Boot camp install of Windows 7 issue, no bootable devices

UPDATE

An improved procedure for installing Windows 7 can be found at Installing Windows 7 Pro 64 bit without DVD or Flash Drive

Note:

The updated steps, for installing Windows 8.1 using the procedure given below, can be found here.

My hardware and software differs from yours. I will first document how I tested my answer and then try to adapt the answer to your needs. Since this is a fairly long answer, the adaption will be given as a separate answer.

My computer is an iMac (20-inch Mid 2007). The version of OS X is 10.10.5. I will be installing Windows 7 Professional SP1 64 Bit.
I have only one internal drive. It is a 1 TB hard disk using the Apple hybrid GUID partitioning scheme. Hybrid means Windows will see the drive as MBR partitioned, while OS X views the drive as GUID partitioned. I will be following Apple's recommendations and installing Window using the legacy BIOS. I also have a working internal optical SuperDrive which is not used to install Windows.

(Hint: For a better view, click on an image or open an image in a new window.)

Aquire the Boot Camp Support Software (the drivers). The software
can either be downloaded using the Boot Camp Assistant, downloaded
directly from the Web or copied off a OS X installation DVD. See
System requirements to install Windows on your Mac via Boot
Camp for details. This procedure does not require the use of
a flash drive. If your Boot Camp Support Software is stored on a
flash drive, then follow the special instructions given in certain
step that follow.
Make sure your firmware is up to date. See EFI and SMC firmware
updates for Intel-based Macs.
Download and install a free copy of VirtualBox from Oracle. I
used VirtualBox, Version 5.0.0 r101573, Copyright © 2015.
Inside your "Documents" folder, create a folder named "VirtualBox".
This is where you will keep the files created in the rest of the
steps.
Create a MS-DOS (FAT) formatted partition to install Windows. You
can use the Bootcamp Assistant, the Disk Utility, or commands
(distutil, gpt and/or fdisk) entered in a Terminal window.
Other third party tools, such as gdisk, can also be used.
Give the label for this partition the name "BOOTCAMP".
Determine the disk and partition numbers of the partition named
"BOOTCAMP". To do this, highlight the partition in the Disk Utility
application and click the "Info" button. A popup window should
appear. The values shown will be used in the next step.

The information, in this pop up window, shows the disk and partition
numbers are 0 and 4, respectively. If your numbers are different,
you will need to substitute your numbers in the rest of the steps.
If your partition number is greater than 4, then you can not install Windows on this partition. (Technically, this may not be
true, but it is beyond the scope of this answer to explain how to do
so.)

Do not close the popup window.
Open the Terminal application and enter the following commands in
the Terminal window. This will set variables to be used in later
commands. In the next command, replace α with the "Disk Number"
shown in the Disk Utility popup window. The usual value for α is
0.

DISK0=/dev/diskα

In the next command, replace β with the "Partition Number" shown
in the Disk Utility popup window. The usual value for β is 4.

PARTITION=β

The next command sets the variable PARTID to the disk identifier of
the partition. This should be the same as the "Disk Identifier"
shown in the Disk Utility popup window. The usual value for PARTID
is disk0s4.

PARTID="$DISK0"s"$PARTITION"

Note: the letter s is lower case.

Close the Disk Utility popup window.
With the Disk Utility application still open, select "File→New→Blank
Disk Image..." from the menu bar. In the popup window, enter the
values shown below. Note: "Where:" should be the "VirtualBox" folder
created in Step 4. If the Boot Camp Support Software is stored on a
flash drive, you can use the default "Size:" of "100 MB".

Save As: bcssoftware
Tags:
Where: VirtualBox
Name: BCSSOFTWARE
Size: Custom... (1.5 GB)
Format: MS-DOS (FAT)
Encryption: none
Partitions: Single partition -  Master Boot Record Partition Map
Image Format: read/write disk image

The popup window should appear as shown below.

Click the "Create" button.
Determine the disk number of the partition named "BCSSOFTWARE". To
do this, highlight the partition in the Disk Utility application and
click the "Info" button. A popup window should appear. The values
shown will be used in the next step.

The information, in this pop up window, shows the disk number is 1.
If your number is different, you will need to substitute your number
in the rest of the steps.

Do not close the popup window.
Using the same Terminal window, enter the following to set the
 variable DISK1. Replace γ with the "Disk Number" shown in the
 Disk Utility popup window. The usual value for γ is 1.

DISK1=/dev/diskγ

Quit the Disk Utility.
Copy the Boot Camp Support Software to to the partition labeled
 "BCSSOFTWARE". I used the Finder application to do this. You can
 skip this step, if this software is already stored on a flash
 drive.
Mark your partition as active in the MBR by entering the following
 in the same Terminal window. The input for the interactive command
 fdisk is taken from the variable INPUT. If a password  is asked
 for, enter it.

INPUT=$(printf  "f  $PARTITION\nw\ny\nq")
sudo  fdisk  -e  $DISK0  <<<"$INPUT"

Note: To display the value for the variable INPUT, use the
 command echo "$INPUT".
Allow VirtualBox read/write access to your physical partition by
 entering the following commands in the same Terminal window. If a
 password is asked for, enter it.

diskutil  unmount  $PARTID
sudo  chmod  go+rw  $PARTID

This will allow VirtualBox to install Windows on your physical
 partition. Note: This access will only last until OS X is
 rebooted.
Create the files that map the virtual partition and disk to the
 physical partition and disk image. In the same Terminal window,
 enter the following commands.

cd  ~/documents/virtualbox
sudo  vboxmanage  internalcommands  createrawvmdk  -filename  "$PWD/bootcamp.vmdk"  -rawdisk  $DISK0  -partitions  $PARTITION
sudo  chown  $USER  bootcamp*.vmdk
diskutil unmountDisk $DISK1
vboxmanage  internalcommands  createrawvmdk  -filename  "$PWD/bcssoftware.vmdk"  -rawdisk  $DISK1

  Note: If a password is asked for, enter it.

Open the VirtualBox application and click on icon above the New
 label. Enter or select the values shown below, then click the
 "Continue" button.

Use the default settings  except for the hard drive. Choose the
 "Use an existing virtual hard  drive file" button. Navigate to the
 VirtualBox folder created in  step 4. Open the "bootcamp.vmdk"
 file. Your window should appear similar to what is shown below.

Click the "Create" button.
Enter  the following command in the same Terminal window.

diskutil  unmountDisk  $DISK1

Return to the VirtualBox application's "Oracle VM Virtual Manager"
 window and click on the  icon above the "Settings" label. Next,
 click on the icon above the "Storage" label. Right click on
 "Controller: SATA" and select "Add  Hard Disk". Choose existing
 disk by opening the file "bcssoftware.vmdk" stored in the folder
 created in step 4. The attachment "bcssoftware.vmdk" should appear
 as shown below.

It has been reported by other users that the "Use Host I/O Cache" box needs to be checked on if VirtualBox boot fails with error VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED.
Highlight the Empty CD/DVD and select "Choose a virtual CD/DVD
 file..." to attach your Windows installation iso  file. (Hint: Look
 for the CD/DVD icons)

Click OK to close the  window. Your "Oracle VM Virtual Manager"
 window should appear similar to what is shown below.

Before clicking the icon above the "Start" label to begin installing
 Windows, enter the following command in the same Terminal window.

diskutil unmountDisk $DISK1

When you reach the window shown below, select "Custom (advanced)".

In the next window, click on "Drive options (advanced)".

Select the "BOOTCAMP" partition and click on "Format". The error
 message shown below will disappear. Click on "Next" to continue
 installation.

The rest the virtual machine installation will be repeated again
 after booting Windows on the physical machine. Use the provided
 answers when the following windows first appear. When asked a
 second time, you can provide your own answers.

When the following window first appears, I would enter the Product
 Key and uncheck the "Automatically active Windows when I'm online"
 box.

To be safe, I would not let any updates download or install until
 after the Boot Camp Support Software (the drivers) is installed.
 Therefore, I would click on "Ask me later" in the window shown
 below.

VirtualBox creates a virtual Public network for your virtual
 machine. Therefore I would click on "Public network" in the window
 shown below.

Once the installation has completed on the virtual machine, you
 need complete the following instructions to make a copy the MBR
 bootstrap code. From the Start Menu, select "Computer" to open a
 window containing the hard disk drives and devices with removable
 storage. Determine the drive letters for  the hard disk drive
 labeled "BCSSOFTWARE" and the CD (optical)   drive. The image below
 shows the drive letters on my computer are  D: and G:,
 respectively. Your drive letters may differ from mine.

Close the window and open a Command  Prompt window run as an
 administrator. Select "Start Menu→All  Programs→Accessories",
 then right click on "Command Prompt" and  select "Run as
 administrator", as shown in the image below.

In the Command Prompt  window, enter the command shown below. If
 necessary, substitute your drive letters for G: and D:.

G:\BOOT\BOOTSECT  /NT60  D:  /MBR

The results of running this command on my computer are shown below.

Close the Command Prompt window.
Copy the Boot Camp Support Software from the partition labeled
 "BCSSOFTWARE" to the "C:\Users\Public\Public Documents" folder. I
 used the Windows  Explorer to do this. You can skip this step, if
 this software is already stored on a flash drive.
You need to prepare Windows to run on your physical Mac. Open the
 Windows  Explorer and navigate to the "C:\Windows\System32\sysprep"
 folder. Open the "sysprep" application. Select "Enter System
 Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)", "Generalize" and "Shutdown" as shown
 below. Click OK and wait for the virtual machine to shutdown.

Once the virtual machine has shutdown, quit VirtualBox. Enter the
 following in the same Terminal window. These commands will update
 the MBR bootstrap code, set the Windows partition identifier to 7
 in the MBR and then mount the partition. The input for the
 interactive command fdisk is taken  from the variable INPUT. If
 a password is asked for, enter it.

sudo  fdisk  -u  -y  -f  $DISK1  $DISK0
INPUT=$(printf  "s  $PARTITION\n7\nw\ny\nq")
sudo  fdisk  -e   $DISK0  <<<"$INPUT"
diskutil  mount  $PARTID

Close all other applications. Open System Preferences and select
 "Startup Disk". Highlight the "Untitled Windows" icon and click the
 "Restart" button.

