How to evoke Preview's title bar saving dialogue by shortcut?

You can use Automator/Apple Script for this with Mouse Tools command line app.
You can get Mouse Tools from here. It's a small tool to move mouse pointer and perform clicks.
[-h] return this help text
[-b] coordinates are measured from bottom-left corner of the screen
[-location] return the current mouse location
[-x "xValue" -y "yValue"] move the mouse to the {xValue, yValue} location
[-mouseSteps numSteps] move mouse in number-of-steps to the location
[-leftClick] perform a mouse left-click at the current mouse location
[-doubleLeftClick] perform a mouse double-click with the left mouse button
[-rightClick] perform a mouse right-click at the current mouse location
[-shiftKey] shift key down, useful when performing a left-click event
[-commandKey] command key down, useful when performing a left-click event
[-optionKey] option key down, useful when performing a left-click event
[-controlKey] control key down, useful when performing a left-click event
[-leftClickNoRelease] perform a mouse click and do not release the mouse click
[-releaseMouse] release the mouse after using -leftClickNoRelease

Then create an Automator workflow as a Service. Set "No input" as an input and "Preview" as an application. Add this Apple Script there:
on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Preview" to activate
    delay 1
    set mouseToolsPath to (path to home folder as text) & "Downloads:MouseTools"
    tell application "Preview"
        set _b to bounds of the front window
        set _x to item 1 of _b
        set _y to item 2 of _b
        set _width to item 3 of _b
    end tell
    set xpos to _x + (_width / 2)
    set ypos to _y + 10
    do shell script quoted form of POSIX path of mouseToolsPath & " -x " & (xpos as text) & " -y " & (ypos as text)
    do shell script quoted form of POSIX path of mouseToolsPath & " -leftClick"
    return input
end run

In this case, my MouseTools binary is in Downloads directory.
Save it and give it a name You'll remember. Assign keyboard shortcut to this Serivce in Preferences.app under Keyboard -> Shortcuts.
I tested this and it works for me.


Unable to enable development on iOS 10.1.1

Maybe you forgot to register your device with your develop account? I got that error code (0x8000076) when I forgot to register it. To double check:

Find the identifier of your iPhone

In Xcode open the devices window (Window - Devices)
Select your phone and find its identifier

Login to your developer account (https://developer.apple.com/account)
Navigate to your devices (https://developer.apple.com/account/ios/device/)
Find the identifier in the list of devices.
Check if the names are identical

If it is missing, create a new entry.


Migrate OS X using Migration Assistant and Time Machine - not enough space

The same thing happened to me. I lost a Mac virtual machine, which was not backed up by time machine on the host system, but it WAS backed up by the guest OS X system itself. After creating a new guest OS X system and figuring out that Migration Assistant was the correct method of restoring from a Time Machine backup, I was blocked by the same issue. MA claimed that I needed more space to restore the data from the backup. My target system was a single drive system with 80GB of total space and 60GB free, while the backup was only around 30GB in size. Even when only a small amount of files were selected, MA refused to restore it.

The target system had Server.app installed, while the original system backed up did NOT have Server.app installed. So, I simply moved Server.app to the Trash, and tried MA again... this time it worked and had no issues.


Services on homescreen jailbroken iphone

This is a fairly common issue on jailbroken devices. It's a harmless bug where usually-hidden system apps suddenly show up, usually after installing a new app. I've seen reports of it happening on devices on iOS 6 with various combinations of tweaks installed, so I'm not sure whether any specific tweak is causing it, or whether it's related to the jailbreak itself. If you use Springtomize to hide Apple apps, you could try un-hiding those apps and seeing if the white icons come back (the hypothesis here is that maybe Springtomize's hidden apps feature is causing the problem for you).


Suspended (tty output) when launching editors like vim, vi, emacs, or nano

Turns out I misread the first result on Google. I incorrectly assumed that they were referring to the terminal shell (and when they said shell later on I assumed they meant $SHELL, although I should've been tipped off by the fact that shell wasn't capitalized). Instead they were referring to the vim shell setting, which incorrectly had the -i flag instead of the -l flag.

So in case anyone else has this issue, go into your .vimrc and change make sure the line that sets your shell looks like this:

set shell=/bin/zsh\ -l

(Replacing /bin/zsh with the value of which zsh if it's installed in a non-standard location, of course).

Reference commit: https://github.com/devx/vimified/commit/772e130c9c359ac87927a963e00a9cc6597cd170


How can I assign an application to all desktops using the keyboard?

Here's a solution that does use GUI scripting:

In Automator, create a Service. Use the 'Run AppleScript' action, with the AppleScript below. Then, in Services Preferences, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to the service.

on run
    -- get active application
    tell application "System Events" to set activeApp to name of first application process whose frontmost is true

    -- right click that application in the dock
    tell application "System Events" to tell UI element activeApp of list 1 of process "Dock"
        perform action "AXShowMenu"
        click menu item "Options" of menu 1

        -- is it currently checked?
        set isChecked to value of attribute "AXMenuItemMarkChar" of menu item "All Desktops" of menu 1 of menu item "Options" of menu 1 as string

        -- toggle between "None" and "All Desktops"
        if (isChecked = "✓") then
            perform action "AXShowMenu"
            click menu item "Options" of menu 1
            click menu item "None" of menu 1 of menu item "Options" of menu 1
        else
            perform action "AXShowMenu"
            click menu item "Options" of menu 1
            click menu item "All Desktops" of menu 1 of menu item "Options" of menu 1
        end if

    end tell
end run

Potential caveats:

It's slow
It briefly flashes the dock options menu
It will stop working if the UI changes
Sometimes (but very inconsistently, not all the time), I'm prompted to allow either the current application OR Automator to control the computer. I haven't done that and it still usually works.


Is there a way to block access to my e-mail in my iPod Touch, so I can lend it?

Delete your mail account and log out of facebook?


I can't sync photos from my iPhone 3gs to my mac

iCloud backup works if you have iOS6.  You must be connected to wifi and plugged into the charger for this to work.
http://9to5mac.com/2013/09/17/getting-ready-for-ios-7-how-to-backup-your-device-setup-ios-7/

iOS 5 should be able to backup / sync via WiFi  Google "How to Set Up Wi-Fi Sync in iOS 5"

If iCloud doesn't work for you... you should be able to save your photos using dropbox:  http://www.idownloadblog.com/2013/08/15/back-up-iphone-photos/


Software to control the amps output through USB

From Apple Support page on USB devices:

  USB 3 devices can use up to 900mA of power (compared to 500mA used by USB 2 devices). You'll need to use a USB 3 cable to use the 900mA of power available. USB 2 cables don't support 900mA.

Your connector cable and device most likely use USB 2 interface. Not sure what phone you have, but as a side note all Apple devices and cables use USB 2 interface. This is a hardware limit, so the answer to your question is no, there is no software that can bypass the limit.


The rules limit what is an acceptable formula so having your own tool accepted would seem to depend on its popularity.

  Niche (or self-submitted) stuff

  The software in question must:

  be maintained (i.e. the last release wasn’t ages ago, it works
  without patching on all supported macOS releases and has no
  outstanding, unpatched security vulnerabilities)
  be known
  be stable (e.g. not declared “unstable” or “beta” by upstream)
  be used
  have a homepage

  We will reject formulae that seem too obscure, partly because they won’t get maintained and partly because we have to draw the line somewhere.

  We frown on authors submitting their own work unless it is very popular.

You can however create your own tap containing whatever you want. See How to create and maintain a tap

  Taps are external sources of Homebrew formulae and/or external commands. They can be created by anyone to provide their own formulae and/or external commands to any Homebrew user.


Can Python/Ruby/Perl/etc (or even bash) replace AppleScript?

In terms of general purpose Unix scripting, many languages like bash, perl, python, or ruby are more capable than AppleScript. But AppleScript has a special role in MacOS with great native support for Mac specific things, particularly related to the GUI.

There are bindings between other scripting language and MacOS events. For instance, see the MacPython OSA Modules°°° or Apple's Ruby and Python for Mac OS X°°°. In general I'd consider these efforts second class citizens; they may work and be a good choice but it will be a bit of an awkward fit.

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
°°° EDIT:
Both languages are not supported on latest MacOS systems. These links return:

  Retired Document – Important: The current version of Ruby (2.0) is not
  supported as a Cocoa scripting language in OS X v10.9. The remainder
  of the content in this document has not been reviewed for accuracy.
  Apple recommends Objective-C for the development of Cocoa apps. [My highlighting.]

Documents are finished with this line:

  Copyright © 2013 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved. […] Updated: 2013-09-18


As a matter of fact Lion DOES ship with X11. There were many doubts, and many believed it wouldn't, but it does.

Source: me. Ive got xeyes running on my Lion iMac right now. :)

Another Source: Apple. http://www.apple.com/macosx/apps/all.html#x11


How can I change the metadata of my songs all at once?

You could also run a script like this in AppleScript Editor:

tell application "iTunes"
    repeat with t in selection
        tell t
            set name to my titlecase(name)
            set artist to my titlecase(artist)
            set album to my titlecase(album)
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell

on titlecase(x)
    do shell script "ruby -rubygems -KUe 'require \"titlecase\"
    print ARGV[0].titlecase' -- " & quoted form of x
end titlecase

The titlecase gem can be installed with sudo gem install titlecase.


Hotkey to show hidden files and folders in File Open dialog?

⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+. reveals hidden files in Finder and Open/Save dialogs.

If you are using an AZERTY keyboard, you'll need to press fn too, so ⇧ SHIFT is taken into consideration as you already need it to make the ..

You can also press ⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+G and type the path to the hidden folder, just like in Terminal (⇥ TAB autocompletion also works).

Editing hidden files can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.


Notes app broke on Mac Pro after macOS Sierra upgrade

I'm not sure currently, but basically some text/special symbols is to blame.
As stated here: http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/notes-crashing-in-macos-sierra.2000203/

Katalyst2 said: ↑
Me too -- mid-2013 MBA 13. Damn annoying!
EDIT: And as usual, as soon as I post a problem report, I somehow manage to fix it :)
What I just did now was log into iCloud.com and I made a tiny edit to one of my notes (in my case, I deleted one line on a to-do list). Then I waited a few seconds for the data to refresh, and then I tried opening Notes locally again.
Let us know if this works.


