Apple yanked iOS 9.3 (13E233) for almost all devices on 03/24/16 which means you can't install it. And no, you cannot force an update to iOS 9.3 since Apple is no longer signing it.

Update: iOS 9.3 (13E237) has been released on 03/28/16 for most devices, so you should be able to download the new firmware and install now. If you still can't install, you likely have one of the few devices that still don't have an updated version of iOS 9.3. You can check your device's signing status here.


The easiest solution is probably to outright remove the offending kernel extension from /System/Library/Extensions, in your case AMDRadeonX3000.kext. You need to:

Disable System Integrity Protection. There are many guides across the internet on how to do this, but the short version is: reboot into recovery mode, open the terminal, and enter csrutil disable.
Copy /System/Library/Extensions/AMDRadeonX3000.kext to a safe space somewhere else on your computer, in case something goes wrong and you need to revert.
Delete AMDRadeonX3000.kext from /System/Library/Extensions.
Clear your kext cache. Open the terminal and run: sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions && sudo kextcache -u /. Then reboot.

The kext may reappear after updating macOS, in which case you'll need to repeat steps 3 & 4. For this reason, although you can re-enable SIP once the kext has been removed, I recommend just leaving it off.

The Hackintosh community has more persistent methods of disabling specific kernel extensions. If you'd like, you could look into installing the Clover bootloader, which is targeted at Hackintosh users but should work on official hardware as well. For your needs, however, I think simply deleting the kext is the best solution.

Edit: This method will cause the dedicated GPU to continue receiving power, wasting the battery. In order to stop the GPU from receiving power, you will need to install Clover and then create a custom SSDT that switches off the GPU.


How can I change the default save location of Office for Mac?

The File Locations preference pane allows to to specify the location for all documents to be saved.

In Word Preferences... select File Locations:

When in File Locations, set the path you want Word to use by clicking in the Location field. The default setting, which appears blank in the screencap below, is to ~/Documents.


Why can't iPhone 4s connect to a specific IP address?

Are you sure your new iPhone is connected to the same WiFi access point?

Try turning both Airplane mode and WiFi ON in Settings to make sure you are accessing the correct local network.


Where can I find the APFS format documentation / volume specification?

I think Alsoft's use of the phrase APFS format documentation is just that - a phrase they've used rather than referencing an official title.

The Apple File System Reference is almost certainly what they're referring to. This reference was publicly released on 17 September 2018, and Alsoft made that statement on 4 October 2018.

Prior to the Apple File System Reference, there was no consolidated documentation from Apple regarding APFS - at least not to this level of detail. In fact, the most comprehensive documentation until this was released was actually the result of private academic work in the computer forensics field.

As for Apple itself, we've had the following documentation:

Apple File System Guide - retired in June 2018
About Apple File System - first published in June 2018, but updated in October 2018 to replace references to HFS+ with HFS Plus instead
File System Programming Guide - last updated in April 2018

However, the Apple File System Reference was last updated in February 2019.


How do I prevent X11 opening an xterm when it starts?

defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 app_to_run /usr/bin/true

in a Terminal. However, note that it normally shouldn't be necessary to ever start XQuartz.app (or X11.app; see the comments) manually. It will start automatically when you run an X11 client, and then it will not start its defaults startup application.


Unable to connect samsung galaxy S5 to mac

I had to activate the developer mode in my phone by tapping the Build number about 7 times. The Build number is under Settings -> About Device after that a new option will show up in settings called Developer options.

Under this option I activated USB debugging and now I can connect to my phone using the Android Transfer File app.


Contact names not showing in Messages on High Sierra

The problem seems to be that the phone numbers in your contacts have lost the proper format. They should be in the form (123) 456-7890 and they have been formatted as 1234567890.  It seems that iOS does a really literal comparison and it can't resolve this difference.

I fixed this on my iPhone 5s running iOS 12 by changing my region from the US to Canada. That evidently forces a re-formatting of the erroneous numbers. Then I changed it back to the US. Note that my contacts were synced with Google/Gmail. I think this should also work for iCloud, but your mileage may vary.

Go to Settings app → General → Language & Region → Region, tap on Canada, then tap Done. (I bet selecting any different region would work). The change takes a bit of a time. When it is complete, look at your recent calls, voicemails and messages - they should be displaying names. Look at your contacts - phone numbers should be correctly formatted. If so, the problem should be fixed. In any case, change the region back to United States.


What is the (external) keyboard shortcut to lock my screen with the screen save

Open System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App Shortcuts.  Then click on the plus  sign under the white box that has the different options in there.  Name it 'Sleep' and give it the ⌘⌥F12 command (cmd + opt + F12).  You can set it to whatever you like but most keyboards already map F12 to the eject key so if you get a different keyboard it may work already by default.  Remember to also change your settings to require your password after a set time after going to sleep.  Hope this helps, I searched for awhile to find out how to do this and couldn't find any good answers.


Caffeinate : prevent screensaver (Catalina)

Frame challenge…
Why not just use the Hot Corners in the Screen Saver prefs instead.

Push the cursor into the top left & no more screen saver, which will also keep the Mac awake.


Delete apps from previous Apple ID and set iPhone to factory seeting

To reset to factory settings, in your iPhone go to Settings → General → Reset → Erase All Content and Settings. It ask for confirmation twice.

To restore a previous backup, you have a couple of options:

Connect your iPhone to iTunes and you will see a Restore Backup... button on the iPhone Summary tab.
If you start your phone without iTunes, once you enter your Apple ID and password you will be prompted to restore a backup (if you have one stored on iCloud).


Can't install a simple app, We could not complete your request

I've gotten error 4 in the past when my sign-in to the app store has expired. Try clicking on Purchases. If that doesn't prompt a sign in, try downloading one of the apps listed in there.

You should be prompted to sign in, and then you'll be able to download your new app.


Finder shows stale directory listings from NFS server

I had the same problem and found a solution here that worked for me:

dscacheutil -flushcache
killall Finder

The man page of dscacheutil says that the -flushcache option should only be used in extreme cases, so there may be risks to this method that I'm not aware of.


NOTE: I took what was described in a comment and converted it to an answer for completeness on this Q&A.

To convert the date so that the year is in YY format vs. YYYY format you could use this line to set _year.

set _year to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _year)

Example

Here's a full example of the your AppleScript snippet:

$ cat showdate.sh
#!/bin/bash

osascript <<END
set today to short date string of (current date)
set t to (time string of (current date))
set [_day, _month, _year] to [day, month, year] of date today

set _month to _month * 1 --> 3
set _month to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _month) --> "03"
set _year to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _year)
set the text item delimiters to "/"
set today to {_month, _day, _year} as string
set fullDateToday to today & " " & t as string
END

And when it's executed we get the following.

Today's date

$ date
Sun Apr 21 00:21:08 EDT 2019

via AppleScript

$ ./showdate.sh
04/21/19 00:20:45

How it works

This AppleScript line:

set _year to text -1 thru -2 of ("0" & _year)

When executed, will set the variable _year to the last 2 digits of the contents of _year prior vale. So if the value was 2019, the above line would result in _year being 19.

("0" & _year) - converts _year's contents to a string by prefixing a 0 to the beginning
-1 thru -2 of ... - will slice the last 2 digits from _year, and remove everything else from _year
-1 starts indexing from the right instead of the left

References

Index » unScripted » Dates & Times in AppleScripts


How do I print my logical volume group UUID to file?

Note: This answer is just example code as I only have one Core Storage Volume to test against, however, if there's more then one, the awk command could be modified to accommodate accordingly. Although without the output of multiple Core Storage Volumes, I cannot give an example.

If it's the Logical Volume Group UUID, you can user the following example:

$ lvguuid="$(diskutil coreStorage list | awk '/Logical Volume Group/{print $5}')"
$ echo "$lvguuid"
696AD841-1F53-4D33-9496-3E36D33AB270
$

In the awk command, you can substitute Logical Volume Group with Physical Volume, Logical Volume Family and  change $5 as appropriate. Based on the order of the search string shown in this line, it will be $5, $4, $5.

For Logical Volume, you'll need to use a regex, as in the following example:

lvuuid="$(diskutil coreStorage list | awk '/Logical Volume [A-F0-9]{8}-/{print $4}')"

Understanding the regex:

Logical Volume [A-F0-9]{8}-

Logical Volume matches the characters Logical Volume literally (case sensitive).

[A-F0-9]{8} - Match a single character present in the list below.

{8} Quantifier — Matches exactly 8 times.
A-F a single character in the range between A (index 65) and F (index 70) (case sensitive).
0-9 a single character in the range between 0 (index 48) and 9 (index 57) (case sensitive).
- matches the character - literally (case sensitive).

So, in my example awk matches Logical Volume 38712F52- and returns:

38712F52-5967-4A49-87D6-C66D4B199F28

The above examples set a variable that can be called from the command line or script, however, if you what the output to a file, then use the following example:

diskutil coreStorage list | awk '/Logical Volume Group/{print $5}' > /path/to/filename

On my system here's the output of the diskutil coreStorage list command on an encrypted USB Flash Drive:

$ diskutil coreStorage list
CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)
|
+-- Logical Volume Group 696AD841-1F53-4D33-9496-3E36D33AB270
    =========================================================
    Name:         Encrypted
    Status:       Online
    Size:         15661490176 B (15.7 GB)
    Free Space:   16777216 B (16.8 MB)
    |
    +-< Physical Volume E0E76F6B-A4E2-466D-B8E5-D5977ECD0522
    |   ----------------------------------------------------
    |   Index:    0
    |   Disk:     disk3s2
    |   Status:   Online
    |   Size:     15661490176 B (15.7 GB)
    |
    +-> Logical Volume Family EAF4984B-94C8-49B6-BCC6-76A8724E04D2
        ----------------------------------------------------------
        Encryption Status:       Unlocked
        Encryption Type:         AES-XTS
        Conversion Status:       Complete
        Conversion Direction:    -none-
        Has Encrypted Extents:   Yes
        Fully Secure:            Yes
        Passphrase Required:     Yes
        |
        +-> Logical Volume 38712F52-5967-4A49-87D6-C66D4B199F28
            ---------------------------------------------------
            Disk:               disk4
            Status:             Online
            Size (Total):       15325941760 B (15.3 GB)
            Size (Converted):   -none-
            Revertible:         Yes (unlock and decryption required)
            LV Name:            Encrypted
            Volume Name:        Encrypted
            Content Hint:       Apple_HFS
$


How to set proxy configuration file in command line?

networksetup is a configuration tool for network settings in System Preferences. I don't really known what the ShadowsocksX project is,
but this command can help you up.
For instance, for a certain .pac config file, you could do:
networksetup -setautoproxyurl "Wi-Fi" "http://somedomain.com/proxy.pac"

PS: if you just need to set the proxy for something like wget, or curl, then you can use the fairly universal http_proxy and ftp_proxy ENV variables (e.g., export http_proxy=http://myproxy:port).


Selecting multiple icons in Finder using the keyboard?

You could use cmd ⌘ + 2 to change to the list view and then just use Shift + Down.


I think the documentation saying MacOS 10.11.6 is wrong as I can't figure how to run that as well. You may need to have a friend run the installer and send you the USB drive with bootable media or perhaps try one last time to reinstall 10.11.6 from this link:

http://updates-http.cdn-apple.com/2019/cert/061-41424-20191024-218af9ec-cf50-4516-9011-228c78eda3d2/InstallMacOSX.dmg

Sometimes re-installing the same combo updater fixes edge cases or some bit rot / rare damage to existing files. Just because your OS says 10.11.6 doesn't mean everything is in perfect running order.


How to delete friend's gmail account from my MacPro

It's a bit unclear what your asking, but I'll proceed with an answer based on my interpretation.

Deleting his account from your computer will not affect his email account. That's the great advantage of IMAP based accounts.

To delete his account from your Mac, go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts > Select his Gmail account from the Sidebar > Remove (the "-" in the bottom left hand corner)


2011 Macbook Air connects to WiFi but can't get Internet

As you say this only happens with Hotel Networks.

Usually the process with Hotel networks is 2 steps.

1- First you log in to they WiFi

2- Once logged in, the Hotel Server will send you a "Captive Portal" web site, on which you must continue to get Internet access. I assume you do not get t this step (no portal showing)

Your Mac (for your protection) before that popup shows, will check the certificate revocations to verify the popup being shown isn't a fake one.

Fixing it:

Usually there is simple fix to show the Captive Portal by just entering cnn.com in your browser and it will redirect you to the Captive Portal, but not always.

Try with different browser open.

Alternative solution is to create a "new location" in the network system preferences window, name it Hotels if you whish, and remove all DNS servers.

Similar problem and solution described here https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/37851/46541


90 degree down angled USB connector for iphone 4s

Have you considered a 90 degree USB adapter instead of a specialized dock/30-pin cable?  I'm using this right angle adapter with my Alpine head unit and a 10' lightning cable and have no issues with my iPhone 6 or 7 plus.

Right angle USB 3.0 adapter

If you absolutely need it to come out of the head unit and straight down then you should be able to use one of these with similar results.

L Shape USB 3.0 adapter

The "accessory not supported" messages usually are a result of an aftermarket cable that isn't manufactured within the guidelines of the Apple MFi program.  This pertains more to the lightning or dock connector end rather than the USB connection end of the cable.  Because of that you should be able to use just about any USB adapter to meet your needs.

Hope that helps!


Is there a workaround when Finder spends forever "calculating size"?

The amount of time it takes is proportional to the number of files in the folder.  If there are a lot of files, it will take a long time to calculate.

You can also try doing it from the Terminal like so:

du -sh /path/to/folder


How to stop iPhone 6 lock screen from rotating to landscape mode

There is no separate setting that will stop only the lock screen from rotating to landscape while allowing the apps to change orientation.


A brute force way of dealing with this is to call Apple and open a ticket.  I've done this in the past on Macs w/o Applecare.

The upside is they are best positioned to help you and it puts you in the best position to get it resolved.

There's a fee if you don't have Applecare.  My suggestion is to agree to the fee and  after they've got you up and running, ask that they to waive the fee in light of whatever they had to do to fix the problem.


Why does Messages on OSX always show unread messages?

I have been getting this on OS X 10.10 (Yosemite). I found a solution in the Apple discussion forums.

User LHindiii there recommended quitting Messages.app then using Activity Monitor to quit the Dock (which will automatically relaunch) and this worked for me.


Connect to a remote windows command line from mac terminal?

An extremely popular option of connecting to remote computers' command lines is the SSH system (secure shell).

In order to use SSH, you'll need a server and a client.

Windows 10 comes with OpenSSH Server as an optional install from Microsoft. You can also use third party servers such as for example the Moba SSH server. You'll need to install and run the server taking care that firewalls, etc. are not blocking anything.

macOS comes with the client (and server) built-in. You'll want to open Terminal.app and run the following command:

ssh -l<username> <IP>

where  should be replaced with your Windows user name, and  with the hostname or IP-address of your Windows PC.


OS X should identify the port as having high current draw and shut it down until you unplug the device.

Source: I was doing exactly this and ended up accidentally shorting the Vcc and ground pins, and got a notification center message saying this.


Automatically start multiple user sessions when OSX starts

Assuming there are no passwords, you can have each user session open another one when starting, using CGSession. I did not try it with Yosemite, but it does work for me with El Capitan.

Log in as user1.
Create an empty file named “logall.sh”, in a folder where the user won’t see it.
Make the file executable (open Applications/Utilities/Terminal, type chmod 777  (with the trailing space); drag the file’s icon in the Terminal window; press Return).
Make the file always open with Terminal (right-click on the file’s icon; select “Open with…/Other”; check “Always open with”; select Applications/Utilities/Terminal).
Open the file in TextEdit.
Set the file’s contents to the following, and save:

"/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/\
CGSession" -switchToUserID `id -u user2`

Repeat for each user except user1. Set user1 to log in automatically on startup (System Preferences/Users and Groups/Options/Automatic login/user1).


How can I determine after how many minutes of inactivity, Mac automatically logs off without admin privileges?

Without sudo privileges, you can't access that information, neither read nor write.


Can iMovie Projects be stored in iCloud?

Choose File > Open Library > New.

  In the Save dialog that appears, type a name for the new library, and
  navigate to the location where you want to save it.

  The default location is the Movies folder in your home folder.

  Click Save.

  A new library is created in the location you chose, and a new, empty
  event with today’s date is created.

https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/#/mov3fa25bae7

I don't have iMovie, so you need to check if iCloud is allowed there. If not, you need to copy paste items from ~/Movies to iCloud.

As for iCloud backup that you mention, it could be system preferences etc that are backed up, not the Library itself.


How to know what is backed up in local backup? (esp. Health Data)

Yes, when you choose to encrypt the local backup, the Health and Activity data will be backed up.
Had you chosen not to encrypt your local backup, the Health and Activity data would not have been included in the backup.
Always remember when dealing with backups: You haven't really backed anything up before you have tried restoring it.


Check out this thread
I believe it is a server side stored field.
I do not believe it is suppose to sync (even though it would be nice)
If you want to keep track of the music you "love" I would recommend just adding to a playlist.


Profile Manager not sending email invitations

When you acquire VPP app licenses for free applications, are they appearing in your Apps tab in the Profile Manager [device manager interface] sidebar?
Have your devices successfully enrolled to Profile Manager, and can you deploy configuration payloads/profiles to them?

We ran into this when getting OS X Server and PM up and running, and then realized you can distribute apps and books without requiring the user to approve these VPP invitations.
Unless you're attempting to deploy internal/enterprise apps, you can deploy App Store/VPP apps to devices or device groups as long as they are enrolled to Profile Manager (supervised or not, they should deliver as long as your config profiles are).
EDIT: You should also make sure that you have an APNs account and that APNs is enabled in your OS X Server, with an updated token.

If you‘re not getting Apple push notifications - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203609
Resolve issues with Profile Manager in macOS Server -  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201063


In Preferences->Sound, select "Show volume in menu bar". You should then see a little speaker icon in your menu bar.

If you option-click that (click while holding alt/⌥), you can select the audio output right there.

Update: Only works for audio devices connected via USB or DisplayPort/Thunderbolt, not for the Headphone port.


The first thing I would do is power off and make a list of your priority files and apps. If there’s nothing critical, jump to the erase install at the bottom. If not, you can try and repair things with two safe steps.

When was the last backup and do you need to pause any “fixes” that might prevent you from getting pictures and data back.
Run a second boot to Internet Recovery and Repair the Disk
Run an OS reinstall on top of your existing users / data - do not erase the disk

The second two steps are designed to not erase any data and we do them all the time to fix minor issues when people delete parts of the OS or have an issue starting up, but you are one click away from an option to delete all the data and you might get asked to erase a disk in the steps 2-3 and if you do, you will have to pay a lot more to restore the files if you decide you need data recovery.
If you just want to wipe the mac and start over with a clean install - that’s the fastest way to get back to a working system.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/erase-and-reinstall-macos-mh27903/mac


Capacitor discharge for replacing broken iMac power supply

Usually, if the iMac lost power suddenly (e.g. pulling the AC plug from power while it's still switched on) you would need to allow some time for the capacitors to discharge before working on it. However, if the iMac was shut down properly (e.g. Apple > Shut Down) then it should discharge the power supply capacitor fairly quickly (not immediately, but close).

Typically, the input capacitors on a computer power supply have between a 180 to 360 volt charge on them. How long they hold this charge depends on the circuit, but a bleeder resistor sits across them to dissipate this charge.

Regardless, in your case it sounds as if the iMac hasn't been powered up for a while and the power supply isn't working. Of course, since it's broken (or faulty) there's always the potential for a problem. And, since you can't be 100% sure what the problem is, make sure there is no AC cable plugged in while working on it.

TIP: DO NOT wear a watch, bracelet, necklace, etc (or any metallic objects) which could accidentally make contact with the power supply circuitry.

Regarding the use of a multimeter, you could test across the capacitors with one. If you actually get a voltage reading then you could even use the multimeter in this way to discharge the capacitors slowly until the voltage reads zero. If you're wanting to use a multimeter to discharge, I'd recommend an analogue one as a high impedance digital meter would take a while to discharge.

However, as I mentioned above, it sounds as if the iMac hasn't been powered up for a while, so you should be right to go.


Strange lines and glitches appearing on screen on a Macbook

Well, it looks like you may need a visit to the nearest Apple Store,
but first try downloading SMCFanControl: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol and try turning up the fan speed to cool the overheated graphics card and see if that helps.
Please note that I am not sure whether the fan speed on the MacBook is adjustable, but it's certainly worth a try.


Critical VLC media player security flaw. Remove VLC from my Mac?

Assuming you have macOS installed on your Mac and you’re talking about the macOS version of VLC, then you do not need to remove VLC at all.

According to CERT-Bund, the highly respected German security agency that discovered this flaw, only VLC versions written for the Linux, UNIX and Windows platforms are prone to injected malicious code.

This issue was first discovered in version 3.0.6 and it is still present in version 3.0.7.1 (see the latest advisory).

As an aside, your question about quarantining VLC would not have applied as it’s not a virus as such. The only fix is to download and install a version of VLC in which the code has been fixed. The VideoLAN organisation is aware of the issue and is currently working on a patch, so hopefully it won't be too long for Linux, UNIX and Windows users of VLC.


How do I view the iOS app store on a mac? (OS X 10.11.6)

You're not missing anything. Late in 2017 in iTunes 12.7, Apple removed iTunes ability to access the iOS App Store. Using iTunes 12.7, the only way to access the iOS App Store was via the iPhone itself.

Many users disliked this change, as it's harder to navigate and review apps on iOS than it had been using macOS. A month or so later, Apple retreated and offered a version of iTunes that restores iOS App Store availability. This version of iTunes is 12.6.3, and you can read more about it on this Apple page. iTunes 12.6.3 can be installed even if one has already installed 12.7. The Apple page cited above contains a link to download iTunes 12.6.3.

I am very happy to have iOS App Store access back on macOS.


Can HD from 2011 mini work as is in 2012 mini?

Your 2012 Mac mini should be able to boot and run off the SSD from the 2011.  Technically speaking, this is basically what Target Disk Mode is - using a different drive to boot your Mac.

There's no "tuning" of the OS nor are there any different "installation modes."


Being asked to log in to a different account to update Mac App Store apps

When you install Apps, you usually install them to the Applications Folder, which is accessible to all users, because it is in the ROOT directory, not just the users that installed them.  You can create an Applications Folder in a User's Folder and keep them for just that user, but it usually is the first way I mentioned. That way when you make a new user on the fly, you don't have to install all those apps again, waisting space. Also, that way you don't lose apps that may have taken time to install that other users need and use.

Applications that are installed to a computer through the App Store are linked to an Apple ID that was used to Purchase/Download it.  This is similar to iOS devices as well.  If I download an app on another persons iPhone using my account, they need my account to update it.

So this means one of two things:

Either your wife bought iPhoto (Or which ever other App is in question) or when you bought the computer, registered iPhoto to her account.

When you buy a new mac, it comes with iLife, and iLife is now downloaded through the App Store.  It will link those 3 Apps, to the Apple ID of your choosing so that if anything happens and you need to do a restore or something, you can download those apps you got for free again, no problem.

I had to do this when I bought my mid 2011 Mac Mini.

So she either purchased it or registered it to her account, and that is why it is still on the computer, because it is an App that can be accessed by any user that is on the machine, so it wouldn't have been deleted when she installed it/registered it.  You will need her sign in and password in order to update it.

I hope that this information helps you out.


How can I center a PNG with a transparent background using the CLI?

Background

I've used ImageMagick in the past to do pretty extensive image manipulations from the CLI. I've written about it extensively here on the Unix & Linux StackExchange site.

Specifically, here's a method I highlighted in this question titled: How to convert, resize and center image with ImageMagick.

Approach

The approach discussed there could be adapted to achieve a solution to this question like so:

$ convert 807634040.png \
    -gravity center \
    -background transparent \
    -extent 678x 807634040-new.png

Resulting in an image like this:

How it works

The convert command is expanding the original image, 807634040.png, so that its width is now 678 pixels. This looks to be the optimal size to use when posting images on SE sites. The -extents 678x means to use the width of 678px but leave the horizontal as whatever it was originally set.

The other options mean to center the image (-gravity center) and to use a transparent background when extending the original.


Can Spotlight be configured to search ALL files on the hard drive (or is there a powerful alternative) - like Windows' Start Menu search can be?

I can recommend EasyFind and Find Any File (of which I'm the author, incidentally). Both search for file names on entire disks.

They search even in places where Spotlight never looks (e.g. in the System and Library folders).

In case of Find Any File, you can even easily search as root user, so that it even finds files usually not accessible to you. FAF also lets you save a set of preferred paths, either as a default or as a "search" document that you can open as a pre-configured search configuration.


Drive Genius 3 Demo does not have a menu. How do I uninstall it on my iMac?

Try using "AppCleaner" it is free and will delete all associated files with an application.


Turn off iCloud Music library on iPhone?

On your phone, navigate to Settings > Music.  There you will see "Show Apple Music" and "Sync Library".  Make sure both of those are off.  I believe that you will not see iCloud Music Library any longer.


Why are my audiobook chapters out of order?

It's sort of the same solution to "Songs show up as individual albums in iOS Music app."

Make sure the files have the correct tags for album, artist, track, and title.

Then in iTunes:

1) Upload the first track to Music.

2) Upload the rest of the tracks to Music. (Or you can upload all the tracks including the first one -- iTunes will ignore the duplicate first track.)

3) Select all the tracks in iTunes, right click, then select Get Info > Options > media kind > Audiobook, and click OK.

iBooks should list the audiobook in order now.

The key is that the first track of the audiobook must be uploaded first.

P.S. You can also upload multiple audiobooks by doing steps 1 and 2 on the first audiobook, then repeat for the other books. And then select all and do step 3.

Or do step 1 on each audiobook, then do step 2 on all the audiobooks together in one go, then select all and do step 3.


What is the purpose of this plastic piece inside my MacBook Air?

It is a structural connector and should be repaired and replaced. The battery is part of what makes the case stiff so your device will be more susceptible to bends. Not having the bottom cover latch in could damage the batteries in a very unsafe way. Same if that piece or even a tiny screw were wedged between any part of the top case or bottom cover and the battery thereby pinching or puncturing the exposed cells.
Rather than risk a fire, I would have someone trained on Mac repairs examine your Mac and evaluate of it’s safe due to any chance a piece of plastic or screw was loose inside. The linked article you mentioned has a much less fragile battery and isn’t as susceptible to torsion due to a fundamentally different case structure design. Your battery has less armor than the older ones and safety depends entirely on zero loose parts being inside the case.
A proper fit of the bottom plate for ensured protection and structural integrity. Zero debris ensures safe operational conditions.

https://locate.apple.com/


MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) thermal issues

AppleInsider tested the 2019 Core i9 2.4GHz MacBook Pro 16" and found that it could maintain 3.19GHz under sustained load. This and many other sustained load benchmarks demonstrate that your issue is not normal.
The easiest thing to do is bring it to Apple so they can fix it. If you want to know more, keep reading.
I think some repairs would actually require Apple Authorized Repair shops to reapply thermal paste, so I guess they are allowed to do it. They are also authorized to clean the Mac's internal components, and will often do that for all repairs requiring opening the computer.
Any repairs done outside Apple Authorized Repair shops could void your warranty if done incorrectly, but there isn't anything inside your Mac designed to tell Apple it's been repaired by someone else. So unless they screw up, I think it won't void your warranty. In my opinion, I'd rather not risk it, specially for replacing parts.
Intel clock speeds
1GHz (and sometimes 800MHz) is the absolute lowest clock speed the CPU in Macs like yours can go. Throttling down to the lowest clock possible under Standard Ambient Temperature and Pressure (SATP) is not normal. Intel/AMD/x86 notebooks often throttle to some degree, but extreme throttling is usually a sign of a deeper issue. The expected behavior on well designed computers (such as the 16" MacBook Pro) is to, at most, stay close to the base clock when under sustained load (CPU-only).
Your Mac has a base clock of 2.4GHz. Based on my experience with Macs and your model's benchmarks, I think normal values for it on SATP would be 2.4~3.2GHz under sustained load (CPU-only workloads, discrete GPU disabled), or 2.0~2.4GHz under sustained load for workloads that heavily use GPU in addition of the CPU.
Here are common things you can do to troubleshoot your issue. Remedies potentially fix the issue. Workarounds might improve your situation, but are unlikely to actually fix it. I recommend trying the remedies.
Check if you have the latest updates
It's very important to keep your Mac's Operating System (OS) up-to-date. Updates include bug, performance, reliability and security fixes and improvements. It also includes new features. Apple has previously fixed thermal throttling for some MacBook Pros in a software update.
Remedy:

Update macOS to the latest version

Check the temperatures
Thermal throttling is caused by aggregate component temperatures above the computer's thermal budget. This usually means the CPU and GPU because they are the most power-hungry parts, but is not limited to them. High battery temperatures or high VRM temperatures can also make the computer throttle.
The CPU and GPU can withstand temperatures as high as 100ºC, but that's the limit. Macs usually prefer keeping it to lower temperatures such as 85ºC under sustained load. If your Mac's CPU is at around 85ºC or more while throttling after a long time, it's possible the issue is the CPU's own temperatures.
If the CPU temperatures are not that high, check the GPU temperatures, which also present numbers similar to the ones mentioned above.
Remedies:

Check if the fans are working. 15"/16" Intel Macs have 2 fans, whereas 13" and smaller Intel Macs usually have 1 fan.
Clean all computer vents and fans, carefully removing dust and extraneous objects that are blocking airflow.
Carefully clean then replace the thermal paste for the components that originally had thermal paste on them (usually CPU, but could include GPU).

Workarounds (I do not recommend. They will only alleviate the issue, not fix it):

Use an utility such as Macs Fan Control to manually adjust the fan curve or max out the fans on your Mac in order to delay throttling.
Use an utility such as Turbo Boost Switcher to disable Intel Turbo Boost. This could delay throttling but will make no effect after it begins throttling.

Closed operation and airflow
Macs can operate with the lid closed by using an external monitor and peripherals. The MacBook cooling design inputs air from the sides and outputs to the back.

Remedies:

Make sure your Mac's airflow is not blocked or hindered by objects, fabric or walls in close proximity.
Avoid placing your computer on top of fabric, in particular if the fabric is designed to warm up such as carpets or blankets.

Workarounds:

The higher your ambient temperature, the more throttling your computer could exhibit, so move to an air conditioned room if possible.
Try opening the lid and see if there's any difference in behavior.

Battery aging
Portable computers use batteries to continue working when not plugged to a power outlet. The battery is a consumable part of the computer, and its performance degrades as it ages. Apple has developed specific features to help with that.
The ability of a battery to supply the required voltage for the processor and other components is affected by its age.
Quoting Apple:

All rechargeable batteries are consumable components that become less effective as they chemically age.
As lithium-ion batteries chemically age, [their] ability to deliver maximum instantaneous performance, or 'peak power', may decrease. [...] One attribute that affects this instantaneous power delivery is the battery’s impedance. A battery with high impedance may be unable to provide sufficient power to the system that needs it. A battery's impedance can increase if a battery has a higher chemical age. [...] These are characteristics of battery chemistry that are common to all lithium-ion batteries in the industry.
When power is pulled from a battery with a higher level of impedance, the battery’s voltage will drop to a greater degree. [...] The power management system determines the capability of the battery to supply this power, and manages the loads in order to maintain operations.

As the battery's ability to supply a consistent voltage is diminished, the Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) will have to work a lot harder to convert that to a usable, constant voltage for your Mac's circuitry. This in turn can make the VRM overheat, which could cause your Mac to throttle other components to the levels your Mac is experiencing in order to dissipate the heat.
Apple, iFixit and many others recommend changing the battery when its health drops below 80%, or when its cycle count goes over 1000. Your Mac will automatically tell you when your battery reaches these thresholds, but you can use CoconutBattery to manually check the battery health of your Mac. If it's close to 80% or lower and you have already checked the other things mentioned here, this could likely be the cause of your computer's extreme throttling.
80% is not a magic number. Battery aging is a complex chemical process also affected by temperature, and your battery may naturally have its performance diminished before or after this threshold. Apple is very good at managing (and even masking) battery aging by taking steps to remedy and keep the device working reliably for a very long time. I've had Macs with over 6 years old batteries still working fine.
This means your Mac's battery is probably fine and could still be used for many years. But the Intel Core i9 and the discrete AMD GPU are very power-hungry devices that draw a lot of instant power from the battery, potentially dropping the voltage, regulated by the VRM. The i9 alone draws 45W at 2.4GHz. So if your Mac's VRM is overheating due to the battery aging, perhaps it would be in your best interest to replace the battery in order to have better performance.
Remedy:

Replace the battery on an Apple Store or authorized repair shop.
Never use generic or counterfeit batteries or chargers on any devices you own. Counterfeit batteries and chargers have high risk of fire, swelling and irreparable damage to your devices, amongst potentially reduced battery life, increased aging and incompatible power draw. It's just not worth the risk and could end up costing a lot more.

Using the computer plugged in
It's possible that the battery will naturally heat up as it charges. This could lead to an additional degree of throttling.
Workarounds:

Try using the computer unplugged and see if temperatures improve.
If you want to keep it plugged in, fully charge the battery before starting your workload

Discrete graphics
15" and 16" Intel Macs have discrete graphics in addition to the CPU's integrated graphics. The discrete GPU is a powerful chip that competes with your CPU and other components for the computer's thermal budget. The thermal budget is the total capacity of your computer's thermal design to dissipate heat, usually measured in Watts.
When the discrete GPU is doing heavy processing, it's expected that the CPU will exhibit more throttling than if you were only using the CPU. Macs automatically switch between discrete and integrated graphics depending on what tasks they are running and whether your Mac is running on battery or plugged in to achieve a balance between performance and battery life.
You can check this opening the Energy tab on Activity Monitor.

Placa gráfica = Graphics card.
Integrada = Integrated.
Sim = Yes. Não = No

Shows whether your Mac is using Integrated or High Performance graphics
Shows which apps are using the discrete GPU

There's also the free utility gfxGardStatus that constantly shows an icon with the current GPU on the menu bar and can display notifications when the GPUs are switched, as well as which apps are using the discrete GPU.
Workaround:

Close apps that are using the discrete graphics when you want higher CPU performance.

External displays
Intel Macs with discrete graphics often use the discrete graphics to drive external displays connected to them.
Workaround:

If you don't need it, disconnect the external display

Apple Diagnostics
There's a simple tool that comes with Macs and is able to catch a few issues: the Apple Diagnostics tool (there's more than one link for it). Reboot your Mac holding the D key or or follow the instructions provided on the links. Running the tool will give you a simple result that can be used to find obvious problems with your Mac and (optionally) request support.

This tool is not a substitute for bringing your Mac to an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP), where Apple runs a complete suite of tests that is able to catch more issues than this diagnostics tool.
Workaround:

Run the tool and see if it finds any issues.

Clean Operating System install
If everything failed and you think you have a software issue you are not willing to troubleshoot, you can try to do a clean macOS install. Before trying that, backup any data you want to save. This operation will completely erase everything that's on your Mac's internal storage and you will not be able to restore any data lost after formatting if you don't have a backup.
Workaround:

Follow the instructions provided on this Apple Support link.


Should I be worried about 98°C CPU temperature on MacbookAir?

Michiel's correct in that if the computer gets too hot, it'll shut down automatically. However, if you want to be on the safe side, you can check out smcFanControl and Fan Control.

smcFanControl:

  smcFanControl lets the user set the minimum speed of the build in fans. So you can increase your minimum fan speed to make your Intel Mac run cooler. However in order not to damage your machines smcFanControl doesn't let you set a minimum speed to a value below Apple's defaults (MacUpdate).

Fan Control

  Some MacBooks and MacBook Pros are just to hot for daylong use. Fan Control adjusts the minimum fan speed depending on the current CPU temperature. For safety, it leaves the original automatic fan speed control intact (lobotomo).

And remember, if your computer ever gets to 660.4°C, don't leave it on your lap, unless you want liquid aluminum all over you.

UPDATE:

I found another tool called CoolBook that

  lets you monitor the frequency, voltage and temperature of the CoreDuo / Core2Duo CPU. Registered users can also change the frequency and voltage of the processor.

Here's a list of features that are listed on the site:

Reduce heat (presumably by optimizing fan speed)
Reduce fan speed (presumably by lowering fan speed)
Extend battery life
Improve performance
Fine tune your CPU

This seems like a useful tool, but it does not support Lion and Mountain Lion, and does not work on Intel i3, i5, and i7 processors.


Swift usage and payment as Apple Developer

The $99 fee is only if you want to publish apps to the App Store. You can download all the latest release versions of the development tools and create your own apps without paying anything.

The Development account also allows you access to the private beta versions of Apple's operating systems and development tools, so if you wanted the latest beta of watchOS, iOS, macOS or tvOS, you would need to pay the $99.


Create a symbolic link for sublime text in Mac OS X

The default directory for third-party executables in macOS is /usr/local/bin. Since this directory already is in the PATH you don't have to modify anything except sudo linking the executable to this dir.

If the directory doesn't exist, create it with sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin. If you plan to install brew later, it's recommended to change the owner of the bin folder to your user.


You need to use networksetup to do this:

networksetup -ordernetworkservices <service1> <service2> <service3> <...>

For full details, refer to the man page (man networksetup)


Why is my iPhone transmitting in airplane mode?

The issue might be related to the "persistent settings to Airplane Mode" since iOS 11. This means that I can go into airplane mode and enable Bluetooth or WiFi and Bluetooth or WiFi will remain on whenever I'm in airplane mode:

However, this does not explain why the 1.8 GHz cellular transmitter still transmitted in airplane mode.

I reset network settings and rebooted the phone a few times, now it isn't having this issue.


Can I upgrade iMac 27inch 5K Display's RAM from 8GB to 32GB/64GB?

Yes, you can upgrade the RAM, and have many different options. I bought the very same system you did, and it came with 2 4 GB chips in the four available slots.  I ordered two 4 GB chips for $100 US from https://www.macsales.com, received them 3 days later, popped them in the two open slots and the system recognized the full 16GB; even though the chip pairs are from different vendors, I had no problem with it.

It is incredibly easy to change the RAM on the iMac and MacSales even has videos to show you how to do it. You can take it all the way up to 64 GB. The best way to see if you need more RAM is to open up Activity Monitor and watch the swap space in the memory tab. Under normal circumstances, the only time swap space is used is when the system needs more RAM than is physically installed. So if you see a lot of swap space being used, that means you are using up all the available RAM.

One note: Unix-based systems like Mac and Linux use far less RAM than Windows, so do not compare the two platforms for RAM capacity needs.


For the purposes of archival uploading to Google Drive/Dropbox/Etc, what are the differences between DMG and SparseImages?

From Wikipedia:

  A sparse image is a type of disk image file used on macOS that grows in size as the user adds data to the image, taking up only as much disk space as stored in it. Encrypted sparse image files are used to secure a user's home directory by the FileVault feature in Mac OS X Snow Leopard and earlier. Sparse images can be created using Disk Utility.

  Unlike a full image file (.dmg), which takes up as much actual space as the real disk it represents (regardless of the amount of unused space), a sparse image file (.sparseimage) takes up only as much actual disk space as the data contained within, up to a maximum of the capacity assigned during creating.

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

In your case, because you don't indicate you plan to use the utility of the sparseimage mechanism in any way to create an expansible, or 'live' storage container, creating .dmg files would be called for because they are monolithic files best use for archiving.

If the data is already indexed or organized in some way, then creating separate .dmg files make a logical container to extend and reinforce that organization. Ex: TaxDocuments2010.dmg, TaxDocuments2011.dmg,  etc.

Google has a max size of 5TB per single non-Google document file, BTW.

Lastly, you may wish to package this data in a non-Apple proprietary format such as tar or GZIP so it can be opened on other platforms.


Where to get a copy of Boot Camp's Unattend.xml file?

This is not an answer to the question, but I resolved the issue by borrowing a wired keyboard and mouse.


How can I stop Finder from converting and loading videos to display in movie icons?

To turn off the Finder's icon preview feature:

Right click on the desktop > Choose 'Show View Options'
Uncheck 'Show icon preview'


iPhone : Does the FaceTime icon on the contact page mean that the person has an iPhone?

Broadly speaking, the presence of FaceTime row in a contact's screen means that the contact is registered with FaceTime service, which by extension means that the person uses/used one or more Apple products (Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod), which support FaceTime calling.

The person may or may not have an iPhone. Person's Apple ID is used to register with FaceTime. An email address is required to create an Apple ID. The mobile number gets registered/linked to the Apple ID if used with an iPhone where the user has logged in with his Apple ID.


We use Apple Enterprise connect to get kerberos tickets

$ klist
Credentials cache: API:0E08F2A4-F095-4D1D-82A5-69113AF983D0
        Principal: bmike@AD.CONTOSO.INT

  Issued                Expires               Principal
Sep 20 11:20:42 2018  Sep 20 21:20:42 2018  krbtgt/AD.CONTOSO.INT@AD.CONTOSO.INT
Sep 20 11:20:42 2018  Sep 20 21:20:42 2018  ldap/xyz-addc01.ad.contoso.int@AD.CONTOSO.INT

You could use macOS to bind directly, but there's pain there unless you are just binding your personal workstation and not deploying that across an enterprise. A solution that isn't Apple is NoMad (which was recently acquired by JAMF software)

https://nomad.menu/

As long as they are still allowing downloads of that tool, I would start there and then work up to something larger / different if you have a reason to do so.

I would repeat, don't bind until you have exhausted all other options.


Is it possible to see an ad for Tinder on lock screen if Tinder is not installed?

It's possible to get text messages from a service after deleting the app, but if the notification is branded like the app on the lock screen (with the logo), then the app is still on the device. It's not possible to get those kinds of notifications without the app being currently installed.

You can search for apps from the home screen by swiping down. That should allow you to search for the Tinder app by name, instead of browsing around for it.


Disable MacBook screen turn off at locked screen

There is a free and open-source tool named KeepingYouAwake that can be used as per your requirements.

Having KeepingYouAwake activated will prevent the screen from turning off when lock screen mode is activated.

Download the latest version here.

or install it via cask:

brew cask install keepingyouawake.

This utility will not harm your Mac because it is based on an official command-line tool by Apple. BUT I cannot guarantee anything, so use this tool AT YOUR OWN RISK.


Dvorak-QWERTY keyboard does not properly switch between keyboards when I press Command button on Safari

Check Safari menu that you have the same picture as below.
If anything is different then you need to check System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts to see if you have any other keys assigned to these menu items.


Does the Power Nap support the purchased apps download?

I think the key to when/how App Store downloads are process is, according to the link you provided,

  Mac App Store downloads are checked once a week.

You didn't give it enough time.

The way power nap works is that "Sleep" takes priority.  If you want to put your MB to sleep now for whatever reason (say, you are going into a meeting), it doesn't make sense for your MB to say "no, I think I will continue downloading"

There is a "schedule" or a time interval when your MB will wake.  Once per hour to do something small like check mail or your calendar.  Once per day for updates (bigger activity) and once per week for pending downloads.

To check for these things, it has to come out of sleep "half way" - meaning enough to turn on networking and your drive, but not enough to bring up your full GUI and related services.  If your MB is going to be checking and downloading continually as opposed to the schedule, then it's not going to sleep; which defeats the purpose of putting it to sleep.


No, you won't get to know if or when they delete a sent picture. Also, the picture sent is retained on Apple's servers in that person's receive queue until their space gets cleared over time and/or volume of new messages and attachments.

The only way you would know they deleted it was by observation, trust or having access to their account to check. You don't get any delete receipt from the system should they comply with your request. Lastly, deleting a message on one of their devices may not even delete it on others, so you might ask them to delete a message on all their devices that can receive iMessage attachments and monitor new devices for a period of time.


How do I stop my phone from turning off the display whenever I put my finger over the phone speaker?

In this case, it was just a bug. All you need to do to fix this is to restart your iPhone and it should be fixed. Thanks to Apple support.


Import Mac Thunderbird into Windows Outlook?

YOu cannot directly import Mac Thunderbird mail folders in windows outlook. Firstly convert the thunderbird files to pst format using Thunderbird to PST Converter and then follow these steps to import the converted pst file into windows outlook 2013:

Follow these steps to restore, or import, your data into Outlook:

Click the File tab.
In the Open category, click Import.
In the Import and Export Wizard, click Import from another program or file, and then click Next.
Click Outlook Data File (.pst), and then click Next.
Type the path and the name of the .pst file that you want to import, or click Browse to choose the file to import.
Note Under Options, it is recommended that you click Do not import duplicates, unless you want the imported information to replace or duplicate items that are already in Outlook.

Click Next.
Select the folder that you want to import. To import everything in the .pst file, select the top of the hierarchy.
Note The top folder (usually Personal Folders, Outlook Data File or your email address) is selected automatically. Include subfolders is selected by default. All folders under the folder selected will be imported

Click Finish.


Mostly, you can just overload the one ethernet hardware port with two or more IP settings. As long as your switch can handle things, this works the simplest.

Or you could drop an thunderbolt to ethernet adapter on the back of the Mac Mini and have two hardware interfaces to let the Mac Mini sit between the two networks and route as needed. You would run OpenVPN on the adapter en0 which connects to fiber.

All of this is controllable over the normal system preferences for networking but I've been able to accomplish all of what you describe without needing the unix command line. Just drag the default route interface to the top of the service order listing and you should be good to go.


A popover shown from the Spotlight menu is stuck on the screen

The process "QuickLook UI Helper" normally quits automatically after Spotlight is closed, but if it doesn't:

Open Activity Monitor
Find QuickLook UI Helper
Quit it (x button in the toolbar)


Memtest, a relatively inexpensive app @ $1.39, worked for me on several Macs recently, and I've been using it for more than a decade. Found one bad RAM carrier just last week. YMMV. Now runs in 64bit.


Can the iPad detect the shape of a contact on its screen?

A multitouch gesture recognizer can see when it's been touched in more than one discrete spot, and can understand the position of each of those touches. So that's "shape-ish". But no, there's no way to know a square versus an octagon is touching it.


Safari: get URLs of images displayed in Web Inspector

It's a relatively simple task actually.  Using Automator app, Just create a new workflow and add these to following actions...

Get current webpage from Safari
Get Image URLs from webpage


Late 2010 iMac getting quarter way in booting then turning off

I've seen this issue quite a few times before. For me, I booted into Single Boot Mode by holding Cmd + S on startup and typing fsck -fy. Let that process run and keep repeating it over and over until it says the volume is ok.


How can I add a message to an iPhone in erase mode

If you had at least iOS7 then when activating lost mode it will give you field to enter phone number you can be reached at regarding lost iPhone. When phone is online (even after restore) then message that phone is lost with number to contact be displayed.

Apple has a page on it called If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is lost or stolen


Problem when updating using Software Update

What is your current OS X version ??

The latest OS X is 10.6.7 - and if you can't get it through "Software Update", then you can download the whole OS X v10.6.7 Update Combo here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1361


I'm pretty sure you need to use a third party app in order to not have them sync with iTunes. I've bought three different podcast apps and I finally found one that I like and I can live with the bugs.  None of these apps are very expensive, but Instacast keeps putting out new paid versions, instead of updating the old one.

In order of My preference:

iCatcher $3. The interface is a bit cluttered, but it works and syncs with other iOS devices via iCloud flawlessly. Has an option to resume playing when the headphones are plugged in.
Downcast $2. Has many of the same options as iCatcher, but it is pretty buggy and  crashes on older devices (iPod Touch 3rd generation) after playing for 20-30 minutes. Also has issues with the integration in my car.
Instacast $5. I didn't like the organization or the interface. The playlist & sorting options are very limited.

I have deleted Downcast and Instacast from all of my devices since iCatcher works so well for me.


Are you sure you have something at the other end of that named pipe actually accepting the data? "do shell script" will not exit until something actually tries to read from the pipe. If you want to work around this, you can use:

do shell script "sh -c \"echo " & currtime & " > " & aname & "\" &> /dev/null &"

This will keep spawning shells which will all wait until you actually use the pipe. Not really a great solution. Ideally you should have something waiting for data before you send anything to a named pipe, or spawn something to consume the data.


Why don't new contacts created on my iPhone sync to my desktop Mac?

Solution 1: Verify new contact default account location

It is likely that while Sync is working, that the contacts aren't syncing because you are not creating those contacts in your iCloud account.

The contacts app has the concept of different places to store Contacts, indeed all iCloud services do this, a more relatable example would be in Apple Mail where you have multiple mailboxes within each email account.

One of the options in both of these Apple applciations is to create things 'On My Mac'.

In this case it's likely you are creating contacts on your Mac or iPhone and not in iCloud.

You can check and fix this by:

macOS

Launch Contacts.app
Click "Contacts" in the Menu Bar, then "Preferences".
Choose the "General" tab.
At the bottom look for "Default Account"

It should be your iCloud account.

iPhone OS

Launch Settings
Tap on "Contact"
At the bottom look for "Default Account"

It should also be your iCloud account.

Solution 2: Signing out of iCloud and back in again

If the above doesn't fix the issue, or is already correctly set to your iCloud account, I would suggest signing out of and back into your iCloud account.

  Warning: As there is unsyncronised data there is the possibility of data loss, you need to manually backup the missing contacts.

macOS

Launch System Preferences.app
Choose "Internet Accounts"
Select your iCloud account
Click the - (minus) symbol to remove the account.
Click the + (plus) symbol to add the iCloud account again.

iPhone OS

Go to Settings
Tap on your profile at the top with your avatar.
Select "Sign Out" at the bottom
If prompted choose "Sign out of iCloud"

Tip: Don't sign out of both at once as it will make login with two-factor authentication difficult to impossible.


Can "Multi-Touch" technology of iPhone identify 5 or 10 touches at the same time?

Yes, iOS multitouch will track 11 independent touch positions in the current SDK (iOS 7).

However, the springboard app won't launch but one app at a time, so the answer is no to having more than one app run due to precise multitouch tapping the home screen.


Can't authorise settings change or install new apps

Navigate to Macintosh HD->Users and see what your username folder is, and use that when prompted.

Sometimes the username and name you see aren't always the same. As an example, I have profiles named Christian (Work) and Christian (Personal). The actual usernames are christian and christianpersonal, respectively. When prompted for an admin, I have to use christian to gain access. This is because I have changed the profile name after it was first created, giving it a different viewing name than the user folder.


macOS partition not showing up after High Sierra update

Try System Preferences -> Startup Disk -> macOS. I updated Sierra on my MBP (late 2016) and was unable to boot into Boot Camp. Fixed over the phone with Apple, but then I was unable to boot into macOS. They fixed that at the Apple store today using the above commands.

If you want to boot into Windows directly, just hold down the "option" key while you press power on button. This saves you from having to log in to macOS and then restarting while holding down the option key.


Very strange me.com/iCloud email behavior

You could very easily figure out what's happening by copying a neutral email address (or your iCloud address) on each mail.

Either all three messages get to the CC address or not. At that point, assuming iCloud is delivering, you could inspect the mail headers and determine if iCloud is sending the mail appropriately.

At that point, you would open a support ticket with either iCloud (if all three do not get sent) or with Google (if all three do not arrive in your account) and provide them the Message-ID that iCloud generated for each problematic email as well as the date/time It passed through the iCloud relays

Message-ID: <515c2f8bef24f_7a303fde14661752@jobs-01.mail>

Received: from mail-relay-03.basecamp.com (mail-relay-03.basecamp.com [204.62.114.94])
    by spool.mail.whatever.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 412011162EA
    for <bmike@whatever.com>; Wed,  3 Apr 2013 15:33:01 +0200 (CEST)
Received: from jobs-01.sc-chi-int.37signals.com (bigip-floating-public.sc-chi-int.37signals.com [10.10.0.20])
    by virt-gw.sc-chi.37signals.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 071654440F
    for <bmike@whatever.com>; Wed,  3 Apr 2013 13:33:00 +0000 (UTC)


Cut / clear selected region of pdf using Preview

The only substitute for "clearing" a section in a pdf that is not editable is to use the Tools: Annotate: Text command and make the fill color of the text block white. This will cover what's behind it and you can type in whatever text you wish to replace what is covered.


Detect Terminal Color "Theme" from Command Line

Terminal Preferences are stored in the com.apple.Terminal.plist file (/Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist) and while it can be read using the defaults command, nonetheless much of it may not be discernible.

Copy and paste the following command into a Terminal and then press Enter:

defaults read com.apple.Terminal


You can prevent .DS_Store creation with Asepsis.

  At core Asepsis provides a dynamic library DesktopServicesPrivWrapper which gets loaded into every process linking against DesktopServicesPriv.framework. It interposes some libc calls used by DesktopServicesPriv to access .DS_Store files. Interposed functions detect paths talking about .DS_Store files and redirect them into a special prefix folder. This seems to be transparent to DesktopServicesPriv.

As for ._AppleDouble and other such files (including .DS_Store), you can use BlueHarvest. This lets you provide a folder which the app will clean of such files/folders:

  Perhaps you need to clean a disk, folder immediately? No problem, simply control-click the disk or folder in the Finder and select “Clean using BlueHarvest”. If your sending zip archives to non Mac users do the same and BlueHarvest will remove the Mac metadata from the archive too. BlueHarvest's "set and forget" preferences are very simple and yet extremely powerful.


The specific feature is support for student IDs and will be available to students in participating universities. As of now three universities Duke University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Oklahoma have it available. Johns Hopkins, Santa Clara and Temple Universities will bring the capability by the end of this school year.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/10/apple-adds-support-for-contactless-student-id-cards-in-wallet/

Instructions on how to use this feature if you are a student at one of the universities that has it available can be found here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208965


The short answer is no. In any case you should place your data on a third drive, make your raid on drives 1 & 2, then copy data from drive 3 back to the new raid (drives 1&2).

Please note that even raids can (and will) fail too and you should keep a backup of the raid.


Is there a way to force Mac OS X to close all the applications when restarting?

All you need is to open Terminal.app and type:

sudo shutdown now

That way the system will be forced to terminate all open programs, ignoring any unsaved file changes.

So, in order to be able to launch it via the desktop, you need to open Applescript editor, and type:

do shell script "shutdown now" with administrator privileges

Save the script as an Application, and drag it in your Dock, or somewhere where you'll find it instantly.


Parallels with Windows 10 VM automatically shuts down after 30-40 min

The issue is that the VM itself is timing out. You have an Evaluation Edition only,  the Parallels page says "using an evaluation virtual machine".

The VM is actually from Microsoft.

I cannot find the exact details but from my memory Microsoft evaluation VMs time out after 30 minutes but other google results suggest that could be after the 90 days you are allowed.


Should I virtualize Windows on Mac OS X using Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion?

I was in the exact situation as you 2 weeks ago. I have developer friends who have used Parallels in the past for their Windows development VMs, and they had since moved to VMware Fusion 3.

I started off with a trial of Parallels Desktop 6; in a nutshell, I had issues virtualizing some of my physical machines, but overall it ran my VMs well. However, I did find the Coherence mode a little cumbersome in the UI. There were too many shortcuts created for my various VMs and the start menu used to launch Windows apps felt clunky.

So...I moved on to a trial of VMware Fusion 3. Despite all the performance reviews that say Parallels kills Fusion, running a VM in Fusion feels smooth and polished and starting, suspending and resuming a virtual machine are all very fast operations thanks to the SSD of the Macbook Air. The product overall is high quality and requires very little resources - I run 1 to 2 VMs for several hours at once during development. On my 4GB Macbook Air I only ever use half of that memory, including the operating system. (I have set my development VMs to use 1GB of RAM each).

And those problems I had virtualizing my physical hardware with Parallels? Gone with VMware. All my hardware was virtualized on the first attempt, and VMware even flawlessly imported the Parallels VMs I had been working with.

So, I licensed VMware Fusion 3 and you can even get a  rebate on it like I did. That was the clincher for me.

I'm happily using VMware Fusion 3 every day to run my Windows 7 development box with Visual Studio 2010, Oracle 10g Express, SQL Server 2008 Express, and other tools installed.


I do believe I understand what you are requesting, and actually find it very interesting. However, this functionality does not exist in the base OS itself (10.5.x | 10.6.x | 10.7.x). An alternative to grouping windows in OS X, that you be interested in, is to utilize Mission Control (10.7) and Expose. In Mission Control you can add a new Desktop and drag your window(s)/Applications into that new Desktop thereby grouping them. They do not have to be like items and this can be done a number of times. Expose does not really cover what you have requested, but still is beneficial in terms of grouping like items.


Filtering duplicates from iCloud Photos Library while migrating from google photos

I use PowerPhotos for this and am super happy. Dump everything into one library, clone it and then try out various passes until you’re happy, then do the culling on your main library is my advice.

https://fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/

It lets me make rules once the pre-built ones take a first pass at cleaning the easy and obvious duplicates. You can prefer HEIC and edited or any other sort of metadata for automating which of the duplicates to select to keep and which to trash. It is updated very often, super easy to use and extremely powerful. I’m a decent “shell scripter” but in the end, this tool saved me many days of trying to “yolo” it with scripts. It’s got the goods on parsing photo metadata and wrangling libraries into shape in a safe manner.
Unless you’re willing to eschew Photos and syncing entirely, there aren’t better options. If you could exist entirely on filesystem and folders and a tool like Photo Mechanic to store photo metadata in the filesystem, I would go all in on Photos and iCloud and hire a tool if you can’t script it yourself.


Determine whether Logic Board has actually been replaced

You can compare the serial number on the bottom of the laptop casing to the serial number shown in System Report by going to Apple Menu -> About This Mac. When I worked at Apple, it was known that replacement logic boards would carry the new SN (naturally) and that cases from the old SN would link to the new one.

The serial on the laptop itself is the original SN it shipped with (unless the bottom case has also been replaced) and can be found in very small print near the display hinge. On the Mac, check for an SN that diverges or is not present, as that indicates repair.


How to report App Store rule violations?

Apple has implemented many changes in 2017 and 2018 time frame as the size of the store has grown. How you get support depends upon your relationship with Apple.

As a consumer, you would report and ask for support based on purchases you make. As a developer, you have a dedicated channel to report rights violations, fraud, and general concerns.
The App Store is now much better where you can voice critical reviews and get feedback from the developer for all to see. If a major app is doing things that are surprising people, that shows very clearly in the reviews.

But really, unless there's something serious, why wouldn't you just disable notifications for that app, then open a support ticket with the vendor and maybe leave a bad review and delete the app?

I would expect Apple support to show you how to delete the app and how to disable notifications and then hand you off to the developer if they aren't making you happy.

If you purchased the app recently (which should cover the vast majority of things that are blatantly wrong)

http://reportaproblem.apple.com

Apple's report page directs you to the web page listed for support. Even this page is very carefully shaped to get Apple items like billing and subscriptions handled, but venting / reporting / tattling / complaining about an app isn't something Apple has a web page to receive feedback that's easy to find from the App Store apps or the general support pages.

If you are a developer, sign in and contact support:

https://developer.apple.com/contact/#!/topic/select

In 2013 - the state of reporting issues was less formalized. The support was more case by case and reviews were one way (Developers couldn't respond to complaints at all, let alone publicly).

You should send a message to the developer (since you are about to poo over their product on the App Store) - give them a chance to make things right since they might have a fix or be able to assist you directly.
Go into the App Store and rate the app. If you give them one star and a brief review - kill them with kindness: "If only I could ignore the constant upselling of paid upgrades, I might have liked this game"
Look hard at the description in the App Store. If they materially mis-represented the state of the app (say the screenshots are marketing illustrations and not actually screen shots) - report a problem with that purchase from within iTunes. Find that purchase and click the report a problem link. That fires a flag at that item in the store. You won't get a response, but I am confident that in bulk these are reviewed with the most reported problems getting the most scrutiny. That link may pop up a form to add details - if not, it will take you to the website below.
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ - Find the section on contacting support and click it.
It takes you to another page - and you will want to submit your detailed feedback to Apple listing the app, the time/date of the violation and the section of the rules you feel are being violated.

At the end of this process, you may also want to take Apple's support survey and ask that they streamline the problem reporting process to make it more clear how / when users should be sending feedback to Apple. You can bet that once enough people start using the tools given and enough complain (politely and with detailed evidence) that it takes too long to report obvious problems with the review tools - it can be fixed.

I do know that if/when your report gets to the desk of a developer support person, they will know how many steps you needed to take to get them the problem report and it's more likely they will dig into it if your complaint has merit.

Most importantly, if you paid money for the app, consider asking for a refund. Detail why the app isn't as described or isn't following the norms you have seen Apple publish and how you feel bad for supporting both Apple and the developer financially when they don't follow the rules set down.

A financial ramification, well reasoned complaints/criticism and using the tools Apple has given for consumers to rate apps together will send a clear signal that the business didn't do a good enough job selling a specific app to you. Once patterns of failures accumulate, they can't go un-noticed.


Would MacBook Air 2018 handle a constant run of a Windows VM for the Development

In general, MacBook Air's can handle run anything constantly, that they can handle running for a short while. You cannot "overwork" the computer so to say - it won't suddenly break or stop working for that reason.

And yes, MacBook Air's in general can handle running VMware Fusion (if the model you have is supported by VMware Fusion). You decide yourself how much RAM you dedicate to the virtual machine, when setting it up - so 16 GB will make it possible to run multiple virtual machines.

If you want to have a clearer idea of the amount of RAM needed, you'll need to setup the system you want and check how much RAM it uses.


I'd go with VMWare fusion's defaults for Windows 7:

60 GB drive
1 GB RAM

Unless the memory on the guest OS becomes very constrained, you might only need to bump it to 2 GB to get a little speed up if needed. The 2012 iMac CPU is quite capable and you do have significant amounts of RAM so you could juice the VM to a lot more RAM if needed without starving OS X for memory.


This should be perfectly fine, as it's exactly what it's designed to do. The port in question is a USB-C Power Delivery port and the 2017 MBP supports USB-C PD.

Note this hub is not the charger - it is merely providing the means for your 2017 MBP charger to be used to charge your MBP via the hub. As you're still using the Apple charger that came with your MBP, the actual power being delivered directly to your Mac should be the same, so in that sense there should be no technical differences.


How to change font size and font for all profiles in terminal?

Very easy with an AppleScript code (here an example where all profiles are set to Menlo Regular 18 pt, note that "Menlo Regular" is named "Menlo-Regular" in font name):

tell application "Terminal"
    set ProfilesNames to name of every settings set
    repeat with ProfileName in ProfilesNames
        set font name of settings set ProfileName to "Menlo-Regular"
        set font size of settings set ProfileName to 18
    end repeat
end tell


How to get a one-key shortcut for full screening an Application (not just maximize)

System Preferences lets you change builtin menu shortcuts to almost anything you like.  This screen shot is from macOS 10.13 (High Sierra):

Here, you can see that I've created a shortcut under the All Applications heading, so any application that contains the particular menu item that takes its window to full screen will adopt the new shortcut.

The name of the menu item—which must be entered exactly, including capitalisation—is Enter Full Screen.  As you know, its default shortcut is ⌃⌘F, but here I've changed it to just the equals sign key, =.

If you try to establish a new shortcut to be a single key, you'll often be denied by Finder's beep, alerting you to an invalid command or value.  The trick to circumvent this when creating these shortcuts in System Preferences is to hold down Fn and press the desired key, which will then be accepted.

You'll want to create a second shortcut to take your application out of fullscreen and into normal mode again.  This menu item is called Exit Full Screen, and by default, shares the same shortcut as its cousin, therefore it makes sense that your new shortcut should be the same as the one you set to Enter Full Screen also.

With the setup in place as depicted by my screenshot, a single tap of my = key takes me fullscreen; and another tap takes me back out into normal view.  Cleverly, testing this in Safari, it doesn't respond to this shortcut whilst I'm typing in this text box, which is how I am still able to print an equals sign, =.  Once I leave the text box and the focus returns to a non-input element of the Safari window, the shortcut becomes active again.  I haven't tested to see whether this neat feature applies to other applications.  I suspect it will work for some, and won't for others.


Why does my iPhone turn on when I plug it in to charge?

Apple designed the hardware to power on when it detects charging power.
When the operating system is off, the hardware still remains sensitive to the introduction of charging power. Not only does this help in cases where the OS has frozen and run down the battery past the point where available voltage can even run the system (including the charging circuitry) but it also helps in the more common case of "my phone is dead" and I'd like it back without having to press buttons. Depending on how long the battery self-discharged after crossing the "empty" line, it may need tens of seconds or even minutes of charging to get back to the minimum viable voltage. At that point, the sleep/wake button can become effective again for starting the OS.

You can of course plug in the power and then shut off the operating system phone to Charge with the OS halted. The charging circuitry runs whether the OS is running or not, and that circuitry is what kicks the OS to start when the 30 pin, lightning, USB-C or wireless charging commences while the OS is not running.


com.apple.IconServices is causing high CPU usage and Finder problems in Mavericks. How to fix this?

Apple user Kieran Healy has apparently solved the root problem and come up with a fix, described on his blog here. The short of it is to open Terminal and then enter the following command:

mkdir ${TMPDIR}/com.apple.IconServices

Apparently, IconServices was seeking a directory and, failing to find it, began thrashing. Kieran's fix creates that directory.

When I tried this solution, the fix was immediate -- that is, no restarting, relaunching, or even re-visiting of directories was required.

All credit goes to Kieran Healy for this fix. I suggest visiting his website and giving him a "like".


Count pages in a folder full of .doc files

The AppleScript in the linked page queries Spotlight's metadata to get the page count for each PDF document. (Specifically, the kMDItemNumberOfPages value.)

It's up to applications to provide metadata to Spotlight, and MS Word doesn't provide page numbers to Spotlight.

So you can't change the script easily, and will need another method.


Can't transfer 4gbyte file from USB flash drive to Snow Leopard

Latest version of Xcode that works for Snow Leopard is Xcode 4.2 and iOS 5 for Snow Leopard. It's only 1.64 GB. To access it, log in to http://developer.apple.com/ios, look for "Other Xcode" button, click it and you should see the following


Can I zoom text size on the iPad in Safari?

You can double-tap to zoom in to a section. I find this feature very useful. As you use it you'll soon learn where to double-tap to get the zoomed-in view you want.

Safari does not have support for changing just the font size without zooming the page, but Opera Mini does have that feature. You can go to settings and choose from small, medium or large font sizes.

But note that this only works on some websites, not all. This is because changing font size can very likely break the website design/layout. Website creators like to control the user experience so they explicitly set the font size so the browsers can't change it.


How make Safari 7 open PDF files in Preview instead of opening them in-page?

Just adding support to find an answer to this issue. I suppose in the meantime do this:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool NO


Lost the plug for my MagSafe 2 adapter, can I get it at Apple authorized repair sites?

Philips power plug
I use this for traveling as they are often cheaper than the original. You can plug any philips power plug in the adapter.

correct me if I am wrong, but I thought these were called philips power plugs


how to browse photos in mac folder via iPhone

The app store has some pretty good options for file browsing apps.  I use FileBrowser for example.  FileBrowser description.

  FileBrowser is the original and best file manager and viewer for iOS.
  FileBrowser can view, copy, move, upload, download, stream, and manage
  files between computers, servers, NAS drives and cloud storage in any
  direction. You don’t need to install any other software. FileBrowser
  will scan and locate computers on your network and connect in seconds
  and will connect to cloud storage quickly too.

Here's a link to FileBrowsers support guide to setting up "External Access", since thats what i'm taking your after with references to DropBox.  This takes some setup but then you can access your files on the Mac Mini without limitations of being on the same network.

In a nutshell you are going to either open a port in your network firewall or setup a vpn to be able to get on the same network as your MacMini when outside of your home.


I recommend The Time Machine Mechanic as a check of your Time Machine backups. It extracts TM related data from the system logs and presents it in a friendly manner.


Tag and Metadata searching doesn't work in Spotlight

You could try reindexing:

sudo mdutil -E /

This will reindex the entire drive and all connected volumes.


