MacOS Catalina Time Machine restoration to Mojave failed; MacOS Recovery failed (-1008F)

I was in contact with Apple's support for this issue, and it was ultimately resolved although a bit tortuous.
There are several modes of MacOS Recovery, accessible by holding different key combinations as described here.
Trying to access MacOS Recovery failed and gave the "-1008F" error every time I tried the MacOS Recovery modes "Reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac (recommended)" (⌘+R) and "Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac." (⌥+⌘+R).
However, the mode "Reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available." (⇧+⌥+⌘+R) did work for me. From this mode, I was instructed by Apple Support to wipe/format the disk entirely clean using MacOS Recovery mode's Disk Utility and create a new volume (I'm not sure if this step is absolutely necessary). From there on, I could successfully install MacOS Mojave (the OS that originally shipped with the Mac).
Next arose the issue of restoring my system. My intention was to stay on MacOS Mojave instead of MacOS Catalina, but unfortunately it appears that when I installed MacOS Catalina the first time (before all this happened and I decided to go back to MacOS Mojave) – MacOS Catalina actually converted format of my Time Machine backups stored on my NAS from the traditional .sparsebundle format to the newly introduced .backupbundle format. I think this was disingenuous by Apple, because I had not been asked for this conversion to occur, nor did any Time Machine backup process once MacOS Catalina was installed ever move past the backup preparation stage since I had manually disabled Time Machine backup. In other words, MacOS Catalina converts your Time Machine backups to a new format without asking you!
The problem is of course that the new .backupbundle format of Time Machine backups cannot be identified by MacOS Mojave. According to Apple Support, Apple does for the time being provide a "secret" method to convert .backupbundle files back to .sparsebundle, but this is not something that they are announcing publicly because apparently they want all users to shift to MacOS Catalina. Rather than hassle with this however, I opted to upgrade to MacOS Catalina and try to restore my Time Machine backups from there instead.
Once MacOS had been upgraded to a clean install of Catalina, a had a new problem because the Time Machine backups were now identifiable but not restorable by Migration Assistant.app, the recommended Time Machine restoration application in MacOS.  I believe the error message said something like "Could not open backup, file in use..." (paraphrasing). It turns out that there was an issue with MacOS/Migration Assistant not being able to open Time Machine backups stored on my Synology NAS devices over the network, even when trying different modes of SMB/AFP. The solution was to copy the .backupbundle files from the NAS onto an external USB/Thunderbolt drive, then mount the .backupbundle file by double-clicking it in Finder, and finally running Migration Assistant again. From thereon, I could successfully restore my files and system configuration onto MacOS Catalina.
The first lesson here is not to keep Time Machine backups only on NAS devices, because they are unsupported Time Machine destinations in Apple's view. Apple primarily supports Time Machine backups on external USB/Thunderbolt drives, and were not inclined to help me resolve the problem of reading the Time Machine backup on the NAS. I had to buy an entire new external drive in order to relocate the .backupbundle file and restore it, and I now intend to back up both to the external drive and NAS continually. The second lesson is to make copies of your Time Machine backups before upgrading to a new OS – I did not foresee that MacOS Catalina would convert or otherwise do things to my backup files upon OS upgrade without my permission!
Hope this is of use to anyone else running into this chain of issues after upgrading to MacOS Catalina.


An iPhone 5 I had got stuck searching for signal forever also, it was caused by the data settings.
I had to turn Cellular Data ON to correct the secondary setting; LTE I believe. Then I could turn it back off (Cellular Data).


Error when creating OS X installer on USB drive via Terminal

It means that the path "/Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia" doesn't exist. createinstallmedia is an executable to create bootable El Capitan installer media. You either moved/renamed "Install OS X El Capitan.app" (or the file createinstallmedia) or it doesn't exist at all.


Dial another phone, access SMS of another phone using IPOD Touch 4

Not possibly currently I'm afraid. Certainly, you'd have to have a jailbroken Touch as a starting point. No way you'd be able to do this on a stock iPod Touch. Even then, I'm not aware of anything out there that will do this.


SSH using IPV6 getting error "No Route to Host" On My Mac Machine

If you want to perm a route in 10.10 Yosemite. here

You should create a quick script with

"#!/bin/bash"

sudo /sbin/route add -net x.x.x.0/24 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

save it in a path

chmod a+x the file

Then type this,..

sudo defaults write com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook /Path/To/Your/Script

POW .. Yosemite perm route with edit file .


How to stop MacBook Pro (Retina) from freezing/locking at the login/authentication dialogue, after wake?

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark guess and say that this is related to the highly documented "Mountain Lion wake bug" (at least that's what I've dubbed it.)

It's been discussed in a variety of threads on apple support forums, but probably the most successful I found was this one. I had the problem too and I found that there was one simple fix on this thread.

Basically, the theory (and I'm 99% certain it's correct) is that the bug relates to bonjour, and some apps that use bonjour in mountain lion are causing wifi processes to hang and thus crashing OSX. Anyway, the program that was doing it for me, and probably what I've seen to be the most common one, is Transmit, the awesome little FTP client by Panic. Unfortunately, Panics Menu Bar icon which can be quite useful appeared to be the worst culprit, but toggling off "Show Transmit Disk in menu bar" in transmit preferences  solved the problem.

If you're not using Transmit or if you're still having issue, run through that forum and hopefully you'll find one of the other fixes works for you.

PS. Apple knows about the problem and I think they're working on a fix.


Linux on My MacBook Pro - Want to erase Linux and reinstall macOS

Follow these instructions to erase and reinstall macOS:

  Start up from macOS Recovery

  macOS Recovery installs different versions of macOS depending on the key combination you use while starting up. Turn on or restart your
  Mac, then immediately hold down one of these combinations:

  2.Release the keys when you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe.

  Erase your startup disk

  If you need to erase your startup disk, follow these steps:

  Select Disk Utility from the utilities window of macOS Recovery, then click Continue.
  Select your device or volume in the sidebar of Disk Utility.
  Click the Erase button or tab.
  Complete these fields:

  Name: Enter a name for your disk, such as "Macintosh HD".
  Format: Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS.
  Scheme (if available): Choose GUID Partition Map.

  Click Erase to begin erasing your disk.
  When done, quit Disk Utility to return to the utilities window. You're now ready to install macOS.

  Install macOS

  Choose Reinstall macOS (or Reinstall OS X) from the utilities window.
  Click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions. You'll be asked to select your disk. If you don't see it, click Show All Disks.
  Click Install. Your Mac restarts after installation is complete.

  If you erased your disk before installing, or you installed on an
  external drive or other new disk, your Mac restarts to a setup
  assistant.

  If you're keeping your Mac, complete the setup assistant with your own information.
  If you're selling or giving away your Mac, press Command-Q to quit the setup assistant without completing the setup steps. Then click
  Shut Down. When the new owner starts up the Mac, they can use their
  own information to complete setup.

More more information: What to do before you sell or give away your Mac - Apple Support


Reveal all favourites in new tab page on macOS Safari

There was a "Show more" button at the top-right:

But I couldn't see it in full-screen Safari because I have View > Always Show Toolbar in Fullscreen unchecked:

The slide-out toolbar was covering up the title and "show more" button on the page.

There are multiple ways to reveal them:

Open a Safari window that isn't full-screened
In the new tab page, drag one of the favicons and then put it back in the same spot. The toolbar disappears.
Check View > Always Show Toolbar in Fullscreen


Time Capsule external USB drive - as second Time Machine Drive?

Connecting an external drive won't extend the built-in storage per se; rather, you'll be able to back up to either the internal disk, or the disk connected via USB. Of course, you can switch back and forth, but they won't be combined into one volume.


Is there a Windows 7/8/8.1 like automatic window sizer?

BetterTouchTool has one of the features u are looking for.

You can find it in Window Snapping Settings:


Can I have a Slideshow thats NOT fullscreen on Mac?

Yes, with the app Phiewer. It's free from the MacApp Store. When you start Phiewer it will ask you to locate the images. Then you can set the window size and then select slideshow. The window size stays the same and the images are displayed.


Does photo stream retain deleted iCloud photos?

If you use Photo Stream as you mentioned your photos will be stored in iCloud separately and not in a backup, therefore it is safe to delete previous backups.

To further reduce backup size iPhone backup takes too much space


How do I know when an iPhone was switched off?

There is no way to easily find out when the phone powered off due to the battery dying. You can, however, get your battery life by charging it completely (till 100%), let it die, then charge to power it up and then going to Settings > General > Usage > Time since last full charge and adding up the times for Usage and Standby.


I work for a school district and just had to do this.  The teacher receives student iMovie files for review, and I need to move this automatically from the Downloads folder to something else.  Create the folder you want files moved to.  I went into Automator (Applications folder) and created a new "Folder Action." At the top where it says "Folder Action receives files and folders added to" choose your Downloads folder.  In Library (far left) choose Files and Folders, then Filter Finder Items.  Drag this to the workflow area to the right.  In my case, I added two criteria.  Kind is movie, and File extension contains m4v.  Below "Filter Finder Items" drag Move Finder Items from the left side, and choose the new folder location.  That's it.  When someone airdrops a file that meets the criteria you set up, it should automatically move to the specified folder.  Hope this helps someone!


Do i need the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Mysql for use with php 5.5

If your Mac is 64 bit, the 64-bit version would be preferred. If you are on a 32-bit system, you'll have no choice but to go with the 32-bit version. See the How to tell if your Intel-based Mac has a 32-bit or 64-bit processor to determine what you are running.


Should I worry about my iPhone 4's loose back panel?

Considering how much an iPhone costs, take it back. If not for the fact that a loose panel will eventually expose the interior of the phone, thus requiring you to take it back anyway, then for the simple fact that we, as a customer base, expect better of Apple products.


How may I move the pre-installed applications (such as Chess) into a sub-folder?

You can't. There are hacks that allow you to do this but really you are spending a lot of time and effort and compromising the stability and security of the Mac so your /Applications folder can be neat/tidy.

