How do AirPort Express and wireless access point relate?

The article is about reverse engineering the AirPlay part of the Airport Express device. The AirPlay feature allows iTunes to stream songs (audio) to the unit and you can connect a set of speakers or an amplifier to it via the 3.5mm stereo jack.

However the protocol (and the key) AirPlay uses is not documented, and if I want to implement the same feature on other hardware (for example make my linux gateway computer have the same functionality as an AirPlay device), I have to reverse engineer the protocol (the language both devices speak over the network) and re-implement it.

The interesting part is that AirPlay uses asymmetrical encryption to encrypt the audio stream, and the private key is located only on the device. By obtaining this key, the last part of the puzzle is found.

After I wrote this, I have found an article, which describes it (probably better) than me.


Stress testing a hard drive with lots of random reads and writes

This seems to do the trick:

sudo fio --name=randrw --time_based --runtime=86400 --ioengine=posixaio --iodepth=64 --rw=randrw --bs=64k  --direct=1 --numjobs=8 --size=[size of disk] --filename=/dev/rdisk#

That should do a random read/write test for 24 The # can be obtained with diskutil list and [size of disk] is obtained with diskutil info /dev/disk#. I'm not sure if the --size argument is actually necessary but I included it anyway.


iMac excessive GPU heat when using a second display

Well, yes, driving two monitors requires more work from a GPU. But is 80 C normal, long-term-wise? I think not. You can get yourself badly burned at 80 deg, so why would this be good for a computer part, especially over 2 or 3 years? :-/

I remember I had a problem with a Mac Pro years ago. All the RAM slots were occupied, and iStat reported 70+ temperatures in these slots, even though the fans were doing their job. But I had a lot of crashes and kernel panics. Then I thought that such temperatures could not be helping. Then I installed a little helper app that enables you to set the minimum speed for any fan in you system. I just set the fans to 1200 rpms instead of the default 800, and everything began behaving smoothly from that point. Putting my hand to the back of the computer I could really feel the difference in temperature. And the modules' temperature went from 70-80 C to 35-45 C in about 5-10 minutes!!

Of course the fan noises was slightly more annoying, but I was willing to sacrifice a bit of my sanity for a stable computer. :-)

The app was named smcFanControl (http://www.eidac.de/). Works with Lion as of v 2.3. And free. There are of course other apps that would do the same, but this one has worked flawlessly for many years.

I think that Apple is setting it's temperature threshold limits a little too low, all for the sake of silence of operation...


Can I configure my iPhone to play audio files through ear speaker instead of the bottom speaker?

No you can't.

And as far as I can tell (searching the App Store) there are no apps that can help you. Even if there was one you wouldn't be able to open the audio file in Mail without using QuickTime, and that will always lead to the audio file playing through speaker.

Best you can do is have a pair of headphones with you and hope something changes in the future.


How do I unlock my iPhone-4 so I can use it in Mexico with a Mexican carrier?

Do you mean to Jailbreak your phone, or to unlock it so you can use it on a different network?

Unlocks currently depend on your firmware version, which you can check by going to settings >> general >> about and looking at the version number. If you can confirm then we could find the right unlock for your phone, supposing it can be unlocked.


Sadly, this is a very broad issue, and unfortunately it's difficult to solve over the internet with so little information. I'll give as much help as I can, but you're probably best following online guides until you can come back with more information. MacWorld has a good guide, as does HowToGeek and a host of others. Given what you've done so far, I'll try to help, updating this post as you complete steps. Comment and let me know what the results are.

First, let's run Apple Hardware Test or Apple Diagnostics. This will help us find out if your issue is hardware or software based. If your mac was made after June 2013, use Apple Diagnostics. Otherwise, use Apple Hardware Test. If this fails, you're probably in big trouble (although it probably won't.) Best case, you simply don't have it installed for a variety of reasons. Normally, if your Mac is new enough (again, almost certainly), it'll automatically start using internet based AHT. However, if it didn't connect (or can't) connect to the internet, you might be able to create a bootable version of AHT on an external drive. Follow the instructions here and see if that works.


How can I ensure that laptop batteries I buy are genuine?

Some sellers offer batteries for MacBooks cheaper than Apple. If it is a well-known manufacturer or seller, I would have less to think about. However, I would order from a trusted shop.


Accidentally "Removed Attachments" via Mail.app

I have just accidentally "manually removed attachments" from Mac mail and because I had opened them first (word documents) I was able to open Word and go to "open recent" and they did open and I was able to save them properly.  Just as well because I had been unable to find them in the files that were modified today.


The launchpad button does not appear in the dock?

The launchpad button is an normal application.  You should expect to find it in the /Applications folder.  If it is there, you can drag a copy to the dock.


Adding a Google account for calendar purposes on iOS 8.3

Have you tried the following on your iOS device:

Add Account > Other > Add CalDAV Calendar

Then enter your credentials:

Server: google.com
Username: Enter the email address of the associated Google account.
Password: Enter the password that is associated with the Google account from above.
Description: Purely for information. Enter a description of the account.

This should work when only using the Calendar on a Google Account.


Retina Macbook is emitting a noise from under keyboard

(Writing this up from a discussion in the comments, to help future readers...)

The noise in the sound recording is a high pitched buzzing noise, which plays for approx 1 sec, then off for a second, then on for a second again.

Some suggestions of things to try, in order to isolate the noise to a particular part of the system:

change the screen brightness
change the keyboard brightness
test with the main battery discharged & charged
test with a pair of headphones plugged in
test with mains charger plugged in & removed
test with an application generating high CPU load
test with an application generating high GPU load


There is a non removable, outward protruding speck on my MacBook screen, Apple is denying warranty coverage

Hard to tell without the benefit of 3D vision, but to me that looks like the screen has been punctured from the outside [the small bubbles would seem to confirm it's a puncture].
Bear in mind that anything sharp enough to penetrate through to the actual screen may leave a partially raised 'wound' on the protective layer, which you could mistake for damage coming from within. I'm pretty sure a thunderfly wouldn't be tough enough to be a cause.. they also have legs you'd see under a microscope, even if squished.


Is it possible to open in default browser a URL from command line reusing same tab?

You can do this with some AppleScript. For Google Chrome it looks like:

on run argv
  tell application "Google Chrome"
    set URL of active tab of window 1 to item 1 of argv
    activate
  end tell
end run

You'd save that as a script file (.scpt) on disk and then call it with osascript from the command line. For example, if you saved that as ~/bin/chrome.scpt you'd do:

osascript ~/bin/chrome.scpt https://apple.stackexchange.com/

to open https://apple.stackexchange.com/ in the first Chrome window's currently active tab. If you wanted to make it a little simpler you could prefix the script with #! so it can be executed directly from your shell like so:

#!/usr/bin/env osascript
on run argv
  tell application "Google Chrome"
    set URL of active tab of window 1 to item 1 of argv
    activate
  end tell
end run

And then save that as ~/bin/chrome and chmod u+x ~/bin/chrome and call it like so:

~/bin/chrome https://apple.stackexchange.com/


Mac version of man doesn't have the -u option. How could I rebuild man's database of commands?

The man command actually doesn't have a database of commands except when mimicking apropos with the -k command. The -u option in Gnu man just checks the cache used by man to speed up some lookups.

The only database is the whatis database. It is used by  the whatis and apropos commands. It can be created or recreated by the makewhatis command - sudo /usr/libexec/makewhatis.


The A1134 model is the 2005 14 inch iBook. The original supplied OS was 10.4.2 (Tiger), so OS 10.3 won't work on it.
However, I'd also want to make sure that the screen actually works before buying a Tiger installer disk.


What Apps allow a user to join photos of arbitrary quantity and size?

Option "Stitch" in Photo Grid app allows you to merge multiple photos (up to 9).


The getting started page you posted a link to explains how to create a simple one disk pool.

This is the only thing you need to do. Creating a pool will automatically create a file system with the same name as the pool, which is what you call formatting a drive.

In your case, you can run from the command line:

diskutil partitiondisk /dev/disk5 GPTFormat ZFS %noformat% 100%
zpool create extdrive /dev/disk5s2

and you'll have a new volume named extdrive available.

If you happen to run software with inconsistent file naming, like Adobe products and possibly Nikon capture, you might want to create a dedicated file system with case insensitivity set using something like:

zfs create -o casesensitivity=insensitive -o normalization=formD  extdrive/data


Making a Mac Mini mid-2007 able to display 2560x1440 in 2D work

With a Mac Mini that old, you are out of luck if you want anything better than the built-in HDMI.  However, there are USB-to-DVI converters, also known as external graphics cards, that will work fine to connect a second display.  I have had good results with this one.  Two 1920x1080 monitors are a lot better than one!

Newer Minis (the 2008 Core 2 Duo model with GeForce graphics, and later) have two video ports, one of which is a DisplayPort connector which with the right adapters can run a 30" monitor at 2560x1600.


When saving Open Office files they used to stay Open Office files, now they change to Terminal files

Select any one of those Open Office files in a Finder window. Hit Command+i to open up the information window for that file. Near the bottom of that window you should see a pane that says "Open with:".

If it says "Terminal," then click on the dialogue to bring up a drop-down menu, which will present you with a list of applications usually associated with that type of file. Find "Open Office" in the list and select it. You may have to scroll to the bottom to select "other..." if Open Office isn't listed.

After you've selected "Open Office," the Change All... button should be active. Hit "Change All..." and you will be asked to confirm if you want to open all file types with that application. Confirm the choice and you should be good to go.


Does the Gmail app automatically upload photos to Google Photos?

No, the Gmail app does not upload your photos automatically. This can be done per your request if you choose to add a photo as an attachment to an email.


