Installing SSD to non retina 2012 macbook pro via recovery menu

What you do depends on how you want to setup your Mac. More specifically, do you want to just do a totally clean installation of macOS, or do you want to migrate your existing setup (including users/data) across to the SSD?

Regardless, you will need to format the SSD first. Probably the easiest way to proceed is to connect it to your Mac via an external enclosure and then use Disk Utility to format it.

If you haven't got an external enclosure (or another way to connect the SSD), then you could insert the SSD into the MacBook and opt to run macOS Recovery from the Internet. To do this, hold down OptionCommandR (or, if that doesn't work, try ShiftOptionCommandR).

NOTE: If you proceed this way then:

It may be worth you testing to make sure you can boot into macOS Recovery from the internet prior to going to the trouble of physically installing the SSD into your MacBook.
The only way to migrate all your data is if you have a Time Machine backup on an external disk (i.e. if you don't have a TM backup and want to keep your current setup, then you will need to either make a TM backup first, or have a way of connecting the SSD or the internal drive to your Mac for migrating the data across).

Regardless, once booted into macOS Recovery, run Disk Utility to format the SSD.

Once it’s formatted you can install macOS, but how you proceed will depend on how you want to setup your Mac. More specifically, do you want to just do a totally clean installation of macOS and then install software etc as you need, or do you want to migrate your existing setup (including users/data) from a Time Machine backup?

If you're planning to migrate data from a Time Machine backup, then take a look at How to use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac.


Cocoa app to publish podcasts vs Mobile friendly site

It's not a podcast if they just upload files and tell you where to find them. The whole point of a podcast is that they are referenced explicitly in a feed of some manner, such that a utility can automatically make them available in whatever manner you need.

Like iTunes for example. It (by default) updates the feed occasionally, and downloads new episodes when they're available, suitable for immediate listening, or sync'ing and listening on-the-go.

Anything else is just silly, and probably means the site operator doesn't really know what they're doing.


Selective Backup in Apple Mail Email Client

In mail.app, you can select a folder and from the main menu choose ‘Mailbox > Export Mailbox’, select a location for the export file and click ‘choose’.  Mail exports the mailbox as an .mbox package.

See also this page: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19174?locale=en_US


Correlative numbers formula in Apple Numbers

Enter a 1 in the cell A1.
Insert the following formula into cell A2.

IF(ISBLANK(B2),"",MAX(A$1:A1)+1)

This formula checks the cell to the right to see if it is blank. If it is blank, the cell in the A column should be blank too. If not, the cell should be filled with the next integer, which equates to the maximum integer reached so far + 1.
Fill the rest of the A column using this formula. Use the yellow fill handle so that the formula is adjusted correctly as it fills. The $ sign fixes the first cell of the range used by the MAX function.


Alarm to sound while iPad is locked.

Based on what you've described, I would first suggest force closing the Clock app: Follow instructions from Apple here.

Then, restart your device.


According to Apple's Development Program Payment page:

  Payment

  You can choose from the payment methods presented during your membership purchase. If you are paying by credit card and enrolling as an individual, you must use your own credit card to complete your purchase. If you do not, your enrollment will be delayed and you will be asked for a copy of your government-issued photo identification. After you’ve completed your purchase, you will receive an order acknowledgement email from Apple Online Store and a confirmation email from Apple Developer Relations.

Apple puts all relevant info for the developer program online and it's fairly easy to search and find the answers.  Go to the page I linked-to if you have more questions.  You can also contact Apple directly.


Apple Mail - extra notification on specific mailbox

This should work for you :)
In Mail Preferences, General settings ....
New message Notification...All mail boxes :) or pick one !


Early 2011 MacBook Pro SMC firmware update question

If software update doesn't prompt you to update, then either it has been circumvented by other updates or it has already been applied.


Possible to play stereo sound through single speaker?

There is a Universal Access option to do this.


How to convert .VOC to MP3 or other audio format?

ffmpeg is a free command line tool that can convert a huge number of audio and video formats including VOC files.

You can install it through Homebrew using the following command.

brew install ffmpeg

And then you can convert VOC files to MP3 like so.

ffmpeg -i sample.voc sample.mp3


Macbook startup problem. Once started is extremely slow

Most likely a hardware defect. Does it run hot as well?

Try running Apple Diagnostics, this might give you an indication something is wrong indeed. Perhaps the fan died, or maybe one of the temperature or current sensors.

An SMC reset might be worth a try in case it is only the SMC no longer working properly.


How to manually 'install' a command-line based Java application consisting of an executable and several auxiliary modules?

Copy the files to somewhere static such as ~/Applications, then add the following to your profile:

alias briss="java -jar /path/to/briss-0.9.jar"

Then you can run ‘briss’ from Terminal from anywhere.

You may need to create ~/Applications if you haven't used it before. Upon creation, macOS automatically gives the folder the Applications folder icon. The location of your profile depends on your shell — the default macOS shell is bash and the profile is ~/.bash_profile.


ifixit.com sells a battery replacement (and almost any other part for your laptop), you might want to check it out. Here's the link http://www.ifixit.com/MacBook-Parts/MacBook-Pro-13-Inch-Unibody-Mid-2009-Battery/IF163-003

The part is out of stock, so you might want to be notified when it is available, it's all in the link.


Please help me fix my partition table - I completely messed it up

Boot to internet recovery.
Open the Terminal application.
Enter the following command.

diskutil erasedisk apfs "Macintosh HD" gpt disk0

Quit the Terminal application.
Install macOS.

FYI:

The synthesized drive disk1 is just the physical partition disk0s2 which resides on your 1 TB physical drive (disk0). This disk0s2 partition contains the volumes disk1s1, disk1s2, disk1s3 and disk1s4.


Screen blurs when I try to record videos on iPhone

First, have you force quit the camera app and restarted your phone?

This could be one of two things both are prompted by the Camera app being unable to start the camera properly.

The first is that the physical camera isn't working some or all of the time, depending on the phone model it might be that one of the back cameras works but not the front. This would be verified by either trying to film using the front camera, or use the back camera in photo mode.

If all the cameras work in the photo mode then you should move on to trying to reinstall the operating system:

Take a backup using iTunes/Finder or iCloud, ensure it is fully backed up, all options are enabled.
Erase the iPhone using the Erase all content and settings feature.
Setup the iPhone as a new iPhone, ignore the backup for now.
Test the camera.

If the camera is still not working you need to seek a repair from Apple.

If the camera is working, erase the phone again this time try restoring the backup. If the issue returns then you will need to copy all of your settings off the phone as there is no further action that can be taken beyond simply starting the phone from blank again. Obviously you can sync all your settings with iCloud but you will need to essentially set it up from new.


Can the iPod Nano 5th generation take screenshots?

Do what my grandpa would do and record the screen with another camera. :^)

The iPod Nano 5g does not run iOS. I'm not aware if it has any kind of undocumented screengrabbing or debugging-over-USB capability. It does have a video output, but only the audio or video content being played is output--it does not mirror the screen; so using an AV cable with capture card to record it would only be useful if the issue you have has to do with video/audio playback.

You're probably already aware that it's unlikely for whatever issue you've encountered to be addressed by Apple. The iPod Nano 5g was released in Sept. 2009, its last software update was in Nov. 2009 (version 1.0.2), and discontinued in Sept. 2010 (so all units would be out of warranty by now).


Can iPhone storage be read without the 4-digit password? Or is it encrypted?

Data on an iPhone is always encrypted.  To answer your question it helps to  understand a few things about encryption on the iPhone.  Your data is not actually encrypted with your passcode.  Each file is encrypted with a key.  Those keys are encrypted by other keys in several layers.  These layers enable granular control over which applications and processes on the phone can access the data.  Each of these keys are "strong" (meaning it is really long) and cannot be easily guessed.  At the final level the keys are encrypted using a combination of two pieces of information.  The first piece of information is tied to the hardware and is "strong" so it is not practical to try and guess it.  The second is your passcode.  A four digit passcode is considered weak and can be cracked in a matter of minutes if the person trying to break in can make a large number of attempts.  If someone has access to all your hardware then it would be possible to read your data.  If you have set your phone to wipe after 10 bad password attempts then it is harder.  However, it turns out that most people pick a passcode that can easily be guessed in less then 10 attempts.  You might be surprised how many phones can be unlocked with "1234".  If the person trying to get your data doesn't have your phone (e.g. they insert your storage into a different device) then it is virtually impossible to read your data.

In summary, if you have selected a passcode that is not easy to guess and set your phone to wipe after 10 bad password attempts then your data is safe, otherwise you might have cause to worry.


Is there a way to print a webpage as PDF in landscape mode using Safari?

By default, macOS does provide basic print options of paper size and orientation in the Print menu, even if you don't have a printer. (Though these may need to be 'revealed' using the "Show Details' button.
However, I have always recommended that if you don't have a physical printer, there may be benefits to creating a 'Generic PostScript Printer' print queue.

The "PDF button" in the print menu does rely on the CUPS print system, and that usually means having some form of print queue.
The other option is to use a dedicated print-to-file queue, like CUPS-PDF.


Can't get rid of incomplete download bar underneath dock icon

you don't need to remove/delete the Downloads folder from the dock and re add it, just move it in a new position and the re position it to the old one


During Dictionary Attack, how can I Capture the attempted usernames and passwords?

I don't know an answer to the question you asked, but from an IT security best practices perspective:

Run VNC on a local interface only. Use a key-based vpn or ssh tunnel to access the local interface remotely.

Is there a reason you need to run VNC on a non-secure interface?


How can I get the window bounds for "Adobe Illustrator" in AppleScript?

Here's a piece of code that just gets desktop's dimensions and transfers them to another application's first window.
Exchange "TextEdit" with Illustrator's process name and build yourself a Service in Automator (open "New", choose Service, draw "Do AppleScript" to right, insert this code ...).
Give it a shortcut via [ System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services ] and get going!
Hope this helps ...

tell application "Finder" to set myBounds to bounds of window of desktop

tell application "System Events" to tell process "TextEdit"
    set position of window 1 to {0, 20}
    set size of window 1 to {item 3 of myBounds, (item 4 of myBounds) - 20}
end tell


"File Open" dialog is missing sidebar items

Go to your user library in Finder. Hold down ⌥ while opening the Go menu and click Library.
Navigate to the Preferences folder.
Remove any files that are or contain com.apple.finder.plist. (The removal of those files will very likely reset your Favourites list in Finder.)
Restart or log out and log back in again then empty the trash and try again.

