After reading this thread and with the reproducibility described here, I started to believe that this is a bug. In this thread OS X users complain that sometimes download speed is visible and sometimes not.
It was suggested to completely quit Safari, open terminal and execute:

rm ~/Library/Safari/Downloads.plist

And launch Safari again. That did not work for me.

The following steps might show your download speed (80% change, your mileage may vary):

Start a download
Pause that download
Close the download window
Wait 5 seconds and open the download window
Resuming the download
(after closing the download window, you need to do this all over again)

Screenshot, showing visible download speed (OS X 10.8.5 and Safari 6.0.5):


Solved it, jailbreak messed up the communication and file sharing with the Apple Watch, a DFU restore solved it.


Where is the tilde on French and US keyboard layouts?

Choose the keyboard viewer from the input menu on the menu bar. If you have the visible Keyboard in front of you, you can find out which keyboard combination for the Tilde is in both US and French

See also Apple Support Page to enable this feature.


If you look at what find says about sorting:

 -s   Cause find to traverse the file hierarchies in
lexicographical order, i.e., alphabetical order within each directory.
Note: `find -s` and `find | sort` may give different results.

This means we need to pipe it to sort so that we can manipulate it a bit more.

As you have already seen, a simple alphanumeric sort won't work because it's comparing everything as an ANSI character not as numbers.  What we need to do is just compare the numbers.  We can do this with the -k option of sort

find . -type d | sort -k2.3

What the sort -k2.3 command is doing is sorting on the second field (delimited by the space) ending at the 3rd position.  This is the result using your folder naming convention1:

.
./Folder 1
./Folder 2
./Folder 3
./Folder 4
./Folder 5
./Folder 6
./Folder 7
./Folder 8
./Folder 9
./Folder 10
./Folder 11
./Folder 12
./Folder 13
./Folder 14
./Folder 15

1 To create this folder structure, I used the command in my home folder:

mkdir test; cd test; for n in {1..15}; do mkdir "Folder $n"; done


Disable mini Calendar pull out in iOS 5 on iPad?

I think you might be talking about the Notification Center. Does it look like the pictures in this iOS: Understanding Notifications page?

If so, go to Settings -> Notifications -> Calendar, and turn off 'Notification Centre'.


Yes, the ideal time to charge your phone is around 50% depletion. Ars Technica explains why:

  Full discharges put a lot of strain on the battery, and it's much better practice to do shallow discharges to no lower than 20 percent. In a way, this is like people running for exercise— running a few miles a day is fine, but running a marathon every day is generally not sustainable.

Turning off the device may assist slightly in lowering heat, which in turn may extend the life of the battery by a minuscule amount, but it is not really enough to worry about.


Can not share WiFi from Macbook Pro to other devices via Bluetooth PAN

I ran into the same problem when reverse tethering my Samsung phone (Android 5.1.1) to access the Internet connection on my Macbook Air (El Capitan), and found a successful solution:

Make sure your mobile device is paired via Bluetooth and follow Heiko Haller's
steps for Internet Sharing settings.
Under System Preferences > Network, select the active Internet connection
(e.g., USB LAN) and note the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Router numbers.
Select Bluetooth PAN in the same Network window, click the Advanced button
in the lower right to open its configuration panel.
Under the TCP/IP tab, select 'Manually' from the Configure IPv4 drop-down
menu, and copy the information from Step 2 in the three relevant fields.
Select 'Link-local only' next to Configure IPv6.
Click OK to close the Bluetooth PAN panel, hit Apply in the Network window.
On the mobile device, go to Settings > Bluetooth and click on the cog icon next to
the paired Macbook and turn on 'Internet access'.

It's been a couple of hours and so far, the connection seems stable.
Edit: An incoming regular call broke the connection, and unpairing and re-pairing the device appear to have restored it.
Edit2: The IP Address and Router numbers may change each time you connect to the Internet, so be sure to update the Bluetooth PAN settings accordingly.


Turn on MacBook with eject key or via USB

Did you already do the SMC reset?
If not do it even twice or thrice (firmware can be suprisingly stubborn).
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


How can I batch convert image files and PDFs to TIFF?

You can use sips:
for i in *; do sips -s format tiff $i --out $i.tif; done

Bash.


According to Accessing Kernel Memory on the x86 Version of Mac OS X, /dev/mem and /dev/kmem were removed when Apple released OS X for Intel processors.

The (excellent) article also explains how to reenable the memory devices, namely using the kmem=1 kernel boot argument.

Note that, as commented below by neal, in macOS 10.15 Catalina (and probably since macOS 10.12 Sierra), NVRAM settings can only be changed when your Mac is booted into recovery mode. To enter Recovery mode, power on your Mac and immediately hold ⌘-R until the logo appears, launch Terminal from the Utilities menu in the menu bar, run:

sudo nvram boot-args="kmem=1"

and reboot. You should see these two devices:

$ ls -l /dev/*mem
crw-r----- 1 root kmem 3, 1 2014-02-28 22:09 /dev/kmem
crw-r----- 1 root kmem 3, 0 2014-02-28 22:09 /dev/mem

(In previous versions of macOS like OS X Mavericks 10.9.2, you can reenable the memory devices within the operating system, so simply launch Terminal, type the command above and reboot.)

If your Mac won't boot or you have any issues, reset the NVRAM by pressing ⌘optionPR and holding the keys down until you hear the startup sound for the second time, as explained in "Resetting NVRAM / PRAM" in KB HT1379 About NVRAM and PRAM.

If you wish to reset the argument, type sudo nvram -d boot-args and check that nvram -p | grep boot-args does not print any results.


Here is the set of Start up keys that you can try.

I would try the Safe mode first, followed by Apple Hardware Test.

If it does not boot in Safe mode and passes the Apple Hardware Test, use the OS X recovery "cmd+r" to restore your OS X installation.


Keyboard stuck at bottom of iPad, regardless of orientation

Looks like one of the many keyboard issues in iOS 8.

Might need to wait for Apple to fix it.

See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6581211 & many others


iTunes never deletes original files. But you could use a simple script to remove the mp3/aac files (which are supported by iTunes).

But if you uncheck "Keep iTunes Media folder organized", files will be read from their original location without being copied;


In Pages 5, how to get a table to span multiple pages?

Looks like it happens because "Prevent widow & orphan lines" option is activated by default.

Select the text where the table is located, in the Inspector panel look for "More" and uncheck "Prevent widow & orphan lines". I had the same problem and found the solution this Apple Support Communities thread.


How can I select files in Midnight Commander on a MacBook Pro?

Ctrl-T is standard hotkey for file selection — http://linux.die.net/man/1/mc.

As for switch/add/substract, just type shift-8 for *, shift-= for + and - for minus.

All this works in MC out of the box.


Screenshot thumbnails can't be dragged to most applications

Take the screenshot (My favourite shortcut is ⌘ + Shift + 4)
Double click the miniature
In the "editor" click share button and select Mail
You'll see a mail compose window. Drag the picture to the application you originally wanted to drop to (e.g. Slack).


How to import m4v files into iTunes 12.2.1.16 on Mac OS X 10.1.2.16?

When adding an .m4v file, or other acceptable A/V type file extensions, to iTunes either by drag and drop or using File > Add to Library... the file is added to Home Videos under Movies.

In a fresh install of OS X, in the image below, it shows the available tabs when selecting Movies in iTunes.  Note there is no Home Videos tab.

In the image below, after adding a video to iTunes the Home Videos tab appears under Movies and shows the added video.


It's almost certainly harmless. If you select a file on the desktop (even unintentionally) and press enter and then type ok - that would explain the naming.

I would open the terminal app (/Applications/Utilities) and type file and then drag the questionable file into the window and press enter.

That will look at the file contents and give you a hint about what it might contain. Spotlight information could help find other files around the same time, but I'd start with the file tool and get more information or just delete the file named OK - especially if you have a backup where you could get back what you lost if you find out later it was an image or document you needed.


Can I disable Dashboard in Mountain Lion?

With macOS 10.10 Yosemite or later, you can go to
System Preferences → Mission Control and switch Dashboard to Off.

On any OS with Dashboard, you can disable it through Terminal with the following command:

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES && killall Dock

It can be re-enabled with:

defaults delete com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled && killall Dock


How do I view and pull off videos from my iCloud?

You can download your purchased series again via iTunes. Open the iTunes Store and go to the "Purchased" section, select the content type and then click the cloud icon next to the item you want to download.

See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2519
(keyword: iTunes in the cloud)


How do I limit calendar notifications to certain calendars?

In Calendar.app, you can right-click on any calendar, and choose Get Info. From here you can select Ignore Alerts


Is there a shortcut to "Switch User" from the Lock Screen in macOS Mojave?

There might not be a ready made one - but you can write your own!

This link explains how to apply a shortcut to some applescript that you have already written.

If you are not familiar with Applescript (new skill to learn! :)), you could check out this link where there are a number of other suggestions (including a user switch script - but your password will be in plain text).

Let us know which one works for you.


Is there a drag-n-drop SVG to PDF converter?

If you have inkscape installed you can use its command line interface to convert svg to pdf.

/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/bin/inkscape test.svg --export-pdf test.pdf

Using Automator you'll be able to make a simple app that accept drag'n'drop.

Look for run shell script.


Sharing contacts with husband who has separate Apple id

Create a Gmail account. Add the shared contacts to that account. Load the account in both devices (no email, notes or calendars, just contacts). You now have your shared contacts account. You can manage them easily on a Mac (copying contacts, moving from each iCloud account to the shared account) or with a little more difficulty directly on the Gmail interface.


Can't relaunch/use finder on a 2019 MacBook Pro

When you relaunch Finder, are you doing this from the Force Quit Applications menu? If you haven't done this, try pressing command+option+esc keys and the Force Quit Applications menu should pop up, then relaunch Finder from there.

If this fails, you can also try force a reboot by pressing Control+Command+Touch ID/Power button keys.

If this also fails, and you have access to Spotlight, search for the Terminal app. Once in Terminal, you can force a reboot by typing sudo reboot. It will prompt you with your password, but it won't show in the terminal window as you type it. Just hit the return key when you've finished typing your password and it should force your MacBook to reboot.

