Tcl/tk for Mac OS X 10.6, not possible to download?

Tcl/Tk Aqua is available from this page

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcltkaqua/

This page has the latest version.


I need to log into apple mail to read new messages received from outlook

There is no interference with having more than one program retrieve IMAP mail.

Just quit Apple Mail and don't launch it while you work out whatever is not happy within Outlook.

Then your server will only see the requests from Outlook and you can focus on troubleshooting that setup. If you want to ask a second question on how to troubleshoot Outlook - just list your relevant details (version, etc) and document which troubleshooting article you are following from the Office support website (it's quite good in most instances) and you'll probable get some expert help.


Is there any way to re-download Photo Stream photos on a PC/Mac?

For the PC the way I got it to redownload the photo stream is first go to Control Panel then open up iCloud control panel.

Turn Photo Stream to off and close the iCloud control panel.

Just as a precaution, rename the old Photo Stream folder just to have a backup of what was in there before.  This is up to you.

Then go to C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer and rename the MediaStream folder to something like MediaStream-old.

Then go back to Control Panel, open up iCloud control panel and renable the Photo Stream.

If you chose a custom download location for Photo Stream then you have to choose it again.  The photos should start coming in, but just remember it will only grab the last 1,000 photos you have taken.

Thanks.


Check your default contacts account on your iPhone by tapping through Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Next, under the CONTACTS section, tap on "Default Account". Finally, tap your Gmail account from the list.

Now every new contact you create on the iPhone will automatically push to your Gmail account.


Driver/Kext Realtek 8191SE - Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4

Maybe the kext is for 32 bit mode only and does not work when running in 64 bit mode. Boot your Mac in 32 bit mode and check whether is works then. (If your Mac uses the 64-bit kernel by default, you can start up with the 32-bit kernel by holding the 3 and 2 keys during startup.)


Customize touch bar button when using the browser?

Menu Bar → View → Customize Touch Bar

Drag the reload button on your Touch Bar into the trash can on the far left side of your Touch Bar (or just off the Touch Bar).

More info from Google.


Uninstall multiple versions of Adobe Bridge

Adobe has a cleaning tool that helps. If I remember correctly, put the old apps in the can, then run the tool, then delete the trash. If that doesn't work, read the cleaning tool instructions :)


Slow read performance in Mac OS X terminal, with external encryption enabled hard drive

No, it is not usual to experience "really slow performance" on MacOS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) file systems (also known as HFS+ encrypted). That configuration is extremely widely used, so any intrinsic problems here would have been reported in huge numbers.

I have been using Git-LFS on such a file system for a very long time, and never experience any such slowness. I know that many of my fellow developers do not have the problem either.

I.e. this is not a general problem for everyone, but instead seems to be a local problem with your computer.

I would use regular file system diagnostics to check your file system. Use Disk Utility or fsck on the command line. Also checks your system logs to see if the OS reports any I/O errors or timeouts during these slow performing commands.

As you mentioned it is external harddrive, you might also have an interface problem with your cabling or similar. I would try creating new large files (unrelated files) and see if they are also slow.

Also check the number of files inside the directory you're cd'ing into to see if it is a very large number - that could also potentially be a cause.


are there editing commands for voice to text?

On Mac go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Scroll the list on the left all the way down to Dictation and setup your Dictation commands including those for editing text.


What iPad PDF reader can I use to highlight text?

I use GoodReader for this. It can do highlighting, different kinds of underlining, annotating and save annotated copies to preserve your originals.

It's a great general purpose file management and viewing app as well. Sort of like a "Preview.app" for iOS. Costs $5 in the App Store. Well worth it IMHO.

I've heard that iAnnotate is far superior at annotating tasks, hence the name, but it's $10. I already own GoodReader, and it fulfills my needs, so can't see a reason to spend $10 more just to markup PDFs.

Hope that helped.


Which credit and debit cards are supported by Apple Pay

Check this article for an up-to-date list and more information on which cards are supported: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT6288.

There is also a list on iGeeksBlog.


What's the correctly way to make Postfix run permanently on Lion (not server)

The following changes worked for me:

Remove the following two elements from /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist:

<string>-e</string>
<string>60</string>

This will stop it exiting after 60 seconds.
Add the following element as a child of the <dict>...</dict> element in the same plist file:

<key>KeepAlive</key>
<true/>

Reload the file:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist

postfix should now be running as a daemon.

The above works on Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan. For systems that have System Integrity Protection (El Capitan and later) there are two options:

Copying /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.master.plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.postfix.custom.plist, changing org.postfix.master to org.postfix.custom and then unloading and loading as above.
Disabling SIP (using csrutil), making the edits and then re-enabling SIP.

Note: With High Sierra and Mojave, the configuration file is com.apple.postfix.master.plist instead of org.postfix.custom.plist.


Safari slow to load, flooding system.log with launchd errors

I was experiencing the same symptoms: sluggish Safari, with identical errors in the console. I was also experiencing launchd using exorbitantly high cpu capacity.

After much gnashing of teeth, I discovered my problem was a bad spotlight index on an external drive, and after re-indexing the drive, the problem went away. Launchd behaves normally, Safari is responsive.

I do however get the same error in console, although I get it less frequently. It comes in batches of about 20 at once, every 12 hours or so. There seems to be no effect on performance.

Particulars:

'09 MBP 13" running 10.11.6 with the latest public beta security update.

Hope this helps!


Why are the iOS keyboard settings changing on their own?

I bit the bullet and upgraded to 4.2.  After upgrading, I removed all but the 2 'keyboard' layouts I wanted.

I've been running it for a whole day now, and it hasn't spontaneously changed my keyboard settings.  I'm going to call this one a bug in 4.1 that got fixed in 4.2.

Yay!


Why is my Macbook Pro going to sleep while using it?

First thing to do is examine your power manager logs:
pmset -g log | grep "Entering Sleep"

When you find the timestamp(s) correlating to the unexpected sleep, please update your question with the full text of the relevant time range from pmset -g log.


Is it possible to force a Mac *.webloc file to open in a new Chrome window instead of a new tab in an existing window?

Here is an option to consider...
Use an Automator Service/Quick Action1, via Finder, to open the URL contained in the .webloc file in a new window of Google Chrome.
1 In macOS Mojave, and later, an Automator Service is called a Quick Action. The use of terms separated with a / is to denote the differences between Automator prior to macOS Mojave and from it onwards.
The Automator Service/Quick Action can be triggered from the Services context menu via right-click (option-click) on the selected .webloc file(s) in Finder, or after selecting the .webloc file(s) in Finder press the keyboard shortcut assigned to the Automator Service/Quick Action.

In Automator create a new Service/Quick Action, setting: Service/Workflow receives/receives current [files or folders] in [Finder]

Add a Run AppleScript action, replacing the default code with the following example AppleScript code:

on run {input, parameters}
    repeat with i from 1 to the length of input
        set thisItem to the POSIX path of item i of input
        if thisItem ends with ".webloc" then
            set dssCommand to ¬
                "/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c \"Print :URL\" " & ¬
                quoted form of thisItem
            set thisURL to do shell script dssCommand
            if thisURL starts with "http" then
                tell application "Google Chrome"
                    set the URL of the active tab of ¬
                        (make new window) to thisURL
                end tell
            end if
        end if
    end repeat
end run

Save the Automator Service/Quick Action, e.g.: Open webloc in Google Chrome

Add a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services, e.g.: ⌘G

Notes:
Depending on how the .webloc file was created, it can be either a binary PLIST file or an XML plist text file. The examples below shows https://www.google.com/ as the URL:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>URL</key>
    <string>https://www.google.com/</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Regardless, the example AppleScript code uses a do shell script command to assign the value of the URL to a variable by using PlistBuddy to print the value of URL in the .webloc file. It then opens the URL in a new window in Google Chrome.
The PlistBuddy full output for the example .webloc file, in both forms, above is:
Dict {
    URL = https://www.google.com/
}

However, when configuring it to print the URL directly, its output for the example .webloc file, in both forms, above is just:
https://www.google.com/

As coded, it can handle multiple selected .webloc files opening each in its own window, regardless of how the preferences are set in Google Chrome. It validates that the file(s) passed to the service have a  .webloc file extension, and the value of the thisURL variable starts with http, otherwise the service fails silently.

This Automator Service/Quick Action was tested and worked for me, under macOS High Sierra and macOS Catalina, using both the Services context menu and ⌘G assigned keyboard shortcut of the service on the selected .webloc file(s) in Finder.


Why is the iCloud Photostream option not available in iOS preferences?

Just looked a little closer at my settings....
Settings -> General -> Profiles -> [Work Profile] -> More Details -> Disable Documents in the Cloud, iCloud backup, Photo Stream.

There's my answer, my company supplied configuration that was loaded on the phone limits this option.

C'est la vie...


How to upgrade an older Mac Mini to newest OS and newest firmware?

Unfortunately, this Mac Mini can only be upgraded to macOS version 10.7.5.

Source: MacTracker.app on both iOS and macOS.

This Apple Community post also verifies this.


Constant Firewall Messages in Console: How can I find the source?

The command "arp -an" will list all the MAC addresses and IP addresses of all the devices seen on the local network.

Once you have the MAC address, you can look it up to determine the manufacturer of the device, which might give you a clue as to which one of your toys is talking to your machine.  One such lookup site is here:

http://www.coffer.com/mac_find/

UDP Port 8612 is sometimes associated with a Canon printer driver.


What does it mean if I see "security recommendation" next to a wifi network?

It's new with iOS 10.  Here's an overview of the feature by Engadget:

  After connecting to an open network, iOS 10 will display a "Security Recommendation" notification beneath the network's name in the WiFi menu settings. When a user opens up the Security Recommendation, they're greeted with a notification that "open networks provide no security and expose all network traffic." There's also a recommendation to configure your router to use AES encryption for the network.


Install older compatible version of apps on iPhone 4 having iOS7

It's unfortunately not possible to download apps on an unsupported operating system, unless you have access to an older version of iTunes or an iOS device with a supported version of iOS. Even though the apps install fine once you have bought them.


Sophos AV always runs double instances of it's app. How do I just have 1 running?