If something goes wrong, you will need to hold down the "option" key
 at startup to return to OS X. Hopefully, nothing will go wrong and
 Windows will start.
When Windows finishing installing, install the Boot Camp Support
 Software (the drivers). This software is either in the
 "C:\Users\Public\Public Documents" folder, or on a flash drive.

COMMENTS

On OS X El Capitan (10.11) the System Integrity Protection does not allow editing the MBR with fdisk, so disable SIP following these instructions for the duration of the install.

I ended up having to create two user accounts. If you only want one account, you have two options. First, delete one of the accounts. Second, disable one of the accounts so it will not appear. The former can be accomplished from the Control Panel, the latter requires entering the command control  userpasswords2 in a Command Prompt window. For example, below is the window were one can enable or disable the rpj account. If you need help let me know.


I struggled a lot with Matthieu's solution since it caused two problems on my Mac OS X 10.9.2:

Jobs in the LaunchAgents folder are executed using the current user. However arp needs to be executed using root.
The arp-command is executed too early, when the network is not up. But the network is needed by the arp-command.

The first problem can be solved by storing the .plist file in LaunchDaemons instead of LaunchAgents. This will ensure that the command is executed as root.

The second problem is a bit tricky. Since launchd does not handle dependencies, we have to write our own shell script which first waits until the network is up an then execute the arp command. (See here)

So here is my solution:
First create/open the plist file using a text-editor:

sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.arpentries.plist

Then paste the following content:

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

Set owner etc.:

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.arpentries.plist
sudo chmod 0644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/local.arpentries.plist

Now create/open the shell script using a text editor

sudo nano /usr/local/bin/arpentries

Paste the following:

#!/bin/bash

# max number of retries
retries=10

# include Startup commons
. /etc/rc.common

# wait for network to become available
CheckForNetwork

while [ "$NETWORKUP" != "-YES-" ]
do
        retries=$((retries - 1))
        if [ $retries -le 0 ] ; then
                exit 1
        fi
        sleep 2
        NETWORKUP=
        CheckForNetwork
done

# set the static arp entries
arp -s 192.168.1.111 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

exit 0

And the rights:

sudo chmod 0744 /usr/local/bin/arpentries


You can use VNC to log into the mac from a client machine (iOS, android, PC, Mac) and establish the UI session, set excel to launch at boot and set the user account to automatically log in.

With remote working all the rage, apps like TeamViewer also work in headless Mac situations if you don’t want to vpn in to your local network.

Barring an assist, your remote access to the computer might need to allow ssh, and perhaps remote apple script so ssh and osascript could remotely script things directly from AppleScript.


In OS X, I want to change to a non-standard keyboard shortcut for switching spaces

Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts. Then, on the left side, select Exposé & Spaces. On the right side you will see the current keyboard shortcuts for Exposé and Spaces. If you double click on the shortcut command (literally double click ^1 for instance) you will be able to change this to whatever you want. Just do the key-combo you want to use.

So, once you double-click on the shortcut, it'll show it as editable. Then, press the keys you want the short cut to be, all at once, for instance press Apple and J at the same time, and it'll change the shortcut.


if iPhoto came with my Mac, can I still get free updates after Mountain Lion?

Yes! When you open the App Store's Updates tab, you'll see a special dialog allowing you to accept the apps such as iPhoto that were bundled with your computer. If you accept them and enter your account info, the licenses will be automatically associated with your account. In the future you'll be able to receive updates exactly as if you had purchased the apps.

(The details probably depend on which computer you have and when you purchased it. But if your computer is a relatively recent model then you probably will have access to these apps. If you want more details you may need to contact Apple.)


chunkeddownload error in trying to upgrade to Mac OS Mojave

I am having the same issue. I downloaded Mojave from the app store and it too gave me the 22MB installer file. I was doing some research and found that was normal, and basically grabs the rest during the install. Im having the worst time just trying to upgrade to a SSD with a fresh install of MacOS. Ive deleted the install file and redownloaded from the app store and I get the same file. It downloaded that file fine, but during the install process, after choosing which hard drive i want to install on, I received this error approximately halfway through what was going to be a 5 hr install. I've booted and done this in safe mode and this is the furthest ive gotten.

I've just followed the link posted above by Buscar. That link gave me a link to the app store.  After deleting the file again, I downloaded it again from this path and I got the same result, 22.8MB file. I am attempting the install again.


You can use iTunes Home Sharing.

For it to work, you need two thing:

All your movies in mp4 for iTunes (Ideally with Metadata and Images, looks cleaner and is easier to search on the iPad)
An iTunes Store Account

You then put all the movies in iTunes, leave it open and activate "Home Sharing" in iTunes->Preferences->Sharing

Check "Share my library on my local network"

Then, go on your iPad, make sure you are connected with the same iTunes ID and go in the standard Video app. You shall see you library that can be shared. Tap it, let it load and there you go, you have access to movies from your iPad! (it also include TV Series)


Can the onscreen iPad keyboard move the cursor?

If you tap and hold with 2 fingers on the software keyboard it turns it into a touchpad-like view which you can drag around on to control the cursor.


Can I use a PC/Mac keyboard as a Bluetooth keyboard for iPhone?

There are apps in App Store: iKeyboard ($9.99), Type2Phone ($9.99), 1Keyboard ($9.99) and Typeeto ($4.99) that allow to use your Mac's keyboard as Bluetooth keyboard. The obvious requirements are Mac with Bluetooth and recent OS X.


Do any iPhone 5 docking stations offer both audio out and a lightning connector for charging?

An OEM dock just popped up in store.apple.com after the 9/10 event: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MF030ZM/A/iphone-5s-dock


In the second line, there should be no output! You're assigning the result of restic -r ${backupdir} snapshots to output, and that won't produce any output, either to stdout or to stderr (it's equivalent to output="Value stored for later" - when this command executes, there's no output).

Try something like...

output=$(restic -r ${backupdir} snapshots )
echo $output | tee -a $logfile

Or you could simplify it by just doing...

restic -r ${backupdir} snapshots 2>&1 | tee -a $logfile


Can we disable the drag window to top of screen Mission Control / Spaces feature in El Capitan?

According to the Reddit thread, Is there any way to disable Mission Control coming up when I drag a window to the top of the screen?, the solution is:

  System Preferences > Mission Control

  Uncheck "Displays have separate Spaces" then log out and back in again.

It works, I had the same issue & now it's sorted.


What makes autofill not appear as a sync option in iTunes 11?

I figured it out with some help from Jesse at the Ottawa Apple Store:

If your iPhone has iTunes Match turned on, you’re not able to manually manage your music. In order to set how much space you want to use on your device for music, you’ve got to first turn iTunes Match off, set your space requirements in the Autofill section, and then turn iTunes Match back on.

Good times…


2013 Macbook Air can't get past grey screen

... does anyone know if this machine has diagnostic LEDs like the older iMacs?

There are no diagnostic LEDs on the logic board.

I'm thinking it's definitely a hardware issue at this point but I don't know how to move forward, I figure I can at least recover the SSD.

This is a big jump in determination when two very conspicuous clues were presented:

A prohibitory symbol means that it cannot find a boot volume

Fix a sometimes happening prohibitory sign 🚫
No entry sign on 2017 Macbook Pro--will replacing the hard disk work?
Can't format my Macbook, HDD and mac Utilities won't load, “blocked” sign after trying to boot usb

A folder with a flashing question mark means the file system on the boot volume was corrupted.

Unable to boot up my Mac. Getting a flashing folder with a question mark

iMac only show flashing folder with question mark after formatting OS X partition drive

Not seeing my HD in the disk utility

Now, I'm not ruling out hardware - it's entirely possible your drive has failed.  But breaking out the screwdriver prior to doing any sort of diagnostics or even examining the symptoms a bit more is putting the cart before the horse.  You can run Apple Diagnostics by holding D  while booting from a powered off state.


I had SimStreamProcessorService grabbing 33% of my CPU and a lot of memory. But at the time I also had an XCode simulator starting up for the first time, and the "iOS OS" was starting up in that simulator. Once the simulator came up to the home page, the SimStreamProcessorService stopped running.


And that's the solution to my case.

I called to Apple Support and they said, that none of my additional e-mails was "rescue". I remember perfectly that in the time I registered my Apple ID there was no such option - just ability to set additional e-mail.

So, support reseted my security questions and now I can set a new ones, along with setting the rescue e-mail.


Any Way to Retrieve iPhoto pics from Time Machine deleted backups?

I'm sorry to say that I don't believe there is a way to get those photos back. The way Time Machine works is, it will make backups of the current state of your computer, and continue doing so until space on the backup hard drive runs out. At that point, once your backup hard drive no longer has space, it begins to delete backups (oldest first) to make room for new ones.

When deleting something from a hard drive, if you immediately stop using that drive, there's some hope of getting it back since no other files have been written over where the old files were. But if Time Machine deleted old backups to make room for new ones, my guess is that they're unfortunately gone.

Time Machine SHOULD have asked you, at some point, if you were OK with it deleting old backups to make room for new ones. If you declined, it would simply stop backing up your computer until you freed up some room on the drive. If you accepted, you gave Time Machine free reign over the hard drive (which is what most people do).


How can I sync my iPad/iPhone with iTunes except for the apps/iBooks?

The reason why it's asking you to transfer purchases is because your Mac doesn't have the apps (and the data associated with said apps (e.g.: game data, documents, etc).) on file on the computer. When it's transferred, it can successfully back it up without losing your data.

As far as I can tell, there is no way around it; you are going to have transfer the files. After that, go to the "Apps" tab on your iPad section of iTunes and uncheck it. This should stop syncing your apps. Do the same with the "Books" section.

As for the question of whether or not your apps and books are on iCloud, they are. Every song, album, music video, TV show, app, or book that you have downloaded is associated with your Apple ID and can be re-downloaded for no extra charge.

I hope that this solves your issue.


