The most likely cause is your keyboard is failing; specifically there is an issue with your power button where it intermittently causes it to stick.

The shutdown dialog box you are seeing is a result of the power management daemon intercepting the momentary press of the power butting thinking you want to sleep, restart, or shutdown.

  First I also taught it was the power off button but in this case It
  should also shutdown when I'm on target mode but it doesn't

The reason you are not seeing the power button have an effect is because power management must be loaded to intercept the signal.  Not only is power management not loaded, nothing of OS X is being loaded either.

Target Disk Mode is a firmware feature, not a feature of OS X.  What your Mac is doing is allowing the Firewire/Thunderbolt port to pass an external connection through to the internal drive so what you have is in fact, the most expensive Firewire or Thunderbolt external drive ever made.

Because it hasn't loaded any systems management services, a simple press of the power button isn't going to do anything; try it yourself.  However, to turn off your computer in TDM, you have to hold down the power button for 5 seconds - exactly the same way you would if your fully booted OS X Mac would if it stopped responding.

How to Verify...

This is a simple procedure to validate whether or not your power button is failing.  Since it's part of the keyboard assembly this requires disconnecting the keyboard and shorting the power pads to power on your logic board.  I recommend getting an external mouse/keyboard (USB) because when you disconnect your MBP keyboard, you will need something on which to type.

Once you remove the back cover and disconnect the keyboard/trackpad assembly from the logic board, you will need to turn on the MBP by "shorting" the two power pad connections.  Don't worry, this is exactly what a switch does - it shorts the connection.  You can use a paperclip, but my preference is to use a flat blade screwdriver wide enough to touch both contacts.

(The images below are from a 2010 MBP, if you give me your specific model, I will update the shots)

You won't be able to power on your MBP unless you open the lid, so you will have to gently have it upside down on your desk with the lid open as you perform this procedure. It helps if you put a towel of some sort of padding to protect it. Once it's powered on, just flip it back to its normal position (off the towel); you won't need to put the bottom cover back on.  Make sure your mouse and keyboard are connected.

If the problem goes away once you do this, then the problem is your keyboard - it's time for a replacement.


TrackPad Speed and Mouse Speed - Resets to slow every time

Although according to his comment it didn't help Mattias, the first thing I would try is resetting the NVRAM.

Since you don't specify what model your Mac is, I've included two different sets of instructions. Choose the one that applies.

Resetting the PRAM/NVRAM on ALL MODELS EXCEPT for Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

To reset the NVRAM on all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note 1: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Note 2: These steps will also work to reset the NVRAM (or PRAM) for all Macs. However, the late-2016 MBP models actually required the commandoptionpr keys to be held down for 20 seconds, while earlier Macs did not require this, but doing so does not cause any problems either.


Extract Installer Package Signing Certificates from xip archive

I think it works with the following command:

xar --dump-toc="${HOME}/Desktop/header.xml" -f /path/to/your/archive.xip

This will write an xml file called "header" onto your desktop, and that one contains the X509 certificates. You only need to parse it; maybe jq will do the job best.

Edit: however, jq isn't native macOS, so it has to be with xmllint etc. This below works. It will put all certificates in your home folder.

FILEPATH="/path/to/your/archive.xip"
FILENAME=$(/usr/bin/basename "$FILEPATH")
/usr/bin/xar --dump-toc=- -f "$FILEPATH" \
    | /usr/bin/xmllint --xpath '//signature[@style="RSA"]' - \
    | /usr/bin/sed -n '/<X509Certificate>/,/<\/X509Certificate>/p' \
    | xargs \
        | /usr/bin/awk '{ \
                gsub("<X509Certificate>","-----BEGINCERTIFICATE-----"); \
                gsub("</X509Certificate>","-----ENDCERTIFICATE-----"); \
                print}' \
        | /usr/bin/awk '{gsub(" ","\n"); print}' \
        | /usr/bin/awk '{ \
                gsub("BEGINCERTIFICATE-----","BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\n"); \
                gsub("-----ENDCERTIFICATE","\n-----END CERTIFICATE"); \
                print}' \
    | /usr/bin/csplit -k -s -n 1 -f "$FILENAME"-cert - '/END CERTIFICATE/+1' '{3}' 2>/dev/null
for CERT in *"-cert"* ; do
    if [[ $(/bin/cat "$CERT") == "" ]] ; then
        rm -rf "$CERT"
    else
        mv "$CERT" "$CERT.pem"
    fi
done


Does Find my Mac work if you boot into Windows on BootCamp?

No. The service requires you to be running OS X (Lion specifically) and to have a recovery partition installed (created by Lion during installation). If you attempt to log into iCloud.com to find it's location, it will simply be listed as offline or unavailable.


I assume that you are trying to kill pis 17564 by kill -9 17564

However it is already dead, shown by ts name being in () in the ps output. (I learnt this as being a zombie process but that seems not to be  correct but the solution is the same) It will go away when the process that started it reads its exit code.

The man page for ps says that state E means that the process is trying to exit. The command shown is actually the ucomm (accounting) keyword as the system can't find the actual arguments.

To remove the process the process that calls it has to read its exit code, however there has probably been a failure and it won't do that, so you have to kill the parent process.

ps -ajx will show the status and parent - note that Apple/BSD changed the parameters of ps in Tiger   and ps -aux does not work ps aux sees a hack as that is what everyone uses. So you need to read the man page.


How could I message a dumb phone and an iPad at the same time

You can send a text message to multiple recipients at once with the built-in Messages app. Just send a message to both her cellphone's number and her iPad's email address.


It removes it as being registered to your name in Apple's system. When you call Apple support from the iPhone, a screen pops up saying your name, the serial number of the phone, and information related to the phones previous issues. When you unregister it, that information goes away and it appears as a device that has yet to be registered. (Unless it is flagged as stolen).


Safe to kill spindump? (Older/slower machines)

It's probably safe to even disable them if you are not interested in the generated system analytics. Full procedure to do so is documented on Disable tailspind and spindump to Speed Up your Mac. In a nutshell:

Disable SIP
Unload/rename LaunchDaemon for spindump

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.spindump.plist
sudo mv /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.spindump.plist{,.bak}

Do the same for com.apple.tailspind.plist
Enable SIP

You probably need to redo this with each macOS update.


How to migrate data to new iMac with SSD + HD?

First, I'd suggest making a plan for deciding what data is going where. A simple starting point is put all your media (particularly videos) on the hard drive, since it often accounts for the bulk of the data and benefits less from the speed of the SSD.

Secondly, you can customize what data Migration assistant brings over. Have it transfer your apps and settings, and maybe the basics from your home directory, then once you've got your system up and running you can transfer the rest either by running Migration Assistant again, or manually via Target Disk mode.

Another option, if you have a bunch of data (enough to get you under the 256GB barrier) that you know you're going to be putting on the HD, is to transfer it manually first (or to a backup drive), then delete it and run Migration Assistant without any exclusions.


Wrapping youtube-dl into automator via applescript

Nice - a simple UI like that could be very useful in many situations!

Try this:

display dialog "URL to fetch?" default answer ""
set theUrl to (text returned of result)

--> get file
do shell script "cd /tmp/; /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl " & theUrl

--> get title
set theTitle to do shell script "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl -e " & theUrl

display notification "Fetched " & theTitle sound name "Blow"
delay 1 --> avoid quit before notice

Unfortunately the youtube-dl script did not actually download the video when using the -e flag, (and an error occurred when trying to use the --exec CMD option).

Ended up just running the command twice; First download to /tmp, then get title.

Could also use the process id (pid) to track progress, etc.. :)

command 2>/dev/null & pid=$!

Update:
I could not get the output of certain commands through applescript, like 'nettop'. There are probably ways to fix it.
Here is my sloppy attempt at implementing a pid checking.. :)

set question to display dialog "URL to fetch?" default answer "" buttons {"Cancel", "Open in Browser", "Download"} default button 3
set pageURL to (text returned of result)
if pageURL is "" then return "No URL"
set choice to (button returned of question)

if choice is "Download" then
    try
        set pid to do shell script "cd /tmp/; /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl --newline " & pageURL & " > /tmp/vidstatus 2>&1 & echo $!"
        delay 1
        repeat while ((do shell script "kill -0 " & pid) is "") -- check if pid is still responding
            display dialog "Status: " & (do shell script "tail -n1 /tmp/vidstatus") -- display last line of output
        end repeat
    on error
        display dialog "Download complete!" -- eh, success, hopefully :)
    end try

else if choice is "Open in Browser" then
    try
        set videoURL to do shell script "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl -g " & pageURL
        open location videoURL -- browser can stream and save file
    on error
        display dialog "Download aborted!"
    end try
end if


apple numbers Filling data into a table using AppleScript

For your second block of assignments, remove the second 'the value of' from each line so that they look like this:

set the value of cell "K2" to fileinfolder

That second 'value' is redundant.

As an aside, the error is peculiar in that it should probably be a 'script error' that can't get the value of '1.0', for example. So whichever cell is generating the error is probably indicating to the script that it's a boolean or something. But this isn't the source of your problem, just a symptom.

NB To test this, I simply used a column of numbers ranging from 1 to 17 to supply the first block of assignments.


Disabling desktop switching animation on El Capitan

Try pasting this into Terminal.app:

defaults write com.apple.dock expose-animation-duration -float 0.1

It is supposed to

  Make all animations faster that are used by Mission Control.

Source: http://www.defaults-write.com/10-terminal-commands-to-speed-up-your-mac-in-os-x-el-capitan/


I'll make my comment into an answer.

For your particular situation, you don't need to temporarily disconnect from home Wi-Fi.

When you realise that the Wi-Fi doesn't work properly and you want to switch to 4G it's only necessary to start the personal hotspot from settings.


