Loading gif and progress bar on start up

It seems your hard disk is failing. Backup all your date with Time Machine. Then boot in to Recovery Parition by starting up and holdind the keys cmd-R. Try to repair the disk with Disk Utility. Anyway, consider to replace it.


Mail not displaying message body content

Rebuild the Mailbox

Try rebuilding the affected mailbox:

Select the Inbox or affected mailbox.
Select Mail.app > Mailbox (menu) > Rebuild

Rebuilding the mailbox will cause Mail.app to read all the messages again from the server. Rebuilding often fixes problems and restores missing or malformed messages.

From Apple's support document Mail: Rebuild mailboxes:

  You may need to rebuild a mailbox to update the list of messages it contains. For example, if messages appear to be missing or garbled, or if you can’t find all relevant messages when you search using the Entire Message search option.


Is there an app that will let me drag/drop and copy/paste across two Macs?

The app can do that can do what you want is Apple Remote Desktop. You can drag&Drop files from desktop to desktop and get and push clipboards from and to other computer.

The best set is to have 2 monitors (having the remote desktop fullscreen-ed), so that you can stare at the two computers at the same time. If you don't, you will have a window with the desktop of your second mac.

Another advantage of this solution is to you only have one keyboard and one mouse in front of you. And you can also put the second computer away from your desk. You just need to have it connected to you network.


Transmit can achieve what you're looking for thanks to its Transmit Disk feature.

Once you have specified a remote location as a favorite (analogous to bookmarking it), you can use Transmit Disk to create a local volume with the same name as the favorite. Any changes made to this volume's files are mirrored to the server. The two are kept in constant sync.

According to Panic's website (and my own usage), the files are uploaded even if Transmit.app itself isn't running. Transmit Disk runs as a separate background process. On my system, with one volume mounted and shortly after requiring a sync, this process is using 0% CPU and 13MB of memory. Performance, it seems, is not an issue at all.


Can't open some ePub books in Books.app on macOS Mojave

If your ebook indeed is unencrypted, you can try to open the ePub with the free Sigil.app (an ePub creator/editor) and write another copy to disk.

Sigil is able to repair a lot of structural problems. You can get a precompiled dmg as well as the full source code here.

I agree the "social DRM" should not pose any obstacle for using these eBooks with Books.app. But I suspect the "patching personal data into the eBooks" is done by an automated process, which simply went awry in your case. Maybe you even have some special characters in your identifying information (quotes, accents, ampersand, general unicode characters).


Apple Messages Not Working At All After Update

Turns out that the culprit was an iPad. I've never used it for Messages, so it never occurred to me to disable iMessage on it.

You have to disable it on all devices to get it to properly reset, even if you've never opened the app on one.

Thanks for the tips.


When I get a phone call or text, my iPhone, Apple Watch, and Mac all ring at the same time

As of watchOS 3, iOS 10, and macOS 10.12 Sierra, this is not possible, and the simultaneous rings are rather comical, if not downright annoying. What I did was:

Disable the Ringtone in the FaceTime app on my iMac (set it to None under Preferences in OS X El Capitan, or disable Sounds for FaceTime under  → System Preferences → Notifications in macOS Sierra)
Assign a blank Ringtone on my iPad (set this in the Settings app under Sounds—this requires creating or downloading a custom ringtone)
Disable Sound for the Phone app on my WATCH (from the Watch app on your iPhone)

My reasoning is that the only times I'm going to pick up a call on any device other than my iPhone is when I'm already using my iMac or iPad, but not carrying my iPhone with me. In those cases, the onscreen notification is sufficient. It's very rare that I'm near my iMac/iPad and not using either of them, yet too far from my iPhone to hear it ring. Those rare cases do not seem to fall under your use case.

This is not a perfect solution, but at least it will keep you from being bothered by ringtones that keep going off while you're already answering the call. The WATCH might keep tapping you for a second, but that isn't nearly as distracting when you're trying to talk to someone.


Okay, I think the issue is resolved.

The culprit turned out to be an old piece of software from 2011 - Tags, for Mail (http://www.caseapps.com/tags/).

It installed an mdimporter into /Library/Spotlight/.

After reading up on the new logging system and figuring out how to disable obfuscation in order to not get those <private> entries in the logs since those don't help me see which files are being accessed by the md processes,

I ran log stream --style compact --predicate '(process contains[c] "mdworker") && (subsystem ==[c] "com.apple.spotlightserver")' --info --debug and watched it.

It kept hanging up in a particular directory, in ~/Mail/V6.  I went looking through the directory tree looking for permissions/uid issues -- nothing.

I re-ran the command with tee, so that I could tail it and grep out interesting parts to investigate.

Then I noticed that it seemed like _TagsMail.mdimporter was being mentioned in each line where mdworker was being called to import an email.

An excerpt:
2019-05-08 21:36:07.002 Db mdworker[53808:1463e7e] [com.apple.spotlightserver:Server] sandbox profile activated time:0.01667 uid:501 profile:mdworker cache:/var/folders/xb/25w333f48xl1ns0059bd0kxh0000gn/C/ temp:/var/folders/xb/25w333f48xl1ns0059bd0kxh0000gn/T/ home:/Users/B**** lib:/Users/B****/Library M:(null) MV2:(null) typeExtension:0 bundleId:com.gravityapps.TagsMail

I looked up tagsmail.mdimporter and the first web page hit is "_TagsMail.mdimporter prevents Spotlight in Mojave to finish": http://www.mnott.de/_tagsmail-mdimporter-prevents-spotlight-in-mojave-to-finish/

Interesting.  I moved the mdimporter plugin out and immediately saw progress being made, rather than the same roughly 10x files being attempted to index continually.

Rebooted the machine, created a test file on the desktop, searched for it and saw it pop up almost immediately.  Good sign that the indexer is working properly.


What does the 'J' icon on a photo in the Photos app mean?

Source:

  When you shoot RAW + JPEG the Photos app stacks the two images together. The J means you have a stack with a JPEG file and a RAW file and the JPEG file is used as original. To change to the RAW file go into edit mode (enter) and choose Image - > Use Raw as original. The letter will now change to a R.


How to disable permanently Messages on iOS

On your iPhone, go to:

Settings > Messages and flip the "iMessage" switch to off.

You will still be able to send and receive regular SMSs, charged by your carrier or included in your monthly plan, but not iMessages. And they will stop trying to activate by sending those SMSs to a number abroad.

See http://osxdaily.com/2014/04/15/disable-imessage-ios/ if you want some screenshots.

If this fails then there's an hick-up with your phone or SIM. In that case, try resetting the "Network settings" (you'll lose all saved WiFi credentials):

Settings > General > Reset > Reset NETWORK SETTINGS and confirm. Be sure to really choose "Network Settings".

After the device restarts you can still do a soft reboot, this usually clears most small issues:

with the device turned on and unlocked press and hold the Power Button (top or side, in newer models) and the Home Button (front) together, i.e. at the same time
keep holding them for 10 seconds and until the device reboots and you see the white Apple logo on screen. You can then let go off the buttons.

Finally, Apple also posts some troubleshooting, if you want to attempt again to re-enable iMessage in the future, and still come across the same problem: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201422


Shortcut of zooming out in Windows in Parallels Desktop

Per Google, it is Control++ to zoom in and Control+- to zoom out on a French keyboard.

I'm not sure exactly which shortcut you're referring to since there's multiple zooms (12 by my count), but a full list of French shortcuts can be found here.

It's possible that your keyboard layout is misconfigured. Ensure it's properly configured by performing the following steps:

  Click on the Start Menu.
  Click on Settings.
  Click on Time & language.
  Click on Region & language.
  Click on the language you wish to add a keyboard layout to.
  Click on Options.
  Click on Add a keyboard.
  Click on the keyboard you want to add.


Split audio and video into two separate files

ffmpeg supports demuxing without re-encoding:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv # show stream numbers and formats
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy audio.m4a # AAC
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy audio.mp3 # MP3
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy audio.ac3 # AC3
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -an -c copy video.mkv
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:a:1 -c copy audio.m4a # stream 1

-c copy is like -vcodec copy -acodec copy. -map 0:1 means file 0, stream 1. -an means audio none.

-- Edited: -map 0:1 => -map 0:a:1 (pick 2nd audio not just 2nd any stream)


I had the same issue, and finally figured out a way to fix it!

There are 2 ways to fix this issue, either via iTunes or on the iPhone.  The iTunes route is quicker and if you have a lot of apps in that missing folder you might not remember all of them and iTunes gives you the full list.

Go to iTunes with your iPhone plugged in and click on your phone.
Go to the apps tab
locate all the apps that where in that folder and remove them.

I actually removed all the apps except 2 that I didn't want to remove just yet because they had data on them that I didn't want to lose. Interestingly enough after removing all the other apps the 2 apps I didn't remove resurfaced on my phone without the folder.  So quite possibly maybe just try to remove 1 or 2 apps from that folder only and see if the other resurface, which makes this process all that quicker and better.
Now reinstall all the apps you removed and they should all reappear back on your phone with out the folder.
Make a new folder and put all the apps back in.

Voilà, there you have it!


How to change OSX System (Default) Shortcuts?

This is pretty easy. I already answered a similar question for someone who wanted to redefine Command-V here.

Basically you need to go into System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts and define a new shortcut under "All Apps". If you don't want to change it to something useful you will have to define a shortcut you will never use such as Shift-Command-Option-1.

If you want to get rid of all the shortcuts then I suggest 'Karabiner-Elements' and spend some time understanding how to write a private.xml config file for it. You might also want to grab a copy of 'Key Codes' so you can figure out which keys push out which keycodes and modifiers.

It's certainly possible to map the "Log Out …" as Shift-Command-Q out of the way. You just enter it into Shortcuts with the name and the ellipsis and the shortcut no longer works. Command-Q is impossible with the shortcut method but it was the only one I could find.