May I suggest you create a folder in which you place aliases of all applications that you want and need and use that in place of the /Applications folder and just stay out of that folder?


How to disable inline volume controls on headphones connected to mac?

(I wanted to answer this question, but I didn't have enough reputation.)
Please note that loading and unloading kernel extensions can have unintended consequences. This solution worked for me without causing any issues on my mid-2013 Macbook Air, but that may not be the case for your setup. Understand what you're doing and perform at your own risk.

Open Terminal
With headphones plugged in, enter this command to ensure that AppleMikeyHIDDriver is controlling your headphones hidutil list | grep AppleMikeyHIDDriver. DO NOT CONTINUE IF THE OUTPUT IS BLANK. My output looked like this:

0x0      0x0       0x0        12        1     0x100000975 (null)    AppleMikeyHIDDriver Apple Mikey HID Driver             (null)    (null)

Run this command to ensure that the com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver kernel extension is running kextstat | grep com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver. DO NOT CONTINUE IF THE OUTPUT IS BLANK. My output looked like this:

179    0 0xffffff7f83cf9000 0x2000     0x2000     com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver (131) DE4003F6-F4F3-3C84-AB83-6CCDE6CF5DFC <49 8 5 3 1>

Unplug your headphones from your mac. The next step failed for me if they were plugged in with the following error:

(kernel) Can't remove kext com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver; services failed to terminate - 0xe00002c7.
Failed to unload com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver - (iokit/common) unsupported function.

Run this command to disable the inline volume and mic control sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver. You may need to enter your password.

If you ever want to enable it in the future just run sudo kextload -b com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver or reboot your mac and everything should go back to normal.


How to check battery capacity of a new phone (iPhone SE)?

There's no way to check to see if the battery is genuine without opening it up and visually inspecting it.
When the battery gives you it's capacity, it's basing that on a moment-in-time measurement of the battery's charge against a known capacity value (1624 mAh for the iPhone SE; 1821 mAh for 2020 SE). Any 3rd party battery can have that capacity, but how they discharge is what makes the difference (quality of the cells).
That said, there are many reasons for quick discharge of your battery: an update to iOS may have a bug, apps being open or utilizing too much resources, etc.  For example, my own iPhone started exhibiting poor battery life the moment I upgraded to iOS 14.  I confirmed it by restoring a backup from iOS 13.
That said, "way to short" is very subjective - you need to define what way to short is in terms of hours of use compared to what Apple publishes.  However, it's been reported that battery life is a "Major Letdown" when compared to other manufacturers.  So, based on how you use the phone and the factors mentioned above, YMMV with respect to battery life.
If you're concerned that the battery may not be genuine, the only way is to physically open it and have an Apple technician inspect it.


Is there a way to select only all odd/even pages in the Preview app?

The usual way of selecting Odd or Even pages only for printing is found in the Print dialog itself, in the "Paper Handling" section.
So Preview doesn't replicate this in the Sidebar. (Though it conceivably might be useful for other functions.)


iTunes Search for a Song X Many Minutes Long

This is only possible by creating a smart playlist.

Below the playlist sidebar click on the plus-button and choose to add a new smart playlist. You can set it something like this:


Remove devices associated with iCloud account

Removing an associated device or computer from an Apple ID
To remove a device or computer from your Apple ID:

Open iTunes.
Sign in to your Apple ID by choosing Store > Sign In from the iTunes menu.
Choose Store > View My Account from the iTunes menu.
From the Account Information screen, click Manage Devices.
Click the Remove button next to the device name you would like to unassociate.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4627


Time machine requires a specially formatted hard drive - it doesn't have to be an Apple drive and indeed can be anything you can connect to the machine, but it must be HFS+ and as such cannot be shared by Windows (FAT/NTFS).

My choice in this situation (I too have a W7 machine too) was to purchase a relatively cheap Western Digital Portable HDD from Amazon, let my Mac format that and use it exclusively for backups. I couldn't find anything to share them between machines at all.

If you're only looking to backup files, however, Dropbox may suit you well. It's free plan provides you with a 2gb folder that syncs between your computers (and the cloud).

I'm interested in what you said about an Airport router - your Macbook should be able to connect to any Wifi A/B/G network (so pretty much anything, for instance the free router your internet supplier provides).


I'd rather have this a comment, but for some reason I can only post answers.

Have a look at LaunchControl: http://www.soma-zone.com/LaunchControl/. While it does not offer a menu item to start/stop services it provides a list of all available launchd jobs, their current status and a way to start/stop them with the click of a button.

EDIT

LaunchControl now does offer a menu item for controlling selected jobs:


Xcode 7 develop for iOS without developer account

You don't need to pay for an Apple's developer want the $99 option for a store certificate, billing and general code signing certificates.

Your personal AppleID is good enough to sign apps in Xcode and load them on a limited number of devices (5 or so) from your Mac to get started with developing. Once you need TestFlight or want to make a signed app that is reviewed - you need to pay, but get started for free.

Here’s how I would undo a previous paid AppleID - you might need Apple Developer support to help you release your AppleID from the paid program if you are reusing the same AppleID (and I encourage always reusing the same and not making new accounts when you run into a hiccup like this).

Instead, delete all Xcode copies you might have installed earlier - whether they are from the Mac App Store or downloaded and then install Xcode 7 from the Mac App store:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12

Once it downloads, run the app and go to the settings:

click Accounts
click the + in the lower left and add an Apple ID
enter a personal Apple ID, the one you use for the App Store is fine to reuse
you're done

When you build an app for iOS, connect the iOS device and choose that AppleID to sign the app when asked.


iPad email: How to select all messages after filtering?

This is likely easier to do logging into yahoo mail in a web browser. Mail app on the iPad uses imap, therefor whatever you do in the browser will be synced to the iPad.


Account restrictions via “Screen Time” don’t disappear even after disabled?

Try completely turning of screen time by pressing turn off screen time st the bottom of the page.

How to access your purchase history:

According to this Apple Support page:

  Go to Settings > [your name] > iTunes & App Store.
  Tap your Apple ID, then tap View Apple ID. You might be asked to sign in with your Apple ID.

  If you use Family Sharing, you'll see in your purchase history what you bought using your Apple ID, but you won't see what other family members bought. To see what other family members bought, sign in with their Apple ID.

  Swipe up to Purchase History and tap it.


Bash Script that will start up second Terminal process?

You can use the do script AppleScript command to run a command in a new Terminal window:

osascript -e 'tell app "Terminal" to do script "uptime"'

It doesn't start a second process or instance for Terminal though. On OS X there is typically only one instance for each application, even though you can use open -n to open another instance.


Do you have auto-login enabled for this user? If so you can probably reboot and get back in.

If you see the 'Other' user at the Login Window you can use that, too.

If all else fails you try ssh'ing in from another system (ssh user@computer.local) or booting up in single user mode (Command-S on startup).


This top portion is something like a rant so you can skip to the next bolded text...
So to kinda summarize my thoughts in the comments on the native music app... If you clear the queue by closing the app, it's probably not a feature, but rather default software behavior and therefore probably just something they neglected until now. If a dev doesn't write a feature where the application remembers where you left off, why would it. So they didn't exactly remove a feature, they added a feature, that removed what I would call an exploit for the lack of a better word. Not saying OP claimed it was a feature, just saying they probably never thought anyone would use the music app that way and they didn't see it as replacing one feature with another one, so I wouldn't expect them adding a "clear queue" button anytime soon.
I've always been a big fan of 3rd party apps in general, but talking about music apps specifically, I also had never even considered that the native app could be used that way because 3rd party apps had faaaaar superior queue systems long before Apple added it to the native music player. Pretty much from the beginning 3rd party apps have been innovating and Apple has been slowly implementing the good features, like music queue for instance. And my understanding is that Apple has made some things regarding music apps more strict over the years and that's why many players nowadays have various compromises and in some cases have died away.
Solution #1 - Native music app

First of all the way you clear the queue is by clicking a song and then it asks if you want to clear the queue, in which case it does clear the queue but it also adds all the songs in the context of that song to the queue. If the song you clicked was in the album view, it would add all of the songs in the album to the queue and place the clicked song first. So you can't clear the queue just to make it empty. Perhaps if the app crashes, it might clear it.

So, the only way to get around it, that I see, is by making a playlist with just one song and then clicking the song in that playlist to clear the queue. Don't click the play or the shuffle buttons at the top, just click the song. The only kinda big downside is that you can't remove this song from the queue, which isn't much of an issue as long as that song is something you always feel like listening. Of course you can always skip it too.

I can imagine that you could probably get around that by basically making an empty 2 second audio clip, adding it to the Music app through Itunes and making a playlist out of it. But it might be too much trouble for what it's worth.

Solution #2 - 3rd party apps
I didn't test every single 3rd party player, so there could still be better options out there.

Picky Music Player - ($2.99)

This player plays the songs through the native app...
My first pick and really the only solid player I found that fits the bill
This is actually something I already owned and it has in app purchases... I'm not sure about this Picky Deluxe because I can't see it in the app. Maybe I already bought that... but all the other in app purchases are basically just donations. Which is to say, I'm not sure if this Picky Deluxe in app purchase is something that gives you more features or something.
Picky's FAQ
Pros

Works with apple music: cloud and downloaded songs.
Swipe left on a song to add to the queue
In the top right of the "now playing" screen there's the typical horizontal 3 dot menu where you have a "Clear song queue" option.
In the top right corner of every song list there's a picklist  menu that lets you add multiple songs to the queue or you can choose to play them next, which clears the queue.
You can swipe the album cover in the "now playing" screen left and right to go to the previous or next song.
I'm not sure if this counts as a pro, but it syncs the queue with the native Music app. You clear the queue in it, it clears the queue in the native app. If you add songs to the queue, they get added to the native app. If you add songs to the queue in the native app, they show up in Picky. If you remove songs from the queue it gets removed in Picky... etc..

