How to merge all the partitions to normal

To get the default partition layout you have to remove Apple_Boot, the empty container disk2, the almost empty container disk3, erase disk0s3-disk0s4 to free space and finally resize your main container.

Boot to you main system.

Open Terminal and enter:

diskutil list
diskutil ap list

to get the details.

Check your disk:

diskutil verifyDisk disk0
diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

Remove all partitions and container except the main container:

diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" Nil disk0s5
diskutil ap deleteContainer disk2
diskutil ap deleteContainer disk3
disktutil list #to get the new dev identifiers of the converted partitions
diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" Nil disk0sY # Y probably one of [3-7]
diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" Nil disk0sX # X probably one of [3-7]

Resize your main container:

diskutil ap resizeContainer disk0s2 0

Finally diskutil list should look more or less like this:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251 GB    disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB  disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         250.7 GB  disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.7 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            140 GB     disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 21.3 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s4


What part of the MacBook Pro 13-inch 2.4 GHZ (Mid 2010) logic board is what sensor?

This issue is definitely related to the logic board. There is definitely damage to the board from the liquid spill and likely ESD damage from when you replaced the MagSafe board.

There is no supported way to replace or find a temperature sensor on your model MacBook Pro. In order to replace a sensor on one of these boards you'd have to solder off the old one and solder on a new one. Since no one sells temperature sensors for the boards that integrate them, it would be a nearly impossible feat.

I'd recommend taking it to the Apple Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider for a full repair. They may not be able to service it since you've serviced your own machine.

I know this isn't the news you were hoping for, but I hope it helps.


What is the earliest version of iOS supporting hardware storage of private keys?

If you want to have the private key actually stored in the Secure Enclave you need to be running at least iOS 9 and you must generate the keypair using the SecKeyGeneratePair() function.

This means that the private key is stored in the Secure Enclave, while your app gets the public key.

Note that this also means that:

A) You cannot use a private key you have generated yourself in your own code, or retrieved from somewhere else (like one of your servers)

B) You cannot retrieve the private key, so you must use the Secure Enclave functions for actually encrypting with the private key.

If your app requires you to do either of those, you can generate a keypair using the aforementioned function and use it to encrypt your own data (i.e. your self-generated private keys) with the public key from the Secure Enclave. Then you can ask the Secure Enclave to decrypt your keys when you need them. This is roughly similar to storing keys in Keychain.


How can make changes to a hard drive being shared with a Windows machine?

You must install FUSE for os x to be able to make changes on a hard drive formatted in NTFS (Windows) https://osxfuse.github.io


Can I Boot VMWare or Parallels from an internal OS X hard drive?

Parallels Desktop 8 can run Windows from a Boot Camp partition.

Getting Started With Parallels Desktop (PDF)

VMWare Fusion 5 can also run Windows from a Boot Camp partition.

VMWare Fusion Overview

I believe Boot Camp support is available in earlier versions of both products, but it's definitely in the current shipping versions.


Change iPhone language from Chinese to English

设置（Setting) -> 通用（General) -> 语言与地区 (Language and Region) -> iPhone 语言(iPhone Language)  , Choose English.


Contact picture not connect with Faces on Photo

I think you may have hit the difference between the old handling of Faces & the new.

If your Face is tagged as 'john', & 'john' is not in your Contacts list, it cannot find him.
If he's tagged as John Smith - john.smith@me.com then he can be found.

The only way to associate the two is to click the name under the face in Photos, start typing the name, then pick john.smith@me.com instead of just 'john'.

Then when you go back to Contacts, it can associate the Faces selection with the appropriate Contact.

Here's an example using some Davids - the top ones are my 'Faces' as I already have them; underneath are the same people as 'Contacts' which is imho a lot less 'chummy' but how you must tag people before they will correctly link as Contacts.


Using iCloud Photo Library and Google Photos Simultaneously

I have an iCloud library of about 25000 photos and videos, running on multiple iOS devices in "optimized" mode. Each device had to go through the complete backup process of uploading every image and video. Google Photos' iOS app will upload images first, then videos.

Which creates some problems on the iOS devices: With the "optimized" setting iOS only keeps the most recent or recently viewed assets in full resolution. Since google photos requests 100% of the full-size assets the iOS device, in my scenario, inevitably runs low on space for as long as google's upload process takes. Very. Annoying.

But fortunately I don't get any duplicates in google photos. I wish google would figure out a way to intelligently avoid having to upload what's already there, as this process, with a library of +150GB takes weeks.


Try the open source VLC

It can boost the audio by upto 200%. The equaliser let's you boost even further.

You can boost audio in iTunes too. Select the song and press Cmd+I

You can boost audio by another 100% and use equaliser too.


In short, it's time to throw it away & get a new one.

If a USB key encounters a write error, then it will attempt to lock the device into read-only mode. If it tried to do this as power was being removed it may have failed to complete that task & be left in an uncertain state.

This is, to all intents & purposes, irreversible.

The solution is to discard it & copy your data to a new USB key.

If for any inconceivable reason it was the only copy of that data, then your recourse would be to a specialist recovery company.

The same applies to such as SD cards, as well as USB flash drives.
Once they start to go bad, they are not worth the effort of fighting them to try squeeze a little more life out of them.
Discard & replace.


System Preferences search no longer highlights possible matches

How long have you waited since checking the box?  It can take some to re-index.  Or you may need to force a re-indexing.  You can do this in terminal by deleting the index and rebuilding it.  This may take a while.  Go to Terminal in Utilities folder and cut/paste this into the command line:

sudo mdutil -E /


Know how many windows are open for an app at a glance

I would say the quickest way is to right click/ctrl-click/hold down on the dock icon. This opens a menu, where you can see all the open windows, even those in full screen, which do not appear in App Exposé. As this menu can grow to be quite long, you want to look for the section with the icon  on each line, and a tick next to one of the elements. The number of times this icon appears represents the number of windows of this app currently open.

Here are two examples of this menu for different apps:

Terminal (2 windows open)

Pages (3 windows open)


App from Mac App Store. What if I change Macs?

There is no limit on installing one copy of each app on every Mac you own or control for personal use.

You only pay once and can re-download the app even if the developer changes prices later.


Escape Button doesnt work since Update to Sierra

In keyboard preferences, enable the "Show input in menu bar" option under the Input Sources tab.

Then in the menu bar Show the Keyboard Viewer.

You can press the escape key with the mouse and then connect an external keyboard and see when the key is being pressed.

If the external works and the internal fails - you need hardware repair. If neither escape physical key presses - then your software or keyboard mapping are messed up.

You could either figure out why or make a backup and erase install. Hard to guess which of those would take you less time, but those are the quick options for you if it's software and not hardware.


Wi-Fi range issue with new MBA 13 and Netgear WNR 2200 router

My problem was that I've tried to improve performance switching from 54mb and WPA to 150-300 and WPA2.

Struggled with problems around 6 months and could not get back as messed with couple of configuration params.

Finally found that WPA2 does not affect to issues at all but speed need to be 54mb.

Now I've got lower speed, hope this won't affect skype calls (but it worked well with youtube (10xxp).


FakeLocation Tweak (Via Cydia) has shut down my iPad and it doesn't want to work

You can boot into Substrate Safe Mode by holding the volume up button on boot. This disables tweaks such as this which should let you get back in to the device and back in to Cydia to uninstall it.


So I did the test using the ping command in terminal

For Google.com

Ping Google.com

The result for 2.5 GHz WiFi was:

  20 packets transmitted, 19 packets received, 5.0% packet loss
  round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 16.295/18.872/30.858/2.935 ms

with transmit rate of 130.

And for my 5 GHz WiFi:

15 packets transmitted, 15 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 17.451/19.066/21.444/1.157 ms

with transmit rate of 216.


iOS 8 third-party keyboard for accentuated characters?

iOS 8 (like iOS 7) on my iPad has a French keyboard called Accented AZERTY, where you type é by typing e and then the accent from the bottom row of keys.  This is a lot faster than holding down the e key for most people.


Is 4K monitor a good replacement for Retina display?

A 13" Retina MacBook Pro has a screen resolution of 2,560 × 1,600, while the 15" has a 2,880 × 1,800 resolution. 4K is defined as a 4096 x 2160 resolution.

So depending on how big the monitor is, a 4K monitor should actually look better from the same viewing distance.

As for my personal recommendation, anything but a Samsung.


Can't authorize computer to play iTunes songs

If you still remember and have access to the email addresses you used, you can go to this page to reset your passwords: Forgot my Password


How to install an Operating System after replacing optical Drive by a second HDD on MacBook white late 2009?

I assume you want to get the OS and apps on your SSD and the rest of your files on the HDD.

Attach the optical drive to it's SATA II connection and the SSD to the SATA III connection.
Install the OS and apps on the SSD.
Replace the optical drive with the HDD.


Error while trying to create an account in single user mode on OS X Mavericks

After starting in Single User Mode enter:

/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /

Launch opendirectoryd:

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServicesLocal.plist doesn't exist anymore!

Then execute:

dscl . -create /Users/hiddenuser
dscl . -create /Users/hiddenuser UserShell /bin/bash
dscl . -create /Users/hiddenuser RealName "Hidden User"
dscl . -create /Users/hiddenuser UniqueID "401"
dscl . -create /Users/hiddenuser PrimaryGroupID 20
dscl . -create /Users/hiddenuser NFSHomeDirectory /var/hiddenuser
dscl . -passwd /Users/hiddenuser password

The commands yield errors but the user is properly created. Executing /bin/bash /path/to/script.sh directly after loading opendirectoryd didn't work for me for no apparent reason. On a second attempt using a UID >500 it worked though!