(I also wouldn't be rude and peremptory to people who were trying to help me but that could just be me.)


Import mailbox from Mail (with no mail account access) to Gmail

Navigate to the mailbox to be migrated
Tap "Edit" at top right
Tap "Select all" at top left
Tap "Move" at bottom center
Navigate to the target account
Tap on target folder to have mails moved there


Adobe photoshop cs6 not upgrading raw plugins in my macbook

It will depend what version of CameraRAW you are trying to install.

CS6 is no longer supported & the last version it is capable of handling is CameraRAW 9.1.1

Source: Adobe Help - Camera Raw-compatible Adobe applications

For a workaround using DNG Converter, see Update to camera support policy in CS6


Installed Windows 8.1 on Mac Air withouth Bootcamp drivers

Use this article to identify your machine and OS installed. Aside from two of the most recent Macbooks, Bootcamp v4 and v5 support software drivers are available. Download from there and run using the instructions supplied in the DL doc.


How do you git fetch all repos in a folder?

People may answer git commands that does it, but looking at your intent towards GUI, here's my answer.
I use SourceTree. It also gives the ability to add scripts as custom functions. fetch gives these options. It also has nice support for submodules.

Here's a custom action that I use. I just picked up the condition code from stack overflow. But git would also exit if there are conflicting changes.

cd "/Users/me/project/"
if git diff-index --quiet HEAD --; then
    # No changes
    echo "no changes"
else
    # Changes
    echo "changes"
    exit
fi

if [[ -z $(git status -s) ]]
then
    # No changes
    echo "no changes1"
else
    # Changes
    echo "changes1"
    exit
fi

git checkout master
make update
echo "made update"
git checkout feature
git rebase master
echo "rebased"
exit


Outlook 2016 Mac change order of accounts

I wanted to know the same thing.  I searched and couldn't find an answer.  I finally figured it out myself.  You can change the "default" account and it will go to the top.  Go to Tools, Account and then select the account you want to be the default.  Click the gear at the bottom and select "Set as default."

Then, the remaining accounts will be put in alphabetical order.  You may need to exit Outlook and reopen it to see the new order.

This works better than deleting the top account - letting the items shuffle and then adding the other accounts below since the sort order doesn't always follow the order of addition to the app. Especially if you have delegate accounts you're adding.


You can't update to iOS 9.  According to Apple, it's only compatible with iPod 5th & 6th generation.

Apple stops signing (authorizing) previous iOS versions shortly after the new ones come out.  Because of that, you can't update to iOS 7 or 8 because they're no longer available from Apple.

You might be able to bypass this restriction by jailbreaking your device but I don't recommend that because there's many things that can wrong, including bricking your iPod.


It should be right under the the OS X Yosemite.  Checked 3 different models and all showed in the same place.


How can I view locations of layers in PSD files without photoshop on osx?

I have no experience with this, but I found a script that may help you.


applescript (osascript) for changing Terminal.app profile

$function setTerm() { PROFILE=${1}; echo "tell app \"Terminal\" to set current settings of first window to settings set \"${PROFILE}\""|osascript; };

Source: commandlinefu.com

When you connect to a remote computer using ssh, the terminal.app settings will set according to the remote bash profile. Therefore you need to define the preferred settings on the remote machine first.


Is there a way to have my iPhone 5 report current charging rate?

Since iOS can indicate the charge in percentages, you could simply get a pencil and some graph paper and wake the screen periodically and record the displayed percentages to fit that data to a charging curve.

We have some questions about getting the charge rate programmatically in iTunes, and you could ask if there is an API (private or public) by opening a question on http://stackoverflow.com but for users (as opposed to developers), the answer is no. You can't get a log file of the charge status directly from a computer or the device itself.

Here are some related questions that may help:

Can I get iPhone charge status from my Mac?
iPhone Status/Overview App Wanted


executing shell script requiring input from the user using the Automator

I'm not really familiar with the Scala language at all, but it looks like the script is only built to take user input for the password, not arguments or stdin, which is what's required for Automator to pass it data.

The shell that Automator runs scripts in is non-interactive, so your script can't directly prompt the user for a password. If you can rework your script to take a password via stdin, you could use an AppleScript wrapper to get a password dialog, if that's what you're hoping for.

If you rework your pgpsign script to take a password from stdin, you can use an Applescript action (with some shell scripting embedded) to display a password dialog and get the results you desire.

Replace your Run Shell Script action in your current workflow with a Run AppleScript action, with the following code:

on run {input, parameters}
    set thePath to quoted form of POSIX path of first item of input as string
    tell application "System Events"
        display dialog "Password:" default answer "" with hidden answer
    end tell
    set pass to text returned of result
    do shell script "cd " & thePath & "; echo " & quoted form of pass & " | perl -ne 'chomp and print' | ~/scripts/pgpsign"
end run

It's not the most straightforward, so I'll run through line by line what it's doing.

on run {input, parameters}
    set thePath to quoted form of POSIX path of first item of input as string

This gets the input from the service (the folder you selected) and turns it into a string that the shell script can make use of.

tell application "System Events"
    display dialog "Password:" default answer "" with hidden answer
end tell
set pass to text returned of result

This pops up a password dialog and stores the result to the pass variable. Ordinarily in AppleScript you don't need the System Events tell portion, but because of some quirks with Automator, it's required here.

do shell script "cd " & thePath & "; echo " & quoted form of pass & " | perl -ne 'chomp and print' | ~/scripts/pgpsign"

This ties it all together and sends the required parameters to your script. First we change to the selected directory (to answer your question in the comments, as your script is written, it is necessary to first cd to the directory you want). Then echo is used to send the password to stdin, and it's piped through the perl portion to strip the trailing newline (which is an annoying characteristic of AppleScript and would otherwise cause a valid password to fail), then piped to your script.

Sorry for giving you a lot to digest, but if you want to use Automator for this, it's probably the easiest way, unless you want to hardcode your password (which is obviously inadvisable for security reasons).


How to force iOS apps to use global proxy settings

I was able to proxy URL requests from 4 apps I just tested (Instagram, App Store, Omni Focus, Bookmarks). I used a manual proxy configuration and Charles to test.

I'm not sure what proxy API you're talking about. From personal experience, I know that any app using an NSURLConnection to make the request will go through the proxy as defined by the system. It's possible some apps use a socket directly to make the request - if so that may bypass the system's proxy settings, but I'm not sure about that.


It is not possible to order messages by size on your phone. On your computer, it may be doable with a little Finder footwork.

However, since it appears that you are running iOS 8, I suggest that you select to only keep messages for 30 days. If you open the Settings.app, navigate to Messages, then "Keep Messages" there are three options there with the shortest being 30 days. You may find this allows a good enough balance of your space.

Also, the messages are automatically sorted by date, so you could manually delete the oldest threads which are automatically taking up space while not being used much. In addition, if there are any threads that you know (some use texts in a similar style to social media or iCloud photos) have many pictures, those should be the first to go.


Enabling Apache in Mac OS X Mountaion Lion

To start apache
sudo apachectl start

This will give you a basic Apache server with a DocumentRoot at  /Library/WebServer/Documents/

You can enable things like PHP and virtualhosts by making use of the configuration file, which must be edited as root:
/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Restart the apache server (like after editing the config file) with
sudo apachectl graceful

Stop the apache server
sudo apachectl graceful-stop

I believe in order to use user directories (like allowing ~/Sites/ to be accessed at http://localhost/~username/) or to get httpd to run at startup, you will need to do a little tweaking. I unfortunately can't test how easy it is to get the full functionality of the previous versions back since my Apache configs did not come from a "clean" 10.8 install.


With Ubuntu, GRUB files are stored in the EFI/BOOT and EFI/ubuntu folders in the hidden EFI partition. Apply the following steps to remove the GRUB files.

Enter the following command to determine the identifier for the hidden EFI partition on the external drive.
diskutil list

For this example, I will assume the identifier is disk2s1. In the following steps, make the appropriate substitutions.

To mount the volume stored in the EFI partition, enter the following command.
sudo diskutil mount disk2s1

Note the volume name given in the output of this command. For this example, I will assume the volume name is EFI. In the following steps, make the appropriate substitutions.

Use the Finder application to view the folders in the EFI folder of the EFI volume (device). See image below.

Move the folders BOOT and ubuntu to the trash.

Empty the trash.

Enter the following command to unmount the EFI volume (device).
diskutil unmount disk2s1


Safari: want cmd-click to open tab behind, not make it active

Doh. When I disable the DirectLinks safari extension, it works correctly. Hat tip to @patrix.


You can just simulate pressing fn twice:

delay 0.3 -- time to release modifier keys if for example the script is run with command-R
tell application "System Events"
    key code 63
    key code 63
end tell

Or from a terminal:

osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to key code {63,63}'

The osascript command worked for me in Terminal but not in iTerm 2. The Start Dictation menu item also just plays the lower pitch sound without showing the popover in iTerm 2 though.


Can't load a specific webpage using Chrome or Safari while logged in, but they work on other account and Firefox also works

So, after an evening of poking at the situation and trying to work out what's going on, I eventually worked it out.

As it transpires, there was an issue with the CRL and OCSP caches on my account on my iMac – other users did not have the same problem as a result. These caches are not deleted by deleting anything from ~/Caches, which is why the issue didn't resolve when I tried that.

The answer came from the Apple Developer Forums, who pointed me to a page on the GlobalSign website. The solution is to open Command Prompt/Terminal and enter one of the following commands, then reboot.

Windows

certutil -urlcache * delete

OS X (pre-Sierra)

sudo rm /var/db/crls/*cache.db

 macOS Sierra

sqlite3 ~/Library/Keychains/*/ocspcache.sqlite3 'DELETE FROM ocsp;'


No - you might retain a copy of the application by transferring it to iTunes in case you take legal action to arbitrate or ask the courts to assist you with your contract with your developer.

Apple doesn't receive code from developers when an app is submitted (test flight submissions work the same as app store submissions) - just the compiled program.