Cons

The interface overall is pretty good, but now that I've gotten used to the native music player, I'm not a big fan of how the song lists are these very compact lists, without album art in the front.
Can't edit individual songs in the queue, like say move or remove them. Of course you can add more to the top of the queue or clear the whole queue.

You can however edit individual songs in the queue in the native music app. Picky manipulates the native queue every time you make changes to it and it stays in sync both ways.

Honorable mentions:

MusiQ Player - Queue Music - Free

This app plays song independently from the native music app
This is like the wet dream of anyone who is into making playlists on the fly... Like wow! (With a huge caveat*)
Cons

*Only works with downloaded apple music songs :( Don't read the pro's if this is a deal breaker because it'll just make you sad.

Pros

Swipe right to add song to the bottom of a queue
Swipe left to add song to the top of the queue
Clicking a song actually brings it to the top of the queue and starts playing it immediately.
Long click(press) gives you the option to Play now & Replace Queue
Queue has it's own tab, which I'm totally into
There's also a tab for "Queues", which is where you can manage or start playing any queues that you have saved.

This is really a con: you can add, remove and rename saves queues, but you can't edit the songs in them in any way. You have to starts playing the saved queue, then make edits in the "Queue" tab and save it again :/

The queue tab has 2 icons at the top right:

(1st icon) Clears queue - Or if you started playing a saved queue, it resets it to the saved queue... Which is kinda cool, but also I think I should be able to then click the icon again to empty out the queue, but no, the icon gets grayed out :/
(2nd icon) Saves the current queue into the "Queues" tab with the current date as a placeholder name.

Also has a swipe left and right over the now playing screen's album art.
In the "Queues" tab you can use the same swipe gestures to add the whole saved queue into the current queue... Awesome...
You can export saved queues to the native app. Would assume it is imported as a playlist.

AuxBox - Free

This app plays song independently from the native music app
This was an interesting find. I don't think I'd ever had any use for this but sure enough you can queue up songs and play them... Sort of...
I'm a little surprised it works with Apple music and Apple hasn't take it down... Well it's not like you can use it as a full on music server because it's on your phone, but still.
It's sort of like you make a "radio station", though they call them "channels", where you can add songs from the Music app. And then it just plays that queue...
Interestingly as soon as a song finishes, it's removed from the queue but the last song sticks around and plays on repeat until you stop or add other songs.
You can share these channels with friends and when you start a channel it has 2 options: party mode or radio mode.

Party mode: At a quick glance it seems party mode is one where you play music through the phone speakers or to bluetooth speakers or whatever and I guess your friends can... affect the queue somehow? I'm not really sure how that would work but it is called "party mode". Maybe they have full control of what's playing now or next, I don't know..
Radio mode: Again, quick glance says it would be otherwise kinda similar but your friends would be hearing it from their phone speakers.

Apparently your friends can add songs to their apple music, if they like the song or whatever.
Also works with Spotify.


Apple news will be available in a few number of countries (not specified in the keynote).

The foot note on iOS 9 on Apple website does not have any clues on availability on every announced app. Just say the following:

  Features are subject to change. Some features may not be available in
  all regions or all languages.


if both data and wi-fi are enabled, will iPhone use both?

If you just saw that you exceeded your data, it could've been many hours ago while you were not at home. AT&T says it could be delayed by 24 to 48 hours.

In my experience, the iPhone will only use data from one connection at a time, not both; Its choice is indicated by which adapter symbol is showing in the menu bar. When you see the Wi-Fi symbol, your iPhone is only using Wi-Fi for the internet.

Example: When I'm connected to a really bad Wi-Fi network (if I am almost out of range or it lost its internet connection), and trying to load a page in Safari, my iPhone will struggle with loading the page for about 10 to 20 seconds. Then, the Wi-Fi symbol switches to the 3G symbol and the page loads using cellular data.

The only exceptions I know of are multimedia messages (MMS) that aren't iMessages and Visual Voicemail – both of these things will not come over Wi-Fi and can't be received with cellular data off. They are not using both, but they could use cellular while you're on Wi-Fi.

Last bit of evidence and future-proofing: In iOS 6 Beta 4, Apple added an option for "Wi-Fi Plus Cellular". (MacRumors: iOS 6 Beta Adds 'Wi-Fi Plus Cellular' Option...)

It will help people who may be on a Wi-Fi network with little or no internet connection be able to get cellular data through to some apps. (Maybe I'm just on the Wi-Fi network for Airplay for example.) It allows you to choose (from their pre-set list) which apps can access cellular data while you're on Wi-Fi. Before iOS 6, this option was unavailable.


The only means I have ever found of doing this is third-party software. I have used Senuti for this, and can confirm that it works.

The current version of Senuti: http://www.fadingred.com/senuti/. The free trial version allows you to restore up to 1000 songs. There is also a fully-free version from 2008 [MD5 (Senuti.0.52.dmg) = e84ebf4614ded95c53dc750492297c87] at http://wstein.org/senuti/, but though the source code is available (there and at SourceForge), it has not been maintained, and I have not confirmed that it still works.
(You can get an older version from the developer, too.)

There is also TouchCopy: http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy. It appears to be very complete but is expensive, and the trial version is more limiting than is that of Senuti.


MacOS intermitently shows system messages in wrong, non-default language

Had the same problem today. I've opened the terminal and ran the following command:

$ sudo languagesetup

You'd have to add the password from your Mac's user.
You'll be prompted with a language list.
Select the one you desire, restart your Mac and just in case disable the option to reopen windows when you log back.


All text boxes : The opposite of ctrl+v (like in emacs)

The Emacs command for page up is Meta-v.  Unfortunately, Cocoa only seems to implement the Control-key commands, not commands with Meta.  (Alt is used for special or international characters.  Alt-v gives me a square root key on my keyboard layout.)


Appstore Policy: Why do apps stop using appstore and instead install from web sites?

From SourceTree's Blog:

Mac App Store Note
A final note just to say that we no longer publish to the Mac App Store due to sandboxing restrictions. Check Steve’s blog post about sandboxing for more information.


That is a flash video. You need to install flash for firefox.  https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/


Workaround for Dell's lack of drivers for macOS 10.15 Catalina?

The one-stop-shop for open source print drivers is here:

http://www.openprinting.org/printers

Models similar to your Dells seem to be supported.

If the printers can interpret PostScript or PDF natively, then you should be able to get by with a 'Generic' print queue. This would not necessarily have device-specific controls, but should be enough to print.


terminal search files by text that the file names contain

sudo find / -type f -name "*deh*"

if you want to search directories too then remove the -type f.  You can also try:
    sudo locate deh

Should your locate database not be created (or up to date), there is a chance you have that file on the filesystem, but it's not been stored yet. Rather than run a single find command above, building the locate.db database might be a better plan going forward.


iPhone 4 has 3G connectivity but can't access internet

Settings -> General -> VPN (should be not connected, if this is a personal device)
Settings -> General -> Cellular -> Cellular Data (turn off, reset the device)
After the device boot-up
Settings -> General -> Cellular -> Cellular Data (turn on, reset the device)

IF that doesn't help (follow this )

Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings (this will delete all Wi-Fi passwords)
Settings -> General -> Safari -> Clear History -> Clear History
Settings -> General -> Safari -> Clear Cookies and Data -> Clear Cookies and Data
Settings -> General -> Safari -> Advanced -> Website Data -> Remove All Website Data -> Remove Now (** All data saved in Safari will be deleted)
Reset the  device


I think the OS X Human Interface Guidelines are the place you're looking for. They state that there are Apple-reserved shortcuts (e.g. cmd ⌘+space) and also “expected behaviours” (e.g. cmd ⌘+c) one should respect.

While they don't explicitly state the priority, it suggests itself that the System always should have priority before the frontmost (active) and then background applications.

From my experience, you’re on the safe side with multiple modifier keys (i.e. cmd ⌘+ctrl+shift+…).

As an aside: regarding your specific example (assigning a shortcut to open a new terminal) there's also  excellent apps for that, TotalTerminal (Terminal.app extension) and iTerm 2 (Terminal.app replacement) come to mind


My MacBook Pro disconnects from the WiFi when not in use

Try unchecking "put hard disks to sleep when possible"


How to get xargs not to eat double spaces

Here are 3 possibilities that may work for you:

1. BSD xargs

This is built in to MacOS, but will require you to quote the filenames in your list-of-files

$ more list-of-files
'file1'
'file2'
'file 3'
'file  4'

note: I added the -t option in order to show the generated command before it executes.

$ cat list-of-files | xargs -t -I {} echo "{}"
echo file1
file1
echo file2
file2
echo file 3
file 3
echo file  4
file  4

2. GNU xargs

GNU xargs is not installed on MacOS by default, but can be installed via homebrew (in the findutils package).

brew install findutils

Using GNU xargs via homebrew would not require you to quote the filenames, and would give the same result as using BSD xargs, and quoting the filenames (option 1, above).

3. find (instead of list-of-files)

Rather than using a file for your input, use the find command. Something like the following should work:

$ ls -laF file*
-rw-r--r--  1 sfederman  staff  0 Jun  7 22:53 file  4
-rw-r--r--  1 sfederman  staff  0 Jun  7 22:53 file 3
-rw-r--r--  1 sfederman  staff  0 Jun  7 22:53 file1
-rw-r--r--  1 sfederman  staff  0 Jun  7 22:53 file2

$ find . -name "file*" | xargs -0 -I {} echo "{}"
./file  4
./file 3
./file1
./file2

Or, avoiding xargs completely:

$ find . -name "file*" -exec echo "{}" \;
./file  4
./file1
./file2
./file 3


Bootcamp Windows 7 loading time optimization

You could try the solution on http://viperfx07.blogspot.com but I haven't had the problem myself so I can't say whether it will solve your issue

Just to note that this may be due to your copy of Windows not being genuine


Enabling "Hardened Runtime" from outside of XCode

Are you looking for codesign's --options runtime argument? I believe that's all you need to enable the hardened runtime.

