How to assign different ReFit icons for multiple Mac partitions?

I, too, am dual booting 2 OS X's (Mountain Lion and Yosemite). This is because Yosemite is too heavy, so it's there only as a safety net!

If you are double booting Yosemite or El Capitan with another prior OS X, copy the rEFInd folder to this older OS X. This is because of the scheme Yosemite and El Capitan use to boot, and having the rEFInd files inside these partitions will require special installation instructions. In my case as I said, I have Mountain Lion and Yosemite, so the rEFInd folder is at the root of the Mountain Lion partition (volume).

But in the other hand if you are booting Yosemite and El Capitan (without an older OS X version as 3rd boot) then you'll have to go to the rEFInd page and read how to install rEFInd in these OSs.

This is how it's done:

Download the latest rEFInd from http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/
The latest version (0.9.2) supports .png for icons, so no need to create .icns files.
Configure your icons and place them in the icons older. I have made a God fearing simplistic theme. If you use it may I suggest you keep the background as a reminder of to whom one day you will answer to! Download this theme (and the binaries). It's basically my rEFInd folder zipped.
Configure the refind.conf file to use manual boot stanzas. These are  hardcoded (in the config file, much like a grub file in linux) options so the name of the volume of your OS X cannot be changed without changing the configuration file. If you fail at this and change the volume name without updating the .conf file, that particular boot option will not be bootable anymore. But since you'll have two OS X's you can force Apple's bootmenu with Alt at the startup, boot the other volume and fix the .conf file. The proper basic necessary configuration is as follows:

scanfor external,optical,hdbios,biosexternal,manual

menuentry "Mountain Lion" {
    icon \rEFInd\icons\ml.png
    volume "Mountain Lion"
    loader \System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
    graphics on
}

menuentry "Yosemite" {
    icon \rEFInd\icons\yoyo.png
    volume "Yosemite"
    loader \System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
    graphics on
}

Explanation: In the scanfor line you'll have to remove the "internal" option so rEFInd will not scan for the partition (as they are defined with menuentry) or you will have 4 boot options, the two from the scan itself, and two from the hardcoded menuentry sections. Also still in scanfor you have to put the manual option so rEFInd will read the menuentry sections.
And the menu entry can be explained with this example:

menuentry "Name that Will Appear In The Boot Menu" {
    icon \path\to\the\icon.png
    volume "THIS IS THE EXACT NAME OF THE MAC VOLUME"
    loader \System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
    graphics on
}

Leave the "loader" option as it is. Because that is the default path for OX S' boot.efi (on all recent versions).

And finally the graphics on is to hide the rEFInd command like black screen when booting, so you get a nice graphical transition between the boot menu and the screen with the apple (Apple's boot screen).

I thinks this should cover. The end result should be (the rEFInd.zip at the top has this theme already) something like the following

Finally set the boot to be done using the non-yosemite/ElCapitan partition (or the partition where you copied the rEFInd folder to. To do this go to:  System Preferences > Startup Disk click the partition and press restart.

If things go horribly wrong and for some reason you cannot boot, try either Alt to choose a bootable partition (ie. Recovery)

Just a final note, App Store uses Spotlight indexes to identify apps, so before you launch App Store to update apps that are present on both OS Xs, be sure to unmount the Volume with the OS X that is not running so the AppS tore app can find the right one to update.


While I have written a portable version of Google Chrome for Windows, Chrome and Firefox have similar file structure, I'll give this semi tutorial a go..

First, copy your /Applications/Firefox.app to a folder named "Firefox" on a flash drive.

Now, locate a valid user profile for Firefox on your Mac (usually ~/Library/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/ or
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/ )

Copy a valid profile folder to this "Firefox" folder also.

Next, we will create a Bash script to properly open Portable Firefox, so..

Inside this "Firefox" folder create a "start.sh" with the following lines:

 /Volumes/<FLASHDRIVENAME>/Firefox/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -profile /Volumes/<FLASHDRIVENAME>/Firefox/<profile folder>

If you execute

$ bash /Volumes/<FLASHDRIVENAME>/Firefox/start.sh

You should be able to run Firefox on any Mac anywhere.