How to fix macOS Sierra language switching bug?

Go to system preferences/Siri and turn off Siri and make sure that the keyboard shortcut is set to None, and then restart.


You can use the MiniDisplay Port on the back of the iMac and put the iMac into target display mode, turning it into an external display.

More info: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924


You can disable the Guest account at startup in System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Advanced (the button at the bottom of the screen. The checkbox says "Disable restarting to Safari when screen is locked". I believe that it leaves the iCloud settings unchanged.

This works without changing iCloud.


Has my iPhone security been compromised?

No, that doesn't sound like a security problem. As far as I know, there's never been a compromise of an iPhone as recent as the 6S whose iOS version is kept up-to-date. It's more likely to be a hardware or software glitch.


Automator - Deleting files with date modified older than 30 days, except if in a folder labeled red

My initial suggestion to the problem was to replace the actions you currently have in your Automator workflow with a Run AppleScript action that uses this command:

    tell application "Finder" to get every item ¬
        in the (path to documents folder) ¬
            whose modification date < ((current date) - 30 * days) ¬
            and label index is not 2

You would then have either added an action after this to trash those items, or change get every item to delete every item in the script.  However, as @user3439894 pointed out, this won't traverse folder trees, so any items inside a folder that are older than 30 days (and not tagged red) will escape detection.

The following script is an example of a method that uses recursion to descend through the directory tree deleting files (or marking them for deletion) as it goes:

    property D : {}  # The files to delete
    property R : path to documents folder  # The root of the directory tree structure
    property age : 30 * days
    property red : 2

    descend into R

    # tell application "Finder" to delete D
    return D

    to descend into here
        local here

        tell application "Finder"

            # Mark files which are older than 30 days for deletion
            # EXCEPT any that are tagged red
            set end of D to every file in here whose label index is not red ¬
                and modification date < (current date) - age

            # This checks to see if, following the purge, the
            # current folder will become empty.  If so, it can
            # be deleted too.  It adds to processing time, so
            # remove this code block if you don't need it.
            count the last item of D
            if the result is equal to (count the files in here as alias list) ¬
                and (count the folders in here) is 0 then
                set the end of D to here
                return
            end if

            # This ensures folders tagged red and their contents
            # are spared from the purge
            get the folders in here whose label index is not 2

            repeat with F in the result
                set F to the contents of F  # de-referencing

                descend of me into F
            end repeat

        end tell
    end descend

I have tested it briefly on my own fairly complex tree structure, and it appeared to work successfully.  However, I'm writing this and testing it whilst quite tired, but regardless, I would always strongly advise that you test this script yourself on dummy files and folders to ensure it works.  Please report back on how it goes, including—if they arise—any errors, with specific details on how I can reproduce the error myself.


Apple watch stopped unlocking due to Chrome Remote Desktop's screen sharing

Sorry for posting a comment as an answer to the main question, but unfortunately it appears I do not have enough reputation to leave a comment.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that there was indeed an update on Chrome RD side: to be sure, I checked current version (80.0.3987) of /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/ChromeRemoteDesktopHost.app and went into Time Machine to compare with the version I had before a couple of days ago (78.0.3904).

Also, I remember that a few days ago that I was asked to enable some Privacy settings in the Preference Pane when the update passed -- and I did so as instructed by some Google-looking GUI that appeared at start-up. I think they were 'Accessibility' and 'Screen recording'.

Since the update, I too have been experiencing the very same symptoms: that is, unlocking with Apple Watch stopped working.

HTH

Sergio


After binding Mac to AD, first login successfully creates mobile account and logs in, after that next login locks AD account

I ended up using the AD plugin from Centrify which worked fine.  I have abandoned the Apple plugin until they get their act together. Thanks!


How do I get the Mac Terminal to show the gray font color

On Snow Leopard you can install the TerminalColours plugin, which lets you modify the default colours.

On Lion you get a thoroughly updated Terminal.app that lets you do this out of the box and also supports 256 colours by default.


The following example AppleScript code when run from Script Editor, or saved as an AppleScript application, will present a search string dialog box for you to type in the search string.

If a match is found, it then creates a new TextEdit document with the name(s) of the document(s) containing the search string. If no match is found, it displays a dialog box with a message.

if running of application "TextEdit" then
    tell application "TextEdit"
        set docCount to count documents
        if docCount is greater than 0 then
            set searchString to ""
            repeat while searchString is ""
                set searchString to my getSearchString()
            end repeat
            set documentNamesList to {}
            repeat with i from 1 to docCount
                if text of document i contains the searchString then
                    copy name of document i to end of documentNamesList
                end if
            end repeat
            if documentNamesList is not {} then
                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to linefeed
                set documentNamesList to documentNamesList as string
                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
                set docText to "The following TextEdit documents contain the search string: " & ¬
                    searchString & linefeed & linefeed & documentNamesList
                make new document with properties {text:docText}
                activate
            else
                display dialog "No documents found containing the search string: " & ¬
                    searchString buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "No Match Found"
            end if
        else
            display dialog "There are no open documents to search..." buttons {"OK"} ¬
                default button 1 with title "No Open Documents"
        end if
    end tell
else
    display dialog "TextEdit is not open..." buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end if

on getSearchString()
    return text returned of (display dialog ¬
        "Enter the search string:" default answer ¬
        "" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2 ¬
        with title "Search Open TextEdit Documents")
end getSearchString

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


Does AppleCare warranty follow the device or the user?

The previous owner has to transfer it to the new owner.  See, "Is the AppleCare Protection Plan or AppleCare+ transferable?" under AppleCare Products Frequently Asked Questions, it states:

  Is the AppleCare Protection Plan or AppleCare+ transferable?

  Yes. If you choose to sell or give away your Apple product, you can
  also transfer the ownership of the AppleCare Protection Plan or
  AppleCare+. Please see the Terms and Conditions for complete details.


Removing User from Single User Mode Fails - MacOS 10.14

Solved! Since com.apple.DirectoryServicesLocal.plist was giving me issues I ran

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist

Before executing the dscl delete command which was successful.


One Contact Receiving My Messages Under An Email, Not My Contact Name

iMessage can be configured to send/receive from your phone number as well as any email addresses that you have verified through your account. If your iPhone is configured to start new conversations from your phone number, but continues sending from your email address to a particular contact, you would need to delete the existing conversation with that contact and start a new one.


Using time capsule as a shared iTunes library

No, the Time Capsule doesn't have the software to run an iTunes library.

It can be used as external storage as you mentioned configuring it as a shared location. In this case iTunes would be running on another computer rather than on the Time Capsule.


I use photo fixer pro and works well too bad in the past with iphoto there was an auto select photo app now you have to select each one and for me its a pain why well because i have 80,570 photos mixed with videos


How to configure 3G/4G dongle in macos 64bit version?

I found a quick work around using the default "Network" option.
I am using Airtel 4G & Huawei E3372 dongle.
Below are the steps followed:
 1. Open System Preferences > Network

Configure adapter HuaweiMobile-
Configuration: Default
Telephone Number: *99#

In the Advanced pane:

Vendor: Generic Model: GPRS (GSM/3G)
APN: Default (check for APN through your provided for other services)
CID: 1

Select "Show Modem in status bar" for easy toggle.


MacBook keeps switching between my 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz wifi networks for no reason

Try this...

System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi > Advanced

Drag the various wifi logins to the order you want.  In your case, the 2.4GHz above the 5GHz.


How to Remove Attachments in the Mail app in 10.12 Sierra

The Messages > Remove Attachments selection is greyed-out unless you have selected (in the Mail message viewer) one or more emails which contain attachments. Select one or more emails which contain attachments and the selection will be available.


iPhone boot loop after installing biteSMS

If you want to avoid having to restore your phone just in order to remove a bad cydia tweak, turn off the phone. Turn it on and as soon as Apple logo appear, hold Volume Up button until your phone boots. It might not work for everyone and for some folks, Volume Down works as well. If nothing works, unfortunately, you will need to restore.


MacBook turning on issue during high humidity

I waited for the sun to come out and dried my MacBook Air in front of fan. Try to keep your laptop in dry conditions. The shutdown might be a safeguard for motherboard.


Will restoring from TimeMachine keep my bootcamp partition intact?

Yes it will.

As long as you only erase your Mac partition, the Boot Camp partition will be untouched. Time Machine will only modify the Mac partition.


Mac OS Catalina - Bluetooth audio output issues (WF-1000XM3, Bose QuietComfort 35)

Forcing headphones to use aptX codec fixes the issue.

How to change it?

Head to https://developer.apple.com/bluetooth/

Download additional tools for Xcode (you might need to sign in with your Apple ID)

Open downloaded image and open Hardware folder

Move BT Explorer to your application folder and open it

Select Force use of aptX

Disconnect your headphones and connect again
Hold OPTION/ALT key and click on BT in the menu bar, find your headphones, it should show Active Codec: AptX

From my experience this should fix the issues.

Edit: Some people reported that disabling Ask Siri reduces the issues as well.


Can't install High Sierra on VirtualBox or Parallels-not solved by changing date

It appears my installer .app REALLY got damaged.
(maybe becauseI moved it around unzipped through my networks?)

A fresh .app download from Apple solved my problem.

I was so used to it being a signed code problem
solved by changing the date that I went there too fast.

Sorry for the noise.


Uninstaller that tracks installed files and removes them later

Not exactly what you are after but  Apple development tools like dtrace can track all file usage, googling for examples gave this blog which has scripts to record what files are used by which processes.

Also you should be able to get a find command using a -B argument.

Also note that not all files will be written at instal - User specific files e.g. ~/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Application Support (or their sandbox equivalents) can't be written until the first run of the program and not the install. Also what happens if two users have run this do you want to remove both sets of files?


disable single inbox for multiple MS Exchange email accounts in Mail app on a Mac

You can view each inbox separately. In the left hand column, click the triangle next to the Inbox, then select the inbox you'd like to look at.