Apple has a couple of documents that make it pretty easy to figure out your own notarization flow:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_macos_software_before_distribution/customizing_the_notarization_workflow
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/notarizing_macos_software_before_distribution/resolving_common_notarization_issues


Font smoothing on external display working badly. (rMBP)

It doesn't look quite as good as my 27 inch iMac, but something that helped me was to turn down the display's built-in sharpness setting to zero (Dell U2713H). This, combined with increasing the brightness, made my display look much better when plugged into my rMBP (running 10.9.1 at time of writing). It's a huge improvement!

(additional note, I'm plugged into the display with mini displayport)


How can I apply a patch file to a Mac Ports app?

That sort of patch file is what macports refers to, however each patch would need to be in a separate file.

However this case is more complex as you need to patch two things as you have spotted.

Make the program compile and run under OSX which the current macport will have done. In this case this will include fixing the paths with debian in.
Add the extra changes you have in the patch.

As a first start I would note that each macport has a maintainer who can be seen in the result of port info abcde and I would contact them with the issue. If unfortunately there is no maintainer as is true here then it might be worth asking on the macports user mailing list if someone else could do the patch.


Can I put a "marker" on a QuickTime movie?

I'm afraid no feature like that exists.

However, with QuickTime Pro, you can fairly easily cut out clips of a movie to save for later. You get two selection cursors, and can actually use copy and paste to yank out sections and put them into new players. It will then save them natively inside .mov containers with no need for exporting.


No, Find my Mac does not send any notifications to your other devices. every time it is turned on.

You may be interested in this article: iCloud: Locate your device

It tells you how to see if your Mac is online or not.


Magically, this worked, but I suppose that key combination is to disable startup things I might need later.

Well, if it works w/o apps startup when login, you can use bisection to find out what app causes trouble: disable all the startups then enable just a half of them, check if issue'd arise again or not, disable them again and enable those that weren't tried. If you found which half is causing troubles, repeat same procedure with its "suspects" — also splitting it in halves. That could allow you to narrow it down to a single app that being run on startup botches the login.


Burn several hours of video to DVD using iDVD?

For the easy solution, in iDVD, you have to go to the Project Info Window (Project|Project Info... menu) and select a Double-Layer disc in the DVD Type combobox.
A single layer disc is 4,2GB and an untouched 5GB movie file will obviously not fit on it.

If you don't have a double-layer capable burner, you will have to first reduce the quality of the video to reduce its size (through the widely used (and easy to use) Handbrake for example), putting the target size to circa 4GB. You will then be able to burn your file with iDVD or any other DVD authoring tool.

iDVD control of video file compression is too simple.
In iMovie, in Share|Export You have several size options. Putting the mouse pointer on the little information symbol at the end of each line will give you the approximative size of the output file. I don't know if there is a finer control of output. I usually do it via Handbrake, as stated above.


Macbook Pro 2017 not detecting any screen, hdmi or VGA

Well, I got a (very) hacky fix for this that may help other people so I'll detail it here.

I have a Samsung S10 phone. So I picked up the Duet Displays app that allows you to extend your PC / MAC to another device over Wifi. This meant I could use my S10 as a second screen.

Next step was to connect the phone to the monitor and mirror the display.

That sort of works.

A slightly better option was that because it's a Samsung phone that means it has the DeX OS installed, and you can run the Duet Displays app within DeX. That gives me full-screen access on my monitor (albeit at not an ideal resolution, and sometimes lag too as it's over Wifi).

If you have an iPhone then I suppose Sidecar could also do the same configuration.

So there you go. Extend Mac desktop to phone. Connect phone to monitor.


Is there a way to upload a folder from the Files app into a computer on the local network?

FE File Explorer can do this:

FE File Explorer is a powerful file manager app on your iPhone and iPad. It can access not only local files, but also files on your computer and NAS. Stream movies and music to your iPhone/iPad. Directly view and manage documents, photos, files on your computers and cloud without downloading to your iPhone/iPad.

Add the remote computer's server (I recommend a WebDAV server)
Now add the directories from the Files app you need
You can copy stuff between these "remotes" now. Take care not to background the app while the file transfers are ongoing, as iOS sucks and closes all background apps.

I achieved ~63 MB/s using this method.


How to restore a late 2009 iMac after disk replacement

If you have some extra disk space to spare, I would recommend you to make an additional backup with SuperDuper (free for basic functionality, which is all you need in this case!):

You will create a bootable backup, from which you can then boot after you get the repaired Mac back. Test this backup by booting from it once (important) and play around a bit to see if everything feels as it should (improves gut feeling).

Then, you would use SuperDuper, which obviously also is on the backup you have just booted from, and use it to "backup" back to your freshly installed, empty hard drive.

UPDATE: To create the a recovery partition, you can use this useful hint from How can I create or recreate a Lion recovery partition?.

Upsides of this method: You can immediately boot from your external disk, where the bootable backup sits, and you do not have to freshly install Lion, then upgrade to Mountain Lion, and then restore from the Time Machine backup. Hope this helps!


In Textedit, is there a way to save all open files at once?

Apple offers various ways to control documents in apps in System Preferences > General.
Ask to keep changes when closing documents
If you turn this off, then MacOS will automatically save documents when their windows are closed.
With this setting off, you only need to save when you create the document. After that, changes will be automatically saved as you make them, with versions showing each change. You can Close All (Option Command W), or just Quit the app at any time, and all files will be automatically saved with the latest version.
Close windows when quitting an app
If you turn this off, then Untitled documents that are open will be secretly saved (in the bowels of the user Library) and will open again when the app is relaunched.
If you turn this on, then you should be prompted to save each Untitled window in turn before Quit.


Alcatel 3G Modem X600 - Kernel Panic on resuming

This problem is not any more present in the new macOS Sierra. I think they fixed it after I send them my kernel panic reports.


How to edit the hosts to block IP address?

Technically, OS X can make use of /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny files that will  work with standard resolvable hostnames. For blocking IP addresses, using iptables is the usual method but apparently Apple deprecated its use beginning with Lion and switched to pf for this function. Check and read the links in this thread on SuperUser for info on using pf and perhaps a GUI front-end for it.


Safety of sharing my apple password on screen with apple technician

Did you give your password to the tech, or type it into a browser?

If you typed it into a browser and the dots appeared, the tech cannot know what the password is.

It can't hurt to change your password again if you are concerned about anyone knowing it.


Can you approach it like this:

Take the first two characters:

--test to see if they are numbers.
-->If not return invalid.

Take the remaining characters:

--test for minimum length?

--> if not return invalid.

--test each character to see if they are numbers.

-->  If any character is a number return invalid.

Edit to add:

Rather than checking to see if CheckName is a number try converting it to a number:

try
    set CheckName to CheckNameDigits as number
on error
    display dialog CheckName & " is not a number"
end try


How can I remove 'Dark Mode' from Ms Office apps without disabling it across macOS?

To disable Dark Mode for MS Office only, you need to run a terminal command for each of the MS Office apps in question.

For example, if you wish to disable dark mode in MS Excel, follow these steps:

Quit Excel if it’s running
Launch Terminal (usually found in the Applications/Utilities folder)
Enter (or copy and paste) the following command: defaults write com.microsoft.Excel NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool yes
Now press return
Enter (or copy and paste) the following command:  killall cfprefsd
Now press return

Now when you launch MS Excel it should appear as it it normally would without Dark Mode enabled.

NOTES:

To do this with the other MS Office apps, just change the command at Step 3 so that it’s referencing the app in question.
Each of the app names within the command must start with an uppercase letter (note the uppercase 'E' for Excel in the command at Step 3.
For PowerPoint, the app name must be spelt as follows: Powerpoint (i.e. only the first P is in uppercase, not both Ps)
To revert back to Dark Mode, follow the same steps but end the command at Step 3 with no instead of yes.


Snow Leopard killing internet access on home network

Hard to say without being able to look at your network settings in your Mac and in your house in general, but I imagine your MB is creating a network conflict with your internet Router and therefore the other machines (and itself) end up sending the packages to the wrong place.

The first thing that came to my mind was that your MB Pro is not using DHCP and it's using the same IP Address as your Netgear router or Motorola Modem.

Things to diagnose:

Before even turning on your MB Pro, in your Windows machine, check your network settings. Write down your IPAddress, Your Subnet Mask, your Router and DNS Servers if any. Also note if you have DHCP Enabled or you're manually setting your IP.
With the above settings safely saved (on a piece of paper) turn on your MB Pro and check your network settings for your "Airport" -wifi- network: Go to System Preferences, Network and you will see your Airport. Note the numbers and post them back so we can try to see if the problem is this easy or there's something else involved.


The issue is caused by Gatekeeper. It uses "path randomization" to run applications, until the user moves the app in it's final destination (/Applications for example). This causes the app to be run from /private/var/.. and Dock treats this as a new app.

To remove the quarantine attribute execute (removes recursively com.apple.quarantine):

sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Application/SomeApp.app

Recursion (the -r flag) may be needed for apps that contain helpers.

To list the current attributes for an app execute:

sudo xattr /Application/SomeApp.app

or

ls -l@d /Application/SomeApp.app

Sources:

On Gatekeeper and the Lifespan of Little Snitch Rules


iTerm2 how to get autocomplete through tab key

This has been answered here.

Note, the answer you're after is not the accepted one. It's one below it.


What does this mean? "When purchased, this movie will not be available from iTunes in the Cloud"

Yes, some studios only allow a movie to be downloaded once, so you see this message. I'd wait until you're able to download the 1080p version.


How can I generate a batch of profiles and certificates for OS X Server Profile Manager?

You should be able to do all the configuration by group.

Add all the users into an OD group and then set all the WiFi preferences there. You should also be able to set a certificate for the group and allow the entire group to authenticate against the Radius server.

When it comes to setting up PKI then you enter into the dark realms of Kerberos. (Be very careful with your DNS or you will never return.)

This is a good guide http://yesdevnull.net/2013/10/os-x-mavericks-server-open-directory-master/

Reading everything Charles Edge writes is always worthwhile :- http://krypted.com/guides/mavericks-server/ - he literally wrote the book on Macs in the enterprise.