Xcode has command line tools embedded in its application bundle that are used by the Xcode IDE as needed and are separate and apart from the Command Line Tools for Xcode package, that can be downloaded by itself, which installs outside of the application bundle. The separate package can be installed and use without having the Xcode application installed.  As to versioning, I believe as each version of Xcode is available a corresponding version of the Command Line Tools for Xcode package is also made available and for what's included in common should be the same versions.  When installing the Command Line Tools for Xcode package with Xcode installed it does not overwrite the Xcode.app bundled command line tools, they are updated as Xcode is.


iPad Camera Connection Kit not showing valid MP4 videos

I found the answer to my own question - the filenames must be in strict 8.3 format i.e. the main name is exactly 8 characters long.


Make my iCloud @me.com email my primary Apple ID

Have you added the @me address to your existing apple Id?

You should then be able to verify the address and set as primary address

Once it's added, you should jut be able to use it as your Apple id login

Edit: it seems the My Apple Id page has changed recently, you can no longer set an email address as a primary email address and as your AppleID.

Apple Knowledge Base article from October 2011 shows hows to do this but this ability is not present in the current live My Apple ID page.

It is still the case however that @me.com email addresses are valid aliases for your AppleId and you can log in to any service with one instead of your primary.


How to find items located in subfolders?

If the folder is excluded from Spotlight, search function in Finder would not work there.


Time Machine exclusions added via tmutil do not appear in TM "Options" list

Aaah, the following page seems to suggest that this is in fact expected behaviour:
http://pondini.org/TM/Works4.html

Exclusions Not Shown on the Preferences Window
Fixed Path Exclusions are set by the CSBackupSetItemExcluded API or sudo tmutil with the -p option, whether the item exists or not.
Sticky exclusions are set in an item's extended attributes, via the CSBackupSetItemExcluded API, xattr, or tmutil without the -p option.


When accessing my Windows DFS share on my Mac machine, it shows empty folder

In Mac AD domain join does not add any search domain that might be needed to access domain services. after adding search domain for AD Domain, system was able to show files inside DFS shared folders.


The CrashPlan.app does not have an ACL. The output of ls is consistent, you must have misread it.

When you run ls -a in the parent directory, it tells you that . (i.e. the parent of CrashPlan.app) has extended attributes, and that CrashPlan.app has no ACL (mode string rwxrwxr-x).
When you run ls -a inside CrashPlan.app, it tells you that . (i.e. the CrashPlan.app directory) has no ACL (mode string rwxrwxr-x), and that .. (i.e. the parent directory) has extended attributes.

The parent directory does not have an ACL, but it has extended attributes com.apple.backupdelta.MoveChecked and com.apple.s stem.Security. This second attribute is odd: it should be com.apple.system.Security. This is a sign that your filesystem may be corrupted.


How can I add a second sender address with different SMTP server in iOS?

Configuring additional outgoing mail servers
from the Apple support websites has detail instructions:

Go to Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

Tap the Mail account for which you would like to change the settings.
If your account is configured to sync Notes or other items, you may need to tap Account Info on the following screen as well.

On the Account Info screen, locate the Outgoing Mail Server section and tap the existing SMTP entry.

A list of SMTP servers will appear, with the Primary Server and then Other SMTP Servers. Go to Other SMTP servers → Add Server....

Enter the additional SMTP server information. Host Name is required.

Tap Save.


The problem was the keyboard.

I detached all of the internal cables. The keyboard, the trackpad, the keyboard backlights, the optical drive, bluetooth and hard drive.

I attached the HDD and a Keyboard via usb and started the machine by attaching the power cable. From there, success, it booted to desktop.

I then started to reattach all until I found the culprit. Macbook now working minus the internal keyboard.


Have you tried looking at the I/O Kit Registry?

Here is a link to the man page for ioreg provided by apple.

Try this command to reveal the system's serial number:

ioreg -l | grep IOPlatformSerialNumber


iPhone 5 Car Bluetooth Issue with Incoming Phone Calls

I think this will fix it :

Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Scroll down to interaction section -> Call Audio Routing -> Choose headset


There is about 60GB of space being used on my HD that I cannot find

It's probably still stored in a Time Machine local backup. Open Finder, browse to the original location of the drive you deleted, then open Time Machine. Go back in time to find the file, then right-click it and delete the backup of it. This will return the space.


Open System Preferences → Energy Saver and choose Restore Defaults.


Is it possible to downgrade to ios 4.3.3 without SHSH?

If you have your SHSH's saved for 4.3.3, then you should be able to get back to 4.3.3 with some help of TinyUmbrella (it also has a button to get out of recovery loop, maybe you can try that?)

If you don't have your SHSH's saved, there is no way you can get back to 4.3.3 (or any firmware version for which you didn't save your SHSH's, for that matter...)

Official download links are to the right of this page: http://thefirmwareumbrella.blogspot.com/


Raise maximum connection limit for Internet Sharing?

The limit seems to be hard-coded into macOS and cannot be modified by setting properties or similar.

However, if it is an option to use additional hardware, you may put a router in between. That way, only the router would connect via Internet sharing, while the other devices would connect to the router.


How do I uninstall a Kernel Extension in Yosemite?

I wouldn't go playing with kexts. They don't like being dragged around. You'll end up with a kernel panic and have to pick it apart in single user mode - let's leave that kind of thing to the hackintosh kiddies.
Logitech Control Center (LCC) comes with an uninstaller in /Applications/Utilities which would be a far better bet.


How do I turn off AirPlay on Apple Watch?

I turned my watch off, let it reboot, problem solved.


Why doesn't a stripped/cracked MagSafe power cable shock?

Magsafe cables only carry voltages ranging from 14.5 to 20 volts, which is not nearly enough to be able to feel. For more information, see this Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange question. You would not be able to touch the actual conductors anyways as the metal "wire" that is visible in this picture does not carry any current, as it is just shielding around smaller insulated wires. It is unlikely for arcing to occur, but you should still get the charger replaced soon. Like iPhone and iPad chargers, always buy MagSafe chargers from an Apple Store or the Apple website as ones bought on eBay and Amazon are known to be non-UL listed counterfeits.


The only thing I can pretty much say is I doubt it's Avira as I
  installed it right at the beginning and this issue is a recent one

That could be evidence to the contrary - even a minor OS X upgrade can cause a third party kext to become deprecated, resulting in persistent panics.

Unless you completely uninstall the software, you won’t be able to rule it out. A quick google search of Apple Support Communities shows a multitude of panics related to Akira’s drivers.

Another alternative would be to unload the kernel extension temporarily* and test. Open Terminal and enter the following command (replacing with the actual name of the kext):

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/thirdpartykext.kext

Confirm it’s unloaded:

kextstat | grep com.avira.kext.FileAccessControl

grep should return nothing. Proceed to reboot your machine.

If you’re unable to recreate the panic, then you’ve isolated the issue. Contact the developers of the software, report it, and wait for them to roll out an update.

*To reload the kext, you’d run:

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/thirdpartykext.kext


Word crashes with documents with "track changes" on

The problem is not with the track changes and comments but how Word tries to display them: in a Balloon...

Luckily there is a simple solution:

Word -> Preferences -> Track Changes -> "Use balloons to display changes"

remove the tickmark from here.

You can still see the changes inside text by checking the colors and use

Review tab -> Comments -> Previous, Next

to step through comments (the list will be opened at a left side sidebar). Convinient way although not so fancy, but at least: it works!


How to shutdown a Mac after one hour of an application?

The answer to this question will shutdown at a certain time How can I forcibly shut down my Mac at an appointed time? but that is not exactly what you asked for, although it is non-cancellable (well, not easily anyway) and walks you through the use of cron.

You can also achieve the same thing in the Energy Saver control panel, by clicking the Schedule... button.

To shutdown, after a certain time, there is a free application called Shutdown Timer which usefully gives a half-time reminder.

Finally, here is a non-cancellable AppleScript, from An AppleScript to generate a timed shutdown

(* how many seconds before we remove the notice? *)
property dialog_timeout : 3

repeat
  try
    display dialog "In how many minutes must the computer be shutdown?" ¬
    default answer ""
    set the time_amount to the text returned of the result as integer
    if the time_amount is greater than 0 then exit repeat
    on error number error_number
    if the error_number is -128 then return "user cancelled"
  end try
end repeat

if the time_amount is 1 then
  set the my_minuten to "minute"
else
  set the my_minuten to "minutes"
end if

display dialog "The computer will be shutdown in " & time_amount & " " & ¬
my_minuten & "!" buttons {"Ok"} default button 1 giving up after dialog_timeout

delay time_amount * 60
tell application "Finder" to shut down

However, none of these options keep the machine turned off for a specific set time, so they only answer half of your question, unfortunately. Maybe managed parental accounts, as suggested by D.G., are the way to go... See OS X Mavericks: Set up parental controls


What is Apple Card and how do I get one?

Apple Card, a self branded card is a new kind of credit card to be used in conjugation with Apple Pay. It is created by Apple in partnership with Goldman Sachs. Apple claims to have focused on simplicity, transparency and privacy with Apple Card.

It is currently available only to the citizens of United States. You need to have an Apple Pay compatible iPhone, running recent version of iOS to be able to use it.

(Note: The official documentation doesn't state what is the minimum version required to use Apple Card (it only mentions recent iOS version), Apple Card was rolled out after iOS 12.4 was released. So it could be safely assumed that your device need to run at least iOS 12.4).

You'll also need to have Two-factor authentication enabled for your Apple ID.

  How do I apply for one?

To apply for it, you need to be signed into iCloud with your Apple ID on your iPhone. Once done, open the Wallet app on your iPhone, tap on the ⨁ button, select Apple Card and tap Continue.

You'll be asked to fill out the requisite information. If your application is approved, a digital version of Apple Card is issued immediately, and is ready to use via Apple Pay.