Does Catalina detect and warn about incompatible apps?

32-bit apps in Mojave should already bring up a warning when you launch them.
You can check what 32-bit apps you have in System Information: Click to open the Apple menu, then hold Option and click on System Information, which appears where 'About This Mac' was.
Then choose 'Applications' from the sidebar, under Software. This will show you whether the app is 64-bit or not. You can sort the list by that column, giving you all the apps in one place.

Catalina will not remove any apps: it will just leave them in place.


How can I pair an Apple Watch with a jailbroken iPhone 5c running iOS 8.4?

WatchOS 2 is supported only on devices running iOS 9 and higher.

The only way to run an Apple Watch using an iPhone running iOS 8.4 is to have an Apple Watch with watchOS 1.x.


Can I safely delete a “.keychain” file from Keychains when there is a corresponding “.keychain-db” file?

Yes, the .keychain files are the old format.

.keychain-db is the new format.

Modify a key in Keychain access and observe the modification dates. I deleted those files years ago without issue.


How to debug .app that only successfully launches from Terminal?

You could start by tracing the executable:

% sudo dtruss /Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox

It may be loading the wrong python, etc.  Sometimes a trace will give you a clue as to where your app is crashing, esp. if you only have an executable.

You can also look at how the executable was linked, maybe it's finding the wrong version of a library (ldd on linux, otool on osx):

% otool -TVLrH /Applications/Dropbox.app/Contents/MacOS/Dropbox


Is OS X doing some work after moving .app to trash?

OS X doesn't contain an build-in automatic uninstaller. So it doesn't do "some" work.

AFAIR one exception is (OS X) Server.app. If you move or trash the app all services will be stopped. Even then all accompanying files and folders won't be uninstalled or deleted.

Often apps are self-containing: all files and folders necessary to run the app are in the app.bundle itself. After trashing the app the only remaining files are preferences, cache files and sometime application support files all residing in your or the system's Library folder.

Some apps coming as an Installer.pkg are installed with the Apple Installer.app. Other apps are using a custom installer. Some of them also contain an uninstaller which usually removes all installed files.

A small number of apps come with an somehow "automatic" uninstaller e.g. MagicPrefs: after deleting/trashing the Prefpane file the app uninstalls itself.

Spotify probably installs a launch agent or launch daemon which relies on a file in the Spotify app bundle. After deleting Spotify, the agent/daemon misses its target - the "SpotifyWebHelper" - and as a result the process won't be started. The plist (and some other Spotify related files) is/are probably still there and you have to remove them manually to "clean" your system.

After installing Spotify it indeed installs a launch agent com.spotify.webhelper.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.spotify.webhelper</string>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <dict>
    <key>NetworkState</key>
    <true/>
    </dict>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/Spotify/SpotifyWebHelper</string>
    <key>SpotifyPath</key>
    <string>/Applications/Spotify.app</string></dict>
</plist>

The executable /Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/Spotify/SpotifyWebHelper relies on the existence of /Applications/Spotify.app. After deleting Spotify.app it won't start.

To remove all remains after deleting Spotify remove the launch agent in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/, the folder Spotify in ~/Library/Application Support/, two prefs files in ~/Library/Preferences/ and several folders in ~/Library/Caches/


If you have a backup of your iPhone on iCloud or another computer, you can restore from there. If you don't, you'll have to reset and setup as new.


Does initial FileVault encryption require user to be logged in?

It depends on the specifics on how you did this. If it is an internal disk that you booted from and the file system is mounted, then the computer just have to plugged in and awake. The encryption takes place in the background even when another user is logged in to the computer!

On the other hand, if it is an external drive that you unmount when logging out, the encryption will not continue when another user logs in.

The important thing here is whether or not the file system is mounted. It doesn't really matter if the drive is external or internal, but that is just how people treat these two types of drives in practice.


Is there a shortcut to get to the bottom of a long email on iPad or iPhone?

iOS does not provide a shortcut for skipping directly to the bottom of documents, but there is a reasonable alternative, if you're not already aware of it: scrolling views in iOS respond to swipe frequency, scrolling more quickly the more quickly and frequently you swipe the screen.

While swiping a long document, email, or webpage, try several long, quick swipes in rapid succession: you should notice the scrolling speed accelerate accordingly. This isn't nearly as elegant as a tap shortcut, but does let you quickly skip to the bottom of a long view.


How can I check whether my Mac OS El Captain network is tracked?

Best bet is to install a program like Little Snitch:

It comes with a time limited (first three hours after booting - the network monitors expires after 30 days) free trial of the full app but you can always use the network monitor to see what connections are happening too / what is using bandwidth.


App store review - can project contain "beta" in its name even if it's not beta?

If look at the AppStore you'll find some apps the uses the word beta without being beta-apps.

So if it's clear enough that your app is not a beta app, it should get accepted :)


How to set dark mode appearance to auto in terminal

The answer is in step 7 and step 9.

Setup git in the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder to determine the incoming changes.

cd ~/Library/Preferences/
git init
git add .
git commit -m "init commit"

Open System Preferences -> General, change Appearance from Light to Auto. I found only .GlobalPreferences.plist has been changed.
Open .GlobalPreferences.plist in VSCode with Binary Plist plugin to view plist file as xml syntax.
Copy the .GlobalPreferences.plist file content in VSCode and paste to Diffchecker Original Text.
Change Appearance from Auto to Light.
Copy the .GlobalPreferences.plist file content in VSCode and paste to Diffchecker Changed Text. I found the diff content is:

<key>AppleInterfaceStyleSwitchesAutomatically</key>
<true/>

Run the defaults write command to set the Appearance to Auto

defaults write -g AppleInterfaceStyleSwitchesAutomatically -bool true

Remove the .git in ~/Library/Preferences/
Log out and log in the computer.
Open System Preferences -> General. You'll see the Appearance is set to Auto.


APFS - Have I reinstalled MacOS correctly?

You have a useless APFS container with a size of 2.4 GB (disk0s2/disk1) and a second APFS container with a size of 248.3 GB (disk0s3/disk2) with the default set of APFS volumes.

A default install of macOS High Sierra on your internal SSD is expected to look like this:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         250.7 GB   disk0s2
/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +250.7 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume MACOS                   15.1 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 22.8 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                506.6 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      3.2 GB     disk1s4

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode or a second boot drive I would completely erase disk0 to one APFS container and either reinstall macOS High Sierra and migrate personal data with the Migration Assistant or restore a current Time Machine backup.


Normally, you simply have to plug the Apple Pencil in your iPad and wait a couple seconds until it is detected...


Cloudd wants to use the "Local items" keychain

It's a private framework made by Apple to interface with iCloud documents and files.

It's safe to allow and there's a possibility of keychain corruption if it won't stick (and since you wouldn't normally get that warning unless the automated process to save your iCloud password has hit a bump like having keychain items deleted or expiring)

From https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6684809

  Back up all data before proceeding.

  Launch the Keychain Access application in any of the following ways:
  ☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
  ☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
  ☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Keychain Access in the icon grid.

  Select the login keychain from the list on the left side of the Keychain Access window. If your default keychain has a different name, select that.

  If the lock icon in the top left corner of the window shows that the keychain is locked, click to unlock it. You'll be prompted for the keychain password, which is the same as your login password, unless you've changed it.

  Right-click or control-click the login entry in the list. From the menu that pops up, select
  Change Settings for Keychain "login"

  In the sheet that opens, uncheck both boxes, if not already unchecked.
  From the menu bar, select
  Keychain Access ▹ Preferences ▹ First Aid

  If the box marked
  Keep login keychain unlocked
  is not checked, check it.
  Select
            Keychain Access ▹ Keychain First Aid
  from the menu bar and repair the keychain.

  Quit Keychain Access.


How to take 9:41 am screenshots on an iOS Simulator and Device?

Starting with Xcode 11 beta 4, you can use the xcrun simctl command to set the time and battery in the Simulator.

xcrun simctl status_bar <device> override --time "9:41" \
    --batteryState charged --batteryLevel 100

Example of usage:

xcrun simctl status_bar "iPhone 11 Pro Max" override --time "9:41" \
    --batteryState charged --batteryLevel 100

The simulator needs to be run before executing the command.

See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode_release_notes/xcode_11_beta_4_release_notes for more details.


Is there away to see the internal process of a software?

Open Activity Monitor
Select the process you want to monitor
Click the "Gear" icon and choose "Sample Process"

NB: I am not claiming this will be of any use to you. It is generally only helpful for tracking bugs for someone who has the source code.


Can't download or update Mac App Store apps

I'm not sure why this worked, but I just downloaded the apps through the app store on a different Mac, then copied them over to the problematic Mac.  Since then, there have been other updates applied with no problem.  I'm not sure what the problem here was.


How to put an Apple Watch on a wifi network that its iPhone doesn't know?

I am assuming your iPhone can connect to the open network (but can't get to the internet).

Your iPhone needs to be paired with Apple Watch when it connects to the network — it doesn't work over iCloud Keychain.

Once your iPhone is on open your Apple Watch should follow. You can then Forget the network on your iPhone and it will remain on Apple Watch.


This drove me nuts forever! It's actually pretty easy (but a little tedious). Just like you can drag a selected color from the picker to create a default (opened with the picker wheel) color OR create a new palette – once you've selected your color it will appear in the presets as the "current fill". Then, just drag the "current fill" color box onto the default palette color you want to modify.

Here I've already dragged my grayscale and just added light indigo from dragging the current fill box to the color fill box.


I'm thinking that the server just must be down. I'm having the same issues logging into my game center on my iphone 4s. Perhaps it will fix itself within the hour as things like this apparently have happened before.


Is it possible to share iCloud Notes read-only?

I know this isn't really how you're wanting to solve this, but you could simply compose a note with the desired content, and then either screen cap it or print to pdf and insert the screen cap or pdf back into a shared note, presuming you wanted to keep this content within the notes app.