Restarting might not be necessary. As madpoet says:

  You can also relaunch Finder if you don't want to reboot or log out. Right click on Finder icon while you're pressing ⌥ and you'll see the Relaunch option there.

Alternatively, you can use this Bash oneliner by Christophe Marois:

cd ~/Library/Preferences && sudo find com.apple.finder.plist* -exec rm {} \; && killall Finder


Two options I can think of:

1) Clear the Finder's icon cache, from Terminal, & reboot
sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;

2) Or run the latest combo updater (rather than the delta), from https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1804?


How can I transfer contacts between SIM cards?

in an iPhone you can not put addresses to the sim card, only from the sim card to the phone. You can use an "old" phone form before they were smart (e.g. Nokia): copy the addresses into the phone from the sim card 1, put another sim card 2 in and read the addresses into this sim card.


Using applescript, how to move a window to my second display?

It looks like Apple have set the window to be aware of what Display it should be on and not extend outside of thats Displays bounds when launching.

A side effect of this is the App will do the same thing with the calls from the applescript.

You can see this if you straddle the window across both Displays. Then quit and relaunch the app.

The window will open on only one of the displays and not be straddled.

If you did the same for say Safari. The window you had straddling would still be straddling.

I think you are out of luck doing it in any way useful.

The only way I got it to do it was to get the window  and display details from the plist file '~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.FaceTime' while the window was on the second display.

 (* read plist file *)
    do shell script "/usr/bin/defaults read ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.FaceTime NSWindow\\ Frame\\ FaceTimeWindowFrame"

Then when the app was on the first display.

Run a script which quit the app, rewrites the 'NSWindow Frame FaceTimeWindowFrame' entry in the plist with the info for the position and display I had from earlier.

Activate the app again, which would open on the second display. And then move it with the normal applescript code.

tell application "FaceTime" to quit
(do shell script "/usr/bin/defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.FaceTime NSWindow\\ Frame\\ FaceTimeWindowFrame" & (" '2562 853 638 585 2560 240 1920 1200'") as string) --set to somewhere on my second screen

delay 1
tell application "System Events"

    tell application "FaceTime" to activate

    delay 4
    set position of window "FaceTime" of application process "FaceTime" to {3269, 315}

    end tell

But like I said not very useful. :-(


Can I just copy an application from a MAC and paste it to another MAC?

Most applications downloaded from the Mac App Store are transferable to another Mac, either by network or removable media (USB, etc).

You can copy the applications to your new Mac.


Go to Settings; Tap on General > Usage > Music, then swipe across All Music and tap the delete button that appeared.

That should delete all your local music.


Facebook calendar exists, but won't display events in iOS 11.1

On your desktop, Look in the right-hand pane on the Event page in Facebook. Find this section...

The last two links are webcal links which will let you subscribe via iCalendar on your Mac. Then, it will sync to your device if you have iCloud calendar sharing on. Roundabout, yes.


iMovie 9.0: how do you make clips shorter than 5ms?

I don't think it's possible to make the clips shorter then 5ms in any video software, because depending on the frame rate a single frame takes more time (16,6 ms for 60 fps). It doesn't make much sense to add a clip to a video, that is so short that it is not seen on screen for at least one frame.


How do I get a folder tree view in the left column of the Finder?

Favorites in the left hand side is a flat list, but it's a good place to store some frequent destinations.

And make sure to select the third option (circled) so you can have a tree structure in your Finder.

Last but not least, you may notice that the screenshot has a Path Bar at the bottom indicating your current location in the hierarchy. And I think this is the closest thing if you are asking for a Windows Explorer type layout. Enable it in the Finder menu: View->Show Path Bar


Besides the obvious USB / Lightning connector and the WiFi / Cellular / Bluetooth technology, the iPad has:

Volume up / down switch
Silent / Screen rotation lock
Microphone
Built-in speaker
The gyroscope
The accelerometer
The ambient light sensor
Micro-SIM card try
Facetime / iSight camera
Multi-Touch display

Bear in mind that these are for the latest version.


Like @james_fuller said auto-hiding the doc and maximizing the app window (use the alt key when clicking maximize) will have the requested result. Some apps (Google Chrome) have custom behavior for the maximize button so Shiftit.app can be used to maximize those apps with a simple key command.


Have Apps with Notification Center Support Use Growl on Lion

For Mountain Lion

Hiss goes the other way (sends Growl notifications to the notification centre in Mountain Lion).

Growl 2.0 is on it's way and they've developed a new piece of code they call MIST which will send notifications:

to Growl if it's available; or
to notification centre if you don't have Growl.

This means if app developers use this code instead then people still on lion won't be unsupported.
Read more here http://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/13/next-version-of-growl-to-add-notification-center-support/

Update to ML when you can, it's awesome.

For Lion

I don't think there's anything (right now at least) to turn notification centre alerts into Growl alerts.


Migrate old files (with date created) to new mac

When you setup a new Mac, you're asked if you want to copy over documents, apps, settings, etc. from an old Mac. This happens using the program known as Migration Assistant. It is an easy and pretty foolproof way to migrate data from an old computer to a new computer.
My experience has been that Migration Assistant keeps your creation time stamps intact. It might be necessary to run this from the initial setup prompt to keep the time stamps intact - as opposed to running it manually later on.
If you have problems with the file time stamps, you can always manually copy them over later using a tool like rsync. I'm assuming that you only want to do this for some specific user files that you have, and not macOS system files - as they would be different for a new version of macOS on the new computer.


You can't change the contextual menu (activated by Control Click or "Right-Click") because it's embedded within the App; this includes the HTML code of a web page.

From Apple's Developer Documentation

  Contextual menus pop up when the user Control-clicks or right-clicks
  over an object. Safari presents different contextual menus when the
  mouse pointer is over the toolbar, Bookmarks bar, an extension bar,
  the tab bar, or the contents of a webpage.

  Your extension can add menu items to the contextual menu that pops up
  over web content. You control the actions of the menu item by
  installing a listener function for the "command" event in either your
  global HTML page or in an extension bar.

(Emphasis mine)

Essentially, what this is saying is that the developer of the (web) app sets the contents of the contextual menu.  If they don't set it, it will be the default for whatever is set in Safari/Chrome/Firefox/etc.

If your goal is to open a link in a new tab, hold Cmd while clicking to bypass the menu.  Holding Shift while clicking opens the link in a new window.  I have found these options quicker than right clicking as my left hand rarely leaves the keyboard and I don't have to parse through a menu to find the item I want.


MacBook Air doesn't power on with the power-on button

Have you tried resetting the SMC (System Management Controller)?

With charger plugged in, hold Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the keyboard, then press the Power.

  The LED on MagSafe power adapters might change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.

  Indicators that your SMC might need to be reset

  The computer fans run at high speed, though the computer is not experiencing heavy usage and is properly ventilated.
  The keyboard backlight behaves incorrectly on Mac computers that have this feature.
  The status indicator light (SIL) behaves incorrectly on Mac computers that have this feature.
  Battery indicator lights, if present, behave incorrectly on Mac notebooks that have a non-removable battery.
  The display backlight doesn't respond correctly to ambient light changes on Mac computers that have this feature.
  The computer doesn't respond to the power button when pressed.
  A Mac notebook computer doesn't respond properly when you close or open the lid.
  The computer sleeps or shuts down unexpectedly.
  The battery doesn't charge properly.
  The MagSafe power adapter LED doesn't indicate the correct activity.
  The computer is performing unusually slowly, though it isn't experiencing abnormally high CPU utilization.
  Application icons may bounce in the Dock for an extended amount of time when opened.
  Applications may not function correctly, or they may stop responding after being opened.
  A computer that supports target display mode does not switch into or out of target display mode as expected, or it switches into or out of target display mode at unexpected times.
  The illumination around the I/O ports on a Mac Pro (Late 2013) does not activate when you move the computer.

Source: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201295


How to check the version of an application installed with Homebrew (Mac)?

To see which version(s) of a particular utility you have installed using brew, e.g. gcc, use:
brew list --versions gcc


How to know the duration of battery usage in one session?

Starting with Mavericks (OS X 10.9), this is available in Activity Monitor. Open Activity Monitor from the /Applications/Utilities folder, and go to the Energy tab. The center pane of the statistics at the bottom of the window includes the amount of time since you last unplugged the charger, which appears shortly after you switch to battery power.


Updating Enterprise iOS apps remotely without Device Enrollment Program

Since no one could answered this I tested it out and found a solution using OSX Server and no need for DEP.

I turned on my macbook pro and purchased OSX server in the app store. Once installed you should be able to go to your local ip or whatever the host name is that your server assigns you, something like markuss-macbook-pro.local. Depending on your settings and network setup you may need to add this in DHCP or DNS, personally I have an Airport Express and the .local domain worked for other Apple devices out of the box.

I was unable to find this online but OSX server comes with Tutorials under Help->Tutorials which shows you how to add devices and push remotely. See the image to see what it looks like

Basically you need to enable the profile manager in the top right corner of the profile manager page and configure Device Management. Once this is done you can go to your url, something like myserver.local/mydevices/ on your iPad or iPhone (make sure you use Safari). If you don't have a valid ssl you will need to accept the insecure connection.

After this was done I was able to manage my device, push apps, change settings and wipe it as long as it was connected to my local network. It seems that you will need a valid domain and SSL certificate that points to your OSX server in order to have this done from any connection but I have not tested this final part.


Closing Preview documents without confirmation dialog AND without quitting Preview

Try using ⌘-⌫ (Command-Delete). I read the list of system keyboard shortcuts for documents, and it is near the very end, and I just tried it, as I have had the same question for a few years now. Previously, I had not read far enough before giving up.