Internet Sharing: Using the MacBook Pro as a Wifi Modem with its Ethernet Connection for the iPhone, connectivity issues

I use my MacBook Pro to share internet to my iPhone and my friends' iPod Touch.

Make sure that you're using WPA2 to secure your network, not WEP- I have had issues connecting my iPhone to WEP networks, and they're not only less secure but the password is more annoying to type anyway.

Other than that, your IP schemes are also not compatible. You need to set the devices to have the same IP scheme; if your WiFi is set to a 192.168.1.1 address, your iPhone needs to be 192.168.1.2-255. Setting both to DHCP would help a lot here.

For my setup, I just left everything as DHCP and don't have any issues.


What causes network data use besides automatic updates?

All right guys, I found the solution. I went to Finder > Library > Updates then I saw the bunch of update files their. So, I had deleted all those files and connect to Internet. Well, now it is OK. :D


How to eject my external drive when my Mac refuses because of Spotlight?

Simply turn indexing off for the drive and erase the contents of the journal on the volume. To do so, open Terminal and enter the following command:

sudo mdutil -Ei off "/Volumes/Name_of_Drive"

You must run this procedure as an admin. Enter your password when prompted. A reboot may be required.

Alternatively, as suggested by Simon White, just shut down the machine and then unplug the drive. The caveat is that the drive will start indexing when connected again, however.


How do I transition from a MobileMe account to an existing iCloud account?

Here is a fantastic article on moving to iCloud. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4918

And, yes, you can keep your current @me.com address. Instead of being associated with MobileMe, @me.com email addresses are now iCloud (and MobileMe user will be migrated over), so the email address that comes with iCloud is @me.com. Again, I believe you are able to keep your current @me.com address.

Unfortunately, merging wouldn't be possible.


How to move iPhone 3's Notes, Voice Memo to a computer before giving it away?

Are you getting a new iPhone?  Back up the old one, wipe it and sell it.  When you get the new one, you can restore your backup to the new phone.


Possible to Recover Files from Remote Volume?

TestDisk is powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software: certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk


Changed Google Password and can't get into gmail on macmail anymore

Try to re-enable the Gmail account from Apple menu > System Preferences > Internet Accounts. If this does not work, boot to safe mode and attempt to disable and re-enable from here. Allow about minute to see the account again.

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac


There are a few potential reasons for this.

If you installed a system update, the update data will be removed post update which can result in a large amount of space being.
Apple have begun to implement several space saving features into iOS, which offload unneeded content to iCloud Drive or just remove it.
You may have removed some optional system content, such as dictionaries, which freed up space.
Rebooting your iOS device can sometimes free up some space, as iOS is based off of BSD so logs and temporary data may be expunged on reboot.


Problem seeing Macintosh HD under Boot Camp

This a known issue that was introduced with the Windows 10 "Anniversary Update" as discussed,
for instance, here or here.


Finder gets confused after using the mv command in the Dropbox folders

command+opt/alt
+esc to force quit / relaunch Finder fixes the out-of-sync problem.
Not a great solution, but it does work.


How to prevent calendar alerts from becoming Drafts (???) in Mail.app?

Calendar invitations are delivered via email, so perhaps Mail app is preparing things for you to "accept, tentative, or decline" the invitations as part of the routine processing of a mail message that gets diverted from the inbox and places in another application (Calendar in this case, or iCal for those on Lion and earlier).

You could also just configure Calendar to not retrieve CalDAV events from Mail in the first place and let mail handle things in the inbox rather than having the system try to process things for you.

  Calendar -> Preferences -> Advanced

Deselect the box next to Automatically retrieve CalDAV invitations from Mail


logging out of old Apple ID into new one

Anything purchased under the existing ID will remain on the device but as you note, you will have to switch logins to update those apps. Whether the hassle is worth it is something only you can answer. Obviously for free apps, you probably want to download them with the new ID.

Music will remain and since there are no updates, you don't need to remain logged in to that account.

When/if you upgrade to a new device, you will be prompted for the username and password that was used to purchase songs (videos, books, apps) in order to authorize the new device to play/use them.

As a side note, if you set up a new Apple ID because your email address changed, in the future, don't do that. Simply login at appleid.apple.com and you can change the email address associated with your account, which also changes the username. For the vast majority of people, one Apple ID is all you will ever need.


Homebrew not detecting latest Xcode and Command Line Tools, and not uninstalling them either

As is evident from the output of brew config, your installation of Homebrew is pretty outdated. Also, as mentioned in your comment, you have a proxy active in your system. This explains why Homebrew installation is failing to connect unable to the Homebrew software's server counterpart via port 443, which  hosted on GitHub.

Follow the instructions in the following answer to update your installation of Homebrew to current version:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/232770/279727

If you run into an error similar to:

  Error: Permission denied

Run:

sudo chown -R `whoami`:admin /usr/local/share

to resolve it.

If you get the following error:

  Warning: Homebrew's sbin was not found in your PATH but you have installed
  formulae that put executables in /usr/local/sbin.
  Consider setting the PATH for example like so:
  echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/sbin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Run the command-line mentioned in the last line.

Once you have Homebrew updated, run brew cleanup to remove any broken symlinks.

The current public version of Homebrew is 2.1.6. You can check if your installation of Homebrew is up-to-date by running brew config and matching the value with the HOMEBREW_VERSION: key in the output.


How do I sync an iCal calendar across Lion, Lepoard, and iOS 5?

I suggest you use Google Calendar (CalDav). You can import these into iCal (both on iPad and Mac). It sync automatically too, so you can have all iCloud-benefits.

I use it with my girlfriend (who is, sadly enough a windows user) and with my company PC. It works like a charm!


Can a disk's catalog directory be recovered after a Quick Erase?

That's how companies like
Prosoft (Data Recovery),
Micromat (Tech Tool),
Cleverfiles (Disk Drill) &
Alsoft (DiskWarrior)
make their money.

They each have different ways of protecting or recovering your data.

Data Rescue & Disk Drill are designed to recover files after the type of incident you mentioned.

Tech Tool goes further, by cataloguing each partition on every other partition, so it has a 'map' of where things were if anything goes wrong.

DiskWarrior concentrates on being able to rescue & rebuild damaged directory & filesystem information.

All are exemplary tools to use for different types of disaster & in my opinion all worth the expenditure.

However - nothing is better than a good backup strategy.
Time Machine in-house, for if a drive goes down.
Backblaze or CrashPlan for off-site backup, in case the worst happens & the house goes up in flames.

This is not a comprehensive list, just the ones I use or would recommend personally.


Command + F1 did not shows the more... in IntelliJ IDEA

Which way the F-Keys respond is dependant on this pref

System Prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard > Use all F1, F2 etc. keys as standard function keys.

Unchecked, your F-Keys will change screen brightness, turn the volume up & down etc.
With it checked they become regular F-keys.

Holding  Fn  will temporarily flip this default for that one keypress.


Why can't Finder find some obvious items sometimes?

Indeed, the Finder fails to live up to its name in my experience as well. Results seem so frustratingly random as to what is found and what is missed.

Beware of one setting that may help: Finder > Preferences > Advanced > "When performing a search` with a popup menu offering "Search this Mac", "Search the Current Folder", "Use the Previous Search Scope".

Beware of the "Search" bar with scope filter buttons that appears when typing search criteria into the upper-right corner.

Finding the Finder nearly useless for finding, so in the past I have in the past purchased a license to Path Finder, a Finder replacement/supplement app. There are other such apps as well.

Another option is using command-line tools in Terminal.app. For example, this article shows the use of the find command. See also this Question on SuperUser Stack Exchange, How do I find a file by filename in Mac OSX terminal?.


How to use USB wifi adapter on a MacBook Pro running on Mojave

I believe what you are trying to do is called Internet Sharing.

You can not forward your Mac- WiFi to another WiFi, but you can set up sharing.

Important note:
The one big limitation is that you can’t both be connected to a Wi-Fi network and host a Wi-Fi network at the same time. So what you are trying to do with the USB WiFi is not possible using your mac-WiFi.

But you can use Internet sharing if your Mac is connected to the Internet through an Ethernet adapter.

Enable Internet Sharing and Configure Your Hotspot

The Wi-Fi hotspot option is part of the “Internet Sharing” feature in macOS.

You’ll find it in the System Preferences window.

Click the Apple menu, select System Preferences, and click the Sharing icon. Follow the instructions there.


Is there a reliable, automatic subtitle downloader for Mac OS X?

I know this is an old question, but I was searching for this same answer, and found a great solution.

Subliminal will allow you to set up a cron job, (or manually enter from CLI) whole directory trees, and download subtitles. You can also set it up as a post processor for SABNzbd or SickBeard or CouchPotato.

It's working great for me.


iTunes Helper still running even if it is off

iTunesHelper will run if you open iTunes, or do something that opens an iTunes service.

The only way to completely disable iTunesHelper is to…

Quit iTunes and remove iTunesHelper from Login Items.
Go to /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/

You can use Finder's Go to Folder to go there - paste in the path as above.

Rename iTunesHelper.app to something else (e.g. iTunesHelper-disabled.app).

iTunesHelper should not run automatically now.


Network problems after Jailbreakme on iPhone

That happened to me too, and now my wifi doesn't work anymore so you should expect that. (not much an answer just a comment)

3 possible fixes you can try: (they did not work for me)

1) Reset network settings: Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings.
3) When connected to your network click more info (the little > icon) and check if DHCP is enabled.
2) The last thing Restore your device from Itunes or reset the device from Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings.


Track number missing after iPhone upgrade to iOS 8.4

Apple has removed the track number feature from the Music app and it is not known if or when it will return.


Do you need the username and password to remotely manage all admins via ARD?

It would be necessary for the admin trying to access remotely to know each password for the account. Your files would not be viewable, unless you were to specifically grant the other admin access via ARD or specific shared folder.


