Is there a way to (or another app that) automatic download new tweets?

The iOS Mail app has special abilities not available to 3rd party apps, under the App Store rules. Specifically it has greater leeway on how it can act in the background. 3rd party apps can't update every x minutes, nor can they receive a trigger when connectivity is restored (I'm not actually sure that Mail.app gets this either, it may just be that it's push/scheduled check doesn't fail once connectivity is restored), although they can trigger downloads based on geofencing.

This sort of thing would be possible on a jailbroken device, but I don't know if any apps actually offer this functionality, perhaps someone can chime in.


Safari doesn't detect font installed on system

I believe that the reason for its being shown only in Chrome is most likely due to Safari's anti-fingerprinting techniques, which obfuscates currently installed system fonts from websites. However, as a by-product this prevents websites from displaying webpages from using a custom font that the user installed on the system (source).
Bear in mind that websites can still display custom fonts as long as they are loaded from a source external to your local filesystem, which is why a website like Google Fonts can still function.
Note: I am unsure why it's not possible for Safari to simply display the Roboto after the website has loaded. Surely that wouldn't reveal to the webpage host that Roboto was used, and thus installed on the system?


Allow symbolic links in SMB file sharing

Disable file sharing in the macOS GUI, but do the config there. Launch the SMB server yourself with this setting:
sudo /usr/sbin/smbd -no-symlinks false

Some symlinks still might not work, but just recreating them with another name worked fine for me.


Mouse scroll works only couple seconds after restart

Solved. Apparently deleting the app Logitech Options the regular way isn't enough. I did find the remaining file Logitech Uninstaller, when I got rid of it, the mouse started scrolling properly. It seems like Logi has some issues with the newest Logitech Options and it ruins scrolling drivers with Mojave. Thanks.


Looking at sys/proc_internal.h in xnu-1699.24.23, I find that PID_MAX is 99999.  The value is used in kern_fork.c in the function forkproc.  Looking at that function, process IDs are not assigned equal to PID_MAX, so the highest possible pid is 99998.


Auto unmount time machine drive on sleep

You can use ioreg to test if your lid is closed or open:

ioreg -r -k AppleClamshellState | grep AppleClamshellState

No= Lid is open
Yes= Lid is closed

You can use diskutil unmount /dev/<mydisk> to unmount the TimeCapsule.
Use diskutil list to find the disk location of the TimeCapsule.

Using if statements you can automate the job:

if [[ $(ioreg -r -k AppleClamshellState | grep AppleClamshellState | grep Yes) ]]; then echo Lid Closed; diskutil unmount /dev/<mydisk>; fi

You can use launchd to set up a automated job that is repeated for example every second (see how to here: http://alvinalexander.com/mac-os-x/mac-osx-startup-crontab-launchd-jobs)


Apple script - formatted text to strikethrough but how do I also change its colour? - In Notes

To automate changing the color of selected text in Notes it can be done with UI Scripting, which you are already using to click Strikethrough on the menu.

Since you did not specify a color or which tab on the Colors window you want to work with, I'll show two examples, one for the Pencils tab and the other for the Color Palettes tab.

With the text already selected in Notes, the following example AppleScript code works for me in macOS Catalina, using US English for the Language:

For the Pencils tab:

tell application "Notes" to activate

delay 0.25

tell application "System Events"

    --  # Click the Strikethrough menu.

    click menu item "Strikethrough" of ¬
        menu "Font" of ¬
        menu item "Font" of ¬
        menu "Format" of ¬
        menu bar item "Format" of ¬
        menu bar 1 of ¬
        application process "Notes"

    --  # Show the Colors window, if not visible.

    if not (exists window "Colors" of application process "Notes") then
        keystroke "c" using {shift down, command down}
        repeat until (exists window "Colors" of application process "Notes")
            delay 0.01
        end repeat
    end if

    --  # Change the color of the selected text.

    tell application process "Notes"
        tell window "Colors"
            --  # Click the Pencils tab.
            click (every button of toolbar 1 whose description is "Pencils")
            --  #
            --  # Valid colors for the Pencils tab are:
            --  #
            --  # "Licorice", "Lead", "Tungsten", "Iron", "Steel", "Tin", "Nickel", "Aluminum", "Magnesium", "Silver", "Mercury", "Snow",
            --  # "Cayenne", "Mocha", "Asparagus", "Fern", "Clover", "Moss", "Teal", "Ocean", Midnight", "Eggplant", "Plum", "Maroon",
            --  # "Maraschino", "Tangerine", "Lemon", "Lime", "Spring", "Sea Foam", "Turquoise", "Aqua", "Blueberry", "Grape", "Magenta", "Strawberry",
            --  # "Salmon", "Cantaloupe", "Banana", "Honeydew", "Flora", "Spindrift", "Ice", "Sky", "Orchid", "Lavender", "Bubblegum", "Carnation"
            --  #
            set myColor to "Tangerine"
            click (every radio button of ¬
                radio group 1 of ¬
                splitter group 1 whose description is myColor)
            click button 1 --   # Close the Colors window.
        end tell
    end tell

end tell

For the Color Palettes tab, use the following block of example AppleScript code in place of the same tell application process "Notes" block of code in the code shown above:

--  # Change the color of the selected text.

tell application process "Notes"
    tell window "Colors"
        --  # Click the Color Palettes tab.
        click (every button of toolbar 1 whose description is "Color Palettes")
        --  #
        --  # Valid colors for the Color Palettes tab are:
        --  #
        --  # "Black", "Blue", "Brown", "Cyan", "Green", "Magenta", "Orange", "Purple", "Red", "Yellow", "White"
        --  #
        set myColor to "Red"
        try
            select (every row of ¬
                table 1 of ¬
                scroll area 1 of ¬
                splitter group 1 ¬
                    whose value of text field 1 is myColor)
        end try
        click button 1 --   # Close the Colors window.
    end tell
end tell

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and, sans the included try statement in the code for the Color Palettes tab, does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


Will iCloud work with Mail and a Gmail account?

If you have a .mac or .me account, you will use that as your iCloud email address. Otherwise, you will get a new mail account. You can either forward your gmail messages or use two different accounts (or not use iCloud for mail).


Installing an older version of macOS onto an external drive

I’m assuming your ultimate goal is to get that 2011 iMac up and running, but you’re experiencing trepidation about the prospect of replacing the internal disk drive because it’s behind a large glass screen.

You don’t need to install macOS onto an external drive to get things working.

Create a USB installer. This model iMac supports Internet Recovery as well so this may be an option.  I personally prefer to have and use offline USB installers.
Replace the broken drive.  The 2011 iMac’s glass screen is held in place with magnets and the display is secured with Torx screws.  It’s actually an easy fix as described in this post (see TL;DR section)
You may need the in-line temperature sensor to prevent your fans from spinning up to full speed because the sensor came with the hard drive in these models.

You will then be able to boot your 2011 iMac, install your OS with the USB installer or Internet Recovery and ultimately have a fully operational iMac.


How to get old Dock Exposé on Mountain Lion?

Thankfully, this feature isn't completely gone. It has just, for some reason, been whisked away into the depths of less-than-obvious multi-touch gestures in OS X Lion and newer. You now have to double-tap an app icon on the Dock with two fingers to activate Dock Exposé.

I'm not sure if this gesture ever existed on OS X Snow Leopard.


What are all these extra hidden files (with hash digests) that I can only see when running "ls"?

I will offer one example involving files with the prefix ._.

I have two volumes named Steelhead2 and Shark3. The volume named Steelhead is hfs+ formatted and the volume named Shark3 is ExFAT formatted. Consider the file iprogram.txt which has extended attributes. I can display these attributes using the ls command as shown below.

Steelhead:Steelhead2 davidanderson$ ls -l@ /Volumes/Steelhead2/iprogram.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff  22668 May 26 10:22 /Volumes/Steelhead2/iprogram.txt
    com.apple.FinderInfo       32
    com.apple.TextEncoding     15

Using the Finder, I copy this file to an empty folder named dots on Shark3. Again using the ls command I get the following.

Steelhead:dots davidanderson$ ls -la@ /Volumes/Shark3/dots
total 1024
drwxrwxrwx  1 davidanderson  staff  131072 Jun  8 10:46 .
drwxrwxrwx  1 davidanderson  staff  131072 Dec 31  1979 ..
-rwxrwxrwx  1 davidanderson  staff    4096 Jun  8 10:47 ._iprogram.txt
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 davidanderson  staff   22668 May 26 10:22 iprogram.txt
    com.apple.FinderInfo        32
    com.apple.TextEncoding      15

Partitions formatted ExFat can not have extended attributes. So OS X created the file ._iprogram.txt to contain these attributes. Next, I create a new folder named dots on Steelhead2 and use the Finder to copy just iprogram.txt to this folder. Using ls, I get the following.

Steelhead:Steelhead2 davidanderson$ ls -la@ /Volumes/Steelhead2/dots
total 48
drwxr-xr-x   3 davidanderson  staff    102 Jun  8 11:12 .
drwxrwxr-x  26 davidanderson  staff    952 Jun  8 11:11 ..
-rwxrwxrwx@  1 davidanderson  staff  22668 May 26 10:22 iprogram.txt
    com.apple.FinderInfo       32
    com.apple.TextEncoding     15

Since Steelhead2 is hfs+ formatted, there is no need for a ._iprogram.txt file. Finally, returning to the folder /Volumes/Shark3/dots, I will remove the file ._iprogram.txt and enter the 'ls' command, as shown below.

Steelhead:dots davidanderson$ rm /Volumes/Shark3/dots/._iprogram.txt
Steelhead:dots davidanderson$ ls -la@ /Volumes/Shark3/dots
total 768
drwxrwxrwx  1 davidanderson  staff  131072 Jun  8 10:46 .
drwxrwxrwx  1 davidanderson  staff  131072 Dec 31  1979 ..
-rwxrwxrwx  1 davidanderson  staff   22668 May 26 10:22 iprogram.txt

The extended attributes are gone.

You are correct, these ._ prefixed files are hidden in the Finder. Even if you use defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE, these files remain hidden.

If you find ._ files in your hfs+ formatted partitions, some operation did not get synchronized property. Try using the command dot_clean to remove these '._' files. For more information either enter man dot_clean or see dot_clean -- Merge ._* files with corresponding native files.