Where is GNU info files stored on Mac OSX?

Have a look in the following locations:

/usr/share/info/

/usr/local/share/info/


27" Apple Cinema Display (video and power) to one USB-C

Is there a way to connect the "power pins" to the TB2-3-adapter and
  solve my problem?

No.  This can't be done.

This is not a matter of just dumping in some power on some of the pins.  Thunderbolt 3 supplies USB 3.1 signaling which conforms to the power delivery specification.  Meaning, power is negotiated between the two devices for up to 100W (20V at 5A); it's not simply supplying a set voltage (5V) at a maximum amperage of 3A (USB 2.0 spec).

From the image above VBUS (power) is provided on pins A4, A9, B4, B9.  However, it's not a constant, it's negotiated over the CC bus (CC1 and CC2).  By hard soldering in the power (16 to 20V DC) from the Magsafe, you could potentially fry equipment that's not expecting (or requesting) that much voltage.


Take it to Apple. It's a 5-year-old phone with hardware problems. Apple will agree to replace the battery when the health is below 80%. The charge for a battery replacement is quite small.
If there are other problems, then you may want to save your money and think about an upgrade.


Which iPhone apps to become more proficient speaker in foreign language?

Voice Translator helps you check whether your pronunciation matches any known word.

Voice Translator

The BETA services are new but interesting.

BETA HelloTalk (social network)


Optional Voices in OS X

OS X includes support for numerous languages, take a look at the Other Languages section of Speaking with a French accent – OS X say. The optional voices include alternative English speakers:

  To discover the full list of voices and associated languages:

  Open System Preferences.app
  Select Dictation & Speech
  Select System Voice > Customize…

Customising Synthesised Speech

Apple's development documentation includes Techniques for Customizing Synthesized Speech. This is a technical document aimed at developers but it includes a section on Use Embedded Speech Commands to Fine-Tune Spoken Output that offers a way to embed additional statements within your text that influence the synthesised voice.

Cepstral: Buy Professional Voices

You can also purchase additional voices for use with OS X. Voices are available from Cepstral:

  CereVoice text-to-speech is available for Apple Mac OS X, bringing CereProc's high-quality voices to computers running Apple's OS X: 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, 10.9 Mavericks, 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Capitan (Intel Macs only). CereVoice can replace the default Mac voices with a wide range of other accents and languages.


Why does it take so long to sync photos for my iPod touch  in iTunes?

Find the "iPod Photo Cache" (for iPhoto, it should be listed in iPhoto Library, just right click and select the "Show package contents") and delete it (don't worry, the contents will be recreated the next time you sync).

Sometimes the data in that directory can get corrupted, causing undesirable effects to happen. Hopefully this will help alleviate your problems.

The directory stores every picture that has been synced with your devices. You can read more about the directory here and ways of deleting it: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1314


As mentioned on this answer : https://stackoverflow.com/a/17848864/2307070

you can try these steps:

wget http://pecl.php.net/get/imagick-3.1.0RC2.tgz
tar zxf imagick-3.1.0RC2.tgz

Edit the file imagick-3.1.0RC2/config.m4 line number 55.

Make changes like this, from

if test -r $WAND_DIR/include/ImageMagick/wand/MagickWand.h;

to

if test -r $WAND_DIR/include/ImageMagick-6/wand/MagickWand.h;

Note this difference made in the imagick version number. After that try the conventional installation procedures

cd imagick-3.1.0RC2
phpize
./configure
make
make install


How to update my weight in the Activity app

The Activity app uses the info stored in the Health app.

To change your weight:

Open the Watch app on the iPhone
On the My Watch tab, scroll down and tap on Health
Tap Edit in the top right corner
Scroll through the weights and select the correct one

You can also do this on the iPhone in the Health app under Body Measurements.

Once that is done, Activity will use the updated value.


Shortcut for right click on underlined misspelled words

You may want to try Cmd: (colon), that's not exactly the same menu but it may do what you're looking for.

Source :
Is there a way to spellcheck the word under the cursor with a keyboard shortcut?


PL/SQL Mac compiler or Mac OS X compatible softwares

I've used RazorSQL in the past for MSSQL/MySql/Postgres connectivity, but not for Oracle.  It's a good product for the price (if you consider how much Toad costs, but is not as feature rich)


What's the difference between rainbow and regular spinning wheel?

The rainbow spinning pinwheel is usually controlled by the OS.
  The blue pinwheel is shown by an app to indicate loading.

  The spinning wait cursor (shown below) is also standard, but it is displayed automatically by the window server when an app can't handle all of the events it receives. In general, if an app does not respond for about 2 to 4 seconds, the spinning wait cursor appears. If the app continues to be unresponsive, users often react by force-quitting it.

Source: OS X Human Interface Guidelines: Use the Right Pointer for the Job

The blue pinwheel is sometimes called the JavaScript pinwheel as JavaScript in websites are one of the primary ways a user will see this cursor, for cross-platform reasons, as in OS X a 'waiting' cursor is generally not recommended.


Okay, finally sorted with the help of this post:

http://lists.apple.com/archives/x11-users/2008/Mar/msg00202.html

In summary, go here:

http://www.rubicode.com/Software/RCEnvironment/

Download the preference pane, and add this entry:

Key=LANG Value=en_GB.UTF-8

I had already added this to my .bashrc and my .profile with no result. But I think XQuartz doesn't launch within that environment, so it never sees it until it is too late.


remote "desktop mouse" with Magic trackpad emulator for iPad or Mac Book

Software KVM
You might want to take a look at these two additional packages - they don't support iPad but will allow you to use your Air in conjunction with your desktop.

Synergy Which used to be free - and can still be downloaded for free if you pull a nightly build

ShareMouse which costs maybe $50 or so

Both are virtual KVM software that allow multiple computers to share a single (or multiple) keyboard mice
ShareMouse is the more advanced software and it will let you use the Mouse/Keyboard from all connected computers - as well as it supports dragging a file from one computer to another.  Its probably the one I'd recommend as I have used both at work where I have a single keyboard/mouse I use for both a windows & mac machine
Synergy is less advanced but costs less money and also will run over UDP & TCP which allows you to tunnel it though networks
Synergy can also be obtained for free if you want NO support by getting the nightly build at:  https://synergy-project.org/nightly
These programs will also allow you to MIX operating system so you can share 1 mouse/keyboard between a Windows Desktop and a Mac Laptop for instance.
Summary

ShareMouse - Costs more but is easier to use and more advanced
Synergy - Costs less / free - harder to setup and limited to 1 "control" keyboard/mouse


MacBook Pro screen broken and was using 2nd monitor fine until I started the process of turning FileVault on

Things to try in your situation include:

switch your external display on first, followed by switching on the MacBook Pro (within a second or two) - hopefully it'll get the signal it needs to display the MBP's output
if the above doesn't work, and assuming you only have the one user account, then switch on your MBP and wait long enough for it to be at the login screen. Then press the return key once and carefully type your password followed by the return key.
if you have two or more user accounts you'll need to use your keyboard to select the one you want to login with. You can do this by pressing the first letter of the username on your keyboard (assuming each account starts with a different letter), followed by pressing the return key once and carefully typing your password followed by the return key.

If none of the above work, please let me know and we'll see what else we can try.


How can I view and copy an email address in a message header within iOS' Mail.app?

In 4.2 at least, you can tap on the bubble to see the email address, then press and hold on the email address.  A copy option will appear above it.


You apparently have the original (first generation) iPad Mini. The last version of iOS released for the generation of iPad Mini is iOS 9.3.5 (iOS 9.3.6 for Wi-Fi + Cellular models). So it's not possible to update it to iOS 10 or later.

  it won’t let me make a new Apple account.

You can register for a new Apple account by going the the Apple ID website on any computer. Visit the following link:

https://appleid.apple.com/account#!&page=create


Press the power button to turn on your computer.

Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears.
It takes a minute or so for AHT to start up and inspect your hardware configuration.
While this is taking place, an icon appears on the screen.
When the process is complete, select US language and click the right arrow.

You can also use the up and down arrows to select a language and then press the Return key.

The AHT console appears. You can choose which sort of test or tests to perform:

To perform all of the basic tests, click the Test button or press the T key or the Return key.
To perform a more thorough diagnostic test, select the "Perform extended testing" checkbox under the Test button before you click the Test button.
Note: Your test results will appear in the window in the bottom-right of the console.
To exit AHT, click Restart or Shut Down at the bottom of the window.

Dropping the Mac also bends the graphics card out of place.


Wifi drop out on macbook pro retina late 2013 with El Capitan

Change your security from wpa2 to wpa. Helped me solving this problems.


How to create a bootable Ubuntu USB stick using OS X 10.10.2

Follow these steps to create an .img file from the .iso file you have, and then copy to the USB stick. This will also change the filesystem that is on the USB to make it bootable.

Open the Terminal Application.
Type command to convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option.

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o /path/to/target.img /path/to/ubuntu.iso
Insert your flash media.
Type command to determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2).

diskutil list
Type command to unmount the flash (replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2).

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
Type DD command (replace /path/to/downloaded.img with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./ubuntu.img). Prepend the device path with "r" for the raw path which is much faster than without the "r".

sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m

Note: your file might also be called downloaded.img.dmg. That's okay.
Type command to eject the flash drive.

diskutil eject /dev/diskN
Restart your Mac and press alt/option key while the Mac is restarting to choose the USB stick as the boot disk.


Is there any way to partition the SSD portion of a Fusion Drive?

Since FusionDrive is really Corestorage with some added magic (or supposed to), there is no mandatory reason to assign the whole SSD to the Fusion drive.

When creating you DIY Fusion drive, just reserve space by creating adequate partitions and refer to the partition ID (diskXsY) instead of the whole disk.


How to upgrade HDD to SSD and replace the optical drive with HDD?

Have a look - we have quite a few questions covering this - you may want to edit your question to differentiate it from similar questions.