Apple has added an information video on their official YouTube channel demonstrating the application process:

Apple Card — How to apply

For scenarios where Apple Pay is not available, such as brick and mortar stores, you can also request Apple for a physical card. The physical card is made up of titanium and carries your name on the front. It is called Titanium Apple Card.

The physical card will be shipped to your address by Apple. It's a Mastercard and can be used anywhere in the world where Mastercard is accepted.

Apple claims that the physical card is more secure than other credit cards as it doesn't contain a card number, CVV code, expiration date or your signature externally.

To learn more about Apple Card, refer to the following Apple Support documents and official links:

Apple Card
How to apply for Apple Card
How to use Apple Card
Request and use your titanium Apple Card
How your Apple Card application is evaluated

  How do I know if it's available in my country?

Apple Card is currently only being issued to U.S. citizens. To get notified when it gets introduced in your country, subscribe for the news using this link:

Apple Card - Notify Me


No simple solution that I can think of.

You can switch to using Skim, or another PDF previewer that supports the behavior you seek.
You can "open file.pdf" to refresh and bring Preview to the foreground, and then another command to bring your editor or terminal in front of it (open file.pdf; open -a Terminal.app).


Why can I not set Safari keyboard shortcuts? Conflicts with secondary, unlisted Back/Forward commands

It seems like this is a widespread issue. I tried redefining shortcuts such as creating new windows, but although the shortcut appears in the menu bar it doesn't actually work—Safari uses the default extension. This happens for other Safari menu bar items as well.
Sadly this doesn't seem to have been fixed even on Safari 14 (shipped with macOS Big Sur).
In order to overcome this strange limitation/bug, I use BetterTouchTool to set up custom keyboard shortcuts, and it works pretty well.


How do I view podcasts in a tiled artwork view using iTunes?

I just made a smart playlist where Media Kind Is Podcast, and I view that in Grid View.


What is the difference between these two cursors, with tmux?

Normally when you for example select a piece of text in iTerm2, your mouse activity is reported to the application you're currently running (for example a text editor). That application decides what happens.
However, when you hold down the alt/option key in iTerm2, you disable mouse reporting. This means that the application is not told of your mouse movements, and instead everything takes place inside iTerm2.
This can be used if for example you want to select and copy a piece of text to the macOS clipboard, but the application you're running does not allow you to do so (i.e. it has some other behavior triggrered by the mouse).


This issue can often be caused by debris in the MagSafe port, I sometimes get small metallic particles, attracted there by the magnet. If this is the case, brushing the port with a dry cotton swab can fix the problem ( see here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT203207)


I can't get messages from my iPhone to my car's audio system - does iPhone support MAP?

Firstly, all iPhones since the iPhone 5s support the Message Access Profile (MAP). For more information see Bluetooth profiles that iOS supports.

As for how you can get this to work, it seems to me you’ve done a great job of trying to troubleshoot this. However, one thing you probably missed (because it isn’t at all obvious!) is the fact you may need to enable Show Notifications.

To do this:

On your iPhone go into Settings
Tap on Bluetooth
Find the listing for your car’s device and tap on the info icon (it’s the blue circle with an i in it)
Now make sure that Show Notifications is enabled

Once you’ve done that, try again to use the messages function. Please note, however, that many car units won’t import messages already on the phone, so the best way to test this is to have someone send you a text while the phone is connected.


Note: This works with all versions of Numbers.

To create a running total, if that is what you are asking, use two columns.  One for numbers to subtract, the other for the running total.
Add another column for numbers to add if desired.

In the example below, the starting number is in cell reference B2 and the number to subtract from it is in cell reference A3.  Cell B3 enter this formula: =B2 - A3 then, click and drag the yellow dot (shown in the illustration) to autofill the formula down into the cells below.  Numbers will update the cell references automatically.

Of course, this can be improved upon but this is the basic formula to answer the OP's question.


How to change default font size when preview open microsoft excel document?

Enter the following command into the terminal. Quit and relaunch Preview.

defaults write com.apple.Preview NSSystemFontSize -int X

Change X to desired font size.

Source: http://www.macosxtips.co.uk/index_files/13-things-you-didnt-know-about-preview.php

Oh, and to Apple - ever heard of UI?!


Boot into Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 on a 2015 MacBook Air

Unfortunately you can't.

OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 is the earliest OS supported on your 2015 MacBook Air. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is too archaic (released in 2009) and you won't be able to boot into it on your 2015 MacBook Air.


Safari 6 rendering issues/artifacts (on Mountain Lion)

I can confirm this is a bug with the Intel Graphics 4000 GPU. I see the graphics artifacts on my 13" Retina MacBook Pro and not on my older MBP which has Mt. Lion and an Nvidia Geforce GPU.

I have first hand experience with this issue while trying to develop css buttons for websites...

I believe the artifacts can be reproduced by using the css3 border-radius in conjunction with a box-shadow. Though obviously it happens in many other circumstances as well. (Which I can confirm)

Here is a link to a bug report on webkit website (though I'm not sure it belongs there):

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=103087

And the SO question it came from:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13505314/artifacts-on-css-rendering-box-shadow-on-safari-6-0-2-on-mountain-lion


You can check if the server is running in NFS Manager itself:

Hit the Test Server button in NFS Manager:

Enter the IP of the server (either 127.0.0.1 or the interface IP e.g. 192.168.0.5) and hit "Test".

If the NFS server is running you get the following result:

Some of the ports depend on your configuration. The above example shows the standard ports.

From remote you can check this by executing nmap. A running NFS server looks like this:

host:~ user$ nmap ip

Starting Nmap 7.30 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2016-12-16 01:26 CET
Nmap scan report for IP
Host is up (0.00015s latency).
Not shown: 967 closed ports, 27 filtered ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
111/tcp  open  rpcbind
1001/tcp open  unknown
1021/tcp open  exp1
1023/tcp open  netvenuechat
2049/tcp open  nfs

If your firewall is off, then either your NFS server or client (or both) are configured incorrectly.


This is a bug of Mission Control, that Apple should fix.

A temporary solution is to:

Right click the Terminal icon on the Dock.
Click Options.
Assigns it to None rather than All Desktops.

This will however not let the app show up on all desktops any more.


Install 10.8 on an external drive from 10.9

I would bet you tried to install Mountain Lion on a Mac that shipped with Mavericks. Unfortunately (for driver reasons) it is not possible.

If you want to run an older OS X on your mac I would suggest try a VM like VirtualBox or VMWare.


What are the drawbacks to reformatting my hard drive back to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from APFS

The external drive used to store Time Machine backups must be formatted with HFS+, also known as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If the external drive is formatted with APFS, it cannot be used for storing Time Machine backups.

The internal drive in your Mac used to contain the macOS operating system can be formatted with either APFS or HFS+. Both choices will support backing that computer up with Time Machine.

If your computer was automatically converted to APFS with the upgrade to High Sierra this has nothing to do in itself with your Time Machine problem. Such a system is still supported to be backed up with Time Machine.

If you want to reverse the automatic conversion from HFS+ to APFS, you'll need to backup the system, reformat the computer with HFS+ and then restore from the backup (or reinstall a new macOS operating system if you haven't got any data to save). Unfortunately there's no automatic conversion program from APFS to HFS+.

Note that such a conversion from APFS to HFS+ does not in itself improve your Time Machine situation.


Mac mini (Late 2009) + Yosemite: cannot read CDs/DVDs

Mine did the same, however after purchasing an LG external drive Mac/PC from Best Buy, I am now successful in reading disks. I use the cable that came with it on the back of my Mac Mini USB port. This is the cheaper one, and has flimsy  CD tray, but works.


Migration assistant destroyed battery life

The 14hrs of battery life the MBP reported initially was almost certainly an incorrect reading.

The first thing I would do is reset the System Management Controller (SMC) and see what readings you get then.

Reset the SMC

Shut down your MBP
Unplug the power cable and any other hardware (keyboards, mouse, drives, etc)
For 10 seconds, press and hold at the same time the shiftcontroloption keys (on the left side of the built-in keyboard) and the power button
After 10 seconds let go of all keys and the power button
Plug in the power cable
Turn your MBP back on with the power button.

Once you've done that see if you notice any wild fluctuations in what the system reports in terms of your battery life.

Run Apple Diagnostics

After resetting the SMC you can also follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics if you're still concerned:

Fully shut down your MBP
Restart your MBP
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went.

Calibrate your MBP battery

If you're still concerned, you can always calibrate the battery. This isn't officially required on MacBook models with built-in batteries, but some users report an improvement after doing so.

Before following these steps, read over them fully as you will need to leave your MBP in a flat and powered off state for at least five hours, so you may want to time things to suit you (for example, so that it's in that state overnight while you're sleeping).

Follow these steps to do the calibration:

Fully charge your MBP - Since we're unsure about how the OS is reading the battery percentages, make sure you go by the charging indicator rather than the battery icon in the menu bar.
Now use the MBP for a minimum of two hours while it's still plugged into AC power. (Note: You don't have to actually use it, but have it logged in and running off AC power for two hours).
After a minimum of two hours has passed, unplug the MBP from AC power, but do not shut it down. Leave it logged in or use it as normal during this time.
Keep using your MBP (or just leave it running) until it automatically goes to sleep because it's diminished its safe power reserves. If you happen to be using it, you should see a warning that the battery is low. Ignore this.
Eventually your MBP will go to sleep. When it does, press the power button to shut it off fully.
Wait at least five hours and then plug it into AC power and give it a full charge. Once again, go by the charger to know when it's fully charged.


iTunes suddenly will not let me add manually album art

Sure, it's a year late, but I had this problem which lead me here, so someone else might, too. I had been adding cds to iTunes and manually adding covers, then one day it would not save the cover image. Here's what I did:

I turned off the Airplay on my iTunes.