Wifi speed: Desktop/laptop > iPad > iPhone?

iPhone 4S has a smaller antenna and slower processor (A5 vs. A5X) than iPad 3rd generation. More importantly, the iPhone 4S wi-fi is (802.11 b/g/n) 2.4 GHz only, while the third generation iPad has two channels — 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz and 5GHz.)

I don't think the iPad uses both channels at once, but I think if the second channel is more clear or faster to your router, it would not be surprising the iPad gets faster speeds over Wi-Fi. I think a faster processor alone would allow for faster Wi-Fi speeds.

Similarly, the faster CPUs in MacBooks and iMacs would allow for faster Wi-Fi speeds, even if the networking architecture is the same. (I suspect it isn't, and that there are larger antennas in Macs than iPads, which is another factor…)


Silhouette of full screen app using mission control stuck on screen

Mission Control is part of the Dock process. Restart the Dock to fix it.

killall Dock


An hour later...

Well that's interesting: if I stick it into a different device (a little usb camera) and plug that in, it complains a bit, then mounts!?

Mar 26 18:37:34 Johns-iMac.local com.apple.kextd[19]: Can't create kext cache under / - owner not root.
Mar 26 18:37:34 Johns-iMac.local com.apple.kextd[19]: IOBluetoothHostControllerUARTTransport.kext has no Info.plist file.
Mar 26 18:37:34 Johns-iMac.local com.apple.kextd[19]: Can't create kext cache under / - owner not root.
Mar 26 18:37:34 --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Mar 26 18:37:34 Johns-iMac kernel[0]: USBMSC Identifier (non-unique): 966110000000100 0x603 0x1001 0x100, 2
Mar 26 18:37:36 Johns-iMac.local com.apple.kextd[19]: Can't create kext cache under / - owner not root.
Mar 26 18:37:36 Johns-iMac.local com.apple.kextd[19]: IOBluetoothHostControllerUARTTransport.kext has no Info.plist file.
Mar 26 18:37:36 Johns-iMac.local com.apple.kextd[19]: Can't create kext cache under / - owner not root.
Mar 26 18:37:36 --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Mar 26 18:37:36 Johns-iMac.local fseventsd[20]: check_vol_last_mod_time:XXX failed to get mount time (25; &mount_time == 0x101eff498)
Mar 26 18:37:36 Johns-iMac.local fseventsd[20]: log dir: /Volumes/xbianboot/.fseventsd getting new uuid: 4898DEB3-E8EE-4FB0-BD08-EBECC37F3872
Mar 26 18:37:36 Johns-iMac.local mds[32]: (Volume.Normal:2464) volume:0x7f9020906800 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:1 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/xbianboot

From there Disk Utility is able to see it and I can Erase the contents and start over.

Came down to not using the usb multi card reader thingy.


Linux on Mac hardware: How to remove caps lock delay on Apple MacBook Pro aluminum keyboard when booted to Linux

I've figured out how to do this. In short, you must send a "Feature Report" consisting of the bytes 0x9, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0 to the appropriate hidraw device as root.

You can find the right hidraw device with this command:

dmesg | grep Apple | grep Keyboard | grep input0 | tail -1 | sed -e 's/.*hidraw\([[:digit:]]\+\).*/\/dev\/hidraw\1/'

The code to send the magic control packet is below. Compiles with gcc, takes the hidraw device as parameter. So the entire flow is:

save the code below as disable-capslock-delay.c
gcc -o disable-capslock-delay disable-capslock-delay.c
HIDDEVICE=$(dmesg | grep Apple | grep Keyboard | grep input0 | tail -1 | sed -e 's/.*hidraw\([[:digit:]]\+\).*/\/dev\/hidraw\1/')
sudo ./disable-capslock-delay $HIDDEVICE

Steps 3 and 4 have to be done every time you reboot (or unplug and re-plug the keyboard); you can put them into /etc/rc.local (or your distro's equivalent) to execute them at boot (you don't need sudo in that case; and you might want to move the compiled binary into /usr/local/sbin/ or something).

I've put in some safety checks for vendor ID, device ID, and report descriptor length. You may have to change the latter two if your model differs from mine.

#include <linux/hidraw.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
  if (argc != 2 || strcmp(argv[1], "-h") == 0) {
    printf("Pass a hidraw device as the first and only parameter!\n");
    printf("You may find the right device with:\n");
    printf("  dmesg | grep Apple | grep Keyboard | grep input0 | tail -1 | "
           "sed -e 's/.hidraw\([[:digit:]]\+\)./\/dev\/hidraw\1/'\n");
    return 1;
  }
  int fd, i, res, desc_size = 0;
  char buf[256];
  struct hidraw_devinfo info;
  char *device = argv[1];
  fd = open(device, O_RDWR | O_NONBLOCK);
  if (fd < 0) {
    perror("Unable to open device");
    return 1;
  }
  memset(&info, 0, sizeof(info));
  memset(buf, 0, sizeof(buf));
  // Get Report Descriptor Size
  res = ioctl(fd, HIDIOCGRDESCSIZE, &desc_size);
  if (res < 0) {
    perror("HIDIOCGRDESCSIZE");
  }
  if (desc_size != 75) {
    printf("Error: unexpected descriptor size %d; you've probably got "
           "the wrong hidraw device!\n", desc_size);
    return 1;
  }
  // Get Raw Info
  res = ioctl(fd, HIDIOCGRAWINFO, &info);
  if (res < 0) {
    perror("HIDIOCGRAWINFO");
  } else {
    if (info.vendor != 0x05ac) {
      printf("Error: Wrong vendor ID, make sure you got the right "
             "hidraw device!\n");
      return 1;
    }
    if (info.product != 0x0250) {
      printf("Warning: Unknown product ID 0x%x!\n", info.product);
    }
  }
  // Get Feature
  buf[0] = 0x09;  // Report Number
  res = ioctl(fd, HIDIOCGFEATURE(256), buf);
  if (res < 0) {
    perror("HIDIOCGFEATURE");
  } else {
    printf("HID Feature Report (before change):\n\t");
    for (i = 0; i < res; i++) printf("%hhx ", buf[i]);
    puts("\n");
  }
  // Set Feature
  buf[0] = 0x09;  // Report Number
  buf[1] = 0x00;  // Report data
  buf[2] = 0x00;  // padding
  buf[3] = 0x00;  // padding
  res = ioctl(fd, HIDIOCSFEATURE(4), buf);
  if (res < 0) {
    perror("HIDIOCSFEATURE");
  } else {
    printf("Caps lock delay disabled.\n");
  }
  // Get Feature
  buf[0] = 0x09;  // Report Number
  res = ioctl(fd, HIDIOCGFEATURE(256), buf);
  if (res < 0) {
    perror("HIDIOCGFEATURE");
  } else {
    printf("HID Feature Report (after change):\n\t");
    for (i = 0; i < res; i++) printf("%hhx ", buf[i]);
    puts("\n");
  }
  close(fd);
  return 0;
}


Bootcamp "Missing Operating System" on external drive

Your posted output, from sudo fdisk /dev/disk2, shows a * next to the number 2. This means partition 2 is flagged in the MBR table as the bootable partition. The * should be next to the number 1, because I assume this is your bootable Windows partition. You can use the sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk2 command to move the *. This command is interactive. The interactive input would be flag 1, quit and yes.


Recovery mode behind corporate proxy Sierra

(I know the phone hotspot didn't work for you, but it worked for me, so I'm posting it as an answer for others' benefit.)

Background: Macs need to connect to the internet when installing macOS, even if you have a USB bootable installer. It needs to download info from apple.com. The problem is that it doesn't work when behind a proxy.

The workaround is to use your phone's wifi hotspot for the initial verification step. If you use a USB bootable installer, then it won't need to download the 5+ GB through your phone's wifi hotspot.

Create a USB bootable installer. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
Unplug any ethernet cables to your mac. Otherwise, even if you connect to your phone's wifi hotspot, it will use the ethernet adapter, which will fail in the corporate network.
Boot to the USB. Before you click on "Install macOS", choose the wifi network (your phone's hotspot).
Then continue the rest of the installation steps. If the wifi works, then you should see the License Agreement screen pretty quickly (less than 1 minute). If it's hanging more than 1 minute, it probably can't get through to the internet.

If you're using the USB bootable installer, you can turn off your phone hotspot after the install process has done a few reboots and is in the "Estimated time remaining..." phase.


How can I make Spotlight preview column always visible?

Not exactly a permanent fix that you can set by default. But when you search in spotlight, you can just press tab after typing your search, and it will pop up the column preview. You don't have to select any of the search results to enable column view, just press tab after typing your search in spotlight


Mail sent from Apple Mail is not show in Gmail's Sent folder

Ensure that in your mail settings you have:

IMAP Path Prefix: [Gmail]

Under the Mailbox Behaviors tab in Accounts settings you have checked:

√ Store sent messages on the server
Delete sent messages when: Never

In the Sidebar of Mail, there should be grey subheadings for your accounts. Under the Grey subheading for your gmail account, you will find folders with titles of your gmail tags (e.g. Important, Starred, etc.) If you see one there called Sent Mail, select it, and select this menu item: Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Sent.


Before Catalina, do live photos count as both photo and video in the "Photos" app tally?

No, they weren't counted twice in Mojave for example.


How do I delete files from a timemachine backup

You need to 'Enter Time Machine' by clicking on the menu bar icon that looks like a clock face. One of the options is to enter time machine. This transforms your screen temporarily into a time machine window. From there you can select and delete time machine files.


Recorded song in GarageBand and uploaded to iCloud but file now missing from phone

I found some instructions that might help you with your problem.

  When you want to send a song to iCloud, tap on the Edit button and
  select a song (or songs). With iCloud enabled in the app, you will now
  see an iCloud icon along the top bar. Tapping on the iCloud icon will
  bring up a prompt, asking if you want to send the song(s) to iCloud.

  After the song is uploaded to iCloud, you will see an iCloud logo in
  the top-right corner of the song thumbnail, indicating a successful
  upload and the fact that the song is stored in the cloud.


How to run a downloaded run-only Applescript

You could run it from the script menu by putting the script in ~/Library/Scripts/ and checking Show Script menu in menu bar in AppleScript Editor's preferences.


I can not reproduce this issue, so it should not happen by default. TAB works as expected in zsh (as in bash). What version of OSX are you using? This is in a standard terminal window right? Do you have something in your .zshrc file relating to custom completion settings?