NOTE: Replace < FLASHDRIVENAME > with the mountable name of your flash drive.


An Automator workflow for extracting text as speech from PDF files

While Automator is pretty useful, I personally find the Terminal / command line a nice place to solve problems like this.

The basic idea is still using the steps you describe, but doing all the work from the command line. I researched a useful PDF-to-Text converter, and I found PDFminer quite useful. If you can get it to run, half of your work is done!

pip install pdfminer

Step one and two, then can be solved with this one-liner in Terminal:

pdf2txt.py example.pdf | say -v Daniel -o example.aiff

Still missing is the addition of metadata — what do you need here: Title / Album / "Artist"?

In a final step, you would add the file to a certain iTunes playlist. Depending on your ideal workflow, one then could build a little LaunchAgent that monitors a folder for new files...


How can I get 256 colors on the default Terminal over SSH?

Bah... the party at fault was the SSH server. Don't know why and could not find a place to disable the behavior (except for going full dumb terminal which had its own issues), but plain old openssh gets the job done.


How to change terminal folder font color

The colors are defined by LSCOLORS, see man ls for details.

LSCOLORS The value of this variable describes what color to use for which attribute
         when colors are enabled with CLICOLOR.  This string is a concatenation
         of pairs of the format fb, where f is the foreground color and b is the
         background color.

         The color designators are as follows:

                       a     black
                       b     red
                       c     green
                       d     brown
                       e     blue
                       f     magenta
                       g     cyan
                       h     light grey
                       A     bold black, usually shows up as dark grey
                       B     bold red
                       C     bold green
                       D     bold brown, usually shows up as yellow
                       E     bold blue
                       F     bold magenta
                       G     bold cyan
                       H     bold light grey; looks like bright white
                       x     default foreground or background

         Note that the above are standard ANSI colors.  The actual display may differ
         depending on the color capabilities of the terminal in use.

         The order of the attributes are as follows:

                       1.   directory
                       2.   symbolic link
                       3.   socket
                       4.   pipe
                       5.   executable
                       6.   block special
                       7.   character special
                       8.   executable with setuid bit set
                       9.   executable with setgid bit set
                       10.  directory writable to others, with sticky bit
                       11.  directory writable to others, without sticky bit

         The default is "exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad", i.e. blue foreground and default
         background for regular directories, black foreground and red background for setuid
         executables, etc.

To change the dark blue to cyan use

export LSCOLORS="gxfxcxdxbxegedabagacad"


Why is it called Desktop Picture or Background in macOS and wallpaper in iOS? Is there a technical difference?

Mac continues the use of the decades-old analogy of the computer screen being your desktop.  The first GUI used in a mainstream computer, and almost every computer after that, was primarily for work use so that way of describing the screen, like a desktop with a large writing pad or family pictures, was the best way to describe the image.

PluckyVintage

iOS isn't a desktop computer, it's much more personal.  When iOS debuted, it was first on a small handheld phone.  You couldn't get much further away from a 'desktop' than an individual device you could customize.  There needed to be a way to refer to the background.  Because it could be customized and changed for each person's preference and tastes, the team at Apple decided on wallpaper.

I can't find anything that definitively states why Apple decided to use that term but it fits their goal of a personal device.

genius.com

This is the way I've always viewed these two; I don't have any special insight or knowledge to say this way of explaining is the most accurate or better than anyone else's. We might not ever know why these decisions were made the way they were.


MacBook Pro 2011: vibrating horizontal dotted lines all over the screen

Does it do this on an external screen?  This would show the difference between the GPU being bad or the display going bad.  Being you had to hard shut off the laptop I am leaning to GPU being bad.


How does iOS and OS X detect when a Wi-Fi network is a personal hotspot?

I think this question should be posted in Reverse Engineering Stack Exchange site. You're asking for the implementation details about a black box...