I can't get the zsh-theme to update all the inner shell scripting with each "return" on the terminal

setopt prompt_subst

Enable prompt_subst in your zshrc or other file sourced by your shell to make zsh re-evaluate your PS1 variable on each prompt appearance.


security: SecKeychainSearchCopyNext: (Wi-Fi password via Terminal)

Display the WiFi password of a named wireless network exactly like this, replacing "wifinetworkname" with your wireless network name in quotes:

security find-generic-password -D "AirPort network password" -l "wifinetworkname" -w


Installing Imagemagick using Homebrew does not give me the imagemagick command

There is no imagemagick command. /usr/local/Cellar/imagemagick/ is the Homebrew folder containing the content of the package. To see the names of the installed commands run

$ ls /usr/local/Cellar/imagemagick/*/bin
Magick++-config     compare         display         magick-script
MagickCore-config   composite       identify        mogrify
MagickWand-config   conjure         import          montage
animate             convert         magick          stream


iMac - Install XP Can't Set Primary Display on the Second Monitor

Finally I got solution, go to AMD boot camp driver page, and download the panel, install it with .NET 2.0 (I forgot this, so always wrong), then set primary display in panel.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/bootcamp-xp.aspx


Is it possible to boot OS X 10.6 from a USB drive with VMWare Fusion 3.1.3?

You need 10.6 Server. It does not help to change the settings to 10.6 Server, you have to use 10.6 Server as operating system on the USB-Stick… or you can try some hacks, e.g. Hackintosh (search for it in Google) in a virtual environment but that's a little bit more complicated you can check

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Installation_Guides#VMware_Install_Guides

for this.


How Can I Delete ALL emails from my iPhone Sent Folder?

Try this:

  Go to your Sent folder

  Tap on the Edit Button on the top right

  Select the first email in your list

  Hold down the "Move" button

  While you are still holding the Move button, deselect the first email

  Put away all your fingers from the screen and wait a few seconds

  Now Mail asks you where to move All of your emails

  Select the Trash-Folder

  Inside the Trash Folder, you can delete all items at once

More details:

https://www.imobie.com/support/delete-all-emails-iphone-ipad.htm


Am I supposed to have both a Library/Privileged Helper Tools & a Library/PrivilegedHelperTools folder?

No, you should only have “PrivilegedHelperTools” without the spaces. Make sure the folder with spaces really is empty including hidden files, then it should be safe to delete.


Do I need to remove BootCamp partition before installing Mountain Lion?

It shouldn't affect your BootCamp partition, I upgraded to Lion and ML on two macs without any issues.

If you want a completely clean install and you're booting from a USB drive with the ML installer, then run the disk utility to wipe the OSX partition, and choose that as the destination for installation afterwards, it still won't touch your Windows partition.


How to enable "Preview" in open/save dialogs (viewed as List)?

How about DefaultFolderX?
More features than I know what to write about, without it sounding like an advert ;-)
I've used it so long I actually find it difficult to work on machines that don't have it installed.


Proper save format for preview for editable pictures

I dont think such a portable editable document can be made in preview. It will export in these formats.

I don't know about HEIC and OpenEXR, but none of the others would allow such modifications AFAIK, if done from Preview.


Applescript to find application path from partial app name?

The following example AppleScript code assumes you only have one application running that contains "Acrobat" in its name, otherwise you'll need to process the list returned from System Events in a repeat loop.
tell application "System Events" to ¬
    set appAcrobatList to the ¬
        name of every application process ¬
        whose background only is false ¬
        and name contains "Acrobat"

if appAcrobatList is not {} then ¬
    return POSIX path of ¬
        (path to application ¬
            (first item of appAcrobatList))


Do I need a serial number to reinstall Mac OS X?

Mac OS X doesn’t have (nor had in the past) Serial Number or “Legit Purchase” mechanism. You can buy/borrow/lend/steal/copy a copy of Snow Leopard (or any other edition) and install it on any number of Machines.

Technically this is possible, however, according to the EULA and all the legal stuff, you can’t; in any case, the operating system doesn’t have any copy-protection mechanism.

EDIT: Bear in mind that a plain OS X Snow Leopard disk is not the same as a recovery disk. Although a recovery disk contains the OS, it is usually tied to a particular model, so if you try to recover a Macbook Pro with the iMac recovery disk, that might not work. (This has happened to me in the past trying to recover the other way around, a friend’s iMac’s HDD failed and he replaced it but couldn’t find his recovery disk. We tried to use my Macbook Pro’s disk but it wouldn’t work. The same with my Mac Pro.

Going to an Apple Store will possibly help in that case. In the end I found my Snow Leopard’s original disk and we used that to install his iMac.


Deleting content of /private/tmp moved on different HDD

After doing some research, I ended up writing a shell script and using launchd to have it execute at boot time.

The script I use (/usr/local/bin/empty-tmp.sh) :

#!/bin/bash

# Delete files (other than directories) that haven't been modified in more than 1 day
find /Volumes/MacintosHD/private/tmp -not -type d -ctime +1d -delete

# Delete empty directores that have been created more than 1 day ago
find /Volumes/MacintoshHD/private/tmp -d -type d -empty -mindepth 1 -Btime +1d -delete

and the property list (in /Library/LaunchDeamons) :

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

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/bin/bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>/bin/wait4path /Volumes/MacintoshHD/private/tmp/ && /usr/local/bin/empty-tmp.sh</string>
  </array>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>

  <key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>
  <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

Now the key is using wait4path to make sure the secondary HD (MacintoshHD) is properly mounted before invoking the script.  Failing to do so will result is the script not deleting any files since they won't be accessible.


How to disable all notifications in MS Office 2008, Entourage?

If you remove the Microsoft Database daemon from login and do not open Entourage you should receive no notifications.


iPhone 6 Logic Board Water Damage Clean/Repair

Perhaps the battery is dead and the U2 IC chip (controls battery charging) is also dead?
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/177865/U2+IC+for+iPhone+5C+replacement

There is a way to bypass the U2 IC (though potentially very dangerous, but it sounds like you might know what you are doing).

http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/f631/iphone-5-charging-ic-jumper-done-1694941/

Ive also seen a youtube video where the battery was disconnected from the phone and charged directly... but i can't find it at the moment...


iOS 9.3.1 / OS X 10.11.14: Laptop doesn't show up in Airdrop locations on phone

There are number of methods to get it working so try them out one by one what works for you.

Try creating new user in mac and test airdrop with
  -icloud signed out
  -icloud signed in
Reset PRAM ans SMC
Try switching on/off bluetooth/wifi on both the devices.
Network reset in iPhone.
Test the same machines in different wifi at different location sometimes it is an issue of wifi router also. // This has happened with me.
Check firewall in mac and disable it temporarily.
Try without connecting to any network on both the devices i.e. forget wifi on both devices but enable wifi/bluetooth on both.
Try it in Safe mode.
If you have another mac available then try to airdrop with mac to mac.

Happy airdrop debugging :P


How to 'upgrade' to Windows 10, on Virtual Machine

Look, boot camp did allow Windows 7. It is just that it only allows 64bit.

Here is how to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10: Use Windows 10 on your Mac with Boot Camp.

Also, Virtual machine is like a computer!! Just follow the following guidelines: Upgrade to Windows 10.


Safari displays blank pages for some sites

Okay, please don't hate me, but I just cleared the cache and cookies and voila!, the pages are displaying again. But you have to agree that this is neither expected nor acceptable behaviour for a mainstream browser, is it?


Difference between the M7 and M8 coprocessors?

As you noted, the M8 coprocessor is able to collect data from the new barometer in the iPhone 6 series phones as well as the iPad Air 2, which provides a measure of relative elevation for floors climbed.

We may also speculate that it is more accurate and power-efficient, although whether accuracy improvements are up to the sensors or the M8 is hard to prove (software improvements would also come into play here, as CoreMotion attaches a confidence value to measurements, which could be tweaked in software).

However, Phil Schiller raised another point during his presentation that many people seem to have missed: the M8 chip is now also able to recognize cycling activities. This new capability is reflected in the updated CoreMotion API, as detailed here:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreMotion/Reference/CMMotionActivity_class/index.html#//apple_ref/occ/cl/CMMotionActivity

The M7 only recognized stationary, walking, running, automotive, and unknown. The M8 adds the cycling property to the list.

It is worth mentioning that iOS 8 does not make use of this functionality, and that the iPhone 6 does not write cycling data to the Health app on its own. You will need a dedicated app for that.


What can be done to rename two conflicting applications that have the same name?

Since pocket for Mac comes from the Mac App Store, you might let that exist in /Applications. The other app from Lastpass might be better if you place it in a folder ~/Applications or perhaps /Applications/Lastpass so that you don't have a collision.


Apple Remote Desktop - Reports Battery Percentage or Battery Hrs Left

The "Battery Charge Remaining (mAh)" field in Apple Remote Desktop's Reports function indicates the remaining milliamp hours of the battery.

To find the battery percentage, you can use "Send UNIX Command" to remotely execute the following command:

pmset -g batt

The output is the percentage and status of the battery, including the estimated time until it will be fully discharged, for example:

51%; discharging; 3:24 remaining present: true


Partially installed app stuck and cannot be unistalled

The way to solve it at Apple Discussions:

Try deleting the waiting icons - tap and hold down on an icon until it wiggles - the tap the X on the icon to delete it. Then try to download again. Try swiping across the progress bar as well.

Reboot the iPad by holding down on the sleep and home buttons at the same time for about 10-15 seconds until the Apple Logo appears - ignore the red slider - let go of the buttons.

Make sure that you do not have a stalled download in iTunes - a song or podcast.  if you have a download in there that did not finish, complete that one first. Only one thing can download at a time on the iPad so that could be what is causing the problem.

If that doesn't work - sign out of your account, restart the iPad and then sign in again.

Settings>iTunes & App Store>Apple ID. Tap your ID and sign out. Restart the iPad by holding down on the sleep button until the red slider appears and then slide to shut off. To power up hold the sleep button until the Apple logo appears and let go of the button.

Go back to Settings>iTunes & App Store>Sign in and then try to update again. Tap one waiting icon only if necessary to start the download stream.


Copy menu is greyed out in Microsoft Word

Solved it. Go to:

View > Toolbars > Customize Toolbars and Menus...

Click on Menu Bar row and select Reset

Quit Word and relaunch


How to do a clean installation of a software in Mac

There is no registry on macOS so the developer can choose from many ways to license the software. Some store files and licenses in your user keychain, others in your user library. If the software is licensed per computer (say three people have user accounts on your mac but all can use the software) then the license key would be stored in the system area.

I would start with the vendor to get the uninstall / unlicense steps needed for however they choose to implement their licensing scheme. It could be a preference that is cryptographically signed or something as trivial as writing a hidden (or obscurely located) file on the filesystem.

