MySQL service doesn't start in Catalina OSX

After hours investigating I found this post from Michael Fraase: https://discourse.brew.sh/t/mysql-8-0-18-on-catalina-wont-run-as-service/6015/2

I just added:

[mysqld]
user=root

to /etc/my.cnf (or where you have your .cnf file) and it solved it (I can not believe it).


You must have enabled FileVault,
therefore your disk this
encrypted, you go to: System preferences / security and privacy / FileVault.
if enabled it so you disable,
it should take some time
why he will decrypt your disk, then restart and everything returns to normal.

for more information: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204156


iPhoto: How to only set the year of a picture?

Select the photos you want to set a date for. In the menu, select Photos > Batch Change, then select date from the dialog pop-up.


When using my Apple ID, how can I sign out from within an app?

Unfortunately, Apple does not have a sign out function available to use for the "Sign in with Apple". Currently, the user must go into the Settings application and revoke permission.


Is there a keyboard shortcut for minimizing Mac OS X windows?


If you are using iCloud Keychain, you can store the Secure Notes in iCloud, instead of locally on a machine, and the Notes can be visible on any macOS machine logged into the same iCloud account with iCloud Keychain enabled.


The Keyboard on my iMac seems to be typing slow and garbled

Hold down the Shift and Option keys ('Alt' on some keyboards) and, at the same time, click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.
Find your keyboard on the device list and select "Factory Reset"
Confirm "remove" when prompted.
Reconnect keyboard.

I tried "resetting NVRAM and SMC" as Apple Support mentioned but didn't enough to solve. If the solution above doesn't solve the problem, please try to reset NVRAM and SMC before following the solution steps.


Copy folder & files with labeled files but strip the label?

You can set your Automator application as a service instead, and then apply a keyboard shortcut against that service as follows:

In System Preferences, go to Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services

Find the service on the list.

To the right of the service name, double-click.

Enter the desired shortcut.


How can I search for MP3 files by the "Purchased By" field?

In Itunes, create a Smart Playlist and name it purchases.  (File Menu, New Playlist... Smart Playlist)

In the search parameters of the smart playlist, Choose 'Purchased' and 'IS True'. That's the closes you'll get to sorting out your purchased items, but it doesn't allow you to sort by apple ID.

Since iTunes doesn't allow you to search the 'Purchased by' field in filters, you can accomplish this using Tracksift, by dougscripts.com.

I tried, and using applescript doesn't easily lend itself to reveal the 'purchased by' property, from what I can find.

http://dougscripts.com/apps/tracksift2app.php

This app allows you to Sort tracks into playlists by Apple ID.


How do I use a glob with parentheses in Zsh?

This has nothing to do with shell options. Rather, it depends on what shebang you have in your executable file.
When you run a script as an executable (instead of source-ing it or running it as a function), it runs in a separate sub-shell and not in your top-level shell. A sub-shell inherits its parent's environment (that is, exported parameters), but not any shell options. Instead, the shebang dictates which shell it runs in and with which options.
If the shebang is #!/bin/zsh, it will start a Zsh sub-shell with default options, then read commands from /etc/zshenv and $ZDOTDIR/.zshenv, and then from your script.
Likewise, if the shebang is #!/bin/bash, your script will actually run in Bash, and not in Zsh.
Finally, if the shebang is #!/bin/sh, it depends on your OS. On macOS, there is a symlink /private/var/select/sh that points to the shell executable to use when the shebang is #!/bin/sh. (Type man 1 sh for more info.) By default, that shell is Bash, and not Zsh, even if you have changed your login shell to Zsh. The only way to change it is to change that symlink.
But even if you make /private/var/select/sh point to the Zsh executable, if you run your script with a #!/bin/sh shebang, Zsh will not run in "native mode". Instead, it will run in sh emulation mode, which toggles a number of options that are significantly different from the Zsh defaults.
Parentheses are basic glob syntax in Zsh. However, they are not in Bash. So, my guess is, your script is actually running in Bash, because of the shebang.

So, anyway, long story short: Save yourself the trouble and don't run your script as an executable. Rather, what is usually the most convenient in Zsh, is to add your script's parent dir to your $fpath and then autoload your script as a function.


SSH into another mac on different network using port other than 22

Everything after the destination/address is passed to the target computer as a command. Try
ssh -p 1234 user@remote

instead.


IPhones sharing neither Apple ID nor iCloud somehow still sharing data

This happened to me I gave my husband my old apple 5s but didn't wipe it clean first. He deleted 3-400 of my contacts in a 1 hour period since they were still using the same iCloud account. From experience I now know to rest the old phone to factory default and set it up that users own Apple ID. Problem solved except couldn't recover my contacts since a new update was being performed and didn't have a current backup.


How do I automatically split video files into separate clips?

You might find ReCut helpful.

ffmpeg, a free open source product, looks like it is working on this issue.  Unfortunately, it is not complete yet.

See also this Super User question: Automatic Scene Detection


What is the cable that connects the logic board to the display in a Macbook Air?

The takeapart guide on iFixit sells replacement parts, but expect them to be pricey. The Air is a very, very delicate machine so be warned that getting it put back together takes more grace than getting it apart.

Worst case, you could buy an entire display assembly if you feel you are doing more damage than good by proceeding with this repair. Three cables go into the Air's display assemblyL

Wi-Fi antenna
Backlight power
LVDS cable

I presume you nicked the last one - it has the widest connector to the logic board. The real problem is getting inside the Air's display assembly as I haven't seen that documented anywhere publicly available. That cable might be part of the LCD panel and might be something you could try to buy used from a liquid damaged or physically damaged Air. Here's where the question lacks details to know why you were in there to begin.

What part was being replaced that caused you to need a razor blade on this repair? Are you going inside the display assembly in the first place?

Don't rule out taking it in to the store in a static safe back with your tail between your legs. You will then know if they can fix it by quoting you an out of warranty part cost plus labor to fix things - both what was originally wrong and the things that have now gone not right.


Cannot delete Desktop and Documents folder from iCloud Drive after accidentally enabling their storage on iCloud

From my MacBook's Finder window, I deleted the empty Desktop folder from iCloud Drive and then immediately emptied the trash before the folder had time to reappear in iCloud Drive. The folder did not reappear.

After a few seconds iCloud refreshed and the Documents folder was deleted from my iOS device as well!

I then followed the same steps to delete the empty Documents folder.

Cheers!


iTunes music syncing between 2 devices but separate Apple IDs

On the iPod Touch, in the Settings, in the "Messages" section, you can choose the Apple ID used by the device to send iMessages.

Changing this Apple ID should not affect the syncing of the music.


3,1GHz is a single core maximum. Like when running prime95 on one core.

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/turbo-boost/turbo-boost-technology.html
Intel has a sneaky way of suggesting that it will work on all cores under some conditions but that's just advertising unfortunately.


Is the 9-pin "Lightning" connector faster than the 30-pin?

The lightning cable in terms of USB speed is not any faster than the cable it replaces according to the Apple Store product description for the Lightning to USB Cable

  This USB 2.0 cable connects your iPhone or iPod with Lightning connector to your computer's USB port for syncing and charging or to the Apple USB Power Adapter for convenient charging from a wall outlet.

It is still only rated to be a USB 2.0 cable, so that implies all the currently just released devices with the new Lightning connector are still USB 2.0.

So as far as USB connectivity and transfers go  it can only go as fast as USB 2.0 allows, which should make it an equal with the old 30-pins usb interface.

The all digital aspect might be a plus for some users / uses, eg outputting to digital audio devices directly, but even that is unclear, it not really clear what all you can do with the new interface.

Although one point taken from the Media event slides is "Adaptive interface", not sure what that means exactly, but it may mean that hardware & software developers may be able to program how the pins can be used to interact with devices and accessories. If that is true that could be a huge long term benefit from this major re-factoring of the interface connector for iOS devices.


Can SquashFS filesystems work with macOS El Capitan?

If you have homebrew installed, it's as easy as running brew install squashfs, and then either unsquashfs or mksquashfs depending on if you want to extract or make a comrpessed filesystem.


How do I open an app in my new mac book pro

Please understand that iOS Apps are not supported by or built for OS X, therefore they will not run on your new MacBook Pro unfortunately.

If you take a look on the App Store, you should be able to find the OS X equivalents for the apps you'd like to use on your MBP - though you'd most likely have to purchase them again if they aren't free.


Not a real answer, but a fair comparison...

I have a 10-year old iPod [iPod photo, I think] that lives in my car glove-box, hooked up to power & connectivity on my car audio system. It only gets used when I'm driving. When I'm not out & about it gets no power, sometimes up to 2 weeks at a time. I bring it into the house & update it from iTunes every month or so.
Don't know how much longer it may last, nor have I ever tested how long the battery charge may last if used unpowered, but it's been no prob so far for my usage needs.

Based on current wisdom [google for refs, too many to list, idk if any of them are true or just copied the info from another site], it would appear to be best to keep the battery at somewhere between 50% & 80% charge.
Leaving it plugged in shouldn't damage the battery, as the charger system is smart enough to not allow that - but I don't know how that would affect overall battery life.

As mentioned above, mine gets charged when I'm in the car, sometimes goes weeks between charges, sometimes it's on 8 hours a day.
So far, all is still well.


How to change the Mail “Archive” folder for email accounts in El Capitan

Under OS X El Capitan (tested with Mail 9.2), you can set it directly within the Mail application:

Select your new archive folder.
From the menu, choose Mailbox > Use This Mailbox As > Archive Mailbox

In German, it is Postfach > Dieses Postfach verwenden als > Postfach "Archiv".

Edit: Apparently at Apple they realized, that the menu location in El Capitan wasn't ideal and so they changed it again.

Under macOS Sierra (tested with Mail 10.1), you can still set it directly within the Mail application:

From the menu, choose Mail > Preferences > Accounts > Select your account on the left > Mailbox Behavior

In German, it is Mail > Einstellungen > Accounts > Links den betreffenden Account auswählen > Postfach-Verhalten.


Cannot change permissions on /System/Library

You'll need to disable System Integrity Protection to make changes to permissions in /System.