If you turn on the web server (which I assume you have for the Profile Manager) the front page provides a nice link to change passwords for OD users.


How to use iPhone 6 back up on iPhone 4s?

It may be that the 4s is an iOS version behind:

If the iPhone 6, was/is on iOS 10/11(how to check it https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201685), there’re no way to do this, if not, try update the iPhone 4s to iOS 9.3.5 (how to update https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204204), and then retry restoring the iPhone 4s from your backup.


Can I connect my HDMI amplifier as audio only?

After some more digging it doesn't seem possible to completely remove the additional display.
However a trick I was not aware of (see Use multiple displays with your Mac) is to both extend the desktop (I use both my MBP LCD and an external display), and mirror the amplifier "display" to one of the real displays.  When arranging displays hold the Option key and drag the unwanted display onto a real display.  I mirror it with my MBP LCD.  Although it alters the screen resolution of the LCD upon mirroring, you can just change it back to what it was before.
This way the cursor cannot find its way to the amp display, nor can any windows inadvertently open on it.


Use the paste adjustments tool. Here is a quick video on how to use it. You're right, it will save you A LOT of time. http://youtu.be/kYWsFwBLNHY


Using the shell Defaults command in an Applescript Do shell script seems to work ok for me. This will save on GUI scripting problems.

The script first reads the preference file. Then sets it to the opposite of its Bool.

set dictionToggle to (do shell script " defaults read ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.support \"Dictation Enabled\" ") as integer

do shell script "defaults write  ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.support \"Dictation Enabled\" -bool " & (not (dictionToggle as boolean)) as Unicode text

I always backup any preference files using the contextual menu compress "…."
to make a zipped copy of it.

The file com.apple.assistant.support.plist that is changed is found in your preferences folder

/Users/UserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.assistant.support.plist

If you have to use GUI scripting especially if you want to change the short cut keys. ( and since I cannot be Ars… to figure out which one of the symbolic  hotkey settings in the com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist is the right one)

Then this should work. (as it does on my Mac at least :-)  )

  set off to 1
set fnTwice to 3
set rightCommandTwice to 4
set leftCommandTwice to 5
set eitherCommandTwice to 6

tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.speech"
    reveal (first anchor of current pane whose name is "Dictation")
end tell
tell application "System Events"

    tell application process "System Preferences"
        set theGroup to tab group 1 of window "Dictation & Speech"
        click radio button "On" of radio group 1 of theGroup

        try
            click button "Enable Dictation" of sheet 1 of window "Dictation & Speech"
        end try
        set thePopUp to pop up button 2 of theGroup
        click thePopUp
        click menu item fnTwice of menu 1 of thePopUp
    end tell
end tell
tell application "System Preferences"
    --quit
end tell


Copying old photos from an iPhone to a PC

If you are able to view the photos in Photos app, an easier approach would to use a cloud storage service such as Dropbox or Google Drive.

Just create a free account with either one of them, install the iOS client app. Both the apps offer photo sync service where they upload the contents of Camera roll onto their server.

Once you have all the photos backed up, you can simply install the client app on your PC and sync off the photos to your computer.

Dropbox - iOS app
Google Drive - iOS app


Extremely poor video quality on Samsung monitor with HDMI

To fix, use the monitor's menu and change Size&Position/Image Size to Screen Fit.

(I connected a MacBook Pro 2013 via HDMI to the same monitor and the quality was horrible.)


Why is macOS limited to 1064 or 2088 processes?

As far as I can tell, the answer is part of the long history of computing.
macOS is based on Darwin, which is the core of Apple's operating system, and which itself is based on xnu, which is a hybrid of FreeBSD layered over Mach, which are based on... until you go back really far to, I don't know, Ada Lovelace? Believe it or not, that is an oversimplification of the macOS history, but it covers the points needed to understand what follows.
In the days when FreeBSD was being developed, memory was expensive, so there was strong incentive to use as little as possible, but not so expensive that you could not build a system shared by a University department. The idea was to have 1 computer that could be used by many people at once, and even if the memory was expensive, the users were only consuming was some memory and disk space, rather than a whole computer, so you wanted to be able to serve as many people as you could without compromising the whole system.
The kernel has a section of memory reserved to hold information for each process, and the size of that table was what limited the total number of processes the system could run at once, so you wanted to keep that table as small as possible, but at the same time big enough to run enough processes to serve all your users. Other kernel memory reservations, such as the number of buffers allocated to store network traffic temporarily, also needed to scale with the number of concurrent users, so FreeBSD introduced a tuning parameter called MAXUSERS, which was not a real limit on how many users the system would handle, but rather a tuning parameter that you set to indicate the maximum number of users you intended to handle at one time. It adjusted the balance between memory allocated to the kernel and memory available to the users.
Prior to graphical user interfaces, individual users on a Unix system typically ran very few processes. They ran a terminal shell, which maybe ran an editor, an email program, a compiler, and some other program, each of which was one process. The email program and compiler would run some other processes. At some point someone estimated that a user would likely need to run no more than 16 processes at once.
Someone (probably the same person) estimated that the system itself could be safely limited to about 20 processes.
This provided the basis for scaling the size of the process table based on the number of concurrent users the system would support:
#define NPROC (20 + 16 * MAXUSERS)

At the time Apple incorporated xnu into their system (and presumably at the time xnu forked from FreeBSD) MAXUSERS defaulted to 32. With 32 users, NPROC was 532. And so it was in OS X 10.0. 532 was the systemwide limit on the total number of processes. Individual users were limited to half that: 266.
And so it remained, until OS X 10.7 Lion, at which point Apple added a scale factor. (Actually, it had has a scale factor long before Lion for Server Performance Mode, but with Lion they extended it a bit to normal mode.) If your computer is running Lion or later and has 3 GiB or more of memory, then maxproc is doubled, and maxprocperuid, which is a fraction of maxproc, goes up even more. maxproc goes from 532 to 1064 and maxprocperuid goes from 266 (maxproc / 2) to 709 ((maxproc * 2) / 3).
And so you get your 2010's (10.7 Lion through 10.14 Mojave) limits of 709 processes per user and 1064 processes systemwide.
In 10.10 Yosemite, NPROC changed from (20 + 16 * MAXUSERS) to (20 + 16 * 32) presumably so they could get rid of MAXUSERS while keeping NPROC unchanged. In 10.15 Catlina, NPROC was raised for the first time, but oddly they kept the "20 +" and made it (20 + 32 * 32) So starting with Catalina maxproc is a multiple of 1044.
Why a multiple, you ask? Starting with 10.13 High Sierra, maxproc continues to scale up as you add more memory. It doubles if you have 3 GiB but less than 12 GiB of memory, and above that it multiplies by memory size divided by 4 GiB until you hit a limit a the scale factor of 16 when you have 64 GiB or more memory installed.
Now you know why maxproc is a multiple of 532 or 1044 rather than the more common 512 or 500.
If you want to increase your limits further, you have to switch to server mode. You can read more about how to do that and why at Fix “fork: resource temporarily unavailable” on OS X. You can read a lot of details about what server mode really gives you at What does serverperfmode=1 actually do on macOS?


My Font book opens every time I log in. Is it a virus?

It's very unlikely to be a virus, more likely a corrupt configuration file.

If you mean the Font Book app is actually opening, then the first thing to check would be System Preferences > Users & Groups. Select your user account and click the Login Items tab. If Font Book appears in the list, select it and click the "-" button to remove it.

If you mean it's just appearing in your dock, but the app isn't actually opening, you can simply drag it out of the dock and wait until the "Remove" tooltip appears.


Can't burn newly created playlist to CD with iTunes 12.1

If you go to View Options and selected Kind, you'll be able to see which of the tracks isn't an MP3. You can then convert it/them to MP3 and replace the originals in your playlist with the new ones.


hosts file: does it pass the domain name? I'm always redirected to the main site configured on the host

Your reasoning about the hosts file is actually not how it works. The hosts file is only responsible for providing a mapping from the hostname (alpha.com) to an IP - it doesn't have any influence on which hostname the browser sends to the webserver for virtual hosting.

If you do actually end up on the new server, you have an error in your web server configuration so that virtual hosting is either not enabled or misconfigured. Depending on the version of Apache you're running, you might for example need to add a "NameVirtualHost *:80" line to the configuration. It could also be that you have a typo in the ServerName and/or ServerAlias lines. It is impossible to tell from your question, as you haven't provided the actual configuration.

If you instead end up on the old server, the problem is that your browser is not using the hosts file (i.e. it is not using the system default name resolver). An easy way to get around that is simply to use a different browser. You might also be running into caching if you have made a lot of changes and tests with the hosts file. A very easy manner of testing that is simply to reboot the Mac. You can also flush the cache, which you can find instructions on how to here on AskDifferent depending on your macOS version.


Lotsawater screensaver Mavericks problem

Check the version you got.
v1.7 works like a charm for me under Mavericks.

v1.7 is available here: http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/lotsablankers/lotsawater

Edit: sorry, it doesn't work exactly as I said. Actually, the water animation works, but the screenshot Lotsawater is supposed to do is a black screen instead.
I assume the v1.7 is not Mavericks (full) compatible.

Edit 2: Developper fixed it!, v1.8 is now available and works like a charm :)

***Edit 3:  1.8 works like a charm on a single monitor, but the second monitor of a dual monitor setup still has a black screen shot. This wasn't the case with version 1.7 on Mountain Lion. I hope the developer has another update in the works.


Switch off cellular network off/on on iPhone (triggered by Bluetooth car kit)

On a jailbroken iPhone, with SBProfiles and SBSettings you can utilise profiles to group multiple actions to different situations. The downside is that you have to manually switch the profiles when entering and leaving the car.

