when Time Machine ran before last.

In this example, I have an episode from the TV Show Vikings which was stored under the name 2 Departed.mp4 but was renamed (by consolidating my library in TV.app) to 02 Departed.mp4.
When Time Machine was new, this would have been enough for it to see 02 Departed.mp4 as an all-new file and create a full new copy, wasting a load of space on my Time Machine disk, however over the years Time Machine has gotten a bit smarter and no longer does that.
I'd actually never encountered these specific mdmv files myself until today, which is how I found your question, but Time Machine has had an "events database" for a while now which also seems to track these kinds of changes, if you look at hidden files inside a backup directory (e.g- /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb/My Mac/Latest) then you'll find one or more .eventdb files, and probably a .clonedb if any of your volumes are using APFS (they probably are if you're on macOS Mojave or later).
At a guess I expect these mdmv files are a finer-grained alternative so Time Machine doesn't have to trawl through events to figure out where a file came from. You should only see them within your Time Machine volume and nowhere else, though if you copy entire folders out of Time Machine from the Finder you may end up copying these as well by accident.


Mac Excel won't recognize Spanish/Portuguese accents (UTF8 or ANSI)

After several bumps in the wall I figure out this Terminal command (Shell Script) that will convert properly the files from UTF-8 for Latin 1:

iconv -f UTF-8 -t LATIN1 </path/sourceFile.txt >/path/destinationFile.txt

Oddly enough, the Finder preview won't display the correct characters and TextEdit won't even open the file. But Excel recognize everything, which is fine for me.


I have a workaround. Not a fix, but something that allows me to open itunes.  I've created this bash alias:

alias itunes='/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunes --x &'

Now, whenever I type itunes in the terminal, the application opens.

The --x option is not valid AFAIK. For some reason, passing a command line option kicks iTunes to  open. When passing no parameters, iTunes does not open.

I cannot explain this behavior and would appreciate an explanation if anyone has one.

I'm going to try @Tetsujin's suggestion to see if it provides a complete fix.


Common Unix Printing System

macOS uses the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) for printing. This open source system does allow for calling scripts and more.

Knowing this, the search for cups pre-print script returns some good starting points.

Virtual Printer to Real Printer Workflow

The StackOver questions Programming a Filter/Backend to 'Print to PDF' with CUPS from any Mac OS X application and Run a script on files sent to a CUPS print queue? offer an example where a virtual printer is used to pre-process a print job before passing it onto a real printer.

In your situation, the pre-processing could be to power on your printer via the REST API.

Alternatively…

See also Run command before and after printing with CUPS?


App Store offers Safari 11.0.2 which I already have

Yes install it.

It's an updated version released today that has fixes for the Spectre bug that's in the news.

More information here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208403


iCloud document storage is best used for documents you're going to need to access for things that you're likely to need in a single application, but on multiple Macs. If you're likely to need to access a document from in multiple applications, or don't need it synced between multiple Macs, local storage makes more sense.

The documents you store in iCloud from a Mac are essentially tied to the application you save them with. For example, if you create an image in Photoshop and save it to iCloud, you won't be able to later view it in something like Preview without first opening it in Photoshop, then copying it to another location that Preview can access (either local storage or in Preview's iCloud storage).

The iCloud vs. Reality section of John Siracusa's Mountain Lion review on Ars Technica goes into good detail on this as well.


Latest WhatsApp Desktop from App Store crashes on High Sierra

Updating to version 2.2029.5 released today fixed everything, it was indeed a bug on their previous build.


How do I install Windows 10 on Mac without removing the existing Linux partitions?

As far as I know, you can do it, but the order of installation should go like these:

  Install Apple's Bootcamp and use it to install Windows 10
  Use Windows 10 to shrink the Bootcamp partition, freeing up space to
  Install Linux
  Install rEFInd as a Boot Manager for all 3 OSes

All details are provided by Rob Pickering:
https://robpickering.com/triple-boot-macbook-pro-macos-windows-10-linux/


TextWrangler: How to do a Find then Replace: How to Specify what text to find and what text to replace

From Search menu select Find... it will show the Find & Replace box.

You can use also Command + F

Latest TextWrangler version is 4.5


No, there is no general purpose remote control on iOS. I don't follow the jailbreak community closely, but you might get some other capabilities there.

From a non-jailbroken scheme, you have these small elements of what you ask:

Air Parrot type software to AirPlay a PC but no capability to remote control
MDM tools like Casper Focus to remotely place an iOS device into guided access mode or automate the opening of one URL.

Again, the MDM profile isn't anything that hooks into VNC or accessibility (software switches or accessibility features like voiceover) - it just simulates one action to launch an app.


Is there a way to limit the size of the disk swap file in Mac OS X?

Yes you can configure the dynamic_pager, but for most it is simpler to just disable it and see which program crashes due to the inevitable out of memory errors.

Why would I disable swap file in Mac OS X?

Pay attention to programs that implement their own virtual memory / cache / paging systems like virtualization and the Adobe Suite in case you have inadvertently tuned them to use more RAM than is available on the system. They tend to be first on my investigation list when I see a mac with runaway swap allocation on the filesystem.


Booting an Intel Mac to Linux from a U3 USB drive

Here is description how to do this
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~osc22/tutorials/linux_on_macbook_air.html

  Booting linux from USB drive on a recent MacBook air (e.g. late 2010)
  - even with FileVault 2

  I've spent a while figuring out how to boot linux on my MacBook air
  3.2 (aka late 2010) from an USB stick, since I needed to image its disk before and after enabling full disk encryption (Lion's FileVault
  2).

  There are many tutorials out there but most of them either don't work,
  are not for the correct combination of hardware/software or miss some
  details. So here I give you the facts for booting a linux live image
  (I've used Ubuntu) with a MacBook Air that perhaps has Lion (although
  I am sure it works with Snow Leopard as well) and may be even with
  FileVault2 (full-disk encryption) enabled.

  If you don't have FileVault enabled, I recommend you install rEFIt
  from your Mac OS X using the dmg installer, and follow the steps at
  the END of this page. Now, for the details....

