Do I need to renew the Institutional Recovery Key certificate with FileVault

I advise you to test this by setting a test Mac and then starting it with a date set to April the 1st of 2019 (just after your certificate expiration date).
Of course, for this test to work you will need to deactivate any automatic time synchronization:

System Preferences... > Date & Time

turn off:

Set Date & Time automatically


News Flash edit

Found this discussion which strongly suggests it is a hardware problem but not the mouse itself. One guy solved it by using a USB dongle.

My original answer remains below, un-edited.

end News Flash edit

Never had this problem w/ my magic mouse, nonetheless...

Get back to a default - disable any 3rd party enhancement software. Reset mouse system preferences to defaults.

Magic Mouse iFixIt video search

From there, Here's an interesting video: Can I DYI fix a Broken Left-Click Resistance?. The tear down may not be something you want to do. I think I would try because the mouse seems pretty useless in its current state. iFixIt sells tools and parts for doing this kind of stuff.

P.S. I liked my magic mouse perfectly fine. In the PC world this thing is E.T. alien technology. Anyway, I like using the magic trackpad much more.


My iPhone is over capacity. Is there a way to remove specific data from an iPhone Backup?

Well since you are using Mac OSX, when you plug in your phone you can do the following to back up your pictures OUTSIDE of iTunes.

Step 1

Open up Preview with your phone plugged in. Go to File > Import Image. You will see it populate all your photos/videos. Save them in a separate folder (maybe somewhere on your desktop), then delete them all from your phone.

If you are concerned about mass deleting these files, you can just do it with SSH. This is after you've imported all your images through preview.

From Terminal on your desktop type

ssh root@your-iphones-ip-address-here

Will prompt you with a PW, chances are if you haven't changed it it's alpine or Alpine. Change directories via the following command:

cd /var/mobile/Media/DCIM

Depending on the amount of images/videos you have you will see 100APPLE/ and maybe 101APPLE/. In the directory type this to remove ALL images and movies in one command

rm -r 100APPLE/
rm -r 101APPLE/

Backup in iTunes now and you have a fresh backup with just numbers/apps/whatever else. You can then import the pictures/videos back if you want after you restore it.


The profile for the jailbreak was revoked by Apple, and you need to reinstall the app from wherever you installed it.

I would recommend using ignition.fun to install it again. The ignition.fun website will say at the top whether their applications are signed or not, which will tell you if you can install apps such as unc0ver from the website or not.

If you don't want to have to deal with the jailbreak apps being revoked, you can install the tweak ReProvision from the repository https://repo.incendo.ws which will allow you to automatically resign apps using your Apple ID.


Is there a fast way to export podcast URLs from iTunes?

Right-click on the Podcasts entry in the side bar
Select "Export..."
Select OPML format

This gives you a short file listing all the subscribed podcasts including the URL.


What are the .mbox files in ~/Library/Mail/Mail Lost+Found/Mailboxes in Mail.app 5.0 (Lion)?

This folder is created by Mail when updating to Lion. I don't think it indicates any problems with a forced shutdown. It's just a place to store the old files after Mail has migrated to its new folder structure in the ~/Library/Mail/V2 folder. If the update is successful, you shouldn't need anything in this folder, except perhaps the contents of the Bundles folder if you want to re-install any plug-ins.


How to move iTunes database from Windows 7 to Lion where the music is on a network drive?

Here's what finally worked.

Copy the file "iTunes Music Library.xml" from Windows to somewhere on your Mac, like your desktop.
Change all references to network location of the audio files to something the Mac can understand.  For example, all of my MP3 files started with file://localhost//192.168.1.6/music/  So I did a Find & Replace and changed them to the path the Mac mounted my remote music folder: file://localhost/Volumes/Media/music/
Clear out the iTunes directory in ~/Music.
In iTunes > Preferences > Advanced, uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Meida folder when adding to library".
Then import the XML file from step 1 into iTunes by File > Library > Import Playlist.

The "Re-creating the iTunes Library file" section near the bottom of this article helped.


What is Apple's policy for supporting security updates on older versions of OS X?

I'm sure Apple has a policy, but it's clearly not released to the public and probably gets re-evaluated constantly based on many factors.

Whenever I need to know what's supported now, I go to the index of what Apple Care covers (since AppleCare is the support wing that maintains knowledge base articles, answers questions, etc...)

The Apple Support Sitemap - This answers your question about the definitive list of actively supported OS. As of May 2012, this includes three major versions. 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 As of September 2012 (after Mountain Lion has been out for more than a month), the support for 10.5 isn't yet removed from the Support Sitemap so we are in a window where four major versions of the OS are still supported.

You can of course see the latest updates for all OSX OS at their respective support pages, even past the time when they are "actively in support"

Lion Support
Snow Leopard Support
Leopard Support
Tiger Support
Panther Support
Jaguar and Earlier Support which presumably covers Puma and Cheetah but not Kodiak.

I don't think Apple publishes a hard and fast policy. My experience is that the current and past two versions have always been supported. There are times when more than three versions are supported, so you may get to see this when 10.8 gets released. It also might be more tied to hardware that was sold. Apple generally bases support on US sales dates with a 5 year window for hardware support after a model is discontinued for sale. I would also expect that large institutional orders (education, government) will tend to keep older hardware and software in support due to contractual agreements or the local law.(Examples for that are anything sold in California or Turkey, government contracts in Virginia and still different regulations in France.)

If you have a business relationship with Apple due to being certified as a technician or have help desk level support in place, then you will get pre-announcements of which products and software are announced to go into non-support before the time arrives.

Basically, if you need to know this sort of non-public information ahead of time, you can become certified (cheaper, takes more time and knowledge) or pay for this level of support and have access to information that looks forward so you can plan for change and know you are supported by Apple. As you can see, there are several factors that seem to play into the length a support window stays open and there are several free options to help you guess the timing if you don't need to pay for this information.


Is it possible to upgrade 2.26 GHz processor to 2.4 GHz?

Sorry, the MacBook Pro processor is soldered on and removing it would likely destroy the logic board. I still have a 2009 MacBook Pro and it's fine, not to say that I wouldn't want a newer MacBook, though.

Btw: Get an SSD for it. Replacing the hard drive with one cut boot up time in half for me. I personally recommend Intel.


How to set it up to switch between tabs using TAB key on Macbook?

save dialog specific shortcuts:

To save, simply press return

To cancel, hit esc or cmd+.

If you do not want so save, hit cmd+D or cmd+backpace

using tab:

If you want to use the tab key, you should enable keyboard access by hitting ctrl+F7 Note: Depending on your setup, you might need to additionally press fn to use the function keys.

Once you've enabled keyboard access, you should see an additional blue glow around the currently selected button. You can then cycle with tab (holding shift to go backwards) and select your option by pressing space.


My ex is a computer "expert". Is he using administrative privileges to remotely control/limit use of my computer?

If you are really worried, backup and then do a wipe and re-install. This will get rid of most unwanted things. Then manually restore important documents and files from backup. If you are not THAT worried, install a firewall/traffic monitor (LuLu, LittleSnitch, RadioSilence) and just monitor the network activities.

The reason you can't "Administrate" can just be that you were not added as an "Administrator" when the account was created. Check in System Preferences > Users & Groups to see if you are an administrator. You can add yourself (if you are not already) as a sudoer and make yourself an administrator though I'm don't feel comfortable explaining this process, use your search engine of choice.

You can list hidden users, check running processes and network traffic in search of something suspicious though it is not always trivial and if you are really that worried, wipe and re-install.


Plug the iPad into your computer
Launch iTunes
(turn of your iPad)
Hold down the Power button and the Home button at the same time
Keep holding both of these buttons for 10 seconds
After 10 seconds pass, release the Power button but continue to hold the Home button for another 3-5 seconds
When in DFU mode, your iPad screen will stay completely black. If you see an Apple logo or otherwise you did not enter DFU mode
iTunes will notify you that it has detected a device in recovery mode


How can I create a gmail pop account in mac mail in Mac OS 10.6.6

Mail searches an online database to see how to connect to an account; it defaults to IMAP for GMail because that can work better than POP, but you can override it later.  Tell Mail.app not to take the account on line immediately, then edit the account to switch it from IMAP to POP.

(Personally, I'd switch GMail to IMAP instead.)


Is there a way to transfer specific apps from one Mac to another

While generally speaking, you can simply copy an app bundle from one Mac to another, it doesn't carry over the user data and app preferences that the app generates and stored elsewhere (generally somewhere in users home directory).

Also, not every app Mac installs as a .app bundle and may have installed files elsewhere, causing the copying over .app bundle approach to not work well.

Recommended approaches that you can take are:

Reinstall the apps from source. It could be either Mac App Store, Homebrew Cask or direct download from the publishers website. This way you'd get the apps installed afresh and in the way the developer intended.

Also, even if some of the apps are paid, most Mac apps come with a licenses that lets you use them on all of your personal Macs.

This approach may have a drawback where you may lose app specific preferences and data (not necessarily user data but data such as plug-ins which is directly managed by the app).

However, this approach would be the most likely recommended one as it would let you have a clean install.
If you are concerned about losing app specific configuration and app data, you may consider using Migration Assistance or restoring to the new Mac via a Time Machine backup.

The benefit here would be that you can technically set your new Mac to be in the same state as the old one.

Once you have your new Mac setup, you can then normally uninstall the apps that you don't need, and, get rid of any data that got carried over and is not needed on the new machine.

So to conclude, if the app that you are looking to transfer was installed simply as a .app bundle, has not installed anything outside, and doesn't have any customisations that you care about losing, you'd be safe copying it over. (But then again, what's possibly preventing you from re-installing them from source?)


Generally the keyboard shortcuts you are used to will rely on the command key.
One nice thing about a lot of Mac OS X menus is they will list the shortcut next to the command in question, and you can type the name of the command in the help menu when using the application in question, hover or use the arrow keys to select the menu item options that appear, and see the keyboard shortcuts.

CMD Tab is application switching, CMD C is copy, CMD V is paste, CMD Space is spotlight, swipe up with four fingers is the launcher iirc.

Also if you are in the Finder, you can click help and type shortcuts, there are lists upon lists for various tasks.