Make sure you have SBProfiles and SBSettings installed from Cydia.
Open SBProfiles. It should have multiple profiles by default; Default and Car among them. Select Car and then Toggles. Drag Airplane and Bluetooth to On section. Make sure that Airplane is on top of Bluetooth, otherwise activation of Airplane will turn Bluetooth back off.
Then, go back to Car and select Done from the top bar. Select Default and then Toggles. Drag Airplane to Off section (and Bluetooth, if you don't need it outside the car).
Select Settings from the bottom tabs. Select Activation Method(s) under Profile Switching. Here you can select the action(s) that trigger the profile selection to become active. I think it defaults to Short Hold of the Sleep Button.

Now, when you hold the Sleep Button a bit longer than shutting down the screen but not long enough to power off the iPhone, you can select Car profile and have cellular turned on but Bluetooth on. Or select Default to turn cellular back on. I think you will have to make the call still, unless there's a way to automate it, too.


Macbook Pro Wi-Fi problems after Yosemite 10.10.5 update

Jeez, those ping results are terrible.

I'm on El Capitan now, but I can relate to your frustrations about the wifi. My macbook pro is a late 2012 model. I travel with my laptop and rely on it as my phone. It was a real show stopper when wifi would completely bork on the road as in not letting me connect to open SSIDs.

I made this extreme script to wipe out wifi settings and it worked for me, but it is a pain to re-enter ssid/passwords etc and for some reason the problem would show up every now and then.

For me, if wi-fi doesn't work what's the point of having a keychain? I just wanted it to work, so I was willing to wipe things out to make it so. Mac OSX will create new clandestine defaults, but obviously if you want your passwords to friend's wifi etc, backup your keychain.

You can try the script but be warned, it may not fix your problem, it may even make things worse. I do not accept responsibility for use of this script. Please look at the files and directories it is deleting.

Alternately copy and paste everything but the "#!/bin/sh" bit and run it in a terminal, I have it in script form because it was a recurring issue for me on Yosemite, the problem went away when I either upgraded or clean installed Mavericks (can't remember which I did), so I would consider upgrading your OS to Mavericks possibly. El Capitan is still painful right now with bugs and so on, but at least wifi works.

#!/bin/sh
cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
rm com.apple.accounts.exists.plist
rm com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
rm com.apple.captive.probe.plist
rm com.apple.network.eapolclient.configuration.plist
rm com.apple.smb.server.plist
rm NetworkInterfaces.plist
rm preferences.plist


Sounds like your PRAM/NVRAM battery is dead. The NVRAM (or PRAM for older Macs) is responsible for time and date settings, as well as other things (see About NVRAM and PRAM).

iFixit is the place to look for guides and parts. Here's a guide on replacing the battery on a MacBook Pro 15" Core Duo.


No need to reset. Just connect your AirPods to another device such as your iPhone and then connect back to Mac.


How do I prevent Apple Watch from silencing my phone's vibration on notifications?

That's not possible. The notifications will be displayed in one or another, but never in both devices.

If you want notifications back in your phone, you have to turn it off in your watch.


Think I may have found a solution. Went to mail preferences - then accounts - then advanced - then UNCHECKED "automatically detect and maintain account settings"... my mail seems to be coming in without disruption...


Forgive me if I've missed something, but iTunes organizes video files and meets all of your stated requirements as of the time of this posting.

You can add images to the file's metadata, set the season, and set the episode by right-clicking on the file, selecting 'get info', and entering the data in the appropriate spaces.

iTunes will display files' artwork and split seasons.  It even has different views available in a menu in the upper-right corner of the window.


Saving PDFs from Safari to Files app in iOS 12

Didn’t find the option either. Quick workaround is to use „Create PDF“ and the „Save to Files“ from the sharing sheet when the PDF is displayed.


Upload a video from iPhone to someone else's YouTube channel?

She's most likely out of iCloud storage space. The edited video is likely to be beyond the allowed limit of email attachment. Her iPhone is attempting to upload the video on iCloud, and send a link to the same.

The current iCloud storage usage can be checked by going to Settings app → Her name (at the top) → iCloud → Manage Storage.

If she's out of storage space on iCloud, you can advise her to use any of the alternate methods as mentioned below:

If both of you are in close proximity and you use a Mac, you can simply ask her to AirDrop it to you.
Ask her to transfer it to a computer at her end and send you the video using any alternate file sharing service such as Dropbox or Google Drive.
If she doesn't have a computer handy, she can install the client app for any of the file sharing service as mentioned above (Dropbox, Google Drive), upload the app right from your iPhone, generate a link and send it to you.


Unknown when I receive incoming calls on Iphone 5S

If you see "Unknown" this means that the caller is not transmitting his ID (i.e. number) to your carrier and hence your iPhone.

Not much can be changed unless you pick up the phone and ask the caller to change his Caller ID settings on his phone.

In addition, some business numbers and calls over VoIP tend to appear as "Unknown". It is not the fault of your iPhone but from where exactly the call originates.


DefaultKeyBinding.dict - old-style NeXT format vs XML plist format

I don't think you'll have any issues using the older format.  All the examples I've found use the old NeXT notation.  Although I can't explain why the XML format didn't work, there is a workaround for this particular keyboard shortcut which would mean you can leave your existing DefaultKeyBinding.dict untouched.

There is an application called KeyRemap4MacBook which is free to download and you can see from the screenshot below, you could remap the ⌘+⌫ keyboard shortcut without converting the rest of your DefaultKeyBinding.dict file and this method is not limited to Cocoa applications.


How To Changing Printer Scaling on Mac OS X 10.8.2

Here is what I did.

In for example TextEdit...

I used the Page set up!

In there you can adjust the scaling

Now go to the print and check you settings in show presets, current.


How to use plain text smileys (disable automatic emoji substitution) in Messages.app?

Go to the Edit menu, submenu Substitutions, then uncheck Emoji.


macOS not allowing me to restore media files from one external drive to another

This seems to be a bug with macOS Mojave. Even I tried to do the same. I came across the same errors you are facing. Luckily, I was able to clone the disks  which is same as restoring.

There are several ways to clone a disk. You can use some utility tools available on and off the macOS App Store.

I tried this https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html cloning utility to clone my main drive to an external SSD both having the same partition map - APFS. This should solve the problem.


How can I stop loading external images in Mail.app?

Mail.app > Preferences > Viewing > uncheck "Load remote content in messages"

You will then have this banner at the top of each message that contains remote content (just in case you do want to see the images):

Aside: I still see the occasional image in a message when looking through my spam folder. As best I can tell when I "view raw source" the spammers are including the image in the message text itself (there is a large block of text that looks like gibberish to me), but I'm not an expert on what is going on there. It might just be a bug in this feature.


According to Apple support, pressing the Eject or F12 key or holding the mouse or trackpad button at boot time will eject any removable media, such as an optical disc.


Add iPhone shutter count and serial number to EXIF data

No, Currently there are no apps which would be assigning shutter count / serial number etc. Apps like that would have to keep on working on background and then edit Metadata of photos. On iOS, editing photo would need user's permission and would trigger an alert view saying "Do you want app to allow modify the photo" etc.
So, creating such app is technically impossible on iOS without Jailbreaking.

Also note:
There are apps like "EXIF Viewer by Fluntro", which allows you to view shutter count of photos you took on Nikon Camera etc. It also allows you to edit exif tags like Camera model, software etc.

Disclaimer: I have developed the EXIF Viewer by Fluntro App :)


HP LaserJet 1018 macOS Mojave and Catalina USB driver

HP site says that no software or drivers found for your operating system when it comes to latest macOS versions.

Solution is to use HP printer driver bundle from file HewlettPackardPrinterDrivers5.1.dmg which can be found on
Apple or search engine or direct link

Download and install the printer driver package
Open System Preferences -> Printers and Scanners
Click + to add new device and click HP LaserJet 1018 printer name
Click the Use drop-down menu and then click on Select Printer Software
Search for 1022 in the search box and choose the HP LaserJet 1022 driver
Finish installation and print test page

This allows to use old printer on macOS 10.14 and macOS 10.15 systems.

I hope it will help lots of people to save some gears.


Calendar month view is unresponsive on iOS 9

Apple fixed this issue with iOS 9.1. It is mentioned in the release notes.


The command line install works on much newer OS than yours - the tutorial you link is 10.10 and Xcode 6 or 7.

If you can't upgrade to 10.6.8 and then get past Lion, I would suggest run the graphical installer and look for Xcode possibly in /Developer if you don't see it in the /Applications folder.


Remove all references to Parallels 7 Windows 7 VM programs

I found a solution that may be specific to my setup, buy may be useful to others too.

I had moved the folder with the Windows applications shortcuts
elsewhere and had forgotten about it. I deleted this folder.
I deleted duplicates from Finder's 'Open With' menu using /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user followed by sudo killall Finder. You may read more about it here.


A Fusion Drive is a combination of 2 drives, one Solid State (SSD) and the other a standard Hard Drive (HDD). You can remove the two drives and reuse them in enclosures as 2 separate drives.


What's the latest iOS that iPhone SEs shipped with?

While the iPhone SE originally shipped with iOS 9.3, you'd most likely not find find a recently manufactured one coming pre-installed with iOS 9.3 (or a later version of iOS 9.x).

iPhone SE models was discontinued on March 21, 2017 (16 and 64 GB variants) and September 12, 2018 (32 and 128 GB variants). Either one of these models, which you'd most likely find with a reseller who is still selling them, would most likely come pre-installed with either iOS 10 or later (but still below iOS 13).

If iOS 9.x is what you are looking for to access iOS 9 exclusive apps, here's the list of iOS devices that can't be upgraded past iOS 9.x. Getting access to one of them could serve your purpose:

iPhone 4S (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.6).
iPod Touch 5th generation (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.5).
iPad 2 (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.6 (Wi-Fi + cellular (CDMA)), iOS 9.3.5 (Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + cellular (GSM))).
iPad 3rd generation (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.6 (Wi-Fi + cellular), iOS 9.3.5 (Wi-Fi).
iPad mini (latest operating system: iOS 9.3.6 (Wi-Fi + cellular), iOS 9.3.5 (Wi-Fi).