In fact I did dig around a little on /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/AirPort.menu and /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreWLAN.framework/

There is a private method of CWNetwork called isPersonalHotspot, kind of:

char -[CWNetwork(Private) isPersonalHotspot](void * self, void * _cmd) {
    eax = [*(self + 0x4) objectForKey:@"IOS_IE"];
    eax = LOBYTE(eax != 0x0 ? 0x1 : 0x0) & 0xff;
    return eax;
}

It seems just checking some identifiers. I think SFRemoteHotspotDevice and WiFiXPCEventProtocol may have more low level details but I didn't check.

BTW, There is also a property to identify whether is CarPlay network

@interface CWNetwork : NSObject <NSCopying, NSSecureCoding>
... //redacted
@property(readonly) BOOL isPersonalHotspot;
@property(readonly) BOOL isCarPlayNetwork;
... //redacted

Apple controls the Hardware, the Drivers and the Operating System, I guess they can easily add extra metadata when broadcasting the WiFi signal so your Mac knows to whether adding the chain icon or not.

If anyone figure out exactly how Apple did the trick, please let me know. :)


How do I format a big disk (4TB) for use in both macOS and a Raspberry Pi?

For the partition table, you'll want to use the "GUID Partition Table" (called GUID Partition Map in macOS Disk Utility, and GPT on Linux/Raspberry Pi). The MBR partition table you've have been suggested indeed does not work for partitions larger than 2 TB.

For the file system itself, you'll want to use ExFAT. It is a relatively simple file system understood by both macOS and Linux/Raspberry Pi without many of the size limitations of earlier MS-DOS style filesystems such as FAT16 and FAT32.


What you did was move the geckodriver executable into ~/.local, and rename it to bin. The directory must exist first before mv can move anything into it, or it will assume you intend to rename the file at the destination. You can either delete ~/.local/bin with rm ~/.local/bin and make the directory with mkdir ~/.local/bin, then redownload it, or you can run the command mv ~/.local/bin ~/.local/geckodriver && mkdir ~/.local/bin && mv ~/.local/geckodriver ~/.local/bin, so you don't have to redownload it.


How can I transfer iJoomer app to XCode iPhone simulator?

The short answer is no.

The reasons are numerous, but the first is that anything compiled to run on a device can not be run in the simulator because the processor architecture is different. The simulator is simulating a device, not emulating a device. Apps run in the simulator are intel x86 binaries, while apps that run on a device are compiled for some version of the ARM processor.


Upgrade to an SSD
Just get a simple SSD and an IDE to SATA adapter.  You may need a 3.5" drive adapter if you use a 2.5" drive, but those are abundant and easily sourced.

StarTech IDE to SATA adapter (Approx $18 USD)
Kingston SSD A400 120GB (Approx $50 USD)

This will give you a solid state solution for less than $70 USD.  You can probably find these items for less on the used market, but probably not by much when you factor shipping and handling.
That said, your $30 budget is unrealistic as PATA SSD's are notoriously expensive and any small capacity SSDs (16 to 60GB) will run about $20 USD (plus shipping).  In addition, you will still need the IDE to SATA adapter because those cheap drives are all SATA.  You may spend (slightly) less, but it will be a solution based on used (pre-owned) components.
Convert IDE to SATA
The StarTech IDE to SATA adapter will allow you to use newer SATA disks including SSDs.  Whether you choose to go with an SSD or stick with spinning media, this little adapter will be critical in allowing you to use modern drives with your older hardware.

Personally, I have used this exact adapter in an X-Serve RAID (connected to a XServe G4)  to use 1TB 2.5" HDDs (the limitation was 750GB PATA drives).  The X-Serve RAID ran cooler and I increased it's storage capacity limitation by 25% (it was also substantially lighter).  There are other manufacturers of this type of adapter, but this brand seemed to be the most reliable and compact.


Will Apple disable your account for buying IAP abroad?