Replacing SuperDrive with secondary storage?
What are some tips for replacing my MacBook Pro hard disk with SSD?
Recommended MacBook Pro 13 (mid 2012) SSD upgrade?
Compatible SSD for Macbook Pro (replace HDD)?
Will a standard MacBook Pro optical-bay HDD caddy fit a non-unibody MacBook Pro?
Is it worth upgrading my MacBook hard drive to an SSD?
How to install an Operating System after replacing optical Drive by a second HDD on MacBook white late 2009?
Are "generic" Optical Bay Hard Drive Enclosures for Macbook Pros just as good as Optibay/OWC


Why do some applications ignore resize requests from finder

Since you've referenced Adobe products (and Photoshop specifically) in your question/comments, I'll refer to those here.

There is really nothing inherently wrong with the script - it's just that some apps are designed to work differently. Below are some considerations using Adobe Photoshop as an example:

If you open an image, Photoshop will ensure it's initial state is at a zoom percentage that allows the user to see the whole image.
Now, if you manually click on the Zoom button (i.e. the little green circle at top left of the window) you will observe how Photoshop works with this button. It's typically not very helpful in the case of Photoshop, and it behaves differently to most other apps. This is because Photoshop has multiple windows (e.g. you want the script to work so that it maximises a window while keeping the top bar & task bar, but Photoshop has other windows on screen such as Tools) so the Zoom button only applies to the image window.
The only way to essentially change the view of the image in Photoshop is to use the View menu or shortcuts like ⌘0, ⌘1, ⌘+ or ⌘-.
Photoshop also uses a tabbed window view by default (i.e. as you open more images, Photoshop opens these in separate tabs within the same window).
You may be able to achieve the view you're wanting in Photoshop by changing the Screen Mode (go to View > Screen Mode).

So, I guess what I'm saying is that many applications use multiple windows (or panels). With Photoshop most users will have the Tools panel, the Layers panel, and so on open while using the app. It's the same for most of Adobe's apps and most other creative apps.

You may be able to achieve what you want with a specific script. And you may find the Adobe Photoshop CS6 Scripting Guide a handy reference.


Outlook for Mac - do not automatically add meetings to calendar

This actually isn't client-side (that is, Outlook) setting.  This is a server setting on Exchange.  Depending on how your Exchange server is configured, this might or might not be a setting that you are allowed to change.

If you are allowed to change it, you can do so via Outlook Web App.  The instructions that I'm giving here are for Exchange 2013.

Open OWA.
Click the "Settings" gear (upper right corner), then select "Options".
In the left navigation pane, select "Settings", and then select "calendar" in the main pane.
Scroll down until you see "automatic processing".  If you can change this setting, you'll see a tick box titled "Automatically place new meeting requests on my calendar, marked Tentative".  Untick that box.
Click save, and then exit the settings.

Earlier versions of Exchange also allow this, although the path to it is slightly different depending on which version of Exchange you're in.  They should all be in the calendar settings, you might have to poke around to find the exact location in your version of Exchange.


Windows 10 unable to install on partition formatted by Boot Camp Assistant

Your best course of action would be to install Windows 10 the same way Apple instructs you to install Windows 8.1. For these instructions, see the Apple website: Use Windows 8.1 on your Mac with Boot Camp. When using these instructions to install Windows 10, you might want to consider the following.

You need to burn the Windows ISO file to a DVD. Some Windows 10 ISO files are large enough that you will need a double layer (DL) DVD. Older versions of OS X used the Disk Utility application to burn the contents of an ISO file to a DVD. With the newer versions of macOS (OS X), you can burn the contents of an ISO file to a DVD directly from a Finder application window. You use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Boot Camp Support Software to an external drive.
You already have a BOOTCAMP partition. Assuming your external drive installer has the correct Boot Camp Support Software, you should be able to install Windows 10 with using the Boot Camp Assistant. Insert the DVD and connect the external drive, restart the iMac and then immediately hold down the option key. When the DVD icon labeled "Windows" appears, select the icon then the arrow below the icon. If during installation, you boot back to macOS (OS X), goto Startup Disk under System Preferences. Select the Windows partition, then restart the iMac to continue installation.

If you do not want to use a DVD, then you can use the accepted answer to the question: How to install Windows 10 into a 2011 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, an optical (DVD) drive or third party tools?. If you are using OSX 10.11.6, then you can skip step 3.

To be clear, Windows installations on this model Mac must use the legacy BIOS boot method. This requires the installation drive to contain partition entries in both the Master Boot Record (MBR) table and the GUID Partition Table (GPT). Windows will only see the MBR table entries and macOS (OS X) will only see the GPT entries. Therefore, Windows with think the drive is MBR partitioned, while macOS (OS X) will think the drive is GPT partitioned.


I cannot lock my MacBook Pro with Shift + Alt + Eject shortcut

To trigger the login window, select System Preferences from the Apple menu, then navigate to Security & Privacy > General. Check "Require password"

You will then set options for the duration within which to require a password. In your case, you want to set it to immediately.


How to resolve Issue with SSD with Folder with Question Mark Issue?

In this model the SSD 'stick' slots into a rised slot on the motherboard, there is no cable. So given that the SSD is not detected at all in Recovery mode, my take is that it is hardware: either the SSD itself or the motherboard power circuitry to the SSD slot. The only sure way that I know of to differientiate between the two possibilities is to open the Mac, remove the SSD (which is fairly simple, just one T5 screw), and put the SSD into either an existing MacBook Pro/Air (any of the two, years 2013-2015 will work) or an external adapter of the kind you mention and see if it works.
Note that a USB adapter will have to be specifically for 2013-2015 MacBook Pro/Air SSDs to fit the SSD you have.


Is there anyway to set up more than one do not disturb schedule on iPhone?

You could use bedtime in DND for night and the scheduled DND for the daytime. See in Do Not Disturb settings -> Scheduled for enabling Bedtime and then go to clock app for setting its time. This solves night. For day, use the scheduled feature.


Is there any way to convert a bunch of .ogg files in a folder to .mp3 using ffmpeg?

As an example, I have a bunch of .ogg files in my Downloads directory, so... to batch convert a bunch of .ogg files in a given directory to .mp3 files in the same directory, I did the following in Terminal:

cd Downloads
for f in *.ogg; do ffmpeg -i "$f" "${f%.*}.mp3"; done

This created an .mp3 file for each .ogg file I have in my Downloads directory.

So, using your directory path, do the following:

cd ~/Downloads/Minecraft+Sound+Pack+1.13/step
for f in *.ogg; do ffmpeg -i "$f" "${f%.*}.mp3"; done

That said and considering your dealing with a sound file pack you downloaded from the Internet, Minecraft+Sound+Pack+1.13.zip, which contains 131 directories, some nested 3 or more deep, and 1406 .ogg files, of which some of the filenames are the same, I would handle the situation with the following conditions in mind.

I downloaded the Minecraft+Sound+Pack+1.13.zip file from the Internet.
Expanded the zip archive by double-clicking on it in my Downloads folder in Finder. Note that this is because I do not let the Browser unzip downloaded archive files. This also retains a copy of the zip archive in case I still need it afterwards.

With that done, I used the following example bash script to convert each .ogg file within the hierarchal folder structure to an .mp3 file at the same location. Then delete the .ogg files, as I still have the original zip archive.

#!/bin/bash

    # s="/Path/To/Source/Files"

s="$HOME/Downloads/Minecraft+Sound+Pack+1.13"

for d in $(find "$s" -type f -iname '*.ogg' | sed -E 's|/[^/]+$||' | sort -u); do
    cd "$d"
    for f in *.ogg; do
        ffmpeg -i "$f" "${f%.*}.mp3"
        rm "$f"
    done
done

You only need to change the value of s="..." as or if needed and as a general rule I like to use $HOME in place of ~.

Note that this is just how I choose to deal with the situation in the moment and there are many different ways that a script could be written.  This however I believe achieves the end goal of having the hierarchal folder structure of the 131 directories intact with the 1406 converted .mp3 files.

By the way... On my old MacBook Pro, (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013) 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7, it took just under 9 minutes to process the 1406 .ogg files.


Subscription management with iTunes id (restrict the user from creating multiple subscription on same iTunes ID)

The user's iTunes ID differs from their Apple ID.  It is easy to 'share' your iTunes ID but hard to share your Apple ID.

Your concern is a valid one but for a different reason.  No need to be concerned about two different users purchasing two different subscriptions.  But you could be concerned that two different users will share their iTunes ID and both benefit from a single purchase.

One approach is to forget about it; it's a theft but not necessarily a loss of a real sale.  Another approach is to associate each purchase with the user's Apple ID using their iCloud key-value file.  Use that key-value file to implement your own restoreCompletedTransactions.  Do not allow a repurchase for free.


Page 27 of the September 2015 iOS Security White Paper states that there is not a firewall on iOS.

  On other platforms, firewall software is needed to protect open communication ports against intrusion. Because iOS achieves a reduced attack surface by limiting listening ports and removing unnecessary network utilities such as telnet, shells, or a web server, no additional firewall software is needed on iOS devices.


See this answer and this answer of mine on SuperUser, where I explain how to create new or edit existing file types, including icons.


How to reformat a hard drive previously used for Time Machine

If Disk Utility or the terminal diskutil list shows no drive - you have a hardware or cabling issue.

Disk Utility or the command line equivalent is the correct way to erase / repartition / re edit (whatever you want to call it) any drive. They should show up as a connected device within 5 seconds of powering them on.

Once you’ve worked out hardware issues (or software if you have anti virus or other problems that are blocking the normal mounting of any connected drive) - then you can choose MBR/APS/GPT for the drive overall partition scheme and then build up whatever filesystem you choose.


How do I add a picture of myself at the login screen?

System Preferences>Users & Groups. Click on your account name in the sidebar and you'll have the option to change your picture if you mouseover it in the right pane and click edit picture.


Using cat output in osascript in terminal

Basically you need to read the file content into a variable first. There are several ways to do this, one is

text=$(< TEXTFILE)
osascript ... "$text"


Mail app: switch-off auto-synchronisation of some accounts

Ok... after looking over and over again, there is a solution. Right-click on the account and then click "take account offline"


HIgh Sierra spell checker can't be disabled

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources and make sure you have only one item on the list, and that its name is US or ABC (and not US International PC).

