Formatted hd disk wrong. Can’t restor time machine or install new OS. MacBook Pro 2017

From your third picture, that's the drive you need to format.

Click the drive name, as you have in that image, then click Erase [top centre] & supply a name. The rest will automatically be set to the correct parameters - Mac OS Extended (Journaled) & GUID Partition Map.

Apple Partition Map is a very old format type, for 68k & PowerPC Macs, not in general use any more.

On installing Sierra the system will likely change that Mac OS Extended (HFS+) format to APFS, but that will be automatic & need not concern you at this juncture.


Slapd daemon can't start: TLS init def ctx failed: -1

I'd recommend creating another self-signed cert in Server.app that you can use for securing services (if the others were expired/deleted). By creating the certificate using Server.app, it will automatically be available for other services (like Open Directory).

After you've created a new self-signed certificate, follow steps 6 through 12 in this article (which describe how your SSL certificate can be configured for use with Open Directory). Performing the Open Directory -> Settings -> LDAP -> SSL configuration through Server Admin will write the correct certificate paths into the slapd config file.

Once you've corrected the certificate problems, Open Directory (slapd) should start normally (without you having to start it by hand). If Password Server still doesn't show running after that, you might try a reboot (or check to see if it's generating crash logs or other errors in Console.)

Edit

After modifying the certificate configuration for use with LDAP, it's probably worth checking to see that the machine has provided updated certificate paths to slapd in the slapd_macosxserver.conf file. That is, the unique string of numbers and characters in the key/cert paths should have changed.

To confirm that slapd can access the corresponding private key for the certificate that you're securing LDAP services with, you can check the file at /etc/openldap/slapd_macosxserver.conf...Look for a line mentioning certadmin...That line specifies the command that slapd is using to retrieve the private key from the Keychain. It's possible to perform that command (copy and paste) in Terminal to see if the private key passphrase can be retrieved:

/usr/sbin/certadmin --get-private-key-passphrase /etc/certificates/domain.com.456DACFFC771F8EB2F5A8E0EBB269969B8164097.key.pem

Once you've retrieved the passphrase, see if you can view the private key using that passphrase:

sudo openssl rsa -in /etc/certificates/domain.com.456DACFFC771F8EB2F5A8E0EBB269969B8164097.key.pem -text -noout

When prompted for the pass phrase, copy and paste the value that you obtained in the step above. You should see the private key data output on the screen. This would confirm that:

1.) Your private key passphrase can be retrieved from the Keychain

2.) The pass phrase in the Keychain can be used to decrypt the key

If you are unable to get the pass phrase and unlock the key, it's possible that slapd is not able to either. I believe that the software is using a keychain item in the System keychain named "Mac OS X Server certificate management" with a kind of "application password". The "Account" for that keychain item should be set to the same unique string of characters and numbers (456DACFFC771F8EB2F5A8E0EBB269969B8164097 in this example) that you see in the cert/key paths in /etc/certificates. If you do not see one of these corresponding application passwords in the System keychain, it may be your issue.


Trying to find the board ID for Mac Pro 1,1 (no OS currently installed, can't access terminal)

For the Mac Pro 1,1 and 2,1 you will need to add
"Mac-F4208DC8","Mac-F4208DA9".
If you are not using a Mac Pro then you will need to get your board ID by entering this
command in terminal: ioreg -lp IOService | grep board-id


I´m using OSX 10.9.2 and Java (version 7 update 55) with Firefox (Nightly) and latest Safari and it works. It is right, that Java will not be shown in Safari extensions but I could find it under Firefox plugins.

I suggest that you uninstall Java, check that everything will be wiped off and reinstall Java. Normally Java will be enabled in system settings by default.

Update: If these doesn´t help please create another user and logon into a fresh user profile. Do you´ve got the same bug in Java system preferences?


How to manage tunnels as background processes from a shell script?

This is technically not an answer to the question asked, but rather an answer to your problem as described.  The ssh command has two switches that may be useful to you:

ssh -f -N -L 3000:server1:5029 me@server2

tells ssh to hang around in the foreground just long enough to ask for any necessary passwords, and then put itself in the background, not executing any remote command but just handling the tunnel.

If you really want this to appear in a tab then you may want a different solution.


Big Sur confirm alert button keyboard shortcut

The new destructive action doesn't have a keyboard shortcut by default. This is likely by design:

[it] allows the system to guard a destructive-action button against accidental presses

You can enable keyboard navigation for controls (previously called Full Keyboard Access) in System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → ‘Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls’. With this option enabled, the Cancel button is focused for activation with Space, and you can Tab to the Delete button and activate that with Space too.


There are multiple ways you can do this.

Some TVs have a built in casting functionally. Since your TV is a Smart TV, there is a chance that you TV could support this.

You could buy a Chromecast. It costs $35 for non-4k, and $69 for 4k. You can use Google Chrome to cast webpages, but some webpages or apps support it natively. This works on both mobile and computer.

You could also buy an Apple TV. The latest one costs $150 for 32 GB and $200 for 64 GB. You can cast from both iOS and macOS. You can use AirParrot($20) to airplay from Windows and older macs.

Lastly, you can use the Amazon Fire TV Stick($40) or the Amazon Fire TV($90). This would be my last choice, because it doesn't support casting. Instead, you would use apps. The bonus is that you can use the Alexa remote, sort of like the Siri remote.

I would choose the Chromecast, because it isn't very pricey, but it enables you to cast anything to your TV.


Vmware Fusion, how to remove suspend option completely

From Disabling the suspend feature for a virtual machine in VMware Fusion:

  VMware Fusion

  To disable the suspend feature for a virtual machine:

  Shutdown the virtual machine.
  Locate the virtual machine bundle. For more information, see Locating the virtual machine bundle in VMware Fusion (1007599).
  Press Ctrl and click the virtual machine bundle, then click Show Package Contents.
  Open the .vmx file for editing in a text editor. For more information, see Editing the .vmx file for your VMware Fusion virtual machine (1014782).
  Add this line to the .vmx file:
  suspend.disabled = "TRUE"
  Save and close the .vmx file.
  Restart the virtual machine.


Why does Siri need to know "which John?" for a reminder or calendar event?

Siri can add attendees to calendar events. When creating an event, saying ‘with John’ will add John as an attendee to the event, shown in the event attendees section in the Calendar app later. If you have multiple Johns, it'll ask which one you mean so as to not get it wrong. There isn't a way to disable this functionality as it's part of Siri's calendar functions.


Macs can’t see each other after upgrading to Mavericks

From your question it sounds like you can ssh into the machine but not connect via Finder. This leads me to think this is a File Sharing setting, not a Remote Login setting as the two are independent. So my answer applies to File Sharing settings.

If you go to System Preferences, then Sharing and for the File Sharing service, choose Options...
By default Mavericks has Share files and folders using SMB and Share files and folders using AFP selected but no users selected under Windows File Sharing.

It also appears (in my testing) that with these selections, when you try to connect to another computer listed in the Finder sidebar, it attempts to connect using SMB and does not fall back to trying AFP if the SMB connection fails.

The answer I found was to either
a. Specify a user to connect with using SMB in the options... section of File Sharing in System Preferences
b. Specify sharing over AFP only, deselecting SMB sharing
c. In Finder menu select Go then Connect to server... and then in the Server Address: field enter something like
afp://sharedcomputername.local
where sharedcomputername is the name of the computer you're trying to connect to.


How do I get rEFInd working with OS X 10.11 El Capitan?

You must disable System Integrity Projection.

Restart the computer, while booting hold down Command-R to boot into
recovery mode.
Once booted, navigate to the “Utilities > Terminal” in the top menu bar.
Enter csrutil disable in the terminal window and hit the return key.
Restart the machine and System Integrity Protection will now be disabled.

source: http://mattjanik.ca/blog/2015/10/01/refind-on-el-capitan/


How do I clone an installation of Windows 10 from macOS?

You can use the dd command to clone the disk as follows:

If the source SDD is larger than the destination SSD, start up your Mac in Windows 10 and shrink the partition on the source disk, as explained in this Microsoft document: Shrink a basic volume, so that its size is smaller than the destination SSD. Then restart your Mac in macOS.

Connect both SSD disks to your Mac
If you get a message similar to this when connecting the destination disk:

select "Ignore".

Launch Disk Utility (located in the Applications > Utilities folder).

Select the source disk and write down the device name.
In the screenshot below, the device name is disk2:

Select the destination disk and write down the device name:
In the screenshot below, the device name is disk3:

Select the source volume and unmount it.

Select the destination volume and unmount it. (This step will not be necessary if were prompted to select "Ignore" in step 1.)

Launch Terminal (located in the Applications > Utilities folder).

Run:
sudo dd if=/dev/diskX of=/dev/diskY bs=1m
where:
diskX is the device name of the source disk (in the example above, disk2)
diskY is the device name of the destination disk (in the example above, disk3)
sudo is a command that let's you run the dd with administrative privileges.
Type your password if requested.
It is extremely important that you don't mix up the device names of the disks! Otherwise you will overwrite your Windows 10 disk.
This may take a while, so be patient. You can check the progress of dd as explained in this answer: How can I track progress of dd

Test the destination SSD. You may want to extend the volume as explained in this Microsoft document: Extend a basic volume

More information
For more information on dd, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)
For more information on sudo, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo
For a very similar but command line-only method to clone disks in macOS using dd, see: https://pbxbook.com/other/dd_clone.html


What tools allow for creation and editing of a PDF document on OS X?

You can actually merge multiple PDFs right from Preview.app. Just open two PDFs in two separate windows, turn on the sidebars, and drag pages from one sidebar to the other. This won't provide you with a table of contents, but you can always just make something in TextEdit, export it as a PDF, then add it to the beginning of the document.


I just had the same problem. After seething my iPad and restoring it through icloud I still wouldn't work but what did work was going to a random contact and clicking send message, it opens iMessage right up and I was able to delete my conversation that was causing the problem!