On the "can you spend a Gift Card on In-App Purchase" part, here's what Apple says:

  You can use store credit for purchases that you make in any of the stores or to pay for in-app purchases until it's gone.

As long as you keep using Gift Cards and don't run out of credit you should have no problem.

If you have or get a local credit card, and want to use it, you will have to either create another Apple ID to manage both stores, or switch to your local store and lose US store purchases, as you need your card and store country to match.

As Apple puts it:

  For example, only German credit cards can be used to buy content from the German iTunes Store and App Store.

This articles 1, 2 take on the problems and advantages of having more than one Apple ID for purchases and describe what you do in extension.


Is it possible to use Apple remote desktop to macOS High Sierra and disable the screen on the remote station?

As Allan said in a comment, Apple Remote Desktop supports this functionality with the Curtains command, so if you're using a third-party client to access your computer with the Apple Remote Desktop protocol it's up to that client to provide a way for you to activate that feature.

If you're accessing a MacBook using its built-in display, you could always simply decrease the brightness to zero. Technically the display is still active, but it's practically impossible to see in most conditions. You can also do this for an iMac, though the backlight does not dim fully. You can do this in System Preferences > Displays, if you can't send the key commands to decrease brightness.


How can I access preview documents saved to iCloud from 10.8 on an iPad?

You unfortunately can't, there is no related application for iOS right now. Whether this is an oversight in Preview (which shouldn't be able to save into iCloud in the first place) or a hint for things to come with iOS 6 is unclear right now.


The problem was that my keyboard was not a QWERTY one so I needed to hold the fourth key (which is not a R on my keyboard) for it to work.


When applications are code-signed, what parts of the .app bundle does the signature cover?

TL;DR It's up to the developer to pick which pieces of the app are signed and whether or not tampering with those pieces results in any actions when the app is launched. You have to use trial and error to figure it out on an app-by-app basis.

It is largely up to the developer to decide which components in their application bundle are represented in the seal that gets signed before they deliver their application. Anything in the seal is effectively tamper-proof as it's mostly impossible to modify these things without changing their hash signatures. But that's doesn't actually mean you can't tamper with them.

The Apple Developer guide has this to say about what you should sign:

  You should sign every executable in your product, including
  applications, tools, hidden helper tools, utilities and so forth.
  Signing an application bundle covers its resources, but not its
  subcomponents such as tools and sub-bundles. Each of these must be
  signed independently.

  If your application consists of a big UI part with one or more little
  helper tools that try to present a single face to the user, you can
  make them indistinguishable to code signing by giving them all the
  exact same code signing identifier. (You can do that by making sure
  that they all have the same CFBundleIdentifier value in their
  Info.plist, or by using the -i option in the codesign command, to
  assign the same identifier.) In that case, all your program components
  have access to the same keychain items and validate as the same
  program. Do this only if the programs involved are truly meant to form
  a single entity, with no distinctions made.

  A universal binary (bundle or tool) automatically has individual
  signatures applied to each architecture component. These are
  independent, and usually only the native architecture on the end
  user's system is verified.

  In the case of installer packages (.pkg and .mpkg bundles), everything
  is implicitly signed: The CPIO archive containing the payload, the
  CPIO archive containing install scripts, and the bill of materials
  (BOM) each have a hash recorded in the XAR header, and that header in
  turn is signed. Therefore, if you modify an install script (for
  example) after the package has been signed, the signature will be
  invalid.

  You may also want to sign your plug-ins and libraries. Although this
  is not currently required, it will be in the future, and there is no
  disadvantage to having signatures on these components.

  Depending on the situation, codesign may add to your Mach-O executable
  file, add extended attributes to it, or create new files in your
  bundle's Contents directory. None of your other files is modified.

Also from here it's not necessarily true that having an invalid signature for an application means it will fail to launch. The page says:

  It is up to the system or program that is launching or loading signed
  code to decide  whether to verify the signature and, if it does, to
  determine how to evaluate the results of that verification.

An application may choose to allow modifications.