I just ran into the same problem. Here's the solution:

There are "iPhone Managers" that Apple does not promote using but it works 100%. These "iPhone Managers" (the names I'll give you in a second) allow you to transfer your CONTACTS, MUSIC, APPS, APP DATA, APP SETTINGS, PHOTOS & VIDEOS and a LOT more to your Mac or Windows computer.

After you transfer whatever it is you want to keep a backup of to your Mac in a nicely labeled folder on your desktop (just in case the iTunes Manual Backup doesn't keep some of your settings or pictures, contacts, etc.), you can then ERASE AND SYNC and transfer everything from the folder you made on your desktop with all of your files and transfer it back.

This is the only way I know and am doing it as we speak.

I tried posting links but since I'm new it won't let me. You can try these names:

CopyTrans
iFunBox for Mac
FileApp

I hope this helps.


iPhone works fine with car bluetooth for Playing Music but not working for Phone Calls

Buried in the last couple of updates has been a little bug that does this. I think it is tied in with the odd MAC address changing Apple devices can do for security and hiding you from tracking.
The only fix I have found is to delete the pairing on both sides (phone and in-car) and then recreate it. You may get away with just deleying the connection on the Apple but I started in the car system first :-(
Solved exactly the same issue in my Renault after about a month of the phone randomly needing reconnecting even outside a call.


Strange behaviour of Target Display Mode with iMac, Mac mini and Thunderbolt display

This Apple KB article will help answer some of your questions:

Target Display Mode: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

From what you're describing, I think what is happening is that the Thunderbolt Display is acting like a regular display for the iMac, while the iMac is acting as a TDM for mini. Thus, the signal for the mini ends up on the Thunderbolt Display (since it's considered "part of" the iMac).

At first glance, I'd say that TDM isn't intended for multiple screens, though I'm not sure...

To specifically answer 1. and 2. (from list item 14 in the link above):

  [...]Other keyboard and mouse input is disabled on the iMac while it is in TDM[...]

This means that the keyboard and mouse need to be connected to the mini in order to work beyond presssing Cmd+F2 to exit TDM.

In regards to what happens when you exit TDM, that's probably just a side effect of the Thunderbolt Display being the last active display (Remember, 10.9 moves the dock to the display on which you're interacting. Makes the menu bar opaque, too).


How to transfer keychain data from an external SSD?

The best way to copy your keychains to a new computer is to export and then import them using Keychain Access. See Import and export keychain items.

However, you can also manually copy your keychains to another Mac/mac using the steps below. It should work in your scenario too.

On your Mac, locate the keychain files you want to transfer.

Keychains are usually located in the Keychains folder in the Library folder in your home folder. To locate these files, press and hold the Option key and choose to Go > Library, then open the Keychains folder.

Select the keychains you want, then press and hold the Option key and drag the selected keychains into another folder to copy them to the folder.

Keychain files typically end with .keychain-db. Don’t select and copy encrypted folders with names that appear as a series of numbers.

Transfer the folder containing the keychains to the new computer.

Important: Transfer the keychains in a safe manner so no unauthorized person can access them. For example, use AirDrop or a USB flash drive to copy the files.

Change the name of the transferred keychains on your new computer so they don’t become confused with any of the existing keychains.

This is especially important if you are copying a standard keychain, such as the login keychain.

Open Keychain Access, located in the Utilities folder in the Applications folder.
Add each copied keychain one by one by choosing File > Add Keychain, selecting your keychain, then clicking OK.


Virtualbox installation fails/hangs on Catalina

This fixed it:
sudo kextcache --clear-staging


Mac App Store allows downloading macOS 10.12, Sierra, on unsupported Mac

Officially your MacBook Pro (13" Mid-2009) is not supported by macOS Sierra. However, for whatever reason, the option to upgrade to macOS Sierra is appearing in the App Store for a whole range of unsupported Macs. In fact, today I saw this occur on a MacBook Pro (15" Late-2008) model that was running Snow Leopard 10.6.8, even though Apple doesn't officially support upgrading from this hardware or OS.

As to whether you can install it, the answer is yes, even though this isn't officially supported by Apple. If the App Store allows you to download the upgrade, then you could just download it (without installing it) and then make a copy of the installer. Once you've got a copy you could try installing from the original downloaded location to see what happens. If this doesn't work you can download the macOS Sierra Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs. Make sure you read all the information on this page as it contains important information you should weigh up before proceeding. If it was me I would not proceed without a full backup ready so you could recover your system if all goes bad.

In the end, whether you should download the upgrade is up to you. Do you want macOS Sierra? Many of its new features are not supported even on Macs that are officially supported by the upgrade - so the answer to this will depend on what appeals to you in upgrading to macOS Sierra? To help you decide, go to Upgrade to macOS Sierra and scroll down to the Feature Requirements section.

If what appeals to you isn't likely to work because it's only supported on much newer Mac models, then I wouldn't bother.


Mirroring display in Recovery Mode with faulty lid sensor and LCD?

The solution that worked for me, and was suggested to me by someone over on Reddit, is to remove the bottom of the Macbook and unhook the LCD cable. Once I did that, the external screen acted just like the internal screen. I could see the Apple logo, the recovery mode welcome screen and all that jazz.
There's teardown instructions over on iFixit, but I didn't need to follow all the steps. I just needed to undo the screws (steps 1-8) and unhook the trackpad cable (steps 9-11) to get the case open far enough to unhook the LCD cable (steps 19-23)


iTunes Music download all songs to be available offline

You can create a smart playlist with the attribute iCloud Status, is, Apple Music and Location, is not, on this computer.
If you can change the Apple music attribute with purchased.
Also check the checkbox live updating.

Now you can make the playlist available offline by downloading it at your device.

More information: Apple Support


Open a terminal, and run the following, then restart Chrome.

defaults write com.google.Chrome EnableSha1ForLocalAnchors -bool true


There's no root in Samba protocol. To list shares on your server you can use smbutil(1):

$ smbutil view //Administrator@10.211.55.8/ | awk '$2=="Disk"{print $1}'
ADMIN$
C$

and then use output with mount_smbfs(8):

smbutil view //Administrator@10.211.55.8/ | awk '$2=="Disk"{print $1}' | while read sharename; do
  mkdir ${BASE}/${sharename};
  mount_smbfs //Administrator@10.211.55.8/${sharename} ${BASE}/${sharename};
done

Please, read man pages to check other options I haven't used here.

The best utility to make backup I know is rsync(1). You can found it from MacPorts. It'll be interest if you know better.


How can I stop 'bin' items from appearing when searching Mail.app?

Per http://productforums.google.com/d/msg/gmail/ZHgilTVP7ts/bpIWgcLAzrUJ

  The Bin holds deleted messages, so it should not normally contain all of your received and sent mail. If it does, there is a problem. Apple Mail does not handle drafts on the server well, and leaves the fragments behind. To avoid that, change the setting in Apple Mail to save drafts locally, not on the Gmail server.


What ipad do you have?

I will explain the options you have:

1) does your ipad have a camera? If not you have the first iPad and the latest iOS version than is iOS 5.1.1

When your ipad has a camera, you have two options i believe:

1) go to settings > general > software update. The app will then show the latest iOs version available for your device.

A download & install button (not sure if it displays 'install' but i'm sure about 'download') will show up and you can tap that to upgrade your iOS versions.

2) connect your ipad with your charging cable (lightning or 30-pins) to your computer

Open itunes, or download it from apple.com, when your iPad is connected it will be opened in itunes.

Click the "search for updates" button and follow the on screen steps


How can i get the mac family number using terminal?

Click the apple icon in the top left "About This Mac", admittedly not Terminal. Do you have any reason to do this in Terminal?


There's a free app in the Mac App store, Miro Video Converter. It might do what you need.


Responsive icon solution when changing icon sizes in OS X Finder

You can have the folder contents auto-arranged in icon view via a few settings in View > Show View Options (⌘ Cmd-J).

When you select the files to be Arranged By the criteria you prefer and select Use as Defaults, the icons are automatically re-organised on-the-fly. Note that you don't need to select Always open in icon view, as in the example image below.

These default settings will be used for all folder that don't have folder-specific settings applied, before or after setting the defaults.

You have to restart Finder, e.g. by killall Finder before the new defaults are used.

(Image borrowed from a SuperUser answer)


Troubleshooting: 90 seconds to eject external Time Machine drive?

Some process (or processes) seem to be accessing the drive and preventing it from ejecting. You can list those processes with this command:
sudo lsof +d /Volumes/<Time Machine hard drive name>

which displays all running processes that are accessing the folder /Volumes/<Time Machine hard drive name>
From the information in your post, the culprit is mds:
sudo lsof +d /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
COMMAND PID USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
mds      90 root   21r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   25r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   27r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   31r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup
mds      90 root   34r   DIR   1,16      510    2 /Volumes/LaCie.Backup

which is the metadata server used by Spotlight.
To prevent this from happening, add the Time Machine drive to the Spotlight exceptions:

Open System Preferences > Spotlight.
Select the Privacy tab.
Press the + button, select the Time Machine drive and select "Choose".

You may need to reboot your Mac for changes to take effect.


Does the Adult Swim iOS app support Chromecast?

iOS developers have to manually add support for Chromecast streaming (video/audio).

If you want to stream the content of this app to a Chromecast, please let the developers know. Only they are able to add support for it.

Did this answer your question?


How to disable "Share Wi-Fi password" prompt

This happens in one specific circumstance:

Another device is within bluetooth distance of your Mac and both have Bluetooth on.
The other device is scanning for Wi-Fi
You and the other person are signed in to iCloud and they are in your contacts.

You can remove their contact, sign out of iCloud, turn off wireless / Bluetooth or share the password. They could sign out of iCloud, turn off Wireless / Bluetooth.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/share-a-wi-fi-password-on-mac-mchlp1179/mac

The share should send the password, but their device isn’t connecting, so escalate your steps or possibly vacate the area?

For iOS removing your contact from their contacts might do the trick as well.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209368

Worst case, your iCloud are not syncing identity records or her device needs other fixes. Tweaking these settings resolves the situation on machines without other problems.

