Make sure that you have exported the app for "Enterprise Deployment" (or "Ad Hoc Deployment" if this is what you're trying to do).

Then make sure that you have the correct provisioning profile in the package (.mobileprovision).


You have detected that the database Apple is using for store reservations is different than the one you see on the My Apple ID page.

You can correct that information by asking them at the bar to assist in correcting and if they say to log in and change it, you can do that on one of the store machines (or your own if you don't trust Safari's private browsing function) and ask them to check that the changes are effective.

Sometimes, you need to call the main AppleCare support number if there is a problem with your record, but most cases you can fix at the time when you see the difference.


How common is it for iPhone users to NOT be running iOS 10+?

how common it might be that someone would be using a version less than 10?

Based on the publicly shared data by Apple (linked below), a very few percentage of currently active iPhone devices are a version of iOS that's less than 10.

So if your question is along the lines of, how many potential users do I lose if I drop support for iOS 9 and earlier, the answer would be a very few.

This should help you get a perspective:

App Store - Support - Apple Developer

The webpage is updated by Apple on a regular basis. The statistics are drawn from currently active devices (ones which have an active Internet connection and visits the App Store app).

The snapshot above is captured at the time of writing the answer.


How to mount certain SD cards to a specific mountpoint in El Capitan?

The following two conditions must be met:

The mount point must already exist.
Spaces in the Label Name need to be escaped with an octal space character, e.g.: \040

As a test, I did the following:

Relabeled one of my FAT32 formatted SD Cards to NIKON D60 then ejected and removed it.
Created the /media/digicam directory using: sudo mkdir -p /media/digicam
Added LABEL=NIKON\040D60 /media/digicam msdos rw,auto 0 0 to: /etc/fstab

I then inserted the SD Card and it mounted as expected, it appeared in Finder as NIKON D60 and its Mount Point showed in Disk Utility as: /media/digicam


How can I make sure texts from friends with iPhones don't go to iMessage instead of my Android phone?

You can not control how the sending phone addresses messaging much from your phone. As you mentioned, you have already deregistered your cell phone from Apple serves so that leads to the conclusion that your contacts are sending to your AppleID, by their choice.
Your only lever on the receive side is to change your AppleID to something no one knows. Then, you won’t have incoming iMessage transmissions by email or by mobile.

It’s likely not practical to get everyone to change their address book to clear their contact database to suit your preference, each time they make a mistake sending to your AppleID.
It’s also equally impractical to just block them entirely on Apple devices and hope they change the way they communicate.

But it never hurts to ask nicely, maybe people would change up their conversations instead of reusing the old conversation that is easy rather than checking the “to” closely.


Best way to sync file between iphone and mac

I would encourage you to adopt iCloud sync unless you can’t allow these files to have their “truth” copy be stored online.

https://www.apple.com/icloud/

In the past - the cloud sync had some cases where it wouldn’t work for very common situations, but now those reservations are all edge cases in my eyes.

You can use your documents folder / desktop folder and expect everything to sync up to the cloud. This includes finder color metadata, smart tags, as well as content and normal metadata (last opened, created, size, etc...)

On iOS - the files app is somewhat basic, but I expect it to iterate rapidly as people decide how to use it and Apple adapts the layout and training so people can use the tools.

The underlying sync seems quite solid in my experience the last 2 years with improvements made each month along the way. I have about 120 GB of files stored and am delighted with the performance now that I have an always-on Mac Mini running iCloud content caching on my home and work networks. Restores of 128 GB to a full iPhone that used to take day(s) now takes hour(s) with most of the restore functional after 60 minutes. You don’t need caching, but it’s there for power users or people with slower network access speeds or worried about restores pushing them over a data usage limit.


Is there any chance some water vapour found its way into the phone / lens assembly?  Were you using it any place where condensation could have occurred inside the phone?  Radical temperate / humidity changes?  I've never seen this, but I guess it could be possible.  I remember folks experiencing this with first generation iPhones.

Are the foggy bits always in the same place in the photo?


Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo won't install 64-bit OS X 10.7

Your MacBook Pro has indeed a 64 bits processor but it has a 32 bits EFI. So without a hack you won't be able to boot the 64 bits kernel. (source)


It seems "simple", but ipfw (or pf) require support directly within the kernel. That means Apple has to compile the iOS kernel to support those particular utilities and their required protocols (ipfw is a front end for ipfw and dummynet, the latter of which does the bandwidth shaping).

Firewall software (like ipfw) in Unix based systems run at the kernel layer (deep) and cannot be added unless the kernel itself supports them. OS X supports ipfw/pf but iOS does not. Apple has gone through great lengths to secure the OS and likely feels it an unnecessary addition (it's not that Apple has turned them off, they simply do not exist so no conf configurations will aid you). This is why you receive the protocol error. While iOS can run the program, ipfw cannot negotiate the required protocols because they simply do not exist.

At best, your only option is to find a firewall that runs atop the kernel, so in userspace (like Little Snitch on OS X for example).


Macbook unexpectedly shuts down programs when I close the lid

Interesting. One setting I would check to see if it's enabled is if it's set to log you out after a certain amount of time. You can do this by going to the system preferences, then security & privacy, then click the advanced button on the lower right corner and the option will be shown.


It was driving me crazy but in the end, after a few updates, everything went back to normal.

It might not switch back to the integrated card on battery even if nothing is using a dedicated one, but that is another issue.


How can I make Time Machine work with my Netgear WNDR3700 router?

Look at http://netatalk-ddwrt.blogspot.com/

Try the builds mentioned and install them on your router with the following commands:

ipkg install libdb_4.7.25-3_mipsel.ipk
ipkg install netatalk_2.2.0-2_mipsel.ipk

make sure that you use

ipkg install libdb_4.7.25-3_mipsel.ipk -force-downgrade

in case your libdb version is newer than 4.7.24.

Best regards,
 nGoot


MacOS: Add browser tab (i.e. Gmail) to application switcher?

Use Fluid:

  Fluid lets you create a Real Mac App (or "Fluid App") out of any website or web application, effectively turning your favorite web apps into OS X desktop apps...your chosen website has a permanent home on your Mac as a real Mac application that appears in your Dock.

Gmail is even one of the examples they show in the video, and it supports features like badging the application icon when you have new messages.


2015 MacBook Air display awake while lid closed

A friend of mine did it when we saw a movie this weekend.
He used my TV as monitor and of course I asked him for a tutorial.

He sent me this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbWQuswykec

I will try it tomorrow. I hope it be helpful for you too.


gtime can't execute/time commands definied internally by the shell. Commands are executed using the exec() system call, but the system call basically only knows about commands with binaries (e.g. in /usr/bin). Builtin commands are included in the shell binary, there is no way for exec() to execute them.

You need to either find a way to execute the command without relying on shell builtins or use the internal time command of your shell. One option might (should work, but I have no means of testing it right now) be to run a new shell within gtime

gtime bash -c 'eval $(echo sed $(for i in 1 2 3 5; do echo "-e ${i}p"; done) -n data.txt)'

The timing will be slightly off because the time required to run a new shell is included, but you can measure that seperately by running gtime bash -c ':'.


Create a black image in your favorite image editor (even Paint will do if you're on Windows), save it as a jpeg, and e-mail or sync it to the phone. Then set that image as the background.

Since you're making it all black, I doubt the resolution is going to matter much, but you can always use 960 x 640 to use the iPhone 4's standard resolution.

Edit to add a black image that works:


How can I find all the changes I've made to my system via "defaults write"?

It's not possible to distinguish changes made by you with defaults versus changing the setting using the GUI equivalent preference if one exists, since both perform writes to the property list files in the same way.

Theoretically, the default value shouldn't be written to preference files. Therefore, the only values in ~/Library/Preferences property list files should be ones overridden by you. You will have to investigate these files for the preferences you're using.

Create a new user account and open the software you use without making any changes. Diff the contents of ~/Library/Preferences from this user account with your normal user account, such as with Kaleidoscope, to identify changes made to preferences.


There is a lot of information about how to write Applescript code in general and how to use it to send keystrokes available on the net. System Events, Key Code and Keystroke looks kind of interesting in your case and should get you started.


Syncing FInder smart folder with images to iPhone

I wrote this python script that searches for all files with a blue label (color 4) in a directory and copies it to a regular folder instead of a smart folder.

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import os

// You can add several label searches and put them into separate "smart" directories
configuration = [
            { "color": "4", "location": "/Absolute/path/to/destination directory" }
        ]

for config in configuration:
    color = config["color"]
    location = config["location"]

    os.system("mdfind -onlyin /Absolute/path/to/search/directory -literal 'kMDItemFSLabel = 4' > /tmp/favs.txt")
    os.system("rsync -a --progress --no-relative --files-from=/tmp/favs.txt  / \""+location+"\"")
    files_list = os.listdir(location)
    for file in files_list:
        if not file in open('/tmp/favs.txt').read():
            print("Removing "+file)
            try:
                os.remove(location+file)
            except OSError:
                pass

This script only searches for labels, and not all the other functionality a smart folder can have. For something like this, I would recommend Hazel which is an app where you can make rules for e.g. copying files to a directory based on criteria.


How can I restore an iCloud back-up to a new device when old device no longer works?

According to this Apple Support page:

When you have two-step verification for your Apple ID, you'll always need at least two of the following to sign in:

Your Apple ID password
Access to one of your trusted devices
Your Recovery Key

If you've permanently lost any two of these items, you can't sign in or regain access to your account. You'll need to create a new Apple ID. You can create a new one from the Apple ID site.


This question is an excellent example of the unintended consequences of not addressing a small issue (bad battery) and having it create new issues (crashing).