Things like this are why App Store and buying apps through Apple is so compelling - all this confusion on licensing is cut through with a simple to understand model. Unfortunately - many vendors still try the old ways or think they can save money by not supporting their customers. This vendor is doubly unfair since the new install should clean up after the old if the old uninstall process left behind detritus or they don't have a clear path to get support.

I'm glad to see they did support you and resolve this issue. Feel free to add an answer if you learned where this vendor stores their licenses or if it was just re-running their license tool that fixed it.


Add the disk image to System Preferences→Users & Groups→Login Items.
Put the password in your keychain.
Accept that you've just thrown away part of the value of encrypting the disk image.

There is some remaining value. An intruder can't open the disk image with only your disk or the disk image or a copy thereof to work with. But they can open it if they can get control of your computer while you're logged in.

At the least, disable automatic login, and enable "requires password to wake from sleep or screen saver".


Should I be concerned that the fan on my 11 inch Air makes a lot of noise when I play Call of Duty Black Ops?

No, it will shut itself down in the fairly unlikely event that it gets hot enough to risk causing damage. It's designed to run hot with the fan at high speed when it's under high CPU load.


Utility to identify what mouse buttons are being pressed?

Hammerspoon can be scripted to do this.

Install Hammerspoon and run it.
Open System Preferences, go to Security & Privacy and enable Hammerspoon.app under Accessibility.
Click the Hammerspoon menu icon and select Open Config. Your default code/text editor will open to ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua.
Enter something like the following text which uses the Hammerspoon hs.eventtap.new API to listen for events.

detectMouseDown = hs.eventtap.new({
  hs.eventtap.event.types.otherMouseDown,
  hs.eventtap.event.types.leftMouseDown,
  hs.eventtap.event.types.rightMouseDown
}, function(e)
  local button = e:getProperty(
      hs.eventtap.event.properties['mouseEventButtonNumber']
  )
  print(string.format("Clicked Mouse Button: %i", button))
end)

detectMouseDown:start()

Save the file.
Click the Hammerspoon menu icon, select Console... and click Reload config on the console window.
Now, whenever you click anywhere you'll see a log entry in the Hammerspoon Console!

(So far, this works for any type of touchpad click/tap or external mouse click.)


OmniGraffle: How to make line terminators connect to Center of objects, not to the edges of the objects?

You can use the magnet editor to create a magnet wherever you want on the object.  Luckily, the center of objects is a natural "snap to" location for the magnet.
Once you have a magnet set in the center, you can easily terminate your lines at that magnet.
Tedious, yes.  But, possible.


How do you use an existing AppleID on iOS App Store without providing a credit card number?

You need to do the following when at the Credit Card page

Click on Paypal
Click on 'To redeem a code, click here'

From this new workflow, you will be able to get to the same page with the 'None' option


iMac Early 2009 restarting after RAM upgrade

Remove one of the 4 GB strips of RAM so that you are only using half of the total 8 GB that you say you purchased. Does the system run stable? If not, replace that strip of RAM with the one you removed. If the system is still not stable, remove that strip from the slot and insert it into the other slot. If this still does not solve the problem, you may want to try a different brand of RAM.


Is it safe to install a third party high capacity battery into my iPhone 5S?

No it is not safe.

Not for technical reasons -- That is impossible to judge -- but look at the seller's profile on amazon. They have thousands of items for sale, yet they have a total of two customer ratings; one rating one star the other two stars (out of five)!

This looks very much like a scammy outfit that changes its name when it gets bad reviews. Run away.

Also: shipping time 20 to 30 days?!?


How do I configure Textmate2 to always show wrap Column line for all files?

Ok nevermind.

showWrapColumn    = true fixed it.


Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys not working

I had the same issue but found a solution. You can enable/disable the feature by pressing the fn+Esc keys on the LMP keyboard. Apparently it's a feature built in the firmware and can't be adjusted with software. It took me hours to find out...

I tried everything first. I downloaded Fluor, Karabiner, FunctionFlip, nothing worked. Until I found that little leaflet in the box with instructions...


How do you turn off Bluetooth on startup using MacBook Air and macOS Sierra?

If you're still looking for solutions to this, you could try this Terminal command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.Bluetooth.plist ControllerPowerState 0

Source: Apple Support Communities thread


Remove VIP mail box from sidebar in Mac Mail

I found what worked was:

Remove all VIP contacts
Close Mail
Reboot the machine

Upon reopening Mail, the VIP section in the sidebar is now gone.

UPDATE - At the time of writing this initial post i was running OSX 10.9.


Is there any way to get a log of all the recently installed files and their respective folder paths and source directories?

Installers that ask for your login password can put a lot of crap in your filesystem.

You could create a user account in the future with standard credentials, not admin, purely for games. This maintains a separation and improves security.

But for now let's explore a bit.

To see the files created after a specific date, like when you installed the game, use find from a Terminal like

find / -type f -newerct 2018-01-01

Or whatever date you want. You can find files of a certain size, whatever, find is powerful but slow. It will, however check the entire filesystem if necessary. Replacing the slash with the tilde (~) constrains searches to your home folder. Some searches need to be run with sudo. Try man find from a Terminal.

You should also set up folder actions. on key folders. I do this on all of my machines via right click on

/Library/LaunchAgents
/System/Library/LaunchAgents
/Users/username/Library/LaunchAgents

To be alerted if installers drop files there in the future. There are corresponding LaunchDaemon folders alongside them.

When running a legitimate package .pkg installer you can generally do a Get Info (⌘I) to see a list of what will be installed.


How can I backup my entire iTunes Match library to an external disk?

The solution is relatively simple. Make sure you have enough space available on your external drive (I needed about 100GB).

Hold option (alt for Windows users) when opening iTunes and choose to create a new library. Save this library to a location on your external drive.

Turn on iTunes Match, select every song (⌘+A), right click, and choose download. Wait as your entire music collection is downloaded.

Now you can switch between your local library and offline library whenever it suits you by holding option as you start iTunes and choosing your preferred library.


Unless your monitor supports 4 inputs, which most don't, you'll likely need a switch.

Presuming your laptops all have Mini Displayport or Thunderbolt out, this will work.


How to shorten month name in High Sierra menu bar

Using High Sierra:

Here's what I see:

And here are my settings:

Advanced settings:

More settings:

Desktop date menu:


What does the "Charging is not supported with this device" error mean?

Is the charger one designed for an older iPod with charging on the firewire pins in the dock connector. The spec has changed in more recent devices to only charge from the usb power pins so it is detecting the older configuration and giving you this message


Cannot delete a .sparsebundle on / with permissions drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root wheel

sh-3.2# rm -rf filename.sparsebundle/
rm: filename.sparsebundle//token: Read-only file system

The sparsebundle probably resides on the read-only mounted system volume of a Catalina boot volume.

Boot to Recovery Mode.
(Unlock/mount your main Catalina boot volume with Disk Utility if it is encrypted)
Open Terminal in the menubar (Utilities > Terminal)
cd to the root of the main system volume (e.g. cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/)
List the content with ls -la to check whether filename.sparsebundle resides there.

Remove the sparsebundle with rm -dR filename.sparsebundle.
Reboot to your main volume.


Windows Explorer stopped working after connecting external display (monitor) to My Apple Mac Book Air 2011

Malfunctioning cables, hubs and displays can cause good hardware to freeze, no matter which OS you choose. I would try running the Mac for several days without any accessories to validate it’s a cable or accessory causing the freeze.
Perhaps someone has got better troubleshooting expertise on windows than I and can answer thusly, but my steps above are often needed on troubleshooting macOS as well since they are so effective and easy to perform.


The native Voice Memos.app doesn’t offer this. You will need to upload your recording to a computer and use a audio editing application like Audacity I’m not affiliated with the software.

  iTunes does not have a way to do that.  You can do it with an audio editor.  A free one that many people like, and which has Mac and Windows versions, is Audacity.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4707813


MacBook Pro mid 2012 13.3 HDD cable performance

There have been HDD cable issues with every model of non-Retina MacBook Pro (13-inch). This includes the Mid-2009 model, all the way to the Mid-2012 (today's model).

The fix is to simply replace the cable. You can find them all over the place, and it just requires a small cross-head screwdriver.

The issue is thought to be related to the cable weakening and losing contact with the socket on the board. In fact, Apple recommends installing small rubber pads on the hard drive cable after replacement.

If an Apple technician replaces the cable for you, that should be included. If you order the part elsewhere, the pads may come with it. You can see that demonstrated in this picture.

I recommend following iFixit's guide and ordering the part there. It will save you a lot of headaches with intermittent hard drive issues if you leave the cable as-is.


Hardware shut off of iPhone mic (eavesdropping prevention)

Is your iPhone jailbroken? If not, I am not aware of a single instance where an iPhone that is not jailbroken has been compromised in terms of its camera or microphone.

The article you link to is about a laptop webcam, and this is a known risk and there are many examples of people's laptops being compromised (especially Windows models).

Assuming your iPhone is not jailbroken, then any apps that are designed to use your microphone need to request access to the microphone. If you do not give permission, then iOS does not allow them to use the microphone. You can also check these settings manually at any time by going to Settings > Privacy > Microphone.

In terms of what you're actually trying to do, this will not work without some sort of software modification. The reason is that the internal microphone is available unless you have attached a microphone (or headphones that also incorporate a microphone). If what you connect to the headphone socket does not contain a microphone, then the internal microphone is still available.


What type of power cable does the HomePod mini use?

The Apple sales page does not contain a single photo of the power cord. It's as if they want you to think it doesn't have one...
I used that page's "AR" feature on my iPhone to view a virtual version of the HomePod mini on my table. I had to walk around to the other side of the table, then took a screenshot.
The AR HomePod mini appears to use the same round, proprietary, non-removable power cable as the original HomePod.


How to recover a folder deleted in Notes app?

I like to go to a computer and sign in to iCloud directly.

Much easier to see what’s deleted and diagnose if an iPad or iPhone is behind in syncing up to the cloud. If one device lags, I like to power it off while it’s in an area where WiFi works and plug into charge.

That wakes the device and I unlock it only long enough to verify the WiFi reconnected. Let it sit an hour or overnight and most iCloud sync issues fix themselves.