Why we're not customer support for [company X or product Y]

If none of these help, working with Apple employees would be needed to look at why you can’t share between your two iCloud accounts. That prompt happens since your recipient keeps asking for the password and can’t share it. Focus on fixing the other machine and account is my advice if I understand your setup.


Do you mean open the applescript from keyboard shortcut? if so, then follow this to convert the applescript into an app, then create a Service using Automator.

AppleScript to App
Open Apps from keyboard shortcut

Hope this helps.


Use Quick Look. Select the first image, then press Space. The arrow keys can then be used to navigate through the images.


Folder-based photo management software for local use

You basically have written the summary requirements for Photo Mechanic.

It's a folder based, workflow tool that is cross platform and highly optimized for managing images. Whatever changes it makes are stored in metadata in the images so you can edit them elsewhere as you please and it won't break import/export like library based workflows cannot do.


How to easily type a template without copy paste?

You may find it easier to use text substitutions instead of using AppleScript or Automator.

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Text and, in the Replace and With columns, assigned the text you want to type and what it will be replaced with.

For example, type url1 to have it replaced with https://www.google.com as shown in the image below.

When you do type the Replace text, a small pop-up will show with the With text, press the Spacebar key to have the substitution take place, or the Esc key to cancel the action.


How can I make an Automator service run a shell script and display the output?

Nice and clean solution is to display message via Notification Center.
Just execute the following terminal command in your script.

osascript -e 'display notification "All files converted" with title "ffmpeg converter"'

'osascript' command runs any AppleScript from terminal, 'display notification' pops up nice notification.

Also you can use 'display alert'. It has no limitation of message length and it's easy to add OK button to it.

osascript -e 'set alertResult to display alert "Bad news :( Error converting your video file." buttons {"OK"} as warning'

Here is Apple Script commands reference. Look for 'display notification' and 'display alert' for more information.


When you select the color picker for the Window - there's an opacity slider there:


How to determine what macport (if any) containing an specific file?

Answer from Stackoverflow:

  Unfortunately MacPorts currently (2.3.1) only supports that if you have the port installed, i.e. if you want to find out which port installed a file on your system. In this case, you can use port provides .

The answer also suggests to use a Linux distribution (e.g. Debian) to search for the file and choose a similar Macports port with the found Debian package name:

Here is a search engine for Debian: search package content

Example:
Result for ".../sapi/embed/php_embed.h":

File                                        Packages
/usr/include/php5/sapi/embed/php_embed.h    php5-dev


How to move from beta to stable releases of OS X

Apple Store preferences options disappeared on newer releases and so far the only way to unenroll seems to be via the command line

sudo softwareupdate --clear-catalog


Unable to redeem app codes with Configurator

Do not import the initial VPP spreadsheet into Configurator!

After receiving the initial spreadsheet from VPP, you must redeem one of the codes from the spreadsheet in the iTunes App Store to 'purchase' the app you are distributing. Once you download the app and import it into Configurator, go back to the VPP site and re-download the spreadsheet. This spreadsheet will now have the word Redeemed in the cell where the download link used to be. Import only the second spreadsheet into Configurator.

Lastly, VPP Support is sometimes very forgiving with minor glitches like this and can get you back a license code, especially if the price of the app was substantial.


For a FileVault user of Mountain Lion: can I avoid the automated login, which normally follows unlock of the encrypted startup volume?

Encrypt the startup volume with Core Storage without FileVault

Two days after I added this answer, Apple published a technical white paper: Best Practices for Deploying FileVault 2 – Deploying OS X Full Disk Encryption Technology (PDF). At a glance, some of what I describe below seems to be described by Apple as:

Disk Password—based DEK.

Preparation

Backup
start Recovery OS
use Disk Utility to erase the startup volume – Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
restore
give the passphrase for the volume to AdminGuy.

Hint

At step 4 above, use a method that preserves the Apple_Boot slice (sometimes named Boot OS X, sometimes named Recovery HD) whilst restoring the JHFS+ startup volume.

To validate this answer, I used Disk Utility for that step. (I'm less familiar with restoration capabilities of Time Machine.)

The resulting EfiLoginUI:

As Disk Password has an avatar/icon, it's clear that Apple considers scenarios such as this.

Normal use thereafter

Alongside named users, EfiLoginUI presents Disk Password
AdminGuy can select Disk Password
AdminGuy can enter the passphrase to unlock the CoreStorage-protected startup volume
when loginwindow appears, select the required user.

Users may change their login passwords. The phrase for Disk Password will remain unchanged.

You need not use the FileVault areas of System Preferences but if you do, most things work as expected.

The machine pictured above is perfectly clean, restored from a Mountain Lion template that I created following installation of the OS (at the Welcome screen I shut down, then used Disk Utility to image all partitions/slices of the disk). I proceeded to create a user, then enabled that user for FileVault:

The resulting EfiLoginUI – one named user alongside the Disk Password option:

Appearance bug

System Preferences in Build 12A269 of OS X 10.8 may state that FileVault is enabled, with a recovery key set, when the key is no longer applicable. (Assume that an erased volume, with a possibly different passphrase, will not accept a recovery key that was set before erasure. A more definite opinion may be drawn from Infiltrate the Vault: Security Analysis and Decryption of Lion Full Disk Encryption (2012).) I have reported bugs to Apple.

Photographs above are of the USB flash drive that I used to validate this answer.

Photographs below are of the internal drive that I use every day.

EfiLoginUI – two named users enabled for FileVault, the Disk Password option, and the Guest User:

loginwindow – all named users:


How do I get my audiobooks to show up under the Audiobook section?

It's easy to tell iTunes that an audio file is an Audiobook. That will automatically put it in the right section, and not play it when shuffling.

Select the tracks you want to mark as audiobooks and go to File-> Get Info-> Options. Set Media Kind: to Audiobook.


Suddenly when I hold down arrow key it takes a moment for OSX to respond

Check the System Preferences...:Keyboard, and see if "Delay Until Repeat" is set to Long. If so, set it shorter.


Is there a tool similar to powertop for macOS

In addition to the Energy tab in Activity Monitor, there is the command-line powermetrics that gives you more detailed information, such as CPU wattage and C-States. Try the --show-process-energy option for the same Energy Impact metric as Activity Monitor.


Can I add 16 gigs to the 13 inch non-Retina MacBook Pro?

This article from the MacObserver says yes.


How to fix HP Officejet 7210 scanning in Mountain Lion?

Suddenly, the printer now appears directly in the menu of Preview. I have no idea what changed. So the takeaway is that 'Include Networked Devices' doesn't exist anymore and is always on. If your printer doesn't show, close the programs, turn off your printer, and try again. It might show up later.


Is Home screen 3D Touch menu on supported iPhones user customizable?

There is no setting in iOS to customize the action view displayed when 3D touching an app icon on iPhone Home screen. It is up to the app what items are displayed. For 3rd party apps, iOS generally displays a Share app name item.

However, an app may provide settings within itself to customize what items it displays. Thus, it's best to look within the app to search for any relevant setting.

2Do app doesn't appear to offer any such setting.


Minimum display resolution for macOS Sierra on Mac Mini (2011 or later)?

The minimum resolution supported is 640x480. To get to this resolution (at least on my monitors on Sierra), when I'm in display preferences, I have to Control + click on "Scaled". This gives every resolution option, not just the main ones Apple thinks I want to use.


MacBook Pro 2019 suddenly dead and does not turn on

When you have power issues, the most likely cause is hardware.

Follow precisely the steps to reset your SMC
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

This is something you want to do once, not regularly reset it - more than three resets in a month = a trip to repair for us at work.
Your machine has a T2 chip, so that also controls power on, so in rare cases if you can't boot to external media / Internet Recovery, you might have success reviving or restoring the firmware portion of the T2 system which can make all the data unrecoverable - so also read that through a couple times before attempting any portion in the middle.

https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-mac-firmware-apdebea5be51/mac

When these steps fail or you decide it’s hardware, seek someone trained to diagnose and repair your mac. Good options are at the consultant and Apple service locations listed at https://locate.apple.com


If you've written a program in C, simply compile the program twice, using Mac's version of gcc, and then use lipo to combine them into one program.
See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/building_a_universal_macos_binary for Apple's explanation of the process to create a universal Binary (containing both x86_64 and ARM64)


Changed home directory of OSX Server user account, user disappeared, access remains

Open up terminal and try:

$ dscl . -list /groups GroupMembership

You should get a list of users along with which group they belong to. You should look for user/admin accounts including the one you recently made; This command will show you all users with the recently created one most likely near the bottom:

$ dscl . list /users

To get information about a user:

$ dscl . read /users/foo

Which will verbosely spit out all of the basic information, yielding this information near the bottom:

NFSHomeDirectory: /Users/foo

if you want to delete a user:

$ sudo dscl . delete /users/foo

asta la bye-bye! from there you can decide  whether or not to delete ex-users directory.


How to enable/disable grayscale mode in Accessibility via Terminal/App?

This requires developer tools to compile an objective C program. The program is based on this Stackoverflow answer.

Create a file called grayscale.c with the following contents:

// clang -g -O2 -std=c11 -Wall -framework ApplicationServices
// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14163788/how-does-on-screen-color-inversion-work-in-os-x
#include <stdio.h>
#include <ApplicationServices/ApplicationServices.h>

CG_EXTERN bool CGDisplayUsesForceToGray(void);
CG_EXTERN void CGDisplayForceToGray(bool forceToGray);

int
main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    bool isGrayscale = CGDisplayUsesForceToGray();
    printf("isGrayscale = %d\n", isGrayscale);
    CGDisplayForceToGray(!isGrayscale);
    printf("Grayscale is now: %d\n", CGDisplayUsesForceToGray());

    return 0;
}

Then run the following command to compile it:

clang -g -O2 -std=c11 -Wall -framework ApplicationServices ./grayscale.c -o toggle-grayscale

Now run ./toggle-grayscale This instantly makes the screen grayscale or not across all applications, but doesn't update the setting in System Preferences.

Tested on MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6, clang version Apple LLVM version 10.0.0 (clang-1000.10.44.4).


