Java 7 JRE Not Detected on Clean Install of Mountain Lion

In Oracle's JRE 7 for Mac installation instructions, it states:

  Installing a JRE from Oracle will not:

  Update java -version symlinks or add java to your path.
  Show the installed JRE in the Java Preferences.app

  To be able to do the above,
   you need to install the JDK.

After installing the JDK, go to Applications > Utilities > Java Preferences.app and drag Java SE 7 to the top to indicate that it is preferred.  You may also switch off Java SE 6 entirely without uninstalling it.


There are two main options which I would go for:

Put your library and contents on a network volume

This is the option that I went for on my setup, mainly because I did not consider the second option at that point in time. This option works fine for me — even when the network drops (which is pretty rare): the data transfer pauses and continues when the network reconnects.

This works fine for my relatively large Aperture library, but I see no reason for this not to work in iPhoto.

✓ Easy to set up, just copy your entire library to a network drive and ⌥-launch iPhoto
✓ Uses no space on your local machine
✗ Possibly susceptible to network dropouts causing problems
Put your library on your local machine and the contents on a network volume

This alternative is probably better, but requires that you switch to Aperture. This way, you keep the library on your local machine but the media is stored on a network drive. This means that it uses very little space on your local machine but even if the network drops there is no chance of corruption/etc.

✓ Much less likely to have problems due to network dropouts
✓ Uses very little space on your local machine
✗ Does use some space on your local machine
✗ Harder to set up — not as simple as just copying your entire library


Trying to text someone with a Samsung Galaxy using a MacBook without an iPhone

One possibility is using SMS. In some places you have free, web-based SMS services that will allow you to text any phone in the country for free. In other places you have to pay a small amount to be able to do so.

Another is using third party apps such as Skype, WhatsApp or Signal.


f3 Fight Flash Fraud: "f3probe command not found" Mac OS Mojave

brew install f3 installs the two commands f3read and f3write into /usr/local/bin (but no f3probe).

From the README:

    make extra

.. note::
   - The extra applications are only compiled and tested on Linux
     platform.
   - Please do not e-mail me saying that you want the extra
     applications to run on your platform; I already know that.
   - If you want the extra applications to run on your platform, help
     to port them, or find someone that can port them for you. If you
     do port any of them, please send me a patch to help others.
   - The extra applications are f3probe, f3brew, and f3fix.


iPhone 6 iOS 9.3.2 – How to change date years back?

Settings > General > Date & Time
Switch off Set Automatically, then tap on the date underneath.

You get a standard date/time scroller.


How can I import GoPro mp4 video to iMovie 11?

This problem solved itself when I upgraded to the final OS 10.9 (Mavericks) and installed the latest iMovie.  Now I can import MP4 files from the GoPro right into iMovie.


OP Here.
I got it working by making my mini the gateway and making the AEBS a dumb access point (plugged into an internal-facing ethernet port), and also enabling the internet sharing on the mini.


Is there a slowing of app download speed when an iPad is locked?

"Background" is a confusing term, I don't think Apple refer to it at all, but prefer to use "Multitasking" and "Fast App Switching".  As introduced in iOS4, there are a limited number of functions that can maintain running when it is not the foremost app:

audio / VoIP / GPS & location / push notifications / local notifications / task completion / fast app switching

When you download stuff, say a podcast etc, you are really using the "task completion" service, where the program is allowed to continue running while a download completes, or even an upload etc.  This is limited to (I think) 10 minutes, and really is a request for more time.  Some apps game the system, particularly twitter style apps, by staying running and requesting 10 minutes of task completion time even through they don't have a specific task in hand, and just want to still be there when you flip back (hopefully in less than 10 minutes)...

As such, and of these 7 services are afford the same system priority as any other foreground task, so the only thing that should impact on a "background" download, is either a) the 10 minute slot running out, or b) the foreground app sharing the connection to do it's own thing.

As when you flip back, it will (if it supports the Fast App Switching feature) continue to download anyway, even if the 10 minutes have passed, it may well still have got 10 minutes of extra download, but with more to go.  This can make it look as though it has been downloading slowly in the background, when in reality it's been going full speed for 10 minutes, and then stopped until you switched back.


EDIT: Since you made your edit my answer is not valid.

In Apple store click on Store + View my Account

Sign in.

Bottom right just below the DONE click on the globe flag icon, and change to your country.


How can I use Atom as the default editor for "open"?

The open command is part of OS X and uses Finder's default “Open With…” application to open the file, just like double-clicking it in Finder. $EDITOR is used for things like fc where it is used as the default command-line editor (a replacement for vim or emacs).

To use Atom with the open command, you can select a file of the type you want in Finder, press ⌘ command+I for “Get Info”, and then change “Open With:” to Atom, and click “Change All…”.

Alternatively you can define an alias like

alias e="atom -nw"

in your .bashrc and then run e file-to-edit.txt whenever you want to edit a file in Atom.


How to prevent an encrypted APFS volume from automatically mounting?

Indeed that is the case, even in Mojave (Beta 2).

I have a solution which is quite a hack, but it works. It consists in creating a login script that unmounts the disk using diskutil after a delay.

Create login script

Putting it in home folder for simplicity

nano ~/unmountDisk.sh

put the following in it (replace Macintosh\ HD with the disk name you want to unmount, if needed)

#!/bin/bash
sleep 20  # don't do it immediately, wait until it is mounted
diskutil unmount Macintosh\ HD

save (ctrl-x then y, enter). Then make executable

chmod a+x ~/unmountDisk.sh

Create launchd agent

nano ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my.username.unmountDisk.plist

put the following in it (note: replace username with your username, especially after /Users/)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>my.username.unmountDisk</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array><string>/Users/username/unmountDisk.sh</string></array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Finally, enable it

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my.username.unmountDisk.plist

This should get the disk auto-unmounted shortly after login. If it doesn't work, maybe increase the delay (it was 20 seconds in the example). You can check if it works by opening Finder immediately after logging in; you should see the disk unmounting itself after a few seconds.

Make disk-read only

I also noticed that fstab can make the disk read only (could be done as well, for safety).

sudo vifs

then press G o and paste

LABEL=Macintosh\040HD none apfs ro


Moving dock between vertically arranged displays in OS X Mavericks and later

I have had success with my vertical arrangement by hovering the mouse in the orange areas to bring the dock to the top screen. On the bottom screen you can hover anywhere on the bottom of the monitor.

In your case, where your monitors are almost the same size, it might be a bit tricky to find a spot on the bottom of the top monitor where the cursor wont slip through to the bottom screen and prevent the trigger.


How to select buttons in a dialog using the keyboard?

You are probably searching for the option "Full Keyboard Access".

You can find it under System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts


How to set permanent default applications on El Capitan

Never face this, but I would say to delete the
/users//library/preferences/com.apple.launchservices.plist file
where  is your username

Then, define a preferred app for your PDFs, shutdown, restart and check


How to reverse Windows scrolling direction in both VMware and Boot Camp

Fortunately the HID device ids used when running bootcamp natively and running it under a VM (at least under the Parallels VM I use) are different. Here is what I did on Windows 10

Boot natively.
Identify the device ID's in use from the Mouse Control Panel

Start->Settings. Click on Devices. Click on Mouse. Click "Additional mouse options"
Click on the Hardware tab. You should see "HID compliant mouse" You may see more than one if you also have, e.g, a Magic Trackpad. Only the devices in use will appear here. In this case this means only those used when running natively.
Select each device and click the Properties button.
In the properties windows,, click the Events tab. The device ID is given in the Information box at the bottom.

Find each device in regedit (run it as Administrator). They are at

HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\HID\*\*\Device` Parameters

replacing the *'s with the ID you get from the mouse control panel.
Change the values of the FlipFlopWheel and FlipFlopHScroll properties to 1.

The command you used from https://superuser.com/a/364353 changes all HID devices in the registry having a FlipFlopWheel property. Unfortunately I haven't figured out any automated way to identify just those currently in use hence the manual method above.

If you've already run the script and set all devices to flip-flop, boot in the VM, follow the steps above to identify the "mouse" devices in use and change their FlipFlopWheel and FlipFlopHScroll properties back to 0.


App Store links don't work when App Store is running

It's annoying, but if you force close the App Store each time, it will pull up the correct link when you reopen it.


Safely deleting files downloaded by Safari

The Downloads folder is still usually visible to the user when empty. Some malware can be difficult to find and it may have even moved out of the Downloads directory. First, in Terminal, try chflags nohidden ~/Downloads and then cd ~/Downloads then ls. You can also try sudo chown Username:Staff ~/Downloads then sudo chmod 755 and then see if the folder and its contents are visible. Do they see any files in there then? If not, then try starting in Safe Mode. This startup mode allows macOS to start with only basic files that are required. To enter Safe Mode, reboot the Mac and hold Shift. You may need to login twice. Once you are in, try looking in Finder and Terminal for the downloads. You can also try applying the above Terminal commands again. Which version of macOS is the affected Mac running? If it is macOS Catalina, then Safari will always ask for confirmation before downloading the files. If none of the above are working, then your best bet is using Malwarebytes to remove malware found on your Mac. Good Luck!


Plug it in to USB power or a mac and hold the home button as it enters the reboot cycle. It should show the dock connector and iTunes screen. From there you don't need to restore the device (erasing everything) but can connect to iTunes and try powering off and rebooting with it connected to the iTunes can often help break out of a minor software issue.

Update added to most appropriate answer.

I went to the Apple store and they were able to run diagnostics on the phone, from there they were able to restore.


Problem installing apps in 4th generation iPod touch

The current available public version is iOS 12.3, with iOS 13 due for release soon. iPod touch 4th generation can't update past iOS 6.1.6, and it is not possible to install iOS 9 on it.

iOS 6 is pretty ancient and not a lot of 3rd apps support it. There has been major design changes starting with iOS 7, and architectural enhancements in later versions of iOS. Most 3rd party apps go as back as supporting iOS 9 and later. You are restricted to running the stock Apple apps and a very limited number of 3rd party apps that support running on iOS 6.


Why Finder opens same folder each time i create new window by tapping finder icon in dock?

Solved this by deleting com.apple.finder.plist
tutorial for deleting finder.plist

But i still wondering why this have happened.