Source: List of iOS devices


These entries are fully normal.

The shutdown needs root priviledges to run, most notably to be able to kill all processes.
This doesn't mean that the root user logged on your system, and is totally independant of the fact that the root user is activated.


What's this icon in menu bar on Macbook Pro?

if you see it on the lock login screen, it means that your computer is actively creating a video of your screen.
For Reference you can view this article:
https://macreports.com/binoculars-icon-on-mac-what-does-that-mean/


RAZER SYNAPSE issue - binding modifier key only to mouse button is not working

Thanks for all. I finally resolved my issue, I have to install Karabiner extra software to resolve it. Now I have an issue with mouse scrolling speed too slow but it's ok I can bare with this.

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

The option must be checked


If you are using the server.app from Apple to turn on FTP sharing the log can be found in /var/log/ftp.log or if you prefer in the console.app (in /Applications/Utilities).

If you have turned on FTP manually using terminal (shell) commands you will need to configure logging in the FTP daemon. Info on that can be found by typing "man ftpd" in any terminal window.


In the workout app, What is the difference between an outdoor walk & and an outdoor run

Based on movement + age, height, weight, heart-rate it should be able to compute calories burned. Right?

Not to a great deal of accuracy. A fit person's heart will tend to beat slower than an unfit person's heart even if they're the same age, weight and height.

Knowing your stride length will improve the accuracy. The page mentions calibration. The walking calibration may be kept separate from the running calibration.


From http://seanscus.blogspot.com/2012/08/completely-reset-safari.html

Open a terminal and enter the following commands to fully wipe out all of your old Safari settings:

mv ~/Library/Safari ~/Desktop/Safari-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Cookies/Cookies.binarycookies; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/Apple\ -\ Safari\ -\ Safari\ Extensions\ Gallery; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.LSSharedFileList.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebFoundation.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginHost.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.WebKit.PluginProcess.plist; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/PubSub/Database; \
rm -Rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.apple.Safari.savedState


One user's experience can differ from another for a range of factors (e.g. the age of your iPhone 6s battery, the number of charge cycles it's had, etc), so what is normal for you may not be normal for someone else.

An iPhone will typically use some percentage of battery over night, but how much will depend on whether it's fully shut down or just in Airplane Mode (your question doesn't really specify). If it's only in Airplane Mode, then the iPhone is not actually switched off and a number of sensors etc are still fully operational and therefore require some power.

Also, it's not clear from your question what you mean by several hours, but I think a 10% discharge over 6-8hrs is not uncommon.

You can find a lot more info by reading what Apple has to say about it's batteries.


How to pass variables from bash script to AppleScript

This should work:

while read urls
do
    osascript -e "tell application \"Safari\" to open location \"$urls\""
done<file.txt


Simplest and Sure manner adding multiple Groups and Users, CentOS 7, macOS

The easiest way to add a group account on macOS is to use System Preferences/Accounts, click the + button and select the type of account to Group

However, if you are looking for a simple way to add a group account in command line then other than the dscl option there is also the Directory Service command line tools. Type following in Terminal:

dseditgroup -o create -u myadminuser -P myadminpassword -r "Some Group" somegroup

That will create the group account in the /Local/Default domain (same as the above in GUI).

You can add an existing user to the newly added group with:

dseditgroup -o edit -u myadminuser -P myadminpassword -t user -a someuser somegroup

and check membership in the group with:

dseditgroup -o checkmember -m someuser somegroup

It will display either:

yes someuser is a member of somegroup

or

no someuser is NOT a member of somegroup


Is there any way to lock my mac without sleeping and without the screen saver activating?

You can disable the screen saver on the login window with this command in Terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver loginWindowIdleTime 0

The settings you have in "Energy Saver Settings" are only for the logged in user, whereas the login screen runs in a different context. To change the settings for the login window context, use the command above.


Here is an example of one way to achieve your goal:

In Script Editor, I used the following three lines of code and saved it as an application, as Hello World.app:

set resourceName to "Hello World.aiff"

set filePathName to quoted form of POSIX path of (path to resource resourceName) as text

do shell script "afplay " & filePathName

Then inside the application bundle in the Resources folder, I placed the audio file Hello World.aiff, which is a file of someone saying "hello world".

Here is a tree view of the hierarchal structure of the application bundle:

Hello World.app
└── Contents
    ├── Info.plist
    ├── MacOS
    │   └── applet
    ├── PkgInfo
    └── Resources
        ├── Hello World.aiff
        ├── Scripts
        │   └── main.scpt
        ├── applet.icns
        ├── applet.rsrc
        └── description.rtfd
            └── TXT.rtf

Now when I double-click on the Hello World.app is plays the Hello World.aiff audio file.

Notes:

After you create the application bundle, then in Finder you right-click on it selecting Show Package Contents and then navigate to the Resources folder where you'll place your audio file.

Change the name of the resourceName from "Hello World.aiff", to whatever your audio file name is, in the example code so it will work for your filename.


Different Apple ID contacts appear on my device

At some point somebody used your Apple ID on one of their devices (either OSX or iOS), or their Apple ID on one of your devices.  Or, somebody might have connected your or their iPhone in your or their iTunes in the past.

And things got mixed up.  If you don't have a local iTunes backup, there's not too much you can do to recover.  And if you have a local backup chances are that it was made after the damage was done.

Having had the same mishap in the past, I have a couple 1000's pictures of my wife's iPhone mixed up with my personal collection.

If this is not enough, chances are (albeit small) that one of those devices is still connected to your Apple ID and syncing is still going on.

My following suggestion might seem stupid and short sighted, but if I were you, I would

change my Apple ID password
Delete all contacts on your device(s)
Add all your contacts again from the beginning

I understand that, if there's a lot of data involved, adding your contacts piece by piece can be quite time consuming, but the effort might be worth it.

If you have access to a Mac, things can be facilitated quite a bit:

You can use the native Contacts app to export your current data
to csv, import it in Excel and manipulate chunks of data much
quicker.
Busy Contacts can do some of
this for you, and it also can sync with other online addressbook
services.  If you have your contacts in e.g. gmail this can fasten
the process.


Script to toggle between fn keys (with Touchbar)

You can check the components of the UI interface of the application you're trying to script with the "UI elements" command

tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "System Preferences"
        get the UI elements of the window "Keyboard"
    end tell
end tell

you can then drill down the list to find where the required item is

tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "System Preferences"
        get the UI elements of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard"
    end tell
end tell

actually using the Accessibility Inspector app (part of Xcode) can help you to identify which element to inspect

For our purposes, it looks like the popup we are interested into is the
 pop up button 2 of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard"

Since it is a pop up, to interact with its menu, you have to click on it and then to select the item you want to activate. It can be done by specifying the whole label of the menu item to click, I preferred to simulate the keystrokes needed to switch the selection (either the up or down arrow and then the return)...

tell application "System Preferences"
    -- activate
    reveal anchor "keyboardTab" of pane id "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
end tell

delay 0.5 -- this depends on how fast is your mac

tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "System Preferences"
        set thePopup to pop up button 2 of tab group 1 of window "Keyboard"

        tell thePopup
            click
            delay 0.2

            if the value of thePopup begins with "App" or the value of thePopup begins with "Expanded" then
                key code {125, 125, 125, 36}
            else
                key code {126, 36}
            end if

        end tell

    end tell
end tell

quit application "System Preferences"

by the way, in another question, someone noticed that if you don't activate the System Preferences app, the scripts will still work but without showing its window (you will still see the popup menu being switched, though)


Does IOS "Find My" App work when the app is not open? If so, why?

Sharing your location with other people and locating a lost device always works, even when the app is not open, providing other toggles are enabled.

The ‘Find My’ app location services access is separate to the system service that shares your location to other people in the background.
The toggle for the background sharing of your location to friends you have shared your location with is near the top of Location Services settings, called ‘Share My Location’.
The toggle for the background sharing of your location when looking for your own lost device is at the bottom of Location Services, under System Services, labelled ‘Find My iPhone’.


It is a server used for push notifications for iOS and OS X. If you block it, you may not receive push notifications.


Why am I able to receive SMS texts when Cellular off and no WiFi connection?

Why am I able to receive occasional SMS texts and inbound call attempts, despite cellular being off and not being connected to a WiFi network?

Cellular data is not related to SMS.  That's a function of your voice service. See:  Cellular iPad-Air text message configuration for more details.

WiFi calling is a supplement to your cellular voice plan.  If the WiFi network is available, your phone will use WiFi instead of the LTE network to make a call.  If you turn off WiFi and cellular data and leave cellular voice on, calls will continue to come through.

But to summarize it, if you can make voice calls on your cell network, you can receive SMS/MMS messages.


How do I reset Screen Recording permission on macOS Catalina?

You need to use tccutil to manage the privacy database -- this involves opening the Terminal and using the command line! If you know the bundle ID of the app you're trying to use, you can use this command:

tccutil reset ScreenCapture [com.WHATEVERBUNDLE.YOURAPPID]

Here are some examples for common applications:

tccutil reset ScreenCapture com.apple.Safari Safari
tccutil reset ScreenCapture org.mozilla.firefox Mozilla Firefox
tccutil reset ScreenCapture com.google.Chrome Google Chrome
tccutil reset ScreenCapture com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX QuickTime Player

If you're trying to use screencapture on the command line, your terminal application needs to be granted permission.

tccutil reset ScreenCapture com.apple.Terminal Terminal
tccutil reset ScreenCapture com.googlecode.iterm2 iTerm 2

If you don't know the app bundle ID, then you can just clear and reset the privacy settings for ScreenCapture for all applications. Note that this will remove all entries from the list of apps allowed to do Screen Recording, and you'll have to re-add them individually.

tccutil reset ScreenCapture

Once you've reset the privacy permissions, you must quit your application before the change will take effect. Then you can restart your app and try screen recording again, and the prompt should reappear.

Help, it's still not working!