How to insert horizontal line to page headers in Apple Pages

Insert a line, move it on the page into the header box (this is easier if you have layout visible - VIEW / SHOW LAYOUT)

Make the line a section master (ARRANGE / SECTION MASTER / MOVE OBJECT TO SECTION MASTER)


Can I connect external hardrive with time machine to someone else's mac to access one file

Yes, this is possible. A Time Machine Backup is readable by any other Mac as long as the Time Machine Backup is not encrytped. Even then you can unlock it with your password.

Also see this answer.


I was faced with the same dilemma, it seemed like my MacBook Pro (mid-2015) was 'freezing.' I stumbled across a the fix to it after seeing your post - you can read about it here: https://jrgarrigues.github.io/2017/11/05/high-sierra-freezing/

The gist of the linked article is this:

  Reset your NVRAM and the SMC [System Management Controller]

  First reset your NVRAM.
  Turn off your Mac. Then turn it on and hold Command+Option+P+R while the computer is booting up. You will
  hear two chimes or on newer MacBook Pro models you will see the screen
  come on and go off twice.

  Now, shut your computer down again and reset the SMC [System
  Management Controller].With your Mac off, press Shift+Control+Option and then hold these keys while pressing and holding the power
  button for 10 seconds.


OS-level virtualization (containers) for OS X

A key element required for containerization is isolation of networking and other services, but not just isolation but also virtualization.  FreeBSD Jails, Linux "containers" (or more correctly "namespaces"), and Solaris/illumos zones all offer some degree of "virtualization" of these operating system system services.

By virtualization, this means that these servers are available (or potentially available) to things inside the "container", but in a way that protects the other things on the same host outside the container.  (For example, a container may have its own TCP/IP stack, with its own IP address, ARP cache, etc.)

OS (operating system) virtualization is how we generally refer to this type of "light-weight" virtualization, where processes think they see a virtual kernel, but are all sharing the same real kernel under the hood; that kernel acts as a sort of hypervisor in ensuring that container/virtualization boundaries are not crossed.  (Put another way, the OS services are virtualized.)  Compare this to hardware virtualization, where what is virtualized is the hardware -- e.g. devices are emulated in software and presented to an operating system running in the container.  This is very powerful, but quite resource intensive -- each virtual machine must have its own copy of the operating system.

Recent macOS has native hypervisor support via Hypervisor.framework which allows software like "XHyve" [A port of FreeBSD’s BHyve] (docker on macOS uses this), but lacks the necessary services under the hood to fully virtualize operating system services.

In truth, a lot of what is needed is probably already present, since the work to provide sandboxes means that there are already logical points where system calls are intercepted and handled differently for different applications.  However, that's far from the complete story -- implementing true separate network, IPC, and other namespaces is quite a lot of work.

The best reason for why Apple has not done this is likely the same reason that Apple has not released a platform suitable for running macOS in the data center for many years -- lack of market demand, or perceived lack of market demand by Apple leadership.  The desktop and mobile focus where they have focused their attention simply don't need virtual macOS instances that much.  (This is sad, because I would love to have virtual macOS support -- for example running macOS on VMs at Travis CI is really time consuming compared to Linux containers).


Have iPad with iOS 7 ask for network password

This is currently not possible without manually forgetting the network each time from Settings → Wi-Fi. The password is stored on the device and isn't lost automatically.


Use Internet Recovery on your Mac Mini and try repairing Macintosh HD with Disk Utility.
If that fails to fix the boot issue, connect your Mac Mini in target disk mode to a mac running OS X 10.8 or later and see if you can at least copy the files off your Fusion Drive.
In the future, set up a Time Machine.


Terminal command to delete everything I've ever created

You don't have to neccesarily delete everything. Deleting everything would give you a hard time getting the computer to start or installing the OS. With Terminal, I suppose that sudo rm -rf / would delete everything.

If you want to start fresh, you can boot into Recovery ⌘ Cmd+R. Use only the ⌥ Opt key if you don't have FileVault installed because it has a root console.

And then reinstall OS. Also, if you don't have permissions, I mentioned the root console. I am not exactly sure if Internet Recovery also has the console.


Multiple IP addresses for same host name in /private/etc/hosts?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. The hosts file is a static lookup file, and because of this it has no concept of multiple-address per name failover, round-robin, or other features baked into the name resolver.

You can specify multiple names for a given IP address, but not multiple IP addresses mapping back to a single name.

Dare I ask, why can't you access the external interface of the mailserver while internal to your office? We configure all of our clients to use Mail/Jabber externally so they never run into this issue.

Despite conventional wisdom, using the external interface when internally does not "pull all the way across the internet", if configured correctly, of course.


OS X's hidden preferences disappeared after Mavericks upgrade?

Both of those still work for me, but you do sometimes need to run defaults commands again after upgrading OS X. If you run the commands again, quit and reopen applications to apply the changes:

killall Dock Finder

(If you also want to enable selecting text in Quick Look windows shown from other applications than Finder, you can use defaults write -g QLEnableTextSelection -bool true instead of defaults write com.apple.finder QLEnableTextSelection -bool true.)


The issues you're describing very common, along with many reasons why; fortunately there are some workarounds that might help.

The first reason you could be losing connectivity is because many macs have improper antenna configurations for the Airport and Bluetooth modules. This causes the signal to either be extremely weak, or just flaky in general. It get's progressively worse if the batteries on your mouse are starting to run low - much worse! Another reason is the Mouse itself having an aluminum battery cover that shields the bluetooth inside of it from having a decent connection.

[Here are a few ways that might help resolve some of the issues]

For starters take off the bottom battery cover and see if you have better responsiveness and connectivity. It works for me, although I have one of the macs with a backward antenna configs, so without doing that I basically have no connectivity. Another surprising fix is to download BTT (Better Touch Tool). I was very skepitcal about a third-party app helping remedy the situation, although I must admit that it helped tremendously. I'm not sure what mechanism the developer used to revive my mouse, but he's helped countless thousands I'm sure. If those two work-arounds don't do anything the last thing you can try is to re-wire your bluetooth antennna to hopefully make things work again.

The Magic Mouse has been plagued with these issues from day one, and besides getting another mouse that does the same exact thing there's not much else you can do. Oddly enough, the replacement that I got actually squeeks like mouse, and is worse than it's predecessor, which I'm currently wondering how to troubleshoot. Take a look at the article I've linked below; they might have a few other fixes that I might not have covered.

Link: The Not So Magic Mouse


Because El Capitan introduction to SIP (System Integrity Protection) you need to change your GEM_HOME or do similar something like sudo gem install bundler -n /usr/local/bin.


MacBook Air issue: Keyboard and in built mic failing

Well to me that sounds like hardware failure.  I'd suggest that you just take it in to your local Apple Store or AASP; I don't see why they WOULDN'T replace the necessary parts (I don't know the MBA assembly well) if it's under warranty.


if I delete private/var/folders/zz to free up space will it cause any problem?

You can do a Safe Boot (press the Shift Key when you boot) and verify if you get free space after doing a normal reboot.
The Safe boot clean system cache files.


Restore Time Machine backup onto different Mac

There are a couple different approaches you can take.

Approach 1 - Erase the newer iMac, reinstall 10.6.8 and use migration assistant to migrate your Time Machine data

With the newer iMac:

Insert your Snow Leopard DVD (not the gray disc, a retail copy) and boot to it either by holding C while powering on or holding option while powering on and then selecting the 10.6 DVD.
Select "Disk Utility" from the Utilities menu in the Snow Leopard installer
Select the iMac's hard drive from the list on the left in Disk Utility, click on the "Erase" tab, type in a name for the hard drive (Macintosh HD?) and click erase.
Once the hard drive is erased you can close Disk Utility and proceed with the installation of 10.6, following the on screen prompts.
Once the installation is finished your newer iMac will boot to the normal welcome to OS X screen.
I believe the third or fourth step in setting up the newly installed 10.6 will ask you if you want to transfer information from an existing Mac.  Make sure your external Time Machine disk is connected and choose the "From a Time Machine Backup" option and follow the onscreen prompts.
Once the migration is finished you should be able to login with your normal user account and your data should appear to be just as it was the last time your old Mac backed up.

Approach 2 - Clone your older iMac to the newer iMac

This requires that you have a firewire cable

With your older iMac:

Download Carbon Copy Cloner on your older iMac
Power on your newer iMac while holding T, you should eventually see the Firewire symbol (sort of looks like a Y) floating around it's screen
Connect the two Macs together via a firewire cable, your newer iMac should appear as an external disk on your older iMac's desktop
Open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities) on your older iMac
Select the newer iMac's hard drive (should be an orange icon) from the list on the left in Disk Utility, click on the "Erase" tab, type in a name for the hard drive (Macintosh HD?) and click erase.
Once the newer iMac's hard drive is erased you can open Carbon Copy Cloner
Follow the on screen prompts in Carbon Copy Cloner to select your newer iMac's hard drive as the destination and then clone your older iMac's hard drive over to it.
Once Carbon Copy Cloner is finished you should be able to boot your newer iMac and browse through to see all of your older iMac's data now in place.

Hopefully one of those options works and you're able to get that data migrated with little to no pain.


How to copy a Mail setup with rules and signatures to some other mac

I am answering my own question. I know it is possible to transfer user data from one mac to another by using the migration assistant. In my case this does not apply because I only want to copy my complex Mail setup and no other data and config.

After some experiments I found the following to be working:

On your destination Mac in SystemPreferences/Sharing activate File Sharing
Important: Log out of your user account on the destination mac.
Quit Mail on your source mac if it is running.
On your source mac mount your destination mac user folder.
Copy ~/Library/Mail to the same location in your destination user folder
Copy ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail to the same location in your destination user folder.
Copy ~/Library/Accounts to the same location in your destination user folder.
Restart your destination mac and log in to your User Account. When you start mail, all the accounts, signatures and rules should be present. But... Rule and signature assignments may be gone though. Check and re-assign if needed. Mail Accounts will start syncing. You may be prompted to enter your passwords again in SystemPreferences/Internet Accounts.