In Yosemite and more recent OS X versions creating a hidden user like this is not recommend. Instead use a free UniqueID >500 and use an additional command:

dscl . -create /Users/hiddenuser IsHidden 1


Kanex Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter doesn't play audio on Sony Bravia TV

Some thoughts, and things for you to check on:

What model of MacBook Pro do you have? Older ones (pre-Mid 2010) don't have audio out through the Mini DisplayPort.
Have you tried looking at System Preferences » Sound  » Output? What devices are displayed, and what have you chosen?
Can you explain what "I have an audio that connects the Mac to the PC in HDMI Audio jack" means?
Which Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter do you have? The early models were made to work with the then-current MacBooks (and Pros)—and as those models didn't have audio out over Mini DisplayPort, there wasn't any reason for the cable to, either.
Have you tried hooking up a cable from the Mac's audio out/speaker jack directly into the TV?
Some possibly-helpful info:

Can I output video to my TV using a MacBook Pro? (Apple.SE)
About Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapters (Apple.com)
Apple Mini DisplayPort adapters: Frequently asked questions (Apple.com)


Do I need Apple TV to stream wirelessly to my TV?

There are two options which will suit what you want

Any AirPlay video receiver will let you stream wirelessly. (You can stream the audio and video, or just the video and use headphones) AppleTV is one such receiver and by virtue of it being on the market the longest, it has the most users with experience as to how it works.
Buy a longer cable and link up physically.

On a personal note, I'd be in favour of the longer cable option, as it offers slightly more compatibility (a friends laptop, perhaps) and costs way less. That said, Apple TV's are awesome. I'd also recommend using either HDMI or Thunderbolt/displayport.

In short, yes, an Apple TV will do what you want.


Applescript - bookmark all tabs in ALL WINDOWS in Safari

As I told in the above comment, now me using an self-developed automator workflow-app.

I'm an perl language developer, so in the workflow me using an custom-installed perl interpreter and many perl modules too - definitely NOT a solution for an average (common) mac user.

But posting it, mainly for reference and maybe someone could hack it to some better solution. How it works - how to use it:

unfortunately it must be run manually - i'm unable figure out how to run some automator workflow (service or app) when the Safari receives the quit event. :(
The automator (service) script has two actions:

run javascript (I don't know applescript nor Javascript, but the javascript is more understandable for me) - it simply gathers all URL's from all tabs and windows and create a JSON structure, which is passed to the next
run a shell script - which runs my perl script with custom installed perl interpreter.

when the app is executed, it saves an HTML file into the folder Sessions in my Desktop.
The name of the file is like s20190107-164908.html e.g. the current date-time string.
it is easy to use the Finder's quick-look feature (spacebar) to quicky check the content of the file.

It is far-far beyond of the original Sessions addon, but it is usable for me.

The full content of the above actions are:

1.) the Javascript

function run(input, parameters) {
    var tablist = [];
    var Safari = Application('Safari');
    Safari.includeStandardAdditions = true;
    Safari.activate();
    var windows = Safari.windows();
    for(let iw=0, wsize=windows.length; iw<wsize; iw++) {
        var wintabs = [];
        var tabs = windows[iw].tabs();
        if (!tabs) continue;
        for(let it=0, tsize=tabs.length; it<tsize; it++) {
            if( tabs[it].url() ) {
                wintabs.push( {"name": tabs[it].name(), "url": tabs[it].url()} );
            }
        }
        if( wintabs.length ) {
            tablist.push(wintabs);
        }
    }
    return JSON.stringify(tablist);
}

and the shell script

export ANYENV_ROOT=/opt/anyenv
export PATH="$ANYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(anyenv init -)"

perl -MJSON -MPath::Tiny -MTime::Piece -M5.014 -w -E '
    my $jsonstr = do { local $/; <STDIN> };
    my $j = decode_json($jsonstr);
    my @lines;
    lsay("
");
    for my $w (@$j) {
        lsay("

");
        for my $t (@$w) {
            my $astr = "
{url}\">$t->{name}
";
            lsay($astr);
        }
        lsay("

");
    }
    lsay("
");
    my $sessdir=path( $ENV{HOME}, "Desktop/Sessions");
    $sessdir->mkpath;
    my $sessfile=$sessdir->child(localtime->strftime("s%Y%m%d-%H%M%S.html"));
    $sessfile->spew_utf8(@lines);;
    sub lsay { push @lines, $_ for @_ }
'

Example what do you see in the quick-look:

As I already told - it is NOT a solution for an common user. It is usable only by an developers... :(


Can I continue to use Win XP in Boot Camp when I upgrade to Lion?

The bootcamp partition is not affected. The only thing Apple did different in Lion is that the bootcamp drivers packaged with Lion installations only work with Windows 7, however, if you already have the Snow Leopard drivers installed on you XP side nothing will change...if you need to install a new bootcamp partition you will need to get the bootcamp drivers from your Snow Leopard DVD.


Adding SSH private key gives error that 0644 permissions are too open

The error message is displayed because the file permission are set such that it is readable by other users apart from the logged-in user. To overcome the error message, you will need to change the file permissions for the private key such that it is readable only by you.

To do that, run the following command in Terminal:

cd ~/.ssh ; chmod 400 myKey.ppk

This will allow only your user to read (and not write and execute) the private key file and prevent everyone else from reading, writing and executing the file.

This will take care of the error message shown to you and you should be able to add the private key file all right.


Can't upgrade Yosemite from Mac App Store

Have you tried the manual upgrade outside app store? Try to download packages manually and see if you can then upgrade them.


Photos.app is not designed to "sync" its contents with folders in the way you described.  I don't believe it ever was, even with iPhoto.  However, it's fairly easy to automate the process of importing photos into Photos.app from a chosen watched folder.

A watched folder in MacOS is one that is monitored for changes to its contents or to the files themselves.  When such a change occurs, e.g. a new file is added, it triggers a Folder Action.

A Folder Action is typically an AppleScript or Automator workflow that performs a series of automated actions in response to being triggered by changes to the watched folder to which the folder action is attached.

So, simply put:

① A file is added to a specific folder ➔ ② An AppleScript is triggered to perform some actions

My suggestion would be to choose a folder you want monitored by the system, and use this folder to put your photos in to have them automatically imported into Photos.app.

I describe how to set up a folder action here (Steps 1 to 6).

This is the AppleScript that will do the importing, and to which the steps to create a folder action pertain:

    on adding folder items to ThisFolder after receiving MediaFiles

        set ListOfMediaExtensions to {"jpeg", "jpg", "tiff", "tif", "png", ¬
            "gif", "heic", "heif", "raw", "dng", "mov", "mp4", "mp4v", "m4v"}

        repeat with ThisFile in the MediaFiles
            tell application "Finder" to ¬
                if name extension of ThisFile is in the ListOfMediaExtensions then ¬
                    set the end of MediaFiles to ThisFile as alias
            set MediaFiles to the rest of MediaFiles
        end repeat

        tell application "Photos"
            run
            delay 2
            import the MediaFiles
            quit
        end tell

    end adding folder items to

It's a basic script, and folder actions and AppleScript are, of course, capable of doing a lot more (moving files, deleting files, adding photos to albums, tagging them with keywords, etc.)  But in the absence of those sorts of requests, I felt it best to keep things simple and focus on getting it working.

The script does, however, include a few lines of code that filter the files added to the folder by extension name, to ensure files such as text files are ignored, and only media files (photos and videos) get imported.

You'll know the script has been successful when Photos.app sends a notification to report that a number of photos were successfully imported.  But, as the script stands just now, you won't see the Photos.app appear on your screen at any point (this can be changed if you'd prefer to have it show you the imported photos).

A final couple of considerations: the way you've chosen to set up Photos.app to not copy the files into its library, but rather keep them available in Finder and merely referenced from inside the Photos.app is what's called a Referenced Library.  It is worth taking a moment to read this page here on the disadvantages of a referenced library in Photos.app.  Of course, you may decide that none of the drawbacks particularly affect you, and needn't concern yourself with changing your system.

Lastly, I would suggest that the folder you choose as your watched folder be different than the one you ultimately have your photos residing in.  If you use the same folder, you can accidentally trigger the folder action and import duplicates (although, Photos.app does check to see if duplicates are being imported and asks you what to do in those instances).  The folder action won't attempt to import files that are already in the folder, so that's not the concern; it will trigger and act upon new files added (good!), or any files that change (maybe less good!).  Therefore, renaming a file, editing a photo and re-saving it, or moving it out of the folder and then back in, will all cause the folder action to trigger and act upon that file which you might not want re-imported.

You can decide what is best given your habits, and using the same "Pictures" folder as both a watched folder and the base for storage could still be done if you bear those caveats I mentioned in mind.  You could always place the watched folder inside your "Pictures" folder so it's nearby to drop your new photos in.

If you use a separate folder as your "watched" folder, then you'll want to add one further line to the AppleScript that will move the files out of the watched folder so that are placed into your "Pictures" folder.

A line like this will do it:

    tell application "Finder" to move the MediaFiles to (POSIX file "/path/to/pictures/folder" as alias)

If you've any questions or need more help, leave a comment and I'l get back to you.


To zoom inside safari you can use 2 fingers pinching in the trackpad.
2 fingers tap will zoom so the text fits the safari window.
Also a single finger double tap in the mighty mouse does the same trick.
(not double click)

If you want even more ways to do stuff with your mouse I know about this software called MagicPrefs that I used for quite some time and loved it.
There is also a similar software called BetterTouchTool.


Combo Update allows you to update from whichever Mountain Lion version you’re using. It means you can update from v10.8.1 to v10.8.5 immediately.

While OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.5 means you can only update from the previous version, which is only OS X 10.8.4.


Changing the name of app containers in the iCloud Drive on OS X?

After doing some searches in the Library folder, the plists and the app icons of the app containers are located in:

~/Library/Application Support/CloudDocs/session/containers/

Change the BRContainerName property in the plist of an app container, and restart the Mac. The iCloud Drive in the Finder will then display the changed name. As shown in the following screenshot, the app folder "Documents" was supposed to have a longer name "Documents by Readdle".

Without locking the plist, the name still hasn't been reverted after a restart. So it is still unknown in what circumstance the plist will be reverted back to the original version by the bird daemon. But given the fact that the plist specifies the corresponding app version, it will probably be reverted on an version update to the container-owner app.

P.S. Document Picker on iOS and the iCloud Drive web app are not affected by this.


Unfortunately not. You can only change the position of the dock, but not where 'undocked' apps appear.

The only solution I can think of is to move the active application to the first position. This, however, will add the application permanently to the dock.