How do I hide the Notification Center menubar icon?

You can do this with Bartender. This still allows the Notification Center to be opened with a keyboard shortcut or trackpad gesture—just the menu bar item is hidden.


SSH keys added using "ssh-add -c" not prompting for confirmation

James,

Are you attempting to run before you can walk?

I'm assuming you are using the Mac app Terminal

Have you successfully run ssh-agent and then successfully run ssh-add without the -c argument and then successfully used those credentials to log in to somewhere?

If so then you might be ready to think about using the -c argument.

First thing to note is that if you are relying on an X11 program to pop up the dialog required then you will have to be running in Xterm, rather than Terminal, as an X11 program will have a hard time passing back the information to OS X.

I'd be interested to know your use case. What are you actually trying to do?


How to hide previous commands/history in terminal and start like the beginning of the tab?

If you want to clear your terminal window:

use the command clearto clear whatever is showing
use command+K to clear everything

There are other things you can try too:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2198377/how-to-clear-previous-output-in-terminal-in-mac-os-x


How to calculate a date field in Numbers

There is an IsEmpty() function in Numbers for this, so the formula probably will look something like

=if(IsEmpty(CELL-REFERENCE),"",YOUR-FORMULA)


Disable ssh password authentication on High Sierra

For High Sierra, to prevent authentication without publickey, in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file, set

PasswordAuthentication no
UsePAM no

To restart sshd (which is required to have it reread the config file), use

sudo launchctl stop com.openssh.sshd
sudo launchctl start com.openssh.sshd


How does Apple Music prevent you from keeping offline music after cancelling your plan?

They store the tracks in a different location than normal music and validate your subscription periodically when you play the files.

I believe the check in are quite rare as the system only promopts to renew tokens if you don’t otherwise connect regularly. I’ve seen it maybe three times a year lately. Even being offline a month, the token isn’t expiring in my experience.

This system seems designed to make it easy to re-up and give people latitude and runway in the mean time rather than to prevent any and all short term gaps. Clearly, if you’re online when you cancel, music would and should expire the music, but I’m not seeing that happen aggressively when you still pay for the service in practice or it lapses at the end of a subscription period.


Unable to access my Mac keychain due to this

To change your home directory:

Go to System Preferences > Accounts
Authenticate
Right clic your user and select 'Advanced Options'
Type the new path to your home directory or select 'choose' to display a dialog
Select 'ok' to save the changes


Making use of fullscreen on the extended display

This is possible in Mountain Lion by dragging the window to the secondary screen before entering fullscreen, but unfortunately cannot be done in Mac OS X Lion.


I infrequently have an issue where something is locking whatever item is in the Trash.  I reboot, and 10 times out of 10, I'm able to empty it.

For example, I save a screenshot to my desktop, then send it as a Mail.app attachment.  Once the mail is sent, I try to Trash and empty the screenshot.  I am unabvle to do so until I quit Mail and empty Trash.


Why does stock Mac OS X allow me to rip CDs but not DVDs?

This could get very technical but the answer is actually relatively straightforward.

The act of "ripping" takes place in 2 stages, reading the source material, and writing out a converted version of same.

For music this is straightforward, mainly because the technology is old enough to predate stuff that was later incorporated into DVDs.  Music CDs do not have any form of encryption.  The data is laid bare for you to use as you see fit.  This means anyone can read it without requiring the use of a licensed decoder which you can them laden with prohibitions on use.  Once you can read it, you can convert it, so long as you have a suitable encoder, which Apple provides to allow encoding into the formats you list.

For a movie, this is different.  The source material is encrypted and copy protected in a way that Music CDs never were, and never will be.  This means you need a licensed decoder just to be able to read them.  The terms of the license will often dictate that you can only decode for playback, and not for conversion.  Most often this is purely a legal distinction, and not a technical one.  Obviously Apple have to abide by the terms of these licenses or they could not provide you with them, and as such they will not allow you to subsequently decode a film, then instead of watching it immediately encode (rip) it into a different format.  They do provide an encoding mechanism for movies, but it will only work on unencrypted and decoded files.  Of course, there is nothing to stop other programs that Apple do not supply from ignoring such paper restrictions (or providing replacement decoders that are less inhibited in what they allow), and happily ripping away.


How do I run an OS X command script on remote Xserves from a desktop OS X script?

So there are a few components to this, which I'll tackle in chunks. The most important is how to execute a remote command/script. As IconDaemon points out, SSH is the best use for this. There's even a pretty good and secure means of doing this without requiring a password, for automated scripting purposes.

For clairity's sake, I'm going to refer to the Xserves as the server and your iMac or other machine accessing them as the client.

Execute a Shell Command on a Remote Server

On the server, open the Sharing panel in System Preferences, and check the Remote Login box

This enables the SSH server, allowing us get a remote command-line login.

On the client, open Terminal.app and type the following, then press enter: ssh-keygen -f examplekey

This creates two files in your home directory. examplekey (the private key) and examplekey.pub (the public key). These are cryptographic signatures that will allow anyone with examplekey to connect to your server, without any password. For this reason, we're going to restrict what commands can be executed, but you should also be careful to keep the private key file stored safely, only on devices that will need to execute your remote script.

On the server, open /Users/YOURUSERNAME/.ssh/authorized_keys in a text editor.

Make sure you're doing this with whichever user has permissions to run the script.

On a new line, enter command="/path/to/yourscript", followed by a space, then paste the contents of examplekey.pub

The command in the quotes should be whatever you want executed (presumably the script to activate/deactivate the Grid Manager).
If you have two scripts, one to turn it on, one to turn it off, you'll need to either combine them into a script that toggles it on/off, or repeat steps 2-4 to create a second key, so that you have one to turn it off, one to turn it on.
This command is the only thing that can or will be run; unlike a standard ssh session, the command= parameter doesn't give you an interactive prompt, it just executes the command and closes. We want this for security purposes.

Now with all the pieces in place, we can run the command. In Terminal on the client, type ssh -i /path/to/examplekey user@serveraddress and run it. If everything's been set up properly, it should run your script, then close the connection.

You can omit the user@ portion, if the usernames are the same between the client and server.
The server address can be an IP or hostname. The second part of my answer will address how to connect over the internet, when you don't have a static IP.
If you need to use a non-standard port (i.e. not 22), change the command to read ssh -i /path/to/examplekey -p PORT user@serveraddress. You may need this for the next section.

Now that you have SSH working, we need a way to run this from a remote computer.

Accessing a Computer Remotely without a Static IP

There are a few different ways to do this - you can access your iMac over the internet through VNC/Remote Desktop, then access your servers across the local network as above. Or you can directly access the servers over the internet.

Either way, you'll need two things:
- A way to access your local network remotely, without keeping track of your IP.
- Port forwarding to enable access for whatever protocol you want to use (SSH, VNC or Apple Remote Desktop).

Dynamic DNS

This is basically a simple way to give yourself remote access without having to worry about your ISP changing your IP. You sign up for a free service, which gives you domain name that points to your home network. To keep track of your IP changing, you run a client program that updates the service's records whenever you get a new public IP.

I use DynDNS, but it seems they've discontinued new signups for their service. No-IP seems to be the best alternative.

Make an account for their "No-IP Free" service.
Once you're signed up, follow the steps to add a new hostname. Make a note of the hostname you choose, it will be something like myhostexample.no-ip.info.
Download the Mac updater program here and install it on a computer that's going to be running often. It doesn't matter which one, since anything on your home network uses the same public IP, you just want it to be running often enough that it doesn't miss any updates to your public IP.

Now you've got an address to connect to your home network, we need to configure your router to allow remote access to the services you need. This depends on how you want to connect remotely (SSH, VNC or a combination). I'll give a general example.

Static DHCP and Port Forwarding

To access a computer inside your network from the internet, we need to allow certain traffic through your router's firewall, and have an address to send it to.

Most routers use DHCP to assign your local IP addresses (if you've manually configured your IP, you know this and can skip this part). However, they can be set to configure each machine with the same IP every time (called static DHCP).

There's a good guide on how to do this with an Airport Extreme here, but it should be nearly identical for your Time Capsule. Take note that the final portion of the guide is redundant, and possibly undesirable (the last three paragraphs and last screenshot). You'll want to do that for each computer you need remote access too (potentially both Xserves and your iMac).

Now that you've got static DHCP set up, we need to do some port forwarding. Which ports you forward depends on how you want to do your remote access, but I would suggest forwarding SSH to both Xserves. That way you can use the SSH setup in the first section from wherever you happen to be. This guide covers how to enable it on your Time Capsule.
- The basic concept is that you can forward any port accessed on your external address (the myhostexample.no-ip.info that we setup before) to any port on any of your external machines. So if you go to myhostexample.no-ip.info:1234, it can be redirected internally to 192.168.1.9:567.
- For SSH, you'll want to redirect some arbitrary public port to port 22 on each of your Xserves. So you can set up (for example) public port 9022 to go to port 22 on one Xserve, and use public port 9122 to go to port 22 on the other Xserve. The public ports don't matter (you just have to change the ssh command to match), but using port 22 internally eliminates extra configuration.

You can use the same principles to allow other access to your iMac or Xserves (like VNC or Apple Remote Desktop), you just need to make note of which ports you need to forward. http://www.portforward.com is a good resource for this. Also note that if you're using VNC, it's not encrypted, so you'll be sending your password in the clear. If you have to use VNC, google "VNC SSH tunnelling", which should give you some good guides on how to secure it.

Wrap-up

Once you have all this in place, you should be able to ssh from anywhere to your Xserves and activate your scripts. Assuming you set up myhostexample.no-ip.info as your dynamic DNS and 9022 as your port forward, you just need to run ssh -i /path/to/examplekey -p 9022 user@myhostexample.no-ip.info.

Hope that works for you, sorry it's a bit long, but I think I covered most of the bases. Please ask if something's not clear!


Can I use iOS 13+ without creating a passcode?

Cancel passcode options, go back (top-left button) until Touch ID setup, and don’t set up Touch ID (skip). Then when prompted for a passcode, choose Passcode Options and an option will exist for not setting a passcode.

