Anything to watch for when buying a 2009 MBP?

I used to work as an Apple Hardware Technician, and the biggest non-damage related issue I've seen with those machines is usually the battery (which is not technically user-replaceable). I'd make sure that it runs for at least 3-4 hours on a full charge. Also make sure that the optical drive works, because I've seen a number of those go out, as well, but that can be said for any notebook computer.

You will also want to check for the normal stuff: Impact to the casing, cracked screen, liquid damage, etc.

That seems like a pretty good deal, however. It looks like the average price on eBay is around $600, and that machine will have plenty of power for your purposes. Heck, I still do development on a 2009 Macbook and it works great.

For future reference, you can always find a listing of the open repair extensions (which are basically known-issues) at Apple's website.


How to open applications regardless of required version?

That check is done by checking the application's plist.

Right click on the application and click "Show Package Contents"
Open "Contents"
Open "Info.plist"
Scroll down to where it says "LSMinimumSystemVersion" or "Minimum system version" depending on the editor you're using.
Replace the string on the next line which should be "10.8.5" (or to the right of the key, again, depending on the editor) with "10.7.5". Try to open the app again.

You may have to restart after this change.


How can I use the dvdbackup tool in Mac OS X?

From the man page:

dvdbackup -M -i/dev/dvd -o/my/dvd/backup/dir/ This action creates a valid DVD-Video structure that can be burned to a DVD-/+R(W) with help of mkisofs version 1.11a27 or later  http://pwet.fr/man/linux/commandes/dvdbackup

Honestly I have never used this tool on Mac OS X, if you want to do some dvd ripping and this keeps frustrating you, Handbrake is pretty good, or you can even use the built in Disk Utility to do a image backup of said DVD.


There seems to be an issue with the permissions for your ipad and the installed apps.

Not sure if you've tried this.  But try installing any free application, the ipad will ask for your iTunes store password.  Once it has finished downloading, try and start another app.


History commands render incorrect on Bash Vi mode

After debugging for quite a while I finally figured it out. It's an issue caused by PS1. Basically I forgot to wrap my colored ">" with "\[" and "\]".


iOS 7 update failed - stuck on Connect to iTunes

When your phone gets stuck trying to update, it usually means it has way too much data in it. For a good average update that's takes at least 20 mins, you'll need to have at least 2.5 GB. Your phone has gotten stuck because it had way too much stuff in it, and it can't continue.

My solution: restore the phone. There is way too much data inside,and it will stay that way unless something happens. This can be a good and bad thing. If you had some stuff on iCloud or some storage, you just might restore your apps and everything else. But if you don't, let's just hope you had nothing important in the phone, because it might just go down the drain. Besides you are left with no other option, right?

I hope this helps. If you find a better way, please use that way instead of this way. I hope you are able to fix your phone.


How can I tell whether a drive is asleep?

No, there isn't any utility or tool to find out this kind of information.

ps. I'm posting this as an answer, because I have researched this question few months back and I'll be more than happy if someone proves me wrong.

Edit: Seems to be the same conclusion as the developers of SmartMonTools based on their response to this issue, in which they claim the SmartMonTools' output of drives always sleeping is a bug, and have now corrected it to note that Power Mode is not available on Mac OS X / Darwin.


how to get shell scripts to run at startup on Yosemite

One way of doing it would be assigning the script a launchd service:

Create the shell script as usual. Then you can make a launchd service to run it at startup. Those are located at /Library/LaunchDaemons. These are in the XML property list format. Create another and populate it with something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.example.app</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/bin/sh</string>
            <string>/path/to/script</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <false/>
    </dict>
</plist>

Change com.example.app, /bin/sh and /path/to/script as required.

The script will then run while the system is booting. If it runs too early, you can either write the script to try and do what it needs to do until it succeeds, or have it exit with a non-zero error code and add this to the property list before the </dict> line:

<key>KeepAlive</key>
<dict>
     <key>SuccessfulExit</key>
     <false/>
</dict>

For more on OS X launch daemons and services, I suggest looking here for a nice quick-reference on making them, or here for a more comprehensive reference on what launchd can do.


Obtaining the .dmg file for OS X Lion on a new MacBook Pro that has Lion preinstalled

Sadly, Apple doesn't include a Lion install disc in the packaging with the new Macs, nor do they make it available to download.

They did just release Lion Recovery Disk Assistant which will allow you to make a recovery disk out of an external hard drive, which you can use to recover the existing installation or do a new install.


You will want to run it through Apple Script and iTerm.

tell application "iTerm"
    make new terminal
    tell the current terminal
        activate current session

        launch session "Default Session"
        tell the last session
            write text "unison /folder1 /folder2"
        end tell
        terminate the last session

    end tell
end tell

Remember to double forward slash for space in the path in your folder roots.

I am not sure how to run it in the background. This script will bring the iTerm to focus.


Can Apps be side-loaded rather than uploaded to the iOS app store?

Yes, there a couple of ways this could be achieved.

With a Enterprise Developer Account, you'll be able to Archive your App for in-house distribution, being eligible any device. Bear in mind that openly distributing your App this way will infringe Apple's agreement and your account could be suspended, as it's meant to be used for a company to distribute an App among its employees.
With a Regular developer account you could send an ad-Hoc
version of your App, which could be installed into any device
which has been previously registered in your Developer Account. You'll only be able to register 100 devices, though.

With either account, you'll be able to build a version of your App in any device.

Here's Apple's list of their different Developer Programs.


I found Controller Mate that does exactly what I need, but for some reason it doesn't work in Photoshop or Illustrator. I've tried in other applications and it works...

http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

The bizarre thing is the hand icon appears, but still no pan, even if I have also set the middle mouse button to perform a left mouse click.


If your example is in the order year, day, month and you want MM/DD/YYYY then this code does the job

set creationDate to "2013-04-03"
set [Y, ordinal, M] to the words of creationDate
set the text item delimiters to "/"
set date_string to {M, ordinal, Y} as text

What you are attempting to do with the date command is unclear.


How to get macOS Sierra to stop asking me to enable Siri

If you've been mistakenly triggering the Siri pop-up when your finger mistakenly hits the top right area on the Control Strip, you can remove the Siri icon.

Go to:  → System Preferences → Keyboard, then click the "Customize Control Strip" button on the bottom.

Move your cursor to the Control Strip (which will now be in Edit Mode), and click and Drag the Siri Icon back onto your screen into the area with all the unused Control Strip widgets.


Unable to add Visual Studio Code app's icon to macOS Dock

Have I accidentally banned Visual Studio Code.app from the macOS Dock?

No.

  How do I resolve the issue and get the app icon to show in the Dock?

You can try resolving the issue by killing the Dock process and re-launching it afresh. To do that, launch Terminal.app and execute the following command-line:

killall Dock

The command-line is case sensitive. Once executed, the Dock would momentarily disappear and then reappear.  Now you should be able to add the Visual Studio Code.app icon normally by dragging in the app bundle. You should also be able to see the icon normally when the app is running.


iTunes 12.7 how to download all music from iTunes Match

If you need to download the already uploaded music to the iCloud (iTunes Match), you could try re-syncing the media library.

Step1 : sign out from iTunes
Step 2 : Delete all the remaining music files.
Step 3 : Sign in to the iTunes.
Step 4 : Let it to sync the music library from iCloud.

For more info : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8046575


Try Force Quitting Safari (either Activity Monitor or  (Apple) > Force Quit) and then hold Shift and click on the dock icon to open Safari. This should fix your issue.


Receiving payments from iTunes - are there foreign currency exchange fees?

No. You will be paid by units sold. Let's see an example:

You sold 100 apps with a price of 1 CAD.

You will get 0.7 CAD per app sold x 100 units.

Total 70.0 CAD.

If some of your sales are on foreign country, the process is the same, except currency exchange applied is the payment's day exchange, without fees.

This quoted text is from iTunes Connect Payments and Financial Reports:

  This amount is only an estimate. Actual amount may vary, based on
  foreign exchange rates. Amount shown does not include any applicable
  withholding tax, which will be applied when the payment is made.


The internal RAM is soldered to the motherboard (i.e. totally user-untouchable), but for external RAM, you're welcome to check out this article at your own risk.

UPDATE: After having done some research, apparently RAM disks are exactly the opposite of what I'd thought. They actually turn a segment of your RAM into hard drive space. It still promises massive speed boosts, though, so you should give it a try if you're up for it!


Where to view photo and movie metadata on iOS

Apple, in their infinite wisdom, has chosen to hide that information. There are few built-in ways to view it in iOS. You'll need iOS 13 or greater, even so the procedure is (annoyingly enough) a bit of a kludge.

Select the file you want info on it.
Tap the share button
Select the place to share it to as the Files App.

Once that is done you will need to go into the files.app, and "long" (or more accurately "force tap") on the pic or movie you just "shared" and tap "Info" and then "show more."
And voila the EXIF data for the file and it only took you about eight steps to do it (sarcasm off...)
There are actually a lot of sites that have this info. And many also have recommendations for apps to display EXIF data more readily.


Save multiple photos from iPhone camera roll to dropbox

This has always annoyed me, that Dropbox does not allow you to save to your Dropbox from within the photos.app. Grr...

And from time to time I (re-)discover how Dropbox wants you do do this:

Open Dropbox
Tap the "+" button labelled "Create"
Tap "Upload Photos"

...and you will be presented with your camera roll, and if you scroll up, the rest of the pictures on your iPhone. You can now select as many as you want.

I've often hated on the way Dropbox does this as it is intuitively backwards but if you can do better than me and remember this "trick" you should be good to go.


Can malicious software meant for Windows affect a Mac through Wine?

Using WINE to run the software makes it effectively a Mac application, with all the privileges of the user.  The upside of that is that if you are running it in a non-admin account, it shouldn't be able to damage the actual system.

However, if you are linking in DLLs from Windows, and the software takes advantage of flaws in those DLLs, I am not sure what to say about it.