No master volume in the new iPod Touch 5?

This separation of "sound effects" and "games/music" exists in iPod Touch 4 as well. There is no way for tuning a master volume on these devices. But you can set the "sound effects" volume as constant (Settings - Sounds - turn off Change with buttons) and pressing volume buttons will only change the "games/music" volume.


So I tried SMC reset again and the light color changed to green for a moment and again changed to amber. But it still didn't turn on.

The amber light simply means it's charging.  Green means that it has detected the "one wire circuit" and is passing current to the MacBook.  It doesn't necessarily mean the battery is charged (I have a white 2007 MacBook on my desk with no battery and a green light on the charger)

  MacBook Air not starting after SMC reset. Earlier, my Mac was not starting after SMC reset or NVRAM reset.

You're doing a lot of resets.  Resetting the SMC and NVRAM should be rare:

SMC - power, battery and fan issues.  For example, you're having issues charging your Mac or the fans are running at full speed or it doesn't wake from sleep when opening the lid.
NVRAM - preboot environment variables.  You reset this when you're having trouble booting, or the initial resolution is incorrect, or you're having issues with the startup volume (boot).

  Nothing was happening on SMC reset. Battery Status was Service Required.

So, there was an icon that said "Service Battery."  An SMC reset isn't going to fix a bad battery, but it won't hurt.

From Apple; Check the condition of your Mac computer’s battery

  Service Battery: The battery isn’t functioning normally, and you may or may not notice a change in its behavior or the amount of charge it holds. Take your computer in for service. You can continue to use your battery before it’s checked without harming your computer.

There are any number of things that can cause a Mac to not turn on from the power button being faulty to an issue with the logic board.  Unfortunately, you'll have to take it in for service when you can.


What are the implications of linking your Apple ID to your Mac User Account in OS X System Preferences?

After associating and Apple ID with you user account you'll be able to use it to:

Reset your login password (unless FileVault is enabled)
Establish file and screen sharing access to the computer from another computer
Share files and screens with another computer after you log in

And for the particular case you mention regarding the Mac App Store, no, associating an Apple ID with a user account won't change the Store's password prompting.


Why won't OS X Mountain Lion remember smb password on login?

You can create a link file with the username and password, and put that in the login items.

In Finder select Connect to Server and enter:

smb://domain\username:password@serveraddress

Don't click connect or press enter, just highlight the whole address and drag to desktop (or anywhere else), and it will save as a file. You can rename it, if you like.

Then from System Preferences, Users and Groups, Login items, add the file you just created.


MacBook Pro can't see my android phone WiFi hotspot

Have you tried using a Bluetooth PAN? Turn on your hotspot and open bluetooth settings on both your Mac and phone. You should be able to see your phone show up and pair with it.


Usually, the most surefire way to get a specific printer driver is to download it from the manufacturer's website.

For your printer, drivers can be found here. It says they haven't been updated since 2009, so you'll probably be going back to the old version.
(Note: Of course, this will restore the functionality of whatever version of the driver you're installing. It may break things or it may fix them depending on how good that particular driver is.)


Opt ⌥   \  gives «

 Shift ⇧   Opt ⌥   \  gives »

Character viewer calls then "Left- & "Right-pointing double angle quotation mark".


MacOS Mojave: Can not make changing background wallpaper

You need to select any one photo in the folder you made to be able to see the change picture button, checking which will enable random too.

Other words, shift focus from side-bar of folders to photos.

Once you have moved to photos pane, enabled change, enabled random, background pictures will automatically be picked from the parent directory.


Activate some menu using single key without pressing enter

Keyboard Maestro can do this using a macro such as this:


How do you hide the subject field of iMessages on OS X?

I'm not sure what you mean for sure, but take a look under System Preferences → Notifications as you might find your answer here.


What cables do I need to power 2 external displays?

Your MBP is a 2015 model, which means it only uses the MagSafe 2 connector for power. It does not have USB-C and can't take power in over Thunderbolt from the monitors (assuming that they can supply power out via USB-C, which is not known at this point).

However, your question is how to power the displays. You'll need to read the manual to see what power inputs they have. I think it's unlikely that they take power in over USB.

If you want to know how to connect both displays to the Mac: your Mac seems to support 2 displays via Thunderbolt only. So don't use the HDMI port: get a Thunderbolt 2 to USB-C cable/adaptor (or other port on your display).


This is a very strange issue. However check for the default keyboard, and also try changing your password to just numbers. That way you can confirm if its something to do with the keyboard language.

However, its better to create a new user account and confirm. If you have the issue take it to an AppleStore or just try to reinstall the OS on top. That way it will fix if there are any issues due to a malware.


Magsafe adapter not "fitting" in to MacBook Pro

You might want to check your power adapter's plug as to whether the debris stems from there. If the plug is all right, I'd just remove the debris and not worry any more about it.


Does the MacBook battery cycle count reset when replacing a battery

The cycle count is logged on the battery itself.

I've never actually dug into the idea to see the method or technology used to store the cycle count, however I do know this to be true thanks to personally refurbishing hundreds of MacBooks.  When checking over a MacBook's battery life in System Information / System Profiler I would often switch out batteries and check again, deciding if a battery replacement was worthwhile.  Once the battery is switched out you will see the cycle count (along with capacity, etc) change.  If you don't see it change then you either need to refresh System Profiler (command + R) or the second battery just happens to have the same info.

If you're curious you could always visit the Genius Bar at an Apple store and have them pop in one of their spare batteries that they use for testing.


YouTube App streams much slower than YouTube mobile site on iPhone

The same thing is happening to mine but looking at the difference in video quality the YouTube app videos are a lot better so that could be why..


How do you close a file that you've opened with /usr/bin/open?

You can't, at least not directly. /usr/bin/open will have told some other app to open the file, and then immediately dissociated itself from the whole affair.

If you know which app did the actual open, you might be able to use scripting to tell the app to close it. Something like

/usr/bin/open SomeFile.pdf
# time passes
/usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application "Preview" to close document "SomeFile.pdf"'

But that pre-supposes that you know Preview is the app, and that this is the correct syntax for telling it to close a document, and that you've gotten the correct value for the document's name.

You can eliminate some of that uncertainty by specifying the app in the open command, and by assuming that the document will still be the front document when your script wants to close it.

/usr/bin/open -a Preview SomeFile.pdf
# do some stuff
/usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application "Preview" to close front document'

(It might be more robust to refer to the app by its bundle-id rather than name

/usr/bin/open -b com.apple.Preview SomeFile.pdf
# do some stuff
/user/bin/osascript -e 'tell application id "com.apple.Preview" to close front document

but that's barely more than a matter of style.)

In general, /usr/bin/open can open just about anything. It behaves like double-clicking, so it can "open" windows (in Finder), applications (as themselves), disk images (by mounting them), network shares (by connecting to them), or even ordinary documents (by launching the app currently selected as the default app for that document type). Each of these flavors of "open" has its own flavor of "close".


How to make APFS option available in disk utility?

Partition Map Type:   MBR (Master Boot Record)

You need to format the entire drive, not just the partition.

APFS requires the underlying structure to be GUID, not MBR.

As only Volumes are shown by default, you need to change to Show All Devices from the View menu…


How can I find out what the App Store is automatically downloading?

The App Store may not record exactly what everything it does is, but you can try looking a couple places:

/Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist has a list of program installation history for the computer (most recent installation at the bottom, with the highest numbered entry).

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist will give you the number of pending updates as well as the last time the App Store checked for updates.

You could also try running /usr/sbin/softwareupdate --dump-state, which dumps the current state of the update daemon to /var/log/install.log.

(As a side note, in my experience XCode updates are usually over 1 GB in size, so an XCode update would definitely run for an extended period and download lots of data.)


Can I get Genius Bar Support w/o Applecare/Warranty?

Yes, you can. Without AppleCare, advice is free; quotes for repairs are free, but the actual repairs are not.

With AppleCare, you're covered for pretty much any repair, except when caused by you: e.g. LCD backlight fails? Repaired free. Dropped your MacBook and broke the screen? Not covered. You pay.


Can you reset the SMC an all Mac laptops by pressing power for 5 seconds after disconnecting the battery?

No, on Mac notebooks with non-removable batteries you "press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the built-in keyboard, then press the power button at the same time. Hold these keys and the power button for 10 seconds", exactly like stated in the support article you linked.


Try this:

Turn off tethering on your iPhone
Plug iPhone into iMac
Turn tethering back on


Unable to send emails from gmail account on iOS 7.1

This appears to be a problem with Google's SMTP servers, affecting all clients on all platforms (excluding web) and preventing the sending of email.

This has now been fixed:

  This issue is now resolved. Thanks again for reporting this to us and for your continued patience while we worked to resolve it!

https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/gmail/xChsjMRFCUc/-YbEFrt5ODUJ

At the time of writing, Google are aware of this and are working to fix it.

  Thanks for providing information about this issue - we're actively investigating and I will post back here when I have more information.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!starred/gmail/xChsjMRFCUc


How to extract flash video from a Mac app?

You can use File Juicer. It is a very good program. I am using it since 2005. It works flawlessly. It will extract audio, video, doc, flash everything and keep them in separate folders.

http://echoone.com/filejuicer/


How to remove an application that has been deleted but remains in the Status bar?

From Citrix.com - How to Uninstall Citrix Online Plug-in For Mac

This is the instructions for Online rather than Receiver. The process is identical for each, substituting the Receiver .dmg file
(the Receiver instructions are in a pdf rather than online & can't be copy/pasted)

  Citrix Online Plug-in (client) for Mac installs files into multiple
  folders. Here is an easy way to uninstall:

  Download the installer from Citrix download page.

  Open the file and select Uninstall option.


Mac: DRM removal for Apple TV-purchased movies?

This is going to be hard to accomplish using Apple SDK and tools for multiple reasons. Setting aside any reason why Apple made it technically hard, it is for reasons.
What is not technically hard is using HDMI capture hardware to make your grabs. Or better, find a like-minded community that is sharing the burden and cost of getting high quality still frames for educational and legitimate and legal uses. (Also, what is legal is often something that’s not moral or even good for society.) Crowd sourcing has many benefits here in getting around technical hurdles.

https://film-grab.com/category/1976/
https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/hdmi-capture-devices


How can I stop AppleScript from converting variables like "\087" into their octal form when passing through bash?