This worked. I could save cover art again. Also changes I made to album info (fixing the album title, etc.) reverted back. Apparently, even though it showed these edits as changed, they were not saved when my speakers were set for airplay.


iPad app to manage photos stored in cloud?

Adobe Revel ($5.99pm or $59.99py)

Adobe Revel (previously called carousel) is a cloud photo editing and storage app, similar to Adobe Lightroom with the added function of being able to store images in the cloud. It is a subscription based service.

However this is currently only available on iOS, and Mac, with both Windows and Android currently in development.

If you were desperate to use this solution, you can get the iPad app, and sync the photos over iTunes and then use the app to pop the images in the cloud, however this would be time consuming, the Adobe website has a notify me, button on Windows/Android, so this platform will be available.


My iMessages are still merging even though we have separate Apple IDs

Changing Apple ID won't remove previous messages received, only future messages. In the Messages app, you will have to manually delete each conversation to remove the message history.


What are the requirements to charge a Macbook Air?

Apple publishes technical specifications for its products and are available at its website.

Have a look at: MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017) - Technical Specifications

Under Battery and Power2 it shows:

45W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter with cable management; MagSafe 2 power port

As your power bank only has an output of 5V/2.4A, which would be 12 watts, it's little more the 1/4 the output of the 45W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter that comes with the MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017). It will charge it, but it will be very slow compared to using the 45W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter that comes with the MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017).

Personally, I'd use the 45W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter that comes with the MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017), not your power bank.


Mac Pro (2013- black can) and non mac monitor?

Given no detail on the Samsung display, it seems like you should be able to. Thunderbolt ports can handle Displayport connections. The tech specs for the machine claim 3x5k, so a single 4k should be fine. You'll need a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable.

Read about Single Stream (SST) and Multi Stream (MST) displays here: Using 4K displays and Ultra HD TVs with your Mac


Purchase song on iTunes using iTunes credit

If it's an itunes gift card, it could be asking for your information just to verify that you live in the country you live in. ITunes will always use any remaining iTunes credit before charging a credit card. If all fails, contact Apple for a refund.


Pages does not expose this control and from experimentation using large font face sizing (96 and above), it appears the spacing between the underline and the characters varies on the typeface selected.

For example - see Courier and Courier New - the second font has a much larger spacing than the first.

It looks like you'd need a tool to edit the typeface or choose a typeface that matches your expectations. It is a bit surprising now that I look how close the underline hews to the characters for Pages default styles.


How Do I Know If A File Has Been Successfully Synced To iCloud Drive?

OS X 10.10.2 now has graphical upload progress bars:

When things get stuck, or you have a slower upload, there is a brctl tool that ships with Yosemite to monitor changes in all iCloud backed documents. Open terminal and type the following command:

brctl log --wait --shorten

On macOS Catalina 10.15 use the following command:

brctl log -w --shorten

It will show you a brief summary of the sync changes both up and down. The wait causes it to run continuously until you close the window or issue Control+C to quit brctl process. If you are familiar with the grep command line tool, you could filter the results to just show upload progress, but most iCloud accounts are quite low volume in terms of changes, so your upload of many files will likely dominate the results.

https://www.icloud.com/#iclouddrive

Also, the empirical way to tell if a file is synced is to log in to iCloud drive on the web interface and verify a file and/or folder is up there in the clouds.


OK - asked, tested and answered…

With the screen set to 1080p, that's all it will play at, whatever the source.

To get 4k the screen must first be set to 4k.


Can't switch Firefox windows using command+tilde

FWIW, I fixed the problem the following way.

I noticed that the ⌘+~ stops at a specific window, while works on other Firefox windows.

I closed that window, then re-opened it via History menu. The effect was gone, and ⌘+~ started working as expected.


"Install Labview 2020 sp1 community " cannot be opened because apple cannot check it for malicious software

Apps that are not distributed via the AppStore now require Notarization on top of being signed by a paid Apple Developer ID which means the developer must submit their application to Apple for review so that Apple can issue a notarization signature the developer can "staple" apply to the App. Otherwise you will see that warning and the App will not run by default.
To work around the problem: Open the /Applications folder with Finder.  Right-click the LabVIEW application icon and select Open.  A dialog will appear and you can allow the App to open. The App might immediately quit, try opening the App normally and this time it should work.
Send an email to the software vendor and ask them to Notarize their App for the newer macOS versions. At some point in the future, Apple may remove the ability to work around running an App that hasn't been notarized.


My macbook pro is getting some current while connecting to external monitor

I get this too, a vibrating sensation when I touch the metal casing of the MacBook, when my external Samsung monitor is connected to my MacBook Pro via HDMI. Like you, it goes away when I plug in the MagSafe cable. The vibrating only occurs when my MBP is on battery AND when the external monitor is connected.

It is NOT normal.

My belief is that current from the monitor is being passed into the MBP because the monitor is not earthed. I'm using a 2 prong plug on the monitor, while my MBP is using a 3 prong plug. I'm going to try and buy a new cable for my monitor with a 3 prong plug to solve this because I'm worried it's doing my MBP no good. (Currently I leave my MBP plugged into the mains when I use the external monitor, something which doesn't do the MBP battery any good either!)

UPDATE
Well, I bought a new cable for my external monitor with an earthed plug (or so the shopkeeper said) but it's had no effect. Still get the vibrating!


Mail Mac automatically creates a link, even if I remove it manually

You can disable smart links and use Cmd+K instead when you want to add link manually.


How can I use an ssh key with a passphrase but not have to type the passphrase every time when working in a remote shell?

The solution is called ssh-agent. It can remember your passphrase for the session. You run the agent with

eval `ssh-agent`

(might be even running in your session already, so check before using ssh-add -l) and add the key to the agent using:

ssh-add /path/to/your-private-key

it will prompt you for a passphrase. The further connections using this key will not prompt you for the passphrase.


Is a 3-5 second delay normal for a Retina MacBook Pro to wake up from sleep?

After the rMBP or the MacBook Air are left sleeping for one hour, they enter a deep sleep mode in order to conserve battery.  Traditional Macs without SSDs do not enter this mode, so they might awake from sleep a bit faster.

To answer your question, that is normal behavior.


With OS X Yosemite 10.10.2, WebDAV is only accessible via HTTPS.


Can the keys on the MacBook Pro be removed for cleaning?

If they keys are square without beveled edges then no. Removing it would require major surgery to remove.

I recommend a can of air duster, some q-tips, and alcohol to clean the keyboard.


Sierra no sound in headphones after sleep

You can try:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext
sudo pkill coreaudiod

This means:

unload sound kernel module,
reload sound kernel module,
stop sound service, il will restart automatically.


How To Search For Property List Files That Contain A String On Mac

EasyFind (Freeware) will find anything.

It will be slow, because it doesn't use an index, it searches file by file - but it will find it if it's there.

[No affiliation, just a satisfied user]


macOS Big Sur - screen sharing back to Mac mini over Internet

Logging in by host name instead of AppleID will not trigger the screen sharing request that requires local user input.


Apple Watch and MyFitnessPal not talking to one another

This may sound silly, but since everything is okay according to Apple and MyFitnessPal, are you actually doing any exercise? Let me explain…

If you’re not telling the Apple Watch that something you’re doing is to be counted as exercise, then the data is probably not being recorded in the way MyFitnessPal wants in order to see it as exercise.

So, to solve this, try using the Workout app on your Apple Watch the next time you’re doing exercise (even if it’s just a walk) and see if that is recognised as exercise in MyFitnessPal. If so, you should then get credited the calories for the exercise you’ve done.

As for the normal everyday steps you’re doing from walking around etc, while MyFitnessPal is showing you an indication of these, it’s probably not going to count any calories associated with these steps as it's already factored that into its calculations for how many calories you should be doing on each day.

What I mean by this is that when you set MyFitnessPal up you would have entered your Activity Level from one of four choices: Not Very Active; Lightly Active; Active; and Very Active. So the app has already factored that into its calculations. On the other hand, when you actually do some exercise, this will be seen as over and above what it’s already calculated.

In a nutshell, using the Workout app on your Apple Watch should track the data that MyFitnessPal will except as ‘exercise’.


My macbook pro mid 2012 turn off when i unplug charger

You're going to have to replace the battery I'm afraid.

Your battery is gone past it's lifetime and cannot function without a constant power supply.

This can be seen in the message you pasted - "Condition: Replace Now".

You can either buy a new battery and follow a guide to replace it yourself, bring it to a computer repair shop or bring it to an Apple Store.


Account data should all be in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist.


iPhone 4 screen lock through unsolicited ad

It's a JavaScript alert from the page that you're currently viewing. It's not malware or anything installed on the device—just JavaScript.

Tap to dismiss the dialog then leave the advertiser's webpage. It doesn't lock the screen, just presents a modal dialog in front of the content.


I had this same problem a few days ago. It kept me on the phone with tech support with my internet service for 2 hours, It's a problem with Apple's servers. My advice would be to restart your iPhone frequently and keep trying to update it. Eventually, it work, just keep trying because iOS 9 is worth the extra effort.


How do I make Mountain Lion read iMessage texts as they come in?

iMessage->Preferences->Alerts check 'Speak an announcement'


Does 64-bit compatibility matter with files/documents?

The 32-bit/64-bit description refers to executable code, rather than data. Applications and other executable code will contain instructions that are either 32 or 64 bits wide.

However, file formats are largely unaffected by this. Almost all applications will open the same file data regardless of the application's bit-depth. So, MS Office documents can be opened by both 32 and 64-bit versions.

It's possible that new software may introduce new data structures than are unreadable by older software, but that's a different issue.