For example, I have used Windows to find out the libraries that an executable depends on, then copied those libraries with the executable into a Wineskin wrapper to make a Mac "port" of the app.


How to know if Apple service staff copied my private data?

The simple answer is, there is no way to be absolutely certain. Furthermore, you likely signed agreement to the standard AppleCare Repair Terms and Conditions so from a legal standpoint, you have agreed to the AppleCare Repair Service terms and conditions by signing your property and data over to Apple.

The more probable answer is that, as Apple employees, they have very likely signed some kind of non-disclosure agreement, prohibiting them from looking any further than to fix the issue, on pain of dismissal or legal proceedings.

Condensing some of the comments into this answer…

It is possible that the entire drive could be cloned, without your knowledge. Physical possession of the drive is one of the easiest ways to access the data on it.
If encrypted, that clone would be of little use without the encryption password - not necessarily the same as the login password.
This would not show on any kind of key-logging software, as it could be easily done by removing the drive from the machine.

However… The chances of this actually happening to a machine given to Apple for repair are virtually nil.
If it was ever documented as having happened, their stock would collapse, along with their credibility.
This is not the same kind of breach as a couple of celebrities being phished or socially-engineered for their details, this would be a whole new level of distrust.

It is unlikely to happen.
Any current or former Apple employees would be most welcome to add comment to this.


Shell script failing in Automator but works if I copy/paste into Terminal

You have probably customized the command search path environment variable PATH to locate convert because it isn't installed in a standard OS X location.

When the Automator shell-script action runs a script it uses a non-interactive shell, which means it doesn't execute files like ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile. This means it uses the default environment and default command search path.

Moreover, it is a best-practice for shell scripts to use absolute paths for command executables so the script will always execute the one you intended, instead of relying upon the search path, which is primarily meant to be a convenience for interactive use of the shell. To discover the absolute path to the convert command, run which convert in a shell.


What happens if I share my iTunes ID and password with a friend who lives abroad?

This is a tricky question to answer as it depends on what you use that ID for. If it is just for iTunes Store purchases, then all she will be able to access is whatever you have purchased on the store. Of course, this isn't limited to Music, but also Movies, TV Shows, Books and Apps. She will also be able to authorise purchases using that ID and password and so could max out your credit card renting the Frozen movie countless times (I'm just assuming she's about 8 or so here ;)) or buying more hearts on Candy Crush.

If you also use it as your main Apple ID for iCloud and other Apple services, she will have access to those as well. Whether she uses it for those purposes is up to her; if she knows she is able to and is inquisitive, you might find her logging on to iCloud.com and nosing through your iCloud Mail or your Calendar.

The best option would be for her to have her own Apple ID and for you to add her to Family Sharing instead. That way, she has access to all of your past purchases, but will not be able to authorise any (you will be able to authorise on her behalf though). Additionally, she won't have access to your iCloud information.

If she already has an Apple ID, then great! If not, and she's under the age of 13, you'll need to create a managed one for her through iTunes. If she is over 13, you can simply create an Apple ID by going to the Apple ID management portal.

Have a look here for full information on creating an Apple ID for kids.


How can I use a TV as a second monitor wirelessly (without a cable)?

I assume that you are using a MacBook. If so, you can do it with an an Apple TV box, but since it works over WiFi, you will need to connect the AppleTV to the WiFi network. Use an HDMI cable to connect it to the TV. Then use Airplay on the McBook to connect wirelessly to the AppleTV and select "Use as separate display".
It would be much cheaper and easier to just use an HDMI dongle on the MacBook (mini display port, USB or USB-C depending on the model MacBook) and an HDMI cable to the TV.


LG Ultrafine 5k -- right half is a slightly different color from left

I've been having this issue for quite some time. Usually, a reboot would make it go away, but recently it has become much more persistent. One workaround I found was to turn on Night Shift but set it all the way to the "Less Warm" side.

It looks like an issue with macOS. I have filed a bug report to Apple.


Can you try to check EXIF Data on iPhone using Third party apps like
EXIF Viewer by Fluntro or any other EXIF Apps you can get for free on Appstore.

Chances are high that, EXIF informations are stripped while you transferred photo from iPhone to Windows. Normally, iPhone to Mac photo transfer over airdrop doesn't strip EXIF Metadata. But since I am not sure how you transferred photos to Windows Machine, I can't comment

Attaching screenshot with EXIF of photo took on iPhone XS Max, Apple's Camera app does record EXIF details including Camera Model, Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO etc.

Disclaimer: I have developed the EXIF Viewer by Fluntro App


The reason this seems confusing is that you've added the photos to "Shared albums".

Usually you would add your own photos to the Photos Library, which is essentially meant to be a collection of all your photos. Compared to that, "Shared Albums" is meant for taking out smaller collections of photos that you want to shared with third parties.

Photos added to your own Photos Library do count against your iCloud storage limit, however photos added to shared albums do not. This is why you're not seeing any increase in your usage of iCloud. Shared albums comes with a built-in limitation of 5000 photos per album.

You can read more about iCloud Shared Albums storage restrictions here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202786

When you add a photo to a shared album, or to the Photos Library, the photos are uploaded to iCloud, yes. Whether or not they're also stored locally on your phone depends on your settings and how much storage space you have. You can choose to "Optimize storage", which means that only some is keps in full resolution on your phone, as space permits, otherwise only low res versions are kept on the device. The full res versions will be fetched from iCloud on request.

If you reinstall your phone, nothing happens to the iCloud stored photos. They will all be intact and ready to be synced after the phone is back up and running. However, note that you will need to be able to login with your Apple-ID (i.e. remember email-address, password and 2FA device if applicable).

Whether or not this is sufficient as a backup solution is up to you. If it were me, I wouldn't say it is sufficient - I would always keep photos stored in a minimum of two systems. With iCloud Photos you can setup your devices so that the full res images are stored both in iCloud and on a local device. This leaves you with 2 copies... however a single error (user error or bug) could erase your photos from both places at the same time. That's why I always recommend a second backup.


Try restarting the phone.  This will close all apps.

Hold the lock button (on top of the phone) for 4 seconds, then swipe the red bar to turn it off.  When the spinning icon disappears, hold the lock button for 1 second, and an Apple logo will appear.  Try using your calendar again.


Is there a way to set an alarm for sunrise, whenever that may be?

You can create a shortcut within the Shortcuts app for this.

The coordinates in the first command need to be replaced with those of the location you need the alarm for.
PS: The alert will show the UTC time, but the alarm itself will be created in the local timezone of the iPhone/iPad


In Tiger's Activity Monitor, what is "% Nice" CPU?

Nice and renice are Unix commands where one can change the priority level of a process.

I used them on workstations many years ago to prioritize my job over other processes.

Will be found on man pages and most Unix books.


iOS 12 notifications appearing twice or not at all

just thought I would add this started happening a few weeks ago and that my boyfriend (who I suspect is slightly psychopathic) has access to my passcode and often says stuff about me he shouldn’t really know. Yesterday I googled phone hacking and cyberstalking and mysteriously the double notifications seem to have disappeared... please help!


How do you search a non-indexed folder in Finder?

Find Any File

is a good, inexpensive search utility that does not use Spotlight and will enable you to perform these kinds of searches.


How can I create a symbolic link in Terminal?

┌── ln(1) link, ln -- make links
│   ┌── Create a symbolic link.
│   │                         ┌── the optional path to the intended symlink
│   │                         │   if omitted, symlink is in . named as destination
│   │                         │   can use . or ~ or other relative paths
│   │                   ┌─────┴────────┐
ln -s /path/to/original /path/to/symlink
      └───────┬───────┘
              └── the path to the original file/folder
                  can use . or ~ or other relative paths

$ echo content > original
$ ln -s original symlink
$ ls -la original symlink
-rw-r--r--  1 grgarside  staff    8 28 Jan 18:44 original
lrwxr-xr-x  1 grgarside  staff    8 28 Jan 18:44 symlink -> original
$ cat symlink
content

For more information about ln(1) see the man page.

The path to the symlink is optional; if omitted, ln defaults to making a link with the same name as the destination, in the current directory:

$ cd ~/Documents
$ ln -s ../Pictures
$ ls -l Pictures
lrwxr-xr-x  1 user  staff  11 Feb  1 17:05 Pictures -> ../Pictures

To create a symlink to replace a system directory (e.g. if you want to have /Users pointing to another disk drive), you need to disable System Integrity Protection. You can re-enable it after the symlink is set up.


User accounts broken (in an odd state) since kernel panic in ML

Your first triage step is to isolate software from hardware. You could install ML clean on an external drive and see how it works or just erase your Mac and reinstall. Once you've concluded the hardware and base OS is stable, you can try the migration / restore from backup again or start narrowing down software corruption as a cause.

Assuming you can make the kernel panics happen - once you have 4 or 5, the stack trace should point to a pattern of where the system is having problems. If you can't reproduce the panic, then you may just need to clean up from a hard landing by restoring from a time before the unlucky crash.


What's the difference between launchd and folder actions?

Launchd and Folder Actions are two vastly different concepts.
Folder Actions
Folder Actions allow you to attach actions in the form of Apple Scripts folders which get triggered if the content of the folder changes. Typical use cases are e.g.

a folder to auto-upload photos to a website
removal of file attributes (e.g. the "downloaded" attribute)
triggering import into Evernote
etc.

launchd
launchd is a system-wide feature to run and control system-level background tasks. These can be either running all the time or get triggered by specific events (e.g. a connection request coming in over IP, a changing folder, a specific point in time etc.). OS X makes heavy use of this concept for all kind of things, have a look at the names in /Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchDaemons to get an idea of functionality depending on launchd.
Because launchd is a system service running in the background all the time it can't be accessed by the user directly. To send commands to launchd, the launchctl command is used.
Answers to specific questions

Do folder actions use launchd?

Most probably not. You can use launchd to do everything folder actions can do but at least on a level visibile to the user these are two different concepts

Is one more efficient than the other?