Try deleting your .zshrc file and run the zsh shell again,

mv .zshrc .zshrc.old
zsh

This should fix your issue.


Is there a macOS utility that lets me assign a keyboard shortcut for switching to a particular window?

Keyboard Maestro
Keyboard Maestro is a paid-for application that allows the creation of hotkeys (amongst many other types of trigger) and has a builtin function to target tabs within Safari or Google Chrome.
It references tabs by index number, e.g. tab 1 being the first tab, tab 2 being the second, and so on.
Here's a macro that took 2 minutes to create and assigns a group of ten hotkeys CmdAlt+0...9, each of which trigger their respective tab in Google Chrome, if the tab exists, and brings it to the foreground (0 represents tab 10 in this instance).

If you needed to be able to reference tabs by their title rather than a fixed index number (in case you changed the order of the tabs), you'd have to use a bit of AppleScript to achieve a similar result.
This piece of AppleScript is of particular value:
    tell application "Google Chrome" to tell its front window to ¬
        if exists (first tab whose title contains "IMDB") then ¬
            repeat until active tab's title contains "IMDB"
                set active tab index to ¬
                    (active tab index mod (number of tabs)) + 1
            end repeat

Alfred
An identical result can be achieved with Alfred, in a slightly different construction of its workflow to that of the macro used in Keyboard Maestro.  Alfred doesn't have a builtin command to switch to a specific browser tab, so a little bit of AppleScript has to fill that gap.
Here's the basic workflow layout:

On the left, I created just four hotkey triggers, but you can create as many as you wish.  I mirrored the CmdAlt+1,2, ... format I used in Keyboard Maestro for a direct comparison.
The superimposed orange-dashed window shows the settings for the second hotkey, specifically in supplying it a numerical parameter—2 in its case—that gets passed as an argument into the subsequent AppleScript.  Each hotkey has a similar numerical parameter it will deliver to that one script upon triggering.
Here's the AppleScript that performs the action triggered by these hotkeys:
    on run argv

        set n to argv as number

        tell application "Google Chrome" to ¬
            tell its front window to ¬
                set the active tab index to n

        activate application "Google Chrome"

    end run

It would be easy enough to add a few lines to include Safari as an option too, depending which browser was active last when the hotkey is triggered.
Alfred and Keyboard Maestro play quite well together, too, as each has the ability to trigger workflows/macros from external sources, including from each other.  So, an Alfred trigger can initiate a KM macro, and, likewise, a KM trigger can initiate an Alfred workflow.


I have fixed the problem. What I did is: under System Preference - > Displays go to Color Tab. I calibrated both the displays differently to match color with each other.


Google Chrome

Its own UI, not web pages

The following settings in TinkerTool affect the following pieces of Chrome's own UI:

Chrome address bar, i.e. URL:  System in TinkerTool (default font: Lucida Grande; largest size possible is 16 pt; larger sizes are truncated)
titles of tabs:  Help tags (default font: Lucida Grande; largest size possible is 13 pt; larger sizes are truncated. Bold is ignored, it's always Regular)
Chrome's ex-Wrench menu (top right corner): Messages (default font: Lucida Grande; upper limit is something like 24 pt, further increasing the number has no effect)

Web page content

Default zoom: Wrench > Settings (⌘ ,) > Show advanced settings > Web content > {Font size, Page zoom}. Both also affect how Settings page is zoomed.
For a particular site: ⌘ + / ⌘ -


I have a feeling that you likely resolved your issue since this was a few months ago, but just in case someone else runs across this in the future:

I had this exact issue - no changes to use preferences and this just happened all the sudden. It wound up being a special system extension (an awesome one, minus this Focus follows mouse feature) called Afloat. It has a menu bar option in all OS X applications under Window>Focus Follows mouse that is easily accidentally selected.


Google authenticator iOS app crash / fails to load after iOS 14.2 update

You have to reinstall the application without deleting it:

Go to Settings > iPhone Storage
Find Authenticator
Tap "Offload App"
After the process tap "Re-install App"

This provides to remove and install the application part, not your data/tokens. Your data remains.
I tried and succeeded on iPhone XS iOS 14.2.


How to arrange two windows easily to left and right side? v2

This will be a new feature for the next OS X release: El Capitan

So I would suggest: wait for El Capitan :)


A new modular Mac Pro will ship sometime in 2019, along with a new Apple display.

https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/06/2019-mac-pro/


How to know what's my iphone 4s carrier using IMEI?

Indeed, Apple cannot provide you such information and they do not either unlock iPhones. This can be done only through the Mobile Network in which your iPhone is locked to, and you need to meet some criteria (I think they are different to every carrier). The number one requirement is to have paid all the monthly fees and you are the owner of that iPhone (That was very obvious).
Now, in order to find out the Network that blocks your iPhone, you will have to find an online IMEI Checker, like the one it is mentioned in a previous answer. The free imei checker (unfortunately), are not always accurate (I have checked many times the same imei number, and in some cases [very few] the results were changing). There are some paid IMEI checker services, which are very cheap and in case of false results they will fully refund you. You can check the IMEI Checker I have used, and their results (Until now) are very accurate.
I highly recommend to everyone to make those kind of checks before buying an iPhone from an online store. Unfortunately I learn it the hard way, so always double check what you are going to buy! :S


Require a Password When Woken From Sleep Only When Specifically Requested?

The following assumes you have/use a Login password:

do shell script "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend"

This can be used in AppleScript to invoke the Login window, which will not close whatever you currently have open and as such when you log back in, your Desktop is as you left it.

This way you can have the "Require password ... after sleep or screen saver begins" check box in Security & Privacy's General tab unchecked but still not let someone have immediate access after you walk away, having invoked the Login window.


Unable to retrieve deleted iPhone contacts

Your iCloud account was probably something you created when you bought the phone or updated. It's part of the Find My iPhone feature that prevents your phone from being used by someone else if it's stolen.

You need to regain access to your iCloud account, using http://iforgot.apple.com is a good start to reset your password.

You should check your iPhone Settings app in iCloud to see if Find My iPhone is enabled, if it is you will not be able to disable this without the password, and if you ever have to restore the phone again you will require this password.


NTFS Read/Write Broken Under El Capitan?

afaik (ntfs) writing is not supported in osx and macos.
use a ntfs driver, check its compatibility for your os.


Why would I want to update the iOS on my iPad 2?

The reason that has gotten me finally persuaded to update to iOS 8 was the fact that more and more apps called for mandatory update and would otherwise refuse to run. The one that immediately comes to mind in NFL Game Pass. Also my kids told me that some of the games they wanted to play wouldn't run on iOS 6.

I must say that I was a little afraid to upgrade as I was expecting performance issues on part of iPad 2... I am pleasantly suprised though - there are of course minor lags here and there, but it's not like the update has rendered the iPad unusable - on the contrary.

So all in all if it's just a matter of preference - it's entirely up to you whether you do it or not, but if you have essential apps calling for the upgrade, I don't see a reason to stay with iOS 6.

I hope that has shed some light on the matter for you.


MacBook Pro stuck on loading screen trying to boot from new SSD

Software causes
Possibly OS X might be booting expecting to have to work with the USB bus and getting confused by the fact it's now over SATA?
It in theory should handle that fine, but back in the day that did happen sometimes when making a clean install on a drive over USB and then moving it to SATA.
Never had the problem with Cloning an existing drive since then the OS was still set up like it was on the drive that you replaced, but clean installs sometimes would get set up in such at way that when it was no longer using USB to boot it would just hang.
So if that's it, running the install afresh should fix it up.
Just checking as well, is the SSD formatted as a GUID partition table, with a Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) filesystem?
Hardware Causes
If the above doesn't fit it, but the SSD works fine over the USB to SATA connector, then it might be a problem with the Hard Drive flex cable in your Mac, or possibly (though pretty unlikely, really) the SATA controller on the Logic Board.
Were you replacing the Hard Drive just because you felt like it was a upgrade, or were you having problems with it before. If you were previously having problems, the flex cable could very likely be your culprit.
Other than that, if you accidentally disturbed the Memory modules in your Mac, it is possible it might be hanging just because of that and removing and reinstalling them could get you up and running again. Best to se if you can start the computer from your removed hard drive or the Install CDs that came with the Mac first since if either of those work ok, then it is not the Memory, and you don't really want to handle those modules if you don't have to.
More Troubleshooting
Here is a bit more information you can update your post with that can help the folks here troubleshoot with you

SSD model
How you formatted the SSD
Was the Hard Drive working fine before replacement
Was the computer powered down normally (Apple Menu > Shut Down)
before the SSD was disconnected after you installed it
Can you start the computer by holding the Command and R keys


Assuming you know his iCloud account details (which you will need anyway in order to remove the activation lock to give the iPhone to a new user) you can download the Contacts as a series of vCards directly from https://www.icloud.com/#contacts

Click the Gear icon bottom left, 'Select All', then 'Export vCard…' It will download a single file, called [First Contact Name] and [number] others.vcf
e.g. "Fred Smith and 27 others.vcf"
It will also try to import them immediately into Contacts on a Mac, but you can cancel that operation if that's not your desired result.


How to recover a corrupted external drive encrypted by FileVault?

Before all, you need to be sure that the drive is 100% healthy at hardware level.

The first thing I would do is checking the S.M.A.R.T values on a computer running Windows, using a tool like HD Sentinel or equivalent. This will give you a good estimation about in which condition the drive is.

You should test the drive connected in an external USB or eSATA dock as the original drive enclosure may also have problems, like weak electrical contact or so.

Then, I would low level clone the drive to another one.
Even if its condition is 100% Ok according to the S.M.A.R.T. values.
This step can reveal a few defective sectors, which were not referenced yet by the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring.

Even if your drive is 100% healthy, every serious data recovery professional will tell you than in a situation like the one you're encountering, we never work on the original drive, but always on a clone, especially when possibly dangerous commands like verify/repair ones are used.

The fact that your drive suggests that you should initialize it (-- don't to it ! --) if often an indicator or hardware issues, like corrupted firmware or damaged heads, requiring data recovery by a company that is specialized in data recovery (and not the first local computer shop you can find).


spaces and dual monitor: separate setup for each monitor?

It's not the exact answer you were looking for in the Mac OS but it is an alternative.