Apple Mail does not seem to connect to my IMAP server

As a followup: I solved my problem by doing the following steps:

Delete the account from Mail.app
Quit Mail.app
Delete /Users/$USER/Library/Mail/V2/IMAP-yourmail@something.com, if it still exists
Start Mail.app and re-create the account

After that, I could use the IMAP account just fine.


Are there services that offer to recover data from irreparably water-damaged iPhones?

Yes, contact any major data recovery company, ex Drive Savers.

http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/devices-supported/apple-iphone-data-recovery/


What is Fetch > Automatically in iPhone in Settings > accounts and passwords?

Fetch is for use where Push doesn't work - for instance on POP3 accounts, rather than IMAP.

It simply goes to look if you have any email ready to download, every 5, 10 mins... whatever you set the interval to be.

iCloud mail, for instance can Push. If there is mail for you, it will literally push it at your phone, no checking required.


Finder menu > Prefs or  Cmd ⌘   ,

Locations > Connected servers - uncheck.
Unchecking Bonjour computers will prevent them showing when not connected.


How can I keep keybindings of iTerm and vim apart

I prefer to not change any mappings in iterm and use .vimrc for all mappings as it’s simpler and generally more effective. It also lets you use terminal app

Once that’s set, you could easily ask specific follow on questions for specific key sequences.

Arrow keys are particularly vexsome in some versions of iterm.

Why don't my arrow keys work in vim under iTerm?


Bug with Spotlight Search. How to fix/restart?

Have you checked System Preferences > Spotlight, to see whether Applications are included in the results?

Otherwise, you may need to reindex your Spotlight database.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201716
Drag the disk "Macintosh HD" onto the Privacy panel of System Preference > Spotlight, and then click - to remove it from the window.


Additional characters when I press longer

This "feature" has been around for a few years.  See if this helps:

https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/os_x_lion_using_and_disabling_the_character_picker


Can I list all the Bonjour-enabled services that are running?

The dns-sd command-line tool can be helpful for this, but learning to use it is a bit tricky.

Running dns-sd -B _services._dns-sd._udp will return a list of all available service types that currently being advertised. (The list is per interface, so there will be some redundancy.) If this is done on a Mac with no active network connection, the list will of course only contain services running on that machine.

Using that list, you can request information about the individual services types by running things like dns-sd -B _home-sharing._tcp (which lists iTunes Home Sharing instances), and then, given an instance name, you can run dns-sd -L "Wes Campaigne’s Library" _home-sharing._tcp to lookup information for a particular instance.

To be honest, though, this whole process is rather tedious, and it's exactly what Discovery (formerly Bonjour Browser) was built to do, so I highly recommend using that. Whichever way you do it, though, it may not always be clear what program is responsible for a given service entry.

You can use the strategy given in binarybob's answer to try to map service entries to running processes based on port number, but this may not always work. Another strategy is to run something like dns-sd -B _home-sharing._tcp which remains open and reports when instances are added or removed, then, one by one, quit various apps and (assuming it's not a system service) see which one's quitting triggers the removal message.


Why is there an alarm clock badge on the YouTube app?

The icon is telling you why Siri is suggesting the app to you by placing it in the Dock. Siri's proactive abilities means it suggests apps it thinks you are likely to use for a variety of reasons:

Alarm icon: app suggested because of the time of day
‘Location’ arrow: app suggested because of your current location

You can disable apps from being suggested on the Dock by going to Settings → General → Multitasking & Dock and disabling Show Suggested and Recent Apps.


Removing trusted certificate from Mail in iOS 8

It looks like you might not have actually "trusted" it, but rather made "exception" for it as detailed here: https://blog.httpwatch.com/2013/12/12/five-tips-for-using-self-signed-ssl-certificates-with-ios/

If you did import the certificate, then the above website shows how to remove the "profile" that contains the certificate. To remove the exception, it looks like you need to reset all settings (General > Reset > Reset Settings). Unfortunately it deletes all your settings.

There is further discussion here:

How do you remove SSL certificate exceptions on iOS?


How to disable face detection in Photos for OS X

Apparently you can stop face recognition by quitting iPhotos,  opening a terminal and typing the following (and press enter):

defaults write com.apple.iPhoto PKFaceDetectionEnabled 0

I guess you'll then need to manually delete all the faces it's recognised thus far.

As for the new "Photos" app, I don't think you can disable the face detection.


I think easiest way would be to load a backup on your new phone, but you said that is not possible.
In this article 3rd party software ist used.
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iphone/how-to-transfer-text-messages-from-one-iphone-another-3525410/


Unusual Dock Icon Appearing in OS X 10.10 Yosemite

That is Handoff and a natural feature when OS X and iOS devices are signed into the same iCloud account. This works if you have iOS 8+ or OS X 10.10.x Yosemite. If you have a supported application then you will be able to open it on your Mac right where you left off on your iOS device.

Looks like you was running Chrome on your iPad at the time.

If you wish to disable Handoff on a Mac, open 'System Preferences' and select 'General'. It's the check box labeled "Allow Handoff..." towards the bottom of the window pane.

If Bluetooth is off, Handoff is disabled as well.


How do I restore the default Postscript printer?

I did it like this:

Go to Printers & Scanners
Click on "+" to add a new printer
Click on IP

Address: localhost
Protocol: Line Printer Daemon - LPD
Name: PostScript
Use: Generic PostScript Printer


One Apple ID Required for iPhone and iPad

You can use the same Apple ID on up to five devices.

I would reset the iPad and begin from scratch. I recently came across a similar problem with a new iPad and resetting it worked perfectly.


Is there an iPhone app that will pop a message on another device?

Try Pushbullet for iOS, which is an app designed to let you instantly send messages, files, and links from one device of yours to another.

Pushbullet will let you sign in with one account on all of your iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS devices, and will let you write a message on one device and have it pop up as a notification on any or all of your other devices.


Can I use wifi on my iPhone 3G without a sim card?

Yes, this works fine.  Just use it as normal, so long as it is not in Airplane Mode it should be no different to having one in.  You may see the odd "no sim card" message at the lock screen, but just ignore it.

To test, I just removed my sim, I received a "no sim card" message (which you cannot "ok" to make it go away), but proceeded to unlock, open a webpage, re-lock and the message had gone.  Everything worked.


Recover Bookmarks, Mail, iCal and more after HardDrive upgrade

Though not a selective copy, you could use Migration Assistant (under /Applications/Utilities) to copy your entire user data from the older hard drive to the Mac. Turn off Time Machine before doing this (to avoid unnecessary backups and slowing down the migration).

Since you already have the user account and Migration Assistant has created a second account, there is no simple way to merge the two accounts (definitely not the configuration used by various applications and the data, since there may be conflicts). But you can copy over data across from the individual folders under the home directory (and somewhat tediously, application data on an application-by-application basis).

See:
How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac
Using Migration Assistant on Lion
Combine two+ Users Accounts on the same machine
Transferring files from one User Account to another


I'd like to upgrade my MacBook Pro's RAM and hard drive. What brands are reliable?

I did the same to one of my old macs and opted for Crucial Memory and a Western Digital hard drive. Their still going strong and I've had absolutely no problems (and the WD drive is really fast)


"You must update to iOS 8.0" when trying to download apps on iPhone 4

The last version of iOS that the iPhone 4 supports is iOS 7.1.2. You will not find any more software updates for the iPhone 4 beyond this.

This means you are unable to install any apps that require a more recent version of iOS (not all apps require iOS 8 and later), however it may be possible to download a previous version of an app that does support iOS 7 by adding the app to your purchase history using iTunes on a computer first.


For MacOS 10.15.4 Catalina, you can start a screen saver after 15 minutes and then stop after 15 seconds you can use the following Automator Application.

You then need it to launch at login, by going into System Preferences>User and Groups>Login Items and add your screen Saver Application.


Show Results of Automator-Terminal command

If you only have a few lines of output, you'd want to assign it to a variable and then display a confirmation dialog showing the output.

add Action "Set Value of Variable"
enter a new variable, e.g. output
add Action "Ask for Confirmation"
in the message field, enter the variable name declared above. While typing the variable name, Automator will suggest to complete the variable name. Accept by pressing Enter key. This prevents Automator from interpreting the variable name as a plain text message.

This will look like this:

NB: I also tried the $1 approach, but did not succeed.

If you have a lot of lines of output, you should direct all output into a new TextEdit document. To do so, just add the "New TextEdit Document" Action after your script action.

This may look like this:

Hint: diagnostic messages are often output to standard error. To also collect text send to standard error, add exec 2>&1 at the top of your bash script.


What's the Numbers equivalent to Excel's "A1:A10-B1"

In numbers, SUMPRODUCT (range, range…) takes the following arguments:

range:   A range of cells. range is a reference to a single range of
cells containing values of any type. If string or Boolean values are
included in range, they are ignored.
range…:   Optionally include one
or more additional ranges of cells. The ranges must all have the same
dimensions.

So you'll need to set up a range to perform the initial calculation (and squaring) and then sumproduct two simple ranges.


Is the iPhone's "found this contact info in.." reliable?

Reliability is not a binary, black/white property. You'll find cases where this feature doesn't work at all, suggesting the wrong thing - and you'll find cases where it does work, suggesting the right thing.

I don't have any statistics on exactly what the hit/miss frequency is. I doubt if anyone does - perhaps Apple has some statistics. However, in my own experience it works fairly well. It can be a convenience that a phone call from an unknown number is instantly matched with the contact details from an email, you've received yesterday for example.

The matching is done by the Spotlight functionality on the phone. Basically an index is created of for example your emails inside Mail.app. When for example a call comes in, and the number is unknown, then iOS will automatically search your Spotlight index for emails to find e-mails mentioning that phone number. The contact information will then be derived from the mail using proprietary heuristics.