  To disable System Integrity Protection, you can do the following:

  Boot into the Recovery HD by restarting whilst holding ⌘R.
  Open Terminal (from the Utilities menu).
  Run the following command in Terminal:

csrutil disable

  Restart.

Disable OS X El Capitan Rootless and permit write actions to System Integrity Protection locations


Typographic features like this can normally only be used in a word processing app.  You go to Format > Font > Show Fonts and click on the gear wheel and then select the Typography pane.  There should be boxes to check for different styles of numerals, which will be applied to selected text in the app, as long as the app supports it.  Try TextEdit first.


Character Accent Menu doesn't appear anymore in macOS Sierra

I got the same issue after a recent update now, found the answer here and it worked for me. In Terminal type

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

and then log out and log in again, this should fix the issue.


Need help with update to latest Git using Terminal

I suspect that git's location is still cached in /usr/bin (the default location). To check this, type:

type git

The result will likely be:

git is hashed (/usr/bin/git)

To fix this, you can simply log out & back in, or clear the hash for git with the following:

hash -d git

Now, running git should work properly.


You can save different settings by going to the Profile Tab and creating a new Profile. It will have a tab at the right for setting key settings, and you can select/deselect that profile to enable your customized tabs.

If you want/need to edit the mappings en-masse, there is a file called PresetKeyMappings.plist inside the Resources folder in the app. (Right click on app, choose "Show Package Contents".)

Within the Profiles tab, there is also a pop-up menu at the bottom for bulk copying presets from a given profile. (Selected in the image...)


Control-F2 "Move Focus to Menu Bar" only works occasionally

When you're sure you've got your Fn key settings the way you want them and it STILL doesn't work:

My solution:

Go back into Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts pane.
For the item "Move focus to the menu bar",
assign a DIFFERENT function key, other than F2.
(Something you're not using, like, say...^F9...or whatever.)
Now use THAT key instead.

Sounds kind of nuts, I know.  And it's annoying to use a different key.  But I've found that ^F2 just won't consistently work after I've been using enough 3rd party programs, particularly if they're complex.  Sometimes ^F3 will also fail, and that keyboard pane can start acting a little strange on its own to be honest.  This does seem to work though.

coder


Closing an application in full screen leaves a black box in Mission Control

I read this and it seems to be a problem occurring when CMD+Q is brutally pushed to close a not Apple App.

Substantially, I suppose it should be a bug of the program that you are closing and so – maybe – you have to wait a bug fix update from the developer of the App in question.


Applications open on login when they shouldn't be

Yes - this can be disconcerting when you don't realize that the majority of the Apple apps save their system state and don't even need to be told to start or stop. You can have an app in the dock when it's not running and you can have an app running when it's not in the dock. (or the task switcher interface)

The simple way to reset this is to choose log out from the Apple menu and turn off the check mark below.

Then log out, log in and log out again and verify the status if the check is disabled and the apps do not relaunch.

In some rare cases, this setting / preference could get corrupt, so I then turn it on (which is the opposite of what you want)- log out / log in - then turn it off  (what you want) and before contacting support. Most of the time, just exercising the button a couple times is all that's needed if someone isn't aware to uncheck the button when they log out.


I have not come across that problem; however, if you are unable select the page numbers, you could do a select-all and copy/paste the text into a new document.


Connect your iPad to a Mac or PC using the iTunes application. Try to make a backup from there; if that worked, restore the iPad to factory defaults (that basically erases everything that's on it) and restore the backup you just made.

For the future: Make a backup regularly, or you will lose your data some day.


There is a book called "Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach" by Amit Singh. It is a little bit old and covers 10.4 (with the occasional outlook on 10.5) but is very detailed about the core stuff. I learned a great deal from it.


Can automation using AppleScript Copy Text From A Webpage Into a Text Editor app?

Your first AppleScript!  Amazing...  And an ambitious project to start with, but I can see its value.

My answer won't write the script for you, but I will give you tips about how to approach your problem differently and achieve what you want a little more easily.

To answer your specific queries first:

Telling Safari to Cmd-F

    tell application "Safari" to activate

    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "f" using command down

Paste a Phrase From Clipboard

Send a Cmd-V.  You might need a small delay between the two keystroke commands.

"Click" the Highlighted Link

You can't.  You won't be able to identify what's highlighted via a Cmd-F search with any great ease (possibly through GUI scripting, but that'll be a mess).  I'll come back to this shortly.

A Different Approach

Working backwards, let's assume you've obtained the text you need to paste into TextEdit.  Don't paste it.  Set the contents of a new TextEdit document to the contents of the clipboard:

    tell application "TextEdit" to set text of (make document) to the clipboard

In order to set the clipboard to the contents of a Safari web page, use this command:

    tell application "Safari" to set the clipboard to  ¬
        (text of current tab of front window) as string

And this brings us back to clicking on the link...

If you literally want to click a link on a webpage, one method would be to make sure Allow Javascript from Apple Events is checked in Safari's Develop menu, and run a do JavaScript to pick out the link containing the relevant search item and click it:

    tell application "Safari" to tell document 1 to do JavaScript ¬
        "Array.from(document.links).find(a => a.href.includes(\"cjk\")).click()"

This only finds the first instance of the search time, which I have inferred is sufficient given that your method of doing a Cmd+F search seemed content to accept the first occurrence as the only one of importance.

However, I think the whole process could be streamlined and made much more robust by using Automator to help us out.  It can extract all URLs directly from a webpage (all you have to do is feed it the URL of the webpage in question).  Then you can filter these URLs to search for specific text.  Once you have the URL you desire, instead of clicking on it, Automator can download its contents as text and insert it straight into a new TextEdit document.  I do believe that next to no AppleScript would be needed, although you can supplement it with some AppleScript to fine-tune things here and there as required.

Without your webpage in question, I can't devise the workflow specific to your application.  However, that would also deprive you of the joy of doing it yourself.  But using this Stack Exchange webpage as an example, the following workflow isolates the URL of your user profile (the link to which is at the bottom of the question you asked), downloads the text from your profile, and turns it into a new TextEdit document:

Hopefully, this is enough to get you well on your way to achieving your goal.  If you need any clarification, leave a comment and I'll get back to you when I can.


Workaround
Because Twitter offers to update your status via SMS, there is an easy workaround.

Create new Contact
Assign as first name: Twitter
Assign phone number:  40404   (this number is for United States residents)

Now you can update your Twitter status via Siri:

Tell Twitter Hello World.

Enable SMS for Twitter
In order for the workaround to work, you need to enable the SMS feature for Twitter first.
You can do this either online by editing your profile on twitter.com or send the text message start to 40404 (for US residents only!). Then follow the instructions in the reply. However, the latter way is more complicated.
International Twitter SMS codes
United States    40404
United Kingdom   86444        (Vodafone, Orange, 3 and O2 customers)
Australia        0198-089488  (Telstra customers)
...

You can get a full list of the world-wide twitter short codes here.
Some countries or providers do not support short codes. You have to use long codes instead. Fees may apply:
United Kingdom  +44-762-4800379
Germany         +49-157-05000021
Finland         +35-845-73950042


You could make your owns, creating an Application with Automator and then assigning a Shortcut to it.

To create the Aplication just:

Go to /Aplications/Automator and create a new Work Flow.
Select Get Selected Finder Items.
Then select Label Finder Items, and choose the color you want to label with.
Save as Aplication.

Now, you could assign a shortcut to it with an application such as QuickSilver, for instance.

You could, too, create a Service in Automator, which, as Daniel points out, can get a shortcut assigned directly. This post, shows you how.


Why do you need a SIM to "activate" an iPhone

iPhone is a phone.

In order for it to work as a phone you need a phone service provider.

Also in order for the software to complete the boot process you need a active SIM even if you do not intend to use it as a phone.

That comes in a form of a SIM card from a network provider.

If you activate it with one provider but later you want to switch to another, you can do that providing your phone is unlocked from any providers.

In your case the unlocked means you can use any SIM from any provider to activate the phone function.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT3406


Many modern routers offer the ability to connect a hard disk directly to the router and make it visible on the network.  That might be another option to explore.


Can songs be added to an iPhone library without using a computer or the iTunes store?

You can’t do that without jailbreaking. Even with jailbreaking, the apps are so buggy or expensive that I won’t recommend anything.

You have to use iTunes to sync music to your iPhone because you don’t have the Music Store in India.

The second best thing you can do is use third party apps to store music.


Use QuickTime synth as MIDI output device

Quicktime 7 had Midi playback capabilities, but no method to generate its own data for output that I'm aware of.
It didn't sound very good anyway & almost no-one ever used it for anything even half serious ;)

Quicktime 7 is deprecated & will no longer work in Catalina. Newer Quicktime versions do not have Midi playback capability.

In Applications/Utilities/AudioMIDI Setup there is a routing device known as the IAC Bus [Window menu or Cmd/2 to show it]that can route Midi between any capable apps. It's always been somewhat under-used & tbh even as a sound engineer who's been using Midi for 35 years I haven't had occasion to use it since maybe the early 90s.. honestly, I've forgotten how you even wire it up these days.

I'm sure you'd be better off finding a cheap or freeware Midi sequencer app - Garageband comes with the Mac, but there are others.


Normally when you provide more watts+volts+amps the device will simply draw less . Its the opposite that brings trouble i.e a cheap usb charger with 500mA and ur phone requires 1.0A. It will draw more than the charger can produce and heat up and more than likely damage ur phone. there are some differences in maintaining voltages steady for particular devices but thats very particular. Just make sure w.e the Dell can dish out across the board is more than the Mac charger and you should be fine


Stop high frequency noise from iPhone dock's line out in car adapter

You're discovering the joys of noisy electrical grids in cars.

  Do I need an amplifier?

Nope. You need a filter.

And filtering noisy car electricity is...tricky. You can't just create new, separate paths to ground because there aren't a lot of choices for where ground is in a car.

You can try putting a simple choke filter on the line between your player and the input to the stereo. That's the cheapest and easiest way to try and fix the problem. Something like this is sufficient.

If that doesn't cut the noisy you need to filter the power. Finding one of those car DC to AC inverters with a built-in USB port is likely your best bet. Something like this is what I'd suggest you try if the choke doesn't help.