It looks like do shell script is running the script under the sh shell, which is actually bash in compatibility mode; in this mode, the builtin echo command apparently thinks it needs to interpret some escape (backslash) sequences. This is one of several features of echo that aren't consistent between versions/modes/etc; as the POSIX standard for echo says, "It is not possible to use echo portably across all POSIX systems unless both -n (as the first argument) and escape sequences are omitted."

So, my first recommendation is to use printf '%s\n instead of echo (and the backslash will need to be doubled to get it past AppleScript):

do shell script "printf '%s\\n' \"<?xml version=\\\"1.0\\\" encoding=\\\"UTF-8\\\"?> <scratch project=\\\"TEST\\\"> <file>W:\\Sequences\\087_TLD_TL_Taking_The_Lead\\Shots\\TLD0640\\Versions\\MOV\\TLD0640_v0173.mov\\</file> </scratch>\" > ~/Desktop/Test.xml"

But even with echo getting into the act, you still have multiple confusing levels of quotes and escapes due to interpretation by AppleScript and the shell. I'd recommend storing the XML as an AppleScript variable (using just a single level of quoting/escaping, for consumption by AppleScript), then using quoted form of to quote/escape that for use in the shell command:

set XML_Content to "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?> <scratch project=\"TEST\"> <file>W:\\Sequences\\087_TLD_TL_Taking_The_Lead\\Shots\\TLD0640\\Versions\\MOV\\TLD0640_v0173.mov\\</file> </scratch>"

do shell script "printf '%s\\n' " & (quoted form of XML_Content) & " > ~/Desktop/Test.xml"


I got it working by using Pwned DFU Mode (iPwnder32) and idevicerestore with an IPSW.


This is a good thing, it means that you are free to add your own iCloud account. To add more information, having it linked to someone elses iCloud account is a really really bad thing. When I used to work for Apple, we would get calls from people who thought they got a great deal but when they tried to upgrade to iOS 7, or use the phone for the first time they found out that the phone was stolen.

Often these were bought at pawn shops.
I don't mean to say that pawn shops traffic in stolen devices, I do mean to say that they lack the sophistication to understand that the previous customer needs to unlock / sign out of their iCloud account. In addition Apple has a policy of never referring to a device as stolen, so even if I was fairly convinced that I was talking to someone who had actually stolen the phone, we left it up to law enforcement to sort this matter  out.

This led to some rather interesting situations that I can't discuss here. I will say that I had customers call who had purchased their device for a major retailer who had taken a return and resold the phone locked to the previous owners account.

For a better understanding of this feature of Apple since iOS 7, look at these links from Apple support.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201365

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201441


I have a Spam 'contact' & just add to that.

I've not figured a good way to do it on my iPhone, but on Mac from the drop menu on the incoming number, Add to contacts… then the Spam contact.

 I can't add a pic of an actual spam message & procedure, because, of course, I never hear from them again, so this is a 'fake'


Apple doesn't have a downloads page to directly download iTunes - and the link typically goes to a content delivery network.

In june, you could temporarily try downloading from https://secure-appldnld.apple.com/iTunes11/091-6059.20130605.205Rf/iTunesSetup.exe but this URL will likely change or fail in the near future. In September, the link is now https://secure-appldnld.apple.com/iTunes11/041-8597.20130918.PmmEw/iTunesSetup.exe so you can see trying to pass around direct links is not a good general solution.

The best thing to do in this case is check that you don't have any DNS blockers or other web site plug in that attempt to control / restrict downloads and try refreshing that page (or try in another browser).

Apple support might also be a good place to open a ticket, since they usually support people looking to use iTunes or Apple ID for free since you can't spend money with them without these accounts and tools.

Other things to try:

Change your network (have a friend download the file from a different router / internet connection) and share it over Dropbox or other means - this would fix DNS issues or other network effects.
Change your browser - if Chrome or Firefox have add-ons, blockers, etc. - try disabling all browser scripts and extensions or even another browser like Opera or Lynx or Safari
Change your computer - downloading from another computer might show the problem is with DNS settings or something else specific to your PC.


What is the Bonjour option in iMessage for?

When Bonjour is enabled in Messages it allows you to chat with other users on the same network who also have Bonjour enabled. As described in Bonjour For Developers:

  Bonjour, also known as zero-configuration networking, enables automatic discovery of devices and services on a local network using industry standard IP protocols.

This was developed some years ago to enable easy configuration of printers and other network services without needing to know ports, addresses, etc.  Messages simply ties into this service.

Jabber is a messaging protocol.  It underlies several protocols such as AIM and Google Chat.
iMessage is a messaging protocol. Messages is the chat application.


Mid 2010 MacBook Pro and Thunderbolt display

Try a thunderbolt to mini display port adapter. Should be sold at the apple store or for cheaper on Amazon.


Create schedule to turn off iOS device every night..?

There is no feature for automatic turning off with no jailbreak.
However, you can:

Schedule "Do not disturb mode" and it will not turn you screen on to show useless notifications
Manually turn on "Low power mode" to stop all background processes and save your battery.
Plug it into a power source with no worries, since iOS 11.3 iPad has a new "iPad Charge Management Feature"


Do applications preserve xattrs when saving?

Found a Mac running OS X 10.9.5. When saving through a terminal editor (vim) and GUI programs (TextEdit, MS Word), xattrs are preserved.


How to delete infinitely recurring directories

It is certainly interesting to see an infinite folder structure in the trash so naturally, the typical deletion process would take infinite time. Something went horribly wrong somewhere.

What can you try?
Close all programs (reboot if necessary to interrupt the current deletion process) and try Running First Aid on your boot volume. Be sure to disconnect any attached drives such as TimeMachine backups or network shares to eliminate them from the equation.

You mentioned having tried the sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash command to no avail, but how about sudo rm -rf /Volumes/*/.Trashes? The full article is here in case you are looking for a little background information. Your macOS system will rebuild the .Trashes folder next time it needs it.

As far as the "You can’t open the Trash because it’s being emptied." message is concerned, this is usually fixed through a Finder restart or better yet, system restart.

Let me know if that makes sense and how it works out for you.


Some homebrew formulas broken after migration

Had the same problem, what I did was i run

brew list -1 > brew.txt # list out all installed packages
brew list -1 | xargs brew rm --force # remove all installed packages
brew install $(cat brew.txt | tr '\n' ' ') # install all previously installed packages

If everything went fine, remove the package list by:

rm brew.txt

You should probably check potential warnings as well.


Why "wake for network access" does not work when setting CI server

I used a iMac as a web server and left the computer running 24/7 for months at a time. I did set the Mac to "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" and allowed the display to sleep after 15 minutes. I set the Computer sleep to never.


Split audio from different applications to different audio outputs

As @IconDaemon says, your two potentials are Rogue Amoeba & Soundflower, paid or free.
Personally I don't trust Soundflower any more, it started to get very crashy around Mavericks & I've not really touched it since.
It was made by Cycling74, then given to Rogue Amoeba to host, but they've long abandoned it so its maintenance has been from whoever posts the most recent re-write.

Rogue Amoeba have 2 apps, one that records, Audio Hijack $49, one that just routes, Loopback $99. I've not really played with Loopback but Audio Hijack already can do most routings.

I made some pretty pictures of possible routings using Audio Hijack on this answer - https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/203009/85275

A third choice is Plogue Bidule - which I just found overkill & never really spent the time to learn it


This may seem silly, but this is what I do when I have had to troubleshoot DFU mode (getting in and out of). First cross your fingers that it is software. Do you have a different USB cable that you can try with? Access to another computer to attempt with. I'm sure you have already tried rebooting both the iPhone and Mac, right? Not sure if you know or not, but you actually don't the computer nor the cable to get in DFU. You may want to try without plugging it in as well. The only difficult part with that is since it is not plugged in you will not know when it boots into DFU mode until you plug it in and the computer chimes. These seem basic but even the best of us forget about switching ports, rebooting the computer or trying another cable.


Adding Unicode decorators to text in Pages

You can show the character viewer by selecting Special Characters from the Edit menu. It doesn't support copying characters, but you can add characters by dragging them to text views.


It turns out that if I use "Sort By: Kind", it works only if column "Kind" is shown.

Looks like a bug to me, because it allows me to sort initially, but doesn't after showing this folder again.


Prevent display from turning off with certain applications

Caffeine is a small free app that can be used to temporarily override Mac settings such as sleep, screen dimming, and screen savers. The app lives in your menu dock, where you can click to turn it on (fill up the coffee cup) before your presentation, and then turn it back off (empty the coffee cup) after your presentation to set your settings back to normal.


Can macOS system open zip and tar archives natively?

OS X can handle both by default from Finder. The Archive Utility that ships with OS X knows how to extract both formats. Just double click on the file or Cmd-Click (or right click) on the archive and select 'Open' from the list and OS X will unarchive it.

Users also have access to zip, unzip and tar from a Terminal window command line. These all come with OS X.

There's also the free, and most excellent, Unarchiver that they can install that allows for a few more options when dealing with compressed files. It also supports a few more formats. But it's completely unnecessary for extracting gzip-compressed tar archives and zip archives.


How to quickly move mouse cursor between monitors?

This is definitely possible by using BetterTouchTool.

Since you already have it, there is no need to install a new software. Also it has a lot of other options, so I prefer it.

Anyways, here is how you do it:

Go to BetterTouchTool Preferences => Keyboard.
Click Add New Shortcut or Key Sequence button.
Assign new Keyboard Shortcut from Click to record shortcut

for example, for Monitor-1 Control+Shift+1, for Monitor-2 Control+Shift+2 etc.
Then from Trigger Predefined Action dropdown menu, select

Other Mouse Actions => Move Mouse To Position
A modal window will appear to capture your desired mouse position. Simply take your cursor to the desired position of a Monitor and Press Space to capture the position. Now Save the position in the Modal Window.
Repeat 2 to 5 for all your Monitors.