Date/time was wrong on the iPhone. I bought a new sim, it connected to the internet (and then adjusted date/time automatically) and that did the trick.


How to send an email through an outlook.com alias email address on iOS?

I haven't found any actual answer for my question, but instead found a very good alternative.

Basically @icloud.com accounts also allow the creation of aliases that can be used in all iOS Mail apps, with one particular advantage: the alias allows changing the name of the recipient as well, something @outlook.com account aliases does not allow.

You can create @icloud.com aliases using the web interface options.


Having this weird issue where it's like my APFS container that I'm booted into is not mounted? (hackintosh)

First question, what version/build of OS X are you on? Is FileVaut enabled? Also you say you are booted into /dev/disk1 which is actually the container at disk0s4. If you are making partition changes, it is best you do not do it from the disk you are modifying, especially with a table like this.

APFS from my findings is really unstable still, and while it has some advantages, there are a lot of problems, and when they happen, they are hard to recover from.

Paste the output of diskutil apfs list. Make sure you do a direct copy and paste, not just from memory.

Also, make yourself a recovery drive to boot from when you make any changes, if you can even install a clean copy of Mac onto a USB3 and run it from there so you also can see how things appear in Finder, otherwise just a simple drive using createinstallmedia is fine. Link to the help on that is below.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372


High Sierra quicktime player does not support H.265 videos?

“All iOS devices running iOS 11 and all Macs on High Sierra will support HEVC playback”
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/hevc-video-macos-high-sierra-ios-11

Use QuickTime to encode the video to HEVC/H.265 so you can ensure it is encoded to the correct standards.
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Reference/HLSAuthoringSpec/Requirements.html

I’m guessing you were encoding using Handbrake.


How do I find and remove compilers on my Mac?

Those programs in the image can be removed by moving from Applications to the trash.

If you installed something from homebrew, the way of removing is the following:

brew list

This will show you a list of installed formulas. After the list comes to you, you have to select what you need to remove and use the command:

brew uninstall <formula>


Sharing non iTunes music on family sharing

Only locally with Home Sharing.

Apple states that with Family Sharing activated, you can share

  Music, movies, and TV shows from the iTunes Store.

but you can't share

  Songs added to iTunes Match from outside the iTunes Store.

For Home Sharing:

You have to rip all your cd's first.
Then open iTunes and turn on Home Sharing.

From Apple's Support:

  Open iTunes and make sure you have the latest version.
  Go to File > Home Sharing > Turn on Home Sharing.
  Enter your Apple ID and password. Make sure to use the same Apple ID when you set up Home Sharing on your other devices.
  Repeat these steps on other computers that you want to use with Home Sharing

This will only work with iTunes, Apple TV's and iDevices on the same network, and the sharing computer must be turned on.


How can an iPod touch play mp3 transferred as files on storage instead of Apple sync using iTunes?

The native app for music playing on the iPod touch assumes music files are stored in a database that indexes their local storage in a sandboxed manner. Since it was designed to only receive songs by syncing with itunes software directly from Mac or Windows supported OS, it’s not clear there is a general folder that gets indexed or processed for playing like some other apps that expect to be thrown a folder of files to play.
For Linux, you should use an alternative software "rhythmbox" to accomplish this import to the database of playable files.
If you use ifuse, it will only transfer the songs like an usb drive for storage only and not for playing. This mirrors the storage function of the original iPods where you could dump files, but they’re not indexed or processed for apps to use. The files app for iOS came after your version of iOS so this function to store and play arbitrary files came later than iOS 6 and isn’t available to you. Perhaps others know a player app that might be able to play these or jailbreak your device to add this function.


How does macOS know when to Automatically Adjust Brightness?

There is an ambient light sensor near the webcam (not part of the webcam) that is used for this. If you shine a flashlight on your camera, you'll see it about 75mm right of the camera.


How to properly register a file extension on mac so it will also work by running open from the command line?

If you selected Always Open With from a context menu, it only changes the default application for the selected items. If you change the default application from an information window, it normally also has an immediate effect on open.

If it wasn't that, com.apple.LaunchServices.plist can also be edited as XML:

plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

Applying changes requires restarting. Logging out and back in isn't enough.

You could also try using duti or RCDefaultApp.


You might try using a logout hook. Login and logout hooks are deprecated, but I believe they still function.
Mounting the volume should not be a problem; a user LaunchAgent would handle that nicely. The problem lies in trying to unmount the volume at logout. Have you considered writing a system LaunchDaemon that periodically polls the open APFS volumes and unmounts those that don't have an associated user? The volumes should be automatically locked by system security when they are unmounted, so I don't think you need to make a special effort for that, and it sounds like you're thinking more about cleanup than anything else. If you put the daemon on (say) a 30 second timer, it shouldn't consume too much in the way of resources, and volumes will only persist for an average of 15 second after logout.


Typical temperature of Retina MacBook Pro

the fans aren't above normal (cant hear them)

That's due to the new asymmetric fan blade spacing apparently spreads the noise across a higher range of frequencies.
source:  http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/12/20/patent-filings-detail-retina-macbook-pros-quiet-asymmetric-fans


Two Factor Authentication on 10.10.5 Yosemite

You need to be running El Capitan or later.

See Apple KB - Availability of two-factor authentication for Apple ID

If your Mac can run Yosemite, it can run El Capitan.


Why are load averages on macOS always over 1.0

My load averages are routinely 0.29 so we would need to look at your build and details to know why you’re over 1.0.
bmike@dev ~ % iostat 10
              disk0       cpu    load average
    KB/t  tps  MB/s  us sy id   1m   5m   15m
   12.20    7  0.08   0  0 99  0.13 0.16 0.18
    5.23    9  0.04   0  0 100  0.11 0.15 0.18
    5.18    2  0.01   0  1 99  0.10 0.15 0.18
    0.00    0  0.00   0  0 100  0.08 0.14 0.17
    0.00    0  0.00   0  0 100  0.07 0.14 0.17

The code that became macOS code measures relative task scheduling as opposed to core loading which is different than Linux I suppose. You will want to recalibrate your scripts if you take action upon this measure.

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/Mach/Mach.html
http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20090715034920

Asking why is tough since engineers committed the code and it shipped. Im not entirely sure if this is a BSD thing as much as Mach kernel, but it’s real on macOS.


How to restore OS X drive to factory defaults?

I booted into Internet Recovery Mode, erased the entire hard drive, and re-installed Mac OS X. This will reinstall the OS that came with the computer, recreate EFI and Recovery Mode partitions, and set CoreStorage volumes as if everything is set from factory defaults.

After this Recovery Mode works as expected.


Using the command line to show the physical and logical size of a folder contents?

You can use AppleScript to tell Finder to get the ‘size’ or ‘physical size’:

tell application "Finder" to ¬
    get (physical size of folder (POSIX file "/Applications" as alias)) ¬
        / (1000 ^ 3) ¬
        & " GB" as text

This can be ran in command line using osascript:

$ osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to get (physical size of folder (POSIX file "/Applications" as alias)) / (1000 ^ 3) & " GB" as text'
49.212469248 GB
$ osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to get (size of folder (POSIX file "/Applications" as alias)) / (1000 ^ 3) & " GB" as text'
55.858548673 GB


The Answer from Tomothy Sutton should help you with your issue

How to download Bootcamp drivers without Bootcamp assistant?
A list of what download you need: https://support.apple.com/de-ch/HT204048


How to type telnet escape character in OS X terminal

I enabled the Finnish and Swedish keyboard layouts and experimented with Terminal on OS X 10.8.5 a bit…

Control-å generated ^] (U+001D)
å (LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE) is an unmodified key in these layouts.
It is located where [ (LEFT SQUARE BRACKET) is with US layouts.
Control-ä generated ^[ (U+001B)
ä (LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS) is an unmodified key in these layouts.
It is located where ' (APOSTROPHE) is with US layouts.
Control-- generated ^_ (U+001F)
- (HYPEN-MINUS) is an unmodified key in these layouts.
It is located where / (SOLIDUS, a.k.a. “forward slash”) is with US layouts.

As normal, Control-Space generated ^@ (U+0000) and Delete generated ^? (U+007F).

I did not find any combination that generated ^\ (U+001C) or ^^ (U+001E) in Terminal though. There may be other combinations that work in other terminal emulators though (e.g. iTerm 2 in its default configuration arranges for Control with 2–8 generate the “non-alphabetic” control characters; this is similar to how xterm works).


How can I stop my iPhone displaying "iCloud Backup requires that you verify your password" repeatedly?

I personally had this same message. I turned off iCloud backups, then turned it back on. Settings > iCloud > Backup. While it did ask for my password the first time, it has not asked since.

If that doesn't work, I suggest to again, turn off iCloud backup, delete the backup, then turn it back on.

Settings > iCloud > Backup, turn off.
Settings > iCloud > Storage >
Manage Storage, locate the backup, tap edit in the top corner, and
delete.
Settings > iCloud > Backup, turn on.


I got a different disc and it worked. Apparently, the disc I originally tried was only to be used on the computer it came with.


This link on the Ubuntu forum explains how to install Ubuntu from a USB stick on a Mac.  I've done a few installations this way (when there was no working CD drive) and it works well.


Use specific local gcc and related libraries with Homebrew

No, it's not possible. When you install gcc, you must satisfied the required dependencies, otherwise this packages will be installed to ensure that works property.

Required: gmp ✔, libmpc ✘, mpfr ✘, cloog ✘, isl ✘

Same occurs on linux system, you can install gcc without it's dependencies:

Depends: cpp-4.8 (= 4.8.2-19ubuntu1), gcc-4.8-base (= 4.8.2-19ubuntu1), binutils (>= 2.24), libgcc-4.8-dev (= 4.8.2-19ubuntu1), libc6 (>= 2.14), libcloog-isl4 (>= 0.17), libgmp10, libisl10 (>= 0.10), libmpc3, libmpfr4 (>= 3.1.2), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
Recommends: libc6-dev (>= 2.13-0ubuntu6)


How to mount USB Drive in Single User Mode in Mac OS X

In order to run un-signed Kernel extensions in Mac, you need to
disable Apple Signature check for loading Kernel extensions.