You can try TotalSpaces at http://totalspaces.binaryage.com/

It's been the only thing close to what you are looking for.


Use an iMac with Thunderbolt as an external display

I should had read the KBase better .... Use your iMac as a display

  Note: Target Display Mode isn’t supported on iMac models with Retina
  display. Only iMac (27-inch, Late 2009), iMac (27-inch, Mid 2010), and
  iMac (Mid 2011 to Mid 2014) support Target Display Mode.


Since you can boot into OS X by holding down the Option key and selecting your OS X partition, you just need to set the Startup Partition in System Preferences.

How do I set OS X to boot by default?

This will be persistent across reboots.


LaunchAgent loads app but clicking app icon doesn't


I downloaded a shell executable and man pages from a source I trust. Where should I put them?

The binary file goes in /usr/local/bin. Each man page goes in the folder usr/local/share/man/manN where N is the number at the end of the man page file name. For example, gdisk.8 should appear in the folder /usr/local/share/man/man8. When finished adding all man pages, you should run the command
/usr/libexec/makewhatis /usr/local/share/man

to update the whatis database stored in the text file /usr/local/share/man/whatis. This whatis text file is used by the whatis and apropos commands.


It's not a normal thing.
Sometimes I get a bit of shock when my Macbook Pro 2017 put in charge in a place that the grounding is not good. I usually wear rubber slippers or not touching a wall or floor.
Maybe something wrong with your electricity grounding. Try to charge another laptop in your place, or try to charge your Macbook Pro in other places.
If the problem exists wherever you try to charge your Macbook Pro, you can ask the place where you bought your Macbook.


iPhone reports 2 Hotspot connections even though only one of my devices is connected

Other devices (including iPads, iPods, Macs, and other iPhones) connected to the same iCloud account as your iPhone will, if in WiFi range, automatically connect to your iPhone's hotspot when it's turned on (according to this Apple Support page and my personal experience). That means if any of your other devices are lying around, they will automatically connect to your iPhone's hotspot using iCloud.

tl;dr: Other devices tied to the same iCloud account might automatically be joining your iPhone's hotspot network.


Is there a software that can visually highlight focused windows more?

This is Mavericks specific, but Honer will draw a border around the active window. You might also want to combine it with this app that removes window shadows.


Accept Invite in iCal - without Mail.app

Theres a pre written apple script solution for this and fairly easy instructions that any apple script novice should be able to follow. You can find the download and instructions here.


PhotoStream on iPhoto-MacBook is different from PhotoStream-iPad

Apple has a fairly comprehensive troubleshooting article for isolating any inconsistencies like you have observed and clearly, the design of Photo Stream is that there is one set of pictures available from the cloud (the web  interface) as well as each device that has the stream enabled.

TS3989 - iCloud: Photo Stream troubleshooting

Why not work your way through that document and then ask a second question if needed if you run into problems on a specific step? I like to power off both the devices and then start with one to work through the process to see if it's working properly, and then proceed to the next device or computer.


Can I ask Siri to connect an Apple TV to my AirPods?

There is no way to use Siri to connect your AirPods to your Apple TV: not listed on Apple’s “Use Siri on your Apple TV” article.

The fastest ways I’ve found are to swipe down from the top and select them in audio settings (for apps that support it) or hold the Play/Pause button when in the “menu”/“TV” view, to see your Bluetooth output options.


Is it possible to change the from address on Mac OS X server email alerts?

I know this question is a few years old, but I had the same issue some up today. I resolved it with help from this post:

https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-postfix-masquerade-change-email-mail-address.html

This was on a Mac server that did not have mail enabled. Apparently even with postfix disabled, the alerts function fires it up just long enough to send the alert email and then closes it again. Running nettop while sending the test alert email lets you see sendmail kick off, followed by postdrop, master, pickup and qmgr.

I found five different locations for the main.cf file file, but the one that seemed to be active was located in:

/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix

Edit that file to append this line:

smtp_generic_maps = hash:/Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/generic

Then edit generic by appending the mapping you want:

alerts@server.local alerts@validdomain.com
Then run:

postmap /Library/Server/Mail/Config/postfix/generic


Reboot the phone.
If no better ring your provider.

Mine did that after I changed my phone contract [with the same provider, just a different plan] & they had to reset it from their end.


What kind of SSD is compatible for MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010)?

Any SSD in a 2.5 inch form factor package will work. Pre-2013 models used standard drives, after that they went ssd-only.


Mac apache not working - apachectl configtest errors

Looks like you have an extra conf file in the other directory. This file (+php-osx.conf) is trying to load PHP from /usr/local, rather than the system-supplied PHP. I know my PHP install works and am using the bog-standard Apple supplied Apache and PHP. Call to PHP module should be in the main httpd.conf file - this line is there, but commented out, by default in the Apple-supplied config:

LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

And in other there should only be the single php5.conf file, contents:

<IfModule php5_module>
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
    AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

    <IfModule dir_module>
        DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
    </IfModule>
</IfModule>

The Apple-provided Apache2 should include the default config files in /etc/apache2, labeled with a suffix such as .original, .pre-update, or ~previous. Same goes for the conf files in subdirectories.


Can BeejiveIM for iPhone block unwanted add requests?

I don't have a Yahoo account to investigate for you, but I know that with AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) accounts you can change the security settings to:

Allow Anyone
Allow People in my Buddy List
Allow Specific People
Block Everyone
Block Specific People

I would assume that logging into Yahoo! directly that you would have similar settings available to you. Then, no matter what client you would use on your iPhone when logged into the Yahoo! account, the settings you already placed into Yahoo! would translate over.


Cannot partition SSD in Bootcamp or Disk Utility

Many users have posted problems similar to yours. In every case, APFS in involved.

Below are the instructions for installing Windows 10.

  Note: To get a better view of the images shown below, either click on an image or open an image in a new window.

(In your case, you can skip this step.) Remove all Windows related partitions that may have been created by previous attempts to install Windows. When finished, the output from the command diskutil list disk0 should appear similar to what is shown below. Other users should assume their sizes will be different.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         500.1 GB   disk0s2

The command below will create the 150 GB "BOOTCAMP" partition on your internal drive. If you want a different size, then make the appropriate subsitutions. The space occupied by this partition will be used for installing Windows.

  Note: The two sizes given in the command below need to equal the size of your disk0s2. In other words, 350.1 + 150 = 500.1.

sudo  diskutil  apfs  resizeContainer  disk0s2  350.1G  FAT32  BOOTCAMP  150G

Use the Disk Utility application to erase a 16 GB or larger USB flash drive. Enter the settings shown below in the popup window. When finished, do not remove the flash drive.

Use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Window Support Software. Look for the "Action" pulldown on the Boot Camp Assistant menu bar. On my Mac, these files were downloaded to the ~/WindowsSupport directory.

  Note: You can not download the Boot Camp Support Software for your Mac computer from any Apple website. You must use the Boot Camp Assistant to download an officially copy of this software.

Mount the Windows iso file and copy the contents to the "WINSTALL" volume. You will need the use the cp command from a Terminal application window. Below is the exact command I usually use. The string ESD-ISO is the name of the mounted ISO file from Microsoft. If necessary, make the appropriate modifications.

cp  -Rv  /volumes/ESD-ISO/  /volumes/WINSTALL

  Note: This command will take a while to complete. Be patient!

Copy the Windows Support Software to the "WINSTALL" volume. Below is the exact command I usually use. If necessary, make the appropriate modifications.

cp  -Rv  ~/WindowsSupport/  /volumes/WINSTALL

Continue starting at step 3 of my answer to the question Boot Camp Assistance is stuck on create a partition?


MacOS 10.13.6 Can't delete or remove applications

What application are you trying to remove? Have you tried with an uninstaller tool?

For exemple, you can follow this to fully uninstall Office 2011: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/troubleshoot-office-2011-for-mac-issues-by-completely-uninstalling-before-you-reinstall-ba8d8d13-0015-4eea-b60b-7719c2cedd17

Many application has the same type of uninstaller.


Does Time Machine check that old backed up files are present and not corrupted?

If you hold the "Option" key while clicking the Time Machine icon in the menu bar, there is an option "Verify Backups".

If the Time Machine icon is not in your Menu Bar, go to System Preferences, Time Machine, and tick the "Show Time Machine in Menu Bar".

I can't see any other way to get to the "Verify Backups" other than through the item in the menu bar.


SuperDuper! has an option to repair permissions on the source volume before copying. Normally this shouldn’t take 1 hour, unless maybe you’ve never run a permissions repair in the last years and the permissions are totally screwed.

I would try this:

Do the permissions repair with Apple’s Disk Utility app.
Start SD, click on the Options… button, then, under the General tab, deselect the option Before copy … Repair permissions on <source volume>.
Start copying.


The open with menu just reads the launch services database.
Normally this database self cleans, but can need a clean wipe on occasion.

Duplicate entries in "Open With" menu in Finder even after rebuilding Launch Services

Whether or not a virus is installed won’t be determined by this alone. You’ll want to scan for that using a tool you trust or erase install and review all apps and extensions manually if that’s to your taste.


How to make Finder show icon thumbnail for some Excel documents?

The document filename doesn't matter as much as its extension. Usually .xls or .xlsx will preview OK where comma separated values, tab delimited documents, or something other "spreadsheet" format, which are really just text files rendered in Excel or Numbers, may not preview the way you expect in the Finder.


Better to migrate before upgrade to Lion, or upgrade before migrating?

It is best to upgrade and then migrate. Usually problems occur while upgrading, and it is best to upgrade or install from scratch, as opposed to upgrade on a system which might have something incompatible already installed.


How to lock a MacBook Pro (Touch Bar version) with a short cut key?


Pages for iPhone: how to add a page break?

Double-tap where you want the break to occur.
  Tap More button until you see Insert, tap it, then tap Line Break or Page Break.

  If you don’t see Page Break, your document is a page layout document and doesn’t use page breaks. In that case, open the document in Pages on your Mac, add a new page, then open the document again on your iOS device.

Pages for iOS (iPhone, iPod touch): Add line, page, and column breaks


Mac OSX Apple Script, How do I make Apple Script push keys on an application

You might also add a delay somewhere in the loop to make it easier to stop the script:

activate application "TextEdit"
delay 0.5 -- time to release modifier keys if the script is run with a keyboard shortcut
tell application "System Events"
    repeat while name of (process 1 where frontmost is true) is "TextEdit"
        repeat 50 times
            key code 126 -- up
            delay 0.1
        end repeat
        repeat 50 times
            key code 125 -- down
            delay 0.1
        end repeat
        delay 0.5
    end repeat
end tell

See Events.h or my website for the key codes.


