How to minimise the terminal automatically when it is running a shell script?

Ok. So I found out a solution.

Turns you can simply use Automator and save the shell script as an App.

Just open Automator; select "Applications" and then "Run a Shell Script"


Possible to do iTunes Home Sharing over ad-hoc network?

Yes - you need to be connected to the internet when you first enable Home Sharing, but once each device has a SSL cert or whatever is stored internally, the devices will find each other and share as long as the local network is allowing the mDNS / Bonjour traffic so the devices can discover each other and match keys stored internally to identify which account is enabled for sharing.


Is there anyway to style Messages.app's message view?

The styling is embedded into the app and currently cannot be changed.


First step: don't delete "useless" files.

If the first step was not done properly, please continue to the second step.

Second step: Perform a recovery.
This will restore the OS to its original state but will leave your user data intact.


Get the UUID from a mostly dead hard drive?

Have you tried looking at the kernel log messages?
If, as you said earlier, it tried to root from the drive at least once, you can try to find it in the /var/log/system.log, for example:

$ grep 'rooting\ via' /var/log/system.log
Oct 24 18:01:44 localhost kernel[0]: rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen: 4AB3D289-884F-379C-AF7B-************
Oct 25 11:21:57 localhost kernel[0]: rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen: 4AB3D289-884F-379C-AF7B-************
Oct 28 10:30:54 localhost kernel[0]: rooting via boot-uuid from /chosen: 4AB3D289-884F-379C-AF7B-************
...

Those logs are usually kept for months, so you should be able to get it.


Problems with missing Launch Agents and Daemons

"Usually I would do a clean install" - this is why clean installs are the best way. The time saved by doing an upgrade-install is often negated by the time spent troubleshooting afterwards.

It may be worth running the latest version of Onyx and clearing out both system and user caches, but I'd probably be more inclined to spend the time letting Time Machine backup my home folder while I download the Yosemite installer and make a USB installer from it.

USB install instuctions for anyone in a similar situation...

Get an 8GB USB stick, label it Untitled - you will need to modify the command below if using a different volume name.

Download the 10.10 installer but don't let it run.

Enter the following command in Terminal

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

Wait for the magic to happen. You can then boot from the USB, erase your HD and perform a clean install which works as it should. You can then forget about your existing issues and move on.

It's not a solution to your issue but it may prove quicker doing this than waiting for a proper answer, particularly if time is an issue...


Gmail Exchange accounts Cannot Get Mail, server connection failed, on new device

I discovered the answer. It turns out Google disabled Exchange for new logins on iOS unless you have a paid business account. So for now my solution is to have the Gmail app installed so I get live notifications and use the default mail app to organize or write email.


Why files created by Kaleidoscope App are in quarantine?

The system's quarantine feature is a good security measure so I would not recommend this to everyone, but if you are confident in the files you download and run on your system then one option is to disable quarantining altogether. To do this, open the Terminal and run the following command, then reboot the system:

defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO

source: http://www.cnet.com/news/workarounds-for-quarantine-bug-in-os-x-lion/


Screenshot go 'nowhere' after Dropbox installation

To check where screenshots are currently assigned, in Terminal type

defaults read com.apple.screencapture location

By default that would actually return no answer, as the line should only be written if you ever change it - so I'm assuming Dropbox did change it at some point.

To reset it to the default desktop location, type

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop

followed by

killall SystemUIServer

This should cover for  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   3  &  4  screenshots. Screenshots to clipboard should be unaffected, & still be activated by adding  Ctrl ⌃  to either of the above methods.


Purchasing a Mac Mini with Future Compatibility in Mind

Buy the "Basic" (as they call it in Apple Store) 2012 Mac mini and replace HD and RAM yourself is the most economical way. It's also the power user move.

a) While leaving the factory HD in place, you can put in a second drive such as a SSD at where the optical bay used to be. You can dual boot two OS X installations. One can be the daily OS, the other 1) as extra storage for less frequented files, 2) as Time Machine backup location, and 3) as beefed-up Recovery Mode if the primary fails. I don't know if you can put a 2nd drive into the 2014 model.

b) Dual drive and merge them into your own fusion drive.

c) Upgrade to a 3rd-party 16 GB RAM. The price cannot be cheaper given the amount of time it has been out in the market.

Haswell's raison is saving energy. It makes a lot of sense on MBP and MBA. And 2014 Mac mini DOES use less power than the 2012 model, but that's a moot point.

Compatibility is less concerning if you consider performance. An iPhone 4 is compatible with iOS 7, but that's not preferable, and a 4S can technically run iOS 8 but only sluggishly and without many features. You COULD install Yosemite on 2009 Mac mini, but would you do it?

Great. I fixed/tweaked my MBP, Mac mini, and MBA for 4 years now without ever going to the genius bar, hat in hand. So apple's support did a great job of staying out of my way. I'm serious. When I had a Dell, I chose to add years to my warranty because the company is the the only place you can turn to. Because apple has sold so many and kept its lines simple, there ought to be somebody out there doing what you're doing.

I don't know if you agree that Apple has placed Mac mini into that peculiar spot in its line-up: iPod Touch is the thing that's not an iPhone; iPad mini (2014) is that thing that is not a iPhone 6 Plus. Mac Mini is the thing that is not a Mac Pro. Apple's not going to be pushing the boundaries with it. That's my guess.


Force Spotlight to index a hidden directory

Spotlight doesn't index dot files or folders. A workaround is to rename the folder and then symlink it back to its original name:
mv ~/.local/share/powershell ~/powershell && ln -s ~/powershell ~/.local/share/powershell

Make sure the destination of the move doesn't already exist.


USB 3.0 Card on a 2008 Mac Pro running Yosemite 10.10

(Just wanting to close the loop on this topic since it's an old question without a definitive answer)

The chip for the device referenced by the OP - D720200AF1 - has long since been EOL'd by the manufacturer.  There have been some references to "hacks" to get this to work, but ultimately, they are unreliable because a device driver is more than just support for a particular chipset.  Ultimately, no native driver exists for card in question.

That said, to get USB 3.0 on a Mac Pro (2008 through 2012 models), Inatek makes a very good 4 port USB 3.0 PCIe adapter card.  Their specifications state that it works with Yosemite and above and I can confirm that it works with El Capitan (it also works with Windows XP through 10).


The path: /System/Library/Extensions/IOPlatformPluginFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin.kext/Contents/Resources" is still existing and it indeed contains a lot of plists with Mac identifier names (e.g. MacBookPro8_1.plist). The whole path starting with /System is protected by SIP though. To modify (i.e. move) files here you have to disable SIP.

I strongly recommend to leave the plist where it is and search for the real culprit. In your linked example it's not really the kernel_task but the AirMail process which bogs the CPU. One solution is then to disable/modify Airmail.

Since you didn't add an Activity Monitor screenshot I don't know the real reason why your CPU is forced to its knees.


Help with AppleScript to automate Numbers Cell Formatting

I finally got what I wanted. I used an app called Script Debugger 7, though not necessary, it really helped me with all the classes & options available with each application and detailed help.

Further, it was really easy to write scripts in this app. For anybody needing a similar solution, I hope this helps. This script is not the best, in terms of error checking or dynamic names, but that's for another day.

------Script below--------

property rBlue : {1721, 15020, 27788}
property rPink : {48626, 3448, 26715}

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions

tell application "Numbers"
tell document 1
    tell active sheet
        tell table "Table 1"
            set rCount to get row count

            repeat with r from 2 to rCount
                set valCell to formatted value of cell ("A" & r)
                set remCell to valCell mod 2

                if remCell = 0 then set text color of cell ("A" & r) to rBlue
                if remCell ≥ 1 then set text color of cell ("A" & r) to rPink
            end repeat

        end tell
    end tell
end tell

end tell


How to get iTunes 11 to Group by Album Name

In general, you're already using the correct way to sort by album name.  Click "Music" then, "Albums"

The problem you're seeing with compilations being shown multiple times for each artist has always been a problem even in older versions of iTunes.  In order to fix this, you'll need to modify the Album Artist field in the track info.

To do this, press ⌘+i (Ctrl+i on Windows), then put “VA” into the Album Artist field (Note: using “Various Artists” or any matching string should also work). You can select multiple tracks with ⌘+Click (Ctrl+Click on Windows) to edit many tracks on the same compilation at a time.


MacBook Air (13-inch, 2017) [MacOs Catalina 10.15.6] Yellow tint when watching video in Netflix, Youtube or even Videos(Quick Time)

Hope this helps: turn of "Night Shift" when watching movies.
I had this with subtitles. Whenever a subtitle appeared the color became blueish, when it disappeared the color turned to amber.
It took me a while to find out "Night Shift" was the problem. At least turning it off solved mine.
Night Shift can be turned off by clicking in the utmost right corner of the menu bar. On the three horizontal stripes with dashes. This opens the notification center. If you don't see "Night Shift" on the top of the notification center, scroll the center down.
Other method: Open System Preferences > Open Displays > click on "Night Shift" and turn it off.
Hope I was of any help,
regards Peter


Mavericks Finder spins when opening folders

There are a number of Apple Support Communities discussions regarding this, and a number of possible fixes given. To summarise in case one works for you:

Disable Finder App Nap

This seems to fix it for almost everyone on ASC who had Finder working fine in 10.8 but now is 'broken' in 10.9.

sudo defaults write com.apple.Finder NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

…then log out and back in with 'Reopen windows when logging back in' disabled.
Clear Finder Caches

Empty ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder and restart Finder.

rm -r ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.finder/ && killall -HUP Finder

Reset Finder Preferences

Related to above — delete both preference files used by Finder:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple/sidebarlists.plist

Reindex Spotlight

sudo mdutil -E /

Change the 'Show Scroll Bars' setting

It seems that it can be fixed by changing the scroll bar setting in System Preferences → General from When Scrolling to Always.
Repair Permissions

Try repairing permissions in Disk Utility.


This is for iTunes 11.4, but I think it's the same in 11.3 and other versions around here, for anyone looking.