Make sure that System Integrity Protection is enabled, otherwise these commands won't work correctly. To check, you can run csrutil status and it should say System Integrity Protection status: enabled.

You can also try creating a new user account with admin privileges and setting up the Screen Recording permissions in that account. That sometimes helps to put the TCC database back in a good state. This seems to be useful in some cases where the prompt window just isn't shown at all.


iOS: How to see pictures on a network hard disk?

Yes there are many, like for example File Browser. But you would have found them with a easy google search too.

Add "free" to your search term and you find My Computer Data. I haven't used, it's just the first search result.


NUMBERS Is it possible to select all the cells that share the same background colour on an existing table?

You should be able to Select All the cells in the sheet, then in the Format Sidebar,  click the Cell tab. Then in the Fill section of the sidebar, click the color well, then select a fill option. It will say Multiple Fills. You should be able to select No Fill and delete all background (fill) colors:


Stop malware from being executed by launchd

There is an app Malwarebytes which is popular for detecting and deleting Malware. I don't know how this compares to Nortons but maybe its a viable option. The website,located here https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/,  advertises a free version.  The full application is available here: https://www.malwarebytes.com and also offeres a free version.


Managing macOS application windows like Ubuntu Unity

I'll take your points in order:

You can assign entire applications to desktops, but I don't know of any tool that can assign specific windows to desktops, at least out of the box. Maybe you could whip something up with Hammerspoon and Lua scripting.
I've never actually used Hammerspoon, I've just heard about it. If you decide to go this route, good luck!
That's not actually how you move windows between desktops. That dock menu is for the entire application, not the specific window. (Windows actually don't even have window management menus at all!) To do this, grab the title bar and press ⌃← / ⌃→ or do a 3- or 4-finger trackpad swipe, or hold the window at the edge of the screen for a moment. You can also move windows between desktops with "Mission Control", a combination of Expo and Scale. You get to that with ⌃↑ or a 3- or 4-finger trackpad swipe up.
It sounds like you're talking about fullscreen, not maximizing; it seems to just work that way. Unlike in Unity, though, the window no longer belongs to any desktop -- it's in its own space, all by itself. You can drag it between any of the other spaces, of course, if you want it over by the left again.

If you want to maximize your window instead of fullscreening it, ⌥ (option)-click the green(by default) title bar button. Note that in some apps, like Pages, this will expand the window to fit the content instead!


I have activated 'Lost Mode' and 'Erase iPhone' but still the thief has access to my photos. How?

Question 1

Yes, the Find My iPhone service is working along with its various actions (e.g. Lost Mode, Erase iPhone, etc).

Question 2

This leaves us with how they accessed your data and what may have happened in your case. No-one can give you an absolutely 100% certain answer and in that sense this question could be judged as too broad or opinion-based to even be on topic for this site.

However, in your question you state:

  i have activated find my iphone just after they stole it and I have also activated the erase my iphone option a couple of days later.

Note the words I have bolded? It's not clear what just after means - that coud be in the order of mins, hours or more. And clearly, it's a couple of days after this point that you actioned the erasure of your iPhone.

So, presumably this person certainly had time to access your camera roll before the phone was erased.

Now, the more difficult part to explain is the fact you had a 4 digit passcode on your iPhone. I see the following possibilities:

The easiest possibility is that the iPhone was unlocked when they acquired it and they proceeded to change the Auto-Lock settings to never in order to access the data in the immediate short-term.
They already knew your passcode (i.e. they had seen you enter it; they do actually know you; they're in cahoots with someone you know; you previously fell victim to a phishing scam or similar; they obtained it somehow from someone you know, such as a child; etc).
Your passcode is something that wasn't hard to guess (e.g. you use it elsewhere, it's a D.O.B., etc).

Obviously from your comments, the person sending you the texts is unknown to you - but this does not eliminate the possibility that they know of you (either through a mutual friend/colleague/etc or because they've accessed some info from other sources). And if they are strongly motivated the perpetrator may have the time, budget, and equipment necessary to try and crack your 4 digit passcode. However, this is extremely unlikely - I would almost say impossible.

This is where it becomes extremely difficult for anyone to answer your second question. In this sense it is too broad as we just don't have all the necessary info, but I suspect the answer lies in the bullet points above.


Running

defaults write -g QLEnableTextSelection -bool true

and relaunching applications works for me. defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool true only applies to Finder but defaults write -g QLEnableTextSelection -bool true applies to all applications.

If it doesn't work, see what Quick Look generator handles plain text files:

$ qlmanage -m|grep public.plain-text
  public.plain-text -> /System/Library/QuickLook/Text.qlgenerator (555.0)

If it is not Text.qlgenerator, try to delete it and run qlmanage -r.


One can rename one's "Computer Name" under Sharing in System Preferences.


Will I still have a geo-tag if I take a screenshot on my computer?

It sounds like you're talking about taking a screenshot on your Mac of the iPhone image, in which case, no, it won't have any geo-tagging information embedded.

However if you want to remove geo-tags from any photos (screenshots included) that you do have, the more convenient way is probably to use a tool like ImageOptim to strip out the EXIF data (which is the metadata containing geolocation data, amongst other things). That way you preserve the quality of the original, and you don't need to bother exactly trimming the size of the screenshot you take to the photo.


This works as a shell test, if you replace  with your target.

echo "QUIT" | telnet <host> ftp 2>&1 | grep  "Escape character is" > /dev/null

We're using hardly any complex tools, we just send a command to the server that makes it close our connection. If this works, the ftp-server is up and running. If we couldn't connect at all, this line returns 1, else it returns 0.

Digested to an AppleScript it's something like

set hostn to <host>
try
    do shell script "echo \"QUIT\" | telnet " & hostn & " ftp 2>&1 | grep  \"Escape character is\" > /dev/null"
    display dialog "Online."
on error
    display dialog "Not online."
end try


How can I let top show in byte for memory usage on MacOS?

Any command you enter in Terminal.app provides help with the "man" command. For a list of the options on "top" you would type in:

man top

I had a quick look through the options and I did not see anything that allowed you to change the displayed memory units. Perhaps if you had a closer look?

Wondering if there is a way to feed the output through something else that would convert to bytes. Possible but that is beyond my meagre CLI skills...


Menu icons are not loading after restart

This can be caused by missing/corrupt menu items that hook into the SystemUIServer such as first-party menu items or apps like iStat Menus which integrate into the SystemUIServer (you can usually distinguish these because you can ⌘-drag them between other apps' menu bar items.

Check the log in Console.app (/Applications/Utilities/), looking for any apps which you know have menu bar items present, or any references to SystemUIServer.
Check Activity Monitor for any apps that show Not Responding for their process.
Try restarting SystemUIServer and watching to see if you can notice the hanging app:

killall -HUP SystemUIServer

You can use the Accessibility Inspector, accessible from Xcode → Open Developer Tool → Accessibility Inspector.

Hover over the item and the pane may show you enough information for you to determine what it is. For example, hovering the Dropbox menu bar item shows "Dropbox <version>" under AXHelp, and hovering Little Snitch shows "Little Snitch Agent" under AXTitle.


You need to manually add the Pixel Tool to the Tools palette first.

  You can add it there manually by choosing Pixelmator > Preferences > Tools > Painting. Then simply drag it onto the Tools palette to place it there.

Source: http://support.pixelmator.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10260


Is there a way to show Spotlight indexing status/progress in Yosemite?

From this page

Show the status of Spotlight indexing for a volume

mdutil -s /Volumes/volumename

↪

/Volumes/volumename:
    Indexing enabled.

Here are some other Spotlight terminal commands

This comment thread suggests that there is not a great way to get an estimated time to completion.


It's possible it could have messed up the Font cache.  Restart into Safe mode, (hold down shift after the boot chime) and release Shift when the grey screen and Apple logo appear.  When asked to log in, type in your password, then HOLD SHIFT and hit enter.  Reboot into OS X as normal and try again.

Hopefully it didn't delete a system font on accident.  Next, open Font Book, select all the fonts and choose Validate Fonts from the File menu.  Resolve any conflicts that it finds.  If you don't have a lot of non-standard fonts installed, you can choose Restore Standard Fonts from the File menu and reboot.  Hopefully it's something simple.


Limit battery charging to a certain level?

There's really no option in the iPhone to limit it to charging the battery to 50%, or temporarily disable charging.

However, I suggest that you turn the problem around and look at it differently. Namely just stop supplying power to the phone, when you do not want it to charge. You can leave the cable plugged in and have data transfers continually, but just don't supply the +5V for charging.

This can be done by plugging the iPhone into a hub that supports per-port power control and then plugging the hub into a computer, where you can use uhubctl to turn on/off ports as you like:

https://github.com/mvp/uhubctl


Finder takes long time to load some folders

Hallelujah! I figured it out. Okay, so first thing I did was create a new account, as suggested by another answer. The problem did not occur in there, so clearly the problem was limited to my account. I then went into Safe Mode into my account. The problem did not occur as well. So clearly something was loaded in normal mode but not in safe mode that was causing the problem.

While in safe mode, I then cleared the caches (in Terminal, using sudo mv /Library/Caches ~/Temp/ and the same for ~/Library/Caches). Problem solved! I've had other problems as well in Finder so perhaps this will fix this as well. I'm curious as to why using Onyx to clear the User caches didn't clear these as well, but anyway, from what I've read online it seems like getting rid of these two folders is safe. Also, Time Machine never backs up ~/Library/Caches (but it does back up /Library/Caches), so that's reassuring.

In addition, while this post was made in 2003, it still applied to my situation and this was what convinced me to clear my Caches folders.


I've found how to reinstall some of them.

Mount or your installation media.
You may have hidden BaseSystem.dmg in your installation media (for me it's in root).
Copy that BaseSystem.dmg somewhere and mount it to. It may contain Safari and Utilities:

Now you can just drag them in /Applications if you need them


How to stop mouse from zooming in when trying to scroll down

I'm not sure but should be
System preferences -> Accessibility -> Zoom -> Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom (or similar, I got it in italian) that should be unchecked.