Find which files are shared in iCloud Drive

I'd like to have a robust method to find this out too. The only method I know is this: (bold is the key step, very verbose here to be understood by everyone)

go to the iCloud Drive folder you want to find shared files
search in this folder, by say, Cmd + F
make sure current directory is selected, not "This Mac"
search by string shared by me (quoted "shared by me" would not work)
hopefully all documents "shared by me" is shown, per document,

optionally, right click and click Show in Enclosing Folder, only in the enclosing folder you will be able to see the file is marked as "shared by me"
right click on the "Shared by me" file, Share > Show People
select Share Options, choose Stop Sharing

This method is not robust however as you can imagine if a document has a name containing "shared by me" or so would match.

I tried checking the xattr without success. It will be great if there's a robust method be it command line or GUI.


How do I delete podcasts in iTunes without deleting them from my iPod?

It's supposed to be a cloud syncing feature - all devices kept in sync everywhere.

Curious why do you want to delete it from your computer before you're ready to delete it from your ipod. I wait until I've listened to the podcast, then resync to the computer, podcast becomes marked as "listened" then I know I can delete.


what are some good apps for backing up all iphone data to dropbox?

Due to the sandboxing applied to all application in iOS it is not possible to backup "everything" to Dropbox. Dropbox access must be enabled by the individual application (as a lot of text editors etc. do) or be based on public APIs (like for Photos).

If you are just looking for a way to easily backup everything, iCloud backup would be an option. But you'll need an iPhone to recover any data from there as well.


iPhoto claims there is an update available


If you are using Spaces as well as FullScreen (which it sounds like you are) Yes, this has always been the case.  However, with OS X the default is Desktop #1.  You can set your growl Notifications for a different desktop and they won't appear when not on that desktop.

I hope this answers your question.


Some applications open in low resolution

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

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

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


Apple has many calendars you can add: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/calendars/


Run untrusted application safely through sandbox-exec command

I know it's an old question, but maybe someone finds the answer useful.

The trace operation generates rules in the given output file.

  These rules are for operations that would have been denied.
  (source: Apple Sandbox Guide)

Which means: the operations are not denied by the deny rules if the trace operator is in the profile file.


How to stop an iPhone from automatically deleting trashed emails over a week old?

To change the setting, go to Settings → Mail, Contacts, Calendars → iCloud → Mail (under Advanced) → Advanced → Remove (under Deleted Messages) and set the time period after which deleted messages are removed.

You should not expect anything deleted to persist at all. You have instructed for it to be deleted and this is what you should expect.


Mac Book Pro 2.2 (2008) Core 2 Duo, display and trackpad stopped working

my 2008 santa rosa 2.2GHz MacBook Pro has suffered both the graphic chip problem (no picture on screen but accessible through screen sharing apps or ext monitor), and the trackpad cable problem (no response from keyboard or trackpad although ext mouse and keyboard function ok). Both are common faults on this model. Graphics prob repairable under the special warranty extension from Apple. Trackpad cable fairly easy using ifixit.com guide.

When my graphics card was in broken mode, (it was intermittent), it would not show up in the Graphics/Displays section of System Information (Lion); the Intel chipset would show up there instead; so thus you can check if you have the graphics chip (poor solderflow) problem. It would however give me the output to an external monitor ok (?!*)

It sounds as though you might have suffered both at the same time...although your ext mouse should work(?!*)


How to ensure connections to certain hosts are routed via ethernet?

Use VLANs. Put your wifi on one VLAN, and your internal network on another VLAN. Don't allow wifi users to access the internal VLAN, and make sure hard wired connections are on the internal VLAN.

This lets your switch/router handle the job, instead of setting up individual routes on employee machines.


Does High Sierra erase FileVault key on hibernate?

Apparently removing /Library/Preferences/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist, and then running an pmset -a DestroyFVKeyOnStandby 1 as Root has gotten things working reliably again.

I have no idea what is causing this file to take precedence over the com.apple.PowerManagement.<UUID>.plist file again on every update, but it is rather annoying to have to remember to remove the non-UUID config file every time.


Assuming you're referring to the system menus, they're not meant to do anything when you hover over them, you have to click.


Set default mail client without adding mail account

I finally found something easy that worked, the SetDefaultMailApp from Microsoft:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/troubleshoot/outlook-for-mac/useful-tools#setdefaultmailapp


How should I react to an email saying my Apple password has changed?

We can't tell if it's a phishing email or not because you didn't supply any info about it. It's probably phishing because it often is.

To be safe, just go to Apple's ID Reset page on a device you trust and reset your password. This is especially urgent if you used your AppleID password at another service that was compromised, or it’s easy to guess - one of the 1,000 most common passwords like 123456.

If you're allowed to complete the reset then you know the emails, both of them, were fake.

If you can't do the reset, you'll have to contact Apple Support ASAP. In no circumstances should you click the links directly in the emails since if they're fake, the web sites you click on will harvest your actual password and you will have given up access to your account. If they are real, you will have the best chance to undo the change that was made by following Apple’s recovery from navigating to Apple pages directly:

https://appleid.apple.com/

Here’s an explanation how to trace a mail and find out if it’s legitimate with images in case that helps:

Is this a legitimate email address from Apple support?


FileVault 2 caches main password even after power off?

FileVault should use whatever is the current password for your account. When you change your user accounts password, FileVault will be updated with the new password.

We can get what you want — a long FileVault password and a short user account password — by creating two user accounts.

When you first enable FileVault, only the user account that you use to start FileVault will be setup to unlock FileVault. You can use the FileVault System Preferences to add other accounts to unlock FileVault by selecting the user an entering their password.

After FileVault has been enabled, any new users created will automatically allowed to unlocking FileVault.

To achieve your goal of having a very strong FileVault password and an easier to use User password we need to create a User with a strong password specifically to unlock FileVault, and remove all other users from FileVault.

Lets say you have enabled FileVault. Your current account is frank, and you have made frank's user password easy to type.

Now create a new user account betty with a strong password. betty will be automatically added to unlock FileVault, and the only purpose of this account will be for unlocking FileVault, we will not need to actually use the account for anything else.

From the command line, we can list the users who are setup to unlock FileVault:

$ sudo fdesetup list
betty,########-####-####-####-############
frank,########-####-####-####-############

Here the #'s are the UUID

The FileVault System preferences allow you to add accounts to unlock, but you need to use the command line to remove users from this list. Let's remove frank :

$ sudo fdesetup remove -user frank

And verify that worked:

$ sudo fdesetup list
betty,########-####-####-####-############

Now only betty can unlock FileVault. (Well of course, there is also the Recovery Key.)

If you ever add another new user account, you will need to remember to remove them from FileVault.

Also, if you want to make sure that betty is used only for unlocking disk (prevent login), you can disable its ability to login by changing its login shell to /usr/bin/false as described in this answer.

Edit to add:

Check out Using fdesetup with Mountain Lion’s FileVault 2 which provides much detail about the fdesetup command.


Is there any difference in placing MP3 files in the "Music" folder versus some other location?

You can put the 'root' of the iTunes Media directory, "iTunes Music", where you like - though personally I prefer to keep all the actual database files in their original location & just move the song files themselves.
This is quite possibly the setup you currently have.

To move it anywhere else, the simplest way is to change the directory in iTunes prefs > Advanced to the new desired location.
Also check 'keep organised' & 'copy files to media folder'

It's been a long time since I did this, so the next step may be automatic or manual - test to see.

Auto - when you OK that dialog iTunes will ask you if it can consolidate to the new locations; say yes.
Manual - if it doesn't ask, then from File menu > Library > Consolidate files to have it do the same manually.

This will copy all the song files it is currently keeping track of into the new location - & will then always use that location whenever you add new music.

Note that in my example above iTunes_Remote is the top level directory; inside it iTunes will then make the required folders for Audiobooks, Movies, Music, etc, as needed.


How can I download apps from the App Store without using Touch ID?

Go to the Settings app, then to Touch ID & Passcode. Enter your passcode, then turn off Touch ID for everything.


How can I put my music on dropbox without moving the iTunes folder

The easiest way to this would be to simply create a folder in DropBox and then create a Symbolic Link to your Music only folder in iTunes.

There is a useful article on symlinks available here. Another one specific to DropBox is available here.

In example you could create a symbolic link to a folder named Music in DropBox as follows:

  ln -s ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Music ~/DropBox/Music


Snow leopard server: use a NAS volume as share point

Mac OS X Server does allow the resharing of AFP mounts but not SMB/CIFS mounts. You can however get around it by using a symlink (ln -s /Volumes/Volume_1 /SOME/PATH) and share /SOME/PATH. While both options allow it to work it's not recommended (permissions, resource fork handling, max file size, etc. may cause hard to debug issues).

Alternatively on the command line you can use sharing (eg. sudo sharing -a path -s shareflags)


Turn Off Calendar Alerts for Certain Calendars

Open Calendar on your Mac.
In the left column list of calendars, right click (or command-I) on the calendar in question and "Get Info"
Check the box labeled "Ignore alerts"
Hit "OK"


What apps are available for subscribing to podcasts directly on the iPhone

You could try Podcaster which does over-the-air podcast streaming.

Check out the features


pygame installed through homebrew does not work?

Have you checked which python are you running - the system python or the one you installed via homebrew?  I suspect the first.

As a test, try running

/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.10/bin/python

and typing

>> import pygame

If this works, you can make the brew version the default by using:

brew link python


You can set defaults using something like RCDefaultApp (old but free & still functional)

Use the URLS header & set your default app by finding the protocol in the URLs list & selecting the default in the drop menu on the right.


What they would do in the store is work with you to make sure you don't really have access to the Apple ID. They would also seek to identify you as the original purchaser - if you can provide proof of identity and proof of purchase, they might have a procedure to erase the lock.

I would work with AppleCare on the phone or internet to see if they can help with the Apple ID. Then you can decide to drive in person to Apple or perhaps see if there is a closer Apple Technician that could assist you with an unlock. The benefit of Apple is they don't charge money for this service - and you might pay someone else to assist.