  If you can, use Ubuntu (yes, from a different PC) to create the USB
  drive with Ubuntu by means of "Startup Disk Creator" (See
  System/Administration). Once you have the USB drive, if you run mmls
  (a forensic utility from the sleuth kit), you should see actually
  several partitions including a Win 95 Fat32 (0x0C). This is actually
  the partition you need to dd, i.e. "dd if=/dev/disk2s02
  of=/dev/disk0s3" bs=1M count="size_of_that_partition_in_blocks"; where
  disk2s02 is the Win95 FAT32 partition in the USB drive and disk0s3 is
  a partition you have created on your Mac disk). Now (having installed
  rEFIt as I mentioned above), reboot your MacBook and use the partition
  utility of rEFIt (one of the items) to fix the MBR (is a hybrid
  MBR/GPT partition table). Simply answer yes to have the linux
  partition (the one where you've copied from the USB) correctly set up.
  Restart again the MacBook and use rEFIt to boot the linux install/live
  partition. Now, if you have FileVault enabled things are a bit more
  tricky. The reference post about how to do this is here. However,
  again there are some details that should be made clear.

  First of all, I highly recommend you do an image of your drive (either
  directly from MacOS by using the low-level disk, e.g. /dev/disk0 - not
  the one showing as /dev/disk1 unencrypted). There is a risk you won't
  be able to boot OS X anymore after you apply these steps. Next, follow
  the steps in the post I mentioned above. When it refers to "bless" the
  efi partition, look at the end of the post in the StopService() code
  and you should see what to do. gpt fdisk refers to the command "gdisk"
  in repair mode (r). Here you need to use the Hybrid MBR, by typing
  (h). I recommend you read this. When asked for partition code use "0C"
  (Windows95 FAT32 for your linux partition). I'm not sure if is a good
  idea to put the EFI partition (code 0xEE) at the beginning, or if you
  should create extra protective MBR partitions. I've put the EFI
  partition at the end and didn't create any extra protective MBR
  partitions and I was able to boot linux. However I wasn't able to boot
  the Mac OS X anymore. So that's why I recommend the prior image.
  Looking at the results and comparing with the partitions in a USB
  drive with rEFIt I suggest you actually create all the protective MBR
  partitions suggested by "gdisk". I've recently purchased a Macbook Air
  superdrive. You can easily boot linux using that and avoid all the
  trouble and possible problems with the steps above. So if you want the
  quick and safe way I suggest you spend about $66 and take the
  superdrive. It works also when FileVault 2 is enabled.


Yes you will. If you look at this thread - the CPU / GPU can actually do enough work that other tasks are artificially slowed down by assigning CPU to the kernel_task so that it can idle and lower the heat being generated.

Lowering the pixels needed to be displayed by disabling the integrated LCD will allow all the processing to show the main monitor. The only downside is if your Mac needed the display open to cool off the system (the new MacBook for example have no blower so closed mode can impact cooling more than other models).

CPU usage is too high with Yosemite and an external monitor


Embed SVG image in email composed in mail.app?

Never mind. Despite the fact that the compose window shows the .svg as an attachment, if you send the email to yourself, it renders properly when you receive it.


A PS3 will do a great job of it. That's what I use. The only downside is that a PS3 won't natively play mkv files, but you can use PS3 Media Server to live-transcode and stream from your computer to the PS3.


When I buy an iPhone 6 from the Apple website and select contract-free from T-Mobile, is the phone carrier unlocked?

I found this answer for you

Best Answer:

after speaking with all the following - apple care, apple tech support, apple online sales, and tmobile sales - the "no contract" t-mobile phone IS officially unlocked and will work on any gsm carrier with the correct sized sim card.

Background:

A new law eff Aug. 2014 allows you to legally unlock your phone.
http://www.cnet.com/news/president-signs-cell-phone-unlocking-bill-into-law/

As result the carrier are adjusting to that by offering unlocked phones true they services in the hope you will stick with them, this time voluntarily and not be forced buy a 2 Years contract.

But: (there is always a But)

If you do the math, you will come to a result showing that a iPhone purchased without contract and on a cheep provider ($40/M), ends up about the same when purchased with 2 years contract at ($60/M).

The reason! the unlocked phones are way more expensive, it is the money you pay upfront.

So what is the gain? it is the freedom price you pay, the Freedom of choosing and switching providers at your leisure.


Stop iPhone alerting me when I'm in a phone call

Set Settings > Sounds > Vibrate on Silent to OFF; then while on the call you can flip the hardware switch to Silent. This will disable all sounds and vibration.


Macbook Pro Hard Reset? ... Can't install OS X

Let me add this as a viable alternative for "if ya just gotta have it right now"

Take it to an Apple Store - they'll do it for you.


To see if CPU or memory is the issue you might start with iostat and vm_stat  You would run these from a Terminal.

To get it to continually record you need to run it as

iostat n

where n is the number of seconds between executions.

If you need to look at memory usage then you would want

vm_stat n

If you want to get information on a particular program then you would probably need to write a script that called something like

ps wwaux | grep your_program_name

over and over.


Replace existing duplicate files on APFS with clones

As of June 2020, Jdupes can do this.
For example, this will find all duplicates in your Applications folder:
jdupes --recurse --dedupe /Applications/

WARNING: Versions before 1.19.0 will overwrite metadata (date, owner, permission), more recent versions preserve all metadata when using jdupes --dedupe on APFS filesystems.


Why do I have 8.3 GB mail on my hard drive even when using gmail?

This is a feature of the default set up of Mail.app on OS X. It is storing all your messages for "offline viewing" you can turn this off.

Go to Mail > Preferences click on Accounts
Click on your Gmail account on the left
Then click on the Advanced tab.
Under "Keep copies of messages for offline viewing" set that drop-down to "Don't keep copies of any messages" '

Also make sure that you gmail e-mail account is setup as IMAP and not POP3 you can see the type under the "Account Information " tab.


Should activity monitor be using non-trivial CPU %?

Yes, it is expected. It has a lot to keep track of sometimes, and in the scheme of things, 8%-12% CPU is rather trivial. I've never seen it spike the CPU all by itself in years of looking at it.


iphone status bar activity indicator spins forever

The Cause
I can reproduce this problem consistently on iOS 7.1.1. Just go into App Store and click the "update all" button in the updates tab. When you exit to your home screen, the activity indicator will spin in the status bar incessantly. Since the code has been wedged into the wrong state, the only way to get rid of the activity indicator is to power down your phone and boot it back up.
The Reason
This is caused by Apple developers poor programming. They properly show it when apps begin to update:
[UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = YES;

But they fail to turn it off when the apps finish updating:
[UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = NO;

The way their Cocoa Touch framework is written makes it very easy for amateur developers to make this mistake, including Apple's own internal iOS development team. It's very hard to manage nested network operations that need to show the activity indicator. The correct interface for managing the activity indicator would have been to create a stack. Any time the indicator is needed, an object would be pushed onto the stack. When the operation is complete, the object would be popped from the stack. Once the stack is empty, the indicator should disappear.