One thing is remapping a key.  It's another thing altogether to ignore a key that's a modifier key.  This is not the biggest issue, however.

Short answer:  You need to take it in for repairs and at the very minimum have it cleaned with an ultrasonic cleaner or some sort of solvent for electronics.

The problem is not the alcohol in the beer, but the sugars and other ingredients that can short out components.  You are already seeing that because you have shorted out the electrical contacts for the Command key making it appear it's pressed.

This is not a "software fix" per se because the issue is a physical one - you have physically shorted the connections so no matter what happens, the system is going to see that key pressed because, it is.

You will most likely have to get the keyboard replaced.


How to install Linux & Windows on a Macbook

For windows you can install it in bootcamp is very easy because there are a lot of videos or tutorials in youtube for this job.

Install Windows With Bootcamp

For linux you can install Parallels.

Install Linux With Parallels

Virtual-Box.

Install Linux With VirtualBox

Or VMWARE.

Install Linux With WMWare WorkStation


Can iTunes be configured to have the 'Store' be default screen at startup?

There may be other even more elegant ways to do it, but here's one way to automate the process:

Download Keyboard Maestro (it's a paid app, but you can try it out at least and see if you like it - it's an extremely powerful app that is worth purchasing if you are committed to enabling tweaks such as this one), and open the app.
In the 'Macros' pane, click the + button at the bottom of it to create a new Macro. Give the Macro a name as prompted. Click on 'New Trigger' and select 'Application Trigger'. Select iTunes. Then under iTunes where it says 'Activates' click on that and change it to 'Launches'.
Now click on 'New Action' further down. An 'Actions' pane will appear to the left. Scroll down or search within the pane to find 'Execute an Applescript'. Double click on it or drag and drop it into the 'No Action' box in the right-hand pane.
Insert the following code in the Applescript box:

tell application "System Events"
tell application "iTunes" to activate
    delay 1.0
    keystroke "H" using {command down, shift down}
end tell

And the process is complete. It is already enabled in your list of active Keyboard Maestro Macros and you can test by opening iTunes afresh to see the Store Home open by default when it opens.

N.b. there's a 1 second delay in the above Applescipt code due to it not working if I didn't include the brief delay. Tweak it as desired, maybe less than a second is fine but 1 second is not much to wait when launching the whole app anyway.

And also to explain: ⇧+ ⌘ + H is the default assigned hotkey for Store > Home for iTunes in OS X, so that's all this Keyboard Maestro macro is emulating. (Obviously, the hotkey combination can be customised in System Preferences keyboard shortcuts.)

Upon brief googling it appears there may not be any free apps/tools available to automate such a 'execute applescript/hotkey action upon app launch so Keyboard Maestro might possibly be the only way. But I only did a quick search, there's probably some tool on github somewhere that can do it, and it'd be nice to know of any free solutions for this problem too.


dtrace errors when running opensnoop in El Capitan

You can white list portions of the restrictions when you boot to recovery HD and open terminal from the utilities window:

csrutil disable
csrutil enable --without dtrace

I haven't found good Apple documentation on this, but Rich Trouton has done a magnificent job documenting the internals of SIP on his blog and public speaking engagements:

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/system-integrity-protection-adding-another-layer-to-apples-security-model/#more-7252
http://www.jamfsoftware.com/resources/os-x-security-defense-in-depth/


I have used FastScripts to assign a shortcut to this script:

tell application "System Events" to tell (process 1 where it is frontmost)
    tell menu bar item 3 of menu bar 1
        click
        repeat with x in {"Open Recent", "Open Recent File", "Recent Projects", "Open With"}
            if exists menu item x of menu 1 then
                click menu item x of menu 1
                exit repeat
            end if
        end repeat
    end tell
end tell

It opens an Open With menu in Finder and a menu for recent files in other applications.

There are other ways to assign a shortcut to a script using Quicksilver, Alfred, etc.


Skype microphone does not work on my iPad

Try to reboot the iPad (hold the sleep button until the red slider appears, slide the red slider and once the screen is blank press the sleep button again). This has worked for me.


Change the modifier keys on the right side without changing the left ones

In setting you can't do that, but with the karabiner program you can. You'll find karabiner here: https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/.

Install it and open Karabiner event view. Press the key you would like to change and then click 'Add ... to Karabiner elements' where '...' is the name of the key you want to change. In the program that pops up, select the event that you want to remap the key to from the left drop down.

Note: This does not work on all keyboards because not all keyboards does send the difference between left and right key. You can tell if your keyboard does in Karabiner event view under the name section after clicking a key. In such case, there's a hardware limitation.


How to run multiple instances of Firefox?

Assuming you already have the proper profiles setup, try:

open -n -a /Applications/Firefox.app --args -no-remote

Mozilla seems to have recently unified behavior of the no-remote argument across all platforms.


Can I use boot camp to install windows if I already have two versions of macOS?

I have heard of triple booting and people succeeding, so I don't think it will be a problem if you install windows and have 2 versions already. Just make sure to choose the correct partitions when using Bootcamp and setting up windows.


Turn on find my mac (and other functions) without admin account

Trying to control “adults” can be like herding cats...
Just give them full access and responsibilty for backups / shared drive.
Then if they have an issue all you have to do is wipe and install latest image.


Safari and Chromium on Mac get input language from other apps

Welp, since different input sources for different documents are no longer in OS X as of 10.9, I don't have the problem anymore.

Now I use Punto Switcher to switch the language for different applications, and it does that fine (although it seems to hang language switching altogether once in a while).


How do I identify what PowerPC apps I use?

Yes, this is true.

It's also very easy to identify what PowerPC apps you're still using. To do this, follow these steps. On the Mac which still has Snow Leopard installed:

Click on the Apple Menu
Select About This Mac
In the About This Mac window that pops up, click on the More Info... button near the centre bottom.
This opens up the System Profiler window. In the Sidebar on the left you will see a number of headings and subheadings.
Under the Software heading (it's the 3rd one down) you'll see a subheading labelled Applications. Click on this.
In the main part of the window on the right-hand side you will see a list of apps appear. Be patient as this may take a little while to populate.
Once the list appears, you'll see column headings at the top.
Click on the Kind column heading (it's the 4th one) and this will sort the list by the kind of app.

Now all you need to do is peruse the list to identify any apps labelled PowerPC and/or Classic. These are the apps that will no longer run in Mac OS X Lion or above.


Notification badges doesn't work well with multiple iOS devices

How the notification badge count for an iOS app is updated across the app life cycle events depends on how well the app developer has implemented it.

In an ideal scenario, if the app developer has carefully planned for and implemented it correctly, the badge icon should sync and update when the network activity happens on the other devices and the appropriate handler method for background app refresh gets a chance to run its code.

In some cases, it may so happen, that the implementation isn't done completely/correctly by the app developer. In such cases, you may continue to see an out-of-sync badge count on the other devices, as the app hasn't got a chance to execute necessary code yet.

When the app actually get the chance to run in the foreground, it generally communicates with the back-end servers and re-sets the badge count, the count comes to sync (as you are observing).

In the cases where the implementation is done all-right by the app developer (the competent ones usually ensure this), the rare chances when the count doesn't sync may be observed, either when the device hasn't yet got a chance to get an active connection to the Internet, or is either running in Low Power Mode (only applicable to iPhone), where the Background App Refresh is disabled by the iOS to preserve battery life.

Additionally, to optimize battery life, the iOS subsystem shuts down the device Wi-Fi connection after a set interval post device has gone into sleep mode.

Thus, with an active Internet connection, on the devices with Low Power Mode disabled, you should see the badge count sync within seconds on most of the apps.


Unexpected limitations on "Updates" folder?

On one system, before you install the update - enable caching in the sharing preference pane. Save the cache files to an external drive - speed there isn’t much of a limiting factor since the downloads stream well and any recent hard drive or SSD will be almost as fast as the network can serve files.

Then the first machine to do the download will get the file cached. All the rest of the machines will pull from the cached version.

This is much better than trying to stage the updates on each system as the permissions and code checks are designed to not let you easily place a file on macOS for updating.


Drag music to iTunes from network, don't copy (keep network link)?

Whether to copy is a setting in iTunes. On the OS-X version of iTunes, under preferences -> Advanced, make sure "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding..." is not checked.


How do I export a Keynote Presentation to PDF while embedding the font

I have tested the font you mention in exporting pdf (best quality) from keynote and it is both embedded and displays correctly on my iOS devices using Adobe Reader or iBooks to open the file.  It should work for you as well.  If not, feel free to send me an example of your pdf for testing (tom at bluesky dot org).


Sorry, still too low to post comment. Are we talking QuickTime Player X or QuickTime Player 7? (very different .sdefs)

Also, can you post the script content leading up tosave first document in target_path as ".m4v"? (tell blocks can be important, as well as knowing what value type target_path is, etc.)


Deleting a Mac Partition on a drive that has bootcamp?

From within OSX you should be able to delete both the empty mac partitions, then create a new one, all using Disk Utility.

Here's a good guide: https://www.lifewire.com/resize-mac-disk-utility-volume-os-x-el-capital-later-3573395

Given that both partitions are empty there's no risk of data loss here. Just wipe them both out and create one large one.


You may have your Mac setup to start automatically. To check follow these steps:

From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences
Select Energy Saver
Click on the Schedule button
Check the options to see if this is what's causing your problem
Make any changes you need to
Click OK

Hope this helps!


The volume on my iPhone decreases randomly

With the more information supplied:

the volume issue occurs with and without headphones
the volume issue occurs with and without a case

The only conclusions I can come to are that the iPhone 4S is either faulty, or there is a software glitch causing the issue.

Addressing the second issue, Apple will recommend you perform a DFU restore to factory settings to rule out software.  If the issue persists, then in all likelihood there is a hardware issue present.

I did find this link to a discussion for other iPhone 4S users with the same/similar issue (or with the Volume Up), at least one of which was resolved by the Genius taking the iPhone apart to find a piece of material in the switch assembly causing the issue.


Sudo rm -rf or Trashcan: Which is better for SSD health?