Searching in every contact field in iPhone

Try Contact Find by Piet Jonas in the App Store or Fast Contacts by SpiceLoop also on the App Store.


How to locate a file in Spotlight using folder and file name?

If you're comfortable opening the terminal you could run the command

locate ABC/readme.txt

and it will give you the full file path to any files on your machine that are named readme.txt in a folder named ABC.

While you're there you can copy and past the path as an argument to the open command and it will open it for you.

Taking it one step further you can use the output of locate as the arguments for open with xargs

locate ABC/readme.txt | xargs open

Will open all files that have ABC/readme.txt on your machine just as if you had double-clicked them.


Screen sharing from Mac to Android tablet

I am not in anyway affiliated with the following company / developer but I think iDisplay might be the solution you're looking for. They have an application for Android as well.


Why does my MacBook Pro die without warning?

Check to see how many cycles your battery has done (System Profiler - Power - Cycle Count); from what I understand your battery will still be under warranty if it has less than 300 - more than 300 and it's on its way out. We have a whole bunch of MacBooks (Pros) here, and once in a while one of them does this exact thing when the battery gets old and tired, just like yours.

I've had batteries that have lasted 40 months, and some that have only lasted 18, the newer MacBooks with the non-removable batteries last a lot longer.


files locked in public folder when sharing via file sharing

The default permissions for newly created (/copied) items allow read and write access only to the owner (whoever created it), read-only access to everyone else. The best way around this is to create an access control entry on the folder, and set it to be inherited to items created in (/copied into) it. 'Course, the Finder doesn't give you access to the inheritance controls, so you have to go to the command line:

chmod +a "group:staff allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_inherit" ~/Public

Note that this gives read & write access to all accounts in the staff group (which basically means all user accounts); if you want a bit more control, create a group in System Preferences > Users & Groups, and add just yourself and your friend's account to it, then use "group:yourgroupname" in the above command. Also, the inheritance only applies to items as they're created, so it won't apply to files and folders already in your Public folder; if you want it to apply to existing items, add chmod's -R option (chmod -R +a ...)


Data Not Backed Up, Partition Type: FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF

To add an answer exactly fitting to your case I slightly modified my answer in the linked "duplicate" and posted it here again.

The second as well as the third partition of your internal disk got the wrong partition type, your data probably won't be lost.

A bootable OS X partition (except the Recovery HD) either has the GUID 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC for a standard OS X partition or the GUID 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC for a CoreStorage partition. The FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF is an unknown partition type (but not no partition like the 000000-0000-0000.... one).

The first block of a standard OS X partition doesn't contain non-zeros, the first block of a CoreStorage partition contains some non-zeros. To get the first 3 blocks of a partition you have to use a substitute for hexdump/xxd (both aren't available in Recovery Mode/OS X Installer boot drive). The best I have found is dd if=/dev/diskXsY count=3 | vis -c.

The GUID partition table can be modified with gpt. gpt only writes to the first 34 and the last 33 blocks of a disk(512) or the first 6 and and last 5 blocks of a 4k disk. Modifying the partition table (even falsely) doesn't alter the content of any volume on your disk, if you don't initialize or repair a volume/disk by request. You may verify it though.

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode or an OS X Installer boot drive
Open Terminal in the menubar Utilities > Terminal
Get an overview with diskutil list
Get an overview of your internal disk with the disk identifier found in the previous command. Below I assume the disk identifier of your internal disk is disk0 (replace it with the one you have found in your environment)

gpt -r show disk0

Unmount disk0 with diskutil umountDisk disk0
vis the first 3 blocks of the FFFF... partition:

dd if=/dev/disk0s2 count=3 | vis -c

If you had a standard partition previously the first 1024 Bytes only contain non-printable (zeros): \0\0...
At ~Byte 1030 you will see the following sequence: \0HFSJ\0
If you had a CoreStorage partition some non-zeros in the first 512 Bytes and the string CS (...\0CS\^A...) are shown:

\^U\^D\^A\M-s\M^?\M^?\M^?\M^?\^A\0\^P\0\0\0\M-W\^A\a\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\^B\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\M^Pu\M-\7\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0CS\^A\0\0\0\^D\0\0\^P\0\0\0\0@\0X\M-7}\^C\0\0\0\0X\M-;}\^C\0\0\0\0X\M-?}\^C\0\0\0\0X\M-C}\^C\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\^P\0\0\0\^B\0\0\0006j v\^R\M-+\^U\M^[\f\M^CdG\M-y\^]...

Now remove the third, the fourth and the second partition:

diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt remove -i 3 disk0
diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt remove -i 4 disk0
gpt remove -i 2 disk0

If you get an error message like "resource busy" just unmount the disk again or unmount stubborn volumes with diskutil umount disk0sX.

Re-add the recovery partition with the proper type but the same index number, start block and size it had previously:

gpt add -i 3 -b 227212504 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

Re-add the main partition with the proper type but the same index number, start block and size it had previously:

Either a normal OS X partition (if you have found the typical traces of a normal partition in the dd ... vis step):

gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 226802864 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

or (if you have found the typical traces of a CoreStorage partition):

gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 226802864 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

Your disk should finally look like this if you have found a standard OS X partition:

    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         PMBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2         32         Pri GPT table
       34          6
       40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
   409640  226802864      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
227212504    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
228482040    8496103
236978143         32         Sec GPT table
236978175          1         Sec GPT header

or this, if you have found a CoreStorage volume:

    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         PMBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2         32         Pri GPT table
       34          6
       40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
   409640  226802864      2  GPT part - 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
227212504    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
228482040    8496103
236978143         32         Sec GPT table
236978175          1         Sec GPT header

Finally verify/repair the disk with diskutil verifyDisk disk0 and/or diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2. If a repair is needed use repair (instead of verify) as prefix in the above commands but contact me before repairing it and send me the error message.

Further investigations via TeamViewer sessions revealed that the EFI partition and the Recovery HD partition are corrupted. The main volume is encrypted.
The Recovery HD contains a special intermediate FileVault key then. If the key is missing the main system won't boot. It was possible to unlock the drive though with diskutil cs unlockVolume ....

After installing a full macOS to a thumb drive and booting to it, the EFI partition and the Recovery HD of another non-FileVault drive (actually those of a Sierra VM) were dd'ed to the broken drive. Still booted from the thumb drive, the FileVault volume was reverted to a standard volume by right-clicking on the volume in the Finder, choosing "Decrypt volume" and entering a valid user password. This has to be the password of an eligible user account on the FileVault volume. Other methods to decrypt the volume like diskutil cs revert lvUUID or diskutil cs decryptVolume lvUUID - tested in a virtual machine only - didn't seem to work. This might be a restriction of VMs though.

To expand the main partition (disk0s2) to the full size, use Disk Utility or the diskutil resizeVolume ... command.

The volume initially didn't appear in System Preferences > Startup Disk, but alt-booting the Mac unveiled the main volume. This probably re-blessed the volume's boot.efi properly. The (now standard) volume appears in Startup Disk again.


Why do downloaded applications arrive as .dmg files

.dmg files are self-checking, unlike .zip files & so are less likely to error on opening.

dmg can also execute & mount to the desktop as a disk, which would need 3rd party software to do the same for a zip.

They can also contain sub-folders, placed icons, background images for logos & instructions etc


I don't think it's supported on your 13" MacBook Pro. From the KB article you linked (emphasis mine):

  Apple Portables that support standby mode are:

  MacBook Air (Mid 2010) and later
  MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)

I parse the text in italics to mean the Mid 2012 Retina MacBook Pro, not "Mid 2012 MBP and Retina MBP". This is further corroborated by the reference to the flash storage later on, which is only included by default on the MacBook Air and Retina MBP.


Data not backed up, System not booting, Getting Error: -69845 after trying to fix bad Partition Type

After looking through more threads I found my own problem. The type for my partition was supposed to be APFS so by using the previous solution with the correct type as in

diskutil umountDisk disk0
gpt remove -i 2 disk0
gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 372637568 -t 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

Now I did come across a problem at first because diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2 gave me Unrecognized file system (-69846)
I did not mind it and tried to reboot after NVRAM reset and I was able to boot back to my Macbook as I did before with no loss in data. After that I used the command :

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0

in order to be able to use the memory from erasing my linux partition. Hope this helps someone.


Blurry/aliased text on external LCD in Lion

As its on a VGA connection, it may not be aliasing or the resolution, but could be the phase of the monitor. It should have settings on he monitor itself to auto configure or manually adjust things like this. Do you have the ability to reset the monitor via an OSD?


This was fully my fault because of a misconfiguration. I had inadvertently changed ServerRoot, causing it to look for the configuration files in the wrong folder.

Homebrew apache2 was actually fully removed

This linked answer https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/270848/132798 helped me to figure this out


How to check for "autopoweroff" option on a non-active profile?