Hope this helps.


Personal information in sysdiagnose dumps on OS X

Let Apple Know

While no-one here can speak for Apple, you should provide feedback directly to Apple via their feedback page. The more people who offer feedback with this concern, the more likely they will be to improve and refine the reporting tools.

Delicate Balance

To fully debug a problem, it is likely some amount of personal information will be needed. If only to recreate the problems caused by unexpected paths, file, and folder names. This is a delicate balance and one where Apple needs to demonstrate to its customers that privacy is taken seriously.

As of OS X 10.11, Apple's system_profiler tool does include flags that explicitly exclude personal information.

As an anecdote, I have previously reported bugs to Apple that involved HP hardware. Apple contacted me asking for permission to pass on my Mac's diagnostic information to HP; that request acknowledged the private information embedded in the bug report. It is difficult to know if this was a single engineer's concern or something driven by an internal company policy.


The MMS switch only disables MMS, not iMessages with picture attachments. So you can turn the MMS switch off to get the behaviour you desire.


Removing favorite styles does not work in Lion’s TextEdit

It looks like you have run into a bug in Lion’s version of TextEdit. For reasons unknown, the designers of TextEdit opted for storing favorite styles in the global preferences file (~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist) when they introduced the feature. They might have intended to create a user global stored styles system for NSText based rich text editors (not the only oddity of the system – this post has a good write-up of TextEdit’s style implementation). This has worked up to and including OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

In OS X 10.7 Lion however, TextEdit has been sandboxed (sandboxing means, in layman’s terms: the operating system only grants an application discrete rights to access the file system, network, OS services etc. as defined by the app – so called entitlements. Anything a sandboxed application tries beyond that what is covered by its entitlements will be denied and logged by the sandbox daemon sandbox). A look at the log, where you will find an entry similar to this one

02.11.11 14:44:54,659 sandboxd: ([73342]) TextEdit(73342) deny file-write-create /Users/<user>/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist.c2n4nCb

each time you try to store a new favorite style shows that writing to .GlobalPreferences is not among TextEdit’s entitlements. The result: Lion’s TextEdit can neither store new favorite styles*, nor delete ones written ether by previous versions of TextEdit (your case).

To get rid of the old styles, you need to remove the NSFavoriteStyles key from the global preferences list. If you have Xcode installed, invoking

open ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

will open the file in Xcode’s plist Editor, where you can remove / modify it manually. If you don’t,

defaults delete -g NSFavoriteStyles

will get rid of all stored (“favorite”) styles.

* it might look like it does, as these are stored in memory while TextEdit runs, and with Lion’s revamped process management, it is difficult to tell when textEdit really quits. Still, once it does, the favorite styles disappear.

ADDENDUM: Reported as a bug to Apple (OpenRadar rdar://10385163).
According to Apple Developer Relations, this bug has been quashed as of OS X 10.8


How to follow the instruction to diagnose Mac?

Its not a capital D, they would have specified "Shift-D" if in that case. Just hold d itself.

If it doesn't work, see the Learn More section at the bottom of that article.


How do I restore a jailbroken iOS 6.1/iPhone 5?

This YouTube video on Semi-Restore iOS 6.1.2, 6.1.1, 6.1, 6.0.1, 6.0 iPhone 5, 4S, 4 definitely works. It worked for me.


will signing out of icloud delete all my notes permanently?

You should be fine. Refer to: If you sign out of iCloud to get a better understanding of what will happen with your documents and data (including photos. etc).

However, if you're concerned and you have another device (such as an iPhone or iPad), you can ensure they are logged into your iCloud account so you can see/access the notes on those devices.

And of course, it goes without saying that you should ensure you have a backup regime in place (such as using Time Machine).


Hub disconnect from MacBook Pro 2018 Touch Bar

I bought another hub and an Apple device, and now is working.


How to use tmutil delete on Big Sur, APFS

The Big Sur syntax changed, but you need to specify the volume and the timestamp with -d and -t:
sudo tmutil delete -d /Volumes/Time\ Machine -t 2020-11-18-100936

You don't need to specify the Backups.backupdb folder or the backup machine.  I had done tmutil setdestination /Volumes/Time\ Machine previously (where Time Machine is the name of your drive.)


Try an app called iFunBox, I believe there is a windows version. It should be able to assist you with recovering your information.


How does iOS app Badoo tracks second registrations?

iOS apps can use the DeviceCheck API to store two bits of persistent information per device on Apple servers. This data is not cleared when an application is uninstalled; some apps may use one or both of the bits to flag devices which have already taken advantage of a free trial, or which have been blocked for abuse.

This API cannot be used to track specific devices, as it is too small to store a unique identifier. (There are only four possible values which can be stored in two bits: 00, 01, 10, and 11.)

There is no way for you to clear this data, as it is stored on Apple servers.


what is the hotkey to move to a particular desktop out of all the desktops

Open System Preferences
Select "Keyboard" under "the Hardware" section
Select the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab
Select "Mission Control" from the left table
Expand the "Mission Control" section

Once there you can see, set, and enable shortcuts to individual Mission Control screens.


How to find replacements for Dashboard widgets in macOS Notficiation Center

For the record, I've updated to macOS Catalina now.  The Notification center now has an "App Store" button that takes you to Apple's AppStore, where there is a section for Notification Center Widgets.  Although the selection is somewhat limited, it's nice to see a small collection of widgets.

Although there is no widget to replace the dictionaries I described in the original post, it is not hard to use ⌘-Space to quickly get Apple's Dictionary App.  It is pretty straightforward to add various foreign language dictionaries to that application.

All in all, it has been possible to replace the features I liked in the discontinued Dashboard with Notification Center Widgets and other applications.


Does Photos.app support a watch directory?

Photos does not currently support a watch directory - meaning that all photos have to be imported manually (by dragging and dropping onto the Photos window or File > Import...) or via iCloud Photo Library or My Photo Stream.


Passing arguments to 'Run Shell Script' in Automator

When passing input to Run Shell Script in Automator you need to change Pass input: to stdin to Pass input: as arguments as shown in the example workflow below.


How to reset an iPhone photo library with all data and meta data

To answer my own question:

I felt brave and fired up a 3rd party tool that could access the iPhone filesystem. In the directory Media I renamed the directories PhotoData to PhotoData_old, DCIM to DCIM_old and Photos to Photos_old.

Then I restarted the iPhone. After reboot completed I checked the Media directory again. PhotoData, DCIM and Photos directory had been recreated. Photos was telling me: No photos found.

I deleted the _old directories and synced photos from a good and stable library to the phone.

The iPhone photos library is now usable.


Best way to import analog video tape to Mac?

I recently did this type of project with a similar Sony Camcorder that didn't have a USB interface.

Here are the parameters (constraints) of the equipment we're working with:

Audio is stereo/mono - left and right channels
Video output (as stated) is either S-Video or component - both of which can handle up to 480i (in the US).  IMO, color was better on the component, but YMMV.

What's important to note here is this is the highest quality that will be achievable.  You won't be able to convert this to HD quality simply because the source isn't HD quality.

  What device and/or software should I use to transfer and convert the
  videos into digital format?

I used (and highly recommend) the Elgato Video USB Capture.

This was a plug-and-play device.  The included software was extremely easy to use.  When I used it, I was on Yosemite (10.10), however, I don't see any reason it wouldn't work with El Capitan or Sierra.

  What target video file format should I choose to preserve quality and
  maximize flexibility?

Your best bet would be to use H.264 MPEG-4, which the Elgato supports. From it's Wikipedia entry:

  As of 2014 it is one of the most commonly used formats for the
  recording, compression, and distribution of video content

H.264 MPEG-4 is a format that's commonly used for Blu-Ray (DVDs) and for Internet services such as YouTube.  This will give you the highest amount of flexibility at the best resolution possible.

As far as audio, the Elgato Video Capture samples at 48 kHZ at 128bits which is considered "professional grade"

  The standard audio sampling rate used by professional digital video
  equipment such as tape recorders, video servers, vision mixers and so
  on.

This is a rather inexpensive setup that worked extremely well (from personal experience).  It took me just over a week (about 100 tapes, not all were "full") to digitize everything.  But once that was done I was able to make backups to both HDDs and DVDs.


Do you need an @icloud.com email to get @icloud.com email aliases?

Yes you can. Set up the primary ID as your gmail and secondary as an iCloud account


OSX Server does have several VPN servers in it.
You can configure these using Server.app however, if your internal name resolution is broken this is likely to be more trouble.

You'll also need to make sure your Mac Mini's VPN port is available to the internet on a static IP (or dynamic host name).

As an interim step I suggest looking at 'Back To My Mac' which is free as part of iCloud. Technically it uses adhoc ipsec vpn tunnels and gives you an DNS name for each mac set up, effectively bypassing the current internal name resolution issue. e.g. server.12345678.members.btmm.icloud.com
Services that you run e.g. web and ssh will accessible.

They're btmm DNS address are not internet routable and don't, generally, require any port forward or static IP addresses.
For a couple more technical details check here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/53776/46039


ulimit -n shows different values in mac terminal and intellij terminal

The problem is caused by IntelliJ being a Java program that is subject to the constraints of the Java virtual machine, which by default on macOS is set to limit the number of open files to 10240 - no matter which setting is used elsewhere in the operating system.
The solution is as follows:

Add -XX:-MaxFDLimit in IntelliJ Idea (Help->Edit Custom VM options)
Invalidate cache and restart IntelliJ

This removes the arbitrary 10240 limit on the Java virtual machine, and makes it so that IntelliJ is instead only limited by the general macOS open files limit - like any other program.


How many amps should an iPhone 5s car charger output?

More amps will not mean faster charging. The iPhone (and any electronic device) will only take as much current as it requires, and no more. The iPhone will take 1A to charge, and an iPad will take 2.1A.

There's no harm in using a charger that is capable of providing more current than a device requires, but there's no benefit either.

Providing less current than the device requires will lead to longer charging times, or no charging at all.