I had this issue too, because there isn't enough space on my iDevices to update in place.

Open iTunes, make sure you're in "Library" and not the Store.  At the top left there's a drop down menu, it defaults to "Music".  Use it to select "Apps".  Then in the top center area below the status box that shows sync progress and the like is "Updates".  Click that, then "Update All Apps" in the bottom right of the window.

Presto, utilizing your computer's network connection and hard drive for better app updating.


Instagram not available among share suggestions in iOS 13

Apps get added to share when you install them. They get removed when you remove them. I would check that your app has uploaded everything to Instagram online and then remove the app.
Once it's gone, power down the phone.
Power it up, and then reinstall the app.


Newly-upgraded Mavericks machine hangs on startup

1) You have a backup, right?

2) Boot into the recovery partition: hold option before apple logo appears, select recovery hd.

3) Run disk utiity form the recovery hd, select your boot partition (usually macintosh hd), and hit verify disk. It will probably find errors on the partition.

4) If disk utility finds errors, hit "repair disk" in disk utility. If it succeeds, you should be able to boot normally. If it fails, reformat and reinstall.

If disk utility doesn't find errors... try reinstalling without reformatting.


Preview randomly removing spaces between words

Solved (probably). I realized that I actually created the PDF from another PDF. The original PDF was poorly OCR-ed (Optical Character Recognition) and I believe that Preview was reading that OCR. I re-OCR-ed my new doc and I think that's where Acrobat was getting it. I just made a PDF of images from the old PDF and then re-OCR-ed it so that all the old metadata was gone. Thanks!


Where can I purchase a replacement screw for my MacBook Pro SuperDrive?

Have you tried ebay? ebay search for "macbook pro screws"


El Capitan Installer consistently corrups HFS+ superblock

I would still suspect a problem with the superblock or GUID table.

Personally, I would copy the entire drive to an external drive then boot from the external and erase the internal drive. For this I usually use Carbon Copy Cloner

At that point you should be able to install El Capitan fine and then when asked by the installer you can transfer the applications, setting and users from the external drive into the new system.


How can you sync videos from Youtube to your iPad for offline viewing automatically?

Watchlater does just that. Click a bookmarklet to add a video to the queue, and when you open the app, it will cache the videos in the queue.


The error could be the download progress was interrupted.

The macOS updated files are located in /Library/Updates, needs to clean up that folder. You can't simply delete it.

By the following steps:

Restart your mac, press Command + R, then enter into Recovery HD.
Choose utility menu, select Terminal.
csrutil disable to disable SIP.
reboot.
Delete the files in folder /Library/Updates.
Enter Recovery HD again, and input csrutil enable in Terminal.
reboot.
Check the update should work.

Hope this helps someone.


New Playlists aren't transferring to iPhone

Check to make sure that your entire library is set to sync to your phone. In iTunes, connect to your phone, select the Music tab across the top, then verify that Sync Music is enabled and the Entire Music Library radio box is selected. This allow all playlists that you create on your computer to sync to your phone.

Note that you must sync in order for playlists to transfer - after they have been created.


Can I map a function key to a command key combo?

Try the free KeyRemap4MacBook from the site below

http://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook


How to install Mac OS X as a guest OS in VMware Workstation 8 (running in Ubuntu host)?

You can not legally install OS X on VMware Workstation or Virtualbox and VMware has checks to prevent it.  You have to hack it to get it to work and we don't provide hacks here.

You can read more about it here.


How can I change the picture used by this AppleScript?

You can see all the images in that folder by opening a Finder window,  pressing Cmd-Shift-G, and entering the folder name /Library/Desktop Pictures; or by running ls '/Library/Desktop Pictures' in Terminal.

pse@Mithos:~$ ls '/Library/Desktop Pictures'
Abstract/                   Desert 4.jpg                Galaxy.jpg                  Reflection 1.jpg
Abstract 1.jpg              Desert 5.jpg                Grass Blades.jpg            Reflection 2.jpg
Abstract 2.jpg              Desert 6.jpg                Hawaiian Print.jpg          Reflection 3.jpg
Abstract 3.jpg              Desert 7.jpg                High Sierra.jpg             Reflection 4.jpg
...

Choose one of the images and then put its name in the place of Earth Horizon.jpg in your script like this:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to
    set desktop picture to POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures/FILE_NAME_HERE.jpg"'


How to make remove free space and make APFS container take it up

This answer was tested using Big Sur (macOS 11.0.1).

Boot to Big Sur.

Close all applications. Open the Terminal application.

You can create a new APFS container.  An example is given below. Assume the output from diskutil list is as follows.

The command to enter would be as follows.
diskutil addpartition disk0s1 apfs NewAPFS 0

Clone (replicate) your existing Big Sur installation to the new APFS container. An example is given below. Assume the output from diskutil list is as follows.

The command to enter would be as follows.
sudo asr --source /dev/disk1s5s1 --target /dev/disk2 --erase

An alternative to the asr command would be to use the Carbon Copy Cloner.

Restart the Mac and hold down the option key until the Mac Startup Manager icons appear. Hold down the control key while selecting the Big Sur that is not shown as the current default.

An alternative would be to select the startup disk from macOS Recovery.

Remove the original. An example is given below. Assume the output from diskutil list is as follows.

The command to enter would be as follows.
diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk2

Reclaim the free space. An example is given below. Assume the output from diskutil list is as follows.

The command to enter would be as follows.
diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk1 0

The final result is given below.


check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'PASSWORD(“newpass”)'

The syntax you were using was close. It should be:

USE mysql;
UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('NEW-ROOT-PASSWORD') WHERE USER='root';

However you don't need to directly edit the mysql tables, rather use the dedicated commands:

SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = 'NEW-ROOT-PASSWORD';

Note that the manual says that the syntax below is 'preferred' without hinting why you might choose one over the other:

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'NEW-ROOT-PASSWORD';


tl;dr
open terminal and paste xcode-select --install

In general, you don't need whole XCode suite ;)


Preview.app: easily print current page only?

In the version of Preview included in Lion, this is easy. Go to File-> Print...
Click the Show Details button to reveal extra options.
Under Pages, choose Selected Page in Sidebar.

That will print only the current page (and the live print preview will update to show you).
Note that the side bar does not have to be visible for this to work.


Which FireWire cable do I need to connect an iMac (late 2009) to a Thunderbolt to FireWire connection to retrieve the data using Diskmode?

The iMac 2009 has a FireWire 800 port and the new iMac 2019 a Thunderbolt 3 port.

This requires three cables daisy-chained:

FireWire 800 - FireWire 800
FireWire 800 - Thunderbolt 1/2: Apple Thunderbolt-naar-FireWire-adapter
Thunderbolt 1/2 - Thunderbolt 3: Adapter voor Thunderbolt 3 (USB‑C) naar Thunderbolt 2

I found one source stating it's working: Le Target Disk Mode marche en USB-C, en Thunderbolt et en FireWire (en français, with pics) and another one stating more or less the opposite: Target mode between Macbook pro 2017 and Mac Pro 1.1.


How can I turn my email off for the night? (iOS)

As for the current version of iOS (7).
No, there is not. Apple only offers the Do Not Disturb feature and the settings for notification center which are currently not controllable by Siri.


Unable to install OS X, cmd+R opening internet recovery instead of usual recovery

Your model Mac was shipped with Yosemite (OS X 10.10) installed. The tags you placed on the question suggest you have upgraded to El Capitan (OS X 10.11). There is the possibility you could have erased the Recovery partition by using the Disk Utility if you had Yosemite installed. Evidently, this would be much harder (or perhaps impossible) to do if El Capitan was installed. Also, I do not know if you were using Core Storage and if so, how this would effect the ability to erase the Recovery partition.

Evidentially, you can now only boot using OS X Internet Recovery. You can use Internet Recovery to install the version of OS X that came with your machine. From this, you can go to the App Store and download and install newer versions of OS X.

An alternative would be to use another Mac to download OS X. You can then transfer the download to a USB drive. You then use the USB drive to install OS X on your Mac. The instructions are given the Apple web site: Create a bootable installer for OS X.


Print using AirPort Extreme from both OSX and iOS devices

Connect your printer to your network instead of the USB port. Your Mac can print wirelessly if in the printers network both via the AirPrint driver as well as the printers native driver (might need to be downloaded from the manufacturers site). The native driver might give you more options (if you have more than 1 paper tray or other non-default features).

Your iOS device will print via AirPrint or alternatively there might be an app from the manufacturer that allows printing via the app but not on a system level.


That adapter will work fine. I have used the regular DVI → Composite/S-Video adapter (M9267G) many times on many different Macs.

Contrary to what has been mentioned in the comments, it is not an active adapter; it requires no external power, and PAL/NTSC resolution can be output from the iMac's graphics card. It behaves exactly as any other second screen would behave, just at rather low resolution. Performance/response time will not be an issue; there is no lag.

Regarding resolution you'll get the option to run at native 720×576 / 640×480 (depending on whether it's a PAL or NTSC TV) or a bunch of other higher resolutions, up to 1024×768 (as far as I recall). Note that these higher resolutions will be scaled to the TV's native resolution, so don't expect to be able to read 10pt text in the 1024×768 setting.

You'll also get a fun option called "overscan" which switches between scaling the image on the display so you can see a black edge around it (like a CRT computer monitor) or so the image "overscans" and runs off the edge of the display (like a CRT TV picture).

There is a thread on mac-forums.com: the first screenshot shows the resolution options you'll see.


Problems with Google Calendars and iCal in Lion

BusyCal is the best answer I can give you if you only want to sync calendars to Google.

I would also highly recommend SpanningSync which will also sync your Contacts in a much better and more reliable manner than Address Book will.

  (I have no affiliation with either company, and am a paying customer/user of both. I use/love BusyCal for my calendar, but I sync with MobileMe not gCal… I use SpanningSync to sync my contacts to Gmail. I have written reviews for both Spanning Sync and BusyCal.)