Launching commands in separate windows using bash

This is what you're looking for:
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal"' -e 'do script "/usr/local/bin/zookeeper-server-start /usr/local/etc/kafka/zookeeper.properties"' -e 'do script "/usr/local/bin/kafka-server-start /usr/local/etc/kafka/server.properties"' -e 'end tell'

It can also be done as:
#!/bin/bash
osascript <<-EOF
tell application "Terminal"
    do script "/usr/local/bin/zookeeper-server-start /usr/local/etc/kafka/zookeeper.properties"
    do script "/usr/local/bin/kafka-server-start /usr/local/etc/kafka/server.properties"
end tell
EOF

Or like so:
#!/usr/bin/osascript

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "/usr/local/bin/zookeeper-server-start /usr/local/etc/kafka/zookeeper.properties"
    do script "/usr/local/bin/kafka-server-start /usr/local/etc/kafka/server.properties"
end tell


What are the restrictions of ad-hoc code signing?

Basically ad-hoc signing in this context means that the binary is signed without any cryptographic proof at all.

In essence normally binaries are signed by adding a so-called CMS (a cryptographic message) where the hash of the CodeDirectory is the message that is signed by the signing identity. This means that an outsider can verify that the code was indeed signed by someone holding the private key for that identity.

When running programs, the macOS system can verify that these signatures are valid, and that it trusts the signing identity - and if it does, run the program. This is the basics of the GateKeeper functionality.

Ad-hoc signed binaries are vastly different as they contain no such CMS. Instead it simply holds the SHA-1 hash value of the CodeDirectory without any cryptographic proof of its validity, and no path of certificates/identities to verify against.

The CodeDirectory is an object that describes a particular instance of static code by having hash values for various pieces of code that the application is made from. By ensuring that the CodeDirectory is untampered by verifying the cryptographic signature, and that the various code bits of the application match the hash values stored in the directory, you can ascertain that the code wasn't tampered with.

Without the cryptographic proof this "untampered" check cannot be performed in the normal way.

Instead ad-hoc signed binaries are checked by comparing the SHA-1 hash value against a list of "known good" hash values stored in the static trust cache inside the kernel.

In essence this means that the "significant restrictions" placed upon any application you ad-hoc sign yourself is that it won't pass any kind of verification anywhere. It basically be the same as a non-signed binary.

However, if you're Apple, you can create applications that aren't codesigned in the ordinary way, and are instead explicitly trusted by the kernel. I.e. if for example Apple wants to ensure that an application is untampered when run at an early stage in system startup where the full signing identity verification is not up and running (or is unavailable) they can use ad-hoc signing. These applications can always be verified by the static trust cache, no matter if your certificate repository is hosed or anything like that.

In practice creating ad-hoc signed binaries is only of practical value for Apple developers.

You can find minor documentation on ad-hoc signing in Apple's developer section. For example:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/seccodesignatureflags/kseccodesignatureadhoc

But you can also find snippets of documents in the source code for the codesign utility itself, and in the source code for libsecurity.


iPhone 5 stuck at Apple boot logo after screen replacement

I would say to try to back it up, then restore and see what happens from there. No idea why this would really happen. The restore will rule out iOS being bugged, and you'd know the issue purely lies with hardware.


Now I tried another thing, and it looks like this right now:

diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *121.3 GB   disk0
   1:                  Apple_HFS                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         80.7 GB    disk0s2
   3:                        EFI                         40.5 GB    disk0s3

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +80.7 GB    disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            77.7 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 18.9 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4

and this

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0
Password:
gpt show: /dev/disk0: mediasize=121332826112; sectorsize=512; blocks=236978176
gpt show: /dev/disk0: PMBR at sector 0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Sec GPT at sector 236978175
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
     409640  157519832      2  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  157929472   79048671      3  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
  236978143         32         Sec GPT table
  236978175          1         Sec GPT header

anyone out there who can help me?

The Windows partition even doesn't appear in the disk utility, only in the terminal via diskutil list


Backups are generally portable across any and all iOS device. Could the new device be at a lower software level? Try an over the air update to ios 5.0.1 and also be sure everything is exact in the account. xxx@mac.com is not always the same as xxx@me.com.


Tap on the Stop button in the upper-left side of the Activity Monitor window (or use the Touch Bar). Select one of the following options: Quit: This is the same as choosing File > Quit within an app. The process quits when it's safe to do so.


How to download a game twice with an apple ID?

Anything you buy on the App Store is able to be downloaded again as many times as you like, it's not like it used to be on iTunes where you downloaded it once, and then couldn't do it again if you lost the file.

To do this, just go back to the app store, and search for the app in question.  Instead of listing a price, or saying FREE etc, you should have a little icon showing a cloud and an arrow which you can tap to redownload.  Note, you can only download the latest version of the App, so it it has been updated since you last used it, then you cannot go back to an older version (unless you have a local backup of the file on your iTunes machine).  Also, you must be logged into the store using the same Apple ID that was used to make the original purchase.

The only way I know of that you cannot use this method, is if the app is no longer available on the App Store, in which case you can still get it, but you need to go through your purchase history to get to the download link instead of getting it from searching the store.


Homebrew - How do I list all unlinked formulas?

You could run brew doctor, which among other things, will show you all unlinked formulas.


Jailbroken , erased all data and restoring

First of all, Erase All Content And Settings on a pre-3GS phone is slooooooooooooooow. In fact, while it is happening, only the Apple logo appears on the screen. (It may still be running)
From HT2110:

  This process
  can take several hours, depending on
  the storage capacity of your iPhone or
  iPod touch. During this time, the
  device displays the Apple logo and a
  progress bar.

Second of all, anytime you have an error message when restoring an iPhone, TS1275 is your best friend.