Reboot Mac in Recovery mode(Command + R), then select the menu item "Utilities / Terminal", then run the command

csrutil disable

Reboot in Single User mode (Command + S)
Enter the following commands,

fsck –fy

mount –uw /

Create a directory to mount USB Drive

mkdir /Volumes/usbmnt

Before plugging in the USB Drive, get the list of "disk" devices available by running the command

ls -l /dev/disk*

Plug in the USB disk
Identify the new device entry for the USB disk by again running the command

ls -l /dev/disk*

Usually the disk will be mounted like '/dev/disk2s1'
Identify the file system of the USB disk

fstyp /dev/disk2s1

Based on the file system format, mount the USB Drive; my USB format was "FAT", so I used msdos:

mount_msdos /dev/disk2s1 /Volumes/usbmnt

That's it; now the USB drive is mounted.  Use the contents of the drive at the path filesystem "/Volumes/usbmnt".


In Reminders.

Select Repeat
Select Weekly
Select Custom
Select the days, e.g. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday


I use iTunes 10 in Windows 7.

Select the tracks.
Right-click and select Get Info.
Open the Options tab.
Set:
Equilizer Preset = Spoken Word
Media Kind = Audiobook
Part of a compilation = No
Remember position = Yes
Skip when shuffling = Yes
Gapless album = No
Press OK.

Also, make sure the correct track numbers and disc numbers are set for each track.


Using Late 2013 MacBook Pro with LG Ultrafine 4K Monitor - USB-C to Thunderbolt 2?

No. You need a USB-C connection to work that display.

You’ll spend hundreds of dollars to translate the video between formats since it basically is a small computer / device that takes power and re-encodes the signal.

Far cheaper and less hassle to resell your display (or trade / buy-sell used Macs) to get your gear on USB-C or not on USB-C.


Mac seems to ignore the result of local DNS for local hosts

This has been driving me mad for ages, anyway, I think that I have stumbled on the solution.

The way I had set up my dynamic DNS was that serv2.njj.chickenkiller.com was an alias for njj.chickenkiller.com(probably not the best way of doing this, but it meant that serv2 handled all the requests for njj.chickenkiller.com.

So when you query the server:

beethoven:~ nick$ host serv2
serv2.njj.chickenkiller.com has address 192.168.2.4
serv2.njj.chickenkiller.com is an alias for njj.chickenkiller.com.

So what I think is happening is that mDNSresponder was clever enough to cache njj.chickenkiller.com as an alias (and I assume that this doesn't happen on windows and linux), so when it did a subsequent DNS lookup for serv2, it tried to save time by sending a query for njj.chickenkiller.com (not serv2...), which it has cached as the alias. My local DNS server didn't recognize njj.chickenkiller.com as part of the local domain and responded by giving the external IP address.

To solve this I added njj.chickenkiller.com as an alias for serv2 in the hosts file used by dnsmasq:

# Fixed IP machines
192.168.2.1 gateway
192.168.2.2 wifi1
192.168.2.3 wifi2
192.168.2.4 serv2   njj.chickenkiller.com


How can I sync places between iPhone and computer?

Google Places does exactly that.

You can manage places through web interface or the iPhone app.
Places marked with a star (Saved for later) will be displayed in Saved section in the app:

You can rate and review places from the app as well.


The DVD drive is connected via SATA rev. 2.0 / 3Gbit/s. That means the SSD is gonna run at a max. of 300 MB/s approximately.

This link seems to indicate that there's at least a second drive bay (excluding the optical bay) inside the iMac, which runs at SATA rev. 3.0 / 6Gbit/s speed. It would be wiser to use either the second bay or upgrade your primary system SSD.

Since the above link mentions the need to upgrade the EFI firmware, one should be aware the latest firmware updates can be found at the Apple web site "About EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Mac computers".

If you want to add an internal SSD, you can take a look at the ifixit guides, they can be used as a very good indicator as to how difficult the procedure would be.

I would not recommend an external SSD. They are extremely expensive and don't really give you a plus. Thunderbolt SSDs are even more expensive because of their rarity. If I were you I'd consider the internal upgrade first.


Should I buy 2015 13 inch MBP or 2016 13 inch (non-touch bar) MBP

The crux of your question/decision seems to lie in the following assumption:

  Since Apple discontinue product after 5 years, so if I purchase 2015 model now I have 2.5 only years before it is discontinued. And after that if any part need replacement I will not be able to do that even if it is under apple care after 2.5 years.

However, your assumption is wrong.

I refer you to Apple's policy on Vintage and obsolete products, which outlines their hardware/parts support.

In summary:

Vintage products are those that have not been manufactured for more than 5 and less than 7 years
Obsolete products are those that were discontinued more than 7 years ago.

Note: Bold emphasis mine.

In essence, the 13-inch MacBook Pro (2015) model is still being manufactured and has not been discontinued yet. Apple's warranty provides global coverage, and if you purchase Apple Care then you will be covered for the whole of that Apple Care period.


Make sure you have two separate Google Chrome binaries (i.e. two .app's). Then use Finder and right-click and select Get Info for one of those binaries. The original app icon is displayed in the top left corner of the window. Drag any other icon file on top of it, and the icon of the program will change.

You'll probably have to restart Chrome in order for this to show up in the app switcher.

An even easier way would be to use Chrome Canary for browsing and ordinary Chrome for Selenium (if that is acceptable for your use case).


Can any experts here figure out how to get Mavericks' Dock.app working on Yosemite?

There's an app online called cDocks should sort u out

  cDock will unleash your Dock! It's a small program to customize your
  dock on OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) and 10.10 (Yosemite). There are several
  dock styles included and users can also create their own custom docks.
  What's New

  Version 6.0.6:

Bug fix 'helpers folder not installing'
Miscellaneous bug fixes
Bug fix 'Custom dock not working properly'
Bug fix 'junktest.txt created on desktop when updating'
Miscellaneous bug fixes
UI adjustments
Bug fix 'themes not loading'
Miscellaneous bug fixes
Updated donors in credits
UI redesign
more...

  Requirements

Intel
OS X 10.9 or later

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/51149/cdock


selenium IDE 101 - how to visit any page

The answer was that you put the Base URL up top, e.g. http://www.google.com and then you put the rest of the url, e.g. /images in the 'Target' field.

If you only want to go to the base page of the site (e.g. "http://www.google.com") you just use that for the BaseURL and then use in the 'Command' line use 'open' with no parameters) but keep the Target field blank.


I solved it by following the instructions in the link below, but in my case I used:
sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk1s2 0
Lost space after removing bootcamp


Remove Catalina Update files from Mojave

/Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app
(in my case, I am-was on Catalania Beta)


How do I disable Mojave's Finder quick actions for images?

keyboard shortcuts are usually managed in System Preferences > Keyboard, under the Shortcuts tab.

You don't say what the shortcut is, but a quick test reveals that it's Command R. (The Edit menu flashes, but there's no corresponding menu item.) Command Alt R goes the other way.

You may be able to assign that key press in the Finder to some other (rarely used) menu item or service, and see if that stops it.


Deleting a bunch of old certificates and keys from the keychain fixes it in my case.

Reference: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3752773?start=0&tstart=0


I suggest using iMazing, as I've found that it has worked in multiple similar situations (water damage, dead screen, etc.

I'm afraid that iMazing is a paid app, but comes with a 30 day trial, but in my experience this trial can be reset  by uninstalling and reinstalling iMazing.


How can I prevent a forced iOS7 upgrade when restoring iPhone 4s from backup

You may be stuck on iOS 7 if you don't have a way to get that software from Apple's servers. Typically only registered developers can download several versions of software, but if you search - there are many places that archive these software ipsw files. It's always a bit of a risk downloading software from a place other than the vendor, but I don't know of a better option.

Typically, when a new OS is released, iTunes will only download the latest software if you don't already have an older version of the software stored locally. Is there any chance that computer (or another computer) downloaded iOS 6 and still has it on the hard drive? If so, you can decline the offer to upgrade and restore the device from that version of firmware.

As was covered in the comments - there is no restriction to load iOS 6 backup on iOS 7. Also - this is more about the computer and iTunes having the old iOS file already downloaded than something that's inherent on the device. Any change you have a backup copy of the iOS files iTunes downloaded?


Replace non-functioning system applications

Luckily, I had another system at the exact same OS level (this is important), which was working fine. I copied the following apps from that machine to a basic folder on the broken machine:

App Store.app
Terminal.app
Preview.app
TextEdit.app

Of course OS X won't let you copy those apps directly into the Applications folder, so I did this, which recursively copies all of the contents (since the .app files aren't just files) and replaces the existing, non-functioning copies:

cp -R ~/<folder>/<file>.app /Applications/

You may have to really ask for a sandwich:

sudo cp -R ~/<folder>/<file>.app /Applications/

And joy, my system works again (but I haven't deleted the copies yet, just in case).

Hope it helps someone else.


You should be using SSH keys to authenticate with rather than putting your password on the command line as it's extremely insecure.

The way this works is once you have your SSH keys set up, all you have to do is issue the command:

ssh user@host

and without typing another thing, you will be automatically logged in.

Copy SSH Public Key to Mac/FreeBSD/Linux from macOS

This assumes you have access to the remote server via password based authentication (typing in a password),  and that you have already generated your private/public keypair (if not, see below).  In the following example, we are using RSA.  To start with let's copy the key over (be aware that the "home" directory differs between macOS, Linux, BSD, etc.):

Using SCP:

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@hostname:/Users/username/.ssh/

Or simply cat-ing the file to authorized_keys (I prefer this method):

cat id_rsa.pub | ssh username@hostname ' cat >>.ssh/authorized_keys'

(Your key name may differ)  If the .ssh directory does not exist on the remote server you will need to login and create it.

Now the key has been copied from the mac to the remote server.
Set correct permissions for the SSH Public Key on the remote server:

chmod 600  ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Next add the key to the SSH authorized_keys file, if the file does not exist create it.