No difference here, both get triggered by OS X upon special conditions.

Is one more powerful than the other?

launchd is definitively more powerful.

Is one used more over the other?

In a newly installed system there already is a great number of active launchd scripts but no folder actions. Because the later must be explicitely activated and configured by the user, it's probably a safe guess that launchd is used more often.


How to translate between Windows and Mac -style file locations?

This site has a way to translate into a mac network location and open it: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20040322155331393

So you could easily save that as a text service and be able to select a windows network location, right-click it, and have it translated and opened.

I imagine you could sort of reverse the function and translate back into a windows network location string.

Here's how to set up a text service/quick action to convert to a Mac path and open it in Finder:

Open up Automator
Choose "Service" (called "Quick Action" in macOS Mojave)
Drag a "Run AppleScript" item from the library into the main area on the right.
Copy and paste this AppleScript into it:
https://gist.github.com/2211017 (it wouldn't properly format in here)
Save it under "Convert and Open Windows Path" or whatever you like.
Select a path in an application, right-click it, and look for the service you created (it might be under a "Services" sub-menu)

Here's what your Automator service should look like:


Reset Activity Calibration on Apple Watch

Unpairing and re-pairing your WATCH used to reset your calibration data. However, as of watchOS 2.x, this is no longer the case, as that data now gets backed up to your iPhone.

It seems you are left with three options:

Take your WATCH on a few walks with the Workout app, hoping it eventually recalibrates itself.
Reset your WATCH as new by going into the Settings app on your WATCH.
Unpair your WATCH and perform an unencrypted backup of your iPhone to iTunes. Then restore your iPhone from backup, and pair your WATCH once again. You will lose all health data, passwords, etc. from your iPhone as well.

Seems #2 would be the most straightforward approach, although you could try #1 for a while and see if that’s enough.

I added #3 for completeness’s sake only


I cannot login as root to my mac mini from a linux computer

I had similar problem which is solved by following answer:

Check your Remote Login settings under System Preferences > Sharing > Remote Login
Specifically, who is allowed to log in?


How do I find what packages I've installed via terminal?

Since OS X has no package manager, anything you install would have been manual, through MacPorts or through Installer.

If you want a list of the binaries your terminal has access to, you can run the following commands to check the most common spots, and output the result as a text file:

touch ~/Binaries.txt
ls /usr/bin > ~/Binaries.txt
ls /usr/sbin >> ~/Binaries.txt
ls /usr/local/bin >> ~/Binaries.txt
ls /usr/local/sbin >> ~/Binaries.txt
ls /opt/local/bin >> ~/Binaries.txt
ls /opt/local/sbin >> ~/Binaries.txt

Alternatively, if you just want to get the packages installed by MacPorts, run the following (this is probably the one you want):

touch ~/MacPorts.txt
port installed > ~/MacPorts.txt

And for Homebrew:

touch ~/HomeBrew.txt
brew list > ~/HomeBrew.txt

And finally, for all packages installed by Installer

touch ~/InstalledPackages.txt
pkgutil --packages > ~/InstalledPackages.txt

To restore, for example, your MacPorts ports from the list generated above, use the following:

 port install $(cat ~/MacPorts.txt)


Nope Apple TV does not support WiDi.

You should look for AirPlay apps (Some are available on Windows)!


Unfortunately, no... the relevant ipfw rules are all IP/portnumber based and are completely ignorant of protocol specific info like share names.... this means you can either allow all or nothing for the AFP service on the server.

Obviously, if you have 2 servers, just kill outside access for that one server, but then you probably wouldn't be asking the question.

A workaround hack would be to fire up a VM on the server that gets a totally different IP address and then use ipfw to allow/deny as appropriate.  Is that an option for you?


Which Exchange Email apps for iPhone 5 allow advanced font and layout controls?

Try Mail+ for Outlook. It is similar to the native iOS experience. Though it currently doesn't offer all of the features you mentioned, I know there is a new update coming by the end of February which will have rich text editing and better reply experiences. Apple severely limits the ability to use push notifications, so don't expect too many iOS mail clients to provide.


Drivers not working on Windows 10 installed (CLI process) on external SSD running on Mac mini - EFI Started But Screen Black After Win Logo

I was able to recreate the problem shown in the image you posted. Apparently, at least the driver for the internal drive has to be loaded from the WINSTALL volume before the dism command will work properly. I update the instructions so you will proceed with the GUI steps for installation until the window below appears.

At this point, the drivers have loaded, so you can proceed and open a Command Prompt window and start entering commands.

I changed the examples in my answer to be from an actually installation of Windows 10 (1909) on to a external HDD connected to a 2018 Mac mini. I also changes some of the steps, so you should thoroughly review the answer before proceeding.

Let me know, if you have any other problems.

Update 1

The image you posted was a bit blurry. A far as I can see, you did type the following command in correctly.

chflags nohidden /Volumes/WINSTALL/label/.d*

However, I believe you had pathname expansion disabled. This would cause the error message shown in the image. I replaced the command with two commands, that do not require pathname expansion.

I should note that according to the history, you entered the command give below, which should have produced an error message.

bless --folder/Volumes/WINSTALL/label --label "Windows"

You should have typed the command given below.

bless --folder /Volumes/WINSTALL/label --label "Windows"

This command would have produced the following files.

/Volumes/WINSTALL/label/.disk_label
/Volumes/WINSTALL/label/.disk_label_2x

If these files do not exist, then the new commands given below would fail.

chflags nohidden /Volumes/WINSTALL/label/.disk_label
chflags nohidden /Volumes/WINSTALL/label/.disk_label_2x

Update 2

Your "Update 2" given no indication that a failure occurred. In other words, the image shows that the command appeared to work correctly. However, since the chflags command is causing problems for you, I decided to remove the the use of the chflags entirely from my answer. Instead, I added the following Windows command to step 8.

attrib -h t:\label\*

Update 3

The command attrib is a part of Windows. The command works when entered in a Microsoft Command Prompt window. The command will not work in a Apple macOS Terminal application window. You do not have to enter the attrib command until step 8. During step 8, you will have a Command Prompt window open.

Update 4

To open a Command Prompt window, you are suppose to press the shift and F10 keys at the same time.

You copied the WindowsSupport folder to the WINSTALL volume. The instructions in step 4 stated to copy the contents of the WindowsSupport folder to the WINSTALL volume. The $WinPEDriver$ and BootCamp folder should appear in the root folder of the WINSTALL volume, as shown below.

Update 5

I am glad to see you have successfully installed Windows 10. If you feel my answer solved your problem, then I would ask you to accept my answer. This will place a green checkmark next to this answer. This helps other users identify that a solution was found.


Exporting Favorites from Character Viewer

Favorites are stored in a plist specific to your user.  The file can be found at:

  /Users/{YOUR-USERNAME}/Library/Preferences/com.apple.CharacterPicker.plist

My current favorites are … and , and the file looks like this when opened in Xcode:

You may have to restart to see it change.


How to change app store user for pre-installed apps on a Mac?

There isn't an automated way to do that.

You would need to request a new redemption code from Apple for all of the apps. I've seen them grant that for businesses that can prove they purchased the Macs.

For used Macs, I've generally bought a gift card for the buyer or discounted the selling price to account for the lack of license for the built in apps.

I suppose you could ask for a "do-over" for that Mac to Apple Support if you can't put both accounts in a Family Sharing situation and use the AppleID you want to access "puchases" from another account.


How can I reset a disabled macbook pro 2010

Technically, NO

If you can't remember your firmware password or passcode, schedule an in-person service appointment with an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. Bring your Mac to the appointment, and bring your original receipt or invoice as proof of purchase.


High fan, No battery symbol, Battery not charging on Macbook Pro Mid 2009

You tried swapping the battery, which means your system is a few years old... I have a 2007 MBP and had some similar issues here and there when my battery aged. Part of the problem was actually my power cord. It was flaky. If your cord is underpowered (e.g. using a 45 W rather than an 85 W for a MacBook Pro) you won't have enough juice to charge a dead battery, so it restarts as if one was not installed or won't restart at all. If your cord is flaking out, it may not be charging consistently (I have a spare cord that sometimes works, and other times needs to have the extension cord removed and re-seated before the MBP recognizes it and kicks on the charge indicator light in the MagSafe connector). Possible that your battery drain is faster than your power cord can replenish at this point. The fact that a different battery gave the same results again makes me suspect the power cord. I'd try a new cord (if possible) and see if that helps at all.


Left pane in shortcuts of keyboard system preferences doesn't slide

It has been solved by putting English first in the list of languages in system preferences, and restarting the computer.

When setting the system language back to Spanish, this bug returns. It is way too unlikely to get Apple to attend via http://bugreport.apple.com, so it seems application shortcuts are not available in macOS Sierra in Spanish, at least for some systems. Just in case it affects the bug, the other languages I have down the list are Italian and French.


Can I redeem OS X Lion on a Mac different to the intended install location?

Yes you can. Since the redemption code is tied to an Apple ID and not a machine, you are free to redeem it on another Mac.


3rd party app to perform regex search on Spotlight index

Proprietary and Private

Apple's Spotlight index is proprietary, not publicly documented, and subject to change without notice. Third party tools will rarely, if ever, use it as an index.

Spotlight is not designed to support PCRE style regular expressions.


ScreenSharing as VNC client/viewer doesn't work in Yosemite

On OS X Yosemite the Screen Sharing app moved to the applications subfolder:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications


How can I keep copies of my iCloud documents in Dropbox?

I am not absolutely certain, but I believe this is impossible.

For one thing, there isn't iCloud support for simply syncing files. Apps are expected to keep their synced files in their own folders (and are restricted to accessing this folder alone). This means that there's no way to have an iCloud document accessible my multiple apps.