Can I set a Timecapsule to connect to a wireless network, and hook up more network equipment to it with cables?

Yes - Time Capsule is a fully functioning Airport and you can bridge, extend or perform any other function of Airport networking as needed without regards to there being a hard drive inside the unit.

You needn't worry about changing the network topology and having Macs not find the backup. Even if you actually change the name of the Time Capsule or change the password needed to mount the drive - once you remove the old "Time Capsule" backup as a destination from each Mac, you can add it back with the new name and/or password and the system will know it's the same volume and continue backing up just as it left off - no duplication or other ill effects will ensue due to you changing the names / networking.

I do exactly as you propose/describe with one change. I have a new AirPort Express that wirelessly extends (dotted lines) my network and I hard wire it (solid line) to the Time Capsule that used to provide wireless extension. I then turned off the wireless on the TC and run it in bridge mode (it's basically a gigabit ethernet switch now that provides three ethernet connections for two servers and a NAS) so that it's part of the network and still accessible as a backup volume.


Unfortunately there are no apps that satisfy your needs.

The Apple Watch Series 2 can track your location using its GPS receiver, but it can't determine your altitude/elevation on its own. It's technically impossible. The GPS receiver in the Apple Watch Series 2 is not as capable as the one used in current iPhones.

You can, however, use an app like ViewRanger in conjunction with an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, 7 or 7 Plus. These devices have built-in barometers that can be used to determine your altitude.

I hope this answers your question.


Sadly you are out of luck, but it was a good idea!

Apple transitioned fully to charging over USB only, although for a while both Firewire and USB charging were an option.  This caused a bit of a row when it happened, because for years 3rd party manufacturers for charging docks and speaker docks etc never bothered to update their designs to use USB when warned that the Firewire was being deprecated by Apple.  So when they took out the relevant internals to support Firewire charging, you started to see messages like "This accessory is not supported"  and your device would suddenly no longer charge because the USB pinouts had not been internally implemented.

However, naturally the 30 pin pinout of the dock connector remains the same spec, but referring to it does not mean that all functions that the cable specification supports will be available to the end device, and in your case an iPhone 4 will only charge over USB.

I'll link you to a separate Q&A here that might assist in cleaning your connector up to make it work, sometimes a rigorous clean is all that is required.


How do I stop Mavericks registering random clicks?

It would appear that the trackpad itself was faulty. It's unclear exactly how this fault developed, but I found that switching out the trackpad for another fixed the problem. I've had no issues since.


How do I remove specific items from my "Open With..." menu in High Sierra?

To prevent  a specific app from showing up under the "Open With..." for a particular file:

Go to your Applications folder and right click on the app you want
Right click and select "Show Package Contents"
In the Contents folder, open the file Info.plist with your favorite text editor
Under CFBundleTypeExtensions (there will be multiple), find the XML properties with <string>file extension</string>.
Delete the XML property that matches the file type you no longer want to associate. (i.e. <string>gif</string>) then save the file.
In Terminal, restart Finder (killall Finder)


How to detect whether the ios app is pirated or not?

You can only install apps from itunes/the build in app-store.
Some apps are/claim to be installable through safari, but I wouldn't trust that.
If you have jailbroken your phone and installed an alternative app store, that is probably illegal, and will void your warranty (because apple won't let you jailbreak).
So if you have found a third party app store, it is probably fake, or illegal.


Homebrew's doctor command is very helpful. Since you installed OpenCV from source into the same directories that Homebrew is using, it's complaining about the unexpected files.

To solve the problem, just follow the instructions carefully. Homebrew tells you exactly what you need to do:

Make the /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig directory writable.
Delete the offending .dylib (/usr/local/lib/libopencv_*.dylib) and .pc files (/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/opencv.pc).
Run brew link git. (Not directly related to OpenCV.)


How can I sync the new "people" (face recognition) metadata across devices in Photos (iOS 10 and MacOS Sierra)?

Before High Sierra release (and the corresponding iOS annual release) this metadata did not sync. Now that data does sync.
Macworld speculates on the reason behind it:

It’s not clear yet whether [facial recognition data will ever sync] because Apple’s push at its recent [2016] Worldwide Developers Conference was for local analysis of private information that’s never uploaded to the cloud.

I haven't watched it myself, but apparently Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi stated on John Gruber's The Talk Show that it will not happen, that the features are device-specific and will not be synced via iCloud.
Edit: The help file for Photos in macOS Sierra was updated with this:

Note: People identified in the People album are not synced across devices.


Increase the quality of the screen recorder in iOS

You aren't missing anything. There are no settings whatsoever that you can change to customize the capture characteristics of the built-in iOS screen recorder.

How to record the screen on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

However, a simple Web search reveals a bunch of 3rd party iOS/macOS/Windows screen recording apps that you can try out to see if they offer better quality/cutomizations.

https://filmora.wondershare.com/screen-recorder/best-ios-screen-recorder.html
https://www.aiseesoft.com/screen-recorder/iphone-screen-recorder-app.html
https://itunes.apple.com/app/techsmith-capture/id1266321056
https://iphonebyte.com/iphone-screen-recorder-apps/


Unable to reach Startup Manager or any boot options on OSX Leopard

There is a partition on your hard drive called EFI. At boot up your system looks for the EFI as very first step.

EFI is responsible for the booting process, and if it is broken for some reason the computer wont boot at all.

Using your hard drive on another computer wont tell you if the EFI is still intact since it is not used in that set up. EFI is about 200 Meg in size and it is normally hidden partition. You would have to unhide it in the Disk Utility to see it.

So what can you do about the EFI?

Repair your disk using something like iPartition tool, or simular.

Do it manually: You can recreate the EFI System Partition (ESP) using the command-line gpt tool.

Or, if you have a full back up in the iCloud, you could wipe the disk and start over or run the OS X restore (use cmd+r) during boot.

Some Macs that came with OS X Snow Leopard can use Internet Recovery after installing OS X Lion or later and a software update.


Just sign out of iCloud and your Apple ID.

Go to the System Preferences>iCloud>Sign Out
Go to the App Store>Store>Sign Out
Go iTunes>Account>Sign Out

That should log you of everything associating your Apple ID with that user.

For more Info:

Signing out of iCloud: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208242

Signing out of iTunes: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19633?locale=en_US

Signing out of App Store: How do you log out of the Mac App Store?


In macOS Photos app, can you export all pictures of a person?

Choose People view from library ⌃ CTRL+4 and drag the person to the destination folder in Finder.

Works in macOS Mojave (I don't know if it works in previous versions as well).


How to put the Mac Mini to sleep (without logging in) when the screen is locked?

I disconnect the display in this case for sleep if I can't remember the shortcuts that I don't use often.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

Option–Command–Power button* or Option–Command–Media Eject : Put your Mac to sleep.
Control–Shift–Power button* or Control–Shift–Media Eject : Put your displays to sleep.

For shut down, you can also log in - either via screen sharing, ssh, Apple a Remote Desktop or remote scripts if you need to sleep or power off the display and haven't memorized the commands above.


I can't find any reference for exactly what goes on behind the scenes with an iOS app update, but for pretty much any program upgrade, the system shouldn't just delete the existing app then install the new one. It will unpack and install the new one, copy the settings, save games, etc. then remove the old one. Even if you only remove the app binaries (program code) prior to installing the new code and not the user data, you run the risk of getting a bad download or corrupt compression and not having a valid program for the user to run.

So, the reason you can't install is that iOS needs some scratch space to decompress the file, and will almost certainly have a large portion of both versions on disk at some point. And I believe iOS also needs a bit of breathing room, so I suspect the app updater program has fairly conservative limits on how much free space it needs when installing something.

Unless you don't have any saved games or other data that you want to keep, I would recommend not deleting then installing the new version, but rather try to free up some other space by deleting apps or media that you can replace.


Requirements for App Store Review Video?

You can host it on a site like Vimeo or YouTube. Set the video unlisted and send Apple the private URL.

You can do do some editing to clarify upfront what will be shown next. Please include all necessary steps to use your app.

Shorten a process in post if it takes very long. Indicate that and by how much it was shortened.

Good luck with your app!


Can I develop apps on an iPhone 5 without service?

There should be no issue with this, the iPhone would just act as an iPod you would just have to install the app with a USB cable or over Wi-Fi if you choose to put it on the App Store.


Have you tried to tripple-click the home button, or tripple-click f5 on the keyboard, to enable VoiceOver? I'm thinking that's what the accessibility shortcut is set to by default.
Once VoiceOver is enabled, you should be able to control the iPhone with the VoiceOver keyboard commands (turn on quick nav to navigate the iPhone with arrow keys only).


iOS Mail attachment download behaviour when connected to Microsoft Exchange?

i did some testing with a colleague, and here's what we've found:

if you open an email while connected to wifi, an individual attachment of up to 1027kb will auto-download, and be available for offline use.
if you see an email has been received, but do not open it, an individual attachment of up to 799kb will auto-download, and be available for offline use.
we still have not found the lower limit for emails with multiple attachments, though we do know it's lower than 613kb (we tried an email with two attachments: 365kb + 248kb and NEITHER auto-downloaded).
JPEGs (and possibly other image formats) have a higher auto-download size limit than other attachments, but we were not concerned with them, so we didn't test for their upper limit.


You are nit picking there! :)

It’s a complicated one, but I believe that it might be possible to experiment with:

Automator (have an action that takes a PDF and modifies it’s metadata)

PDF Services (have a service that is “Save As My AuthorLess PDF”) ;)

AppleScript (Both/All of the above)

I suggest you google around those concepts. This is a good starting point. All in all, the idea of your script is to use the Automator’s action called: “Set PDF Metadata” (you could then put blank data on purpose):

If you create a PDF Service capable of replacing the default one, but that also sets the metadata to Blank, you’ve won.