According to the manual pmset -g custom displays "custom settings for all power sources". It seems those "custom settings" are in fact all settings as displayed by pmset -g for current profile:

# pmset -g custom
Battery Power:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         0
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             0
 gpuswitch            2
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 displaysleep         2
 sleep                1
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 lessbright           1
 disksleep            10
AC Power:
 lidwake              1
 autopoweroff         0
 autopoweroffdelay    14400
 standbydelay         10800
 standby              1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 hibernatemode        3
 powernap             1
 gpuswitch            2
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 womp                 0
 displaysleep         10
 networkoversleep     0
 sleep                0
 acwake               0
 halfdim              1
 disksleep            10

Alternatively the values can be checked by directly reading from /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist

# cat /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>ActivePowerProfiles</key>
    <dict>
        <key>AC Power</key>
        <integer>-1</integer>
        <key>Battery Power</key>
        <integer>-1</integer>
    </dict>
    <key>Custom Profile</key>
    <dict>
        <key>AC Power</key>
        <dict>
            <key>AutoPowerOff Delay</key>
            <integer>14400</integer>
            <key>AutoPowerOff Enabled</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>DarkWakeBackgroundTasks</key>
            <true/>
            <key>Disk Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>10</integer>
            <key>Display Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>10</integer>
            <key>Display Sleep Uses Dim</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>GPUSwitch</key>
            <integer>2</integer>
            <key>Hibernate File</key>
            <string>/var/vm/sleepimage</string>
            <key>Hibernate Mode</key>
            <integer>3</integer>
            <key>PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>Standby Delay</key>
            <integer>10800</integer>
            <key>Standby Enabled</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>System Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>TTYSPreventSleep</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>Wake On AC Change</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>Wake On Clamshell Open</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>Wake On LAN</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
        </dict>
        <key>Battery Power</key>
        <dict>
            <key>AutoPowerOff Delay</key>
            <integer>14400</integer>
            <key>AutoPowerOff Enabled</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>DarkWakeBackgroundTasks</key>
            <false/>
            <key>Disk Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>10</integer>
            <key>Display Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>2</integer>
            <key>Display Sleep Uses Dim</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>GPUSwitch</key>
            <integer>2</integer>
            <key>Hibernate File</key>
            <string>/var/vm/sleepimage</string>
            <key>Hibernate Mode</key>
            <integer>3</integer>
            <key>ReduceBrightness</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>Standby Delay</key>
            <integer>10800</integer>
            <key>Standby Enabled</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>System Sleep Timer</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>TTYSPreventSleep</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
            <key>Wake On AC Change</key>
            <integer>0</integer>
            <key>Wake On Clamshell Open</key>
            <integer>1</integer>
        </dict>
    </dict>
    <key>SystemPowerSettings</key>
    <dict>
        <key>DestroyFVKeyOnStandby</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>


Match the Creation Date of 2 sets of files with same name

Assuming a folder structure like

./
+--AIFFolder/
+--WAVFolder/

and also assuming that the WAV files end in .wav you can use

cd AIFFolder
for f in *; do
    date=$(stat -f %SB -t %Y%m%d%H%M "$f")
    base=${f%.*}
    touch -t $date ../WAVFolder/"$base".wav
done

This can be simplified (thanks for the hint, @fd0) to

cd AIFFolder
for f in *; do
    touch -r "$f" ../WAVFolder/"${f%.*}.wav"
done


Umm...

Java SE 7 Archive Downloads

JDK 7 Installation for Mac OS X


How to add shortcut to directories to OS X menubar

found it.
XMenu

http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/freeware/

To expand on the functionality I needed:
Quickly access a directory while in terminal

Solution:
create a text file or a clipping with the path of the desired location
place that text file or clipping or an alias of either in the specific location
/Users/username/Library/Application Support/XMenu/Snippets

Now an entry with the title of that text file appears under an icon in your menubar. Selecting that entry pastes the CONTENT of that textile or clipping wherever your insertion point happens to be. This works in any text editor or shell.

So if I have a text file named C++ projects and it has a one liner in it like:
cd ~/Documents/Projects/Programming/Fun/HomeAuto/C++
I just select that entry from under the 'snippets' icon that XMenu puts in the menubar, and BAM it's typed for me. I know that another utility, TextExpander has that option but they recently updated their app to be a subscription model. REALLY?!

As a bonus, XMenu can put another little gear icon in the menubar with similar functionality- ANY FILE under that icon is just opened.

In addition, XMenu has options for other quick access directory drop downs as separate menubar items - for example the applications list, home directory, developer specific applications and the documents folder.

Oh, and XMenu is free.


In reply to a comment from Marian Rainer-Harbach, I wanted to suggest an answer that I’m not 100% firm about, but does reflect my greater familiarity with iPadOS gained over the last eight months. I believe the answer to my question is a firm “no”: iOS and iPadOS apps (including the Files app) cannot create files on an external share except in very circumscribed cases.¹
The issue here is with app sandboxing:
Generally, apps are restricted to accessing files inside their own sandbox, meaning the files and directories they were installed with. Aside from temporary cache files, this is the only way apps can address files simply by name.
This is something I’ve learned from using apps like the Blink ssh/mosh shell, Pythonista, iVim, Termius, and other apps that can provide Unix shell-like access or other ways of specifying files by pathname. I’ve supplemented this learning-by-experience a bit with some research in the Apple Developer docs, but I don’t claim expertise here as an app developer.²
So: iPadOS apps can access files contained in their sandbox directory, like /private/var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/$appID, or its subdirectories, by name (in read-write mode if they so choose), but outside that directory (in superfolders or siblings), they only have by-name access to securely-shared componentized resources (nearly always only in read-only mode), and they generally have no visibility at all into other apps’ sandboxes.
Yet iPadOS apps can, obviously, access files elsewhere in at least two circumstances:

An iCloud Documents directory created for the app; and
Files shared with the app via a Share sheet.

The iCloud directory is created by the app developer’s using CloudKit, and has a specific naming convention: in the Blink shell, for instance, the files I can find in the Files app under iCloud Drive → Blink are available in the Blink shell under the symbolic link ~/iCloud.
If I read that symlink, I can find:
blink> ls -l iCloud
lrwxr-xr-x  1 mobile  mobile  91 Mar 17 14:53 iCloud -> \
/private/var/mobile/Library/Mobile Documents\
/iCloud~com~carloscabanero~blinkshell/Documents

Thus, apps using CloudKit can “break out of their sandbox”, but only to the extent of reaching what amounts to a second iCloud sandbox, limited to only their own iCloud Documents data.
This is why, since the introduction of iPadOS (iOS > v13) and the Files app, some iPad apps sport a file-opening screen that looks very like the Files app; via the UIDocumentBrowserViewController interface, they give the user the ability to use a Finder-like interface for managing an app’s files.
However, as similar as they look (so similar, in, fact, that you could be forgiven for thinking it was simply Files being used as a helper app), there’s a key difference between this UIDocumentBrowserViewController interface and the Files app: when you tap iCloud Drive in the Files app, you find a directory listing all the various CloudKit-compatible apps you have installed, each as subdirectories you can navigate to. But when you tap iCloud Drive in an app using the UIDocumentBrowserViewController interface, you’re immediately taken to the iCloud Documents subdirectory for that app; you can’t “escape” and look at other apps’ iCloud documents.
Share sheets are the other way apps can potentially get access to files outside their sandbox. However, this is user-initiated (via a Share operation), and the file-like object the app receives is not accessible simply by pathname. You won’t find an app that includes a “Recents” list with files shared via Share sheet, because once an app has lost reference to a file object given it by handoff from the Share sheet, it no longer has a way to access it again (unlike files in its own sandbox, which it can access at any time by name).
Usually, that means the app being Shared to has no ability to create a file—that would be mucking with another app’s sandbox by name and isn’t allowed.
(There’s an exception for “bundles”—objects in macOS/iOS/iPadOS like apps that appear to be files, but are actually directories—on macOS you can right-click on an app in the Finder and choose to “Open bundle” to see this. When bundles are shared with appropriate permissions, the shared-to app may be able to create files inside the bundle.)³
While not fully answering all my questions, I think this background at least explains the issue: except for Shared bundles, apps simply can’t create files anywhere except inside their own sandbox. While the Files app—as a system utility—has greater access than other iPadOS/iOS apps to browse the file tree (including mounts of network drives), it still doesn’t have the right to create files outside its own sandbox by name, which is what would be required to allow the functionality I was asking about.
While app sandboxing exists in macOS—for all apps installed from the Store, and many other apps too, as Apple has pushed developers to implement app sandboxing in their macOS apps—it’s an ever-present security measure in iOS and iPadOS that, unlike on macOS, can’t be ignored by ordinary developers, not even with the coöperation of users (assuming they haven’t jailbroken their devices).
The Finder is a macOS app that isn’t subject to sandboxing rules. iPadOS’s Files app looks like Finder, so at its first introduction it was perhaps reasonable for users to expect it to work like Finder, too. But as an iOS/iPadOS app, even though it does have special access, Files still has to play by (most of) the rules—meaning no file creation in random places in the filesystem hierarchy.

¹  This discussion doesn’t really pertain to Secure Enclave storage, which has its own, entirely separate, set of requirements. But it should probably be obvious that the concepts of “Secure Enclave storage” and “network storage” can’t overlap!
²  This is why I am posting this answer to my own question, but I’m not accepting it unless and until it gets a number of upvotes to suggest it is, in fact, the right answer—perhaps commenters will have corrections or suggestions.
³  There’s also an exception when an app shares a subdirectory of its own with another app; in the Blink shell, for instance, you can use the command open to give, say, an editor access to text files inside a Blink documents subdirectory. But even in this case, this just allows the other app to open and export to files in the foreign directory; it doesn’t get full read-write access.


Solution to rescue a Macbook pro 15 2016

I had this problem as well when installing High Sierra (on day one of public release o the OS). After experiencing issues with Recovery OS as well, I took it into the Genius Bar where they were happy to help. I believe they ended up installing the OS from a recovery drive. As it was the brand new OS they had to take it overnight and contact Cupertino engineering I was told, although I would expect it to be a smooth support process by now. Best of luck getting it working quickly.


Is there a way to tweet from a keyboard command?

The official Twitter app lets you define a shortcut in its settings (Global new tweet):

As far as native Twitter integration goes, I really don't know :)


How to delete item in Bin "... cannot be modified or deleted because it is required by MacOS"?

The '“…” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by macOS.' message is typically caused by ACL permissions set on the file which cannot be changed unless SIP is disabled. Obviously a 5GB .mp4 file is not system file that needs protection and has somehow may have had erroneous ACL permissions set on it.