For another thing, even if you were willing to concede and only sync, say, Pages documents with iCloud and Dropbox (hypothetically), Pages for iOS documents are very different from Pages for Mac documents. Here are two screenshots, one of the inside of a Mac Pages document and one of an iOS Pages document, respectively:

Post script: hypothetically, though, if you could figure something out, it would probably involve somehow linking ~/Library/Mobile Documents with Dropbox.


Apple bootcamp keyboard driver causes BSOD

Apparently, the Windows Support Software you used to previous install Windows is currently unavailable. The current download does not appear to work properly. This software is for the UEFI booting of Windows. This method of booting was adopted by the industry for booting x64 Windows in 2011. Apple started using this method of booting x64 Windows in 2012. Prior to UEFI booting, the industry (including Apple) used the BIOS boot method for x64 Windows. The BIOS boot method dates back to mid 1980's, when the original IBM PC's BIOS was modified to allow booting from internal HDD and has gone through many revisions since then.

The BIOS boot files for your Mac are suppose to be used for the installation of BIOS booting x64 Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), 8 or 8.1. However, these files should also work with x64 Windows 10. In your case, you would need to download Boot Camp Version 5.1 (Build 5640). These files have been referred to as the Boot Camp Support Software or the Windows Support Software.

Create a Partition for Windows.

Assuming you have a single internal drive with an EFI partition as disk0s1 and an Apple_APFS container partition as disk0s2, the you can enter the following command to create a ExFAT formatted partition where ultimately Windows will be installed. Here, you will need to replace 800G with the size of you wish to shrink the Apple_APFS container partition to make room for Windows.

diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 800G ExFAT BOOTCAMP 0

For example, say the command diskutil list disk0 shows the following before entering the above command.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         999.8 GB   disk0s2

The result after entering the command is shown below.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         800.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                199.8 GB   disk0s3

One problem, with manually installing a BIOS booting Windows, is the need for the drive to be hybrid partitioned. The Disk Utility used to hybrid partition drives, but this no longer happens with High Sierra and newer versions of macOS. Basically, there are two types of partition tables stored in a Mac. The first is the legacy Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table. Normally, this contains a single entry of type 0xEE which indicates the existence of the second type called the GUID Partition Table (GPT). The partition entries in this table are used by macOS and UEFI booting Windows. However, BIOS booting Windows only read values from the MBR partition table. Therefore, in order to get BIOS booting Windows to work, the entries the GPT need to be copied to the MBR partition table. Once this is correctly accomplished, the Mac is said to be hybrid partitioned. Two different methods to hybrid partition a drive are given here. If method 1 was applied to the above example, then the input to gdisk would be as follows.

r
h
2 3
y
af
n
07
y
n
w
y

Example output is shown below.

davidanderson@Snapper ~ % sudo gdisk /dev/disk0
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.4

Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): r

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): h

WARNING! Hybrid MBRs are flaky and dangerous! If you decide not to use one,
just hit the Enter key at the below prompt and your MBR partition table will
be untouched.

Type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be
added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 2 3
Place EFI GPT (0xEE) partition first in MBR (good for GRUB)? (Y/N): y

Creating entry for GPT partition #2 (MBR partition #2)
Enter an MBR hex code (default AF): af
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): n

Creating entry for GPT partition #3 (MBR partition #3)
Enter an MBR hex code (default 07): 07
Set the bootable flag? (Y/N): y

Unused partition space(s) found. Use one to protect more partitions? (Y/N): n

Recovery/transformation command (? for help): w

Final checks complete. About to write GPT data. THIS WILL OVERWRITE EXISTING
PARTITIONS!!

Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): y
OK; writing new GUID partition table (GPT) to /dev/disk0.
Warning: Devices opened with shared lock will not have their
partition table automatically reloaded!
Warning: The kernel may continue to use old or deleted partitions.
You should reboot or remove the drive.
The operation has completed successfully.

Create a BIOS Bootable Windows 10 Flash Drive Installer

To create the USB installer, use the Disk Utility to erase a flash drive. Use the ExFAT format with a MBR partition type. Mount the Windows ISO and copy all the files to the flash drive. Do the same with the Boot Camp Support Software. If you are using the Windows 10 (1909), the the result should be the same as shown below.

Next, you need to write boot code to the MBR and boot sectors of the ExFAT formatted partition. On my Mac, I have VirtualBox installed. So, I basically create a Windows 10 virtual machine using the default settings. Next I put the Windows 10 ISO in the virtual DVD drive and the physical flash drive in the virtual machines USB port. Next, I booted from the virtual DVD drive and pressed the shift+F10 key combination when the first window appeared. The opens a Command Prompt window where the following command can be entered.

boosect /nt60 c: /mbr

Below is an image showing that the boot sectors were updated.

To shutdown the virtual machine, follow the steps below.

  Enter command exit to close the Command Prompt window.
  Click on Repair your computer.
  Click on Turn off your PC.

Finally, you need to mark the first (only) partition on the drive as active. Here I assume the flash drive have been assigned the identifier disk2. To flag the partition as active, enter the following commands.

diskutil unmountdisk disk2
sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk2
flag 1
quit

Below is an example.

davidanderson@Snapper ~ % diskutil unmountdisk disk2
Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful
davidanderson@Snapper ~ % sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk2
Password:
fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory
Enter 'help' for information
fdisk: 1> flag 1
Partition 1 marked active.
fdisk:*1> quit
Writing current MBR to disk.

Install Windows

Restart the Mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Next, choose the external drive icon labeled Windows.

  Note: If the Mac reboots back to macOS before finishing installing Windows, select Windows from the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences. Next, click on the Restart button. Windows will continue installing.

If you have problems installing the Windows Support Software after installing Windows, then try entering the command BootCamp.msi in an Administrator Command Prompt window. The BootCamp.msi file can be found in the BootCamp\Drivers\Apple folder on the flash drive. You will need to change to this folder before entering the BootCamp.msi command.


How to stop remote connection/intrusion?

Disable (uncheck) in System Preferences+Sharing:
File Sharing,
Screen Sharing,
Remote Management,
Remote Login + (check in allow access for ?) who has the permission.

also check if there is a user profile set up that is not yours.


How to disable Better Touch Tool (BTT) inside a specific app?

Click on BTT's menu bar icon, and then select Disable BTT for Current App.

To disable specific global actions inside a specific app, do this:

Open BTT and make an action for what you want to prevent. For example, you have a global shortcut ⌘+F which perhaps opens Alfred, but you don't want it to happen in the Finder. In that case create a new BTT gesture in the Finder and set the trigger to ⌘+F.
Then set the action (which happens if you invoke this trigger) to simulate the shortcut ⌘+F. Essentially you are remapping the shortcut to itself, because per-app shortcuts take priority over global shortcuts.


What technically happens here is the following:

f tells open to read input from standard input and open the results in the default text editor
Because most text editors can't read the content to be edited from standard input, open creates a temporary file with the input it receives from standard input and then opens the default text editor on this file.
According to man open there is no option to set a custom name for that file

As a workaround you can use

echo 'hello world' > /tmp/foo.txt && open /tmp/foo.txt

which technically does exactly the same thing.


OS X shows "Sign in to use this application on this computer" dialogs when opening App Store applications

This same problem plagued me for months.  Any non-free mac store app would ask for a user name and password to access with the dialog box shown above.  When I lacked internet access, the app simply wouldn't load at all.

After trying all sorts of solutions - deleting the apps and reinstalling, re-entering passwords and credit  card numbers in the app store itself, etc., I finally found something that solved the problem:

I reinstalled Mountain Lion from the rescue partition installed on my hard drive.  While this takes some time (about three hours), it isn't as drastic as it sounds.  All my apps and files and passwords were intact after the reinstallation, and for the past two weeks I haven't had to re-enter any mac app store passwords for the apps I've purchased.

here's a link to a Macworld article that explains the process of reinstalling the OS:

http://www.macworld.com/article/1167870/hands_on_with_mountain_lions_os_x_recovery_and_internet_recovery.html


iPad mini Wi-Fi - can I use in UK and Australia?

You can continue using the previous account and country, for a change of country check this and contact Apple for further support:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389


Can a Mac enter sleep mode on schedule when a third party app tries to prevent sleep?

No. Power manager assertions can be artificially created (e.g., via caffeinate) but they can’t be removed except by the app itself. You can, at least, view the current assertions via
pmset -g assertions

and see what kind of assertion your app has taken.


This's actually by design since macOS has stopped showing custom icons in recent versions of the OS.

My Google Drive icon is also a generic icon, others too:

If you want to display the Google Drive icon, it wouldn't be possible without third-party software.

Extra: Dropbox uses a "hack" to show its icon in the sidebar as seen in this question, How come Dropbox gets an icon in Finder sidebar?.


Do iOS apps crash regularly? Is this normal?

It could be a low memory issue. iOS is supposed to manage memory automatically, but I've found that it's not always perfect. Try quitting every single app and restart the device (hold the power button down for several seconds, then slide to power off, then power on again) to see if that fixes it.


A tutorial online here for Adobe Acrobat Reader indicates in step 4 how to do a case-sensitive search, which is what you're looking for.

Press Ctrl-F to start a search in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Enter the letter U and then tick (select) the check-box next to "Case-Sensitive" search. Press the Search button to start the search.


How to find duplicate folder names and resolve naming conflicts in OS X?

You can do this in bash to identify which files and folders are problematic:

find /path/to/remote/library | tr A-Z a-z | sort | uniq -d

This will output all lower case files and folders that have a duplicate with upper case letters.


No GDB in the new Command Line Tools (OS X Mountain Lion) for Xcode - September 2013?

Apple switched to clang/lldb some times ago.

You can still install gdb from brew with brew install gdb as suggested. You'll probably want to install gcc with it (you'll have to specify the exact version of gcc you want, eg. brew install gcc47).

Some privileges are needed for gdb to work and you'll need to code sign the binary. See instructions given by brew.


share screenshots with Dropbox does not work

I personally don't have this active on my Dropbox account by default but of you I tried it out on my 10.9 system.