Simple ... Uninstall Sophos.   Check with Sophos on how to uninstall.

Simple put,  Apple attempts to provide all the malware detection and removal you need in Mac OS X.

"Effective defenses against malware and other threats" by John Galt
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-8841

"Avoid phishing emails, fake 'virus' alerts, phony support calls, and other scams"
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204759

"MalwareBytes Anti-Malware for Mac Removes adware and malware Revives your Mac."  MalwareBytes has a more restrictive filter for adware than Apple. MalwareBytes has come to be accepted as the only malware detector you should consider.  For those pestered by browser attacks consider MalwareBytes.

https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/


Upgrade to OSX 10.9 from 10.8 causes random restarts

I'm betting that it's this kernel extension:

com.silex.driver.sxuptp

Do you have anything that matches that name in /Library/Extensions (likely), or /System/Library/Extensions? If so, it may help to remove the file and reboot.

It appears that this software may be related to a Belkin product


You have to do this through "My Add-Ins"

In the Insert Menu, select Add-Ins and then the submenu "My Add-Ins"

Click the 3 dots in the upper right hand corner of the Add-In you wish to remove.  Then click "Remove".


External monitor has "snow" at 1080p/i when connected to MacBook Air

Likely to be the adaptor cable if it's cheap - might not be able to handle the HD throughput (although outputting to HDMI, you'd think it'd be able to).

While this sounds counter-intuitive, try moving around the alignment of the second screen as this might ditch the 'snow'.

Also, have you tried the screen with any other HD inputs?


My Mac is opening new tabs with different ad sites

How to install adware So you ignored all the red flags given in this apple support post.

  installation of software from mac-torrent probably

If you're using torrents, use some reputable sources to get them.

  probably it was adobe flash player.

So if it is not your intended app, why go ahead and install what is dumped on your device?

  said that I had an old one and the system needs to update,

Did you really have an Adobe Flash player version installed? It is not installed in an out of the box setup. And if you installed it from Adobe's site, you'd know what a genuine package look like and you'd be able to update it using the app itself.

In case you don't know where Adobe Flash player can be seen, Safari Preferences → Extensions, and System Preferences → Adobe flash Player.

  so I gave the right to install it,

Boom.

  the only way to stop this irritating behavior was to install Adblock, however, I don't want my mac to have that malware,

Ad blocker apps certainly won't solve the underlying problem. They don't even operate outside the browser.

  and has anyone experienced it?

Apple Discussion forums are full of it.

  is there any way to get rid of it?

Restore from backup is the best way.

OR

Quit or Force quit(cmd shift escape/ Apple menu → Force Quit... ) Safari. Hold shift and click on it from the Dock. Go to its preferences → Extensions and remove any unknown extension there. Go to Websites tab and remove extraneous items like Flash Player from the lower left corner.

https://www.thesafemac.com/arg/
https://www.malwarebytes.com

Get MalwareBytes app and/or BitDefender, from the genuine source and run a scan.

Can .mp4 files infect my Mac with malware/adware/spyware?
How to remove Trovi malware from Safari?


The issue:

You need to accept the Terms & Conditions for the iTunes Store.

Why?

When you attempt to login to http://PodcastsConnect.apple.com with an Apple ID that has not been authorized for use in the iTunes Store, you will get stuck in a loop (and thus, instead of logging into PodcastsConnect, you will be returned back the login screen).

The solution:

Login to the iTunes Store. (In iTunes: click "Store" in the top >
Login. Accept the terms. On an iOS device: Settings > iTunes Store >
Login. Accept the terms.) You don't need to enter a credit card!
Login at https://podcastsconnect.apple.com/
Submit your podcast feed.

Bonus: Don't forget to check out the awesome Podcast Analytics


Goto your HomeFolder -> Library -> Preferences and delete the file : com.apple.terminal.plist

That should reset the settings on your Terminal


Unable to take screenshot in MacBook using shortcut shift+command+3/4

If the default location for saving screenshots has been changed, then this Terminal command will show you the changed location:

defaults read com.apple.screencapture location

If you get a message that the default pair does not exist, then the location has not been changed, and should be the Desktop.

If you want to restore it to the default, enter:

defaults delete com.apple.screencapture location


From Apple documentation (Change the behaviour of the modifier keys on Mac)

On macOS 10.13 and later, you can also change the behaviour of the
Function key on keyboards that have an Fn key – except keyboards with
a Touch Bar.


Why does Xcode always have trouble submitting archives to iTunes?

Just waited for some hours and suddenly received the "No issues found. Passed validation. Has been submitted." notification. Very strange, but true.

Must have someting to do with current numbers of uploads to the store.


Brand new MacBook Pro says "Service Battery"

If this happens with a new MacBook Pro, you will want to call the seller and arrange for a repair or a device replacement. It is not supposed to happen until you have used the device for years.


If your friend changed the command that shells are opened with, you can change it back to the default login shell from Terminal's preferences:

If the default login shell was changed, you can change it back to /bin/bash by running chsh -s /bin/bash.

zsh is included with OS X (in /bin/zsh), but even if your friend installed a newer version of zsh, you don't necessarily need to uninstall or remove it.


No entry sign on MacBook pro when installing snow leopard from 'new' disc onto new HD

Is your friend's Snow Leopard disk one he got with a Mac, or one he purchased at retail?

Disks that came with Macs are hardware-specific, if it came from a different model/revision than your MacBook Pro, then it likely won't work.

Try your install with a retail disk (or a Lion/Mountain Lion installer on USB) and see if that works.


It is actually possible to send arbitrarily complex LaTeX formulae with the help of LaTeXiT. The trick is fairly simple:

Enter the LaTeXiT preferences and, in the first tab, set the export
format as PNG. I also suggest to set the Scale to 250%, but this is a matter of taste.
Type a LaTeX formula in iMessage (not need to put the dollars)
Highlight the text, go to the iMessage -> Services menu and choose any of the LaTeXiT services (for instance, the "Display" one)
Ta-dah! After few seconds, your Tex code will be converted into a PNG image, ready to be sent through iMessage!

PS: In case you don't see the service in the menu, go to your system preference and activate it:


Backup software for backing up specific files only

Your Mac has batteries already included. The only drawback (for some people) than it is command line (Terminal.app) solution.

The following shell script can do the job

case $# in
    (2) SRC="$1"; DEST="$2";;
    (*) echo "Usage: $0 source destination"; exit 1;;
esac

cd "$SRC" || exit 2
find . -type f -print0 | grep -ziv 'cpan' | grep -ziE '.(avi|mov|mp4)$' | rsync -n -av0 --files-from=- ./ "$DEST"

Save it into some file (e.g. mybackup.sh) and run from the terminal: sh ./mybackup.sh /path/to/the/source /path/to/the/dest, e.g.:

sh ./mybackup.sh ~/Downloads /Volumes/your_usb_hdd_name/path

Run the scipt and if you satisfiled with the result (will print out what will backing up), remove the '-n'. (The '-n' mean dry run)

rsync can do network backup to, or is possible emulate the TimeMachne functionality too, (incremental backup), etc - rsync is extremely powerful.

If you interested, can learn more with man rsync from the Terminal.

Ps:
Or, it is not enough simply select in finder's search "All Movies" and simple drag&drop to result into the destination?


15 inch MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave woke up with blue screen from sleep

I suggest booting into diagnostic mode (search here or Google for instructions based on your particular Mac). Either it’s a fluke or your GPU is soon to die.


The things to look for first are:

Cluttered desktop
Less then 10% of free HD space
Not enough RAM

Here is a list of 17 reasons why a Mac could be slow.

When you take a look at it, I'm sure one of them is causing this slow speed problem on your Mac. In my case I caught five similar violations. :)


In your settings under Messages, check your settings under Send & Receive. It will show you what you are receiving Messages via (phone number and email(s)). Do any of your wife's contact details show up?


How do I stop my iPhone messages from appearing on my Mac?

No. Opting out of message delivery on one device (Mac or iPad) doesn't change delivery to the iPhone.

Go ahead and disable handoff if you don't want that enabled.
go ahead and sign out of messages on the Mac if you don't want that enabled.


Google AMP of iOS Chromes wastes quarter of screen

You can easily hide that AMP banner by loading the regular page instead of the AMP page. To do that, hit the three dots in the top-right and choose Request Desktop Site. This works in the iOS and Android versions of Chrome.

For more on what AMPs are, visit ampproject.org.


When I type 'echo $path' in Terminal, I see only a blank line - why?

The environment variable name are case sensitive. Try typing echo $PATH instead.


Mail.app and accountsd are taking op all CPU Mac OS 10.15

Same here, problem seems to be closed related to 10.15, since on Mojave I've never experienced something like that. Googling around, I found that the problem seems to be due to some "under-the-hood" logic behind account configuration.

Specifically I found that going to

Mail.app -> Settings -> Accounts -> (repeat for each account you have) -> Server Settings:

Disable the option: "Automatically Manage connection settings"

This seems to lower at 0.0 / 0.1 the CPU requirements for accountsd.


No that is not normal and either the clutch mechanism has too much play or a mounting screw is loose or something fractured.

Although Apple changed the way the signal cables connect from the lid to the motherboard radically in the 2016 model, as compared to earlier models, the mechanical hinge mechanism is much the same as previously, and there should be no give in any lateral direction between the lid and the frame.

All clutches slip a little, but yours seems overly loose. Protect it and get a repair estimate from Apple are my recommendation. It may be covered for free or it might be a paid repair, but then you’ll know for sure.


What's the little plastic clip on the headset good for?

I actually find it very useful to clip around the buttons on my dress shirt. Depending on the amount of slack I want, I can pin it around different buttons.

It creates enough slack in the lines/wires that go to the ears:

reduction in cord noise carrying up into ear-buds
the mic in the right wire stays away from your body (better pickup and less noise
if the earbuds fall out of your ear, they don’t drop all the way to the floor

It works perfectly (see yellow arrow in picture):


Is there an emulator for the Apple Watch?

You can simulate the Apple Watch using the latest version of Xcode on the Mac AppStore.