Transferring game progress from Iphone 4 to Iphone 6

You have to create a backup of your iPhone 4 and then RESTORE the iPhone 6 from that backup. Depending on the game you might also need to sign in to either their service in-app or to iCloud (depending on where it saves your progress).


Is a Macbook pro not able to use dual screen on the integrated graphics card?

No, it does not. You need the discrete GPU to run an external display.

Funny though, because the integrated GPU's of the MacBook Air can power up to a 27" thunderbolt display. But that's how Apple rolls.


How to get local directory names into terminal window titles?

Go to Preferences -> Profiles -> Window and check those things you would like to see in the terminal window title.


Target Display Mode for Mid 2011 iMac and 2018 MacBook Pro

With a qualified iMac yes it should work, I was told this by Apple support. However there is a problem with the 2018 MBP and it does not. There is a large thread on this in the Apple forums:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8485517

Someone there recently figured out a workaround by daisychaining their iMac but we shouldn't have to buy more expensive devices to get it to work. Please report your issue to Apple support and make sure they escalate it to an engineer. Only by everyone reporting do we have a chance of getting this fixed.


Macbook Air WiFi Connection Timeout problem

Troubleshooting can be a process of elimination and often requires patience. Below are a few things you can try.

Try another 'Wi-Fi' network

It'd be interesting to see whether your MBA can maintain an internet connection from another Wi-Fi network. If you have an iPhone you can share an internet connection from its cellular connection and connect to that via your Mac's Wi-Fi port? Does this allow your MBA to browse the web, send/receive emails, etc and maintain the connection for longer than the five or so minutes you're having problems with?

Another way to test this is via a public Wi-Fi services (McDonalds, Starbucks, etc).

Test your Wi-Fi network

If your MBA connects fine to other Wi-Fi networks, then it's time to test your home Wi-Fi connection with other devices (such as an iPhone, iPad, etc) to see if they also drop a connection. If they do then you know it's your Wi-Fi network that needs investigating.

On the other hand, if they connect fine, it may be time to reboot your Wi-Fi router. This is because your router may have a limit on how many devices can be connected at any one time, or may struggle when too many devices are connected.

To do this, switch the router off for about a minute and then switch it back on. Wait a couple of minutes and then try connecting your MBA and testing to see what happens.

Remove and then add back your Wi-Fi service

I would totally remove your Wi-Fi service, restart, and add your Wi-Fi service back.

To do this:

Go to Apple > System Preferences > Network
Select the Wi-Fi service on the left-hand side
Click on the cog icon at bottom-left and select Make Service Inactive
Now delete the service by clicking on the minus sign (i.e. the - button) at left of the cog
Click on the Apply button
Exit Network preferences
Restart your MBA
Go to Apple > System Preferences > Network
Click on the plus sign (i.e. the + button) at left of the cog
In the pop-up window, ensure that Wi-Fi is selected from the drop-down menu
Click on the Create button
Make sure Wi-Fi is on and connected (it should remember your previous settings, but if not just re-add your Wi-Fi network again)

Run Wireless Diagnostics

You can use Wireless Diagnostics to analyse your Wi-Fi network. Follow these steps:

Close any apps you have running
Connect to the Wi-Fi network
Hold down the option key and go to the Wi-Fi status menu and select Open Wireless Diagnostics
Enter your administrator name and password

Now follow the steps to see whether any problems are found.


Automate opening multiple tabs when starting Terminal

You can try this.

You can use the Terminal Profiles to give each tab its own profile.
This way, you can set the shell command for each tab individually.

And you can save the window group (tabs) so they will open on Terminal launch.

Example of set up

Set up your tabs in a window, i.e., cd to the directories in each tab as desired.

Then, go to the Terminal Preferences and to  Settings Tab menu:

Select the Basic Profile.
Click the + button at the bottom. This will duplicate the profile.
Name the new profile (for example, home).

Repeat steps 1 - 3 as many times as the number of tabs, and name each of them with unique names.

In my example, I will have 'home' and 'work'.

Now, for my 'home' profile, I will:

Select the Shell tab.
Check 'Run command'.
Set the command string to  cd ~
Check 'Run inside shell'.

For each profile, I will repeat steps 5 - 7, changing the cd command accordingly.

In my tab named 'Home Dir', I will:

Ctrl + click on the window to get the contextual menu, and select 'Show inspector'.
Select the 'settings' tab
Set its profile to the 'home' profile.

For each tab, I will repeat steps 1 - 3, changing the profile accordingly.

Now, my Home tab's profile should be the 'home' profile and my tab named 'Work Dir'  profile should be the 'work' profile.

Now using the Windows Menu "Save Windows As Group".

Check the checkbox  - "Use window group when Terminal starts".

I have tested it as best I can and this set up works.

Each tab opens in the cd's to its own directory. And does so on Terminal start up.

I like this so much, I am going to use it myself.


Does the MacBook Air have a Fast User Switching (Login Window) shortcut key?

There isn't one that I'm aware of, but one could use this workaround:

Open Automator, create a new Service.
Set the dropdowns at the top to "Service receives 'no input' in 'any application'"
Add the action "Run Shell Script"
Paste this command (all one line) into the action: /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend
Save the service. You can call it whatever you like.
You can confirm that it's there by going to any application menu, going to services, and verifying that it shows up.
Head over to System Preferences, and into the Keyboard pane.
In the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tabs, select "Application Shortcuts" from the list on the left.
A list of shortcuts should load on the right, with "All Applications" at the top. Highlight this, and click the plus (+) under the list.
In the window that appears, make sure that "All Applications" is selected in the top dropdown.
For "Menu Title", enter the name of the service you created exactly as it appears - including any punctuation, capitalization, etc.
Assign any shortcut you like, then click "Add".

This will work even if the Fast User Switching menu extra isn't enabled.


Here is the procedure I recommend, for those who are comfortable with the command-line and with Homebrew:

Install Homebrew.

Run the following on the command line (in Terminal):

brew install macvim --with-override-system-vim
brew linkapps

Edit your shell startup files to ensure that /usr/local/bin comes first in your $PATH.

If you use vim as $VISUAL or $EDITOR, add `export VISUAL='mvim -f' to your environment (details).

Check that you installed everything correctly by running

brew doctor

Now, you can run the graphical MacVim on a file by running mvim foo.txt from the command-line.  Or, you can run the text-based editor by running vim foo.txt.  Also, if other programs (e.g., git) fork off a separate editor, they'll run the graphical MacVim.

See also How to run mvim (MacVim) from Terminal? and Set macvim as default application after homebrew installation.


Should I get Windows 10, 32-bit or 64-bit?

It was answered in a comment, but you want the 64bit, else you can't allocate more the 4GB of RAM.


Can websites be locked down on the iPad?

apple.com, ipad for business:

http://www.apple.com/ipad/business/resources/

From disabling Safari completely (allowSafari=false) to functional options:

Enable autofill: When this option is off, Safari doesn’t remember what users enter in web forms.
Force Fraud warning: When this option is off, Safari doesn’t attempt
to prevent the user from visiting websites identified as being
fraudulent or compromised.
Enable JavaScript: When this option is
off, Safari ignores all javascript on websites.
Block pop-ups: When
this option is off, Safari’s pop-up blocking feature is disabled.
Accept cookies: Sets Safari’s cookie policy. Choose to accept all
cookies, accept no cookies, or reject cookies from sites not directly
accessed.

Thereby you can limit the iPad to only apps (and webapps) installed by you.


Absolutely it is!
On Apple's Approach to Privacy page, you will find the following statement under the iMessage and FaceTime section:

  We use end-to-end encryption to protect your iMessage and FaceTime conversations across all your devices. With watchOS and iOS, your messages are encrypted on your device so that they can’t be accessed without your passcode. We designed iMessage and FaceTime so that there’s no way for us to decrypt your data when it’s in transit between devices. You can choose to automatically delete your messages from your device after 30 days or a year or to keep them on your device forever...
  ...and we never store the content of FaceTime calls on any servers.

Let me know if that was helpful or if you have any further questions regarding that statement.


I use an SanDisk Ultra miniDrive (64 GB) for transferable storage. However, I use an external hard drive to maintain Time Machine backups.

Of note, for compatibility with Time Machine, the SD's default format (exFat) was incompatible, and I needed to use Disk Utility to reformat to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

For for information about SD cards, Apple provides information.


how to set 'arrange by' for all the folders in the finder

To answer your first question, this isn't a script, but it is a procedure you can follow to make all Finder windows sorted by name. Open a Finder window. Select a regular folder; not a pseudo-folder (the Use as defaults button does not appear on Airdrop or Recents). Press Command-J. In the Sort By drop-down control, select Name. Click the Use as defaults button at the bottom of the window.

For the second, no, "sort by" sorts everything, including folders. If there are particular files or folders you want at the top of the list, you could start their name with a space, but don't do that to folders that applications or the system expect to have particular names. It does work for folders you create within your own Documents directory, however.


All Desktops swiping brings the app front

As long as another app that is set to None or This Desktop in the Desktop you are swiping from is the Active Window, and you did not make the app set for All Desktops active during the session on the previous desktop, then the Window that tracks to the All Desktops will remain in the background without coming forward and then going back.

This behavior only happens when the All Desktops App is the Active Window when you swipe to the new desktop. I assume the reason for it is that the OS X designers felt that swiping and hiding the open windows on the new Desktop could cause confusion, so they added this animation to emphasize that the Active App from the previous desktop is deprioritized and that there are open Apps on the new Desktop.


Security Update 2015-002 Asks To Setup Mac

That is normal for iCloud tokens to time out. You will see it when you reboot, so the update was a coincidence and not causing the password request.

This setup seems to trigger more often if one of your user accounts on the Mac uses an iCloud password for the account or you have Back to my Mac or Find my Mac enabled in iCloud system preference pane.


Audacity

  Audacity® is free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.

You can click record, record the sound, stop and playback, then start again by clicking record. You can play only the latest recording by choosing to 'solo' the last selected track (which is the last track that you recorded to).


Can the Finder be tricked into assigning symlinks and aliases different icons?