Any other way to move cursor to the end of line, instead of +

I am using Ctrl+e to move to the last letter and Ctrl+a to move to the first letter.

Remember that Emacs commands, work also in the Terminal.


Restore from Time Machine backup from within macOS

Try Migration Assistant.

On your new Mac:
Open Migration Assistant, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
Click Continue.
When asked how you want to transfer your information, select the option to transfer from a Mac, Time Machine backup, or startup disk.
Click Continue.


There's been a couple of threads about this issue on SuperUser. I was just looking mostly for information on the ulimit command but that apparently doesn't work, it seems like there may be some solutions on that link though.


Sound balance keeps changing on High Sierra and Mojave

So i found a solution on Reddit with the AppleScript but this did not work completely form me because it was throwing errors sometime:
"System Events got an error: Can’t get tab group 1 of window 1 of process \"System Preferences\". Invalid index." number -1719 from tab group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"
original source of the code: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/34qmn0/is_there_a_shortcut_or_command_to_switch_the_lr/
Original code:
tell application "System Preferences"
     activate
     reveal anchor "output" of pane id "com.apple.preference.sound"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
     tell slider 1 of group 1 of tab group 1 of window 1 of process "System Preferences"
          set value to 0.5
     end tell
end tell
tell application "System Preferences"
     quit
end tell

Working code
I made some changes to the code:
tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    reveal anchor "output" of pane id "com.apple.preference.sound"
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "System Preferences"
        repeat until exists tab group 1 of window "Sound"
        end repeat
        tell slider 1 of group 1 of tab group 1 of window "Sound"
            set value to 0.5
        end tell

    end tell
end tell

tell application "System Preferences"
    quit
end tell

i saved my code in ~/Applications/FixSoundBalance.applescript
Cronjob way
And made a crontab crontab -e with the value:
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/osascript ~/Applications/FixSoundBalance.applescript >/dev/null 2>&1

And on Mojave, you need to give the first time permissions to Cron to access Accessibility (under Security & Privacy, tab privacy), after that, it works fine.
Alfred way
When you use the alfredapp https://www.alfredapp.com/, you can set the under Features -> Default Results -> Extras the checkbox AppleScripts then when you search for Fix... you get the script as result and you can run it directly. Then you do not need to set a cronjob.


Install Win10 x64 on MacBook Pro mid 2011 with Boot Camp

The correct way to burn the Windows iso file to a DVD using El Capitan would be to do the following.

Find the iso file in the Finder.
Right click on the file and select Burn Disk Image "File name" to
Disc....
Follow the instructions given in the pop up window.

If the Boot Camp Assistant application will not recognize the external DVD drive, then you can try the following.

Insert the burned DVD in the external DVD drive.
Restart type Mac and hold down the option key.
See if the DVD icon appears with the label "Windows" in the Startup
Manager.
Select the icon and see if you can boot from the DVD.

If you can boot from the DVD, you probably can use the external DVD drive to install Windows. First, you will need to create a MSDOS (FAT) formatted partition to install Window on to. This usually is the 4th partition on the drive.

If you can not boot from the external DVD drive, the one possible option would be to install directly from the Windows iso file. See web sites here and here for some examples of how to do this.

By the way, how did you acquire the Boot Camp Support Software? Did you use the Boot Camp Assistant to download or did you download from a web site?


launchctl starts my plist job much later than StartCalendarInterval

Since your per-user launch agent does actually execute, albeit later than scheduled, it is highly likely that your system may be asleep at the scheduled time. I would recommend reading through the man page by running the following command from a terminal session:

$ man 5 launchd.plist

Regarding the StartInterval option specifically, the man page has this to say:

  Unlike cron which skips job invocations when the computer is asleep,
  launchd will start the job the next time the computer wakes up.  If multiple intervals transpire before the computer is woken, those events will
  be coalesced into one event upon wake from sleep.

If you are working remotely, or not physically present at the scheduled time — which is not clear from your question — a good starting point would be to confirm that the system has not entered sleep mode prior to the scheduled time of your launch agent.


One way to do this would be to have two objects that are exactly the same except for the color, in exactly the same position, then have one build out and one build in at the same time, with the effect set to dissolve. Doesn't work quite right.

You could also have two identical slides except for the color change, then set the transition between the slides to dissolve.


Is there a remote file transfer solution for TextMate?

While TextMate doesn't have built-in FTP or SSH capabilities there are a few bundles for it that have tried to remedy this shortcoming.

In particular the FTP/SSH Bundle aims to provide what you seek: a way to define a "project" that can be synchronized (both up and down) with a remote file system. The bundle is a touch dangerous if you're using FTP as it requires your password be left in plaintext in the .ftpssh_settings file that you leave on disk at the root of your project folder to tell the plugin how to connect to your remote file system.

The other option, if you're not set on TextMate and just want something like TextMate, is to take a look at Sublime Text 2. I'll be honest, I was a die hard TextMate guy, but in the last six weeks Sublime Text 2 has won me over. The active development from the company on the product, the very active bundle community, and it's incredible speed when it comes to working on large files have really taken me in. There's an FTP, FTPS, SFTP plugin for ST2 that's a cut above the plugin for TM I mentioned above. It leverages keychain for password storage and doesn't require you keep your passwords in plaintext on disk for it to work. It also lets you set up mappings for remote <-> local connections directly from the editor UI.


Waking up rMBP via Keyboard Attached to TB Display Doesn't Work

Yep, I'm seeing the same thing. After deep sleep, my MBPR connected to my TB display won't wake up and starts spinning the CPU. I've only experienced this after I've shut my MBPR. The work around - I shutdown the MBPR now after I use it.


Alternative way to add Apps to LaunchPad

Take a look at Launchpad Cleaner.  Its a nice app for managing LaunchPad. They have a free and $5.00 version.


Is there a way to have the touch bar set permanently on the function keys?

System Preferences → Keyboard → Keyboard → Touch Bar shows ‘F1, F2, etc. Keys’.

Also set ‘Press fn key to Show Control Strip’ to use the Fn key to complete the inverting of the Touch Bar.


Insert third partition in previous 2-partition setup

1 TB? I presume that's a Fusion drive. Fusion drive can at most have 2 partitions.


Is it possible to download iTunes Extras?

No, iTunes Extras can only be watched while connected to the net.  It's not possible to download the Extras to watch without a connection.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203020


Is this possible? Prevent Live-Linux from booting and grabbing your files without encrypting your disc?

Your friend has no idea what he's talking about. You don't even need to use a Linux disc - you can use single user mode or a Mac OS X install disc to copy things or make changes to the filesystem.

To prevent someone from booting into single user mode or from an unauthorized disc or external drive, your friend can set a firmware password. However, this, too, is easily bypassed if you can open the computer and remove the drive, or alter the memory configuration. Simply put, if someone has physical access to a computer, encryption is the only way to protect your data.


I think this is a feature not a bug. different devices you may want to have different playlists for . However that's just my opinion. On the other hand I think if you sync your iPhone and iPad to the same machine and have them both sync all playlists then you should be good to go. However you will have do sync them both all the time to keep them synced lol . Another opinion here. I agree with you. Storing them in iCloud would be good


How can I chain a DVI display into a Thunderbolt display (and then into a MBP)

The Thunderbolt Display can't daisy chain other non-Thunderbolt Displays. Per Apple Support article HT5219:

  Can I connect a Mini DisplayPort display to my Apple Thunderbolt Display for computers that support using more than one display?

  Mini DisplayPort displays will not function if connected to the Thunderbolt port of an Apple Thunderbolt Display. Displays connected via Mini DisplayPort video adapter or cable to the Thunderbolt port of an Apple Thunderbolt Display will not work.

You'll have to connect the second display to the second Thunderbolt port (or HDMI port) on your rMBP.


This is an important question for anyone concerned with proper typesetting.

The solution is to click on your first body paragraph, create a new paragraph style (by pressing the 'plus' symbol at the drop-down style selector). Give it a unique name (such as 'Body - First Paragraph'). Under the 'Layout' tab, set the 'First' indent to 0. Under the 'More' tab, set the 'Following Paragraph Style' to 'Body'.

You can repeat the same process of setting the 'Following Paragraph Style' to 'Body - First Paragraph' for each of your heading level styles, if you do not want to change the style of the first paragraph manually.


I think your problem is that you may have removed an email or account that had all of your contacts stored! If this is the case, you need to try and get that account back on your phone!


If you take the "broken" piece in to the store (or call in to AppleCare) they can sell you a "replacement" piece as a "repair" part. Don't worry - it is a brand new piece, not something that is repaired. I think they cost around $10.

I don't think you can order just that piece - but it is included in the updated Apple World Travel Adapter Kit along with an iPad charger, USB cord and the worldwide plugs. This kit is $39 in the US.


Which part of the

mount: /dev/disc0: unknown special file or file system do you not understand.

7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC is unknown disk format it should be Apple_APFS or Apple_HFS

Hope you have a back up and can reformat the disk.


Is there a default confidentiality url I can link to?

You’ll want to host your metadata sites to avoid rejection in the review process. Something as simple as a GitHub static page should suffice if the content you post is correct and appropriate. Focus on getting the requirements satisfied and the hosting will sort itself out much easier.


How do I save images in Messages to my hard drive?

This isn't quite as quick as a script via Mac, but if you know there are a few specific convos that have most of the images, you can access them all at once:
- open message thread you want pics from
- keep scrolling up (tap on IOS clock to do quickly) as far back as you want pics
- tap on a photo
- once photo is open, you should be able to see a little "list" indicator on bottom right - 3 bullets & lines
- tapping the list icon will open all photos from that date forward
- you can browse through & save from there
- same procedure to take pics from camera roll & save to mac from there

Apologies if this was already obvious to you or not quite the shortcut you were hoping for - but it's what I've found useful as I only have a few people that I regularly exchange lots of photos with!


Which Apple Watch Faces Support Modular Large Complications

Start by referring to the Complications sections in the Apple's official watchOS Human Interface Guidelines:

Modular Large - Complications - App Architecture - watchOS - Human Interface Guidelines

  Modular Large

  These templates offer a large canvas for displaying up to three rows of content (for example, in the center of the Modular watch face).