It doesn't work for me either and this could either be because of the OS or Dropbox. What I suspect is that OS X won't allow the changing of the screen shot location from a third party app.

What you can do as a work around is the following:

Launch Terminal and use the following syntax:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /path/

For example, if I want to have the screenshots appear in a specific Dropbox folder, you would use:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Dropbox/Pictures/Screenshots

Log out or restart your Mac and take a screenshot. This should now automatically place the image in the new folder and thus Dropbox is syncing.

For additional fun check out: http://secrets.blacktree.com/?showapp=com.apple.screencapture


Top menubar has disappeared across all apps - not just full screen

move the mouse pointer as high as possible on the left upper corner os the display screen, this will make the top bar of the application visible, click the round green dot and the application will be smaller, so that you have the top menubar visible again.


Full screen app in a small window (Picture in picture)

FullScreen & windowed are really mutually exclusive.

If you run windowed, there's the possibility that Afloat might work for you, to keep it always in front; unfortunately it is no longer supported & I don't know whether it still works in Yosemite.


Moving full screen apps between monitors shortcut

Did you consider using Keyboard Maestro?

Here is an example of how I deal with moving windows through screens. I just tried to move full screens apps -never tried before- and seems that didn't work well. But you could modify my macros to Exit full screen before moving to the next screen and Enter full screen after that. The macro for that is called Type a Keystroke.


How to add hibernate mode to MacBook Pro

The default sleep mode used by Mac laptops is a hybrid between traditional sleep mode (suspend to RAM) and hibernation (suspend to disk): the contents of the RAM are saved to the disk, but the RAM is kept powered as well. Desktop Macs use traditional sleep mode (suspend to RAM) by default.

See man pmset:

SAFE SLEEP ARGUMENTS
     hibernatemode takes a bitfield argument defining SafeSleep behavior.
     Passing 0 disables SafeSleep altogether, forcing the computer into a reg-
     ular sleep.

     0000 0001 (bit 0) enables hibernation; causes OS X to write memory state
     to hibernation image at sleep time. On wake (without bit 1 set) OS X will
     resume from the hibernation image. Bit 0 set (without bit 1 set) causes
     OS X to write memory state and immediately hibernate at sleep time.

     0000 0010 (bit 1), in conjunction with bit 0, causes OS X to maintain
     system state in memory and leave system power on until battery level
     drops below a near empty threshold (This enables quicker wakeup from mem-
     ory while battery power is available). Upon nearly emptying the battery,
     OS X shuts off all system power and hibernates; on wake the system will
     resume from hibernation image, not from memory.

     0000 1000 (bit 3) encourages the dynamic pager to page out inactive pages
     prior to hibernation, for a smaller memory footprint.

     0001 0000 (bit 4) encourages the dynamic pager to page out more aggres-
     sively prior to hibernation, for a smaller memory footprint.

     hibernatemode = 0 (binary 0000) by default on supported desktops. The
     system will not back memory up to persistent storage. The system must
     wake from the contents of memory; the system will lose context on power
     loss. This is, historically, plain old sleep.

     hibernatemode = 3 (binary 0011) by default on supported portables. The
     system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and
     will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless
     a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.

     hibernatemode = 25 (binary 0001 1001) is only settable via pmset. The
     system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and
     will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If
     you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery
     life, you should use this setting.

To make a laptop or a desktop Mac always hibernate (suspend to disk), run:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25

To make a laptop always hibernate on battery power, run:

sudo pmset -b hibernatemode 25

Setting hibernatemode to 25 decreases energy consumption during sleep but makes waking up take longer.

Some new Macs automatically enter a standby mode after a specific amount of time of being in regular sleep mode under certain conditions. See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4392 (Mac computers: About standby mode):

  Macs that can use standby mode:

  MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) and later
  MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) and later
  MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)
  MacBook Air (Mid 2010) and later
  SSD and Fusion drive versions of Mac mini (Late 2012) and later
  SSD and Fusion drive versions of iMac (Late 2012) and later

  Mac computers manufactured in 2013 or later enter standby after three hours of "regular" sleep. Earlier computers activate after just over an hour of "regular" sleep.

  To enter standby, the computer must:

  Be running on battery power (if it is a Mac notebook computer).
  Have no USB devices attached.
  Have no Thunderbolt devices attached.
  Have no SD card inserted.
  Have no external display attached.

man pmset:

STANDBY ARGUMENTS
     standby causes kernel power management to automatically hibernate a
     machine after it has slept for a specified time period. This saves power
     while asleep. This setting defaults to ON for supported hardware. The
     setting standby will be visible in pmset -g if the feature is supported
     on this machine.

     standby only works if hibernation is turned on to hibernatemode 3 or 25.

     standbydelay specifies the delay, in seconds, before writing the hiberna-
     tion image to disk and powering off memory for Standby.

sudo pmset -c standbymode 1 would enable standby mode even when not on battery power. sudo pmset -a standbydelay 1800 would change the delay before entering standby mode to 30 minutes.

Some Macs also hibernate after four hours of normal sleep under certain conditions. See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1757:

  With the release of the OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.2 supplemental update 2.0, a new feature was introduced to enter safe sleep after four hours of the computer being connected to AC power. This is an effort to comply with the European Energy Standards (ErP Lot6). This will only occur if there is no wireless or Ethernet activity and no activity from external devices such as USB storage devices.

man pmset:

autopoweroff - Where supported, enabled per default as an implementation
of Lot 6 to the European Energy-related Products Directive. After sleep-
ing for <autopoweroffdelay> minutes, the system will write a hibernation
image and go into a lower power chipset sleep. Wakeups from this state
will take longer than wakeups from regular sleep. The system will not
auto power off if any external devices are connected, if the system is on
battery power, or if the system is bound to a network and wake for net-
work access is enabled.
autopoweroffdelay - delay before entering autopoweroff mode. (Value =
integer, in minutes)

I don't know if there is any difference between the hibernation mode that is used when hibernatemode is set to 25, standby mode, and the hibernation mode that is used when autopoweroff is enabled.

Standby mode or hibernation does not save that much energy though. According to Apple's environmental report, the current 13-inch MacBook Air consumes 0.25W when it is turned off and 0.68W when it is in sleep mode on 230V voltage. The MacBook Air has a 54-watt-hour battery, so a full battery should last about three days when in sleep mode (if the Mac does not enter standby mode) and about nine days if the Mac is turned off. The energy consumption in hibernation or standby mode is probably close to the energy consumption when the Mac is turned off.


It's very easy to do,

The * acts as a wildcard so that we are copying every files that has .r in it ie 133.rar or 123.r99.
The cp function more properly looks like this

cp /path/from/*.r* /path/to

Edit: upon re reading the question you will want to add the recursive tag -R

cp -R /path/from/*.r* path/to

More specifically for you

cp -R /Users/UserName/Downloads/Downloaded_Path/*.r* new/path/location

Additionally what you can do to list all these files as well is

ls  /Users/UserName/Downloads/Downloaded_Path/*.r*

ls allows for some tags to give you more information about the files being listed. -a -l -t
Or -alt all together. -a shows all files including the files starting with . Or ..
-l lists the files in a long format
-t lists them in time order (in which I believe is last touched or modified)
The following code will explain more about the ls tags if you want to read more about it.

man ls

Another helpful tip is to get out of man within terminal, just press the q button.

Cheers!


Simple image-editing program to add shapes/text to an image that are still editable after saving?

All the software I would normally recommend are probably out of scope considering your comments about Adobe Photoshop, and the fact you're looking for something more user-friendly and simple.

Since you just want to be able to annotate an image and then edit this again later, one option for this type of thing is to use MS PowerPoint (which you already have).

I've shown many people over the years how they can use PowerPoint and most of them have been happy with the results, so give this a go before you dismiss it.

Using MS PowerPoint

One feature of MS PowerPoint 2011 and above is that you can group items on the slide and save them as a single image. So, you could do what you want as follows:

Insert the image into your PowerPoint slide.
Use shapes etc to draw arrows, lines, etc.
Use text boxes to add in your comments.
Format them as necessary (color, line weights, etc).
Select all items (i.e. the image and any shapes, etc.).
Right-mouse-click on your selection and go to Grouping > Group to group them together.
Right-mouse-click on the grouped items and select 'save as picture'.
Select from PNG, JPEG, GIF and BMP for the image format you want (you can also select PDF as an option).
Now also save your PowerPoint presentation.

And there you go - you've got yourself an edited (annotated) image you can use that is separate from the original file, and if you save the PowerPoint slide you have a way of going back and editing it again.

PowerPoint also gives you some pro editing features such as the ability to arrange items (e.g. Forwards, Backwards, Front, Back) as well as adding shadows, transparencies, etc. If you take the time to really get to know it, you'd be surprised what you can do.

I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of using your profile pic to do a quick edit with it in PowerPoint just to give you a taste of what's possible.


After using my MacBook Pro for a while, it becomes very laggy (Swap usage high)

Swap usage in itself does not mean that performance is impacted.
You seem to be judging swap usage as "high" based on the fact that 8.19 out of 9 GB are used - however the swap size is automatically expanded as needed. So there's no real "9 GB limit" or anything like that - so you cannot use this as a measure for saying that swap usage is either low or high.
Your performance is impacted when things are actively being swapped in or out while you're waiting for the computer to do something. Data being swapped in/out while you're not using the computer won't hurt the performance you see, just as data being swapped out and staying there won't hurt the perceived performance.


As far as I know, there is no way to do this without external tools.

Usb Overdrive lets you do this http://www.usboverdrive.com/ and is what I use.

Steer mouse also has this setting. http://plentycom.jp/en/steermouse/

Mouse Curves http://triq.net/articles/mouse-acceleration-preference-pane-mac-os-x  Has the advantage of being free, but Apple removing the acceleration API in 10.6 may have ramifications on its utility.