How can I create iPhone screenshots without the lock button?

Go to settings>General>Accessibility>Scroll down>AssistiveTouch

Turn it on.

Then you just click the home button and it gives you the option of screenshot if you do this:
Click device>More>Screenshot and you are done!


Finally, just annoyed one night I called Apple support since I still have coverage on my new Macbook. The lady struggled just like me, no articles there about it, couldn't figure out. But after about 30 mins of poking around, she figured it out. And it's WAY simple.

Go to Finder > Preferences
Click on the Tags menu option
Here you will see a list where you can show/hide in your sidebar
Below that there is a little box, you can DRAG the tags from the upper section to the lower section which determines which tags show in your right click.

That's it. Simple. I'm dumb. Hopefully this helps someone.


Is the Google Translate Phrasebook Syncing not available in the iOS app?

Sorry, the Google Translate App for iOS does not synchronize with your account.  The phrasebook only synchronizes in the web and Android versions.


How does one view pictures fullscreen on iPhone 5?

Double tap on the photo to make it full screen. Alternatively, you can see toward the end of the commercial, a simple swipe to the left or the right brings up subsequent photos full screen without the overlay of controls on the top or bottom.


Do I need Bonjour on my PC, Windows 7 Professional?

In General no you don't need Bonjour at all on a Windows PC and even more so you don't need it if you don't use any Apple Applications like iTunes, iCloud, etc.

If you like to read more about Bonjour or just want to know what it is please take a look at the official Bonjour Documents from Apple.


MS Office: Retrieve documents saved to "User Templates"

Via CLI

I believe Microsoft Word stores these preferences in this file: ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist. You could use the plutil to view the contents or a text viewer CLI tool such as cat, more or less. .plist files are merely a variant of XML files.

$ plutil -p ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist

I'd look in this file for something related to "default" and "save".

Via GUI

If you prefer doing this through the GUI the official Microsoft Office docs show where you'd do this in this doc titled: Save a file in Office for Mac
.

References

My mac will not let me save word documents
Can I check my “plist” files in Mac OS X for problems?


Mac Automator/Word 2016 macro: Trying to make workflow/macro that removes highlights from bullet points in Word 2016 for Mac

I figured out how to do it with a Word macro (VBA). The below will highlight only the text (and not the bullet point) of the paragraph/associated text where the cursor is. You can keybind the macro to make this pretty fast. However, this is not the fastest fix because it doesn't allow you to highlight en masse, but it certainly is way faster than doing it manually.

Hope this can help someone who runs into the same problem that I had!

Sub Highlighter_Macro()
'
' Highlighter_Macro Macro
'
'
    Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine
    Selection.MoveUp Unit:=wdParagraph, Count:=1
    Selection.MoveDown Unit:=wdParagraph, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend
    Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=3, Extend:=wdExtend
    Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdTurquoise
    Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdTurquoise
    Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine
    Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=3, Extend:=wdExtend
    Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdTurquoise
    Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdTurquoise
    Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdLine
End Sub


Drag and drop from Photos.app to Photoshop

Drag and drop does not seem to be possible. You can export the original to your desktop and then open with photoshop or another app.

How to export to desktop.


Connecting to Ubuntu 16.04 LDAPv3 server from macOS clients

Dunno if this helps...

in order to get it to work with Mac OSX client you need to add these 2 lines in your smb.conf file (/etc/samba/smb.conf):
ea support = yes
vfs objects = catia fruit streams_xattr

src: enter link description here


How to make Mojave's quick actions for movies show up in finder?

Make sure your desired quick actions are enabled in System Preferences → Extensions → Finder.


Is there a decent way to display fotos from directories?

Two easy things come to mind:

QuickLook: Just press Space on the first photo and then use the cursor keys to navigate
CoverFlow: Press Cmd-4 to switch the Finder window into Coverflow mode and browse through your pictures. Setting the Finder window to fullscreen might help here


Delete and re-install the app. Unless the app in question is Xcode, I'd be doing the same for all apps, if update fails.


Restricting/Blocking iPhone access with a passcode for workers?

Apps can not do this on iOS due to how the OS restricts an app to the sandbox. However, this is precisely what an MDM does.
You need no app whatsoever on the iOS side - just a profile and an identity to get Apple to recognize your authority and for each device owner to accept your MDM profile.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202804

If you are a company that owns the devices - you will want to use Apple Business Manager and then work with Apple or someone else to shop for and set up the best MDM for your size. There are some great for 5 devices and some great for 50,000 devices.

https://support.apple.com/business

If you are a service provider, you also can learn about MDM and then offer it to clients. If you’re a developer, there are open-source MDM frameworks so you can learn if you want to build a better wheel.

https://micromdm.io/

Most of the professionals that manage mac and iOS devices congregate under the MacAdmin community, so reach out if you need help managing your devices or are just a highly motivated learner.

https://www.macadmins.org/


It is sometimes possible to resume downloads in Safari. Click the download icon in the toolbar, and check the color of the "↻" icon. If the icon is gray, just click it to resume the download. However, if the icon is orange, do not click it, as Safari will delete the partially downloaded data and restart the download from scratch.

When Safari cannot resume a download, it is usually possible to resume it with curl instead. I do this so often, I actually made an Automator workflow to expedite the process.

https://github.com/Wowfunhappy/Automator-Quick-Actions/blob/master/Resume%20Download.workflow.zip?raw=true

Extract the zip file
Double click the .workflow and install it.

The next time a Safari download fails in the middle:

Go to the recent download list in Safari. If applicable, click the "x" to fully cancel the download, and then click the magnifying glass to reveal it in Finder. DO NOT click the orange retry ("↻") button; doing so will delete all partially downloaded data.
In Finder, right click on the partially downloaded file and select either Resume Download or Services → Resume Download.
Wait for the percentage in the terminal window to reach 100%. Note that this percentage does not include the part of the file that was downloaded previously, so it will always start at 0. If the download fails again, resume it again by focusing on the terminal window, hitting the up arrow key, and then the enter key.

Not all downloads can be resumed this way—some servers make it technically impossible—but in my experience it usually works.


Assuming you are on iOS 8

Create separate Apple ID for each family member. Use this Apple ID to
create individualized iCloud accounts. Use each account as the primary
iCloud account on each family members device.
Choose which family member will be the family organizer. From within the Settings app on that family members device, tap on iCloud > Family Sharing > Get Started.
Sign into the Apple ID that will be used for iTunes and App Store purchases. You may be prompted to validate your accounts payment options.
Choose whether or not you’d like to share your location with your family.
Tap on “Add Family Member…” to start adding up to six additional iCloud accounts to your family share.

source
more information here


Use iphone or android as external mic for macbook using bluetooth

Using a cable, your iPhone can be an audio source by using the built-in Audio MIDI setup.  Plug in your phone and click enable.

Next make sure your mac is set to use the device for input.

Then on your phone select audio output to Dock connector.  Now any audio from your phone will be sent to your Mac.  To use it as a microphone you now need to use an app that lets you feed back your mic.  There are many apps that do that, I use https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microphone-free-vonbruno/id1070812067?mt=8 since it is free and simple.


Charger was replaced and now its working


How to share something into a Reminders list?

You can't, yet.

You need to create the reminder manually and copy-paste the URL into the notes if you need it.


Is there a way to fix, or disable, secure input?

The quickest fix seems to be to but your mac to sleep, and then waking it again. This forces you to log in. After logging in, my experience is that secure input is usually disabled.


Tool for determining performance bottleneck

The tools I would use are:

Activity Monitor
Instruments (run from Xcode)
vm_stat 900
io_stat 900
top -u -s 900
sysdiagnose - shift+control+option+command+. (or run sudo sysdiagnose)

The two stat commands and top all run in a terminal window and snapshot 15 minute intervals of activity. The stat ones log the statistics. I'd run the sysdiagnose command sparingly, perhaps once at the start of the period, once when the OS seems exceptionally slow and once at the end.

The easiest to manage is Activity monitor and I'd focus on making sure nothing is occupying the CPU that you don't feel should be taking a lot of resources and the balance of RAM - what percentage is wired what percentage is wired+active.


Use Magic Trackpad 2 with Google Chrome?

Chromium is working on :

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=550484

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=481890

  UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_10_4)
  AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/44.0.2376.0
  Safari/537.36

  Steps to reproduce the problem:
  1. Use a Macbook Pro or Macbook (2015) with an Apple Force Touch Trackpad
  2. Click on a hyperlink, and push down (i.e. to trigger the second link)

  What is the expected behavior? Apple has recently introduced new
  trackpads on their machines that have multiple levels of "click":

  https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT204352

  In Safari, when you click hard (Force Click) on a linked page, a popup
  window will appear, showing a preview of the hyperlinked page.

  When you Force Click on a link image, the image will appear in a
  popup.


Is it possible to export Android OS data to iOS?

Apple has an app in the Google Play store and a support article describing the required steps in details.

There's a nice page for switchers as well - https://www.apple.com/switch/ the one thing to pay attention to if you don't appreciate the marketing is the help from a live person through @AppleSupport and the Support App you can download on iOS once you've got your phone running. Try to transfer all the data within a day of getting your phone so you don't have two sets of photos and documents if you start making some on iPhone before you get everything over from the old phone.


Old iPad not charging after no use for a year

If it won't wake after several hours of charging, try another charger and let it sit there for up to 8 hours.

You have likely let the battery self discharge to a permanently harmful level, but in most cases you can get it to trickle charge enough so that it will boot again and be of limited use depending on how long the battery was in a harmfully low voltage situation.

It may never boot again, but that depends more on how healthy the battery was when it entered storage since a year usually won't kill a new battery but will put a huge dent into it's usability.


Unison by Panic is quite good. It's fully featured and looks nice but the UI is a bit wonky at times.

https://panic.com/unison/


The priority for accessing any email service would be:

Exchange: Push email, folders, syncs read/unread status, contact sync, calendar sync
IMAP: Folders, syncs read/unread status
POP3: Bare bones email reading, usually only useful for a single client unless you "keep a copy on the server"

It seems that some people have had success using Exchange; IMAP seems to require either a premium account or 3rd party software; and POP3 is possible for free accounts.