Update 15-07-2016

There may be a problem with smtp server definitions. In case of experiencing problems with sending email over a specific smtp server, just remove it and re-add it. The connection problem (in my case: unable to verify user or password) should be gone then.


Reduce file size of pdf text file scanned with app

You can use sites like Compress FDF (https://smallpdf.com/compress-pdf), PDF Compressor (https://pdfcompressor.com/), or Compress PDF online (https://www.ilovepdf.com/compress_pdf). Remember, google is always there for you.


It very closely resembles French keyboard localization as per Apple support document, How to identify keyboard localizations.

The keyboard has French localization. The keys have been manually swapped to change the layout.

However, the layout on your keyboard is QWERTY while Apple support document illustrates AZERTY layout.

As mentioned by Tetsujin:

  It looks like some kind of hybrid; it's a French layout but with what looks like a standard UK or International English qwerty inset. The letters match qwerty, including where the azerty layout has to 'move' keys elsewhere

In order to have output match the keys, you could create a custom layout with Ukelele or Karabiner.


The Services are the different jobs that the server can do for you and anyone else who uses the server (assuming they have their own computer and a valid password to the server). Many/most of the Services are intended to help groups of people work together. Many/most of the Services can be set up so that people with different OS can work together.

Usually, you won't need or enable all of them but it's worth considering what you might make good use of and experimenting with some of them.

Below is a list of descriptions of the Services that I've shamelessly plagiarized from the book: OS X Server Essentials 10.10 by Arek Dreyer & Ben Greisler (I have a hard copy but you can buy it via itunes and other fine stores - https://itunes.apple.com/book/os-x-server-essentials-10.10/).

Caching - speed up the download of software from Apple

Calendar - share calendars, book resources like meeting rooms, projectors, etc

Contacts - share Contacts information

Filesharing - share files. These mount like hard drives on the user's computer.

Mail - provide email service (needs a domain name, obviously)

Messages - used to be ichat. Think of it like Skype. Users can text each other, video conference, etc.

Profile Manager - manage the different Apple devices you are responsible for from the server

Time Machine - backup the different Macs on your network to the server

VPN - users not physically at the same location as the server can connect to it over the internet and be treated as if they are physically there (so they can use printers, other services, etc).

Websites - a web server

Wiki - a web site that can be easily edited with free-form information. Think Wikipedia but not as sophisticated. Each user can have their own wiki.

Xcode - allows developers of Xcode projects to share code and collaboratively build something


Will updating Mac OS affect my Windows/Bootcamp partition?

Unless something goes wrong during install: no. But it's always smart to have a backup.


RDP / Share screen bigger than actual size?

In short, you can't.

There is a fundamental difference between VNC and RDP.  VNC is a remote frame buffer whereas RDP is more semantic in nature and fully aware of the underlying desktop.1

RDP actaully creates a desktop on the client machine and interprets handles fonts, pixels and resolution.  VNC just gets the pixel data.  This is also why VNC is horrible over anything but LAN connections whereas RDP is very efficient over even 56K dial up.  Repainting a bunch of pixels to move a window is vastly more inefficient that sending a command that says "draw window of size (HxW) at coordinates (X,Y)"

  The VNC protocol is pixel based. Although this leads to great
  flexibility (i.e. any type of desktop can be displayed), it is often
  less efficient than solutions that have a better understanding of the
  underlying graphic layout like X11 or desktop such as RDP. Those
  protocols send graphic primitives or high level commands in a simpler
  form (e.g. open window), whereas RFB just sends the raw pixel data,
  albeit compressed.

So, while your iMac is capable of much higher resolutions, the RFB protocol will only send pixels that are being displayed and your MBP or VNC can't create pixels where none exist.

1 RFB protocol. - RFB (“remote framebuffer”) is an open simple protocol for remote access to graphical user interfaces. Because it works at the framebuffer level it is applicable to all windowing systems and applications, including Microsoft Windows, macOS and the X Window System. RFB is the protocol used in Virtual Network Computing (VNC) and its derivatives.


How to change keyboard layout via keyboard shortcut?

See this:

Pref panel => Keyboard => shortcuts => Input Sources then set your shortcut

If you have conflict a small yellow triangle will appear guiding you to the conflict shortcut. (disable or change it)

If the Spotlight appears, disable its shortcut.


Name of Home directory of previous owner of MacBook Pro

The correct thing to do is wipe the machine & start over.
That way you would at least own the OS.

Right now, everything on there is registered to its previous owner, which is going to cause problems for updates, even OS updates, unless you also know the previous owner's Apple ID & password [which I sincerely hope you don't]

Apple & Microsoft run opposite paradigms, Windows essentially ties everything to the machine, Apple ties it to the owner.
This makes moving machines very easy on Apple, but changing owners much more difficult, & in many cases impossible.


does command-option-click on app icon in dock still hide all open windows?

Command-option-click does not hide all open windows. As stated in the linked Apple article, this command hides all other open items leaving the clicked item visible. It is possible to hide all other items and minimize your most recently item with command+option+h+m. This is a combination of command+option+h - Hide Others and command+option+m - Minimize.


macports: bash_completion not working with make (with gmake or without)

Apparently I didn't follow bash installation instructions. On a fresh system, after adding bash to /etc/shells and chsh -s /opt/local/bin/bash, it worked.


Does the USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter transmit 4K 60Hz signal from M1 MBP?

I just tried plugging a 4K monitor into my M1 MBP using that adapter, and it only gave me options up to 30Hz at 4K.
I also didn't see any M1 Macs listed in the 60Hz list. So I suspect that all the M1 Macs will only run at 30Hz using a 4K screen on that adapter.


Encrypted Disk Images

The TrueCrypt pages suggest using an encrypted disk image.

FileVault

Apple provides drive level encryption through FileVault.

  With FileVault 2 you can encrypt the contents of your entire drive to
  help keep your data secure.

  FileVault 2 uses full disk, XTS-AES 128 encryption to help keep your
  data secure. Using FileVault 2, you can encrypt the contents of your
  entire drive.

Alternatives

Other alternatives are discussed at:

Hacker News, True Goodbye: ‘Using TrueCrypt Is Not Secure’
Windows Encrypted Virtual Hard Drive but not Bitlocker or Truecrypt? Where cross platform alternatives may be suggested.
A Swiss based TrueCrypt group has recently formed; they may provide ongoing support.

Why not trust TrueCrypt?

TrueCrypt is warning its users that it may contain unfixed security issues.

  WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed
  security issues

The development of TrueCrypt has stopped and thus any newly found bugs may not be fixed:

  The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft
  terminated support of Windows XP. Windows 8/7/Vista and later offer
  integrated support for encrypted disks and virtual disk images. Such
  integrated support is also available on other platforms (click here
  for more information). You should migrate any data encrypted by
  TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your
  platform.


How can I recover files off this disk that won't mount?

Disk4 is the whole disk device and no slice with an (HFS) file system. The output is the content of block0 omitting most lines containing only zeros. Block zero often is equivalent to the MBR/pMBR of a disk. Block0 doesn't contain a file system!

To verify/repair a file system, you have to choose a particular partition and the volume has to be mounted. The common external disk has two partitions: the EFI and the main volume - so try:

sudo fsck_hfs -f /dev/disk4s2

If the external disk has more than one visible volume, enter diskutil list and choose the appropriate partition (e.g disk4s3 or disk4s4).

If fsck_hfs fails to mount and/or repair the disk, try a data recovery tool like Data Rescue, R-Studio, Disk Drill etc.

If they also fail contact a professional data recovery specialist like Kroll Ontrack.


Add and remove custom words from the Gboard iOS keyboard dictionary

Adding custom words is done by typing them once. Once typed once, the word will be available using Glide Typing. It may not have a high priority, but gliding accurately enough will choose it, and the more it is used the higher priority it becomes just like any other word.

Removing an individual custom word is not possible currently. You can clear the entire custom dictionary in Gboard → Keyboard Settings → Clear my dictionary.


Does using albums to combine events keep the events intact?

Albums don't affect the contents of an event in any way, so your events will remain exactly how you left them.


Can a thief know my Apple ID without my PIN code?

Without your PIN, the thief should not be able to get any data from the phone. The ID in the phishing mail probably is just a wild guess, I got a few of those as well over the years.


Reduce iPhone Ringer Volume Without Affecting Messagaging Alert Volume

Sadly this isn't an option on a non-jailbroken device.


No.

Videos deleted from the camera roll are permanently gone from your phone. Even if you had your phone backed up to iCloud, your storage profile would update, after the video was deleted, so that the video would be removed from the cloud as well.

You will have to manually backup the video onto your computer, or email it to yourself before deleting it if you want it saved.


I don't think there is a DocBook viewer for OS X.

The workaround seems to be to convert the DocBook document to another format using a converter.  Here are some suggestions:

dblatex: Can be used to convert DocBook to PDF.  It is free, and installable using Fink.  However, if you are already using Brew you might mess up your system if you start using another package manager.  An alternative would be to use dblatex on a Linux VM, but that would be a great deal of work if you don't already have one set up.
OxygenXML - a commercial product that can read DocBook XML.  It has a 30 day free trial period.   I tried it on my DocBook document, but it was not well formed and Oxygen couldn't parse it.

So in the end, neither of the two options worked for me, but they might for you.


Siri is giving out wrong phone number for my business

The process used to be opaque and therefore complicated, but Apple now has a self-service web app for small businesses to self-list:

https://mapsconnect.apple.com/

I've not had any issues with updating and creating listings and the email feedback you get is quite helpful if you run into any questions or snags.

If you fail to update your own listing directly with Apple, you can also try to get other data sources like Google Maps, Yelp, etc... correct in case Apple pulls data from other sources. I recommend making an Apple entry for your business rather than letting the system try to guess the correct information.


You want to be able to remotely access a Mac via WiFi, but NOT have that computer be connected to an external network? I'm not sure whether you can do that with the built-in Internet Sharing, because as you noticed it will shut off sharing if there is no connection available to share. However, you ought to be able to solve this with a cheap wireless router. Even with no WAN connection the router should hand out addresses, so you can connect to the Mac by assigned IP.