Your best bet is a trial-and-error approach with any application you're trying to modify. It may work, it may not. There's no always-true answer that can be given.

If an app has been signed you can look for a Contents/CodeResources file or a  Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources file in the bundle. This file lists all the signed components and their expected hash values in the bundle. It's a good place to start understanding what pieces of the application a developer deems critical enough to watch for changes.


Cross Platform GUI-compatible Encryption

TrueCrypt 7.1a has gone through at least two audits. They found a couple of high-severity issues were found, but there are no known exploits against them, and one only affects the Windows version. And the one that affects Mac OS, like many exploits, requires physical access. Unless you are worried about your macbook falling into the hands of the NSA or Russian hackers (note: I'm being hyperbolic), I wouldn't be too worried. I'm pretty concerned about security myself, and I'd have no problem using TrueCrypt. The only concern I would have is future compatibility as operating systems evolve and drop support for older stuff.

But there are two active forks off of 7.1a, only one is ready and stable, and has a Mac version: VeraCrypt.

Once you set up an encrypted volume - essentially a loopback file - you still have to format it with something cross-platform. I'm guessing you already understand this part, but if not, this is going to be your biggest cross-platform issue. Or at least, it has been for me having done this kind of thing many times.

FAT32 is really the only rock-solid cross-platform filesystem. It comes with a so-called 32GB partition size restriction, but this can be overcome, for example with Fat32Formatter.

NTFS "should" work, in the form of NTFS-3G, but in practice it never has for me! This could be just my experience, but every time I've tried it I've had issues: either lost data or had concerning enough file integrity issues that it worried me too much to trust important data with. NTFS-3g claims that they comply with NTFS rules better than Microsoft, and that any integrity issues that arise are Microsoft's fault. Which seems plausible to me. But the bottom line is that whenever I used NTFS-3g on a volume, then used it natively in Windows, it had oodles of integrity issues using Microsoft chkdsk. And like I said, I've lost data before, more than once. Personally I just don't trust it.

But in the last few years, I've not had to worry about cross-platform issues. Because, if I need to use NTFS from Mac or Linux, I just use it natively in a VM and share it via CIFS. I've even used Windows 2000 (with no licensing issues) in a VM to access NTFS volumes from Mac or Linux.

But any more, the only "cross-platform" file system I use is ZFS. I used to use two small 1tb USB drives velcro'd to the lid of my Macbook (running Windows), with a Linux VM sharing the ZFS volume via CIFS.


I think there are leftovers from previous OS X versions on my HD, how can I find/delete those?

I did a search using the following keywords: mac remove old version

The most promising result described three applications that could work for you.

I suppose that backing up to Time Machine, doing a clean install, and then restoring from Time Machine wouldn't work. The backup would include all the garbage files that you were seeking to be rid of.

Maybe it would be doable to do a clean install, but then only restore selected applications from the backup?


Whole family uses same AppleID - can I block them from receiving my iMessages?

If it is your Apple ID - you should log in and Manage your Apple ID to change the password, remove all emails that are not yours, and update addresses / phone numbers so that only your personal ones are listed.

If the ID is not yours, you will either need to trust that the person controlling the account has done this or open an Apple ID support ticket to ask what the legal department contact information is so that you can justify to an Apple employee why they would modify an existing record to detach any of your personal data from an account you no longer control.

Obviously, your phone number is yours, so you can set up a new Apple ID and register that phone number to correspond to your new Apple ID and that would mean that "your messages" would only go to the "old Apple ID" if people keep sending messages to that email. This only matters if you use an iPhone with iMessage and not an email address.


The file was located in:
~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Session/

This is for the OpenSource version of TextMate 2.0-alpha-9487, on osx Mountain Lion 1.8.5


No it's not possible!

The reason is that the Facebook url scheme needs a unique ID for open a certain page and if you look the screenshot below you can see that the "Google" is Name and Username.