How much video can you record on a 64 GB iPhone 12?

The Camera settings on iPhone 12 shows

4K @ 60fps is 440MB per minute.
4K @ 30fps is 190MB per minute.

I don’t have an iPhone 12 to know exactly how much space is reserved by iOS but supposing it’s 15 GB that leaves 110 minutes of 4k60 or 257 minutes of 4k30.


You can use Karabiner to customize shortcut on your keyboard as you please, give it a try !


This answer to a related question explains how to use VLOOKUP in combination with IFERROR.

If VLOOKUP cannot find the exact match, then it throws an error.  To catch this error, wrapping the formula in the IFERROR function allows the author to supply a default (in the OP's case, an empty string "") to display in the event of no match.

The following example uses a third table to display the translation.  That table is then locked so as to protect the formula from being inadvertently overwritten.  The words NOT FOUND are used here to show the error event.

If match is found:

No match:

From the documentation:

  VLOOKUP(search-for, columns-range, return-column, close-match)

  search-for: The value to find. search-value can contain any value.

  columns-range: A collection of cells. columns-range must contain a
  reference to a single range of cells, which may contain any values.

  return-column: A number value that specifies the relative column
  number of the cell from which to return the value. The leftmost column
  in the collection is column 1.

  close-match: An optional modal value that determines whether an exact
  match is required.

  close match (TRUE, 1, or omitted): If there’s no exact match, select
  the row with the largest left-column value that is less than or equal
  to the search value. If you use close match, you can’t use wildcards
  in search-for.

  exact match (FALSE or 0): If there’s no exact match, returns an error.
  If you use exact match, you can use wildcards in search-for. You can
  use the wildcard ? (question mark) to represent one character, an *
  (asterisk) to represent multiple characters, and a ~ (tilde) to
  specify that the following character should be matched rather than
  used as a wildcard.


Can I use a Mac mini without the power brick?

If it's a 2005-2009 model then NO! You absolutely cannot plug directly from a AC power source to a computer that does not have a built in transformer power supply, which the Mac mini 2005-2009 model does not have.  The AC current must be converted to DC current first and that is what the Mac mini's power supply does.

Starting in 2010 the Mac mini used a built-in power supply and the power cord does not use a power brick like in previous modles, it plugs directly from wall to computer.


Problems installing powerline fonts on macOS 10.12

Fixed. It was me just being dumb.

Everything was properly installed and working but I realized that iTerm2 and the stock Terminal app were set to use a different kind of font so that's why it wasn't displaying some characters.

Going into iTerm2's settings and manually overriding the fonts fixed the issue.


macos screenshot without opening preview application

To take a screenshot on macOS Catalina, you have 3+ options. The first is pressing Command + Shift + 3 which will screenshot the whole screen. The second Command + Shift + 4 which will allow you to select an area to screenshot. The third is pressing Command + Shift + 5 or typing "Screenshot" into Spotlight search. These will by default not open Preview. I did find a way that might help though. Open Screenshot or Command + Shift + 5 and then click options and save it to another location besides Preview or whatever is selected.


how can i block email attatchments from downloading?

About the only setting you can change that pertains to this is the Load Remote Images toggle that is found in the Settings app under Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Most important thing, still, is to make sure that is off.

This may or may not do the trick for you. I get the feeling this switch was designed more for the retail emails that are sent out - full HTML with tons of images.

Have you performed your test with a PDF file? By default iOS creates an icon for you to tap before it downloads the attachment. It is possible this switch is on, and it is downloading images.

If the afore-mentioned ideas don't work, would it be possible to not open emails that have the paperclip icon next to the Subject/Sender, and instead wait until you were on a wifi? This could protect from data usage, however, if you must receive large quantities of large attachments for a specific purpose this may not be practical.


Airpods Bluetooth interference when cycling

Bluetooth operates in the 2.4GHz band.  There are a number of other things that operate in this band:

WiFi
Wireless cameras
Wireless IoT devices
Bluetooth locating beacons
Cordless phones
Microwaves (though I’m fairly certain there’s not a lot of Hot Pocket preparation happening at traffic intersections)

Aside from the increased Bluetooth bandwidth congestion you’re likely to experience in crowded areas, you are also suseptible to bandwidth crowding from all the other potential sources of interference.

From personal experience, when riding the subway in NYC, I found that my Bluetooth headset would occasionally become “static-y” especially around rush hour and clear when the train was empty.  A wired headset cured the issue.


How can I limit the max FPS for an app that doesn't have an FPS option

No, there's no generic mechanism to limit FPS for any app. It is completely up to each app to decide how many times per second it redraws its display.


As the man page says "dnsextd is a daemon invoked at boot time, running alongside BIND 9, to implement two EDNS0 extensions to the standard DNS protocol."

My guess is that you are getting these errors because dnsextd is running on your Mac and trying to talk to BIND, but BIND is not running. You can check this by running the following command. If it comes back blank, then BIND is not running.

pgrep named

I think the solution to this problem is to just turn dnsextd off using the below command. Unless you are running this Mac as a DNS server for other devices then I'm not sure why you'd need either running.

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dnsextd.plist


Sharing folder or adding user to folder permissions using Finder's Get Info not possible

/* Posting this here in case someone else encounters a similar issue. */

This happened on a volume on an external drive. I took a look in Terminal:

Boxx:Test Alex$  ls -la /Volumes/External\ Drive/Users/Test
total 0
drwx---r-x+ 3 Test  501    101 17 Aug 18:56 .
drwx---r-x@ 6 root  admin  203 17 Aug 18:52 ..
drwx------  9 Test  501    305 26 Aug 21:00 Documents

To see if I could change anything via Terminal I tried

sudo chmod 755 /Volumes/External\ Drive/Users/Test/Documents/

and got as response

  chmod: Unable to change file mode on /Volumes/External Drive/Users/Test/Documents/: Read-only file system

That then indicated to me that something was not right with the way the volume was mounted. I don't know why it mounted as read-only, but remember not seeing it at first among the volumes in Finder. So I did Shift+Command+G and entered the volume path before:

The volume mounted, but seemingly only as read-only.

Unmounting and re-mounting it again solved the problem above.


It just worked :)
Upgraded to 9.0...It automatically just worked. I needed to do nothing really.


Application refused to start because of local storage

To remove the local storage, i have to go in

Library/Application Support/TopTracker

and delete

  TopTracker.db

This have fix my issue


How can I convert AC3 audio files to AAC?

VideoLAN can do this. Select "Streaming/Transcoding Wizard" from the File menu. Choose "Transcode/Save to file". On the next page click "Choose" and open your AC3 file. On the next page tick "Transcode audio" and choose "MPEG 4 Audio" and choose the desired bitrate. Click "Next", choose "MPEG 4 / MP4", click "Next" again and "Choose..." where to save the file. "Next" and "Finish".

The file VideoLAN creates has the extension .mp4, change it to .m4a and there you go.


Git auto-completion not working on Mac OSX 10.11.5 El Capitan

You are confusing the basic bash completion with the add on required for completing git commands.
The git that is installed by Apple lacks the required git-completion.bash file so you need to install the full git. You can do this easily with homebrew -brew install git will do the job.
Once you've done that then uncomment your top three lines :-
if [ -f $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion ]; then
    . $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion
fi

Now source ~/.bash_profile and it should work fine.


No, unfortunately, all the repositories host both open and closed source tweaks and there is currently no way to sort a repo by open-source tweaks.


Quantified Self have created QS Access, an app that lets you access your HealthKit data in a table you can explore in Excel or Numbers.

This free app is at present the best way to export and analyze the data Health collects. Install the app, give it the permissions it needs, select the data you want to export and it will gather the results and present them in a CSV spreadsheet you can share.


Boot iMac G5 17 iSight from external USB optical drive?

I can't say for certain that booting from a USB optical drive wouldn't work but I would be surprised if it did.  PowerPC (G3, G4, G5) Macs only natively supported booting from Firewire devices.

With that said, there are old tricks to making a PowerPC based Mac boot from a USB2 hard drive.  I've never tested it with a USB optical drive but you might give it a shot none the less.  The text below is copied from the excellent tip at Mac OS X Hints...  This may work for your needs but I would strongly urge you to proceed with caution as it involves making alterations to Open Firmware.

  First off, I have tried and tried again over the years to boot various PowerPC Macs via a USB2 disk. Thankfully, somewhere about the time the iMac G5 with the ambient light sensor (ALS) was released, Apple tweaked their Open Firmware, which allowed us to boot PowerPC Macs from USB2 drives.

  Machines that I have tested this hint on and made it work are:

  iMac G5 w/ ALS

  iMac G5 w/iSight (thanks to the eager user who emailed me)

  12" PowerBook 1.3GHz

  Without further delay, here's the process to follow.

  Note: As with all hints that have to do with Open Firmware, proceed at your own risk! I have not experienced a problem and I don't see how this hint could render your Mac useless, since the default can always be recovered by resetting the SMU.

  Here's what you need to do...
  You need a USB2 drive with an OS X system installed (I am using 10.4.3, though any I think will work as far as what the machine can boot). As you know, there are many different ways of getting a system on a USB drive; contact me if you have any questions on how to do that, or search macosxhints.com for that information.

  Connect the drive to your machine, and find out which partition the OS X system is installed on. I usually find this by going to Disk Utility and looking at the info for the partition on the USB disk with OS X. That is, disk2s3 is usually for a USB disk with no OS 9 drivers installed that is the second disk disk. disk3s9 might be a USB disk with OS 9 drivers that is considered the third disk. There are other ways of finding this out, but in my case, my disk is disk2s3 (the 3 on the end will come into play soon).

  Start up the machine in Open Firmware (this is the fun part). Hold CommandOptionOF right after the machine is turned on.

  Here is the moment of truth. If this step does not work, I have had very limited success getting a machine to boot off USB2. In Open Firmware, type devalias, and you should get a list as output. In this list, look for ud, usually below where you see hd (ud is "USB Disk," I presume). If found, it will usually have beside it /pci@f2000000/usb@1/disk1, or something similar. Again, if you see this, I have not had this fail yet.

  Now type printenv boot-device, which will usually get you output of boot-device hd:,\:tbxi. (See where this is going yet?)

  Type setenv boot-device ud:3,\:tbxi where the number after the colon corresponds to that partition number we found in step two. You should get an ok back.