Now if you look through the Watch Faces as available in watchOS 6.1, the following Watch Faces support displaying Modular Large Complications:

Infograph Modular

Modular

Modular Compact


When I reset my iPhone, will it deactive my service with my carrier?

The phone is connected to Verizon via the SIM card, not the phone itself. So, no, reseting your phone will not deactivate your service.


Running a cleanup of icloud desktop on load

Okay, I managed to work out the problem. Unfortunately, it was the usual culprit: The heavy privacy permissions system MacOS has been relying on since Catalina!
Since I was running the command from zsh in order to effectively get the correct user context for relative directories I had to the following:

Now, I am concerned that these somewhat defeats the purpose of this hardened security. I would really appreciate any information as to how it might be best to allow this to run without opening up my whole OS to zsh... Perhaps launchd or launchctl? I fear those are still quite open.


Yosemite converts your drive to Core Storage, which makes most Windows utilities that used to be able to read Mac drives, unable to do so. I'd suggest making an image of the drive. I'm not terribly familiar with Windows disk imaging software, but it looks like DAEMON Tools will get the job done. There's a "Lite" version that claims to be able to do it.


AppleScript bug: When placing plain text on the clipboard, the text is always converted to rich text

Maybe copying the text to the Pasteboard using Cocoa-AppleScript will only set plain text to paste to the RTF document.

Otherwise, use the following as a workaround:

set testString to "This string should be plain text." as string
do shell script "pbcopy <<<" & quoted form of testString

The previous mentioned workaround method adds a linefeed after testString to the Clipboard and if that's unwanted behavior, use:

set testString to "This string should be plain text." as string
do shell script "printf " & the quoted form of testString & " | pbcopy"

The other option is to use Paste and Match Style ⌥⇧⌘V instead of Paste ⌘V to match what's at the insertion point.


How does one remove FUSE from a MacBook?

In System Preferences >> Fuse, there's a "Remove Fuse" button.

Clicking remove should remove it completely.  Also, App Cleaner might be a good bet.


How to access iPhone Google Chrome history over 90 days ago?

You can use google chrome sync option to sync your chrome history on other devices. I believe this URL will helps you https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2591582?hl=en


Reset Screen Time with Forgotten Passcode

To verify your identity to reset the Screen Time passcode, you log in with your Apple ID. In your screenshot, it says ‘Sign in to iCloud…’ implying it’s not currently logged in. This means you can’t use the ‘forgot passcode’ functionality to reset the Screen Time passcode.


Setting and getting the system-wide default newline character

No, there is not any way to configure the newline character system wide.

Modern macOS applications typically use \n (Unicode character U+000A) as the line separator.

Applications developed for Classic Mac OS (i.e, Mac OS 9 and earlier) often used \r (Unicode U+000D) as a line separator, but this usage is extremely rare nowadays.

A good text editor will let you choose your line break:


iPhone App Store: can I install free apps using Face ID instead of my Apple ID password?

I ended up fixing it by enabling Face ID back:

Settings app, Face ID & Passcode, disable for iTunes & App Store
reboot the device (not sure that’s needed)
Settings, Face ID, enable for the App Store


Possible consequences of forced shut down

At boot time a file consistency check is performed, usually a quick check to see if the filesystem was unmounted cleanly. If the filesystem is dirty (not unmounted cleanly) then some form of fsck is performed. fsck attempts to fix filesystem metadata not a files actual data. So, there is always the potential for data loss. fsck will not fix some inconsistencies and at some point a filesystem can become inconsistent and cannot be repaired. So, it is best to avoid hard shutdowns though the filesystem is not fragile.


What is SafariDAVClient doing hogging up memory?

I ran into the same problem after updating to 10.7.2. SafariDAVClient also caused CPU-spikes all the time.

Disabling Bookmark Sync in the iCloud preferences, coupled with a reboot "solved" it.

It wouldn't hurt if you would file a bugreport with Apple as well. My ID is rdar://10280447, it's still open.


Jailbreaking a locked iPhone 4s with iOS 6

As of January 2013, there is no jailbreak for iOS 6. The reason is that iOS 6 introduced new security mechanisms and fixed the exploits that made the jailbreak possible on iOS 5.

You will have to wait.

Recent articles (December 2012):

Pod2g breaks silence on iOS 6 untethered jailbreak » Phone Reviews
Hacker: jailbreaking iOS 6 hard, 6.1 may prove impossible | iPodNN

Other good and curated jailbreaking news can be had at:

http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak (especially this thread on 6.x jailbreaking)
https://twitter.com/planetbeing
https://twitter.com/chpwn


My iphone 5c won't turn on, it just uzzes while plugged in

While the glass did not crack it is highly likely that the digitizer itself was broken. It's a little uncommon for this to happen but I've fixed my fair share of phones like this. You need a new screen. (Full screen replacement(digitizer and glass))


What terminal commands are new or updated in Mountain Lion?

AD user @patrix did a great AD blog post on new terminal commands in Mountain Lion. You can find it here: http://apple.blogoverflow.com/2012/07/interesting-new-unix-commandsbinaries-in-os-x-mountain-lion/


Easiest way to connect two non-thunderbolt monitors to my Macbook Pro 2017 and charge it at the same time?

Regarding your Satechi hub and the monitors:

"the monitor connected by Thunderbolt doesn't seem to be sending USB-A signals"

This is correct. You're not actually connecting the monitor by Thunderbolt, as the monitor does not support Thunderbolt at all. The monitor supports VGA, DisplayPort and HDMI, so you probably have a USB-C to DisplayPort cable or similar connecting the hub and the monitor. That cable will transfer a picture to the display, but it won't get the USB-A ports on the monitor working. To get the USB-A ports on the monitor working, you need to connect the upstream USB-B port on the monitor to one of the USB ports on your hub.

"More significantly, the USB-C port on the hub doesn't work for charging OR for display."

The USB-C port on the hub is not supposed to work for transferring a display signal. Only the HDMI video output port and the Thunderbolt 3 port on the hub have a display signal in them. This is also visible in the graphics in the link you have provided.

The USB-C port on the hub is also not supposed to work for charging. This is listed in the product description on your link: "Please note the second USB-C port is for data transfer use only." - i.e. no power delivery.

Alternatives

Instead of the Satechi hub product, you could look a other products that fit your requirements better:

For example the OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock takes up a single Thunderbolt 3 port on your laptop - leaving the other one free. It does so while providing a display signal for both monitors, charging your laptop and providing an addition 5 x USB-A ports, 1 x USB-C port, SD-card reader and Ethernet. It is priced at approx. 295$.

Another example is the CalDigit Pro Dock that similarly takes up a single Thunderbolt 3 port on your computer while allowing you to connect two displays, charge the laptop and have access to 3 x USB-A ports, 1 x USB-C, Ethernet and SD card reader. It is priced at approx. 200$.

Multiple similar Thunderbolt 3 docks exists at various price points from various manufacturers.


How do I stop iTunes from automatically assigning a hollow star rating to podcasts?

I'm not aware of any way to turn this off. Perhaps you could work around this issue by giving the podcast "album" a rating of 3 stars?

Then your smart playlist for delete could check for 2 star rating. Your smart playlist for "unreated" would check for 3 star rating. Your smart playlist for "keeper" could be 4+ stars…


Multiple Displays Crashes with El Capitan

This problem is well documented on the Apple forums. For the moment, until the next release of El Capitan, you can only run two monitors. The monitors must be connected to one video card. You do not have to remove the other card.

Please search the Apple forums for more details.


iMac (mid 2010, 27") minimum ram slots required to fill

Short answer to your question is YES.

But why would you limit the memory given the price of modules today?

According to Everymac.com, your "official" max is 16GB, however you can go all the way up to 32GB.  I personally used Crucial memory modules in my iMac and MacBook Pro with no problems

I would go with 2 16GB kits (a "kit" being 2 8GB modules) for a total of 32 GB RAM (a total of 4 8GB RAM modules).


How to reflect the names from one subnet to other

It appears you will need to create a Bonjour proxy to bridge the subnets. See Using Bonjour Across Subnets:

  The Bonjour proxy functionality that is built-in to the dns-sd command line program is the simplest solution to set up initially, but it can be difficult to maintain. Important to note is that although the man page for dns-sd says it first appeared on Mac OS 10.3 this is not true. It will run on 10.3, but it did not ship with the OS until Mac OS 10.4.

A summary of three approaches is available:

  The three ways to provide Bonjour service discovery across subnets or on a wide area network (WAN) are multicast routing, unicast DNS, or a Bonjour proxy for each service on every subnet. Each of these methods has advantages and disadvantages. In most situations, deciding factors will be the upfront effort required to setup the solution and the ongoing maintenance required to support the configuration.


MacBook Pro not booting off OS X Mavericks USB Drive

You can't use the Mac App Store build of 10.9.1 on Late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro's. That's why there is a separate 10.9.1 update for only those machines. You need to use Internet Recovery (Command-Option-R on boot) to install 10.9.1 and not the App Store version. The build number is 13B3109 for the Late 2013 rMBP while it's 13B43 for the App Store version. You can make a USB flash drive of the correct build but you need need to boot with Internet Recovery, start the install on a partition and when it restarts to finish the install you hold the option key down and boot from another partition with an already installed correct build (13B3109) and in a hidden directory on the partition you chose to install, there is an InstallESD.dmg you can then copy and use to create a USB flash installer for that build.

Now that 10.9.2 is released, the Mac App Store build will work on the Late 2013 rMBP as well as all the other Macs with the possible exception of the new Mac Pro.


Mac OS asking for password too early/often

Go to System Preferences > Security and Privacy > General and disable Require Password.


How to mass delete your photos in your iPhone?

From http://www.idownloadblog.com/2014/02/28/how-to-delete-photos-from-your-iphone/

How to delete all photos from iPhone

The following method is without a doubt the fastest and most efficient way to mass delete photos from your Camera Roll. You can choose to delete one or hundreds of photos at once, and get the job done in less time that it takes to say it.

1) Plug your iPhone in your Mac. Launch the application called Image Capture. You might not have heard of it before, but it comes with all Macs. It should be somewhere in your Applications folder.