If you can’t go back to Touch ID setup, enter a passcode to get through setup, then once the device is set up, go to Settings and disable Touch ID, then you can turn off passcode.

The text at the top of the page in your photo is different depending on whether you have enabled Touch ID or not. In this case, you have enabled Touch ID, therefore a passcode is required. If you don’t use Touch ID, you have the option for no passcode.


Entering custom date for event in iOS Calendar app

For older dates it‘s easier to navigate to the date first, and enter the event there:

Switch to year view (tap the Month and Year label at top left)
Scroll back in time to the year you want to add the event
Tap on the day you want to add the event on
Tap ＋ as usual


Mac keeps randomly getting shift key toggled on even with the button not pressed

Yes, you can disable Mac's default Keyboard Shortcuts by going to System Preferences->Keyboard->Shotcuts and unchecking them. Select the category from left pane like ScreenShots etc.

For shift key check if sticky keys are on (under accessibility):


Is there a way to cycle between full screen windows on OS X?

The short answer is no. OS X, by default, does not have a method which allows you to contextually change between spaces, staying in the current application.

From my experience, your best bet is likely to focus on tabs for your navigation, replacing (or augmenting) spaces. Safari tabs can be switched between with the keyboard using Command+Shift+{ and Command+Shift+}, which would give you functionally the ability to quickly switch between pages, while still not worrying about other applications getting in the way.


OS X: Shift + Delete = Forward delete annoyance

This is a change in behavior in the 10.11.2 beta, build 15C27e. Wether or not this is intentional or a mistake is unclear. But it is infuriating.


Displayport to USB-C or GPU card for eGPU with Thunderbolt Output

Update: There is now the alternative you described: AMD's Radeon Pro W5700, with an integrated USB-C output.
The GPU isn't exactly brand new, and they haven't done a graphics card with USB-C except for that one, so options are still very limited. Since you mentioned price-to-performance compared to BlackMagic's eGPU systems, I'm not sure if this fits the bill either.
But as a "Pro" model, it was used in OEM SKU's, so you may be able to find a HP, Dell, etc. branded used card pulled from retired systems for cheap though.

Short answer: no, and I wouldn't expect to see one on the market anytime soon. I think the shared connector specifications may contribute to some of the confusion, but an HDMI to USB-C adapter like you describe should seem like an impossibility, when you think about it for a second.
HDMI and DP are basically DVI, and USB is, well, USB. You wouldn't expect to be able to plug in a display with HDMI output into a USB port through any sort of adapter and expect it to work...
Except in 2018, many products (several of which you mentioned) seemingly do exactly this, through an addition to the USB specs called "Alternate Mode", which as you might expect, allows alternate modes of transport over the USB connection.
But these alternate mode connections have to be negotiated and configured by the devices themselves, and the implementation of this is up to the vendors. There is no direct mapping between the pins in an HDMI or DP connector and a USB-C connector.
Theoretically, you could design an adapter that would take the HDMI input, pass it through an HDMI-DP adapter, decode the DP signal, handle the USB-C alternate mode negotiation, translate signal levels, and output DP alternate mode over USB-C, but by this point you are looking at $15+ in the controller chips alone, not to mention it would most likely need to be externally powered.
...which is what the Blackmagic eGPU essentially does, through Thunderbolt, not USB, though (the LG Ultrafine 5K has a Thunderbolt connector, I believe it is the 4K that uses DP alternate mode). The graphics card inside is a regular RX580, and the Thunderbolt controller takes the DP signal and multiplexes it into the TB3 chain.
The MacBook Pro's also do this internally, and the circuitry involved takes up a significant amount of real estate on the logic board. All in all, it's not an inexpensive thing to accomplish.


Old home folder not recognized after upgrade, how to recover?

If you create a new account with the same name, it should prompt you to use the existing User folder.


At this point, you know you have a keyboard that's much easier to work on than the new butterfly design and an excellent / detailed explanation how that keyboard works.

Keyboard key stuck or not being recognized; how to fix

Also, you have an appreciation that doing this removal of a key has a very non-zero chance of breaking things. At this point you have a resource dilemma.

How much is your time worth?
How many parts and training do you need to successfully re-assemble the physical case?

If you want to fix it yourself, you can test all the keys physically by making sure the nubbin presses. If that's broken - you need a new top case or you need to consider using a bluetooth keyboard (if you must be portable) or a USB keyboard if low cost and low mobility is best.

Next cheapest is trying the top case repair, but you run the risk of under-estimating the tools and training needed there and could also break more than just the keyboard if you attempt a top case transplant of the computer (you're moving all the parts of the computer to a new frame, basically).

Also - consider getting a quote. Apple might charge $300 to repair everything you messed up and everything wrong with the computer functionally and put a 90 day warranty on all the parts touched in the repair. You're basically buying the best used Mac verified by Apple and you know the previous owner. I don't know many people that would turn down that good a deal if they needed a new computer, so don't look back about how cheap this could have been if the repair had only worked. It didn't (for reasons) and you're now faced with what next now that you know DIY repairs might have more risks than apparent at first. (Also don't undervalue your experience and knowledge you gained in this. I know some of the best repair people started just like you, so with time and training this may teach you more than if the key swap just went well.)


Can I search images on Safari using a text in the text field on a third-party app using shortcut?

One is welcome to invoke shortcuts or other automation techniques to do so, but here are my approaches:

Select the word: hold on it, and tap "select". Then the tooltip menu changes to "cut", "copy", "lookup", "share" and depending on the app, "speak", "highlight" etc.
Use "lookup". If you find appropriate meaning, great! otherwise, scroll to the bottom and tap "search web" and it will shoot to Safari.

If you know how to pronounce, tell Siri to get some images. Use a command that doesn't invoke photos app, rather "web search".


macOS sierra 10.12 screen captures - how to edit system files?

There is no need to disable SIP and hack /System files to change the filename and location of screenshots. Use the following Terminal commands to set your preferences:

#SCREEN CAPTURE
# Show/ Don't show date in Screenshot filename
defaults write com.apple.screencapture include-date -bool false

# Save screenshots in PNG format (other options: BMP, GIF, JPG, PDF, TIFF)
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type -string "png"

# Save Screenshots to location:
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop/Screenshots

# Disable Screen capture's shadow
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true

# Change the filename
defaults write com.apple.screencapture name [yourFilename]

You may need to quit and relaunch the SystemUIServer, (or restart).

If you need a more specific workflow, then you can modify or process the files with a Folder Action script, to run when they are created.


Unable to update through App Store (OS X)

Give that this is an older question, I’m hoping that @wadda_wadda has solved his Mac OS X App Store update problem.

For those who might encounter this problem in the future, or need a way of forcing an app update here’s a method that will hopefully help.

If you want to see what updates your system already has on it for a specific app, or any app for that matter, check out this How to view Software Update history? Q&A here on Ask Different.

Because the Software Update app can occasionally get stuck in a strange update cycle. Here’s an alternative method to check for, and install Apple App Store app updates via the command line.

Make sure that the App Store app has been quit BEFORE you start this process.
Open Terminal.
Because some updates require Admin privileges to install. It is recommended by Apple that you start off by switching to Super User privileges. To do this type sudo -s in the terminal, then enter your system password. This will ONLY work if you are an Administer on the system.

Now that you are super, at the command prompt in terminal type the following command:softwareupdate --list

This should return a list of updates available for your system. Although it might come back with No new software available.This usually means that your system is up to date. BUT, if you know there are new updates available for software on your system. Then either the update isn’t currently available from the server that you’ve reach on Apple’s side (which can happen when a new update has just come out and the serves are super busy), OR it could be that your systems update .plist file isn’t happy (read the How to view Software Update history? to see where this is).
Because the command line check didn’t come back with anything doesn’t mean it hasn’t “magically” (yes I know it isn’t magic) fixed the .plist file. That’s why I recommend launching the standard App Store app again at this point (you did quit it back in step 1 right?), and hitting the update tab to check for updates. There's been more than one time that I’ve had this work, and was able to just run the newly found updates directly from within the App Store app without having to do anything more. If that is the case for you, then you can quit the Terminal app at this point, and you are done.

If however you still aren’t getting the app updates you know are available, or if command line DID find updates (back in step 5) but the App Store app still isn’t seeing them. You need to quit the App Store app again, and switch back to Terminal.
If the command line software update DID find updates, and you just want to install ALL of the updates, then type softwareupdate -iva at the command line, and let the magic happen.

IF you only want to install the "recommended updates” you can type softwareupdate -ivr at the command line instead.
OR you can also install just a specific update (or force and update) by typing softwareupdate -i NAME.OF.APP.#VERSION where NAME.OF.APP.#VERSION is the listed app name and version number found back in step 5. For example the image below would install the Pro Apps QuickTime Codecs update 1.0:

STILL NO JOY! - At this point you can force an install of an app update you know exist, BUT you need to know the package naming to run the command line install (like the example above). Finding the proper package name is much harder than it might sound, and seems to change with each release of the Mac OS unfortunately.  There is an open source package manager for Mac system admins that can be used to find the list of apps, but it’s not for novice or even intermediate users. So use at your own risk. https://github.com/munki/munki

Alternatively you can download several Apple updates directly from the Apple Support site or the developers site, but these are only for Apple products (which in the case of the original question would work). https://support.apple.com/downloads/

A final note.
If you are using a developer version of an app and/or install a beta version of an app from the Apple Developer site. The Apple App Store Update will most likely NOT work, and WON’T see any app updates on your system. In this case you need to completely uninstall the developer or beta version of the app in question, and download the released version of the app from the App Store. This has bitten many a developer and beta tester before with the Mac OS. So just be aware that if you choose to download a beta or developer version of an app, or even the Mac OS. You might have to take extra steps to get your system back to a point where normal App Store Updates work properly.


login screen hangs when I try to switch users without disconnecting VNC client

I have run into this problem many times before. To get it to work, try disconnecting after entering your password, wait a few seconds, and then connect again.


What should I be using instead of `dig`?

How about host?