Symlinks are a Unix concept. They are special files that point to other files, so that, in many cases, accessing the symlink (for instance if it points to a shell script) really access the underlying file (running the script).

Aliases are a Mac concept (though OS/2 had something similar, I forget what it was called).

As far as I can tell aliases can be made only from the finder whereas symbolic links can be made from a terminal window. (It is possible to make an alias from the command line but you have to write applescript to do so).

Aliases have one advantage over symbolic links. If the underlying file that the alias points to is moved the alias is automatically updated. Not so with symbolic links; they break (i.e. point to nowhere) if the underlying file is moved.

I've been interested in this question because I'm trying to write a script that will bring up a getinfo window when typed from the command line. So far the best I've been able to do is to copy some scripts that do this from other web sites. The drawback is that, unlike selecting Get Information on a symbolic link from a finder window these scripts show get getinfo window for the underlying file, not for the symbolic link.

It is definitely a side project for me, but if I find the answer I'll post it.


why iphone "text to speech" english is much clearer than french?


Where is the screen shot (aka grabber or grab) app?

On my machine (running 10.8.3), it is in /Applications/Utilities/Grab.app.

You can search for this using Spotlight: press cmd-space  or click the magnifying glass near top right in the menu bar.

There are also some key shortcuts that save (or copy to the clipboard) images from the screen, clipped in various ways. cmd-shift-4 is one I use regularly, but there are several variants on this.


Prevent Finder from launching when quitting all applications

If you open Terminal and enter "launchctl list" it will list all of the programs kept running by launchd, the "launch daemon" that keeps system software running even after it is quit/force quit/killed/crashed.

Scroll to the top the results, and you will see "com.apple.Finder" keeping the Finder always running as long as the OS is running. Finder does much more than browse the file system, and it should always be running (same for the Dock). However, if you want to quit it and keep it from relaunching, you will need to remove it from launchctl first. I wouldn't do this personally, but here's how:

Open Terminal
Enter: sudo launchctl remove com.apple.Finder
Enter your password and hit return.

Now you should be able to quit Finder without it relaunching.

To undo this:

Open Terminal
Enter: sudo launchctl load System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Finder.plist
Enter your password and hit return.


Do you meet the minimum requirements?

  To send items to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you need a 2012 or newer Mac model with OS X Yosemite or later, excluding the Mac Pro (Mid 2012).

Source: https://support.apple.com/en-is/HT203106


A program like Skype with auto answer for iOS?

So I found another program that does almost everything and that is "usable" in my case, as Skype is not.

Babyphone 3g

Pros:

It has the auto answer feature.
The camera can be turned off when not used.
If the connection is bad, it offers to take pictures.

Cons:

Video is only one way (big down) but sound can be both ways.
The "babything" design which makes it look unapropriate for me when it is the best I found.
Not free (and probably pay for each separate device you want to connect, have to check that)

I am not sure I should answer my question or edit my question in that case...


Completely erased my Leopard machine from another computer, how do I install an OS on it?

When you turn on the computer, put the disc in the drive with one hand, and hold down the option key with the other.  This forces the Mac to look for ANY bootable media.  If nothing comes up, the hard drive is blank (as you suspect), and the ROM drive can't read the disc you are putting in (or the ROM drive has failed).  You can try creating a Mountain Lion USB key.  Incidentally, what Mac are you putting this disc in?  A Mac Book Pro, an iMac?  What generation?  What CPU is in it?


Are there any SSD drives not from Apple for which you can enable TRIM without hacking OS X's kernel?

Enabling TRIM on third party SSDs
You can enable TRIM on third party SSDs by using a tool called Trim Enabler  which "works by patching a kernel extension, and also includes some SMART data to check the health of the SSD drive". [1]
I don't know if buying similar drive will get you TRIM to be auto-enabled in Lion. User @kukoo reports that he has bought an OEM-SSD which auto-enabled TRIM in Lion after installation. [2]
According to user @bmike, Apple usually uses custom firmware . [3]
Is enabling TRIM necessary?
User @cksum has covered this as a part of his answer to a post "Optimize MacBook Pro for internal SSD+HDD drives".


In my experience, unusually slow Macs are usually slow due to hard drive failure, or Malware installation (or in the case of MacBook Pros, a bad hard drive cable). Those are the common causes these days.

Step one: Download SMART Utility and see what it says about your physical drives. If your HDD is failing, it will tell you right away.
(Note: it can't check the SMART status of most external drives, leave your externals disconnected through this whole process, and until the Mac is running normally again)

Step two: Download and run MalwareBytes for Mac, and run it. The free version is all you need. Remove anything it finds.

If none of these end up being the cause, then you have something much less common going on on your machine.


How do I prevent iPhoto from opening every time I plug in my iPhone

You might want to look at this question: How can I prevent iPhoto from opening everytime I plug my iPad/iPhone?

The summary is that Image Capture has an option to change what happens when a camera is attached to the computer.


Docs needed to read before submitting app to App Store

Since Apple has a review process, you might just submit your app and react if there are problems in review. Also, you might want to be sure you've read all the terms and conditions of the NDA / legal agreement that was signed to become a developer in addition to the links you provide.


Migration Assistant ... transferring from a Mac G5 with no display to 2014 iMac

Target disk mode is the answer. In my experience, there's a pretty good chance it will work even if the display is dead.

If Target disk mode fails, you could easily remove the hard drive and connect it to a SATA dock and transfer that way.


How to prove this is a 42mm or 38mm Apple Watch?

While that is just a rendering of the Apple Watch, not an image of an actual Apple Watch, the band is a Modern Buckle, which is only available for 38mm Apple Watches. So the Watch in the rendering is definitely a 38mm.


Apple doesn't support its OSes as long as Microsoft supported XP.

Wise advice would be possibly "Don't jump right now, but don't leave it too long"

It's always wise to wait until applications are updated to support a new OS & initial bugs are ironed out, so waiting for 10.10.1 would be a sensible precaution, but you don't really want to hold off until it's so out of date that if you upgrade nothing you currently own will run.


I have found the culprit:

if [ -f $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion ]; then
  source $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion
fi

These lines in my ~/.bashrc were causing bash to hang up on startup and it wasn't executing any commands as a result. Commenting them out solved the issue.

Apparently, there is some error in that script (it's part of Homebrew's bash-completion package).


Faulty or oversensitive temperature sensor on 15-inch Macbook Pro?

I see two potential problems:

An "over sensitive" sensor as you described that is reporting the CPU temp as higher than what it's supposed to be

or....

A faulty CPU that has a temperature spike when you put it under load.  In this case, the sensor is working correctly.

The tech changing out the fan can do nothing to fix this problem - remember, the sensor is "reading" a temp change and telling the SMC to kick on the fans.  Changing the fan won't change how the sensor works.

What you need to do is diagnose whether or not the temp reading is accurate and whether the sensor is working or not.  You can start with Apple Hardware Test (AHT).  (Hold the D key while booting from a powered off state with the AC adapter connected) and then take it into Apple to have it diagnosed.


How do I use Mail.app search and replace without the mouse

If you enable full keyboard access from System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts, you can focus the buttons by pressing tab and select the focused button by pressing space.


OS X doesn't set a root password by default, so it's not possible to log in or su to root. The preferred way to run commands as root is sudo, since that requires your admin password instead of the (nonexistent) root password.

sudo works a little different from su, as it's really intended to run single commands as root. Generally, you just use sudo as a prefix on whatever command you want to run as root (e.g. sudo cp -R myApplication.app /Applications). If you want a root shell (as su does by default), use sudo -s.

I don't recommend setting a root password, but if you do need to do it, you can either run sudo passwd or run Directory Utility.app (which is hidden in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications), clicking the padlock and authenticating as an admin, then choosing Edit menu > Enable Root User.


how to check for iPhone battery replacement eligibility under warranty?

Call Apple or request an evaluation from their support web site. They are the final judge of warranty status and can run a check on your device remotely - generally while you wait.

The API to get that data is private and generally doesn't work on iOS - Is there an iPhone app (as opposed to desktop software) that shows actual battery cycles - cycles number

You can use computers to get FCC and cycle counts - How to figure out iOS device battery health?

Whether you can get the 80% value like apple isn't guaranteed with that data since I believe they read far more internal counters and often offer a replacement even when you aren't at 80% in many cases.


USB-C cable for MacBook Pro 2019 16" - fully supported charging cables?

A USB-C cable is a USB-C cable.  Period.  Full stop.

It’s not going to be different for each different device.  The marketing  material that you’re seeing is for SEO or search engine optimization.  There’s no compatibility differences.

The USB-C port on your MacBook Pro 16” isn’t any different from the USB-C ports on any of those Mac laptops in the “specification page.”   Any cable with the the USB-C logo on it must support 10Gb/s transfer rate and support up to 100 watts of power.  Since the highest capacity charger Apple makes is 96W, any USB-C cable will work.

This is why you buy from reputable brands like Anker.  In order to put the USB logo on their products, they must pay the licensing fee and have the product tested that it meets the standards.  Yes, they cost more, but you can be assured they meet all the specifications.

Are there USB-C charge only cables or cables that don’t support alternate mode video or some other USB standard?  Yes, there are.  None will be USB “certified.”


Can I use my iMac OS X Yosemite as a phone and phone system

Yes you can do just that. You could use an SIP line. There are hundreds of phone companies which offer SIP phone services (also called VoIP). Some internet provider also give you the access to the SIP configuration so you can handle your calls the way you like.

Check with your provider if they use SIP for your phone line and if so they could actually let you manage your phone calls with your own software.

Then you would have to install one of the SIP apps to handle your calls and even configure the way your calls are redirected or answered depending on the time of day and other parameters.

A list of SIP server software is available on wikipedia. Asterisk is the most common one is free and quite full-featured. There is a host of visual interfaces to help you with the administration and operations of SIP lines through asterisk, you can also find entire distributions dedicated to asterisk.