You need to

close Safari
run the Terminal command
re-open Safari

Most (if not all) defaults write commands require you to quit or kill the affected application or process to see the results.

To solve your problem you may think about setting the display resolution from 3840 x 2160 to 1920 x 1080 (Retina / HDPI). This will increase the size of all display elements including text in Safari.

Go to System Preferences > Display and change the resolution there.


How to change AppleScript path to a Terminal-style path?

Use quoted form of the POSIX path of input.  Without the quoted form of part, it won't handle funny characters (like spaces) in filenames correctly.  See this Apple technote.


Found it

$HOME/.local/share/wineprefixes

more info on https://code.google.com/p/winetricks/wiki/WhereAppsGo


Where is the specific driver for my GPU located

On OSX the drivers are in /System/Library/Extensions

You'll find 3 files starting with AppleIntelHD4000Graphics.


Problem with Apple ID and associated email

You need to reinstate your original email password (the one associated with App Store, iMessage, iCloud etc.)

You cannot change primary email addresses without complications to the best of my knowledge. I'm stuck using an old hotmail address as my login ID because it was not possible to change the login info.

If you have no access to the previous email at all then you can't confirm the change in primary email address, either, so will need to call Apple (at least that was the case for Australia, USA may differ)


What is a safer way to write this applescript

A much safer way is just to action the menu directly.

clear() { osascript \
  -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal"' \
  -e   'click menu item "Clear to Start" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Edit" of menu bar 1' \
  -e 'end tell' \
  -e 'return'
}


How to watch a .ts video file on an iPad

Handbrake should do everything you need:

  HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.

It will re-encode the video but it does it relatively quickly, and re-encoding audio formats/selecting audio tracks and subtitles is all possible. Great software, free too.


Apple Support has a page on Kernel Panics, including troubleshooting repeated KPs.

In my experience, they most often have to do with hardware changes / external mounting and unmounting, but of course YMMV.


Not really the solution you asked for, but here's one way to work round it without spending a lot of time messing with config's, it also has the advantage of being less prone to breaking after updates and upgrades.

2.1.3 The Default Virtual Host
If you attempt to access a domain that Pow doesn't understand, like http://localhost/, you'll see a page letting you know that Pow is installed and working correctly, with instructions on how to set up an application.

You can override this behavior to serve all requests for unhandled domains with a particular Rack application. Create a symlink in ~/.pow named default and point it to the application of your choice.

Add to that the information from here:

2.4 Serving Static Files
Pow automatically serves static files in the public directory of your application. It's possible to serve a completely static site without a config.ru file as long as it has a public directory.

And that should create a default Rack app that can serve up content based on IP address (no host headers)


Can I clone my existing MacOS and Windows partitions onto a new SSD in my Macbook Pro?

Yes, you can use CCC to clone your OSX partition, but not the Windows/Bootcamp. (source: CCC Help). If you read that carefully, it says that it can clone the win partition, but won't make it work afterwards.

To clone and make your windows partition bootable, you need to rely on a Windows utility. Take a look at this thread (or google "clone my bootcamp partition") for a good starting point.

Booting from the SSD will be a matter of putting the SSD in the machine and turn it on, if it's the only drive, it will boot from there.


I am trying to find my iphone . Will the find my phone through icloud work

Yes, the iPhone needs to be powered (from battery), turned on and have a cell or WiFi signal in order to update its position in the Find My iPhone app.


How do I display file names in an encoding other than UTF-8?

You need to move Chinese language to the top of the Preferred languages list in System Preferences > Language & Region:

If you have Chinese file and folder names created in OS 9 and earlier, you can use File Name Encoding Repair Utility (untested).
This script gist also renames filename in GBK to UTF-8 (untested).
I found interesting information for using the Chinese language on the Mac here.
I also recommend you to read OS X: Cross-platform filename best practices and conventions.
In this forum there are user experiments about this problem.


Is running two monitors off a 2017 MacBook Pro 13” too much for the computer to handle?

No, it’s not too much for the 13 but it does get hot. The 15 churns out even more power in my experience, so I would stick with 13 inch models or the 2018 Air if you want less heat with the current generations of MacBook Pro.

I would get a stand and not run in closed clamshell mode and also consider a Mac mini and an Air or iPad if you can let your desktop run cooler and not need a MacBook Pro.

We buy Macs at work to run Adobe products as well. I have about 250 people globally that push their MBP hard all day in closed clamshell mode and we've had a handful of failures like you describe - KP / GPU halts / then need a repair. People that do not have one or someone new to running them without fail say "these are running too hot" - all 250 just run hot - especially driving pixels or doing video chat in MS teams for instance. Some even KP / GPU halt occasionally and never need repair (or haven't yet). The repair rate is less than 1% for us even when we push these hard / all day / CPU hot / closed / driving two displays.


Do I need to set up individual Apple IDs for all my kids' iPads?

I strongly recommend you keep a separate ID for each person. When buying a song, for instance, you can share among 5 authorized devices. My computer, iPad, iPod, and iPhone make four.
Now that my wife and daughter have iPhones, and daughter, a MacBook, I glad they have their own accounts. No crazy apps I don't know about clogging my devices.
You want your own apple ID and iCloud. Really.

Edit - Using your Apple ID for Apple services will help clarify the iTunes vs iCloud ID usage.


Is there an app that allows me to monitor time spent using an application?

Timing helps in tracking time spent in applications (and their windows) as well. It's similar to Time Sink but seems to provide more grouping and reporting options.


I'm in Peru and having battery problems and electric shock issues with my new MacBook Air

You could take a look at this question: How can I avoid my MacBook Pro giving me minor shocks?
The only real solution is to use a grounded power source. That's just how electricity works, unfortunately.


What is the 'Mac OS X Base System' disk image on my 2011 MacBook AIr?

It's rather complicated, and actually a lot of the complexity is to avoid wasting space; I don't think you can "reclaim" anything without breaking it.

Let me start at the beginning: your hard drive (/dev/disk0) has two relevant partitions: Macintosh HD (your regular startup volume), and Recovery HD.

(Update: with newer versions of macOS running from an APFS volume, there'll instead be a single APFS "container" on the disk; the volumes under it will be listed separately under a "synthesized" device, probably /dev/disk2. And in addition to Macintosh HD and Recovery, there'll probably be Preboot and VM volumes, and starting in Catalina there'll be a separate "Macintosh HD - Data" volume holding the user-modifiable parts of the main filesystem. And some other details are different, but actually not that much.)

Recovery HD is marked in the partition table with the type Apple_Boot, but is actually in the normal HFS+ format. It contains minimal booter files and kernel, and at /com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg, a disk image with a stripped-down and tweaked copy of OS X. The booter mounts this volume (it attaches as /dev/disk1), and transfers to OS X running on it. This is the Mac OS X Base System.

Notice that the Recovery HD is only 650MB, but Mac OS X Base System is 1.4GB? That's because it's a compressed disk image (and I'm pretty sure that compression is the reason they bother with all this disk image trickery).  Actually, BaseSystem.dmg is compressed down to only 451MB (at least in OS X v10.7.0).

Also, the volume naming is somewhat inconsistent.  You've got /dev/disk1s3 named "Recovery HD", but for some reason it's mounted as "/Volumes/Image Volume" in recovery mode. BaseSystem.dmg has a volume named "Mac OS X Base System".

So that's disk0 and disk1; what about the rest? I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure they are RAM disks to save temporary data in folders OS X modifies as it runs (remember that in recovery mode, you're running from a read-only disk image). Running the mount command in recovery mode is informative:

$ mount
/dev/disk1s3 on / (hfs, local, read-only)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
/dev/disk2 on /Volumes (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk3 on /private/var/tmp (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk4 on /private/var/run (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk5 on /System/Installation (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk6 on /private/var/db (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk7 on /private/var/folders (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk8 on /private/var/root/Library (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk9 on /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk10 on /Library/Preferences (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk11 on /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk12 on /Library/Keychains (hfs, local, union, nobrowse)
/dev/disk0s2 on /Volumes/Macintosh HD (hfs, local, journaled)
/dev/disk0s3 on /Volumes/Image Volume (hfs, local, read-only, journaled)

Those "union" attributes mean that things in the relevant folder in the startup volume will be visible, but anything modified gets stored in what I'm pretty sure is a RAM disk.

If you want to look at this stuff yourself, you can mount the relevant volumes from the regular OS:

# Mount "Recovery HD":
$ diskutil mount /dev/disk0s3
# Mount "Mac OS X Base System":
$ hdiutil mount /Volumes/Recovery\ HD/com.apple.recovery.boot/BaseSystem.dmg -noverify


There is a 3rd party app named Mountain which I use on my mac. It puts an icon in your menu bar and when you click on it. it will show a list of Volumes and you can mount or unmount them. The app is $6 but has a free trial period so you can test it and see if it solves your problem.  See image below.


Is Mac OS X in a VirtualBox VM suitable for iOS development?

If this is a hobby and you are not planning on releasing any apps to the app store, and you can tolerate the slow performance and don't care about running on real devices, then don't worry about it. However, if you are creating a business the it is essential to run on real hardware. Any low end Mac (MacBook Air 11", is my current favorite) will blow away any virtual machine.

I have a fairly simple app that runs fine on my iPad and iPod Touch, but has all sorts of graphic anomalies in the simulator.


Can't backup broken iPhone 6 without entering pin

As far as I'm aware, entering the pass code is a security feature when you backup for the first time to a different iTunes/computer. You can't get around it, however its possible that Apple will be able to repair the screen without wiping the phone. Maybe even mention you haven't backed up the phone when you take it to get repaired and see if they can do anything for you


How can I launch a GUI app in Applications folder from command line?

Simply use open:

open "/Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 13 CE.app"

open -a "IntelliJ IDEA 13 CE"

However, prepending sudo isn't enough to run as root. You'll need to run the actual binary:

sudo /Applications/ApplicationName.app/Contents/MacOS/ApplicationName


Is it possible to override the SD Card write protection setting in software?