  Type printenv boot-device, and you should see the change displayed already. Something like:
  boot-device   ____     ud:3,\:tbxi   ____     hd:,\:tbxi"

  Type mac-boot and cross your fingers.

  And now some more fun, there is a Unix script that can be written to enable this, because after all we are only changing a nvram variable. The command would be similar to this:

  nvram boot-device ud:3,\\:tbxi

  Now this looks a tad bit different then what we typed in Open Firmware, but that's because we have to escape the two backslashes, each with a backslash of its own.

  If this fails, there is a remote possibility that you can still boot off of USB2, but you may need to substitute ud for /pci@f2000000/usb@1/disk1, or something similar. If the firmware cannot list the contents of the drive, it seems it cannot boot off of it.

  As you should know (thanks to the owner of the iMac G5 w/iSight for letting me know I should mention this), USB2 booting is not supported, therefore you should remember OS X has no support for booting USB 2 and the firmware has no support. So in System Preferences, the USB disk will not be shown as a bootable drive. In the optional boot menu (reached by holding down Option during boot), it also will not show.

  So the two ways that I know how to enable it are through terminal by using the nvram command, and directly in Open Firmware. Hope this hint helps someone out there. I figured my trick was shot as soon as the Duo Core machines came out, but I now realize there are quite a few people with PPC Macs that might be able to use this hint.


How does Time Machine restore backups from APFS volumes?

Time Machine at the moment of writing doesn't support APFS for the backup destination (see this), while it can backup FROM an APFS or HFS+ volume. That's because the AFPS filesystem doesn't support directory hardlinks, which Time Machine heavily relies on.

Probably Time Machine needs to be rewritten to take advantage of the features you mentioned, which is something that can happen in future versions of macOS.


Absolutely. Check out the DigitalColor Meter tool in your Utilities folder. It does exactly what you want.


Repeat AppleScript if User Confirms a Pop-Up Dialog

First, you're making your life more difficult by using the clipboard and GUI scripting. BBEdit has a full scripting dictionary designed for working with text; I've modified your code to use it.

All you need is a repeat loop, and then a conditional exit repeat, as follows:

-- first find or create a text doc called 'Transcription.txt,' and select it
tell application "BBEdit"
    set target_doc_list to every document whose name is "Transcription.txt"
    if (count of target_doc_list) is 0 then
        set target_doc to make new text document with properties {name:"Transcription.txt"}
    else
        set target_doc to item 1 of target_doc_list
    end if
    select target_doc
end tell

-- repeat loop to run through Safari pages
repeat
    tell application "Safari"
        set page_title to (name of current tab of front window)
        set page_text to (text of current tab of front window)
        close current tab of front window without saving
    end tell
    tell application "BBEdit"
        tell window 1
            set end of contents of first text document to return & return & page_text & return & return
        end tell
    end tell

    tell application "Safari"
        set next_page_title to (name of current tab of front window)
    end tell

    set theAlertText to "Finished with page " & page_title & ". Next page is titled '" & next_page_title & "'. Continue?"
    display alert theAlertText as critical buttons {"Quit", "Process"} default button "Process"
    if (button returned of the result) is "Quit" then
        exit repeat
    end if
end repeat

This pulls the text of the current tab out of Safari and puts it into a variable, then adds that contents of that variable (padded with carriage returns) to the first document in the first BBEdit window. It then asks if you want to repeat with the next tab, exiting the loop if you say 'Quit'

You could modify this easily enough to skip over tabs, or to select the tabs to process in advance. Let me know if you want variations of that sort.


Apple encourages you to use the system standard images that ship as part of Xcode.

You can see this clearly in section 2.E. of the Xcode 4.2 License agreement.

  E. Use of System Provided Images. The system provided images, as
  defined in Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for the Mac OS and the
  iPhone OS, that are created and owned by Apple ("System Provided
  Images") are licensed to you solely for the purpose of developing Mac
  and iPhone applications respectively using the Developer Software.

I am not a lawyer, and there are further restrictions, but it is good form to stick with the provided templates unless you have a good reason and the time/skills/money to invent your own.


phpinfo() displays Wrong version openssl in OS X

This is because the version of PHP that came with your Mac is compiled with the version of OpenSSL that came with it, too. By you compiling OpenSSL, all you did was compile a separate version.

If you compiled PHP and told it to use the newer version, that would work.


One of my keys activate the command key for no reason

What model Mac are you using, there has been some issues with the keyboards on some of the newer Macs.

you can use canned air to clean things out on these keyboards.

or if that doesn't work there is a replacement program:

https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/


How do I change the position of the Dock?

You can change the position of the Dock by following these steps.

Locate your Dock. It is usually on the bottom prior to changing the position. You might have to hold it there for a second so it unhides.
Locate the separator between your apps and the trash can and other folders. In older versions of macOS, this is a dotted line. In the example screenshot, this is between Google Chrome and the Downloads folder.
Right-click that seperator to open a context menu.
Open the submenu named Position on Screen.
Pick your new Dock position. The default is Bottom, but you can change it to Left or Right.
The Dock will now appear on that side of the screen.


I believe Daniel is the British Siri from the -v list


Mac App Store shows update count but section is collapsed/empty

Had the same problem. Solved by going to the "Purchased" tab on the App Store, looking for software that needed to be updated (xCode, iMovie, GarageBand, Numbers, Pages, Keynote) and clicking there on "Update". I also started downloading a new App. Some 15 secs later they appeared on the "Updates" tab as well. Including a "Software Update" that contains a new iTunes, what I was looking for actually.


How can I get iOS to stop changing asterisks (*) to capital "I"s?

You can set iOS to not autocorrect something by adding it as an autocorrect shortcut. This also lets you see if autocorrect is to blame without disabling it.

Unfortunately, iOS doesn't let you set text replacements of less than 2 characters. OS X is supposed to not either, but you still can, and iCloud will sync the settings over.

Go to System Preferences → Keyboard → Text and click the + in the lower left.
For both the ‘Replace’ and ‘With’, type an asterisk.
Wait for iCloud to sync the settings over to your iOS device. Your new text replacement should show in Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement.

If the asterisk still changes, there's likely something else going on here, and I would suggest disabling autocorrect entirely just for testing purposes to establish if it is the root cause of the problem.


Open and edit Markdown files with Google Drive iOS App

I haven't been able to find an app that allows you to open markdown from within the the Google Drive app.

However WriteBox allows you to link to your google drive account and then edit and save your markdown files. It also seems designed for markdown note taking (Markdown toolbar and preview) which is nice.

Write for iPhone also looks promising but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.


Preview shows logical page numbers only in thumbnail view

I tested myself. On 10.13 (High Sierra), it's exactly like what the OP described. On 10.15, the problem has been fixed and working correctly.


Apple Screen Sharing Only Controls One Display?

Alright. The issue is a stupid one which is not entirely evident. When setting up a Mac with this many screens, be careful with the arrangement.  When arranged all in a row, even a 1 pixel overlap will cause the overlapped screen to take over all of the others and cause the behavior I stated above.  It is not evident from the desktop. On a gut feeling I ended up dragging all of the screens around to make sure they were entirely aligned and as far over as possible from the previous screen.  It turned out the first screen was the slightest bit overlapping the second.

I'll leave this question/answer up for anyone else who might encounter this bizarre issue.


Rearranging the apps in the grid doesn't affect the order that they show up when you're swiping side to side between iMessage apps. My guess is that Apple expected people to largely use the app draw to select the iMessage apps they want to use, with the horizontal scrolling view functioning more like the app switcher for the phone, with the most recently used app appearing first.

So the horizontal order is based in the order in which you've opened the iMessage apps from the app draw - with the most recent at the left and oldest at the right. To get the order you want in the horizontal scrolling view, first open the app draw. Select the one you want at the right hand side. Then reopen the app draw and select the one you want to the left of that, and repeat, ending with the app you want at the left hand side of the iMessage apps.

So to get the below order mapped over to the horizontal view I'd open the app draw and select '#images.' Then reopen the app draw and select 'grammarsnob,' reopen and select 'giphy,' reopen and select 'Alto's Adventure.'

It's not very intuitive, but I guess they're going for Snapchat levels of UI confusion.


I have a 2008 Macbook Pro will a 85w power cord work?

According to Apple knowledge base entry HT2346 the 85W power adapter is the right one. However, there seem to be issue with "T" style (the old) vs. "L" style (the new): see this thread. It seems that for some people, a workaround does the trick:

  Turn off your computer, flip over the laptop and remove the battery, hold down the circlular button on the battery for 10 seconds, the green light should go out. Re-install the battery and turn your computer on. Your new charger should work fine.

If that doesn't work, you need to call Apple support to arrange for your power adapter to be replaced with a "T" style adapter:

  Apple is aware of the issue with the pins being at a different depth in the new chargers with the "L" shaped connection. After having two new ones not work, I contacted tech support. They sent a new version of the old charger with the square mag safe connector. It works fine.

Edit: Apparently the MacBook SMC Firmware Update 1.4 should fix the "L" style power adapter issue on older MacBooks.


Can't mount Macintosh HD volume - journal issue

You should be able to remove the journal on the disk with:

/System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util -N /dev/disk0s2

Once you can mount the volume again, you can try re-enabling journaling via Disk Utils or the command line:

/System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.util -J /Volumes/VOLUME_NAME

Note that this second command differs in that you specify the volume name as you would see in Finder.

For more information, see man hfs.util.


How to mimic Safari 5 Activity window with Mountain Lion, to save FLV video files?

The Activity Window is gone in Safari 6, but you can get most of the functionality with the Page Resources window of Web Inspector.

To enable that, go to Safari's preferences, and on the Advanced tab, check Show Develop menu in menu bar:

Then you can view the page's resources by clicking Show Page Resources… in the Develop menu, or pressing ⌥⌘A.

That will give you a window with a sidebar similar to this one (which I took from a Youtube page):

It groups things a bit differently than the old activity window, but it should display all the same things. FLV files should be in the Other folder, and you can use the search bar at the bottom to filter for certain strings.

Alternatively, you may be interested in the ClickToPlugin Safari extension, which can do HTML5 replacement of a lot of Flash web video, and in most cases gives you the option to download the file directly just by right-clicking on the video.


Is Lion's new "Date Added" field supposed to work in the Trash?