The implementation of this feature is entirely on the phone. It does not require a cloud service, nor does it send your data off for processing somewhere on the internet. So your question about "big brother" is that no "big brother" is involved.

If you want, you can disable this feature from Settings > Contacts > Siri & Search > Find Contacts in Other Apps.


Music starts automatically when headphones are plugged into the iPhone

Most normal headphones don't do this but some might or might not start playing. Try pausing your music before you unplug. That should work as a temporary fix.


How to skipt the prompt for time-triggered automation Shortcuts in iOS13?

There is a workaround that I have gotten to work in my testing, but if you use automatic do not disturb you might have to set it to only run at the specific time that DND is enabled automatically.

Basically set auto DND and then make an automation for when DND is turned on. In order to ensure that it won't run whenever I use DND, I created a few shortcuts.

MatchTime
and DND Auto

Just set a DND enabled automation to run the "DND Auto" shortcut


Myriad of (relatively minor) issues on my rMBP in the last few days

We've had a couple of machines at work in a similar state, they were brought back to normal operation by starting in safe boot then moving the Containers folder from the user's Library folder to the desktop. This has the effect of clearing the startup caches, performing a disk check and resetting sandboxed applications back their default settings.

A new Containers folder will be automatically created. Any applications that have lost important data after moving the Containers folder can be restored by copying the relevant folder from the old Containers folder to the new one - I always make a copy of the ARD folder as any custom UNIX commands will be lost otherwise.

As a matter of course I would also want to run a disk permissions check and give the drive structure a check with DiskWarrior.


How can I see what bandwidth each App or process is using?

Quote: "How can I know which app or process is using it?"

You can try nettop(1) in the Terminal. It is pre-installed, and refreshes every few seconds to provide a dashboard of all open network connections (by process) with their usage. Better than lsof since it shows the usage data too.

$ nettop

Then hit 'd' and look for odd-looking entries or entries with consistently large traffic in the 'bytes in' or 'bytes out' column. The 'd' instructs nettop to only show differences in each screen refresh.

Practical usage notes:

If you don't recognize the process name, Google it.

If you don't want the process around, get the pid (the number next to the process name in nettop), and kill it with kill -9 <pid>. If that doesn't solve it, find out if you can uninstall the process.

If you're interested in what the process is transmitting over the network, use the client port number for that particular connection (e.g. '53133' from 10.0.0.1:53133->74.125.68.100:80) to run a tcpdump(1) to see the data in the packets being exchanged: sudo tcpdump -nnvvXSs 1514 port 53133

If you're interested in the destination the process is talking to, but the destination IP address doesn't have a reverse DNS hostname (like in the previous example), then try visiting that IP address in a web browser as https://IP, click the broken lock icon in the address bar, and view the certificate details to find out which domain is served there (*.google.com in this case). This won't work if SSL port 443 isn't open on the destination.


Switching between applications always hides other apps

Do you have Keyboard Maestro installed? Have you accidentally selected this option?

The slight delay between clicking an app and the previous app being hidden (shown best when clicking an app with a smaller window after a larger window, exemplified in the frame below) indicates that this is not the system performing this action but rather a separate app detecting the trigger and acting accordingly (hence my suggestion).


As you mentioned, reset does work in OS X, however you can combine it with ⌘ cmd + ⌥ alt/option + K to 'Clear Scrollback'. This clears Terminal's history scrollback.

Alternatively, you can just use ⌘ cmd + K to 'Clear All'. This works similarly to how you use reset in Linux.


Can your information security be compromised by opening attachments in Gmail in iOS?

Theoreticly there's always a certain risk since no system is 100% secure. But given the measures Apple took/takes to make iOS as secure as possible that risk is kept rather low. Currently there is no known security hole regarding what you describe.


iPod Click Wheel Games disappeared from iTunes

They've been gone for a while. I don't remember exactly when, but it was more than a year ago. There's no way to buy them anywhere else.


Set preview.app to default to "content only" view

I was looking for something that would seem to be the opposite of what you wanted (i.e. to have all PDFs open and show the "Thumbnails" of each page, as is an option in the "View" menu.

As such, I found, on the Apple Support community the following:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4582012

It would seem you have to go to Preferences> PDF> un-tick the "Always Show Sidebar" option beside "Opening for the first time" option.

Hope that helps a bit! (?)


This tweak is for OSX 10.7 only.

For something equivalent in OSX 10.6, you might want to give a try with 3rd party notifiers. The ones that come in mind right now are:

Growl (my personal favorite)
Sizzling Keys

There surely are more notification apps out there, Google is your friend!


How can I change the keyboard shortcut key to open Quicksilver?

Open QuickSilver, and press ⌘+, to access Preferences.

Go to the Command tab and change HotKey Actionvation to the shortcut you want to use.

If the command you want to set is the same as the Spotlight one, you'll first have to change the Spotlight shortcut.


What do grayed-out app icons mean in iOS 7?

It's a glitch, where the grey overlay that appears on top of an app when you tap it is retained when you exit the app.

You can remove it by interacting with the app icon in some way, whether that be swiping between pages starting with your finger on the app, or simply tapping the icon.

It appears to be fixed in the dev build of iOS 7.1 :)


Network folder in finder sidebar disappears

Drag the folder from the share to your desktop (Hold CMD and Alt). Then add that alias to the sidebar


It looks like your Fusion Drive got split. Apple has some instructions here explaining how to fix it. I have copied the instructions here, but they made be easier to read and more up to date at the link above.

The fix will permanently delete all data on these drives, so make sure you have a good backup before you proceed!

In your case, you may want to get to a newer version of macOS Recovery as Mojave and above have a single, simple command to fix this issue.

To boot to the newest version of macOS recovery that your system can run, do the following:

Shut down your computer.
Hold down Option + Command + R to
boot into the most up-to-date version of macOS Recovery online. This
will likely be the Mojave or Catalina version of macOS Recovery.

If you booted to Mojave or Catalina recovery, here's what Apple says to do next:

  When you see the macOS Utilities window, choose Utilities > Terminal
  from the menu bar.
  Type diskutil resetFusion in the Terminal window, then press Return.
  Type Yes (with a capital Y) when prompted, then press Return.
  When Terminal indicates that the operation was successful, quit
  Terminal to return to the macOS Utilities window.
  Choose Reinstall macOS, then follow the onscreen instructions to
  reinstall the Mac operating system. Your Mac restarts from your
  Fusion Drive when done.

Alternatively, if this fails, or if you are on High Sierra recovery or earlier, you can follow the High Sierra and earlier set of instructions which are a bit more complex.

  Turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold Command-R to start up from macOS Recovery. Release the keys you see the Apple logo
  or spinning globe.
  When you see the macOS Utilities window, choose Utilities > Terminal from the menu bar.
  Type diskutil list in the Terminal window, then press Return.
  Terminal displays a table of data about your drives. In the IDENTIFIER column, find the identifier for each of the two internal,
  physical drives that make up your Fusion Drive. Usually the
  identifiers are disk0 and disk1. One of them should be 128GB or less
  in size. The other at least 1TB in size.
  Type the following command, replacing identifier1 and identifier2 with the identifiers you found in the previous step. Then press Return.

  diskutil cs create Macintosh\ HD identifier1 identifier2

  Example: diskutil cs create Macintosh\ HD disk0 disk1

  If you get a disk unmounting error, enter diskutil unmountDisk identifier, using the first identifier you gathered previously. Then
  enter same command again using the second identifer.

  Type diskutil cs list, then press Return.
  Terminal displays additional data about your drives (volumes). Find the string of numbers that appears after ”Logical Volume Group”
  for the volume named Macintosh HD. It's a number like
  8354AFC3-BF97-4589-A407-25453FD2815A.

  Example:
  +-- Logical Volume Group 8354AFC3-BF97-4589-A407-25453FD2815A |   ========================================================= |   Name:         Macintosh HD

  Type the following command, replacing logicalvolumegroup with the
  number you found in the previous step. Then press Return.

  diskutil cs createVolume logicalvolumegroup jhfs+ Macintosh\ HD 100%

  Example: diskutil cs createVolume 8354AFC3-BF97-4589-A407-25453FD2815A
  jhfs+ Macintosh\ HD 100%

  When Terminal indicates that the operation was successful, quit Terminal to return to the macOS Utilities window.
  Choose Reinstall macOS, then follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall the Mac operating system. Your Mac restarts from your Fusion
  Drive when done.


Where does GarageBand put its downloaded instruments and loop libraries?

As for total size, that is difficult to say. I got my GarageBand instrument, sample library and loop files from an iLife DVD installation a few years ago, rather than downloading them from the Mac App Store, which is the only way to get them today.

It's my understanding that when you first purchase and install GarageBand from the Mac App Store, you do not get all the musical instrument sample libraries and loop libraries that are listed in GarageBand's indexes. If you try to select an instrument or loop from an index and it is not found on your Mac, then you are prompted to download another large section of the libraries. Then there are the music lessons, which you must purchase one at a time, download and install.

My basic installation for GarageBand instruments and music lessons in ~/Library/Application Support/GarageBand is 2.74GB.

The loops for GarageBand are stored in ~/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/, and my installation is 629.9MB. However I do not believe that I have downloaded the whole set.

At an Apple retailer where I have worked, their installation in

~/Library/Application Support/GarageBand is 14.57GB,

and their installation in

~/Library/Audio/Apple Loops is 32GB.

This includes the GarageBand-compatible instruments and loops that you get when you purchase Apple MainStage, which you can get from the Mac App Store for $30. However, this does not include all the music lessons you can purchase within GarageBand.

Furthermore, you can purchase all sorts of Audio Unit-format effects, musical instruments, sample libraries and loop libraries from third parties that you can use within Garage Band or Logic, so you could add many hundreds of gigabytes of additional material if you want to.