If the file authorized_keys already exists in ~/.ssh the use the following command:

cat id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys

If the file does not exist enter the following commands:

cat id_rsa.pub > authorized_keys

chmod 600 authorized_keys
chown user:group authorized_keys

Generate SSH Public/Private key on macOS

Open up the Terminal by going to Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

In the terminal, use the following command to start the key generation

ssh-keygen -t rsa

Next you will be prompted to provide the location where you want to create the private key file:

Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa):

Leave this empty to create the key in the default location, which is /Users/username/.ssh/id_rsa. The public key file will be created in the very same location, and with the same name, but with the .PUB extension.

After you will be prompted to choose a passphrase. This is the password optional to use the private key.

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):

Your SSH key is generated.

Now, keep in mind, if you put in a passphrase you will be required to enter it each time you connect.  The utility ssh-agent will keep the passphrase in memory alleviating the need to manually enter it every time you connect while you are in the same session.  For more details see man ssh-agent


Archive Utility Error 13 - Permission Denied attempting to create archive

It is not a good idea to compress the folder as a zip. Time Machine uses directory hard links a lot and zip does not recognize them. So you might end up with a zip archive 10 time (or more, depending on size and modification frequency) bigger than the space your Time Machine backup originally requires. If you have to have your backup as a file, then create a compressed image from your Time Machine disk.
Open Disk Utility. Select your TM drive, and go to "File - New Image - Image of ". Then choose "compressed" in "format". Choose a location and click "save". This operation might take several hours to several days depending on the size and complexity of your backup.
If you want to do it no matter what, you have to use the command line.
sudo zip -9ry /where/you/want/zip/to/be.zip /path/to/backup/


What is the API call that iPhone makes to check if a number has iMessage enabled

When checking whether a recipient is on iMessage or SMS, iOS does not use http protocol.

You can use Wireshark on PC or tcpdump on Mac to sniff the entire tcp protocol.


iPhone sends messages by itself after sim swapping

This is one of the phone numbers used by iOS for Apple to activate a new SIM card. iOS chooses a number within the same region as the device to avoid international charges. In this case, the number is a UK number, so if you are not in the UK double-check the region of your device and SIM card.

Carriers should not charge for this message, but if you have been charged, contact the carrier and ask that they resolve the situation. A warning is displayed the very first time activation is performed, warning that ‘your carrier may charge for SMS messages used to activate iMessage’.


You can download the latest drivers with Boot Camp Assistant. Instructions for that here.

TLDR version:

Boot into MacOS
Connect a USB drive and format it as MS-DOS (FAT) with MBR
Open Boot Camp Assistant and select only the middle option (Download the latest Windows support software from Apple) or select Actions -> Download Windows Support Software from the menu bar
Select the USB drive as the destination
Restart in Windows
Open the USB drive and the WindowsSupport folder
Run setup.exe and select repair if needed


To add the active tab in Google Chrome to Safari's reading list:

Adapted from a comment by tzarskyz on: Add a URL from Chrome to Safari's reading list

tell application "Google Chrome"
    set pageUrl to get URL of active tab of first window
end tell
tell application "Safari" to add reading list item pageUrl
display notification pageUrl with title "Added to Reading List"

Open AppleScript Editor and save the above code as a new script.  From that point on, you can run this script to add the active tab in Google Chrome to Safari's reading list.  You can trigger this action via Terminal (osascript), by double-clicking the script (in Terminal or on your desktop), via an app launcher like Quicksilver, via Fastscripts, etc.

Enjoy your reading! :)

Update: I've since found a better way to accomplish this, without requiring something like Fastscripts.  Simply use OS X's built-in application, Automator.  You can adapt the steps outlined at the following link to run the AppleScript I included above: Global HotKey for Pause/Play,Next Song, etc.


How do I fix OSX Maps having the wrong location (Next Door)

There's not really a way of doing this. Apple does use croud-sourced data obtained from iPhones though: get an iPhone and let it get its location. Using GPS the iPhone will obtain an actual location, and as it can scan for Wi-Fi the data can be combined.


You will need to create the album with iCloud Photo Sharing in order to do that. iCloud will not let you share a personal album that you created as they are only a means of organizing media.

With iCloud Photo Sharing, you can easily accomplish your goal and share the album either with specific email addresses or you can share a link, if you make it public.

I suggest selecting all of the photos in the album that you have already created and choosing to share them to the iCloud Photo Sharing album that you create in order to publish those photos.


MacBook pro 15 inch 2019 screen flickers with purple horizontal lines when iPhone is near my MacBook screen

This sounds like the MacBook's hardware is very much more susceptible to RF interference than it ought to be. You should never see artefacts such as those. It might be that there is a build fault (e.g. accidental omission of some shielding component), or some other hardware fault that is causing the unusual sensitivity issues.

You should take the computer to an Apple authorised service centre where you can demonstrate the issue for assessment and repair options.


How to move my iBooks library from one mac to another?

I couldn't figure out where exactly iBooks stores imported books but I found out something else that might help you.

Select all books you want to backup and then drag them out of iBooks onto a Finder window and they sould be copied over.

I am not sure but it seems unlikely, that your reading progress and/or bookmarks are being copied as well. If you don't mind that, than this would do the trick.

Otherwise someone else might be able to locate the folder where iBooks stores the books. I found this answer to that question but on my Mac it didn't seem to be correct: Link


Found this pkg to Safari 6:

http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/37/23/041-5058/lr5tynbldi18zcrqo8a8uq88 rnjushqliu/Safari6Lion.pkg


Bento has no capabilities to sync over the network, no printing (you can print documents attached/embedded in a record but not the actual record itself). It was designed to be totally simple. That makes it the wrong tool for protect data to the extent of allowing backups or export/import like you ask.

The API are there to use MobileMe syncing on both the mac and the iOS - but the engineering wasn't done to make that work in the Bento universe. There are many solutions that will work at greater (but still affordable) cost, though.

In your case Filemaker Go connecting to a database that is served with FileMaker Pro will ensure your field data is always syncing to and from a central server as long as the network allows connectivity.

Here is a nice summary of how Bento and Filemaker Go compare. Bento has been very reliable for me and I haven't heard of anyone losing data, but user error or a lost phone before you return to sync will clearly cause lost data.

There are many note taking apps that sync off device to a server (Simplenote is the one I use) and even more GTD / Task Management type apps (like Things or Todolicious or the big kahuna OmniFocus) that you might be able to leverage to avoid losing data via sync services.

In the end - FileMaker Go + Pro is orders of magnitude cheaper than custom app developmen,t not to mention ridiculously faster to implement. If the cost of losing one set of data exceeds easily calculated FileMaker deployment costs, then your decision is trivial to make. Don't forget to estimate the cost of going back to recreate the data.


Reset "New Terminal at Folder" placement in context menu

This is the Services Menu. I assume if you only have a single Service OS X displays this directly.

I find it hard to imagine a computer with only a single Service.

The only option would be to go to the Services Menu in Finder and disable the other services. Of course if you install any software you may get more Services added.


Recent calls suddenly changed to add +1 for US calls, which messed-up all my contacts

My wife fixed it - told me to turn the iPhone OFF and then back ON. Apparently this procedure should be done before attempting to resolve any issue with iPhone.


Photos imported into Photos.app go into a large .photolibrary resource. You should consider it to be a black hole. You can't (and shouldn't) organize the the photos there in the Finder or rename them.

However, Photos.app will automatically show you photos by date (among other sorting styles). Also by geolocation (e.g. Australia Zoo), Faces (e.g. Wallace), and more. Separate metadata for each of these is much more organized and useful than one filename which happens to include all the data.

You state in the comments that you have a 'control-freak' nature. Well, fighting Photos is only going to make things worse. Either use Photos as it is, or don't use it, and organize your Photos manually, or by using some other app.


Text Message Forwarding code not showing up

Handoff works over bluetooth primarily, so you don't really need WiFi connectivity. Start by toggling the bluetooth on both devices and see if other handoff / airdrop operations work. That will rule out interference and other issues on the basic connectivity.

You do need to be signed in to the exact same iCloud account on both devices, so checking the clocks of both and signing out and in can often verify iCloud account is operational on both sides.


Us Mac users ask the same question the other way: Why do you need an (un)installer for everything in Windows?

The majority of Mac programs are complete bundles - all their resources are in the Application's folder (right click on App icon -> Show Package Contents). So they will run from anywhere, there's a system variable that tells the code where it is. Often, an application can be run directly from the downloaded DMG and even from a remote server. Bit of a performance hit but it will work. User settings are in the user's library, there are also system routines to handle the mechanics.

Macs have no central registry that requires setup (or maintenance) so nothing needs to go there either.

If you are developing Mac applications you should try very hard to not need an installer - only if you are installing shared libraries or shell-level services. In general, it's possible to do without.

Since you are heading towards iOS programming I would suggest just not worrying about it. iOS rules will tell you where to save what, and it is NOT negotiable. Preferences go here, user data goes there. You will use the supplied APIs. Comply. Obey.


Recent items menus have stopped working on my iMac

For me, this partially fixed things:

Close all open apps.
Move ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist (and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.recentitems.plist.lockfile if it exists) to a backup directory.
Reboot.

In my case this fixed the recent items lists under the File menu in each app and the Apple menu. But the context menus on Dock icons still do not update.


Is it safe to plug my iPhone into a life fitness cardio machine?

Your iPhone should ask whether you want to Trust This Computer if the host being connected to wants to access your data.

You should be relatively safe by tapping Don’t Trust, barring any unknown USB exploits in iOS. This is always the big caveat when it comes to security.

Otherwise the platform doesn’t install anything without your consent. If the cardio machine tries to do that, you will get a popup, which you can always decline.

This shouldn’t keep you from streaming movies onto the screen.


Why is it quicker to search on google app compared to web browser on smartphones

Your screen shot shows EDGE networking which is one of the slowest in terms of bandwidth and often also in latency.

Presumably, the Google app can send just the characters you type to the search engine immediately and get just the results you need to see back.

The web page has to redraw the entire page when results start to arrive, so if you are noticing a sustained, long term speedup in one versus the other then you can conclude one of several things:

The native app sends less data and retrieves less data - but interacts with the same servers (or more precisely - servers with the same speed) on google's side.
The native app sends the same data as the web app but connects to servers that respond faster.