Software recommendations for locking down a OS X based school computer lab

Deep Freeze is a pretty cool solution, but that merely preserves the STATE of the computer. It doesn't prevent users from performing certain actions while logged in. That would be done with accounts and other management tools.  Posting from my phone, so I'll add hyperlinks later.  Added links. :)

MCX - Managed Client for OS X, uses Apple's Workgroup Manager (free) for configuration management. Examples include: showing a message at login, preventing certain applications from launching, forcing restarts at certain times of the day, etc. Workgroup Manager downloads for 10.9 and 10.8.

Casper Suite - Very robust management tool by JAMF, used widely in education and enterprise. Can do pretty much anything you can think of, but is not free.


In watchOS 3, go to the Watch App -> General there is a toggle called Enable Screenshots that should be disabled by default (you have to scroll down a bit). When the switch is disabled, you can't take screenshot on the Watch.


Time Capsule partly stops working after some hours

Try restoring to default settings. This won't erase any data stored on the Time Capsule, it will reset the network configuration.

Open AirPort Utility (Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility) and right click on your time capsule. Select Restore Default Settings...

Then wait for it to restart, and follow the setup instructions.


Sidebar icons from non-system volume disappears after restart in Finder of Mac OSX 10.8.2

If the disk/share isn't mounted, the favorite is removed from the sidebar.  If you want to keep favorites to network shares, removable disks, or files in disk images, there is a workaround.

Create a new folder named "Remote Favorites".  This can be anywhere on your local disk (Home folder, Documents, etc)
Drag the Remote Favorites folder to your sidebar
Add aliases of the remote file/folder into the Remote Favorites folder.  (hold option+command while dragging the source file)

The Remote Favorites folder is local so it won't disappear from your Sidebar.
Now when you need to get to one of these remote files, open the Remote Favorites folder and double click the alias of the remote file.

Another benefit of using aliases is that if the network share or disk image isn't mounted, it will automatically mount it first.


Invisible Space preventing me from growing HD partition to original size

OSXRESERVED is create by the Boot Camp Assistant. This is suppose to contain the Windows installation files. You can remove this partition by entering the following.
sudo diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3

The free space can be added back to macOS by entering the following command.
sudo diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0


How do I transfer my iPhone photos/videos to a NAS with afp-protocol?

I was looking for this too. In Image Capture, I think you should be able to choose Import To: Other (if you scroll to the bottom of the choices there), and then choose your NAS storage location. At least I am able to do it that way. My NAS shows up on the left in the popup dialog similar to how it shows in Finder. Anyway I still prefer to copy to my computer first, and then to the NAS, so that I am sure I get all my photos without some error.


How to make a dump of my iPhone so as to make forensics

You can read about how the encryption is performed and how the AES keys are built in Apple's iOS Security Guide:

https://www.apple.com/business/site/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

In particular this describes that the key is not available to the application processor. It is only available within the Secure Enclave. This means that even though you know your password, you cannot rebuild the AES-key from it on a different computer.

This means that it is not possible to do what you want (i.e. dumping the raw disk contents and decrypting it on another computer using AES keys that you build from your own password on that computer).

In regards to dumping raw disk content, you can use the dd command if you want - but you cannot really use it for anything.


My iPad's MAC address seems to have changed with the iPadOS 14 update. Is this normal?

Shortly after posting the question, I found out that there is a new feature in iOS/iPadOS/WatchOS that changes the MAC address to an individual private one for every wifi network. I think I will be turning it off for my own wifi networks.
It seems to be turned on by default.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT211227


How to move iTunes’ Mobile Applications folder to an external hard drive

This may not be the answer you are looking for but if you simple want to move you entire itunes library contents onto an external harddrive the simplest, best way in my opinion, is to move your entire ~/Music/iTunes folder onto the external drive then point iTunes to open the library in that location. Its as simple as closing iTunes, moving the folder, and then while opening iTunes again hold the option key (shift key for windows). It will then prompt you to choose which library you want iTunes to open. What you're really selecting is the iTunes library.xml file, but you can select your itunes folder and it will find the file.

If you want to experiment you can do the same thing while opening itunes and create a new library in a new location to play with.


Download OS update only once for all home computers

To quote Bryan Luby from "Re-use Mavericks install file"

  Download the update from the App Store. Once the file has finished downloading, check your Applications folder for the "Install OS X Mavericks" icon. Copy this installer to your other computers before going through the install process. The installer will delete itself after the install is finished.

I recommend distributing the file between computers via AirDrop (if all your computers support it) or via File Sharing (from the Sharing pane of System Preferences).

Note: Running the update from /Applications/Install OS X Mavericks.app will DELETE the installer upon completion! Be sure to distribute the file to all your machines before installing it.


How to configure maximum IMAP connections in Mac OS X Server (El Capitan)?

You should be able to increase the number directly in the respective config file:

Stop the server:

sudo serveradmin stop mail

Modify the file /Library/Server/Mail/Config/dovecot/conf.d/20-imap.conf and increase the number of mail_max_userip_connections right at the end of the file:

...
protocol imap {
  # Space separated list of plugins to load (default is global mail_plugins).
  # stats (in global mail_plugins) and imap_stats (here) are also available
  mail_plugins = $mail_plugins imap_acl imap_quota imap_zlib

  # Maximum number of IMAP connections allowed for a user from each IP address.
  # NOTE: The username is compared case-sensitively.
  mail_max_userip_connections = 20
}

Start the server:

sudo serveradmin start mail

Other (Linux) sources recommend to add a similar entry in the global section of the same file or in /Library/Server/Mail/Config/dovecot/dovecot.conf.


I'm guessing turning off WiFi, standing outside and opening up Maps.app would do the trick, if it correctly displays where you are it works, if it doesn't... it doesn't.


How can I diagnose my MacBook Pro Start-up problem?

Solution to my problem was to buy a new internal Sata
cable. I could have spared myself a whole lot of trouble if I had done that at the start.


I've lost everything on my iphone4, how do I put my library back? Syncing doesn't work

Are you connecting your phone to the mac / pc you're usually syncing it too? Because it would need the backup file which is created everytime you sync it.

If so, you should try this instructional guide. It has screenshots and should be easy to follow. If this does not work write what's happened.

http://ipod.about.com/od/iphonetroubleshooting/ss/restore-iphone.htm


How to stop AppleIDAuthAgent flooding the console log with messages about expired apple id

This seems to result from deprecated MobileMe and iDisk preference files laying around. This post at the Apple discussion forum may help you delete the relevant files:

~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.DotMacSync*.plist.lockfile
~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.idisk*.plist
~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.idisk*.plist.lockfile
~/Library/Preferences/MobileMeAccounts.plist
~/Library/Preferences/MobileMeAccounts.plist.lockfile
~/Library/Prefernces/ByHost/com.apple.coreservices.appleidauthenticationinfo*.plist
~/Library/Prefernces/ByHost/com.apple.coreservices.appleidauthenticationinfo*.plist.lockfile

Don't forget to close relevant applications (like Mail or Messages) before the deletion; it also might be a good idea to at least log out and in again afterwards.


How can I invert spelling proposals on iOS?

You can disable "Auto-Correction" under Settings > General > Keyboard.

The check spelling will still be on and taping on the word detected as wrong will prompt you the corrections.


Postfix Not Accepting Commands on OSX Lion - Timeout Occurs

The last three log messages turned out to be the culprit. Googling for them turned up this page;

In order to fix the problem your console is displaying, you should:

Create a submit.cred file in /etc/postfix directory (sudo touch /etc/postfix/submit.cred will do).
Create a header for that file: sudo echo "submitcred version 1" >> /etc/postfix/submit.cred
Add as many lines as the number of users you want to enable to submit mail, in the form hostname|user|passwd: sudo echo''hostname|username|password" >> /etc/postfix/submit.cred
Give the file the appropriate permissions: sudo chmod 600 /etc/postfix/submit.cred

Once you've done this you could restart postfix and everything sould run smoothly.

I created the file /etc/postfix/submit.cred and set the permissions to 0600. Everything started working after that.


Is there a PDF annotation app for the iPad with minimal (or no!) annoying page transitions?

With a little hunting around, watching videos, and emailing developers, I've come up with the following list.

iAnnotate.  This has good annotation (obviously) and when connected to an external display then the display version has no page transitions (note that there are transitions on the iPad display, though they rate very low on my "irritatometer").  Other pluses: customisable toolbars, and the presentation display doesn't show the toolbars or menus.
There is a slight oddity: even though the presentation display doesn't show the toolbars, the size of the document depends a bit on what toolbars are on display on the iPad.
2screens.  The focus of this is on the presentation, which it does extremely well.  The annotation works in a slightly different way to other apps.  Imagine a glass sheet in front of the presentation and that you are writing on that, not on the presentation itself.  Once you get used to that (so saving and blanking the annotations when shifting slides, I've been told that the developers are working on making this automatic) then it works well.  The presentation part is very nice, with none of the menus displayed on the external dispay.
Explain Everything.  This is, perhaps, a slightly surprising contender as it is really for recording a short presentation (or other).  But it can also be used for the presentation itself and has annotation support.  The external display mirrors the iPad display, but there is a "minimal" toolbar which is very discrete and contains all the main presentation controls.  The only snag with this one is that there is a strange offset with the PDFs that I use (created by xelatex) which means that the slides get successively more out of sync with the backgrounds.  The developers tell me that this depends on the PDF so other methods of PDF-generation may not have this problem (and I'm hopeful that it would be possible to post-process the PDF from xelatex so that it works as well).
GoodNotes (formerly eNote Taker).  This has a little history!  When it was eNote Taker then it worked just fine.  In the upgrade to GoodNotes, sliding page transitions were introduced.  In the current version, tapping on the screen changes pages without the sliding transition so it is usable again.  The display mirrors the iPad display, but the annotation toolbars are very discreet in that they collapse out of the way when not being used.


Why do ICNS files need to be perfect squares?

No, that is not possible. macOS only supports square icons for this purpose.