Mac mini set to never sleep, but seems to be sleeping anyway (does not respond to network)

I'm going to assume you rebooted after saving those energy settings. I've had the same problem and only ever found a work-around: [caffein] (http://lightheadsw.com/caffeine/) will keep your computer from going to sleep (I believe later versions have the ability to let he monitor sleep while keeping the CPU itself active). This may be slightly more convenient in that you only need to click the menu bar icon to let it sleep rather than opening up energy settings all the time.


How to fix an iPhone with half a screen showing a different color?

I would also try a full factory reset, like IconDaemon suggests. If that doesn't improve your situation, you have the following choices:

Go to an official Apple store or a premium service provider to exchange your screen (this will cost you between 100 and 300$ depending on your location)
Go to an iPhone doctor or clinic which replaces the screen with a cheap aftermarket china one (Be very careful with this, most of the screens have a very bad quality and you can't get support from Apple afterwards. To check, if a screen is genuine, there should be no yellow glare and you can press firmly on the glass without damaging the display)
Buy a broken iPhone online and change the screen yourself as this tutorial on ifixit states: iFixit - iPhone 6 Repair


How to prevent Windows 10 from downloading and installing updates before the Boot Camp Support Software is installed?

Below are some basic steps to install the Boot Camp Support Software and configure Windows Update before updates are downloaded from Microsoft.

  Windows Update can only be configured if you are installing Windows 10 Pro or better. I do not know of a way to configure Windows Update for Windows 10 Home. The steps given below can still be used to install the Boot Camp Support Software.

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

Before installing Windows 10, make sure your computer can not
communicate with the internet. If the computer is hardwired to the
internet, disconnect it now.
Start installing Windows 10.
You may be asked to connect to the internet via Wi-Fi. If a window
similar to below appears, click on "Skip this step".

When you reach the following screen, put the computer in Audit mode
by pressing the following keys. With the
ctrlshift keys held down, press the
F3 key. Hold all three keys down for about 3 seconds or
until the computer starts to reboot.

If you see the screen below, do nothing. The computer will login
automatically to the Administrator account.

Eventually, you should get the following screen showing the
Administrator's desktop. You can close the "System Preparation Tool
3.14" window.

Check the clock and make any needed corrections. Right click on the
clock shown on the task bar at the bottom right of the screen and
select "Adjust date/time". See image shown below.

Install the Boot Camp Support Software (BCSS) by opening the setup
Application in the appropriate BCSS folder. If you get a Windows
version error message similar to what is shown below, proceed to
step 9.

If you get a Boot Camp x64 error message similar to what is shown
below, proceed to step 10. Otherwise, goto step 11.

You can remedy the situation by right clicking on the highlighted
setup application entry and selecting "Properties", as shown below.

Next, click on the "Compatibility" tab, check off "Run this program
in compatibility for:" box and select the appropriate previous
version of Windows. An illustration is shown below.

Click the "OK" button and a open the setup application to install
the BCSS. If the computer reboots, you can close the "System
Preparation Tool 3.14" window and any Boot Camp windows. Proceed to
step 11.
You can remedy the situation by using the Finder application to
 navigate to the Windows Installer Package named "BootCamp64" or
 similar file. Right click on the file entry and select
 "Properties", as shown below.

Next, click on the "Compatibility" tab, check off "Run this program
 in compatibility for:" box. An illustration is shown below.

Click the "OK" button. Right click on the file entry and select
 "Install", as shown below. This starts the installation of the
 BCSS. If the computer reboots, you can close the "System
 Preparation Tool 3.14" window and any Boot Camp windows.

If you do not want to configure Windows Update or have Windows 10
Home, you should skip this step. To proceed, right click on the
Start button on the taskbar and select "Run", as shown below.

In the popup windows, enter "gpedit.msc" and click the Ok button, as
shown below.

Select "Local Computer Policy→Computer Configuration→Administrative
Templates→Windows Components→Windows Update", as shown below.

Next, right click on "Configure Automatic Updates" and select
"Edit". The "Configure Automatic Updates" windows should appear as
shown below.

If you want to "Never check for updates" click the "Disabled"
button, otherwise click the "Enabled" button and choose your option.
The result from choosing option 2 is shown below.

When finished, click the "OK" button to close the window. Also,
close the "Local Group Policy Editor" window. Next, Click on the
Start button on the task bar and select "Settings→Update &
security→Windows Update→Check for updates". When the following
message occurs, click "Advanced options".

Inspect the window to confirm you selection. Below is the correct
window for option 2.

Close the "Settings" window.
Connect your computer to the internet. If you computer was hardwired
to the internet, plug it back in now. If you were using Wi-Fi,
enable it and join a network.
If the "System Preparation Tool 3.14" window is not displayed,
reboot the computer.
Click the "OK" button in the "System Preparation Tool 3.14" window.
 Use the default settings shown in the image below.

When the computer reboots, you will have left the Audit mode. You should boot to the following display.

On my computer, I was able to select the "United States (Apple)" keyboard. You may want to check if a better choice exists than the default keyboard.

At this point, you can continue with the Windows 10 installation.

Additional Notes:

There is a downloadable "Show or hide updates" troubleshooter package from Microsoft, that will allow you to review and/or hide updates before downloading and/or installing. This option is described in an answer to "Stopping automatic updates windows 10".

Personally, I found this software to be unpredictable. I could get the software to hide an update, but I had trouble getting a hidden update to install.


When I launch my macOS there running so many interfaces

You do not want to get rid of your active interfaces, obviously, because they are active, meaning you are using them.
Inactive interfaces use up so little resources that it is not worth deleting them, especially since they will just have to be created again when you need them. They use a tiny bit of memory and that is it; they have no impact on performance.
Docker and VMware both create a lot of interfaces so they can use a separate, private, local network for their virtual machines, but they can get created by other software, too.


Can I block entire area codes from my iPhone?

Yes, there IS a free and easy way to block incoming nuisance calls on an iPhone!

(1) Get and install a silent ringtone (I use one called "10 seconds of silence" which I found on the internet for free).
(2) You know who your regular callers are. Give each contact a ringtone other than the default. (Yes, it takes a few minutes, but it's a one-time thing.)
(3) Set your phone's default ringtone to "10 seconds of silence".

From then on known callers get cause your phone to ring with whatever ringtone you've assigned that particular caller.

Calls from unknown callers will not cause your phone to ring. These callers can leave a message if they wish. Most spammers don't bother.

Repeat nuisance callers can have their numbers added to a special "Spammers" contact which you can block so that such callers cannot even leave messages. Just remember that if you do this, you have to unblock and re-block this contact each time you add a number. Don't worry about whether you indicate the number is fax or mobile or whatever--doesn't matter. I used to do this last step, but found it was unnecessary. Plus I kind of like to look once or twice a day and see where the spammers are ostensibly calling from--of course, their really using spoofed numbers using VoIP over the internet.


No, there's no such option / preference. You could, though, turn off your carrier's data plan altogether by turning off the Cellular Data option (under Settings / General/ Cellular on iOS 6 and Settings / General / Network on iOS 5).


Can you make Bluetooth hardware work out-of-the-box in Boot Camp?

No, this is not possible.
Looking at this from the perspective your your keyboard, it believes it's connecting to two different machines.  When a pairing request is made, due to security, a "key" is generated at that time.  The keyboard and host exchange it - then "agree" it's genuine and proceed to pair.
When you switch operating systems, say to macOS now, that OS has never seen your keyboard so when you attempt to pair, it doesn't work as there's no key.  So, you pair it and a new key gets generated, agreed that it's genuine and you continue your merry way, keyboarding happily until you switch OSes again.
Now, the key your first OS had doesn't match what it expects from the keyboard and the whole pairing dance has to be repeated.  This is because your keyboard only supports a single pairing.  What you need is a keyboard that supports multiple devices like the Logitech MX series of products where it will support 3 different devices.  There are many of these out there besides Logitech (I personally use a Keychron K8), but some are definitely better than others at the pairing aspect, so be wary of that when selecting one.


Truecrypt's main selling point is that it runs on windows, various flavours of linux and  OSX, too. From their website, it says that they offer many encryption techniques each with a minimum of 256-bit encryption.

FileVault uses XTS-AES 128-bit encryption, which is a different form of encryption, but despite it's misnomer actually has 256 bits of encryption.

FileVault is tightly integrated into the OS, so it's probably easier to use. If your use case is over many computers with different OS's on them (windows, linux, as well as mac) then I'd go for Truecrypt for continuity.

It's important to remember that the security of these drives is limited by the length of your password. This article has an interesting discussion for further reading.

  Does Truecrypt decrease the performance of the OS comparing to Filevault?

Without any testing whatsoever, I would guess that they're comparable in speed, since they are both on-the-fly encryption techniques, and perform as normal drives once unlocked.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention that TrueCrypt also supports encrypting just a portion of your hard drive, say a folder or a group of folders.

Filevault doesn't support encryption of individual files/folders. However, Disk Utility will allow you to create an encrypted image. (which can use either 128-bit OR 256-bit AES encryption)


How do you remove icons from the Menu bar?

It depends which icons you are trying to remove. There are two types; software that uses the NSStatusItem API that Apple publicise for third party developers and software that uses their private undocumented NSMenuExta API.

The icons that represent operating system features can be removed by holding down the cmd ⌘ key and dragging them with the mouse. For example, the AirPlay, Time Machine, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi icons. These are implemented using NSMenuExtra.

Other icons, the ones that represent applications you may need to close the application to remove. For example, Dropbox and Plex. Apple provide NSStatusItem for developers to implement them, but unfortunately it doesn't provide all the features of NSMenuExtra, for example dragging to uninstall is only available through NSMenuExtra.


How to use iSight webcam without activating the green light?

"iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED" is a paper by Matthew Brocker and Stephen Checkoway from the Johns Hopkins University. In this paper they explain on how to disable the LED when using the camera. In short: normally you use the CPU to access the camera and activate the LED, but you can also use the processing unit in on the camera board itself and this will not activate the green LED. The authors also provide software to protect you against these problems.

iFixit had the same question and their answer was also based on the same paper:

  according to the researchers, the vulnerability they discovered affects “Apple internal iSight webcams found in earlier-generation Apple products, including the iMac G5 and early Intel-based iMacs, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros until roughly 2008.” While the attack outlined in the paper is limited to these devices, researchers like Charlie Miller suggest that the attack could be applicable to newer systems as well. “There’s no reason you can’t do it -- it’s just a lot of work and resources but it depends on how well [Apple] secured the hardware,” Miller says.

In short: Yes, the iSight can be used without green light as it is not hardwired.


How can I re-route Cocoa applications through ssh -X?

No - Cocoa is not an X windows compatible system. The closest you will get is screen sharing (VNC). See this question for more info. For Lion like background sharing with 10.5 and 10.6 see this question on third party VNC tools.


Change the Option+R/L shortcuts to Control+R/L

In the first example below Option-L/R arrow does the same after adjusting the keycodes as Control-L/R arrow.

The previous behavior Option-L/R arrow (e.g opening/closing a folder in list view) is lost.

If you want a different behavior you have to modify/precise your answer.

To make this work you have to use a third party tool: Karabiner.

Download, install and open Karabiner
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences
Open the tab Misc & Uninstall
Hit the button Open private.xml
Open the file private.xml with an appropriate editor
Enter the customized keycode

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
      <name>Change Option L/R arrow to Control L/R arrow</name>
      <identifier>altlr2ctrllr</identifier>
      <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
      <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Save the file
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences the tab Change Key
Hit the ReloadXML button
Enable the remapping. It should be listed at the beginning.

And if you are really asking for "Option+L/R shortcut on my Mac keyboard to Control+R/L" - which can be read as alt-l to ctrl-r and alt-r to ctrl-l in contrary to the headline - then use

          <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
          <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>

If you want the opposite (Control-L/R arrow does the same as Option-L/R arrow) use this snippet instead. The previous behavior of Control-L/R arrow is lost.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Change Control L/R arrow to Option L/R arrow</name>
    <identifier>ctrllr2altlr</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

If you want to swap ctrl-L/R-arrow with ctrl-L/R-arrow then use either both of the above keycode changes or this one:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Swap Control L/R arrow and Option L/R arrow</name>
    <identifier>swap_ctrllrarrow_altlrarrow</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_CONTROL, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_OPTION</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


How can I find the reason for my Mac's recent "restart"?

I use Terminal a lot, so my answer will include commands used in that application.  I know Console provides details, but I rarely see it as more than a GUI to access the logs.  Terminal can be found in the Utilities folder which is found in the Applications folder.

On newer macOS (macOS 10.12 and later) with the unified logging system, the processing of the text files doesn't show the whole story, so use the log show command below:

log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h

Of course, expand the time if your restart happened more than 24 hours in the past.

After a while, you should see a message which contains a number indicating a reason.  To find the meaning of that number, you can use this site:
https://georgegarside.com/blog/macos/shutdown-causes/.  For example, my last shutdown cause was "-128" which, unfortunately, is "unknown".

On older systems, you should be able to find the text "Previous shutdown cause" in your system log.  You can find this by using this command (which you can copy/paste into terminal):

grep "Previous shutdown cause" /var/log/system.log


Mountain Lion - Cycle though windows not working on Terminal

Check the Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard System Preference-- make sure that Move focus to next window is set to your liking (in the Keyboard & Text item) and that there are no conflicts with any other shortcut settings.  Barring that, a complete re-install of ML has fixed other quirks that cropped up when I upgraded.


You should consider install GNU find using homebrew.

To install homebrew you just need to type the following in your terminal:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Then install findutils by typing:

brew install findutils

Then your find version will support the -printf and should be the latest:

$ find --version
find (GNU findutils) 4.4.2
, nc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
, o the extent permitted by law.

, nd Kevin Dalley.
Built using GNU gnulib version e5573b1bad88bfabcda181b9e0125fb0c52b7d3b
Features enabled: D_TYPE O_NOFOLLOW(enabled) LEAF_OPTIMISATION FTS() CBO(level=0)


Is there a Terminal shell command to compare the contents of folders?

Yes. The diff command will do exactly what you want. To use it just type diff -rq and either drag the folders you want to compare into the terminal window or type the folders' path yourself.

The -r is to recursively compare any subdirectories found, and the -q toggles diff into brief mode. Without it, diff, will not only tell you which files are different, but also the actual line-by-line differences for any text files that exist in both locations but are not identical.

On the other hand, Kaleidoscope is a great Application to compare text, images and folders in a very neat and clean way. You can even merge changes with it.


You need to enter the command given below.

diskutil info disk0s2 | grep -e Size -e Offset

You should see output similar to what is shown below.

   Partition Offset: 314597376 Bytes (76806 4096-Byte-Device-Blocks)
   Disk Size: 351.0 GB (351027175424 Bytes) (exactly 685599952 512-Byte-Units)
   Device Block Size: 4096 Bytes

You need to determine the offset and size in units of device blocks. In your case, the offset is 76806 Blocks and the size is 200000118784 Bytes/4096 Bytes per Block=85699994 Blocks.

Next, you need to boot to macOS Recovery. Basically, restart the Mac and hold down the ⌘+R key combination until macOS Recovery starts to boot.

From the menu bar, open a Terminal application window. Enter the following commands.

gpt -f remove -i 2 disk0
gpt -f add -i 2 -b 76806 -s 85699994 -t apfs disk0

Removing the APFS Container with the Untitled and Untitled - Data Volumes

The following commands can be use to remove this container. Here I assume you have booted from the macOS stored in the other container.

sudo diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0s3
sudo diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3

An alternative and perhaps safer way to remove this container would be to first boot to macOS Recovery over the Internet, a macOS installation flash drive or an external drive with macOS installed. Next, enter the following commands.

diskutil unmountdisk disk0
gpt remove -i 3 /dev/disk0.

Next, reboot back to macOS.

When finished, the drive will contain 150 GB of free space. This free space can be added to the remaining APFS container by entering the command given below.

sudo diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0


How to stop display from turning off when I disconnect a Screen Sharing client

Run this command in the terminal to fix the external screen going blank on VNC disconnect. Works with Sierra OS.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteManagement RestoreMachineState -bool NO

More context from jabenninghoff on GitHub:

  In newer versions of macOS, screen sharing will automatically re-lock the screen when you disconnect if it was locked when you first connected.


How do I use a power adapter extension cable?

The picture in your question is referred to as an AC wall adapter, or "duckhead" (US) and slides out of the AC power adapter so you can then slide in the AC power cable (US), pictured in the link in your question.

The picture below shows the "duck head" being slid out of the AC power adapter and once removed the AC power cable gets slid in its place, thus providing an extension cord to the AC power adapter.


how to transfer a app from one ipod to an iphone?

Connect the device with the app to the PC with a USB cable.
Right click on the iPod and select "transfer purchases"
Once the app is on the computer, then connect the iPhone.
Set up that app to sync and you should be done.


You can use automator to create an application that will launch the application that you want to open in full screen and run an apple script. The script can perform a keystroke to run the shortcut for full screen.

Launch Automator, Choose Application, Drag "Launch Application" from library and choose desired app, Drag "Apple Script" from library, enter apple script (check with specific app for correct keystroke), this works for chrome

here is the script for google chrome fullscreen app:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Google Chrome" to activate
    delay 2

tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "f" using {command down, control down}
end tell

Screenshot

[

Link with tutorial to create Automator Full screen application
https://youtu.be/5L5ikafzCzI


Fonts and Fonts Disabled folders in OS X Mountain Lion

If you're currently having no problems without those fonts, actually deleting them should not cause any problems. The system just ignores the fonts in the folder "Fonts Disabled" so there should be no effect on the system.

Just be careful you don't delete the following fonts:

Keyboard
Geneva
LastResort
Monaco
LucidaGrande
Helvetica

located in /System/Library/Fonts. These fonts are used by the system.
See also http://www.macworld.com/article/1051630/tcofonts.html


This isn't the "supported" procedure, but there's a good chance it will work to move a large number of documents to iCloud.

You still have to move documents kind by kind, but not within particular programs.

In the Finder, select the documents (not a folder; the Pages (for instance) that are in the folder) that you want moved to iCloud.

Select Copy from the Edit menu.

Press ⌘⇧G to Go to Folder.

Type ~/Library/Mobile Documents/

If the folder com~apple~Pages exists, double-click it; if not, create it then double-click it.

Select Paste from the Edit menu.

Repeat for the different kinds of files you want to open in their respective apps via iCloud.


Prevent photoanalysisd from spinning up fans

Go to AppleID > iCloud and disable Photos.
Go run Photos app and verify there are no libraries, delete all images or delete the library so when you relaunch Photos is asks to create a library.
Repeat these steps for every user on your Mac in Accounts
Restart the Mac.

At that point you might need look into logs to see what’s triggering the daemon to do work or run a sysdiagnose on the process. Also, Photos can have many libraries, so you might need to switch libraries to locate the system library or other ones. Photo analysis can run on any library - not just the one you expect when you launch the app.


I think there are two issues here. One is how to copy from Mac to Ubuntu. That is the work of the VM. You have to set it up and oftentimes it depends on capturing the mouse/keyboard (you may want to look it up in your vmware config for the specific VM you are using, I mean, the one running Ubuntu). From what you said, it looks like this part is working ok.

Then there is a question about the Kill-Yank ring in Emacs. Usually, you kill (cut) using Command+K (it kills from the cursor position to the end of the current line; you can kill characters with Control+K or words with Option(alt)+K) and you paste with Command+Y (it will paste everything that you had killed just before yanking it up). So, unless it is somehow configured differently, whatever you copy or cut with Command+C or Command+X on your Mac side (provided it is correctly configured on VMWare) should be available on Emacs by using Command+Y not Command+V.

Hope it helps.