I would guess both are in play. Google is selling you and your searches to Google's paying customers. It doesn't take deep analysis or insight to realize that Google gets more value from you using their native app than it does from you using safari to browse their web search app. It might easily serve Google's interests to invest more money in making you choose the tool that makes it the most money.


Why can't I use `launchctl setenv` from `tmux`?

Running tmux as root is probably not a good idea. Someone has created a solution and explanation:

https://github.com/ChrisJohnsen/tmux-MacOSX-pasteboard

After configuring tmux to use reattach-to-user-namespace you can use launchctl setenv as yourself within tmux.


Using an Address Book custom label on a printing label

When printing labels, I find a good technique is to make a new Address Book group. Here's a technique that might work, depending on the size of the job.

Duplicate a contact with copy/paste, and drag the copy into the label printing group. Edit the card so the name fields are blank, and set the first name to be "The Smith Family". When you're done making the label changes, select the group and bring up the printing UI, which will print the contacts in the group.

When you're done printing, delete the contacts from the label printing group, then delete the group, and your original contacts remain intact.


Keynote no longer goes into Presenter Notes mode automatically

In Keynote version 6.6:

Keynote > Preferences... ⌘+,
Slideshow tab
Tick the Enable Presenter Display check box

Then go to Play > Customize Presenter Display... to be sure the output is as you expect.


Is it advisable to calibrate the battery on a MacBook?

There is almost no value in a user trying to "calibrate" a unibody MacBook's internal battery since it has multiple cells and the system handles this continually.

Older MacBook that were non-unibody construction with removable batteries did benefit periodic calibration runs to update the Mac's estimation of time remaining. Calibration didn't actually give you more power, just a more accurate estimate of the time remaining before that battery needs a recharge.

The canonical reference for which models can benefit from calibration is Apple Portables: Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance.
A nice primer on battery technology in general is Apple's Lithium-ion polymer batteries site.
For more technical data, I like reading at the "Battery University" site.

If you seek to extend the time between when you buy a battery (or computer) and the time when it needs to be replaced three things will help prolong the useful life of your battery.

Discharging it until the Mac sleeps at least once every month or two.
Not letting it drain totally for months.
Avoid exceeding the re-charge cycles (new models typically are rated for 5 years and 1000 equivalent charge cycles).
Avoid storage in very hot temperatures and use (charging / discharge) in hot temperatures.

In the end, you might pay between $100 and $150 for a new battery, but something that happens once every 3 to 4 years, Apple's new battery technology is far better than the old days where heavy users needed a new battery yearly and failures were far more common.


If my iPhone 4 has spyware on it will encrypting my sms messages with an encryption app keep them private?

It is extremely improbable that your iPhone 4 with the latest software, without jailbreak, has a spyware on it, especially if nobody else than you had physical access to your phone after jailbreak.

However if someone has remote access to your phone communications through "encrypted" messagging apps should be quite safe for itself, but if you have a spyware on your phone be sure that someone could see you screen as you see it, for example when you type and read messages in the "encrypted app".


How do preference files become corrupted?

It can be caused by a great number of things, but I believe the most common cause is where the file is being written to, and the application terminates before it's finished writing the file. This could be caused by system overheads being too great for a successful write at the time.

Hardware errors with the hard disk, or memory could also cause data errors, but I would imagine these would be the least of your problems by this time.


How can I tell which SSL ciphersuite Safari is using?

The information you are looking for is easily available in Chrome (v35).  Just click on the lock icon in the browser location bar and the cipher suite details are there.

But you asked about Safari. Clicking on the lock icon in Safari 7.0.4 only gives a fraction of what you get in Chrome.  I thought there might be more in Safari Developer Tools but came up empty.

What worked for me was to use a network packet inspector (I used WireShark installed through Homebrew).

WireShark will allow you to examine all the network traffic including the "Client Hello" message where Safari lists the cipher suites it supports (the list is 37 items long and matches the list you linked to from Qualsys).

A little further down you can see the "Server Hello" message. In this response the server will respond with the name of the best cipher suite that they both share.

The screenshot below is from WireShark.  I have set up a filter to only show packets to and from IP addresses corresponding to 'www.google.com'.  Then I started recording and then loaded the google home page under https in Safari.

You can see that the negotiated cipher suite between google and Safari is TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA.

Further down in the transcript (not shown) I found packets relating to to "Change Cipher Spec", but this doesn't appear (from what I can tell) to change the selected suite.


Using El Capitan, can I create a bootable Windows 7 USB?

As @hirnwunde has pointed in the comments, the article from Indiana University works!

From the Finder, open the Applications folder, and then Utilities.
Open the Boot Camp Assistant, and then click Continue. The next screen should give you a list of options.
UITS recommends making the USB drive installer first. You don't need to install Windows or download the support software at this time, as it will be easier to do both later. To proceed:
 a. Verify that the USB drive you will be writing to is plugged in.
 b. Uncheck the Install Windows 7 or later version and Download the latest Windows support software from Apple options.
c. Check Create a Windows 7 or later install disk and click Continue.
Your USB drive should be listed in the "Destination disk" area. Use choose to browse to your .iso file; after selecting it, click Continue.
If prompted, confirm your action and/or provide an administrator's password. The process of writing the .iso file to the USB drive can take 20 minutes or longer.


How to disable pretty-print in Safari inspector?

You cannot disable it. Because the inspector is showing computed DOMs of rendered HTML (with JavaScript and CSS), it is a different thing from original HTML source code (but sometimes looked like the same one). So it is not just pretty-printed.

If you would like to get source code of the web page, see instructions below.

https://ccm.net/faq/33026-safari-view-the-source-code-of-a-webpage


How to preview what Time Machine would back up?

Open System Preferences. Tap on the Time Machine option. After having enabled Time Machine and chosen a backup disk, click Options. Click + to define an item that is not to be backed up.


Why is my iPhone clock running behind 20 min?

I recently had a similar problem and this solved it.

Check that your time is set automatically by going to Settings.app -> General -> Date & Time -> Set Automatically to 'ON'


Yes, your iPhone will remove originals that you have not browsed recently, and then re-download them when you next look at them. If you want to learn more about it, lookup a cache. With the new Photos app, the originals are stored in the cloud, and the images on your phone are just a cache. (Except that when you edit a photo in the cache, Apple preserves both the original and the edits in the cloud.)


Stocks app crashes on launch after moving from iPhone to iPad on iOS 6.1.3

The crash log shows that /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Stocks.framework/Stocks can't be loaded because it can't be found. Make sure you have copied the entire Stocks.framework into the correct location with identical permissions applied (unzipping in iFile will not preserve permissions so you'll need to set them yourself recursively).


Restore iPod Touch without passcode or power button

You might be able to use RecBoot. Here is some information quoted from their web site:

  RecBoot is a free utility for Windows and Mac users which allow you to put your iPhone / iPod Touch in recovery mode easily. Its a
  great utility for for those iPhone users who's iPhone Home or
  Sleep/Wake button is not fully functional. Moreover this utility saves
  you from learning the 3-4 steps of putting your iPhone into recovery
  mode manually. Normally you need to put your iPhone into recovery mode
  when your want to do a firmware restore.

Once you put it in Recovery Mode, you see a popup on your computer screen saying "iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode". From here, you should be able to restore.

Windows Download


Safari web inspector breaks media queries

I also have experienced this problem. After doing some research I finally manage to solve the problem.

Backup and remove ~/Library/WebKit/com.apple.Safari folder.

A problem should disappear after that operation. Enjoy :D


Try rebooting the phone by holding both buttons simultaneously until the Apple logo appears.

Restarting iOS will fix a lot of problems (as does restarting any computer) and should usually be tried as a first resort.


What are my hardware upgrade options for a late 2009 iMac?

Whether it's 'worth it' will be up to you.

You can get 16GB RAM in there & you can swap the HD to an SSD.

The SSD will feel like day after night compared to an HD - especially as you're on an OS that is designed for SSD & almost forgets spinning rust ever played a part.

You will be bound to 10.13 so you might not need more RAM  unless you’re sure you will run apps where the current amount is not enough.

Since SSD is a big speedup, more RAM will let it 'breathe' a lot better doing multiple tasks... like having more browser windows open. And you’ll likely want to use it more once it’s speedy.

It won't turn it into any kind of powerhouse compared to a 2015 MacBook even or any new portables, but inexpensive upgrades will make it all feel more relaxed.

Expect 4 to 8x speedup in system start time with an SSD that’s moderately priced.


My find/replace text magically changes in Xcode

Find/replace uses what's known as the Kill Ring, rather than regular Copy/Paste

It's similar to the regular Copy/Paste buffers, but uses a separate memory area.

You can 'Kill' using  Ctrl ⌃   K  which is similar to Cut &
'Yank' using  Ctrl ⌃   Y  which is like Paste.

The kill ring is also used in a lot of search routines, so will be replaced any time you perform a new search.
Don't rely on it as a data store.


Help identifying music format used in classic Mac OS games

I did some research and reverse-engineering on this recently. The library was called SoundMusicSys, and there's now an open-source version of it called miniBAE (Beatnik Audio Engine) which appears to be mostly based on the original code.

It turns out that csnd resources are just normal snd resources that were LZSS compressed and delta-encoded in a few different ways depending on whether they're mono/stereo or 8/16-bit. cmid resources (compressed MIDI) are just LZSS compressed and not delta-encoded. There also appear to be esnd (encrypted snd) and emid (encrypted MIDI) resources, but I couldn't find any examples of these to reverse-engineer. SoundMusicSys used a few other resource types to link the snd/csnd and MIDIs together; the most relevant of these are SONG and INST, which define the instruments and parameters for each tune.

I wrote a disassembler for classic Mac OS resource forks a while ago, and recently added support for extracting csnd/cmid, INST, and SONG resources in addition to all the normal stuff (snd, MIDI, etc.). Might be useful in playing around with these classic games' content.


The first definition, as it relates to computers. See Computer terminal on Wikipedia.

  A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying or printing data from, a computer or a computing system. The teletype was an example of an early day hardcopy terminal, and predated the use of a computer screen by decades.

As @8None1 elaborates in the comments below, the MacOS "Terminal" is more accurately a "terminal emulator" as described in the same Wikipedia article, since a terminal is a piece of hardware while the "Terminal" app is software that emulates that hardware.