One sure way of deleting this file without having to disable SIP or modify ACL permissions is to boot to  Recovery Mode, (⌘R when restarting the Mac), and then in Terminal (on the Utilities menu)... use the following command, e.g.:

rm -f /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/Your_Short_Name/.Trash/filename.mp4

The example command above assumes the main Startup volume is Macintosh HD, change as needed.
The Your_Short_Name is that which you normally see in Finder as the name on your Home folder.
If filename.mp4 has spaces in it, then escape with backslashes as shown in the example command.

Then type reboot and press enter to restart the Mac back to normal mode boot.

ACL - Access Control Lists See also the chmod manual page.
SIP - System Integrity Protection


How can I make the OS X privilege escalation popup less annoying?

Mac OS X's authorization rights and behaviours can be adjusted through the /etc/authorization file.

You must take care when altering this file; mistakes can lock you out of your Mac. There are instructions at the top of the file to get you started.

To extend the period of time authorization is granted, look for the appropriate timeout field and increase the value as needed.


You would need to go to you on-lie gmail account and there turn of the "All Mail"

In gmail (on-line) click on the gear (top right), and select Settings.

In settings select "Labels" find the All Mail and enable "show in IMAP".

Your are done, it should now show as Archive folder in your Mac Mail.


macOS: Safari: Full screen mode: bringing focus to address bar in a new window

In my limited testing this seems to be limitation in most apps when they're full screen. In Chrome when it's full screen it takes you to a new tab but disables the location keyboard shortcut.

I suspect this has to do with how full screen is actually implemented. Full screen is built on top of spaces and so applications can behave quite differently in spaces vs. in the normal view.

This Apple Insider article reiterates this point, titled:How to use Spaces, Apple's mostly ignored macOS Mojave productivity feature:

  Whenever you take an app's window to full screen, your Mac actually
  creates a new Space and puts it in there. Full Screen and Split View
  are productivity features of the Mac that have a lot of rough edges
  and this blurring between them and Spaces doesn't help.

There conclusion in that article is mine as well. I use full screen and spaces sparingly because I find them a confusing mess of behaviors unfortunately.

  The answer to this is to use Spaces but use it sparingly. Don't take
  up all 16 possible Spaces, just have one or two. Try to keep all the
  documents from one app in one space, at least until you're so used to
  moving around that it's second nature.


That cable is marketed as supporting "4K and 5K external monitor[s] with pixel-perfect clarity", which implies that it's at least a Standard DisplayPort cable that supports HBR2, capable of up to 4K 60 Hz. Furthermore, cables that carry a DisplayPort Alt Mode over USB-C signal support HBR3, meaning it can support 5K 60 Hz all the way up to 8K 60 Hz.
At 1440p, standard DisplayPort cables of HBR2 spec can carry up to 165 Hz signal. HBR3 increases that to 240 Hz.


Finder freezes when showing images quicklook preview

I would remove all your Quicklook plugins, then return them half at a time to eliminate the culprit.

They can be in 3 different places, /Library/Quicklook/ /System/Library/Quicklook/ & ~/Library/Quicklook/

The fastest way to eliminate is by halves.
Remove half [remember where they came from]
Test.
If fixed, remove that [clean] half & replace with half of the rest [the currently suspected 'dirty' half].
If not fixed, remove half of your half - to new folders.
This way you  always know which is your 'clean' & 'dirty' half each time.
Test.
Repeat until you have found the culprit.

If the culprit is an Apple plugin, trash it & re-apply the current combo updater for your OS - 10.10.5 at https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1832?


Restoring CCC or TimeCapsule from MacBookPro (2017) to new (2018)

Use “Migration Assistant” instead of attempting a direct restore. This mitigates hardware change issues, T2 issues, minor OS difference issues, some software licensing issues, and a few other potential issues.


For a week I've tested a recommended solution I found at iFixit, when someone encountered an error code -50 on an external HD. It seems to resolve the issue I had. I also came across error code -50 before when I tried copying files across, but didn't immediately link this to my issue of failing diffs. I had the suspicion that some inactivity on the external hard drives was responsible for the failure and the article seems to confirm that. To quote from there for the solution should you run into similar problems:

To work around this error you'll want to go into System Preferences->Energy Saver and for both Battery and Power Adapter tick the box next to "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" on your computer. Yes that means the OS will put all of your drives to sleep when it can but that's the only way I've found to fix the problem.
What seems to happen is that some external drives have firmware which detects inactivity and spins the drives down. If OSX is not configured with the energy saver setting mentioned above then OSX is not expecting the drives to go to sleep. When accessing the drive after it puts itself to sleep obviously something gets messed up and the error -50 is thrown among other problems.
By configuring the OS to put disks to sleep the OS will issue spin-up commands.

The one thing that puzzles or surprises me though is why diff would report actual differences in files, when in fact it couldn't access(?) the file properly.


Siri finds hip chat for me on my iPad and iPhone.

The space doesn't matter.  I wonder if some other thing is wrong with your spotlight index, or if you've run out of free space on the device.

You might need to troubleshoot other apps and Siri or go through some of the generic troubleshooting steps like powering off the phone, restoring phone, etc.


First you'll need to make sure that the network volume you want to use is mounted first. Then you should be able to just navigate to whatever folder you're planning on using as your new home directory and select it. Network volumes in the OS X Finder can typically be found in the "Network" item under the main directory of your computer (in the Finder, you can hit ⇧⌘K to go there directly). The absolute path if you're using the terminal is typically /Volumes/Share Name.

It's worth noting that if you login without the network drive mounted, things could easily break. For this reason you'll want to make sure that you've set up OSX to mount the share on boot (prior to login). This doesn't happen with SMB (Windows file sharing) or AFP automatically, but there may be a way to hack it, maybe others can chime in with this part. NFS shares set up through Disk Utility mount automatically, but I'm not certain when in the boot process they do, I believe it's pre-login, but I can't find any information to corroborate this.


Music, Podcasts, and Movies disappeared from my iPhone

Although I cannot account for the loss of the media, and the used storage on the phone may or may not include the ghosts of those files, here is what I did. I first backed up iTunes and archived the iPhone backup for safety, and then I synced (as per Apple Support advice) to iTunes, and everything copied itself over to the iPhone, it appears like normal again, which is great.

The only thing was that Podcasts tried to download a bunch of podcasts that had already copied on to the iPhone from iTunes, so I canceled those downloads. Not sure why it wanted to download what it already had.

Again, I can't figure out the cause or if this is a common occurrence, but it appears okay for now.


Problem: forward selected emails to predefined addresses

I came up with a solution that I think may be a good option for you. This following AppleScript code is a folder action that will ultimately be attached to a folder of your choice (the folder in which you will download the PDF invoice that was sent to you in the email). Basically, the concept is, when you save the PDF invoice in your email to the specified folder, it will trigger the folder action which will take that PDF file and use it as an attachment to the new outgoing emails which will be sent to the email addresses that you set in the AppleScript code.  In Script Editor.app, paste this following AppleScript code into a new document.  Assuming your forward to email addresses will always be the same and the subject and body content text will also always be the same, you will only need to change the variable values for forwardToRecipients , theSubject , and theContent one time only.  Anyway once you change those values to your liking, save that AppleScript document as a .scpt file and name it something like “Forward Email Attachment.scpt”… to your /Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Library/Workflows/Applications/Folder Actions folder. Once it is saved to that location it will always be available to choose in your Folder Actions Setup dialogue. (which can easily be accessed by right clicking on any folder in Finder app then selecting Services/Folder Actions Setup…)

on adding folder items to theFolder after receiving theNewItem
    -- Insert Valid Forwarding Email Address
    set forwardToRecipients to {"address1@gmail.com", "address2@gmail.com"}
    -- Insert Your Desired Subject Text
    set theSubject to "Subject Text Blah Blah Blah"
    -- Insert Desired Body Content Text
    set theContent to "Text Text" & linefeed & "Text Text And More Text" & linefeed & linefeed

    set mailAttachment to POSIX path of theNewItem

    tell application "Mail"
        activate
        repeat with i from 1 to count of forwardToRecipients
            set thisItem to item i of forwardToRecipients
            tell (make new outgoing message)
                set subject to theSubject
                set content to theContent
                make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:thisItem}
                make new attachment with properties {file name:(POSIX file mailAttachment)} at after last paragraph
                delay 5
                send
            end tell
        end repeat
    end tell
end adding folder items to

After that is all set up and ready to go, all you need to do now is attach the folder action to the folder where are you will be downloading the PDF invoices from your emails to.


App-switching confusion on a fresh OS X SnowLeopard 10.6 system

I found an article on cnet.com that suggests restarting the Dock. To do this, launch /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app, select the Dock process, and press the Quit Process toolbar button.
If #1 doesn't help, the article states that you should try deleting this file: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.db and restarting your computer.
A comment on discussion.info.apple.com indicates that removing login items sometimes corrects the problem. To check your login items, open System Preferences, go to Users, select your account, then select the Login Items tab.


A question about installing kernels (related to running Hydrogen with Atom)

I had the same problem. I solved it by making the first line of my script:

#!path/to/python

I type which python and use the result in first line of script. Now Hydrogen works every time.


After some experimenting, I've found that GeekTool seems to replace the token "echo" with an internal function that doesn't accept the -n switch.

One solution:  Give GeekTool the full path to echo(1).  For example, /bin/echo -n "test" works where echo -n "test" does not.


If they are replacing the battery and it is under warranty, just tell them the fan is buzzing and they will look at it while replacing the battery. It may just be something got in there and it's clanking around which could be solved by compressed air, but it could be failing.


Change Limit before Mac Notifies You That The "Startup Disk Is Full"?

Apparently there isn't a way to configure this. Someone wrote a shell script here to check the disk space and show you an alert message if it's getting full.