Now you'll be able to jump your mouse cursor to Monitor-1 by pressing Control+Shift+1, to Monitor-2 by pressing Control+Shift+2 and to Monitor-3 by pressing Control+Shift+3.

All the best.


How can I speed up SD card writing speed (using /dev/disk*) on a MacBook Pro?

Just ran into the same problem and it seems to be that /dev/disk* is slow because it is buffered. If you use the corresponding rdisk device (ex: /dev/rdisk1s1) you should get the speed you expect. This is apparently a BSD thing.

Example:

% sudo dd if=pi.bin of=/dev/disk1 bs=1m count=4095
^C408+0 records in
407+0 records out
426770432 bytes transferred in 1393.452305 secs (306268 bytes/sec)

% sudo dd if=pi.bin of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=1m count=4095
4095+0 records in
4095+0 records out
4293918720 bytes transferred in 378.669512 secs (11339489 bytes/sec)

Ref:

Note on Dev Entry Access
Post on Apple mailing list


Can't put my new music I bought on my iTunes

The most likely problem is that your computer isn't logged in to the same AppleID as the one you purchased the music under. Go to System Preferences→iCloud and check which account you're logged in as. Alternatively, in iTunes look in the Store menu. One of the menu items will be "View Account (your_account_name_here)". If the account is correct, from the same menu select "Check for Available Downloads".


Running an installed app already paid for on an account not logged in

You do not need to remain logged in to Mac App Store to use an app installed from there.

You may be asked for your Apple ID password which was used to purchase the app when installing an update.


My bad! It was a matter of the frequency.
The 4 gb cards are 1600 MHz and the max admitted by mid-2009 is 1066 MHz.
When installing 2 gb (1066 MHz) + 4 gb (1600 MHz), the macbook automatically slows down the speed of the highest to the lowest one. But if both 4 gb are installed, the Macbook gives the error. That's it.
Thank you for the advises.


Tested:

There are 3 sound files for the 3 functions: start, cancel, and stop.
They are called: dt-begin.caf, dt-cancel.caf, and dt-confirm.caf (respectively). These have a mid, low, and high tone (respectively).
They are located in: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AssistantServices.framework/Versions/A/Resources/
You can make a functional .caf audio file by simply changing the extension of a .aif/.aiff file to .caf.
You can convert from another format or create a .aif/.aiff in iTunes, Garageband, most audio editing programs, etc.
If you put a store-bought music CD in your computer you will often see the tracks as .aiff, not .aif files. However, they are the same format. An analogy is .jpg and .jpeg. The only difference I know of being you can set different programs to open each by default.

Power users should mostly be able to take it from here, and/or skip to Step 10.

For the rest:

Notes for novice audio conversion folks:
AIFF stands for Audio Interchange File Format.
If you put a CD in your computer the files will have .aiff
If you convert files with iTunes you will end up with .aif (missing second 'f')
If you convert files with other programs you may be able to choose, or set ahead of time, or will simply get what the devs decided you get.

To convert a bit of (optionally silent) audio in iTunes 11 to an aiff file:
Turn off Dictation: (System Preferences>System(tab)>Dictation&Speech(button))

iTunes(menu)>Preferences(menu-item)>General(tab)>Import Settings...(button)>Import Using(menu)>
change to: AIFF Encoder
click OK (button).
Find a song with a silent intro (fastest), or segment, or any sound that you like.
Get Info on the song (command-i, or right-click, or control-click, or File(menu)>Get Info). Go to the Options tab.
Edit the Start and Stop times to bracket the portion you want for the new sound (this may be 10 milliseconds of silence, up to you). The check-box(es) will automatically tick themselves if you edit the time(s). Click OK. (Do not worry, this is non-destructive and the times will be reset back to the correct ones down to the thousandth of a second if you uncheck the boxes and click OK again, I will remind you at the end to do this.)

**If you want NO sound, DO NOT simply remove the relevant files from the framework. Follow the directions herein and make a "silent" piece of audio from a quiet part of a song.
You can use any combination of the default sounds and your own.
You can use other built-in system sounds, like alerts, etc. Just go to /System/Library/Sounds and copy your favorite alert sound(s) and rename as appropriate (see the following steps).

control-click, or right-click, or File(menu)>Create New Version> and select Create AIFF Version. Then from either menu from the first sentence of this step select Show In Finder, or hit command-shift-r.
Go to Finder and open a new Finder window (command-shift-n) so you have two windows open. In the new window, navigate to the directory with the default dictation sounds (for the novice do this: by highlighting, then copying (command-c) the following line (it works, it's different from the actual directory path, given at the top of the answer, if you want you can use that one instead, the Resources in the following string is merely an in-built alias or sym-link):
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AssistantServices.framework/Resources
hit command-shift-g, then command-v to paste in what you just copied, then hit return)
Back-up the original files (they are called:
dt-begin.caf, dt-cancel.caf, and dt-confirm.caf) by dragging them to a folder you create somewhere specifically for the purpose of backing up in case something goes wrong or you don't like your new custom sound files. Sometimes I like to name the folder the the path to the directory where the system files came from with modifications like this. Since you can now include the / character in filenames this is not a problem (typically). If you want the best of both worlds simply make an empty directory in your backup directory with the path-as-name next to the files you just backed up, so if there's a problem with some third-party backup program it will fail copying an empty directory, no great harm. Directory and folder are interchangeable terms herein. Once they're backed up, delete them from the Resources folder. You will have to authenticate as an admin since they are protected system files.
Now, in the other window showing the new music file you created (in your iTunes library somewhere) rename the file to whatever sound file you are replacing. If replacing all three default sounds with the same file, duplicate it by highlighting it and hitting command-d twice, or three times if you want to keep the ORIGINAL filename/file in your iTunes library for any reason. Then rename them appropriately, as per step 7. Confirm you want to change the extension. Then hold down option to copy them to the Resources folder. You will have to authenticate again.
Cleanup time (before we forget. This is the second to last step):

backup the 3 (or 4) files you just made/renamed to a folder as well. This way you should always be deleting or REPLACING the files in the Resources folder by copying and you'll always have a backup of your custom set and the original set.
delete the renamed custom files from the iTunes library folder they were in if you didn't move them in the sub-step before this one where you backed them up.
if you don't want the original modified song file in iTunes you can move it too, or you can leave it in there for reference. If you moved it in the previous sentence or at the beginning of cleanup, then highlight it in iTunes and hit the 'Delete' key, then confirm, I would move to trash if it's there still and you don't want it.
go back into iTunes and Get Info on your original song file, and go back to Options to change the Start/Stop times back to original by unchecking the boxes and hitting 'OK' (iTunes will automatically get the correct Stop time, don't worry!), like in step 4.

Now that you've changed the files with Dictation off you can either:

a) Reboot (if Dictation was turned on since the last time you booted up, or if you don't know, or just to be as sure as possible you're having a good shot)
b) kill the 'assistantd' process owned by 'you'. (If you don't know what this means, just reboot, there's been enough hand-holding so far.)
Once your computer comes back on, log-in and go to System Preferences to Re-Enable Dictation.

Power User / Activity Monitor Notes:

DO NOT simply remove the relevant files from the framework if you want a 'silent' notification (replace them with silent sound files). This will cause a crash of the relevant processes, and spawn the ReportCrash process, and dictation will fail to recognize any audio input, and assistantd will have 'unexpected' behavior.
Three (3) Principle processes are launched when Dictation is turned on (all run by the user):

assistand is launched first, and doesn't quit on its own.
Dictation is then launched a few seconds later, and auto-quits ~6 seconds after Dictation is turned off normally (in System Preferences).
ABAssistantService is launched a few seconds after Dictation and I believe it is gathering and then passing to assistantd to upload some amount of AddressBook data, then quits. This happens if it's been ~>45 seconds since the last launch. (See this question on A.SE for more research me and others did.)

If you kill the assistantd process while Dictation is turned on in System Preferences it will just relaunch.
as a side note, multiple com.apple.audio.ComponentHelper and com.apple.audio.SandboxHelper (a duplicate of an older process owned by _coreaudiod) were spawned with user ownership when playing around a bit too heavy handedly with changing the .caf files sometimes, usually together.


You might use a private.xml like this with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>test</name>
    <identifier>test</identifier>
    <autogen>__ScrollWheelToKey__ ScrollWheel::UP, VK_CONTROL |
    ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L</autogen>
    <autogen>__ScrollWheelToKey__ ScrollWheel::DOWN, VK_CONTROL |
    ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::CURSOR_RIGHT, ModifierFlag::CONTROL_L</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


Does auto-unlock in macOS Sierra also auto-lock?

No. This isn’t something the os will do alone. You’d need a third party proximity app or script to trigger a screen lock when your watch leaves the vicinity of your Mac.


This is a hardware limitation of the built-in keyboard (and most non-gamer consumer keyboards)
You have to get a separate keyboard which supports NKRO (N-Key Rollover).
There might be issues with macOS compatibility with some n-key rollover keyboards USB keyboard acting strange with MacBook Pro
So check if it's compatible before you buy


Confusing reverse DNS IP replacement, ever since I edited /etc/hosts

Welp, turns out it's actually the server at the IP address returning an HTTP 301 redirect. It was just so fast I didn't notice.


Taking care of the hard drive in my MacBook?

Assuming your computer has a magnetic drive (and not a SSD), when you close the lid, it will take a few seconds for the computer to write some things to the hard-drive; even if it looks fast, it really takes a few secs of “background activity”. It could be 1 sec, but it’s there.

So as a general rule, it’s always good to gently close the lid (hitting the lid with the keyboard can cause damage to the screen and the hard-drive if it’s too strong), and give the computer a couple of seconds to process the sleep state. Once you’re sure that the box is sleeping, you can pack it up and carry it, always remembering that the Hard-Drive is a mechanical device and as such, it’s very fragile (compared to other pieces). This doesn’t mean that you have to treat your box as if it were Murano glass, but mechanical drives and hits are not friends. With that said, I’ve seen laptops fall from 1 meter (tables) to the floor and work for years without a hard drive failure, and on the other hand, small hits against a table (by raising the laptop 1 cm and letting it fall onto a table) rendered hard drives inoperative.

