Should I upgrade my Mid 2009 MBP 15 2.8 to MBPr 13?

If I had to read between the lines, you are indirectly asking if the physical size and resolution of the 13 inch retina Mac is equal to or better than your existing 15 inch model.

It's clear that everything is faster on the new models. Heck, the new 2015 MacBook would probably run every workload and benchmark faster than any 2009 Mac including the Mac Pro of that vintage.

I would encourage you to refresh now. It's always the best time to buy Apple products when a new one is announced.

You know exactly what the latest bump is and can choose to get "last year's model" on sale from Apple or for a very good price used or buy the latest.
Between new and refurbished, you probably have 4 (or 6) price points instead of the 2 you normally get buying new from Apple.

As to the specifics of your "upgrade" - it's a great time to upgrade.

Intel CPU are massively more efficient and powerful from 2009 to 2015
USB is massively better - both in absolute terms and that Macs from 2009 had less optimal drivers for them IMO.
SSD storage is far better than HDD for almost every use case. Not only are you getting that jump, the the SSD in 2014/2015 are far better than 2012 and earlier in terms of performance and $/perf.
Retina screens are excellent for cases where you have lots of elements (Xcode and text) as well as far more pleasing than LCD from 2009 era.
You get a new Mac after 5 years

All of the above reasons would make your work environment much more inspiring. Especially if you can sell your old Mac or donate it and afford the new one.


is it possible to write an application that can block call, disable writing text messages if you are driving

No, iPhone apps do not have access to the phone or sms text systems.

There may be such apps in the jailbreak community, but nothing like it will be in the App Store.


Doing a "mail merge" from Microsoft Office to send out an individualized email

In the end, staying within the Microsoft Office environment is probably the easiest answer. Sorry for not having researched that more thoroughly before asking the question.

"Generate e-mail messages" in the last step was greyed out because Microsoft Outlook was not the default email application. So to make it work:

(Temporarily) Make MS Outlook the default email application: This is an option within the Mail.app preferences.
Go through the usual mail merge steps. Note that the email-address does not need to be in the Word message, but I would recommend to have it as a field in the Excel sheet.
In the last step the "generate e-mail messages" option should not be greyed out anymore. Select it.
A small window pops open. Among other options (Subject, for example) the field containing the email address can be chosen here.
The format can be chosen as "Text", "HTML" and "Attachment". When sending as text, all me line breaks would disappear, so I ended up sending as HTML, even though I very much prefer "text"...
Done.
(7. Don't forget to undo your choice of default email app, if you normally use another one.)


Yes, that is correct; it will change.

Your MAC (Media Access Control) address is assigned to network interfaces, not to the computer.  For example, on this WiFi adapter from a Macbook Pro, you can see the MAC address imprinted on the chip (circled in red)

You can even lookup the manufacturer of the WiFi adapter by entering the first six characters into a lookup tool like this one.  In this case, "58b035" comes back as "Apple, Inc"


Getting slow internet response for browsers other than Safari (MacOS Mojave)

In the event that you threw out something you shouldn't have, first thing to do would be to boot into Recovery and overlay the OS.
The reinstall from Recovery (as opposed to a full wipe & install from Internet Recovery) will ensure all essential OS components are in place without changing any user data.
btw, resetting the NVRAM will do nothing at all for this type of issue.
A quick Google tells me OSStatus error -9806 is errSSLClosedAbort which sounds like an internet security component is not working properly.


Etrecheck says performance is poor. Any way to find out whats wrong?

Etrecheck is usually pretty reliable.

Your iMac is running on one of the latest software versions on a 10 year-old machine.

Your iMac is too old to handle the latest software and to support peak performance therefore Etrecheck is displaying that message.

If you can I recommend downgrading your OS to an older version, one that your iMac can handle better. You can see how to downgrade in this article.

If you don’t want to downgrade I still recommend creating a backup for your files.

An additional test you can run is an Apple Hardware Test, by holding the D key on startup which might detect any other issues.


Vertical green stripes when iMac starts to boot up

Vertical bars/strips are usually indicative of a display malfunction. If you are also having booting problems, it is more likely GPU failure. You should take the iMac to Apple soon as it likely requires servicing.

To backup your iMac, connect an empty hard drive with enough storage to back up your iMac, then go to System Preferences > Time Machine. Turn Time Machine on, and select the disk you just connected. Allow your Mac to backup before taking it to Apple.


iTunes "Check for Update" button puts up a dialog box asking for a file

I am on Lion but had a similar problem. Based on info here: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/FA_Deploying_iTunes/Introduction/Introduction.html , which says that 'the file selector dialog only appears only if automatic detection of iOS updates is turned off', I tried removing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist.

This fixed things for me.  Quit iTunes before you do this, and move the plist file somewhere so that you can restore it if necessary. (It may be possible to change this preference setting without messing with the plist; however, I couldn't immediately spot where to do it in the UI).


Time machine clean up hangs chrome (and other apps)

I don't know, how to prevent it,
but here is solution how to exclude Chrome files from backup.

If not very important to keep the state of Chrome Browser at a certain moment - it might help.


"The Unarchiver" is a great tool, and I highly recommend it, both the GUI and the CLI tools.

That said, my unzip command is

ditto -xk foo.zip target_dir

where 'target_dir' is the directory where I want the files to appear (and it can be '.' if you want them to unzip right there).

Note that 'target_dir' will be created if needed.

Also note that ditto does not mind overwriting files, so use with care.

ditto on Mac OS X is designed to preserve resource forks, etc. so it is my preferred method of unzipping files, especially because it ships with OS X by default.


Enable screensharing via SSH and setting password

If you need to set a VNC password - you might need to also kickstart the ARDAgent, you can use this command instead of just loading the plist:

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

The analogous command for using user/password of existing users would be:

sudo  /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -access -on -configure -allowAccessFor -allUsers -configure -restart -agent -privs -all

More detail and discussion at:

How to enable OS X screen sharing (VNC) through SSH?


Change screenshot destination on Touch Bar Mac (macOS Sierra)

As of Mojave 10.14.2 version, you can change "Save to" destination by entering screenshot mode (press screenshot key on touchbar or Command+Shift+5), then you'd see quick tools (region selection, etc). Go to Options -> Save to... -> Other location... and choose desired location for your screenshots.

Now all screenshot (even those you process with quick editor after making a screenshot) will be stored at chosen folder.

And you don't need any specific software or scripts.


Separating emails by commas in Outlook 2016 Mac

Unfortunately, you can't. I had this problem last year with one of my personal clients who wanted to use Outlook 2016 for his email instead of the Apple Mail app. There was no way that I could find to make Outlook switch from semi-colons to commas. I did a fair amount of research then (and did some additional research just now) but came up empty.

In the end, my client went back to Apple Mail.

Sorry I have nothing definitive.


How to map buttons on my mouse with AppleScript?

Karabiner, which Joonas suggested, natively has back/forward options for buttons 4 and 5. You do not have to create a xtml file.
The option is under 'pointing device' > 'button to key' > 'use button 4 and 5 as back/forward'.
I have only used it for 30 minutes so far, but it worked straight away by just activating those checkmarks (mouse: ttesports black v2)


What Lion maintenance utility should I use?

Onyx
I don't know AppleJack, therefore I don't know if this program is sufficient for your needs. Onyx is a free tool for general system maintenance.

You can automize tasks which you do frequently.

Verify the Startup Disk and the structure of its System files, to run misc. tasks of system maintenance

Delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome, and more.


Calendar entries showing up on wrong date

Hard to say whether this is to do with your phone or another device, but it's possible it's a time zone issue.

You might check that your phone is set to the correct time zone (Settings > General > Date & Time). There's also a time zone override option for the calendar (Settings > Calendar > Time Zone Override) which if enabled will override the time zone of your phone and show your appointments according to the override.


I cant get texts on my Android phone from messages on my Macbook

The problem is likely on the sending side, and you certainly can be sure your accounts are set up correctly before you pester them.
See about removing your SMS from your mporarily while you test.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349
Contact switched to Android; how to send texts instead of iMessages?

Once you’re sure your account wasn’t told to register messages for you instead of SMS.
Point them to a couple things that can cause their Macs to not send an SMS.
If can send to some SMS but not you, specifically, focus them on your contact card.

Messages.app on macOS won't send/receive/display messages to/from one specific contact

If they can’t send to any SMS/Android it’s their SMSs forwarding that needs a look.

Messages app on my Macbook Pro stopped sending to Android


Cannot install Mac OS X Lion due to disk errors

If you were to purchase Lion from Apple, then a requirement to install would be to have Snow Leopard already installed. In other words, the DMG file only offers an upgrade to Lion. You probably can not use the DMG file to create a bootable installer. You can read the requirements from this Apple website.

You would not need a Apple ID to install Snow Leopard, but the installer will still ask. You can decline to give an Apple ID if you wish. Snow Leopard was released on a DL DVD. Apple still sells Snow Leopard DVDs, but you can also download an ISO from the internet. There are plenty of websites that explain how to make a bootable USB Snow Leopard installer. I have not tried any of these methods. If you succeed, then maybe you could post a method that works.

  I would recommend burning the Snow Leopard ISO file to a DL DVD.

Once you have Snow Leopard installed, you should install all the available Snow Leopard updates. This would update Snow Leopard to OS X 10.6.8. From here, you could upgrade to Lion by using your DMG file. Or, you could open Safari and search for the Apple website where you can download a free upgrade to El Capitan.

  Note: You may need an Apple ID to download El Capitan. If so, then use an existing Apple ID or create a new ID. Apple does not charge for creating new Apple IDs


iPhone seems to disconnect the VPN as soon as it goes into auto-lock (sleep)

as far as i know thats a result of a design.
if i am to assume you're using wifi while connected to vpn
iphones usually puts the wifi chip on sleep while the screen is locked. to preserve battery life if the module is not being used.

that being said, it might as well be due to your vpn, I've used different types of vpn some loose connection sporadicly after a while, and some stay connected for hours (on a mac)

try doing the same with/and/or a different vpn/leaving your screen on


How does Script Editor choose the applications to show on the 'tell current application' popup?