P.S. There is also another trick: Ubuntu tends to think of the mouse as a peripheral having three buttons. Selecting something (just selecting, not copying or cutting it) and pressing the middle button normally pastes it at the cursor position (I don't know, nevertheless, how your VMWare-hosted Ubuntu would differentiate your middle button. Sometimes, it means pressing both buttons at once. On some configurations, you will need to press a modifier (Option?) while you click the secondary button.


Traffic of different Apps in Little Snitch with enabled VPN? What is the meaning?

A VPN is nothing more than a different connection to the internet. Without the VPN it looks like this:
Mac -> Local Network -> your Router -> your ISP -> the internet
This is vastly simplified, if course, but will work for what we are doing here.
The VPN is a TUNNEL that starts at your Mac and ends not at the network and servers of your ISP (AT&T, Spectrum, Verizon, etc.) but at the servers and networks of the VPN provider.
Mac -> VPN Tunnel -> (your Router) -> (your ISP) -> (Your VPN provider) ->the internet
That pathway above stays the same but it is like running a tube between your Mac and the internet in that your router, ISP and VPN provider, cant see what is in the VPN tunnel, as it is hidden by the VPN.
And instead of your traffic exiting your ISP for the internet in your town, it exits the VPN provider's network anywhere you want it to. Prague, Milan, Mexico City, Vancouver, Miami, wherever they have "exit points."
The key point here is that the VPN provides a secure tunnel between you and the end of the VPN. No one can spy on any traffic between those two points.
But everything on your Mac (or PC) still talks to everything that you point it to.
So if you browse the web using Firefox, it will still connect to every website you point it at. Not to mention all the cookies and tracking code that the website collects on you.
You are not being protected from what the website (and Firefox allows it to) does. You are being protected from being spied on between your Mac and the VPN exit point. And you can CHOOSE that end point. And Little Snitch still sees all of that activity, it is just going through the VPN. But it is still going.
The most common reason for a VPN is still my ability to connect back to my work network securely. The VPN creates a (virtual) tunnel (a private network) between my Mac or PC at home to my work network. This allows me onto that network as if I were sitting at my desk. And if I then google something the traffic exits from my work network and goes and connects to google.
A personal VPN, like you have allows you to appear as if you are surfing the web from the next town, state, country or continent and no one can tell where you are actually from. So your ISP may be in in Dallas Texas but with the VPN it looks like you are in Vancouver, BC, Canada.


According to this article, an Apple spokesman stated that the touch-screen iPod Nano does not run iOS.


Can app creators continue to access my data after I delete their app?

If the app is deleted, so are all connections to said developer. It wouldn't get through the approval process if it was allowed to continue farming your data, plus it'd need to stay on your phone for this to work.


Can I upgrade the carrier settings without the original SIM?

Yes. Carrier settings are sent when you connect to their respective cellular service. So if you purchased an unlocked iPhone 4 from Apple, and inserted a SIM from AT&T, you would be pushed the latest carrier update. If the next day, you removed the AT&T SIM and inserted one from Bell Mobility, then you would be pushed a carrier update for that respective carrier.

The updates are based on your iOS version number and the wireless network you are connected to (of course you need the respective SIM as well). You won't receive updates should you remove the SIM (or fail to insert one), but then it becomes a moot point because you need the card to connect to a network, making a carrier update rather pointless to begin with.

When the original carrier unlocks the device, it will be able to handle any wireless network. And the new carrier you sign with, will issue you a SIM.


Will I miss something if I uninstall Growl off Mountain Lion?

I was an avid user of Growl before Mountain Lion. I started a fresh install without growl and all my apps that were using growl have been updated to use the built in notifications.

Unless there is something specific you need from the growl features I doubt you'll miss it.


Sign in to your apple account here :

https://appleid.apple.com/account/manage/security

Answer your security questions. Birth Date is the last option.


SSD drive does not boot internally 13" Late 2011 MBP

Ok, so soon after this happened the 500GB 5400 rpm HDD failed also. I took it to Apple and the drive connector/cable was damaged from overheating they said. They changed the cable and it works great now.


I discovered that the contact was not flush with the top of the iPhone but was a little bit above. When I looked inside the headphone jack with a flashlight it looked somewhat strange at the bottom. I straightened out a paperclip and managed to fish up a small lump of pocket lint that had probably been forming in there for half a year or so. Just wanted to deliver this as a tip for anyone who runs into the same problem, before you send your headphones back to Apple as broken as so many people seem to have done.


How do I open Outlook .msg files on my iPad

You don't need an additional app. You can either sync your email messages to your iPad from your computer - instructions are in the user's guide as well as here:

  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1386

or you can set up your iPad to connect directly to your email provider - instructions also in the user's guide and here:

  http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/mail/

If your email service is an Exchange server, I'd recommending setting up your iPad to talk directly to the server. Then your mail, calendar and contacts, if you wish it so, will synchronize automatically without you having to sync with your computer.


Macbook Pro with OS X 10.8.4 will not connect to WiFi

Connection timeouts can be related to authentication issues sometimes. I recently answered a similar question regarding wifi problems that describes how to remove the network and password details.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/100217/6529

I would suggest trying this to see if it is an authentication problem.


iOS 10 disable erase all data after 8 failed attempts

This may be caused by having an Exchange server configured in Mail (which can override some security settings).

All you have to do is go to your mail accounts and delete the exchange email and you can switch it back off

I strongly assume this is it, and its MS way of hijacking what you should have full control over. (Exchange server admins can force security settings on devices if the user wants to use that account on their device.)


How to fully export and import the VPN settings on OS X Lion?

Well I found a thread here that seems to accomplish what you're asking.  I can't put it any better than forum poster himself, so here's what he said in case the page isn't working:

  I figured out a way to do this, so thought I would post for anyone
  following me that has a bunch of VPN settings and doesn't want to
  manually key them back in. You will basically have to copy & paste a
  few GUIDs to make your old prefs data match your new system. This
  worked for me going from one Mac OS X 10.6 SL system to another SL
  system. I would imagine similar steps would work for Mac OS X 10.5
  Leopard and possibly 10.7 Lion. Here we go:

  First, go to Network Preferences on your new machine and add VPN (L2TP), VPN (PPTP), or whatever VPN "interfaces" you need. Do not
  create any new VPN configurations at this time. Close Network Prefs.
  Open System Profiler, select and copy to the clipboard the Hardware UUID from the Hardware tab.
  Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost and find your old NetworkConnections prefs file. It will have the form of
  com.apple.networkConnect..plist. Make a copy of this
  file. Replace the  portion w/ the one you copied in
  step #2. Don't forget to remove any spaces and the " copy" tag. You
  should now have a new file called
  com.apple.networkConnect..plist.
  Open 2 files in an editor that can handle .plist files (I used TextWrangler): the com.apple.networkConnect..plist file
  you just made, and
  /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist.
  In preferences.plist, look for the GUID of each VPN interface that you've created. The "UserDefinedName" string at the end of the key
  will tip you off:

  <key>14A4B264-C231-41FE-857B-EE5557B69851</key> <dict> <key>DNS</key>
  <dict/> <key>IPv4</key> <dict> <key>ConfigMethod</key>
  <string>PPP</string> </dict> ... <key>UserDefinedName</key>
  <string>VPN (L2TP)</string> </dict>

  The first long string ("14A4B264...") is the part you need. Copy this
  to the clipboard.

  Now move over to your com.apple.networkConnect file. Find the key that has all of your old VPN settings for that VPN type contained
  w/in it. Select all of the key name (which is the GUID of your VPN
  interface on your old Mac), then paste to replace it w/ the new GUID.
  Repeat steps 5 & 6 for each VPN interface you need. In my case, there were 2: L2TP and PPTP.
  Save your changes and close the com.apple.networkConnect file. Close the preferences.plist file WITHOUT saving anything.
  Open your Network Preferences, select your VPN interface(s), and you should see your past configurations.

Hope this helps you!


Touch Bar not turning on after waking computer from sleep

I recommend you to reset NVRAM of your MBP.

This chip stores information on screen resolution and can often become corrupted. You can reset it by starting your Mac while holding down cmd + opt + P + R . You should hear the Mac chime, restart and chime a second time. Then you can release the keys you are holding.

More info here.


There are many different ways to accomplish this, but I think that the easiest is through Document Properties.

In your document, go to File -> Properties.  In your case, I'd probably create a new Custom Property.  Here, I've called it "Address", given it the type "text", and entered in the address of 23 Anytown Street, Anytown.  Click OK when you've completed this.

Back in your document, place the cursor where you'd like this text to appear.  Then go to Insert -> Field, select "Document Information" in the left list, then "DocProperty" in the right list, and finally enter (with quotes!) "Address" below, and click OK.  Repeat this anywhere that you want the address to appear.


How do you color code folders in Mavericks?

Unlike colours, tags one not mutually exclusive. You can set multiple tags for one file.

This may explain why Finder no longer displays the colour like before.

Sadly, it will only display a maximum of three colours on the right of the filename. It looks like these three colours are the last three in the list.


Is it possible to set the JAVA_HOME env in El Captitan?

The only way I got this to work was by setting this environment variable in the .bashrc file, which incidentally, isn't created in the users home directory by default.
Thanks to patrix's comments on my question which led to this solution.


My Macbook Air isn't outputting the correct resolution

I ran into the same problem when I bought a Dell UltraSharp Monitor to use with a MacBook Pro.  It appears you may be using an older spec mDP to HDMI cable (Probably HDMI 1.2)

  Version 1.2 HDMI 1.2 was released August 8, 2005 and added the option
  of One Bit Audio, used on Super Audio CDs, at up to 8 channels. It
  also added the availability of HDMI type A connectors for PC sources,
  the ability for PC sources to implement only the sRGB color space
  while retaining the option to implement the YCbCr color space, and
  required HDMI 1.2 and later displays to allow low-voltage
  sources.

That would explain why it showed up as a TV using YPbPr color format.