Both options (as well as any other user-level way of deleting files) will have the same result at the end: the directory entry of the file will be removed and any disk blocks used by the file will be marked as free (details depend on file system used). So there is no difference at all on device level.


Screensaver lost functions since High Sierra upgrade, can't wake screen with keyboard

Try turning ON the following setting:

  System Preferences > Mission Control > Displays have separate Spaces: ON (checked)

Then log out and log back in again for it to take effect.

Not really a solution—more of a workaround—since maybe you want that setting disabled.  But I guess it might be a bug in High Sierra, because I don't think the Mission Control settings should affect the screensaver...


Problem With the Click Command - AppleScript

It seems that even though the UI Element shows up as radio group in 'Result', you need to specify radio group 1 for the click command to work.


Unable to modify administrative settings after El Capitan upgrade

If you are using Centrify, then this thread led me to this Apple forums answer: let the system rebuild the authentication database:

sudo mv /var/db/auth.db /var/db/auth.db.old

and restart. This fixed all the related privilege escalation failures for me and I seem to recall a Centrify upgrade was supposed to be done before the Mavericks upgrade too.

It has not, however, re-enabled network user logon. The check-box to allow network user logon is missing from Users & Groups still.


Is cron command supposed to work like this?

You don't need to call cron directly. Any commands you want to run need to be added to the crontab of the user they should run as. You can edit your crontab by running

crontab -e

or, if you are an admin user and want to edit the crontab of another user,

crontab -u USERNAME -e

PS: Run man 5 crontab for details about the format of the file, what kind of special commands you can use, and some samples. 5 * * * * /path/to/script seems to be ok though.


Move similarly named images into a folder with the same name

After you launched "Automator" and created a workflow:

Select "Files And Folders" at "Actions".
Double click on "Find Finder Items" and setup what and where to find your files.
Which means: select the folder where the first group of pictures are stored. And enter the search condition (Name contains "whomever").
Run the workflow to see the result - you should see what you expect.
Which means: you should see all the files containing "whomever".
Double click on "Create Archive" and setup how to name the archive and where to save it.
Add step 2 and 4 for the other 2 file name groups.
Run the workflow.

But I can not see why you need the "Automator" for this. You could do all this very easy in the Finder:

Select the files of the first group: click on the first file of one group (named "whomever..."), hold down the "shift" key and click on the last file of the first group.
Select "Compress" in the File menu of the Finder. You will get an archive named "Archive.zip". Rename it to "whomever.zip".
Proceed with step 1.

It might help to set the "View" of the Finder to "List".


Why does my external harddrive not work when attached to this USB3 Hub?

I finally found the solution. After contacting Anker as well as WD I found out that both, the Hub as well as the harddisk were fine. The cause for the problem was a low quality usb extension cable that was attached to my Macbook. After removing that and directly attaching the hub to the Macbook, everything works fine.


Can you send push message only for selected users?

I don't have an exact "developer" answer, but from the usage of app like Facebook or Twitter, it is definitively possible to send a push notification to selected user.

Since the main goal of push notification is saving battery, I'd say deciding in the app if a notification is shown or not is not the smartest way, since you'll have to send the data to the phone.

I would say that (and that's where I don't have hard facts) Apple keeps an unique ID for every iPhone that you can use on your server as well so that you'll only have to send to Apple to which phone you want to send the notification to.


Hot while using the phone is almost always a short. You might have it serviced if you think it's a fire risk.

Hot while charging can be a bad charger or a bad battery or a short, so you've got the easier problem to troubleshoot / repair.

Also - the age of these devices mean that the majority will be failing in one way or another whether the batteries need to be replaced or other issues like corrosion or just failure of another component has caused it to be out of design spec.


When I set my IOS devices to use an Internet proxy, my iOS Remote app won't connect. How fix?

You could try using something like WireShark to confirm that your connections are going where you think they are.


How to get date when photo is clicked from android phone and is transferred to iPhone via Xender?

Zip photos on Android phone by using a file explorer app on Android phone.
Transfer zip file to iPhone.
Unzip on iPhone by using an app (iZip, Winzip...). If you don't want to install third party app, you can send zip file via mail to iPhone.


No, that's not a built-in feature.  That's either an app that was installed or a camera defect.


External Drive, can't empty trash, rm sees a file, but ls -la doesn't

The problem appears to be caused by a file named 03 - Ēlusion.mp3 located within the directory named folder.

Because Terminal.app is unable to render diacritical marks in file names--well, it is, but that's beyond the scope of providing the simplest solution for you--it hides its failure by hiding the filename (something unheard of by me before now; perhaps its High Sierra's changes to /.file, /.volfs and 64-bit inodes? Wait-- never mind; your edit to your question tell me I misunderstood you.) Anyway, the file's existence is known, along with the ironical contention by the Finder that it doesn't exist. Obviously, it does. Here's how to change that:

First, determine the file's inode number. In Terminal.app, cd to the directory "folder" and issue this command: ls -i *.mp3

Copy the number string of the inode provided in the left-hand column of the response, which will be something like

12345678  03 - E ̄lusion.mp3

--and put it into this command, which will rename it to something the terminal can render correctly:

find . -inum 12345678 -exec mv {} deletemenow \;

--giving you the file "deletemenow" in the folder "folder," both of which you may dispose of in whatever way best suits your fancy.


Just visit https://appleid.apple.com/account on mobile Safari and fill in the required fields.


Installing Windows and a Linux Distribution in addition to OS X with stock software

The drives containing the macOS operating system are required to use a GUID  partition table (GPT) and contain at least one EFI partition. This table holds up to at least 120 partition entries. There is also a Master Boot Record (MBR) partition table on each drive, but this table is only used by Windows installations on older Mac models.

While having extended partitions is theoretically possible, I have never seen any installation use such a configuration. There are other solutions that make extended partitions unnecessary.

The Startup Disk pane of the macOS System Preferences application, can display other operating systems and startup managers, but on the latest versions of macOS, only the macOS and Windows operating systems can be selected.

You can invoke the Startup Manager by holding down the option key on startup or restart. The Startup Manager menu can display and boot macOs, Windows, other operating systems and other startup managers. For other operating systems and/or startup managers to appear, the boot files usually have to copied to a location compatible with the Startup Manager.

On the newer model Macs, the instructions for adding Ubuntu after installing macOS and Windows can be found at the link below.

Installing Ubuntu on Mac with macOS and Windows already installed

If you already have macOS, Windows and Ubuntu installed on a Mac, the following link explains how to add Ubuntu to the Startup Manager menu.

Triple boot macOS High Sierra, Ubuntu, and Windows without rEFInd


Disable Bluetooth or disconnect Bluetooth connections when lid is closed

I created a little menubar app which turns off bluetooth when your Mac is sleeping (it's free). Hope it helps!


Easy way to disable processor cores on the fly

Disabling cores does not save power.  In fact, it is likely to use more power.

OS X supports SpeedStep, which automatically scales frequency and voltage to support the operation being performed.  So if a core is not being used, it will not use (much) power.

But there is more:

Suppose you have a task which can be run in parallel, such as encoding video.  If you have two cores, you can run it at least twice as fast with one.  This means that the computer can stop using energy for other tasks needed for the process - processor overhead, RAM allocation, hard drive I/O, etc much sooner.

Also, while that long process is running, it has to keep switching all the other tasks the computer normally does.  This wastefull switching itself is going to use power and resources.

See this StackOverflow thread for a longer explanation.

(Here is the Apple page on the Processor preference pane and how to disable cores from the command line.)


iOS podcast app that differentiates between and gives different functionality to long/short presses of the play/pause button on the headphones

Those are system wide commands, not exclusive to your app:

Fast forward
To speed up your track simply tap the Play/Pause button rapidly twice and hold the control down after the second tap -- the track will skip forward.
Rewind
Similarly, to rewind a song tap the Play/Pause button three times and hold the control down for the track to skip back.
Skip to next track
Bored of the song that's playing? Just tap the Play/Pause button twice to skip to the beginning of the next track.
Skip to previous track
You can also skip to a previous track -- all you need to do is tap the Play/Pause button three times.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2476507/apple-ios/ios--how-to-use-iphone--ipad-earphones-in-13-tips.html
Some of them even work on your Mac.
The Apple Podcasts app has the same functionality.


This sounds like a serious issue with the iPhone 7 lightning-to-audio adapter.

You're going to have to diagnose the issue:

Try buying a new adapter to see if that fixes the issue, and also try using the native lightning earpods to see if those consistently work right. If a new adapter fixes it or if the issue can't be reproduced while listening with lightning earpods, it's the audio adapter's fault. If the issue isn't fixed by the new adapter but is fixed with the lightning earpods, you probably have some headphones that aren't compatible with the iPhone 7 (for whatever reason). If all else fails, just talk to apple at https://getsupport.apple.com and try to get yourself a hardware replacement.


Diary App for Mac OS X (equivalent to Chronories)

Don't know exactly what features of Chronories you use the most and would like to find in another tool but here are two possibilities.

MacJournal
Mémoires

Both work on Leopard and its snowy friend.

edit following question's clarification:

With low requirements and going for free solutions, you could simply go to EverNote. You'll have as a bonus the possibility to sync your notes from everywhere, including mobile devices.
You have the possibility to order your notes by date, which would then mimics a diary. It's far less sexy than the above solutions but could fulfill your requirements.

second edit
A new one I saw today on the Mac App Store:

Day One

Seems quite nice, low price and good feedback until now.


How does giving Apple my CCV code confirm I am a parent of my child?

It confirms you are owner of the card - or at least have it in your hand.
Presumably, that is considered a minimum identity check, assuming the last names match. Sending in a photocopy birth certificate seems a bit 1980s these days ;)
The CARD Act of 2009 says that to have a credit card in one's name they must be 18 years old with a verifiable source of income or be 21 years of age.  Asking for the CCV of the card when setting up the child's account is just Apple's due diligence that the card associated with the parent's account is "in hand of an adult" and that the parent is aware the account is being created.


Built-in dictionary usage on Adobe Acrobat DC

I come up with a solution by using bettertouchtool but it nearly meets my wish. It opens the dictionary application instead of popping-up.