No.  You cannot override the write protection status of an SD Card via software.

The read/write status is handled by the firmware of the SD card host controller not by the driver.  From Toshiba (manufacturer of these chips):

  Content protection can be realized by using the [controller] with
  firmware.

Inside the SD card reader are a series of pins that get connected if the write protection is enabled.  This tells the controller that write protection is enabled (Picture is not of the MacBook connectors, but the best one to illustrate how it works I could find online).

It is most likely that these pins are "stuck" together causing the controller to "see" the card as protected.  You can attempt to clean it out or as a better alternative, just purchase an inexpensive USB SD Card Reader.


What does "each user must type in their password before they will be able to unlock the disk" mean?

Essentially all users not enabled won' t be capable of unlocking the disk.

If you hit Continue, your Mac will be restarted
All users not enabled previously will not appear at the first login screen and thus won't be able to unlock the disk.

Once the disk is unlocked, all users may be used though. Even the  previously not 'enabled' users are available by 'user switching' or a 'second' login screen.
After logging in with an enabled user your system will be encrypted.

You may enable users subsequently by clicking the lock and 'Enable User...'

Enter the user's password and click OK, then Done

All users enabled subsequently will reappear at the first login screen, may unlock the disk and log in as usual.


ML 10.8.2, mid-2012 15" MBP (non-Retina).

This problem just popped up for me a couple weeks ago: leave MBP sleeping for X hours, unplug MBP, MBP lights/wakes up, enters hibernation.  Really annoying to open the lid only to have it shut down right in front of me.

My acwake was also disabled for both battery and AC.  Which means that the setting is now being ignored.

The solution appears to be (even though it's not referenced in the pmset man page):

sudo pmset -a autopoweroff 0

I should note that this does not affect acwake being ignored.  My computer still wakes up upon AC connect/disconnect, but it's not hibernating or attempting to hibernate after I've unplugged the computer and opened the lid.


What brand of SSD does apple use for their LATE 2011 MacBook Pros?

I bought a Apple SSD which is OEMed from Toshiba.  The model is TS256C. http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/17/apple-adds-speedier-ssds-to-latest-batch-of-macbook-airs/

When installing this SSD into my later 2008 MBP, the TRIM is automatically enabled in Lion.  However, other brand SSD, you may need to manually enable the TRIM.

So I guess the later 2011 MBP may using the same OEMed Toshiba SSD.


iCloud cannot enable Calendar and Reminders at the same time

It's your firewall...I have TCPBlock on my system and encountered the exact same thing. Make sure you're allowing any sync services and iCloud to communicate with the outside world.


Solder new RAM in a 2015 Retina MacBook Pro

The short answer is yes (anything is possible), but is it feasible?

There's a ton of responses out there whether you can/cannot re-solder memory chips to Apple logic boards in an attempt to upgrade RAM.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation out there.  Basically, they all revolve around one of the following three themes:

It's extremely difficult/impossible
No idea how much memory can be addressed
Physical space to "add more chips"

Impossible and/or extremely difficult

Replacing a chip is actually quite an easy process if you have a BGA rework station and a little bit of practice.1 You actually don't need a significant amount of "electronic engineering" skill to remove a chip and replace it with another.   It doesn't need to go back to the factory as doing BGA rework doesn't damage the board.

Are you going to do this with a soldering iron/gun that you get from Radio Shack or your local electronics supply store?  No.

However, obtaining a BGA rework station is not out of the realm of possibility either.  A quick search on Amazon yields both infrared and hot air rework stations that vary in price from $150 to $6,000 depending on the the bells and whistles you want.  The key here is how accurately the rework station can deliver the heat necessary to flow the solder.

Because the heated air or infrared light is focused directly to the work piece, heat damage to the remainder of the board is mitigated

As for my personal experience, I have had GPU's replaced in Apple logic boards that weren't covered by Apple's GPU replacement program using this exact method and not only got a year's warranty on the work, but the logic boards lasted for years after.

So, can this work be done?  Yes.  Quite easily.

How much memory can be addressed?

There has been a lot of speculation as to how much memory a computer can address.  There has even been conjecture on the "additional (physical) space" required for the new chips.

First and foremost, the memory limit is primarily determined by the CPU. For example, on an original i7-920 CPU, the maximum amount of memory that can be addressed is 24GB of RAM.

If you notice, Intel states that it's determined by the "type of memory."  This is where the logic board comes into play. Depending on the type, the logic board and the memory modules available at the time may impose a limit less than what the CPU can address.

Haven't you ever noticed that everymac.com has tested higher configurations that what was technically specified by Apple?

This is because what was available at the time the product was released, higher density memory chips weren't generally available.  When they become available,  you can upgrade your Mac past the specified limit.

To see what your particular CPU can address, obtain the CPU identifier from your machine and get the specs from http://www.intel.com

Space to add more...

In the pre-soldered RAM days, when you wanted to upgrade your Mac with more RAM, were you stopped because there wasn't any more "real estate" on your logic board?  No.  You replaced the module(s) with larger ones.

Memory modules (of a particular family)2 only differ in density.  As for physical layout, pin out configuration, voltages, etc., they are identical.  So, using the example I linked with DigiKey, you could have 8 modules of 16M for 128M or 8 modules of 512M for 4G.  Same real estate, same configuration.

So, can you get "bigger" memory chips?  Yes.

Is all of this feasible?

Again, in the pre-soldered RAM days of Apple it was quite easy to upgrade your memory.  Now, unless you are willing to invest in a rework machine and put in some practice reworking a BGA chip you are going to have to send this out to be done by someone with experience.

I have sent many clients damaged logic boards to a firm in NYC that specializes in this type of work.  It usually costs between $350 and $500 depending on the severity and what parts are needed. Estimating that replacement memory chips would be around $200 and the work would be on the high end given that there are multiple chips to replace (say $450), you are looking at $650 to upgrade your memory.

A quick look on Apple's website tells me that to upgrade a MacBook Pro from 8GB to 16GB is only $200.

Bottom line:  Is this feasible?

Keep in mind, if you undertake this type of modification, you will void any warranty on your MacBook, if there is one still in effect.

So, we are left with a cost comparison:

(Est) $650 to upgrade your memory & void your warranty
$200 to get it from Apple and keep warranty in full effect.

No this is not feasible.  Period.

1 I actually did this work about 4 times a year, at the end of every fiscal quarter, when our company would go "all hands on deck" to the manufacturing and shipping departments to get as much product out the door as possible.  Normally, I worked in product management as a go between marketing and development.  However, for about a week every 3 months I was in the QA department re-flowing chips using a hot air rework station like the one referenced.  They gave me this job so the actual tech could spend time diagnosing the problem rather than spend time doing the mundane work of re-flowing a BGA.  I had about an hour or two of training and became quite proficient at it.

2 The memory shown here is for illustration purposes only.  It's not intended to be the specification for memory used in any Apple or other manufacturers' product.


How to select photos from an album using smart ablum like rules

I think out a way to do it:

Create a smart album by using two rules: album is 'old iPhone' and photo isn't screenshot.
Then create a regular album and move all images in the above album to it. In this way I created a regular album containing only camera pictures from 'old iPhone'.
Use similar steps to create a regular album containing only screenshots from 'old iPhone'.
Remove 'old iPhone' album.

The smart album created in step 1 is a temporary album. I need to introduce it because, as far as I can tell, that's the only way to select files using rules rather than manually. On the other hand, I can't just use it for final result, because if I understand it correctly, after the 'old iPhone' album is deleted, it will contain nothing.
I haven't actually tried the above approach because this is my first day using the Photo app on macOS and I'd like to see if there is any better approach. The above approach involves multiple steps and it would be good if there is some way to combine these steps.


Play Song in iTunes w/o Deselecting Highlighted Songs

One thing you can do is right clicking and click "Play next", going to the up next bar on the top, and clicking on the song you want to play and clearing the other selected song.

As to stopping iTunes from jumping to whatever track you just pressed, right click and choose "Play next" or "Add to Up Next" to put it in queue.


How to sign out of Gmail on iPhone X in the iPhone mail.app

Open the Settings app on your phone and scroll down to "Passwords & Accounts". Tap that, and find your Google account listed on this page. Tap the account and you'll see a button labeled "Delete Account."


How can I slow down the speed a video is played back on an iPhone?

If you don't mind going through an extra step, almost any video editor lets you edit video speed. You could import the video, edit the speed, and export.

If you're looking for a solution that's a bit less time consuming, you could try SpeedUpTV. Although the app isn't free, it lets you adjust playback speed on-the-fly in the app:


Looking for a tool for creating or editing file and folder bookmarks (finder aliases)

Rather than attempting to edit an alias directly, you could look at making a tool that creates the alias for the user.

Using Automator you could create an application that uses the following built in actions:

Ask for Text
Connect to Servers
New Aliases

And when the app is run, the following would happen:

The user would be asked for the server address (you could pre-populate a default answer for this).
The share point would be mounted. A dialog would pop up asking for the users login credentials, which could then be stored in the keychain (more secure than having these details contained within the tool itself).
An alias would be created at a specified location, e.g. the Desktop.

You would then save this as an application and share it with your users.


Add a tone as an Alert Tone rather than as a Ringtone

As of iOS 11 it is not possible to create custom Alert Tones, only custom Ringtones.  iTunes itself only makes one Media Kind available for them: Ringtone. That cannot be changed.

You can assign both Ringtones and Alert Tones to any event under Settings → Sounds & Haptics on your iOS device.

As far as app-specific limitations are concerned, you’ll have to take it up to the developers of such apps, in this case WhatsApp. I doubt Apple will add that functionality, since it makes no difference to iOS itself.


Why does my Apple Watch keep entering Power Reserve mode?

Someone (I don't recall who, and I'm surprised their comment isn't here - whoever you are, thanks!) suggested that it could be the Battery complication, which I really like for monitoring battery status.  However, when you touch it, it presents a big percentage display and a very large button that covers the bottom of the watch face; touching this button puts the watch in Power Reserve mode!