If installing and configuring your own SIP setup sounds like too much trouble some providers will have many features like:

multiple phone numbers
multiple phone calls per number (incoming and/or outgoing)
auto forward
redirection after x tones
call transfer
conferencing
call monitoring
welcome menu: "Welcome to My Global Company. For department press 1..."
auto attendant: "If you know the extension of the person you would like to speak to, you can enter it now"
announcements: "Welcome to MGC. Please wait while we connect your call"

The level of service depends on the provider you chose. But the advantage of using a standard VoIP service is that you can move your setup to a new company, add lines from multiple companies and do whatever you like if you setup your PBX yourself.

If you want to use a normal phone there are SIP converters which can be installed between your internet provider's router and your phone. There are also full featured SIP phones.

Some phones let you use both, your normal land line and multiple SIP accounts, for example I use one similar to this one:

Other phones have a phone standard integrated which let you setup call redirections and other features.

There is also skype as already answered here.

They offer a very simple package but it is severely limited in comparison to an SIP installation.

There are multiple phones available to use skype like a normal land line (note: these are not compatible with the standard SIP protocol)

You can subscribe to a skype number to receive standard phone calls directly to your skype account. So people will be able to call that number without having to use skype on their end.

But when it comes to managing multiple lines or setups with multiple extensions skype is not made fo that.


Wireless display from one laptop to another

click "System preferences > sharing" and enable the screen sharing.
on screen sharing preferences copy the Adress that is like this "vnc://..." save to a txt file and send to the other computer through airdrop.
open safari on the other computer, paste the addres and press enter, the screen of the first computer will apear.

You don't need any software, doing this steps you will control bouth computers with 1 mouse and 1 keyboard :)


Record iPhone's Screen and the audio with Quicktime?

You don't need any third-party service; This feature is built right into QuickTime. So just connect your iPhone to your Mac, open QuickTime, click on File > New Movie Recording (CommandOptionN), and it will show your iPhone screen. But in order to record it's audio too, click the little downward arrow next to the record button, and under "Microphone" choose "(your name)'s iPhone" (by the way if it doesn't show you your iPhone's screen make sure to select your iPhone under "Camera" too, though it should be selected by default). Then just hit record and it should do the trick.


Here is the solution to the issue (from: http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=183164#p183164):

use framework "Foundation"

on run {input, parameters}

    set p to POSIX path of (input)
    set nsu to current application's |NSURL|'s fileURLWithPath:p

    set fru to nsu's fileReferenceURL()'s absoluteString() as text

    return fru

end run

I did not check jweak's answer. It may also work, after all.
The poster over at macscripter also mentioned something important: input may contain a list of items (multi-selected).

Hope this helps someone.


Why doesn't pbpaste return cursor at new line in bash?

pbpaste pastes exactly what you copy.

In your case you have copied the line not including the CR/LF at the end.
To get the return you need to copy from the start of the line to the beginning of the next line

From @patrix comment

Most commands do end with a CR/LF. e.g. echo "Hello" will put out a newline, however for echo this can be changed echo -n "Hello".

If you want you can add a newline after a pbpaste by using echo "$(pbpaste)" instead.


Is there a capability difference between 3D Touch and Force Touch?

This is a lot like asking if there's a difference between a Nissan Leaf and a Maxima. Both are cars, they seat 4 people, and they move around. The technology powering them though, is radically different. Wikipeadia has the 3D Touch redirect to the Force Touch page, which is misleading (and incorrect). This article does a slightly better job explaining it, though it sort of steps on its own tail. Basically, Force Touch reacts based on the actual force (hard, medium, soft) where's de 3D Touch reacts based on the kind of touch (or tap): quick, prolonged, etc.

EDIT:

On second reading, you ask more about capability than implementation. 3D touch is definitely more sensitive than Force Touch, but with only the 6S just rolling out, we'll need to wait and see what Apple chooses to do with this enhanced capability.


I suspect you have run out of space on your phone. While you may have 494GB of space available in iCloud, your phone needs a place to put them before they can be uploaded. Try deleting some existing photos, videos, music, or apps to free up some space on your device.


Here's one way to get a two page view of your document in Pages 5.2.2. Open your document and select print from the file menu. At the bottom left of the box, where you see PDF, scroll to choose Open in Preview. Then under view in the menu bar, you can choose Two Pages, and you get a two pages view which can be scrolled vertically, but cannot be edited. You can cancel out of preview without printing. I couldn't get the two page option in regular preview, only in print preview.


Just tested command shift + and control shift + on excel 2016 on a mac - both add a row as long as the row is selected.

If the row is not selected then it will shift the cells down in that row.

For Excel 2011, then control i works to add a row if the row is selected, if only a cell is selected then it brings up the insert cell dialogue.
In excel 2011 command i does italic.

For command-shift-i this does italic on the selected row - the version using control does not work (excel 2106).

That website has information that appears out of date.


How do I view an SSL certificate on my iPad from Safari?

There is also a free app TLS Inspector. Works fine too. See https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tls-inspector/id1100539810?mt=8


MacBook air battery has stopped charging

Apple is pretty clear that if one SMC reset doesn’t fix your power issue, the next step would be a hardware repair.

Now before you do that, consider the machine stops charging the battery past 90% or so and you are above 97% charge. No panic and just let the battery drain down a bit and make sure it’s just not resting the charge.

(6885 - 6696) / 6885 = 0.027 which means you're not discharged enough to resume adding charge to the battery according to the system information. Your battery health is good.

Assuming it doesn’t start charging when you’re at 85 % capacity, then seek a repair. For now, make sure your backup is running just in case, but nothing is amiss in regular readings whatsoever.

That repair would be to take a new adapter to your Mac to be sure it’s not the adapter or a stuck pin, then they would inspect and replace the MagSafe port or the battery or cables or the Logic board (or even a combination of some or all of the above).

You did good work making sure it’s not something simple so unless you missed a stuck pin in your adapter or physical debris in the MagSafe port, time for a repair.

Battery is not charging despite SMC reset
Battery not charging? (Even after SMC reset)

There are probably dozens of other similar or duplicate questions here if you search on the right or use the main search.


Force a change to a program's key bindings

No resource file hacking necessary; it's all built in to the GUI. And not only that, but Apple's even documented it:

Using global keyboard shortcuts
Creating keyboard shortcuts for applications

(the above assumes you're on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, but everyone with a supported system should be by now.)


If your iPhone also received a telegram call - it will pass that off to all your devices if you have Calls on Other Devices enabled.

I would review the DND settings on your phone (or other iOS devices) and then verify you are OK with the Calls on Other Devices settings.

This is found in the settings app > Phone section in the calls subsection towards the middle on iOS 13.

Either way, pretty peculiar failure - I wonder if it's just slow to fail or that your call times out by the time the iPhone wakes your iPad and the call goes to "voicemail" and wasn't quashed at all other than slow wakeup wasn't slow enough.


The feature description is a bit misleading. It appears that by "close Notes", Apple means "close the main Notes window", not "close the Notes app", which (not surprisingly) leaves other windows open.

In fact, the context menu refers to the main Notes window as Notes:

So what Apple's description basically means:

  Even if you close Notes, the note stays open on your desktop.

= You don't need to use the overview window at all times. You can use Notes.app similar to Stickies.app

By the way, Stickies.app is still available in Mountain Lion and has been upgraded to version 9.0.


See if this link provides you with some useful knowledge. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/change-processor-speed-macbook-pro-43635.html

It's likely that the MBP is automatically scaling the processing power back to conserve battery power, but that isn't necessarily the only cause.


Will upgrading my Mac result in the loss of my data?

Normally, nothing untoward will happen.

However, nothing is 100% certain, ever.

Backups are a necessary part of life. You really, really should always have at least one, preferably two; one being off-site.


How to set permissions on network interfaces?

Wireshark ships a StartupItem that does just that; however, the StartupItems API is deprecated:

 The SystemStarter utility is deprecated.  System services should instead
 be described by a launchd.plist(5).  See launchd(8) for more details.
 The launchd utility is available on Mac OS X 10.4 and later.

 In earlier versions of Mac OS X, the SystemStarter utility is used to
 start, stop, and restart the system services which are described in the
 /Library/StartupItems/ and /System/Library/StartupItems/ paths.

So, since you're asking for "the most elegant solution", that would be a launch daemon.

I haven't tried the following code, but it should be roughly correct.

Create a file /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.stackexchange.apple.bpf-helper.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.stackexchange.apple.bpf-helper</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.stackexchange.apple.bpf-helper.sh</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

And a file /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.stackexchange.apple.bpf-helper.sh:

#!/bin/sh
chgrp admin /dev/bpf*
chmod g+rw /dev/bpf*

Both should be owned by root:wheel. The first should be 644; the second 755 (600 and 700, respectively, will probably do as well).

You can use launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.stackexchange.apple.bpf-helper.plist to try it without a reboot.


List of emoji substitutions for Messages in Mac OS X

This list is based off of the old iChat plist and scripting the list of emoticons from Wikipedia into Messages.app:

 :)
 ;)
 :(
 B)
 :D
 D:
 :d
 ;p
 :p
 :o
 :s
 :x
 :|
 :/
 :[
 :>
 :@
 :*
 :!
 o:)
 >:-o
 >:-)
 :3
 (y)
 (n)
❤ <3

Note most support using - for a nose so :-) works for  as well.


Show Extension Builder absent in Develop menu in Safari 13

Removed support for Legacy Safari Extensions.

from Safari 13 Release Notes

which I interpret as no support for developing legacy ones either. How would you develop an extension which you can't even run/test on the browser?

You might need to build a new one  or convert the older one.


Why would Preview save just my annotations?

Select All and Delete would have been done the trick :)  You've deleted the screenshot (which was in the background) but kept the annotations.


A SIPE plugin is under development. Here's a link to an Adium plugin binary: dropbox

And here's the link to the Adium issue tracking system so you can follow progress: trac.adium.com

Looks like a number of people are interested and development is active.

See comment 144 for plugin installation instructions.


How to add the /tmp folder to Favorites on the Sidebar of Finder?

While in Finder...

Press shiftcommandG to bring up Go to the folder:, then type in /private and press enter.