While it may appear that a bad battery and a crashing hard drive are mutually exclusive, they, in fact, are intrinsically linked.  This however, doesn't preclude the possibility that their are other issues at play, but in order to address efficiently and accurately, you have to eliminate the initial problem.

The Battery

You have a at least an 18 month old battery assuming it was "brand new" when you installed it and not sitting around in a warehouse for a few years prior to your purchase.

Your battery reports its remaining capacity based on a calculation of certain variables - the current voltage and the draw.  It can't measure the batteries ability to hold a charge.  So reading a battery that says 100% only means it's 100% at that moment.

Sleeping on a Dead Battery

When your MacBook Pro detects a low battery condition, it will put the MacBook Pro to sleep.  Going to sleep powers everything down except the RAM;  its current state is kept in RAM so you can quickly resume right where you left off.  If your power gets low enough, it will go into hibernation mode writing the RAM to disk.

If your battery dissipates so quickly as to not allow this state to be saved, you run the risk of corrupting data (and not just your pictures of cats and toasters, but data critical to macOS).  This sounds like the issue you described.

Troubleshooting

Eliminate your battery from the equation.  Disconnect it from the logic board.  Remove the back cover and using a plastic tool (like a spudger) remove the battery connection. Your MacBook doesn't need a battery to function.  You don't need to replace the back cover for the next step, just be certain you are not putting the MBP on a conductive material.  You can put it on a towel if you want.

Check the health of your SSD.  Boot into recovery mode, and run the following commands to check the SMART status of your SSD:

$ diskutil verifyDisk disk0
$ diskutil info disk0 | grep -i smart

Most likely, you will get "Verified" with the last command meaning your SSD is good.  Anything other than "verified" consider getting a new disk.

If everything is good, you can move on to fixing the login issue

Fix Login Issue

Create a new user in Terminal.  Boot into Single User Mode and then issue the following commands

fsck -y
mount -uw /

What you are doing is checking the drive and then mounting the / volume as read/write.  To create a new user, follow the instructions already written up in this post being sure to adjust the values for your specific needs.  Reboot by typing reboot

If you can log in with this newly created account, you corrupted your User Profile and your best bet is to use this new account and/or create another one.

If it solves your issue, you can skip to step 3.  If you can't log in, continue to the next step.
Reinstall macOS.  Operating under the assumption you have made Time Machine backups, reinstall the OS.  Migrate your backed up data using Migration Assistant.
Run your Mac, but don't disconnect the power. (you're not on battery, remember?) Use your Mac as you normally would.  If you have no problems, then the issue of it crashing is solved.
Replace the battery.  If everything works, you would have resolved the login crash issue and narrowed down the cause to the failing battery. See this Answer:

  When they [batteries] do die, it's always best to get a good quality replacement
  battery from a reputable manufacturer. The 2006 MBP uses an external
  battery so it's fairly easy to find replacements - and some even come
  with generous warranties.

Even though it's written to address a 2006 MBP, the explanation and recommendations are still valid and relevant.


Any DynDNS client for current iOS for usage with nsupdate.info?

nsupdate.info should work with any dyndns2-compatible client

You usually need it so your router (or other dyndns2-compatible client) can update a hostname, so you don't need to know or find out your current IP address

You also can do quite a lot of scripting with the Shortcuts app (https://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts/welcome/ios) which is part of iOS (you may need to download it from the Store in case you removed it in the past). There are actions to call any URL and to process JSON results.


Apple TV has an Apple Events channel with what appears to be all of the live streamed events and no requirement to have a developer account. The keynotes are traditionally available freely during and after the event. Whether the other content remains online post event is yet to be seen.

Otherwise, you can view online at https://developer.apple.com/

These seem to be tied to a developer program AppleID.

WWDC Session Videos

Watch the film "The App Effect"

View the schedule


Is doesn’t matter if you use a mail sorting rule (found in Mail’s preferences) to move the mail to the target mailbox of your choice or if you create a smart mailbox to display the mail which will keep staying inside the inbox. All you need is a rule of this type:

Any recipient is aliasname@maildomain.com

This should separate your mails to different mailboxes as you described.


How can I replace the 'Linen' that is prevalent in many Lion apps?

The linen backdrop file is
/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/Resources/NSTexturedFullScreenBackgroundColor.png

You can edit that file, or replace it with a file of the same name, but be certain that the replacement file has a resolution of 72 pixels per inch or you probably won't like the result.

ᔥ John Martellaro: OS X Lion: Change Login Screen’s Dirty Linen

Certain applications and situations draw their background from different sources. for example, the background file for Mission Control can be found at /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/Resources/defaultdesktop.png

If you replace that file, you'll need to do a killall Dock command in the terminal before the change will take effect.

ᔥ OS X Daily: Change the Mission Control Background Wallpaper Image in Mac OS X Lion


How can I move an email without deleting it from iCloud server?

From what I read, you actually are almost there. It looks like your problem may be how the folders are done (as in, locally or on the server).

As you said in your answer, you copy the emails to local folders, so therefore they would never be on your phone. And with iCloud's limited rules (in the cloud), as you note, you cant really make a sound or do much with them either.

As long as your Mac is always running (to run the rules), you really would only need to update your local mail rules to put the emails in the servers folders. This way if you are at your computer, you would hear the audio cues, as well as have the mail filtered. If you step away, as long as your Mac could still process the mail, it will copy the emails to the correct server folders, and be available.

On your Mac now, you should see two inboxes, iCloud and 'On My Mac'. Make sure folders exist under the iCloud account for where these messages should go. Then update your rules to point to the iCloud account folders, versus those on your mac.

The only thing you may see from this is some messages will be in your inbox for a very short period of time (before your Mac runs its rules), versus iClouds server side rules that process mail before its delivered.


MacBook Pro 2015 - New SSD, can't install macOS

The answer to the problem is the SSD itself!

Apparently MacBooks can't handle the Samsung 970 Evo Plus. After is used a 970 Evo it worked just fine.

So keep your eyes open when you buy new SSD for your "old" MacBook!


Does activating Find My Phone deplete the battery on an iOS device being tracked?

Yes - triggering a location update does use more battery than if the phone were simply idle and chatting from time to time with cell towers to be ready to receive a notification, email or phone call.

No - the high power location drain when you have a GPS mapping program running in the foreground isn't what happens when you use the web site to request one location update.

As long as you are not constantly sending a ping noise or managing to hammer the find my phone interface with a non-stop stream of requests, the phone will be quite efficient with the screen off, a quick location update and then it will go back to idle power and consume no more power than if it were sitting in your pocket.

Think of the function as this:

You log into find my phone (web or another iOS device) and the service looks up all your devices and sends one refresh to each.
The device gets a notification over either of the connections it always attempts to keep open to Apple via both Wi-Fi and cellular data channels.
Apple says - "hey - figure out where you are and then report back"
Your phone does it's location dance as best it can with available GPS, cell tower, and Wi-Fi and then tells Apple where it thinks it might be (and how accurate a fix it thinks it has achieved).
Apple says thanks and your phone goes back to being idle (presumably powering down GPS once not recently requested).
You then see that location update on your display. Apple caches the data, so you will see the last known location for quite a while before it goes to "location unknown" over a period of hours and the last fix becomes stale.


If you enter your password wrong too often, you either have to wait the time shown on the screen or erase the device with iTunes (or through iCloud, but that probably doesn't apply for you). The exact procedure depends on whether you synced your iPod with your PC before. Apple has a support document explaining the required steps in detail.

PS: If you haven't used iTunes before, you will have to install it on your PC first.


How to find a backup of my iPhone contacts?

On your Mac, the backups are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/

This is covered in HT4946: iTunes: About iOS backups

If iTunes doesn't show an earlier dated backup (sometimes it saves off a backup when you upgrade from one major iOS level to another), you would need to erase and restore the Backup folder from a Mac backup (perhaps Time Machine is turned on) to get that older backup of your phone.

Also, check to see if iCloud has backups of your device. It stores several days worth of backups, so don't delay to check there in case ongoing backups of the now empty phone would erase those older backups with the data you seek.


What the hold-over arrows on icons in Finder do?

It just changes pages on the icon preview for multi-page documents.

Not spectacularly useful with small icons like that, but if you have huge icons set or are in column or cover-flow view, it's a quick way to see what's actually in the document without opening them.

If you click away from the icon, it goes back to the first page, so it doesn't actually change anything.


bash output inside the terminal : command not found

Well, $HOSTNAME is a variable, and if you just write it on a single line and press enter, bash will simply replace it with the respective value, i.e. "TEST.local". Since "TEST.local" is not a valid command, bash will complain.

If you want to print the value of any bash variable, you should use echo, i.e. echo $HOSTNAME.

For a quick bash scripting tutorial regarding variables, see here for example.


If you are talking about using windows explorer to delete files, that would be of no help. Windows Explorer can ONLY see photos and videos. It treats the phone as a camera and can only see such.

Use iTunes to manage the storage of the device. It will even give you a breakdown of whats using the most on the phone.

Alternatively you can go to Settings -> General -> Usage -> Manage Storage on the phone itself and delete some stuff from there.


I have a Mad Catz RAT MMO7 mouse and it works fine without any drivers with OS X 10.11 as a regular mouse. None of the key programming, etc. will work without the Mac drivers and nothing is available or supported.

The company went bankrupt several years ago and closed down, but they have just recently restarted, so new stuff may be coming out as they update their web site.


Can I install the preinstalled Mac OS X Mountain Lion on other Macs?

No. The preinstalled copy of Mountain Lion is not licensed to be installed on additional machines.

From the Software License Agreement (2.A.):

  Preinstalled and Single-Copy Apple Software License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you obtained the Apple Software from the Mac App Store or under a volume license, maintenance or other written agreement from Apple, you are granted a limited, non-exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at any one time. For example, these single-copy license terms apply to you if you obtained the Apple Software
  ￼￼￼preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware.