How do I "NOT require" a passcode in Apple Configurator

If you deployed a Configuration profile that mandates a password requirement, you will need to remove that profile via your MDM or Apple Configurator.

In the Profiles section of either Prepare or Supervise, ensure that none of the configuration profiles that are being deployed contain a payload requiring a passcode.


How can I see which QuickLook plugin is responsible for which data type?

Open Terminal, and type the following:

qlmanage -m plugins

This will give you a fairly long list of all your active QuickLook plugins:

The types listed there might look a little strange, like com.apple.safari.bookmark. Those are Apple Uniform Type Identifiers or short UTType identifiers, and there is a list of the default ones available from Apple here. If you're looking for a specific file extension, it might be a good idea to open that link and search the page for it. A search for txt reveals its UTType to be public.plain-text, and this is the type you will find it under in the qlmanage output.

So if a particular type of file looks strange in QuickLook, just look up its path here, go there and disable it (for instance by renaming its file extension to something other than qlgenerator), then come back to Terminal and force QuickLook to reload its list of plugins by typing

qlmanage -r

Run qlmanage -m plugins again to make sure the offending qlgenerator is not loaded anymore. Careful: QuickLook will even load them if they're in the trash, which is why we renamed the plugin above instead of trashing it.

Open a Finder window, find a file of the right type, and hit the space bar to double-check.


MacBook Pro wont boot at all (El capitan)

This definitely sounds like hardware issue, based on the fact that the HDD worked on a similar Macbook Pro.

Before we rule it as hardware, lets perform an Apple Hardware Test .

  Apple Hardware Test (AHT) contains a suite of diagnostics that will test the hardware of your computer. It's a great way to rule out a hardware issue when troubleshooting your computer.

If your Mac was released after June 2013, use Apple Hardware Test.

Otherwise, if your Mac was released prior to June 2013, use the Apple Diagnostics Test.

Fortunately Apple does a great job with documentation, so I'll avoid repeating the instructions mentioned in the provided links.

Once the test is complete, please reply with any error codes presented.


Using hard disk after a S.M.A.R.T. error

I would like to know if it's safe if I continue using this hard disk
  (for example as an external one). If not, why exFAT says all is right?

No, it is not safe and exFAT is not saying it's all right.  Disk Utility is just not telling you that's something's wrong when it writes the exFAT partition.

A S.M.A.R.T. error is an error that is generated by the drive itself (not macOS) and this cannot be overridden by a format type (exFAT, APFS, HFS+, etc.)  The reason one format generates an error and another doesn't has to do (basicailly) where the partition is actually written to the physical disk.  With exFAT, that "bad" area isn't being written to, thus, no error.

Bottom line, the drive is proven to be failing; I wouldn't continue to use it.


Cant get iOS 10.2.1 and OSX 10.10.5 devices to allow phone calls from OSX

First, register your phone number with iMessage. It appears that it is not registered from the screenshot you provided.
See how here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349
Next, ensure your Apple ID is signed in on both devices.
Go to Settings > iCloud on your phone and check your Apple ID here:

Sorry, picture looks different on 10.3 beta
Now, check it on your Mac. Go to FaceTime > Preferences and check that it looks similar to the screenshot below:

OK. Now let's try enabling WiFi calling again. Go to Settings > Phone > Calls on Other Devices on you iPhone, and FaceTime > Preferences on your Mac. Enable their respective allow calls options.
That should be it! Have a friend try calling you and see if a notification appears on your Mac while your phone is within its range.
If this doesn't work, comment and I'll try to help.


What are the right post-installation procedure after installing git using Homebrew?

You should at least create a file called .gitconfig and possibly also one called .gitignore_global in your home directory.

.gitconfig:
specifies some default settings; at the very least:

[user]
    name = your_name
    email = your_email_address
[core]
    excludefile = path_to_your_home_folder/.gitignore_global

.gitignore_global:
files you always never want to track / put under version control in any of your projects; mine looks like this:

.DS_Store
.localized
*.swp
*.pyc

The first two are files, which OS X might put into a folder; *.swp files are vim swap files and *.pyc are precompiled Python scripts.
After that you should be ready to go.

The "caveats" are actually information, not really warnings:

git-credential-osxkeychain is a tool that helps you managing your GitHub credentials; the "caveat" simply tells you where you can find the tool
the contrib folder contains stuff that "others" have added to git; in my installation the folder only holds the "shell completion" code that is mentioned in the next two caveats you got at the end of the installation; again this is merely an information where you can find the contrib folder
the "shell completions" mentioned in the last two caveats provide code to "tab complete" the names of branches and tags when you run git commands in your shell of choice. This is similar to how you can "tab complete" file and folder names in the shell. Once again this is just an information not a warning.

So, long story short: these "caveats" simply provide additional information about your git installation, but you do not need to do anything about them to make git work.


Is FaceTime free (including internationally)?

Both FaceTime and FaceTime Audio are data and never go through the phone network as a regular phone call. You will be charged in the same way as using the internet for other purposes on your phone, over Wi-Fi or mobile data depending on your scenario.

FaceTime Audio calls don't ‘become’ regular calls. I'm almost certain the case from the linked article must be describing user error, calling someone not through FaceTime Audio but a normal phone call, and the user mistook the buttons they were pressing on their phone.

Besides any network fees, Apple does not charge a toll or fee to make or receive any calls. The license to the software and iCloud infrastructure is included with the cost of the Apple hardware.

There are certain countries that prohibit FaceTime services such as Saudi Arabia and UAE so you would not be able to make FaceTime or FaceTime Audio calls to these locations, but this would not cause a switch to normal calls. Net neutrality is evolving in several countries and there is no technical reason why FaceTime audio or video couldn’t be charged for above and beyond other forms of data.


How can I know that a user allowed from security & privacy 3rd party kernel extensions to load in High Sierra?

I found a related post on StackOverflow proper that shows, the information about approvals is stored in sqlite3 database at /var/db/SystemPolicyConfiguration/KextPolicy

If you can find your kext in the kext_policy table, then it has been approved.  Here is an example:

sqlite3 /var/db/SystemPolicyConfiguration/KextPolicy
SQLite version 3.19.3 2017-06-27 16:48:08
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
sqlite> select * from kext_policy;
...
4C6364ACXT|com.parallels.kext.hypervisor|1|Parallels International GmbH|1
4C6364ACXT|com.parallels.kext.vnic|1|Parallels International GmbH|1
4C6364ACXT|com.parallels.kext.netbridge|1|Parallels International GmbH|1
4C6364ACXT|com.parallels.kext.usbconnect|1|Parallels International GmbH|1
...
sqlite>

I needed this information in order to know why Parallels is suddenly asking for my approval again today, when as you can see it has clearly been granted already, but for my benefit the System Preferences isn't presenting me with any "Allow" button to grant it again.  Perhaps Parallels is detecting that a new kext needs to be approved, but it seems Parallels hasn't actually tried to load it yet.

Unfortunately for me, since I was hoping I could remove the permission and get the "Allow" button back, the database is strictly read-only.  The procedure for removing approvals involves booting with a recovery partition and sounds onerous.  I guess I'll wait for Parallels support to answer via Twitter!

Credit for this answer goes to StackOverflow user @mikhail-iakhiaev https://stackoverflow.com/a/51684219/661659

(Edit: the issue was not with Parallels, my help desk admitted that our managed Mac workstations all got an update today that removed our ability to approve kexts as users.  They hope to have it fixed by tomorrow, but for the benefit of your question, that's another avenue where your users might have ended up being stopped from approving your kexts as any other user would.  Hope this helps!)


iTunes/Music manages your music library which you can access via various views. So if you add a track its artist will always show up in the Artist view, its album will always show up in Albums (and vice versa). The beauty of this is that you can choose to play all Madonna tracks by selecting her in the Artist view, or choose to play a specific album only by selecting it in the Album view.
Obviously this gets difficult to manage the more your library grows. I currently have over 40'000 tracks in iTunes/Music and found that it's much easier to manage if I use playlists to keep things in places where I find them again.