Now preform one or the other of the following actions:

Select the tmp folder and press: controlcommandT

Or

Drag the tmp folder to Favorites in the Sidebar.

The first method places the folder at the bottom of the existing Favorites, whereas the second method allows one to drag it where one wants. It also can be dragged after the fact to change its position in the Favorites.

Both methods have been tested by me to work in OS X Mountain Lion, OS X El Capitan, macOS High Sierra and I see no immediate reason one or the other will not work in other versions of OS X/macOS that actually support this action.


Why is my iOS Reminders app slow and unstable when invoked by Siri?

The fix to this problem is due to the fact that the reminders list that it was attempting to add to (... which is the one that was configured in iOS as the "Default reminders list") was a very old and very full list.   It was not super full of un-completed reminders, but the number of past COMPLETED reminders was over 8,000.

So, to fix the slowness, I simply created a new reminders list in my iPhone. Then I configured this new reminders list to be the "Default reminders list."

After that point in time, Siri commands to create new reminders work smoothly and quickly.  (AND, related to that final bullet, this new reminders list was fully visible, not empty, in the iCloud web app.)


Does Fantastical support viewing free/busy information from Google Calendar?

Fantastical mention free/busy information (aka availability) in the FAQ for the Mac version.

  Fantastical 2 does not currently support replying to Exchange
  invitations, marking Exchange events as private, or viewing the
  availability of other Exchange users.

They also answered this question about their iPad version through their Flexibits Twitter account back in April 2014.

  Sorry, Fantastical 2 for iPad won’t let you view free/busy time for
  meeting invitees.

Note they are talking about Exchange, but given it is arguably the most popular source of free/busy information its not a huge leap to assume the same for Google Calendar.

UPDATE 30 March 2016 Flexibits just released a new version of Fantastical for Mac (version 2.2) that includes support for viewing free/busy information. As above, they focus on Exchange support, but Google Calendar is mentioned too.

  ... new in version 2.2 is our spiffy invitee availability view. When
  using a compatible service — such as Google or Exchange — you’ll be
  able to see your invitees’ availability and let Fantastical instantly
  schedule a meeting for when you’re all free, saving you the time of
  coordinating with multiple people. (iCloud does not support
  availability.)


Okay, I think I see what's happening:

As it sounds like you may have already figured out, you can forward multiple texts by:

Holding an individual text until the "copy/more" dialog pops up.
Picking "More"
Clicking the circle next to the left of each text you want to forward.
Clicking the "share" arrow on the lower right
Picking who you want to send them to

But, there are two possible problems:

The "recipient" you're picking in step 5 above is the recipient for a
text or iMessage; there's no way to select email instead.
The forwarded texts lose the "speaker" indicator, so with multiple texts, it's a little hard to see who said what.

If you only care about getting the messages into an email (and don't need the speaker) first issue, the easiest solution is this:

Go to the text you forwarded yourself with all the texts lumped
together (that you got by following the 5 steps above)
Hold your finger on it until "Copy/More" appears
Pick copy
Copy it into an email, and send it to yourself, print it, etc.

If you need to print something that indicates who was speaking, your best bet may be this:

Go to the beginning of the dialogue you want in your texts.
Hold the Home button, and press the power button without letting go of home.
You'll see a white flash, indicating that the hone took a screen capture.
If all the messages you needed didn't fit on one screen, scroll to the next set, and repeat.
Once you have done this for all the messages you need, go to the "Photos" app, and open "Camera Roll" - you'll see those screen captures as the most recent images.
Click "select" in the upper right corner, then select all the pics you need.
Hit the "share" button in the lower left corner, then pic "Mail"

That will let you email yourself (or anyone else) printable images of the text conversation.  Note that they'll be pics, so you can't edit the text, etc.


As of 10.10.3 Apple does apparently support MST* on certain hardware:

  These Mac computers support multi-stream transport (MST) displays at 60 Hz:

  MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) and later,
  MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) and later,
  Mac Pro (Late 2013),
  iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) and later

From: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206587

*Unfortunately it does appear to be limited to an MST display that relies on multiple streams like the 4K MST Displays mentioned further down on the Apple Support page, and not MST for chaining multiple DP1.2 Displays as I haven't been able to find any information about this being possible.

From my own testing with the new MacBook Pro 2016 13" with two thunderbolts ports, a StarTech DP 1.2 USB Type-C to DisplayPort cable, two Dell U2414H and a standard DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable to chain with, the display on the end of the chain just mirrors the other display. This is with DisplayPort 1.2 enabled in the settings on both displays.

Which seems to confirm that MST DisplayPort daisy chaining on OSX 10.12.2 on the 2016 MacBook Pro line is unsupported, with no sign of it getting supported anytime soon.


Google Sheets can also open Excel files. Create a new sheet and once it loads go to File>Import. You can then Export, File>Download, as .xlsx. Might be worth a try...
https://www.google.com/sheets/about/


A good Multimeter is fantastic - I use one all the time - however it's not clear from your question just how you're using a Multimeter to take your measurements?

Considering we're talking about a fairly recent model MacBook Pro, I suspect you haven't opened it up to take these measurements. Instead, I recommend you download and install coconutBattery1. It provides a whole heap of information that you'll find useful, and from memory includes both Discharging and Charging measurements in watts!

Some thoughts

It's not clear from your question why you're investigating all this? Unless you've actually got a problem you're trying to address, using the charger that came with your MBP should be perfectly fine. Also, in relation to you not finding any articles that indicate what a normal USB PD output is relative to the devices they connect to, that's because PD stands for Power Delivery and most of these devices are just designed to allow the power travel through them from the charger to the device being charged.

In other words, you can use a hub with a USB-C PD port with a 2017 MacBook Pro and also use it with a HP Elitebook and the voltage/watts will differ, depending on the device and charger.

1 I am not affiliated with coconutBattery in any way.


Is it possible to go from pre-installed Mavericks to Mountain Lion on my new Macbook Pro?

According to Apple, you should not install previous versions of OS X than the version that came with your Mac. Since your Mac came with Mavericks, you should not install Mountain Lion. But if you want ML, then it may be possible with the following caveats.

  Both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs ship with a certain version of Mac OS X (or Mac OS X Server) on their installation disc(s). You should not install a version of Mac OS X earlier than that which came with your Mac.

  If you install an earlier (previous) version of the Mac OS X than what was included, your computer may exhibit unexpected behavior such as:

  The trackpad or mouse may not respond properly
  The computer may stop responding
  Sleep/wake issues may occur
  The display image may appear to "shrink" with black bars around it, may appear tinted, or have other issues
  Loss of built-in audio
  Loss of Bluetooth or AirPort functionality
  May not start up past the Apple logo

Source: Apple KB — Don't install a version of Mac OS X earlier than what came with your Mac


how to get path for multiple files correctly through applescript or through terminal

The selection in Finder returns a list, so here is an example of how I'd handle things:

Example AppleScript code:

tell application "Finder"
    set theSelection to selection
    if theSelection is {} then
        return
    else if (theSelection count) is equal to 1 then
        set thePathFilename to the quoted form of POSIX path of (theSelection as string)
    else
        set thePathFilename to {}
        repeat with i from 1 to (theSelection count)
            copy (quoted form of POSIX path of (item i of theSelection as string)) & space to end of thePathFilename
        end repeat
        set thePathFilename to thePathFilename as string
    end if
end tell

If there is no selection when the script runs, it stops processing.
If only one item is in the selection, the thePathFilename contains one quoted POSIX Path Filename of the selected item, as a string.
If more then one item is in the selection, the thePathFilename contains the quoted POSIX Path Filename of each of the selected items, as a string, with a space after each.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not employ any error handling and is meant only to show one of many ways accomplish a task. The onus is always upon the User to add/use appropriate error handling as needed/wanted.


This AppleScript code works for me using the latest version of macOS Big Sur.
set filePath to "/tmp/test.txt"
tell application "Finder"
    delete filePath as POSIX file
end tell

This also works for me…
set filePath to POSIX file "/tmp/test.txt"
tell application "Finder"
    delete filePath
end tell


Cisco AnyConnect denies connection after failing to recognize antivirus

I cannot say I fully grok how anti-virus comes into play with your VPN software, but AnyConnect is a notoriously flaky VPN client. You are better off using the native VPN connection built into the OS. You will need to create a new Cisco VPN connection and most importantly, You will need the gateway IP, Group ID, and shared secret for your connection from your IT folk. You may find them quite reasonable about giving your that especially if you are are being locked out and can solve your problem with some self-sufficiency.


Errors from whatis command. Unable to rebuild database with makewhatis?

The following can be used as a workaround for the macOS 10.15.1 version of the apropos command, wherein it spews out complaints of the form makewhatis: /usr/lib/lib … .dylib: Not a directory.

First create the workaround script:

$ mkdir -p ~/workarounds
$ sed -e 66s@/usr/lib@@ /usr/bin/apropos > ~/workarounds/apropos.macos_10.15.1
$ diff /usr/bin/apropos ~/workarounds/apropos.macos_10.15.1
66c66
<     for d in /var/cache/man $manpath /usr/lib
---
>     for d in /var/cache/man $manpath
$ chmod +x ~/workarounds/apropos.macos_10.15.1

Next add an alias to your shell to tell it to use the workaround script, until a newer version of the canonical script becomes available.

For Zsh you can use the following command:

$ /bin/cat <<END >> ~/.zshrc
# Workaround for broken apropos command.
alias apropos=~/workarounds/apropos.macos_10.15.1
END

For other shells such as ksh or bash, use ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile, as appropriate.

What does the workaround do?

Apropos requests (and man -k requests) are handled by the /usr/bin/apropos script. That script searches for “whatis” database files in all the directories of the man path (see man —path), plus /var/cache/man and /usr/lib. The checks for /var/cache/man/whatis and /usr/lib/whatis appear to be there for historical reasons, however those files are not actively generated in Mojave or Catalina. A lot of different people have contributed to the various flavours of Unix over the years, and many of them had different good ideas about where to put different types of files. At some point in time, somebody decided that /usr/lib would be a good place to put a whatis file, and at some other point somebody else figured that /var/cache/man would be a good place. Others thought that the appropriate place would be the respective man page directories. Different solutions that seemed appropriate at the time. The apropos script has traditionally checked those locations in case a whatis file was present.