So as you can see the drives tend to be more fragile than not, even when you can never be sure.

I remember about 10 years ago, we were on vacations and for some reason, one of the guys found a box of Sugus candies and we started a fight. Note: They hit really hard and I have pictures of a candy tatooed in my back in red. All in all, one of these candies bounced and hit a guy’s laptop while he was creating a playlist in WinAmp (yeah, we were that old). The computer crashed (Windows XP) and the hard drive never worked again.

The candy story was just a way to illustrate that you can never be sure about hard drives.

Regarding a car: unless you’re going to go to the Camel Trophy, there shouldn’t be a problem. Remember, vibrations and hits may hurt your hard drive, keep it as quiet as possible.

they guy whose laptop broke still hates us.

I have an old macbook that I carry everywhere, on and off and I drop in bed, I move it, I put things on top of it (books, etc). and it still works…


Mountain Lion won't wake up after an extended sleep

This is a known issue that hasn't been fixed as of 10.8.1. When Mountain Lion hibernates (either directly or as part of standby mode), it couldn't wake up and thus need to be restarted.

The current workarounds are:

Disable hibernate mode.
Disable standby mode.

I've written an article how to get around this issue by preventing OS X from hibernating.

For Apple folks: please see rdar://1212084 - Thanks.


Applescript to set non focus tab in safari

set targetUrl to "https://www.apple.com"
use currentApp : application "Safari"
set _T to a reference to (every tab of every window of currentApp whose ¬
    URL contains targetUrl)

if (count _T) > 0 then return viewTab(_T)
end

to viewTab(aURL)
    set [aURL] to aURL
    set W to the first window of currentApp whose tabs contains aURL

    set current tab of W to aURL
    activate currentApp
    set the index of W to 1
end viewTab

Source


Replaced Macbook Pro keyboard with US-layout, now cannot type ~/` on external keyboard

One possibility is to use keyremap4macbook, but this doesn't change the firmware keyboard layout and I don't like fiddling around with such tools if not necessary.


Probably one (or more) process on your system was running wild.

Use your Mac as usual. From time to time check the folder /var/vm and if you run across a lot of swap files open Terminal.app and enter:

ps xa | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -n 1 sudo vmmap | grep -A3 'Summary' > /Users/YourUserName/Desktop/vmmap_summary.txt

Depending on the number of running processes this will take about 30-60 seconds. Your account has to be able to run sudo (=usually an admin account).

This creates a text file called vmmap_summary.txt on your desktop which contains some memory and swap information of all running processes sorted by PID. Some will fail because their process id is already gone.

Example (truncated to the first four PIDs):

==== Summary for process 1
ReadOnly portion of Libraries: Total=51.8M resident=12.9M(25%) swapped_out_or_unallocated=38.9M(75%)
Writable regions: Total=92.9M written=808K(1%) resident=2112K(2%) swapped_out=0K(0%) unallocated=90.8M(98%)

==== Summary for process 21
ReadOnly portion of Libraries: Total=77.0M resident=30.9M(40%) swapped_out_or_unallocated=46.1M(60%)
Writable regions: Total=88.5M written=1116K(1%) resident=5144K(6%) swapped_out=0K(0%) unallocated=83.4M(94%)

==== Summary for process 22
ReadOnly portion of Libraries: Total=150.1M resident=60.1M(40%) swapped_out_or_unallocated=90.0M(60%)
Writable regions: Total=93.2M written=1460K(2%) resident=5440K(6%) swapped_out=0K(0%) unallocated=87.8M(94%)

==== Summary for process 23
ReadOnly portion of Libraries: Total=77.2M resident=31.3M(41%) swapped_out_or_unallocated=45.9M(59%)
Writable regions: Total=96.9M written=1412K(1%) resident=2036K(2%) swapped_out=0K(0%) unallocated=94.9M(98%)

Check for any bad behaving process (swapped_out>>>0k).

To get the process name of a misbehaving PID and some more information enter:

ps aux | awk '$2 == PID  { print $0 }'

Example output for a process with the ID 21 — ps aux | awk '$2 == 21  { print $0 }' — would be:

root              21   0,0  0,0  2507740   6552   ??  Ss   10:03am   0:01.48 /usr/libexec/kextd

Now hunt down what may be wrong with the app or daemon.


Why does OSX no longer allow to save screenshots in the clipboard?

Cmd-Shift-4 saves a screenshot to file, Cmd-Ctrl-Shift-4 puts it into the clipboard. This has been the default for ages, it did not change with macOS 11.4.


I had to turn on calendars and set the password in iCloud (settings/icloud/turn on calendars).  Make sure to reset your phone by holding down the power button and the select button at the same time until your phone turns off and the apple icon appears, then release.  Give it a second and it will reset.  It should work after that :)


There is no way to do this at the given time without jailbreaking.

The iPhone does not have a magnetic sensor on the screen like the iPad.


What does a non-booting macbook displaying a lightning bolt mean?

That looks like the Thunderbolt logo. Your Mac probably thinks that is in Target Disk Mode.


What state is it in now? If you can access the Mac App Store, then you should be able to install High Sierra directly from there.

If you can boot to a Recovery Partition (Command R on boot), then you can erase the hard drive and do a 'clean' install of the current OS, if that is what you want to do, and then update to High Sierra from the App Store.

It's unlikely that age or software is 'slowing it down'. A full, or failing, mechanical hard drive might do that.

The best way to keep it useful is to replace the Hard drive with an SSD, and max out the RAM.


Can an Airport Express be used to extend the Wi-Fi of another-non Apple Access Point?

Apple seems to be saying in a round-a-bout way here that other routers are not supported for wireless range extensions (with a router connected to Ethernet and the Express not):

Extend an existing Wi-Fi network’s range.
If you already have a
wireless network in your home and want to extend its range, AirPort
Express can help. Just place it in range of your primary base station
— an AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule, or another AirPort Express — and
near the area where you want your wireless connection. Launch the
easy-to-use AirPort Utility app on your iOS device or Mac, and you’re
mere minutes away from long-range Wi-Fi enjoyment.

However, this is only if your AirPort Express is not connected to Ethernet.  Otherwise, you can setup a roaming network. The newer Airport Express models (the ones compatible with 802.11n) can do this.

First, you need the Express connected to Ethernet.  Make sure that the main non-Apple router is set to share a public IP address.  Next, when setting up the Express, just set up its Network name and Password exactly the same as the network used by your non-Apple router.  The network mode needs to be "Create a wireless network," it should Connect Using "Ethernet," and Connection Sharing needs to be "Off (Bridge mode)."


iCloud storage recovery not deleting photo albums

No. The camera roll is and is not just another album. Delete that and you delete all your photos, (though I don't believe it can be deleted), but I believe the albums will remain and be empty. Albums don't store extra copies of photos. When you create albums, these aren't filled with distinct copies of photos, but something similar to aliases or links — at least conceptually. Conversly, Deleting photos from albums does not actually delete the photos from your camera role. You have to delete photos by deleting the photos from your camera role. Albums don't really take up any space, or a very tiny amount of space... maybe dozens of kilobytes. Once an album is empty, it can be deleted.

On your iPhone, under Settings app/iCloud page, turn off photo syncing. Because there is no way to access iCloud other than in the background autosyncing, this should erase your photos from iCloud and leave them on your iPhone.

If you don't have your own computer, buy a largeish usb thumb drive and find a friend with a Mac and have her download iExplorer, connect your iPhone to her Mac with a sync cable, and have her transfer your photos to the usb thumb drive for you. Alternatively, if you have an iPhone 5, the Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader (or usb version w/usb thumb)and a decent sized SD Card, 32-128GB, and a thumb-sized usb SD Card Reader for good measure. Use this combination to connect the SD Card to your iPhone and transfer your Photos to your SD Card periodically, to back them up or free up space on your iPhone. SD Cards are more expensive than USB thumb drives, but the advantage is the data is far more "durable," as these cards are water-proof and nearly indestructable, while usb thumb drives are notoriously unreliable afa massive data corruption.

Apple's Camera Connection Kit was not fully compatible with iPhone 4, but I am seeing evidence that the new lightning camera adapters are compatible with iPhone 5. If anyone knows otherwise, please comment.


Browsers unable to connect to Internet, other apps can, Parallels can

I suspect a problem with the Parallels network driver, having seen similar issues before.  First, if you haven't already, try updating Parallels to the latest version.  Then, try changing the networking mode to Bridged, or if it already is, to Shared.  Also, here are some generic troubleshooting steps.


iTunes Match on iPhone missing almost all of my music

Disable iTunes Match on your iPhone
Login to your iTunes Account in the iTunes App:

Scroll down till the chapter with iTunes in the Cloud:**

And then you can cancel your iPhone from iTunes Match:

Activate iTunes Match again on your iPhone


Right click or Command click on the playlist in the sidebar. The context menu should have the burn option.


VLC is dropping frames/stuttering when trying to play 1080p@60FPS video on rMBP w. 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7

Finally I solved this problem by switching to MPV for playing videos, which is also superior to VLC in many other ways.


What is "Entering Sleep state due to 'Dark Wake Thermal Emergency'" from pmset log?

I found this article from 2011 on MacTech.com reporting that:

"Apple is working on methods to power up select components of a Mac from a sleep state, per a patent at the US Patent & Trademark Office.

Patent number 7996694 is for a "dark wake," or xemplary embodiments of methods, apparatuses, and systems for powering up select components of a computer from a sleep state, maintaining a network state, and powering down the select components of the computer to return the computer to the sleep state are described. For one embodiment, a network interface and a fan controller receive power during the network state maintenance but a display or audio components do not receive power during the network state maintenance. The inventors are Ethan Bold, Stuart Cheshire, J. Rhoads Hollowell, Joe Liu and Dean R. Reece.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "The various embodiments described herein relate to power management of a processing system. In particular, embodiments include the processing system entering a dark wake state from a from a low power state by powering up select components, maintaining a network state, and returning to the sleep state.