If you're familiar with the command line, you can save it somewhere and create a cron job to run it every few hours or so. I tested it and it worked fine.


Is FileVault 2 + SSD + OverProvisioning possible?

OK, I got it working.
I partitioned the disk completely from terminal.

disk0 is my internal drive, this is the one going be partitioned.
3 partitions specified, one for OS X, one for Recovery HD, and one with the remaining space for unallocated space/free space/over provisioning.
The size parameter (20G) for the last partition isn't really used because diskutil does assign to it the remaining space left unused by the previous two  partitions, ie. 256G-200.1G-650M=free space.

Here is how I did it:

macbook-pro:~ $ sudo diskutil partitionDisk disk0 3 GPTFormat jhfs+ MacOS 200.1G jhfs+ Recovery 650M "Free Space" free 20G
Started partitioning on disk0
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Waiting for the disks to reappear
Formatting disk0s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name MacOS
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s2 as a 186 GB HFS Plus volume with a 16384k journal
Mounting disk
Formatting disk0s3 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Recovery
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s3 as a 620 MB HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
Finished partitioning on disk0
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MacOS                   200.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Recovery                650.0 MB   disk0s3

...still 2 free space sections ->

macbook-pro:~ $ sudo gpt -r show -l disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - "EFI System Partition"
     409640  390558168      2  GPT part - "MacOS"
  390967808     262144
  391229952    1269536      3  GPT part - "Recovery"
  392499488  107618671
  500118159         32         Sec GPT table
  500118191          1         Sec GPT header

... cloned the original recovery partition to the partition for that purpose on the new disk ->

macbook-pro:~ $ sudo asr -source /dev/disk1s3 -target /dev/disk0s3 --erase
Validating target...done
Validating source...done
Erase contents of /dev/disk0s3 (/Volumes/Recovery)? [ny]: y
Validating sizes...done
Restoring  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Verifying  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Remounting target volume...done

...change the partition type ->

macbook-pro:~ $ diskutil unmount disk0s3

macbook-pro:~ $ sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk0s3 --settype "Apple_Boot"
Fsck /dev/disk0s3 ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Adjust completed successfully

...after that I cloned the booteable Macintosh HD partition to a new one on the new disk and then rebooted, went to System Preferences to enable FileVault. It worked! The disk layout after rebooting looks like this ->

macbook-pro:~ $ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *256.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         200.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS MacOS                  *199.6 GB   disk1
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk2
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            749.3 GB   disk2s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk2s3

Note: disk2 is an external USB 3.0 drive.


Logitech MX Keys: sleep mode keyboard shortcut

As Sleep exists as a menu command, you could make your own…

System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts

Select All Applications, press the  +  button, type Sleep then pick a key command - I'd pick something hard to do by accident, like maybe  Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   Ctrl ⌃   Shift ⇧   S

 I used D in the example image, because I already have S used for Shutdown


So, the only solution now is to create an AppleScript app (using Script Editor) with the following command:

tell application "Finder" to mount volume "smb://login:password@address/Sharepoint"

note that this works with nfs shares too -- even though inetloc files never did...

Alternatively, you can use the command:

tell application "Finder" to open location

but that no longer works with nfs shares since 10.14.2 either


Can't save all photos to iPad air from photostream

I don't understand your question completely, but I'm pretty sure:

You have reached the sharing limit on Photo Stream or iCloud. Apparently you can only transfer so many photos per hour, or per day. (Read more in the Apple support article.)

It might also be that there is a limit on your iPad for memory space. Is your iPad memory full?


Running an app build with very old iOS SDK on a device running current iOS

Xcode 5.1.0 include iOS 7.1 SDK. You cannot debug an app build with this Xcode/iOS SDK combination on your iPhone 6s running iOS 12.2 (iOS 12 was non-existent when Xcode 5.1 was released and Xcode is not aware of it).

You can however, in-theory generate the app IPA and deploy it on iOS 12. iOS 11 and later require your app to have executable support for 64-bit mode. So you need to make sure to build your iOS app with 64-bit mode.

However, you may end up hitting roadblocks as iOS 7 is ancient in terms of how iOS has evolved. With a decently complex app, you may run into issues when running an app built with much older SDK on a device running current iOS.


iTunes output goes exclusively to Airport Express when it should not

By looking at the menu bar to see selected output device, I noticed that the Bluetooth icon was ON and thus interfering with Wifi Airplay.
By setting Bluetooth OFF on the mac mini, it corrected the problem.


Why can't I fav, heart, or like some songs on Beats 1 radio?

Well, since Music just came out a couple of hours ago, there is probably a lot of people checking it out and lagging the servers. It could also be that you have an older device and Apple hasn't optimized Apple Music for your device yet so its lagging. I had the same problem and I have the iPhone 4s.


Every time I restart the computer the link for Atom stops working

I tried it myself and it worked perfectly, even after a reboot. Do you have multiple disks/partitions in you set up?

Anyway, to settle things once and for all, I suggest you to follow the steps pointed out here. Below is a copy&paste.

With the Atom editor open, in the menu bar:

Click Atom >> Install Shell Commands

You should expect to see:

You do not need to restart the terminal.

If this solution didn't work, my last suggestion is to create an alias in your ~/.bash_profile. To do this, simply open ~/.bash_profile with a text editor and add somewhere the line:

alias atom='open -a Atom'

This should do the trick.

EDIT

I noticed that after a reboot, you must start Atom at least once before the atom command works - otherwise it won't be recognized as a command. I didn't notice it before because, while testing if the ln -s ... solution worked, I already opened Atom once. I honestly don't have a clue why this happens, but the last suggestion about adding an alias definitely solves this issue.


How can I speed up my new (but slow) 2017 iMac?

Why does it feel so slow?

Your iMac has a 1TB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive and this is what’s causing the bottleneck. Your mid-2010 iMac would have had a 7200rpm Hard Drive. To fix this you really need to address this bottleneck.

The 'easiest' solution

Since your iMac has two Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports that support speeds up to 40 Gbps (via Thunderbolt) and 10 Gbps (via USB 3.1 Gen 2), the easiest solution is to use an external SSD that’s connected via one of these ports and to install macOS on that and use that drive as your main boot volume. However, you need to ensure that:

it’s definitely an external SSD (and not just a hard drive)
it supports either Thunderbolt or USB-C (i.e. USB 3.1) as its interface

Both of the above are critical if you’re wanting to improve speed. However, you’ll probably find Thunderbolt models are too expensive, so opt for USB-C / USB 3.1. Do not get confused by USB 3 - this is not the same as USB 3.1. And remember, it needs to connect to one of the two Thunderbolt ports (not one of the USB ports).

Some examples of the types of external drives I mean are:

Samsung T5
SanDisk Extreme 510
G-Technology G-DRIVE mobile SSD

Once you have the drive you want, you will need to install macOS onto it and migrate your data.

NOTES:

You don’t necessarily need to buy a 1TB model (although this would be ideal). The main thing is that you have enough space for your macOS installation and all your apps.
Once set up and running okay, you can use the internal hard drive as storage. If you opt for a 500GB external SSD instead of a 1TB one, you may want to consider having your Photos and/or iTunes libraries stored on your internal hard drive instead. Maybe also your iOS backups.
To install macOS you will need to reformat the drive so that it’s formatted as a OS X Extended (Journaled) drive and that its 'scheme' is GUID Partition Map.
While this iMac is not officially upgradable after purchase, it can actually be done. I upgraded the same model before Christmas so that it had an internal SSD for storage and a lot more RAM. However, I’m guessing this isn’t something you’d want to tackle (I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re very comfortable with the idea of doing it), but if you are I’m more than happy to chat to you about it.

Let me know if you have any questions or would like to chat about doing an internal upgrade.

Case study

Today (24 Jan 2018) I installed macOS Sierra 10.12.6 on an external SSD (specifically a 500GB Samsung T5) and did some comparison tests to try and provide an indicative idea of the type of speed improvements you could expect.

The tests were performed on the same model iMac as yours (i.e. mid-2017 Retina 4k iMac with 8GB RAM, a 3.0 GHz quad-core i5 CPU and a 5400rpm SATA hard drive). Obviously, your results will vary depending on the software/login items/fonts/kernel extensions you have installed.

Below are the results of my testing.

Test 1: Boot up time (to Login Window):

  Original boot up time: 1m 23s

  New boot up time: 0m 35s

Test 2: Login time (to full Desktop):

  Original login time: 1m 15s

  New login time: 0m 9s

Test 3: Launch MS Excel:

  Original load time: 0m 8s

  New load time: 0m 3s

Test 4: Launch MS PowerPoint:

  Original load time: 0m 6s

  New load time: 0m 3s

Test 5:Launch MS Word:

  Original load time: 0m 14s

  New load time: 0m 4s

Test 6: Launch Photos app with a 380 GB Photos library:

  Original load time: 1m 23s

  New load time: 0m 39s

Testing notes:

1. macOS and all apps were installed on the external SSD.

2. All tests performed three times and the results averaged.

3. Each time tests were run, they were run after a fresh reboot.

4. For Test 6, although the Photos app was installed on the external SSD, the 380GB Photos library was stored on the internal 5400rpm SATA hard drive.


iMessage / iCloud via SSH Port forward to get through firewall

According to: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202078

| Ports                     |FaceTime | iMessage|
| 80 (TCP)                  |    ✓    |    ✓    |
| 443 (TCP)                 |    ✓    |    ✓    |
| 3478 through 3497 (UDP)   |    ✓    |    -    |
| 5223 (TCP)                |    ✓    |    ✓    |
| 16384 through 16387 (UDP) |    ✓    |    -    |
| 16393 through 16402 (UDP) |    ✓    |    -    |

Which means 80, 443, and 5223

That being said I have YET to actually tunnel iMessage correctly