Keep an eye on Apple's page as they will probably update it as new solutions are added by Microsoft.


Automatically scan/cycle through safari tabs?

You can use this block of AppleScript to loop through your tabs on a window:

tell application "Safari"
    repeat
        repeat with i from (count of tabs of window 1) to 1 by -1
            set thisTab to tab i of window 1
            set current tab of window 1 to thisTab
            delay 1
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell

This will go through all your tabs and switch every 1 second.  Just change the delay to change the time before each tab switches.


How can I prevent TextEdit from saving previous versions of a text file?

TextEdit and other app have a auto save feature enabled.

You can disable that in System Preferences:

Open the General preferences and enable the "Ask to keep changes", so it wont auto save, but ask you if you want to save it. This one would be system wide.

To do it only for TextEdit:

To disable autosave in TextEdit.app, run the following command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit ApplePersistence -bool no

To turn it back on replace the no with yes.


Make Osx Text shortcut works when using Microsoft Remote Desktop

In an RDP session, everything you type is sent to the host computer, not interpreted by your local machine. You'd need to define the shortcuts you want to use on the Windows box you're accessing to use them.


Can't run Intel Driver Update Utility on OS X

Unfortunately the Intel Drivers Utility does not work with Mac OS.
It is only windows based application.

From http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/iduufaq:

  The Intel Driver Update Utility supports the following operating systems:

Windows 8*
Windows 7*
Windows Vista*
Windows XP*
Windows Server 2008*
Windows Server 2003*

  Operating systems not supported: Apple*, Linux*, and operating system emulators


iPhone contacts not syncing with Gmail or Windows anymore

Try syncing  from your iPhone Settings to Gmail Contacts using [OTHER >> CardDAV]

Do this:

On your iPhone select SETTINGS
Mail, Contacts, Calendars >>
Add Account... >>
Other >>
Contacts: Add CardDAV Account
Server = google.com; user name = [fullEmail]; pw = [gmailPw]; desc = [optional].

Tested 1/14/2014 on an iPhone 5 running iOS 7.0.4

Here's Google's documentation: http://support.google.com/mail/answer/2753077?hl=en

[Note: iOS7 requires clicking SAVE, iOS5/6 does not]

This cuts out iTunes entirely and provides you with options for flat-file delimited export via Gmail's settings menu.


Yes the installed certificates are valid, however I would advise updating to the latest version of Leopard and make sure that the compromised Diginotar certificates are uninstalled:  This link at ps Enable provides an easy method for this.

On Root Certificates, they are by their nature long lived since they are the "Master" certificates and having them expire too often would cause issues with SSL certificate chain's world-wide.


Two iPhones, one computer, one music collection

The iPhones may use separate Apple IDs and share the same music library from itunes, (as you said, all of it is rights free / downloaded from Apple). The Apple ID only comes into play when syncing contacts, calendars, and alternate Apple Services. You shouldn't have any problems with Music syncing between iTunes and your new iPhone. Furthermore, you may download Google Play Music on your phone, and use the already synced content. The choice is yours.

All the best!


Randomly my Mouse Scroll wheel controls volume

nevermind I tried restarting but that did nothing so I just re-plugged in the mouse and it worked fine. I believe this problem occurred because it's in a usb hub with my keyboard so it might have confused it. I believe that's the case with this problem.


Can .zip folders created using Windows XP Pro be opened and extracted on Mac without any additional software?

Yes.

The PKZIP format used by Windows is understood by OS X and has been this way since about 10.3. The tool used to extract the contents is called Archive Utility and it is installed by default with every OS X installation.

Your Mac-using friend can either double-click on the archive in Finder to extract it or he can right-click/control-click and select the 'Open' option from the list of actions.


Should I have two iBooks apps for iOS and Mac?

It seems as though you are asking if the version numbers for iBooks on OSX and iOS are different for everyone else.  The answer is that yes, these two apps which have the same name are actually wholly different apps, one for each operating system, and the version numbers are equally different.  The most recent versions (as of the time of answering this mail) are 1.1 for OSX, and 3.2 for iOS.


How do I get into boot options with a non-mac keyboard?

Things which seem to work:

Mac mini late 2012: I had to plug the keyboard into the USB port closest to the middle, then it worked.
MacMini (mid-2010): the outside USB port worked for me with an ancient Microsoft intellitype keyboard. I also unplugged the USB mouse receiver, so that the only USB input was the keyboard. That seemed to make the difference and let me into the boot menu options.


I want to play audio from my Mac over WiFi speakers without having to install a bunch of apps

AirPlay Speakers

The easiest experience is to get AirPlay 2 compatible speakers and you have zero app, native OS support, works everywhere experience.

https://www.imore.com/best-airplay-2-speakers
https://www.apple.com/ios/home/accessories/#section-speaker

The airplay page and marketing logo explain why this takes away the need for any apps, and is strictly controlled to make your experience better.

https://www.apple.com/airplay/

I get you might consider this smart home, but for sound the setup and reliability are amazing and for me worth the cost.

AirPlay Adapter

Alternatively, you can get a cheap AirPlay adapter and connect it to existing speakers. This gives you all the benefits of AirPlay without high cost of AirPlay speakers. You can connect to any existing speakers you have that take an aux input. The adapter connects to your WiFi network at home, and allows any Apple device in the house to stream music to your speakers.

Example adapter

Bluetooth Adapter

Also available without AirPlay - a dumb setup is going to be a $35 or less Bluetooth receiver to powered analog input speakers.

Logitech Bluetooth Audio Adapter for Bluetooth Streaming
whichever studio monitors your heart desires


Cannot copy directory in MacOS with terminal

When you want copy a directory with command cp you need add option -r or -a.
-a is best because it preserves the structure and attributes of files as indicated in the man command :
man cp

In your case if QT_screen_recs is a directory the corrects commands are :
cp -r /Users/kylefoley/library/containers/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/data/library/Autosave\ Information /Volumes/old/QT_screen_recs

or
cp -a /Users/kylefoley/library/containers/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX/data/library/Autosave\ Information /Volumes/old/QT_screen_recs


In automator, apple claims you can create a dialog with a progress bar. Is this feasible or outdated?

Please be aware that the link you posted refers to Script Editor, not Automator.
In Script Editor (programmed in either AppleScript or JavaScript) this is totally possible, just try the AppleScript sample code at the end of the developer article (open in Script Editor, save as application, run).
In Automator, only the progress of the respective steps within the Automator workflow can be shown (a rotating cog wheel or progress circle in the menu bar).


How to set iChat status from the command line?

Just found it myself... format the output of sed as AppleScript and call osascript...

curl -s http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/1.0/user/Da3X/recenttracks.rss |
    grep -m 1 -E -e "         <title>(.*)</title>.*" |
    sed "s/.*<title>/tell application \"Messages\" to set the status message to \"♬  /" |
    sed "s/<\/title>/\"/" |
    sed "s/\&amp;/\&/" |
    osascript

That's it!


Can I have separate Game Center accounts on two different iOS devices registered to the same Apple ID?

Yes - the Game Center sign-in can be the same or different than the Apple ID entered in other places (i.e. iTunes Store and iCloud).

Make your son an Apple ID for his Game Center and later he can use it for other uses.


ffmpeg

Use ffmpeg to trim the video. It will take a while but should get the job done:

See Alexander Refsum Jensenius's Trim video file using FFMPEG example below for extracting 1h 10s 27 to 2h 18s 51:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 01:10:27 -to 02:18:51 -c:v copy -c:a copy output.mp4

See also How to trim a large video with ffmpeg? where the question involves a 75GB movie file. In this case the command extracts 7 seconds from a specific starting time:

ffmpeg -ss 01:21:24 -i input.mp4 -t 7 -c copy output.mp4

Movie Splitter

You could also try my Movie Splitter but I expect if QuickTime is struggling, so will the shared AVFoundation code Movie Splitter uses. Still, give it a try as it does work with multi-gigabyte MP4/h.264 files.


How can I make the Cisco VPN Client work with Lion?

Have you tried using the on-board Cisco VPN Client? I had serious issues with Cisco's client (it kept kernel panik-ing my Mac) and had the IT department help me set up the built in client.

It basically works the same way as it does on an iPhone or iPad, so if you can connect with that device, you should be able to do so as well with your Mac.

What I needed:

the ip address of the VPN Server
the Group Name
the shared Secret

Login was done by using Active Directory authentication.

This is how I set it up:

In System Preferences -> Network hit the + button on the bottom of the list. The following dialog will open up

As you can see you'll need to choose VPN for the Interface and Cisco IPSec for the VPN Type. Name it as you please.

You'll find your newly created entry in the list, select it and you'll get a similar picture

Enter the IP Address you got from your IT department. You can leave the login stuff empty as you'll be prompted when connecting.

Hit the Authentication Settings... button.

Enter the group name (IT) and the shared secret. If your IT guys don't want to hand the data out to you, then ask them to kindly enter it for you.

Hit OK and then Apply your settings and you should be pretty much able to connect now. I like to have the Show VPN status in menu bar option enabled in order to have quick access to turn on and off the connection.

I also had to add one additional thing in order to be able to access remote computers just by their name instead of having to type name.domain. To do so I hit the Advanced... button and added our domain name to the Search Domains.

Hope it helps.


iPhone - "Edit User Dictionary" is missing

Womp womp...that was easy. Maybe next time, I'll read my search results BEFORE hitting submit on SE sites. Well here is the answer. Hope this helps someone. Apparently, "Edit User Dictionary" is only enabled for certain languages...with English not being one? ::shrugs:: whatever.


Disconnect from your current network:

sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/V*/A/R*/airport -z

Go to System Preferences → Network → Wi-Fi → Advanced… and remove the network from the list of preferred networks.


Double click windows to minimise in Lion?

Go to System Preferences > General. Check "Double-click a window's title bar to minimize".


Is there a way to batch find locally stored songs in Apple.Music and add them to library?