The size must be either 16 × 16, 32 × 32, 48 × 48, 128 × 128, 256 × 256, 512 × 512, or 1024 × 1024.

Note that even though the physical dimensions of the icons must be square, it is possible to create the illusion of having a non-square icon by making parts of the icon transparent.


No signal on external monitor after High Sierra upgrade

I just had the same issue. Found this link to upgrade the display port drivers, it was working again after a installing and restarting: http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/macos


How to re-encode iTunes m4a files to mp3

Honestly, for working with audio files quickly, my favourite tool is Fission Audio from Rogue Ameoba. It can open and convert to most popular formats, including the two you're after , and more importantly here I would think, it has a batch conversion mode. It's $32 USD, but it's so polished and works so well it's worth the cost.

But if you really want free I don't think you can beat the command line for converting lots of files, quickly and easily.

To complete these steps you'll need Homebrew installed -- a free package manager for OS X that'll make it easy to get the command line tools you need to do your coversions. See the installation notes for Homebrew on how to install it.

With Homebrew installed you'll need a few command line tools to do the conversion. Namely: ffmpeg and lame. But don't fear! Homebrew makes it very easy to install them. Open a Terminal window and type:

brew install lame ffmpeg

You'll get a bunch of other dependencies installed along with those two things. But those are the two key pieces.

With these tools installed, you can convert an entire directory full of .m4a files to .mp3 like so:

for f in *.m4a; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -acodec libmp3lame -ab 320k "${f%.m4a}.mp3"; done

Just run that from a directory full of .m4a files and watch the magic happen.


Prevent mac from requiring login screen at home

If you open terminal and type caffeinate it will never sleep until terminal is quit (when you get home).


How do I make my iMac Apache server always run?

so that I can access my home files when I am outside my home

If this is all you really want to do then you are using the wrong tool.

Go to System Preferences -> Sharing and enable File Sharing.
Then go to Options (same panel) and check the AFP box.
Then forward port 548 on your router.

You can now access your files from the Finder ( Go -> connect to server) with read-write access instead of download only.


Upgrading new Mac Mini to have SSD. Do I have to buy Lion, or can I just re-download from App Store?

Macs introduced after 10.7 was released (and mid-2010 to mid-2011 Macs with a firmware update) support internet recovery: if you start up with a new hard drive, you are shown a gray screen like this and something like the contents of the recovery partition are downloaded over the internet:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

If you happen to encounter a situation in which you cannot start from the Recovery System, such as your hard drive stopped responding or you installed a new hard drive without OS X installed, new Mac models introduced after public availability of OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion, automatically use the OS X Internet Recovery feature if the Recovery System (Command-R method above) doesn't work. OS X Internet Recovery lets you start your Mac directly from Apple's Servers. The system runs a quick test of your memory and hard drive to ensure there are no hardware issues.
OS X Internet Recovery presents a limited interface at first, with only the ability to select your preferred Wi-Fi network and, if needed, enter the WPA passphrase. Next, OS X Internet Recovery will download and start from a Recovery System image. From there, you are offered all the same utilities and functions described above.

You can then install the OS your Mac came with for free or restore the old installation from a Time Machine backup.


Why does the lettering wear off MacBook keyboards?

The keys on Apple's laptops are translucent plastic, with black paint applied on the surface. The letter is 'reversed out' of the black paint, backlit through the translucent portion.  So it's not white paint smudging, but black paint wearing off.
Those keys are pressed millions of times. And each press involve some degree of friction, which means the removal of matter. The sweat from your fingers is slightly acidic; and who knows what other oils and particles might get transferred from your sandwich. It's possible - or even likely - that a laptop keyboard might get other 'matter' spilt or splashed onto it.
Any or all of these things might act as a combination of solvent and abrasive. If you use a microscope or macro lens you will see this chipping clearly.
Obviously, the designers know this, and try to make a keyboard whose paint will resist the rigours of a lifetime's use. However, nothing is impervious. How old is your Mac?
As to why this key and no others? A is certainly a key that's going to get more finger-rest and usage than others. It's just the perfect storm of the right amount of wear with a particular mix of particles and chemicals.


Trying to remove "FDisk_partition_schem" from USB drive

I fiqured it out. I used this:

diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ Emptied /dev/disk3


If you backup your iPhone using iTunes, is it a full backup even if on the iCloud settings it's not?

It is "full" in the sense that everything that is ACTUALLY on your device is backed up (minus payment and password/security settings for obvious security reasons), but it is NOT full in the sense that not everything you see on your device is truly "on" your device. Some stuff is merely just a shortcut (for the sake of a longer explanation) to items stored in iCloud.  The details and differences of iCloud and iTunes -based backups, along with what is excluded (such as those shortcuts) in an iTunes backup are documented here, courtesy of Apple, on their support site.


Assuming a normal configuration for Time Capsule and your older macOS computer:

You should be able to login, use Keychain.app to find all the passwords you had and display them in plain text. Then you can use them to to configure your new macOS computer.

If that is too brief, comment below, and I'll give you more details.


Mac App Store: download but don't install

The Xcode you download from the app store is just an installer, it's not the actual Xcode; downloading it will not compromise your current installation of Xcode (that is if you do not open it).

P.S. The Xcode from the AppStore (4.1) runs only on Lion. For Xcode on Snow Leopard download it from the developer's website(Xcode 3.6).


The reason behind is because your device is not locked.
As stated in this Apple document that in order to "Automatically back up with iCloud Backup"

Make sure that iCloud Backup is turned on in Settings > iCloud > Backup
Connect your device to a power source
Connect your device to a Wi-Fi network
Make sure that your device's screen is locked
Check that you have enough available space in iCloud for the backup


Forbidden error setting up a PHP app on Mac OS X 10.6

Try to chmod 755 the folder and all of its parent folders.


The purgeable storage is stored in a local snapshot. Apparently you can use the tmutil in terminal to delete these. Not sure how exactly but will update later today after speaking with the genius who fixed my mac.

Update:
This is what was explained to me:

List IDs of local snapshots: tmutil listlocalsnapshots /Volumes
Delete local snapshots: tmutil deletelocalsnapshots [date part of ID]
Repeat for all snapshots.

Haven't tested so try at your own risk. Let me know if it works. Worked for me but wasn't there went the steps were preformed.


Free OS X solution for getting screenshots, cropping and annotating them

Use Apple's built-in Grab.app to capture screenshots, Apple's built-in Preview.app to crop, and the open-source Inkscape to annotate the bitmap.


You can use the iPhone Configuration Utility to side-load apps onto an iOS device without 'syncing' and erasing your current content.

Config Utility for Mac
Config Utility for Windows

Keep in mind, though, that this will only work if the app is correctly codesigned and the device is correctly provisioned.


How to code an AppleScript to do a mouse click on a menu bar item?

There's a scripting addition called "AppleScript Toolbox" (it's an osax). Get it at https://astoolbox.wordpress.com/

With that, you can simply write:

AST click at {10, 20}

That clicks into the menu bar, for instance, and opens the Apple menu.

If you want to preserve the original cursor position first, use this:

set origPos to AST mouse point location

And to restore it use:

AST set mouse point location origPos


Parallels will intelligently cap you at what the Mac OS can operate on, so if that's where it maxes out, and you're running the proper, up to date version of Parallels and Windows, then yes.

You can also make adjustments to the Windows OS itself to free up memory (ie. reduce visual elements and effects).


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

Change the following line of code:

do shell script "cd " & archiveDir & "; rar a -ol[a] -mt8 -m5- -y -s -m4 -t " & archiveName & listFiles

To:

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "cd " & archiveDir & "; rar a -ol[a] -mt8 -m5- -y -s -m4 -t " & archiveName & listFiles
end tell


Safari Auto-Extract ZIP File Upon Download

In Safari go to Preferences -> General and uncheck Open "safe" files after downloading. This disables automatic extracting of archives, including zip files. As noted below the check box this will disable automatic opening of PDFs, text documents, movies and pictures.


With iTunes DJ gone from iTunes 11, what's a good replacement solution?

I'm still adjusting it, but here is something that might actually be better than iTunes DJ on some aspects:

create a playlist with some rules approaching the way you were using iTunes DJ. Something like Rating > 3, not played in a month, live update based on least played or random or whatever you were using with iTunes DJ.
start playing
switch to Mini Player
turn on Up Next View and extend it vertically. You can alternatively show previously played using the clock icon.

What I like with this is the amount of interaction you have with the songs coming up. With a few clicks and remaining in that compact view, you can delete songs, add songs in the queue from genius recommendations. You can even bring up a full iTunes window on the side for drag and drop of additional songs or quick add (via alt-click) of songs to Up Next. Might take a little while to get used to it but it has potential.


Here are a few online guides to creating auto-opening DMG files.

From the first guide by Bill Bateman, step 23 seems to be the key:

  Click Convert on the toolbar. Enter a new filename and make sure the
  image format is compressed.  Click Save.  This creates a new image.

Another guide (via this post) has a bunch of information. The info regarding the auto-open piece is here:

  But we found that the .dmg doesn't always open up its window when
  mounted. This “autoOpen” utility solves that problem:
       http://autoopen.nibfile.com/

One of these two guides should help you set up the auto-opening DMG.


How to correctly uninstall an App Store application

You can see exactly what was installed by the appstore with this command:

lsbom /private/var/db/receipts/com.apple.pkg.Pages5.bom

lsbom /private/var/db/receipts/com.apple.pkg.Pages5.bom | grep -v '/Applications/Pages.app' will show you all the files which are not in the /Applications/Pages.app folder (which is actually nothing).

Beware that each new update via the appstore will overwrite this bom file, and not create a version-specific one.  The bom should reflect the current installed files.

Assuming you installed iWork09 from the DVD, then the files in /Applications/iWork '09/ as well as the support files in /Library should not have been affected.


I have an Iphone 6 and I dont have the Start New Conversations from option

If you are showing a conversation, go back to Messages.  (Top Left on your screen)  Then at the top right side you will see an icon to start a new message.