The host command is very similar to dig except it's much more simple and doesn't have the very technical info (if you don't need it).  So, for example, a host lookup would look something as follows:

$ host apple.stackexchange.com

apple.stackexchange.com has address 151.101.129.69
apple.stackexchange.com has address 151.101.193.69
apple.stackexchange.com has address 151.101.65.69
apple.stackexchange.com has address 151.101.1.69

You can also specify which DNS server you want to use by adding it to the command:

$ host apple.stackexchange.com 8.8.8.8
Using domain server:
Name: 8.8.8.8
Address: 8.8.8.8#53
Aliases:

apple.stackexchange.com has address 151.101.193.69
apple.stackexchange.com has address 151.101.129.69
apple.stackexchange.com has address 151.101.1.69
apple.stackexchange.com has address 151.101.65.69

And if you absolutely need it, you can add -a to get the same output as a dig command:

$ host -a apple.stackexchange.com 8.8.8.8
Trying "apple.stackexchange.com"
Using domain server:
Name: 8.8.8.8
Address: 8.8.8.8#53
Aliases:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 26262
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;apple.stackexchange.com.   IN  ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
apple.stackexchange.com. 299    IN  A   151.101.129.69
apple.stackexchange.com. 299    IN  A   151.101.65.69
apple.stackexchange.com. 299    IN  A   151.101.193.69
apple.stackexchange.com. 299    IN  A   151.101.1.69

Received 105 bytes from 8.8.8.8#53 in 39 ms


Accidentally deleted iPhoto and lost all of my photos, how can I get the photos back?

Assuming you didn’t delete your iPhoto Library, but just iPhoto

Reinstall iPhoto from the Mac App Store [you did this, go to 2]
Hold down the option key while opening iPhoto to select a different default library. The current default is the empty library. We want to track down your original library.
Click “Choose library...”
By default, your iPhoto Library is located in /Volumes/<HDNAME>/Users/<USERNAME>/Pictures/. Assuming you haven’t deleted the library itself, or moved it to a different location, your original iPhoto Library will be located in your pictures folder. It will be labeled iPhoto Library_2.iphotolibrary, iPhoto Library.iphotolibrary~old or something of that nature. I don’t know what the exact name will be. You will be able to tell the new from the old simply by examining the size (800 photos will be atleast a couple GB’s). Select the old library.
When iPhoto opens, your original library should be present and intact. If it’s not, you’ve just selected the current default library. Repeat steps 2-4 in this case.
Once you have identified the correct original library - using step 5 - you can now safely delete the empty (false) iPhoto Library from your pictures folder. Your original iPhoto library is now your default.


Convert image type and save to relative folder with automator

You don't need to play with variables. When I configure the service as below, it makes a copy of the files (?!) when I use the New Folder action. Then it is a matter of converting the files in the new folder.


Is there a hashtag on the English wireless keyboard?

If  Shift 3 doesn't produce #, then try Option/alt 3.

Another less likely possibility is the \ key at the far right.

It all depends on which layout (US/ABC, British, British PC) you have active in system prefs/keyboard/input sources.  Change it to the one that matches the printing on your hardware.


Mirroring iPhone 5 to MacBook Pro without Airplay

Have your Macbook run its own WiFi network, tether your phone to that network, and then you can AirPlay directly without hitting the corporate network.


Is there a way to disable the sorting on click within mail.app?

Someone might know if you can disable the sorting, but if that isn't possible, you can create a keyboard shortcut to switch the sorting back.

Would that be something the user could type?

Go to System Preferences / Keyboard / Keyboard Shortcuts /
Applications.
Click the + button.
Chose Mail.app
Type Date into the Menu Title field
Select an easy to press and remember combination. (You can't overwrite already existing shortcuts. When I tried this to    test if it would work I used command shift    D )
Click "Add" and you are set.


How do you get the Apple Watch out of Power Reserve mode?

You can bring your Apple Watch back to normal functioning mode by pressing and holding the side button, the same way that you do when you wish to power it on.

This command will only work if you plugged the Watch in, or if there is sufficient battery juice available.


How big should my Time Machine backup drive be?

You probably want to check out this website for the most information, but here is the answer to your question, quoted from the website above:
1. How big a drive do I need for Time Machine?

A general "rule of thumb" is, to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups,
Time Machine needs 2 to 4 times as much space as the data it's
backing-up (not necessarily the entire size of your internal HD).  Be
sure to add the size of the data on any other drives/partitions you
want to back up.
But this varies greatly, depending on how you use your Mac.  If you
frequently add/update lots of large files, then even 5 times may not
be enough.  If you're a light user, you might be able to get 1.5 times
to work, but that's subject to problems any time a large backup is
needed.
And, of course, the larger the drive, the more old backups Time
Machine can keep for you.  A drive that's too small may only have room
for a few weeks (or even days) of backups.
Unfortunately, it's rather hard to predict, and most of us have a
tendency to add more and more data to our systems over time, so if in
doubt, get a bigger one than you think you need now.
Also, there are some OSX features and 3rd-party applications that take
up large amounts of backup space, for various reasons.  See question
9  for details.
This is a trade-off between space and how long Time Machine can keep
its backups, since it will, by design, eventually use all the space
available.  But it won't just quit backing-up when it runs out:  it
starts deleting the oldest backups so it can keep making new ones.
Thus, the more space it has, the longer it can keep your backups.
If your backup disk is on the small side, and Time Machine needs to do
a very large backup, either because you've added or changed a lot or
done something like an OSX update since the previous backup, you may
get one of the messages in Troubleshooting item #C4  (which one
depends on exactly what happened, and which version of OSX you're on.)

My Answer

Then it'll only take a snapshot that's about 120GB in size, and while that same snapshot will grow over time as I take more recent snapshots of my system, it will never go beyond 500GB because that's the maximum size of my internal HDD.

No, not quite. The 1 TB hard drive will be filled up because Time Machine keeps your backups and deletes them once your hard drive is filled. There is more than one backup stored on that hard drive. As stuffe pointed out as well, Time Machine allows you to restore to a previous backup, since Time Machine may keep 7 or 8 backups on that 1 TB hard drive.

I'm asking this because I want to know if I should use a separate external HDD for storing my actual files.

Yes, you should. You should be dedicating a drive to Time Machine. Here is the quoted answer from 3 in the website I linked above:
3. Can I use my Time Machine disk for other stuff?

Yes.  Time Machine will not delete anything you put there.  But it's
not a good idea to put anything else important on the same physical
drive, unless you back it up elsewhere.  When (not if) that drive
fails, you risk losing it.
If you want to do this anyway, it's much, much better to partition an
external drive into 2 (or more) parts, also called volumes.  Assign
one to Time Machine, for its exclusive use for backups;  use the other
partition(s) however you want.  To use a new drive, or one you don't
mind erasing, see question #5.  To add a partition to an existing
drive that already has data on it, see question #6.


Which version of Safari has the user agent string "Safari/537.36"?

It seems to be a slightly dated version of Google Chrome (45.0.2454.85). The use agent strings seem to get pretty ridiculous nowadays, so I normally use the Browser Info tool to parse exactly whats going on.

Browser Info


Is there an application like Connectify for OS X El Capitan?

It is not possible without additional (external, peripheral) hardware.

  Your Mac’s physical Wi-Fi interface can either be connected to a Wi-Fi network or host its own network. It can only do one of these things at a time. This means you can’t be both connected to a Wi-Fi network and sharing that Wi-Fi network’s connection over Wi-Fi. Yes, you may sometimes want to do this — for example, when you’re staying in a hotel or other location that only allows you to connect one device to its Wi-Fi network.

from http://www.howtogeek.com/214053/how-to-turn-your-mac-into-a-wi-fi-hotspot/


Text forwarding just handles the SMS forwarding to a device with the same iMessage id.
To turn off both SMS and iMessages on your iPad simply disable iMessage on that device. Settings -> Messages -> iMessage


Want to delete UBUNTU 18.04 LTS from MacBook Air 2017 model

Just perform an erase install. Boot to macOS recovery and then repartition the whole drive and the installer downloads from the internet.

How to completely reinstall Mac OS X?

My answer here works best if you use internet recovery so you don’t need to mess with making a bootable usb and then get to recovery.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/315885/5472

In addition, there is no benefit to using a bootable USB or local recovery partition over just using internet recovery unless you already have the installer downloaded or a bootable Mac spare and handy. See About macOS Recovery for details.


iTunes is splitting one podcast into multiple podcasts. How do I fix it?

Maybe the podcast moved to a different URL. A program like MP3Tag can show and edit extended properties (looks something like PodcastURL). Check the splinter episode and check its URL. Check an older episode. If it has changed, select all older episodes and edit the field. Click OK. Go to iTunes and Get Info for all of those episodes. When it reads the new URL, it should stick them all back together.

Redownloading the older episodes, if available, will accomplish the same thing. (They'll be downloaded from the new URL. But the tag edit is quicker and easier.


Realistically the speed difference between 1866 and 2133 isn't going to make a significant impact on your overall system speed. It's a 266MHz difference but this does not affect overall performance in the same way a 266MHz CPU speed bump would.

You say you are running virtualised environments, so upgrading to 16GB - whatever the RAM speed - will have more of an impact than the RAM speed itself.

If you're looking for the maximum performance from your setup you do really need to be running an SSD in addition to the 16GB RAM, if you're not already.


You should not lose anything when you update iOS.

Just the be on the safe side backup your iPad.

Note: If your updating to iOS 11, 32-bit apps are not supported and will not open on iOS 11.


Apart from Enabling QOS on your network, I think you’ve shown that your internet egress/ingress can’t accommodate the amount of traffic your Mac asks for. One large source of traffic could be iCloud data being cached locally:

How to know what nsurlsessiond is downloading

You can dig into everything the Mac is doing by opening Activity Monitor - select network and look at the received and sent packet counts and volume. Over 30 to 300 seconds, you should have a good idea if you can or care to quit programs that are asking for more data than the router can accommodate.

Also - check with your ISP / router support team. There are quality of service and other items that can prevent buffer bloat and allow ping/ICMP traffic to not be impacted by large downloads. You don’t have to change anything on the Mac to keep ping times exactly where you wish - just most people and routers will let any one device take all the network - first come, first serve. You could change that on the network side.