It is worth mentioning that electronic musicians who work with large libraries of virtual instruments, samples and loops in GarageBand or other similar programs invariably move all such libraries to external high-speed disk drives so as not to slow down their systems with too much read-write activity on the system hard drive.

If your work with GarageBand is simple enough--not too many tracks in a mix--you can work with just your Mac and system hard drive. But if you discover that Garageband is glitching, hiccuping, or failing to record or edit correctly, or you get errors about input and output being too slow, you need to incorporate additional high-speed hard disks into your system.

It's a general principle that you need at least three hard drives:

your system drive inside your Mac, which holds Mac OS X and the
GarageBand app
an external high-speed hard drive for sample
libraries, virtual instruments and loop libraries
another external high-speed hard drive for recording and mixing audio tracks.

All of these have to be interfaced with a high-speed interface such as FireWire 800, USB 3.0, or Thunderbolt. USB 2.0 will not work, because it is not fast enough for composing, recording and mixing music and audio.


What could be causing my MacBook Air 13inch (Mid 2012) 2 GHz Intel Core i7 OS X 10.8.4 to throw the "could not join" WiFi error?

I have done some in depth analysis for the same error on my MBA.

Basically there seems to be a MBA software problem somewhere in the Airport application.

In my case it looses the last digit of the Network Name (SSID) and then it claims it can not find it (what a surprise).

Then it issues the generic Connection time out Error.

Here is what it looks in my Console:

The actual name is Eurona900850808-81
as shown in the WiFi scan.

I would check the Console report on your computer to see what is going on.

If you need help how to get the report on your computer let me know.

I have been able to partially overcome this issue by disabling the Auto Join, and Auto remember networks.


How can I allow incoming SSH (SCP) connections?

In order to allow SSH incoming connections to your Mac, you need to enable Remote Login in Sharing Preferences pane.

Here’s a picture:


Is there way to save google maps for offline iphone without jailbreak

No, nor will you find one (in the official App Store). Storing the image tiles breaches Google's data licence. There are a bunch of apps that use OpenStreetMap, which has a more liberal licence.


How to submit app without In-App Purchases

Yes, as  Game Center and In-App Purchase are enabled by default for an explicit iOS App ID and can't be disabled.

Having them enabled, though, does not mean that you are forced to use them nor means that you are actively using them.


Apple Tv (3rd Gen) App Development What do i need?

The new TVSJ Framework or the TVML won't work on my 3rd Gen Apple TV?
Apple said the 3rd gen Apple TV will not run tvOS when means you can't develop any app on that device. If you do want to develop, you can buy a 4th gen.
Do I have to develop everything via iOS swift/Objective-C?
Nope, Apple TV runs tvOS which have its own SDK. But the frameworks are very similar. tvOS also got some of its own SDK which iOS don't have. You do need to develop in Swift or Objective-C.
Can I test/install my app without a paid developer membership ?
Yes, Xcode 7 allows you to test app on device without paid account. Though to install app on Apple TV, you will need an USB-C cable.


How to check how much battery each application uses?

This is pretty much impossible. Each program doesn't directly use battery power - they all use the CPU, which uses battery power. But every other hardware component uses power as well - the screen, GPU, hard drive/SSD, etc. And of course you're not just running one program at a time, you're typically running several, plus all the background processes for the OS and other services. This is further complicated by how the OS and CPU allocate resources - despite how it appears, everything isn't running simultaneously, the CPU just switches between tasks every quickly, giving the appearance of everything running concurrently. On top of that, modern CPUs can change the amount of power they draw depending on the tasks going on.

So the effect that each program has on battery life depends on a lot of factors, most of which aren't easily measurable. The closest you could get might be tracking the CPU utilization of each program over time, and making an estimate based on the battery drain over that period. However that would be a very rough estimate, and not very accurate for any useful purpose I can think of.


Why does the time differ by 4 hours on certain apps?

Since you have system time set up correctly, then I guess the problem is within the apps you named. Most probably, they setup their internal time based on location of the proxy you might be using and which is located somewhere in a TZ 4 hours ahead.


Skype for Business Mac Chat History Storage Location

Open Finder and navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Skype/.
The “~” sign means your home folder. To find your home folder, open Finder and in the main menu, select Go > Home or press Command (Apple) + Shift + H keys.
It is the folder that has your Skype Name.

An app restart may be required after making modifications.

Source: https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10888/how-do-i-manage-my-conversation-history-in-skype-for-mac

Also, try this location: /Library/Application Support/, as there is a difference when the tilde sign is used.

Furthermore, the stores file can be found in ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.SkypeForBusiness, which is the user folder according to This Post


Is there a way to force the system to immediately reflect a replaced icns resource of an app?

Choose Get Info on both apps.

Click on the little iTerm icon in the upper left, select CMD-C.

Click on the little Terminal icon in the upper left, select CMD-V.

It should immediately replace the application icon.

This feature has been available since at least 10.5.


You can turn it into an approximation of an L or even a U by the simple expedient of tying a knot in it.

This is my standard way of dealing with any awkward cable.
It's not perfect, but boy, it's cheap ;-)

L-knot

U-knot

From comments - the U-knot is achieved by simply wrapping one end through a second time, if it's not clear from the picture.

BTW - keep the knot very loose, so you don't damage anything.

From further comments -
Of course, no knot is going to help if the cable gets yanked, in any direction;  this idea is really just to set the cable off in the direction of the PSU, if that's not to the left of the machine.
Just reducing its tendency to want to be straighter in the 'wrong' direction, nothing more, & reducing pull angularly, rearwards, which is what the older L-plug would do naturally, thereby reducing the lever length of the T-cable in that one direction.


Can't open Java Preferences with Oracle Java 7 installed

Java for OS X 2012-004 isn’t available any longer. But 2012-005 solved the issue for me.


How do you get ipod nano to display the watch face as the default view

Settings > General > DateTime > Time on Wake (Set this to on)

Thanks comically high signal to noise post!


/System is hogging memory and I want to know why. Is it dangerous to use sudo du to investigate?

The /System folder is different to what System Information reports as System usage. There are plenty of other folders, hidden, at the root of a macOS startup disk which add up to many GBs.


Certificate signed by an unknown authority in keychain after upgrading to El Capitan

You may check the validity of the certificate including the certificate chain  here:

DigiCert® SSL Installation Diagnostics Tool

or here:

Check your web servers encryption

Both checks show the same chain with different results though:

The certificate ENTIDAD PUBLICA EMPRESARIAL RED.ES as well as the intermediate certificate AC Componentes Informáticos seem to be ok.
SSL-Tools and OS X El Capitan can't properly detect the validity of the root certificate though.


I think you're opening Slide Over multitasking on an iPad and App Store happens to be the last app you used with Slide Over.

Instead of sliding from the very edge of the screen, just slide anywhere else on the screen. Start your finger somewhere on the display and Slide Over won't be opened.

You can disable Slide Over completely: Settings → General → Multitasking and turn off Allow Multiple Apps.


How to close all Finder inspector windows?

You could also run this in AppleScript Editor:

tell application "Finder" to close every information window


Why browsers ignores /etc/hosts behind a SOCKS proxy?

Your browser is asking the SOCKS proxy for the sites, it is not connecting directly. Therefore putting the IP address in the exceptions list doesn't work, as your computer is not performing the look up of air.company.com to 127.0.0.1. The SOCKS proxy is.

To avoid this, place the full domain name of what you are accessing locally in the exceptions list in System Preferences > Network > Proxies.

So for air.company.com you'd see an exception list (from your example above) of:

  *.local, 169.254/16, 127.0.0.1, air.company.com

Your computer will now connect to air.company.com directly, and therefore make use of /etc/hosts.


Link aggregate "bondmode" spontaneously changes

I have not found a true solution, but I have created a band-aid at https://github.com/mikeboers/bondwatch.

It watches for the bond to report being up, but inactive, and then simply calls ifconfig $bondname bondmode static to reset it.

I've been using it for nearly the full two weeks since I asked the question, and it has been working great.


What camera does the 6th-generation iPod touch have?

It is simply neither the iPhone 6 camera nor the 5th generation iPod Touch camera.

The 6th generation iPod Touch has a camera of its own. Some specs are similar to the iPhone 6 camera, but not all. The camera was upgraded from 5 Mpixel on the 5th Gen to 8 Mpixel on the 6th gen - similar to the iPhone 6. On the other hand, the camera does not have the sapphire crystal lens cover and auto image stabilization features that the iPhone 6 has.


This issue was plaguing me for a long-time and was really annoying.

I initially thought it was an issue with a random plist or other file hanging out in the Library/ folder and I tried deleting many of them to try and get to the bottom of this.

Eventually, I was tipped off to a Keychain issue by looking in Console, which with some Google'ing, led me to this post on Apple's forums.

Ultimately, I removed all of the following items in Keychain Access, retried adding the account in Internet Accounts, and everything worked well!

It sounds like it was only the com.apple.account.Google.oauth* tokens that had to be removed, but your mileage may vary.


Export Folders as MBOX Files Using a Script

Archive Message Folders by Jolly Roger

  This script archives each folder in your Entourage folder list to a folder on your desktop named "Entourage Archives".
      The script preserves the hierarchy of the folders, as they exist in the Entourage folders list, by creating sub-folders in the "Entourage Archives" folder that correspond to the sub-folders in Entourage.
      The exported MBOX files have the same name as the folders in Entourage, with the exception that forward slash characters (/) are replaced with dash characters (-) to avoid problems with the Mac OS X file system.

or

  Export Folders by Barry Wainwright

  You must create the archive folder yourself before running the script.
      All folders and subfolders are dumped into one folder. This requires you to have unique names so you can maintain the folder order.

Source


Ok, I have downloaded bootcamp 4 and installed it with BootCamp64.msi and now I have a BootCamp option under control panel. Works like charm!