Note to Windows users: I do not have a Windows machine to test this on, but if my memory is correct, you can achieve the same thing by going to “My Computer” and look for your iPhone, which should appear as cameras normally do on PC. Don’t quote me on this though. Hopefully, some commenters that have a Windows PC will be able to give us more details about that.

2) Make sure your iPhone or iPad is selected from the “Devices” list in the left navigation bar.

3) Select as many photos as you want to delete. If you want to delete all of them in one scoop, hit the “Command + A” keys on your keyboard to select all photos.

4) Click on the red delete icon at the bottom of the screen.

5) You will get one last chance to stop the mass removal of your pictures. Image Capture will ask you if you’re sure you want to delete the selected items permanently. Click Delete. All the photos will be wiped from your iPhone or iPad.


Secondary display with VGA connection resolution issue with Macbook Pro under Snow Leopard

Either the VGA cable you are using (or DVI-VGA adaptor, if you're using that) isn't correctly wired for EDID monitor identification, or the monitor itself is sending incorrect EDID information.

Try another VGA cable (or DVI-VGA adaptor, if you're using one) and see if that resolves the problem.  If not, it's likely that your monitor doesn't implement EDID over the VGA connector correctly.


How do I export my iPhone Messages to a PDF file?

Phoneview will retrieve your messages and export them to PDF, XML, or text.  (It also does a lot more, pulling files off your phone, letting you dig into application storage, archiving voice mail, etc.)

They offer a 7-day trial to see if it will work for you.

I'm not aware of any way to do this with the stock software.


What is special in /Applications/ folder?

With the exception of installing app with package manager, there is no special events if you only copy application to any folders. The preferences stored in Library or Application Support are created when you run the application for the first time.


Check out Apple Thunderbolt Display:

http://www.apple.com/displays/

It's a Thunderbolt - Firefwire, USB, Ethernet, and Thunderbolt adapter.


75 GB is missing under 'Other volumes' category

First, nothing is really missing. An APFS container composed in this manner looks like this in Terminal and Disk Utility.

A standard boot volume APFS container in Catalina accommodates five volumes:

a preboot volume (your disk1s2)
a recovery volume (your disk1s3)
a VM volume (your disk1s4)
a read-only mounted system volume (your disk1s7)
a read-write mounted data volume (probably your disk1s1)

The last two are combined in one APFS volume group.

Your container disk0s2 houses two additional data volumes  (disk1s5 and disk1s6) though. Both adhere to the standard naming scheme of the default read-write mounted data volume of an APFS boot container: [name_of_main_volume] & [ - Data]. The larger of the two additional data volumes (disk1s6) is not mounted and therefore "missing".

Considering the size of the various data volumes disk1s6 is probably your former data volume. I assume that it was replaced by the very small disk1s1 data volume in the APFS volume group accidentally.

To solve your problem additional info (as stated in my comments) is required.


Is there an application that can see hand gestures to turn on the screen and scroll?

There may not be an 'app for that' but you can do what I see in many Chinese take-out places - put some cling plastic wrap over the screen like they do with the keys of the cash-registers. OtterBox also makes cases with screen protectors. Cling wrap is far less expensive, though.


Is there a way to turn off flat UI in MacOS Sierra?

No, you can't revert back to the UI of previous versions of OS X with Apple's tools.

You can, however, make the UI elements stand out more.

macOS Sierra: Increase the UI's contrast

Open System Preferences > Accessibility > Display
Tick the checkbox "Increase contrast"

Description

  Increase contrast

  Increase the contrast of items on the screen (such as borders around
  buttons or boxes) without changing the contrast of the screen itself.

Source: Apple.com


How to resize an image in Keynote or Pages?

Select the picture, then in the Arrange tab uncheck Constrain Proportions [you may have to revert to original size before that will un-grey.

Then dragging the image by any edge will stretch.

If you need to crop, that's in Image - Edit Mask [though crop doesn't constrain anyway]


A better alternative for source code file browsing than finder+quicklook?

BBEdit is able to have multiple documents open at one time and then there is a left side sidebar you can easily change between documents. In the menu bar go to VIEW > Show Sidebar. It appears to keep your highlights and scrolling of each document. You can use BBEdit for free without paying for it as well but it will ask for you to pay for the first couple weeks. BBEdit has markers, grep find/replace, and multi-file search as well. Sounds like a lot of what you want.


Open fullscreen apps to left of Desktop 1 space

Up to the current macOS (10.14.2), there is no way to change the default position of full-screen application.


15" Macbook Pro: Radeon 555 or Radeon 560?

Introduction
I think we need to agree that both of these graphics cards are the best they have ever been in a MacBook Pro. Naturally, the type of card you require is heavily dependent on the work you plan to do with the MacBook Pro (you didn't mention it). If you don't yet own one of the devices and are simply doing some research before you buy (as one should), you may find the next generation (releasing around June 2018) may be a better alternative - ahh, when will the time ever be right!?

Notable Differences

The AMD Radeon Pro 560 has twice the memory of the AMD Radeon Pro 555 (4GB vs 2GB respectively).
The AMD Radeon Pro 560 has about 10% greater Clock Speed than its rival (925 MHz vs 850 MHz respectively).
The AMD Radeon Pro 560 has around 25% lower thermal design power (TDP) (75W vs 100W respectively, lower is better).

Reports
There are GPU benchmarking sites like GPUBoss and Notebook Check if you are interested in further reads. Otherwise the difference is next to none.


Disabling wifi password sync between Apple TV and iPhone

You need to disable Keychain sync.
This will affect all keychain items; you can't selectively choose which items will sync.
On the Mac, it's System Prefs > iCloud > Keychain
iOS is Settings > [Your name] > iCloud > Keychain
In all honesty, I'd avoid this. Change a password on any web site & you'll have to manually change it on every device that needs to access the same resource; or prevent passwords from being saved entirely.
The other thing to perhaps consider is that WPA already uses a different (pairwise) key per device, even if it shares the same password (PSK). Adding one password per device is no more secure, at consumer-level, merely more difficult to admin.


Cobook deleted all blank lines in Contacts' notes

I wrote an AppleScript to re-create the blank lines that were deleted. It's only approximate – it has to make certain imperfect guesses about when to insert a line, but it's better than nothing.

-- Contacts newline reflow
-- Reintroduces paragraph separation into contacts' notes
-- after a bug in Cobook deleted all blank lines.
-- (Fixed in Cobook v. 1.1.1: http://blog.cobook.co/post/43633583273/cobook-with-google-maps)

-- Based on Nigel Garvey's work at MacScripter
-- http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=153540#p153540

-- Get all the people IDs and notes in one go, for efficiency.
tell application "Contacts" to set {theIDs, theFirstNames, theLastNames, theCompanies, theOrgs, theNotes} to {id, first name, last name, company, organization, note} of people

-- Store the current text item delimiter(s) and set the delimiter to linefeed.
set astid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to linefeed -- this may now be unnecessary

try
    -- Work through the parallel lists of IDs and notes obtained above.
    repeat with i from 1 to (count theIDs)
        -- Get the next value from the note list.
        set thisNote to item i of theNotes
        -- If it's not 'missing value', there IS a note for this person.

        if (item i of theCompanies is false) then
            set theName to (item i of theFirstNames) & " " & (item i of theLastNames)
        else
            set theName to (item i of theOrgs)
        end if

        if (thisNote is not missing value) then
            -- Split the note text into paragraphs.
            set theParagraphs to thisNote's paragraphs
            set newParagraphs to {}

            -- PGP block state machine:
            -- 0 not in PGP block
            -- 1 First line of PGP block (always "-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----")
            -- 2 In PGP block header, not first line
            -- 3 In PGP block body, first line
            -- 4 In PGP block body, not first line
            -- 5 Last line of PGP block (always "-----END PGP MESSAGE-----")

            set pgpBlockState to 0

            repeat with k from 1 to (count theParagraphs)
                set thisParagraph to (item k of theParagraphs)
                set appendEmptyParagraph to true

                if pgpBlockState is 0 then
                    if (thisParagraph contains "BEGIN PGP MESSAGE") then
                        set pgpBlockState to 1
                    end if
                else if pgpBlockState is 1 then
                    if thisParagraph contains ":" then
                        set pgpBlockState to 2
                    else
                        set pgpBlockState to 3
                    end if
                else if pgpBlockState is 2 then
                    if thisParagraph does not contain ":" then
                        set pgpBlockState to 3
                    end if
                else if pgpBlockState is 3 then
                    set pgpBlockState to 4
                else if pgpBlockState is 4 then
                    if (thisParagraph contains "END PGP MESSAGE") then set pgpBlockState to 5
                else if pgpBlockState is 5 then
                    set pgpBlockState to 0
                end if

                -- Alter output according to pgpBlockState
                if (pgpBlockState is not 0) then set appendEmptyParagraph to false
                if (pgpBlockState is 3) then set end of newParagraphs to "" -- this is a hack, not clean

                -- Conditions under which we don't want a newline
                if (length of thisParagraph < 30) then set appendEmptyParagraph to false
                if (length of thisParagraph > 1 and first character of thisParagraph = "-") then set appendEmptyParagraph to false
                if (length of thisParagraph > 1 and first character of thisParagraph = "•") then set appendEmptyParagraph to false

                if (thisParagraph is not equal to "") then set end of newParagraphs to thisParagraph -- delete any manual paragraph separation
                if (appendEmptyParagraph) then set end of newParagraphs to "" -- remember, newParagraphs is a list, not a string
            end repeat

            if (count of newParagraphs) > 0 then
                -- Get the number of the last "non-empty" one.
                repeat with j from (count newParagraphs) to 1 by -1
                    if ((count item j of newParagraphs) > 0) then exit repeat
                end repeat

                -- Coerce the paragraphs (up to the last non-empty one) to a single text, using the linefeed delimiter.
                set editedNote to (items 1 thru j of newParagraphs) as text

                tell application "Contacts" to set note of person id (item i of theIDs) to editedNote
                log "Updated entry for: " & theName
            else
                log "Skipping / no note for: " & theName -- handles Exchange-based notes, which don't equal "missing value" even when blank
            end if

        end if
    end repeat
on error msg
    display dialog msg buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end try

-- Restore the old delimiter value.
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to astid

-- Save the Contacts changes.
tell application "Contacts" to save
--> Returns 'missing value'. No known significance.

There's a long section in the middle which handles PGP blocks that might appear in your address book. It may seem like overkill, but those blocks are super-sensitive to having correct newline placement. If you lack the proper newlines, GPGTools (in its current state) will simply fail when you try to decrypt them and give no useful error indicating the problem.

To run this just paste it in AppleScript Editor and click Run. Pro forma warning: Back up your contacts beforehand.


Decimal separator setting for the Spotlight calculator

You can change the settings from the Advanced...button in the Language & Region preference pane.

Remember that you have to either reboot or log out for the changes to be applied to Spotlight!


With a data transfer of 50 GB estimated 5 hours, are USB-C claimed speeds inaccurate or to blame?

The bus speed you quote is a theoretical maximum and not that the bus somehow speeds up any and all storage connected to it.

An analogy would be quoting the vehicle capacity of a 10 lane highway that’s perfectly packed with cars, all of which drive themselves bumper to bumper in perfect coordination. With good buffering, ideal behavior, no hiccups you can hit the benchmark “specs” on the nose every time.

In practice, there are lane changes, no cars waiting to enter the traffic pattern, or just everyone driving in the left lane. (Let alone spiking the breaks or cutting others off ...)

Back to computers, my advice is to open the Activity Monitor app and look at the Disk tab. Specifically the IOPS and data rates are different constraints.

IO is like getting all the vehicles on and off the highway so you’ll have low transfer rates when there are lots of small delays and metadata being read from slow storage. That's on the left side and in the chart when IO is selected.

Your graph shows an IO constrained transfer, the system is spending more time locating the next group of bits to transfer, it can’t likely fill up the max transfer of the drive. Most consumer drives can absorb 20 MBps to 60 MBps and most Macs can put out hundreds and NVMe ssd on recent Macs thousands of MBps and IOps.

Bandwidth is another constraint similar to the on ramps and off ramps - your sending and receiving device might be the bottleneck. That's the data read/sec on the right and shown above.

Without any specific data measurements, hopefully the high level description of what to look for and how to think of the bus speed helps you sort out if you brought too fast an expectation to devices that can’t deliver or if everything is capable of fast transfers and you have a configuration / software / hardware issue in hand to diagnose and optimize.

My hunch is the speed estimate is conservative, Finder is single threading the transfer and your bottleneck is a consumer grade external drive (HDD or slower flash storage) and you'd be able to get 60% of the max with a more efficient transfer and a fast Thunderbolt 3 type storage device attached: https://www.virtuallyghetto.com/2019/06/thunderbolt-3-enclosures-with-single-dual-quad-m-2-nvme-ssds-for-esxi.html


You can try hiding it and then setting a long delay before it appears.
Something like:
defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 10000 && killall Dock


Looking for a screen measuring app for macOS

Cmd-shift-4 brings up a screen capture utility. As you move the new cursor it displays the number of pixels you move in x and y directions. So you can easily measure pixel distance between 2 points. You don't have to capture the screen area, just opt out of that option.

I've also used the app PixelStick ($7 but free trial) that brings up a screen measuring tool. It lists current pixel, the distance between pixels, and the angle between two pixels. You can calibrate the pixel distance to other scales and has a built in map mode. It also has a screen capture button and a color grabber.


How can I add my iCloud email account in Windows Live Mail?

The recomended way to sync iCloud email is through Outlook, as per Apple's iCloud PC setup guide

However as you are asking about Windows Mail I'm assuming you do not have Outlook. In this case you have the option to forward iCloud emails to your other email address (the one you used to setup iCloud perhaps) and route this into Windows Mail.

You should also check that all the fields are correct. Use the iCloud Mail server information for this.


iphone - is the hotspot isolated (can you see other devices)?

Personal Hotspot is designed for sharing a cellular data connection, not for acting as a wireless access point or router. This means that multiple devices connected to the same iOS device cannot connect to one another - they can only access the Internet (assuming the cellular data connection is active). Unfortunately I can't find any Apple documentation to confirm this, but have seent his from personal experience.

Your best solution is to purchase a portable wireless access point and connect all of your devices to that.

Hootoo makes a dependable and well supported line of travel routers starting at $20. Models get better features and even built in batteries for another $10 and $20 respectively.

https://www.amazon.com/HooToo-Wireless-Performance-TripMate-Hotspot/dp/B00HZWOQZ6


Is there a way to get the TV sound being played on a MacBook Pro via HDMI?

No.  This cannot be done.
Your MacBook doesn't have HDMI ports; they are Thunderbolt 3 ports meaning the display signal you're getting from it is DisplayPort.  So, they will not support ARC* (HDMI technology) as mentioned in the comments.  Secondly, the DisplayPort signal is one way; it's video out.
The Mac isn't designed to be an monitor with audio/video capabilities; it's not an HDMI endpoint device, it's the source.  This would be like asking your TV to send audio or video to your XBox or DVD player.
Now, this doesn't mean you can't input sound into your Mac; obviously it can because it has a line input port.  What you need to do is extract the audio channel from the HDMI with an HDMI Audio De-Embedder/Extractor then take the audio via a 3.5mm cable and input it into the Mac. You can then use a product like Audio Hijack or Soundflower to route the audio from the Line-In to the speakers.
While this is obviously possible, sending this into a computer will inherently introduce a audio delay as it has to be processed by the Mac.  Remember, your Mac isn't an amplifier where the audio is simply boosted, it's being processed.  Even a 1/4 second delay will be very noticeable and quite distracting.  Since you can't introduce a video delay on your LG, there will be no way to overcome this.
Bottom line...
Buy a cheap set of speakers or a soundbar for the TV.  A lot of the Bluetooth speakers have a AUX input and the LG TVs have a 3.5mm output.  If not, you can always get the HDMI audio extractor.

* Audio Return Channel. Wikipedia:  HDMI Ethernet and Audio Return Channel.


FileVault 2 Login Issues on OpenLDAP Network with Admin, Managed, Mobile Account on Lion 10.7.4

FileVault 2 uses the GeneratedUID user attribute to save who is permitted to unlock an encrypted volume. If the GeneratedUID of a user differs from what was generated (or pulled from LDAP) when FileVault 2 was enabled, the user will not be permitted to unlock the machine, as their account will appear to be unavailable at the EFI menu. Also, this causes the crash of System Preferences on their Mac whenever they try to access the Security & Privacy prefpane.

This problem arises when /usr/bin/mcxrefresh runs and pulls a null value or a value different than what is stored locally from LDAP (if the attribute isn't defined for the user in question or is defined incorrectly, respectively), overwriting the GeneratedUID stored locally (which is generated and only stored locally when FileVault 2 is enabled without a matching LDAP attribute).

In other words, if an apple-generateduid value exists in LDAP for a user and is mapped properly on the users Mac to the GeneratedUID attribute, FileVault 2 will not generate a new value, but will instead use the value stored in LDAP.

I was able to resolve this issue by adding an attribute called apple-generateduid to the LDAP entry of any user experiencing this issue.  I could generate a random value for this attribute in Python by running the following one-liner from my terminal:

python -c 'import uuid; print str(uuid.uuid4()).upper();'

This isn't the only step, however. You must also add a mapping for this attribute on the client side. This is easily done using the following steps:

Open System Preferences.
Click Users & Groups.
Click Login Options.
Click on the Unlock Icon.
Under Network Account Server, click Edit.
Click to highlight your directory server.
Under Services, double-click on your directory service (in my case, it was LDAPv3)
In the window that slides open, highlight your configuration name, and then click the Edit... button.
Under Search & Mappings scroll down and single-click on Users to highlight it.
Click the Add button (the left one).
Choose GeneratedUID from the list of available Attribute Types.
In the right column, click the Add button, and type apple-generateduid. Click OK to save the changes until you're back at the main System Preferences dialog.
At this point a mapping from GeneratedUID to apple-generateduid has been created. Now when OS X looks up the GeneratedUID value it will get the value of apple-generateduid from the user in questions LDAP entry.

Finally, it's important that the locally stored value of GeneratedUID and value stored on LDAP match. Run the following command and make sure the two GeneratedUID values match:

dscl /Search search /Users GeneratedUID $(dscl . read /Users/$(echo $USER) GeneratedUID | cut -d " " -f2)


How long does the battery last on mid-2011 MacBook Airs?

Battery Life
Apple's documentation states that the battery of the Macbook Air performs just like the batteries of the Macbook Pro:

The built-in battery of your MacBook, MacBook Pro or MacBook Air is
designed to deliver up to 1000 full charge and discharge cycles before
it reaches 80 percent of its original capacity.

In addition, Adaptive
Charging reduces the wear and tear on the battery giving it a lifespan
of up to 5 years.

During this lifespan the batteries will have a fast charge to 80% of the current battery capacity (2-3 hours). [source]

Battery Maintenance

Do not leave your Macbook plugged in all the time. The battery juices need to move from time to time. It's recommended that you charge and discharge the battery at least once per month.

Temperature: Keeping your Mac at room temperature (22°C/72°F) is ideal.

Long Term Storage: Apple recommends that you store the battery with a 50% charge, if you are not planning on using it for at least half a year.

The innovation in the design of the battery of the Macbook Air was not about increasing capacity, but about the ability to manufactures them very thin. The batteries of the Macbook Air are located towards the thin end of the Macbook Air.


Get the .dic and .aff files from

https://github.com/titoBouzout/Dictionaries

And put them in home/library/spelling


Can the spacing of menu bar apps be modified in Big Sur?

Actually, there appears to be some way to do this, since the newest version of Bartender allows you to change or remove spacing in the menu bar. The app is free in beta (and, accordingly, still has a few wrinkles still to be ironed out) and will cost $15 once the final version is released.
To change the spacing with Bartender, install the app, open the preferences window, and under "General" change "Menu bar item spacing" to "Small Spacing." After logging out and back in (or, if that doesn’t work, rebooting), the changes should take effect.