Switch contents of display from laptop to external monitor

fn ⌘ ↓ - combines the contents of both screens into one


How to mass apply No Access to all folders but one for a specific user account only?

Any access on macOS is running with the credentials of the user owning a process, so you can't prohibit user access to e.g. ~/Documents or ~/Library while still allowing applications started by the same user from accessing content stored there. I've never tried but removing user access from ~/Library most likely will even prevent the user from logging in (in a probably unpleasant way).
This is vastly different from sandboxing on iOS where each app basically has it's own sandboxed space within the filesystem (which ensures that app A can't access data of app B unless both are coded specifically to support this) and where app-specific preferences etc are stored within the sandbox itself.


How can I find an exact string in file contents across many folders from the command line on macOS?

Spotlight allows this and is my favored tool, despite how painful it is to learn how to do this from Apple's documentation alone. The man page for mdfind is almost criminally negligent for not mentioning how to search for a string, but I shall not rant too much more on that here.
mdfind 'kMDItemTextContent = "this exact string"'

Pay attention to the double quote and single quote and also, when you are looking for help online - if the article mentions NSPredicate or that spotlight uses two different languages, you are on to the good stuff. If the article says "x can't be done" consider that perhaps "The author hasn't needed to learn how to do x, yet".
Here are some great places to start with predicates - the log man page, excellent programming references like https://nshipster.com which glosses over how hard "natural language" search expressions are - especially when you mix pcre/regex with SQL baggage.

NSPredicate is a Foundation class that specifies how data should be fetched or filtered.  Its query language, which is like a cross between a SQL WHERE clause and a regular expression, provides an expressive, natural language interface to define logical conditions on which a collection is searched.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30271328/how-do-i-get-mdfind-to-include-folder-matches-in-addition-to-files
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Predicates/Articles/pSpotlightComparison.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002370-SW1

Basically, for reasons, spotlight can be very hard on newcomers, very confusing syntactically, but mostly gets it right for some easy things and finding a string in a file is more challenging than you might expect. The system was designed by programmers and then a second language was patched on and there's a lot of easy to search information that's just wrong or incomplete.
Thankfully there are some great explanations how to learn this powerful tool.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3264653/macos-how-to-use-spotlights-query-language-to-create-an-all-my-files-like-feature.html (Glenn writes very well)
https://support.apple.com/en-am/guide/mac-help/mh15155/mac (Narrowing your search help)


macOS "Verifying Microsoft [Excel/Word/Powerpoint].app" over and over again

Press Command + Space and type terminal and press enter .
Then type these commands :
sudo chmod -R 755 /path/to/app

To find path of your app just simply drag the app to terminal .
Press enter and run this command too .
sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /path/to/app

Press enter .


Prevent iMac from sleeping, for VPN login?

You can disable sleeping in the Energy Saver preference pane of System Preferences.

Alternatively, you can use a free app called Caffeine to easily prevent your Mac from sleeping just with a click of the mouse.  Both work exactly the same, but Caffeine makes it easier to dynamically switch between the two settings.


Someone used "Find my Iphone" to wipe my phone. Can I use the same app to find their location?

No, The app doesn't expose past actions and events to users.

You should check that your AppleID is emailing an email address you control since erase and lock events trigger an email to the email on record for admin changes / security at https://appleid.apple.com

There might be server logs and if you are really interested in knowing who erased your phone, having your lawyer contact Apple legal promptly would be the best avenue to get cooperation to track down where/who may have compromised your account. That would both help you decide to press charges and certainly alert Apple to the situation in an official and formal manner.

Of course, you should change your AppleID password immediately to some password you don't use on any other online site. Consider enabling two factor authentication as well if you wish to make your account harder to hack into going forward.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5570 - The FAQ on two factor security


You can unload kernel modules with kextunload either specifying the whole path to the kernel extension as a parameter (they reside in /System/Library/Extensions/) or by specifying the bundle identifier displayed by kextstat, e.g. if you want to unload Fuse for OS X:

sudo kextunload -b com.github.osxfuse.filesystems.osxfusefs

You can then use kextload for loading extension in the same way.

Bonus hint: If you only want to see 3rd party kernel extensions that aren’t from Apple you can use inverse grep:

kextstat | grep -v com.apple


how to downgrade from iOS 6.1.3 to iOS 5.1.1 in iPhone 4?

It's not possible. Each time you restore an iOS device's OS, Apple must sign as valid the version you are trying to install, and once a version has been considered as deprecated, which usually is a couple of weeks after a new iOS version has been released, Apple stops providing a valid certification for it.


Take a look at MailTags from http://indev.ca/MailTags.html - it'll show Gmail Labels in a separate column.


Strange graphics behaviour after rm -rf /

The reason is my case-sensitive system disk partition. Even though it's officially supported, some applications tend to forget it and hope the partition is case-insensitive.
For most applications (including Steam and League of Legends) appropriate solution is to

Create new case-insensitive partition, name it somehow, e.g. CaseNoSense

Transfer your application from /Applications/theapp.app to /Volumes/CaseNoSense/theapp.app

Move your application support folder to this partition: mv "~/Application Support" "/Volumes/CaseNoSense/"

Create symbolic link for the application support folder: ln -s "/Volumes/CaseNoSense/Application Support" "~/Application Support"

[Optional]  Create symbolik link for the application: ln -s "/Volumes/CaseNoSense/theapp.app" "/Applications/theapp.app"
Now start the application, it might work as intended.


Simply…
You don't.

You cannot remove the base set of Apple apps - Calendar, Clock, Weather, Stocks, etc, etc.

Possibly Jailbreaking would allow you, but that's outside my knowledge-base.

The usual workaround for any undeletable app you don't want to see is put it on the last home screen, in a folder if you really need the screen-space


Can AppleScript execute a Python script?

To answer the question actually in your post (as opposed to the current question title), yes it's possible to execute a python script from within AppleScript.

However, you need to ensure you're not trying to run the script directly. Your AppleScript needs to use Python to run your script.

Example

Assuming your Python script is called img2pdf.py, you need to pass the path of your script as an argument from AppleScript to Python. Below is example code to show how you would do this if your script was saved in your Documents folder:

do shell script "python /Users/yourusername/Documents/img2pdf.py"

But, as I mentioned in my earlier comment, I would just make your requirements clear in advance (and include them in any assignment/essay/homework criteria) so your students know what they need to submit and how. My kids have to do this type of thing for their assessments, so I don’t think it’s too much for you to ask. Plus that’d make your job a lot easier! :)


Is this "Security Info Required" prompt legitimate?

Yes it is. Here's Ars Technica reporting on the matter:

  "Apple has begun to ask iOS device owners for the answers to security
  questions as part of an effort to beef up Apple ID security. iPhone
  users began widely reporting the change on Thursday, though the
  changes actually began happening sometime in the last 24 hours. Not
  all iOS users have seen the request pop up yet, however, leaving some
  confused about whether the prompt is legitimately from Apple.

  The prompt that shows up on an iOS device says "Security Info
  Required." It proceeds to ask the user to select from a handful of
  security questions and provide answers."

The screenshot in the article is identical to yours:


It could be the battery.  The phone is 3-4 years old.  However it could also be the charging cable or the port.  The battery symbol with a sliver of red just means the battery has no charge.

If you can, try using other charging cables to see if those are more successful in charging the phone.

If different cables don't work, then try cleaning the contacts in the charging port.  Those can get dirty or corrode over time.  Try some of the tips here to clean the port: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/use-a-toothpick-to-clean-out-your-iphone/

If none of those work, you should look to try to replace the battery.  Apple can do this and there are 3rd party services like iFix that will charge $40 or so to replace the battery.


GrooveShark's HTML5 mobile site is the only way I know of.


VirtualBox 5.1.28 fails to install on MacOS 10.13 due to KEXT security

Managed to solve it.

Eject the VirtualBox image from: Finder > Devices

Now allow the exception in: System Preferences > Security & Privacy

Finally but not least click Allow button so that way the developer with the name "Oracle America, Inc" will be accepted and the installer using that certificate will run just fine (basically this installer is signed using "Oracle America, Inc" certificate so we are required to enable it use on our machine first)
Then try to install from the .dmg again so that it remounts the device.

Now its working fine for me.


Does Time Machine change file permissions while doing a backup?

This site is devoted to answering questions about Apple Products, but it's aimed more towards comsumers than power users. That doesen't mean your question is "wrong" in any way or you should remove it, but I strongly reccomend to ask it at the Super User Stackexchange site, which is devoted to power users like you. I think you might find there someone who can answer your question much sooner than here.


Game crashes to desktop in Windows 10 Boot Camp MacBook Air 2015 11" (Intel HD 6000)

Just a little bit of research on Far Cry 2 we get the following:

System Requirements:

2GB RAM
256MB VRAM
Windows XP 32bit

Your MacBook Air came with either 4 or 8GB of RAM.  Regardless, if you are running Boot Camp with a 32bit version of Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, whatever), the most RAM you are going to be able to access is 3.5GB

Integrated Graphics:
Intel HD 6000 uses up to 1.5GB of shared memory.  From Apple's website:

  Apple computers using newer versions of Intel HD Graphics as the
  primary GPU dynamically allocate up to 1.5 GB of system memory.

So, you are at a max of 2GB RAM.  Win10 requires a minimum of 1GB of RAM with 2GB recommended.  You're at the very edge of what the system calls for.  Additionally, it specifies Windows XP 32bit.  If you are running a 64bit OS, there's no telling how this will function, if at all and there's no compatibility statement that I could find with respect to Windows 10.

However, from a discussion forum there's this little quote (re:  FC2 on MBA w/ HD3000):

  I can say with 100% certianty that a vid card like yours being intel
  onboard junk will NOT run the game in any way. Infact i suggest
  against buying anything made in the last 5 years and trying to play.

and

  I highly doubt that. The only way to be sure is to try, but I think
  you'd be wasting time and money.

So, you may get it to work in Boot Camp under Windows XP 32bit but because of the architecture of the MBA, it may not be worth the effort.