The problem is that I had the Battery complication at the bottom right, so two touches in that corner results in Power Reserve mode!  At first I thought I had to give up the Battery complication, but then I realized that by putting it in the upper left corner, I avoid the simple two touches in one corner; now, in order to put it in Reserve mode, you have to touch two distinct, separate areas.  It has now not gone into Reserve mode since then!

Of course, it would be even nicer to have a Battery complication that just shows the battery status, without causing this nasty behavior...


How to enable the iOS spell checker in Mobile Safari?

It looks like it's indeed a hole in iphone's safari. I'm not sure if it was always like that or if it's a new undocumented feature that might soon go away.

But meanwhile you can try using Inspell if you're willing to jailbreak. There's just no other way to fix such an issue: it's either apple or cydia.

Another option, if the error occured only in safari, is using another browser. But that doesn't seem to be this case.


Check this thread out
https://askubuntu.com/questions/994/can-i-sync-with-my-iphone-4-and-ipad

otherwise you might ask directly on askubuntu.
You can log in on askubuntu using your stackexchange credentials


Touch ID setup fails on new (duplicate) user account

I imagine (but have not verified) this is because the fingerprints are the same – macOS is identifying that you are the same person. If it allowed registering the same fingerprint twice, it wouldn't know which account to unlock when you touched the sensor.


How to provide detailed listing of /tmp directory

As your ls -l /tmp shows /tmp is a symbolic link to private/tmp

So what you want is to replace tmp by what it is linked to e.g.

ls -l /private/tmp

or let ls do it for you using the -H option

ls -lH /tmp

man ls says

  -H      Symbolic links on the command line are followed.  This option is
               assumed if none of the -F, -d, or -l options are specified.

which explains whey ls with no options does show the contents of the directory that is linked to.


In Numbers, how can I show a formula instead of the result?

If I understand correctly...

Enter the formula in the cell normally.
In the formula box dropdown, select Convert Formula to Text in Cell

This will replace the formula result with the formula.

Warning: This will replace the formula with text so if any other cell's formula is dependent on the converted cell it will break.


Disable background app refresh for ONLY Messages app

It sounds like you're trying to address the symptom, rather than the problem. To be clear, Messages should not be using up that much battery power. I suggest the following:

Restart your wife's iPhone by holding down the Power and Home buttons simultaneously for about 10 seconds until you see the Apple logo
Wait for her iPhone battery stats to refresh.

NOTE:
This may take up to a day - typically it will need to be plugged back into a charger and fully charged and then removed and used normally for a few hours up to a day before the battery stats will refresh.

Once you've done this, let us know if your wife is still having this problem.


Apple Watch Motion face: is there any way to just pick one flower as the default flower?

As of watchOS 4 (and the newest watchOS 5 beta), you can't really do that, Apple didn't make it possible.


What iPhone apps can't you live without?

Dropbox

App Store

Conveniently access files in your Dropbox on the go.


Is it possible to show a screensaver on a secondary monitor while using the primary monitor?

You can set your screensaver to be your desktop background (link to source).

To do so, run this in the Terminal:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -background

This works on both monitors (tested just now in Lion), so as long as you don't put any windows on the other monitor, it'll just show the screensaver. (Unfortunately, the screensaver will also be behind all of your windows on the screen you're using. I hope you really like your screensaver.)


How do I extract Parallels Desktop's dock icon?

First, see this article. It eliminates the red bar well.

Anyway dock icon when Parallels is not running shows bad icon. You can replace this icon in app's resource folder. Anyway we don't have the clean icon now. To get the clean icon, follow these steps.

Find Parallels Desktop's PID.
Run GDB as superuser. Attach to Parallels Desktop.
Execute Objective-C that saves code for current dock icon image into a file.

See this console log.

Hoons-MacBook-Air:~ Eonil$ ps -A | grep Parallels\ Desktop
 4223 ??         0:01.79 /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_client_app -psn_0_950504
 4259 ttys007    0:00.00 grep Parallels Desktop
Hoons-MacBook-Air:~ Eonil$ sudo gdb
GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-1708) (Thu Nov  3 21:59:02 UTC 2011)
Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "x86_64-apple-darwin".
(gdb) attach 4223
Attaching to process 4223.
Reading symbols for shared libraries . done
Reading symbols for shared libraries ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... done
0x00007fff8d17f67a in mach_msg_trap ()
(gdb) po [[[[[[NSApplication sharedApplication] dockTile] contentView] image] TIFFRepresentation] writeToFile:@"/Users/Eonil/Temp/t.tiff" atomically:YES]
0x1 does not appear to point to a valid object.
(gdb) quit
The program is running.  Quit anyway (and detach it)? (y or n) y
Detaching from process 4223.
Hoons-MacBook-Air:~ Eonil$ open /Users/Eonil/Temp/t.tiff
Hoons-MacBook-Air:~ Eonil$

You'll see the icon with Preview app.
Take care about you have to replace the file path /Users/Eonil/Temp/t.tiff to path exists on your computer.

This hack will extract current icon. So if you want to extract other icon, just make your Parallels to show the other icon and use this hack at the time.


Why is the process named geod in my iOS simulator trying to access irs.gov?

This sounds like a classic case of bad reverse DNS. Note that both the IRS and azadiradio.org are at least partially hosted by Akamai's servers. This can lead to some confusion for people trying to do a reverse DNS. Your simulator might be trying to access some other server (could be Apple's, they also use Akamai) and Little Snitch tries to translate that IP address into a domain. When that IP is used by one of the world's largest hosting and content distribution networks, you run into problems.


OS X menubar/dashboard/dock utility for monitoring a server?

GeekTool (free)

GeekTool will let you set up a simple icon or show more detailed information, embedded in or floating over your desktop, based on whatever programming you want.

If you can write a script to check the server and return either a binary status or more detailed information, GeekTool is the way to display it.


Mobile backups are a part of Time Machine called "snapshots" basically it lets you restore to one of the most recent backups without the need for you time machine disk.

I believe OSX will automatically free up this space when it is need, but it can be turned off manually as well.

See https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT204015
And http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/28/disable-time-machine-local-backups-in-mac-os-x-lion/


Applescript to check for the existence of a file

This should work:

if exists file theFile then
    # do stuff
else
    display dialog "File not found" buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end if


Time Machine not fully encrypted. Is it safe to use?

Ideally, the CoreStorage encryption should continue after you reconnect the Time Machine drive after your format. But practically, it's a risk that you shouldn't take unless you have other backups to recover from (like a SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner bootable clone).


How can I combine internet from two sources on my macbook and get increased speed?

What you're referring to is called Internet Bonding.

You can't simply turn on two different Internet connections and have everything work - you need an intermediary whether it be a dedicated router or 3rd party software to properly manage the packets as they split between the two connections and then have them reassemble back on the other end.

It's very similar to Link Aggregation but instead of being internal where your host (computer) and switch must support it, you must have an ISP or a 3rd party service that will do this for you.

Here's a few companies that do Internet bonding:

Speedify
XRoads Networks
ZifiLink (3G, 4G, LTE bonding)

Normally, this is done at the Enterprise level where a router can have multiple WAN connections (I did this with 3Com/HP and Cisco gear) or in remote location where broadband was more expensive than multiple cellular data networks.

As for software, there's

OpenMCTC Router
pfSense Multiple WAN connections

In these instances, you're acting as the bonding service provider.  Given that it's available on pfSense which is the same firewall that macOS uses (pf) it's conceivable that you can bond multiple Internet connections using the built in firewall.


MacBook Pro with Retina display (Late 2012) not outputting anything above 1080p

I managed to get full 3840×2160 @30Hz using mini-displayport cable and an app called SwitchResX. Here are my custom settings, you need to reboot the machine to apply them:

As a word of warning, this does make things eye-bleedingly small. (Pretty cool though - full-size)

Personally, I found the ‘scaled’ resolution of 1920×1200 to be the best for me because it uses HiDPI to give you that retina feel you’re used to. It will look like 1920×1200 but actually use more pixels to paint it. Here are the settings:

This is much more sensible (although I would like it smaller to be honest).
The downside is that you lose some of the screen down the sides. Let me know if you have any better suggestions.

If you find the colours going a bit funny, I used SwitchResX to change the color profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 like this:

For more details, go to my blog post here: http://www.mattburns.co.uk/blog/2014/09/30/running-the-4k-aoc-u2868pqu-and-intel-hd4000-graphics/


In my and others' experience, Folder Actions are unreliable, especially with large numbers of changes. So the problem you're facing is not specific to your system, but a rather common one.

I suggest you rewrite your script into one that receives a folder as input, and performs the Markdown transformation on all files within. Have it trigger automatically whenever a file is written to by a launchd job, with the parent folder specified in the WatchPaths rule.

Since most programs on OS X perform atomic saves and thereby replace the previous file instead of simply modifying its contents, the folder will also be updated and the job will be triggered reliably.

Markdown transformation also shouldn't be too time consuming, and you can always ensure only to transform files using your script that were changed in the last X minutes.


Is there a way to share iPad's (second generation) Internet with MacBook? (tethering)

There is an HTML5 app which will allow you to turn your iPhone into a personal hotspot without any jailbreak or extra apps. I don't know if it will work on iPad though...

And a second solution is not what you want to hear. The most easy solution is to jailbreak it indeed. There is an app in the Cydia store called TetherMe ($1.99). And it will allow yout to turn your iPad in a personal hotspot within the minute. It's super easy to install and very useful when you're in a desperate need of a 3G connection.

And these days, jailbreaking is as easy as it was before, so I'm not sure why people are against it since you won't lose your warranty or anything alike...


How to disable tab preview on mouse hover in Safari for macOS?