This particular monitor has a native DP interface - per Tetsujin, I would use that port instead of doing the conversion from mDP to HDMI.

If you want to go with HDMI, you will need an an mDP to HDMI 2.0 adapter and an HDMI 2.0 cable

My suggestion is to go native mDP to Display Port - it's much easier and you don't have to buy separate cables.

As for your MBA, every model from 2010 onwards supported the 2550x1400 resolution.  So unless you are using a 2009 model, you should be able to get the full resolution you are look for with either of these solutions.


If clearing history etc from within Safari doesn't help, try the following

Export all bookmarks
Quit Safari
Open Terminal and run cd ~/Library && rm -r Safari
Restart Safari
Import bookmarks


Can you figure out if your friend is sharing their location from their iPhone or MacBook?

No. Apple lets people choose which device feeds the location for them. Apple lets them choose to share that location with you but not the name or type of system that feeds the geo location.

You get to see that location and not which device they chose to feed the location data. I'm not aware of any Mac client to input from iCloud find my friends, so you can be pretty sure they're not sharing from their Mac due to system design and not due to Apple letting you know what your friend chose. They could use a watch, iPad, iPod or iPhone currently in iCloud Find My Friends app.


How to change photo upload size in Dropbox iPad app

I've used Files Pro to upload/download full-resolution images to/from Dropbox.  My need isn't quite the same as yours (I need to do this for accurate graphics when I'm developing apps), but perhaps this might help you.


Where could I get my networks domain name?


Ejecting all network drives via Applescript/Automator/Shell?

I use Automator. I inserted 'Get Specified Finder Items', and named the target disks that I wanted to 'Get'. Only those named get chosen, but network drives do work. I then pipe this to 'Eject Disk'.

That's it.


iMac applications restored from back-up are not opening

Are you running the program from the backup HD directly, or did you do a Migration Assistant (the latter would be better, its located in Utilities).

Also, your photos are in /Users/(you)/Pictures/iPhoto Library.  As long as you have this folder, your photos are not lost.

The next step is just to install (or update) and get iPhoto working again.  Try to install from your CD (if you have any) or app store.  As soon as it is working again, it will be able to find your pictures in the above folder on your new Mac.


(Mojave 10.4.2) Missing top right items (clock, network, battery etc.)

The following approach is suggested:

Navigate to the Library folder in Finder

  Open Finder
  Use Go -> Go to Folder  (Shortcut: Cmd+Shift+G)
  Type ~/Library and hit Go

From the Library, navigate to the Preferences folder.

Locate and remove the file named com.apple.systemuiserver.plist

Navigate to the folder ByHost which is inside the Preferences folder.

Locate and remove the file(s) named com.apple.systemuiserver.[random_number].plist

Restart your computer.

SystemUIServers handles .menu software amongst other things, and thus this is expected to resolve your issue.


new SSD and new RAM didn't help similar problem here. Also missing airport on reboots occasionally. Suspect it's a current leak problem on the system board. No easy solution to that. Good thing is the fast reboot with the SSD.


Xcode 6.1 , Storyboard, Ctrl+Drag doesnt work, not even blue line

I realise I'm a bit late, but my solution to this problem was to ensure that the class that interface builder was "dragging to" was the same as the class that it was under: in other words, everything must be in the same class.

For example, if I have classes A and B, and a storyboard: I would need to ensure that the storyboard is set to a class. If I set it to A, it would only connect elements to class A, if I set the class to B, attempting to connect elements to class A would have a blue line but no Insert Outlet or Action or Connect Outlet/Action.

A visual representation:

ViewController.swift:

import Cocoa
class FirstClass: NSViewController {
    // some code here
}

class SecondClass: NSViewController {
    // some more code here
}

Here we have declared two classes, FirstClass and SecondClass. If you look at  your blank storyboard (Main.storyboard for the purpose of this answer), you should see something similar to as follows:

Now, click the window under the View Controller (blank on a new project), and select the tab that looks a bit like a newspaper in the Inspector.

You should see the default class (ViewController) formatted as a placeholder string in the text field for "Class". Attempting to Control+Drag would not allow you to create an instance of whatever element you're trying to add to either FirstClass or SecondClass, but only allow it for the class specified, ViewController (for some reason I can't screenshot it).

To add an element to FirstClass, change the text in the Class field to FirstClass (with any luck autocompletion should finish it for you):

Now, Control+Dragging an element from the Interface Builder to FirstClass should work, but will not apply to SecondClass. Change the custom class name to whichever class suits your needs.


After installing iOS 12, and then restoring my device to factory default I see that the iOS take 5.1 GB.


Download the installer to the current system
While it downloads, partition the SSD as GPT/OS X Extended
Run the installer and install the OS onto the SSD instead of the current boot drive
Use Startup Disk preference pane to set the new SSD as the boot volume default - NVRAM points to the SSD for all subsequent boots


Why didn't my Windows partition show up in the Startup Disk preference pane?

Did you by any chance install the NTFS-3G driver?

It's a known bug (for quite some time, now). When installed, you can no longer have the Windows partition in the Startup Disk prefpane.


Is there a free, lightweight text editor that isn't text-only but also isn't a heavyweight IDE?

Have you considered Xcode?

I know you said you don't like TextMate, but it's one that meet pretty much all your needs.

  which is fast

TextMate
Really fast

Xcode
Not that fast but not Eclipse/Netbeans-slow

  which does syntax highlighting

TextMate
Very complete and extensible

Xcode
Does syntax highlighting, it depends on your needs

  were I can define own syntaxes (or there are many plugins e.g. for YAML),

TextMate
Very, very extensible

Xcode
Syntax extensions are possible

  where the developers are active,

TextMate
Some say it's vaporware, yet very few other text editor can compete with its current features

Xcode
Apple development of this program is very active

  which does not have the look & feeling of TextWrangler

TextMate
If you don't like the sliding bar, there's a plugin to replace it by a drawer

Xcode
Doesn't have a sliding bar

  which can define projects (like Coda can)

TextMate  / Xcode
Do projects

  which includes a basic support for Git and/or SVN

TextMate
Support for Git/SVN/Mercurial (and probaby more) via built-in and added plugins

Xcode
SVN support for 3.x, added Git in Xcode 4

  which supports a fast autocompletion

TextMate
Basic variable/function completion
very complete code completion via bundles

Xcode
Basic variable/function completion

  MacOS X 10.6 compatible

TextMate
Some compatibility issue

Xcode
Fully compatible


How to use SMTP and IMAP with iCloud email?

Interestingly I had a similar problem last night, and I have been using iCloud for some time now. I suspect it was caused by the live switch on iCloud. I simply went to the iCloud preference panel, logged out and logged back in. The new terms and conditions was shown, I accepted, restarted Mail and everything was working.

I suggest trying this first, because manually configuring it can cause problems in future should Apple decide to make changes to the routes.

The IMAP setting for iCloud is available in this Apple support document.


How to move movie files from iMovie library to Photos library

Find the Imovie Library

In finder navigate to the Imovie Library file. It should be in this directory Users/NAME/Movies/iMovie Library. Right click the  and select Show Package Contents.

Find the right event

There you'll find a directory for each event. Each event directory contains a folder called original media. Those files can be dragged into Photos.


Best practice to maintain high charge count

apple has a useful page with some tips on how to keep your battery healthy right here: Apple battery tips
They also recommend discharging the battery about once a month.
I don't think sleeping instead of powering off makes that much of a difference.


iTunes: get selected mobile apps with AppleScript

If you want raw. You could try:

activate application "iTunes"

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "iTunes"
        keystroke "i" using command down -- open the info window
        set theName to title of window 1 -- get the name
        keystroke "." using command down  --close the info window
    end tell
end tell
log theName

This will get the name of the selected app

I have 170 apps so if I selected the first one and then run

set the logList to {}
activate application "iTunes"
repeat 170 times
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "iTunes"
            keystroke "i" using command down -- open the info window
            set theName to title of window 1 -- get the name
            keystroke "." using command down --close the  info window
        end tell
        copy theName to end of logList

        --DO OTHER SOME STUFF

        key code 124
    end tell

end repeat

count of logList

I can walk through them via the script and get each name. I did not seem to need a delay in it .


How to extract data from the iphone backup on the PC

Well, I´m not a pro-windows user here, but I do use some good old USB connection from my Iphone and my work computer using Autoplay

So, if you did save your images locally into your device, you should be able to get them from there !

Otherwise you should change the parameters of Whatsapp to save your image into your Photos and then try Autoplay.

As you said, it is as simple as connecting a USB cable between the two.


ZTE (Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corporation) is a manufacturer of USB mobile internet access devices.

PPPMonitord.app is a companion application that belongs to such "surf stick".

Often these devices are sold by mobile carriers such as Vodafone, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, etcetera.


Has Catalina broken the logging into external machines?

No, Catalina has not broken the logging into external machines in general. The problem must be local to your machine or your network. I regularly use the commands you mention (ssh and mysql) to connect to external machines from a Mac running Catalina - so in general it works just fine.
I would start by ensuring that you have:
a) a working internet connection (you can browse web sites from the Mac)
b) not running Little Snitch or similar software that blocks outgoing connections
c) not running a firewall or similar on your router or network that blocks your external connections
Then debug by examining exactly what doesn't work:
a) can you ping the IP address of the server you want to connect to?
b) can you ping the host name of the server you want to connect to?
c) can you connect to other ports on the server (for example a web site)?
d) does the server log tell you anything when you try connect?
e) if everything fails, use tcpdump on the Mac and on the server to see network packets going back and forth
From there it should be possible to figure out what the problem with your setup is.


Yes, you can choose a Tab Style in the preferences, under the "Appearance" pane.

The standard styles "Metal" and "Unified" appear to offer better contrast for the active tab than the other two. From your screenshot, it appears you have selected "Adium" which does indeed have very poor contrast.


Is it normal for a 15 inch rMBP to get extremely hot during use?

Your computer is designed to run all 4 cores and generate heat like a 60 w lightbulb would. Internally, the CPU doesn't get as hot as a filament does - but it does approach the boiling point of water before it will slow itself down to avoid overheating.
This control is built into the chips themselves so even if your fans stop working, the machine should run as fast as it can given the amount of heat that escapes through the warm aluminum frame. The heat that you have noticed may simply be the system working as designed with passive cooling assisting the fans.
Here is an article explaining a bit on how you can measure the internal temperatures, how the loading of work on the CPU spins up (and even sound recordings of) the fans:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6023/the-nextgen-macbook-pro-with-retina-display-review/12

My guess is your mac is running normal as it can be quite uncomfortably hot and still operating as designed. However, if you are worried, you should call AppleCare and ask them for assistance in determining if it's running safely.  Rather than trust that our understanding of how hot your Mac is since you could be someone who is underestimating danger, or another that over estimates it and I'd hate to not have you get a second opinion or know exactly how hot the internals and case are. Consulting the manufacturer would be a great next step for you.


Is it necessary to give my debit card details to update the macbook?

Yes this is normal and necessary once Apple asks for that information on your Apple ID. When you initially sign up, this can be optional based on how precisely you establish your AppleID, but once asked, you must enter a valid form of payment to continue to use that AppleID in the stores.

You are still purchasing and agreeing to be legally bound to the license terms when you install “free” software in any of Apple’s online stores. A form of payment is a very strong anti-fraud method since there is a paper trail to get payment credentials.

Once you validate your identity, you can usually make the payment method none, use a card with low balance as suits your needs.


AppleScript - Add userinput to text file?

Try the following:

set cheat1 to the quoted form of text returned of (display dialog "Enter Cheat" default answer "99 Gold, super health, unlimited Grenades..")

set newText to quoted form of "I am now
    adding
    a few
    test lines"

do shell script "echo " & newText & " >> ~/Desktop/test.txt"
do shell script "echo " & cheat1 & " >> ~/Desktop/test.txt"

Results:

I am now
    adding
    a few
    test lines
99 Gold, super health, unlimited Grenades..


How do I use the right click look up feature everywhere on my Mac including Firefox?

Instead of keep looking for solution that allows me to use the native Mac OS look up feature, I use the Firefox add-on Dictionary Anywhere instead:

https://github.com/meetDeveloper/Dictionary-Anywhere

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dictionary-anyvhere/


What is the hardware that has this serial number?

Looks like Apple iPhone Bluetooth headset.
Link to Apple site


In Terminal, type open ~/Library. This will open the user's Library folder.

To use the Finder:

Open a Finder window and select "Home" from the Go menu
Then selected "Show View Options" from the View menu
Tick the "Show Library Folder" option


Publishing app under a different name from that of credit card

Create a business entity, say "T.Miller Apps LLC" and publish under that. It will require legwork with forms and such.

There is no charge to transfer your membership but you will need to work with Developer support once you have established your LLC and gotten a D&B number.

I would expect 3 months of paperwork / emails and about $150 of legal filing fees to establish a US LLC properly with the correct registrations for Apple to accept it as a company. If you're handy with paperwork or can do all of it yourself, you might cut half the time and cost off.

Choosing which location to register will affect your costs and taxes so you might want to research that before transferring your program to an LLC.


Can I get Apple Mail app to automatically split emails into focused and other?

Neither Apple Mail on iOS nor macOS has this feature.
You could set up a rule on your mail server to move messages categorised as other to a folder which would then appear in Mail, but then the emails no longer appear in Other if you looked at your emails in another client or the web interface.


Do you use the Youtube.app at all? Because if you don't use it, you can disable it. Go to Settings > General > Restrictions. There you can disable several apps, one of them being the Youtube application. With the youtube.app disabled a youtube link in Safari will no longer redirect you to the native Youtube.app. The Youtube application icon will also no longer appear on your home screen/springboard and you will not be able to launch it from spotlight either, so you'll need to use the mobile youtube site in Safari if you want to browse through Youtube video's.

If you're not willing to disable the native Youtube application there is no way to change this behavior.


Is there a hidden preference to get Mission Control to show application icons when grouping is turned off?

Apple Icon>System Preferences>Mission Control>Unselect "Group windows by applications"

I think it is gonna work.

Edit: I tried, it works.


Monitoring and disconnecting users from an AirPort Extreme

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a native way to do this.

With regard to detailed bandwidth monitoring, the Airport Extreme supports SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) so if you want to put in a bit of effort, you could set up Cacti http://www.cacti.net/ and point that at the base station.

As far as remote disconnection of users, there is no way that I know of short of the two options you mentioned.


Is there a way to either save/copy/or email an entire iMessage conversation?

I'm only aware of how to do this natively on macOS

Sign in to Messages on OS X
Select the conversation you want to save
File -> Print -> Save
(optional) Use whatever pdf editing software you choose to extract, copy, transform the PDF version of the conversation

There are third party solutions like PhoneView by ecamm to do this as well, but I don't know of an archive method on iOS. I'm a very happy customer of PhoneView - I sent them my money and have been satisfied by their continued updates of the product and the value.


See that all your setting according to this.


How do I get non default calendars to show up on iOS (iPhone/iPad)?

Apparently there is a secret URL you have to visit to check off which calendars you want to appear on your iOS device.

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect


Google provides a simple way to get Google Keep on desktop—keep.google.com. It has all of the functionality of the Android and iOS mobile versions of Google Keep, just on Mac.

Here's a simple guide to Google Keep on all of your devices:

iPhone/iPad: Download the iOS app.

Android phones and tablets: Download the Android app.

Mac/Windows: Use keep.google.com or the Google Keep Chrome Web Store app for easy offline access.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions.


OS X Mavericks wakes my Mac from sleep every hour or so

Turns out it was because I had "File sharing" enabled in my "Sharing" System Preferences pane. I've always had this setting enabled, and I could sleep my Mac just fine before Mavericks. However starting with Mavericks, if I sleep my Mac with "File sharing" enabled, then the Mac won't sleep.


how do I share photos on the web with iPhoto / iCloud?

iCloud is not a replacement for MobileMe--those great-looking photo albums are a thing of the past.

Photostream shares photos between Macs, iPads and iPhones, automatically and pretty instantaneously — unless of course you turn it off -- in a separate album from the device's camera roll.

Apple no longer provides a way to share photos on the web. Mores the pity.

Edit: iOS 6 offers Shared Photo Streams on iCloud.com.

  Shared Photo Streams allow you to post and share photos to a Photo
  Stream album hosted by iCloud. The photos stored there don't count
  against your iCloud storage allotment, and will work over Wi-Fi and
  cellular data. You're able to share photos with fellow iOS users as
  well as by creating an iCloud.com Shared Photo Stream album for
  non-iOS users.

See the rest of the How-To on CNET.


Will an external USB floppy drive work with a modern Mac?

The short answer is yes, external USB floppy drives will still work with macOS.

However, the issues you're likely to face relate to:

how the actual floppy disks are formatted (both in terms of file systems and capacity)
the type of floppy disks involved (i.e. are we talking 1.4MB disks, or older 800KB or even 400KB floppies)
the condition of the floppy disks (specifically, are they now demagnetised?)

Assuming they're 1.4MB floppies then you should be able to read the data. You won't, however, be able to write data to the floppies (although in your case this shouldn't be an issue as you're wanting to copy the data from them, not to them).

If they're 400KB or 800KB floppies, you can pretty much forget about using Mac OS X / macOS.

If they're demagnetised, you can pretty much forget about using anything to read the data.


How to transfer printer drivers from one mac to another?

I went through this yesterday and I found a solution -- at least a solution that worked for me.

I have an old Xerox WorkCenter printer for which Xerox no longer produces OS drivers ... but the printer works great.  After loads of experimentation, here's what I discovered:

Folders such as /Library/Printers/... seems to be a repository of drivers but these are not drivers that are in use ... they are simply drivers that could be selected to support a printer that needs such a driver.
When you install a printer, it will search the folder for matching drivers.
The driver you select will be copied to /etc/cups/ppd and renamed based on the name you gave your printer.  (Note that the top level /etc folder is a symbolic link to /private/etc these days)

Example:

My Xerox WorkCenter C2424 was working on another mac and the driver was /etc/cups/ppd/WorkCenter_C2424_93_93_1b_.ppd   This name was previously auto-generated by the other mac based on the final octets of the printer's ethernet address.

I copied the above file to the new mac but put it in the /Library/Printers/PPDs/Resources/Contents folder and renamed it back to just Xerox_WorkCenter_C2424.ppd.

I then used the "System Preferences" -> "Printers & Scanners" to install the printer on the new mac.  Except rather than letting it auto-select the driver, I chose the "Other..." option which opens a file navigation window and navigated to the /Libary/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources folder and selected the driver I copied and renamed from the other mac.

This caused the mac to copy that PPD to the /etc/cups/ppd folder on the new mac and to rename the copy based on the name given in the printer list (you can give it any name you want).

I tested the printer to make sure all features worked and verified this did indeed get the driver to the new mac (the new mac is running Mojave).

I'm not sure if I'll get away with this trick whenever it comes time to upgrade to Catalina ... since Catalina seems to have strict rules on not supporting 32-bit code and these very old drivers are probably not 64-bit drivers.


Literal "\n" a blackslash with the character 'n' is different from a newline character.  I was able to search for newline characters by pressing Option + Return but that didn't find literal "\n" in cells but it did find newlines when I inserted them with Option + Return in cells.


Mavericks OS X Server Software Updates: "Duplicate" entries? How do they differ?

They're different versions of the software (Safari v6.1.4 in this case) that the client computer will choose between based on... well, something. The info about what the differences are (and which is needed for which clients) is all in computer-readable format, not really human-readable.

You can download the two packages, then search under /Library/Software Update/Data/html/content/downloads for them. And I do mean search -- the 031-02224 is in .../downloads/17/37/031-02224/8gxq9vhxcra3e5adif9fhvafxoefypqvlx. Spotlight will find the folders by the package ID, but only if you search in the relevant parent folder (if you do a general search, it omits them because they're considered "system files", not the sorts of things normal users would be interested in).

Once you've found the relevant folder read through the various files (especially the .pkm and .dist files), you'll find that 031-02224 is the version for Lion, and 031-02225 is the version for Mountain Lion.

So... it's possible to find out, but not easy (and far from user-friendly).


SuperDrive does not accept or read discs. Tried everything. Are they just horrible quality?

Everything you described is a physical issue.

the load/eject mechanism failed somehow to not accept disks.  Your work around was to manually hold them in.
The disks no longer being read could be the laser, the optical sensor or any of the electronic components that support these functions.  It could be a blown capacitor, resistor or fuse.  Maybe a bad IC chip or a broken trace.  Without putting hands on, it’s only a guess at this point.

There is no fix for it other than dissembling it and repairing it.  If this is not feasible the solution you stumbled upon is the correct one: replace it.

You don’t need a SuperDrive to work with your a Mac.  (IMO) They are over complicated with their loading mechanisms and I dreaded getting disks stuck in the drives.  I personally use a plain USB Plextor DVD/CD writer; it’s slow being USB 2, but it’s reliable and gets the job done.


How can I keep file attachment windows (e.g. Gmail in Chrome) from going behind the Dock so I can't click OK or Cancel?

Hide the Dock using ⌥⌘D, then drag the bottom of the pane upwards. Unhide the Dock with the same keyboard shortcut, then interact with the pane normally. The pane should remember its size for next time.


Cryptographic Integrity and Authentication Validation of Homebrew Installer?

No, this ability is not provided by the brew project.
As an open source and community run project, no-one is providing assurance of the installer's integrity and authenticity.
See brew's Vulnerability Disclosure Program for more details about the project's handling of security concerns.


Text To Speech - Custom Rate (not on the slider)

I discovered that you can change the VoiceDataRateArray in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.speech.voice.prefs.plist

I just changed the value of Item 2 to a value of value 500 and rebooted.

Thanks to tyler over at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/macvisionaries/HOR7NWxsDQA


airplay audio from iPhone to MacBook Pro?

Are you asking about a native way to do this from macOS, or with third party apps?

As far as I know there is no way to arbitrarily play AirPlay audio to macOS, but your macOS devices can show up as recipients for some things like phone calls (by selecting the speaker button during a call).

On the third party side of things, there are a couple of apps for macOS that claim to allow this (I have not tested any of these personally).  Check out AirServer and Reflector.  From their website, AirServer seems to have a lot of features, and compatibility for more than just AirPlay.  AirServer has a trial and a discount for students, so that's where I would start if I were in need.  Additionally, I couldn't find if Reflector supports streaming just audio, but AirServer supports lossless audio AirPlay playback.


Is there any way to get a pop-up notification on my iPhone or iPad when mail arrives?

With the release of iOS 5 mail can now appera as a pop up box style notifacation.

Goto Settings>Notifications>Mail> the choose "Alerts" in the alert style menu.

you will then have something that looks like a message notification when an email arrives


Why won't my MBP connect to Personal Hotspot via wifi?

Connected my laptop to a different Hotspot device, then back to my phone. Everything seems to work now. Very strange.


IOS accessibility: Turn page in iBooks with headphone buttons / bluetooth keyboard?

I found out the hard way (went to a store) that you can use arrow keys on a Bluetooth keyboard to change pages in ePubs, but not in PDFs. At least in iBooks.

The problem now is that it doesn't work in apps that can read Adobe copy protected ePubs.


I had a similar error with my MacBook Pro 2016 15".  You should be able to solve this issue by updating your software version to High Sierra (which fixed the issue on my computer) if possible.  Check in your console logs to see if your computer experienced a kernel panic, which may have caused the loss of your fingerprint data.


iCloud is full, but no way to delete photos/backups anything

this is so confusing! even if i turned off all the services that still didn't do anything.

i finally found it.

  settings > icloud > storage > manage storage > start turning **** off and it will actually delete on iCloud.

it was storing all kinds of things i never authorized! like "health data" podcasts, photos.. this really sucks.


Why does Mail.app automatically add iCal events from invitations I receive?

There are web app preferences to manage this in newer macOS.
In the Mail.app go to Preferences->general. There is an option "Add invitations to ICal" which is Automatic or None. You need to choose None.

When you have a mail with date and time in Mail.App will highlight that and clicking on that will add an event to iCal.


Can I make the Finder label a folder if it contains a file or folder of a specific name?

Saw this question and realized the answer would be useful to me too. Here's the Applescript I came up with. Copy it into Applescript Editor, and adjust the two variables theSearchPath (first line) and the index number at the end of the set label index line and you should be good to go.

I'm searching ~/projects and coloring the results green in this case.

set theSearchPath to "/Users/Me/projects"
set theResults to do shell script "find " & quoted form of theSearchPath & " -name .git"

repeat with i from 1 to (count paragraphs of theResults)
  set theResult to paragraph i of theResults
  set theParentPath to text 1 through ((length of theResult) - 5) of theResult
  set theParentAlias to POSIX file (theParentPath) as alias
  tell application "Finder"
    set label index of theParentAlias to 6
    -- Set the last value of the above line to correspond with the color you want.
    -- 0 is no color
    -- 1 is orange
    -- 2 is red
    -- 3 is yellow
    -- 4 is blue
    -- 5 is purple
    -- 6 is green
    -- 7 is gray
  end tell
end repeat

Note: It hasn't been written to gracefully handle errors spit out by the find command. As long as you're searching directories you have permissions on, this shouldn't be an issue.


How to change account name and full name to one, consistent name?

You will need a third account to do this trick fully.

Make an admin account named differently than the final short name you wish to have in the filesystem for /Users/apple2 (the desired "perfect user" with everything matching).
Log in to the admin account and make one last backup of your system.
Delete only the account you wish to keep - being careful to keep the home folders - do not let the system delete this home folder, just delete the account without changing the home folder.
Open terminal and use this command exactly (unless you start with something other than kaleb and end with something other than apple2:

sudo mv /Users/kaleb\ \(Deleted\)/ /Users/apple2

This command uses the \ character to escape the space and the parentheses so be careful to paste it exactly or [chat] here or elsewhere with someone that knows how the unix command line works if you have any doubt about how it will rename one folder by moving it.
You can really mess things up in terminal with sudo if you are not prepared to wipe everything and reinstall the OS and restore from a backup.

Now when you (re)create the apple2 user the OS will fix the ownership of the home folder and the short name will match the directory and the long name by making all three "apple2".

My process differs slightly from Apple's in HT1428: OS X: How to change user account name or home directory name in that they enable / disable the root user where I just make a new admin account. Apple has you rename the folder on the fly while logged in as root and then creates the new account - so your renamed account will get UID 502. I delete the account (but not the files) so that your renamed account gets UID 501. None of this really matters - you just want to have a backup in case either process fails you - both will get your short name and new account back in sync.


MacBook Pro will not wake from sleep after installing third party application

I have the same problem, and I'm in the process of updating my Air Parrot to 1.1.3 (the newest version), which I think will help.


How to replace images in iPhoto with higher quality versions?

Here's how I eventually solved this problem. It took a few steps, and requires some scripting and command line hackery, but it did the trick.

Export the pictures you want to update from Aperture to a folder, say ~/Pictures/Updates
Open the album in iPhoto
Use this AppleScript to get a list of filenames for the master images

set output_filename to "/Users/user/Pictures/album.txt"

tell application "iPhoto"
    set pics to photos in current album
    do shell script "echo \"# Current album contents\" > " & output_filename
    repeat with pic in pics
        set picpath to image path of pic
        do shell script "echo " & picpath & " >> " & output_filename
    end repeat
end tell

Using any text editor, save the script below to update_pics.sh and mark it executable (chmod 755 update_pics.sh on the command line)

#! /bin/bash
# a quick script to parse in a series of filenames, and update them

input_folder="$1"
backup_folder="$2"

if [ "$#" -ne 2 ]; then
        echo "Usage: $0 [folder with new images] [folder for backups]"
        exit 0
fi

if [ ! -d "$input_folder" ]; then
        echo "Can't read input follder $input_folder"
        exit -1
fi

if [ ! -d "$backup_folder" ]; then
        mkdir -p "$backup_folder"
fi

if [ ! -d "$backup_folder" -o ! -w "$backup_folder" ]; then
        echo "Can't write to backup folder $backup_folder"
        exit -1
fi

while read line; do

        # skip empty lines or comments
        [ -z "$line" -o "${line:0:1}" = "#" ] && continue

        if [ -f "$line" ]; then
                filename=`basename "$line"`
                input_file="$input_folder/$filename"
                cp "$line" "$backup_folder"
                if [ -f "$input_file" ]; then
                        echo "Replacing $filename"
                        cp "$input_file" "$line"
                else
                        echo "Could not find input file $input_file"
                fi
        else
                echo "$line does not exist"
        fi
done

To use the script, give it the location of the updated pictures, a folder to put backups (I'm paranoid of losing data) and then pipe in the file generated before. For example:

update_pics.sh Updates/ Backups/ < album.txt

If you haven't already, close iPhoto. Then restart it while holding down Option and Command. That should give you a dialog to rebuild the iPhoto. You should only need to rebuild the thumbnails, though you may want to rebuild everything else. More info on rebuilding the iPhoto Library from Apple

iPhoto will probably take a long time to rebuild the thumbnails, since it will redo all of them. You have a number of albums to do, it's probably best to update the pictures first, album-by-album, and then rebuild the library. That's what I did, and it worked pretty well.


Is it possible to change the default gateway of the DHCP server side of an Airport Extreme

Just configure the AP in Bridge-mode so it's running DHCPD and distributing addresses.

Then, on the internet tab configure it statically and give it the high IP you want. You probably want to configure the range to be 1-253.

Personally, I find Airport Utility 5.6 to be better than the 6+ versions. You might want to give that a try too (see here for how to get it).