Your question isn't quite clear, so I'm making some assumptions here:
 - You're using a Mac, with iTunes.
 - You're either looking for a way to distinguish your own music from Apple Music for whatever reason (having non-DRMd versions of the songs in your own personal library)

I can't help you with the last part, but iTunes on the Mac (and I suppose Windows) stores Apple Music (extension m4p) files separately from Your music files (extension m4a, mp3, aac, etc)

Apple Stores Apple Music under the iTunes Library folder (which you can discover by going to the iTunes Preferences pane and looking at the last tab). Apple Music is typically stored under /iTunes Media/Apple Music whereas your music is stored under /iTunes Media/Music

Or you can execute a command like the following from the iTunes library folder that will list all the Apple Music files into a text document.

find . -name "*.m4p" -print > textfile.txt


Running terminal commands on startup/login

OSX uses launchd to start Unix scripts and executables at boot or login.

New tasks are added via launchctl to update a plist

An easier way of doing this is to use the app Lingon now available on the Mac App Store or LaunchControl


How can I install Snow Leopard on a new iMac or install FCP6 on Lion?

The problem is that new iMacs probably don't support Snow Leopard. Perhaps upgrading a Snow Leopard installation with all the apps you need already on it could work.

Well, I see 1 possibility: install Snow Leopard on an external HD (using a computer that supports Snow Leopard) with all the latest Apple updates, then install FCP. Once that's done, use Disk Utility or Carbon Copy Cloner to clone this external HD onto your iMac, then see first if it's starts and behaves correctly, then try the upgrade to Lion.

This is the jist of it, but if you need more instructions, let me know.


Maximize windows just like Windows on OS X

Hold shift option ⌥ and click the green maximise button on the top left part of the window.

NOTE: not every OSX application is eligible for maximize (example: maximizing the Finder doesn't work)


Accidentally removed iCloud from Finder siderbar

It can be done by going to Finder preferences -> Sidebar and checking iCould Drive


iSight vs Facetime HD (Macbook vs Macbook Pro)

The only official specifications I can find on the FaceTime HD camera is that they send 720p HD signal whereas the iSight cameras recorded 640x480.


How can I compress a folder into multiple zip files?

Use the -s switch on the zip command in terminal. So if your folder was called FolderName

zip -r -s 64 archive.zip FolderName/

64 is the size of the split (in this case 64Mb).

Use -s to set the split size and create a split archive.
The size is  given  as  a  number  followed optionally  by  one
of  k (kB), m (MB), g (GB), or t (TB) (the default is m). [1]

Use zipsplit to split a zip file in to multiple smaller zipfiles.  Use the -n switch to set the size of the splits.

[1] http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/zip.1.html


There is no add-ons on Safari who is doing that.

Chrome :
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/swap-my-cookies/dffhipnliikkblkhpjapbecpmoilcama

Mozilla :
https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/cookieswap/

By the way, I think you have to post your wish here : https://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/


Device configuration for a Canon LIDE 30

I had the same problem with a LiDE 30, SANE, and OS 10.9.1 and solved it by setting my photo-editing application (Photoline) to open in 32-bit mode. Then the application recognized the SANE Twain interface.

I tested that technique on GraphicConverter 9. Launch in default mode: scanner not recognized. Launch in 32-bit mode: scanner found.

To open an application in 32-bit mode, Get Info on the application and check "Open in 32-bit mode."

Image Capture and Preview don't offer this check box, so they may be limited to 64-bit mode only.


Check that you've got permission to write to the remote share.


How can I create keyboard shortcuts to move to previous / next full-screen app?

"In addition, I would like to change the shortcut in 'Mission Control'
  which 'Move left/right a space', but doesn't seem like I can change
  it."

I believe I can help answer this part.

At first I thought that a drop down would appear, but it does not. All you have to do, if you want to use keyboard shortcuts (not sure about trackpad or mouse) is hit the key once the item is selected.

Above is a screenshot of the menu with default settings.

Below is a screenshot of the menu with moving to the right changed to "."

So, to recap:
Highlight item to change, double click on current shortcut symbol (to highlight it), immediately hit new key for the shortcut.

Hope this helps some!


MacBook Pro mid-2010- water damaged - but it still plays the chime?

Your screen backlight might need replacement. After you turn it on, try pointing a flashlight towards the center of the screen. If you're computer is working fine, you'll see the login screen without any backlight (you'll barely see it).


Prevent Active Directory Users From Locking Screen

Assuming that you aren't granting the students admin rights on the lab computers, enable automatic log out in Security & Privacy > Advanced preferences:

  macOS Sierra: Set your Mac to log out when not in use

  You can set your Mac to automatically log out the current user after a set period of inactivity. This helps ensure that your information is secure when your Mac is unattended.

  Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Security & Privacy, then click General.
  Click the lock icon  to unlock it, then enter an administrator name and password.
  Click Advanced.
  Select “Log out after... minutes of inactivity.”
  Set the amount of time before the user is automatically logged out.

The lower threshold seems to be 5 minutes.

Using automatic log out instead of disabling sleep/screensaver and not requiring a password query has the advantage that privacy of your users and protection from third party access (i.e. other students) is retained.


Possible to add a password to the guest account on Mavericks?

You actually can set a password for the guest account.

Use sudo passwd guest from the terminal.


How do I delete a specific cookie by name in Safari?

You can still see individual cookies using Safari in developer mode.  Go to "Safari-->Preferences-->Advanced" and enable "Show Develop menu in menu bar".  Navigate to the webpage that holds the cookie you are looking to remove.  Go to Develop in the menu bar and "Show web inspector".  On the left hand side there will be a folder "Cookies" that holds the data from that site.  You can right click them and delete certain ones.


250G Disk space has filled up, but DiskInventory only adds up to 60Gs?

Hover your mouse over the large grey box and below it will show the path to that file.  Most likely it is your local TimeMachine backup data.

OS X will keep TimeMachine backups local to your system so that you can do faster restores or if your main TimeMachine system is not available.

From the Apple Menu, select System Info and then click the Storage tab.  You will see how much space "Backups" are using on your disk.

This space will be automatically cleared as you need more disk space.  It is not really considered used space from the user's perspective.  If you Get Info on your drive, the Used Space value will not include it.

For more details on this feature, see this Apple Support Document HT204015

If it isn't TM data or it is some other unnecessary cache file, and it is a file that you are sure you want to remove, right click on the grey box and select "Move to Trash".

And if you don't want local TimeMachine backups at all, open Terminal and type sudo tmutil disable.  If you need to re-enable them, type sudo tmutil enable

FOLLOWUP 2016-04-19:

The large grey box is "Space occupied by other files and folders" because you have the "Show Other Files" option enabled in the Preferences.  Those are system files that you don't have access to read, and/or files outside of the scanned folder. It appears you started at the top of the drive but it can't access the files/folders not owned by you (i.e. root).  You can see in the picture of the .Spotlight-V100 folder it has a red hyphen icon meaning you don't have access.

Since you can't [easily] run the app as root, here is another option but it will take more work.

Open the Terminal app and type the commands cd / then sudo du -hxs .[^.]* *. This will show the size of each directory tree. For example,

 68M    .DocumentRevisions-V100
  0B    .PKInstallSandboxManager
2.0G    .Spotlight-V100
  0B    .Trashes
  0B    .dbfseventsd
  0B    .file
 44M    .fseventsd
  0B    .vol
 21G    Applications
7.0G    Library
  0B    Network
8.2G    System
292G    Users
4.0K    Volumes
2.5M    bin
  0B    cores
4.5K    dev
4.0K    etc
  0B    home
  0B    net
5.4G    private
1.0M    sbin
4.0K    tmp
1.4G    usr
4.0K    var

You can then cd into each large dir and list the files with ls -alh or repeat the sudo command until you find the large files.

Do NOT delete any files unless you know exactly what you are doing.  All of the files/folders outside of the Users folder are for the system.  If you remove the wrong one, you will have a bad week!


Ridiculously high CPU temperature and fan speeds on MacBook Pro Retina, late 2013

By default iStat Menus reads in Fahrenheit.  Those are not unreasonable values for Fahrenheit.  Go into the settings and switch to Celsius.


Try steps at http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1476

not all ports on PCs have enough power for especially Ipads.   Try USB port at back of PC (ones directly connected to motherboard, instead of front ports or keyboard ports.   Front ones frequently have lower power delivery specs than back ones.


Make sure they are not stored in the Camera internal memory (if has one).
Videos are usually much bigger files. What you can try is to open the mounted memory card, switch to List view and select “Calculate sizes” in CMD + J dialog. Sort files by size and dig deeper in the biggest folders until you find the biggest files.
Or try to identify approximate average size of photos and based on that you can try to search for files in the most top folder level of the memory card by pressing CMD + F and with small plus sign button you can add “File Size” criteria with “is greater than” option and put there value you identified or just something like 20 MB.
You may find files that are big but not playable by Quicktime or any video player currently installed on your Mac which means the camera uses its own format that you may need to convert.


There's two alternatives I'm aware of for PackageMaker that would work in this situation:

A third-party tool named Packages
Apple's pkgbuild and productbuild tools working together.

If you're planning to add packages to a NetInstall set, you should be aware that Apple made an undocumented change in Yosemite. If you add any additional packages for installation as part of a Yosemite OS install/upgrade (like you would with NetInstall), they must all be distribution-style flat packages.

Bundle-style packages (like those created by PackageMaker) will not work when added to a Yosemite OS install/upgrade and component-style flat packages also will not work.

For more information, see Further note on additional packages and Yosemite.


Stetting up your Mac install phase is taking a long time; save to reboot?

I had the same thing with my Non-retina MacBook Pro 13 back in August. I actually had to reboot several times because it hung up on me (after waiting several hours).

Nothing was harmed, the setup process should resume from where you left off.


Is cellular phone functionality in an iPad theoretically possible?

Yes, it is theoretically possible. For example, the first iPad Air in the cellular version has the same baseband modem IC chip that the iPhone 5 has.

However please note that it is not possible for a third party app to in any way "activate" or "reconfigure" the voice capabilities through that chip. Only Apple could, theoretically, add cellular voice capability to the iPad. In my opinion, that is not likely to happen at all.

You can add voice capability to the iPad using methods other than a cellular carrier - for example via traditional VoIP or cloud services such as Skype and similar.


Is there a way to get on-screen pop-up notifications for new e-mails in Mail on the iPad 2?

In addition to the Alert Style options which you mention setting, you also need to turn ON Notification Center for those alerts to appear in Notification Center, and also set View in Lock Screen to ON, to see them when your screen is locked.