"Computer systems are often used to perform various tasks over a network. When a computer system connects to a network, it establishes a network state with a server or another networked device. In order to make efficient use of network resources, network states may expire and can be periodically maintained or renewed. Additionally, a computer system may periodically update a network state.

"If the computer system is placed in a low power state (e.g., a sleep state), however, the computer system typically terminates the network state (e.g., allows it to expire) or periodically "wakes up" to a full power state (including user-perceptible components such as video and audio), to maintain, renew, or otherwise update an existing network state.

"Exemplary embodiments of methods, apparatuses, and systems for powering up select components of a computer from a sleep state, maintaining a network state, and powering down the select components of the computer to return the computer to the sleep state are described. For one embodiment, the select components include a network interface and do not include a display or audio components. For one embodiment a fan controller receives power during the maintaining of the network state.

"These embodiments allow a system to appear to a user to be asleep while performing maintenance of the network state but also continue to protect the system from overheating by keeping the fan controller on. The fan controller can include subsystems which monitor temperature and determine whether to turn a fan on or off; for example, the fan controller can include temperature sensors and processing logic that determines, using information from the temperature sensors whether to turn on or off a fan or other cooling device in order to protect the system. For one embodiment, the fan controller receives power even while the system is in one or more levels of sleep."

-- Dennis Sellers

It would appear that your computer is performing a Dark Wake, but is unable to maintain good thermal management, possibly due to high ambient temps, and is therefore returning to full sleep for a cool-down period.


Touch bar disappeared in Macbook Pro 2019

The Touch Bar on Apple's MacBook Pro line of laptops is a capactive touch display not unlike the screen in an iPhone; it's just much longer and thinner.  This means it's susceptible to all of the same ailments that plague every other touch screen display - cracked/broken LCD, touch no longer functioning, blank display, etc.  Some are obvious (i.e. a cracked screen) and others not so obvious; like a blank or non-responsive screen.

In this case, a blank Touch Bar could be either software or hardware.  So, to determine what the issue is, you need to go through a process of elimination.

Eliminate software as the cause. (See link for steps).  The idea here is to get to a "clean" environment by eliminating as many 3rd party apps, kexts, configurations, etc. that could be causing an issue.  You want to follow these steps so you don't go through the trouble of reinstalling macOS.  There's no point in expending the time, effort and risking data for something that won't work.  Booting into Safe Mode or Recovery Mode has the same benefits of reinstalling without the extra hassle.
It's likely hardware.  There a very good chance that the hardware has failed in some way.  It could be the display itself, the  driver (not software), or even the T1/T2 chip (drives the Touch Bar). Unfortunately, there's no easy DIY way to diagnose it.  Since the entire top case assembly must be disassembled to get to it, the usual fix is just to replace the top case with a new one.

Bottom line, it needs to go in for service.

Note:  the fingerprint reader (Touch ID sensor) is located adjacent to the display and both are behind a single pane of glass.  It's not uncommon for folks to believe that the Touch Bar must be working because Touch ID still works.  No; they are two completely different components, but since the T1/T2 chip handles security, it's a good bet that the chip is not at fault for the ailing Touch Bar.


What different non-bluetooth keyboards exist for the iPad 2?

You'd want a wired keyboard such as this from DealExtreme. They ship to the US without any problems


Problems in OS X with Transmit “Mount to Disk” after Mac upgrade to El Capitan

This was/is a known issue on transmit 4.4.8 and lower.

Go get version 4.4.9 or later to work around the known issues.

The developer support page here should be updated and the second link is the announcement of the delay:

https://library.panic.com/general/mac/el-capitan/
https://twitter.com/panic/status/648970332473192448

  Quick El Cap Status: Coda mostly works (2.5.12 will bring fixes) — Transmit works — Transmit Disk doesn't work, but we're working on it. — Panic Inc (@panic) September 29, 2015

You can check for updates or get on the developer's email list / watch their blog and twitter account for when they have released a version of Transmit Disk that works with El Capitan. The rest of the normal functionality seems to work for me, just the disk mounting part is needing work.


Did you delete the receipts for X11 and XQuartz?


Open up the Preferences in Terminal and check "Antialias Text" under the Text tab of the Settings page. This is the page that shows different "Profiles" for your Terminal appearance as well.


OS 10.8 Active Directory Single User Issue

I think Keychain Access is caching the old login info and causing problems each time the info changes. Try deleting the existing login keychain and creating a new one and see if that resolves the problem.
Everytime the AD login info changes the keychain needs to be manually updated to reflect those changes or this kind of problem will persist.


iPhone Version 9.3.3. Newsfeed from Sky News showing annoying symbols

It's a problem with how Sky News or Apple is formatting the text in their feed.  It has nothing to do with your iPhone, in case you were wondering.

I can't post a picture right now but so others understand what the problem is, in Apple News if you go to an article from Sky News, you'll see a mixture of text & symbols like &#160; in the article/headline.  It looks like these are some symbols or letters that are not being converted correctly.

Usually, these types of things get corrected fairly quickly.


On the MacBook Pro, send file links via iMessage?

In most cases you can drag a file into a terminal window to get the full path and that would be something you could paste into an iMessage window.

If you want it to be a true link to the file, prepend the path with file://

file:///Volumes/NAS/path/to/file


Is there a way to prevent those pesky .DS_Store files from being ever created?

To prevent those ugly .DS_Store files from showing up there seems to be a relatively new option to do this cleanly, not only for network drives, like:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true

but also for USB-connected volumes:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteUSBStores -bool true

Relative to the OPs question title, this is the best solution without hacks, since it addresses not only the network misbehaviour but is also effected  for most connected disks. And those might be the biggest annoyance for most users sharing devices like USB sticks between different environments. It uses only Apple provided options and doesn't interfere with normal operation in any way.

Relative to the concrete situation explained in the OPs body it is of limited value, since this USB option is only available in later versions of OS X/macOS. Further, this still does not address the problem of .DS_Store creation on internal disks, where they can be also a hassle to deal with. Although in that place they might actually serve some kind of purpose.

A more comprehensive solution to this problem, albeit a more hackish one, that works on most versions of the Mac operating system is as follows:
To completely nuke this nasty behaviour on all disks – and with a binary patcher/code injector like the question of the OP longs for – there is DeathToDSStore / with source.

Both of these options assume that anyone still uses Finder…
Using a different file manager would also solve this problem.
There are numerous contenders to replace Finder for file management on macOS. Two of the top dogs in this field are Pathfinder or XFile.


General commands for getting help and/or documentation for command line utilities in terminal on macOS?

Have you heard of using the man command. For example: man ls or man grep. You can get comprehensive documentation on man by entering man man.
Some of the basic keys used by the man command are the f key to page forward, the b key to page backward and the q key to quit.
Try using the mouse to highlight the command, then right click on the highlighted text and select Open man page. See example below.

Note: The highlighted text can not contain spaces.

Some commands are builtin. This means the command is part on the current shell. If you are using the zsh shell (which is the macOS default shell), then you will need to enter man zshbuiltins for documentation.


I've experienced this as well, currently in MacOS 10.13.5
A ghosted interlaced screenshot of my desktop and legible private information is visible on the standard lock screen and also the screensaver lock screen. This same image persists even after reboot.

I was able to clear the image by switching display resolutions.


Disable display mirroring for every possible future display

Sorry, no - there's no such option on current macOS versions.

You can submit a radar with a feature suggestion at:

https://bugreport.apple.com/

However I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you. It is probably not one of the most requested features right now, although I think it would be very useful for me as well.


Why is Wine separately bundled with Winebottler for Mac OSX?

For anyone stumbling onto this question:

Wine is bundled with Winebottler as it is needed to create standalone Mac app packages (this is how winebottler works, unsure why it cannot use vanilla Wine (stable) app).

So, both are needed:

Wine (stable) installed via winehq to run Wine applications
Wine installed via winebottler to create standalone Mac app packages


When iOS says "there are items are that could not be synced" Where in iTunes can I see more information?

I struggled with this, too. After following several dead ends (from Google searches, e.g., suggesting deleting photo caches, which had no effect on the warning messages for me), and not knowing of @hawkeye's useful information, I noticed that there was a small warning symbol (triangle with an exclamation mark in it) in iTunes, between my device's name and the device eject symbol, at the top of the device panel on the left. When I clicked on the warning symbol, a message popped up describing what the problem was; see the image. (In my case, I didn't have enough free space to replace a particularly large app.)  Apple sure could make this more obvious!

By the way, you can get an unsynced item warning on the device when there isn't a problem, due to stale data in iTunes. You can eliminate the device warning by resetting dialog warnings and the iTunes Store cache in the Advanced section of iTunes preferences; there are two buttons there you can push. This solved a mysterious sync warning problem for me in the past.


How to properly download the following plugin video?

Right-click on the video and select Inspect Element.
Click the disclosure triangle next to the video element to reveal the source element.
Click the src attribute value to download the video.


What does it look like when an Instagram user using an iPhone X comes across an iPhone X size image in Stories?

Instagram limits the sizes of the photos that can appear in their stories. Even though you upload for example a high resolution screenshot from an iPhone X, it will be scaled to a lower resolution and even cropped to fit their choice of aspect ratio.

Instagram currently allows for square images (up to 1080x1080 px), vertical images (up to 1080x1350 px) and horizontal images (up to 1080x566px).

It doesn't matter if you're uploading/viewing this on an iPhone X, the same restrictions apply.


How to connect OS X Yosemite to a Windows based SSTP VPN?

The sstp-client works for me. It is a command-line program. I installed it using the homebrew command:

brew install sstp-client


How do I encrypt emails using Apple Mail?

It appears this is what I was looking for: https://gpgtools.org/


Need assistance troubleshooting / learning launchctl and plist

Launchd writes errors to system.log.  Using Console, I viewed the log. There, launchd told me that it did not like my User key value.  I removed the User - jaredclemence key-value pair, and loaded the plist again. It then told me the batch program did not exist and I then noticed the error in the file path.  /User should be /Users

By removing the User setting and correcting the file path, I was able to fix the problem. Now, running ps -ef | grep 'runMed', I am able to see that the batch file is currently executing.

SUCCESS!