What app places a lower-case 'd' icon in the menu bar?

It's gfxCardStatus in discrete graphics mode.

what the menu bar icons mean:
i — you're using the integrated GPU.
d — you're using the higher-powered discrete GPU.


Pages: Make auto dash to break a word to new line (hyphenation-Greek)

Apple has never provided any spellcheck or related tools for Greek in OS X.  You have to try 3rd party tools, like the ones mentioned at

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15810593#15810593


Is there a multi-tabbed terminal emulator for macOS that can be run with a different $SHELL on each invocation?

This answer is not using $SHELL, but achieves the same result and more easily.
iTerm2 profiles, as well as setting colour scheme, can use a specific shell for each profile.
As an example I have set the builtin Red Sands profile to bash and not the default login shell (zsh).
In the menu choose Profiles -> Open Profiles.

Add profiles or modify them with "Edit Profiles...". Here is Red Sands with a custom shell.

Now return to the main iTerm2 window and, in the menu bar, choose Profiles -> Red Sands.  This opens a new tab running bash.

Taking this a step further (you want to run ssh for remote access) you can run a command when starting the shell/tab. Here I have added an ssh command to my Red Sands profile.

So setup however many profiles you want for the different shells and actions you need.
Note: My iTerm2 expertise is at the beginner level. I am sure you can do much better than me and, if not, someone else will have a better answer.


How to create an alias with drag and drop?

You must press command + option while dragging.


Unable to reinstall OS X on Macbook Air despite trying several different methods

The best thing you can do is to create a bootable USB disk with any new OS X of your choice. Please see Apple support page to create a bootable disk. I guess, it will solve your installation issues with your MBA.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372


You can't just run an iOS app on macOS; they're different operating systems. You can use the iOS Simulator bundled with Xcode, but even then you can't use the same .app file, because the CPU architecture of the iPad and your Mac are different. If it's your own app, it's easiest just to build & run from Xcode; you can 'install' .app files from another source by copying them to the right folder in Finder. They will of course only run if they specifically built for the Simulator.


CentOS 6.x for CUDA development on a MBP

I don't think you'll be able to do this. I tried RHEL and it locked up on load. Same results on Fedora 16. I did successfully install Fedora 17 but was unable to get dynamic video card switching to work. Nor was I able to get the Nvidia card to work. I believe you have to run dual X servers and map the second card to your DFP out based on other posts. Additionally, heat and power consumption are increased since it never powers off the NVidia card. I did a lot of playing with Bumblebee and switching configurations for the Nouveau driver since the Nvidia driver yields a black screen. However, it wasn't switching properly. I believe the best I ever had it working was to run on the Intel card with hardware acceleration using the Nouveau driver. I would not recommend it as a CUDA platform at this time. There is a reasonable amount of contrib energy focused in this direction though and I don't think it will be too long before it is working. The Linux kernel has had support related to this being implemented as well.


Switching Apple ID on Iphone to different region to download games

1) Nothing happens to your contacts or call making functionality. You will still be able to make calls, and this does not affect calling rates at all.

2) Yes, progress in old apps will be kept. No data on the phone is deleted.

3) No, existing App Store subscriptions will not be cancelled when you sign out.


My Chrome on Mac (with Mac OS Sierra) always starts with feed.snowbitt.com when I run it

Go to Chrome > Preferences... by pressing ⌘, or by typing chrome://settings/ into the Address Bar.

Under the On start-up settings, make sure you have selected Open the New Tab page and not some specific page, which in your case is: "feed.snowbitt.com"


My iCloud account name and AirDrop name do not match

Try opening Sharing under System Preferences, then change the name there. It should change your AirDrop name.


Prevent terminal tabs from auto-renaming

Using iTerm2 you actually have an option for that:
Just uncheck Preferences->Profiles->Your Profile->Terminal->Terminal may set tab/window title.


What are the possibilities to connect intenet from stolen iphone?

Your stolen / locked iPhone can get an internet connection if :

A / your SIM card without pin is installed;
A know wifi network is in the area and if the "Ask to join network" feature is disabled;
Your SIM card is still inside and the guy don't turn off your phone


How can I create an option in the print PDF pop up menu with Automator?

Simply putting an Alias to the application in the Library/PDF Services folder (either the User's Library folder or the root level /Library folder) should be sufficient to send the PDF from the print menu's "Save As PDF" button to any application.
This should have the same effect as opening the document with the app, or dropping it on the app's icon. It may depend what the app does with incoming documents.


Keyboard layout keeps reverting since upgrade to High Sierra

I had the exact same problem: a custom keyboard layout that had worked just fine on macOS 10.12 Sierra suddenly refused to work with default applications and applications installed from App Store after updating to macOS 10.13 High Sierra. OS would always revert back to default keyboard layout of my region (Finnish). This got me thinking and I managed to fix the layout I use so that it now works with all apps, not just those installed from homebrew.

The trick is to modify your custom layout so that it is set to your current region. You can do this by either modifying the bundle manually or using Ukelele.

1. Editing the layout with Ukelele

Download and install Ukelele from for example homebrew. When you open the app open your custom layout from file or if you have it currently active you can create new bundle based on it by choosing ‘File’ → ‘New from current input source’. After you have it open you must set correct language (and possibly region) for it from ‘Language…’ settings found from ‘Keyboard Layouts’ tab. The language doesn't have to match the language of the OS and I don't know if the region has anything to do with this issue (Ukelele says it's optional) but setting it to your region can't hurt.

After setting the language from the ‘Keyboard Layouts’ tab you need to set the localisation from ‘Localisations’ tab. If there is already a locale line in the list you can edit it by double clicking it and setting the language (still doesn't have to match the language of the OS), if not you can add a new one with the button with a ‘+’ sign on it. Setting the region is optional here as well but better safe than sorry. After this you can save the bundle and jump to installing and enabling your layout.

2. Editing the layout manually

Keyboard layout bundles are actually just directories with certain structure, so you can also edit them manually from command line. What do you need to do is to cd into the Your.bundle/Contents and edit Info.plist by adding KLInfo_<your-layout-name> dict. Here's an example of the Info.plist from the layout I'm using:

<?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>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
        <string>com.apple.keyboardlayout.arkkudvorak</string>
        <key>CFBundleName</key>
        <string>ArkkuDvorak</string>
        <key>CFBundleVersion</key>
        <string>1.0</string>
        <key>KLInfo_ArkkuDvorak</key>
        <dict>
                <key>TISInputSourceID</key>
                <string>com.apple.keyboardlayout.arkkudvorak.arkkudvorak</string>
                <key>TISIntendedLanguage</key>
                <string>fi-FI</string>
        </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

The main thing here is to include your language and region abbreviations as string value for TISIntendedLanguage. I guess TISInputSourceID can be anything as long as it's prefixed by CFBundleIdentifier.

After you've set the language and region you can save and close the Info.plist file. You still need to edit the directory struture a bit though. cd into Your.bundle/Contents/Resources and rename the <something>.lproj into <language>_<REGION>.lproj, in my case fi_FI.lproj. After you've done that you're done with the changes.

3. Installing and enabling your layout

After correcting the language, region and localisation settings and saving the bundle move it to /Library/Keyboard Layouts/ if you didn't edit it directly from there. Restart your computer, re-add the layout from ‘System ‘Preferences’ → ‘Keyboard’ → ‘Input Sources’ and it should now work with all apps.

This did it for me, let me know if it worked for you.

Disclaimer: I'm not the author of the ArkkuDvorak bundle, I just use it.


Identify connected external disks programmatically

Have you considered using diskutil info /dev/disk[n|s{n}] | grep Ejectable which allows you to identify whether the device (or device slice) is ejectable.

This would need to be expanded upon in a script using awk to work through each disk device that is currently attached to determine whether it can be ejected and then eject it.


How can I access the keychain remotely from the command line?

In reproducing this to investigate, I notice that I have my keychain configured to “Confirm before allowing access.” So when I perform the find-internet-password locally with the -g flag, I get a dialog box stating security wants to use your confidential information stored in “smtp.gmail.com” in your keychain. If I click “Allow” then it works, if I click “Deny” it fails similarly to the ssh case, with a return code of 51.

When I try the command remotely via ssh, the -g immediately results in failure, with the status of 36 that you are reporting.

I suspect that this is because, when you ssh in, there is no way for the system to pop up a dialog box allowing you to confirm that you want to allow the security command to access this information.

I was able to get the command to work while connected by ssh by first clicking the “Always Allow” option when running the command locally. This updates the permissions in Keychain so that I no longer need to respond to the dialog (even locally), which allows it to work remotely too.

I don’t know if this will be entirely helpful to you, however, as I think it means you will need to preemptively grant the security program access to any keychain items you may want to access remotely. It may be possible to write a script to do this?

If you are experimenting with this manually and later want to revoke this access, you can go to the affected item in Keychain Access, choose Get Info and look at the Access Control tab. You will see an entry for security there, which you can delete:


How to switch keyboard layout on right cmd press

Here you go! https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner

disregard below, only there for history.

~Sadly I did a lot of research on the modifier keys for OS X a while ago, and you cannot differentiate left and right cmd modifiers.~ However the keybind normally for changing keyboard configuration is cmd-control-space for myself. Thats the normal configuration to select the next input source.

This is kind of like the annoying fn modifier that has no use but Functions 1-12. But that can be fixed with software.

Would have posted as comment, but I can't post commends yet.

edit: Oh, and shortcuts always require two key presses. A modifier and a primary. Otherwise things wouldn't operate quite normally if you understand what I mean. Such as allowing an [a-z] key to be launching an app.


install apps from app store on icloud locked iphone

A phone that is activation locked denies you all functionality around the USB port while the iOS runs as well as all functionality of the multitouch screen other than being able to connect to a network or make an emergency phone call.

You can put the device into restore mode and re-load an iOS version on iTunes if that version is currently signed by apple, but after that, you are still denied the USB and multitouch functionality needed to complete the setup assistant screens or connect the device over USB to a computer for meaningful work.

See How can I bypass Activation Lock? for details on why Activation Lock is hard to bypass.