The tab preview that you are noticing is a newly introduced feature made available in recently released Safari 14. Safari 14 is going to be made available with the upcoming release of macOS 11 Big Sur and has also been made available via a software update for the users of macOS Catalina 10.15 and macOS Mojave 10.14.
As of this writing, there is no directly accessible option made available under either Safari Preferences or the Menu bar to turn off this feature. However, if you don't find the feature useful, there's a slightly involved workaround that could help you disable it.
Follow the below mentioned steps one by one:

Quit Safari.app.

Launch Terminal.app. You can find it by searching in Spotlight, within Utilities folder under Applications, or within Launchpad.

Copy paste the following line verbatim in Terminal and press the Enter key:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1
This would add a new menu item called Debug in the Safari menu alongside the Help menu item.

Now launch Safari.app and you'd notice the Debug menu item alongside the existing Help menu.

In the Debug menu, click to uncheck the Tab Features → Show Tab Preview on Hover (requires restart) option.

Now quit Safari.app by using the keyboard shortcut Command + Q.

Go back to Terminal.app and copy paste the following line verbatim and press the Enter key:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 0
Notice that the last parameter to the command is now a 0 instead of 1.

You can close/quit Terminal.app after running the above command.

Now launch Safari.app and voila! the tab preview is gone. Also, you no longer see the Debug menu either (which is hidden by default).


Photos imported from iPhone lose their albums

I don't have an answer, but I think I can clarify the question:

In the built-in IOS Photo app, you can create Albums, which are essentially folders of aliases. So I created the album Selva Verde fauna, for photos of animals I'd taken in the Costa Rican lowlands. In iPhoto, this album seems to be inaccessible: all I see is my iPhone device name (say, David's iPhone) and the photos in my Camera Roll. So all the time I spent selecting photos is wasted, and I have to guess which are the edited versions I've tweaked in Filterstorm (a truly fantastic app: 70% of Photoshop's capabilities for 2% of the price!). To make things even more irritating, in the iPhone Photos app the images are in chronological order, so edited versions always come after originals. iPhoto, however, puts them right next to the original image.

What I'd like, and I think it's what Sam's asking for, is a way to import albums from the iPhone, instead of just individual images.


Have you tried putting the phone in recovery mode and then unlocking the iCloud restriction afterwards? Hold down the sleep/wake and Home button until the iPhone goes into recovery mode and then erase it by connecting it to iTunes via a Lightning cable. Once the phone is erased it will require you to login to your iCloud account to unlock it.


Can I update Clash of Clans downloaded with an old Apple ID using a new Apple ID?

App updates must be done with the Apple ID that was used to originally download the app. If you wish to use another Apple ID with an app you need to delete the app and download it again from the App Store using the new Apple ID.


Support is not just limited to the Apple TV, as the new Siri/touch sensitive remote can also pair with Macs so you can test tvOS apps in Xcode (presumably). Though only some Macs are supported.

However, there's no iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch support (on iOS 9.2 or earlier at least).


Why I cannot extend value column for plist files?

It's a bug. The Value column is meant to be the remaining width in the window.
You can fix it by dragging the right side of the window small enough to hide some of the Value column, then dragging the window bigger again. When you drag the window bigger this time, the right edge of the Value column will follow the side of the window.


Keyboard Touch Bar MacBook Pro late 2016

No, you're not the only one.

I'm aware of people who have used BetterTouchTool to modify the Touch Bar buttons and, in some cases, move the ESC key to the right somewhat because they have the same problem.

BTT offers much more customisability then what Apple does via System Preferences. Also, you can associate buttons with your own scripts (using AppleScript) or use it to trigger Automator workflows.

You can download it for free to give it a try.

Note: I am not affiliated in any way with BTT.


Do all editions of OS X use the New Oxford American Dictionary?

Do other parts of the world have the option of other built-in dictionaries? Does Great Britain have the option of the OED instead of NOAD, for instance?

All parts of the world have options of other dictionaries. To add (or remove) alternate dictionaries, launch the built-in dictionary application and open the app's preferences. From there you can add or subtract as many dictionaries as you'd like - including the Oxford English Dictionary.


iOS simulator showing a bar at the bottom in my horizontally-view game

In fact your assumption that there is a 'problem' is incorrect. This has nothing to do with your code, nor does the line represent the real-life microphone.
The black line you describe is displayed at the bottom of the screen by iOS to users to indicate they can swipe up from there.
This line can be either black or white, depending on what else is being displayed on the screen. The iOS Simulator is accurately simulating what will be seen by users on an actual hardware device.


Free or Cheaper Alternatives to Apple Remote Desktop 3

ARD is now available on the Mac App Store for only $79.99.

ARD aside, you can do pretty much anything ARD can do with Screen Sharing, File Sharing, scp, ssh and AppleScript.


Can't do anything with external hard drive, “.Trashes” is probably the boogyman

I had the same problem today. After trying everything sudo I could do under the sun, manually trying to remove the .Trashes file through finder, etc I wound up just reformatting the drive.

The reformat took significantly less time than me trying to figure out how to get the drive empty. Probably better for the drive, anyway.


App Review - Do they allow app names with question marks in?

I had the same issue with @user2397282 it was being rejected because my xcode project has question mark on my project. Had to remove all question marks for it to be accepted.


Can I share iCloud Drive folder with other iCloud user?

Before macOS High Sierra and iOS 10 release the answer was "No - iCloud drive and its folder structure is strictly for sharing with one account." You can now share files but not entire folders easily.

Now with iOS 10 and High Sierra and newer, you can share from the share control on macOS and choose a file. You can share with the generic "add people" icon files but not folders currently. You can share from the web interface and iOS as well.

For some iWork documents and photos, you can share them individually or by adding someone to a shared photo album, but that's based on the app design and not a more general folder based file sharing idiom.

You can also avail yourself of all the share sheets when an app like Things or OneNote or Acorn can accept a shared file from iCloud.

Also -  Apple's MailDrop feature to email each file to the recipient(s) that need to share the file, but it wouldn't be anything that's hosted and really shared in the sense that a change to the file by one user would then be reflected on the cloud. When that works it's great since you don't have to plan to share out the files - it just happens.

Clearly, iCloud isn't competing directly with Box.com and DropBox but it has picked up tons of useful features and the live on line collaboration for iWork documents and notes is really fantastic in 2018 now that we have some real sharing features in iCloud.


Can't unlock encrypted external drive with filevault (osx)

Sadly you are going to have to get that volume unlocked before you can copy any data from it.  The encryption cannot be "cracked" in any reasonable period of time.

If there is corruption, the volume/data may be irretrievable.

Can you find a machine running Lion and try to unlock it one last time there?  If that works, copy all the data off the volume and onto a new volume.


Where does homebrew install a legacy php version?

Since PHP 8 is already installed, Homebrew won't link an earlier version of PHP to php.

Try brew link php@7.4
Otherwise access the Cellar directly: /usr/local/Cellar/php@7.4/*/bin/php


El Capitan won't save change in default mail reader

If the program you wish to select as the new default is in the dropdown menu of available mail programs, there is some Apple bug that won't save it.  However, if you click the "select" option and select your preferred mail reader program from your Applications folder, it will save the new default mail application.


How can I make vim "command mode" the default mode for terminal

No there in no way to start your terminal in command mode.

The set keymap setting is used to customize the keymap within terminal. A line with set keymap vi-command means that mappings below that line apply to command mode; a line with set keymap vi-insert means that mappings below that line apply to insert mode. For more details see: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Use_vi_shortcuts_in_terminal

But starting from bash version 4.3 you can change your prompt to highlight which mode you are currently in by putting set show-mode-in-prompt on in your ~/.inputrc file. This with put either (ins) or (cmd) at the start of your prompt. You can further customize it by using command:

set vi-cmd-mode-string "\1\e[1;31m\2(cmd)\1\e[0m\2" -- will give light red color

set vi-ins-mode-string "\1\e[1;35m\2(ins)\1\e[0m\2" -- will give light purple color

You can pick any of the following color by their ANSI codes:

Black            \e[0;30m
Blue             \e[0;34m
Green            \e[0;32m
Cyan             \e[0;36m
Red              \e[0;31m
Purple           \e[0;35m
Brown            \e[0;33m
Gray             \e[0;37m
Dark Gray        \e[1;30m
Light Blue       \e[1;34m
Light Green      \e[1;32m
Light Cyan       \e[1;36m
Light Red        \e[1;31m
Light Purple     \e[1;35m
Yellow           \e[1;33m
White            \e[1;37m


How do I play DVDs fullscreen on an external monitor in Lion?

You need to run VLC.

In VLC, go to the Video menu and the Fullscreen Video Device menu and choose which screen you want to use for fullscreen video playback.


that's a tough one and could be an issue with a bad battery or something wrong with the "charging circuitry" in the phone itself which would require a visit to the Genius Bar or a 3rd party phone repair shop.

One thing you might want to try before going that route is to plug it into the Mac or PC that you normally sync with. Does it give you that same error? If so it may be that there is an issue with the connector. Either in the phone itself or the dock connector. You can try blowing in there to dislodge any lint/dust/dirt but a quick spurt of canned air would be my recommended method. Do both the connection port on the phone and the dock end of the connector and try again.

It is possible that the connector is worn and jiggling the connector in various ways might point to that.


Delete MacOS Sierra Installer .dmg after Update

OS X Installer files are automatically deleted from Applications as part of the install process. Normally, it shouldn't need moving there, App Store ought to put it there directly as part of the download process.
They are very unlikely to have any 'related files' of the type that AppCleaner could find.

If you did want to keep a copy for the future, then you need to copy it outside Applications before running the Installer.


Does Apple have to provide authorisation for the iPhone NFC to be used as a transport Smart Card?

Apple does not allow developers to interact with the internal NFC chip at this moment.

Currently the only extendable Apple SDK for this type of system is Wallet (formerly PassBook). If your local transport station has an option to scan barcodes you can use third party tools to add your transportation pass barcode to Wallet.