How to create an application shortcut in Chrome for Mac

Unfortunately, the answer to your question is "you can't," and the reason is "because Google says so.

http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95710 says

  This feature is only available for Google Chrome on Windows and Linux.

but there is no real explanation as to why. Nor have I found one anywhere else. It seems like an oft-requested feature, but I've never seen Google even suggest that they are planning to add it (although I presume/hope that they will).

Alternative Solution: If you are interested in creating site-specific browsers on Mac OS X, Fluid.app works great, but (IIRC) it is based on Webkit, not Chrome.

2013-06-27: Turns out there is a way to make Chrome SSBs on the Mac, although it's a little convoluted.

The instructions are too long to replicate here, and there is a shell script and/or AppleScript involved. You can find both of them at
http://www.lessannoyingsoftware.com/blog/2010/08/149/Create+application+shortcuts+in+Google+Chrome+on+a+Mac

LifeHacker covered this as well, and created a video to go along with it. You can find that at:
http://lifehacker.com/5611711/create-application-shortcuts-in-google-chrome-for-mac-with-a-shell-script


Mission Control behaving differently with monitor plugged in

This is due to the differing amount of spaces shown in Mission Control, and both situations can be re-created with independently of the quantity of displays.

When you have a small number of spaces, it shows like this:

When you have lots of spaces, it shows like this:

This is not due to the number of displays you have connected but rather simply the number of spaces you have open.

To recreate…

You can make it act like the first example by having a small number of spaces, and it will use the default size and show the name of the space.
You can make it act like the second example by having a lot of open spaces, and it will reduce the size of the space thumbnails to fit them on, and hide the space name if necessary.


Batch remove specific info from filename in 3K .pdf files while preserving remaining info?

This should do the trick (just edit FolderTemp to something that works):

tell application "Finder"
    set FolderTemp to alias "Folder with all files"
    set allfiles to files of FolderTemp
    repeat with i from 1 to count of allfiles
        set CurrentFile to item i of allfiles
        set filename to name of item i of allfiles
        set x to offset of "-" in filename
        set y to offset of "." in filename
        set NewFileName to characters 1 thru (x - 1) of filename as string
        set Extension to characters y thru -1 of filename as string
        set NewFileName to NewFileName & Extension as string
        set name of CurrentFile to NewFileName
    end repeat
end tell

I hope it helps.


The excellent 1Password by AgileBits supports import for both of the formats you mention:

  1Password can import data from many popular applications, including:

  AppShelf
  AutoID
  Data Guardian1 (formerly Password Retriever)
  eWallet2
  KeePass and KeePassX
  LicenseKeeper
  Minefield
  Password Safe 3
  PasswordWallet by S3
  Passwords Plus3
  RoboForm Passcards and Safenotes
  SplashID by SplashData
  TurboPasswords (formerly Cloak)
  Web Confidential

Highly recommended app, well worth the purchase price.  (EDIT) 1Password does not include Linux support at present, just OS X, Windows, iOS and Android.


The Xscope app has a presbyopia filter that does a light blur.

http://xscopeapp.com

I see several large screen sizes, but you might not get your whole screen blurred. It works very well on the latest release of OS X and you can try it out for free I believe. If you're a programmer and not just looking for a ready-made tool, you would do worse to try something other than Brad Larson's tutorial on GPU accelerated video processing at http://www.sunsetlakesoftware.com/2010/10/22/gpu-accelerated-video-processing-mac-and-ios


Black screen, perhaps from login/lock system, after 'closing the clam'

I'll take a stab at how to collect the data needed to come up with an answer as to what and why the system isn't waking up properly. The new unibody MacBook Pro have much more sophisticated modes of clamshell mode so I'll assume you have one of those for now.

The best place to see what is happening after the event happens is the console application (or logging into the mac remotely with ssh to tail the logs as you are debugging this issue).

Sleep / wake events get a lot of log messages and you will want to look over a normal sleep wake to get familiar with all the messages that happen in which specific order and what normal times to begin and end the wake from sleep take.

A lot happens when the machine wakes as it needs to detect what is connected, if the display is shut, which graphics mode to wake up - what the display options and layout are. Then it transmits that info to all the running apps and has to put it's stuff together.

One thing to simplify things would be to disable all sorts of screen savers, display time outs and such. I've seen my mac get confused and wake from sleep just to engage a screen saver which went missing because I didn't change it and don't normally use it.

There have been several firmware updates in the last two years to tighten up this process as there were (and potentially are still) situations when the system doesn't respond in time or at all correctly.

Lastly - a poor display cable contact or impending hardware failure could be a cause of this. Not likely, but worth checking if you really want to nail this down.


You can use your Mac as a Bluetooth keyboard for your Apple TV. I.e. type on your Mac's keyboard to have text appear on Apple TV.

For this you need Type2Phone ( http://www.houdah.com/type2Phone/ ) from the Mac App Store.

Full disclosure: I am the developer of Type2Phone.


How to restore Mac Normal boot (Login before booting up to macOS)

Go to System Preferences » Security & Privacy and then click on the  "FileVault" tab.
If it shows that FileVault is enabled, then it is normal for it to ask for your password when you first boot the computer.
If that is not it, please let me know as a comment.


Missing Canon Printer driver for OSX Mavericks?

I'll try to look for what you need, if you are looking for a driver for the Canon Pixma MP160 printer / scanner to a machine running OSX Mavericks come in here, and if there is no, please see here, hopefully useful


24" imac from 2008 as a monitor for macbook pro

I'm afraid not.
It is hardware-dependent, not software.

The earliest model to support Target Display Mode was the Late 2009 iMac.

See : Use your iMac as a display with Target Display Mode


When you say "safely", I'm assuming you mean whether it can be deleted if you are not using Garageband, Logic, or any other DAW or audio software on your Mac. The answer is essentially yes. Even if you do use this software, the folder can be 'safely' deleted, as in it won't cause ill effects in the system - but naturally some functionality of the above apps may be impaire. If you were to open/run the Apple apps above, they'd likely just recreate the folder as needed.

Deleting the folder will not affect your Mac's ability to play audio normally, such as alert sounds, music/audio on websites (YouTube and the like). It won't affect your Mac's stability or anything unexpected like that. While it appears to have a folder for 'Alerts', the actual alert sounds used by macOS are stored elsewhere.

This is one of the beautiful things about the logical, human-readable way that so much of macOS is laid out. You can go ahead and delete the folder without worry, but I might ask why you want to remove the folder? Personally, I would err on the side of caution and clear the contents of the folder, but leave the empty 'Audio' folder there, as a placeholder if nothing else.


Without clicking the back button (or Command-[ ) of the browser:

Although the plugin is blocked, you can still use Command-S (or File > Save As) as well as File > Export as PDF to save the file to a folder.

Alternatively, click the back button (or Command-[ ), and then:

Option-click on the original link to download the file
Command-click opens the PDF in a new tab (PDF will not be blocked)
Ctrl-click yields the option "Download linked file as"


What is AppSC extremely slowing down my MacBook Pro?

AppSC is malware. Download, install and run the free app Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac. It will detect it and you will be asked to remove it (and some other potentially installed malware).

If you can't download/install the anti-malware app because everything is sluggish, you have to move or remove the responsible plist file(s) in /Users/your_user_name/Library/LaunchAgents/, /Library/LaunchAgents/ or /Library/LaunchDaemons/ manually by booting to Single User Mode or to Recovery Mode. Remove the responsible plist file by cd'ing to one of the directories and mv'ing or rm'ing it. I don't remember precisely but I think the file name contains *.appsc.* or *.appscd.*. If you are running El Capitan you might have to disable System Integrity Protection. Then continue booting or reboot to your main volume and try again downloading, installing and running Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac.

I recently got hands on a client's iMac infected with AppSC and some other malware. I've suspected MacKeeper (which was "installed" also) as the main culprit but I haven't been able to substantiate my assumption.

To remove the malware I first booted to a thumb drive containing a full OS X Mavericks and then - after investigating modify/create dates of several apps and folders - moving suspicious launch agents/daemons in ~/Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LaunchAgents or /Library/LaunchDaemons to inert folders like /Library/LaunchDaemons (Off). Then I booted to the main volume and installed the aforementioned software and uninstalled/deleted all malware files.

AppSC (accompanied by an AppSC daemon which starts AppSC while booting and restarts AppSC after force quitting it) just "eats" RAM with a rate of 50 MB-300 MB/s. Immediately after starting the iMac about 6 GB of 8 GB RAM were free. After all free RAM is gone the whole system swaps with a slightly slower rate. After one minute the client's iMac had a swap size of 4 GB with no other apps running.
Memory swapping will slow down your OS X and all running regular apps and after a while it's almost impossible to do anything even rebooting.


Is there a way to safely eject a USB hard drive from the lock screen?

AFAIK there is no save way to eject an external drive from the lock screen.

You have several options though:

Purchase and install Mountain and enable "Unmount external volumes on sleep". The feature still seems to be experimental.
Create a LaunchDaemon which ejects your external drive(s) gracefully at say 5am. Here is an example of a bash script to start with:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/sbin/diskutil list | grep -e 'disk[1-9]s.*' | sed 's/.*\(disk[0-9].*\)/\1/' | xargs -I{}
/usr/sbin/diskutil unmount {}

If you don't want to write a LaunchDaemon, Sleepwatcher should support your efforts.
Unmount all external volumes before setting your Mac(s) to sleep.


Why will Text Edit and other apps prevent me from choosing text colors?

Do you save your files as .txt (i.e., plain text)? In this case you cannot change colors, because .txt cannot store them, only information that a .txt file can hold are ASCII/UTF-8 characters, no particular formatting.

But you can choose colors if you convert your text into "Rich text" (.rtf file).
To do so, click on Format in the Menubar of TextEdit, and select Make Rich Text. Alternatively, you could also press the shortcut shift+command+T in TextEdit.


There is a simpler way.

In the Terminal, navigate to your $HOME directory: cd ~
Remove all the .DS_Store files:

find ~ -name ".DS_Store" -depth -exec rm -f {} \;

Relaunch finder going to: Force Quit → Finder

Set your global preferences using ⌘J and press the Use as default button.
Now, every folder you open or create will have the new settings.


iCloud storage full: "Not Enough Storage". Backups exceed 5GB

What to do when you do not have enough storage because your backup size is too large:

Delete the current backup on your iCloud for that specific iOS device.
Your iCloud backup is now automatically turned off, so turn it back on.
A new backup is made and has a reasonable size.

Theoretically your phone could crash in the short while you do not have a backup, so you could run an iTunes backup first.


Open safari pdf link in acrobat reader,not in ibooks

Updating to IOS-11 - fixes the problem - adobe now appears in the “Open in Adobe” as a selection.


Try using a different browser (Firefox) or a different media player (VLC or MPlayer X)and see if this happens. I am assuming that you are using Safari and QuickTime Player.


Why does this AppleScript not run in Outlook?

The script does not get recognized by Outlook as such because it has been saved as text (I created it inside Aquamacs).

If I open it in the AppleScript Editor and export it as script, then it works.

I found the solution here (third message from the top)


Apple keeps resetting my Apple ID password?

It might be the case that someone is trying to gain access to your and your coworkers accounts by trying out random passwords. After a certain number of failed attempts, your account will be disabled to prevent bad guys from continuously trying out passwords.

My suggestion would be to try to find out why it is being reset by contacting Apple support. They can probably tell you the specific reasons for disabling the account as it will probably be logged by them.

Sorry to redirect you, but this is not something we can 'solve' without knowing the reason behind the resets :-)


Stop Safari from opening FaceTime when a site contains a phone number

I'm not 100% certain on this

If you uncheck "Calls from iPhone"

in FaceTime Preferences, this should stop happening.


The option has been moved down to the bar above your keyboard.

Press on the plus icon

Choose Photo Library


"PROGRAMMING KEYS" Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 / Mac Mini OS X 10.9.5

Try https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

  A powerful and stable keyboard customizer for macOS.


Prevent deletion of apps from the Chrome App Launcher by other users

Make their accounts non-admin.

You cannot stop an admin from doing anything.

System Prefs > Users & Groups

Unlock
Disable


How to wait until internet connection, before launching "login item"

According to the Daemons and Services Programming Guide this is not directly possible via launchd.

  Network Availability

  If your daemon depends on the network being available, this cannot be handled with dependencies because network interfaces can come and go at any time in OS X. To solve this problem, you should use the network reachability functionality or the dynamic store functionality in the System Configuration framework. This is documented in System Configuration Programming Guidelines and System Configuration Framework Reference. For more information about network reachability, see Determining Reachability and Getting Connected in System Configuration Programming Guidelines.

Apps should really work when network is unavailable rather than just failing but if you want to do it yourself you could remove their startup items and make your own Launch Agent call a script that waits for a connection like this:

create a script such as ~/.local/bin/launch_my_programs

#!/bin/bash
while ! ping -c1 -W1 1.1.1.1 &> /dev/null ; do
    sleep 1
done
open /Applications/BBEdit.app # or whatever apps you want

create a .plist such as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my.startup.plist and include full path of your script

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>my.startup</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/Users/hali/.local/bin/launch_my_programs</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

chmod +x ~/.local/bin/launch_my_programs to make your script executable.
launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/my.startup.plist to load agent.


1) I think it's dependand on the speaker set you're using, but I don't think so.

2) No, you can change your audio output in a simpler way:

Hit Alt resp. Option
Click on the volume icon
Select your input/output sources


How do I clone my drive to a external USB drive?

Before you can clone your hard drive with CarbonCopyCloner, you need to create a partition on the drive and format it appropriately for use with your Mac. Most external drives come pre-formatted for use with Windows machines.

You can use Disk Utility for this purpose. You'll find Disk Utility under /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility on your machine.

In Disk Utility, look along the left hand bar for the USB-attached drive. If it has a partition on it already you'll see the drive listed, with the partition indented below the drive in the list:

Select the drive, not the partition, and then use the Erase tab on wipe the drive. You want to format the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You can give the drive a friendly name if you like. Once Disk Utility has wiped and formatted the drive with the appropriate file system you'll be able to use it as a clone target in CarbonCopyCloner:


How do I get bash with readline support from Nix?

Are you passing a boolean true to the expression for the 'interactive' attribute? It appears this is required in the expression for the bash package for readline support.

There's also an expression with the boolean already supplied so nix-env -iA nixpkgs.bashInteractive should give bash with readline support enabled.


AppleScript to create spacing format like "S P A C I N G"?

AppleScript to Expand Text

The following AppleScript snippet adds a space between each character of a string. Copy and paste this code in Applications > Utilities > Script Editor to try it out:

set myText to "hello world"
set myResult to ""

repeat with c in every character in myText
    set myResult to myResult & " " & c
end repeat

display dialog myResult

Automator Service

Using this script, you can use Applications > Automator to create your context menu service.

Launch Automator.app
Create a new workflow, select Service
Add a Run AppleScript action
Copy and paste in the script:

on run {input, parameters}

    set myText to input as string
    set myResult to ""

    repeat with c in every character in myText
        set myResult to ((myResult & " " & c) as string)
    end repeat

    -- Convert to upper case using `tr`
    set myResult to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of (myResult) & " | tr [:lower:] [:upper:]"

    return myResult
end run

Select Output replaces selected text
Save and test your new service


Showing the taskbar in Parallels Coherence mode

Switch to Coherence view.
Hold option and click the Parallels button in the Mac OS X system tray.
Navigate to View > Show Windows Taskbar.


Clear your cache.  Settings->advanced->clear browsing data.  Make sure you select Clear Cache from 'beginning of time'.  Restart browser.

Also, fyi, the favicon cache file is here, you can may try deleting that and restarting the browser.  The steps above would essentially do the same thing:
/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Favicons


Empty space in the place of icons in Finder

This means there was an icon there, but it's been deleted/moved/etc and your current view doesn't do automatic sorting. Go to View → Clean Up By → Name to fix it just once now or press ⌘J to open View Options and set Sort By to Name to fix this now and in the future.


Do not show Mac Mail headers when forwarding, but do show in Inbox

The detailed Header view is a Menu bar Icon (you can set it up) that allows you to view headers from Received emails.

To set it up right click on the mail menu bar and choose Customize.

From the new screen drag the "All Headers" icon to your menu bar.

Without some serious hacking, any email you send will also include the extended header information, same way as you can see it.


I am pretty sure this is an issue with macOS Sierra. I had a similar problem with a brand new powered hub (Dyconn PowerHub SuperSpeed 12 Port (10 Data/Charging + 2 Charging Only Ports). I assumed it was a defective hub and replaced it. However, the problem persists with the new hub. I have searched around and there doesn't seem to be systemic issues with that hub, and there are lots of issues with macOS Sierra and USB power management.

Currently I have a powered hard drive and 2 printers connected to the hub, so I don't think anything is drawing power. The devices seem to work - I can print and access the drive, but about every 30-60 secs a "USB Accessory Needs Power" window opens and closes very quickly.

I am running macOS Sierra 10.12.4 on a MacBook Pro 15 mid-2015. From what I have read elsewhere, macOS Sierra has issues with USB management.


More than 2500 systemwide processes on OSX 10.9

Unfortunately it seems like maxproc is limited to 2500 with OS X unless you install OS X Server. With Server installed you can run the serverinfo tool to set high performance mode.

Just tried this myself and it seems to work.

$ sudo serverinfo --setperfmode YES
Server performance mode was enabled.

Rebooted.

$ sudo sysctl kern.maxproc
kern.maxproc: 5000

I didn't even need to change maxproc, after rebooting it was already set to 5000.


How does the iMac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX compare to Desktop cards?

DO NOT GET the imac 680mx!!!! save and get 675mx same performance but with less cudas
1344 and 1 less gig of vram. Still running battfield 3 ultra 43fps 1440p
check this site http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1568279.


Terminal command for removing all named files except for one

The following will delete all files named File (and only those) within the current folder, except ones with extension .out:

find . -type f \( -iname "File.*" ! -iname "*.out" \) -delete -maxdepth 1

If you want to perform this operation recursively (traversing all subfolders), remove -maxdepth 1:

find . -type f \( -iname "File.*" ! -iname "*.out" \) -delete

The i in -iname performs a case-insensitive search, so file.*, FILE.*, etc. will be deleted as well. Likewise, file.OUT would be spared.


How to change the main user name of a used MacBook on macOS 10.13?

You can do the short name shuffle. I prefer this over trying to rename an existing account. Much better to make it “new” with the old files intact.

Make a new admin - to rename the old account(s)
Log out of the old and in to the new
Use the new to delete the old account - answer “don’t change” the home folder when asked
Open /Users and rename the deleted folder to be the new account short name of your choice
Create a new account - specify the new short name from above step

The system sees the user folder is present and asks you to confirm to reuse it, answer yes. Log out of the new admin and test the old documents with the new renamed account. No need to delete the temp account, but you can now if you please.


Is it possible to stream from Safari to Apple TV with a MacBook Pro late 2008 with OS X 10.9.5?

Unfortunately, the graphics card in your Mac doesn't support AirPlay as its too old. I have the same problem with my mid-2010 MBP. You can see the list of supported hardware here.

While there is software that will enable this functionality (like AirParrot), I have found it severely under performs on older hardware and isn't really usable. You're welcome to give it a go though. :)


I was looking at an app from the US app store, now I can't find out how to change store back to UK?

If you are on iOS 12:

Go to the AppStore. At the bottom tap on today.

Then tap the avatar in the top-right as show below:

Then click on your name/email at the top.

Then you should be able to change your AppStore/check your country or region there:


An app that can give me the amount of time using an app?

I use RescueTime. It's quite cool + for free you get a lot of features


Replaced RAM and now web browser flickers

From what I found, it was after all the RAM. I took out both chips again and used compressed air to thoroughly clean the areas involved. After that, it seemed to work.

Of course, it could be that I hadn't had the chips in properly previously, as opposed to dust.


How can I turn off my Time Capsule's wireless router?

Yes, using the Airport Utility you can turn off the router and WiFi functionality independently of each other.

Under the Wireless tab - Network Mode: select Off
Under the Network tab - Router Mode: select Off

At this point you can connect the Time Capsule to the wired network using the ports with a horizontal icon <-> or even use it to receive the internet and connect your router to the ethernet ports. Bridge mode disables firewall, port forwarding, DHCP and DNS and makes it simply a network peer.