The answer was basically in my original question. Spotlight is indeed the sole arbiter of the Date Added column. And the Trash, not being a real folder, is not Spotlight indexed.

If you move a file with a Date Added into the Trash, it keeps the Date Added from its original folder. If you then put it back, its Date Added (to the original folder) is updated to the present.

It would probably take a significant engineering effort to make this work for the Trash, so I'm not expecting to see this fixed before Mountain Lion, if ever.


Extend Netgear CG3100 Router network with Airport Express A1088

The problem with that model of AirPort Express is that it only supports 802.11b/g and not the much faster 802.11n. Using it with an Apple TV, I doubt you'll have sufficient bandwidth to watch HD content. If that's not a problem for you, then here is how I got my AirPort Express (A1264) to extend my TP-Link connection via Ethernet. I'm assuming you know your Netgear's IP and Subnet for the following.

Disconnect from your current WiFi network.
Plug in your AirPort Express and connect it via Ethernet to your Mac. If you don't have a Mac, make sure you have AirPort Utility on your Windows computer.
We want to start with a completely fresh configuration, so use a pen, paperclip, hair pin, whatever to hold in the little grey reset button until the light starts to rapidly flash amber.
Open AirPort Utility on your computer and select the AirPort Express Base Station, if it doesn't automatically open up the wizard. It may take up to a minute to show up so be patient. Make sure that you are scanning on Ethernet, too.
AirPort Utility should automatically assume you want to create a new network, so enter your existing SSID (the name of your network) that your Netgear router is using under "Network Name".
You can name the Base Station anything you would like, such as "My AirPort Express", or "Dopey" or "Batman", it really doesn't matter so long as it doesn't share a name with another device on your network.
Enter an access password to prevent unauthorised users from altering your settings and click "Next"
The AirPort Express will verify your settings and then probably ask you to cycle your modem's power. You can ignore this and just click "Next".
After resetting the Airport Express again, AirPort Utility should now show you your AirPort Express with a blinking amber alert and a few errors. Select it, and select "Edit".
Select the "Internet" tab and in the "Connect Using" dropdown, select "Static". This will allow us to specify the IP and Subnet that we want to use.
Set the IPv4 Address to something within your current network range (typically 192.168.1.xxx) If your Netgear router is 192.168.1.1, consider using 192.168.1.2, for example. Unless you have an atypical Subnet set, leave the subnet mask field, and fill in the Netgear's IP under "Router Address" and "DNS Servers".
Switch to the "Wireless" tab and confirm that the "Wireless Network Name" is correctly set to the SSID of the Netgear router. Change the "Wireless Security" drop-down to reflect the same security that your Netgear uses, and also type in your network password that you use to connect to the Netgear router.
Click "Wireless Options" at the bottom and set your Country. You can leave the Channel set to Automatic here, but if you would prefer, you can set the channel to whatever your Netgear is using, but offset by 3 either way (so if your Netgear uses Channel "2", set your AirPort Express to use "5"). Click Save.
Switch to the "Network" tab and set "Router Mode" to "Off (Bridge Mode)". This will allow all traffic to pass through the AirPort to the Netgear router.
Click "Update". You will be notified that the device will be temporarily unavailable. Click "Continue".
Disconnect the Ethernet cable from your computer and connect the AirPort Express to your Netgear router.

If everything went according to plan, you should be able to connect to your usual WiFi network and have the AirPort Express show up under AirPort Utility. From there, you should be able to connect your Apple TV without any problem. If it was connected to the Netgear network, it should automatically join the extended network anyway.


You mean you need to do

cd "/Volumes/Git 2.0.1 Snow Leopard Intel Universal"
sudo bash uninstall.sh

?


Here's a self-answer, which I didn't know about when I wrote the question. Keynote has a "magic move" feature, which allows objects to move from initial positions on one slide to final positions on the next. This is a bit more limited than using action builds, because you don't have control over build order. (Objects always all move simultaenously, and the moves must all take the same duration.) However, you can use it in combination with action builds, in which case the "magic move" transition will animate the objects moving from their final positions on the first slide to their initial positions on the second.

You can also simply chain 'magic move' transitions together, building an animation up out of multiple slides. In some ways this is easier than building the animation up out of actions, though it does have the disadvantage that if you want to make a change you have to manually change every slide in the animation.

I've found that with a bit of careful thought I can achieve all the effects I want in a fairly convenient way.

To use this feature, you have to use CMD-D to duplicate a slide, then move the objects to where you want them on each slide, and then select "magic move" as a transition effect between the two slides. For more details, see the link above.


why does OSX add extra '._' when I tar a directory?

OS X's tar uses the AppleDouble format to store extended attributes and ACLs. tar and Archive Utility also know how to convert the ._ files back to the native formats, but the ._ files are kept if the archive is extracted on another platform or on a non-HFS volume.

You can usually just tell tar to remove the metadata by setting COPYFILE_DISABLE to some value:

$ xattr -l file.jpg
com.apple.quarantine: 0002;50d20c48;Tweetbot;
$ tar -cf 1.tar file.jpg
$ tar -tf 1.tar
./._file.jpg
file.jpg
$ COPYFILE_DISABLE=1 tar -cf 2.tar file.jpg
$ tar -tf 2.tar
file.jpg

Information stored as extended attributes:

Resource forks (since 10.4)

Custom icons set in Finder and the images of Icon\r files
Metadata in PSD files
Script objects stored in scpt files, AppleScript Editor window state

Information about aliases
Quarantine status, download URLs
Spotlight comments
Encoding of files saved with TextEdit
Caret position of files saved with TextMate
Skim notes

You can see ACLs with ls -le:

$ ls -led /Applications/
drwxrwxr-x@ 146 root  admin  4964 Jun 17 22:53 /Applications/
 0: group:everyone deny delete


Repair a damaged partition after a (partitionDisk) action in Recovery Mode, macOS?

Basically, you were doomed after entering the first command. Below is an explanation of what happened.

The first common you entered is repeated below.

diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk0 GPT free Linux 100G

This command erased the contents of EFI partition (disk0s1) and created a new EFI partition. Next, the command created a 100 GB partition of free space. This free space is created destructively. This means that at least the beginning of the free space is zeroed out. Unfortunately, this happened to be where the header of the APFS container for your macOS resided. At this point, recovery becomes somewhere between extremely difficult to impossible.

  Note: The diskutil command was destructive because disk0s2 already existed. This is done so a gpt (or other command) could not create a partition containing a volume which could be corrupted and/or potentially overlap another existing partition.

The next command you entered is given below.

gpt remove -i 2 disk0

This command did nothing. Basically, the command replaced the GUID type value of the second entry in the GPT with zeros, but the type was already zero.

The third command is shown below.

gpt -r show disk0

This command shows you just have the EFI partition (disk0s1).

The next command is shown below.

gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 195311549 -t 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

This command did create a new partition (disk0s2) of type APFS. However, the header of the original APFS partition was replaced with zeros when you entered the first command.

The next command you entered is shown below.

diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

Even if you had a valid APFS container, there would have been some sort of error message. This is because you have booted to a version of macOS recovery that has no knowledge of the APFS.

The final command is given below.

diskutil list

The output does not show Apple_APFS for disk0s2. Instead what is shown is 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC, which is the GUID type for a APFS container partition. This happed because the version of macOS recovery you booted to predates the introduction of APFS.

What you should have entered.

diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 899.8G free none 0

The value of 899.8G is computed below.

1000.0 G Bytes = Drive size
   0.2 G Bytes = EFI partition size
 100.0 G Bytes = Desired free space for Linux
--------
 899.8 G Bytes


Set different display and format language on macOS Sierra

It appears this can be done from the command line.  For example Dutch format language (the nl part) with Netherlands (the NL part) set as the Region, even with English as the UI language, should result when you execute this in Terminal:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleLocale -string nl_NL

This was found at tidbits.com.


Why can't I forward from my host port 8080 to guest port 80 (Mojave)?

You have created the forwarding rule the wrong way around - i.e. you have reversed it.

Instead of:

rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any port 8080 -> 127.0.0.1 port 80

It needs to look like this:

rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any port 80 -> 10.0.2.15 port 8080

In regards to the sysctl.conf file, you'll absolutely need to make that change. It doesn't matter that the file doesn't exist on your computer - just create an empty file (/etc/sysctl.conf) and add those lines.

If you can't get the sysctl.conf file working, you can run the sysctl command manually on the command line:

 sudo sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1


This article should help you greatly: http://www.wired.com/2015/10/a-new-ios-9-feature-is-eating-your-cellular-data/

There is also a list in settings that lists how much data various apps use.  It's most likely Mail or Messages using so much data for push notifications.  If you switch to a 5-minutely update rather than push, then you might have better results.


Mac OS X with swap turned off uses 6 GB of space in a few hours of heavy use

First, if you want to free up some more space, I used xSlimmer.  It delocalizes AND gets rid of the "Universal" code that isn't used by Intel processors.  This makes all the Apps smaller.  Depending on the number of Apps you have installed you may only see another couple Gigs freed up.

Chrome is caching websites to your disk.  That's part of what it does to "speed up" page viewing.  Most people don't spend all day going to new websites.  They go to websites they are familiar with.  So Chrome (and other web browsers) cache to your hard drive.  Since material is pulled from the local disk, it "speeds up" the page view.

Quite honestly, this is not a "problem" (per se).  This is expected behavior.  You need to either remove unused programs, remove (or compress) unnecessary data files, or increase the size of your HD.  There's really not another option.  Programs may use hard drive space for other functions (auto saving is an example).

It's actually not a great idea to turn off your swap.  Now there are some exceptions to this, I have 16 GB of RAM and didn't Swap once in 30 days.  I have years of experience and decided to shut off my Swap temporarily.  That was a month ago.  No problems yet.

I'm not trying to sound condescending, you may know more about Swap files than I do (you may have invented them).  I'm just saying that usually this is not a good idea.  And if your system really only (yes, only) has 4GB of memory, you are going to cause yourself out of memory problems, or software crashes.  I know because my Mac Mini swaps all the time using 4GB.


How to create sum in Numbers up to a specific row?

You can do this using header and footer rows. These automatically adjust the formulas contained within them based on the number of rows above.

Make sure you have the footer row enabled:

In the footer cell, enter =SUM↩.
Select the column by clicking the relevant header cell or column reference.

The formula will automatically adjust from now on.

An animation for further explanation: