How to debug the cause of an enormous Spotlight index?

Working under the assumption that it is a specific file, folder or file type that triggers some kind of bug that makes the index size explode, I would take a look at the actual files that Spotlight builds up (i.e. the database itself). Tryk looking at them with any text editor or even a hex-editor.

If this is indeed caused by a bug that caused the same content to be indexed over and over again, then you might be able to see which file or file type it is. Then you can narrow down which folder to exclude from Spotlight.

Another more time consuming method is simply by trial and error doing a kind of "binary search", where you exclude half of your folders from the Spotlight index. If the problem persists, the problem is in this half - otherwise it is in the other. Repeat that process until you've found the specific folder containing the problematic file.

If you're comfortable with the Terminal, you can also take a look at which files are actually opened and read by the mdworker processes. This could again give you a hint as to why the index is so big.

First use Activity Monitor like you have already done to find the mdworker processes. Make note of the "PID" column that contains the process ID.

Open Terminal and run the following command:

lsof -n -p <pid>

You need to replace  with the actual process ID. This will give you a list of the files that are currently in use by that process.

You could also run:

fs_usage -p <pid>

Again replace  with the actual process ID. This command will show you file accesses for that process as they occur. You can stop the display by pressing Ctrl-C.


Which CPU option on the iMac Pro gives you two FMAs?

Only a few low-end 4 core Skylake W CPUs are limited to one FMA. Even the entry-level iMac Pro has an 8 core CPU, so it would appear that all iMac Pro configurations will have two FMAs.


I think my drives are in the wrong bays on my iMac

Yes, the SSD is only getting 3 GigaBit Link Speed. And, you are correct with respect to having the ability for a third drive.

From the everymac's website:

  The "Mid-2011" iMac models all support a single 3.5" hard drive and a second 2.5" SSD. As shipped, both the hard drive bay and SSD bay provided support for the 3 Gb/s Serial ATA 2.0 standard. However, as first discovered by site sponsor Other World Computing, the iMac EFI Update 1.6, released two days later, quietly provided faster 6 Gb/s Serial ATA 3.0 support for both of these connectors (but not the optical drive connector).

There is a video titled 2011 21.5-inch iMac HDD Upgrade.

There is also a video titled 2011 27-inch iMac SSD Bay Drive Install.

Answers to Your Three Questions

Did the guy put the HDD in the SATA3 slot and the SSD in the SATA2 slot?

It would appear the new HDD replaced the old HDD. The HDD cable should have included special hardware so the fans would work correctly. For example, see the OWC In-line Digital Thermal Sensor for iMac 2011 Hard Drive Upgrade. The SDD was probably replaced the optical drive and is connect to the logic board where the optical drive was connected.

I am typing this answer on a iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011). Below are my images, which you can compare to your images. This Mac has the original HDD and optical drive.

Optical Drive

HDD

Did he unnecessarily remove the optical drive when he could have used an available bay?

According to OWC, the answer would be yes.
Would switching them so that the SSD (boot drive) is connected to the SATA3 controller produce any sort of noticeable difference?

Yes. Do the math. According to the product flyer, the sequential read speed is 530 MB/s. Multiply by 8 to get bits per second and you get 4.24 Gb/s. This is faster the the link speed of 3 Gb/s.

Although, switching may not be a simple task, if the cabling included additional hardware to measure the temperature of the new HDD drive. You probably would be better off using the third bay designed for a SSD.


VMware Fusion virtual machine from a local partition

This guide appears to show how to do this.  Looks like there's some manual commands on the command line to create a vmdk file with a pointer to the raw device:

http://andrewfarley.com/mac/raw-disks-from-vmware-fusion


Where did my documents and desktop go when logging out of iCloud?

They are synced to the other Apple ID. All information in the iCloud is stored there and logging out of an Apple ID will take all the information away with it.
To retrieve them, I suggest logging back with the ID and copying them to the local machine. Log out, and log into your new Apple ID.
There’s no other way around it. Apple is very strict about information stored in the iCloud


I think the problem is the space between "conv=noerror," and "sync", although I don't get the exact same error you do:

$ dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/null bs=128m conv=noerror, sync    # With space, fails
dd: unknown conversion
$ dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/null bs=128m conv=noerror,sync    # Without space, works
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes transferred in 0.065054 secs (0 bytes/sec)

...but the error message I get is different. Generally, the "unknown conversion" message will list the unknown conversion:

$ dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/null bs=128m conv=noerror,wibble
dd: unknown conversion wibble

I think what's happening is that the shell parses conv=noerror, sync as two arguments, "conv=noerror," and "sync", and then dd parses the first of those as specifying two conversions, "noerror" and "" (since there's nothing after the comma), and then complains that the option "" is unknown.

But that's not the error you're getting; yours actually lists "sync" as the unknown option. The only thing I can think of is that you might have something like a non-breaking space between the "," and "sync". In that case, the shell will treat it as just part of the argument, and pass "conv=noerror,sync" as a single argument; dd will then parse this as two options, and give the error message "dd: unknown option sync":

$ dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/null bs=128m conv=noerror, sync    # That's a nonbreaking space
dd: unknown conversion  sync
                       ^ That's also a nonbreaking space

In any case, remove the space (whatever it is) and it should work.


How to prevent iPhone SE from always uploading burst photos?

Well after an hour on the phone with Apple support, 2 phone restores and 1 iOS upgrade, we finally got to the bottom of this.  Turns out the feature (to disable uploading of burst photos to PhotoStream) DOES work as intended.  It's the wording of the feature description that is more than a little confusing.

The text below the feature states:

  Only favorite Burst Photos will be uploaded to your Photo Stream

The trouble is, to me (and to the techs at Apple that I spoke to), that sounds like no part of a burst photo will be uploaded until you have chosen one of the photos in the burst, as a favorite.  This is not so.  What it actually means is that the entire burst will not be uploaded.  But if you have Photo Stream turned on, a single photo from the burst WILL be uploaded.  And unfortunately, it's not the first frame.  I'm actually not sure what criteria iOS uses to decide which photo to upload, but it seems to be the first photo that it thinks is "the best" somehow.

So, the bottom line is that Photo Stream is an all-or-nothing proposition.  Either every photo you take (including a single frame from any burst photos) will be uploaded, or nothing will be uploaded.  There is no way to selectively upload photos on a case-by-case basis, unless you either leave Photo Stream off and manually share photos you want in your stream every time, or turn Photo Stream off & on between each photo you don't want to upload... but then you lose and have to re-download all your photostream content each time.  Not a real great solution either way.

I feel Apple should re-word the description of this feature to make it more clear what the expected behavior actually is, but I won't hold my breath on that.


How to fix Safari 6 on Mountain Lion that doesn't show the full URL in the address bar unless I click it?

I've found that logging out and back in is sufficient for fixing this. Still a pain, but takes slightly less time than restarting (which also recovers from the failure since it forces you as well as all other users to get logged out when the Mac shuts down).


How to approve "Unapproved caller" whilst installing the software?

It seems it's some kind of temporary glitch, as it usually helps to restart the machine.

Other suggestions:

Reboot into Safe Mode, then Verify and repair drive

Reboot and hold the CMD+R keys
Select Disk Utility
Click on the image under my drive
Verify and repair drive

You may try to remove the cache files/folders located in /var/folders directory (not recommended) or move them into Trash.

Normally cache files should be cleared every few days by Launch Daemon (/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.bsd.dirhelper.plist).

If the files can't be removed, reboot into Single Mode, run fsck, mount the root partition and run rm -vR -- /var/folders/*. Which is:

Start on single user mode: Hit the CMD+S keys at start-up
At the line, type (after root): fsck -fy and hit the Enter key.
Mount the root drive by: mount -uw /
Remove the cache files by: rm -Rf /var/folders/* (make sure you won't do any typo!).
Reboot by typing: reboot.


Macbook PRO 2017 touchbar - Screen won't turn on sometimes

These symptoms sounds like a flimsy display cable issue - where backlight shutdown occurs after opening the display to a certain degree.

If so, you'd unfortunately have to get your whole screen replaced. AFAIK, Apple only has a replacement program for 2016 MBP models despite it affecting later models as well. Best of luck.


How can I get a list of all iPhone pictures that are imported to iPhoto?

You can create a smart album with a condition on the camera model (Camera model includes "iPhone").

It's even possible to select the front or rear camera by adding a condition on the aperture. See this hints for details.

I believe iPhoto '09 has this - the picture above is in iPhoto '11 and it works great there.


Your best bet when hardware is failing is Data Rescue and not any tool that tries to rebuild/minimize/rewrite errors.

You will need a second drive of equal capacity and time to let the software take several passes at reading the data to get the best results. But, unless you have a budget of $300 to $3000 and want to send the drive off for professional help - you can't do better than Data Rescue in my estimation and experience.

Data Rescue has professional support and many bells and settings to tell it to really try to access the data by hook or crook, so a call into them would be my next step as you indicated it's not working with your settings.


How to control AirPort wireless radio from the command line?

See OSX Daily - Enable and Disable AirPort Wireless from the Command Line in Mac OS X.  Quote:

  Turn Airport Off via Command Line
  networksetup -setairportpower airport off

  Turn Airport On via Command Line
  networksetup -setairportpower airport on

  You won’t see any confirmation in the Terminal that the command
  succeeded or failed, but if you watch the AirPort menu icon you will
  see the bars disappear indicating the wireless interface is turned
  off, or reappear indicating that wireless is activated again.

NOTE: In OS X Lion, use the hardware name above instead of airport,
e.g. networksetup -setairportpower en1 off.


You can check what was installed and remove it manually. Copy the *.pkg file to some empty tmp folder. Then:

xar -xf YOUPACKAGE.pkg

Then print the content of the Bom file with:

 lsbom $(find . -name Bom)

You'll have the list of files like: (Here's the part for Cisco AnyConnect)

./opt/cisco/vpn 40755   0/0
./opt/cisco/vpn/bin 40755   0/0

All file path start with . but they are installed relative to the root folder (/). In my example I have to remove /opt/cisco folder.