With the move to making the system directories on Catalina read-only (a good move), whatis database files can not be written to directories such as /usr/share/man. There are different ways that Apple could handle that, but for this release somebody decided to alter the apropos script by making it generate results on the fly by calling /usr/libexec/makewhatis.local for any man page directory that does not contain a whatis file.

That new apropos code works fine for actual man page directories, and for /var/cache/man (since it doesn’t exist), but it fails for /usr/lib. The workaround detailed above just eliminates /usr/lib from the list of directories searched.

As a final step, set yourself a reminder for a month or two from now to check whether Apple has fixed the apropos script. If so remove your workarounds, by removing the alias and the workaround script.


15 inch Macbook Pro with Retina Display-dual Gateway monitors

Certainly. The Retina MacBook Pro has one HDMI output and two Thunderbolt ports, so you can run the internal display and three external monitors as long as you can accept HDMI on your third monitor (with or without an adapter/converter).

Any mini-DisplayPort adapter from Apple will work from Thunderbolt in addition to adapters labeled as Thunderbolt.


Mac issues: grey screen, cannot reinstall mac os from recover, unapproved caller

In case anyone is interested, I took the Mac to the Apple Store and the issue was the Mac hard drive cable. They replaced it and it works fine now.


If your device is jailbroken, you can install the ffmpeg package:

 ffmpeg

This package is open source on GitHub nin9tyfour/FFmpeg-iOS-build-script which you can use to build a more recent version and manually install it yourself if the version of ffmpeg provided by this package is insufficient for your needs.

You can use the package from the command line using a Terminal.

 NewTerm 2

A terminal emulator package, installable with Cydia.

  NewTerm is a continuation of the Mobile Terminal project, a versatile terminal emulator for iOS.

You can also use an SSH app from the App Store, however this requires you to change your SSH port from 22 since iOS prevents localhost access to port 22, so suggestions for apps and instructions are out of scope for this question.


What is the maximum resolution for a second monitor attached to a MBP Retina?

From the Tech Specs page over at Apple:

13":

  Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, at millions of colors

15":

  Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, at millions of colors


Is there an easy way to track quality of code in my xcode project for ios?

Swift-Clean

An OS X app that works with Xcode to keep your Swift code clean. Swift-Clean takes the answers you give to a short survey on Swift coding style and creates a configuration file. The Mac app then uses this to either fix errors automatically or create build warnings if it can't. Once you've completed the survey, you can not only download your own configuration file, but you can also choose from the average of all responses or the Stack Overflow results.

Taylor

A tool that aims to improve Swift code quality, by checking for conformance of code metrics. Unlike similar linting tools, Taylor focuses on more subjective code quality metric by providing warnings for rules such as excessive class or method length, too many overly complicated methods, excessive block depth or too many method parameters. It can be run independently from the command line on a single file or a complete project, or you can add a build phase to add warnings to Xcode.


Macbook Pro Application Switcher automatically moves to far right?

I'm having this same issue. I use Command+Tab very frequently, and I would say about 50% of the time lately, when I switch applications, the selector doesn't stop. It just flows all the way to the right. I am running the 10.10.4 beta preview which might have something to do with it. To the original poster, are you running a beta or a normal public release?


Is there an app for iphone that can notify me whenever my mac powers on?

You could certainly script this. There are many approaches that would work. It depends on how comfortable you are with the various tools, and if your Mac automatically logs into a user account.

If your Mac automatically logs into your account on powering on, consider using Automator or AppleScript, and Twitter.

Automator and Twitter

Consider combining this article on Automator and Twitter. You could send a private tweet when your account is logged in. Save the workflow as an application and add it your account's Login Items: System Preferences > Users & Groups

Alternative Approaches

If your Mac does not automatically log into a user account, you will need to use a shell script approach. Automator and AppleScript both require an active user session.

You could use AppleScript or shell script for sending a messages or e-mail. Add launchd or a third party tool for scheduling the event on start-up or login.

This can all be integrated into IFTTT as a trigger.


Does replugging a Thunderbolt display necessitate a system restart?

Is there any danger in hot-plugging and un-plugging an external (Apple) Thunderbolt monitor (from USB-C)?

It is absolutely normal to hot-plug/unplug an external display connected over Thunderbolt or USB-C port of your Mac.

It is not required to shutdown your Mac just to plug/unplug an external display.


AdobePDFViewerNPAPI shows up in Mission Control

The easiest way is to just use a different PDF plugin for Safari. There are instructions on how to do that here.


On-screen text unexpectedly read to me, despite Voiceover (Mac) being disabled

Edit:

Read this Apple Discussions article.

I think this is the same problem you are having.

  I think I got it. I was sitting at the screen when a message popped up with the voice over. There was a little spanner icon in the top right which allowed me to turn off this feature.


Display Arrangement disappears with 3 external monitors with MacBook Pro

It might be that you have exceeded the maximum resolution that the graphics sub-system supports. From Apple's specifications for your Mac:

Video Support
Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and:
Up to two displays with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors
Up to four displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at 60Hz at millions of colors
Up to four displays with 3840-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors

You'll have to keep your resolution settings below the figures listed above. My guess is that you may have one or more monitors that exceeds the specific resolution on one or more displays.
If, however, they do not exceed those specifications I would say that should warrant a call to Apple tech support (free support for the first (I think) 90 days) and see if they can troubleshoot the issue with you.


It looks like there exists a line :wq in one of your shell’s profile files, such as ~/.bash_profile, which was probably added as a failed attempt at quitting Vim when editing such a file.

To edit the bash profile with TextEdit, run open -e ~/.bash_profile in Terminal. Edit the file to remove the :wq line only. Save it, quit TextEdit and restart Terminal to see changes. You might want to make a copy of the file in case you're worried: cp ~/.bash_profile ~/.bash_profile.bak.

If you don’t want to use Terminal at all, see this answer How to add the PATH for mysql bin on Mac? with instructions on how to edit a profile file only using GUI.


Where are the images for a .pkg / .dmg file located?

Images for most document types are provided by the application associated with that document type. For example, if you have TextEdit set as the default application for opening .txt files, the Finder will use an icon from TextEdit.app/Contents/Resources for those files (the exact icon file is controlled by TextEdit.app/Contents/Info.plist). But if you switch the default application to, say, BBEdit, then it'll switch to using the icon from BBEdit.app/Contents/Resources.

Installer packages and disk images work this way, so their icons are /System/Library/CoreServices/Installer.app/Contents/Resources/package.icns and /System/Library/CoreServices/DiskImageMounter.app/Contents/Resources/diskcopy-doc.icns respectively.


Why is iPhone Software Update twice as large in iTunes than on iPhone

iTunes does not download the same file as your device does.

When you download the update/upgrade directly to your device, you are downloading a delta update. This means that only the parts of the system which have changed are downloaded, and the rest is left the same. Updates are downloaded this way to reduce the download size.

iTunes could also download a delta update, but doesn't because it saves the downloaded data for later. Instead, it downloads the entire firmware image. There are two reasons to do this. First, you can use your computer to update another device, which could be running a different version of iOS. If it only downloaded a delta update, then it would need to perform a second download for the other version, since there may be different parts of the system which have changed. With the entire firmware, it already has everything it needs (provided that the two devices are the same model, so they use the same firmware). Secondly, you can use iTunes to restore a device which is not working. During a restore, the entire image must be written, since it is not known what parts need to be replaced, so a delta update could not be used.


What's the aperture/sensor size for the mid-2011 27" iMac FaceTime HD camera?

tl;dr - As a starting off point, eyeballing it I'd estimate around ƒ/2.2 - ƒ/2.8 aperture.

This isn't an exact answer, I put the iPhone 7+ front camera (which has a ƒ/2.2 aperture and a 'focal length in 35mm' of 32mm) next to the 720p FaceTime HD camera on a macbook. Eyeballing it, the image on the mac seems to be the same or maybe ~5% smaller in FOV. So I estimate around ƒ/2.2 - ƒ/2.8 , maybe ƒ/2.4 in aperture.


The OS X GUI won't accept any passwords (but the command line will)

After checking the system log at the suggestion of @Asmus, I tracked the problem down to a misbehaving PAM module. (It had been working fine for weeks; I don't know why it suddenly screwed everything up.) Thanks to everyone who commented!


Redirect IP traffic with 'pfctl' on macOS

If your traffic is coming from your computer and since the destination isn't your computer the from can't be 127.0.0.1. The from IP  is the IP address associated with the interface to use to reach 10.20.154.24.

To make an easy test, just start by removing the part from 127.0.0.1 in your rdr rule, so as to catch all traffic tcp to 10.20.154.24 port 1111 which will include the one you want to redirect.

Next, and if this is necessary, check your outgoing interface IP address with:

ifconfig en0

(because I bet your interface is the WAN one, but adapt to your real case).


MacOS 10.15 Catalina asks "AMPDevicesAgent wants to use your confidential information stored in iOS backup in your keychain"

The process name is a legitimate process running as part of an iOS device local backup. Enter your login Keychain password to proceed.

To check that the prompt is actually on behalf of the right process, open Activity Monitor, search for the process name, select Sample Process and confirm the path is within

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AMPDevices.framework

The real fix to stop the error message from appearing is to add AMPDevicesAgent access to iOS Backup in Keychain, which you can do from Keychain Access as usual (link to my blog post has steps if you need, I think it’s a bit off topic for this Q&A).


iPhone Activation lock with an unknown Apple ID

You should go to Apple as they can bypass the iCloud lock with proof that you are the owner of the said iPhone.


To re-download Office for Mac 2011 go to Microsoft's Office for Mac 2011 Download Site and after choosing a language version, entering your serial number, and completing the CAPTCHA you should get a link.

In the common browsers like Safari, Firefox and Google Chrome the site looks like scam but it seems to be legit.


Can I set custom album artwork that isn't included in one of the songs?