Download and install Better Touch Tool.

Add Adobe Reader

Then select "Keyboard" tab (between "Trackpads" and "Apple remote")

Select "Adobe Reader" at the left sidebar.

Click "Add New Shortcut" and select preferable shortcut (in my case: Command + D).

Then select action: "Controlling Other Application" -> "Send Shortcut to Specific App", select "Adobe Reader" and press "Command + C".

Select newly created shortcut and click "Attach Additional Action" and attach action: "Controlling Other Application" -> "Execute Terminal Command" and paste

open dict://`pbpaste`


How does finder sort folders when they contain digits and characters?

I think this is alphabetical vs natural search order being used in Terminal(or wherever the code block comes from) and Finder respectively.

  Why is a folder which starts with a 2 on the bottom?

Because it is 27 which is treated as a block while sorting and is greater than other single numbers which are also being treated as blocks. Another example is in the longer screenshot. 5f comes before 06a as 5 is smaller than 06.

Numbers are smaller than alphabets in both cases.

In the code block, we have character-wise sorting where single digits are being compared. So a larger number like 062 sometimes comes before 06a as 2 is smaller than a.

  For example, in alphabetical sorting "z11" would be sorted before "z2"
  because "1" is sorted as smaller than "2", while in natural sorting
  "z2" is sorted before "z11" because "2" is sorted as smaller than
  "11".

  Alphabetical sorting:

  z11

  z2

  Natural sorting:

  z2

  z11

  Functionality to sort by natural sort order is built into many
  programming languages and libraries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_sort_order

  Mac OS X sorting is based on the Unicode Collation Algorithm (Technical Standard UTS #10) defined by the Unicode Consortium. This standard provides a complete and unambiguous sort ordering for all Unicode characters and is available on the Unicode Consortium website (http://www.unicode.org).

There are no hints that this behaviour can be changed in Finder. It was observed in 2002-03:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20021002061850171
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/375244/313842 Comments under here suggest using apps like Pathfinder.
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPFileSystem/Articles/SortingRules.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20002377-BCIJIGDE
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/FileSystemProgrammingGuide/FileSystemDetails/FileSystemDetails.html


Apple ID password vs iCloud password - better to be the same or different?

First, you usually don't need a different Apple ID for iCloud:

  We recommend that you use the same Apple ID for Store purchases and iCloud. Using multiple Apple IDs might be confusing and might cause issues with accessing purchased content or using some services.

If you do have two Apple ID's, Apple has this to say about reusing passwords:

  Avoid using your Apple ID password with other online accounts.

Password reuse is problematic because all your security depends on the "weakest link", the less secure –or more exposed– service. Once that service is compromised, all your services are.

XKCD has this to say about the subject:

On the matter of remembering passwords, XKCD –sorry, again– has some iconic graphical input, analyzed and validated here by the people at InfoSec SE.

In a nutshell, passwords must be difficult to guess and easy to remember, and he proposes the use of passphrases instead of short, complicated passwords.

Yet others think that

  The Only Secure Password Is the One You Can’t Remember

which is my philosophy by the way.
In order to achieve this apparent nonsense, you use a Password manager, (iCloud Keychain, Keepass, 1Password, LastPass), and generate different random secure passwords for every service. You only have to remember one master password –where you could apply XKCD's idea.

People have different opinions on how secure password managers are; if you are a bit paranoid or have very sensitive data you may want to have an eidetic memory instead, although one known cryptographer and security expert advocates the use of at least one –not cloud synced, though.


To enable remote management (including screensharing), issue the following command over ssh:

Note: This command sets your vnc password to 'mypasswd' as set by the -vncpw flag in the command, you should change this.

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -on -clientopts -setvnclegacy -vnclegacy yes -clientopts -setvncpw -vncpw mypasswd -restart -agent -privs -all

To disable the remote management, issue the following command over ssh:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -deactivate -configure -access -off


Font on Unity Application doesn't smooth

Retina must be supported by the app for it to be displayed in Retina. If the app does not support Retina then the app will not be displayed in Retina.

You may be able to force Retina for an app with Retinizer:

  Retinizer is a small app I wrote that allows apps that aren’t retina ready and are displayed pixelated at 1x to display their UI widgets at 2x. That way, only their custom images will look bad and not the whole app.

Related: Some applications open in low resolution


How to remove a little "connection" between clips in 2 tracks in iMovie?

You can't. Audio tracks are attached to a specific video clip.

You can move them though: hold ⌥⌘ and click somewhere on the audio clip.


Could be as simple as something making the power key stick - I used to have this problem with my 2008 Macbook Pro 15". If you dropped it in the past this can cause wiring to come lose (had this problem too!) despite everything else appearing to work normally.

Definitely get it fully backed up ASAP and then have it checked out.


Change Terminal.app's Default Shell to BASH

Open System Preferences, select user and right click on its name.
"Advanced options..." will appear. Change shell there.
If you're die hard Apple user, you probably will have to enable right click first.
Depending on your computer model, it can be done under Trackpad or Mouse Preferences.


Is there any limit to the number of users connected via Personal Hotspot?

Quoting from an Apple support article about Personal Hotspot (emphasis mine):

  When you connect a device to your Personal Hotspot, the status bar turns blue and shows how many devices have joined. The number of devices that can join your Personal Hotspot at one time depends on your carrier and iPhone model.

I believe the typical limit is usually between 3 to 5 devices.


How to delete a folder, even in every backups of Time Machine?

This functionality is built into Time Machine.

Launch Time Machine. Right click on the folder of choice, and select "Delete All Backups..." from the menu. This will comb through all your backups and delete all traces of that folder and its contents.


You can use AppleScript to send the application a quit Apple event:

osascript -e 'quit app "Trim Enabler"'

Quit Apple events are also used by loginwindow to quit non-Cocoa applications when you log out.

If that doesn't work, killall Trim\ Enabler is probably also safe. It sends the process a TERM signal, which usually allows a process to terminate cleanly.


Gboard Keyboard Not Showing Up in Various Google Apps on iPhone Xr

I'm having the same issue and like you I've tried everything from reinstalling to trying different custom keyboards. Only the default keyboard and emoji keyboards work in the google apps like gmail, hangout, meet etc. I can't find a lot of people complaining about the issue online so I figured it might be because this is a company device and some permission is blocking it? The custom keyboards work in all other apps so gboard not working with google apps is just baffling.


In short, yes, but there is a caveat. The SSD sticks are transferrable between those two models, no problem.

What you have to be aware of is that as part of any major, and sometimes minor, macOS update, the firmware is also updated. This update, which can be important to have a specific OS version work well on any Mac, obviously does not get applied to the Mac you are transferring the SSD to, just by transferring the SSD.

You must therefore be sure that the Mac you are putting the SSD into either already has the latest firmware, or you must apply it first by running the installation for the version of macOS that is on the SSD you are transferring, on that Mac. You do not have to actually install it on the main internal drive, it is sufficient to in some way do the installation on the Mac in question, for instance by attaching an exteranl hard drive or big enough USB stick, and installing Catalina on that.

Once you have made sure about the firmware, you should be able to transfer the SSD and it will boot. On first boot after the transfer, you might want to hold down the CMD-ALT-P-R key combo so that the NVRAM is flushed and it defaults to boot from the new internal SSD, instead of first looking for the old one.


How to manage multiple ssh sessions with ease on Mac OS X

There are two ways I manage, or have seen people manage, SSH data:

Good 'ole, command line, plain text, ssh_config file.

Create a file called config inside ~/.ssh. You can specify global parameters by putting them above any host declarations. When I started using MacPorts, I had to explicitly define a default SSH Private Key to use automatically when connecting, so as the very first line of the file I put;

IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

When you define custom rules for hosts (and you can even use * as a wildcard), it looks something like this:

Host prod-*
  User jason
  Port 2222
  LocalForward 5901 localhost:5901
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/work-id_rsa

Then when I run ssh prod-script for example, all the rest of the rules get applied automatically.

A lot of people who don't want to manually manage all their stuff in such a cumbersome manner quickly find JellyfiSSH. (Mac App Store Link. The same people also became very annoyed when it stopped being downloadable for free.)

JellyfiSSH gives you GUI access to almost everything that can be specified in the command line or ssh_config file. JellyfiSSH is just a configuration storage app for organization purposes, because it generates the commands based off the options you set and upon clicking connect, opens a new terminal window with all of your options defined on the command line. JellyfiSSH is not a terminal app on it's own.


Set Show Library Folder via defaults from command line

The way to answer this question in general is to change the setting you're interested in and see what file changed. Then see what changed in the file.

Open your Preferences folder (~/Library/Preferences) and put it in List view, sorted with most recently modified files on top. Open your home folder in a different window, open the Show View Options palette, and toggle Show Library Folder. Did any preference file move to the top in the list view?

Chances are com.apple.finder.plist did. As we'll see, though, this is a false positive. Finder is constantly fiddling with its defaults. But we don't know that yet, so lets assume that this is the plist where the setting is being saved.

In Terminal, enter the commands:

cd ~/Desktop
defaults read com.apple.Finder > before.txt

This will write Finder's current preference settings to a text file. OS X has always cached preferences in RAM, but OS X 10.10 Yosemite has gotten very aggressive about this. There's no guarantee how soon a changed setting will get pushed to com.apple.finder.plist, but no matter. We're not reading the file. By using the defaults command we're going straight to the horse's mouth, and getting the settings as cached in RAM.

Now toggle the view setting, and capture Finder's new preferences in a new file:

defaults read com.apple.Finder > after.txt

To see what changed, enter the Terminal command:

diff before.txt after.txt

Surprise! There's no output, meaning that nothing changed. Finder does not save this setting using the preferences system, so you can't set it using defaults.

This isn't too surprising. Most view settings are stored in a .DS_Store file. Not all of them, so this could have gone either way. Some folders (the "Computer" folder, for example) have their settings stored as preferences rather than in .DS_Store, so there was a chance this setting would be stored there too, but that hope didn't pan out in this case.


iTunes in Yosemite does not respond to media keys

Do you happen to have Spotify or another media application open at the same time as iTunes? They'll hijack your media keys, passing the the controls to that application instead of iTunes.

Or perhaps Chrome is hijacking your media key keystrokes. You can get more information on that here: http://www.omgchrome.com/chrome-google-music-media-keys/


Where to see kernel startup messages after boot?

dmesg did not show me the entire boot log but only the last few 100 lines of it, which was not enough.

What works for me (on macOS 10.12.6) to see all boot messages is this command:

sudo log show --predicate "processID == 0" --start $(date "+%Y-%m-%d") --debug

It shows all of today's kernel msgs, including the boot process.

If you only want the msgs since reboot, enter the date and time manually, like this, in 24h format:

sudo log show --predicate "processID == 0" --start "2018-10-28 13:19:00" --debug

(The "sudo" part is currently not necessary, but it doesn't harm, either.)


What is Best Practice when storing MacBooks for over a month?

That's what I think Apple suggests when you need to store you MacBook for longer periods:

discharge your battery to 50% and keep the laptop in a cool place
if you plan to not use the computer for more than 5 months take the battery off the laptop
you will probably need to charge the battery every 6 months to better preserve it.


'root' user changed to 'dovenull' after disabling SIP

dovenull: Dovecot uses an unprivileged dovenull user for untrusted login processes.

Better check to see if you didn't 'break' some security in Dovecot's config?

Look @ Wiki here: http://wiki.dovecot.org/UserIds


Safari (5) or Mac OS X (10.6 Snow Leopard): Is past HTTP Post data stored?

No. Post data is deliberately never saved.

It's the most common way to send private data to a server, such as passwords every time you log in. It will never be saved unless the server writes it to a database somewhere.


You need to put the User ID and Group entries back the way they were. If the screenshot is right, the User ID should be 502, and the Group should always be "staff" on normal accounts.

It's possible there's something else wrong as well, but this'll solve at least part of the problem. One thing to check (after fixing the User ID) is to use the Finder's Get Info to check the home folder -- in the Sharing & Permissions section, make sure the correct user account is listed. If it isn't, do not try to fix it in the Finder; there's a way to fix home folder permissions in Recovery mode that's much less likely to break anything.


If I turn off iCloud will it delete my photos

If you turn off iCloud Photo stream on the device, Photo stream, and the images in the stream folder, are removed from the device, BUT NOT FROM iCloud. If you have any other devices using iCloud photo stream, they will not be impacted. You can also delete from photo stream, just like any folder.

If you have a Mac, I strongly suggest that you use iPhoto, and link iCloud to it. This will allow iPhoto to automatically download all photo stream images, and safely store them on your hard drive. Then no matter what, they will be saved.

If you only have the one device or you sign out of iCloud for images, then Apple holds your images in the cloud for 30 days, so you can simply reconnect and the images will still be there.  See this article: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317


Two of the original video cards in 2009 Mac Pro?

I'm assuming you have a Mac Pro 4.1 or 5.1 which uses a Nvidia GT 120 which on its own does not support SLI. When you referenced the technology that can be used to utilize multiple graphics cards, that is SLI for Nvidia and Crossfire for AMD.

Since you have an Nvidia card, you would use SLI but there are a few problems with it:

Your motherboard does not support SLI. In addition to a hardware bridge on top of the cards, SLI needs a motherboard that supports it too.
SLI requires that both cards are identical with the same chip.
To the furthest extent of my knowledge Mac OS does not support SLI.

If you want to upgrade, I know that people have used GTX 660s on the Mac Pro, but not anything after that.


Launch an Application on login for the Guest User

Here is a really good answer for this question:

  The easiest way would be the following:

  Download, install and update the free Server Admin Tools from Apple.
  If you´re currently logged into the Guest User Account, log out.
  Open /Applications/Server/Workgroup Manager and connect to Address:
  localhost with the username and password of your admin user
  Ignore the warning message about working on a local configuration,
  then go into the menu "View" and select "Show System Records".
  On the left hand side, select the Guest-User and in the window
  titlebar click on "Preferences"
  Click Dock on the right side. Select "Manage Always" at the top of
  the window and then add and remove the Dock items you want in your
  customized Dock. Uncheck the checkbox "Merge With User's Dock" at
  the bottom of the window. Click on "Apply Now" and log in as the
  Guest User to see it in effect.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/9537/258380


Here are some troubleshooting steps that I would try:
Reset the System
Reset your Mac's parameter RAM and SMC
Try another Cable
Although you are using the official MiniDVI to VGA adapter, it is possible that it might be damaged, so I would try connecting your monitor with another official adapter.
Reset the Resolution

Start up in Safe Mode (Power + Shift on startup)
Apple Menu => System Preferences
Choose Displays from the Views menu.
Select another resolution and refresh rate.
Restart.

Software Update
It is also possible that you need to update to Lion (Maybe even Mountain Lion if you want).
Other Links and Resources
Another Apple user who was using a Powerbook with the Acer x163W had issues too. That question was answered here and recommends a different monitor because of the Acer monitor's lower resolution than his Mac.


Is there a way to automatically mount a volume from another Mac on start?

The way to mount the drives on the Client at login is:

Mount the Network Share.
Open System Preferences > Users & Groups.
Drag the drive's icon and drop it onto the list of Login Items for your user.

WiFi change? How often do you change Wifi? If the TM share and client aren't on the same network, then obvs that won't work.

However, TM shares should normally work without the need for a Finder connection, so there may be another remedy to your original problem.


Make sure you are signed into FaceTime with your AppleID by going to FaceTime in the settings. Also make sure your contacts are syncing from iCloud to your phone if you have contacts stored in iCloud.


Change what app the command "Open ." opens


USB Drive with Mountain Lion Boot-Up Problem

Saw your comment about replacing the HD, but could you report what the previous OS version was? I found that I couldn't upgrade from Leopord directly to Mountain Lion and had to upload to Snow Leopoard first. The machine in question was also in spec for ML.


Why does OS X repeatedly prompt for certificate trust when joining WPA2 Enterprise WiFi

I had the same issue and my solution was to change the access control on the certificate's private key to not require confirmation. Go to My Certificates, expand your certificate, and open the private key settings. You could probably be more selective and just allow whatever "application" handles WiFi, but in my case it wasn't necessary.


Tilde character is default to superscript version. How to restore default behaviour?

After going through all the keyboard settings, it turns out that there is a difference between 'US' and 'US International PC'. The bizarre tilde behaviour was part of the 'US International PC' keyboard configuration.


Just create the file via commandline/Terminal. It does not exist by default.

sudo touch /etc/nsmb.conf

The smb.conf file is most likely carried over from updating older versions of macOS. It’s not used anymore in Mojave.

The terminal command above is the global location for the config file, if you want to set config options for specific users, see the following URL. The link also contains additional info about SMB config.

https://www.flyweb.at/blog/network/1004/samba-fun-with-osx/


See/read Mac mini hard drive from MacBook Air?

Allan’s response makes sense to me. I have been pretty successful retrieving files from Mac Minis using a USB to SATA adaptor. I use a Newer Technology USB 3.0 Universal Drive Adapter https://www.newertech.com/storage/

For guides to extracting the drive from the Mini, I rely on iFixIt. https://www.ifixit.com/Search?query=Mac+mini+drive

Denny


How to I change the password of a keychain item from the Terminal?

If you create the password with the security utility, you can also update it.

security add-internet-password -a 'someuser@domain' -w 's0m3passw0rd' -U -s 'www.some.site -p '/optional/path' -T '/Applications/Google Chrome.app/'

you can update it with the -U flag:

security add-internet-password -U -a 'someuser@domain' -w '0therp4ssw0rd' -U -s 'www.some.site -p '/optional/path' -T '/Applications/Google Chrome.app/'

I've not found a reliable way to update passwords created by other means then the security utility. The -T flag should of course point to the application(s) you want to give access, the -T flag can be repeated multiple times for multiple applications. The -a (accountname) flag can also be any form that your username has.


Does iPhone's baseband change when updating iOS?

Q: Does it change when updating iOS?

A: Yes, the firmware is revised and is packaged inside the software update archive.

Q: Do all iPhones have the same baseband?

A: No. They get updated and iPhones can have one of multiple chips with incompatible firmware.

Q: If not, how do they differ?

A: Bugfixes, security patches etc. Different generations have differing chipsets as well.

Q: And ... can I unlock an iPhone 4 with iOS 5.1.1?

A: Yes, you can use ultrasn0w for a software unlock if your iPhone 4's baseband is 01.59.00. You can check your baseband version by going to Settings->General->About and looking at the Modem Firmware number.

Sources:

http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Baseband

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/ultrasn0w-unlock-iphone-4-3gs-ios-5-1-1/

iPhone 4 Chipset Page: http://theiphonewiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=XMM_6180


Try this:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true; killall Finder

This sets AppleShowAllFiles to true which tells Finder to show all file. Note the -bool part, that tells will make sure you are setting a Boolean to it instead of string, integer etc. Finally it restarts Finder.


change download folder based on website from which I download

You could write a folder action script which would parse your downloaded files metadata and move them into folders based on kMDItemWhereFroms metadata attribute value.

Or just use Downloads Router Chrome Extension with predefined location rules.


You could just use GarageBand:

Choose for example the voice template
Change "Monitor: Off" to On
Add some effects (like Vocal Transformer or Bitcrusher) in the Edit tab


How does Spotlight determine which category a file belongs to?

I think it depends on the parent UTIs defined in an application's Info.plist or in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Info.plist. .tex is not included in the CoreTypes Info.plist, so the UTI depends on which application's UTI declaration was registered first. For example on my installation the UTI was com.barebones.bbedit.tex-source and the first parent UTI was public.source-code:

$ touch a.tex; mdls -n kMDItemContentTypeTree a.tex
kMDItemContentTypeTree = (
    "com.barebones.bbedit.tex-source",
    "public.source-code",
    "public.plain-text",
    "public.text",
    "public.data",
    "public.item",
    "public.content"
)

When I deleted BBEdit and rebuilt the Launch Services database, the UTI became org.tug.tex and the first parent UTI became public.text:

$ touch b.tex; mdls -n kMDItemContentTypeTree b.tex
kMDItemContentTypeTree = (
    "org.tug.tex",
    "public.text",
    "public.data",
    "public.item",
    "public.content",
    "public.plain-text"
)


How to mute accessibility options voice over?

A triple-click on the power button will show the accessibility shortcuts window. In macOS Catalina, you can disable this in System Preferences → Accessibility → Shortcut (at the bottom of the sidebar list) by disabling all the checkboxes in the list. Prior to macOS Catalina it is not possible to disable this action.


Process is my darling at the moment for iPad capture, edit, post and is most similar to the workflow for creating content comparable to Instagram.  It lacks the hosting and discovery aspects of the former, but has much more serious editing capabilities and is more like a Photoshop than an iPhoto for iOS.

I also do use the normal camera regularly in combination with iPhoto and/or Snapseed for certain types of edits and sharing.


Why won't Office 2011 install on Snow Leopard?

I tried to answer this the day after I posted the question, but my in-law's Internet connection wasn't being cooperative.

I was only able to install Office after we wiped the machine and reinstalled Snow Leopard.  I have no idea what the actual problem was.  The machine was really slow anyway and now it's running like new.

I guess the old rule about Microsoft Windows extends to MS Office for Mac:  format and reinstall.  :(


I got the new iPad Air for Christmas. Everything transferred seamlessly but one app. What now?

You can backup data from apps with a program such as PhoneView (Mac) or iFunBox (Mac & Windows).

  Browse, manage and download most any data saved by App Store apps from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. If you're looking for a quick way to download saved recordings, videos or images from your apps, this is it. Even transfer game high scores between devices. --PhoneView

Once you have the app data, it can be restored to a new copy of the app downloaded from the App Store.


Cannot change region of Apple ID without credit card details

This Apple support article explains that a valid payment method is always required when changing regions.

  When you change the country or region of an existing Apple ID, you must provide a payment method and update your billing options. If you want to remove your payment method after you change the country or region, you can change your payment information to None.

You may be able to set up a new Apple ID for a different region without entering credit card information, but any apps purchased (whether free or not) with that Apple ID would require that Apple ID be signed in to get updates.

To create a new account without a payment method, go to the App Store, iBooks Store or iTunes Store on your device. Tap Get on any free item and follow the steps for setting up a new account. When prompted for a payment method, None should be on the list. If it's not, you must enter a payment method.


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US#4

Connect the Mac Pro to the iMac with a Thunderbolt or Mini DisplayPort cable.
Press Command-F2 on the iMac's keyboard (or Command-Fn-F2 if this doesn't work).


Can't find my Mac last location even if my Mac was online only for half an hour?

It depends how smart the 'finder' was.

If they were fully aware of how to deal with a stolen ermm... borrowed computer, & knew to take it well away from any potential location-capable resource, then it could have been wiped with no further data exchange & therefore no Find My Mac information.

Unlike an iPhone/iPad. a computer is not a completely locked-down environment, unless the drive is encrypted with FileVault & a firmware password set - though you still need to have enabled Find My Mac.


How to back up iCloud Calendars/Reminders/Contacts

No API. No protocol.

But there are three workarounds I can think of. The first is to use your mac and copy the following files manually (or rsync in combination with cron or something else you like).

Mail data and settings ~/Library/Mail/V2
Contacts data and settings ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook
Calendar data and settings ~/Library/Calendars/
Safari data and settings ~/Library/Safari/
Keychain data and settings ~/Library/Keychains/

(for sake, just copy the whole 'Library' folder ;) (list taken from http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13985)

An other way to do it is to setup your linux backup machine to fetch the mail, contacts and calendar and backup that like you normally would.

email through IMAP (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4864)
calendar through WebDAV (it is likely that this must be a public url)
contact, no clue. For android it is possible but I have not seen a Linux solution.

Yet another way is to install 'iCloud Control Panel' through Wine and handle your files from there, although it might work like garbage (https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=14545)

A virtual machine running OS X on your linux server might also do. But I do not know if it is legit to talk about that on stack exchange.

Edit: see comments for ical and contacts


Keys no longer responding on Magic Keyboard (A1314)

I think what you have is a worn out keyboard. I've had a keyboard do this to me. More than one actually. I'm a writer by the way. And since 2011 if you used it daily, that's a lot of keystrokes.
Not only wearing out, but the key pads - the contacts inside - can develop corrosion. Kind of like rust? but actually just grime can slowly coat the surfaces inside and stop the contact being made when you press the key. Try borrowing another keyboard. I don't think they can be repaired.


files are being downloaded with .html suffix

This is outside of your control - the headers being sent by the school's web server determine what file type Safari thinks it is, and therefore appends the extension it thinks is appropriate. In this case, most likely the Content-Type and/or Content-Disposition headers are not being sent, or not being sent correctly. See this for a more technical explanation.


Gmail-like keyboard shortcuts in Mail.app (keys without modifiers)

Try GMailinator. It's free and doesn't require configuration or start any extra process. GMailinator may not as flexible as keyboard macro software while if you're looking for exactly gmail shortcuts, it's a good fit.

BTW, if you don't have Xcode to build from source code, the compiled binary could be found at release tab.


Ok, there’s a way to “hack” into SmartFolders and change the locations.

Rules:

You can’t do it from the UI
It involves having the smart folder saved
I wrote it in spanish a long time ago in a blog post (spanish)

For the sake of helping you (I’m assuming you don’t speak spanish), I’ll transcribe the relevant information here.

Please note that the blog explains how to add more than one location to the search, not how to exclude (something I don’t believe is possible).

So, the short version:

Save your smart folder, the search location is really not important (we’re going to change it!) but make sure you use the searching “terms” that you want. Name it something like: IHATESMARTFOLDERS. Ok, you can name it differently if ya wish ;)
Go to your ~/Library/Saved Searches and you should see your saved smart folder.
Once you have located your smart Folder, you have to open it with a text editor like TextWrangler (or anything that can save Plain Text). Do not use Pages…
Once you have it in your favorite editor, go to the end. You’ll see something like this:

<key>FXScopeArrayOfPaths</key>
<array>
           <string>/Users/martin/Desktop</string>
</array>

Note My smart folder was created for searching on my Desktop.

Good. As you can see the path is in an Array. If you know something about arrays, you’ll know that they are a collection of items. This means we can go ahead and add more items to this particular collection:

For example:

<key>FXScopeArrayOfPaths</key>
<array>
         <string>/Users/martin/Desktop</string>
         <string>/Users/martin/Pictures/MacStuff</string>
         <string>/Users/martin/Pictures/Me</string>
</array>

I have added two more folders to my smart -not so smart- folder.

Now in order for this to start working you have to:

Save the smart folder (remember to use plain text!)
Restart Finder.

And voilà.

Sadly, I haven’t found a way to exclude a location.


I can help you if you've a live USB linux distribution, ex. Ubuntu.

Boot into Ubuntu live USB by pressing alt when upon
restarting and choose EFI Boot.
Choose to Try Ubuntu.
Open Terminal by ctrl + alt + T.
Install efibootmgr by entering sudo apt-get install efibootmgr.
After installing it, check bootOrder and boot values by entering sudo efibootmgr.
Usually you OS X boot value is 0x80, please get your Windows value.
You can change booting order by sudo efibootmgr -o <comma separated boot values>.
Adjust your bootOrder assuming your Windows boot values is 0x01 then you should enter sudo efibootmgr -o 1,80 <- Windows first. So that your Mac should try booting to Windows first as you mention that you need an urgent solution.
Reboot to your live USB again and readjust the bootOrder by letting Mac boot into OS X first by sudo efibootmgr -o 80,1 <- OS X first.
Don't use any 3rd party bootloaders as you can easily adjust everything manually.

Advice:
Format your shared partition as ExFAT =)


How can I make my own custom OSX keyboard with autocorrect relying off a personalized dictionary?

Custom Keyboards are commonly made with the Ukelele app.  For input to work right you really need a Unicode font for the language.  Spellcheck, etc is not connected to either the keyboard or the font, but requires .dic and .aff dictionary files.  Info on how these can be made is available at

http://www.openoffice.org/lingucomponent/

Whether a custom spellcheck dictionary will also do autocorrect I don't know.

For Kouri-Vini you don't need a special keyboard or font, just the dictionary.


VPN Passthrough problems with Airport Extreme

The problem was that the Airport Extreme router was configured to use the same range of IP addresses as the VPN, so while I was able to connect to the VPN there was some issues when trying to SSH into some of the servers where there was an IP conflict.  It is possible to change the "IPv4 DHCP Range" in the advanced network options of the Airport Extreme which solved my issue.


Is there a way to reach the multitasking bar on the iPad via a keystroke on the keyboard dock?

Double-hitting the Home key (at the Escape key place) will bring the multitasking bar much like the Home button on your iPad.

Confirmed on my iPad Apple keyboard dock.


I guess your objective is to be able to use iPhone again and not recovering anything from the phone. You can follow this guide to erase your phone and remove the passcode.

https://support.apple.com/en-sg/HT204306


Installing Network Link Conditioner for All Users (Yosemite)

Ran into the exact same problem. Installed the Network Link Conditioner when my system had OSX Lion and XCode 4 or 5. Great tool but did not need it again until today. Found it no longer worked.
My system now has OSX Yosemite and XCode 6.4 so I downloaded Hardware IO Tools for Xcode 6.3.
Got the same message about not being able to replace it since it was installed together with OSX.

My solution was to first drag the tool from the opened .dmg onto the desktop and to then manually replace the tool using the command line:

cd Desktop
sudo mv /Library/PreferencePanes/Network\ Link\ Conditioner.prefPane Network\ Link\ Conditioner.prefPane.old
sudo cp -r Network\ Link\ Conditioner.prefPane /Library/PreferencePanes/


Wrong (generic) Mac dock application icon

Try running this shell script sudo find /private/var/folders/ -name com.apple.dock.iconcache -exec rm {} \;


Is a MacPro3,1 (2008) x16 slot PCIe 2.0 or 1.1?

If that is a PC (non-EFI) graphics card, running it in Windows on a Mac (Bootcamp) will reduce the speed to PCIE 1.1

You must have an EFI flashed card to run at PCIE 2.0 in Windows on Mac machines. Drivers solve this issue for some PC (non-EFI) cards in OS X, but not Windows.

Real world gaming difference between 2.0 and 1.1 will likely be negligible, and your bottleneck will most likely end up at the CPU or OS X drivers. Generally I see better performance in Windows.

For reference I run a GTX 1060 (non-EFI) on a 2009 Mac Pro; my benchmarks and real world gaming are all better in Windows, at the PCIE 1.1 speeds.


How do you turn sound off in IRC client colloquy?

Does this FAQ help? It looks like you can use Preferences → Alerts → Mute all notification sounds.

To access Preferences, use the keyboard shortcut Command + ,, or select from the Colloquy Menu bar item (just like any other macOS app).


Downloading movies from TiVo Series 3 HD Recorder to Mac OS X

kmttg is a cross-platform Java program that does what you're looking for.  Personally I've used it on Windows without issue to copy shows off my Tivo onto my computer, do a batch convert of the video files, along with batch rename.  It's a very powerful and handy tool for any owner of a Tivo Series 3 or more recent Tivo.   It should run on modern Macs without issue.

You can grab it off Google Code here.  The Tivo Community forums have an extremely long-running thread about the tool here.


Can I boot from an external drive with hardware encryption?

I don't think so, because the drive can't be unencrypted by the Mac before an OS is loaded.

If you want to encrypt your data, then using FileVault is the best way, and your Mac knows how to boot from a FileVault drive.

However, it will boot to Recovery first, then ask you for the drive's password, then let you boot up.


Middle mouse button stops working from time to time

USB Overdrive was the culprit, and I found that it happened when I held the scroll wheel clicked and scrolled at the same time. By disabling/enabling USB Overdrive, it started to work again.

However, when I disable the setting "Wheel button: Middle button", this stopped happening, and the middle mouse button works as it should.


Can I create a Siri custom voice command that performs actions in an app?

If you want to open applications that are pre-installed in iPhone then you can add shortcuts for them with Siri. They are provided by apple. If you are using iOS 13 then there is an app called Shortcuts through which you can manage all your shortcuts.

But if you have downloaded any app from App Store then that application must have provided support for shortcuts. If your app is not providing such functionality then you cannot add a shortcut to open that particular app from Siri and perform any action.


You can either use diskutil eject /dev/diskN, or in Disk Utility.app you can select the disk and choose File menu > Eject (Command-E).


If this is an external drive, you can just clean it up from another host.
/dev/fd contains the file descriptors for the current running process, so they're kind of special - you may need to drop down to single-user mode (command-s at boot chime), or plug the device into another host to remove this.
You could also try mounting the volume 'nodev' (umount $BACKUP_VOLUME; mount -o nodev $BACKUP_VOLUME $BACKUP_MOUNTPOINT) and just cleaning it up that way.


Sudo giving dyld problem. Help for a beginner

On the short term,
within a Terminal enter:

unset DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH

and check that:

/usr/bin/sudo

is working.

Your description let think of an installer which modified your working
environment in closed relationship with the X11 environment.

To further analyze where this problem is coming, within a Terminal search which initialisation file might be working on this environment variable:

grep DYLD ${HOME}/.profile ${HOME}/.bash_profile ${HOME}/.bashrc

If you are using anything else than sh or bash as your working shell,
search inside the equivalent initialisation files.


Drag and Drop file to desktop when windows are maximized

You have several possibilities:

Use the sidebar and drag & drop files or folders on the 'Desktop' item
Create a 'Desktop' Dock item by dragging and dropping the folder '/Users/YourUserName/Desktop' to the Dock and afterwards drag & drop files or folders you want to move on the 'Desktop' item in your Dock
Create an Automator Service to move (or copy) chosen items to the 'Desktop' folder (rough example)


How do I remove or disable Adobe Registration request and kill Adobe IPC, Adobecloud

I made an updated version of the script that also removes the associated launchd services and uses the pluginkit utility to disable the Core Sync Finder Extension, as explained in this answer but programmatically
#!/bin/bash

# ask root password
sudo echo -n

echo "Deactivating Core Sync Finder extension"
pluginkit -e ignore -i com.adobe.accmac.ACCFinderSync
# uncomment to completely remove the extension
# pluginkit -r "/Applications/Utilities/Adobe Sync/CoreSync/Core Sync.app/Contents/PlugIns/ACCFinderSync.appex"

echo "Removing plist files"
sudo rm -f /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.*.plist
sudo rm -f /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.adobe.*.plist
rm -f ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.*.plist

for SERVICE in $(launchctl list | grep "com.adobe" | cut -f3)
do
    echo "Removing service ${SERVICE}"
    launchctl remove $SERVICE
done

PROCESSES=(
"ACCFinderSync"
"CoreSync"
"Creative Cloud Helper"
"Core Sync Helper"
"AdobeCRDaemon"
"Adobe Creative"
"AdobeIPCBroker"
"Adobe Desktop Service"
"Adobe Crash Reporter"
)

for p in "${PROCESSES[@]}"
do
    echo "Killing process ${p}"
    sudo -H killall "${p}" 2> /dev/null
done

You can save this script into a file called "adobye" for exemple, and execute chmod +x adobye && mv adobye /usr/local/bin, to turn it into a globally available command. You can then simply type adobye in terminal whenever you want to remove adobe processes


iMac OS X 10.6.8, didn't come with any disks...how do I create an install disk

You can use software like Parallels or VMWare Fusion to run Windows alongisde/inside OSX. Those options won't require you to have an OSX install disk. They do require you buy that software and have a liscence for Windows 7.

Not dual boot, but I find it more useful.

If you need an OSX 10.6 install disk, Craig's List and EBay have them. It might be easier to just update to 10.7 or 10.8 (if you computer supports it) and use a USB drive to create a Lion/Mountain Lion installer using Lion Disk Maker: http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/


Can one fully remove certain applications from OS X?

If you use any third party email app, you can configure in settings to open that email whenever you click an email link in any other app. To do so, you need to go to general settings of that very third party app and find the option that is usually listed as "Use (app name) as default mail client".

For instance, I'm using Nylas N1 and wehen you open the app and go under "preferences">"general">Workspace and check "Use Nylas as my default mail client".

If you tell me what app you are using as your default email client, I could help you find how to enable it, but it shouldn't be too much difference with any app.

As for removing systems build in apps: On OS X 10.10 Yosemite and earlier, it was possible to open a terminal window and issue commands to delete these system apps, which are located in the
/Applications folder. For example, running the following command in a terminal window would delete the built-in Chess app. Be very careful when typing the following command:

sudo rm -rf /Applications/Chess.app

As of Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan, System Integrity Protection protects these applications and other system files from being modified. This prevents you from deleting them, and it also ensures malware can’t modify these applications and infect them. If you actually did want to remove any of these built-in apps from your Mac, you’d have to disable System Integrity Protection first. I don’t recommend that. However, you can re-enable SIP afterwards and your Mac won’t mind that you’ve deleted Chess.app and other built-in system apps.

Really, I recommend you, don’t do this. Mac OS X may automatically reinstall these applications in the future when you update the system, anyway. They don’t take up much space, and Apple provides no way to get them back beyond reinstalling OS X on your Mac.

This doesn’t actually erase an application’s preferences. Erase an application and it will leave preference files left over in your Library folders. Most of the time, these files will use very little space and won’t cause a problem. The preferences will still be available on your Mac, too — this is convenient if you’re uninstalling an app only to replace it with a newer version of the same app.

Hope this helps.


Can I use any storage device to store user profiles using Profile Manager?

I think what you are asking is how to enable (network) "Home Directories". Workstations need to be connected via Gigabit Ethernet for this to work well. For laptops, use "Portable Home Directories" over a robust Wi-Fi network (or Ethernet)

Yes, you can use any (direct-attched) storage device, though for 40TB, I would recommend a RAID over Thunderbolt (2 if possible).

In File Sharing, add or create a new shared folder on your external (direct-attached) storage, then click the check box to "Make available for home directories over... " and select a file sharing protocol (AFP or SMB).

Set up the Home Folder (directory) location in "mobility" using Profile Manager


The very easiest way, which it sounds like you need!, would be to burn CDs of your old songs, by signing in to each account, by making a playlist and then selecting, burn playlist to disk.

To access the music from your first two Apple IDs you just need the user name and password from each one.  Reset your password so that you know the current password for each... make it something random and long that you just write on a piece of paper, and throw away after you re-import the songs into your current account.


Can I create an alias or a shortcut to a file in Spotlight?

Use Tags.

Right click on the file you want
Select "Tags"
Type in the custom text for the tag (i.e. "Chemistry Textbook")

Now, in Spotlight, execute your search by prefacing it with tag:
tag: Chemistry Textbook

As an example, I assigned a sample text file (Chemistry.txt) the tag "Chemistry Textbook".  Upon doing a Spotlight search, it found it immediately.

You can find more information on how to fully use Tags from the Apple Support Document:  OS X: Tags help you organize your files


For anyone experiencing this problem, I would suggest going with System Diagnose + NVRAM reset + SMC reset + Disk repair.

And if none of those work, follow @IronCraftMan advice and proceed with reinstalling OS X - you won't lose any data.

These steps worked for me.


Γο το Συστεμ Πρεφερενψεσ/Λανγθαγε & Τεχτ/Ινπθτ Σοθρψεσ, σεαρψη φορ Γρεεκ, αδδ ιτ.
Νος υοθ μαυ τυπε θ φρομ κευβοαρδ.

   Go to System Preferences/Language & Text/Input Sources, search for Greek, add it. Now you may type u from keyboard.

Or you may just use Find and replace function in Edit menu to change ø to θ afterwards.


iPhone 5C running iOS 7 does not display Contacts

You likely have more than one contact "group".

In your case you will want to look two places.  First open the contacts app and note that using the "groups" button in the top left you will be able to 'show' a group that's not showing. That should get back the contacts that are "invisible" now.

Also navigate to 'Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars' and look at the "default account" in the Contacts section, which defines which "group" new contacts are stored to.