How to downgrade to OS X Yosemite 10.10? (Have not yet upgraded)

Now I am curious about upgrading, but I would like to find an option that would allow me to roll back to my current set up if I did.

You can use Internet recovery to rollback to the factory installed version of macOS. From the Apple Support document, How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery:

macOS Recovery makes it easy to reinstall the Mac operating system, even if you need to erase your startup disk first. All you need is a connection to the Internet. If a wireless network is available, you can choose it from the Wi-Fi  menu in the menu bar. This menu is also available in macOS Recovery.
Shift-Option-⌘-R
Install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.

Do note to keep a Time Machine backup of handy. Once you have restored the original OS, you can recover data using the backup. Also, it's best to test the sanity of the backup before actually reinstalling the OS.


The preference is stored in the FlowViewHeight key. Something like defaults write com.apple.finder FlowViewHeight -int 180 only changes it temporarily, but you could run the command every minute by running EDITOR=nano crontab -e and adding a line like this:

* * * * * defaults write com.apple.finder FlowViewHeight -int 180

Or just make the default size of Finder windows bigger.


Failed bootcamp partition, now can't remove it

If you format the BOOTCAMP partition as MS-DOS (FAT), then you should be able to use the Boot Camp Assistant application to remove the partition. If this fails, then commands can be entered in a Terminal application window to remove the partition. I will not post these commands unless necessary.


"locked" iPhone video playback mode for children?

always the jailbreak route. Here is a demo of an app (IncarcerApp?) that does that, locks it. I would love it as my 1.5 yr old does the same thing :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ysRou_kvOo&feature=related


How to patch a file that resides in /Applications (patch can't find file to patch at input line)?

I think the problem is that you are not specifying the p option.

From the manual for patch:

For example, supposing the file name  in  the  patch file was

  /u/howard/src/blurfl/blurfl.c

setting -p0 gives the entire file name unmodified, -p1 gives

  u/howard/src/blurfl/blurfl.c

without the leading slash, -p4 gives

  blurfl/blurfl.c

and  not  specifying  -p  at  all just gives you

  blurfl.c.

Whatever you end up with is looked for either in the current directory,
or the directory specified by the -d option.

So the command should be something like:

patch -p0 <custom.patch

or you could specify the directory to which the patch should be applied:

patch -d /path/to/dir <custom.patch


Uninstalling existing JRE per these instructions and installing the latest Java Development Kit from here did the trick.


How can you set up a free, universal OS X-wide ‘autosave’ script?

Dealing with the same problem myself (especially needing effective autosave for excel for mac, which is most definitely broken in Mavericks) - I just started the "ForeverSave 2 (version 2.1.2)" trial on my Mavericks-running 2011 15" mbp and it seems to both force a cmd+s save of the excel document I'm working on and also save a copy to its library.  This does lead to some excess clutter but it has options to 1) keep the total number of backups for a certain file less than X amount (you specify amount), or 2) to automatically delete backups older than X number of days.  It does actually force a cmd+s, which is great - I tested several times by typing something, letting the document sit slightly longer than the ForeverSave auto-save time window, force-quitting excel or turning off my computer, and upon re-opening the file my new data was still there, without me having ever manually saved.  It only does this when the document is the active window, however so if you type something and then go start working on another document, it will not auto-save that first one (unless the autosave timer just happened to go off in the split second between you finishing typing and going to another window).  Only really seems like a problem if you make the autosave window very long (i.e. I could image if it was set to 3 hours I might work for two hours, navigate to another window, and then have a problem that quits excel, with no autosave ever happening) - to compensate I just set the autosave window to 2 minutes, and am having Foreversave delete any backups that it has after they're a week old, so it's library stays small.

Silly that we have to pay $20 for software to do something so simple, but at least it seems to work.


In our work environment, I have our Macs bind directly to Active Directory with no service (like QAS) in the middle. The AD user has a local home folder, we do not use Network Homes. We use FileVault 2 with no issues. The AD user's name shows up on the FileVault screen and they are able to unencrypt their laptop with their normal network credentials. So yes, it should work fine unless QAS is adding something bizarre into the mix.


How to add a timestamp in log files on launchd?

The keys you mention don't redirect log files, they redirect the standard output/error streams. It is the responsibility of the program writing to those streams to add timestamp information.


Preserve the desktop where an application's window was placed, after a system restart

Ok, I found a solution that's working for me, and now my application windows doesn't switch Desktop randomly on restart.

For the two desktop setup as in the question, first I go to the desktop where I want to stick an application window. Say, we want to stick web browser to desktop 1, we

go to desktop 1,
open the application on this desktop,
right click on the application icon on the dock, then Options > Assign to > This desktop
similarly, stick applications on desktop 2

Now, after system restart, the applications are starting where they were sticked!


Duplicate Photo library for Photos & iPhoto

I'd say stick to the iPhoto Library if that's the app you're going to continue using for now.

When you eventually swap to Photos, do the import again.

The Photos Library is greyed out if you attempt to open it from iPhoto. Any changes you make to the iPhoto Library will not be reflected in the Photos Library, meaning you'll gradually go out of sync until such time as iPhoto no longer works (OS X 10.11, who knows?) & you'll need to reimport at that time.

Photos Library Storage Space
The Photos Library is actually just a collection of hard links to the actual data on the disk & therefore is not taking up anything like the amount of space that Finder is reporting.

More on hard links from Ars Technica:

  A hard link is simply a reference to some data on disk. Think of a file as a combination of a name and a pointer to some data. Deleting a file really means deleting the name portion of that duo. When there are no more names pointing to a particular piece of data disk, then that disk space can be reused."

This means that so long as one of the pointers to the data still exists, the data is still in use. Only by deleting both will the data actually be deleted.

Ref: Apple KB - Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries


Is there a sane way to emulate the newer media key behavior completely on an Apple Extended Keyboard II?

You could try KeyRemap4MacBook:

or FunctionFlip:

If neither works, you could also try creating a private.xml in KeyRemap4MacBook:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
<item>
<name>Change F-keys</name>
<identifier>0A0FE074-9C9C-43DC-8AEB-6683C5CB3259</identifier>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F1, KeyCode::BRIGHTNESS_DOWN</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F2, KeyCode::BRIGHTNESS_UP</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F3, KeyCode::MISSION_CONTROL</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToKey-- KeyCode::F4, KeyCode::LAUNCHPAD</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F5, ConsumerKeyCode::KEYBOARDLIGHT_LOW</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F6, ConsumerKeyCode::KEYBOARDLIGHT_HIGH</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F7, ConsumerKeyCode::MUSIC_PREV</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F8, ConsumerKeyCode::MUSIC_PLAY</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F9, ConsumerKeyCode::MUSIC_NEXT</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F10, ConsumerKeyCode::VOLUME_MUTE</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F11, ConsumerKeyCode::VOLUME_DOWN</autogen>
<autogen>--KeyToConsumer-- KeyCode::F12, ConsumerKeyCode::VOLUME_UP</autogen>
</item>
</root>

It might only work if you use the external keyboard with a laptop or have another keyboard connected. From ConsumerKeyCode ignored - Google Groups:

KeyRemap4MacBook requires at least one keyboard with functional keys (Volume Control, etc)
when you want to change keys to functional keys.
If possible, please connect the Apple keyboard to iMac.
If you don't have another keyboard,
please use Spark or Quicksilver or other apps to this purpose.


Disk Capacity 500 gb falls to 250 gb after deleting files

You have one SSD (disk0) with 251 GB containing one visible volume 'Macintosh HD' (disk0s2) with a capacity of 250.14 GB of which ~54.3 GB are used and 195.88 GB should be free.

Additionally you have 2 devices attached:

probably a thumb drive (disk1) with one volume named 'NO NAME' (disk1s1) and the size 8 GB
a Canon SD-Card (in an attached camera?) (disk2)  with one volume named 'CANON_DC' (disk2s1) and the size 8 GB

If the Finder doesn't show the full free space (195.88 GB) for 'Macintosh HD' or still complains about an 'almost full startup disk' check several answers here at ase:

Why is my startup disk so full?
Finder Reports Disk is Full, Other Tools Don't Account for it
How can I figure out what's slowly eating my HD space?


Disable confirmation dialog when moving files in iCloud Drive in Windows 10

in windows go to icloud Drive in file Explorer and open the ".Trash" Folder (you have to enable "show hidden files" in explorer) select all files in the folder (if there are no files create some text files inside your icloud drive and delete them after they got uploaded) right click on the selected files and click delete, now there should be a popup window where you can add a check mark. check it and click OK.
now if you delete files inside your icloud drive folder it shouldn't ask you for confirmation anymore.
Problem solved
if you move multiple folders/files out of icloud drive it will now ask you just once for confirmation instead of for every single file
took me a while until I figured that out, hope it works for you too.


How to force quit non responsive wifi dialog

This applescript works for me using the latest version of Sierra

You can paste this code into ScriptEditor app and save it as an application.  Then run your new app anytime you need it

do shell script "killall SystemUIServer"


Even though the operating system is backed up, you’ll actually get a choice when restoring whether or not to restore the OS as well. This means that you can restore the backup to a new MacBook Pro that only supports Mojave for example. All your personal files, applications and preferences will be restored. However system specific items such as for example hardware drivers will not be restored.

You can find instructions on how to restore excluding the OS here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203981

If you do intend to restore with the OS, please be advised that even though the El Capitan system requirements, that you have been provided a link for, specified “or newer” when talking about the MacBook Pro - that is strictly not true. It was true at the time that document was written though.

If you buy a recent MacBook Pro 2018 with TouchBar, it does not support El Capitan.


What are some reasons to run Windows on a Mac?

Games
Internet Explorer: If you are a web developer and want to test your website in IE (which you have to).
Also some corporate intranet applications work only on IE(6/7/8 compatibility mode).
Microsoft Office: Yes, there is a version for the Mac, but some prefer the Windows version (I remember reading sometime before somewhere, (unable to find the link) that the Windows version is better). Also, people like me who have a Windows PC (my wife's) and a Macbook Pro at home, I can buy one Office Home and Student edition (it comes with licence for 3 installs) and use it on both.
Learning Windows specific technology. For instance I want to learn C#. C# is best learnt in Microsoft Visual Studio (IMHO).
Games
Games
Games

There was something else too... oh yeah, games.