Mid 2012 MBP shuts down claiming no power with charge at 30% or 40% or more

Your battery is shot.

A battery's life is determined more by age than the number of cycles.  Yes, number of cycles do play a part, but the biggest culprit is age.  In short, you have a 4 year old battery.  A 4 year old battery that was never used is going to perform about as well as a 4 year old battery with 500 cycles.

MATH FINDS TOP CULPRIT AS LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES AGE

As far as what you are seeing, this is not an abnormal symptom.  Your MacBook Pro has no sensor to be able to determine how quickly a charge will dissipate within the cell.  All it can do is measure the voltage under load and calculate how much charge is left.

As your battery ages, there is a build up of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI).  This layer is what "transfers" the electrical charge from the chemical reaction.  As this layer builds, the performance degrades.  This layer continues to build from the time the battery is manufactured until the time it is recycled.  There's no stopping it.

In short,  your MBP is calculating that you have 30-40% of battery left; it's only a calculation as it cannot account for or measure the SEI layer buildup.

Just to provide you a reference, I am working on a Dell Precision M4300 laptop (installing FreeBSD).  The battery reports 100% and healthy.  If I unplug, I get about 30 seconds before the battery dissipates and the laptop turns off.  So, I have the same symptoms you do, except it's happening at 100% charge.  This laptop and battery are 8 years old so the behavior is not unexpected.  What would be unexpected is if the battery held any charge at this point.

The Good News

It's pretty easy to fix.  iFixit.com has an excellent guide:  Battery and Trackpad. Disassembling MacBook Pro 15" Retina 2012-2015 and the prices are relatively low (less than $45 on Amazon).

Disclaimer:  I have personally used two of these exact model batteries on MBP's and both are still running strong.


How to transfer mouse and keyboard after migration

I'm assuming you have a old Magic Mouse and Keyboard.
You need to unpair them from your old MacBook Air first.   Then you can pair to your new MacBook.
From the Apple Support site

Make sure your device is powered on.

If the LED is blinking, your device is in Discoverable Mode. If the LED is steady, your device is paired with another item. Unpair the device, turn it off, and start again.

In the menu bar of your Mac, choose the Bluetooth icon, then
choose Open Bluetooth Preferences.

Your Mac scans for available Bluetooth devices.

When your device appears in the Bluetooth Preference Pane, click Pair.

In fact, you don't have to unpair it per se - so long as the old MBA isn't in range (off,  works) you should be able to pair it with no problems.


How to find out if iTerm is installed on a mac from within a shell script?

The open command will open it no matter where the person has it installed (you don’t have to put an app in /Applications on macOS).

open -a iTerm.app

You could search using spotlight as well

 mdfind "kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier == com.googlecode.iterm2"


Your CoreStorage Volume Group doesn't contain a complete stack which also includes a Logical Storage Family and Logical Volume(s) besides the existing Logical Volume Group and the Physical Volume(s).

Probably that's the reason why the command fails.

But there is no need to resize the stack since it's useless as it is configured now: it doesn't contain a valid volume to install to. You may now either create a Logical Volume in the existing LVG or completely delete the CoreStorage partition scheme and revert to a classical partition setup:

Create a Logical Volume:

Quit Disk Utility, open in the menu bar Utilities -> Terminal and enter

diskutil cs list #(and copy the Logical Volume Group UUID (=lvgUUID))
diskutil cs createVolume lvgUUID type name size

In your case something like:

diskutil cs createVolume 49D3CD66-F48B-4DB8-97D0-A8A1C7C5434F jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%

Enter exit, quit Terminal
Erase the CoreStorage Logical Volume Group:

Quit Disk Utility, open in the menu bar Utilities -> Terminal and enter

diskutil cs delete lvgUUID

In your case:

diskutil cs delete 49D3CD66-F48B-4DB8-97D0-A8A1C7C5434F

Enter exit, quit Terminal and reopen Disk Utility

Partition the empty space as you need it and quit Disk Utility afterwards

Now continue installing Yosemite


Windows on a Macbook Pro with integrated Intel Iris Pro only

I have no sources other than personal experience to back up my claims, but I recommend the machine without the dGPU if you will be spending the majority of your time in Windows.

I have seen the difference, and the dGPU kills the battery in Windows. My machine with an integrated GPU gets significantly better battery life under Windows than another machine with a dedicated GPU. In fact, the machine with the integrated chip gets almost equivalent battery life under both Windows and OS X.

You may want to stick with the dGPU if you need it for 3D gaming or media applications that perform better with a dedicated chip.

In the end of the day, it is really up to you, but you will probably get better battery life without the dGPU. I have seen an hour and half difference in some cases.


Keep the current audio output device, when attaching a new one

I use a free app from Rogue Amoeba called SoundSource that lets you quickly pick the source for input, output and system sounds from the task bar. One of the side effects of running SoundSource is your source doesn't change when you connect something new to your Mac. You have to select the new source explicitly via SoundSource to have audio routed to or from it.

The source will switch automatically if you remove a source and that source happened to be the currently selected source for any of the channels.


How do I control which applications receive mouse input?

I have used USBOverdrive in the past with Logitech gaming mice. ( Not for gaming but the number of buttons)

The app gave me control over what buttons would trigger when in different apps. It has global options also.

  The USB Overdrive is a device driver for Mac OS X that handles any USB mouse / trackball / joystick / gamepad / media keyboard and any Bluetooth mouse from any manufacturer and lets you configure them either globally or on a per-application, per-device basis. Note that the Apple Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad are not handled by the USB Overdrive to let Mac OS X implement its full multitouch support.

  The USB Overdrive reads all kinds of wheels, buttons, switches and
  controls and assigns them to useful actions like clicking, typing,
  scrolling, launching, opening documents and so forth. It can easily
  handle several USB devices at once and can assign different settings
  to each one.

  The USB Overdrive works in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), 10.7 (Lion)
  and 10.8 (Mountain Lion) in both 32-bit and 64-bit modes. Users of
  previous Mac OS X releases should stick with version 3.0.1 of the USB
  Overdrive.


Boot menu shows non-existent boot drives

The Microsoft bootloader program  bootmgfw.efi is found in the EFI partition on disk either in the EFI/Boot directory, the EFI/Microsoft directory or both.

While it is acceptable (according to UEFI specifications) to have several EFI partitions both Apple and Microsoft expect there to be only one.

You say "I reformatted the entire drive" but unless you went to Disk Utility and actually overwrote the data with zeros you most likely didn't.  It can be a bit convoluted to do this - see How to Secure Erase a Mac SSD / Hard Disk from Recovery Mode

What you likely did is take the option in the macOS installer to reinstall.  This deleted the partition tables and then the installer created new partitions including a new EFI partition with exactly the same start and end positions - macOS will always create a 200MiB EFI partition from sector 40 to sector 409639.  As macOS doesn't generally use the EFI partition whatever was there before will miraculously be there again.

To remove the straggling MS files first delete any Microsoft directory in the EFI partition:

disable SIP as described here How to Disable System Integrity Protection (rootless) in Mac OS X
create mount point for EFI partition with mkdir /Volumes/ESP
mount EFI partition with sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/ESP
check if MS directory is still there with ls /Volumes/ESP/EFI/Microsoft
delete it with sudo rm -r /Volumes/ESP/EFI/Microsoft
delete EFI/Boot too if it exists with sudo rm -r /Volumes/ESP/EFI/Boot
alternatively delete everything except for the EFI/APPLE directory using Finder and empty the trash.

Then to be tidy you may also want to delete any Microsoft NVRAM entry. It isn't easy to delete specific entries from macOS so the easiest way is to delete everything with the nvram -c command as explained here How to View & Clear the Mac NVRAM Contents from Terminal in Mac OS X or press  alt   cmd  P  R  at boot as described in this Apple document Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac
Finally, reboot and if all is OK re-enable SIP.


How to troubleshoot stuttering iTunes video playback while downloading on Mac OS X 10.7.2?

I'm not sure how this was resolved, but the latest version of iTunes now works fine.


There’s never been a hard limit running older os in VM so this seems like a safe bet to say, yes - virtualization is a good bet to keep 32 bit os alive like it is for os back to System 1 and the (mostly) 32 bit Motorola 68000 processor.


Looks like Microsoft just released an official SkyDrive App for Mac according the the MacObserver's article. So there may be less of a need for a third party one, check it out.

  Users looking for online storage and syncing that don’t want to go the Dropbox route can now check out Microsoft’s SkyDrive app, released Monday for Windows and OS X Lion (via The Verge). The app ties into Microsoft’s existing SkyDrive service and offers Dropbox-like file management and syncing with 7GB of free storage and the option to add 20, 50, or 100GB of additional storage for US$10, $25, or $50 per year, respectively.


As was linked by Arthur Hammer, https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/142811/37689 states that notifications are stored in an SQLite database. The following python script should get you started:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import re
import sqlite3

# Location of notification centers database under Yosemite
tmp = os.environ['TMPDIR']
conn = sqlite3.connect(tmp + '/../0/com.apple.notificationcenter/db/db')

for notification in conn.execute('SELECT * from notifications'):
    encoded_data = str(notification[-1]) # last item
    clean = re.sub('[^\w\s-]', '', encoded_data) # remove some funny stuff (fixme: removes too much?)
    sp = clean.split('\t')
    # Find NSActualdeliverydate, message content seems to always come after this
    for ix in range(len(sp)):
        if 'NSActualdeliverydate' in sp[ix]:
            break
    # Skip blanks
    for ix in range(ix+1, len(sp)):
        if sp[ix] != '': break

    print 'notification', sp[ix].replace('_', '\n').strip()

conn.close()

You can then either pipe this to a file and then grep the file, or just grep the output of the script directly.


I've seen and used GPS receivers that connect to the host via bluetooth, on Windows Mobile phones.  I'm not sure about on an iPad.


How to store sleepimage on secondary HDD on Mac OS X 10.6?

Nice HDD setup!

Load Terminal.App in the utilities folder, and use the following command:

  sudo pmset -a hibernatefile /Volumes/OtherVolume/sleepimage

Obviously change /OtherVolume/sleepimage to /YourOtherVolumesName/sleepimage

From explanatorygap.net.