  Error 1015: This error is caused by attempts to downgrade the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch's software. This can occur when you attempt to restore using an older .ipsw file. Downgrading to a previous version is not supported. To resolve this issue, attempt to restore with the latest iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch software available from Apple.

Sounds like you want to restore to a more recent version, worst case just get the most recent jailbreak instructions with the most recent software that supports your hardware from the Dev Team Blog.


iPhone lock screen/multitasking bar audio controls don't work

Possible Causes:

Mobile substrate add ons on a jailbroken device
Corrupt event handling events
Loss of data with streaming services
Accessory interference
Airplay
Older version of iTunes

Several things to try:

If you are jailbroken try booting into safe mode (SBSettings Feature).
If problem is with data streaming app then try the iPod app.
If accessories are connected, disconnect them.
If the problem persists, restore to the latest version of iOS and update iTunes.


How do I change the gateway of a specific connection using the Mac terminal?

The command you're looking for is route.

Check what your current gateway is

To check your current gateway, run the command:

route -n get -ifscope en0 default

This instructs route to return the path it would take using en0 to reach www.google.com.

The -n argument turns off domain name resolution in the output (else gateway in the sample output below would be the name of my gateway).
The -ifscope argument limits the query to using en0.  Without it, to OS will select which interface to use.
default tells route that you want to see the default gateway.  You can put a URL here instead if you suspect your OS is choosing something other than the default gateway to access a host.

The output will be something along the lines of:

   route to: default
destination: default
       mask: default
    gateway: 192.168.1.1
  interface: en0
      flags: <UP,GATEWAY,DONE,STATIC,PRCLONING,IFSCOPE>
 recvpipe  sendpipe  ssthresh  rtt,msec    rttvar  hopcount      mtu     expire
       0         0         0         0         0         0      1500         0

Delete the current gateway

To delete the current gateway from en0, run:

sudo route delete default -ifscope en0

This will delete the default gateway from en0 while leaving any other defined routes intact.

Add the new gateway

To add the new gateway to en0, run:

sudo route add default 192.168.1.1 -ifscope en0

Replace 192.168.1.1 with the IP address of the actual gateway.

For way more gory details, check out the man page for route.


iPhoto has missing photos but they can't be removed

Your Library is corrupted.

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In Library Manager it's the FIle -> Rebuild command) Note: this does not require purchasing Library Manager

This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.


How can I remove unwanted preinstalled apps from macOS?

On macOS 10.15.7 Catalina I needed to remount root volume as read-write first:
sudo mount -u -o rw /

Then I made a deletion with:
cd /System/Applications/
sudo rm -rf Chess.app TV.app ...


Where are iTunes smart playlists stored on disk?

In the smart playlist edit panel, just specify a max limit for the number of songs (eg: max 1,000 songs or max 4GB), and also choose that it should choose the highest rated songs to reach that limit.


A better way to navigate my music collection

Use the Songs view and use the column browser (in the View->Column Browser menu)
then you can choose the artist in one column, iTunes (now Apple Music) then just shows the albums for that one artist in another column (and only the songs from that artist) and from that last column choose the album.
For example:

In iTunes the songs view used to be the main view and I think allowed more control but Music has dumbed things down and you have to use the other views sometimes.


How can I prevent files emptied out of the Trash from accumulating in "purgeable space"?

Based on this Apple support article, I gathered that the purgeable space might be taken up by local snapshots.  I had already backed up since emptying the Trash, but I have more than one backup drive.  I removed the backup disks that aren't accessible at the moment and some time later my system drive's purgeable space was shown to have been alchemically transmuted into free space.

Since Apple hasn't bothered to include information on how local snapshotting works when you have multiple backup drives, and since I never managed to discover a way to identify what is currently contained in purgeable space, I can't be entirely certain that this was what fixed the issue.  It would be quite helpful if there were to be a post listing the various ways that purgeable space can come about and how to prevent this from happening.  I haven't managed to find such a resource; in fact, the support article doesn't even include the word "purgeable"; perhaps comprehending such an arcane detail is considered to be beyond the mental capacity of Apple's target demographic, even for its support pages.


All cores in CPU are 100% utilitized when copying file over network

That's mainly the unfortunate tale of thermally inept design. The kernel_task uses up so much because the temperature has risen too high. Install a sensor app and confirm, install Intel CPU PowerGadget to confirm again. Widespread and common problem.

Thunderbolt chips get hot and are inadequately connected to the cooling system and so the system tries to slow things down by occupying the CPU with meaningless cycle sucking to prevent a halt and catch fire situation.

To mitigate this, you might try to disconnect other peripherals, install a fan control software that is set to max rpm, use external cooling solutions (stands, pads, fans, AC), stop all other processes causing calculations that translate into heat. If you are daring and think you know better than Apple's 'designers' on how much heat your machine should be able to stand, you may also override this with some hacking. (This is not recommended.)


Is it possible to combine two iPhones with tethering to increase bandwidth or fault tolerance?

Technically speaking, you can connect two iPhones simultaneously; it's called multi-homing (this is good for fault tolerance).  The pf firewall has this capability and is built into macOS, but writing the rules file is outside the scope of this question.

However, you can't combine the bandwidth to get a larger "pipe."  You'll still have two smaller pipes.   In order to combine bandwidth, you will need to aggregate the pipes or bond them which is something that the ISP/carrier will need to do for you - different carriers (GSM and CDMA) are very unlikely to do this.


Can I daisy chain multiple displays with Thunderbolt?

Currently the port on the MacBook Pro is both a DisplayPort and a Thunderbolt port. The limitation, as already explained in the other question, is only relevant to DisplayPort, which has to be the last device in the chain, if daisy chained.

So in short, and in theory, it should work. According to the Thunderbolt page, you can plug in any adapter for DisplayPort and it should work, as long as the device also supports it.

The only time this gets really complex, is when you need to both power the device and use it using just the one port. If the device has external power, it shouldn't cause any major problems daisy chaining, however, the DisplayPort device still needs the last device in the chain. Simply because it cannot transfer data at the speed and rate the Thunderbolt can.


Replacing macOS with elementary OS. Computer boots normally into elementary OS, but boot menu (option key on boot) doesn't show anything

Note: In the examples below, the download elementary OS installation was named elementaryos-0.4.1-stable.20180214.iso. The images were created using VirtualBox 5.2.16 r123759 (Qt5.6.3).

Why does nothing appear in the Startup Manager when installing for an EFI boot?

As you have discovered, Macs can be configured to boot operating systems that do not always appear in the Startup Manager. This can be corrected. Let us start with normal EFI booting install of the elementary OS. Right click on the icon labeled Files in the Applications menu, then select New Windows as Administrator, as shown below.

Under Devices, click on File System. You should get a window similar to what is shown below.

Next, open the the following folders: boot, efi, EFI and finally ubuntu. You should get a window similar to what is shown below.

When your Mac boots, the software stored in the grubx64.efi file is executed. Unfortunately, this file has a name and is stored in a folder that will not be recognized by the Startup Manager. Therefore, noting appears when you hold down the option at startup. One simple solution would be to

Create a BOOT folder in the EFI folder.
Copy from the grubx64.efi file from the ubuntu folder to the BOOT folder.
Rename the grubx64.efi file in the BOOT folder to BOOTx64.EFI.

The image below shows the contents of the BOOT folder after having followed the above steps.

Finally, follow the steps given below to insure the Mac boot loader executes the BOOTx64.EFI file.

Restart your Mac and immediately press and hold the option key on your keyboard.
Release the option key when you see the Startup Manager window.
Hold down the control key while selecting the internal disk icon labeled EFI boot

The elementary OS will now appear in the Startup Manager as an internal drive icon with the label EFI boot.

The above solution has one problem: The elementary OS has no idea you made these changes. Therefore, any updates to the grubx64.efi file will not be automatically copied to the BOOTx64.EFI file. A better solution, that avoids this problem, is given below.

First, use the Epiphany Web Browser to download the rEFInd Boot Manager. In my case, the file refind_0.11.3-1_amd64.deb was downloaded to my Downloads folder. When finished, quit the Epiphany application.

Next, right click on the icon labeled Terminal in the Applications menu, then select New Window. You should get a window similar to what is shown below.

In the Terminal window, enter the following commands. If you downloaded a different file or downloaded to a different folder, then make the appropriate substitutions. When finished, quit the Terminal application.

cd Downloads
sudo dpkg -i refind_0.11.3-1_amd64.deb

The result, of running the above commands, was the creation of the refind and tools folders in the EFI folder, as shown below.

Next, you will need to make the following modifications.

If the BOOT folder does not exist, then create this folder. Otherwise, remove the contents of this folder.
Copy the contents from the refind folder to the BOOT folder.
Rename the refind_x64.efi file in the BOOT folder to BOOTx64.EFI.
Right click on the refind.conf file in the BOOT folder and then select Open in Scratch.
Add the following lines at the end of the opened refind.conf file.

#
# Added to make rEFInd silent.
#
menuentry "Elementary" {
    icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\os_elementary.png
    volume "EFI"
    loader \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi
    ostype Linux
    graphics on
}
timeout -1
hideui all
scanfor manual

Close the refind.conf tab and quit the Scratch application.

Finally, follow the steps given below to insure the Mac boot loader executes the BOOTx64.EFI file.

Restart your Mac and immediately press and hold the option key on your keyboard.
Release the option key when you see the Startup Manager window.
Hold down the control key while selecting the internal disk icon labeled EFI boot

Now, when you select the internal disk icon labeled EFI boot in the Startup Manager, rEFInd will silently boot elementary OS.

Why does an icon with the Windows label appear in the Startup Manager when installing for an BIOS boot?

Orignially, when Apple first allowed Windows to be installed on Macs, Windows had to be installed for a BIOS boot. Therefore, Apple used Windows as the label displayed in the Boot Manager when any BIOS booting operating system was installed. This convention was repeated in all Macs until 2015, when Apple started shipping Macs that could no longer BIOS boot.


You should expand your requirement to iCloud and Dropbox for following reasons.

iCloud is sandboxed to only certain apps. In other words, any notes an app X creates cannot be read and modified by app Y. Dropbox allows any apps that supports Dropbox to access your notes. You may like app X now but you may want app Y later.
iCloud syncing can be useful if you have multiple iOS devices, for things like settings and miscellaneous data (e.g., scratchpad).

I have tried over a dozen note taking apps that syncs over the cloud. The app that I keep going back to is Elements (http://www.secondgearsoftware.com/elements/). It has very clean yet functional UI and frigging fast.

I do have few wish list items though: (1) tagging and/or support for moving notes to different folder, (2) hide certain Dropbox folders (I linked to the root folder), (3) default font setting (Museo Sans is very pleasant but may not be for everyone), and (4) Markdown keyboard (it fully supports Markdown but I don't remember all the syntax).


AppleCare protects the item and is fully transferable to any new owner of that existing phone. Also, the full terms and conditions are at apple.com/legal in case your country specific details differ from the USA.

You can also cancel AppleCare for a pro-rated refund at any time so if after three months, you wanted to sell your iPhone 5 to someone that didn't want to pay for AppleCare coverage - you could get the majority of the cost back.

I agree with what you reported, you can't in general just move AppleCare to another device whether it's the same owner or a different owner. The move in that case is to get a refund in my opinion. The power to decide is in your friend's choice - sell the iPhone 5 with coverage if that raises the sale price (or value to the next owner) or get a refund which will defray all but the few months of coverage that has been used when buying coverage for the iPhone 5s.


Can't store multiple arguments with read -p in macOS terminal using bash

The variable IFS is used by various commands. The safest thing to do is save the value, then restore when finished. Below is an example.

declare "IFS_BACKUP=$IFS"
IFS=$' \t\n'
read -p "Enter your command: " cmd arg1 arg2
IFS="$IFS_BACKUP"
echo "$cmd"
echo "$arg1"
echo "$arg2"

The documentation command man bash defines IFS as follows:

   IFS    The  Internal  Field  Separator  that is used for word splitting
          after expansion and to split lines  into  words  with  the  read
          builtin  command.   The  default  value  is  ``<space><tab><new-
          line>''.


Terminal app Tabs, how to position next to current tab instead of at the end

It is possible in nightly release of the alternative terminal program iTerm2 via Preferences → Advanced → Tabs: New tabs are added at the end, not next to current tab set to No.


In iTunes Connect Analytics, select your app and go to Metrics → Active Devices or Sessions and choose View By → Platform Version. This will give you a breakdown of the iOS version installed per the category you selected.

Keep in mind this data only began reporting in iOS 8 and is opt-in only. You can hover the "Opt In Only" text to view the percentage of your users who have opted in which should provide a little guidance in extrapolation.


unload nfsd - Operation not permitted while System Integrity Protection is engaged

Firstly, you'll need to disable the "System Integration Protection":

How to Disable System Integrity Protection

And now, you'll be able to disable your "Notification Center":

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist

And then, kill the current instance of "Notification Center":

killall NotificationCenter

When you reboot, isn't necessary to do that anymore...

I hope I've helped

PS: Don't forget, at this point your root user will have all permissions. I recommend to reboot into recovery mode one more time to enable your System Integration Protection:

csrutil enable


Is there a way to refresh a file that is opened by TextEdit?

There's a ugly way of doing it, as far as I know.

Once the file has been edited just try to save it. TextEdit will prompt you saying something like:

  The document "Untitled.txt" couldn't be saved. Other application modified the file.

Giving you the choice to either Restore or Save anyway.

While Save anyway will keep your changes and save as a new version the changes made by the other application, Restore will update your file with these new changes.

Unless there's a specific reason to use TextEdit I'd recommend using any other text editor, such as TextMate, which supports the automatic refresh.


What is the difference between sync-ing my iPhone and backing-up my iPhone?

Backup means copying your personal data from your phone to your computer. That includes application settings, text messages, voicemails, etc.

Sync means copying new apps, music, video, or books from iTunes to your phone, or from your phone to iTunes.

You can think of it this way: backup saves a copy of stuff you've created, and sync copies media you have downloaded via the iTunes Store.

Backup copies everything, but Sync only copies what you choose through iTunes. By default, it copies everything, but you can fine tune it all you want. You might want to stop movies from syncing to your phone if you never use it to watch movies, for example.

Unless you've changed the settings, when you connect your iPhone to your computer, iTunes always performs a backup first, then a sync.

When you connect a new iPhone to your computer, iTunes will offer to reconfigure it using the latest backup it has. So if you connect your old iPhone, let it backup/sync, then connect your new iPhone, it should transfer everything so that your new phone is just like your old one, but faster!


Multitasking bar does not show up on my iPhone

Apple changed how multitasking looks and works with the release of iOS 7 in 2013, from the ‘bar’ to the cards layout. The cards are previews of the apps represented by the icons in the picture you provided. It is not possible to achieve the picture in modern iOS without jailbreaking.


How to install Windows 10 on external SSD that currently runs OS X?

As Apple states here:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201456

  Can I install Windows on an external drive?

  No, Boot Camp requires that Windows be installed on your internal hard disk.

There's a workaround, which doesn't use Bootcamp. Personally, I haven't tried it.
http://bleeptobleep.blogspot.gr/2013/02/mac-install-windows-7-or-8-on-external.html


How can I reduce the resolution and storage size of photos synced to my iPhone?

Unfortunately your iPhone already does this with a majority of your photos, and maintains a specialized cache for this purpose, so I doubt there will be any programs to help with this. You can see this via http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1314

If you want to rescale your photos in an automated fashion, and you are using your macbook, you can easily create an automator action to create smaller images with entire folders of images. However it seems like you don't want to maintain a second set of lower resolution images.


Safari iPhone 6 will not load static website which is hosted on AWS

Looks like its working fine for me on iPhone 6 :


How can I combine multiple photos into a single image on my iPhone?

Have you looked at Frame Magic. There's a free version and a 99¢ version


Recover accidentally reformatted encrypted HFS+ volume

In this case you should recover the disk contents from backups.
The format command will have overwritten (small) parts of the disk, so in order to get everything back, you'll want to recover from backups.
If you haven't got backups, you will need to try changing the partition table to indicate it is a CoreStorage volume and then attempt to manually edit enough of the partition to ensure that it can be mounted (if possible at all). As the partition was encrypted, this will probably prove to be very difficult, if possible at all.


Changing XAMPP directory/file permissions

Instead of using an 'alias' at the Finder level, you might want to use the terminal to create a 'symlink'.
The command to do this is ln so you can learn more with man ln - but you can also check out these two articles that explain the concept a little clearer than the man page.

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2001110610290643
http://gigaom.com/2011/04/27/how-to-create-and-use-symlinks-on-a-mac/

To answer your other question, yes, everyone means EVERYONE, in addition to every user on the laptop.


New Apple ID, Can't update previous apps on mac

You have 2 options

You can either buy them again [they may not be eligible as free versions twice] or use the ID & password they were originally downloaded under.

It shouldn't matter if the old versions are there at the time.


Mavericks screen lock occurs immediately instead of after 15 minutes of sleep

I have tried to replicate and analyze your problem.

The key word here is close the lid and "immediately" open it again.

There is a file called com.apple.screensaver.plist located in your user library preferences folder that should change when you change the settings for password timer.

While observing it there is actually a slight delay in writing that file, since a temporary version is written first. If you do the immediate stuff it is possible the .plist file is not correctly completed so your 15 min delay is not working.

In your case I would take a wild ques that plist file does not change the settings to 15 minutes and it is stuck to the "Immediately" request password.

That can also be caused the corrupt ACL permissions, or the immediately action you are doing.

Make sure the plist file has the accurate date/Time stamp before attempting to close the lid.

To test log in as another user and try again. If it works with other user reset your ACL.


This is pretty easy to do through automator and the "Watch me do" actions. Here's what I got to work however you'd likely replace your input with however you're getting the file in your setup

Display Webpages opens the HTML file in the default browser (in this case chrome) and then we enter Command-P and then Enter which brings up the print dialog and then prints with the default settings because the print button is the initial highlighted button. This will work with whatever fancy javascript you've got and you can optionally add a wait period between launching the file and sending the print keys to allow it to fully render/load.


Why does macOS set xattr com.apple.quarantine, when saving a shell script on a usb stick

This solved it for me

Q: Is there a file with the quarantine flag set, on the USB stick?
mount is adding a quarantine flag, causing: /bin/bash: bad interpreter: Operation not permitted - but not the usual suspects

A: Yes, there were many.

Howto do it

List xattributes of all files on the stick

xattr -r /Volumes/stick128/

Remove the xattribute com.apple.quarantine from all files on the USB stick

sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Volumes/stick128

Try provoking the error again, by editing and saving the myScript.sh file

Result

No error
The xattr com.apple.quarantine is not beeing added to myScript.sh


OS X - 'Clickable' script to erase files?

Create a text file like this:

#!/bin/bash

cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" || {
    echo "Error changing directory." >&2
    exit 1
}

echo "Cleaning files..."

rm *.aux
rm *.bak
rm *.bbl
rm *.blg
rm *.gz
rm *.log
rm *.pdf

echo "Done!"

Give it a ".command" extension, and add execute permission to it. This will make it automatically open and run in Terminal when it's double-clicked.

Note that there are two important differences (and one minor one) between this and @thiagoveloso's script:

It uses double-quotes around the path it's cding to, which will prevent problems if any directory names contain spaces (which is entirely normal on OS X).
It checks for errors while cding, and if there was a problem it exits (rather than deleting files in an unexpected location). Always check for errors on any script command that affects what the rest of the script will do; cd is a good example of this.
(Minor) It cds directly to the script's directory (rather than cding there, capturing that location in a variable, then cding there again based on the variable).


Why are the emails from Apple Mail in this numbered directory structure?

It looks like an Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) is a 128-bit number used to identify information in computer systems.

Anyone can create a UUID and use it to identify something with near certainty that the identifier does not duplicate one that has already been created to identify something else, and will not be duplicated in the future. Information labeled with UUIDs by independent parties can therefore be later combined into a single database, or transmitted on the same channel, without needing to resolve conflicts between identifiers.

In its canonical string representation, the sixteen octets of a UUID are represented as 32 lowercase hexadecimal (base 16) digits, displayed in five groups separated by hyphens, in the form 8-4-4-4-12 for a total of 36 characters (32 alphanumeric characters and four hyphens). For example:

123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426655440000


How to execute terminal command on energy efficient cores on M1 chip?

What you want to do is technically known as setting a "CPU affinity", i.e. letting the operating system scheduler know, which CPU core a process should be allowed to run on.
As far as I know, macOS does not come with a GUI or command line program for setting CPU affinity. This is unlike some other operating systems, such as for example Linux that features a simple taskset command for that purpose.
However, the absence of a nice tool does not mean that it is impossible to do. Far from it. Apple does provide an API for programmers that allow them to set CPU affinity.
As you indicate that you want to set the CPU affinity for various nodejs processes, it seems likely that you're developing software or running open-source software where you can modify the source code. In that case you can set the CPU affinity by way of the thread_policy_set() function.
For example if you have a Mach thread named thread that you want to schedule only on core #7, you can do it like this:
thread_affinity_policy_data_t policy = { 7 };
thread_policy_set(thread, THREAD_AFFINITY_POLICY, (thread_policy_t)&policy, 1);


What is the best free option for automatic ftp sync with finder?

TextWrangler

You can use BareBones' Text Wranger. It is a free texteditor with onboard ftp capability. TextWrangler is BBEdit's little brother, and BBEdit is one of the best text editors. I use this text editor at least since Mac OS 7.6 And, just like BBEdit, TextWrangler does not suck.


Connect 2 LG Ultrafine 5K monitors plugged into the same side of late 2016 MacBook Pro 15 inch

What you're seeing is the correct behaviour.

Each 5K monitor actually uses 2 DisplayPort 1.2 streams and stiches them together to form a single image.

You have two DisplayPort streams available per Thunderbolt 3 bus, so plugging in a 5K monitor on the left hand side of the MacBook Pro occupies all the DisplayPort capacity available on that side.

This means that you need to plug one monitor into the left hand side and the other into the right hand side of the MacBook Pro.

It also means that MacBook Pros with only 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports only supports a single 5K monitor.


Retina dsiplay support on Intellj Idea for Java /JavaScript development

IntelliJ Idea 12 is a perfectly well behaved 64bit retina enabled application on Mountain Lion.

I use IntelliJ, day in, day out on Windows PCs for Enterprise Java Dev, because it's the best there is. IMHO On the Mac it's even better.


Why did some applications have to rebuild their database after a Time Machine rollback?

A lot of caches and index files are excluded from backup because they can be rebuilt from information that is backed up. This helps save space on the backup drive.

Another question lists the default exclusions for time machine.


"SafariBookmarksSyncAgent quit unexpectedly" Keeps Popping Up and Cannot Open Safari

What ended up working for me was restarting the computer in safe mode.

Here's an explanation from an apple discussions post.

  Certain caches maintained by the system will be rebuilt.

  Safe mode is much slower to start up than normal. The next normal
  startup may also be somewhat slow.

  When the login screen appears, restart as usual (not in safe mode) and
  test. There's no need to log in while in safe mode.

  Note: If FileVault is enabled in OS X 10.9 or earlier, or if a
  firmware password is set, or if the startup volume is a software RAID,
  you can’t start in safe mode. In that case, ask for instructions.

From: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7069199


External monitor connected via usb-c causes mac to not show low battery notification

Whether or not this is something Apple ought to fix is entirely a matter of opinion. You can report the case to Apple as a bug and hope that they will change the way it currently works.

In the mean time you can install a third party app to monitor your battery that can alert you when the battery charge is low. For example you can install SlimBatteryMonitor, which you can get for free here:

http://www.orange-carb.org/SBM/


How can you schedule messages on an iPhone?

While there is no native option to have the message sent at a scheduled time, I have been using an app Called Auto Sender for the past month or so, and have been finding it works very well.

How it works is by storing the message on their server, and then sending the message from a generated number at the scheduled time. While it is not possible to have the message automatically sent from your number due to restrictions placed by apple, this method works well if you don't mind it coming from a different number. It also automatically includes your number at the end of the message, so the recipient knows who sent it. It also offers a signature that will appear at the end of the message, which allows you to enter your name in if you would like.

For the past month or so all my messages have been sent exactly on time! While there is a cost associated with each message due to them storing it on their servers, I find it cheaper then any other iOS alternative.


Is Apple changing OS X branding to macOS retroactively?

Yes, there is proof of this change in several places.

First and foremost, it should be made clear that this change is not being applied to old OS releases in the sense that if you boot into an OS prior to 10.12 Sierra, and go to Apple menu > About This Mac, you will not see it suddenly say "macOS" instead of "Mac OS X" or "OS X". The change is in relation to documentation and references in updated software, such as the startup disk selection screen in Sierra.

Here is a screenshot to illustrate:

There are places on Apple's own website where the change can be seen (although, again, it is not nearly everywhere).

This developer page about Xcode states:

  Xcode 8 requires a Mac running macOS El Capitan version 10.11.4 or later.

In the description of a video from a session at WWDC 2016, there is this language:

  Launched last year with iOS 9 and macOS El Capitan, the new Transit feature ...

Found on this marketing page, in a footnote describing system requirements is this text:

  Some features require iOS 9 and macOS El Capitan.

There are a couple of Apple support articles, listed below, which refer to a number of OS versions in a row behind macOS.

If your web browser says that it's missing the Quicktime plug-in:

  This plug-in is no longer enabled in macOS Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, and Mavericks.

Printer and scanner software for macOS Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, and Mavericks. (This one is right there in the title.)

Other companies/projects are recognizing this, too, such as PostgreSQL:

  Apple has decided to rename Mac OS X to "macOS", and apparently is now retroactively referring to old releases that way too.


No. It's just not designed to do this: it doesn't have the necessary hardware for lights-out management nor built in features.


How do I configure DNS now that OS X Server doesn't support it?

Locating configs with lsof

You could use lsof to try and find out what files the running DNS server is currently using and perhaps find out where the existing files are located.

$ lsof -p $(pgrep -f <name of DNS server>)

NOTE: I believe the configuration files are typically located here ,/Library/Server/, so you may want to look through there for them.

You may also want to look at the following resources regarding this from Apple:

BIND

DNS on Mojave server

  DNS is no longer included in Server.app so you will have to do it
  either on a Mac running an older version of macOS and hence older
  version of Server.app or do it via the command line.

  If you manually install BIND then at least the config files will be
  the same as previously used in Server.app although in a different
  location

Based on this it sounds like you may be able to simply take your existing configs, if you can find them, and use them directly with BIND.

Service Migration Guide

Also take a look at this guide put out by Apple titled: macOS Server
Service Migration Guide v1.2.

References

Setting up a local DNS server on OSX
Configuring Your Own DNS Server on Mac OS X


Can I select only a few specific folders to back up with Time Machine?

You may exclude items from a Time Machine backup as follows:

Open System Preferences.
Click Time Machine.
After having enabled Time Machine and chosen a backup disk, click Options.
Click + to specify an item that is not to be backed up. The backup disk is included on this list automatically so that it does not back up itself.


What changes have been made to bash in Lion?

Assuming a SnowLeopard or Lion installation that has the latest software updates, the version of Bash is the same. 3.2.48(1)-release.

On SnowLeopard you may have a 32bit compilation in some cases, whereas on Lion it is (by default) 64bit.

The command username="$(whoami)" is extemely unlikely to ever change it's output on bash, since doing so would incur the fast moving, brain devouring wrath of an infinite number of ravenous zombie sysadmin types.

(By the way sysadmins are almost never undead, despite the occasional appearance to the contrary. The description was added for dramatic effect, and no offence to sysadmins was intended. I offer my heartfelt apology to any actual undead sysadmins, and their families, and I urge them to grab a shotgun immediately and barricade the bedroom door, double tap to be sure.)


My Macbook Pro can't install Windows7 On any MAC OS

Your Windows 7 DVD probably is defective. Either that, or the optical (DVD) drive is defective. I assume you are using your internal optical drive. If not then, then the external optical drive is defective or may not be compatible.

I assume you your firmware is up to date. Although, on a 2011 model, this should not be the cause of your problem.

Try this. Insert the DVD in the optical (DVD) drive. Restart the Mac and hold down the option key. A DVD icon should appear with the label "Windows". Select this icon and continue booting. If everything is OK, then the Windows installer should start. (If prompted, you may have to hit the space bar on the keyboard.) I assume the installer will not start, thus indicating either the DVD or the optical drive is at fault. If the installer starts, then exit and post a comment below.


I have 21.5GB free. Why won't my MacBook Air 2010 let me use Boot Camp?

To expand upon my above comment:

64GB is just not very much space, especially when you consider updates, your own programs, data, etc etc.

My recommendation, if it is possible and available, is to run Windows XP from a USB drive. There are a handful of documented procedures for getting WinXP on a flash drive and running it from there. I would recommend following this TechRepublic article to get it all set up for that.

This should negate the issue with Boot Camp, let you keep the 64GB of HDD space to your trusty OS X partition, and hopefully provide enough room on your flash drive for WinXP to grow with applications as well.

Hopefully there is nothing Vista or Win 7 specific that you need to do. Good luck!


How to create a pseudo-guest account in Lion with FileVault 2?

Guest Account

This account is visible in Directory Utility, but please do not attempt to make it compatible with FileVault 2. Not only for security; there may be other good reasons for Apple making this account not available whilst FileVault 2 is enabled.

Other accounts

For your guest you might like to create a standard account, or add parental controls. You can probably have an account that is password-free. This is in line with Kyle Cronin's answer to a linked question.

Recommended reading

Apart from being able to encypt an entire volume, what are the other differences of FileVault 2 over FileVault?


Does the Console app in macOS keep a log of when I deleted a certain file?

No. The filesystem doesn’t directly or indirectly to the console have a journal or log of changes in files or folders or permissions.

There are some tools to do that, but none ship enabled or configured with the os.

Time Machine is the way to find when the file was last present and it’s searchable from spotlight.

I would set that up now or connect and get a current backup before you do any troubleshooting so if you need to erase the drive or repair it, your other files are covered at least now and going forward.


Catalina: Purpose of /System/Volumes/Data/Previous Content/?

I think it was originally used for Archive and Install macOS installs.
However, you haven't been able to select a Archive and Install for ages.
To me it looks like it is continuously updated in real-time which makes me think its actually linked to the original sources and the files you see are the actual files not copies. It also seems to be well hidden from the file system. Perhaps left there for comparability reasons.
Perhaps look at your drive using DaisyDisk to find where the space is getting used. macOS allows purge-able space take up to 80% of the drive, however, it should automatically reclaim when the storage is required.
https://daisydiskapp.com/manual/4/en/Topics/PurgeableSpace.html?source=PurgeableSpace&appEdition=Standard&appVersion=4.10&osVersion=10.15.5