Can Time Machine be used as a Drobo system

Time Machine just takes all the volumes mounted and copies them all to one destination volume. On Mountain Lion, you can have multiple destinations, but they get written to in round robin style (so any one backup set goes to one drive as opposed to mirroring the data on all destination volumes).

Drobo functions as a RAID - redundant array of independent disks - and OS X supports software RAID so you could combine several physical drives into one logical drive. The traditional RAID doesn't expand or shrink on the fly like Drobo does, but it also doesn't have some of the downsides of Drobo's implementation as well.


OSX Launch Daemon for Periodic Screenshots

In the comments to the question you say "But just want it to track what I'm spending my time doing".
Interpreting your underlying question as being how to track application usage, I will risk being downvoted for not answering your question as in its title.
I think that a large collection of screenshots is not the best way to track what you are doing. Certainly further analysis will be complex.
To track application usage, I use Keyboard Maestro with a one action macro.

This creates a CSV file with three fields: Date, Time and Application name.
That will provide application usage in a form which is amenable to further analysis.


In AirPort Utility, what is the menu item "Restore Default Settings"?

According to AirPort Utility 6.x: Reset your base station, it will reset your base station to Apple factory settings, meaning that you will lose your current setup and it'll be just as if you were setting it up for the first time out of the box.

Use this option if you're having issues with your base station and nothing else seems to be helping ... or when you're getting ready to sell it.


Does the AV Multiport adapter charge big MacBook Pros?

Turns out that you can see in About This Mac > System Report > Power
If the power cable is connected to the MacBook Pro directly:
AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  ID:   0x7002
  Wattage (W):  94
  Name: 96W USB-C Power Adapter
  Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
  Charging: Yes

and if it's connected through the Multiport adapter:
AC Charger Information:

  Connected:    Yes
  ID:   0x7002
  Wattage (W):  55
  Name: 96W USB-C Power Adapter
  Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
  Charging: No

So if it's looped through the adapter it's only getting 55W which is not enough for the big laptop to charge.


What's the difference between iPad's a-GPS and iPhone's GPS?

The iPhone also has Assisted GPS. The iPhone page you pointed to only has abbreviated versions of the features; when you check the actual "specs" pages for both devices you get the same info.

Both get real GPS data (assuming one of the 3G versions of the iPad, the wifi-only versions have no GPS). The "assisted" part just means that it also uses cell tower locations and wifi networks it can detect to help narrow down your location, usually much faster than it can get a full GPS lock from the satellite signals.

In real-world experience they both work well, but both have fairly small GPS antennas. If you want really solid turn-by-turn directions while driving, an external GPS antenna is definitely helpful. Tom-Tom makes a pretty sweet combination mount, charger, and boosted GPS antenna.


Spaces disappear (but not their application windows) when I unplug external monitors

@vykor pointed me in the right direction: the behavior I was seeing is a side effect of the "Displays have separate Spaces" setting.

Why do Spaces disappear when I unplug external monitors, and how do I stop it from happening?

Why: because displays have separate Spaces, which means when there are fewer displays there are fewer Spaces. (One of those things that's obvious in retrospect.)
How to stop it: unchecking the "Displays have separate Spaces" setting does stop Spaces from disappearing, but the new behavior isn't any better for my needs: windows end up jumbled up on a single monitor when I reconnect the monitors, and all screens cycle through Spaces in unison making it hard to make good use of the screen real estate.

How can I get Spaces to return to the same monitors they were on before, when I plug those monitors back in?

There doesn't seem to be a built-in way to do this, so the answer here seems to be to install a window management app such as Stay.

I've turned "Displays have separate Spaces" back on, and I'm setting up Stay to have a configuration for the laptop display alone and for the three monitor setup, so that I can quickly restore my windows to my desired arrangement in either situation. I'm still working the kinks out with Stay, but I think that's going to be a good solution.


You have to enable Bonjour or AOL IM or another service to get that option to pop up.


Creating a Windows 10 Install USB when FAT32 has 4GB max file size

The only way I was able to successfully overcome this problem was following this person's guide:

  The final problem is that the install.wim file is too big to copy across to the FAT32-formatted USB stick (you can try, but will be met with an error). On Windows, Microsoft's official solution is to split the file using a special tool designed for these .wim files. Fortunately, there's also a free alternative called wimlib which works on Mac (and Linux).

With wimlib installed, available via Homebrew (brew install wimlib), you can easily perform the file splitting of install.wim that the Windows 10 ISO will automatically pickup and understand with no extra fuss.

wimlib-imagex split /Volumes/CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9/sources/install.wim /Volumes/WINDOWS10/sources/install.swm 4000


How to star-rate "Apple Music" files in iTunes on OS X

I've had several people ask for help with Apple Music and this has helped them - hopefully it's what you're looking for.

Stars are tracked in your music library - so if you are playing songs from the cloud - it's a bug if you can input stars for tracks that are not part of your actual library.

One you add a song/album to your library - the stars should be there for you to rate things.

Hearts are tracked in the cloud - so you should always be able to use that control whether you are streaming a radio song that's not even in Apple Music for download, streaming Apple Music or playing a song that's in your library due to purchase, rip, or music addition.


It seems to be either a bug or a rights issue with Beats One. There is no fix at the moment.

A workaround is to choose your Airplay device as the system output. Option + click the sound icon in the taskbar and choose your Airplay device, or select it in Sound settings.

Source: http://www.mcelhearn.com/you-cant-play-beats-1-radio-over-airplay-from-itunes/


Why am I having problems syncing non-itunes music to my iphone?

You need to make sure your iPhone is configured to sync music from iTunes:

Connect your iPhone to your computer
Start iTunes
Select you iPhone in Devices list
Select Music tab
Check the box Sync Music and select what you want to sync to your iPhone (all music / specific playlists)

Also make sure to "Sync only checked songs and videos" option is not checked on your iPhone Summary tab.

On your next sync (automatic or manual, depending on your settings) music should begin to sync to your iPhone.


Devices sharing Apple IDs: what credentials can an user with an iPad PIN use?

You have some limited control by enabling a couple toggles.

Require password for all purchases, every time or use family sharing to restrict the ability of that iPad to get new downloads from the managed / signed in account of your choice. - https://www.apple.com/family-sharing/
Sign out of all and any cloud services you don’t trust them to not delete things (they can delete anything you can delete - photos, contacts, mails) so them reading the information is not the worst that can happen.

You might be able to use parental restrictions / guided access to lock one app in the foreground, but I would just say - have them get a used device or you get a used device and just let it be community / no accounts / require password to purchase or make a “children” account for the shared device and enroll AppleID in family settings so you have to explicitly approve all purchases on that secondary ID.

https://support.apple.com/HT202612


The screen resolution difference with a retina display

MacBookPro has an effective resolution that depends on the Scale you setup for the display.

You need to use the effective resolution in your code. You can get it from this code, but it works only when there are no external montitors.

tell application "Finder"
    set screen_resolution to bounds of window of desktop
end tell

Reference

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11488126/get-bounds-of-desktop-with-applescript
http://osxdaily.com/2014/04/14/change-retina-macbook-screen-resolution-more-space/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5996/how-the-retina-display-macbook-pro-handles-scaling


I final do this with disk utility, then partition with 4. Each with different name etc such as OS X 10.10, OS X 10.9, OS X 10.8 etc.

Then make the USB stick install OS X one by one and when installing choose install to which partition.


Can I use a Verizon iPad mini with Wi-Fi only?

You can use it with Wifi only. It may try to connect to cellular data automatically so in Settings you can disable cellular data.

You dont have to worry about the SIM card.


If you are managing a single-user environment, such as a shared MacBook, you could potentially have each user's .bashrc copy a base hosts file, then append their custom one to the end of it.  For example:

sudo cp /etc/common_hosts /etc/hosts
sudo cat ~/my_hosts >> /etc/hosts

This would effectively give every user their own custom additions to the hosts file.  You can make it so a password isn't needed for these sudo commands by using the sudo visudo command and adding them to the allowed commands.  Here are some examples from the bottom of my sudoers file:

# Samples
# %users  ALL=/sbin/mount /cdrom,/sbin/umount /cdrom
# %users  localhost=/sbin/shutdown -h now

Under OS X, the /etc/hosts file is apparently dynamically read, so the net services would not need to be restarted.

mbp-c17189:~ root# ping goog
ping: cannot resolve goog: Unknown host
mbp-c17189:~ root# ping google.com
PING google.com (172.217.4.238): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.217.4.238: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=4306.507 ms
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 1 packets received, 50.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 4306.507/4306.507/4306.507/0.000 ms
mbp-c17189:~ root# echo 172.217.4.238     goog>>/etc/hosts
mbp-c17189:~ root# ping goog
PING goog (172.217.4.238): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 172.217.4.238: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=43.639 ms
^C
--- goog ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 43.639/43.914/44.189/0.275 ms
mbp-c17189:~ root#


Change battery from MacBook Pro to white MacBook


Password dialog appears for password-less SSH private key

I had this same problem.  However, when a generated a new password-less private key, using the following command:

ssh-keygen -b 1024 -t rsa -f id_rsa -P ""

I no longer saw the password prompt.

Additionally, ssh-add failed to add the old key, but added the new one as expected.

I generated the old key on Leopard in 2009, using what ever version of OpenSSL I had grabbed, built and installed back then (that Mac died, so I can't log in and check what I was running).  Something about that key was incompatible with Lion's native SSL libraries.

I backed up my old key, so if anyone wants to suggest some checks, to identify the key's specific properties, let me what to check and I'll report back.

Another clue - I noticed that my old id_rsa.pub file had extended attributes.  i.e. it's permissions flags looked like this r--------@ instead of r--------

xattr -l id_rsa.pub.old

returned:

com.macromates.caret: {
    column = 0;
    line = 1;
}

cruft left over from TextMate.  I don't know if removing it would have fixed the issue without my having to replace the key. I think it's unlikely.

In case you (future reader) are seeing the same thing, you can remove the extended attribute as follows:

 xattr -d com.macromates.caret id_rsa.pub.old

You can stop TextMate from adding them by first exiting TextMate and then issuing this command:

defaults write com.macromates.textmate OakDocumentDisableFSMetaData 1