(emphasis added)

You will have to buy an upgrade in the App Store for your other Macs, however for non-commercial use you can install a single App Store purchase on multiple machines, given all the computers are in your control.


What is the best way to recharge an iPod Touch battery?

I believe that you’re looking for the info straight from Apple’s iPod Battery’s Page., which contains all the information that you need to keep your battery as healthy as possible.

In any case, as with any other modern battery, avoid excessive heat not only when recharging but also when the device is not in use.


Target Display Mode has been deprecated for years. It has major limitations and many bugs and will only get worse with time because it’s unsupported. Don’t base your plans around it.


Difficulty to inherit Time Machine backups on new MacBook Pro

I had the same problem and found a solution: I added the terminal app to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Full Disk Access, then it worked.


Keeping mail accounts with separate Mail apps on iOS

As resolved in comments, the account got added in mail app too. It can be removed from Settings → Passwords and Accounts.

For temporary fix, setting a default account under Mail Preferences can help.

Outgoing server's settings can be also disoriented under the Account's Server settings IF it is a work account and allows interface like:


In TextEdit or similar editors, is it possible to go to a previous bullet's indent level without a bullet?

Many WYSWYG text editors and word processors try to anticipate your formatting intentions.  It takes a bit of work to overcome this at times, selecting lists, deselecting lists, adding formatting after the fact, etc.

For a bit more control while working, you can manually insert bullets in your text along with using tabs.  See Screenshot.  Not using the list but rather setting your tabs manually and typing the bullets manually is a bit more work at first but gives you the control you need.  This should work in most text editing environments.

option ⌥+8 will make a text bullet • (You can use any character you wish too either by typing the key combination or using the Character Viewer)


Native resolution not available on lg ultrawide with mac mini (2012)

It requires a kext swap to an older graphics driver. They're probably trying to phase out older mac mini models with the release of the new ones.

Duplicate: Lost ability to choose 3440x1440 resolution after Yosemite upgrade


How can I locate my MS Office license key?

From Microsoft.

Launch application and click Enter your product key.
Review the Software License Agreement and click Continue.
You must agree to Software License Agreement. Click Continue.
Enter your product key and click Activate.

  The Activation Wizard automatically contacts the Microsoft licensing
  servers through your Internet connection. When you activate the
  product by using the Internet, the product key is sent to Microsoft
  through an encrypted transfer. If you decide to activate the product
  through the Internet and you are not already connected, the wizard
  alerts you that there is no connection. Click either Activate by Phone
  or Activate later.

  Note Do not lose the product key. Keep the packaging, or note the
  number. Keep the number information in a safe location.

  Your product key is a unique sequence of 25 letters and numbers
  divided into groups of 5.

  If you purchased a box with a DVD: The product is located on the back
  of the Office for Mac DVD sleeve.

  If you purchase through a web site: The product key is sent to you in
  email with the title Microsoft Office for Mac – Order Confirmation”


Does an iPhone battery drain faster in cold?

Yes - run times are shorter when the battery is cold.

Apple has this to say: - https://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

  When using your device in a very cold environment, you may notice a decrease in battery life, but this condition is temporary. Once the battery’s temperature returns to its normal operating range, its performance will return to normal as well.

On a technical level, the drain is what the device uses and that doesn't change with the temperature being low. The ability of the battery to produce current and voltage is impaired only while it's cold. The charge is still in the battery, just can't flow as fast. Think molasses, but less dramatic in the cold.

To be even more precise, it's not physics like molasses, but it's the actual chemical reaction providing power slows down in the cold to deliver less than enough current to power the device.

(Reference)


Not at all - you should presume the opposite - that all wireless and bluetooth headsets will not work with AirPlay on a Mac or iOS device.

AirPlay requires an Apple certified device (you can't just have any old software become an AirPlay destination) and AirPlay goes over a TCP/IP network and generally uses broadcast packets so it won't find speakers on a different subnetwork without advanced network tunneling and setup (generally sender and receiver are on the same router).

Even though WiFi does share some of the radio frequencies that are the same as Bluetooth - the two do not communicate with each other. At the moment, bluetooth audio connection is much better for stereo headsets as it allows the device to play / pause / control volume as well as sending the music using less battery power than WiFi chipset (to get AirPlay wirelessly) can.

I would expect things like larger speaker systems, receivers and electronics that plug in to the wall (or at least non-wearable battery power) to get AirPlay and light headsets to remain Bluetooth only due to power, size and features.


Quoting from this typically comprehensive Ars Technica article:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7/8/

  Lion will quit your running applications behind your back if it decides it needs the resources, and if you don't appear to be using them. The heuristic for determining whether an application is "in use" is very conservative: it must not be the active application, it must have no visible, non-minimized windows—and, of course, it must explicitly support Automatic Termination.

  Automatic Termination works hand-in-hand with autosave. Any
  application that supports Automatic Termination should also support
  autosave and document restore. Since only applications with no visible
  windows are eligible for Automatic Termination, and since by default
  the Dock does not indicate whether or not an application is running,
  the user might not even notice when an application is automatically
  terminated by the system. No dialog boxes will ask about unsaved
  changes, and when the user clicks on the application in the Dock to
  reactivate it, it should relaunch and appear exactly as it did before
  it was terminated.


Find executables associated with Homebrew Formula

As bmike's answer points out, aside from digging through the projects source to determine what executables they install, there's no good way to determine what commands come with a given formula before installing it.

After a formula is installed, running

brew unlink --dry-run formula | grep "$(brew --prefix)/bin"

is a workable option now that --dry-run is available for brew unlink.

Before that was added I wrote an external command called brew executables that still has some benefits over the above (mainly in formatting and handling some links a bit differently). I'll include a simplified (and probably non-working, due to missing some variable assignments) version of it here:

version_in_use=$(echo "$brew_info" | grep "$HOMEBREW_PREFIX.*\*$" | sed -e "s|.*$formula/\([^ ]*\).*|\1|i")

cd "$HOMEBREW_CELLAR/$formula/$version_in_use"
for dir in `find . -type d -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -name "bin"`; do
    for file in `find "$dir" -type f -o -type l -perm +111`
    do
            filename=$(basename $file)
            echo $filename
    done
done

In short, it pulls the list of executables out of $(brew --prefix)/$formula/$version_in_use/bin. The version on my GitHub is a bit more fleshed out, including some added ability to identify/indicate when there are commands that link to each other in this bin directory.


Creating New Keyboard Shortcots fur Lock Screen and Spotlight search

You can use KeyRemap4MacBook to map key combinations to other key combinations:

<autogen>__KeyToConsumer__ KeyCode::L, VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, ConsumerKeyCode::EJECT, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L | ModifierFlag::SHIFT_L</autogen>

<autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::SPACE, VK_CONTROL | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SPACE, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L</autogen>

See the source for the key code values and predefined settings.


nVidia GPU Disable hack via NVRAM, any software way to power-off the chip?

gfxCardStatus is a menu bar app that lets you choose which of the integrated or discrete GPU is active.

I believe if you choose 'integrated only' the dedicated GPU won't be used. Just remember to set it each reboot, I haven't found a way to get it to remember settings across shutdowns.


MacBook Pro 2019 Touch Bar lagging when Changing Volume

I’ve had issues with my touch bar too. (See Touch Bar not turning on after waking computer from sleep.)

Here are some things that didn’t work for me, but they might work for you:

Open Activity Monitor, find and select TouchBarServer, then press the Stop button. Then select Force Quit. It should restart automatically and your touch bar should be back to normal speed and responsiveness.
If step 1 doesn’t work, try resetting your SMC:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295
If step 2 doesn’t work, try resetting your NVRAM/PRAM:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063


macOS Sierra Recovery Mode does not work

Thanks Kevin Grabher,

You gave me the solution....

I tried booting the system using only the HDMI monitor, removed the Mini DisplayPort VGA adaprter.

Using only the HDMI cable and monitor, everything works.


Installing MacOS 10.8 printer driver on MacOS 10.13 High Sierra?

Have you tried one of the built-in MacOS drivers?
What about removing the printer and re-installing it to see if the Mac can identify it?

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART160388&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1517974032259

Otherwise I'd contact Canon support or check around for some forums to see if they have a work around since that printer needs specific troubleshooting and MacOS isn't identifying it for you.


AppleScript: start/stop QuickTime Player screen recording on timer

It's not pretty, but if you click to start the video this will stop it.

tell application "QuickTime Player"
    new screen recording
end tell

--Pause for 10 seconds
delay 10

--Click the stop recording button in the top menu bar.
tell application "System Events"
    click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 of application process "screencaptureui"
end tell

Pro tip: Record yourself doing the action you want to automate in automator, drag and drop that operation into a new window and copy the line where it says click menu... (Remove the "\" escape characters) into a simple tell application "System Events" command. But unfortunately it doesn't work for everything.


I have override a file in bin folder and this affect other programs

There's no default ps binary installed in /usr/local/bin. It is installed in /bin.

What happens here is that your /usr/local/bin/ps program seems to take precedence over your /bin/ps program because of your PATH settings.

In order to fix the problem, just delete your newly created shortcut in /usr/local/bin/ps. When you delete the file, the system should return to its former way of working.


Encrypt backups on encrypted APFS drive for Time Machine backup?

The simplest setup is to just connect any disk to the Mac and if you don't have Time Machine set up, you will be automatically prompted to use that drive and if it needs reformatting, that is explained. Then once the backups are set, if you are backing up an encrypted Mac to an unencrypted destination, Time Machine automatically prompts to encrypt the drive.