You are correct, there is no room to remove the keys now.

I would highly recommend never trying to remove the key cap from any of the new low travel keyboards. The keys are part of the top case assembly, and are expensive for third party repairs. (And similarly close tolerance on Bluetooth keyboards)

Apple have a very well illustrated procedure now using compressed air only to clean. If that doesn’t work, I would contact Apple support directly and ask for options.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205662

MacBook cleaning image - from Apple


Disable Apple FaceTime Camera kernel module

I have not seen this specific issue before, nor do I think it is common in any way.

What you really want is not to unload the kernel module (which is the term used to describe removing the kernel extension from memory after it has already been loaded and initialized) - instead you want to "disable" or "remove" it.

You can do this by opening the /System/Library/Extensions/ folder and then move away the AppleCameraInterface.kext file. Move it for example to a folder you have created in your user folder. I suggest moving instead of deleting as it is then easier to rollback this change. You can do the move using either Terminal or Finder.

You might need to boot in Recovery Mode in order to move the file, if you're not allowed to do so in Safe Boot.


Acmen5030 appearing in shared computer tab on mac

Your Mac is just letting you know another device on the network is advertising some sort of SMB share. It could be a printer with a card reader, it could be a legitimate PC sharing a printer or a folder on the disk, or it could be some sort of appliance or internet of things device.

If you log in to your router, you can see each other device and power them off one by one. Once you know what's causing the "mystery" share - you can either investigate limiting it's configuration or removing it from the network.

It's not a security risk or a virus on your Mac.


How to get Mail.app to show email addresses?

Open Mail.app, then go to Mail in the top menu > Preferences > Viewing > Uncheck "Use Smart Addresses".

This should display the full name of the contact plus the email address.


There's nothing in that log that is "non-Apple".

If you think that either:

you've installed some software that was not what it claimed to be
someone has had physical access to your machine and/or knowledge of your admin password

then it is possible that you might have 'malware' on your Mac. You can check whether there is anything of that kind using MalwareBytes, which should also help to remove it.

However, old school "hacking", in the sense of someone remotely pushing something onto your computer (or reading from it, or controlling it) is exceedingly rare, and exactly what the security on your computer is designed to prevent.

If you do fear the worst, then the only course of action is to erase the disk and reinstall the OS. Then restore your data from your backup, but not any apps or Library folders.


"iCloud Download" column in iTunes keeps reappearing

I found an answer that doesn't require you stay logged out of the iTunes store (found here, whose poster found it here).

In iTunes, press command1 or click Menubar/View/Music.
Click the Playlist button from the center-top row of the the iTunes window, below the large Apple logo.
Click Menubar/View/Only Music Available Offline.
Repeat for all other media types: command2 or Menubar/View/Movies, command3 or Menubar/View/TV Shows, etc.
Return to Music Playlists, and the iCloud Download column is gone, no matter whether you're signed into the Store, no matter whether you've enabled/disabled Apple brand subscription-based streaming, and even after quit/relaunch of iTunes.


Persistent badge on Messages app icon in macOS High Sierra

None of the other answers really solved it for me. After killing the Dock or signing out and back in, I'd have the badge return eventually.

So in Finder I went to ~/Library and searched for the listed phone number. It showed me a file in ~/Library/Messages/Archive/yyyy-mm-dd/ that was named for the phone number. Deleted the file and then killed the dock (by executing killall Dock in the Terminal) and the badge was gone instantly.

I have also figured out the cause: deleting a message on your iPhone or iPad without reading it. It's always an automated message with a 2FA code or something, and that's because I could see the code and typed it in and then deleted the thread later because I always trash that junk.


Battery on iPhone 6S Plus quickly diminishes and reboots every few seconds after being in cold weather.

you might wanna take this opportunity - Apple have sent a message to their customers offering $29 battery replacements for any and all iPhone 6 / iPhone 6s etc phones that are experiencing crashes/reboots and worse battery life. Hope it helps! The link is at
https://www.apple.com/iphone-battery-and-performance/
Here are the bits that might be of most use to you as information:

To address our customers’ concerns, to recognize their loyalty and to
regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apple’s intentions,
we’ve decided to take the following steps:
Apple is reducing the price
of an out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacement by $50 — from $79 to
$29 — for anyone with an iPhone 6 or later whose battery needs to be
replaced, available worldwide through December 2018. Details will be
provided soon on apple.com.
Early in 2018, we will issue an iOS
software update with new features that give users more visibility into
the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves
if its condition is affecting performance.
As always, our team is
working on ways to make the user experience even better, including
improving how we manage performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns as
batteries age.


Numbers - problems with a formula for "text to columns" behavior

Can you try these pls (assuming the text to be separated is in B2)?

C2 = LEFT(B2,FIND(",",B2)−1)
D2 = MID(B2,FIND(",",B2)+1,FIND(",",B2,FIND(",",B2,)+1)−FIND(",",B2)−1)
E2 = RIGHT(B2,LEN(B2)−FIND(",",B2,FIND(",",B2,)+1))

They should work for all values of non-zero length between the commas assuming there are always exactly 2 commas.


iPhone voicemail notice outside cellular service, but no msg when in service area?

I always thought the red dot without a number means your Voicemail service is unavailable, not that you have Voicemail waiting.

I spend a lot of my time outside reception areas, or abroad with no roaming, & I have that icon the entire time I'm away; whether or not I have voicemail waiting for me when I get back [usually I don't].


byobu using invalid 'readlink -f' option on OS X Mountain Lion

If you lack readlink -f functionality, the coreutils and tmux are likely the missing dependencies. Please edit your question if you have them installed and this doesn't fix the issue.


Which key is Insert on Microsoft Remote Desktop?

I just ran into this issue and had to experiment a bit until I found a solution. Using a Magic Keyboard, I am able to send an insert key by pressing clear to toggle the number lock on (depending on what application you're using, there may not be any feedback), then pressing 0 on the number pad:

I'm not sure if the same trick would work on other keyboards, or how you would do this without a number pad, but hopefully this helps some users.


No - do not disturb is a system level function on macOS and iOS.

What you’d need to do is make an AppleScript or other tool to automate disabling notifications for that app and then possible hook that up to a timer app or trigger (or just remind yourself to toggle it with a keyboard shortcut when your other manual timer goes off).

So a third party app on macOS clearly could do this, it’s just not been written (or covered widely enough to be found) since there’s no API to make that app easy to write.


Spotlight re-index every time I restart/boot iMac

I "fixed" it forcing a new indexation but excluding the User directory. What happens? It is too slow, but has an end. Not is eternal. When it finish, you can add again your User directory and, after it finish, you can reboot safely without scare :)


A faster way to move photos from one event to another existing event in iPhoto?

Perhaps doesn't directly answer your question, but sounds like you ought to consider creating a Beer album, rather than using a Beer event.

iPhoto Events are really designed for arranging temporally-related photos, i.e. photos that were taken in a similar time period. Albums are better for storing contextually-related photos, i.e. photos of the same thing over any period of time.

Albums work like iTunes playlists, in that the same photo can appear in multiple albums, or in no albums at all. (But it has to appear in exactly one event.) Albums are always visible in your sidebar, so you can easily drag photos from any event (including your "Latest Import" event, for example) into any album at any time.

All that said, somebody here could probably quickly whip up a little AppleScript for you that automates your current process. But not me :)


Disable citrix receiver startup on login

The following services are are started at login by launchd

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.citrix.AuthManager_Mac.plist
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.citrix.ReceiverHelper.plist
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.citrix.ServiceRecords.plist

You can use launchctl to stop the processes like so

launchctl stop com.citrix.AuthManager_Mac

However I am currently unable to prevent launchd from autoloading these services through launchctl.  It is irrelevant because the Citrix Receiver App will not start those services when it starts and will therefore not work if they were stopped or disabled.

I did notice these services are unneeded if using the the companies web app.  Considering that one can just delete the above .plist files and only use the web app.


icons not bouncing at all when I open them

You need to select Animate opening Applications option from Dock Preferences:


How to transfer file (PDF) from imac to iphone when no internet

You could always set up a local network on your mac. Then you can use Dysoft's Download Manager, it has a buit-in ftp/http server you can locally connect to.

It also supports transferring files through iTunes, using the Apps tab (Device > Apps > Bottom of the page: "file transfer").

There are probably a lot of other apps that can do this, but I use this one and never had any trouble.


How can I use my iPhone 7 to take photos remotely?

You can indeed use Bluetooth headphones for taking photos with the built-in iOS Camera app. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be headphones, so long as the device has volume controls.

However, here’s the catch:- The volume controls of the Bluetooth device have to control the iPhone’s built-in volume (i.e. they control the volume levels of their own speakers via the iPhone's built-in volume control rather than directly changing the volume of the speakers within the earphones/headphones). Unfortunately, many of them do not do this, and that's why any Bluetooth keyboard with volume controls will work as they don't have their own speakers, so can only control the volume at the iPhone end.

My recommendation is to use a dedicated remote for this purpose, such as the HISY Bluetooth Camera Remote. This device is designed specifically for this purpose and can be used for both taking photos and videos, and from a distance of up to about 27 metres (90 feet).

Note: I have no affiliation whatsoever with this product.


iPhone 4 text being sent to home computer-want texts private-only go to text number

This is built into Messages (the application) so any texts that you send over iMessage (in blue instead of green) will be shown on your computer.

To remove the iMessages account from the Messages application open Messages on the computer you would like to remove it from.

Messages->Preferences->Accounts->iMessage

then disable the account or click the minus sign if it is available.


10.12- Screensaver question- Photos not a choice

I have just spotted an older (2012) answer at this link:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120112094116261
However it suggests clicking and holding the "Screensaver" tab, which didn't work for me.  But clicking and holding the "Source" drop-down menu button did work for me - up comes an option to use "Photos" but if you choose that, you can then choose between the "Photos" app and "iPhoto" app. This is a better solution than the one I just posted, I think.


Where are folders created by "sudo mkdir" stored?

mkdir, in the form of mkdir directory_name without a pathname, creates a directory in the current working directory, which is by default your home directory (often represented as ~). You can check you current working directory by running pwd.

If you were not in your home directory (either by having cd-ed to a different directory or having used the New Terminal at Folder Service) you will have to navigate to the directory you were in first.

You can show all files (including hidden ones) in a directory by running ls -a in it. Once you have found the directories you want to delete, you can permanently (!) remove them using rm -R directoryNameHere (including the . in the name) from their parent directory.

If you don't feel confident deleting files in the Terminal, you can simply show hidden file in Finder, in macOS Sierra and later, by using Shift+⌘+. and then deleting them like you would any other directory.


AppleScript to find lost Outlook mail and archive them

Outlook mails are not saved individually as files- under normal uses!

They are  part of the Outlook database located here:

Outlook 2011 (Mac version) saves all data in:

~/Documents/Microsoft User data/Main identity

Database: Microsoft Outlook Database

or the respective Backup folder (if you Backed up emails)

You can open one of those and find your emails there.

An Automator script would not do much here, since using Outlook is faster and better to find emails in Outlook database.


My code produces weird output in Terminal

This problem is definitely not due to resetting the NVRAM, so don't worry about that.

You're essentially taking a program (main.c) and compiling it on your Mac with the Apple supplied clang compiler to create the main executable. This is where you get the deprecation warnings, which in themselves usually do not indicate a problem as such with the program - just that if this were a "real" program (and not an educational demo) you would want to use an alternative for sem_init().

The output from this program now differs quite a lot from the output of the same program run on Ubuntu or on repl.it, which is essentially just a kind of remote interface to a Ubuntu machine.

I can confirm that I get the same output as you on the Mac, and that it differs quite a lot from the output on Ubuntu, as it does not adhere to the 11 element width of the outputted table. So this problem is not specific to your Mac.

The reason the program differs is that the implementation of the semaphore functions on macOS differs from the Ubuntu implementation. Normally this would indicate that there's a bug in your main.c program.

The bug is that the code does not check the return value of the sem_init() function in the main() function. If you did check the return value, you would see that it returns -1, which means that an error occured. It is pointless continuing after the error occurs, as this means that essentially every following operation on that semaphore will fail.

The reason the code fails is that you're trying to create an unnamed semaphore, which is not supported on macOS. You could fix the program on macOS by replacing the calls to sem_init() with calls to sem_open(). Note that the latter returns a pointer to the semaphore instead of having it as an output parameter.


Identify the web site loaded in web view iOS application?

To determine the web site, you will need to intercept the network traffic travelling between your iPhone and your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

To do this you need to set your phone to use WiFi and to pass network traffic through a proxy. Proxies include squid and Charles.

A good proxy will offer log files and allow you to see server addresses and, if not encrypted, requested URLs.

Alternatively, you could contact the application developer and ask.


How can I mark a contact as unable to receive text messages?

Change their type of phone to something that is not "mobile" or "iPhone". You can create a new type of phone if you want and name it something like "nosms".


Updating to Mojave & enabling FileVault at the same time

Fixed! What helped to move the needle is Target Disk Mode. Another Mac was able to unlock and mount the disk and it eventually completed its encryption that was stuck at 0.0% otherwise.


Mail is sending text attachments rather than including the text inline

I was facing the same problem and figured out what was going wrong.

In mail, when you copy or drag the attachment, all text below attachment is treated as attachment hence it converts it to attachment and no text goes to the recipient.

All you need to do is in menu bar Edit > Attachment > Always insert attachment at end of message.

This will now always copy your attachments to the end and your text will remain safe in email.


TexShop should ship with a Spotlight importer that does the job.

If not, you can try this homemade solution:

https://email.esm.psu.edu/pipermail/macosx-tex/2013-May/051009.html


The answer I received from Apple:

Under our current model, application sales by non-U.S. developers on the App Store are not subject to U.S. tax withholding or reporting.
Therefore, completion of Part III - Claim of Tax Treaty Benefits, is not required in order to certify your foreign status. In addition, you are not required to provide a U.S. taxpayer identification number (TIN) in Part I (line 8) when when certifying foreign status.
Please note our system does require you to the specify the type of income your are receiving through the App Store on line 10 (W-8BEN) or line 15 (W-8BEN-E).

On line 10 I added article VII. 0% tax. Comments: The beneficial owner has permanent residence in New Zealand and all the work is performed from New Zealand.


Backup files from corrupt disk to usb drive in single user mode

Single user mode is the wrong tool for this job.   Connect an external drive if you want to use one and then restart in to Recovery HD ( or Internet recovery).

Use the terminal application from there to make your copies and backups. It's handles mounting all the filesystems properly so you can move things around.


AFAIK the Apple HFS+ drivers are read-only. You may have installed another read/write driver like Paragon.

To remove Apple HFS+ Driver:

Browse to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\
Move AppleHFS.sys & AppleMNT.sys to the Recycle Bin
Create a Remove_AppleHFS.reg file with a text editor like NotePad and the following content:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\AppleHFS]

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\AppleMNT]

You may have to add a trailing empty line.

Merging a reg file with the registry should work as following:

Click on Start and then Run...
Type in regedit, and then press OK
In regedit, click on File, and then Import
Enter the filename or otherwise locate the ".reg" file you want to enter, and press OK
The contents of that ".reg" file will be entered into the registry.

Restart


Military CAC access no longer works after OS 10.13.2 upgrade

Have you tried trusting the certificates explicitly? Sometimes, this will help override the macOS system settings.

I also use this site for help: http://www.militarycaccard.us. It has good tips to get CACs and PIV cards working.


Try shift + fn + f12 for scroll lock on/off.


There is no way for iCloud to connect to an offline iPod if WiFi is off.

Maybe if Bluetooth is on, and you had a speaker or other Bluetooth device paired to it, roaming through the house with it may activate the link and give you an idea of where it can be.


How can I open a port (not application) in the macOS Sierra firewall?

To open a port you would use the following line(s):

pass in proto tcp from any to any port 40000
pass in proto tcp from any to any port 80
pass in proto {tcp, udp} from any to any port 53
pass in from any to any port 3601

To quick-start pf and open a port with one of the lines above use e.g.:

echo "pass in proto tcp from any to any port 40000" | sudo pfctl -ef -

To test the rule(s) use: sudo pfctl -s rules

After a reboot you would have to enter the command again, because pf is not started automatically.

By default the pf.conf file has no blocking all rule. So even after starting pf with sudo pfctl -e nothing is blocked.

If you don't want to dive deeply into pf/pf.conf/pfctl, I recommend to use a pfctl GUI like the free Murus Lite to configure pf.


iPhone setting to turn off auto-detection of phone numbers?

It is currently not possible to disable the automatic linking for phone numbers, web addresses, and email addresses on iOS 7, and it never has been possible on previous iOS versions.


The MS guy in you would be right - best thing to do to hand a Mac to a new owner is nuke & pave - though strictly it's step 5 - What to do before selling or giving away your Mac.

The latest OS that machine can run is 10.6.8 which is still available from the Apple Store [it's back from the days when you had to pay for the OS] so there's no real way round that; it won't boot from USB either, it's too old.

AHT should be on the disk too, & that's where you'd need to run it from. It's only built into the machines from much later.

Nuke & pave in itself may not fix the issue, but it would at least eliminate all but hardware as the cause.


Deleted hard drive results in Windows recovery screen

I was able to access Internet Recovery with CmdOptR, and reinstall macOS from there.


Is the App or the iPhone causing the issue?

I don't think it's the app that's causing the issue. And I believe there are two separate issues with separate causes.

First, the skipping issue could be caused by a corrupt iPhone music DB - this is fixable by re-syncing the iPhone with iTunes.

Second, voice control could kick in automatically if you use some kind of accessory such as headphones. Try not using this accessory for a while and see whether the voice-control issue is sorted.


can't shrink the system partition in order to clone and swap disk

I used CCC to clone my internal 1T hd to an external SSD. You need to format the SSD before the clone. The drives do not need to be the same size.  The data has to fit.

Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) will copy your startup drive to an external  firewire drive.  You can boot from the external drive to verify that you have a good clone. When you upgrade your existing startup drive, you can at any time boot from your external drive and go back to your existing system.
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

Question: what about the EFI partition

Created when you initialize/format the drive.  CCC is a partition cloner not a volume cloner.

the others partitions like recovery

There is an option to add this at the end of the clone.  If it on the source volume, you will get a prompt. I gather there is a way to clone the recovery partition manually.  It did prompt me when I clone my one partition startup drive. https://bombich.com/kb/ccc5/cloning-apples-recovery-hd-partition

or VM ?

I don't see no VM in my distutil list.

Here is the result after I cloned Macintosh HD [ /dev/disk0 ]to Macintosh SSD [ /dev/disk4 ].  I don't know why the two are different nor do I know what will happen when I swap the internal and external drives.  I assume it will work. 'cause I heard it will.

mac $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *999.0 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 B...9
                                 Unencrypted

/dev/disk4
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk4
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk4s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh SSD           999.2 GB   disk4s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             784.2 MB   disk4s3

SuperDuper is the wildly acclaimed program that makes recovery painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless. Its incredibly clear, friendly interface is understandable, easy to use, and SuperDuper's built-in scheduler makes it trivial to back up automatically. And it runs beautifully on both Intel and Power PC Macs!

Give SuperDuper a workout on your own system. Clone to your heart's content — for free. See what else is possible. When you're convinced that SuperDuper is a terrific solution — and a great value at $27.95 — you can register right from the application and start using its advanced features immediately!

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html


Renewing the Developer Program Membership after it expires

You may renew your Developer account whenever you want. Just keep in mind: All your 'live' apps in the App Store will go offline when your membership expires. When you renew the Developer Account you can bring the apps back to the store again without setting up / needing a review proces.

I had the same with a customer of mine, their membership expired for several months (they just didn't care enough) and they renewed the account without any hassle.


How do I get Apple TV 3rd Gen to connect to new Wi-Fi settings with no remote and a TV too far away for ethernet cable connection?

Apple TV 3rd generation remotes actually use Infrared (IR) technology, so you should be able to just use the Apple Remote. The only reasons your remote may not work with the Apple TV are:

A dead battery
you have previously linked the remote to another device (e.g. a Mac)

So, if your Apple Remote is not working with your Apple TV you can replace the battery and/or link it to your Apple TV.

To replace the battery refer to How to replace the battery in your Apple Remote. Once you've replaced the battery, if it doesn't work with your Apple TV, then try the next step.
To link the remote to your Apple TV you can just press and hold the Menu and Right buttons simultaneously for five seconds.

As an aside, you may also find that using the same SSID name and password for your new Wi-Fi network (as you did for your old one) means that your Apple TV will be able to connect to it.


Why does adding a Desktop suddenly gives me a new wallpaper?

By default Mission Control uses the same wallpaper as Desktop 1. I assume this is a bug with external monitors where it uses the default galaxy image instead. While not what you are looking for, you can always move the System Preferences window to that desktop/display and manually change the desktop image.


Does push notification work on a jailbroken device?

To answer the question, you'll need to understand how Apple's push notification service works. Every application that wants to use push notifications must register with the Apple Push Notification Service (APNS). Typically, this is done right after installation. iOS asks the user if the app is allowed to receive push notifications. If the user agrees, his iPhone talks to the APNS and requests a token that can identify the combination of application and device. This token is then handed to the service provider (i.e. the developer of the application). If the provider wants to send a push notification, it sends this token along with the payload to the APNS, which then delivers the message. So you can imagine the token as some kind of address. That is, the provider has to include the token in every push message request.

But how is the token generated? According to Apple's docs, the registration mentioned above works as follows: The device sends its unique device token (this is another one!) to the APNS and requests the mentioned deviceToken from the APNS. This deviceToken depends amongst others on the device ID and the app ID and is generated using cryptographic functions, so it cannot be forged.

Now here's the point: The unique token iOS needs to register applications and hence to allow push notifications is generated during the activation process in iTunes. The unique token also uses cryptography and can only be obtained from Apple during this activation process. Jailbroken and hacktivated iOS devices never perform the official activation, so they miss the token. Hence, push notifications cannot work (at least if Apple did not make a major mistake in the implementation).


How to remove dock shelf from Mavericks?

They removed this feature from 10.9. No one really knows why, but it is removed from the dock settings UI as well as the command line. From the linked article;

  As of Mountian Lion, the Dock is rendered by the OS, instead of the OS using a set of image files like in Lion and before, so it can't be edited.

  The 2D dock terminal trick only worked via a string item in the Dock executable. As of Mavericks, that string item has been removed.

  The only way to edit the dock would be to patch the encrypted Dock executable, and inject software to re-render the Dock differently in memory. Not a simple task.


Roh oh. You'll need to find someone with a copy of it (what Mac have you got?), then copy it back over somehow, probably by mounting the drive with another machine, then cross your fingers and hope OS X plays nice with it. If not you'll need your system disks and do a clean install.


Cannot get more than 29.88 Hertz refresh rate from 2016 MacBook Pro and Acer XR342CK monitor

As it turns out, the Acer XR342CK monitor is not compatible with the 2016 MacBook Pro 13" (and possibly 15", I haven't tried). I talked to two different Acer support techs and they both told me there is a compatibility problem between the laptop and monitor.

To verify this information, I was able to get the monitor to connect with the same cables I was using to a Mac Pro tower with an NVIDIA GTX 980 and it worked flawlessly and reached 75 Hertz by default.

I have purchased and tested two of these monitors and they both displayed the same problem with connectivity and refresh rate (and caused my MacBook to hang/reboot). Both of these monitors also have terrible image persistence/burn-in/echo, something to keep in mind if you are considering one of these monitors for your setup.

I sure wish Apple would make a curved display.


Split allows for a regexp pattern match so simply:

split -p pattern longfile.doc

Would start each new file when pattern was found. Nailing down which regexp matches your specific file might be better suited for http://stackoverflow.com but perhaps you know how to craft regexp and didn't realize split would match a pattern.


Is there an application for Windows7 (in bootcamp) to adjust the level of brightness of screen of iMac?

You do not need any software to do this. The Boot Camp drivers from Apple supports changing the brightness of the screen (using the keyboard modifier keys).

The drivers are already included in your Mac OS X DVD for installing Boot Camp Utilities. Otherwise, you can download the installation files using Boot Camp Assistant at /Applications/Utilities.

See here for more details.


Do I need a credit card to install free apps on my MacBook Pro?

Open iTunes.
From the Menu Bar, select Store > My account. You will be prompted for your Apple ID and Password. Enter it.
Under “Payment Type” click the “Edit” link.
Select “None” and then click “Done”

This will enable you to download free items without needing to provide any financial information. Obviously, if you want to purchase an app in the future, you’ll need to update your payment method.


Does the iPhone 5s have any built in water protection mechanisms?

To specifically answer your question, the iPhone (6 and lower)* does not have any specific water protection built in. In fact, there are "sensors" that will turn red (from white) if the phone has been exposed to water. One of them is inside the headphone port and I believe there is another one but don't remember where.

Some generations of iPhone survive better than other by more or less accident and some of it has to do with your exact situation. It sounds like you were fortunate.

Due to the severity of the incident, I wouldn't be surprised if the phone does die at some time within the next 1.5 years. However, considering it appears to work almost like-new (aside from the screen), your chances of making the contract are still decent.

* the iPhone 6S is actually somewhat water resistant even though Apple didn't advertise it as such.


To lower brightness lower than the limit:

Settings app > General > Accessibility > Zoom:
Set Zoom Region > "Full Screen Zoom"
Set Zoom Filter > "Low Light"
Set Maximum Zoom Level all the way to the right (The highest value)

Go back to Accessibility:

Settings app > General > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut:
Set "Triple-Click The Home Button For" > Zoom

To Test: Triple click the home button and the screen will go darker.


How do you access network preferences from the Terminal?

Typing

open /System/Library/PreferencePanes/Network.prefPane/

works for me on Lion. You can substitute Network.prefPane for any of the preference panes in the PreferencePanes folder. This also switches to the correct pane even if System Preferences is already open.


If you use the unified inbox then this can be a problem. If you expand the mailboxes and read them from those, then you can set-up Mail to send using the account for that mailbox.

I suppose this may require remembering to select the correct mailbox in a similar way to remembering to select the from account though.


Read only is a fail safe mode for the backups. It means there was a problem detected with the backup and you can only restore from it.

The system won't continue adding files since that would risk your losing even the ability to recover the files.

There is a procedure to re-attach a Mac to the existing backup once logic boards are replaced, but they assume that there isn't a failure of the backup at the same time.

You should have support from the people who replaced the logic board to help make sure you aren't just missing the steps to re-establish a backup, but if the backup were mine, I'd try backing up to a blank new USB drive and get a good backup now and then troubleshoot the Time Capsule to remedy the error causing the read-only status without risking your only backup. (Since the troubleshooting is to use Disk Utility to repair or erase the Time Capsule and then start over with an initial backup).


First of all, we need to see if something is preventing your Mac from sleeping.

Open Terminal.app
Type in pmset -g assertions

What you are looking for is these lines:

  PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep
     PreventSystemSleep
     PreventUserIdleSystemSleep
     InternalPreventDisplaySleep

and

  Listed by owning process:
    pid xx(nameofdaemon): [0x000000090000012c] 01:45:46 BlahBlah named: "com.randomnam"

Copy and paste all of that into your question.

Next, try resetting the SMC (System Management Controller)

Taken from Apple Support

Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait fifteen seconds.
Attach the computer's power cord.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.

Finally, check the Console Logs

Open Console.app
Click in the search box and type in sleep
Find the entries that match the time your Mac was sleeping
Copy and paste it in your answer

The first and third fixes weren't really fixes. I just hope that the data you paste will help find the cause.


Safari 12 - Favicon in Gmail tab shows incorrect e-mail count

Unfortunately, there is no solution for this at the moment.

This is a known bug in Safari 12, and has to do with the way website favicons shown in Safari tabs are cached. My experience so far with Safari 12 in macOS High Sierra and macOS Mojave has been that favicon once cached for a website is not refreshed automatically.

Safari favicons don't support updating

An advisable approach here would be to file a bug report with Apple. I have already done the same. Having more reports for same issue increases the likelihood of an issue getting resolved.


The short answer is no.

If you remove the cable or "duck head" from your AC adapter, you'll see that there are only two prongs that actually make contact with the power cable. The ground wire doesn't make it to the adapter. You're safe to convert the cable to two prongs.


How to make a small storage in my macbook to act as a USB stick?

You mean use the partition as a USB drive on an external scanner?  If you start the computer in target disk mode and plug it into the scanner with a USB cord, this may work.

If you're running Mountain Lion or Mavericks, you can use Disk Utility to add a small, FAT  formatted partition to your hard drive without erasing it or losing any data.

Connecting that partition to an external scanner may prove to be trickier than installing drivers for a scanner.


Is the iPhone 6 waterproof or water-resistant?

The iPhone 6 is neither waterproof nor water-resistant as marketed by Apple. Though tech journalists have found that the iPhone 6S is semi-water resistant, Only the iPhone 7 is currently certified as being water-resistant.


How to check what keyboard type is installed in MacBook Air by serial number?

Can you provide the part number?  I think the standard English keyboard model is MD231LL/A (from the Apple US online store).


From the StackOverflow Q&A entitled "Getting git to work with a proxy server?":

  Command to use :

git config --global http.proxy http://proxyuser:proxypwd@proxy.server.com:8080
git config --global https.proxy https://proxyuser:proxypwd@proxy.server.com:8080

  change proxyuser by your proxy user
  change proxypwd by your prxy password
  change proxy.server.com by proxy server url
  change 8080 by proxy port

  If you decide at any time to reset this proxy and work without (no
  proxy):

  Commands to use:

git config --global --unset http.proxy
git config --global --unset https.proxy

Git also respects the http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables.


The best option would be to systematically go through the manufacturer steps for troubleshooting a mac mini that won't boot. Even if you don't see the power light - do run through the no video steps as well - it might save you a trip or a call with a tech.

Best of luck!


Go to the App Store on your iPad. Search for "Lorex Care." In the upper left corner (see screen shot), you can change "iPad Only" to "iPhone Only." Then the app will appear. If you touch "Lorex Care," it says it will work on the iPad. (The below screen shot came from my iPad.)


CoreStorageFamily::unlockVEKs() failed to unwrap the vek, status = e00002bc

I noticed fsck_hfs running when i get this error.

So i suspect that the volume needed to be fsck'd, and because this sometimes can take longer than the time the authentication is supposed to take, an error got signalled by the authentication dialog, leading to the e00002bc error in the system log.

A look at /var/log/fsck_hfs.log will tell you if this is what happened in your case.

On my 4T external disk the fsck took about 5 hours.


Macbook Pro unresponsive while opening applications

The issue turned out to be with a background program, Typinator 5.3. The problem only occurred while Typinator was active. Upgrading to Typinator 5.4 seems to have fixed the problem.


Simply add aliases in ~/.bash_profile:

If the file .bash_profile doesn't exist:

touch ~/.bash_profile

Then add aliases with nano ~/.bash_profile. Examples:

alias ssh01='ssh xyx@xy'
alias ssh02='ssh -NC user@xy -L 9999:localhost:3306'

Then source the file or restart Terminal.app:

source ~/.bash_profile

Entering ssh01 in the shell will then execute ssh xyx@xy or ssh02 the second command.

The alias (i.e. ssh01) mustn't be another valid command in your path (e.g ssh-add)


How does one detect if java is installed without triggering a visual prompt?

rtrouton has some great examples on his derflounder website.  The examples are used as extension attributes in a mdm suite, just remove the results tags from them.  Below is a script that looks for the java install folder, if it exists echo out the version if not echo not installed.  This in return never triggers the java command keeping the pop up away.

if [[ -e /Library/Java/Home ]]; then
    echo "$(java -version 2>&1 | awk '/version/{print $3}' | sed 's/"//g')"
        else
    echo "Java not installed"
fi


Spotlight taking a lot of power on macOS

The Average Energy Impact column in Activity Monitor takes past energy usage into account. For example for me it shows 23,87 for Time Machine even though it is not backing up at the moment.

Apparently Spotlight has been very active but has now finished indexing.


How to create an email group easily in Mac OS X?

Typically, if you had many people from your Contacts you would simply create a group by following:

Open Contacts.app and select "File" -> "New Group"
Enter the name of the group you are creating.

This is what you will type into mail, and will effectively be the name of your "distribution list".

Go back to "All Contacts" and drag the contacts in that you would like to be in your group.
Now, when you want to sent to that group, just type in the group's name and Mail.app will automatically populate the sending information.

However, for your situation, that won't work very well as you need to create a distribution list for many people who aren't in your Address book (per your edit). With a tip borrowed from iOS, and a hack, you should be set.

Your list of email addresses must be comma-delimited. If it is separated by line breaks, then this likely won't work. So first we need them comma delimited.
Now we will create a contact, and name it "2013 4Q Students" or something.
Next, we will put our comma-delimited list of email addresses into one email field.

I assume there is an arbitrary limit on how many email addresses you can put into one field, but I don't know from experience what that might be.

Type the new "contact" name into a Mail.app compose "To" field. It will come up with the standard blue bubble and all those email addresses will be packed inside.
Now we proceed with a small hack: click the down-arrow next to the contact name in the blue bubble.
Click "Edit Contact".
Remove the contact name ("2013 4Q Students") from the beginning and the "<".
Type Command + right arrow to reach end of email address line, and remove the ">".

Just a little cumbersome, but this should work for you.


applescript - do shell output to variable is blank

AppleScript treats variables created with set as local by default (although the documentation isn't totally clear IMO). This means that the cpuValue variable inside on getProcessPercentCPU is local to that handler, and different from the variable with the same name in the outer scope.
Essentially, you have two different variables that just happen to have the same name, one set to "", the other to the CPU percentage for the Safari process.
You could solve this by adding global cpuValue inside the handler, but returning values in global variables isn't good programming practice. It's almost always better to return values like a function:
set cpuValue to getProcessPercentCPU("Safari")

on getProcessPercentCPU(someProcess)
    set processPercentCPU to do shell script "/bin/ps -xco %cpu,command | /usr/bin/awk '/" & someProcess & "$/ {print $1}'"
    return processPercentCPU
end getProcessPercentCPU

log "output:" & cpuValue


Is is possible to go invisible in iChat?

When using Gmail in iChat before 10.7 you can't go invisible. I'm using Adium to be able to go invisible when I login via Gmail.


How to create a VPN connection via terminal?

You can use these wonderful bash functions from @slhck at Super User:

To connect to different VPNs, have multiple VPNs in Network.prefpane.

function vpn-connect {
/usr/bin/env osascript <<-EOF
tell application "System Events"
        tell current location of network preferences
                set VPN to service "UniVPN" -- your VPN name here
                if exists VPN then connect VPN
                repeat while (current configuration of VPN is not connected)
                    delay 1
                end repeat
        end tell
end tell
EOF
}

function vpn-disconnect {
/usr/bin/env osascript <<-EOF
tell application "System Events"
        tell current location of network preferences
                set VPN to service "UniVPN" -- your VPN name here
                if exists VPN then disconnect VPN
        end tell
end tell
return
EOF
}

Don't forget to change the name of the VPN.


Can any Apple watch bands add extra features?

I have a vague recollection of several attempts at "feature" bands when the original Apple Watch was released but I'm not sure many of them even made it into production. The only one I'm familiar with that is a shipping product is the KardiaBand.

https://store.alivecor.com/products/kardiaband

It adds ECG features to Series 3 watches and predates similar features in the Series 4.


How should I enable my terminal find command on the whole disk on macOS 10.13.6?

Make some tea and you’re done. That setting won’t arrive until you upgrade to a newer OS.

Your find command has no barriers other than traditional ACL and permissions to stop it from traversing the entire disk.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-permissions-for-files-folders-or-disks-mchlp1203/mac


I found a gist that removes the launchds & the kernel extensions for the bluetooth. It will make the system incapable of using the bluetooth features  :

#!/bin/bash

# disable bluetooth
# OS X 10.8.2
# 2012-10-08

home=$HOME
bk=$home/backup-bluetooth-extentions
mkdir $bk

# sudo reboot with Shift Key # Safty Boot
# Login as Admin usert.

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Local Backup OFF
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# sudo tmutil disable
# sudo tmutil disablelocal

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Agnet
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# bluetooth
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.bluetoothUIServer.plist
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.bluetoothAudioAgent.plist

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Daemon
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.blued.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.bnepd.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.IOBluetoothUSBDFU.plist

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Extentions
#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# Driver
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/AppleBluetoothMultitouch.kext $bk
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/IOBluetoothFamily.kext $bk
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/IOBluetoothHIDDriver.kext $bk

# Bluetooth Mouns & Keyboard
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHIDKeyboard.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleBluetoothHIDKeyboard.kext $bk
sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHIDMouse.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleBluetoothHIDMouse.kext $bk

#---------------------------------------------------------------------
# touch
sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions

echo 'Shut Down & Restart'


In the "Get Info" panel, the field under "Open with:" should be a picklist, you should be able to click on the list and choose an alternate application. You should then be able to use the "Change All..." button to make that application the default for all .tex documents.


The iso is no longer necessary.
In the bottom of the virtual-machine-window there's a icon that looks like a CD
if you click it you can de-select the .iso (by either choosing disconnect or use phyical drive)


Can I update Macmini2,1 to OS X Mavericks?

Sorry, no.

Latest OS X that can support is Lion, 10.7.5

Ref: EveryMac


Hard drive formatting: error message -69760

I've run across this a few times before and there were two approaches that worked:

Format the drive in a Windows machine (FAT32 or NTFS is fine)
Zero out the drive.  This, in effect, writes zeros on every single datablock on your hard/solid disk drive.

% sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/diskN bs=8m     ← Where diskN is your disk identifier

The idea is to write each block with a zero overwriting whatever was there corrupting it.  Keep in mind, this will take a long, long time so if you have a Windows machine handy, it makes sense to first format it there then try again in macOS.


set audio alarm for when charger is disconnected

This can be done by using the pmset -g batt command. The first line of output from this command indicates your power source, e.g.:

Now drawing from 'AC Power'

Or

Now drawing from 'Battery Power'

A possible use for this might be to change various commands together in a batch file, e.g.:

pmset -g batt | head -n 1 | grep "Battery"

In the above example, you'll only get output when you're running on battery power. So, a reasonable approach might be to use a bash script running via launchd or as a hidden Login Item in your profile. Something like this would work a charm:

#!/bin/bash
while true; do
  if $(pmset -g batt | head -n 1 | grep -q "Battery"); then
      say "Running on battery";
      sleep 5;
  fi
sleep 5;
done


Finder/Quicklook Bug (File Icon Previews Not Working)

Per comment under original question, first thing I'd try (which turned out to be the solution) would be to run sudo qlmanage -r in a terminal, which resets the QuickLook subsystem.