Macbook Pro mid-2012: All applications are "damaged or incomplete", question mark on all apps, no icons

Following your initial description, I had the exact same problem. But it wasn't a malicious cable. So, for future reference and people with this problem, this is my solution, which is way more easier:

Let's assume you don't even have access to the terminal / console and therefore you have to boot into recovery mode:

(re-)boot into recovery mode (hold CMD + R until Apple logo appears)
start console / terminal
locate the folder /private/var/folders/ of your regular installation (!)

Heads up:
If you are able to run the console within your regular installation, the folder is just there: /private/var/folders/.
But if you use the recovery mode console, the /private/var/folders/ is the one of your recovery interface. You need to look for a folder like /Volumes/Macintosh/private/var/folders/ - that's the location of all your regular files.

If you get to the correct folder, you just delete it's content. (For security reasons you may move the content of this folder to a temporary location).

After your done, just reboot. This should fix your problem.

Nota bene:

As far as i know /private/var/folders/ just contains a lot of temporary files which will be deleted every time you restart your mac. If you are using the hibernation mode, this folder may grow constantly. It also could help to reboot the system while holding the SHIFT-key, as this also runs a few routines that will clear temporary files.


iMessage speech (applescript) timing out after upgrade to yosemite

I originally wrote:

This bug appears to be resolved in 10.10.2

****I was wrong ****

For me, the bogus timeout alerts seem to take longer to start after enabling a handler script than they did in 10.10.1, but they still happen and make the AppleScript handler feature unusable. By loading up my handler script with debugging code (logging everything) and tracing Messages with DTrace, I've nailed down beyond a doubt that the timeout alert is triggered for every event passed to the script within milliseconds of the event before the script itself is in control, blocking its execution.


UE Boom 2 stutters with MacBook Pro when using browser

Go to a store and buy USB bluetooth dongle (I bought the smallest I could find for $8). Plug it in and MacBook automatically shuts down onboard Bluetooth and uses the new USB. After that the music plays perfectly without any stutters at all!


Advantages:

more security
more features: quick reply, continuity (if you have Mac &
Yosemite )

Disadvantages:
it will run slowly
you won't get a lot of the features that 5S and above have
could decrease battery life

If you have experience with ssh and jailbreaking, I would say go ahead but make sure you can downgrade using ssh just in case you don't like it.
However, if you don't even know what that is, I wouldn't recommend upgrading because there is no way to downgrade if you don't think you'll like it because apple already stopped signing ios7 and below.


Preview: Change the Fill option for the Annotate tool

The fill colour is in the same toolbar, see pic…

[Edit - updating for Yosemite, Mavericks is below…)

Yosemite -

Show Toolbar
Fill drop-menu
Transparent is the one with the red line through, top left of the colour-picker.

Mavericks -

Rectangle tool.
Fill colour
Transparent is the one with the red line through, top left of the colour-picker.


Disk Space requirement for Xcode on a Solid State Drive (SSD)

Xcode and iOS SDK takes up around 10.5 GB of hard drive space. Depending on how much other space you plan to use up, I suppose a 128 GB hard drive is enough.


I want to use 2 imacs (one with FCPX) in same house with Airport Extreme

Your Internet connection has nothing to do with the performance of your hardware with respect to video editing.  The only place it will come into play is when you are transferring data files over your network.

If this is of concern, the answer is simple:  wired is always better.  With wired Ethernet, you're not sharing bandwidth like you would with WiFi.

That said, if you aren't transferring files over the network and all the work will be done locally, it won't matter if you are going WiFi or hard wire.

(IMO) I would hard wire both my iMacs to the network and use the WiFi for convenience like your daughters' MacBooks, iPhones and iPads.  It may cost a bit more during installation, but the reliability and stability will pay dividends in the future.


MacOS High Sierra - Unable to mount network drive after waking from sleep

We have a similar issue with our network drives at work. When that happens the following works:

Hold down the OPTION key.
Right click on the finder icon.
Left click on RELAUNCH.

Doing this seems to clear out the cache. Then the system realizes that while it was sleeping, it did in fact lose the connection to the drive, and lets you reconnect.


"This Connection Is Not Private" → "Visit The Website" asks for admin password to "Update Settings". Are permanent system changes made?

When you enter your password and press Update Settings, what really happens is that the certificate presented by that web site is added to the Certificates set in your login keychain. Your password is needed in order for Safari to have permission to add something to your keychain.

If you open up Keychain Access.app, select the login keychain and then the Certificates category, you'll find the specific certificate in the list on the right. The certificate is marked with a blue circle with a white plus inside it. This means it is marked as "trusted".

I.e. you're essentially overriding standard system behavior and stating that you trust a specific certificate even though it is not otherwise trusted (for example because it is expired). This is what will allow you to browse the site without further warnings.

Does it make your computer permanently less secure? - In some ways yes, because you're now trusting a certificate that is not really valid. If some malicious person used that certifcate to trick you then the system will trust that certificate. As you're manually stating that you do indeed trust the certificate, you're already aware that something is out of the ordinary, so it's not a huge problem. You just need to be aware that the trust doesn't automatically "expire" and disappear the next day or something like that.

If you want to manually revoke your trust, you can use Keychain Access.app to right-click on the certificate to Delete it. If you visit the same web site again with Safari, you'll get the warning again.

Note that some browsers (including Safari in Incognito Mode) solve the problem with overriding invalid certificates by allowing the user to override the warning temporarily. In that case nothing is added to the keychain, thus you do not need to enter a password. You can then browse the web site, but after you have closed down your browser, you'll get warnings again the next time you visit the site.

Also note that in these cases, you're only overriding the warning for that specific browser session. I.e. if you're using some other application (i.e. not the browser) to communicate with the site, such as a temporary override won't work. In contrast, doing what Safari does means that other programs (using the system trust store) will also respect your trust in that site.


OS X 10.11.5 hangs occasionally for 30 seconds for multitasking, gestures and the Dock

Don't worry, it's not just you. Many Mac users are experiencing this same issue, including me. It is thought to be a bug in 10.11.4 and I suggest you upgrade to 10.11.5 or downgrade (if you have a backup) to 10.11.3.

In my case, I haven't had an issue or a freeze since I upgraded to 10.11.5. It works great.

See: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/05/13/macbook-pro-system-freezes-os-x-10-11-4/


How do I connect a Macbook early 2011 to a Sony trv 340 via Firewire

Assuming that your machine is indeed a MacBook Pro 2011, you need a Firewire 800 (9-pin) to MiniDV (4-pin Firewire or i.Link in Sony speak) cable. Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/FireWire-i-link-IEEE-1394-Cable-Clear/dp/B002RB84P8

https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-FireWire-Hi-speed-F019-006/dp/B000AAZQM2


Bootcamp Refuses to create boot drive because iso is too large?

In the past, an 8 GB USB would suffice to create a Bootcamp boot drive for Windows 10 (talking from experience), but now you need "a blank 16 GB or larger USB 2 flash drive," as Apple states on their Boot Camp support website. I too found out the hard way, as the process of creating a boot drive on my old 8 GB USB failed.

It's possible that the latest versions of Windows 10 (Anniversary Edition onwards) simply require more than 8 GB for their installers.


You can try a different player like VLC and check whether that works.

But it's way more likely that the file is just corrupted. You can try to copy it again from the source.


The following article may help your problem. :)

Mac OS X: Require Password at Single User Mode:

  By default, Mac OS X will simply give you a shell when you perform a Single User Mode startup.  However, you can force OS X to ask for a password in order to gain shell access.  To do so, vi the /etc/ttys and change secure to insecure.  Once you have done so, create a password in /etc/master.passwd for root.


This is pretty straighforward, the steps are essentially:

Open iTunes and consolidate your existing library (File > Library > Organise Library)
Quit iTunes
Copy your ~/Music/iTunes folder to the external drive
Open iTunes while holding down the Alt key, which will prompt you to select the new library
When you're sure it's working, delete your original library.

For more details on each step, see this iMore article. And as always, make sure you have a working backup before you start.


If an iPhone stolen and they restart it can it be tracked?

If they deleted everything, then no... I guess you could then contact the police or something, resetting the iphone will cause the "find my iphone" feature to be disabled so yeah...


This may not be quite what you're looking for, but have a look at Flashlight. It allows you to use plugins for Spotlight, including translation plugins. I don't think the translation ones are offline, but it's open source, so maybe you could figure out a way to download an offline translation dictionary and modify an existing plugin to use this offline dictionary?


It's more that Safari was being boosted in 4.3 and that that boost was not available to Web Apps on the homescreen

According to ArsTechnica this is fixed in iOS 5.


macOS Sierra changing color profiles at startup

You may need to re-install the software.

Please follow these steps:

Backup your current color profile.
Uninstall the X-Rite ColorMunki software.
Restart your Mac.
Re-Install the X-Rite software.
Install the X-Rite device manager.
Create a new color profile or import your backed up profile.
Restart your Mac to check for the previous issue.

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What iOS version comes preinstalled on the iPhone 7?

I just activated my iPhone 7 and it came preinstalled with iOS 10.0 (saw that on an email from Apple Sign-In alert) and it prompts you to upgrade to iOS 10.0.1 even before proceeding with your setup.


Can I use iOS 7 blocking to block iMessages between Apple IDs instead of phone numbers?

Yes, on iOS 7, you can block someone from sending you an iMessage from their Apple ID. When you block a contact from sending you texts, it applies to SMS (sent to phone number) and iMessage (sent to phone/Apple ID email). Currently this works only on iOS devices. Any iMessages received on a Mac are not blocked.

How it works is described in detail here - Silence is Golden: A Guide to Blocking Calls and Texts in iOS 7

  What about texts?

  If you’re sending a text, it will look like it was delivered. If you’re sending a message to someone who has blocked you, and you’re using iMessage, it will say “delivered” — exactly like a text that went through.


How do I browse logs in /var/log in Console.app on Catalina?

In Catalina the interface for Console got a revamp, in my opinion not for the better.
If you click on "Log Reports" in the left hand bar you will get a list of the logs in /var/log. (You may have to click on the icon that toggles the bar's visibility first.) Click on a file and the log can be seen at the bottom of the window.