(Note that your problem is not connected to spellcheck.  You are using a special keyboard designed to use various symbols to create the accented characters needed for Spanish, French, German, Italian, etc.)


I use following method.

Format the USB:

Format it, using Disk Utility, as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drive, named Yosemite.

Next run this in Terminal where you can remove the option —nointeraction if you want to get notifications and make decisions yourself about the disk and making the USB installer:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app —nointeraction

Replace Untitled with name of the USB drive (Yosemite)

For additional information, see: Create a bootable installer for OS X


How can see ALL devices (including ethernet) connected to Airport Extreme?

There's a great shell command that scans your network on all interfaces that are connected.

The command is arp -a.


I received a response from Antares with the answer

  Once you are in the "Library" folder go to:

  Caches/AudioUnitCache/

  Delete the “com.apple.audiounits.sandboxed.cache" file.

  Go back to the Library folder, then open the Preferences folder

  Once you are in the Library/Preferences folder, delete the file
  "com.apple.audio.InfoHelper.plist"

  Empty your trash and restart your computer.

  You should now find Auto-Tune 8.1 in GarageBand.

This solved it for me.


Move some free space to Macintosh HD (Startup Disk)

This requires the three partitions between the selected one and the intended one to be moved. Disk Utility can't do this without destructively destroying and recreating the partitions in the intended location, removing all data from the partitions. You will need third-party software such as iPartition. For more information, see Partitioning Software.


OS X Samba file sharing continuously asks for password

Samba passwords are managed separately from your regular account password. Have you set-up your user to enable samba sharing in the options menu? You need to do it once otherwise the login won't work.

In the File Sharing preference pane tick the checkbox next to the user you want to enable file sharing for and a window will pop-up asking you to authenticate.

As soon as this is done you should be able to login from your android tablet.

UPDATE

The root cause of the issue might be that 10.9 uses a new SMB2 Stack completely written by Apple (SAMBA is not used anymore). Apple's SMB2 implementation is not compatible with many other SMB2 NAS products on the market today while Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 work just fine. In short, it's an Apple bug.

As a workaround you can force OSX to use SMB1 instead of SMB2 using a configuration file:

Open up the Terminal
Paste the following line followed by a return key (command should be one single line)

echo "[default]" >> ~/Library/Preferences/nsmb.conf; echo "smb_neg=smb1_only" >> ~/Library/Preferences/nsmb.conf

Explanation:

A file called nsmb.conf is created in your home directory at the path ~/Library/Preferences/
It adds the lines to force the use of SMB1 protocol instead of Apple's SMB2 (this is slower but more stable)


How can I test access to encrypted (FileVault2) Time Machine partition?

You can confirm this by booting from the Recovery Partition on the Time Machine disk and choosing to restore from a backup (without proceeding with the restore).

Here are the steps:

Connect the external hard disk with the encrypted Time Machine backup
Boot (or reboot) the system and during startup hold the Option key so that it shows you the list of available volumes to boot from
Select the Recovery HD from the Time Machine disk to boot from it
Choose Restore From Time Machine Backup from the list of actions
Select the encrypted Time Machine volume from the list
Enter the Fila Vault 2 password when prompted
Wait for it to show the list of available backups from the Time Machine volume
Restart the system now that you have verified the availability of the backup


Search for folders that contain filetypes

I don't think it's possible using Finder, but you can easily find these folders via Terminal

find . -name '*.mp3' | sed 's|/[^/]*$||' | sort -u

Some explanations:

find lists all files (and their paths) ending in mp3 in the current folder and everything "beneath" it
sed strips away the last part of each line produced by find which does not contain a / (which practically results in the file name getting removed)
The result so far is a list of folders containing mp3 files. If a folder contains more than one such file, it will be listed several times so we use sort -u (unique) to remove duplicates while sorting.


You can try to reset the SMC on your iMac

Shut Down your Mac
Unplug the iMac form the power cord.
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds
Plug the power cord back in and turn on your Mac.

Also, you can try to reset the NVRAM

Shut Down your Mac
Press the power button and immediately press and hold these keys together: Option Command P and R
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds until you can hear the startup sound again
You can release all keys after the Apple logo shows up and iMac boots normally.


Keynote: appear, disappear, reappear in Build Order

Unfortunately this is not possible to do. (Provide Kenyote feedback to Apple if you'd like to see this feature added!) Here are two possible alternatives:

Create 2 copies of the object on the slide and have them build in/out in sequence. This will keep your slide deck cleaner and make it easier to align the objects.

(objects shown separately for illustrative purposes; you'd want to align them perfectly!)

As you suggested, create 2 copies of the slide with no transition (so the effect is seamless and there's no delay). This will make it easier to see how you've set up the effect in your list of slides. (But if nothing else on the slide changes, it might just be annoyingly redundant.)


You have to set up Time Machine to have backups. There is no archive process since that is different than backup.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250

Short of you using time machine to look at that folder in the past, you would need to locate another copy of the file using spotlight in case you moved it to a different location.
Since you don’t mention your version, here is an article describing some clean up options.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996

The system doesn’t purge any files unless you set that up, and then only in trash.


How can I tell exactly what keys are being pressed on the Mac?

I don't know if the built-in keyboard viewer is sophisticated enough, but it should highlight pressed keys.

If you do not see those options, make sure it is checked off under your System Preferences > Keyboard

There are also apps like Keycastr that display bezel elements for pressed keys.


I sent my laptop to two service centres and they said there is not any hardware issues. So I decided to clean install Mac OS X without installing any additional software but the problem still occurs.

Note: I also installed Windows 10 using bootcamp, the machine works without any unexpected shutdown issues.

I got this console log (http://pastebin.com/irLDsEhB), maybe these lines can help you identify this annoying issue.

Thanks


Is Secure Empty Trash still necessary after maverick?

Mavericks does not enable encryption (FileVault 2) by default -- it may (if several requirements are met) offer to enable it during the initial setup process, but it's not the default. Also, even if the volume is encrypted, insecurely deleted files can still be recovered by someone who knows an enabled password (usually any user with an account on the computer).

So, I'd consider Secure Empty Trash to still be relevant (in at least some situations) in Mavericks, even when FileVault is enabled.

However... Secure Empty Trash is not really enough, and hasn't been for a long time. In many apps, when you edit a file, it saves changes by deleting (insecurely) the old file and writing the new version. Securely deleting one version still leaves any older (deleted) versions lying around the disk. So you really need to use the Erase Free Space feature in Disk Utility to go back and make sure they're overwritten.

Oh, and neither Secure Empty Trash nor Erase Free Space really work right on SSDs, just on magnetic HDs. So ... it's complicated.


PDF "is damaged and can't be opened" on mounted drive

When this happens to me, I delete the ._results.pdf file, and then I can open it from the mounted directory.


Option / Preference to toggle folder summary at base of finder window in OSX 10.10

This is not really a "folder summary bar" but the "Status Bar". It shows the number of items in the opened folder and the available free space on the volume containing the folder. To toggle visibility of the Status Bar use either the key combination cmd ⌘/ (en_US keyboard layout) or the Finder menu View > Hide/Show Status Bar.


Why would SetFile be unavailable after upgrading to Mountain Lion?

You might need to install the command line tools from within Xcode.

Launch Xcode, go to Preferences, and from the Downloads tab, install the Command Line Tools if not installed yet.


There are two arrows spinning next to my Wifi

This is the iTunes sync indicator, which indicates that the device is syncing with iTunes over USB or Wi-Fi.


Duplicate "iCloud Drive (Archive)" folders

Neither of these are your actual iCloud Drive folders where your iCloud Drive data is stored.
If you don't need their contents, you can delete both of them.

iCloud Drive data is stored in ~/Library/Mobile Documents

If you don’t have that folder, then it means your machine isn’t hosting a cached copy of iCloud data locally.


How do I add a script to the Service menu?

While bash is cool, doesn't the image manipulation module in Automator accomplish what you are trying to achieve?

Instead of your last stage in the Automator workflow add the Photo Format module twice ( Automator Library>Photos>Change Type Of Images), the only option is target image type, where you'd presumably select jpeg for the first one and then tiff for the second one.

This article in MacObserver explains how to use the module in general.


On your Mac, if you open Calendar>Preferences>General at the bottom there is an option to change your default calendar.

If you have Family Sharing turned on through your iCloud account, your shared family calendar may be the default calendar.


Can Firewire 800 network interfaces be bonded?

So decided to test this with an extra workstation. I was able to assign static IP addresses to both FireWire ports (the first port was active right off the bat, but I had to add the 2nd one).  Both ports can talk in each direction to each workstation on the local isolated subnet.  But when I go to create a bond, the interfaces are not listed when I go into "Manage Virtual Interfaces."  "New Link Aggregate" only shows ethernet devices - NO FIREWIRE devices.

One thing that I did find out was that 1 FireWire 800 network interface is slightly faster than 2 1 gigabit interfaces bonded.  I was seeing about a +15 MBps down & +3 MBps up differential pretty consistently

The next thing I need to try to figure out is whether or not there's a way to force an aggregate bond from the shell in Terminal.

UPDATE: So I think I'm close to solving this, but I'm now having a problem where my FW800 ports have stopped functioning on one system and I have a bug report in to Apple right now in hopes to resolve it.  As per my above link, I now think I can perform this on the shell (sudo networkSetup createBond bond0 interface1 interface2)... IF it allows me to, but I can't test until I resolve this other issue.


Mac Pro (Early 2008) - Unable to print in color to HP 4730 MFP

This has been resolved. The generic postscript driver did the trick. PCL is device dependent which means that the drivers for this language utilize the printer hardware for creating some of the printed data, usually graphics data such as fill areas, underlines or fonts. PostScript on the other hand is a device-independent page description language developed by Adobe, which is used to print and display pictures and text. It is used heavily in Macintosh platforms and for graphic applications in several platforms. Hope that helps someone.


How to stop ssh-agent from being started on login/boot

The launch daemon (launchd) is responsible for starting processes at boot, on demand, on schedule, in response to incoming network port connections and when a user is logged in.

You may get lucky with grep:

launchctl list | grep ssh-agent

In this case, it's the openssh prefernence that starts things:

launchctl list com.openssh.ssh-agent

I seriously prefer to edit these preference files with a tool like LaunchControl or Lingon. They give contextual help, graphical affordances and syntax checking. Apple's launchd/launchctl documentation exists but is dense, descriptive (rather than narrative / educational / prescriptive or basically easy to learn and use).

Here's an example how it shows an error with this specific agent on my Mac and a helpful warning that I need to disable SIP before futzing with this specific job or agent.

If you want to unload / disable this you need to find where the preference is stored then edit it or tell launchctl to unload (permanently) that item:

mdfind ssh-agent|grep plist
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.openssh.ssh-agent.plist
sudo launchctl disable system/com.openssh.ssh-agent

The daemons like this system one are being transitioned from the old "unload" syntax to the new "enable|disable" syntax, so you might get different results from my above commands on different versions and builds of macOS. Since you can see when it's running and kill it manually (killall ssh-agent) you should have good success with this extra info on launch daemon that's not on most articles for unix management of this ssh tool.


How to completely remove emails in OS X?

If you don't have other Mail accounts with data that you want, quit Mail.app and delete the entire contents of ~/Library/Mail/

If you do have other accounts and only want to remove your Gmail account, quit Mail.app, open the V2 folder inside the above path and delete the folder relevant to the particular account that you want removed.


Receiving an Unknown iOS Notification -- Audio Only

Yes, you can, you just have to do some digging around to find the particular one that is causing the noise. If you go into your Settings application on your iDevice, and go into the Notifications Options Tab and look for apps that have the sounds attribute available.  As seen the in the screen shot below highlighted in red.

Selecting that one will take you further into the customizations and see if the app is sending other notifications, as shown below, this one does sound and badge and can be seen in the lock screen.  Toggling those on and off will help you find the culprit.

You will be looking for an App that is only making noise, look for one that says noise only and everything else is turned off, that one will most likely be the problem.  You can then turn on other notifications so that it will be more helpful. If you find more than one app that is noise only, enable more notification types to help you narrow down which one it is. Once you find it, you can disable it or change the setting any which way you want.

I hope that this answer helps you narrow down the noisy notifier.


Assigning different ringtone for non-contacts

I have assigned the same ringtone to everyone in my contact list, and it took days. Then I selected a different default ringtone, and I know that when I hear this, the caller is not a contact. But I would suggest adding this feature for iPhone 7, because it's important.


A brief answer - more educated guess than absolute certainty...

The prime suspect would be a failing SATA cable - starting to go intermittent [which of course makes diagnosis harder] - but cheap enough to just replace & see.
It is a relatively common issue.


How does Time Machine backup the snapshots made by Parallels 11

Time Machine makes two passes on each file. If your file is open/locked/changing, then Time Machine will skip that file for that interval. Basically, it collects a list of all files needing backup and when it gets to the file - it might skip it and save it to try again once the first pass is complete. If the second pass fails, you miss that file.

Ideally, you would quit Parallels (or at least shut down the storage / finalize all the writes) and then make a backup to avoid missing files or having a file being saved in an "unusable" state.

It looks like the vendor is changing the default behavior to accommodate Time Machine according to:

http://kb.parallels.com/en/8827
http://kb.parallels.com/en/115052

It also gets complicated based on which other storage settings you use for the virtual disk technology - and I'll leave that for Parallels support to answer in a knowledge base article - but how Time Machine works is easily tested.

Run a backup and then run tmutil compare to see what files are different than the ones saved in a snapshot. Try restoring the Parallels VM to a new location and booting it. The problem with timing issues is you might get a sane backup 9 times out of 10 or 99,999 out of 100,000 - but it's really about how much data you can afford to lose.

Most people I know skip backing up virtual machines and implement an alternative method of saving user files off image (or syncing them) and/or setting a reminder to periodically make a snapshot backup of the state of the VM by scripting a shut down and then scripting a copy of the data files to a place where Time Machine will back up that periodic snapshot.

Once you have that set up, you can exclude the running VM files from Time Machine backup and save time/space on the backup media of incremental backups that might not actually be workable.

It looks like Smart Guard marks all the files excluded from Time Machine except the backup snapshots and the optimize scheduled snapshots automatically every 48 hours. You should be able to look at your Time Machine backups with a tool like BackupLoupe after running for a week and confirm that you are only getting backup snapshots and that they are happening every 48 hours.


Using an iPhone as a Remote Video Recorder from a Mac

There seem to be a handful of apps available that allow your iPhone to act as a webcam for your Mac over Wi-Fi, which would allow you to view and record video from them. A few of the ones I found:

PocketCam
Mobiola WebCamera
iWebcamera

For recording purposes, you may need to use the built-in recording functionality of QuickTime Player, although some of the apps seem to have free companion OS X software that will accomplish the same goal.


Just move it to trash from the Applications folder. This page has list of files installed by Office 2011, but you don't have to care about them if you just want to remove Excel.

You can also change the default applications for file types from Finder's information windows (⌘I).


3rd party drive or standard in a new MBP?

For something like this, I would always buy my own and put it in for two reasons:

cost
you get an extra drive to play with

You will find better deals on SSDs if you purchase your own. However, there is one reason you would want to go with the Apple-supplied drive:

TRIM support

That's about it. I guess, if you know and value what TRIM support is, you only have one choice. If you are fine putting in your own drive and don't value TRIM support, then you have other options.


APFS vs Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for external HDD

APFS is known to not perform well on spinning disk drives (non SSDs).

Developer of Carbon Copy Cloner:
An analysis of APFS enumeration performance on rotational hard drives | Carbon Copy Cloner | Bombich Software

OWC/MacSales (who probably know more about Mac hardware than some people who work for Apple:
Using APFS On HDDs ... And Why You Might Not Want To


Virtual ergonomic keyboard for ipad pro?

If by ergonomic keyboard you mean a split keyboard, you can do this natively on the iPad.

To do this:

In the bottom right corner of the keyboard there is a key with a keyboard icon (with a black down arrow)
Tap and hold that key
A toggle for the split keyboard will pop up (or, if it's already split, a choice to unsplit the keyboard will appear instead)

NOTE: If the above steps don't work, first go to Settings > General > Keyboard and toggle the Split Keyboard option on.


Your question is a little vague because you don't clarify what you deem to be the standard behaviour of using optiondelete.

However, upon my own testing on an iMac with Office 2011, I can confirm that optiondelete within MS Word does in fact behave differently than it does in MS PowerPoint. However, I found that it behaves the same way in both Powerpoint and Excel.

More specifically, in MS Word using optiondelete will delete the entire word behind the cursor in MS Word, while in Powerpoint and Excel it only deletes a single character, just like it would by pressing the delete key on its own.


Facedown detection on iPhone 6 with iOS 9

The motion coprocessor setting are what govern this battery saving option.

Settings > Privacy > Motion & Fitness > Fitness Tracking

On setting allow the motion coprocessor and proximity sensors to shut off the screen if they detect a face down orientation.

You can test the sensors by checking motion in the health app for step count (for instance) and by making a call and testing the proximity sensor turning off the screen when it is covered.

See this nice article for more information: http://www.iphonehacks.com/2015/09/why-facedown-detection-feature-in-ios-9-doesnt-support-iphone-5-iphone-4s-ipads-and-ipod-touches.html


For people stumbling upon this in an OS X 10.11+ era (El Capitan or newer): Apple has added a whole new layer of security in OS X. They have taken away some privileges from root. The file you are trying to modify has a restricted flag. Only restricted processes which are signed by Apple will be able to modify these files. However, you can disable this security system by booting in recovery mode and disabling it in a Terminal by doing: csrutil disable.

Alternatively, you can also just start Terminal in Recovery Mode and delete the file there. Or even try booting in a Linux environment with HFS+ support (at least if you're not on APFS yet) to change the file.


Why does the iPhone have a physical sound-switch?

The late Mr. Jobs felt it was essential to be able to mute a cell phone without pulling it out of your pocket, and/or in the dark, with minimal light disturbance, without having to hold it up to see it, without being distracting to the reason you are muting the phone in the first place. IIRC, he actually described something to this effect at the original iPhone unveiling 29 June 2007


How to Lock apps using FingerPrint in iPhone

No you can't, as you can't handle access over other apps then your own app.


Remove sticked Webcam Cover from MacBook Pro display

The damage is already done by whatever adhesive was applied. Apple only recommends one solvent, pure water, so I would use a plastic spudger to gently dislodge the slide and then clean as best you can with water.

If you need a solvent, flip the screen upside down so any solvent drips over the normal top, now bottom onto the aluminum as opposed to dripping down the glass.

Chances are, the anti reflective coating will only be weakened or damaged in that top area or not at all. Damage to that layer there doesn’t spread, it’s only where a solvent or physical abrasion is present, so carefully control abrasion and solvents and your screen area should be safe.

Taking it to a shop that has tools and experience with solvents might be well worth the trip. Take them a pie or cookies, they will love the challenge and you’ll be in good hands if you’re not sure of your skills.

My hunch - you’ll get it off and whatever damage happened will be negligible and no issue. Please post a follow up picture once you’re done or answer how you solved this!


Safari has some menu items that are dimmed and won't work. Is there a
  way to make them active?

Two possibilities that I can think of.

1- If you clear the history before quitting Safari, it wont be there when you restart.

2- If you have a setting in Safari to clear the history after set time.


OS X assumes hostname of other network computer: how to prevent this?

This issue has been going on for years, and there is no way to "fix" it on the Mac.

What happens is the machine gets an address from DHCP, and then performs a reverse DNS lookup to see if there is a hostname associated with the IP in DNS.

If you are on a Windows network, all of the Windows machines are automatically registered in DNS when they connect to the Domain.

I went on and on with the techs at Apple about this... There is little that you can do at the level of your Mac.  It becomes an issue for your network administrator, and since there is nothing really wrong, he/she is likely to leave things as they are.


I would recommend trying Keyboard Maestro.