What can someone access on my iPhone if they set up their iCloud account on my device?

You can not remove their iCloud account without their password.
The can access everything you allow to synchronise with their iCloud account.
You can turn off all iCloud settings except Find My iPhone without their password.
They can also lock your iPhone and or erase your iPhone.

So basically the can find your iPhone at any given time.

When your transaction is done make sure they remove their iCloud account completely!


Does the CDMA iPhone 4S support simultaneous voice and data on Verizon

The limitation of simultaneous voice and data is not one of the iPhone but one related to the CDMA2000 standard.

However, the official CDMA Development group announced the CMDA X standard on Aug 17 2009. This standard allows for simultaneous voice and data:

Quoting the press release

A complementary device enhancement known as simultaneous 1X Voice and EV-DO Data (SVDO) will also become available during the same timeframe and will enable CDMA2000 devices to access EV-DO packet data services while in an active 1X circuit-switch voice call. For example, users will be able to send emails or access the Web while on voice calls; phones with GPS can update maps or download real-time traffic information while on voice calls, etc. This device enhancement, which enables these concurrent voice and data services, is independent of the air link standard and infrastructure.

When Verizon or any other CDMA carrier will implement this, is an entirely different question...


Old iPad - how to install apps without other device?

With an old version iTunes on a computer you can download the current version there.  Once you go back to you iPad you can download the older version.

How to get the version iTunes you need.
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/320415/44531

The process[ ignore the blurb at the top which says you cannot ]:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/144924/44531]2


This lock is by design. It allows the owner to prevent anyone that can’t prove they own the hardware from getting Apple or other service professionals to erase the lock.

See https://www.apple.com/icloud/find-my-iphone/ and especially the Mac link at the bottom.

You now have a firmware password on that Mac preventing you from changing the OS to boot from other sources. You can either enter the passcode that was created to lock the hardware or follow the normal process when you forget a firmware password by seeking authorized service.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204455


Screensavers were developed do deal with issues that affected CRT displays. As nobody makes them anymore, and LCD displays don't have the same issues, we no longer need screensavers. A screensaver running on a flat screen monitor just looks pretty - there is no difference to the operation.

Open System Preferences.

Go to Desktop -> Screen Saver and set the "Start after:" value to Never.

Go to Energy Saver and set "Turn display off..." to whatever value you want.

This actually powers down the screen illumination and most of the GPU.


iPassword backup through unsecured network

Yes, its secure.

Note: The following is  way more info then anyone needs but I thought why not.

A while back, around when the internet was created, HTTP, or the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, was created to transfer website data. -- Wait I've seen that before -- Yes you have. In a URL the first section specifies the protocol so when connecting to http://example.com you are using the HTTP protocol. When connecting to ftp://example.com you are using, yes you guessed it, the FTP protocol, or File Transfer Protocol. HTTP is an insecure protocol that send data over plain text. Meaning anyone connected to (or not connected to) the WiFi network can snoop on all passwords, credit cards, addresses, etc. sent over the internet.

More Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Transfer_Protocol

iCloud, Google, StackExchange, Yahoo, Chase Bank, Twitter, Spotify, and basically every website (hopefully) that requires you to login or submit information uses an addition to the HTTP protocol called HTTPS, or HTTP + SSL, or secure sockets layer (Yes, us computer people like to shorten things). (In fact, you're using it right now. Look at the URL in on your browser. See the HTTPS?)  SSL Encryption is EXTREMELY secure (How Secure?, you ask).  This prevents any data from being snooped on by other people. It encrypts all data sent between the client (you) and the server (the server the website is hosted on).

So, since iCloud uses HTTPS all the information is secure even if you are on an insecure network.


How can I run/stop/relaunch an application automatically, at boot/login/some other time?

Gui Method

If you want something to run when a user logs in, the easiest way is to use the GUI. You can

Go to the System Prefs > Accounts > Login Items screen, and add the item there by

clicking the + symbol
dragging and dropping the .app onto the pane

In the dock, bring up the context menu for an app, select Options, then select Open at Login

Launchd method

If you want to launch something that is not a .app, or you want to have more control over launching it, such as:

at a certain time or at a specified interval
continuously re-launching if it crashes
not related to user login
as a function of network access
only run when another process is running
when a file is added to a folder
etc.

then you want to use the technical solution that is launchd.

The easiest way to set up a launchd config file is to use a tool to help. At the time of writing the most popular method is Lingon (which has an older free version available from SourceForge), or the PList Website tool.

Hand Coding

If you don't want to use Lingon or the PList Website and only want to use the raw tools available on the system, you can write your own launchd plist by hand

Here is my launchd script to run SomeApp continuously after the system boots (independent of a user logging in). It is in /System/Library/LaunchAgents/ and called SomeApp.restart.plist. If it is run based on a user login, it could be stored in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>SomeApp.restart</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/path/to/SomeApp.app/Contents/MacOS/SomeApp</string>
        </array>
        <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
        <dict>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>5</integer>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>10</integer>
       </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Load it once with

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

The RunAtLoad option will launch the application the first time launchctl runs this.
The KeepAlive option will re-launch the application if it crashes.
The StartCalendarInterval will run it at a certain time. Presumably this is mutually exclusive with the previous two, but is included to show what can be done with launchd
Launchctl will run this after reboots.

There are many additional options that can be found by experimenting with Lingon or by reading the man pages for launchctl, launchd.plist, plist, launchd.conf, etc.


std::fstream and OSX - Why can I not load a file with my raw executable?

Your executable is looking in the current working directory (CWD).

When run from Xcode, Xcode actively changes the current working directory to where your executable has been built.

When run from the Finder on macOS, the current working directory will not be the directory of your executable. Thus the executable can not find the text file.

Use the getcwd or std::filesystem::current_path function to determine the current working directory from within your executable. See Get path of executable for ways to get your executable's path at runtime.


How to unregister "httpd" after "wfsctl stop"?

As noted in the question, sudo wfsctl stop does not stop and unregister the httpd process. However, the httpd daemons are stopped and restarted. Also, httpd remains registered to start on the next (re)boot.

sudo wfsctl diagnose
# All httpd processes:
# COMM   RUSER   PPID   PID STARTED
# httpd  root       1   325  8:46PM
# httpd  _www     325   331  8:46PM
sudo wfsctl stop
sudo wfsctl diagnose
# All httpd processes:
# COMM    RUSER  PPID   PID STARTED
# httpd   root      1   399 10:19PM
# httpd   _www    399   403 10:19PM

The man wfsctl mentions that the use of httpd-wrapper is preferred to the use of apachectl and httpd (at least for the -t test flag.)

  The Apache config file for WebDAV File Sharing is parameterized, and the httpd server is managed by the httpd-wrapper utility, which passes parameters to httpd. This is normally transparent, but note that to check the Apache config file syntax, do not use apachectl configtest or httpd -t. Instead, use httpd-wrapper -t.

In general, the options shown in the man httpd page can be passed to the /usr/sbin/httpd-wrapper ruby script. Most of the options work as expected.

However, sudo httpd-wrapper -k graceful-stop behaves like a reset which restarts the httpd daemons and leaves httpd registered to start when the system boots again.

Finally, sudo apachectl graceful-stop was found to stop and unregister the httpd processes.

So, the following command sequence will stop both the wfsctl WebDAV sharing and the httpd daemons on the current High Sierra.

sudo wfsctl stop
# Unloaded and removed: org.apache.httpd.webdavfilesharing.username-275.49176.plist
sudo apachectl graceful-stop
# verify
sudo wfsctl diagnose

See "How to set up wfsctl WebDAV to use with an application that uses basic authentication?" for a more complete WebDAV example.


While it is far from an ideal solution, when I want to put the Lightroom-created JPEGs in iPhoto, I've been using the following to solve #1:

Publish to a Hard Drive folder from Lightroom, each folder named according to the events I want them to have in iPhoto
Uncheck the "Copy Items to the iPhoto Library" box in iPhoto's Preferences>Advanced menu
Import the folders to iPhoto

This will import these pictures by reference only; all the photos stay in their existing folder. (I usually re-check the box afterwards, so later pictures from sources other than Lightroom are actually copied). But you can set all the usually iPhoto metadata, reorganize into different events, browse thumbnails, etc.

If you modify anything in Lightroom, and republish the changes, those changes will be visible immediately when you open the picture in iPhoto. Note however, that unfortunately iPhoto does not update the thumbnail. And iPhoto uses the thumbnail for the zooming-in animation. So not only when you view it in the event display, but for a moment in the zoom-in animation, you will see the original version. But on the plus side, any metadata changes that you make will be preserved, because iPhoto stores these in the database. Only the image is external.

Also, since I don't like having another folder outside of the iPhoto database, I actually have Lightroom publish to a folder that is within the iPhoto database package. iPhoto doesn't delete anything in there that it didn't originally create, as far as I can tell. I have tried to use the "repair library" option to see if it can pull in the files (it claims to be able to recover orphans), but no luck there.

Unfortunately, iPhoto does not check when the files are removed. So it doesn't solve #2. It sort of solves #3, in that there is no additional copy.

Anyways, like I said, it's a very imperfect solution, but I've found it to work reasonably well for myself, and it's the best that I've come up with. There is a plugin that purports to be a Lightroom Publish Service for iPhoto, but it doesn't work at all (it's basically an export; it doesn't update photos).

Best of luck!


Cannot open files from iCloud drive on Mac but they open on iOS devices

Had this issue -
Opened System Preferences - iCloud - UNselect iCloud Drive (confirm removing local files) - reboot.
Login again - do the reverse:  System Pref - iCloud - Select iCloud Drive.
Have a touch of patiences when you try to open files as that takes a few minutes to get everything back in order.
Worked perfectly for me.


How do I un-hide a photo in the iPhone iPhoto app?

Turn your iPhone sideways and in the upper left hand corner hit the down arrow. Then select "Hidden Photos". This will show you a list of the photos you've hidden. Tap one, hit edit, and tap the "X" again to unhide it.


.bash_profile not updating until open new Terminal window

You can reload the bash profile from command line or script with the following command:

source ~/.bash_profile