Yes, you can do this a few different ways depending on whether you want to preserve the current artwork or are OK overwriting it.

Way 1 — Simple if you are OK overwriting the current artwork.

Select all of the songs you would like to share the same album artwork.
Type Command-I.
You may see a dialog asking "Are you sure you want to edit information for multiple items?" if so click, "Yes" to continue.
You will see a editor like this:
Drag the image you want as the album artwork for these songs onto the well labeled Artwork.
Click OK and you're done.

Way 2 — If you want to preserve the current artwork.

iTunes allows songs to have multiple artwork files associated with them. It displays the first artwork file as the album art for a particular song. Here's the slightly more painful way you could add your artwork to these songs.

In the main iTunes window make sure that you have the small album art window displayed in the lower left. You can toggle it's visibility by clicking the icon near the bottom left that looks like this:
Select the songs you want to add art to.
Drag your new art onto the cover in the lower left.
Your art has been appended to the end of the stack of images associated with this file.
Now the annoying part: you have to open the info panel for each file by selecting it and hitting Command-I.
For each file move the new image to the top of the stack to make it the default album image and click OK.
Once you complete step 5&6 for each file you're done.


What does this bogus route (0&0x68 c8.c8.c8.c8...) mean in my routing table?

Although I couldn't reproduce it on my MacBook Pro (OS X 10.8.2), some users have reported a similar behavior, including the creation of a bogus route:

Destination        Gateway            Flags        Refs      Use   Netif Expire
(...)
128.0&0x8600  ff.ff.ff.ff.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.5.ff.ff.ff.86.0.0.0.88.0.5.14.5.0.68.c.1.9.0.0.7.0. 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.7f.ff.ff.ff.0.0.0.0.dc.5.0.0.0.0.0.0.8d.c.5a .4f.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0. 0.0.10.2.0.0.a9.fe.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.14.12.5.0.6.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0 .6.ff.ff.ff.ff.ff.0.0.7c.0.5.14.1.0.68.c.7.8.0.0.3.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0 .0.0.0.0.7f.ff.ff.ff.0.0.0.0.0.40.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.c0.0.0.0.c0.0.0.0.0.0.0. 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.10.2.0.0.ac.1c.84 USc             0        4     en0

when putting the computer to sleep while using a VPN connection over WiFi. This doesn't seem to be your case, as you see such a route right after starting your Mac.

I can't tell you what's going wrong here, but there is a post in the link above that mentions that it could be fixed without a reboot like this:

  Turning off tcp/ip and turning it back on worked like a charm.

If you want to give it a try, open System Preferences, select the Network pane and, if necessary, click the lock icon to make changes:

Select your open connection from the list on the left hand side (Ethernet or WiFi), press the button Advanced..., select the TCP/IP tab, set Configure IPv4 to Off:

and confirm by pressing OK. Set TCP/IP back to its original setting.

Hope it helps.


How do I change iOS settings to "not" sync notes over the air with iCloud

If you are being returned the following iTunes message (see screenshot below). Make sure to only have a single notes account called "On My iphone". You can access your iPhone notes account by opening the Notes app on your iPhone and tapping on "Accounts".

You can bring all of your iCloud notes to your "On My iPhone" account as per these directions: How to transfer iCloud notes to "On My iPhone" account


What does this button do in the iTunes device sync status bar?

It is the skip button for skipping the current process. The button usually only shows on skippable actions and is most commonly shown for an iOS device iTunes backup.


Wireless mouse stopped working with monitor USB port

Shutting down the Mac, unplugging all the cables from the monitor, and unplugging monitor power for several minutes solved the problem.

I had tried unplugging the monitor briefly earlier, but that was insufficient.


View amount of time left when uploading files to iCloud

The way to check all percentages is:
brctl monitor com.apple.CloudDocs | grep %

Possibly some other commands will help as well if the above has too much detail. Open terminal.app and issue the command:
brctl log -w

That will dump all sorts of iCloud sync data and debugging status - most of which won't be relevant, but you can watch it over time to see if any of the internal information allows you to calculate things or just know that something is happening or has had an error.
brctl status | grep foreground

The above command will show active containers and you might be able to monitor the specific container that has activity in a second window:
brctl monitor com.apple.CloudDocs | grep filename

The monitor command could slow things down as it dumps a lot of status to my screen as I have a lot of files in iCloud currently - but it does show periodic % estimates for the specific files being uploaded. Change filename to match a file or folder you want to check on.
All of the commands that run indefinitely above can be quit with Control + C


Deleting a partition in Disk Utility fails. (Error: -69879)

Never mind - problem solved.

Turns out that the whole drive's partition table cannot be modified if one partition has encryption on, since CoreStorage is on. (The one that I had on was the encrypt feature for Time Machine.)


Is there a detailed activity log on Mac OS X that lists my recent commands and actions?

Not at that level of detail by default.  Logging is available for many actions by checking out your console app and taking a look at contents, but it's down to each app to decide what level of system logging is needs to do to be useful.  Increased logging is very useful to aid in debugging and to understand user problems, but at the cost of the management and performance hits of dealing with enormous log files.  In your case, the finder doesn't log each individual file creation or amendment, but you may be able to find other finder replacements which have customization debug level logging to achieve this.


How to disable Camera and Screen Share for all applications (globally) in mac Using MDM?

The only MDM I currently have access to is Jamf Pro.
In Jamf Pro create a new configuration profile and in the left hand list select "Restrictions". Now in the main window select "Functionality" and the second and third items control the camera and screen recording.


MBP + external monitor : alternative to "scaled" display to have smaller apps?

You don't say exactly what resolutions you're using, but if you use the native 4K resolution without scaling, then that will display everything as small as possible.
The whole point of using a 'scaled' display is to keep the clarity of the high-pixel density, while enlarging the screen objects, such as buttons, text, etc.


On login, I am only given the Guest user option. How do I log into my account?

I think safe mode would work better. Here are the instructions, from the Apple Support website

  To start up into Safe Mode (to Safe Boot), do this:

  Be sure your Mac is shut down.
  Press the power button.
  Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold the Shift key. The Shift key should be held as soon as possible after the startup
  tone, but not before the tone.
  Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple icon and the
  progress indicator (looks like a spinning gear).

Once your in, go to System Preferences and disable Find My Mac (iCloud settings) and Guest User (Users and Groups). Reboot. You should be able to login normally. If you would still like a guest user, just go back and enable Find My Mac.


How to make `sudo su` run startup scripts?

Your information is incorrect. /bin/sh on macOS is actually a real bash shell. The manual you have found is for a Windows program that "mimics" a Linux environment on Windows. It doesn't have anything to do with macOS.

The profile files for bash are:

/etc/profile
~/.bash_profile
~/.bash_login
~/.profile

Note that ~ and $HOME are the same thing. They both mean that it refers to the user's home folder.

The problem you're seeing is because you're using the command sudo su. This means that you use sudo to start su in order to get an interactive non-login shell. This means that the profile files are not executed - instead only .bashrc is executed.

What you want is really a login shell, which would mean that the profile files are executed. You can do that by using the command sudo su - instead.


Apple keyboard remap keypad comma to dot?

The simplest solution is to create the file  DefaultKeyBinding.dict in /Users/[user]/Library/KeyBindings if it does not already exist, and add the remapping:
{
   "#," = ("insertText:", ".");
}

Then logout or restart the mac.
The # indicates the remapping is for the keypad only. More reference for that file: https://gist.github.com/trusktr/1e5e516df4e8032cbc3d


Select a poster frame for video thumbnails in Photos app?

You can set Poster Frames via Photos.app on macOS.

Setting via the Mac does sync the custom poster frame to your iOS devices via iCloud Photos.

Play a video in Photos for Mac
Pause the video at the intended frame
Press the gear icon and select Set Poster Frame


Error message com.apple.Safari.History was closed unexpectedly

Folks,
I have a workaround doing ok on an iMac 5k with 10.11.6 with the latest update and the same error.

I open System Preferences - Spotlight and un-check "Bookmark & History".
Then quit Safari.
Again open System Preferences - Spotlight and check "Bookmark & History".
Try a spotlight search. For me it worked.
I also could start Safari again and the error does not come back.

BUT the error is back after restart, maybe also after hibernating (did not test yet).

Maybe the workaround works for you as well until there is a fix.

By the way, letting spotlight create a whole new index did not help, so likely you can spare that try.

Cheers Sepp


great question... I've been looking for a tool that will allow me to emulate TouchCursor for Windows on the mac for a long time.  Tried Ukelele, DoubleCommand, and some others that I can't remember right now :)  KeyRemap4Macbook seemed to be closest to what I needed, but I could never get around to configuring it how I wanted it.  Your mileage may vary.

Check out this page that gives some of the aforementioned programs and start playing :)


Can I use my Nexus 4 charger to charge an iPhone 4s?

Because USB is a standard of 5V at 100mA increments, the charge should work without any problem.  Some chargers sadly prevent themselves from working unless you use their device with their charger.  You are much more likely to find a charger decides not to work with your phone than the charger will break your phone.


iPhone buyer requesting I set passcode before shipping

I think that’s something reasonable to request. It guarantees you can either activate the device and it’s working well enough for a passcode to be set and doesn’t erode your privacy in any manner.

I’d indulge the buyer to see what they want. You could still be scammed and not get payment or have the buyer say they didn’t get the phone - so you’ll want traceable delivery / shipment or be willing to get a claim you didn’t provide the goods.

But, the passcode is neither here nor there in my eyes as making a transaction risky or safe.


How to stop vibrating on new Mail using iOS 7?

Go to; Sounds -> New Mail -> Vibration (at the top) -> Select "None" (in the bottom)


There are several causes for behavior like this, but in this case, the fix was really simple. My phone has a two-piece Anker protective case in which the front part covers the entirety of the screen, much like a screen protector. Some of the water got between the front of my phone case and the screen and was screwing up the touch screen responsiveness. All I needed to do was remove the phone case, wipe the water off of the front of the screen with my sleeve, and voila! Good as new. This has happened to me before but I forgot about it, so here is the fix for anyone else with this simple problem.