(EDIT: that webpage shows even the author did not succeed with this method. Likely reason is the other drive is not ready to read the image when trying to wake up. Apple says the sleepimage must be on the root drive. I myself am getting a crash when trying this.)


Apple Numbers, matching string variations in a SUMIFS function

Sorry to bring bad news, but there simply is no suitable formula, in-place ORing, or list comparison of that type in Numbers.

Of the common workarounds for similar spreadsheet problems, I find the "helper column" approach to be the most straightforward and maintainable. Create a new column to calculate whether or not that row should count in the later summing. The helper column can then be the condition source in your sumif formula, and hidden.

For example, helper-column cell D2 could be:
OR(  IFERROR(SEARCH("This*",C2),FALSE)  ,  IFERROR(SEARCH("That*",C2),FALSE)  )
and after populating that down the rows, your count formula could be:
SUMIF(helper-column,helper-column,Amount-column)


Preview on Lion will open all images I opened last time, and need to close each window one by one?

Something like RestoreMeNot or Tinker Tool can be used to selectively control which apps restore their windows and should be able to do what you want.

Alternatively, using ⌥ + ⌘ + W in Preview (and most other apps) will close all currently open windows.


How to share files between two Macs at home?

I guess your question is how exactly do you share files. To access the shared files just:

While in Finder select Go > Connect to Server... or hit Command+K.
A window will appear, prompting for the Server's URL, which is the File Sharing Computer's network IP, something like 192.168.1.2. Before the URL you must write afp://. So, it will look like afp://192.168.1.2.
The other Mac's sharing folder will be mounted on your Finder.

Just so you know, when you enable the File Sharing, beneath the green light, the exact URL of that computer will be shown. The afp://your.network.ip.numberthingy.

If you are using Lion, or later, Airdrop is, by far, the best option for file sharing. It requires no setup nor special settings, and it sends the files wirelessly, without having both Macs to be connected to the same Wifi network.


Since the Thunderbolt drives can run 10 up to 20 Gbps that is much faster than the internal drive in many cases.

I do not see a problem, but can not speak for the boot camp it self.

Here are some numbers:

SSDs itself will have the same speed of reading and writing no matter the cable. The TYPE of cable/connection decides if it can sustain that speed, and this is equally true with USB 3.0, eSATA (v2/3) and TB1/2 - all of them have wide enough bandwidth to support high-speed transfer rates that SSDs are capable of.

USB 3.0 up to 5 Gbits/s (525 MB/s)

eSATA 2 up to 3 Gbits/s (300 MB/s)

eSATA 3 up to 6 Gbits/s (600 MB/s)

TB1 up to 10 Gbits/s per channel (1050 MB/s)

TB2 up to 20 Gbits/s aggregated channels (2100 MB/s)

In summary, those numbers would say the Boot camp would run as fast or faster via Thunderbolt cable to SSD drive.


It's generally safe, though a little dangerous depending, to do it but often not worth the effort.

The caches in /System/Library/Caches are generally small and useful, the ones in /Library/Caches are less system caches and much more readily cleared.

If you have a look in ~/Library/Caches you will find a bunch of applications have a cache in there, none of them particularly large though dropbox sometimes has a fair sized cache. This folder can run quite large just because so many apps cache something in there.

If the cache /Library/Caches folder is over 3Gb then you have something that is caching quite a lot. On the three machines I just checked none had a /Library/Caches folder over .75 Gb so I'd go right ahead and remove some of it.

Don't worry about age, I'd worry about size.

In the terminal run the following to sort all of the files in that directory by size (ascending):

du -s /Library/Caches/* | sort -h

Of course the best way to clear the caches is to install AppleJack and do it with that in single user mode. Doing it with the System fully up can be a little dangerous. If you do it then I'd reboot immediately afterwards.


What exactly is required for Apple's Find-my-car feature to work?

Yes, you must have a CarPlay device & the iPhone must connect to it when you get in the car & disconnect as you leave.
That is the trigger to update your Parked Location.

It works over either direct connection on Lightning cable, or using Bluetooth, though if your CarPlay is set to Lightning, it will not update if you have Bluetooth on, but don't manually switch to it - CarPlay does not 'auto-swap' to Bluetooth if you don't plug it in.

Apple documents this here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207227

The location privacy can show you frequent locations as well as parked locations, so if you have disabled that location tracking, you could expect maps to not mark your Bluetooth disconnect locations. Also, not pairing to Bluetooth would likely prevent is feature from working

(Information source in addition to above is personal experience & wondering how the heck it sometimes worked & sometimes didn't ;)


How can I have Finder doesn't sort strictly by the time metadata and not the grouped filename?

The toolbar specifies how to group the files and clicking the column name is for sorting the files. If you want to reorder the files, just click the column name directly.

Based on your screenshot, you're grouping by "Date Created" and then sorting by "Name". You can see the group names are "September", "August", etc.

You can fix this: set the grouping (using the toolbar) to "None" and then click on the "Date Created" column name, that should fix your issue.

EDIT: If you're not using the List view, you can press ⌘J to open "View options", then click the drop-down there to Sort by "Date Created". I know it's annoying, but that's how it is.


OSX El Capitan reset the number of Spaces

The list of spaces is stored in the following file.

/Users/YOURUSERNAME/Library/Preferences/com.apple.spaces.plist

For example on a machine with the dashboard and three desktops:

<key>Spaces</key>
<array>
    <dict>
        <key>ManagedSpaceID</key>
        <integer>3</integer>
        <key>id64</key>
        <integer>3</integer>
        <key>pid</key>
        <integer>59241</integer>
        <key>type</key>
        <integer>2</integer>
        <key>uuid</key>
        <string>dashboard</string>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ManagedSpaceID</key>
        <integer>1</integer>
        <key>id64</key>
        <integer>1</integer>
        <key>type</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>uuid</key>
        <string></string>
        <key>wsid</key>
        <integer>1</integer>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ManagedSpaceID</key>
        <integer>4</integer>
        <key>id64</key>
        <integer>4</integer>
        <key>type</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>uuid</key>
        <string>514D761A-D08B-402E-BF8E-FFB607A340EF</string>
    </dict>
    <dict>
        <key>ManagedSpaceID</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
        <key>id64</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
        <key>type</key>
        <integer>0</integer>
        <key>uuid</key>
        <string>CF552E87-9A59-41C7-B0AF-7AEFFB1DFB43</string>
    </dict>
</array>

Unfortunately OS X holds a copy of the file in memory, so if you just delete it or modify it, it doesn't make any difference as it just recreates the file with the same number of spaces.

You could log into another account, delete the file from the Terminal, and then log back into the affected account.

Or you could just create a new account for yourself and use it, and leave the 325 spaces for your colleague if they return. Each user account has its own com.apple.spaces.plist file.


does these battery stats are reasonable for rMBP? (max charge 98% after 25 full cycles)

Definitely. I had a MacBook Pro for 5 years, and by the end, the battery health was 73%. Yours looks to be 98% after 14 months. Battery degradation is just a fact of owning a laptop and not something to be terribly worried about.

EDIT: Apple support website says this:

Occasionally, the battery may not show a full charge (100%) in OS X, even after the power adapter has been connected for an extended period of time. The battery may appear to stop charging between 93 percent and 99 percent. This behavior is normal and will help to prolong the overall life of the battery.


Should a late 2012 Mac Mini be able to drive these two monitors?

Officially, the late 2012 Mac mini will support two monitors in the following combinations:

one HDMI monitor while using one Thunderbolt monitor
two Thunderbolt monitors.

As for the supported resolutions, the late 2012 Mac mini supports up to 2560 x 1600 on Thunderbolt monitors or up to 1920 x 1200 on HDMI monitors.

Of course the above is the official position. Your testing has shown you that you can exceed this, but with mixed results.

If you really wanted to get both monitors working you could play around with the resolutions to ensure that they're within the specs I mention above.

You may also find my answer on another question of interest, especially in terms of real life scenarios. In that question the Mac is a MacBook Pro, but the overall findings may interest you.


OSx doesn't want to activate my Bluetooth dongle

It turns out Bluetooth Explorer has an awkward UI, whether by sloppy design, implementation, or bug.  The HCI Controller Selector does not show the active controller in the menu.  It shows you the first item of some default menu order, even after you've picked a different item and clicked Activate.  But the different controller was activated, even though it doesn't look like it—unless you pay attention to details in the drop-down menu.
It's easiest to see with pictures.  Here's what the Bluetooth Explorer HCI Controller Selector looks like when I launch it:

When I click on the menu I see this:

If I click on the "Cambridge Silicon Radio" item and then click Activate, Bluetooth connectivity is lost for a moment and from the behavior of my connected keyboard and trackpad when it comes back I am certain that the Cambridge radio was indeed made the active controller.  However, what the controller selector window looks like at this point is identical to the first image, as if the change was not made, even though it was.
However, if you look closely at that second image showing the pull-down menu opened up, you can see that it says "[ACTIVE]" next to the Cambridge item.  That's because I had previously made it active.  So there is a way to tell the activation worked; it's just not by looking at what the menu shows when it's collapsed.
So the technique you were trying to use probably worked, even though you had difficulty telling it.
I am still looking for a method to make the change permanent across reboots, but haven't found it.  The suggested nvram command doesn't work for that, at least not on my macOS Mojave 10.14.6 system.  I have it set to "always", but a reboot always goes back to the default, built-in Apple controller, which is a problem for my setup.


How do I sync Google Tasks to an iPhone?

There doesn't currently appear to be a way.  If you're willing to use an alternative to the built-in iOS Reminders, there's gTasks.

There is more information in the answers to this duplicate question: Sync Google Tasks with iOS Reminders?


How to clear cache of a specific application in iOS?

If you have installed the app directly from Xcode you can remove the data from the app in the xcode device manager.

Connect iPhone with an USB cable to your MAC
Launch Xcode
Press Shift+Cmd+2
Click on your iPhone in the list
Click on your app in the installed apps list,
Click the "Gear" icon
Click download container
Select where to store the container
Open the container remove the unwanted files,
In Xcode device manager click replace container (Below download container)

Then the cache will be reset.


The answer is at http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jweb/jcp/properties.html (Java 7) and http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/deploy/properties.html (Java 8), though the instructions could be more explicit.