To run a watch app, you run the app on the iPhone Simulator with an Apple Watch target (the target is added in the Xcode project). The Watch Simulator then starts automatically.

You will need the source code for both the iPhone and watch apps.


Can't delete Alex voice from the iOS simulator

The only way to fix this bug is a factory reset, which erases everything


The icons do not update in the Finder or Get Info Tab

This is for OS X Mavericks.

  /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Running the above command on Terminal will rebuild the LaunchServices DB, and restarting the Mac works.

Credits for this answer by Mateusz


Numbers: VALUE function does not recognize empty string

IFERROR(VALUE(<cell>),0)

would return 0 for an empty cell (or any string that can not be converted into a value). I tried something like:

= MAX (I5, (0.5 x (IFERROR(VALUE(J5),0)))

and my initial tests were working.

Hope this helps


Thank you; but I figured it out. I created a Test account on the computer to see if it was a system thing or user thing; turned out to be a system thing.

I then went poking around but limited my searching to the system library, and found the offending file: it was in the LaunchAgents folder, and it was

com.vsearch.agent.plist

Put that in the Trash, rebooted, emptied the Trash, and the problem went away.


Small business using iPads needs to allow access to documents stored on office computer

I would use Dropbox for this, creating separate repositories for Sales and Installers.

Any changes made on each device will sync back to DropBox, and any changes on DropBox will sync back to the individual devices.

My business does this very thing with Marketing, and Sales.

The one thing I see as an issue is that any changes will sync immediately, not based upon location (i.e., "when they return to the office.")


I can't access my user on MacBook Pro eventhough I typed the correct password

By coincidence I am writing a blog post about this. I am assuming that you know the password, but the machine doesn't log into your account properly.

The basics:

We assume your user folder and its contents are OK.
We will delete the USER (System Preferences/Users & Groups) but leave the user FOLDER untouched. When you are asked what to do with the Home folder you say "Don't Change the Home Folder." This leaves all of your stuff in place, in the Users folder.
Now you create a "new" user with the EXACT same name as the old one. There are three things to get right: the "Full Name," the "Account Name," and the Password. The full name is probably your own name. The account name is usually something shorter, no spaces. You know the password.

When you create a new user with the same full name, account name, and password as the old one, the system will ask you whether you want to use the existing folder or not. You DO.

After that, you should be able to log in normally. Let me know.

You may have to create a temporary user (with admin privileges) to give yourself a place to work from. You could make a user called "admin" with the password "admin" and then log into that, and from there "delete" (temporarily) your user. Just remember: leave the Home folder unchanged. Very, very important.


How to fix Private Internet Access' kill switch?

When you enable the Kill Switch, PIA changes some config which apparently wasn't reverted when disabling the Kill Switch. PIA also warns you for this:

What you can do is manually revert the changes made by PIA. Running the following commands in your terminal should work:

Check the status

sudo pfctl -a com.privateinternetaccess -s rules

  No ALTQ support in kernel
  ALTQ related functions disabled
  pass in quick on ! utun2 inet from 10.0.0.0/8 to any no state
  pass in quick on ! utun2 inet from 172.16.0.0/12 to any no state
  pass in quick on ! utun2 inet from 192.168.0.0/16 to any no state
  pass in quick on lo0 all no state
  block drop in on ! utun2 inet from ! 46.166.137.225 to any

Flush/revert change by PIA

sudo pfctl -a com.privateinternetaccess -s rules

  No ALTQ support in kernel
  ALTQ related functions disabled

And also reset your DNS (Open Network Preferences > Wi-Fi > Advanced... > DNS). It should work without restarting your Mac or anything else.


Where did the info at the bottom of the Finder window go?

Would this question be helpful ? It gives at least a searchable option using "View -> Show Status Bar" or "View -> Show Path Bar".
(Sorry I can't just write this as a comment yet).

Finder does not show Path Bar and Status Bar, what to do?


External Monitor is not Working with Windows 8.1 64bit (MacBook Pro Late 2011)

Are you dual-booting or using a VM? Unless you have a specific reason for it like critical h/w performance or driver incompatibility, I always prefer using a VM for ease of use. And in this case the Windows video driver would be auto installed.


Time Capsule & Airport Express Keeps Disconnecting

i had sounds like the same problem
some how the TC became internally corrupted.
it had worked fine for two years and suddenly I am getting yellow flashing lights on the AE or green lights with connecting and then disconnecting
it was not the source router or the AE. It was the TC. Restoring the TC to factory default and setting it up again fixed the issue.


I mean they give you the solution right there. I had the same problem and I just ran:

  sudo chown -R $(whoami):admin /usr/local

and it worked.


How do I move my iPhone contacts to Gmail?

Since end of 2012, Google has ended support for the Exchange protocol, so you would not be able to sync your iPhone contacts with your Gmail account via Exchange. Instead use the Gmail account method directly via Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add account... > Gmail, enter your Gmail account credentials and enable contact sync.

You can alternatively export your iPhone contacts to your computer to a single vCard file and then import the contacts file to your Gmail account.


The usual Apple way is that a set of generic OSX disks only support all machines that come out before that OS (How would any know what a new machine might have changed). Machines released after an OS release will include boot disks that can be loaded by that machine but earlier versions might not.

Thus I suspect that your mini is unsupported for Leopard or people bought it earlier with a leopard version for that machine.


Secure empty trash on external drive OSX

To securely “empty” the trash on an external drive you can use the rm command with the -P option which will overwrite it 3 times - similar to a DoD 3-pass overwrite.
% rm -P /Volumes/foo/bar/.Trash/*

The other option is to reinstall srm via Homebrew or Macports and use srm in place of rm
% srm  /Volumes/foo/bar/.Trash/*

You could even create an alias and put it in your .zprofile or .bash_profile depending on the shell you’re using.
alias emptytrash=‘rm -P /Volumes/foo/bar/.Trash/*’


Intel management engine - is macOS vulnerable?

First: it's not macOS itself which is vulnerable in the first place but the firmware and related hardware is affected. In a second step your system may be attacked though.

Only some of the impacted processors are installed in Macs:

6th and 7th generation Intel® Core™ Processor Family

I checked some random firmware files with the tool MEAnalyzer and found at least some containing Intel Management Engine code:

This is the MacBook Pro Retina Mid 2017:

File:     MBP143_0167_B00.fd (3/3)

Family:   CSE ME
Version:  11.6.14.1241
Release:  Production
Type:     Region, Extracted
SKU:      Slim H
Rev:      D0
SVN:      1
VCN:      173
LBG:      No
PV:       Yes
Date:     2017-03-08
FIT Ver:  11.6.14.1241
FIT SKU:  PCH-H No Emulation SKL
Size:     0x124000
Platform: SPT/KBP
Latest:   Yes

An ME entry in Family denotes Management Engine code.

In an EFIFirmware2015Update.pkg 2 of 21 firmware files contain Intel Management Engine code which may be affected by CVE-2017-5705|5708|5711|5712.

In the macOS 10.13.1 update.pkg 21 of 46 firmware files contain Intel Management Engine code which may be affected by CVE-2017-5705|5708|5711|5712.

One source and a linked source therein state that "Intel ME is baked in every CPU but according to The Register (0) the AMT part is not running on Apple hardware." AMT is also related to an older vulnerability and the Register link refers to this. Then the firmware may not be affected by CVE-2017-5711|5712 because AMT isn't present on Macs.

But some of the recent vulnerabilities don't require AMT.

In my opinion it's unclear whether Macs are affected by the Intel Q3’17 ME 11.x vulnerability - probably only Apple can tell. At least Macs are not affected by the SPS 4.0 and the TXE 3.0 bugs!


How to make red distinguishable from grey in Terminal profile "Pro"

The problem is likely due to your vim settings rather than your terminal settings.

The color you mentioned is pretty close to color 224 (of 256 colors), so you might try looking in your vim colorscheme to see if that color is used in a ctermfg= declaration.

To test and see if I'm right you could try

:syn match Foo /foo/
:hi Foo ctermfg=red

If that turns the word foo red then you know your terminal's red is working properly and it will be an issue with your vim settings.


Why don't Apple want a download all music in their Apple Music App?

There is option in iTunes -> Preferences ->  Downloads -> Automatic Downloads but it's for purchased music or Apple Music. In iTunes Tab you can download each Playlist with the ... Tab Download all. Till yet Apple don't allow it because of iTunes Match and Apple Music. Where with a simple MacBook with 250GB SSD it's not a good idea.


What should I do if my iPod keeps saying "Connect to power"?

The battery in your iPod has died. I suggest making an appointment at your local Apple Store Genius Bar and they may be able to replace it for you.


Please check out What is other on iPhone Storage to get a nice way in finding your hidden storage waste.

Also to give you a nice way to fix this. Restore your iPhone to the most recent version and then place the backup file back. Don't just update as it won't remove anything.

Also check out this Apple KB about the space issue.

To summarize Apple's solution:

  Turn off the music or photo sync option in iTunes for the device.
  Click Apply to sync the changes to the device.
  Turn the music and photo sync options for the device on again.
  Click Apply again to try to sync the device to iTunes.
  If the 'Not enough free space' alert appears, continue to step 5.
  Turn off the automatic syncing functions for the iOS device. To do this:

  Select the iOS device from the iTunes window and click the Summary tab.
  Deselect "Automatically sync when this device is connected" and select the "Sync only checked songs and videos" checkbox.
  Click Apply to sync the changes to the device.
  Reduce the amount of data that is being synced to the device and resync the device. For example, if syncing your Music library exceeds
  the memory capacity of the device, choose "Selected playlists" to
  transfer rather than "All songs and playlists" under the Music tab in
  iTunes. If the 'Not enough free space' alert appears, continue to step
  6.

  Restore using iTunes.


Examples of 3D Javascript of CSS3 animations in-browser on iOS?

3D CSS works well on mobile safari.

http://www.clicktorelease.com/code/css3dclouds/
https://developer.apple.com/safaridemos/vr.php
http://www.keithclark.co.uk/labs/3dcss/demo


Can you use iMac Retina 5K as external monitor for a MacBook Pro?

According to Apple, no. The iMac Retina 5K does not support Target Display Mode.