Otherwise you will only see them when you are using the phone at the time that they come in, and if you already have Mail open, then they won't appear at all.


The 2007 version of Word for Mac was quite different from the Windows counterpart and Microsoft didn't maintain a 1:1 release schedule for the Windows version and the Mac version. Consequently the Windows version got ahead of the Mac version and this can lead to some confusion and frustration with the different behaviours when you move between then platforms.

The good news is if you upgrade to Office for Mac 2011 you'll get inline equation editing in Word that works very much the same as the Windows counterpart. And it's as fast as the Windows counterpart on similar hardware.


Where can I get a closed loop iPhone carrying case/holster?

The Ripoffs CO-IQ holster can be ordered with a belt loop (which is technically a BL-IQ using the RipOffs model number system). This is a low-profile, plain black nylon holster with a flap covering/securing the phone. At one time Ripoffs also made a CO-IP model for the iPhone, but it is no longer listed in their catalog.

If you're looking for something more tactical, Maxpedition's 5" Clip-On Phone Holster can be adapted by using their TacTie Attachment straps as a belt loop. (You could also sew a nylon strap onto existing MOLLE loops to form a full-time belt loop.)

The 5.11 C5 Case-L can be snapped securely to a belt or attached to a MOLLE system. (The new style 5.11 tactical pants have a flap pocket especially designed for an iPhone that makes a belt case superfluous.)

Although I don't own any of these particular products, I've owned pouches, holsters and bags (and pants) from these manufacturers and am comfortable vouching for the overall quality of their products.

Check your local Police/EMS supply shops if you want a local source. You may find other options there too—secure carry of smartphones is definitely something of interest to LEOS, EMTs, etc.


I want to add the home directory to the favorites directories, how can I do it?

You can just drag the directory to the left sidebar:

First, you can new open a fonder, then Goto -> Goto Directory, write the /Users:

Then you can drag it:


For the pop3 email accounts (if you've left the mail on the server), have you tried going to Settings > Accounts > Check mail from other accounts (using POP3): Add a POP3 mail account you own?

When I migrated my mail a couple of years ago I set up gmail in the apple mail client using iMAP, and manually dragged things into gmail. A combination of that and adding the POP3 accounts took care of my needs, but I wasn't moving 80,000 emails :)

The post linked below looks like it would work, but it'd require some local server administration, not sure if you're up for that.

http://www.benshoemate.com/2007/11/09/how-to-upload-all-your-old-archived-email-to-gmail-from-outlook-lotus-notes-and-unix-pine/

Obviously, if you went this route you'd have to find an alternative to the mail server since that's windows only

I have no research to back it up, but the rules you may have to be a manual process


Does Time Machine back up potentially corrupted files?

Time Machine cannot know which files you consider "bad" or "good". Thus Time Machine backs up both classes of files just the same.


Does uninstalling and installing a MacOS App Store App do anything?

It should be. It won't delete any of your documents, but you might want to back up these locations, if they exist:

~/Library/Preferences/com.whatever.appname.plist
~/Library/Application Support/AppName

You almost certainly don't need to do this--I don't know what exactly the App Store uninstall process does--but it doesn't hurt to be safe.

Update: Due to sandboxing, you won't find anything in either of these locations. (All apps from the App Store are sandboxed, but apps you get somewhere else probably aren't.) You should look here instead:

~/Library/Containers/com.whatever.appname


Get per process user and system CPU time on OSX via command line?

Not sure the information you are looking for is accessible so easily. You could try ps

$ ps -p 407 -o pid,time,utime,etime,comm
  PID      TIME     UTIME     ELAPSED COMM
  407   2:08.23   1:46.36 11-17:10:27 /Applications/Aquamacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Aquamacs

and calculate the system time (TIME - UTIME) and the percentages. This is just the total since the process started though, not an ongoing sampling.


You can simply highlight all files in a folder using cmd+A. Then you can delete all highlighted files by using cmd+backspace. You can also highlight multiple files in a folder by clicking the first, then pressing and holding shift while clicking the last.


Stop spacebar triggering quicklook when using Quicksilver

The default spacebar behavior was changed from “Normal” to “Smart” a couple of years ago. Users that had chosen a setting explicitly were unaffected, but if you had never picked anything, the new default took over.

You can change it back by going to Preferences → General → Command and looking at the Spacebar behavior setting.

Having said that… You should never need to type a space when searching and you should never need to type that many characters. The main feature of Quicksilver is that it lets you find things with an abbreviation that makes sense to you, and doesn’t require typing full names of things.

To find Activity Monitor, a m should be enough.

I encourage you to try the Smart behavior. It’s quite a time saver. This is what it will do:

If the object has children, show them (unless it's a text file)
Jump to the third pane if the current action requires it
Quick Look if the object supports it
If user is holding Shift, go to the parent (same as left arrow)
Switch to text mode
If in the second pane, select the first action that takes an argument in the third pane


Possible to build an IPA file on Linux/Window?

No.

Building an IPA requires Xcode which requires OS X.


Problems in restore backups to iPhone from PC

On Windows 10, there's two different backup folders you may have, from older iTunes versions.
In the Windows 10 search box, paste in each of these locations separately and see if Backup isn't empty:

%userprofile%\Apple\MobileSync\Backup
%appdata%\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup

Assuming you find the backup safe and sound in the other spot, the read or write error itself has several possible causes, but the one I'd start with: is the PC very low on disk space?


Open the two PDFs with Preview

Drag the thumbnails of the second PDF to the end of the first PDF but above the grey line (marked with the red arrow):

and finally export the resulting PDF to a third PDF.

If your first PDF contains just one page this doesn't work.

Workaround 1: Open your second PDF, then open the first PDF, drag the single page to the beginning of the second PDF and export the resulting PDF to a third PDF.

Workaround 2: Insert an empty second page at the end of the first page.

and drag the second PDF to the regular end of your first PDF

delete the empty page at the end and export the remaining pages to a new third PDF.


Try resetting the specific app by turning Notification Center off, then back on.


What should I do about outdated BootCache playlists?

These files are used for boot-time optimisation. The cache is also measured for hit rate, and stores the request pattern into a "history list" for being adaptive in future. If the hit rate is too low, the caching is disabled.

To look under the hood and examine the hit/miss rate

 sudo bootcachecontrol statistics Print

The actual impact of files like app.com.coriolis-systems.iDefrag.playlist should be really minimal.

However, if the application is otherwise completely gone, it is safe to delete all instances of these coriolis-related cache files in /private/var/db/BootCaches/

If these files get recreated it means that there are remnants of the application left, and active.

(Observe this effect by deleting /private/var/db/BootCaches/PreheatedUser/app.com.apple.Safari.playlist It will be created instantly once you relaunch Safari)


Opening documents inside Dropbox iOS app

I don't think so. You would need the Documents application to build in support for pulling down documents from your dropbox account. Applications on the phone aren't really allowed to share data because of sandboxing.


Dell in2020m widescreen monitor and a MacBook Pro

The supported resolutions defined on the Apple pages are for the built-in screen which is, pardon the pun, comparing apples to oranges in this case.

Plugging an external monitor in will show those resolutions that the monitor supports and you will be able to achieve the maximum resolution of the Dell monitor which is 1600x900


Deauthorizing a working computer: does the iTunes library need to be present?

The authorization link is between the computer and the Apple ID, not any particular iTunes Library. So, no, you don't need the library to break that connection. You can create an empty library temporarily, just to get iTunes to launch, then use Deauthorize This Computer.

If you throw that computer in the garbage, you can always go to your iTunes account on another computer and click "Deauthorize All" to remove all authorizations at once.  You can then reauthorize your current computers as needed.


"Unexpected error" while extending Time Capsule with Airport Express

Working solution : Follow suggested setup steps on iphone instead of computer.

I encountered the exact same problem as you while trying to set up my airport express to extend an existing network. All attemps at doing so failed from my computer (MacBook Pro 16-inch 2019 with macOS Catalina 10.15.3). After going through all the setup windows and setting up the airport Express' password, it said "an unexpected error occured".

After about 20 excruciating attempts and 3 different connection methods, I finally decided to try and set it up with my phone (Iphone 7 with iOS 13.3.1). In the wifi menu, I selected the airport express at the bottom of the page in a different list from usual wifi. I then followed exactly the same steps as those for a computer set up but on my iPhone and it worked!!


finder won't launch after Mojave upgrade ( high system cpu )

It turns out was Google Drive File Stream syncing issue. I removed that and cpu is back to normal... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8555291 no eta from Google though on when will be fixed?

a temporary work around by forcing Finder to reload the extensions needed for the context menu by opening terminal and issuing a

killall Finder


TextEdit refuses to modify a file in /Users/Shared owned by another user despite mode 666

Notice that the permission string for /Users/Shared ends with a 't'. This indicates that the sticky bit is set for that directory. According to "man 8 sticky",

 A directory whose `sticky bit' is set becomes an append-only directory,
 or, more accurately, a directory in which the deletion of files is
 restricted.  A file in a sticky directory may only be removed or renamed
 by a user if the user has write permission for the directory and the user
 is the owner of the file, the owner of the directory, or the super-user.

I suspect that when TextEdit tries to save a file, it first attempts to rename or remove the old file. But in a directory with the sticky bit set, only the owner can do this. Hence, the permission-based failure.

You could test this by trying something like this as user Guest

echo " " >> /Users/Shared/Links.txt

If this is successful, it shows that Guest can write to the file and that TextEdit must be renaming or removing, not just rewriting the file.


Generating and opening file with Automator

Add open "${1%.*}".jad on a new line at the end of the script. If you want to open it in a specific application (not the default), change it to open -a "Some Application" "${1%.*}".jad

The $1 is the first argument passed to a script, which in this case is the file path. the ${1%.*} strips the extension (i.e. /Users/you/MyClass.class becomes /Users/you/MyClass), and then .jad is appended, so you get the full path of the new file.


VMware ESXi compatible RAID card for the Mac Pro

Have you looked this RAID cared benchmark page from 2009? It seems that the HighPoint RocketRAID would be a decent choice but doesn't seem to be available as a new item from the manufacturer any more:

  Not knowing there was a workaround, HighPoint removed the RocketRAID
  4320, 3520, 3510, and 2680 from the Mac Pro product list on their
  website. We're hoping to persuade HighPoint to put them back on the
  product list now that MaxUpgrades has a solution.