See picture below.

Apple Support has more help for you too.
Hope this helps you.


Why won't iPhone mail connected to an Exchange account download email bodies?

Check iphone date and time:

Settings->General->date and time.
If its point to Automatic, set Automatically OFF
Time Zone: Setup your current time zone.
Hope it helps


Issue with FaceTime and iMessage (iPod touch 4)

I managed to fix the issue by changing the following:

Settings > General > Date & Time > Set Automatically = On


Running Applescript using cron jobs not working

Cron was replaced by launchd a while back. If you're just getting started with this project, you might want to do it in launchd.


How to activate terminal auto completion on macOS Catalina

If you have done a fresh install then you need to be aware that the default shell has changed to zsh which as I understand it doesn't read .inputrc.

So either change your default shell back in System Preferences -> Users & Groups or
use .zshrc instead for your configurations


Is it possible to block macOS Mojave installation?

You can probably use a MDM solution to support all your devices (mobiles & desktop eg: Miradore, Jamf etc.)

Check this support document:

Mobile device management settings for IT - macOS restrictions.

You can temporarily block any update (to secure for example a shared mac). Use

sudo spctl --disable --label "Mac App Store"

to block any installation from the Mac App Store.

You should create a standard and an admin user and give the standard user credentials.

Using imaging or Net boot is not the recommended approach since the introduction of APFS in macOS High Sierra 10.13.


You want Audio Hijack Pro. Records system audio, from long time quality Mac developer, Rogue Amoeba.


CP2102 device is not listed in /dev on macOS 10.13

I found that macOS High Sierra has blocked all unsigned / unmanaged kernel extensions and the SiLabs kernel extension guide doesn’t have information on how to manually enable the required extensions.

An excellent overview of this process is at man blogs - here is one such guide:

https://grahamgilbert.com/blog/2017/09/11/enabling-kernel-extensions-in-high-sierra/

Here are steps to allow this extension specifically:

Go to "System Preferences" -> "Security & Privacy"
In the bottom of the window, you will see a message "System software from developer "SiLabs" was blocked from loading."
Click on "Allow" button
Restart your Mac

Now my device is listed as /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART and everything work as expected.


Issues with files and folders with names containing umlauts

macOS and Linux use different UTF-8 styles. convmv can convert between those two with the options --nfc / --nfd. On your linux based NAS do this:

convmv -r -f UTF-8 -t UTF-8 --nfc  .

From the convmv man page:

  HFS+ on OS X / Darwin
  Linux and (most?) other Unix-like operating systems use the so called normalization form C (NFC) for its UTF-8 encoding by default but do not enforce this. HFS+ on the Macintosh OS enforces normalization form D (NFD), where a few characters are encoded in a different way. On OS X it's not possible to create NFC UTF-8 filenames because this is prevented at filesystem layer. On HFS+ filenames are internally stored in UTF-16 and when converted back to UTF-8 (because the Unix based OS can't deal with UTF-16 directly), NFD is created for whatever reason. See http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1173.html for defails. I think it was a very bad idea and breaks many things under OS X which expect a normal POSIX conforming system. Anywhere else convmv is able to convert files from NFC to NFD or vice versa which makes interoperability with such systems a lot easier.

Btw: This only happens when you transfer your files from a HFS+ partition. APFS doesn't enforce NFD anymore.


What do I do if I lost my restore DVDs and have a corrupted HD in my Macbook Pro 2010?

There is no Lion DVD on sale, however, Apple sells Lion USB Key, that you can use to reinstall Lion on a new hard drive.

What you won't have, though, is iPhoto, iWeb, iDVD (I probably forgot some) that come when you buy a Mac.

But if you bought them on the Mac App Store, you'll be able to reinstall them at no charge.


Probably a hardware problem rather than a software problem. Take it to the Apple Store and they'll check the underneath of the keyboard.


It turns out the only thing to do is wait. I called Apple and the rep said that if power cycling the phone and "forgetting" the wifi network didn't help, the Apple database would clear stale entries after 30 to 60 days. Sure enough, after about a month my phone started showing the new location.

(Note: I tried @bmike's procedure several times on each of the iPhones in our household, but it didn't seem to make a difference. It could be that the procedure does remove that phone's historical location info from Apple's database, but over the many years we were living at our old address we had enough guests with iPhones that removing only our own phones' records wasn't sufficient. If anyone else is having this problem you might as well try that procedure, but know that the problem will self-resolve within a month or so.)


As an admin you may be able to bypass the managed preference settings. Log out and then back in while holding the Option key. If allowed you'll see a dialog allowing you to disable managed preferences.

As far as the clients not receiving the profiles check the system.log file for errors. Look for entries from mdmclient. On the server, check the Profile Manager logs in Server.app or in /Library/Logs/ProfileManager/ probably starting with the profilemanager.log file.

Is this a user-level profile or a device-level profile? I think user user-level profiles are only installed when the user logs in.

If all else fails you can try removing all profiles:

sudo profiles -D


Yahoo is taking over my Google search from my Safari on my Mac

I found my answer in this YouTube video: how to get rid of searchbar redirect in safari.

In Safari's Preferences, select Extensions.  There was the epolife. I deleted the epolife extension, quit and relaunched Safari and came back in. After that I no longer have this problem.


Possible to transfer WhatsApp history from Android to iOS?

Quoting Quora user Julio Cesar Sanchez Hernandez:

  The only free way I’ve found is using watoi:

  It requires a mac with Xcode and iTunes, and the unencrypted
  msgstore.db with the Whatsapp conversations from Android (you can get
  it using WhatsApp Key/DB Extractor)

  Won’t give much more details as the watoi project link has a README
  with the instructions and are easy to follow

Watoi has two limitations though, per its github page:

Media files and shared locations are not imported (got placeholders
instead)
Messages from contacts that changed ids (phone numbers) are
not linked


You could use the ColorSync Utility.app located in your Utility folder.

It will tell you all about the monitors connected and the mode they are using.

Check the profile used for your TV and if it is the correct one, the run a profile repair.


Aside from getting more light in the room, there's not really anything you can do. You can try using a third-party camera app, like Nightcap, to try and boost the capabilities of your phone, or Camera+, to modify your photos in post-production and possibly increase their fidelity (just as you could take your pictures into your PC/Mac and edit them in Photoshop). You will, however, be limited.

Until cell phone capabilities increase substantially, your options are few. My best advice is to try to get as close to your subject(s) as possible and attempt to capture as much light as possible. If you can rest the phone on something stable to minimize shake during long shutter speeds, do it. As rough as it can be, those are still the best ways to get good pictures in your situation.

Oh, and avoid zooming. You're usually better off taking a full picture and cropping in post.


iTunes syncs each device individually, and allows you to have different settings for each device. If it were me, I would create a “Relaxation music" playlist and set it to sync to your iPad, "Party Music" playlist on your iPod, and such. Then plug your iOS device into iTunes (or use Wifi), and make sure “sync only checked songs and videos” and “Manually manage music and videos" are NOT checked under Summary > Options. Then select the Music tab, and check “Selected playlists, artists, albums and genres” deselect everything except the playlists/songs/albums you want on that iOS device.

One thing to note: you can create other playlists that divide "Relaxation music" more and then set those to sync to that device as well.

Repeat the above process for every device - setting only the desired playlist to sync to that device. In the future, you can easily change what you sync to each device by just changing the music in their perspective playlists.


Restoring selected files from time machine backup of a different mac

Just Checking that you have not missed the "holding option key down in time machine" thing that I missed for ages:

Source:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac-software/complete-guide-time-machine-mac-backup-3626572/

Complete guide to Time Machine: Can I browse Time Machine backups from another Mac, or older Time Machine backups from my own Mac that I no longer use?
Yes. Attach the disk, or attach the Time Capsule to your main Wi-Fi/internet router, then hold down Alt (Option on some keyboards) on your Mac and click the Time Machine menu bar icon. Select Browse Other Backup Disks. The Time Machine disk should appear in a list, and once you've selected it you'll see the standard Finder-based Time Machine view where you can move back in time to retrieve older files.

If the backup is encrypted you'll be prompted to enter the password before you can gain access.

This worked well for me so thought I would share here.


Have you checked your device temperature? I had a similar problem with an old MacBook Pro and it was randomly shutting down because it was overheating.

You can check temperature with SMC Fan control or iStat Menus.

Check on System Monitor the power usage, that's always helpful to check what process can be making your device overheating.

In my case was chrome plus some developer tools that i use at work.


Would a powered USB hub solve the problem of two external disks randomly losing connection or being slow?

Yes.  A powered hub would definitely help.

The USB port on your MacBook Pro puts out 5V @ 500mA.  Now, remember, every device you hook up to that port will require some amount of power, including the hub.

External hard drives use about 2 to 2.5W of power.  Using the formula below to get calculate Amps,

Watts = Volts x Amps

We can see that an external drive uses from 400mA to 500mA.  You’ve got two drives plus a hub so, it’s easy to see how you could quickly oversubscribe the power available.

A bus powered hub (what you have) gets its power from the host, in this case, your Mac.  A powered hub, in comparison, supplements additional power, sometimes up to 3A (depends on the hub) so you can drive more devices without oversubscribing the bus power.


What speed does the A4 in the iPhone 4 run at?

According to MacRumors and some German source the iPhone 4 is somewhat slower than the iPad, but still significantly faster than the iPhone 3GS. I guess that its A4 CPU is clocked at about 750 - 850 MHz.


Templates folder on mac equivalent to in Ubuntu

macOS does not have that exact functionality however you can create a folder with various source documents of the type and kind you need.

If you Get Info on any document in macOS there should be a checkbox under the "General" (first) heading that is called Stationary Pad. Checking that will tell macOS to open a copy of that document, by default (usually) named "____ copy" in that type of document's default application.

So a .docx file will open in MS Word. So not the same as Ubuntu but does that give you similar functionality?