How to tell what program is launching softwareupdated?

To answer your question which program is launching the softwareupdated:

In your System Preferences, click on the App Store.

It will show you the settings for updates.

Normal is to have it check for Software Updates continuously, that will explain the softwareupdated running in your Activity Monitor.

There you can also set what happens next, like download and auto install or not etc...


How to add a set of keyboard shortcuts for document/text applications in System Preferences with Automator?

Follow this guide from Apple about how to make a system-wide service in Automator.

The service will not require any input, but should be made available in any application.

Add a Run AppleScript action.  Enter this code in the text box:

on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "System Events" to ¬
        return (key code 126 using command down) -- Command Up

end run

This is the AppleScript code that will simulate pressing ⌘+▲.

Save the service, naming it something like Command Up.

Finally, go into System Preferences and create a keyboard shortcut for this service.  It will appear towards the bottom of the services list:

Assign it the shortcut ⌃+▲ (ctrl+up).

Now, when you press ⌃+▲, the system will issue an automatic ⌘+▲ keypress, allowing you to hijack its function.

Now repeat the process for your other key combo.  The AppleScript for that one, which will be simulating a ⌘+▼, is:

on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "System Events" to ¬
        return (key code 125 using command down) -- Command Down

end run


edit 01-11-2019: Works on Mojave.

There is a solution - plugin called winBuddy which is available through MacForge (previously known as mySIMBL).

It allows you to turn off window shadow and/or window borders for every app.

I've just tested it and it seems to work properly, there are some minor glitches here and there but nothing major.

Minor glitches include:

You can't change window options for apps which don't have menu - like Bartender for example
You can't change window options for some apps, as winBuddy does not show up under 'Window' in menu.


Safari: Can I tab through smart search field options?

As a Tab alternative, you can use ctrl-N (next) and ctrl-P (previous) to move through the smart search field options without having to look down or remove your hands from the home row.


S.M.A.R.T. Error MacOS 11 Big Sur Beta Installer

I would load the app DriveDX which specifically looks for the SMART status of the drives. The app is not free but has a free trial period. You can use that to check your drive. It will tell you the SMART status and details about the drive. It very simple to use. Just start the app and it will start scanning your drives. Give it a minute or so to complete and display the results. See the image below for an example of the output. Yes my drives are failing or have failed.


How can I stop synchronization between chrome on PC and safari on iPhone?

Uncheck Bookmarks in the iCloud control panel.

& point 2... not much at all; wouldn't worry about it.


What workflows help when using Photo Stream to import from iOS to Aperture?

Delete the photos from the Phone after you've processed them in Aperture? Seems like the obvious thing. Tap the Share Button and then select the pics you want to delete and then tap delete.


Command in MS Word on Mac to resize whole text

You can do this in MS Word 11 using the Increase/Decrease Font Size buttons.

In MS Word select the Home tab. Under the section titled Font there are two buttons that both have an uppercase 'A' on them with an up and down arrow, respectively, next to the Font Size drop-down menu. If you select your entire document (using Command-A) and then select one of these buttons it will resize the entire documents proportionately.

The hot keys for these functions are Shift-Command-< and Shift-Command->. And again, you need to have the desired text highlighted in order for this to work.


PDF in Preview id blurry on scrolling after upgrading to 10.9

It could be a caching bug in 10.9.0. If you have not transferred any files to this computer from a another Mac (via Time Machine for example) then you should be okay.

I doubt you have an actual hardware issue or limitation. If you were running a 2007 MacBook and you performed an upgrade I would expect this before due to the grandfathering of certain files/preferences/caches.

In a fresh system and new model your issue would not be tolerated by Apple. I would suggest submitting some feedback to Apple: http://www.apple.com/feedback/ and get them aware of this issue.

If this starts to show up in other apps or with other file types then it might be a good idea to go to an Apple Store or AASP and let them do a check on it.


expect can be called from an Automator action but it must be indirect.

Within your Automator Run Shell Script action, call out to expect with something like:

#!/bin/sh
expect -f /absolute/path/to/expect/script


How can I find what is making my Mac run hotter and causing the fans to run more often?

You can use Activity Monitor to view all the processes running on your Mac at any time. If you prefer to use the terminal, you can use top.


Web apps are easy, you just need to use Apple Configurator or the iPhone configuration utility to package the URL and add it to the home screen. You can also perform this from mobile safari directly.

You only need a web server and there are plenty of free web services if you don't want to host the app on a computer you control and could run MAMP or some other tool to serve http.

Once you cross over into native apps, it gets more complicated. There is an API and it's secured by digital signatures to ensure the OS can track the application's provenance and detect if it gets modified after it has been installed.

In general, iOS supports four major ways to load native applications. The first three require Apple to be involved and all carry a financial and time cost. The fourth bypasses the code checks and allows unsigned apps and has no financial cost but carries a different time cost.

Through the iTunes App Store once the app is signed directly by Apple
As a paid developer by signing the app with a developer certificate (which itself is signed indirectly by Apple)
As an enterprise customer by signing the app with an enterprise certificate (which itself is signed indirectly by Apple)
Jailbreak the device to load apps that are not signed by Apple (directly or indirectly)

Since you mentioned free:

Jailbreak should cost nothing, you just spend time learning and obtaining free software to jailbreak each device.
Paid iOS developer requires a Mac with a recent OS X (not free), Xcode (free) and a $99 one year window to run all your apps on a limited set of iOS devices (100 at the moment) for that one year period.
App Store Distribution requires a delay (where Apple decides if they even want your specific version of your app to be on their store) and costs nothing during the year your paid iOS developer account is valid. If your paid developer account expires, your apps come off the store.
Enterprise Distribution is the most costly. You near a legitimate corporation with legal filing, corporate DUNS number to prove you have a financial record as a corporation, etc… It starts at a $300 payment and I'd guess months delay and legal/regulatory fees of $1500 in the US to be set up as an enterprise client of Apple.

Now, you can mix apps of all 5 types above as long as your device is jailbroken. If your device is not jailbroken, you can mix the three Apple approved methods with web apps on the same device on an app by app basis.

The vast majority of people load apps through the app store, so all other methods are collectively called "side-loading". As you approach your work, think more about how the OS decides to install the app as opposed to how it's actually delivered. Once you get how code signing works, the delivery issues will work themselves out.


WD Passport Ultra can't mount on Mac, flashing lights, but can be read on Windows. What is broken?

This happens because OSX "forces" a disk check/repair in the background before mounting the drive (since it was ejected improperly), so it will simply appear to not be mounting until that completes.
It seems it was fixed for you when you let the check complete---
A quick way to "fix" this is to manually force quit the fsck process from activity monitor.


How to check if the screen replacement part for iPhone 5s is an original one?

In all likelihood the screen won't be original. You'll be able to tell from a number of factors but none of them are conclusive as fake screens can exhibit any of these indicators...

The glass should be a deep black or neutral white, not grey, or cream.
The phone shouldn't feel heavier, often fake screens are much heavier.
The grille over the ear piece should have a fine black mesh not silver or with large holes, or missing.
After cleaning the screen, if you place the screen in a bright pin/spot light you should see a streaks of rainbow colours in a criss-crosssing diamond pattern.

The thickness should be the same as before, fake screens are often almost twice as thick as originals.

You shouldn't be able to see the proximity sensor in the glass, and if you can it should be a neutral grey not a blue transparent look.


2007 macbook - trackpad stuck in scrolling mode

Sometimes issues like these can happen if there is water underneath the trackpad. Try blowing some air or warming it out in the sun or other dry area.

Try to use an external mouse and you should know if the USB bus is still working.

You can refer to iFixit to open your MBP and remove the small dust particles which maybe cause the issue or try to reinstall OS X and see if that fixes the issue.

There are mouse controls via keyboard if you need to get around or avoid a repair.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204434


iPad screen broken, cannot unlock - need to backup

I was able to connect and browse the filesystem by connecting my iPad via USB to a computer running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. The photos and videos were in the DCIM folder.

!


How can I use a Linux box's display as a third display for my MacBook Pro?

I'm not 100% sure if it'll meet your needs, but Synergy works very well as a software KVM and it supports any mix of OS X, Linux and Windows.


How do I create an Automator Application to forward new mail from Mac Mail?

Where is your new email service? Perhaps you can configure it to check your AOL mailbox and pull it down.  This would happen automatically on their servers and wouldn't require a script on your side.

For example, if your new email service was with Gmail, go into the Settings>Accounts tab and add your AOL account to the "Check mail from other accounts" section.


Extracted form Apple's Store In-Ear Headphone's overview:

  Technical Specifications

  Frequency response: 5Hz to 21kHz
  Impedance (at 100Hz): 23 ohms
  Sensitivity (at 100Hz): 109 dB SPL/mW
  Drivers: Custom two-way balanced armature (woofer and tweeter in each earpiece)

If you are using the regular Earphones, although I couldn't find any official technical specs, it's dB output would be lower than the In-Ear's, something like 103 dB.

And for the safe decibels, just remember that:

  A typical conversation occurs at 60 dB – not loud enough to cause    damage.
  A bulldozer that is idling (note that this is idling, not    actively bulldozing) is loud enough at 85 dB that it can cause permanent damage after only 1 work day (8 hours).
  When listening to a personal music system with stock earphones at    a maximum volume, the sound generated can reach a level of over    100
  dBA, loud enough to begin causing permanent damage after just    15
  minutes per day!
  A clap of thunder from a nearby storm (120 dB) or a gunshot (140-190    dB,    depending on weapon), can both cause immediate
  damage.


Windows stores all of the users files in C:\Users (for windows Vista and up) or C:\Documents and Settings (for Windows XP).  Inside that folder you'll see all of the user accounts for that Windows computer.  Copy the user you want over to a flash drive or external hard drive then plug it into your laptop.  On your Mac, use the Migration Assistant to finish the transfer or just copy and paste the files yourself.


Tweetbot marks some tweets with a blue corner

It's a Tweet Marker feature.

it indicates your last read tweet.  When using another app that uses Tweet Marker, it will automatically scroll to that tweet so you know where you were.


I have the same machine as you do and have GeekTool running.

My GeekTool atm uses 0.0% CPU and 19.9MB of RAM.

I have several geeklet's running which poll different websites or system processes. (9 Geeklets)


Getting many paid apps to colleague's personal iPad easily without manually installing them through the App Store?

If you want to purchase and distribute a set of apps to many users, Apple's Volume Purchase Program is probably what you want. Purchasing is done centrally, and then you can push out the apps via the Apple Configurator, or a third party management system.


Parallels: Make sure VMs never start automatically at program startup

Please enable On Quit: ☑ Disable Resume for Parallel Desktop in Parallels Desktop -> Preferences -> General


Send messages using Apple ID email instead of phone number

Settings → Send & Receive and set ‘Start new conversations from’ to an email address.
The ‘You can be reached by iMessage at’ option has no bearing on what's used for sending messages, so you can ignore the checked options here. The phone number can't be unchecked here as you can always receive messages sent to the phone number of the device.


OSX: /tmp Not Writable : Operation not permitted

Recreation the link /tmp -> /private/tmp helped me (with csrutil disabled in recovery mode) : https://superuser.com/questions/1133065/unable-to-write-to-tmp-osx-unable-to-correct-permissions-operation-not-permitt#comment1629612_1133065

Looks like the Sierra installer makes /tmp rootless if you download and cancel it on the very first step of installation.


Use iPhone or iPod touch as an external hard drive

If you have any apps or music on there, there's probably less than fifty GB available.  If you are that low on space, you might be better off with  a 64GB USB drive or SD card.

DropBox, OneDrive, iCloud, and their several competitors make it easy to keep files on it, but they also keep a copy of the same files on your other device.


High Temp at Startup after Upgrading to High Sierra

In iStat Menus, check the figure for 'relative to ProcHot' - so long as this is a positive value, all is OK in theory, though I would have expected the fans to ramp before that temperature was reached.

Maybe try resetting the NVRAM & SMC - Really confused about how to reset SMC and PRAM and NVRAM on my Macs and iPad and iPhone? has a comprehensive answer on how to do this for all Mac models.

Picture of where is shows on my machine, but as it's a dual processor Mac Pro no doubt it will look very different. [bottom half menu cropped off, to save space]


Caller ID from iPad message shows "Home"

It's not a "Caller ID" as it's not visible to anyone but you.

It's only shown on your iPhone because the phone number (or Apple ID) is in the Contacts of the device with the name set to Home. This means that messages received show the name of the sender pulled from Contacts, just like any other contact on the phone.

If you don't want this, delete the contact from your phone which contains the phone number, but this will delete it from all iCloud synchronised devices and can cause problems if it is your 'Me card' such as incorrect AutoFill information in Safari.


Numeric keys (on the right side) doesn't respond at all

Just found it! In Accessibility preferences (Yosemite) > Mouse & Trackpad "Enable Mouse Keys" must be uncheked. Otherwise numbers behaves like arrows. Yoo-hoo, what a relief )


Missing disk space after failed Bootcamp install

You need to reinstall Mac OS X

Backup your system/data.

Boot into Internet Recovery (CMD + R + i)
Open Terminal
Erase your Macintosh HD Volume

diskutil cs deleteVolume 933B0D1B-9E56-4DB3-8853-013BE1C2C6E4

Erase Macintosh Volume Group

diskutil cs delete 320B77F3-91C2-4221-B24C-D8B91C233D32

Erase SSD this should disk0, verify!

diskutil eraseDisk jhfs+ SSD disk0

Erase HDD this should disk1, verify!

diskutil eraseDisk jhfs+ HDD disk1

Create LV Group (order is critical SSD and HDD in that order, verify!)

diskutil cs create OSX-MacintoshLVG disk0s2 disk1s2

Create Logical Volume

diskutil cs createVolume <UUID from Step 7> jhfs+ "Macintosh HD" 100%

Restore from TM or reinstall Mac OS


You may be able to troubleshoot this by opening "Audio MIDI Setup" from /Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup.app, then you should be able to add devices from this location. I suspect that somehow, the Built In Output is removed from the list, and the little + sign in the bottom corner may be able to add the support for the device again.

Best of luck!


The file was saved as Excel 95 and was to big for the destination file. A simple save As with the new format xlsx solve the issue.


My password to login to my "screen" isn't being recognized

Most probably, and unwillingly, your son modified your input keyboard
or used the ⇪ caps lock key.


New MBP with Sierra, /usr/local/bin no longer accessible unless root

In my almost default install of macOS (10.12.0 > updated to 10.12.1) the directories have the following owners and permissions:

drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel  sunlnk            136 Oct  2 22:42 . #/usr/local
drwxr-xr-x@ 13 root  wheel  restricted,hidden 442 Oct  3 01:01 .. #/usr
    com.apple.FinderInfo     32
    com.apple.rootless    0
drwxr-xr-x  26 root  wheel  -                 884 Oct 17 03:36 bin
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel  -                 170 Oct 17 03:35 share

There is no obvious reason why the permissions are set that tight - Apple explicitly states that third-party apps and installers can continue to write to /usr/local. If a normal user wouldn't be able to read or execute files there, the directory would miss its point.

So simply change the permissions of /usr/local/bin (and /usr/local if necessary) to 755.


macOS app for showing external HDD usage statistics?

By usage stats I'm assuming you mean SMART stats...

DriveDx has a trial version that will show SMART stats. But you have to load a kext to see USB attached disks. That's a common issue with all the 3rd party programs.

It works well, and will allow you to do short & extended self-tests even in the trial version. It will save a report you could email to your potential buyer (Actions | Save Drive Health Report).


I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard good things about USB Overdrive. While the name of the utility implies that it's USB-only, it also works for devices connected via Bluetooth.

Another possible option is SteerMouse.


Updated Bash via Homebrew (from 5.0.17 to 5.0.18). Now I get Error message after starting Terminal

One thing that’s easy to set and easier to forget later is if you have your terminal program run a specific command rather then leave you in the default shell that chsh configures.
Have a look there after a brief inspection of your dot files before debugging the startup files systematically is my advice.


OSX Server 10.9 File Sharing - not working properly

If it's the group ownerships, from the command line you could do:

chown -R yourusername:staff /Path/To/SharedFolder

for each of the shares, if the other non-admin users you mentioned are in the staff group. Otherwise, replace staff with the correct group. It's possible you may not want all the directories underneath the shared directory shared, so you'd have to go in and alter the permissions/ownership for each of them too, or remove the -R and change folders individually.

See some examples of chown here and an explanation of the command I've given here.

I'd also note down what the current ownership and permissions are using ls -l, so that you can change them back if this doesn't work.

(obviously, replace yourusername with your username, and /Path/To/SharedFolder with the path to the shared folder. I say "obviously" but I'm writing this because, according to my experience, it's not always obvious!:)


It seems I found a source of precompiled OpenJDK:
http://code.google.com/p/openjdk-osx-build/
The OpenJDK 7 builds there are universal, and do indeed run in 32bit mode.
The latest version is 7u6, which is not quite as recent as the 7u7 available from Oracle, but should be recent enough for my requirements.

Alas, my original problem persists, so I might have to compile my JVM myself after all. I found there is a jdk7u-osx repository in the OpenJDK mercurial repositories, and its README-builds file provides reasonable instructions on how to build stuff. The part about source drops appears particularly important. I still have some troubles, but those seem to be bugs in the build process or similar, so I'll take them up with the macosx-port-dev mailing list.


Is there a way to turn off autosave feature in Lion OS X?

Is this what you're looking for?

http://www.pubarticles.com/article-2-ways-to-disable-autosave-and-versions-on-mac-os-x-lion-1311670708.html

: Disable Autosave and Versions on Lion - Setting

  Go to System Preferences > General
  Untick "Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps".
  Then reboot.


Best choice for Microsoft Paint for Mac?

Corel Painter & family, StudioArtist - depends what you're really after…

Add detail to your question to hone down the answers


How to check the frequency bands of 3G and LTE carriers to make sure they are supported by iPhone 4s, 5, 5s, 5c?

One place would be to look on Apple's own page here.

There is way too much detail on that page for me to summarise here, but it covers most (all?) countries and carriers where the iPhone is currently available, including those in the US.

So find any models that are supported by your current (non-US) carrier, and see whether those models work with any US carriers.


What prevents iOS and iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch from having an official screen recorder?

The technical reason no store app has screen recording is simply that no official API is provided from Apple to developers to perform screen recording.

The hardware is clearly capable of snapping still frames and storing / processing a video feed of the screen's size, so it's probably not a purely technical reason why it's currently not a feature of the OS.


Using the command-line / Terminal, is it possible to determine if this Mac has Touch ID or not?

You can also look for hardware info and match it against apple provided info about Touch ID enabled Macs.

  Only the 2016, 2017 and 2018 MacBook Pros with "Touch Bar" have Touch ID.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8597511 Though a more credible and updated source would be better.
Also,  If system pref > Touch ID exists, this can be an indicator.

Using command line how to open a specific section of GUI System Preferences?
How do you access network preferences from the Terminal?

https://ioshacker.com/how-to/use-touch-id-for-sudo-in-terminal-on-mac look for tid (I don't know where)


After echoing some values of preinstall to a temp file and some advice from comments in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35619036/, I found the following:

$SUDO_USER is empty
logname is root
✅$USER has the correct value

So adopting the script as follows fixes it.  The link is opened in the default browser.

sudo -u "$USER" open "https://apple.stackexchange.com/"

As an aside, the following I had expected to work but it DID NOT work.  This technique still opens in Safari, unfortunately.

su "$USER" -c "open https://apple.stackexchange.com"

So, use sudo -u "$USER" and it should work.


Does the iOS Camera Roll contain all of my photos and videos, incl. what's in my albums?

Yes, on iPhones, Camera Roll includes all photos, live photos, videos, screenshots, slo-mos and timelapses you have on your phone, even if some or all of them are in albums. You can plug your phone into your computer and copy your photos from the storage device that appears in your operating system's native file manager. You can also make a backup of your phone in iTunes and using a backup extractor tool, such as iMazing, recover the photos.


Can a 3rd party charger damage my macbook pro?

It's unlikely they will actually damage your MacBook Pro by delivering too much power to it. But there are many cautionary tales to be found on the internet of third party chargers overheating, and occasionally catching fire or exploding. Technically, using a non-Apple charger without Apple's written permission may also void your warranty if anything did go wrong.

Personally, I wouldn't risk it.


Yes, create a .terminal or .command file with the settings you like. The contents can then be a normal shell script that sets up the terminal the way you like it. Classic .sh files work as well, but the icon is not as nice. Place you file in a directory of your choice and add it to the dock.

Once you have that part working, you can probably paste a custom icon of your choice over the file using Finder and these posts.


Fresh install of Eclipse on 10.9.2 cannot access com.apple.eawt package contents

This turns out to be an Eclipse configuration issue not an Mac configuration issue.

Under the build path the jvm has access rules that forbid the use of the com.apple package and sub packages. I added an access rule "com/apple/eawt/**" and now Eclipse is happy to compile the code.

Open the project properties and select the access rules for the JRE used for the Java Build Path

Then add an access rule to allow access to the com.apple.eawt package.


You can use the tail command to see live output of a textual log file:

tail -f <some_log_file.log

tail does not open a new Terminal.app window, but this could be achieved with AppleScript or Automator.


install opencv with cuda support and.. brew

You can pass the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX option to cmake to have OpenCV install to a different location. It's analagous to ./configure --prefix. For example:

cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/opt/reallylocal -D WITH_CUDA ..

This will install it under /opt/reallylocal, leaving /usr/local untouched. Then, to run your custom build, call it with the full path, or put the appropriate directories on your PATH and PYTHONPATH variables when working with it. If you build other projects against your opencv, you'll need to point their build scripts at your custom install location. Leave those paths alone when doing brew tasks and other work, and brew won't care about your other install off to the side.

The OpenCV Install Guide has full details.

I tested this on my OS X 10.8.3 box. /usr stayed clean.

[✘ @ in ~/tmp/homebrew/opencv/install]
$ find /usr > before-install.txt
find: /usr/sbin/authserver: Permission denied
... did the whole build & install in another terminal ...
[✘ @ in ~/tmp/homebrew/opencv/install]
$ find /usr > after-install.txt
find: /usr/sbin/authserver: Permission denied
[✘ @ in ~/tmp/homebrew/opencv/install]
$ diff before-install.txt after-install.txt
[@ in ~/tmp/homebrew/opencv/install]
$


Why are my maximize and minimize buttons grey?

In System Preferences, there is a setting for overall "Appearance." It would appear that your appearance has been set to "Graphite" instead of the default "blue." While the maximize and minimize buttons are not blue, when the appearance is set to blue, they are in color; when the appearance is set to graphite, they are grey.


Why are there two  + I shortcuts in preview?

Because you (or someone else) change it in keyboard shortcuts.

Check your Keyboard shortcuts..

It should be

and


4k external monitor shows 3840x2160 and 1920x1080 but not 2560x1440

The optimum scaling for that size display on MacOS is 1920 x 1080 (HiDPI), which will give the "Retina display" HiDPI effect, making the display objects appear at 'normal' size, but using the doubled pixel density to create a higher-resolution image.

(Another way to look at it is that the display is actually at 3840 x 2160, but the OS magnifies everything x2, to avoid the tiny sizes that you have seen.)

Any scaling size with (HiDPI) after it will use Retina scaling to some degree.

MacOS will display a larger range of Scaling options if you hold down Alt and click on the "Scaled" button in System Preferences > Displays.


Concatenate two videos recorded with Snapz Pro

Becuase Apple Animation is an older QuickTime format, you should give QuickTime Player 7 a try, which has basic editing capabilities. If you're on Snow Leopard, it may not be installed, but you can fix that pretty quickly

If you need more than what QuickTime Player provides, it might be worth looking at QuickTime Pro.


Setting to stop opening a new instance of an already open application?

If you are saying that you want each double-click to open the new file in a new tab of the current Sublime window, rather than opening a new window in Sublime, then that is going to be an application-specific preference.  Meaning, you'll need to look at the preferences for Sublime and see if there isn't some equivalent of "Open new file in tab" or "Open new window in new tab" setting.


Should I put the SSD in the Optical or Main Bay when replacing Optical Drive?

You should go ahead and do what you first propose of the SSD in the optical and the HDD in the main.

There are two things to consider with speed, data rate and latency.  Data rate is how fast the data can transfer from point A to point B.  Something to keep in mind though is HDD are not that fast and may not use the full 3 Gigabits it is given.  A WD green drive is made to save power and reduce heat.  This means it spins slower, so it can't pick up the data as fast.  As a result you are not at transfer link saturation.

The SSD does not need to spin and and only access one part of a file at a time, it has the entire drive accessible.  As a result it can saturate the line.

Latency is also important, it takes time for the HDD to get to the files that are needed, for the SSD the files are already there.  As a result, during boot the computer is not waiting for the next file to come around.  It can go file after file after file.  Reduced latency means faster speeds.

Already your first proposed setup is wining, but while doing some research, I found answered question: What is an SSD drive's negotiated link speed?.  The optical bay is capable of 3 gigabits per second, however, the negotiated speed is 1.5 because the optical drive is slow and doesn't need the 3.

The optical drive negotiated for a lower speed but can handle faster on the bus. If you already have the drive one thing you can do just test it out yourself, try one configuration then another. There is a free program called Black Magic disk speed test (itunes.apple.com/us/app/blackmagic-disk-speed-test/id425264550) that measures your hard drive speed.


You need to precede the dd command with sudo to give you permission.

I provide this answer with some reluctance because using dd is extremely risky. You can easily overwrite your system if you use the incorrect target. If you do not already know how to use sudo on the command line, you should look for other image copying tools, with inbuilt safeguards.


No HDMI and DVI are both digital signals there will be no degradation in quality between the two. If in fact they are compatible with each other as referenced on Wikipedia.

  HDMI is backward-compatible with single-link Digital Visual Interface digital video (DVI-D or DVI-I, but not DVI-A). No signal conversion is required when an adapter or asymmetric cable is used, so there is no loss of video quality.[5]

Both are much better than VGA. VGA is an analog signal. There are noticeable differences when using a VGA connection vs a pure digital one. Everything will appear to have a slight fuzziness, it's not horrible but if you have good vision you can see the difference up close. With pure digital, the text, images, etc with all be sharper. This is a side effect of the analog to digital conversion that the LCD monitor has to do. Additionally as part of that conversion process most LCDs have an auto correction button to dynamically adjust the VGA signal to fix over-scan and other minor adjustments to the VGA source. Something that you don't ever have to do with a digital source. I would avoid buying a monitor that only has VGA input, spend $20 to $50 more and get a better display that has at least one digital input source, either DVI or HDMI.

Confirming Source for LCD Analog vs Digital inputs.

I have had bad luck with 2 Mini-DVI to VGA adapters purchased from Monoprice.com that had Red, Green, Blue hewing due to poor wiring. For example, I had to slightly twist the cable to get the picture color just right. They replaced one and then the second one did the same thing, I am due for a third try...  However my mini-DVI to HDMI adapter from them works flawlessly and has since day one.


How to best manage 1 iTunes account with SEVERAL devices in our family.

You can use a shared Apple ID for the iTunes, and app store purchases. Yes, you can select which apps sync to different devices

  To sync downloaded apps to iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad: Connect your
  iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad to your computer.

  In iTunes, select your device (below Devices), and then click the Apps
  button.

  Select Sync Apps, and then select the apps you want to sync.

You can create a unique Apple ID to use that for syncing contacts and calendars via iCloud. You can also sync contacts and calendars from an Exchange Server (or Google). Assuming you don't share your Mac account across the entire family, you can also just opt to sync contacts and calendars locally.

You may find the Macworld article All about iCloud: Common signup scenarios to be useful.


Restore my Mac from a Time Machine backup on my Time Capsule

No you don’t. It will work fine if you plug in Ethernet to any port except the wan port no matter what the settings.

You could reset the time capsule if you want to be sure it’s in normal order and then the password will be known so you can reset it if needed to use the WAN port or otherwise look at the settings or know the passwords to the disk and management level.


User directory replicated in each Library/Containers/**/Data directory

The containers folder uses a Unix device called symbolic links. These links are redirects to information stored in a different folder or separate hard drive in your system. This allows for multiple paths to the same files and folders.

Some software applications can not distinguish a symlink from a valid directory and will report multiple copies of the same files and folders. There is really only one copy of the data but symlinks allow for different permissions to be applied to the application or users.

If you do a ls -la command from the terminal the first character of the permission will be the letter l (ex. lrwxr-xr-x) directories start with the letter d and files start with a dash '-' and the file name of a link will look something like this;

 lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  hidden   11B Jan 10  2014 etc -> private/etc

The first part is the file/folder name that the system is looking for and the part after the -> is the fully qualified path to the actual location of the data data. (See the man page for ls and ln for more detail.)

The function is transparent to the user from the finder but functional to the OS.

For more information do a web search on symlink or symbolic link.

P.S. While an alias that you create provides the same functionality it does it in a different way and the aliases don't backup correctly.


AFAIK, there's no special procedure for a new MB/MBP battery. I recently replaced my MBP's battery myself, and searched Apple support documents for care instructions, but I couldn't find anything other than the standard "drain it once in a while."

Btw, my new battery was completely discharged, and it took about 12 hours to fully charge it. I left it on charge overnight and started using the MBP as usual the next day.


Applescript - Run Multiple Instances of an App in Mac OSX

You would need to compile your own transmission-daemon to be able to run multiple instances. Once you have done this you can specify different ports on each instance and start them up.

Information on compiling your own transmission-daemon on osx can be found here:

https://forum.transmissionbt.com/viewtopic.php?t=7532&p=52071

How to run multiple instances of transmission-daemon:

https://forum.transmissionbt.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9139


Why my macbook sometimes plays a chime when booting/rebooting, sometimes it does not?

It depends on the volume rate before you Restart or Shut Down your mac

so if your volume level is 0 (Mute), you will hear no chime sound on start-up,
just try it and make sure

I have Muted my mac speakers because i always use headset (as you know you can set headset volume separately when you connect it) so i never hear a chime sound,

i searched a lot and found this (muting) as a solution because i hated that voice (imagine restarting in the middle of the night!)

hope this helps


Can a version of Windows newer than Vista be installed on MacBookPro2,2 2006 Core 2 Duo?

You model Mac can only support only one boot method when booting from the optical drive. The 32 bit Windows 7 installer ISO provide by Microsoft can only be BIOS booted and therefore offers no problems when burn to a DVD. However, any of the Windows 10 installer ISO files provided by Microsoft can be either BIOS or UEFI booted. Using a DVD burned from one of these ISO files to boot your Mac will result in your Mac hanging as described in your question. This is true for both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the Windows 10 installer ISO file.
Several answers involving installing Windows 10 on your model Mac have already been posted. See the question Installing windows on a MacBook Pro 15-Inch “Core 2 Duo” without Mac OS X.
Note the following:

According to Microsoft, a computer needs at least 1 GB of RAM in order to install 32 bit Windows 10 and at least 2 GB of RAM in order to install 64 bit Windows 10. Your Mac was shipped with 1 GB of RAM, but is capable of being upgraded to at least 2 GB.
You do not need a license to install and test Windows 10. However, to continue using Windows 10 will require a license. You may be able to install a licensed Windows 7, then upgrade to Windows 10 for free. This was true as of early in 2020. I do not know if this is still true today. Also, if a licensed Windows 10 was previous installed on your Mac, then you will be able to use this existing license.
Apple only supports running 32 bit Windows XP SP2 or Vista on your model Mac. Therefore, the drivers provided by Apple may or may to work with a 32 or 64 bit Windows 10. However do to the age of your Mac, many of the necessary drivers will probably already be included in the Windows 10 installer software or will be downloaded automatically from Microsoft.

Using USB to Install Windows 10
The basic steps are outline below. An optical drive is not used to install Windows 10.

Use a USB port to install a 32 bit BIOS booting Debian Linux. This will include the Grub boot loader.
Use Debian Linux to copy the Windows 10 installation files to a NTFS formatted volume on the internal drive.
Use Grub to BIOS boot the Windows 10 installer on the internal drive.
Install a BIOS booting Windows 10. This will overwrite Grub and Debian Linux.
Expand the Windows 10 partition to consume the space occupied by the partitions containing the Windows 10 installer files and the Debian Linux swap space.

A more detailed version of above steps is given below. These steps can be used to install either a 32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows 10.

Install 32 bit BIOS booting Debian Linux. Follow steps 1 through 4 given in this answer with the following exception. When asked to Configure the package manager, choose a Debian archive mirror country followed by a Debian archive mirror.

Prepare a partition for the Windows installation files. Start by booting to Debian. If the Mac does not boot to Debian (via Grub) by default, then restart the Mac and immediately hold option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Select the internal drive icon labeled Windows. If a Debian desktop environment was not installed, login as root. Otherwise, login using the default username, open a Terminal window and enter the command shown below.
su --login

The middle partition on the internal drive (/dev/sda3) contains an ext4 formatted volume. The command given below will replace this volume with a NTFS formatted volume. A connection to the internet is required.
apt update
apt install exfat-fuse exfat-utils ntfs-3g parted
sed -i '/\/installation/d' /etc/fstab
umount /dev/sda3
sfdisk --part-type /dev/sda 3 7
partprobe
mkfs.ntfs -L WINSTALL -Q /dev/sda3
mount /dev/sda3 /installation

Create a Windows 10 installer on an internal drive partition.
Enter a following command to permit writing to the /home folder.
chmod a+w /home

Transfer, to the /home folder, the ISO file required to install Windows 10. In the case of this example, this would be the Win10_20H2_English_x64.iso file. If your file is different, then make the appropriate substitutions in this step. Below are various ways to transfer this file. Choose one way or find another way.

Note: A choice below can depend on which predefined collections of software are currently installed.

Use another computer to download and transfer the ISO file to a ExFAT formatted USB flash drive. Use either the cp command or the Files application to copy from the USB flash drive to the /home folder.
Use another computer to download the ISO file. Use sftp on this other computer to transfer the ISO file to the /home folder on the Mac. Enter the command hostname -I on the Mac to get an IP address.
Use the FireFox ESR application to download the ISO file from the web. Use either the mv command or the Files application to move the downloaded ISO file to the /home folder.

Next, enter the commands given below to copy the Windows 10 installation files from the mounted ISO file to the /installation mount point.

Note: The boot.wim and install.wim files are very large and therefore will take a while to be copied.

mkdir -p /media/iso
mount -o loop,ro /home/Win10_20H2_English_x64.iso /media/iso
cp -Rv /media/iso/* /installation

When finished, shutdown the Mac. If a Debian desktop environment was not installed, then enter the command below instead.
shutdown -P now

Remove any USB flash drives that may be plugged into the Mac.

Replace the 32 bit Debian with Windows 10. Start by booting to Grub. If the Mac does not boot to Grub by default, then restart the Mac and immediately hold option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Select the internal drive icon labeled Windows. When an image similar to the one shown below appears, press the C key.

Enter the commands given below to boot from the /dev/sda3 partition.
insmod part_msdos
insmod ntfs
insmod ntldr
set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
parttool (hd0,msdos1) type=7 boot+
ntldr /bootmgr
boot

Proceed with the installation of Windows.  When you reach the window shown in the image below, select Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).

When the window shown in the image below appears, leave Drive 0 Partition 1 highlighted and click on the Format button. Next, click on the OK button in the popup window. Finally, click on the Next button.

Proceed with the installation of Windows 10.

Install the Boot Camp Support Software (Windows Support Software). The Boot Camp Support Software is on the Snow Leopard installation DVD. The files can be accessed from Windows. Officially, only 32 bit versions of Windows can be installed on your Mac. Since I do not have your model Mac, I can not predict how difficult it will be to the adapt the software for use with a 64 bit Windows. You should consult lx07's answer for more information.
A Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) ISO file can be downloaded from the website Mac OS X Snow Leopard Install DVD. You should verify the download by computing the SHA256 hash value. The Get-FileHash Power Shell cmdlet can be used to compute a SHA256 hash value. Entering Get-FileHash along with the path to the downloaded file in a Power Shell window should produce the following SHA256 hash value.
CBEEB2378C40B20A9B06236F567DE593E9030A0A865515B50CF6D35833E25CD5

Under Windows 10, the Boot Camp Support Software can be accessed by mounting this ISO file.

Remove unnecessary partitions and extend the Windows 10 partition. Boot to Windows 10 desktop. Next, right click on the Start button and select Disk Management. A windows similar to the one shown below will appear.

Right click on the last partition shown for Disk 0. Select Delete Volume…, as shown below. In the popup window, click on the Yes button.

Right click on the free space shown for Disk 0. Select Delete Partition…. In the popup window, click on the Yes button.

Right click on the partition with the volume label WINSTALL. Select Delete Volume…. In the popup window, click on the Yes button.

Right click on the partition with the drive letter C:. Select Extend Volume…. In the popup window, click on the Next button. Again, in the next popup window, click on the Next button. In the next popup window, click on the Finish button.

The result is shown below.

Exit the Disk Management application.

Setting BIOS Booting as the Default
If a BIOS booting Windows is the only operating system installed on a Mac, then the Mac should automatically boot to Windows. However, if BIOS booting has not be set as the default, there may be a delay before booting begins. Otherwise, the Mac Startup Manager can be used to boot Windows. Below are two methods for setting BIOS booting as the default.

Method 1: Boot from an OS X (macOS) installation DVD or USB flash drive, open a Terminal window and enter the command given below.
 bless --device /dev/disk0 --setBoot --legacy

The version of OS X (macOS) chosen must be compatible with your Mac. The instructions for creating a Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) installation USB flash drive can be found here.

Method 2: A successful installation of the Boot Camp Support Software (Window Support Software) will include the creation of the Boot Camp control panel for Windows.
To set the default operating system in Windows:

In Windows, click the Boot Camp icon in the system tray and choose Boot Camp Control Panel.

Note: Your screen may look different, depending on which computer you’re using.

Select the startup disk with the Windows operating system as the default.
If you want to start up that operating system now, click Restart.


How to downgrade software using terminal?

Try this way:

pip uninstall matplotlib
pip install matplotlib==1.3.1


What is mdflagwriter and why does it eat up so much RAM?

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdflagwriter is part of Spotlight's indexing. There seems to be a bug present for some people where mdflagwriter uses a considerable amount of RAM, but no canonical fix, apart from reinstalling OS X, or for some people reindexing with sudo mdutil -E /.


Why does Google Chrome launch multiple instances of Google Chrome Helper?

Google Chrome Helper instances are used for various plugins you may have installed. Unless a plugin is glitchy or doesn't play nice with other plugins, there is generally no problem having some or many Chrome Helper processes running.

This Wired article explains a bit about Chrome Helper.


Prohibited sign - Can't boot after trying to open Raspian SD Card

Oh, drat! Sorry to say you most likely lost it all.

This is the exact reason NO one should just follow any random video on the Web. To explain what I am saying, there is a high probability you used diskutil improperly with the wrong disk identifier (your Startup Disk rather than the intended target) and as root, which most likely overwrote Mac OS X with Raspbian without mercy. What is odd about that, however, is that Recovery does work.

For future reference, let me give you a better way to write Apple supported images. Open Disk Utility and click your flash drive. Go to the Restore tab and drag the image in the source box. In Yosemite and later, go to Edit > Restore and browse for the image you intend to restore instead. Restore. But, our problem is this won't work for Raspbian, as it's a Gnu/Linux flavor, not the standard Apple dmg. So we will need Terminal.

But first, a few notes: Whatever you decide to do things using Terminal, be very careful (especially as root, and that goes for all UNIX (and *nix-like systems!) The sad part is that the guy in the video was close, but didn't do a god job of clarifying the inherent danger in blindly writing an image with all powers. ALWAYS back up first before running a dangerous command.

Now, as for the method. If you're new to all this, I would avoid playing in diskutil. Instead, use mount with no arguments to find your disk identifier. You'll note your hard disk also has an identifier, which for example could be /dev/disk0. If you know the name of your flash drive, that's even better as we can filter that right out and ensure we have the right one. So, if your flash drive or card's name is example, we can run mount | grep example to filter what we want. So, now, if it's disk3, you'll see /dev/disk3s1 and example all nicely listed and filtered out, being automounted for us under Volumes.

Once you are absolutely certain what the identifier (or ending number) is for your flash drive, go ahead and type if= and drag the image, so it pastes the path into the Terminal from the Finder. Now apply our previous finding and add of= (output file). Again, if mount or Disk Utility gave you /dev/disk3s1 for example as the flash drive, /dev/disk3 is what we need (we want the root of the drive, not the ending s# which stand for partitions in this scenario). But, this could be different on your system (check first!). In our example here, the completed command might look something like this: dd if=/Users/me/Downloads/2015-11-21-raspbian-jessie-lite.img of=/dev/disk3. Or, let's give an alternate example where it was disk5 and we went to the right directory (like, say, Downloads), we could then autocomplete with tab, add the if, and do this: dd if=2015-11-21-raspbian-jessie-lite.img of=/dev/disk5

But in either case, back up first. Be careful. Do great.

Now, the pressing and more challenging question is how to get your data back. You already discovered your startup disk is gone. First, try restoring from a Time Machine backup (assuming you wisely had this set up). If not, try writing a Linux Mint image (I would say Fedora, but dracut sometimes hangs on live USB in my experience since R19) using a Mac with the example above, or another UNIX (or like) system (though there will be some differences; you will probably see /dev/sd# or mmcblk# for some cards on modern Gnu/Linux flavors, for instance). Or, download win32imagewriter for Windows XP SP2 or later and use that with Administrator rights (again, watch for the drive identifier first; in this case, the letter!) Assuming you have Mint booted, run parted (if it is not available, connect to a network, sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install parted -y. What we are hoping for is that the table is still somewhat intact. Do sudo -s to elevate then run parted -s -l. You should see /dev/sda or whatever your hard drive is.

If you have a valid GPT table and you don't get any warnings about that, continue. If not, skip this paragraph. In the case of sda, I'd do parted /dev/sda. Now, from what you observed earlier, look for the end of any preceding partitions (most likely where EFI sat). Now, assuming a default El Capitan setup, or anything past Lion, this should be 209.7 MB. The start should therefore round close to that point (if the GPT isn't too awful corrupted, parted should warn you if your query does not match and try to readjust). For the end point, where does Recovery start (usually volume 3?) For instance, on my 160 GB disk, it is after 42.6 Gb. This is our end point. With an insane amount of luck, try putting a start and end for rescue, such as rescue 210M 42.6GB and see what happens. If this failed, even with an adjustment, you could try fdisk. The problem, though, is that this is generally for undoing changes before a reboot that are still fresh; this is only a long shot.

If you didn't back up anything, you're not entirely out of luck just yet. From a NetBoot, FireWire, USB 3, or Lightning external startup disk (I.e. that has OS X on it), you can still use recovery tools such as Recuva for Mac, Prosoft DataRescue, or DiskWarrior to try to salvage whatever you can. Raspbian most likely overwrote some of those files good, but if you have the extra time and cash, it'll be worth it.

If all else fails, or if the table is corrupt, your best bet would be to forget about Recovery (since its on the same disk) and reinstall entirely. Ideally, you'll need to either own or borrow another Mac for this next step. Download 10.11, close the Install OS X pop up window that appears, and use createinstallmedia from inside the OS X installer application bundle/package per the instructions from Apple (there is a guide for this). Power down your Mac, hold Option, and boot from the disk. You'll then need to go to Disk Utility and create a new Intel or GUID partition table (GPT). Create a new partition for your data and the OS; OS X should do the rest when it installs. Close Disk Utility and install as usual. Restore whatever you had backed up.

In any case, I'm hoping all this is unnecessary and that you had Time Machine, iCloud, or another backup system working for you. Good luck with it all. Careful with root commands in the future. Hope this helps!


Customize Quick Look to allow me to view .yml files

I've had great luck with the free QLStephen plugin for Quick Look. It displays lots of other plaintext formats.
Probably worth a shot to see if it will work with YAML files.

You can get it here.


How can I change the orientation of a picture in the printer menu?

Switch off Auto Rotate / Automatisch drehen

You may need to then adjust the Scale to fit the page better - it may depend on whether the entire actual page content is visible.


How to figure out what a keyboard shortcut is set to

Is this app specific or in finder?
If its finder, I dont see a shift+f1 shortcut, only control+f1


A call to Apple support or web interaction would let you provide purchase information to correct an accounting error on the registration. This has been true for a decade and isn’t specific to the M1 Mac.
To get to this, open the “About this Mac” item from the Apple menu or use this handy web site - https://support.apple.com/repair-products

Select the service tab and then the check my coverage status. Apple doesn’t need you to provide anything but a receipt that you obtained from your seller in most cases.
Also keep in mind, sales into some countries mean you have to provide proof of purchase or seek support first from the person you bought the product or a company in the region of first sale instead of Apple directly.

https://www.apple.com/legal/
https://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/statutoryrights.html

Hopefully you didn’t buy a Mac that didn’t even finish manufacturing by Apple or was stolen directly from Apple. I clearly can’t know what information an Apple agent would find in their research to decline coverage. There are so many edge cases you may not have considered that someone at Apple not only has faced multiple times, but had to write a playbook for how to handle these rare cases so they’re being consistent and not “shooting from the hip” call by call. One might be if you had a Mac they used in store for a display and it was stolen during a robbery. I could understand the call asking for support on those Macs to be a short one and read from a script that is designed to bring the call to a quick conclusion.


It you want to send an email to a given address put it as an argument to the mail command:

mail -s "Some subject" toaddress@example.com

see man mail for other options

Any text you type after issuing the command you can enter the text for your mail directly in the terminal. To end mail text entry, enter a new line with a single ..

Do note that this just queues the mail for sending as if your mac were a functioning mail server. Local delivery to local accounts is easy to set up, to set up a working mail server that connects to the internet requires some more advanced set up as well as a relationship with someone else that operates a mail relay. This isn't a client that works directly with mail services like gmail / yahoo / hotmail or iCloud (MobileMe).


Does iOS 4 break iPhone compatibility with music docks?

The answer from Apple Support is "Yes", newer versions of the iOS software probably do disable support for "older" iPhone-compatible devices (although likely "unintentionally").

The Apple Support representative advised downgrading the iOS version on my phone even though doing so would violate the terms of my AppleCare agreement (and obviously, she couldn't explain how to do it other than giving me some Google search terms).

Moreover, she stated that with the release of iOS 5 coming up that I should hesitate to purchase any Apple iPhone or iPod accessories because they cannot ensure compatibility.

Unbelievable.


Screen doesn't work properly - iPhone SE

If you have a screen protector or case on your phone, try removing them as that may be your issue.

Otherwise, it's most likely a hardware issue. Head to getsupport.apple.com to get help from Apple or visit a nearby Apple store.


The Windows iso image needs to be converted to a Read/Write format so the "Boot Camp Support Software" can be added to the USB flash drive.

Say, for Example, you wanted to use the Boot Camp Assistant to create a USB flash drive for the purposes of installing Windows 7. Apple lists the steps at the link "Perform a new install of Windows 7". Step 11 requires using the Finder application to manually copy the "Boot Camp Support Software" to the USB flash drive. Of course, for newer versions of Windows, the Boot Camp Assistant does this step for you.


There is no command in Homebrew Cask to forget an app.

However, there is a manual method: just delete the folder of the application you want to forget from /usr/local/Caskroom.


Contrary to what you write, the 2013 Mac Pro actually has TOSLINK output. The jack connector for the analog output doubles as an optical connection for digitally transferring the sound signal to your DAC.

This means that you can just use the TOSLINK solution that worked well for you before. You'll need a mini-TOSLINK to TOSLINK cable.


Some way to launch/display Notification Center from Quicksilver/Launchbar/Alfred?

Here is what you want:

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Notification Center"
        click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
    end tell
end tell

Then, just save the script, then just add it to quicksilver's triggers.


how can bind any string of text, so whenever you type it, it will be replaced into another string

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Text and add your text for Replace and With by clicking the + in the lower left of the window.

Once added, you can edit an entry by selecting the row and then click the field to open the edit window.

To remove a row, select it and then click the - in the lower left of the window.


Password prompted for app updates in phone 5

Try disabling your restrictions. Go to General, then scroll down to Restictions and type in your password. Select disable and try to update apps again.

If this doesn't work, confirm that the apps are connected to the same iTunes account used in the device in Settings.


Is there a simple texteditor accessible from the menu bar for making fast snippets?

NoteAway is a free* menu bar oriented notes app that seems ideal for your situation.

* with pro in app purchase


How to record phone conversation in iPhone 4?

Recorder
Recorder lets you record outgoing calls by using a 415 dial-in number, but for a fee ($2/hour, $13/8 hours).

Check it out on the iTunes store and purchase it for 99 cents


Log out or sign out of Apple's Bug Reporter AKA Radar?

Nm, I found it after clicking around. You have to click on the tiny padlock to sign out.


Cmd-Click to select the images you want to group and then opt-cmd-G to group them (find the group function under the ARRANGE menu), then the images will move as one unit. To ungroup the images shift-opt-cmd-G.


Sync multiple Google Calendars with iPhone Exchange... broken?

Damn... tried to switch to english language at several locations... Google website, Google calendar, iPhone itself...

...setting english at http://m.google.com/sync while viewing with iPhone Safari did the trick. The calendars selected there now sync with my iPhone!

Sometimes we need to ask a question to find a solution ourself.


Exporting pictures from iOS device without using a computer

Since the iPhone and iPod Touch don't have an SD card port or the inherent ability to mount a USB memory stick, you'll need to purchase 3rd party hardware (and potentially software) to transfer data to either of these media types without a computer.

A Google search on the subject could help. I can't make a product recommendation, but one place to start is with some reviews like this one at Wired's Gadget Lab


Command line developer tools missing after OSX update

They have fixed this on OSX El Capitan 10.11.4. I have just upgraded OSX and command line developer tools exists. I hope it will be fine on future updates too.


Can I have Windows share disk space with macOS?

Short answer

No, it is not possible (to my knowledge, at this time) to boot into one of the other operating systems from a disk image stored on another partition.

What I have done in the past is make a third partition that I use to share files between the two. I make both boot partitions large enough to store the most important things and then a third that I can store other files on whether they be Windows files or Mac files. It isn't a perfect solution but at least that way if you want more space for Mac stuff then you can format that partition in HFS+. If you want more space for Windows stuff you can format that partition in NTFS or exFAT or something.

If you do decide to do something like that then look into the proper way of doing so before you try. It isn't an easy process but it is at least easier than trying to do what you suggested. You can find some instructions on Ubuntu's website that help explain how to set up a triple boot system. Follow those instructions and just skip the step where you install Ubuntu. Instead, leave the last partition empty for storing stuff.

IMPORTANT: Don't forget to backup everything before trying any sort of partitioning on your main drive. You were warned.

Another option is to install a second drive if possible. I have an older MacBook Pro and I took the DVD drive out and put a second drive in its place. Thats the absolute easiest thing to do if you can.

As to your question about LVM. CoreStorage would allow you to set up partitions that can be resized later and the like, but Windows cannot boot from a CoreStorage partition. CoreStorage is strictly a macOS technology that no other OS recognizes. But that is a longer story for another time.

Longer answer

Your Mac's firmware that is in charge of finding and mounting a bootable partition does not have that ability. Maybe, just maybe in the Linux world that is possible but I'm not sure. But I know a Mac's firmware doesn't have that capability because that is not something 99.9999% of people would want to do.

When your Mac turns on the firmware (the baked in software that is stored on a chip on the motherboard) is in charge of finding a partition on your hard drive with an operating system that can boot. When booting to macOS the firmware (EFI on a Mac) finds a special partition on your hard drive called EFI (yes, the same name as the firmware), mounts that partition, and lets the software (called a boot loader) take over the boot process. The EFI is very small and has very limited capabilities since it has to live in a small chip on the motherboard. The boot loader can do more because the EFI partition on your hard drive is large enough to store a bigger program.

The boot loader then mounts the other drives on your disk and finds the partitions with macOS and depending on which drive you selected in the System Preferences it will boot macOS from the partition you chose (you can have many different partitions on the same hard drive with macOS installed on any of them).

When booting to Windows on a Mac your EFI does things a little differently. As far as I understand the boot loader on the EFI partition isn't used to boot Windows. Instead, the Windows installer puts a little chunk of code at the very beginning of you drive in the tiny space called the MBR. That space is measured in bytes. Not even kilobytes. Just bytes. It is absolutely tiny. So you can't do much with the boot loader stored there. All it does is find the Windows partition and direct the CPU there to finish booting. There is no space on the Windows boot loader to do much of anything else at all. Especially not to mount a drive, find the correct disk image on that drive and then mount and boot from that disk image. It wouldn't come close to fitting in the MBR.

Going back to the EFI partition there may be a chance of fitting enough software on that partition to do all the work necessary to boot from a disk image but again I'm not sure its possible. I'm not familiar enough with the boot process to know if it is. All I know for sure is that the current EFI and boot loader do not support anything like you are asking for.

Making a boot loader that does what you are looking for may be possible but it would require a lot of work and a strong understanding of how the whole boot process works.

The point is it would be a much better use of your time figuring out a better way to partition your hard drive then to try and mount one using a disk image.

I tried to explain things as best as I understand them but I may be wrong. Someone please correct me if I am.


The location of error_log is defined in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf. Run

grep '^ErrorLog' /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

to see the definition.


How to set environment variable in Yosemite for local ssh sessions

Did you try to add your variable to your .bash_profile: export MYVAR="Whatever"

$ . .bash_profile
$ echo $MYVAR
Whatever
$ ssh localhost
Password:
Last login: Tue Nov 18 18:58:41 2014 from localhost
$ echo $MYVAR
Whatever
$


Submitting a podcast to Apple results in "Can't read your feed"

It turns out the iTunes Store doesn't support certificates from Let's Encrypt, after discussion with Apple Support.


There in no setting/configuration available in iOS which can be used to achieve the desired customization.

I think the prevailing solution is to silence the audible ringer and wear an Apple watch so you can discretly check on a call and answer directly or choose to handle the call on the phone. For the near future, the phone will likely ring when it's ringing and not when it's not.


Different Apple ID for HomeSharing and iTunes Store on Apple TV

Yes, you can set up iTunes to have an 1 Apple ID signed into the store and a second Apple ID used for Home sharing.

You can also do this on an Apple TV. You are able to have multiple Apple ID's saved on an Apple TV and switch between them to login to the store.


I face similar problem with octave-GUI.

I run

killall -9 octave
killall -9 octave-gui

twice to get rid of that.

So you can run

killall -9 GIMP

Make sure you're using case sensitive name of the app.


iCloud Issue After El Capitan Update 10.11.2

It seems that I have found the answer to this issue. I ran the ACL permissions repair tool at the Terminal in Recovery Mode, but when I checked the ~/Library and its subfolders from the CLI, I found that many of the subfolders were owned by another user account. (How this happened is anyone's guess.) The solution here was to Get Info for the ~/Library folder, and then ensured that I had RW access to it. Then, I simply chose to Apply to Enclosed Items...


Can't close tabs on browsers using middle-click unless the browser has focus

Unfortunately, I'm afraid you're out of luck here. OSX never gives focus to a window unless you left-click on it or Cmd-Tab to it. There were some older solutions that could provide focus-follows-mouse, though they're not supported in the newest versions of OSX.

Sadly, middle-clicking non-focused Chrome tabs used to close them. But I believe this feature was lost once Mavericks came out. You can middle-click on some other apps (like Terminal), and they'll respond appropriately. But no browser seems to do so.

As for your question about using middle-click-and-drag to scroll, that's something I dearly miss from Windows, but I haven't found a free way to get it on Chrome in OSX (it works in Firefox, though). Smart Scroll is an app that offers "Vector Scroll", which works like the feature we want. But it costs $15.


Settings for Firewall and AirPort Extreme Router to Open a Port

Something's wrong.  If you've only got the Apple device between yourself and the internet - you've verified your external IP, you've lowered your machine's firewall, and you've DMZ'd your internal IP (which you've verified is correct...) - then the only way a connection can be halted is through another piece of software running on your machine.

If you go through all of those steps, you should be completely open to the internet.


In Notes.app, how do you add columns to a table?

Yes. Add a table and click on it and you should get something that looks like this:

Notice the two small rectangles, One on the left of row 3 and the other on top of column 2. Right-click on these small rectangles and you'll be given an option to add row or column.


How to ensure that windows opened from the Dock open in the current Space/Desktop

⌘ Command "click" on the minimized window in the dock, and it will restore (de-minimize) in the current workspace, regardless of which space it was on when it was minimized.


Can't restore from TM backup in recovery mode

On a 2012 MacBookPro the network boot image is Mavericks and that results in the messages reported by the OP when attempting a restore. Rather than performing a full install as suggested above, all that's needed is to create a High Sierra bootable USB as per https://support.apple.com/en-gb/ht201372, boot from the USB, and immediately select "Restore from a Time Machine Backup". The restore from a High Sierra boot works, whereas the Mavericks one does not.


You can use launchd.plist or use a program like Lingon (which is easier to use to create a launchd plist).


Is it safe to put a screen protector on Macbook Pro Retina?

It's generally safe on Macs without an anti glare coating and generally a bad idea if you ever want to go without the cover or care if your anti glare coating gets damaged.

Your Mac will have bigger problems than grease on the screen if you put it in bags where it gets pressure that causes the screen to touch the keys. I would avoid those situations or use a thin cloth on the keys if you are worried about grease transfer, grit and surface wear and abrasion on the glass.

Optically, you can sacrifice brightness and resolution/quality with some films - even the best quality (3M brand come to mind) ones. Unless you need a privacy filter or just feel better with a screen protector, I would recommend taking other measures to counteract your various issues and leave the glass as Apple designed it.

The one benefit of a film is if the adhesive is done well, it can cover up a damaged anti glare coating and also take surface nicks, keyboard rub damage and protect the gas if you Carr your Mac closed in a backpack where it can be pressed or jostled.

Also, if you have wearing of the glass, I have seen Apple cover that under AppleCare - they chose and designed the coatings and surfaces and make tradeoffs between gaps and durability. If you expect a function like retina screen to endure normal use - that retina screen resolution is not functioning properly if the glass has become worn.

I also have seen repairs declined to be covered under warranty (you can always pay for a cosmetic repair if you wish) when it's purely a cosmetic issue - not actually interfering with the proper function of the hardware:

Anti glare should last reasonably well
If there are no signs of damage or mis-alignment, gaps in the screen could either be covered or not covered.

Without knowing how you use the computer, it's hard to generalize what's the best tradeoff for your use case. Hopefully discussing your points helps you and others decide what to do.


Remove this file to disable using Adobe Reader for PDFs in Safari:

/Library/Internet Plug-ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin

http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/troubleshoot-safari-plug-acrobat-x.html

If you used Adobe's uninstaller, then you would think it would have deleted that for you anyway.


Problem running rst2html from command line

Try port contents py27-docutils | grep rst2html. It will tell you there's a /opt/local/bin/rst2html-2.7.py file, i.e. you can run rst2html-2.7.py on your command line.

The additional -2.7 in this filename is necessary to avoid conflicts between the different py*-docutils packages for different versions of python, e.g. if you want both the 2.7 and the 3.4 version installed. Of course you can create a symlink so you can use rst2html.py as usual:

sudo ln -s rst2html-2.7.py /opt/local/bin/rst2html.py