Yes in Script Editor go to menu item Window → Library, then once you see this…

Just click on the + icon and there you can add any other apps you want.


iPhone 5 Power Button Replacement Programme

Two facts that might disappoint you:

The damage done on your iPhone may be responsible for the broken power button.
The iPhone may not have been opened before (by non authorised personal)

I just got my phone to the Apple store for a power button replacement, I had have a small crack in my screen, but never replaced it. They looked for water damage and told me I was able to let them replace my power button. They did not mind about the small crack.


Can Mid 2015 Macbook Pro Run 3 External Monitors?

YES.  It can be done if your MBP has the extra graphics chip AND you use Displayport as one of the monitor inputs.  Click on "About this Mac"  "System Report" "Graphics/Displays" and look to see if it has 2 graphics chips one of them being "AMD Radeon R9 M370X"

My experimentation has taught me this:

2012 MBPR with extra graphics chip can drive 2x TB-DVI + 1x HDMI
2015 MBPR with single integrated graphics can only drive 2x of any combination as poster indicates (it cannot drive the combination in #3 below)
2015 MBPR with extra graphics chip can NOT drive 2x TB-DVI + 1X HDMI but it CAN drive 1x TB-DVI + 1x TB-DisplayPort + 1x HDMI as one of the answers here indicates.

I don't know what changed between 2012+extra graphics and 2015+extra graphics to require that one of the displays be using displayport input (vs DVI/HDMI/VGA).  Wish there was a way as I now need to get another monitor...


Xcode Error: Unable to install app (Error Code: Code: -402620383)

It is a very hot issue with the new update of Catalina.
To be very precise the issue is with the manually signing of the provisioning profile. If you check Automatically manage signing it works.


Is it safe to install youtube-dl on my Mac?

Yes, it is totally safe to install youtube-dl for downloading YouTube videos. See this answer.

It is recommended to install it via Homebrew.


In Apple Mail, is there a keyboard command to shift focus from a message to the message list

On macOS Mojave, tab cycles between Mailbox list, message list, message and search bar.


When I open google docs on my ipad i get a listing off files. If I select a file, a sequence of three dots appears in the upper right corner. When I click on the three dots a menu opens with a list of options. One option near the bottom is "Share and export". Select this option. A new menu appears. The second option down is to copy link. Click this and link is copied to clipboard.
The steps are

open google docs
select file
Click on 3 dots in upper right corner
Click on "Share and Export"
Click on "Copy Link"


Time Machine initial backup way too large

See if there are files marked inprogress on the machine's backup folder

TimeMachineDisk -> Backup.db -> MachineName.

You can try to remove them with tmutil.  Do not remove them with finder.

You can get enormous files if the source disk has has certain classes of file system errors.  Boot off of your recovery partition or off a DVD and run diskutil repair disk.  Then us tmutil to remove the monster backup and try again.
Check out Pondini's page about Time Machine.  http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html  This is an excellent information and troubleshooting guide.

Thanks, BTW for the headsup that an rMBP has no ethernet jack. This makes it a non-starter for me.


Option to not select text when undoing a deletion?

As @Tetsujin pointed out, it turns out this is a per-application behavior, not an OS behavior. The same happens in some programs on Windows, and some apps on Mac do not behave like this. Seems like nothing can be done about it.


Can't install updates from macOS App Store

I have the same exact problem. I'm staying in a long term hotel and I had a couple of problems with their WiFi so I figured it had something to do with this. Yes, it was related but then something messed up around with my Apple ID. Then I could not even log in iTunes and AppStore and even my phone started acting weird.

The solution for logging again was typing this on the terminal:

defaults write com.apple.appstore.commerce Storefront -string \
    "$(defaults read com.apple.appstore.commerce Storefront | sed s/,8/,13/)"

(Source: Appstore error 500 (com.apple.commerce.client))

The problem is that my downloads and updates still never start and according to Apple Support everything is fine and it is just my network blocking downloads from AppStore! But I've tried 4G and a VPN interface and it is still the same!


iCloud app cannot be installed on Windows 10

On the linked article:

  If you downloaded iTunes from the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 or aren't seeing this error message, don't use the steps in this article. Instead, learn how to remove and reinstall iTunes and related software components for Windows 7 and later. Errors like this are related to components of Windows that iTunes from the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 doesn't use.

Follow the steps found here. Make sure you uninstall everything in the right order.

  In some rare instances, you might need to remove iTunes and related software components before you reinstall iTunes or install iTunes from the Microsoft Store. If you're directed to reinstall iTunes by AppleCare, an article, or an alert dialog, you can do so by following the steps below.

Afterwards, install the software from the Microsoft Software.


App Store Apple ID review Information give ID already exist error

I have sorted out the problem by signing into itunes. For some reason iTunes setup a new apple id and corrects the link. Itunes also asked me to review information when I logged into first time but it did not get into any deadlock.


I'm not aware of any method to apply the protection of ~/Documents etc to other directories.
If your primary objective is to protect access to a set of sensitive files it might be easier to create an encrypted DMG with Disk Utility and mount this only while you need to access these files.


Producing/archiving an overview of a directory structure

Get TextWrangler. It’s free and awesome.
Drag (e.g. your home) folder into Text window:
Profit!


iOS apps can retain data after uninstalling if they store data in the keychain, which you can never clear unless you reset the device.

Some apps can also get unique information about your device and associate it with your device to store the data on their servers.


Hard disk performance drastically declined after OS X Lion upgrade

Ok, I bought a new Harddisk (Samsung 640GB) and cloned the old HD with SuperDuper. After Spotlight has re-indexed the drive I have the following benchmarks:

Sequential Write: 60  MB/s, 25 MB/s
Sequential Read:  17 MB/s, 69 MB/s
Random Write:  1.5 MB/s, 24 MB/s
Random Read:   0.5 MB/s, 19 MB/s

I don't know if the HD or it's controller is damaged, but now the performance of my system is ok again!


Is it possible to redownload enterprise apps through Apple ID's?

No, if it was not originally purchased/downloaded from the Apple App Store, you will not find it in the Purchased section.

Usually, enterprise apps are distributed from that company's 'app store' only.  If they are deleted from your iOS device, you can revisit the company app store and re-download the app again.  It's up to that company if they want to have a Purchased tab or some other way of seeing previously downloaded apps.


Why does BBEdit look bad with retina display?

Edit: as of version 10.5, BBEdit has retina support.

I believe it's because BBEdit, like some other applications (Chrome, to name one) doesn't use the standard OS X text rendering library, thus it doesn't automatically get the Retina-calibre text, rather the text gets scaled up (like non-retina images), resulting in the blurry look.

Luckily the BBEdit team is working on it, they've released a beta version with retina support.


Can I add actions to control automator to automator?

Automator itself does not ship with self referencing Automator actions.

GUI Scripting

Alternative approaches include using GUI Scripting to automate interactions with the Automator application. See Accessibility Preferences and GUI Scripting for an example of how to set this up on recent versions of Mac OS X.

automator Command Line Tool

OS X includes an automator command line tool. You can use this tool to incorporate your Automator workflows into other scripts. Through this tool you can pass in variables and thus manipulate the workflow's behaviour.

Beyond Automator

You may find GUI Scripting and the corresponding What Me Do action fragile or unpredictable. If so, consider tools such as Sikuli to help automate your Mac.


Mail.app crashes, after Exchange server rebuild

Buscar has the gist correct, though I would add a step: backup your ~/Library/Mail folder (OPTION-Drag it to the desktop) then delete the account.

One that is done add it back. If your old mail has vanished when the new account has been established just import the backed up mailboxes sitting on the Desktop.


File sizes greyed out (strange extended attributes) in Finder on Lion?

I have only the craziest of guesses, but since we're all striking out so far, here goes.

Is there any chance you've turned on the Asepsis mode which installs a kernel extension? You may have not disabled that in your testing (a safe boot should confirm / rule this out as well). It seems possible that it's intentionally showing you which folders it has replaced the normal .DS_store file with entries in /usr/local/.dscache

I would also use mdls to inspect the metadata for these folders (since apps are really folders these days) in case some clue jumps out at you.


iOS 11: How to prevent an app from opening in slide over mode?

I finally found a way to get rid of that small window and make links open in a full browser.

I was using Google's Inbox to read emails and Chrome to open the links. As the OP was describing, clicking on a link opened a small Chrome window and because Inbox does not support Split View, the small window was not resizable. It turns out iOS remembers the size and state of the last time Chrome was opened in multitasking mode.

I had to start some other app that supported Split View (like “Reminders”), pull up the dock, drag the Chrome icon to the top of the app, essentially kicking in Split View. Then I resized the Chrome window to be full screen.

This way, now when I click on a link on Gmail or Inbox and select Chrome to open it, it comes in full screen.


Fix name tag on a face in iPhone photos app

click "i" (for get information", click on the face of the person then in the name tag - and correct the name just as you would for any other mac item name change


Open Font Book and choose File → Restore Standard Fonts…

If that doesn't work, restart in safe mode (hold the shift when you hear the boot chime).


How can I send an SMS message from my Mac?

This is called Text Message Forwarding and requires iOS 8.1 or above. Make sure both the OS X Messages App and your iPhone have the same Apple ID enabled. Then, do the following:

On your iPhone, tap Settings > Messages.
Tap Text Message Forwarding.
Enable your Mac in the list of devices.
On your Mac, open Messages.
A six-digit activation code appears.
Enter this code on your iPhone, then tap Allow.

That should just about do it.


brew: Failed to set filetime 1503098583 on outfile: errno 1

I had the same issue, and similar situation as others via Github Homebrew/brew #issue 2921.

It was the "remote-time" line from my ~/.curlrc file.

To fix it, just comment out the line with a # like:

#remote-time


You probably enabled a hidden preference for the experimental single app mode. It can be undone with:

defaults delete com.apple.dock single-app
killall Dock


How can I increase the time before my external drive powers down?

Cocktail is an award winning general purpose utility for Mac OS X

This app does exactly what you are after (plus much much more), but it will set you back $15.

Alternatively, the command pmset appears to do this as well, but without the fancy GUI. For example pmset -c disksleep 60 will prevent all disks from spinning down within 60 minutes of activity when plugged in. You can change the -c part to specify a different power condition:

  The -a, -b, -c, -u flags determine whether the settings apply to battery
       ( -b ), charger (wall power) ( -c ), UPS ( -u ) or all ( -a )


AppleScript bug when using Myriad Tables Library: "types" is replaced with "type"

To get around this terminology conflict, use the following line:

set theTypes to anItem's |types|()

Here's more info (from this webpage):

  You can force an illegal variable name to be legal by surrounding it
  with vertical bars, also known as "pipes."

  The real effect of pipes is to tell AppleScript to suspend its
  compile-time parsing rules and turn what's inside the pipes into a
  token. The main reason this is genuinely useful is to avoid a conflict
  between a token name and a term already in use.

Note:

  A variable name surrounded by pipes is case-sensitive. AppleScript
  will not touch the case of names in pipes after compilation.


Locking my Macbook when I remove my smartcard

Figured out where to configure this. Put a check in the box next to:

System Preferences->Security & Privacy->Advanced->Turn on screen saver when login token is removed


Apple mail unable to reply or close windows

In my case the following approach has fixed this issue, for the time being at least:

(Using Mail.app version 9.2)

Go to Mail > Preferences and select the 'Composing' tab. In the section of preferences relating to 'Responding' and change the settings so that they are the opposite of what you normally use. Save the changes.

I then quit Mail. (In my case I then restarted the machine as well - for a wholly separate and unrelated reason, but I don't know if that's a critical step or not, certainly won't do any harm.) Re-launch mail, and I found that replying to a message now conforms to the new preferences that I've set.

I then re-edited the preferences to set them back to what I wanted. Tried a new reply, and it works - the target addresses are in place, the text of the original is there and quoted.

I guess the issue may have been due to the original preference settings getting corrupted in some way. I'll keep it under review, and if it stops working again anytime soon, I'll aim to add a comment here.


How can I find out which USB Type C port is supplying power

The current should be displayed in your Power settings menu.


Where are Time Machine local backups/snapshots stored?

Under the new file system in High Sierra (Apple File System (APFS)), this it is different.  You can see what is considered the "local backups" via command line like this:

sudo tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

Ones that are listed as "(dateless)" will cause all sorts of problems:

com.apple.TimeMachine.2017-12-23-090037 (dataless)

so you can delete any backup by command line like this (deletes the one listed above, note only date used in reference):

sudo tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2017-12-23-090037

Note that in my latest problem with macOS, the "bird" process was eating up egregious amounts of CPU. It was suggested that dumping backups that were damaged (damaged, who knew?) would help.


diskutil shows Macintosh HD is missing (with Recovery HD occupying the entire space)

Your Recovery HD doesn't occupy your whole 3 TB drive. It's disk1s3 in the diskutil listing with the common size of 650 MB.

Your Logical Volume Family and the Logical Volume vanished though.

To rebuild it start to your Recovery HD or to Internet Recovery Mode, open Terminal and enter diskutil cs list.
Copy the LVGUUID
To recreate the LV enter diskutil cs createVolume LVGUUID type name size

In your case probably diskutil cs createVolume 7ABC--i_can't_read_the_rest jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%.
Now reinstall Mac OS X or restore your system with the Time Machine backup.

Update 1:

Recovery HD doesn't exist anymore - it was deleted by accident. You have to rebuild your Fusion Drive from scratch now:

Preparation:

Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.
The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an apple/akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Mavericks or Yosemite).

Rebuild Fusion Drive

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode open Utilities → Terminal in the menubar and enter:
diskutil cs list to get the CoreStorage listing.
Copy the Logical Volume Group UUID, it's the first listed in the listing of diskutil cs list.
Then delete the Logical Volume Group with diskutil cs delete LVGUUID.
In your case: diskutil cs delete 7ABC--i_can't_read_the_rest
Enter exit and quit 'Terminal'
Open 'Disk Utility'. Enter 'Ignore' if you are asked to fix the drives.
Choose your SSD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled),
hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~121 GB

Example:

Choose your HDD and partition it: 1 Partition Mac OS X Extended (Journaled),
hit the Options button and choose GUID Partiton table and hit OK and Apply.
Please check that the size is ~3 TB

Example:

Quit Disk Utility and open Terminal
Enter diskutil list

Example (your disk identifiers and sizes are different of course: Your volume SSD probably has the Identifier disk0s2 and the size 121 GB and your volume HDD probably has the Identifier disk1s2 and the size 3.0 TB):

Enter diskutil cs create "Name" IdentifierSSD IdentifierHDD
In your case probably diskutil cs create "Macintosh HD" disk0s2 disk1s2.

Copy the resulting LVGUUID

Example:

Enter diskutil cs CreateVolume LVGUUID jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%.

Example:

Enter diskutil cs list
Check the size of your Logical Volume. It should have the size ~3.121 TB

Example:

Quit Terminal
Open 'Disk Utility' and check your newly created volume for errors
Quit 'Disk Utility'
Attach your external Time Machine backup drive or check this answer if you use NAS or another network share.
Open 'Restore from Time Machine Backup'
Choose the appropriate Time Machine backup and restore your system
Reboot to your restored system.
Unmount and detach your Time Machine backup drive
Open 'Terminal' and enter 'diskutil list'
Check if your 'Recovery HD' is listed.
If your 'Recovery HD' is missing, usually reinstalling your current system with the latest available system installer (e.g. 'Install OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)' if Mavericks is currently installed) will recreate it without loosing any data. AFAIK Recovery Partition Creator 3.8 will NOT create a Recovery HD on CoreStorage volumes.
After reinstalling the system with the latest available system installer open App Store and install the latest security fixes.


Meaning of "FD" in /dev/cu.usbmodemFD211?

There's no technical consequences due to the device having "FD" in its name. It is "just a name", so the operating system doesn't treat it any differently because it says "FD".

The reason for the different namings is that the driver for the USB serial device decides the name of the device file. You will see different names depending on which driver the user has installed.

For these reasons, it is not possible to generally say what the "FD" stands for - as it depends entirely on which driver, the user has installed. Typically "FD" stands for "file descriptor" or "full duplex" in this context.


Why is /usr/include missing? I have Xcode and Command Line Tools installed (Mojave)

You have to run another step after installing the command line tools:

sudo installer -pkg /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg -target /

Why? Apple have introduced a new build tool dance - system includes are now only kept under a specific SDK's path with Xcode 10 onwards:

  The Command Line Tools package installs the macOS system headers inside the macOS SDK. Software that compiles with the installed tools will search for headers within the macOS SDK [...] provided by either Xcode [...] or the Command Line Tools [...] depending on which is selected using xcode-select.

  [...]

  The command line tools will search the SDK for system headers by default. However, some software may fail to build correctly against the SDK and require macOS headers to be installed in the base system under /usr/include [emphasis added]. If you are the maintainer of such software, we encourage you to update your project to work with the SDK or file a bug report for issues that are preventing you from doing so.  As a workaround, an extra package is provided which will install the headers to the base system. In a future release, this package will no longer be provided. You can find this package at:
  /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/Packages/macOS_SDK_headers_for_macOS_10.14.pkg

  To make sure that you're using the intended version of the command line tools, run xcode-select -s <path to Xcode> or xcode select -s /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools after installing.


I suggest doing the following:

Remember to backup every file through email if not already synced with iCloud.

Disable and then enable iCloud sync for Pages in the Settings app under Pages section, it's located in Preferences - Pages, the switch is labelled Use iCloud. Quit the app through launcher before disabling, launch the app after disabling, and then quit it before enabling again.
Disable and then enable document syncing for Pages app under Preferences - iCloud - Documents and Data, the switch is labelled Pages. Do the same thing in italic as in (1).
Delete the app and then install it again.
Disable and then enable system-wide Documents & Data syncing under Preferences - iCloud. Do the same thing in italic as in (a).
Delete iCloud account from iPhone and then add it again. It can be done under Preferences - iCloud.


Recent items are showing under "No Date" when sorting by date in finder

I don't know if this is really a "solution" per se, but it's a workaround that I prefer anyway: I changed the "Arrange by" to "None" as described here Mac OS X - File Open Dialog: Can't sort or resize columns

This gets rid of the categorization by Today/7 days/30 days/etc. altogether, and just gives a straightforward dialog that lets you sort however you want (be it Date Modified, or Name, or Size). I find this much more useful and fail to see the advantage of the other view (which is made almost useless by this No Date bug).

Note that some applications (e.g., MS Office) do not let you change the Auto-arrange setting. Just open up some other application that does (e.g., Chrome) and set it there (just go to Open File or similar -- you don't have to actually open the file). This action seems to set this setting globally (on 10.8.4).

This problem is all over the web. Why does Apple not comment on it? Does it not care about its users? Why does it not release a fix? Is iTunes so much more important? This bug seems almost ludicrous: The arrange-by setting used for categorization is (normally) "Date Modified", and the actual modified date is clearly shown in the Date Modified column. Indexing in the general case perhaps needs to happen not in real time (e.g., if you are viewing "All Files"), but when we open a dialog, can't just the (usually very few but most important) No Date files be manually indexed in that moment?


Find specific apps by name, getting their version, via command line

A solution using mdfind and mdls as a one-liner:

mdfind "kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier == com.microsoft.Word" | while IFS= read -r path ; do echo "$path"; mdls -name kMDItemVersion "$path"; done

This would print (if both Office 2008 and 2011 are installed):

/Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Microsoft Word.app
kMDItemVersion = "12.3.6"
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Microsoft Word.app
kMDItemVersion = "14.6.9"

That's good enough for my needs. I still wonder if there's a way to get the information from lsregister or a similar tool that looks into the Launch Services registry.


How does Parallels handle hard drive usage?

Parallels allows to compress the virtual hard drive to give unused space back to the host OS. This only works as long as you don't create any snapshots of the virtual OS and don't use the Recovery functionality (which is most probably not an issue).


From your question it is not clear if you still have a question, but let me give you a answer anyway.

There is nice little app on your Mac called Audio MIDI Setup (in the utility folder)

Open it and use the setup to for example have multiple audio output, or set up and Aggregate devices and so on to your desire.


How are colorschemes represented in OS X Terminal.app Settings Files?

bplist means binary property list, which can be converted to XML with plutil -convert xml1. Inside each plist for a color is another data key for the fractional RGB values.

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -x -c 'Print "Window Settings":"My Theme"' ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist|tr -d '\n\t'|grep -o '[^>]*</key><data>[^<]*'|while read l;do echo ${l%%<*} $(base64 -D<<<${l##*>}|plutil -convert xml1 - -o -|awk '/<data>/{getline;print}'|tr -d '\t'|base64 -D);done

The output looks like this:

ANSIBlueColor 0.4769933663 0.4769933663 0.9314516129
ANSICyanColor 0.2666655827 0.8165705831 0.8588709677
ANSIGreenColor 0.428833897 0.8508064516 0.490967087
ANSIMagentaColor 0.9072580645 0.4499707336 0.9072580645
ANSIRedColor 0.9072580645 0.508503512 0.508503512
ANSIYellowColor 0.9072580645 0.9072580645 0.3914379553
CursorColor 0.9998760223 0.999984026 0.999786377
SelectionColor 0.3899414837 0.4639441073 0.5917825699
TextBoldColor 0.9441435337 0.4102420509 0.427282244
TextColor 1 0.99997437 0.9999912977


I ran into issues where my audio controls were disabled similar to what you describe. I can't be sure it's the same issue, but in my case, killing the Core Audio process fixed it.

Open up Terminal and enter this command:

sudo kill -9 `ps ax | grep 'coreaudio[a-z]' | awk '{print $1}'`

You'll be prompted to enter your password, but that should find and kill the proper process, which will then auto-restart. Your volume control should come back to normal within a few seconds if this is indeed the problem.


Lion, Filevault, Security, Require password immediately after screensaver is forced - any workaround?

Upgrade to Mac OS X 10.7.2 or higher for the Security and Privacy setting "Require password time period after sleep or screen saver begins" to be respected after FileVault is enabled (though I don't see anything about this fix on the download page).  There is no longer a need to keep System Preferences open forever (what a silly but effective fix) or any of the other workarounds.


Firewall blocks all internet sharing except port 80

I had to disable stealth mode on mac firewall to allow pi to ping mac.


It's a poorly worded message. When I've gotten it in the past (on OS X), it's been when my screen resolution is too small to play 1080p content natively. However if you ignore the warning, it will happily play just fine, but downscaled to fit your screen.


Create an iCloud Shared Album and give it a web URL, then "bookmark" that URL with a home screen icon.

Open the Photos app and tap on the Shared tab.
If you don't see the + icon at the upper-left, tap "< Sharing" there. Tap the + icon.
Give your album a name and tap Next. Optionally, share it with contact(s). Tap Create.
Tap on the album you just created. Add photos by tapping on + in the grey square.
Tap on the People tab. Turn on Public Website. You'll be provided a URL.
Tap Share Link and then tap Copy.
Open Safari and paste the URL into the address bar. Tap the Share icon at the bottom and tap Add to Home Screen.

Anytime you want to share the photos in this album with people, just tap on the icon on your home screen.


How do I conect a Thunderbolt Display and a HDMI display at the same time?

You can do this because your Thunderbolt Display has thunderbolt ports.
Connect your Thunderbold screen to your MacBook Pro and then connect your Dell 24" to the thunderbolt on your Thunderbold display. You will need a thunderbolt to DVI or VGA adaptor.


Ford Sync and Reminders problem iPhone 4s

I do not think this is possible. I have a 2010 Fusion with Sync and no nav. The iPhone's ringtone is the only thing that will preempt the current audio setting if it is not Bluetooth Audio. Any other sounds (text message, reminder, turn-by-turn directions using Waze or MapQuest) are only audible if Bluetooth Audio is selected, a phone call is already in progress, or Siri is active. In other words, the phone's audio must already be playing to hear any alert other than a ringing phone. (caveat: I do not use Sync's USB or line-in connections for my iPhone.)

Privacy mode is when you manually change your call audio from Sync back to the iPhone using the audio sources button; the radio will display "Privacy Mode" and mute whatever is playing as long as you're on the phone.


In the app store how do you determine if an app is iCloud compatible before purchase?

Honestly the best option is to just read the description in the App Store, the developer's website, and any reviews you can find. There's nothing in the App Store metadata that will tell you whether it uses iCloud or not.


How to clean install of MacOS on 2018 MBP

According to everymac.com, your 2018 Mac should be able to run macOS 10.13.6. You could try using the 2014 Mac to download High Sierra from this website.  This download should be the latest High Sierra macOS 10.13.6. You can the use the instructions from this website to transfer High Sierra to a flash drive. After booting from the flash drive, use the Disk Utility to erase and APFS format the internal drive. Finally, try installing High Sierra. If successful, then you can try upgrading to Catalina.


How to repair time machine after it loses its history

Had a similar issue, but I didn't have a backup of the plist file to replace, so I did the following to recreate the SnapshotDates array:
Removed the last couple backups (in Finder; was unable to do it in Terminal likely due to system protection enabled). Then opened terminal and executed the following:
$ cd /Volumes/[Backup Volume]/Backups.backupdb/[hostname]
$ for x in `ls`; do echo -n $x | sed -E "s/^([0-9]+-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2})-([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})/<date>\1T\2:\3:\4Z<\/date>/"; done

That outputs all the snapshots in <date>....</date> format; I copied those, then in com.apple.TimeMachine.prefs, found the appropriate backup volume under the Destinations element, and overwrote the contents of the SnapshotDates array (not the <key>SnapshotDates</key>, but everything inside the following <array>...</array> tags) with the copied lines.
Fixed indentation of the elements to match, and saved the file.
I haven't completed a new backup yet, I'm still waiting for the corrupt backups to finish getting deleted, but the date ranges of the existing backups now show properly.


You should change the default TV resolution of your Apple TV.

Settings --> Audio&Video --> TV Resolution and choose the resolution you want.


Why don't my Photos sort correctly by date?

Okay, I solved the mystery.

All of the photos in question were taken when I was on vacation, and my phone's time zone was set to the "away" time zone. Most of the photos were correctly saved with that time zone.

But for some reason, a few photos (the out-of-order ones) were saved with my "home" time zone. These photos also had no GPS location saved, so I assume this is a bug that happens when it can't find your GPS location.

Interestingly, the out-of-order photos did have the correct time, for the "away" time zone. It was just the time zone itself that was off. That's why it wasn't obvious that their time was wrong; Photos doesn't normally display the time zone. The only way to find out is to select "Adjust Date and Time", since that dialog shows you the photo's current time zone.

To fix this, I had to find all the out-of-order photos. Since Photos has no obvious way to filter Smart Albums by time zone, I filtered by "Photo is not tagged with GPS". (EDIT: I ended up writing a script to find them, since this didn't find all the right ones.)

I selected these photos, selected "Adjust Date and Time", entered the "away" time zone, then adjusted the time back to the original. That way it changed the time zone without affecting the actual time.

Afterwards, my photos were sorted correctly.


Press enter button using Dictation on Mac

You can use ‘press return key’ or ‘enter that’.


Auto delete previous / old events from iOS 7 Calendar?

There are two things you can do about this, one on the device and one on iCloud.com:

On the device, you can setup to sync the calendar only for the events in the past two weeks (that's the shortest duration in the past you can set it to).

Do this by going to Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Under the Calendars section, go to the Sync submenu
Select Events 2 Weeks Back

Login to iCloud.com, go to Calendar and follow Apple's help on "Delete or hide events":

  To automatically hide past events, choose Preferences from the Action pop-up menu , click Advanced, select “Hide events n-days after they’ve passed,” then enter a number of days.

Set it to 1 day (that's the minimum allowed).


Why use backup if icloud is already enabled for every application

Most of what iCloud does (other than iCloud Backup) is synchronize data between your various devices and the cloud. Synchronization is not a backup! Synchronization protects you in case a device is lost, fails, etc, but does nothing to protect against data being deleted or corrupted. If you delete or overwrite an important note on one of your devices, iCloud sync will promptly delete/overwrite the copy on the iCloud servers, and then do the same on all your other devices. In a situation like this, a backup would let you go back to before the problem happened, but sync copies the problem around.
(As Allan pointed out, it's best to have multiple "redundant" backups -- a sync service doesn't count as one of them.)


How can I combine text in multiple rows into one text block in numbers?

you can use the CONCATENATE fuction to combine multiple text strings into one. See the image below for an example:
.
The next image shows the result.


Double entries in Launchpad (Mac OSX 10.7, Lion)

Launchpad looks for applications in at least two different locations: the Applications folder in your Home directory, and the "root" Applications folder sitting in "Macintosh HD." If it sees an application in more than one place, it puts an icon on the Launchpad for each place it's in. (Try using Spotlight to see if you have more than one Address Book!)

Moving the extraneous apps out of ~/Applications should put them out of Launchpad's sight (at least, as of the next reboot).


Boot camp install of Windows 7 issue, no bootable devices (virtualbox fix please)

I believe you did not receive error executing Step 12. The output you posted is the expected result.

Four days after you posted your question, Tim Harper posted a comment where he had problems similar to yours at Step 18. He overcame this obstacle and succeeded installing Windows. His input led me to update Step 16. I hope this fixes your problem


I know that in iMovie HD (2006), the effect was under the name "Earthquake effect". Try looking for it under that name.


What features in iOS 9 make a difference?

Search in Settings

This one is a total painkiller! It was always a mess trying to find that specific setting and now all you need to do is type in.


Why can my Mac charge my iPad but other computers can't?

Because the iPad needs more than the 500 mA that the USB 2.0 spec says computers need to provide.  Macwork has more information.


Updating app that were downloaded with a different apple ID

Not sure what advice you are looking for really.

To update apps downloaded with a particular Apple Id needs the password for that ID.

Perhaps you should have done a "factory reset" and established your own Apple Id from the start. Do not reset until you’re ready to walk away from all the apps you can’t update. You will need to repurchase them, go without or find a substitute app that is available in this case.


This will indeed open a new crontab in vim (presuming you don't already have one)
crontab -e

If it creates a new crontab for you, it will start empty, hit the space bar to add something to the crontab before saving and exiting
So TL;DR

crontab -e creates a new crontab if you don't already have one
If it's a new (empty) crontab, press i to 'insert' using vim, then press spacebar a few times so it's not empty
Save and exit vim by pressing these keys (in order): esc, :, w, then q


Auto-launch the Info Sheet after a screenshot is captured? (by way of script, automation or app etc?)

It takes a few seconds to do its thing, but you can use a folder action.

If you are using Mojave or later, a destination folder for the screenshots can be set by using the Options menu of the Screenshot.app.

Create a folder action document in Automator, setting it to receive files added to the screenshot folder, and add a Run AppleScript action:

on run {input, parameters}
    repeat with anItem in the input
        tell application "Finder"
            activate
            open information window of anItem
        and tell
    end repeat

    return input
end run


How can I bring a window to frontmost without focusing it using Applescript in OS X 10.8

If an application has open windows, this should raise them above windows from other applications, but keep them below ones from the current application.

tell application "System Events"
    perform action "AXRaise" of window 1 of process "QuickTime Player"
end tell


What are the Apple-provided drivers for the AMD Pro Vega 16/20 for Windows 10?

The answer is Yes, they are supported in Windows. The Windows Support image which gets downloaded from Boot Camp Assistant.app if you are on a 2018/2019 MBP shows AMD drivers. These can be downloaded manually using the brigadier tool, by specifying the correct model name (e.g. MacBookPro15,3).


Can't Remove Kernel Extensions Under Mojave

As the developer responsible for that KEXT, I'm sorry that it's crashing.  You did the right thing just deleting it; it isn't going to be updated for Mojave (because, frankly, there's no point; what with APFS and the various security changes, I'm afraid iDefrag is now a legacy-only product).

For anyone else seeing this problem, you can boot into Safe Mode by restarting your machine and holding Shift (the key marked ⇧) when you hear the boot chime.  Alternatively, you can boot into Recovery Mode by holding Command (⌘) and R when you hear the chime; if you're in Recovery Mode, you can open Terminal from the "Utilities" menu at the top of the screen.

To delete the KEXT, follow the instructions below:

From Finder

In Finder, choose "Go to Folder…" from the "Go" menu.
Enter /Library/Extensions into the box that appears.
Press "Go" (or hit Return).
Drag the CoriolisSnapshot.kext to the Trash (or choose "Move to Trash" from the "File" menu).

From Terminal

Enter sudo rm -rf /Library/Extensions/CoriolisSnapshot.kext at the prompt, and press Return.
If prompted, enter your password and press Return.


Can you programatically tell if the webcam is in use?

I would recommend OverSight because it's free and written by a very talented Apple technology focused security researcher. His other tools are also extremely good.
https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html


VoiceOver reading results of Swift Playground print statements in Xcode

It's really cool that you're helping a blind person learn how to code! There must be some approach to gather the output in the Xcode console, but it is certainly possible that XCode may lack VoiceOver support for it.

Nevertheless, I'm wondering if you can't take advantage of the built-in VoiceOver functions in a clever way.

Something like:

UIAccessibilityPostNotification(UIAccessibilityAnnouncementNotification, cost);

Essentially, just replacing print with a manual UIAccessibilityPostNotification.


This symbol has a square in the middle, triangles on the sides, and arrows in the corners. What does it mean?

Since no-one has a good guess, here is how I would try to track it down.

Turn off Time Machine
Reboot the mac
open terminal
run this command sudo fs_usage -w
let fs_usage run for a bit and make sure all disk access is to a minimum,
repeat the steps to make that icon appear - noting the time to the second
press ⌃-C to kill the fs_usage dump and scroll back to see what application or files were being read when the icon appeared.


Issues with document syncing between iOS and host computer

Did you sync with a computer that you don't usually use? If you lost the app, you lost it's Documents directory, and your recording is gone.

Here's what is supposed to happen;

You're supposed to open iTunes and browse to your device. In the list of apps with the iOS Home Screen style view, there is a section at the bottom to select an Application, and manage it's Documents storage folder.

You do not need to sync in order to view up-to-date information in this screen. You are immediately able to save the data out of the app into a location on your computer.

Unfortunately, if you've sync'ed your phone and lost the app you've also lost the data from within it. There is little likelihood for data recovery on a Flash Disk device.


Can't install BASH patch: OSX 10.9.5 update installed, but system still says it is 10.9.4

The best thing to do when the system gets confused is to download the latest combo update (or the equivalent combo update) from Apple and then install it from the package:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1761

Once that is done, I would reboot and then download the bash patch and re-apply it as well.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1769

Only then would I let the App Store have a crack at more updates.


How to print screenshot with "fit to page" option?

There is not a way to do this in Grab.  However, if you use Preview, you can do the same thing as Grab, by going to File > Take Screen Shot > (Selection).  You can then use the scale to fit page function, as shown below.  Preview has many hidden and cool features that not many people know about.  You don't really need to use Grab, when you could just use Preview, and get what you want!  Hope this helps!

(Screenshot taken with Preview)


It is a bit tricky under OS X/macOS. If you are not tech savvy, try a third party app.

Otherwise, open the Terminal (search for it via Spotlight), and then paste following line:

sudo find / -iname "NAME_OF_YOUR_APP" >> ~/Desktop/t.txt

Replace NAME_OF_YOUR_APP with the name your actual app you want to delete. Afterwards, you'll see a text file at your Desktop. Open it. Here you have all paths of the app you try to delete. Go via the Finder to every place and delete the files by hand.

  Be careful and make sure the files are really the once from the app
  and not duplicates from other apps in your system.


How can I have a fixed size wastpaper basket?

You may be able to do this with a Folder Action.
apple.blogoverflow.com/2012/06/folder-actions-tutorial-automation-meet-the-filesystem/

when new item is added, count items in folder, if number of items is greater than threshhold, delete oldest one.

This requires some knowledge of how the trash works...Something about the .Trashes hidden folders.


Mac App Store only downloading at only 12-20 kbps?

The Mac App Store uses the same servers as iTunes downloads use. Something on your network may be throttling traffic to those servers (this is common in company networks). You might be able to work around it using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service.


Why is the wireless connection between my MacBook and AirPort Express so unstable?

Something to try is to turn off IPv6 support in your networking preference control panel for wireless, and even for ethernet if you are hardwired.

Mine would drop connections randomly and I'd have to mess around and eventually would pull its power and let it restart to restore sanity. Then, I read somewhere it was a problem with IPv6 support, and turn it off on our Macs. Now it's very stable.

I stopped using it for my wireless router, and now use it for AirTunes. Very seldom will it lag, and when it does it'll sync up again by itself. I really can't remember the last time it "weirded out" on me, even though some days I'll be playing music through it for most of the day.


This is because by default Chrome is assigned to the first space. I believe this problem arises when you install Chrome and then enable Spaces afterwards. I have also experienced the problem and it is frustrating.

Here is the solution:

Find the Chrome icon in your Dock
Right-click on it (or control + click with a one button mouse)
Mouse-over the Options sub-menu
Under "Assign To" set the option to "None"

Here is a screenshot:


Icloud Uploading Stuck. Does anyone know why it actually does this?

First, have you tried the suggestions in this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251061918

I have tried all the things that Apple support pages suggest, such as force-quitting Finder, rebooting, rebooting into Safe Mode, all to no avail.

If those don't work, I suggest you contact Apple Support directly on this one. I am working with them on what I believe is an identical issue of iCloud files not syncing from my Mac (macOS Catalina) to iCloud since the last few days.

Go to https://support.apple.com/icloud and scroll to the bottom and click on the "Get support" link and choose "Update, Backup, and Restore".

I have spent perhaps 3 hours with 3 different support people as the issue gets escalated to the support engineers.

I don't know about you, but some files do sync up and back just fine, like those associated in iCloud Drive with certain applications (eg, Drafts, MindNode). I can create a text file at the top level of iCloud Drive and it syncs. But not for folder that I create manually.

I have gone through a macOS Catalina re-install (via Recovery Mode) and that did not solve my problem. I am now awaiting the support engineers to review diagnostics information from my computer. When I have a definitive answer, I will report back on what hopefully solves my issue.

I had wanted to comment on your post, rather than answer it, but I don't have sufficient reputation points to do that.

Cheers, David


How to sync usernames/passwords between Mac Firefox & iPad Safari?

For passwords, I highly recommend 1Password.

It will enter the passwords into Safari for iPad and it will sync your passwords with your Mac (if you setup the sync), and then you can search for what you need on the iPad.


How often should I remove the charger from my rMBP?

Quick Answer

Modern batteries, including the ones Apple has used for over a decade, don't need the type of "conditioning" you're talking about.

As a rule of thumb, when you're near an power adapter, plug in. If you're not near one, work off battery power.

There's just one exception to this rule: don't leave your Mac plugged in for long periods at a time, say, over a week. The battery needs to exercise, and if it's plugged in for a really long time, it might "atrophy."

More Details

If you tend to leave your computer plugged in all the time (for example, if you leave it on a desk all the time), get in the habit of unplugging it every weekend. It doesn't need to drain to 0% each weekend, or even close to it. Along this same line, if you're leaving your computer along for over a week, just leave it unplugged.

The one-week timeframe is actually a bit over-cautious, and no harm is likely to occur even if you left it plugged in for two weeks. (Apple's batteries are the best on the market as far as taking care themselves.)

Sources

I'm an Apple-Certified Mac Technician, trained by Apple
Apple's public website: http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html


Preview: Highlights and Notes not showing in side panel

The side panel does not show annotations such as drawing and boxes. As the name implies, it will show text highlighted (underlined at least) and notes that are added using the notes option. One could attach a note when annotating a page and then clicking on the note from the sidebar will take the user to that page.

Showing thumbnail will show all the pages including all annotation on a page. Clicking on the thumbnail page takes you to that location.


How are the three modes of the MacBook Pro usb-c charger being used?

The charging mode used depends on what is being charged. When you plug-in the charger to a device, the charger and the device will communicate with each other and determine the correct charging mode.

For non USB PD (Power Delivery) devices, it will default to the old USB standard, which is the ~5 volts.

For USB PD (Power Delivery) compatible devices the charger will support either 5, 9 or 20 volts according to what the device wants. The USB PD standard (rev. 3) defines four standard power levels that a charger can support: 5V, 9V, 15V and 20V.

Further explanation on Wikipedia:

USB Power Delivery


What must I check after I got my new refurbished MacBook Pro 13"?

A simple answer, start the MacBook and hold down the D key when you hear the startup chime. This will start the built-in diagnostics and any problems that are found will be listed here. Apple link here.


Sync Google Contact Groups with Apple iOS Contact Groups

There is no simple way to do this yourself. The best way is to use a third party app. I've found "Contacts Sync for Google Gmail" to be the best. There are iOS apps as well.

Best of luck!


How to access macOS dictionaries without Dictionary.app

Apple's Dictionaries are compiled data structures, and Apple publishes no documentation on the format.
This blog provides a detailed description of reverse-engineering Apple's dictionaries.
https://josephg.com/blog/reverse-engineering-apple-dictionaries/
(I know it's customary to provide an account of the link, but it's a very detailed and complex process.)
There are of course a wide range of existing open source dictionaries.


The standard command brew upgrade gcc should work. The formula for gcc points to the latest version. You can also install a specific version, ex. brew install gcc@10.

I did this, but after upgrading when I checked the gcc version (using gcc --version), it shows me the Clang version. What’s the problem?

If you installed Xcode and/or the Command Line Tools, it ships with its own gcc.
~$ xcode-select -p
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

~$ /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/gcc --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple clang version 12.0.0 (clang-1200.0.26.2)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin19.6.0
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin

That's the same output as
~$ which gcc
/usr/bin/gcc

~$ gcc --version
Configured with: --prefix=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr --with-gxx-include-dir=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX10.15.sdk/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Apple clang version 12.0.0 (clang-1200.0.26.2)
Target: x86_64-apple-darwin19.6.0
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin

As with most Homebrew installations, Homebrew's gcc is in the Cellar:
~$ ls /usr/local/Cellar/gcc/10.2.0_1/bin | grep gcc
gcc-10
gcc-ar-10
gcc-nm-10
gcc-ranlib-10
x86_64-apple-darwin19-gcc-10
x86_64-apple-darwin19-gcc-10.2.0
x86_64-apple-darwin19-gcc-ar-10
x86_64-apple-darwin19-gcc-nm-10
x86_64-apple-darwin19-gcc-ranlib-10

~$ /usr/local/Cellar/gcc/10.2.0_1/bin/gcc-10 --version
gcc-10 (Homebrew GCC 10.2.0_1) 10.2.0
Copyright (C) 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


iMac Startup I/O Error Despite Successful Disk Repair

Disk I/O errors literally translate to input / output errors, which occur when the system is unable to communicate properly with the hard drive.  This is very indicative of a hardware failure, whether it be with the hard drive itself, the logic board or the SATA data cable that runs between the two.  Given the age of your Mac (5~ years) I would assume that the hard drive is to blame.  Disk Utility repairs the volume on the disk at a software level,  often it will report when hard drives have a hardware failure but there are also times when it repairs correctly despite communication errors still being present.

Apple Hardware Test (AHT) IS pretty good at giving you a solid answer but as you've found out it's no longer on your hard drive, likely lost during an old upgrade or re-install.  You should be able to boot to it using the gray restore discs that came with your iMac.  Discs from another iMac/Mac will not work unless it's identical to yours, these are very hardware specific.  AHT should be on the disc labeled "Applications Install DVD", with a small mention of AHT and its version number.  Holding down D while booting with that disc inserted should boot the Mac to AHT.


I do not know of a way of shortening the actual boot time: from power on to login dialog window. You might however be able to shorten your login time by removing items from your login items list.

You can find the list of user login items here: System Preferences → Accounts →  → Login items.

Remove stuff that has been added there that you do not want. Use some common sense though. E.g. if you use a calendar app that notifies you of appointments, it might be a bad idea to remove the calendar helper app from your list of login items.


Can I make my external HD sleep automatically?

Mac OS X has no explicit option for users to power down external hard disk drives. This capability is managed by Mac OS X's lower level IOKit.

Regrettably, not all external hard disk drives offer energy saving features. However, Western Digital (WD) claim that all their drive spin down when inactive.

It is likely something is accessing your external hard disk drive. It only requires a tiny read or write to cause the disk to stay active. Maybe a log file being written to or back up software that never stops.

Does the drive spin down when you unmount it in the Finder? If so, consider scripting the mounting and unmounting of the drive as part of your back up routine.


Strange behaviour from delete key on a non-apple keyboard

That's completely normal. The key called delete on Windows is called forward delete on OS X, even though it's often labeled like delete ⌦. It deletes a character forward in text views. It doesn't delete items in many applications like Finder, presumably because it would be too easy to press accidentally.

Many shortcut recorders don't allow using just forward delete as a shortcut. You can often edit the property lists that store the shortcuts directly though. See How to remap delete and shift+delete keys to delete and permanently delete a file in Mac OS X Lion?.


Turn all windows transparent in Mavericks

You cannot change the window colors in Finder itself. However, there are finger alternatives that can do this. Try Pathfinder by CocoaTech. I believe it has the option to make Finder windows transparent.


I want to capture screen of my iPhone (video call)

iOS 11 includes a built-in Screen Recording function, which also includes an option to turn the microphone on during the session, by long-pressing or hard-pressing the screen recording button.

You might want to try that.


iTunes Backup - iOS & Settings only - No Apps

Short Answer
Back up to iCloud and to iTunes. Then, delete the Mobile Applications folder from Windows Explorer/Finder to remove the apps that have been backed up to iTunes.
Long Answer
Make sure you read the Apple support page before you get started, but basically, I would recommend backing up to iCloud, which says that it will automatically back up your camera roll, accounts, documents, and settings. Then, do a full backup to iTunes by clicking Back Up when you plug in your iOS device. and you can remove the folder Mobile Applications on Windows or Mac by navigating to the Users\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications folder (actual folder names may vary based on operating system).
Pictures
Deleting the Mobile Applications Folder

Look at the directory path at the bottom of the picture, too.


Numbers v3.1: Automatically link URLs in spreadsheet?

Another way to do this without clicking in each cell would be to use the =HYPERLINK() function.

Here are some steps:

Add a second column (Let's call it B)
In the adjacent cell, add a formula like this: =HYPERLINK(A1)
Drag the formula down

Provided that the original URL's are valid, this will convert them.

You can even add your own text in place of the URL.  (see screenshot)

So, given column A has a long list of URL's starting in cell A1, then in B1 enter:

=HYPERLINK(A1,"Clickable Link")

One could even parse the original URL to get just the human readable part using MIDDLE() or similar.

Hope this helps!!
Sample Numbers Formula for Hyperlink


How to properly clean the ventilation slots on my Macbook Pro

Properly?

Head over to ifixit.com and look for your model.

Open up the bottom case, disassemble the fans. That is unscrew typically 3 screws and disconnect the cables.

Then hold on to the rotors so that they don't start spinning.

Then use a can of compressed air to blow away the biggest chunks of debris. Out of the fan-assembly, and out of the grills that would to the outside.

Afterwards use a damp cloth or better yet alcohol on a q-tip or similar implement to remove the finer and more sticky residues.

Let any fluids evaporate.
Then re-assemble everything.

The screwing part is easy, the cables need somewhat more delicate handling, so be careful.

Do not use a vacuum and do not let the rotors spin while cleaning!
Static electricity buildup or damage to the motors may result.

Related info:
How to deal with a loud MacBook fan. Here are some noisy fan fixes.
How to Clean Out Dust From Your MacBook or iMac
Cleaning fans, grille out of MBP


iWorks is a suite of products

To learn individual product there is collection of them on you-tube.


Why does AT&T claim I used more data than my iPhone does?

The data counters on all phones are approximate, and they're most likely not artificially inflating your data usage. In the future, you can check AT&T's website to track the exact amount of data you'll be billed for.


iOS 14.5 - Podcast app does not show previously played episodes

In iOS 14.5 there’s a setting to hide played episodes.
Check in the settings app under the podcast section if it’s turned on.


Time Machine error - backup disk image could not be created

Try to setup Time Machine from scratch:

Turn TM off

Turn it back on. Select a disk (the Time Capsule should show up ok).

You should get a message that TM is starting in 2 minutes..

If that has problems, can you post here again..

edit 1
was an issue with computer name needing to be set (see in comments)


Can not charge iPhone 5 from Macboook after Mavericks upgrade

I contacted Apple with the same problem and it turns out it was my cord.
You can test this by trying it with another cable you have.
If it then works you know it was the cable and you might have to buy a new one or if it's in warranty you can get it replaced for free.

Best Wishes!


Try booting in safe mode. If that works, then you have a process that makes System Preferences show this error. If that doesn't work, create a new user account and check if you can open System Preferences with it. If you can, it's a problem with your user account.


There is no escape key on iPad.

Furthermore, I tried connecting my Apple Wireless keyboard to my iPad via bluetooth. I went  on Google Docs (desktop version) and went fullscreen. The escape key on the keyboard is not recognized. Same with the Smart Keyboard on the iPad Pro line - no physical escape key was made.

We can assume iOS has not support for that kind of key yet and with this long, it’s not in the cards for this platform.

That being said, all sorts of apps have custom on screen keyboards that let you touch to send escape key (like prompt ssh app by Panic). For many apps, the tab key serves the same function as esc but certainly not all.

The actual fix is to engage the vendor of the app (or designer of the web page that assumes an escape key is present) to get them to fix their app/design.


Proportional Mouse Movement across Multiple Monitors?

Currently the mouse can only move between the connected edges of the two screens.

This is by design.

What I would like to do is have one essentially fake being scaled so the mouse can move smoothly between the screens without stopping one half.

You can't fake anything because that's not how things work.  Scaling is related to how the video resolution is displayed. Your mouse is tracked on an [X,Y] coordinate system for each display.  Your lower (smaller) screen only being half as wide cannot be "faked" so the mouse thinks it's 2X from where it actually is.
For example, if it were possible, then if you happened to be at [1,1080] (bottom left) on the upper screen, your fakery would mean as you moved to the lower, you'd be on [2,0] (top left) on the lower.  If you were to implement this to make your screens line up where they don't they actually wouldn't line up where they do.


I removed Boot Camp the hard way, but then I got a Windows error anyway. Should I be concerned?

You did a good job removing the Widows related partitions. I assume your Windows 10 was an EFI/GPT install, therefore you probably still have code left in the EFI partition (disk0s1).

To view the contents of this EFI partition you have to mount it. You can do so with the command shown below.

sudo diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1

Below is a what I have in my EFI partition. I do not have any EFI dependent operating systems installed. If you have any folders that are Microsoft related, you can delete them. For example, the folder EFI/Microsoft.

You can also look for the folder EFI/BOOT. The apple firmware will recognize the file bootx64.efi in this folder as the default name for removable operating systems. You can delete this folder.

When finished, unmount the EFI partition with the following command.

diskutil unmount /dev/disk0s1


Can OS X users get locked on OS X similar to on ubuntu when using git?

I just had to delete the entry from known_hosts file on my MAC(client) to remove the traces of old config for that particular gitlab server. And also I regenerated my ssh keys back which seemed to work! :)

I used githubs awesome article to regenerate the ssh-keys.


Been on iOS 7.1 since release on the iPhone 5S and have had no issues with network connectivity on Edge, 4G, LTE or WiFi. WiFi switches between home Airport Extreme Base Station powered 802.11n network and the work WiFi powered by Cisco access points also a 802.11n.


A .ics file is effectively a read-only solution. An iOS device can import a calendar that way ("Subscribing" in Apple's terminology) if it's hosted via HTTP, but it's a static file from the device's point of view. It only gets updated if the file at that URL gets updated, and the iPad can't add/edit/delete items. It's the digital equivalent of the flyer with your garbage collection schedule on it - you can read it, but you can't change it.

To get what you seem to want - a central calendar that one or more clients can access and update, you'll need some sort of calendar server software to keep everything in sync. CalDAV is an open standard that's well supported by the built in iOS calendar and most apps on other platforms.

I don't know what server software is good, but there are several options to choose from. One alternative to running your own server is signing up for iCloud on your iPad and accessing the CalDAV server behind it from your other calendar clients (Lighting, etc.). It looks like this can be done without too much trouble, but I haven't tested it - I found a blog post with instructions here.


Will external monitor damage my MacBook?

Short answer

What you’d like to do is totally safe. In fact, your MBP can handle more external displays than what you’re wanting to use.

Long answer

While I understand it, you shouldn’t let the experience of what happened to you in 2010 dictate what you do now.  For example, a number of MBP models have had faulty GPUs and you may have been using one of those.

Regardless, to make a decision about your current setup, you need to use the specs of your current MBP to determine if it’s up to the task you need it for.

Your MBP actually has two GPUs, an integrated one (Intel HD 530) and a dedicated one (AMD Radeon Pro 455).

The important thing here is that the AMD Radeon Pro 455 has 2 GB of dedicated GDDR5 memory and is capable of supporting up to two 5K displays or four 4K displays. So, wanting to use it with one is not going to cause you any problems.

So, assuming the MBP itself is fine to run the software and/or hardware you need, then using it with an external display is not going to cause a problem.


iTunes accidentally deleted on iMac G5 with OS X 10.4.11 - how to install iTunes?

Your downloaded DMG should work, but assuming you still have the Mac OS X Tiger install DVD you could try the following instead:

Insert the Mac OS X Tiger install DVD
When Finder opens the Mac OS X Install DVD window, scroll down till you see the System folder
Navigate to System > Installation > Packages
Locate the iTunes.pkg and double-click on it
This should launch the iTunes installer
Follow the steps to see if you can install iTunes.

Assuming you can, after doing so use the Apple > Software Update option to update it or launch iTunes and go to iTunes > Check for Updates option instead.


Found the culprit, nothing malicious. It's caused by an app called RetroClip. It enables "Instant Replay" type recording.


How do I uninstall Trend Micro Security Agent?

I just did this myself, here's what I learned while doing it.

A lot of the difficulty in uninstalling Trend Micro comes from the fact that it spawns processes that then interfere with removing it (this actually makes sense for an anti-virus, but it certainly makes it a challenge when we need to remove it by hand). Basically, we're going to take this in two major moves: 1) killing those interfering processes, 2) deleting all the files associated with Trend Micro.

You're going to need to do this through the Terminal program. If you've never used Terminal before, be careful -- nothing below should harm anything (other than the Trend Micro anti-virus), but it's a very powerful tool, and you can really mess stuff up if you aren't careful. You can find it at Applications/Utilities/Terminal.

Additionally, you will need to be an admin on your computer. If you do not have admin privileges, the below guide will not work.

Finally, it would probably be a good idea to make a back-up before starting, just in case something goes wrong.

Killing Interfering Processes

First, we need to knock out the processes that interfere with deleting Trend Micro. According to the uninstall guide from TrendMicro there are three main processes we want to kill (As a side note, it's a little unnerving that the names Trend Micro uses are so generic. It makes you worried they actually belong to something you want to keep):

iCoreService
TmLoginMgr
MainUI

You can use the command killall to kill processes that match by name, but I prefer to find the PID (Process ID number) associated with what I need to knock out, then issue kill commands for those PIDs. We can find the associated PIDs for each thing listed above with a command of this form:

ps -A | grep iCoreService

When you enter that command*, it will return a list off all processes that have iCoreService somewhere in their name. Each process will have a number at the very front: that is the PID. Take note of those numbers. (Note: Your grep command will be one of the processes that gets returned -- you can ignore that, but nothing bad will happen if you try to kill it either.)

*: If you're wary of people telling you to enter random terminal commands, good for you! Here's what each part does: "ps -A" lists all processes currently running; "|" pipes that into the next command (in other words, that info is passed along to the next part); "grep" searches for matches to whatever it is given, in this case 'iCoreService'. In total, we're pulling out all those processes that have 'iCoreService' in the name.

Now we're going to kill each of those processes. Use this command, running it for each PID you just found:

kill NUMBER_GOES_HERE

(E.g., you would write something like kill 1253, but using the numbers that came up from the previous command.)

At this point, it should tell you that you don't have the permissions to do that -- you need to prove that you really are an admin and should be allowed. Issue that same command, but now with sudo in front:

sudo kill NUMBER_GOES_HERE

The terminal will prompt you for your password. Type it in, hit enter, and that's it, the process should be gone now.

What's going on with this command? "sudo" means Super User Do, basically forcing the computer to do what you want because you're the admin; "kill" issues a signal to terminate the process with whatever PID number you pass in after.

When I did this, I got a total of 4 processes associated with iCoreService. After you've knocked that one out, remember that you'll also need to do it for TmLoginMgr (I got 1 process here) and for MainUI (I had 0 processes here, but it's possible that was due to a previous removal attempt by someone else.)

Great! Now that the boss' shields are down, we can attack!

Deleting Trend Micro Files

Now it's time to actually delete the files associated with the anti-virus.

Here's the list of directories (folders) we want to delete:

/System/Library/TrendMicro
/Library/StartupItems/iCoreService
/Applications/MainUI.app
/Library/Application Support/TrendMicro
/Library/Frameworks/TMAppCommon.framework/
/Library/Frameworks/TMAppCore.framework/
/Library/Frameworks/TMGUIUtil.framework/
/Library/Frameworks/iCoreClient.framework/
/Library/Frameworks/iCoreClientPb.framework/

[Note: When I did this, I was not able to find every single folder. It's possible some were gone due to a previous removal attempt by someone else. Could also be due to those Trend Micro uninstall docs being more than four years old... The specific folders I could not find were the first three in the list above. But if they exist on your installation, you should still remove them.]

To delete each of these, use this command:

rm -rf "FULL_PATH_IN_QUOTES_GOES_HERE"

In other words, you should copy each line from the above list and execute like this:
rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/TrendMicro". (The quotes are really important for the folder with 'Application Support' in its path because of the space, other directories don't need it, but it doesn't hurt to follow that pattern for each one.) Some of the folders might not exist, that's okay.

More than any other command, this is the one you need to be very careful with. "rm" is the command to remove (delete) things; "-rf" tells it to delete folders and to recurse downward (delete folders within folders and so on downward); the double-quotes ensure that paths with a space still get deleted correctly.

Like before, you will probably be told that you do not have the appropriate permissions to do that. You'll need to elevate with sudo as we did before:

sudo rm -rf "FULL_PATH_IN_QUOTES_GOES_HERE"

Do that for each of the directories in the list of Trend Micro folders to remove.

Note: I had a lot of difficulty trying to remove /Library/Application Support/TrendMicro. Even with sudo, I still got "Permission denied". Luckily, I happened to double-check that all the processes from part 1 were still dead (another ps -A | grep iCoreService): nope, iCoreService had come back. I played kill whack-a-mole with it a couple more times, killing its new PIDs, then tried to very quickly issue the rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/TrendMicro" command after having killed all those processes and eventually got it to work. I think something was respawning those processes, so it was a matter of timing to knock them out and delete those files before they came back. (Once that directory was gone, they never came back.)

Finally, we can now remove the "Trend Micro Security Agent" app from our Applications folder. You can go do that in the finder (navigate to it in finder, right-click, move to trash [it will prompt for password]) or you can do it via the Terminal if you're comfortable with that.

Bonus: Removing Start-Up Processes

At this point, we've deleted pretty much everything from the Trend Micro anti-virus, but there's still some start-up stuff that we ought to go tear out. Run this:

launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.trendmicro.icore.av.plist

"launchctl" is a utility for interacting with 'launchd', a utility that manages other processes; "unload" tells 'launchctl' to disable processes associated with whatever you pass it next; the "/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.trendmicro.icore.av.plist" is the thing you're unloading.

Now delete the launchdaemon and launchagent files which invoke the processes associated with Trend Micro at boot time:

rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.trendmicro.*
rm /Library/LaunchAgents/com.trendmicro.*

"rm" is the same remove (delete) command as before; "/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.trendmicro.*" tells it to delete all files in that path with that starting structure, the * means anything that matches up to that point will get deleted.

[Note: It's possible this should happen earlier in the steps. I'm not sure what caused the iCoreService processes to come back, if I had done the unloading earlier it might have made the actual deletion in part 2 more direct with no need to re-issue kills on iCoreService processes. If you try it that way and it works better, please leave a comment!]

And We're Done!

Whew! At this point, Trend Micro should be fully uninstalled. Reboot your computer to make sure everything is still working fine and that Trend Micro really is gone.

Other Notes

This was basically cobbled together from the Trend Micro guide linked near the top and this other uninstall script I found.
The uninstall guide from Trend Micro says to run /Library/Application\ Support/TrendMicro/TmccMac/TmLoginMgr.app/Contents/MacOS/TmLoginMgr -u, but when I did that I got this "LoginItem(/Library/Application Support/TrendMicro/TmccMac/TmLoginMgr.app) has already been removed": it could have been from a previous person's attempt to remove Trend Micro, but it also could have been something else. You might want to include it when you try to uninstall, just in case, but it also might be pointless.
I actually took on root user (using sudo su) to do a lot of this when I got stuck trying to remove /Library/Application Support/TrendMicro. In retrospect, I don't think that was actually necessary, it was just due to those iCoreService child processes blocking things, but if you have trouble, give that a shot.
I included removing /Library/Frameworks/iCoreClientPb.framework/, but it was not referenced in either uninstall guide I linked. I'm almost certain it's part of Trend Micro, but caveat lector.


macOS High Sierra Turkish Keyboard Issue

Here is a copy I made of my Turkish QWERTY PC layout from El Capitan in case that helps.

If <> is on the topmost leftmost key instead of next to the left shift, you may have a Keyboard Type Problem, where your machine thinks the keyboard is ANSI instead of ISO.  The link suggests some possible fixes.


App Store "An Unknown Error Has Occurred", Apple Support fix was only temporary. How fix permanently?

I found a solution. Another forum post describing similar issues suggested deleting /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist. I backed that file up, deleted it, and restarted. I can now log in and out of AppStore, access all of my AppStore purchased apps, and it 'sticks' across shutdowns and restarts.

Process is pretty simple, I'll spell it out for future reference:

Open Terminal
cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration
cp NetworkInterfaces.plist ~/NetworkInterfaces.plist.bak - Make a hasty backup in your home directory
sudo rm NetworkInterfaces.plist delete the original
Restart your Mac
Open AppStore and try to sign in. It should work.

Apparently this works because the MAC address is used as part of the receipt/authorization process.


Time Machine backups are limited by three factors, the type of scan selected, the speed of the primary storage, the speed of the destination storage.

If your empirical evidence is increasing destination, then that’s not your bottleneck. (Sorry to restate the obvious)

I would look over the unified log file to see what’s actually happening and also not mess with any defaults (reset them if you changed anything) and use this tool to get some specific data:

https://eclecticlight.co/2019/12/27/t2m2-further-improves-strategy-data-for-backups-in-catalina/

It is a nice graphical wrapper and the author explains very well in their writing how it works, what some gotchas are and even how to read the system logs if you find you need different data than the Time Machine Mechanic utility exposes.

In the end, it’s probably more likely you need to exclude whatever data is taking a long time to scan or just live with the backup speeds, but I’d love a follow up question with some specifics if we want to get into if it’s bandwidth or iops that’s constraining your backups.

Time Machine Backups taking too much space?

Also, case sensitive is an odd choice and not usual - do you have room to make a second partition and test the defaults journaled / encrypted HFS destination? The encryption isn’t going to make a difference in my experience either - so that’s a good thing to not test unless you’ve exhausted every other variable.


Internal mic not working on 2008 iMac running 10.7.5

My guess is that they accidentally disconnected the mic or failed to reconnect the mic when they operated on it.

MacFixIt has a guide if you want to try to take it on yourself.  They rate is as "Moderate" difficulty.

Be sure to double check that I got the right model for your iMac.

Otherwise it's back to Apple it goes...


Why does my iPhone flash when I receive a message?

This is a feature introduced with the iOS 5 update.

  Accessibility improvements:

  Option to light LED flash on incoming calls and alerts for iPhone 4S and iPhone 4
  Custom vibration patterns for incoming calls on iPhone
  New interface for using iOS with mobility-impairment input devices
  Option to speak a selection of text
  Custom element labeling for VoiceOver

You can change the setting in Settings -> General -> Accessibility options:


You need to install gnu-sed, not just the coreutils:

brew install gnu-sed

Then, you have to add the following lines on your .bash_profile:

export PATH="/usr/local/opt/gnu-sed/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"
export MANPATH="/usr/local/opt/gnu-sed/libexec/gnuman:$MANPATH"

Then your sed version should be the latest:

$ sed --version
sed (GNU sed) 4.2.2
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Jay Fenlason, Tom Lord, Ken Pizzini,
and Paolo Bonzini.
GNU sed home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/sed/>.
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>.
E-mail bug reports to: <bug-sed@gnu.org>.
Be sure to include the word ``sed'' somewhere in the ``Subject:'' field.


Do I need to know someone's Apple ID email address to gift them an app?

I believe the email sent contains a link with a promo code, it's not bound to the email address.

So you can send it to whatever, they'll still be able to get the app gifted.


Why does Safari freeze on YouTube HTML5 videos?

I had a similar problem with my Safari. I went into /Library/Internet Plug-Ins and removed the two piece of Flash cruft (regretfully I'm at work, so I don't the exact file names.)  After a reboot, Safari worked much better, as did Chrome.  Not sure why Chrome improved, but it improved most of all.

Incidentally, I thought I was on a Flash free system previously, so I'm not sure how those bits got there.  If I need Flash, I just go to Develop -> Open Page With -> Chrome (you need to enable the Developer Menu, under Advanced in Preferences.)

Hope this help


There are a number of free apps that will provide more information about your device’s internals. Lirium Device Info is one of the better ones.

From the top-left menu, open This Device → System for details about your device’s RAM. For instance an iPhone 7+ has 3 GB of RAM:

Note: I am not affiliated with this app or its developer.


The default .bash_profile is empty, as the file doesn't exist in /System/Library/User Template. Anything you've deleted would be something you (or software you installed) has added, so it's not possible to say what that would be. Copying .bash_profile from elsewhere would depend on the environment being configured in such a similar way as where you're copying it from.


How to add an CA to the default TrustStore in OSX and iOS

Both iOS and OS X can use configuration profiles to install certificates.

Apple has some nice documentation at https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/5.0/#/ for how to do that using Server.app. Luckily, you can use the same profile on iOS/OS X for certs although many other settings are unique to one or the other OS.

I would recommend using Apple Configurator 2 to make your profiles since it's free and graphical based. You might use Profile Manager on Server.app if you have lots of clients to configure and another MDM solution doesn't work for you.

No matter which tool you choose to craft the profile, it's just a file you place on a web server or email to the clients and then tap/click to install the certificate.


Can iMessages be deleted permanently or at least kept either on a phone or a computer, but not both?

It sounds like you simply have iMessage enabled on your Mac (which doesn't have anything to do with plugging your phone in, since your messages are synced through iCloud).

Anyway, just open up Messages (iChat), go to Preferences > Accounts, select your iMessage account in the list on the left and then unchecked the "enable this account" checkbox.


Can the macOS startup sound/chime/ bong be changed on a MacBook Pro?

You technically can't...

But there are a few things you can do instead.

Using a few techniques I picked up on the interwebs, I've figured out a way to both

Disable the boot chime (seriously, I don't recommend this. This is here for debug purposes, disabling it can be a very bad plan)
Run a sound at login (not boot - for some reason, at least in El Capitan, using Afplay at boot through crontab and LaunchDaemons is not working. If someone else can get it to work, lemme know, I'll add it)

Disabling the boot chime

I seriously recommend not doing this. Debug is important, and if there's a hardware issue, you need to know what startup chime you have. Turn back, ye who fear.

Go into Terminal.app.
Run the command sudo nvram SystemAudioVolume=%80

This can be undone with sudo nvram -d SystemAudioVolume
Note that this does not work in OS X El Capitan (because changes ಠ_ಠ)

The boot chime is now disabled.

Adding a login chime

Go into Automator.app.
Hit New Document
Select Application, and hit Choose.
Drag Run Shell Script in the second left-hand column into the main pane.
Type in the command Afplay -q 1 /path/to/sound/fileobviously replacing /path/to/sound/file with the path to the sound file.
Save as an Application and place it in your Applications folder.
Quit Automator.app
Go to System Preferences.
Click on Users and Groups.
Click on your user in the left-hand-most column.

If necessary, click the lock in the lower-left corner to allow for a preferences change.

Click the + underneath the main pane on the right.
Select the Application you just made and hit Add.
Click the Hide checkbox.

That's it.

You now have no startup chime(use caution) and a login chime. Hooray!


How to launch a Spotlight deeplink from JXA?

To run a Spotlight command use openLocation.

app = Application.currentApplication();
app.includeStandardAdditions = true;

app.openLocation("timer://30m")


iPhoto update seems to be 2G and two attempts to run it failed. It used half my monthly data

No suggestions as to why it is failing, but I have a suggestion re the update.

Don't.

No update to iPhoto is going to be urgent. Leave it until it is convenient to take the iMac to somewhere with fast internet access, then hit "Software Update" and let it run its hardest.


Is there a way to see what numbers I entered after calling an automated service?

No, this information is not stored anywhere for calls you have made, only vice versa where you write the numbers specifically into a contact with pauses added in the first place for iOS to enter the numbers for you.