How do I change shells (bash to ksh) on OS 10.9.1?

The easiest way is to just start Terminal as usual and type ksh to start a Korn shell. If you want to open a new Terminal window for it, type Shift-Cmd-N and run ksh from there.

Depending on how your .profile looks like, you might need to change it as well to identify the shell it's running under and execute initialization commands accordingly.


I had the .pkpass file downloaded to a computer. This worked for me:

send yourself an email with the .pkpass file attached
open the email on the iphone
tap the attachment
'Add' it to your wallet


Logitech G613 Bluetooth keyboard stops working after first connection on 2019 Macbook Pro

I faced exact same problem. This worked for me :

press and hold the Bluetooth button in the g613 keyboard until it starts blinking faster.

On Mac, do the BlueTooth connection as explained by @Vadim Flaks, once connected you can remove the old G613 from your BlueTooth settings ( which is now disconnected )


This is not possible, since the OSX GUI doesn't run on X Server. Furthermore, there is no support for simultaneous desktop logins. You could theoretically run an X server on OSX, but you'd be able to run only apps that use XQuartz, not native OSX apps.

You could allow him to access your Mac via Screen sharing or VNC, but it wouldn't support multiple users.


You can use Network Link Conditioner.

You will want to ignore the testing settings. Make a Custom Profile and set to have no packets dropped and no delay. Start with uplink and downlink at 2.45 Mbps each and see if you need lower limits to prevent disconnects.

It is a free download in Xcode (go to Xcode → Open Developer Tool → More Developer Tools… and download the Hardware IO Tools for Xcode).


The secret is OPTION key.
Press that and that resume button will turn in to cancel.

http://www.cultofmac.com/224342/cancel-instead-of-pausing-your-mac-app-store-updates-os-x-tips/


How can I get started with FaceTime on a Macbook Pro?

FaceTime is stored in /Applications/Facetime.app and all the settings and preferences you need are available from within the application's preferences and help menu.

Here is a nice troubleshooting article that might help.

http://www.apple.com/support/mac/facetime/

Also, since you have a new mac, you should have 90 days of paid support to get you up and running. That support is really helpful for getting oriented since it's hard to expect a new user to know where to look for details on new hardware and potentially new software.


Using option (alt) key is the default way to enter non-latin characters from a keyboard which layout does not have these characters. For instance: I'm Polish, so I need to use Polish characters (like 'ą', 'ę', 'ó' etc.). To do that I use option key (option+a, option+e, option+o).

You can see the variants of keys of your keyboard by enabling keyboard preview: go to System Preferences, choose Keyboard and check the check box in the bottom called 'Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar' (http://osxdaily.com/2013/06/21/mac-virtual-keyboard-os-x/). Enable it by opening the keyboard menu ('Show keyboard viewer', you can find the instructions under the same link). Now hold the option key - you'll see the variants of keys in your keyboard - you should see the reason to type 'Ø' when you use option+shift+o.

EDIT:

The answer I wrote was the answer to the question in the title: "Why have option- shortcuts in text fields started inserting special characters?".

There a few options:

if you could do that in previous version of OS X then the new version may have changed some settings (see: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/Keyboard.html - they can choose to change keyboard behavior as they want and they mention it).
Also, since entering the text is system-based functionality it may
not be overriden by default - you need an external tweaking software
to do that.
It may also be a bug - you're using an unstable version
of the system.

You may find a solution (the tweaking software I mentioned) to your problem in answer of this question:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11876485/how-to-disable-typing-special-characters-when-pressing-option-key-in-mac-os-x


DisplayLink
DisplayLink makes USB graphics adapters for PCs and Macs. You can add as many displays as you have USB ports and processing power.
You would use the built in graphics card for one of your displays and use the USB graphics adapter for the other side. I would suggest using your three displays in the following order:

Primary: MacBook Pro built in display

Secondary: Display connected to Mini DisplayPort

Tertiary: Display connected to USB graphics adapter.

The USB graphics adapter solution is fantastic, but it can be a little slow sometimes.


I would connect your phone to a computer, open iTunes and delete the apps from there that are not updating properly. Once this is done, simply unplug your phone from your computer and re-download those applications.


iPod Nano 6th Generation stuck power button

Yes there is. Plug it into your computer or a power source. It will power up; unplug it  and you can start the music or audiobook or whathave you. When you want to stop, you can pull out the headphone which shuts it down. To restart, you'll have to do the same and it won't start at the point where you stopped. I know it isn't great, but it is something. I will eventually take it apart and try to do the repair that is posted on the internet.


Recommendations for purchasing low cost but Powerful Macs

How do you feel about a used machine? A one or two year old Mac Pro tower is still a very nice machine for video editing, and you could likely find one on eBay for a fraction of the cost of a brand new one.


When an iPhone app is updated and the minimum required iOS increases, what happens for customers who still have the lower iOS?

When the user tries to install the update, the app store will alert the user saying something like "you must have iOS5 to install this update.". The user will still be able to use the current version they they have, though.


How do I kill "SQL Developer" that seem to be in deadlock using ps aux and kill -9?

If you can't find it by running ps aux or pgrep -i developer you can run Activity Monitor to get the PID of the process (and also to kill it directly).


Can't see A1084 AirPort Express behind A1354 AirPort Extreme

I cannot comment your post, but at least I have a suggestion: Download a copy of Airport Utility 5.6 working with Mavericks here.

Edit: it seems to me your network is working as always (at least before you began fiddling...:-)), but the thing is you updated Airport Utility to the newest version and therefore cannot see the Expresses? This is a "feature" of the newest Airport Utility.


Why does this Applescript often fail the first time, but always work after that?

You're right, I didn't test it well enough. The error was shown when System Events was not already running. As another workaround, I added launch application "System Events" and delay 0.2 to the start:

launch application "System Events"
delay 0.2
ignoring application responses
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "QuickHue"
        click menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
    end tell
end ignoring
do shell script "killall System\\ Events"
delay 0.1
tell application "System Events" to tell process "QuickHue"
    tell menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1
        click menu item 2 of menu 1
    end tell
end tell

If it still doesn't work, try increasing the delays.


Mid 2014 Macbook Pro Retina 15" monitor daisychain

MBP.MiniDisplayOut > Monitor1.DisplayPortIn > Monitor1.DisplayPortOut > Monitor2.DisplayPortIn

NOT:  -> Monitor2.MiniDisplayPortIn

Manual HERE, page 25


I do not believe that there are at this time.


Is there still iTunes plus upgrade for DRM'ed music?

Open up iTunes. Go to the iTunes Store. Click on the iTunes Plus link at the bottom of the navigation window:


How can I discover which files were deleted by `rm -rf`?

There is no way to know for certain exactly which files were deleted. There's no list stored, no trash can, this is unix (well BSD) and you don't get any nice second chances with rm -rf

As you have seen though, you can infer what might have been deleted first by observing the rm command's behaviour.

I created a folder with a few subfolders, including some with a period at the beginning of the name and threw a few files into each.

The order is always alphabetical with the hidden, period prefixed directories getting deleted first.

If you compare a backup with your directory structure, once you have moved through alphabetically and started to find files in the backup that are still on your main drive, I think you can rest assured that you haven't missed any other files.


there used to be a full sized wireless keyboard?

Yes, you can even still purchase it from vendors listed on this Google Shopping page. Unfortunately, that option will run you $120 plus whatever shipping they charge.

An alternative is purchasing it used off eBay, but I only found one listing for the full sized wireless Apple keyboard.


AirPods Pro: clogged ears (Airplane Ear or Eardrum Suck effect) with noise cancellation turned on

The effect you are describing is commonly referred to as "eardrum suck". It's a common complaint for any type of noise-cancelling earphones.
Only some people are sensitive to it, and the stronger the noise-cancellation, the more likely it will bother you. Headphones seem more likely to cause it than earbuds.
According to Brent Butterworth, a headphone reviewer, it's an aural illusion caused by the nature of noise cancelling circuitry (there is no pressure on your eardrum, it just feels that way). It's a little difficult to explain succinctly, but this article goes into all the details: https://www.soundstagesolo.com/index.php/features/178-eardrum-suck-the-mystery-solved


You can download Java SE 6 for OS X from here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572

For Maven support you can use brew (as stated above) or, if you don't want to install brew just for Maven support, you can download it directly from maven.apache.org. Here's the steps I took to get Maven setup on a fresh install of Mavericks:

curl -O http://apache.tradebit.com/pub/maven/maven-3/3.1.1/binaries/apache-maven-3.1.1-bin.tar.gz
sudo mkdir /usr/local
cd /usr/local
sudo tar -xf ~/apache-maven-3.1.1-bin.tar.gz
echo "export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/apache-maven-3.1.1/bin" >> .profile
echo "export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home" >> .profile


Yosemite - Change default C and fortran compilers

After some deeper research, I came up with the solution. I solved this problem by using MacPorts:

sudo port select --set gcc mp-gcc49

So, problem solved!


How to enable third monitor in Macbook Pro 15'' mid 2015 model?

Apple doesn't support this configuration.    Per the Apple specifications, you can support up to two external monitors:

  Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native
  resolution on the built-in display and up to 3840 by 2160 pixels on up
  to two external displays, both at millions of colors

(Emphasis added)


How to make Mou.app maintain PDF vector images on “export to PDF”?

I found a fix of sorts. Using a high resolution TIFF in place of the PDF logo improved the final PDF quality. Tried high-res PNGs, but the results weren't as good as a TIFF.


Make sure to back up all of your data first, just in case.

Next, create a USB Recovery HD (at least 1GB) with these Apple forum instructions:

  Create a USB thumb drive Recovery HD using the Lion Recovery Disk
  Assistant. Download this and install it. Then, insert a thumb drive
  and create your bootable Recovery HD. Last, boot from the USB thumb
  drive and from inside the Recovery HD on that, try the resize.

You should be able to resize your main partition after booting from the USB Recovery HD.

Another option is to use the Recovery HD on your Mac, as noted in the solution that @bmike suggested in another question - boot to your Recovery HD and use Disk Utility there to resize.