  Note that the iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) does not support Target Display Mode.

You can see it here.


Finder doesn't come back after crash or `killall`

I have exactly the same problem on a MacBook Air, 13" late 2010 running 10.8.4 (12E55). I tried re-indexing as proposed without any change.

I could trace down my problem now to running "Virtual Box 4.2.16" with specific configurations of sharing the OSx drive/folders with the windows environment.
Don't run Virtual Box - and no problem will occur. This is my actual solution for solving the finder problem.

Since VB 4.2.16 is the latest release there seems to be no help at the moment.


Is there a way to make iPhone forget the data belonging to one app?

If you delete the app, all the data from that app gets deleted.

That is how the phone forgets that app.

If the app uses Game Center or another log in to retrieve game state from servers online, then you'll need to temporarily sign out of Game Center and possibly iCloud to remove those files from the phone as well.

I'd start by signing out of Game Center and delete/reinstall the game.

If that doesn't work, you can either check the specific game / contact that developer and/or sign out of iCloud documents or inspect that data store to see if that game has cloud files.

Once you have a clean start, you will know how to force a change to the cloud to reset the progress to be new.


In Settings -> Accounts -> iCloud, you can turn Calendar on, and then off. It will ask if you would like to delete all synced events. I said "yes" and they disappeared from my calendar!  In other words all of the group events with no delete option were deleted.

NOTE: this deleted all group events.


Software for splitting or trimming MP4 video without transcoding

Avidemux is a lightweight editor that can split videos without transcoding:

Start Avidemux
Open a file e.g. by dropping it into the Avidemux window
Choose where your video should start and then click on the (red) “A” button below.
Choose where your video should stop and then click on the “B” button below.
Select an output format (e.g. mp4). Note: there are two mp4 versions. If one does not work, just try the other.
Click on the save icon. Avidemux will propose a new file name based on the old one adding an “_edit” before the suffix. The trimming takes less than a second.


As Michael points out, if you enable the Bonjour account, the Video Preferences Tab will appear.

Apparently Messages doesn't recognize iCloud accounts as AIM equivalents. No AIM or gChat accounts or their equivalents, no Video Preferences tab and no Buddy Lists.


How does my Selfie Stick take a picture using the *headphone socket*?

Short answer: Your selfie stick is pretending to be a set of iPhone headphones and pressing the button on your stick is actually the same as pressing the volume up or down button which captures a photo. You can do the same with normal iPhone headphones, or by pressing the physical button on your iPhone.

Detailed answer:

Note: +(ve) and -(ve) refers to positive and negative respectively.

Depending on the model of iPhone you have, most modern iPhones since the iPhone 3GS have the ability to control the the volume of audio playback through the remote built in-line in compatible headphones.

The headphone jack on a typical music device would be either TS (mono) or TRS (stereo), meaning that it has a Tip section, Ring section and a Sleeve section.

Headphones are essentially speakers, and like most electrical devices they work on the idea of a circuit, from +(ve) to -(ve), so a stereo set of headphones is basically two speakers. One for each the left and right channels, so you need two wires, one for each, and a third that connects both back to the -(ve) side of the circuit. Thats why a stereo headphone jack is TRS (Tip, Ring, Sleeve).

The tip section of a headphone jack is always the left channel (or mono), the 1st ring section is the right channel, and the sleeve section is the -(ve) connection, this sleeve being -(ve) is important for later...

Even since the original iPhone there has always been a remote control inline with the right ear bud, and a microphone also. This allowed you to pickup calls hands-free and also play/pause, skip and rewind tracks by clicking the button.

To implement these extra features required a special type of headphone jack, a TRRS (Tip, Ring, Ring Sleeve) jack, it's no bigger than a normal jack and whats really clever is that the additional ring is in the section where the sleeve would be on a normal headphone.

The reason this is clever is that when you use your TRRS type headphones on a device which is a normal music player, the microphone bit just gets connected to -(ve) and is thus essentially disabled but the left and right channels are connected as normal so your smart iPhone headphones become normal headphones without any chance of the microphone or buttons becoming a problem.

Anyway, back to the original question, using some (to the non-layperson) basic electronics the extra Ring section can be used to send electrical pulses that send the volume up/down and play/pause buttons and microphone through this channel.

Since iOS 6, you have been able to use the volume up (and later down) button(s) on your iPhone, or headphones to capture a photo. This was in response to a number of third-party photo apps that popped up adding this feature with ever increasingly clever ways of hiding this from Apple's App Store reviewers.

So essentially the selfie stick is pretending to be a pair of Apple Headphones and pressing the volume up or down buttons. You can probably verify this by going into the Music app and pressing the capture button.


Can I repartition my primary hard drive without removing the Lion recovery partition?

No destruction will happen - This repartitioning you propose is possible to safely do.

The recovery partition won't modify itself (since it's in use) and will survive attempts to erase itself when it's in charge.

You also can resize things in general when booted from the main OS as long as files that are stored in the area being trimmed are mobile and not in-use or locked.

You have to enable a debug mode for Disk Utility to see and work on the Recovery HD so it's planned to be something you have to know a trick and go out of your way to tamper with. (Note: Debug mode is removed in 10.11 with the redesigned Disk Utility app)


All purchases have been downloaded for this Apple ID

This is not possible at this time. On iTunes for Windows, as of version 12.2, you can choose to automatically download all music, books, and apps. On iTunes for Mac, you can automatically download music and apps; and defer to the iBooks app to automatically download books. Movies, however, is not available on either platform.

You can automate it using Automator, however. Your Automator flow would look like this: Open iTunes, click Movies, My Movies, then press Command–A, Right-click on the selection, and choosing Make available offline, close the iTunes window. (Based on this.) You would then have to schedule the Automator flow to run at 02 am every night or something. Doable, but inelegant.


Apple ID for child younger than 13 and parent with no Apple device

You will have the least headaches to bribe (or make time) to wipe the device - and set yourself up as the Family Owner using your own Apple ID.

To start, just use parental controls and have the child come to you for authorization. Once you have gotten a few purchases in, maybe with a $25 gift card - then consider if you can approve purchases from an inexpensive used iPad with your credentials or via email from your device of choice and then put your child’s account in as a managed / family / child account.

You can set up your family at https://appleid.apple.com once you register yourself first on the device. Put in your charge card, address, and save your security questions - make sure your cellular and recovery email are safe and operational if you go two factor auth.

You asked about 5 great questions in the original post, so hopefully this is enough to get you started. Take the time to set up your account, then make a family and create the child accounts. You will be super glad you spent the time to use the managed route.


The Magic Mouse battery level is shown under the device name in the Bluetooth menu. You can install an app such as iStat Menus for easier access to such information directly in the menu bar. Software development questions are off-topic here.


Can the Magic Keyboard be used with the USB-C to Lightning cable?

Yes, you can connect it up with the USB-C to Lightning cable and use it as a keyboard.

USB is backwards compatible in this manner with the previous versions of USB. The Lightning port really carries a USB signal for data purposes.


Is it possible to customize invitation email?

Go to your HD > Applications > Server.app

Right Click > Show Package Contents

Go to Contents > ServerRoot > usr > share > devicemgr > backend > app > views > emailer

Open the email_profile-multipart.erb file in your IDE of choice, and make your style edits to the HTML email.


The location of plist file with defaults

I found that all the preferences are recorded in ~/Library/Preferences/ directory, and com.google.Keystone.Agent matches the plist file in the directory.


Time entries in calendar automatically display month/day/year

I'd suggest checking your language & region settings in Mac preferences, particularly under the Advanced options to see if you have an unexpected region or calendar setting there.


Python program does not display correctly on 10.13, but works on old MacBook

I currently have the Anaconda version of Python 3.5.4 installed on 10.13.4 and python3 test.py at the shell prompt gave me the expected result.

I can only suggest that you have a broken tk/tcl install somewhere. This is probably due to the problems mentioned on this page. I would suggest uninstalling all versions of Python 3 and then installing either the Anaconda version or the Homebrew version. I prefer the Anaconda version as it allows me to easily install Jupyter and they look after these sort of compatibility problems well.


Mac keyboard shortcut for Alt+4 now resolving to ¢

I used Karabiner and added a custom shortcut:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>Override alt4</name>
    <identifier>private.always_send_four</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::4, ModifierFlag::OPTION_L, KeyCode::4, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_R</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

I then bound my actual spaces shortcut to Control4.


This just worked for me on my iPhone 11 with current iOS.

Hold side button to invoke Siri
Say, "start timer for 15 seconds."
Timer starts immediatly counting down.

You have to be a little clever to work around the limitations of the voice interface. After all we are not at the point of the computers on Star Trek. Yet.

So for your particular use case, perhaps a command like, "Siri, start timer for an hour." and a bit later you can do something like, "Siri, stop timer."

It requires you to think like how would you tell Siri to do something that you could also do on the phone through a series of taps. And often it will take a few tries to get the phrasing correct, but once you get the hang of it you will learn how to ask a question of Siri that will give you the answer you need in as few words as possible. Kind of like programming the phone with voice.


This is expected behavior.

The -1 denotes that a "custom" profile is being used.
The * denotes the profile currently in use.

So, from this we can see that there is a custom profile for both UPS and AC and that it is currently using the AC profile.

When using the macOS defaults as seen in Energy Saving Preference pane (above image), pmset -g gives the following:

Active Profiles:
UPS Power       -1
AC Power        2*

Now, the UPS is the only profile with a custom setting and the 2 denotes a predefined (default) setting for AC. Setting it back to a custom setting returns the profile value to -1.


How do I route system audio to specific channel on audio interface?

After selecting the device for sound output in System Preferences, you must configure the speaker settings for the device in Audio MIDI Setup:

Open Audio MIDI Setup
Right click on the audio device and select Configure Speakers...
Choose the configuration (e.g. stereo)
Choose the channel destination for each speaker (e.g. left, right)


I would be careful. You may be backing up to iCloud, but syncing locally with iTunes. If you DO NOT sync your Apps with iTunes, you can throw it away.

Personally, I would keep it and maybe just delete some of the old apps you no longer use.


Default browser utility to forward links to their respective apps?

Of course, 5 minutes after posting this I found it, it's called Finicky:
https://github.com/johnste/finicky
brew install --cask finicky


How do add "Recent Folders" item to the Finder sidebar?

Use a smart folder.

Right click the Finder in the Dock
Select New Smart Folder
Press the plus button
Select kind.
Select Last Modified/Opened or whatever you want.
Select 'This Mac'
Save your smart folder. When saving, make sure 'Add to Sidebar' is checked. Name your smart folder and you're good to go!


Invitations sent to Gmail do not appear in Calendar while invitations sent to Office 365 do

I don't know how to get better native integration, but Outlook 2016 and O365 sure does a good job with gmail and other email being integrated. It's not the typical Apple experience, but it's dramatically better than 2011 and much older Office suite.


At the moment the way iOS is set up is that if you want to send or share something it will only go through the Mail app.  It's a bit of a bummer, but that's how things are at the moment.  There are slight work arounds, so if you try to attach within an app it uses that app, but in all other cases by default it will always use Mail.

In regards to your Gmail not working, try referring to this article to add your Gmail account to mail.  There are some things that have changed recently with Gmail on iOS devices.  It's not longer setup through exchange so it might not work as effectively as you would if you used the Gmail App.  Your mail will not be pushed automatically you will have manually open the Mail app and refresh to receive new mail.  Another bummer.

I hope this information helps!


How to clear DHCP leases in OS X Server (v4.1.3-14S1127) on Yosemite 10.10.4

I found this but can not test since I do not have your set up.

Stop the dhcp server either through Server Admin or from a command line command of sudo serveradmin stop dhcp.
delete the file /var/db/dhcpd_leases. You will need root access. Terminal command of sudo rm -f /var/db/dhcpd_leases
Restart dhcp via server admin or by terminal command of sudo serveradmin start dhcp

Be very careful when deleting files in terminal!


Hot to make the fn key work like Ctrl EXCEPT when using f keys (f1, f2, f3, f4)

Consider this tool, perhaps it can solve your problem

https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/


Battery life of iPhone 4 reduced dramatically since iOS 7

There of course are more power efficient operating systems for a couple of reasons.

Some operating systems take alot of space for themselves to actually run the system
Apps might not always be turned off but suspended, leaving them running

And one of the major battery eaters (not because of OS) is the screen. Turning down the brightness to half-way from full can save about 2-3 hours of battery (sometimes more).

A good solution to the background app problem is exiting the apps by pressing the home button twice. You will see the apps you have active. You can swipe up to exit the apps, and home button or tap on an app to go back to it. However that no longer works.

  Quitting apps is not the way to do it. The old 'slide it off the screen' does nothing whatsoever unless an app is hung etc. Backgrounded apps set to no refresh was the replacement for that old voodoo, since iOS 7

-Tetsujin

Basically, that solution used to be a thing, but now background apps do not seem to be the issue at all anymore.

Just as some extra information, Androids have custome ROMs (OS) that attempt on being more lightweight operating system clones of android. However custom ROMs have yet to exist on Apple phones

Sudden battery drain is also not only a software problem, but it could be a hardware problem too. To maintain battery health, make sure to charge with your native adapter (not other ones for different phones), as sometimes they have higher voltage, therefore harming the battery. If suspending apps does not resolve your battery problem, you might want to bring your phone for a battery checkup just in case.

And finally, to answer your question with battery packs, there are some good ones. You can get ones in a separate "power bank", where you connect your phone and charge, or you can get ones that are built-in to the iPhone case, like in the example below:

Of course, there are also iPhone 4 cases, not just iPhone 6 ones.


How can I hide or ignore old Outlook iCal invitations?

For an Exchange account the only way I found to clear old invites out was to log into Outlook Web Access in my web browser and decline them without sending an email in there. Just go to the same dates specified in iCal for the invites and use the right click menu in the calendar tab to decline them.


Can I format the internal HDD in my iMac if using an external drive for the OS?

is it possible to format this so I can use it for backup storage?

Definitely. You can use Disk Utility for that.

Is there any advantage to keeping this internal drive as is with the OS files that are not used on there?

An advantage is that you'll be able to boot the machine if the external drive ever fails.

would they be required for recovery in future?

I suggest that you leave the Recovery partition alone and only reformat Macintosh HD.


Restoring it from iTunes should have worked. But this only works if you have previously synced your device with iTunes and have a backup stored on your computer.

If you know the right password... do following.

Try to back up the iOS device in iTunes

The first thing you should try to unlock your disabled device is a simple iTunes backup.

Connect your iOS device to your computer via USB and open iTunes. Select the device in the upper right-hand corner to display its properties in the main screen.

iTunes backup

Click on the "Back Up Now" button to start a sync.

You may be prompted to type in your password on your iOS device to start the sync because the device is locked.

Once you have typed in your password, you can cancel the back up and start using your device.


Find out applications using a lot of bandwidth,

Use the Activity Monitor program to view the CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, and Network activity associated with running processes.  It is in the /Applications/Utilities folder.


When using an external monitor, does a mid-2015 Retina Macbook Pro with only integrated graphics run cooler than one with discrete graphics?

The short answer appears to be: yes, 12 degrees C (22 degrees F) or more cooler.

I got ahold of a custom-build Macbook Pro that has identical specifications except that it had no discrete graphics adapter. I set it up on the same table in the same room, connected to an identical monitor. I put both of them through the same sequence of operations, using yes > /dev/null & one or more times to occupy whole processor cores, running WebGL demos, plugging and unplugging monitors, etc. in lockstep. Temperatures, fan speeds, and CPU use were observed regularly using iStat menus, yielding 120 separate observations. Using the R statistical package I fit some models to these data and retained this one for the "left fin stack" temperature:

> summary(fin_fit)

Call:
lm(formula = fin_temp ~ dgpu + ext_disp + cpu_load + gpu_load,
    data = heat)

Residuals:
     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max
-12.1091  -2.8460  -0.2888   2.5413  12.1540

Coefficients:
            Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept)  32.8460     0.7066  46.484  < 2e-16 ***
dgpu         12.2631     0.8067  15.202  < 2e-16 ***
ext_disp      2.4160     0.7836   3.083  0.00256 **
cpu_load      3.4386     0.4173   8.240 3.11e-13 ***
gpu_load     14.0506     1.2601  11.151  < 2e-16 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Residual standard error: 4.138 on 115 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared:  0.821, Adjusted R-squared:  0.8148
F-statistic: 131.9 on 4 and 115 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

Interpretation: This model explains about 82% of the temperature variation. The base operating temperature is about 33C, every fully occupied CPU core adds about 3.4C, a fully occupied GPU adds about 14C, each external display attached adds about 2.4C, and using a discrete GPU adds about 12C. All of these variables are very significant in explaining temperature variations, and the model as a whole is quite effective at predicting temperature.

There is an apparent jump of 10 watts or more in power consumption when using the DGPU and an external monitor. This would be coherent with the extra heat, but I did not fit a model for this response variable.

I expect the fin heat model would fit even better if I excluded all observations that happened shortly after a change of state (change in CPU or GPU usage, change in presence of external monitor). There’s some amount of thermal inertia - it takes a minute for the heat sinks to warm up or cool down.

Conclusion: On the stock Macbook with a discrete graphics adapter hard-wired to the external monitor ports, from a temperature perspective attaching an external monitor has greater impact than performing heavy computations. The fans become audible frequently under load, and the keyboard can get uncomfortably hot. On the other hand, when using the model with no discrete GPU, the fans remain quieter and temperatures more moderate, as attaching an external monitor yields only a slight increase in base temperature.

Other observations: the dual-GPU model will also enter and remain stuck in discrete GPU mode when it doesn't really need high performance graphics, which can discharge the battery very quickly and cause unnecessary heat. At one point in my testing after unplugging the external monitor, it became stuck in DGPU mode. The activity monitor reported that this was due to the Terminal application requiring accelerated graphics (!).

Coming out of sleep with a monitor attached or switching on an already-attached monitor, the monitor often seems not to be detected or used by the OS. GPU switching seems to add a lot of complexity and be susceptible to glitches.


There is an app called Mountain that will mount and unmount your drives. It works well on my iMac.  There is a free trial version on their website.
You might give this a try. Its mounted problem disks for me.


Change brightness on iMac in target display mode

yeah, toggling the function key setting worked for me. I'm on 17" 2011 mbp and the 27 inch cinema display with Lion.


This sounds like a job for AirDrop!

You should be able to discover the Macs in your surroundings and then you can simply drag and drop the files.


How can I hide an app from the dock while keeping it in the menu bar?

I want to know if there's a way to hide the app from my dock when the app is running so that I can simply use the menu bar to see if I have any new messages and thus save dock space

An app can be configured to hide it's Dock icon, and show it only in the Menu bar, only if it is designed (programmed) to provide this functionality. If the app doesn't include this feature, it's not possible for user to achieve this by any other means (OS built-in or using any 3rd party tool).


Copy to network share using local disk cache in Mac OS X Lion

My first guess would be that you got a typo in the target path (/Volumes/netshare/path, especially the netshare part) and are actually duplicating the data onto the source drive.

If not, I don't really see the benefit of using rsyncfor a one-off copy operation with limited risk of interruption -> just use cp instead, OSX takes care of the network part anyway if you copy something to a share mounted under /Volumes.

If you absolutely want to use rsync leave off the -PW options for a starter. -W is used anyway unless you sync directly to another server by specifying the target as remotehost:path/to/dir, -P is only needed if the sync runs the risk of getting interrupted.


Easiest way to get path of currently-opened file in Adobe Acrobat?

So here's an AppleScript that I pasted together with the help of some other answers and the AppleScript reference. This puts the URL of the frontmost Acrobat document to the clipboard, e.g:
file://localhost/Users/Your%20Username/Documents/Some%20Folder/Filename.pdf

 tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Acrobat"
            set thefile to value of attribute "AXDocument" of window 1
        end tell
    end tell
 set the clipboard to thefile


PowerPC applications no longer supported MacBook Lion

You will need to use a computer with 10.6 (snow leopard) or earlier if you want to run that software on a Mac. Maybe a friend has an older computer you can borrow. Or maybe it will work on a computer lab machine.

Other Options:

1) Try running it on a Windows PC (I'm guessing backwards compatibility will be better)

2) Virtual Machine. It looks like Snow Leopard on Virtual Box is very difficult (and I'm guessing illegal) but maybe you can get your hands on a copy of Windows that will work.


Mission Control not working (Mac OS Catalina 10.15)

Try to restart the Mac's Dock, follow this link fix the problem for me:
https://www.defaults-write.com/fix-for-not-working-exposemission-control/

To solve this problem apply the following defaults write command:
defaults write com.apple.dock mcx-expose-disabled -bool FALSE
Restart the OSX Dock:
killall Dock


Can't sync all iBooks from mac to other devices

Yes, it's possible.

  The article you linked to applies only to books from iTunes Store. In
  order to sync your books and PDFs outside of the iTunes Store you need
  an iOS device running iOS 9.3 or later and/or a Mac running Mac OS X
  10.11.4 (El Capitan) or later. You may update from App Store or iTunes.

  Also check:  iCloud Drive should be turned ON for all
  devices   Enable iBooks in iCloud Drive (Settings->iCloud->iCloud
  Drive->iBooks for iOS and Systemsettings->iCloud->iBooks for Mac)
  Make sure that you have some free space for the books on iCloud Drive
    Make sure you are signed in with same Apple ID on all devices
    Make sure that "Hide iCloud books" are turned OFF

  More information:
  https://miapple.me/ibooks-sync-pdf-files-ebooks-via-icloud/


Hiding iCloud folders from search on iOS

You cannot isolate one folder to be hidden from iOS spotlight, as per my knowledge.

To fully remove Files app from showing files in spotlight, Settings → Siri and Search → Files, turn it off.


Change iTunes Store country and keep Apple Music library?

In theory if you have a friend who has an iphone and apple music and you both upgrade to iOS 11 then you can follow each other’s apple music playlists then get your friend to save and add your songs and playlists to their device, then on your device switch over app store countries, re subscribe to apple music in the new country and then do the reverse and follow your friends playlists and re add them back to your apple music library.


How to dedupe/merge contacts from different sources?

Merely partially answering my own question:

First make sure to have Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > CONTACTS > Default Account set to Gmail.

Cards from Office 365 and Google that are of the same person can be edited in iOS Contacts. Edit one contact and, right at the bottom (remove the keyboard) one finds link contacts.... There select the other card. (Press link just once.)

This will put all information of that person in one card in iOS Contacts. However, it doesn't seem to push any information from Office 365 to Google or vice versa. If anyone knows how to do that, please let me know.


One mac, Two or more storage devices - how to divide things?

My setup is the following :

Macbook pro 2009, 13"
SSD (Intel X25M Postville) replacing the superdrive, used as system + home folder disk
Factory HDD used for music and pictures storage

I tried to move my home folder to te HDD, here are my conclusions :
when you move your entire home folder to an HDD, your mac boots fast, but you don't get too much performance gain while opening applications (even apps that do not use any document, like safari). That's because when the app starts up, it loads it preference and cache files from your library. If it is on the second drive, startup of apps is nearly as slow as when  you use your HDD for booting.

I now use my HDD for iTunes/Aperture and vmware images only. These apps are a bit slower than the others (but still as fast are when I didn't have a SSD). But I did not do as Matt recommends : I created new iTunes and aperture libraries directly on the HDD, using the alt key at launch. I do not like symlinks, that can break if you unmount your HDD, for maintenance or by mistake for example, leaving your home folder in a non consistent state.

Last points :

with this configuration, you have to be careful of what files you put on the HDD if you have multiple accounts on your mac : these files are accessible to anybody by default, and filevault will not protect them (unless you use Lion which allows full-drive encryption).
And you need to setup Time machine to include the HDD (if needed), which includes only the system drive by default.


I've used FileVault 2 on my mid - 2012 retina MBPro. It's been awhile since I activated FileVault 2, but I've seen little to no real performance hit once I activated FV2.

There are some more objective tests available such as here.


My best advice would be to invest in a NAS. Their software is much better for doing what you need. Synology is my favorite as their software is very intuitive and Mac like. A NAS also lets you do more with it like backup files, use it as a web server, host a blog, download files directly to it and stream both music and videos. If you check out our forum, @ mkvxstream.blogspot.com we have links posted to live demos of both Qnap and Synology. I know it's another piece of hardware but a NAS is much more versatile than Time Capsule.


How come compiling my .tex file with my alias is lagging?

A few thoughts:

This question better asked at the TeX.SE site.
.tex files need to be compiled multiple times, not just once. Run pdflatex *.tex 3x and then open, and it should work
There are much much better LaTeX editors than XCode.
The latexmk script is, in my opinion, the best .tex compiler. It handles compiling the file as many times as necessary. rubber is another LaTeX compiler.


SIMBL Plugins not launching properly under OS X Lion

Unfortunately, this is the behaviour of the SIMBL plugin.

  One oddity about this solution is that you may need to kill the Finder
  again to bring the color icons back after a full system reboot

Source


Where do I get a product key and ISO for Windows 8 Boot Camp?

Microsoft has a Student store that sells Windows 8, downloadable, with key for $69. Presumably from your post, you would qualify for academic pricing.


Once you remove an app from iOS notification center, can you add it back?

Nope you can't get it back once you dismissed the notification.


No suggestion for misspelled added words

You can create your own corrections in System Preferences → Keyboard → Text. These corrections can be used to correct misspellings for any word, regardless of whether you've added the word to the dictionary yourself. Add your misspelling to the 'Replace' and the correct spelling to 'With', and repeat for multiple misspellings.


Automator -> send file to email (from filename)

I've tried with Automator without succeeding looping through dropped files.

Here's a folder action script that does what you want, and how to attach it to a folder :

1. Open AppleScript Editor

2. Paste the following script into a new document

property mail_subject : "An image for you"
property mail_plain_content : "Attached you will the image you required." & return & return & "Best Regards" & return & "Automator"
property mail_html_content : "Attached you will the image you required.

Best Regards
Automator"

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
    processItems(these_items)
end adding folder items to

on processItems(these_items)
    repeat with i from 1 to (count of these_items)
        set this_item to item i of these_items
        if isFolder(this_item) then
            processItems(getFolderItems(this_item))
        else
            processFile(this_item)
        end if
    end repeat
end processItems

on processFile(this_file)
    set mail_address to RemoveExtension(getFileName(this_file))
    tell application "Microsoft Outlook"
        set newMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:mail_subject, plain text content:mail_plain_content, content:mail_html_content}
        tell newMessage
            make new recipient with properties {email address:{address:mail_address}}
            make new attachment with properties {file:this_file as alias}
            send
        end tell
        activate
    end tell
end processFile

on isFolder(this_item)
    tell application "System Events" to return (exists folder (this_item as string))
end isFolder

on RemoveExtension(this_name)
    -- This function comes from :
    -- http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/sbrt/index.html
    if this_name contains "." then
        set this_name to (the reverse of every character of this_name) as string
        set dot_offset to the offset of "." in this_name
        set this_name to (text (dot_offset + 1) thru -1 of this_name)
        set this_name to (the reverse of every character of this_name) as string
    end if
    return this_name
end RemoveExtension

on getExtension(this_name)
    if this_name contains "." then
        set this_name to (the reverse of every character of this_name) as string
        set dot_offset to the offset of "." in this_name
        set this_name to (text 1 thru (dot_offset - 1) of this_name)
        set this_name to (the reverse of every character of this_name) as string
        return this_name
    else
        return ""
    end if
end getExtension

on getFileName(this_file)
    tell application "Finder" to return name of this_file
end getFileName

on getFolderItems(this_folder)
    tell application "Finder" to return items of this_folder
end getFolderItems

3. Save it in your ~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts Folder

Menu File > Save

Go to the right folder : press cmd+G and paste:
~/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts
and click Go

Save as : Image - Email using name as address.scpt (for example)
Format : Script

4. Create a new folder that will be watched for added items

5. Associate the script to the folder

In the Finder, right click on your folder, then select Services > Folder Actions Setup
Select the new created Image - Email using name as address.scpt script

You're done, drop a file whose name is an address, mail will be sent.


Time Machine offers to erase disk data (format), will it delete all my partitions?

Look at Erase a volume under EXAMPLES in the diskutil man page.

diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ UntitledHFS /Volumes/SomeDisk

In this case the command line you'll probably want to use is:

diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ BackupMac /Volumes/BackupMac

However check that the command line is formatted as needed before executing it.

I tested this on a 2 volume disk and it only touched the 1 targeted volume leaving the other intact and the target reformatted HFS+, which is what you want for the Time Machine backup.

Note: It may need to unmount all volumes on the disk so make sure nothing is open on the other volumes before hand.  While it may unmount the other volumes not to worry as it will only erase and reformat the target volume and remount upon completion.


NSTextInsertionPointBlinkPeriod is outdated. As of 10.9, OS S now has separate variables for ON and OFF times. 1000 represents one second. The following 2 commands can be used:

defaults write -g NSTextInsertionPointBlinkPeriodOn -float 1000

and

defaults write -g NSTextInsertionPointBlinkPeriodOff -float 1000

These numbers will set the on blink to 1 second and the off blink to one second (default).


Is it possible to add a horizontal line to apple notes on a mac?

I'd like to see this as an actual formatting option too… but it seems unlikely to come any time soon. Experimenting with various Unicode line characters (like ―) or a series of em dashes (opt + shift + dash) is not a great solution as the width of the "line" doesn't change with the width of the note window. And if you squeeze the window width narrower than your faux line, it will wrap. Ugh!

Here's the best workaround I've come up with (it ain't perfect, but it works for me!):

In Photoshop (or similar), make a new document of somewhere in the neighborhood of 2400 pixels wide by 6 pixels high.
Fill it with black.
Save as a .jpg (or .gif, or .png… it doesn't really matter) in a place that you'll have easy access to, like your Desktop.
In Notes, put the cursor on a new line where you would want the horizontal line to go.
Click to select the file you saved to your desktop, and copy it to your clipboard (command + c).
Head back to Notes and paste it in (command + v). You'll end up with something like this:

What's nice here is as you adjust the width of the window, the horizontal line image will always span the full width:

You'll notice that the height of the line also changes proportionally with the window width… so you'll have to experiment with a size that works for you. 2400 x 6 seems to work for me. Here's a link to the file that I'm using, if you want to give it a try (right-click to download):

https://i.imgur.com/bcnfe7K.jpg

BONUS PRO TIP: If you're using TextExpander (or similar) make a new snippet that inserts this line graphic so you don't have to do steps 5 and 6 (above) every time. I've got mine set to -----. Adding the horizontal line with this shortcut has become second nature.

If you do not have TextExpander (or similar) to make a new snippet that inserts this line graphic so you don't have to do steps 5 and 6 above, you can create an Automator service as shown in the image below using the following example AppleScript code:

property hLine : (path to pictures folder as string) & "hLine.jpg"

set the clipboard to (read (hLine as alias) as JPEG picture)
delay 1
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down

As coded, the linked "bcnfe7K.jpg" was saved in the Pictures folder within the Home folder as "hLine.jpg", so adjust it in the example AppleScript code as necessary.

Then assign it a keyboard shortcut, as in the image below, I used ⌘L as it was not assigned in Notes.

Now to insert the horizontal line in Notes, set the cursor where you want the line and press: ⌘L

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


Internet not working on iPad mini with iOS 7

I solved it - turns out the problem was a flaky internet connection! The clue was that I was unable to sign in to iTunes on my Windows laptop (the connection was timing out), even though I could do the same on my Linux laptop.

I rebooted the router and then was able to sign in to the iCloud account from the iPad and everything started working. I also updated it to iOS 8.4 just in case :-)


Homebrew's instructions to update Xcode CLT fail to address warning

https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/5002

This bug report, which is closed as expected behaviour, has this solution:

  MikeMcQuaid: Run xcode-select --install. If that doesn't work check for Mojave system updates. If that doesn't work reboot your machine and try both again. If that doesn't work try to download and install the latest CLT from https://developer.apple.com/downloads/more/

From the discussion under it, it seems you need to have both Xcode's CLT and the /Library CLT.


What frame rate is used by iPhone in "30fps" mode?

30 frames per second is based on NTSC broadcasting standards that go all the way back to the invention of television.  All recording equipment conforms to this spec even though we don't use analog anymore.

NTSC actually runs at 29.975 frames per second, so both your apps are technically correct.  We just say "30fps" because it's easier to say and write than 29.975.


iMessage (iOS 10) doesn't index messages properly

According to Apple's engineering department, backups only store the past 200 messages in the search database. The rest are stored for regular viewing, just not in the database.

"What the customer is experiencing is actually considered expected behavior.  With the release of iOS 10, customers are now only able to search the last 200 messages with Spotlight or the in-app search. This would include the last 200 sent and received messages.

The 200 searchable messages limit is only after restoring from a backup prior to iOS 10.  This is why devices that had the same Messages database and were not restored from a backup when they upgraded to iOS 10 can still search prior to the 200 limit.

If the customer would like to see this function in a different manner going forward, please encourage the customer to submit feedback at apple.com/feedback. “


Mavericks Calendar sync with Google seems entirely broken?

Here's what worked for me:

Open Calendar.app
Open Preferences (⌘+,)
Click Accounts tab
Click plus button (+) to add an account
Select "Add CalDAV Account..."
Click Continue
Select "Account Type" Manual
Username is your full email address "yourname@gmail.com"
Password is your password (or application specific password if you use 2 factor auth)
Server Address is "https://www.google.com"

Notes:

Don't forget the "@gmail.com" on your gmail address! You can also use your own domain name if a Google Apps user
The "https://" on the Server Address field is critical. Without this you will get an error about not being able to establish a secure connection (https uses SSL where http doesn't).


Compressor by Apple not only one of the most fully featured encoders around and fully supports multiple threads, it even supports distributed encoding so that more than one Mac can work on a single job.


Why does High Sierra quit all my programs when I lock and close the laptop?

While I'm not entirely certain that this is the issue, you could attempt to disable graphics switching on your Mac.

In System Preferences, open the Energy Saver pane. From there, uncheck "Automatic Graphics Switching". To learn more about how to do that, check here: Set graphics performance on MacBook Pro

Note that disabling this setting will cause the discreet graphics to always be on. This may use more energy, but if this resolve the issue it would be helpful to know for troubleshooting.


How to have Farsi/Persian font in a single column of Numbers

In Numbers go to:

File menu > Advanced > Language and Region

Select Persian from the dropdown list for the languages and then hit OK.

That will revert your numbers as well as the rest of the locale related settings to Persian.

Voila!

(You can do the same in Excel or the rest of the Office family).

Update:

Note that this method will change all numbers in your file to Persian. Seems like there's no proper way of having a bilingual sheet; you need at least two sheets one in each language. Also, if you want to retain everything and only apply it to one set of numbers, then, weirdly enough, you need to type any letter in Persian, then input your number. If the global language setting of the file is on English, it'll display the numerals in English, unless you keep at least a Persian letter before the digit in the cell. This is far from ideal, but I can't seem to find another work around this.


Time Capsule still provides Wi-Fi but is not discovered by AirPort Utility

Follow these steps and it should be OK:

Press the reset button on the Time Capsule.
Forget the old time capsule in Airport Utility.
Re-add the reset Time Capsule.
Update the Time Capsule's firmware.

The Back to My Mac function caused it to be not seen by the Airport Utility despite it working fine otherwise.


How do you clear Mac install program files?

In the old days, changing the date, deleting the preferences, or installing the trial software in a different path did the trick, but, nowadays, it seems rather unlikely that there's such an easy way.

Trial software may call home to check the database for a combination of your MAC address and your email, your IP, both, create an invisible file with a who-knows-which-name or a million different things. I mean, if there was an easy way to do so, you wont need the full version, right?

Someone might find a way, of course. But it will probably be for a specific program, not a generic way for all trial software.

EDIT: Just noticed that I'm not answering your question. Indeed, installed and used applications will leave other files, such as Preferences, stored either in your user's preferences folder (~/Library/Preferences) or in the System-Wide preferences folder  (/Library/Preferences/), or Application Support Files (which will be, again, in your user's library folder or in the root one). There could be a lot more, of course.

If you want to get rid of them, making a search, with Spotlight or Finder, should show them all.


Some of my Safari bookmarks don't appear in Spotlight search results

The ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/Bookmarks contains bookmarks that get updated by Safari every time you start it. If you look at the date, you will see it only contains the current date.

Spotlight will only show bookmarks that have been updated by Safari in that folder. If for some reason a bookmark is not updated it will not show in Spotlight.

The ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist does contains bookmarks that are readable in plain text, that file is intended to manage the bookmarks organization.

Spotlight will not search inside this file.

Potential fix:

Remove current bookmarks in ~/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari since the Safari itself would be unaffected by the removal of the contents and will rebuild it; as I understand it, those files exist to allow Spotlight searches to include bookmarks.
Close Safari and move the Bookmarks.plist file to Desktop and restart Safari. Now all bookmarks are gone in Safari it self. Move the Bookmarks.plist back where it was and restart Safari and you will have all bookmarks back.


New iPhone 4S using 10 times faster battery than old 4, why?

It can be for a variety of reasons these include:

• Location Services in regular use, like Siri geofencing in reminders or a GPS app using it a lot. Check Settings > Privacy > Location services (in iOS 6) to see what's using it.

• A mail account that's not set up properly or had stopped working correctly from a restored back up, for example the outgoing mail server password not being entered on an IMAP or Exchnage account.

• Push mail being switched on. Settings > Mail > Fetch, to see how it's set up.

• An app that's misbehaving and using a lot of CPU time (you may notice the phone warm up a little). Check your logs in Settings > General > About > Diags and usage > Diags and usage data, for anything unusual. Also check Settings > Usage - Time Since Last Full Charge to see if the time used makes sense, have you been using the phone for as long as it says? If the Standby time and in Use time are the same then something is running in the background.

• Using the phone in a poor reception area will dramatically lower battery life, even in its on standby.

• A corrupt restore from back up.

Things to do to try and resolve the issue:

• Power cycle the phone

• Reset user preferences. Settings > General > Reset > Reset all Settings.

• Restore phone in iTunes and set up as new. (Most invasive option, but will sort the issue).


Multiple machine ssh client application for macOS

Yes, it is possible - there are a number of ways to do this.

You can install the program "csshx" from HomeBrew which is specifically designed for this purpose. First you'll need to have HomeBrew installed, and then run this command to install csshx:

brew install csshx

Then you can run csshx like this:

csshX server1 server2 server3

where serverX should be replaced with the actual hostnames of your servers.

That will display three graphical macOS windows with the output from each of the servers, and a fourth window with a red background, where you enter your commands. These commands are then sent to all three servers.

A different approach is to use "tmux". It is a common application for Terminal usage that have many advantages, and one of them is that it allows parallel execution. In general it allows for having multiple shell sessions within one Terminal tab - for example you can have three shells with connections to different servers each in their own pane, but all in the same macOS window/tab.

Again you'll need to have HomeBrew installed, and then run this command to install:

brew install tmux

You can then run tmux to start the program. Open a pane for each you want to connect to, and ssh into them as you would normally do. When you're ready to execute commands on all servers at once, press Ctrl-B and then:

:setw synchronize-panes

Now everything you write will be written to all the panes.

You need to press Ctrl-B and run:

:setw synchronize-panes off

to disable the feature again.


You should certainly request help online or through the phone - (31) 0900 7777 703 - in either Netherlands or the country where your mac was originally sold. Fans are pretty easy to diagnose remotely since it's almost always the fan unit failing (or when it's not that, the next most likely cause is simply reconnecting the fan cable) so you can often ask for a parts and labor quote to help you decide what to do.

You seem to indicate it's the CPU fan. It and the hard drive fan are very hard to replace as you have to disconnect and remove the LCD panel, the logic board and many of the other parts. The optical fan is more amenable to a DIY repair. All the connectors are very delicate and if you break them, the cost to repair can be pretty large. (Think $800 to $1100 for a whole logic board). iFixit.com has good take apart manuals and once you have a quote or two from authorized service providers, you might decide to get inside to reconnect the cables and at least look around.

My advice is don't do anything yourself until you're sure Apple won't cover it by calling them first to get a quote. The main hardware warranty has great links for getting service worldwide - since it's quite long I'll pull the links here for quick reference:

International Support Information
Apple Authorized Service Providers
Apple Retail Store
Apple Support and Service Phone Contacts Worldwide
Apple Complimentary Support

Lastly, don't be afraid to run it for short time and low CPU use to get more information and be sure which fan went out. The CPU will reduce clock rate when it gets warm, then it will go to sleep for 30 seconds if that doesn't keep it cool, next the OS will shut down (all of the above events get logged at default settings except maybe the clock rate). The CPU will also shut everything off abruptly if all of the above fail. Don't run for weeks or hit the CPU with 100% tasks and expect it to last for years with the CPU fan off, but other things will have to fail for it to be a melt / fire hazard issue. I also wouldn't run it needlessly and risk MLB failure needlessly.


Suggestions for a batch audio converter?

FFMPEG and a simple bash script will get the job done.  FFMPEG is the same set of libraries that are included with products like Handbrake.

The basic syntax is very simple:

ffmpeg -i inputfile outputfile

If you wanted to convert a FLAC to MP4, you would simply enter

ffmpeg -i inputfile.FLAC to outputfile.MP4

To convert a number of files a simple bash script like the one below will convert

for file in /foo/bar/*.mp3
do
    fullfilename=$(basename "${file}")
    filename="${fullfilename%.*}"
    ffmpeg -i "$file" "/foo/bar/converted/$filename.mp4"
done

This basic script parses through a directory, takes the original filename, then removes the extension so a new extension can be added during output.


environment variable not showing after set

For newly created accounts Catalina uses zsh instead of bash, so you need to add the lines to the appropriate file (probably ~/.zshenv to make sure it's read in all cases).


Within iTunes, select on the "Add to Library" option:

Then select on the folder containing your music. It may take some time to import, but your music should then be accessible within iTunes.


How do I prevent my disk from being bloated?

If you click the "review files" option to the right of that list it should let you see a break down of your files to help you make decisions and see what is taking up space on your volume.


Apple is still signing iOS 5.0.1. You will need to download the 5.0.1 ipfw and then place your device into DFU mode. From there, hold the ALT/OPTION key as you hit the restore button in iTunes. Then point iTunes to the newly downloaded firmware.

You must act fast. When Apple closes this window and stops signing the old firmware, it will not be possible to downgrade iOS.


How to hide sidebar preview (on the right) in Finder on El Capitan

This is called Preview.

Type Shift+Command+p to turn it either on or off.

Alternatively open Finder's View menu and select Hide Preview / Show Preview.


I have a 2.4-GHz 13-inch MacBook Pro, which is virtually the same as your model. It has 8GB of RAM. No problems thus far.


For this specific model according to "Allthingstech" (in a comment on web store):

  Allthingstech from Corona, California on 06/19/2012
  Purchased this for my new Macbook Pro with Retina Display. The MB can recognize the drive regardless what the Lg packaging says. Had to use third party software ( Mac Blu-Ray Player) for playback. (…) So far the drive has worked perfectly with stellar Bluray playback and absolutely no stuttering or lag.(…)

source

And OS X since Leopard can read Blu-Ray-Rom with any drive, the problem is to read protected video (all commercial Blu-Ray).


How to stop receiving mails from a specific account?

You can remove the account from iCloud which will not disable it you just won't get the emails anymore; you can still log into it via a web browser if you like. Adding the email address as an alias would only allow you to send an email from one account but having it say it's from the other.


How to configure router for Remote Desktop connection?

There are a couple of ways to approach this. One is via use of the University's VPN, which would put you right on their network and keep your IT department from having to do anything besides allow you to log into their network via the VPN. This would be my preference as it is common, secure and puts your home Mac right on the same network with your Mac at university.
But you don't mention that there was a VPN involved, so...
Take those port numbers and the IP address of your Mac at the university and your Mac at home and talk to someone in the IT department.
What they will do (if they allow this) is forward your home IP address to your work IP address via those two port numbers. It is all done by your IT department. When they are done with this they should give you an IP address to connect to from home. This IP address will, in effect, be your Mac at University. You would plug that into Apple Remote Desktop at home and it should (if everyone has done their jobs right) connect you from home to your University Mac.
Note that your University IT department might recoil in horror at what you are suggesting (I would, we don't do this where I work) as it could be a security risk. So your best bet is to see if they have a VPN that you can use.
We can help you with that too, but that would be a different question, separate from this.


iPhone 8 - Pictures associated with contacts disappear

Figured it out. I added my contacts to iCloud, went through the above steps and voila - the contact photos stay associated with their respective contact. I then toggled the contacts off of iCloud.
Thanks-
DB


IBM Trusteer Rapport... Daemons... Is rapportd part of Trusteer or an Apple MacOS Daemon?

rapportd, or at least /usr/libexec/rapportd, is an Apple macOS daemon. From the man page:

  Daemon that enables Phone Call Handoff and other communication features between Apple devices.

By examining RapportUninstaller.sh, the expected locations for Trusteer Rapport's rapportd are:

/Library/Rapport/bin/rapportd.app/Contents/MacOS/rapportd
/Library/Rapport/bin/rapportd


Helping to manage my amazon ec2 servers on my ipad

I've used Cloud Services Manager to monitor and control my EC2, EBS and S3 instances and storage. Works okay. I wouldn't say it was wonderful, but it'll do in a pinch. If you're used to Elastic Fox you may find it a bit disappointing. Not quite as nice as EF.

More often than not I just use Panic's Prompt ssh client for iOS. It's quite good as ssh clients go and I'll use it to gain access to a known-good instance from which I can then run my own boto-enabled inspection tools or any of the standard EC2 command line utilities.

Between those two I can usually handle most of my EC2 issues from an iOS device.


Sadly no, it is not possible to go out of sleep with the lid closed as mentioned by XQYZ at https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/15564/8289


Unable to access Mac OS X Lion server on web

If you only want to be able to access the website on your internal network, you can add the IP address of your server to the list of DNS servers:


I figured it out. I use F.lux to make the screen more orange. Disabling it makes the glitches go away.


Cannot change case of an application name

You cannot change the name because the filesystem is case independent. It is possible to change the filesystem to case dependent, but I would not recommend this. LICEcap and licecap are the same!

As others have pointed out in the comments the easiest way is to change to another name first.

Another way is to issue the following command in Terminal

mv licecap.app LICEcap.app


How to change the "Recovery HD" partition to type "Apple_Boot"?

At first:

umount -f "/Volumes/Recovery HD"

Then:

sudo asr adjust --target /dev/disk0s3 -settype "Apple_Boot"


Where should I install new (source code) software on a Mac?

To start we should define a few terms. An install from source code means that the software needs to be built before it can be executed.

So your first step is to find a place on your computer to perform the build. The best place for this is a directory in your home directory. I use a directory at ~/src/ to hold the packages. So, create this folder and unpack your source into here. Then you can build the software here.

When it comes to the executable files man hier will tell you that /usr/local is the place to install things not included in the OS. Homebrew, for example, will install into here. So executables should go into /usr/local/bin. Most software packages will have an install tool that will perform this step. Of course /usr/local/bin needs to be in your PATH variable.

This is identical to Ubuntu in almost every respect.


Use FFMPEG.
(This has become one of my favorite command line utilities for video/audio conversion and streaming)
According to the FFMPEG Wiki, you can use Apple's AVFoundation to capture directly from the FaceTime Camera or any other USB web cam that's attached.  Keep in mind, the wiki was written when the FaceTime camera was still called the iSight so some of the features/keywords are no longer valid
Get the device ID
$ ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""

[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] AVFoundation video devices:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [0] FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [1] Capture screen 0
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] AVFoundation audio devices:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [0] USB Audio CODEC
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [1] Built-in Microphone

The device we're looking for is "0"
Capture the photo
$ ffmpeg -ss 0.5 -f avfoundation -i "0" -t 1 capture.jpg

What this does is take a 1 second video stream, takes the single fram starting at .5 seconds and saves it as a JPEG called capture.jpg


How to uninstall USB to VGA Adapter's drivers?

Usually drivers come with an uninstaller. Redownload the installation package/dmg of the driver if necessary and use the uninstaller included there.

In the specific case, the driver can be redownloaded from the web site linked in the question.

It contains both an installer and an uninstaller. From looking at it, the following files get removed

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/MCTT6Audio.driver
/Library/Extensions/MCTTrigger2.kext
/Library/Extensions/MCTTrigger6USB.kext
/Library/Extensions/MCTTriggerGraphics.plugin
/Library/Extensions/Trigger5Core.kext
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mct.USBVGASync.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/tw.com.mct.TriggerDriver.plist
/System/Library/Extensions/MCTTrigger2.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/MCTTrigger6USB.kext
/System/Library/Extensions/MCTTriggerGraphics.plugin
/System/Library/Extensions/Trigger5Core.kext
/System/Library/Services/USBVGASync
/usr/local/libexec/MCTTriggerDriver
/usr/local/sbin/USBVGASync

After removing the files a restart is required.


If I move files to a new disk will Time Machine do a full backup?

Timemachine identifies backups by the disk's UUID. Therefore, the answer is yes. TM will make a new backup of your files and delete old backups if there is not enough space to hold both copies.

You could delete the previous backup of your iPhoto library and then simply do a new backup. However, you will lose your backup history.

I did something similar a few years ago and I remember that I was able to point TM to the new directory and, therefore, avoid a redundant backup of these files. Unfortunately, I am not entirely sure how I achieved that. This article should get you started with the tmutil utility, which may have the capability to do that.

A final note as you seem to care about your data. You should not rely on one single Timemachine backup. Especially, if you are going to experiment with sudo and tmutil. After some bad experiences, I maintain two rotating TimeMachine backup disk plus a irregular full copy on a third disk.