It has a built-in feature to "Click Safari Link" or "Click Google Chrome Link" and also has a feature to click buttons too.

If you can link to an example page, I can give more specific advice.


Using a dyn.com dynamic host name with an AirPort device

Quoting from the page referenced in the question:

  Note on DynDNS Free and DynDNS Pro: We currently do not support Wide Area Bonjour on our DynDNS Free and Pro services. You must use Dyn Standard DNS with your own domain name for this to work properly.

So it won't work with dynamic dns.com addresses.


Which IP ranges and subnet does OSX internet connection sharing use by default?

Sorry: I'm a bit short of time and so this isn't a complete answer, but hopefully it gives you a starting point.

From the answers to this question, it seems that /usr/libexec/InternetSharing creates /etc/bootpd.plist when Internet Sharing is turned on, and removes it again when it is turned off.  I think this file is the cause for the ifconfig values you are seeing.

On my machine, when it exists, among other things, that file contains

        <key>net_address</key>
        <string>192.168.2.0</string>
        <key>net_mask</key>
        <string>255.255.255.0</string>
        <key>net_range</key>
        <array>
            <string>192.168.2.2</string>
            <string>192.168.2.254</string>
        </array>

I'm guessing that 192.168.2 is the default range, as my machine is producing the same results as yours.

I think you could try modifying /etc/bootpd.plist once the file has been created to set your own range.  You might then need to restart bootp.

I don't know how to configure InternetSharing to use a different default.  (I had a brief look at /System/Library/CoreServices/InternetSharing.bundle and the output of strings /usr/libexec/InternetSharing, but couldn't see anything obvious.)  One of the answers  to the question I mentioned above suggests creating a cron job or launch agent to overwrite the /etc/bootpd.plist with the settings you require automatically.

These details are for Mavericks.  If I understand right, Mountain Lion uses named instead: see the question, and the article it refers to also.

However... bootp is only the subsystem that tells your other devices what addresses they should use (via DHCP).  The Mac also has to forward packets from those devices to your wireless connection, and vice versa.  I don't know how that forwarding is configured, and it might well be set up to forward only packets from/to the 192.168.2 subnet.


Rules in Mail don't work when message is read

The mailbox rules on the iMac are only executed when Mail runs on the Mac. Thus to see the effect of the rule on the iPhone you have to have loaded the email on the Mac first.

To get the rules to work for all clients you need to implement then on the server. For most servers this means using the web version of the mail and logging on to the server there and then implementing the rules there. These rules will be acted on when the server receives the email and thus before either the Mac or iPhone has a chance to look at the email.


How do I permanantly disable zoom feature when taking screenshots/screencapture (cmd+shift+4)?

The screengrab taken on the “normal” unscaled display has the correct pixel dimensions along with a DPI (Dots per inch) of 72, which has been the standard DPI on Macs for a very long time. The screengrab taken on the Retina display, however, is much larger, with a proportionately higher DPI. This makes sense, due to the way OS X handles scaling on the Retina display.
So, even though the image appears “normal” size on a Retina screen, it’s actually being rendered at the higher DPI / larger size and scaled down. When the OS X screencapture utility is used to take a screen grab, it captures the image at the higher DPI and resolution. And when that image is uploaded to be viewed on the web, it is way too big.

Seems the solution is http://www.retinacapture.com/


How to fix HDD failure on a MacBook Pro?

The error File system check exit code is 8 indicates you have an unrecoverable file system read error.

This can be due to either or both of the following:

Corrupted file system
Failing/failed hardware

If it's a just a file system problem, you can try the following:

run First Aid multiple times to see if the problem gets fixed
wipe your drive (format it) and reinstall macOS

Obviously, if the first option doesn't fix the problem, your next option is to format and reinstall.

If it's a hardware issue, your best bet would be to replace the failing drive with a new one.  Your MacBook Pro (MacBookPro7,1) is a Mid-2010 model which means it's a 7 year old drive (if it hasn't been replaced) which is well beyond the lifespan of spinning hard drives.  At this point, I would recommend upgrading to an SSD and even maxing out the memory for best performance.

While I agree with @klanomath that it could be the SATA cable, it's not the most likely culprit given the age of the laptop and drive.  My money is on a failed hard drive.  However, a replacement SATA cable is fairly inexpensive part to replace and if you decide to go that route, it won't be an expensive investment.


Reassign CTL + Backspace on External Keyboard?

The Karabiner application is a good way to re-assign specific keyboard shortcuts like this, with a huge number of built-in customisations you can enable individually.

I believe the one you are asking for is supported, under the grouping "Change Delete Key", listed as "Control+Delete to Forward Delete".


How to get iTunes to keep playlist created on iPhone

It sounds like you have 'playlists' ticked in your syncing preferences and that iTunes is overwriting your playlists with no playlists as it syncs from the computer.

First thing to do is to check that Playlists are not being synced under the device in iTunes and Music. Uncheck "sync playlists" and try again.


"Safari" would like to control this computer using accessibility features

Based on the way accessibility features work in macOS, it is reasonable to assume that when saving or entering usernames and password using Apple's Keychain, or when using AutoFill to enter data into a page, that it uses some type of virtual keyboard that allows the system to enter text in user land. This would be very similar to how assistive devices function when using an Automator extension such as the "Watch Me Do" function. The reason why this comes up is because it is attempting to either read or write to the screen on behalf of the user.

This is an assumption, but it is based on working technical experience with the underlying software sets involved.


FileVault Encryption Issues On High Sierra (APFS)

If you have an encrypted drive before installing the OS you get that multiple login issue. If you do an install on a standard drive, then turn FileVault on, you won't have to double log in, as the user login will 'decrypt' the drive on its own.

I believe that's what solved a similar issue for me. I did a second clean install, this time formatting APFS (without encryption).


If I reset my iPhone 6 what iOS will be installed?

Erasing All Contents and Settings (what most people call “factory reset”) does not change/remove your operating system. Whatever OS you had installed prior to the reset will remain after your iPhone reboots.


Mac OS X 10.8 App Store hogs the connection when downloading new OS X

Not really - the OS is designed to do all the network transfer that the routers will allow. From a systems perspective - the network is so slow compared to storage, CPU, memory - that any attempt to hobble that subsystem is really a poor use of the computer.

You would need to have traffic shaping tools on the router or connect the Mac to the router using a slower interface if that would help.

The easy solution is to pause the download until you can allow the download to take what bandwidth it negotiates with your router and the Apple servers providing the download.


Uploading to YouTube on iPod vs on Computer

I believe you can easly test it. Upload same video to you tube via ihpone and pc. After that open that video and download it via jdownloader or internet download manager and look the sizes and bitrates.


It's not just for AirPlay.  It's general-purpose media redirection. You can use it to switch between the built-in earpiece, the speaker on the bottom, Bluetooth earpiece, etc when on a phone call.  For example, I placed a call then went over to the audio controls in the multitasking bar.

It just so happens that the primary use is for AirPlay and media playback.


Outgoing e-mail server from Safari / text document

Assuming you're using OSX 10.8, under Mail > Preferences > Composing, the drop-down menu for "Send new messages from" can be changed from the default "Account of selected mailbox" to the specific account you want (in your case, the Gmail account).


Am I allowed to use an apple device from placeit.net with an app screenshot on Twitter?

You may want to check this answer:

  You will get lots of free iPhone 4s images from internet. There are
  lot of sites which provides freebies for designers here is a link

  365psd.com www.pixeden.com

  BR, Hari

If you are part of the apple developer program you can access the marketing section and get the iphone images that you are able to use.

Hope it helps.


Trouble with SSD/HDD in Macbook Pro Mid 2009

Is your MacBook Pro the MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53GHz, Mid 2009) model?  That model of MBP had a known issue where it would constantly beach-ball with non Apple drives.  There was a firmware update available but that hasn't fixed all units.

From personal (and professional) experience I've found upgrading to Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 fixed about 50% of the time, all other units had to have an official Apple drive fitted to fix the issue.

Basically your only options are to upgrade to Snow Leopard (I'm unsure of whether Lion includes the relevant firmware updates) or complain to Apple so much that they give you a replacement unit.  Ugh.


$ pmset -g schedule will show you scheduled events.  John Keates' comment shows you how to review the log file as well:

  Pmset -g log ; also check the system log as that's where the kernel
  logs other startup info. – John Keates Oct 24 at 2:48


Wine can be a pain to compile. It can be easier to use precompiled binaries such as Wineskin: http://wineskin.doh123.com/ or Winebottler http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/.

Try those links and see how you get on.


Why is steps count different in Health and Activity App in my iPhone?

You only have a difference of 95 steps over a total of 19000 steps; it looks like a rounding error.

Or maybe the Apple Watch has not yet uploaded the latest steps to the iPhone (it does this every few minutes, in order to save battery).


Why does iBooks Author refuse to open .epub?

iBooks Author only opens iBooks Author projects (.ibooks). You need to create a new iBooks Author file and import the ePub into it. Go to New → New from ePub file….


ZIP files created with GUI have more bytes than ZIP files created in a shell

Zipping from the Finder adds a folder __MACOSX, invisible on Macs, that contains OS X resource forks like custom icons and such. From Wikipedia:

  The resource fork is a fork or section of a file on the Apple Mac OS operating system used to store structured data along with the unstructured data stored within the data fork. A resource fork stores information in a specific form, containing details such as icon bitmaps, the shapes of windows, definitions of menus and their contents, and application code (machine code). For example, a word processing file might store its text in the data fork, while storing any embedded images in the same file's resource fork. The resource fork is used mostly by executables, but every file is able to have a resource fork.


Would Album Art in an app screenshot be protected by Fair Use?

Your best bet would be to contact several bands and ask for written permission to use their art in your promotion.
My expectation on reading all the terms of service of many music streaming services is that they do not grant a commercial license to any of the content they provide, so you would be scraping that content against the terms of service. To my reading this is explicitly prohibited by SoundCloud:

(ii) You must not adapt, copy, republish, make available or otherwise communicate to the public, display, perform, transfer, share, distribute or otherwise use or exploit any Content on or from the Platform, except (i) where such Content is Your Content, or (ii) as permitted under these Terms of Use, and within the parameters set by the Uploader (for example, under the terms of Creative Commons licences selected by the Uploader).
(iii) You must not use any Content (other than Your Content) in any way that is designed to create a separate content service or that replicates any part of the Platform offering.

That alone should land you in hot water with Apple's review team.
If I were submitting an app, I would be forthright and proactive about mentioning that the artwork submitted is authorized in writing by the owners and/or properly licensed. SoundCloud also makes note that you can re-use your owned content or content that you have a license to use (uploaded content with CreativeCommons that is permissive enough for commercial reuse should do the trick if you don't have a more specific license)
If you can't do that, pay an artist to make a fake album cover - perhaps mixing elements you like and paying that artist for the rights to their work. You can upload content to soundcloud quite easily so you could control that image in a manner that Apple could rapidly determine that your company was in fact the original rights holder to the content chosen for the full screen image if not for all of the smaller thumbnails.
Fair Use is only of use in the US as a defense if you are sued in court. Expecting it to get you past Apple's policies seems like an uphill battle as you don't have a right to dispute their policies and they are fairly clear that 3.1 of https://developer.apple.com/app-store/marketing/guidelines/#photography

Show only content you have the legal right to display.

There is some precedent that thumbnail images are allowable under fair use doctrine by internet search engines, but that's a far stretch from you selecting one static image for promoting your work on a third party app store.
Your defense might be you are in fact "Display the app on an Apple product exactly as a customer will experience it when the app is running." but you run the risk of Apple asking you for confirmation that you have licensed that content - either from SoundCloud or the holder of the copyright on the album cover you choose for self-promotion.


When using a dummy VGA projector, some of the software does not appear on my built-in retina screen

I assume you use the VGA dummy as a secondary monitor, and most likely you have it configured as your primary monitor. Try this: Open Preferences -> Monitors -> Arrange and drag-n-drop the menu bar to your built-in retina display. Alternatively, you can choose to mirror your screen onto the (non-existent) external monitor, which should absolutely fix the issue.


How to fix an iPad that froze on home screen?

Yes, this is a known bug. As the device is not jailbroken, the only solution in iOS 7 is to hard reset.


How to differentiate between Terminal scripted launch and manual launch for .bash_profile settings

You can display BASH variables on your .bash_profile. Then compare the output when you manually open the terminal with output when cd to app opens the terminal.

I meant append at the beginning of your .bash_profile the bash variables listed on the website:

echo $BASH
echo $BASHOPTS
echo $BASHPID
...
echo $TMPDIR
echo $UID

Then open manually the terminal and save the output.
Open the terminal from cd to and save the output.

Compare the files.

The proper variable for the above example is DIRSTACK.

Here are the new settings for those passing through:

# My settings
if [ $DIRSTACK = "~" ]; then
    trap 'printf %s "$PWD" > ~/.storepwd' EXIT
    cd "$(<~/.storepwd)"
fi


How can I change print quality and print profile settings when using Airprint?

According to Apple, AirPrint on iPhone is simplified application.

It only lets you choose the printer and the number of copies, but not print quality etc.. in other words it use the current Printer defaults.

So what can you do?

Log in to the printer's set up page IP address that you need to know it first, but it is something like (192.168. xxx) and change it there.  However, this solution will affect all following documents until you change it again.


Make an applescript:

tell application "System Events"
    keystroke " " using control down
end tell

PS. This is too slow, and allows more keys from the old keyboard to be entered before the switch is effectual.


iPhoto iPhone photo import cache folder?

Inside your iPhoto Library is a folder named Caches. This folder contains temporary thumbnails generated in circumstances such as a pending import. You can delete the contents of this directory, although iPhoto should manage it itself.


How to use internal HDD as a file sharing drive if I boot from external SSD on mac mini?

Thanks to a comment from @benwiggy I was able to solve my problem. Appears you need to explicitly unmount the disk before partitioning it. Not sure why it was mounted anyway. In any case, after unmounting with
> diskutil unmountDisk force /Volumes/my_disk_name

Partitioning went without error.


You can show your search bar by right clicking your top bar (just at the text "Inbox") and select to show symbols, then also the search bar will appear.

(don't mind I'm using a swedish version of Outlook)


2010 15" MacBook Pro unable to recognize internal display, works fine with external

I had similar symptoms on my MBP 13 (mid-2010). Internal display died suddenly and external display worked fine. None of the software or startup tricks did not bring the life back to in-built screen.
Disconnecting and re-connecting the battery connector from the logic board fixed this problem.

Here is the instruction:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2010+Display+Replacement/4293#s7329


How can I edit a file without altering its modif date?

The only way I can think of is to store it's modification date before altering it and then to set it back again.

I'm not aware of any CLI tool that would allow you to do that, however years ago I've written something in C that I used to set the modification date on a file to arbitrary value. I know this is not the answer that you're looking for, but I would do this the following way:

get the original access time and the modification time for a file, before you alter it. For this, you can just use stat() system call (read more about it by issuing man 2 stat).
alter the file, using vi or any other editor you like
set the modification time back to what it was. This can be done using the utimes() call (again, you can read more by issuing man 2 utimes command). Please note, utimes() sets both the access time and the modification time.

Edit

Actually it seems like there's already a CLI tool that can do that. According to this answer: How to change the creation (st_birthtime) date/time of a file in Lion?, you can use touch command to change those times: touch -m changes the modification time and touch -a changes the access time (you can use both options in one call). All you'd need to do then is use the stat command line on the file before you modify it and display its access and modification times. Then do the edit and after that, use touch to set the access/modification times back to their values from before the edit.


securityd using 100% CPU and polluting system.log

I have the same problem with securityd occupying high CPU on a Mac, it's caused by Source Tree credentials in Keychain Access. Removing the login data of SourceTree in KeyChain restored my CPU usage back to normal levels.


Make iTunes song options stick on other devices?

While I'm not sure why the options aren't being kept between your device, there is no way to make iTunes edit the file itself. Nearly everything Apple makes revolves around the idea of revisions. iTunes, while not using revisions, only edits it's database to mark the in and out points of tracks.

To correct syncing, I can only suggest removing the song from iOS and adding it back (it doesn't rewrite data for tracks already on the device).

The get around this, you can always edit the file yourself in something like Audacity, if you wanted to go the permanent route.


Add SSD to iMac: Thunderbolt or internal?

Thunderbolt is 10 Gb/s. Internal ones use SATA II or III at 3 or 6 Gb/s, respectively.

However the Thunderbolt ones use SATA III internally. So you won't see any difference.


iPhone 6 Plus Wireless connection problem

You can go to settings go to WiFi and see if there’s anything wrong with the passwords if there’s nothing wrong with the passwords then switch up some of the network settings and that doesn’t seem to work then switch to another network type


How can I delete a picture from my Photos app on iPad?

Open the "Photos" view and press the Sharing button:

You can then select one or more photos and delete them:


What is a organizational device considered to be?

In the context of MDM (Mobile Device Management), an "organizational device" is a device (mobile phone, laptop, tablet, etc.) that is owned and controlled by the organization (usually a company, school, etc.) that has legal ownership of it.

The alternative is BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) where the end user brings their personal device to access the organization's IT resources (i.e. email, calendar, shared files, etc.)


Is there a way to force a Mac laptop to stay in a specific resolution?

This works for me on Sierra.  Just paste the following script Into script editor.app

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal anchor "displaysDisplayTab" of pane "com.apple.preference.displays"
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "System Preferences" to tell window "Built-in Retina Display"
    click radio button "Scaled" of radio group 1 of tab group 1
    click radio button 5 of radio group 1 of group 1 of tab group 1
end tell
quit application "System Preferences"

Run this script in script editor.app and make sure it works for you.  If it works, just export it as an application and name it something like "Max Resolution.app" or what ever..

Now you want to enable this application to control your computer by adding it to the list of applications in System preferences/Accessibility/Security privacy. Like this..

Take it a step further by adding it to your login items if you want your computer to always start up with the max resolution.

Let me know how it works out for you.


I like using WireShark to do a packet capture. Wireshark can highlight the SMB traffic and allow you to see if the packets are flowing well. You can also analyze the SMB transactions. This is helpful because you can compare a Windows client and a macOS client to the same appliance with the same tool on the same network and see what the difference is.

You probably are negotiating the connection differently or may need the server logs to analyze what's happening not the client logs.


System notification message in message center

"NOTIFICATION SYSTEM" is not a system notification, or not one I've ever seen.

The header is the 'app' generating the notification. In this case, as the icon looks like Safari then it could be some site you allowed to send you notifications.
(As I tend to have most of these switched off, I'm not certain if the wording they use in that header is Safari's or the remote site's responsibility.)

Safari > Preferences > Websites > Notifications

Check which sites you wish to allow to be able to do that - mostly you can switch them off, allow only the ones you really need, otherwise it's a spam-fest


What is login Keychain "Accountsd"? How do I disable it?

See this website for various solutions:
https://www.macoszon.com/accountsd-wants-to-use-the-login-keychain/
Hope this will help solving your problem.


Is it possible to create shortcuts for VLC using Automator?

You can create services like this:

Then give the services shortcuts from System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services.

I prefer using third party applications instead of services to assign shortcuts to scripts though. There has been a bug since 10.7 where the shortcuts for services don't always work until you hover over the services menu from the menu bar (or for example run a service once from the menu bar). There is also a noticeable delay before services are run, and the shortcuts for services don't work when an application that doesn't have a services menu (like Tower) is frontmost.

More examples:

tell application "VLC"
    if playing then
        tell application "System Events" to tell process "VLC"
            click menu item "Pause" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Playback" of menu bar 1
        end tell
    else
        play
    end if
end tell

tell application "VLC"
    set n to 60
    if duration of current item - current time > n then
        set current time to current time + n
    else
        next
    end if
end tell

tell application "VLC"
    set fullscreen mode to not fullscreen mode
end tell

tell application "VLC"
    volumeUp
end tell

Open VLC's dictionary in AppleScript Editor to see all supported terminology.