The solution that you've mentioned will work, but is a bit more work.


I found the easiest thing to do was to just let excel export to csv in its own dumb way, then open up a terminal and do the following:

iconv -t UTF8 -f MACROMAN < file.csv > file-utf8.csv


What happens to existing free users if an App gets moved from free to paid?

The user buys an app for the price it is sold at that point. Future changes to the price have no effect on them. It is on their Apple ID that they own the app and they will be able to download the app for free as long as it's available (no matter the price).


How to find cause of high kernel_task cpu usage?

TLDR; If your MacBook Pro runs hot or shows a high % CPU for the kernel task, try charging on the right and not on the left.

High kernel_task CPU Usage is due to high chassis temperature caused by charging. In particular Left Thunderbolt port usage.
Solutions include:

Move charging from the left to the right side. If you have a second charger then plug it in on the right side. Avoid plugging everything on the right side (see last paragraph below).
Unplug something from the left side. Either power or another accessory until the battery is full.
Force fans to max before plugging in. iStatMenus has an easy Sensors -> Fans menu item to do so. This only helps in marginal conditions.
Move to a cooler room.

Proof:
Actual CPU temperature or application CPU usage is uncorrelated with kernel_task. A hot CPU is throttled by reducing its clock speed, not by scheduling fake no-op load.
The graphs below are from iStatMenus. The machine had been used on battery then plugged in.
State A a USB-C hub (a mouse and keyboard, plus power) and a USB-C HDMI 2.0 adapter, both on the left side. You can see the Thunderbolt Left Proximity temperature sensor rise quickly. About 3-4 minutes later the dreaded kernel_task high CPU usage starts.
State B cures the kernel_task problem by moving power from the left ports to the right. The left side temperature drops and the kernel_task goes away within about 15 seconds.
This is causal. Moving power back to the left side, restoring State A, quickly restores the temperatures and kernel_task again comes back after 3-4 minutes. Again moving power back to the right side, restoring State B, resolves the problem immediately.
State C shows that simply having stuff plugged in to TB ports raises their temperature significantly. Both the hub (mouse and keyboard ONLY) and HDMI adapter individually raise the temperature about 10 degrees, and 15 degrees together.

(all other temperatures were both low and flat. Under 55 degrees.)
Note that high temperature on the right side appears to be ignored by the OS. Plugging everything into the two right ports instead of the left raised the Right temperatures to over 100 degrees, without the fans coming on. No kernel_task either, but the machine becomes unusable from something throttling.
Ergo, high CPU usage by kernel_task is caused by high Thunderbolt Left Proximity temperature, which is caused by charging and having normal peripherals plugged in at the same time.
2017 15" Macbook Pro, MacOS 10.14.5

To actually answer the question:

How can I find out what this process is doing?

The only way to actually ask the kernel what it's doing is to attach a kernel debugger. That means getting a debug kernel from Apple, rebooting, then using a second Mac to attach to the debugged machine. You can then examine stack traces and guess what they mean.
Otherwise guessing and testing is the only way. Of course that leads to false conclusions more often than not.


Why can't I change a restricted System file after doing csrutil disable?

The restricted flag only applies with System Integrity Protection enabled. It tells SIP which files to protect. If you disable SIP, the restricted flag has no effect.

Disabling SIP doesn't give you permission to the files though. You'll still need sudo or change the permissions yourself to edit the files.


What does iPhone new contacts "outside of specific account" mean?

This happens if you also have your iPhone setup to sync to outlook via a microsoft exchange server.

The key here is to setup your "default account" to also work the same way when you are manually adding contacts to your iPhone.

Under Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Contacts -> Default Account you can select an account to have your contacts created in when you create a new contact.

"outside of a specific account" refers to your exchange account setup.

If you have any issues where contacts created on your iPhone don't sync correctly with your exchange account then you should change the default account to point to your exchange account.

more info and discussion about this (as well as potential sync issues with exchange server) can be found here.

Hope this helps.


Retrieve data after deleting from Trash in OS X

If you have used Time Machine this will be rather easy:

Go to the Applications folder and open the Time Machine application. Browse to where the file used to live, go to previous backups until it appears, then choose "Restore" from the right-click menu.

Otherwise, if you are still using the same computer, then you really are in trouble. The chances of recovery with tools like Data Rescue go down every minute the machine is in use.


How does Apple know whom an inactive iPhone belongs to?

They store device information thats linked to the UDID of the device. As far as I know, they can't tell who the owner is for sure. Moreover, I also doubt you can block the old phone.


The command you mention in your comments hdiutil create -o /tmp/Catalina -size 8500m -volname Catalina -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J appears to come from this tutorial which in full does this:

Note: I have increased the size of the /tmp/Catalina.dmg from 8500m to 9000m so it is big enough to fit 10.15.4 (previous versions worked fine). If the .dmg is too small the subsequent createinstallmedia command will fail with "Error erasing disk error number (22, 0)"

Note: I have increased the size of the /tmp/Catalina.dmg from 9000m to 9500m so it is big enough to fit 10.15.5.

hdiutil create -o /tmp/Catalina -size 9500m -volname Catalina -layout SPUD -fs HFS+J
hdiutil attach /tmp/Catalina.dmg -noverify -mountpoint /Volumes/Catalina
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Catalina --nointeraction
hdiutil detach /volumes/Install\ macOS\ Catalina
hdiutil convert /tmp/Catalina.dmg -format UDTO -o ~/Desktop/Catalina.cdr
mv ~/Desktop/Catalina.cdr ~/Desktop/Catalina.iso

These steps work absolutely fine to create an ISO but you have 2 issues which are resolved in VirtualBox 6.1.4 - from the changelog

Virtualization core: Fixed macOS Catalina guests failing to boot after upgrading to 10.15.2 onwards (bug #19188)

For versions of VirtualBox prior to 6.1.4 the following steps are required:
You must tell VirtualBox what to boot
The ISO produced will work fine with VirtualBox but will not run automatically as Apple have put boot.efi in a non-standard place.  Unlike a real mac the firmware doesn't know where to look.
In the EFI shell, if you enter FS0:\System\Library\Coreservices\boot.efi (it may be FS1:, FS2: &c depending on the order of your virtual disks) it will run.  This can be automated by putting the command in a startup.nsh script which in fact is contained in the VirtualBox Boot.vdmk mentioned in the tutorial.
If you would rather create your own than download from a random google drive you can do it like this:
hdiutil create -o /tmp/CatalinaBoot -size 50m -volname MACOS_BOOT -fs FAT32
hdiutil attach /tmp/CatalinaBoot.dmg -noverify -mountpoint /Volumes/CatalinaBoot
echo 'FS0:\System\Library\Coreservices\\boot.efi' > /Volumes/CatalinaBoot/startup.nsh
echo 'FS1:\System\Library\Coreservices\\boot.efi' >> /Volumes/CatalinaBoot/startup.nsh
echo 'FS2:\System\Library\Coreservices\\boot.efi' >> /Volumes/CatalinaBoot/startup.nsh
echo 'FS3:\System\Library\Coreservices\\boot.efi' >> /Volumes/CatalinaBoot/startup.nsh
echo 'FS4:\System\Library\Coreservices\\boot.efi' >> /Volumes/CatalinaBoot/startup.nsh
hdiutil detach /Volumes/CatalinaBoot
VBoxManage convertfromraw --format VDI /tmp/CatalinaBoot.dmg ~/Desktop/CatalinaBoot.vdi

Attach the created CatalinaBoot.vdi disk first in your VM and it will automatically run the boot.efi from the ISO created as they describe.
Note when I tested it on VirtualBox 6.1.2 the ISO generated by the tutorial would fail when using a SATA controller giving the error: "BdsDxe: loading Boot0001 “UEFI VBOX CD-ROM VB1-1a2b3c4d ”". When connected to an IDE controller it worked fine.

VirtualBox 6.1.2 will not run Catalina 10.15.2 and later guests
Virtualbox 6.1.0 added support for booting APFS. Unfortunately there is a problem if you do not have 10.15.1 version of Install macOS Catalina.app.
There is a bug in VirtualBox which is exposed by 10.15.2 and later versions of boot.efi.  See this VirtualBox forum thread Catalina 10.15.2 does not start. As mentioned in the relevant VirtualBox Ticket #19188

The source of the boot hangs has been identified, although fixing it correctly isn't entirely trivial. It's triggered by a very, very old problem in VirtualBox.
<snip>
At any rate it will be fixed for the next maintenance release.

If you want to run a macOS 10.15.2 or later guest (on any VirtualBox 6.0.2 host) you must use boot.efi from Catalina 10.15.1 or Mojave. You could do this yourself following the steps in the VirtualBox forum thread or use this script on GitHub macos-guest-virtualbox
As 10.15.1 is no longer available on Apple servers you may need to download and unpack Mojave to get boot.efi and then copy this first to unpacked Catalina installer and then afterwards to Catalina itself.  As they say in their linked workaround

The real easy way to run Catalina is to use the script to install Mojave on VirtualBox and then run it in VMWare and upgrade it to Catalina.


Copy/Paste working inconsistently (El Capitan, Macbook Air)

Occasionally, it is possible for keyboard service to either die or become unresponsive. I've had this too, although I'm not really entirely sure under what circumstances. The following restarts it "gently", and may help you:

launchctl stop com.apple.pboard
launchctl start com.apple.pboard


Historically, Apple has not pre-announced specific release dates for updates or major releases. This is likely done to allow Apple to better deal with last minute problems.

Your best option is to follow Apple Developer News. An RSS feed is available for this information.


The keep function saves attachments. The attachments are saved in chat information. Tap the i in the top right of your conversation with someone. Then tap attachments and all the kept attachments are there. You can delete them by holding down on them and tapping delete.


The reason why Ubuntu works is that it has a package manager for all code, that is python and binaries. pip is a python installer and works in OSX for all pure python packages and simple C packages but seems to have issues with the more complex ones.

The nearest think to Linux's package managers are the package managers that deal with code ported from other Unices e.g. Macports, Homebrew, Fink. With choose one and one only as they can conflict (I use macports) and then use it for all possible ports.

In your case installing matplotlib would automatically install python, numpy, scipy etc