If you like doing things manually, here's more details and explanation that you want an HFS based drive to hold the backup whether you start from APFS or HFS.
For a time machine backup, you cannot use an external disk with APFS. You have to use Journaled HFS+. First, format your external disk as JHFS+ (Encrypted). After that, go to Settings > Time Machine and select your disk. If you have the option, select "Encrypt Backup". This way, your backup will be encrypted. So the answer to your question is neither of them. It is Journaled HFS+ (Encrypted). If you try to use APFS with Time Machine, you'll get the following warning:

Source: Apple - Backup disks you can use with Time Machine (APFS isn't mentioned at all)
Update: 24.12.2020
macOS Big Sur 11.0

APFS or APFS Encrypted disks are the preferred format for a Time Machine backup disk. If you select a new backup disk that’s not already formatted as an APFS disk, you get the option to erase and reformat it. If the disk is a Mac OS Extended format disk that contains an existing Time Machine backup, you aren’t asked to erase and reformat the disk.

Source: macOS User Guide: Types of disks you can use with Time Machine on Mac


Does the integrated Intel Iris Pro GPU support an external display?

The external graphics port(s) are literally wired to the discrete graphics chip.  The only card that has access to the TB port is the AMD dedicated card. That's the same reason why you need the AMD card enabled to do anything with the TB port.
 This is why connecting an external monitor will always (regardless of method of deactivating the discrete graphics) enable the discrete graphics.


Can't launch calendar, contact, app store, etc

Needed to go to Apple Store and reinstall Mavericks.
Couldn't install from computer as app store was broken.


How does Finder keep track of downloaded files' original URLs?

In the metadata associated to a file.  Use xattr from the command line to see and manipulate the metadata.  Using ‘get info’ in the GUI is not equivalent, but should allow you to see some metadata attributes, including the originating URL.


Can I use my 87 watt MBP charger for other things like portable batteries?

Yes, that's perfectly fine. Neither the battery nor the charger will be damaged by doing this.

Note that it won't be able to charge using the full 87W. The Powerstation XXL is limited to charging at 17W (5V at 3.4A).

The specification is in the manual here:

https://www.zagg.com/en_us/mwdownloads/download/link/id/483/

The manual also describes that charging from a standard USB-C charger (such as your MacBook Pro charger) is OK.


Obtain a private URL to a file in iCloud Drive without making the file available to anyone with the link

You're doing good except for the last line where you will have to share the link with someone.

Share the link with yourself.

Choose imessages as the sharing option and enter your email or number. And add yourself.

To check the validity, This is a .Pages file and please try to access it and tell me if you can open and edit it or not.

Since this requires sign-in, I don't think you will be allowed to edit or even view it.

Only bad thing is the file name is in the URL


Answer is yes with the right USB C to DP adapter. I have a 2015 MacBook and I have tried it with two very different 4K displays - one Philips, one LG - and both worked correctly at 4K 60Hz. If fact, they work in Bootcamp, too at 4K 60hz. Impressive.

FYI, I understand this capability arrived with the Sierra MacOS update. Earlier MacOS versions limit you to 30Hz on this MacBook.

I use a Club3D branded adapter.


Paste text stored on Clipboard to a variable using pbpaste

Try

ls | pbcopy
tmp=$(pbpaste)

And don't forget to remove the files called pbcopy and something you created with your first and second line.


messages disappeared from some mailboxes and smart mailboxes following removal of an account from Mail

Removing an account from Mail removes all local copies of messages for that account.

  Is there any way to retrieve all my emails? (Do I still have the old email's folder somewhere?)

If the account was for an e-mail service that uses IMAP or Exchange Web Services

In Mail, simply recreate the account. With IMAP, all messages:

are (primarily) stored on the server
may be (secondarily) cached by e-mail clients such as Mail in OS X

– and so recreation of the account should regain access to everything that is on the server.

If the account was for an e-mail service that uses POP

It's normal for Post Office Protocol (POP) to not leave a copy of a message on the server after that message has been delivered. (Metaphorically: your postman or postwoman does not keep copies of your mail.) However, e-mail client software may be configured to stray from that default, to leave some things on a POP server.

If you used POP for your account configuration:

be prepared for the possibility of not finding some things on the POP server
it may be desirable to use Mail on your other Mac (the Mac Pro) to save or export data.

If the deleted messages were on the iMac alone, and if you had no backup on a separate disk

The likelihood of recovering data from JHFS+ may be low.

OS X tends to quickly reuse space after that space is marked as free, especially if that space is an an area of hard disk that is preferred for performance.

Mobile Time Machine local snapshots provide handy backups, but this feature of Time Machine is laptop-oriented (probably not enabled on your iMac).


Does the iPhone 8/8+/X Require Metal for a Mag Mount?

All those iPhones require the metal plate.

We have tested this on 2 iPhone 8 Plus and neither of them were magnetic enough to hold to the mount.  I would expect the iPhone X to be similar.


How can I skip the Welcome screen after installing OS X?

Unfortunately you can not skip the opening movie - but you can skip the registration process which shows up later by pressing Command-Q. When the Setup process is complete the file .AppleSetupDone shows up in /var/db. (If this file exists it will skip the Setup process altogether)


Two macs backing up to one Time Capsule, first Mac hogging all the space

There is nothing stopping you from deleting some of the older backups, so long as you do it safely.  After all, you're not likely to need 2yrs worth of backups.

Follow these steps to safely delete backups:

Enter Time Machine (on the Mac whose backup you want to delete)
Go to the point in time you want to delete
Click on the cog icon in the Finder and choose 'Delete Backup' (depending on your version of OS X you may need to right-click in the finder window to choose 'Delete Backup')

By deleting backups this way you ensure that Time Machine keeps an accurate record of your backups and keeps your data safe.


The command below will verify the container before resizing. In your case, the verification failed, so the resize operation did not take place.
diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk1s2 0

You could try repairing the container. Before attempting, I would recommend backing up your personal files. Backing up to a external drive would be best. However, since you have free space, you could enter the command below to create a another APFS container with the APFS volume MyBackup. This answer assumes will have done this.
diskutil addpartition disk1s2 apfs MyBackup 0

At this point, you should boot to macOS Big Sur Internet Recovery. Or, you could boot from a macOS Big Sur installer flash drive.

Note: You should check to see if any of the identifiers have changed. If so, then make the appropriate substitutions in the remaining commands.

The command below attempts repair.
diskutil repairVolume disk1s2

If repair fails, then you should reinstall macOS BigSur. Below are the commands needed to create a new APFS container with the single APFS volume Macintosh HD. The command given below attempts to delete the APFS Fusion container.
diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk1s2 Dummy

If the above command fails to create an Apple_HFS type partition on both disk0s2 and disk1s2, then enter the command given below.
diskutil apfs deletecontainer -force disk1s2 Dummy

The above command will generate the following warning.

Deleting APFS Container with all of its APFS Volumes
Operating in the contingency (damaged APFS Container) mode. Only the specified APFS Physical Store disk is guaranteed to be reclaimed. Other APFS Physical Stores which may have defined this APFS Container might need to be reclaimed separately
Deleting Container

When I tested this command, an Apple_KFS type partition was created on both disk0s2 and disk1s2. If this does not happen, then stop and post the output from diskutil list to your question. Post a command to this answer, so I can be informed.
The next command creates a new APFS Fusion container.
diskutil apfs createcontainer -main disk0s2 -secondary disk1s2

The next command outputs the identifier for the new APFS Fusion container. Here I will assume the identifier disk2 was output.
diskutil info disk0s2 | grep Container

The next command adds an APFS volume labeled Macintosh HD to the new APFS Fusion container. If your identifier for the new APFS Fusion container is not disk2, then make the appropriate substitution.
diskutil apfs addvolume disk2 apfs "Macintosh HD"

At this point, you can install macOS Big Sur and copy your backed up files back to the Macintosh HD volume.
If you created the MyBackup volume, then enter the following commands to remove the APFS container with this volume and reclaim the space.
diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk1s3
diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk1s2 0

Update 1
Below is a copy of the image you posted of your progress.

You entered the command given below.
diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk1s2

You were suppose to enter the command given below.
diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk1s2 Dummy

You can fix this error by entering the commands given below.
diskutil addpartition disk0s1 jhfs+ "Dummy 2" 0
diskutil addpartition disk1s1 jhfs+ "Dummy" 0

To insure the identifiers are assigned correctly, you probably should restart the Mac after entering the above commands. In your case, you will want to boot from the flash drive. Since you have successfully removed the defective APFS Fusion container, you can continue with the original instructions at the point where you will be entering the command which creates a new APFS Fusion container.


Where is the documentation of the options on the 'System Services' settings screen?

This Apple Support Document explains the Settings ▸ Location Services ▸ System Services screen.

The items on the list are all system services that could make use of your iPhone or iPod's  location information. While the page above does not explicitly explain each setting, Traffic uses your location to get data about whether nearby roads are congested or not  and uses your anonymized information to help update this database; Setting Time Zone uses your location to automatically select what time zone your phone should be set for; Location-based iAds uses your location to serve relevant advertisements; Diagnostics and Usage is rather unexplained, Compass Calibration uses your location to calibrate which direction your iPhone thinks it is facing, and Cell Network Search uses your location information (anonymously) to help build a crowd-sourced database of the location of cell phone towers.


You could absolutely do this. I've been using a setup like that for a while now and it works great.

What you want to do first is backup the files you have on the drive (backup the backup, haha) just so you can create two separate partitions on the drive. Formatting and partitioning the drive will make the data currently on the drive unavailable, so back up anything important!

Now, open up the Disk Utility application and select the external drive in the left pane of the window. Then click on the Partition button and here you can select any amount of partitions you wish to make. Unless you know you will need more later you could settle with two, one for Time Machine and one for important documents/files.

Continue by pressing the dropdown menu Volume Scheme and select 2 Partitions. You can now name each one and set their respective sizes, obviously a full Time Machine backup requires a fair amount of space so depending on how many backups you intend to have you might want to give this partition a bit of extra space.

You also want to specify which format (file system) to use for each partition. This is important if you intend to use the drive with other systems, for example Windows and Linux systems are not very fond of Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (aka. JHFS+). The Time Machine partition should be partitioned as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but the other partition is up to you.

FAT32 (called DOS or MS-DOS sometimes) is the standard file system used by Windows (I believe), it can be used with Mac without any problems. The only drawback is that you can only store files that are less than 4Gb each, which is a pain if you handle large video files.

NTFS requires additional software for Macs to write, but it's (arguably) the most cross-compatible file system if you want to move files between different operating systems.

If you're only going to use the drive with a Mac, choose to format both partitions as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and press Apply. This will create two new partitions that should work natively with any Mac.

Quick edit:
ExFAT can be an alternative to NTFS, depending on your Windows machine you might need additional software to read/write data to it.


What WiFi adapter can I use to monitor a WiFi network on OS X from a MBP?

Solved, the problem was that by default Wireshark did not monitor any interfaces but after going to the configuration they became visible and I was able to start monitoring them, even on promiscuous mode.


Cannot copy and paste in Chrome with macOS Mojave

Just for fun while we are waiting for Google - Chrome to fix it.

Try following..

Add Apple Keyboard shortcuts for Chrome

If you do not know how to do that let me know.


Why mouse zoom in,out not working on icloud.com find my iphon?

I suggest you use the +/- buttons on the upper left. At the time of posting, there is no mouse-input way to zoom the map in or out.

I tested it on Safari on a Mac with Yosemite (10.10).


Upgrade Operating System Snow Leopard to OS Sierra

Doubtful that you'll lose either Photoshop on the Mac partition or the Bootcamp partition itself while upgrading. Of course, backing up before moving forward is always the way to go.  :)


There is a tiny icon on macOS dock that is not clickable!

Edit As pointed by many others (@nitive's comment below) there is a much easier way to fix this and it is killall Dock. Kudos to @nitive

Original long, boring, and not so efficient answer

LOL right after posting it, I found the answer

Fist: open the Dock config (plist):

open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Dock.plist

Second: Find the item in persistent-apps:

Third: Delete the item! In this case, "Item 14"

Forth: Save the file

Fifth: kill the Dock to force it to restart

Honestly, I was expecting it not to have the VS Code icon anymore but magically the icon reappeared there with the right size!


Big Sur beta on external disk vs internal disk?

In general, I would recommend installing it on an external SSD disk. First, you won't have to worry about possible disk issues with your regular MacBook. Second, it is easier to erase and manage with Disk Utility.
Just as long as you know how to install correctly, I would go for that option.
Edit: While setting up a separate APFS works well in many ways, such as dynamically adjusting the size, the slight risk is still present in case things go wrong.


X-Mailer header mapping to actual version of mail.app used to send message

Simple answer - no, there is no easy way to tell from just the number.

However, I did a Google Image search for screenshots of the "About Mail" window, and found the following correlations between Mail version numbers.

Mail 5.2 = 1257
Mail 5.0 = 1244
Mail 4.3 = 1081
Mail 4.0 = 1075
Mail 3.6 = 936
Mail 3.5 = 930
Mail 3.4 = 928
Mail 2.1 = 752

If you're wanting to match to versions of the OS:

Lion: 12xx
Snow Leopard: 10xx
Leopard: 9xx
Tiger: 7xx

"About Mail" images found on these (and other) pages:

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-itcs/mac/Apple-Mail-Settings.cfm
http://gseis.ucla.edu/administrative-support-units/educational-technology-unit/etu-documentation/email-apple-mail


move watched iTunesU video to another folder

You can't easily do it with Automator's actions directly, but you can with AppleScript (which you can wrap in an Automator action if you need).

This AppleScript will get all the iTunes U items that have been watched at least once and move them to a folder you specify.

Note that this does not remove them from iTunes, and you can still play them from iTunes (this is because of how OS X apps track files - in most apps you can move a file you have open and the app can still access it as if nothing has happened).
If you want to remove the item from iTunes altogether, you can add delete theItem on a new line after set the end of theList to the location of theItem.

If you want to avoid redownloading, you'll have to manually change the iTunes U download settings (although I'm not sure if iTunes will actually redownload an item that has been deleted - typically it only downloads new items).

Be sure to change the path to the destination folder to your desired destination, on the set theDestination … line. It must be a folder that exists already.

Script

tell application "iTunes"
    set theList to {}
    set iTunesU to tracks of playlist "iTunes U"
    repeat with theItem in iTunesU
        try
            if played count of theItem > 0 then
                set the end of theList to the location of theItem
            end if
        end try
    end repeat
end tell

tell application "Finder"
    set theDestination to POSIX file "/Users/rob/Desktop/test/"
    repeat with theFile in theList
        move theFile to theDestination
    end repeat
end tell


What is the best way to set up multiple iPod / iPhones on the same computer?

You can do the Apple ID any way you like. If you use the same ID on both devices, then you can sync all the Purchased apps to both devices.

I'm using my iTunes to manage and backup the iPhone of my girlfriend and my iPhone. We have separate ID's and iTunes never got confused.

Update

Oh and remember, if you setup up separate ID's then you still can sync all apps from both accounts, but you can't update the apps from your Wife's account on your iPhone, because your phone is set to your account.

This can be avoided by updating all apps through iTunes, though.


How can I watch MegaVideo/DivX videos on my jailbroken iPhone 3G?

Flash does not run on any version of the iPhone. You can try using a program like Air Video which will live transcode your DiVX files into a format the iPhone will play back using your computer.

As for playing it natively on your iPhone, VLC (Video Lan Client) is working on a native client but it's not available in the App Store yet.


Is Game Center progress tied to the device or the account?

The Game Center progress stays with the account, not the device so you would need to check with each specific application to see if they also maintain the game status and would propagate it to a new account or you would be starting over when it detects a new account has been added to the same device.

There isn't a general "it always works this way" established in the games I have tried. Some certainly have their own data servers and data structures so you don't lose progress without a game center account. Others depend entirely on Game Center and only the account stores any sort of progress and achievements so that all status is 100% cloud based and not reflected on the device as a permanent store of progress.


iMovie doesn't appear to be able to use all the available space on iPad

I talked to several advisors at Apple Support, and eventually learned that this is a known bug that has impacted others besides me, and that engineers are working on a solution, but it is not known when that solution might be released.
Meanwhile the only workaround, since this is our only Apple device, is to download the clips that comprise this video from iCloud to another computer, edit the video again in an editing app that runs on that computer, and upload it from that computer.


Macbook Pro: Yosemite crashing all the time

The first two things I try when running into mysterious OSX problems is "Repair Permissions" and "Repair Disk". After that, reset your SMC and reset your PRAM. Like so...

In OSX, open Disk Utility (⌘ + Space and then type "Disk Utility")
Select your OSX partition on the left, on the right, click "Repair Disk Permissions"
When that is finished, click on "Repair Disk". If that is greyed out, select "Verify Disk" instead.
To reset SMC, shut down your Mac and connect it to power. While it is turned off, on the left side your keyboard press Shift + Control + Option + Power
You might not see anything happen at all. That's normal.
Next, reset PRAM. Turn on the computer and VERY QUICKLY press and HOLD Command (⌘) + Option + P + R (this takes two hands usually)
Wait until your computer does the restart ding a couple of times, and then release the keys. Let it finish booting.

At this point, any weird issues should be fixed. If you still have problems, you may need to reinstall OSX. If you still have problems after that, you have a hardware issue and need to take the computer to Apple for evaluation and repair.


Can command-line commands be made insensitive to order of filenames and options?

The reason for this is that Mac OS X uses BSD utils (which have a specific order to their parameters), whereas Linux uses the GNU utils, which can accept arguments in any order.

You can download and compile the GNU coreutils package, which should provide you with the utilities you're used to; I would recommend just getting used to the BSD utils, however, as you'll otherwise have problems moving to other systems. The BSD method works fine on GNU systems, but the GNU method is less portable.


How can I reset the admin password without a working screen?

Simply create a new admin account by reinitiating the OS X Setup Assistant:

Boot to Single User Mode by holding ⌘S on startup with the external display attached.

Wait a few minutes and then enter ("blindly"):

mount -uw /

wait a second or two and then enter:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot

In Single User Mode the US-en keyboard layout is used. If you have a non-Apple or a non-US-en Apple keyboard you have to adapt the input.

After the restart the OS X Setup Assistant opens and you can configure your Mac. Go through the steps of creating a new admin account.

After logging in on the new admin account, go to the Users & Groups preference pane. Select the old account(s), press the minus button for each and delete all files associated with them.


Prevent iPad screen for turning off when not in horizontal orientation

You can prevent iPad from automatically going into sleep mode, by setting Auto Lock to Never. But this setting cannot be made dependant on the current orientation of the device.

To set Auto Lock to Never, go to Settings App → Display & Brightness → Auto Lock and set it to Never. iPad can be send into Sleep mode anytime by manually pressing the physical Power button.


System event key codes not working on thunderbolt display

Did you try key code 113 using control down? Pressing the brightness keys while holding control normally changes the brightness of a Thunderbolt Display, but I don't know if it works with keys like F15.

You can also use brightness.c to change the brightness of different displays:

do shell script "~/bin/brightness -d 1 0.0"


creating APFS fusion drive / conversion to APFS from HFS+ fusion drive fails - "you are trying to create an upside down Fusion"

I finally took the plunge and upgraded my iMac to Catalina.  It originally had the fusion drive with SSD and spinning hard drive.  However, I upgraded the HDD to a Samsung SSD and combined it with the original SSD to create one large CoreStorage logical volume (can’t call it “Fusion” anymore.”)

While trying to convert this logical volume, I ran into all of the same issues you did, so I was able to replicate the problem.  However, after about an hour of throwing to force things, I found the trick: reverse the order of the drives

What you think it should be:

$ diskutil APFS create disk0 disk1 “MyVolume”

Reverse the disk identifiers to make it work

$ diskutil APFS create disk1 disk0 “MyVolume”

(I’ll post all of the command output shortly...I’m posting from my iPad as Catalina installs onto a APFS “Fusion” drive).


Full screen application turns to windowed application and leaves a black screen in Mission Control

I found a temporary solution: This happens on Big Sur when applications open pop-ups as tabs in full screen mode. Closing those tabs seemed to have caused the issue as far as I am currently aware.
To fix this currently, I went to System Preferences > General > Prefer Tabs: "never"
This also fixes JetBrains IDEs (PHP Storm, Android Studio, PyCharm, IntelliJ IDEA, etc) becoming unresponsive with pop ups. After I found a solution to that issue I was having, it seemed to fix applications in full screen like Firefox and XCode having the primary issue I inquired about above.


What is the proper syntax for setting the nvram backlight-level?

You need to use sudo to write to the NVRAM (and it probably also won't hurt to prevent the shell from handling % by quoting it)

sudo nvram backlight-level='%96%06'


It is somewhat maddening, but the Java console won't display unless a Java application is actually running. The easiest way to get it started is to visit https://www.java.com/verify/ from the Firefox browser.


How to use WiFi for everything, except a specific connection to my NAS (Ethernet)

It dumbly uses whatever is in the service order, whether it's Ethernet or WiFi. I had hoped it would choose the best route.

It doesn't "dumbly" do anything.  It performs as expected; if priority is given to WiFi, it will direct all traffic over that connection.  Keep in mind, macOS (out of the box) doesn't prioritize traffic as it's not a router/switch.

  Question: How do I have both adapters enabled, prioritising WiFi, but
  utilising Ethernet for my NAS connection?

Put your NAS on a different subnet.  You can do this with a different switch, with VLANs (if your switch supports it) or you can direct connect it.  Just keep in mind if you want to share access to the NAS, you either need to have a multi-homed (multiple network adapters) on your NAS or you need a router between the networks (a layer 3 switch would be nice, but they're expensive)


My kid set a passcode on the iPad and doesn't know it. Now what?

Put your iPad into recovery mode by pressing home and power button simultaneously. When your iPad turns into recovery mode, connect it to your PC or laptop.  Then your iTunes will display  a dialogue box stating that your device is in recovery mode. Click OK.
Then you can restore your device via iTunes.


Does an app exist for the iPhone that sends a push notification if it detects that the device has physically been moved?

You can use the Find My-app to let a friend know when your location changes or also get a notification when your friend’s location changes.

More about Find My-app www.support.apple.com


Can you activate your iPhone 5/5s/5c with iOS 8.1 with any nano SIM card?

I work as an IT for my company and part of my job is to manage the mobile phones (iPhones), as long as the phone is not carrier-locked, any nano-sim is ok to unlock it. In my experience, even if the SIM is not activated can be used.


Can anybody give me the original ssh.plist file for OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion)?

<?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>Disabled</key>
<true/>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.openssh.sshd</string>
<key>Program</key>
<string>/usr/libexec/sshd-keygen-wrapper</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/usr/sbin/sshd</string>
    <string>-i</string>
</array>
<key>SHAuthorizationRight</key>
<string>system.preferences</string>
<key>Sockets</key>
<dict>
    <key>Listeners</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Bonjour</key>
        <array>
            <string>ssh</string>
            <string>sftp-ssh</string>
        </array>
        <key>SockServiceName</key>
        <string>ssh</string>
    </dict>
</dict>
<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
<string>/dev/null</string>
<key>inetdCompatibility</key>
<dict>
    <key>Wait</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>


Not all A1181's are the same. A list of the specs for various A1181's are given at this website. Other than some being black and others being white, here are some other differences.

Early models have "Core Duo" processors. These are 32 bit machines. These machines can only run 32 bit BIOS or EFI booting operating systems.
Middle models have "Core 2 Duo" processors. These are 64 bit machines, however the EFI is still 32 bit. These machines can run 32 bit or 64 bit BIOS booting operating systems, but only 32 bit EFI booting operating systems.
Later models have "Core 2 Duo" processors with 64 bit EFIs.  These machines can run 32 bit or 64 bit BIOS booting operating systems, but only 64 bit EFI booting operating systems.

It would be helpful if you could list the ID and/or family for both Macs.

According to the website, possible IDs and corresponding families for the A1181 are given below.

    ID                        Family
----------     -----------------------------------------
MacBook1,1     (13-inch)
MacBook2,1     (13-inch, Late 2006), (13-inch, Mid 2007)
MacBook3,1     (13-inch, Late 2007)
MacBook4,1     (13-inch, Early 2008)
MacBook5,2     (13-inch, Early 2009)

I should also note that some early Macs needed a firmware update before being able to run BIOS booting operating systems. See: About EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Mac computers.

Note: BIOS booting normally does not require a MBR table. However, Intel Macs require a well formed MBR table in order to BIOS boot. This does not present a problem when using BIOS/MBR arrangement. Many BIOS booting Linux distributions use a BIOS/GPT arrangement. If you choose this arrangement, then you must hybrid partition the boot drive. This is a firmware requirement, even if the booting operating system will not use the values stored in the MBR table.


Scale ARD to match client screen size, rather than host size?

View menu > Fit in Window, or the indicated icon on the appropriate remote screen

Then you can make the window any size you like & the contents will always fit.
This is done client-side so the host's desktop is not re-distributed at random, similar to how Microsoft's Mac version of RDC does it.

Just for fun... this is how small it will go


That looks like a clear case of LCD image persistence which might go away in a few hours or day or might require service to exchange the panel if those changes are permanent. Depending on how long the image was static - you probably won't see the ghosting after it's off for a few hours or the panel gets used to the new pattern you are displaying on those pixels (retaining that image rather than the old one).

Software defects would show up in the screen capture and this is a very common limitation of plasma and LCD displays due to the physics behind how they produce and filter light.


ARD lets move mouse, but not click on external displays powered by USB3 display link hub. Internal display still works

Ive been following this up more with Display Link and they have informed me that currently Apple Remote Desktop does not fully work with Display Link screens in OSX 10.12.x

UPDATE Nov 17 : As of recently this seems to work, not sure if Apple or Display Link updated their drivers, but it just started working.


pasting commands from TextWrangler to Terminal (applescript troubleshooting)

Was cmd from R64's AppleScript dictionary or something?

You can run a command in Terminal with the do script verb.

tell application "Terminal"
    do script with command the_selection in window 1
end tell


How to add an .icc colour profile to OSX 10.15

The folder /Library/ColorSync/Profiles does, or should exist on macOS 10.15.
(Note the / at the beginning, signifying the root level of the volume, the US spelling of 'color', and the correct capitalization.)
It's possible, or even likely, that the similar path inside the User account may not be there. E.g. /Users/<yourUserName>/Library/ColorSync/Profiles
You can create either of these folders, if absent, and the OS will use any profiles contained inside.
You can check the location of installed profiles with ColorSync Utility. In the Profiles tab, select a Profile in the Sidebar, and the location will be given as part of the information provided.

If the root level Library is really missing the ColorSync folder, then I would suggest reinstalling the OS, as you don't know what else is missing. Or restore it from your backup, assuming it used to exist.


How to insert "n" rows into an Excel spreadsheet?

Simple, even though visually it looks like it is fraught with problems.

I've been doing this for decades, literally, and I use Excel almost every day.

Ex: insert 5 empty rows between row 4 and row 5:

Click on the numeral 5 at the far left, then entire row is selected.
A small yellow box appears at the lower-left of the selected area.

Hold-drag the small yellow box down to row 10. Release the mouse button.

Right-click and choose Insert

Boom! 5 empty rows!

It can't get any simpler than that!


How to disable Incognito mode in Chrome?

The short answer: you must edit the preferences file so that the key IncognitoModeAvailability has a value of 1.

Original Instructions

In /Library/Preferences/ add a plist entry to the file com.google.Chrome.plist such that the key is IncognitoModeAvailability and the value is 1.

Here is an example: assuming the file com.google.Chrome.plist doesn't exist, use a text editor to save the following code:

<?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>IncognitoModeAvailability</key>
   <integer>1</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

The full file name and path of the above should be /Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist.

Updated Instructions

Since macOS Sierra, proper plist files seem to be in some binary format by default—a format that you can't edit with a normal text editor. I found that I can open them in Apple's Xcode and it has a nice GUI—very easy to edit. If you don't have access to Xcode, I think you can use the plutil terminal command like this:

plutil -convert xml1 YOUR_FILE_NAME_HERE

In xml format, you should be able to edit it in a text editor, and a web site I read says that the xml format should work fine.

Regardless, I recently was able to disable Incognito mode using Xcode on the ~/Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist file. (Furthermore, I had to delete /Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist because my old version was deemed "corrupted" because it wasn't in a proper file format.)


Do I need to target the root of the destination HDD when using carbon copy cloner?

Carbon Copy Cloner essentially requires you to backup one Volume to another.

It doesn't have to be the entire volume, there are some quite comprehensive filtering options, but it does need to be to a distinct Volume, not just another folder on the same one.

It's always wisest to have a full bootable backup, just in case, but single folder backup is actually possible.

A separate Volume on the same physical disk would be acceptable, though of course if the disk dies, it takes both copies with it.


How would I architecture Direct Attached Storage?

DAS means you connect one or multiple external hard discs locally (e.g. by USB or SATA)

1) Then, you share them from this computer. What you need are standard external USB drives and a working home network.

2) You can share them using any Mac that is "always on" when the others are on

3) no, standard Mac OS will do

4) OSX. System preferences->Share->File Sharing

To connect, in the Finder select "Connect to Server..." under the Go menu.


How can I get OS X El Capitan and watchOS and iOS 9 without being a developer?

You can sign up for the public beta (available in July) of iOS 9 and OSX El Capitan at:

Apple Public Beta Signup

In the past, the Public Beta has delays release of a specific build a bit behind the developer betas so those builds won't be as potentially buggy or as up to date.

The new unified developer account costs $99 yearly. Sign up through the Apple Developer Site to get immediate access to watchOS, iOS 9 and El Capitan on June 8 and later.

The initial El Capitan download is 6.06 GB and downloads as a redemption code from the Mac App Store.
The initial Xcode 7 beta build is 4.22 GB and downloads from an ADC Downloads web site

The big news with Xcode 7 is that it removed the requirement you be a paid developer to run your own code on your own devices. This will be huge for students of all ages with limited budgets.

  Xcode 7 and Swift now make it easier for everyone to build apps and run them directly on their Apple devices. Simply sign in with your Apple ID, and turn your idea into an app that you can touch on your iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch. Download Xcode 7 beta and try it yourself today. Program membership is not required.

This new Xcode is available freely to anyone today to start coding and running apps even if your Mac and iOS devices are not yet up to the announced OS. You get more tools if you join the paid program, but the basics are widely available today.


How to restore iTunes library from a backup

Do you know someone who has a working PC around you ?
Copy your files + iTunes database to this PC, launch iTunes and migrate your ratings to an id3 tag so you can restore them later. I explain the method in details here : http://tunecrux.com/resilient-id3-embedded-ratings


Do I need to upgrade to get iTunes 10, or can OS X 10.4.11 run it?

Your iBook G4 can not run Snow Leopard, because of PowerPC G4 chip inside. Snow Leopard require an Intel chip. You can get iTunes 10 to work on your computer, just upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 (eBay or so... buy full retail version, not gray discs).


Is there a way to share photos from one iTunes account with another?

You can setup your iPhoto to accept your incoming photo stream, then create a smart folder that automatically includes the contents of it, and subsequently sync's it to a 3rd party service such as Flickr, or Facebook etc.  This will allow you to share the photo stream with anyone that can access those services.  It's not wholly automated, and required you to have iPhoto running, but it may suffice.


New administrator account has limited access

Apple has instructions on their support site on how to rename accounts, see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201548.

If you can't see your hard drive in the new account, an easy way out of this is using Shift-Cmd-G to go to /Users directly and rename from there.


Why are emails from Find My iPhone in the wrong locale/language?

I was able to log in to https://appleid.apple.com/ and set my country/locale/language to "USA". Took me a little while to figure this out. :)


You can do it like this:

System preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App Shortcuts

Click + And select Safari as Application.

Then enter the exact name of menu command (In your case: Find…) and enter your preferred hotkeys (Control + F on the screenshot)


I've encountered a similar error on my iPhone 4S while restoring an iCloud backup. I fixed it by simply updating the firmware/iOS version to the latest version available from Apple. Latest iOS 7.1.2 was out at that time but I was running outdated iOS 7.0.4. Once the phone restored with the latest iOS version, I was able to restore from iCloud. So update your iOS if you're using an older iOS version and try again.


How to configure Dragon Dictate so that it does not scan files upon opening?

I was able to replicate that behavior in an earlier major version and to stop it, this is what I did.

Go to Dragon Dictate > Preferences... > Dictation and uncheck the TextEdit check box, as shown in the image below.

Note: This is from Dragon Dictate 3.0.2 and may be somewhat different in version 5, however hopefully this will help to resolve the issue.


AirPods not charging due to contact issue between the AirPod and the case

Try these solutions in the following order:

Cleaning the lightning port*;
Cleaning the inside of the case*;
Instead of manually inserting the AirPods in the charging case all the way, insert just a portion of them, and let them fall in the case. The gravity and the magnetic attraction will place them in the right position, thus allowing them to charge. Surprisingly, inserting them manually all the way might not place them in the right position;
Place a small piece of paper on the inside of lid so that when it is closed, it presses the AirPods against the connector**;

If none of these options worked, the case and/or the AirPods might be broken and need to be looked at by an authorized technician

*with a sharp object that doesn't conduct electricity (like a toothpick)
** This solution should be used as a last resort, since it might potentially damage the opening/closing mechanics of the lid


Applescript - AppleEvent handler failed on set properties {visible messages: }

From comments…

As it would appear that many people across the net are struggling & failing to get set properties to {visible messages:msgList} to work at all, it might be simpler in the long run to just pop up a count of unread/unflagged messages & optionally sort by flagged then unread for easy discovery in the Mail window.

I added in a 'sort by date or flags/unread' option in the dialog, too

tell application "Mail"
    tell the front message viewer
        set unReadMsgs to every message whose read status is false and flagged status is false
        display dialog ("There are " & (count of unReadMsgs) as string) & ¬
            " Unread/Unflagged messages." buttons {"Sort Unread", "Sort Date"} ¬
            default button "Sort Date" giving up after 300
        set theResult to button returned of result as string
        if theResult is "Sort Date" then
            set properties to {sort column:date received column}
        else if theResult is "Sort Unread" then
            set properties to {sort column:flags column}
            set properties to {sort column:message status column}
        end if
    end tell
end tell


They're both sort of correct. There's a difference between ps u and ps -u. Consider:

$ ps -u blm
  UID   PID TTY           TIME CMD
  502  4278 ??         0:00.04 sshd: blm@ttys000
  ...

$ ps u blm
ps: illegal argument: blm
usage: ps [-AaCcEefhjlMmrSTvwXx] [-O fmt | -o fmt] [-G gid[,gid...]]
          [-u]
          [-p pid[,pid...]] [-t tty[,tty...]] [-U user[,user...]]
       ps [-L]

Also:

$ ps aux
USER              PID  %CPU %MEM      VSZ    RSS   TT  STAT STARTED      TIME COMMAND
root                1   1.9  0.1  2455856   4648   ??  Ss   Wed05PM   2:52.80 /
...

$ ps -aux
ps: No user named 'x'

The man page documents the options preceded by -, but ps (for compatibility with other Unix flavors) also takes options without a preceding -, with often completely different meanings.

In the manual page, go down to LEGACY DESCRIPTION for more information.


Can I use apps other than Photos with Apple’s SD-card reader?

Apple's camera-connection hardware only interfaces with the Photos app, unfortunately. However, you should be able to transfer the photos from the photos app to Dropbox or a similar app after the import using the "send to" feature (I know it works with OneDrive and Google Drive).


pwSafe on the Mac now giving error when trying to use iCloud based safe (version 4.8)

In case anybody else was wondering - it ended up being that I had the safe in question open in a different user session, which created a lock on the safe file causing the weird error message in the user session I was currently in.

A safe can only be opened in one user session by the looks of it. Problem as such solved.


Did they remove the number of emails in a folder from the toolbar in Yosemite's Mail.app?

It appears to be a bug and has been reported to Apple.

A discussion on the Apple forums mentions this same problem, OS X Yosemite mail stopped showing total inbox message count:

  This appears to be a bug. It is triggered when you view a smart folder - once you do, the count in the title bar will disappear until you restart mail.

  I filed this as a bug with Apple, so they're aware of it. No ETA for a fix though.


Applications and preferences on USB drive

Applications (i.e. .app bundles) can be stored anywhere, including external media. Preferences is more complicated, although the simple solution is probably to symlink the preference files and container to the external media.


Erased Macintosh HD and installing OS X Lion again

Is it this prohibitory sign?

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2674:

  Circle with Slash - could not load boot.efi, or some other issue

Does the Mac shut down after it shows the sign? http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3742:

  If there are five new kernel panics within three minutes, the Mac will display a prohibitory sign for 30 seconds, and then shut down.

You could try repairing the disk or the OS X partition:

Hold command-R on startup
Open Disk Utility
Select the disk (like APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 Media) and press the Repair Disk button
Select the OS X partition (like Macintosh HD) and press the Repair Disk button

You could also try erasing and reinstalling again, but choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) instead of Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted). You can enable FileVault later from System Preferences.

If the drive is grayed out in Disk Utility or not shown when you try to reinstall OS X, you might need to replace it with another drive.


CloudDocs > session folder filled with version of a Pages file

I don't know the answer to your question, but I have the same folder which is also huge. I'm pretty sure they are indeed incremental files.
I have a few different ones, but there's not one for every Pages file I own, which makes me believe they are the files I wanted to "revert". There's an option in Pages, Preview, Keynote, Numbers and more Apple applications that lets you revert to a previous version. I think what happened is that it saved all previous versions.

I just opened some of those files and tried to revert them, but they don't even revert back to all of those saves! Those gigabytes of files are there but I can't open them and I can't revert to them.
I deleted all of the versions of one document and opened the actual one, the document was still complete.
I did the same with another and the actual document is fine. I think you might be able to delete all of it. Maybe make a backup before you do so if it's an important file.


Does the store not give you an option to install the latest compatible version?

According to that article, you should be able to look into your list of purchased apps, and the App Store will ask you if you want to install the latest compatible version if your version of iOS does not support the current version of the app.

It's possible that this will only work for apps that you have previously purchased, but I don't have a device here to test.


How can i aggregate two pairs of headphones/microphones into one audio stream using Audio MIDI Setup?

Not sure it's going to work using an Aggregate Device - each output must have its own channel that way.

Look at a Multi-Output Device instead - then channels can share one output.

You of course, don't need to use the same 'device' for both input & output, so you can set up a different one for input - though I'm still not certain you will be able to listen to [record] both mics at the same time, the same considerations may apply.

I can't test on USB headphones as I don't have any, but using this setup I can play iTunes over internal speakers and my dedicated sound card at the same time
sounds horrible, of course;)


Keyboard shortcut to switch focus between multiple displays on OS X 10.9+

Here's a way that works from the keyboard:

Open System Preferences -> Keyboard and click the Shortcuts tab.
Choose Mission Control from the sidebar.
Scroll down until you see Mission Control listed in the main panel; check its box if not checked, and click the disclosure triangle.
You should see Move left a space, Move right a space, and then a series of Switch to Desktop 1, Switch to Desktop 2, etc. for as many desktop spaces as you have going at the moment.
Check all of the boxes of the Switch to Desktop N type.
In my prefs, each of those Switch-tos has a shortcut already there - Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2, ... Ctrl-N, where N is the Desktop number (Control key is shown as a carat ('^'). You can assign whatever you want to these, but keeping them in a sequential scheme helps, so I suggest leaving them as is.
Now, you can switch among your functioning desktops (aka Spaces), and if one you choose is on the other display, focus will shift to that display.
If you don't remember which number a Desktop is, you could first use your shortcut for Mission Control itself (mine is ⌥ Opt-Up Arrow, which I think was the default, but again you can set that for whatever you want). You'll see your current numbered Desktops, and can then use the appropriate shortcut. Press ⎋ Esc to get out of Mission Control.
I see that if I have all of the Switch-tos checked, then if I had another Desktop and check keyboard shortcuts again, the new Desktop is added to the Switch-to list and its shortcut is checked as well. So no need to go back to Prefs after the above steps.

Thanks for stimulating me to poke into this. I was having the same frustration as you and others!

ADDED for El Capitan: In my October 31 2016 note I describe my latest finding for switching to a space in the external display. It seems you need at least two spaces defined on your external display, and then you need to hit Control-N, Control-M, and you will be live in space M, where N & M are space numbers of spaces on the external display.


This page from Apple details how to charge an iPad.  It recommends plugging it into either the 10w Power Adaptor that comes with the iPad or a high powered USB 2 port.  Some USB2 ports are not high powered and will either not charge the ipad or only trickly charge it very slowly.

This article details how long it should take to charge the iPad with various techniques.  As you can see charging the iPad with the charger it comes with takes about 3 hours (to 80% capacity).

If you are not getting satisfactory charge times (and are using the recommended chargers), then you should book to have your iPad checked out at an authorized Apple repair centre or Apple Store.


Plugged in new iPhone - iTunes is now using a foreign language

A similar case to what you are experiencing can be found here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3303287?start=0&tstart=0

Pretty weird stuff, but apart from restarting the computer you can try purchasing a free app (I assume through iTunes on the computer), another suggestion that I have read resolved this was to unplug the iPhone and do a reset (hold down the home and lock buttons until the apple logo appears) and then plug it back in when prompted.


Plain text agenda formatting recognition by Siri

I do not really understand why Siri should be involved?
First create a new calendar (click on the “File” menu, select “New Calendar” and then “iCloud”). You can name it to whatever you feel like and share it by clicking share icon to the right of the calendar’s name. You can even make it a public calendar, which means anyone can subscribe to a read-only version of your calendar.
Second define all events in this calendar. (For future changes make sure to have syncing of calendars to iCloud activated).
In the edit screen of the calendar you can directly add people with whom you want to share it.
Apple provides more info here.


How to diagnose a white-screen-of-death by moving kexts/plists/etc

Try running EtreCheck. It will provide a lot of useful information on the configuration of your Macs (including a list of the kernel extensions, launch agents, launch daemons, etc).

If you need more guidance you can copy and paste the output from EtreCheck into a  Gist, add a link to the Gist to your question above and I'll update my answer.


What is the best way to setup users in my macbook pro but still share content?

iTunes and iPhoto libraries are, unfortunately, built upon databases that are designed for only one user. Apple recommends the following workarounds, each with their own drawbacks:

iTunes music folders can be placed within a central location (such as /Users/Shared). Only the music files themselves should be moved to the new location, not the library files (the files located at /Users/yourusername/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media). You then point each library to this new location (through iTunes > Preferences > Advanced). The big caveat to this approach: when another user on the computer adds music to the library, your library won't automatically see it. You will essentially need to tell iTunes to scan the music folder manually each time for it to pickup the changes. This support article from Apple describes this entire process in great detail.

With iPhoto, Apple technically recommends placing the shared library on an external hard drive, but you should be able to use /Users/Shared as well. Once the iPhoto library has been moved, open each user's iPhoto while holding down the option key. This will cause a pop-up screen to appear where you can select your library's location. The major caveat to this solution: if you switch between user accounts and another user has iPhoto open on their account, iPhoto will prevent you from opening the library. Again, Apple has a nice support article to cover this in great detail.


I have this problem sometimes with 10.14.6.  I can fix it by moving the mouse to one of my hot corners (e.g. start screensaver) or by clicking on one of the top menu items.  Basically I move it all the way to an edge of the screen even though I can't see it, and then trigger a response.
It's still pretty aggravating, but at least I can get back on my way pretty fast.


Way for new Mac touch bar to behave the same as the Old keyboard

In the system preferences go to "Keyboard". Select the "Shortcuts"-tab. Select "Function Keys" in the left menu. Click the + and add the applications where you want the F-keys to always show.

If you never want the touch bar but the old F-keys with brightness, volume backlight and so on. Go back to the "Keybard"-tab and select "Expanded Control Strip" in the "Touch Bar Shows" drop-down menu.


Open "System Preference".
Go to "Security & Privacy" then "General" tab
Click on the lock icon then enter the password.
There will be a button "Always Allow" to allow "jdk-13.0.1". Click on it.


ffmpeg capture of 1366 x 768 desktop is skewed but FaceTime cam capture is fine

Per FFmpeg's bug tracker, I was able to ascertain that the source of the problem is specific to the default resolution of the Mac AirBook: 1366 x 768.

  The linesize ... was 1376 ... but
  the buffer size was for a linesize of 1366.

After switching the AirBooks Built-In Display resolution, I am able to successfully capture a recognizable desktop movie:

To resolve this problem requires implementing a patch which I do not know how to do yet.


TL;DR
(1) Yes and (2) yes (but can be no depending on configuration).

If all the recipients are on iMessage, then it will be an entirely group thing. Everyone sees everyone, and everyone gets all replies.
If you have Group Messaging disabled under Settings.app > Messages > Group Messaging, then they will send as individual text - replies will be separate. If the carrier you are with doesn't provide group messaging there will be no option for Group Messaging. It is disabled by default.

Now, with the assumption that iMessage is on on your phone:

If you have Group Messaging disabled (or your carrier doesn't support it), then when you compose a text to two recipients (at least one off of iMessage) a thread, on your phone, called "OutGoing" will be created. It will then send out separate SMS messages to each user. Recipients won't be able to see who else you texted.

If you have Group Messaging enabled (note: MMS Messaging must be enabled for you to even see the "Group Messaging" option), and compose a text to two persons (at least one off of iMessage), then it will send a group text. Just like iMessage, everyone sees everyone, and everyone gets all replies. Again, the Group Messaging option will only be available if your carrier is compatible with the option. I believe AT&T and Verizon support Group Messaging. They may be the only ones.

Obviously, if everyone is on iMessage, like I stated above, everyone sees everyone, and everyone gets all replies.


Will playing CSGO overheat my Mid-2012 MacBook Air?

I don't know what CSGO is but the answer to the question of whether or not an application will overheat your CPU is an emphatic "no."

See this answer for additional reference.

Whether you run something in Terminal to max out your CPU (as in the linked answer) or a GUI app, both your MacBook Air (all computers for that matter - PCs and Macs alike) as well as the CPU itself has thermal protection mechanisms built in.  The fans will spin up, kernel_task will consume massive amounts of processor resources, the CPU will scale back and even shut itself down if necessary.

As for your game....

You didn't specify which CPU your MBA had nor how much memory.  However, it's a pretty safe bet that your configuration as is just dosen't have the horsepower to drive the game.  Your MBA won't suffer, just your gameplay experience.


Is there an easy way to resize screenshot in macOS markup editor?

The markup editor doesn't have a control to resize screenshot. Instead you can skip clicking on the screenshot and let it get saved (which is by default on Desktop). Once it is saved, you can open it in Preview.app and use the Adjust Size... command under the Tools menu to resize it.


How to get rid of the way Google looks in Safari with the top and left toolbars

Google are 'punishing' users of old browsers by showing them a different UI. The only real way round it is to update your browser... or you could try this...

I found this advice on how to 'fake' the User Agent, but it doesn't claim to be a permanent fix, nor can I test it as I'm on Safari 7.

  Here's a temporary solution for Safari 5.1.10 on a Mac using Snow Leopard
  If you haven't set up Safari to have the "Devlop" menu available then you'll have to do that first by doing this...

  1: Select from the menu bar "Safari/ Preferences" and then select "Advanced" in the preferences window. Tick/ select the item at the bottom of the window labelled "Show Develop Menu In Menu Bar"

  Now in the Safari menu bar you will have a menu called "Develop"...

  Go to the "Devlop" menu and from the options pick "User Agent" and then "Other"...

  This will open up a window where you must now copy/paste the following line (or type it in)...

  Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/31.0
  Click on "Ok"...

  You should now have got rid of the old style Google look and it should be back to the new look. The only thing you will notice is some layouts will look a bit different but for the time being and until Google fixes this problem you at least have the "new look" back... :-)