A quick check on eBay shows the 4320 RAID card, 3520 RAID card, 3510 RAID card and the 2680 RAID card are still available as a used/refurbished item.

But if buying used/refurbished equipment is not for you, one thing that seems promising and is currently available and in production is the MAXPower RAID mini-SAS 6G-1e1i from Other World Computing. The description seems to be exactly what you are looking for:

  Eliminate the SATA drive bus speed limit! Adding the MAXPower RAID
  mini-SAS 6G-1e1i to your Mac or PC provides a SAS/SATA 6G (6.0Gb/s)
  drive bus with up to twice the data transfer speed, regardless  of
  your computer's built-in SATA 3G (3.0Gb/s) data bus. Utilizing the
  MAXPower's RAID processor, you can maximize your total performance up
  to 4800MB/s in RAID 0 mode or achieve the perfect balance of
  performance and protection in RAID 5 mode.

  This feature-rich, high-value mass storage controller card is an ideal
  solution for those working with multiple high-speed HD video streams
  and/or anyone seeking high performance daily IT operation and back-up
  for an SMB. With mini-SAS, there's no loss of throughput as it
  provides full data transfer of four drives through one connection.


One year later, this is happening to me as well. I'm on 10.8.5 and iTunes 11. I have used iTunes since it's inception and don't think I've had this problem until iTunes 11.

Most menu items are greyed out, like Quit and Preferences, but some work, like new Playlist and most items under the File menu. Otherwise iTunes still works, but to quit, I have to force quit or close down the Mac altogether. I see no open dialog boxes anywhere.


What does these extended attributes mean and where are they documented?

All commandline apps have an associated man page, that explain input and output, invoked like this:

man [command]

Where [command] is the command you want help on. So to find info on ls:

man ls

Also Mac OS is based on BSD unix and not completely different from Linux. So googling for the man page on almost any (BSD/Linux) unix command will also lead you to (quite possibly) more info that you can possibly digest...


How to share history between terminal tabs?

I don't think there is a way to share history amongst Terminal tabs only, but here is something that could help you.

The history is not something that is handled by your terminal but by your shell (bash, tcsh, zsh, etc.)

Here are some options that'll help you set up a shared history amongst all the terminal windows (the shell instances).

This should be put somewhere in your .bashrc file.

export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups:erasedups  # no duplicate entries
export HISTSIZE=100000                   # big big history
export HISTFILESIZE=100000               # big big history
shopt -s histappend                      # append to history, don't overwrite it

# Save and reload the history after each command finishes
export PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a; history -c; history -r; $PROMPT_COMMAND"


Cold temperatures cause finger resistance on  iPad screen

I've had similar issues, and my guess has been that it's due to poor circulation when the temperature drops.

The solutions I've come up with are to buy either:

a stylus
a pair of gloves with conductive tips (like these)
something like the GloveTips 3-Piece Touchscreen Texting Glove Tips (which you can apply to an existing pair of gloves).


Is there any way to use a USB camera connected to an iPhone?

You should plug both your iPhone and camera to your computer. Then you sync the pictures from the camera to your iPhone. I think this is the only way it can work. Good luck!


Is there a way I can share a disk image as a remote DVD drive?

If you can manage a cheap 8GB USB flash drive, try read these links

http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
http://osxdaily.com/2009/09/02/install-snow-leopard-from-external-firewire-or-usb-hard-drive-or-how-to-upgrade-to-106-without-a-dvd-drive/


How to skip 'Cancel' 'Continue' when running shell script with automator?

I'm not able to replicate your prompt issue if I code the sleepnow in a do shell.

Launch Automator
Go to File > New
Select Service and click Choose
Select "No input" in drop-down list
Select in drop-down list "Any application"
Select "Run AppleScript" and double-click or drag and drop
Replace the script with a do shell
Save the service
Add service in keyboard

The code:

try
    display notification "Attempting sleep"
    delay 2
    set result to do shell script "pmset sleepnow"
on error result
    display dialog result
end try

The service with shortcut:

System specs:

macOS Sierra Version 10.12.6 on Macbook Pro


Motion Detection with iSight/FaceTime Camera

I've used iAlertU before: takes a screenshot, not a movie, but it is free.

There is also SecuritySpy which does record movies but isn't free.


how to prevent music on iPhone from automatically syncing songs to iTunes

Plug her phone back into iTunes. In iTunes, click on her iphone, and in Options uncheck anything having to do with "Syncing Automatically". If it's not already checked, click "Manually manage music and videos".

If you want her to have a separate iTunes library, she should also have a separate login for the shared computer. This is really the easiest way to deal anything on a shared computer.

Incidentally, there shouldn't really be any reason to physically plug your iPhone into your computer anymore. You can actually set the phone (and iPads, etc) to sync wirelessly.


How to put Photos.app main library on an external disk?

You can change the library location from the Preferences window on the General tab. Photos > Preferences... and select the General tab.

At the top where it says Library Location: click the Show In Finder button:

In the Finder window that opens, move the Photos Library.photoslibrary to the place where you'd rather it exist. This can take some time if it's a large library.

Once it's moved, double click on it in Finder and your Photos app will update and point to the new location.


Why can't I change the normal template for microsoft word 2016 for mac?

This worked for me:

You may wish to update your Normal template as well.  To do so:

Open the Normal.dotm template (Note: You MUST navigate to the Normal template using the File menu in Word, and choose "Open".  Don't try it from the Finder or you will make a copy of Normal each time.)
Close all other documents (this is important...if you don't, Word holds a hidden instance of the old version open).
Change the paper size.
Add and remove a space from the text (to force Word to save the document)
Save the Normal template.  (If Word prompts you for a file name, you did not open the file correctly and you now have a copy that is not a template.  Cancel out and start again...)
Close Word.

Should be good when you re-open.


Can't figure out how to correctly install .app

Apparently you should not drag the app to the launchpad, instead, drag the app to the application folder (open a finder window), or just do a $ cp /from /to.

So the process is:

Open DMG (it mounts)
Drag .app (and possibly other files) to your "Applications" folder
Unmount/Eject the DMG
Ctrl+click (right-click) to "open" so you can approve the app


The motherboard (PRAM) needed resetting by turning off the computer and then restarting while pressing Cmd, Opt, P and R. The noise is gone.


No - there’s not a sysctl to change this on macOS that I’m aware of. The first accommodation for server workloads is to enable more processes, but that won’t affect vm allocation or recompiling the frameworks.

If for some reason you are running more server workload and want to sacrifice a little single threaded performance to let lots of daemons run well - try enaBling performance mode for server and get Apple’s tuning for that workload.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202528

I see this as efficient use of the RAM as there’s a long history of caching aggressively and loading frameworks off disk when referenced, then balancing later on macos:

Isn't Inactive memory a waste of resources?

To convince yourself this is as designed, you could make a new user account, disable auto log in for any migrated accounts and get a clean restart. Per my comments, nothing looks to be drastically out of the design intent of macOS. If you wanted to dig deeper into your exact memory allocation:

Grab a sysdiagnose from the brand new account
Grab a sysdiagnose from your account now and in a couple days once all the third party apps you have installed are updated / stable.
Push the kernel and virtual memory subsystem a bit with actual apps running - the system is going to throw RAM at anything since you have so much. I see this more froM the viewpoint that it’s wasteful to power 64 GB of RAM and not allocate it.

The system doesn’t need free RAM for anything except a new allocation.

There’s zero chance your Mac can’t allocate a ridiculous amount of RAM instantly in the above snapshot with >32 GB still free.

There a long history of expectations about memory management from perspectives of other OS / other kernels / and legitimate learning curves on macOS so I don’t doubt you’re worried a little, but we may need to get into an actual problem.


Convert PDF images to PNG using Automator

I added the 4th part from Photos 'Scale Images' which did the job for me...

Get Specified Finder Items
Render PDF Pages as Images
Copy Finder Items
Scale Images

Best, Peter


Load MacBook Air back-up on MacBook 2017

Don't restore as a backup, use Migration Assistant during initial setup at first boot.

If you set the machine up first & try to Migrate later, you'll end up with two users & then have to try merging them manually, which is not a lot of fun.


Unusual Shortcut, Menu Override in Evernote

I can replicate this if I set the Paste Without Formatting Menu item to have an hotkey using the system Preferences 'keyboard shortcuts'.

I set the shortcut in 'Application Shortcuts' and the chose Evernote.app rather than All Applications.

Removing the Setting will put things back to normal.

Update:

Since the OP. Confirms they once did set a global hotkey and since removed it. But the menu shortcut persist.

I re-did my global hotkey and  then deleted the reference from the com.apple.universalaccess.plist file.

This resulted in the global hotkey being removed from the System preferences global shortcuts. But in Evernote the global shortcuts still appeared.

This is what the OP. seem to have.

My simple fix for this was.

Re do the global shortcuts for "Paste Without Formatting" in the System preferences global hotkeys. Giving it a new shortcut.
Check to see if Evernote picked it up, which it did.

And then deleting it in the System preferences.

This removed it from Evernote.


Some keys are not working on new Macbook with touch bar

simply, switch to guest account,go to system preferences..see image attached.
Then switch back to user account and login using virtual  keyboard. I do it everytime.


`sudoers` file resets with every macOS update

Modifying most of the files in /etc leaves you open to them being replaced during OS updates. That's why most of the ones you usually need to change have the facility to add files to a directory instead.
If you look in /etc you will see a directory called sudoers.d and the last line of the sudoers file is #includedir /private/etc/sudoers.d so any file of commands you put into the directory will be read. Files in the directory will not be overwritten when you update.
You may notice directories with similar names in /etc that fill the same function for other parts of the system.


How can I get iTunes to redownload a deleted Podcast item?

Press the three dots right next to the name when you select the Podcast row. Select (-) Delete. That will delete the row.

Then on the main Podcast, right-click and select "Refresh podcast". The row will re-appear with a little cloud next to it.

If the publisher has deleted the Podcast from their library, I guess you cannot recover it.

Hope that helps.