They say to set the deployment.webjava.enabled to false in your deployment.properties file, whose location is defined by the deployment.system.config property in the file ${deployment.java.home}/lib/deploy/deployment.config.

I found that you can just create deployment.properties in ${deployment.java.home}/lib, which I guess is a default location.

This raises the question of what the value of ${deployment.java.home} is, and it's not what I expected. I'm using OS X 10.7.5, and the value of deployment.java.home for me is /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home.

I created a deployment.properties file there with the contents:

deployment.webjava.enabled=false
deployment.webjava.enabled.locked=true

Now, when I open the Java Control Panel and go to the security tab, I see this:

There is that nagging "Only disabled for this user" still, but I think that's just a UI bug. If you log in as other users, you'll see that it's disabled for everybody.


Macbook turns on but screen is dead or completely dark

Apple has an excellent process to triage macs that don’t boot all the way.

If you hold the option key or boot to internet recovery, you should see things on the screen even if there is no drive present, no OS present so you can know you need a repair if you can’t even see internet recovery like here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156

In the end, you will have a working Mac again - possibly reinstalling the OS or erasing and then reinstalling or you take it in for service since there is a hardware issue.

Start here and ask a follow on question with exactly where your troubleshooting led you.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204267


You can enable iCloud Photos which will sync photos between all devices as long as you use the same AppleID on all of them. Apple has extensive documentation on this, see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204264 for a first introduction.
PS: There is a lot of useful stuff on https://support.apple.com/ which should help in getting started with using Apple devices.


How to react on Appstore rejection of screenshots?

If you step back, you might succeed in arguing "but officer, all the other drivers were speeding" in defense of your situation if the officer hasn't heard that argument 100 or 1000 times already.

Instead, realize that you are swimming against that tide now and Apple is changing the requirements and wording on what is acceptable marketing for app screen shots.

See these changes at: http://www.appstorereviewguidelineshistory.com

Apple is the seller and there are actual legal consequences if a consumer asks for a refund since the product being sold is different than described. Specifically, Apple markets your app with those images as "screenshots"

If you look at the kickstarter app every single image is one that you would see if you pressed the home button and sleep button and released both while the Kickstarter app was running.

None of the images you submitted are screen shots of the app. They might be screen shots of marketing materials or a web site, but that's not what Apple is selling.

And yes - you are blatantly in violation of the marketing agreement and using Apple's trademarked design for promoting your product, so stop doing that right away,

If you look at the current review guidelines and Apple's marketing agreement with developers, I'd say you'll want to adhere to several items in particular:

From the preamble - If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps.
From the marketing agreement 2.4 - Never display the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch Home screen or any icon or image that you do not own.
Also from the marketing agreement 2.7 - Do not surround the product with a highlight.
Also from the marketing agreement 2.10 - Screenshots should display only the actual screen content from your app that a user will see when the app is running. Do not incorporate Apple product images into your screenshots on the App Store.

I wouldn't recommend taking this to the review board, since this is so clearly wrong on several fronts (using Apple's home screen and iPhone image as well as not using actual screenshots where screenshots are requested).

Lastly, if you really want to use Apple's images you could contact their legal and licensing teams and get written permission to use Apple's icons and design beyond what the standard agreement allows. You'll probably have to pay for it, but my guess is that some companies have gotten Apple to budge on this since they co-market products. Think AT&T and such buying national media but it's not impossible that some apps in the store also have Apple's blessing to use a home screen.

Cheers and good luck with your app.


iCloud Drive Bird Service always running

I got rid of the problem by removing the folder that contained the file over the terminal. Seems like there was something mixed up.
This is how I did it:

Identify the source of the problem using this command:
brctl log -w --shorten

I looked into it and saw there was one error always repeating and it always tried to upload it.

Because I couldn't find the file via the terminal (because it was never on my disk) I deleted the folder that should have contained the file. It did that using the command
sudo rm -rf name_of_the_folder

I hope that helps someone.


Open files in background on MacOS Sierra?

If you just want to go back to Finder you just need to open Script Editor and paste this code:

repeat
    if "Finder" is not frontmost application then
        tell application "Finder"
            activate
        end tell
    end if
end repeat

Save it as an application, like FinderAlwaysON and execute it before starting your work.

Be aware that this will lock your computer with Finder, so when your are done opening the files bring up Force Quit (Command+Option+ESC) and close the app.


What is the ideal charging behavior for a new Retina MacBook Pro?

If you mean you may have to remove the charger when the battery is at 100%, even though (I don't actually know whether it does) mbp disallowed current input, i'd remove it anyway.
I hope I answered your question.


How can I create a AES-256 bit image using Automator?

You don't need Automator to do this. Just use Automators cousin, AppleScript.

Open Script Editor in /Applications/Utilities
Copy and Paste the code below
Go to File>Export
File Format: Application
Drag files and folders onto the icon (you can even add the icon to the doc for easy access
Enter your password
Files will be created in the same directory with an added _EncryptedDMG.dmg

Code:

on open myFiles
    set theCount to 1
    display dialog "Enter the password to encrypt" default answer "" with hidden answer
    set myPassword to the text returned of the result as text
    set d to "•"
    set td to ""
    repeat length of myPassword times
        set td to td & d
    end repeat
    display dialog "Verify the password: " & td default answer "" with hidden answer
    set theVerify to the text returned of the result
    if myPassword is theVerify then
        tell application "System Events"
            repeat with myFile in myFiles
                set myPath to the POSIX path of myFile
                set myName to the characters 1 thru ((offset of "." in (name of myFile as text)) - 1) of (name of myFile as text)
                set myContainer to (the POSIX path of (container of myFile))
                do shell script "printf  \"" & myPassword & "\" |  hdiutil create -encryption AES-256 -stdinpass -srcfolder '" & myPath & "' '" & myContainer & "/" & myName & "'"
                do shell script "mv '" & myPath & "' ~/.Trash"
                display notification "File created at " & myContainer & "/" & myName & ".dmg. Original file deleted." with title "Encryption Complete" subtitle "File " & theCount & " of " & (length of myFiles) sound name "glass"
            end repeat
        end tell
    else
        display dialog "Error: Passwords did not match"
    end if
end open

If you would like to add to context menu copy and paste the following code in to a "Run Apple Script" Action.

on run {myFiles, parameters}
    set theCount to 1
    display dialog "Enter the password to encrypt" default answer "" with hidden answer
    set myPassword to the text returned of the result as text
    set d to "•"
    set td to ""
    repeat length of myPassword times
        set td to td & d
    end repeat
    display dialog "Verify the password: " & td default answer "" with hidden answer
    set theVerify to the text returned of the result
    if myPassword is theVerify then
        tell application "System Events"
            repeat with myFile in myFiles
                set myPath to the POSIX path of myFile
                set myName to the characters 1 thru ((offset of "." in (name of myFile as text)) - 1) of (name of myFile as text)
                set myContainer to (the POSIX path of (container of myFile))
                do shell script "printf  \"" & myPassword & "\" |  hdiutil create -encryption AES-256 -stdinpass -srcfolder '" & myPath & "' '" & myContainer & "/" & myName & "'"
                do shell script "mv '" & myPath & "' ~/.Trash"
                display notification "File created at " & myContainer & "/" & myName & ".dmg. Original file deleted." with title "Encryption Complete" subtitle "File " & theCount & " of " & (length of myFiles) sound name "glass"
            end repeat
        end tell
    else
        display dialog "Error: Passwords did not match"
    end if
end run

When opening Automator select Context Menu and then select these settings

Note: You  will be happy to hear, macOS Mojave will bring similar functionality natively. There is a add password in context menu that zips and encrypts the file similar to how this application does it, but still there is not progress bar.

Note[2]: This script will not worked if the folder contains locked files (File>Info>Locked).


How to mimic CTRL-d in Linux on Mac terminal

This actually works the same way on Linux as on macOS. You're simply using a different shell on Linux than you're using on macOS, and that's why it appears to be different for you.

Instead of using bash, which you're running right now on macOS, you should instead start up tcsh. This will give you the behaviour, you're looking for (i.e. ctrl-d for file expansion).

You can simply start Terminal.app and run:

tcsh

to test it out.

If you like it, you can open Terminal.app Settings in the General tab, and set the shell to open with to: /bin/tcsh


How to Move Photos out of an Event and into the Main section of iphoto?

Events are an integral part of iPhoto.

You can't have no events. However, you can ignore them. Just select 'Photos' on the left side list:

(iPhoto remembers your selection and will display the 'Photos' view next time you start it) and configure the time frame iPhoto should use to autosplit photos into events (I use an 8-hour gap):

iPhoto won't bother you about creating new events.

Now you can group your pictures in albums: in the 'Photos' view, select the photos you want to include in an album and press ⌘N. A new, unnamed album that contains the previously selected photos will appear in the Albums list. Rename it and you're done.

Note that iPhoto won't automatically add imported photos to your albums. If you want your albums to be updated based on certain criteria use smart albums instead.


Trash won't empty, and duplicates files (with one copy remaining in trash) when moved back to desktop

Have you tried secure-delete? When you go to empty trash hold down the command key. This has helped me empty the trash when it was stubborn for whatever reason.


Why is my iPod touch so slow after installing iOS 5?

Newer iOS devices have more system memory, which is separate from the flash memory. The OS itself has a specific memory footprint at boot time, and the rest of the system memory is used by applications. I don't have any data on this, but I can imagine that each major revision of iOS (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) has a larger system memory footprint than the previous release.

Keep in mind that the iPod Touch has a lower overall price than the iPhone released within the same year. An iPhone may cost $200 plus a two-year contract, but this is due to a subsidy paid by the wireless provider to Apple. So, the iPod Touch is expected to have a bit lower quality in terms of hardware specs (for example: system memory size, camera quality, CPU speed).

Taking the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4th generation as examples, Wikipedia states that the iPhone 4 has 512MB of system memory, and the iPod Touch 4th gen has 256MB of system memory. When the system runs out of memory for applications, it must make more memory available by terminating background processes or reducing their memory footprint. This may take time. You're more likely to experience this overhead on a device with less system memory, and on a likely slower CPU.