How can I find which account I used for downloading my iOS apps?

In iTunes you can simply right click the app in question and choose Get Info. On the summary tab you can see the account used to purchase the app.


Mac OSX hard disk gives invalid PEOF - how do I back up data?

Do you have another Mac? If so you can connect the failed Mac to your other mac via firewire and you target disk mode.

Power off the failed mac, connect it to the working mac via firewire. (The working mac can already be powered on) Boot the failed mac and immediately hold down the T key on the failed mac. Continue holding it until the firewire icon shows up on screen. You should then see the mac mounted on the working mac.

Link with more details http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661

Also an interesting link with some details on your error http://support.apple.com/kb/TA21624?viewlocale=en_US


I can't enter passwords in Safari 11.1 on macOS 10.13 High Sierra because the last character gets removed

I assumed you checked your accessibility and keyboard preferences. I have had numerous issues with keyboard setting being modified/added during the updates. sticky keys and other settings were modified that I wasn't aware of...I had to start using the manual keyboard viewer until I was able to get it fixed...

.

only other thingi I can think of is trying on an alternate or guest login to see if you have the same problem on a clean user.

I know I am still struggling with my fare share of HSierra simple glitches but I hope you can get this one solved! Good luck!


How do I remove Keybase from my Finder Favorites?

The following worked for me in macOS High Sierra.

To remove Keybase from under Favorites on Finder's Sidebar, I did the following:

Open: Keybase
Click: Settings
Click: FILES
Uncheck: [] Enable Keybase in Finder

Click the Remove & Restart button on the ensuing dialog box.

Drag Keybase from under Favorites on Finder's Sidebar until the (x) appears and then let go.

Even after rebooting my Mac, Keybase did not reappear under Favorites on Finder's Sidebar. All is as it should be and I can continue to use the other features of Keybase.

If you no longer want to use Keybase and completely remove the App and support files, then do the following:

Close the Keybase app and it's Menu Extras icon.

Then using AppCleaner:

Open: AppCleaner
Drag and drop the Keybase app onto AppCleaner.
Click the Remove button.

Note: I am not affiliated with the developer of AppCleaner, just a satisfied user.


Mountain Lion freezes after sleep on iMac (Mid 2007)

Please try resetting PRAM and SMC. Also, you may want to run Disk Utility to perform a validate and repair on your permissions and disk to see if that helps.


What are the files in the /Library/Image Capture/TWAIN Data Sources/ and can they be removed?

The MP500 and MP600 are Canon all-in-one printer/scanners.

TWAIN is a driver protocol for exchanging information with scanners.

MPXXX.ds files are Canon drivers for the scanner component of these AIO printers.  Canon documentation indicates they can be removed by opening "Library, Image Capture, and TWAIN Data Sources, and move Canon MPXXX.ds to the trash", "if the MP Navigator or the MP drivers are no longer required."

Given the age of the MP600, unless you're still actively using one of these printers, the drivers should be safe to remove.


Edit: pressing the power key on a MacBook Air while holding control and shift does not work in 10.7. The power key can only be substituted for eject in 10.8 and later versions of OS X.

Putting displays to sleep only locks the screen if this setting is enabled:

You can also put displays to sleep in 10.9 by running pmset displaysleepnow.

Another way to lock the screen is to enable the Keychain menu extra from the preferences of Keychain Access and then select Lock Screen from the menu extra:

An alternative way to lock the screen is to log out to the fast user switching screen. You can do it by running

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend

or by using the lock action in Alfred:


Why is Apple Mail loading remote content in Spam Messages?

Unchecking "Trust junk mail headers in messages" solved this issue for me.


normaly it would be like this:

Launch the Calendar app on your iPhone.
By default, you'll normally see a month view.

Tap on the list button in the top navigation to combine month view with a summary view underneath it.

Any day you tap on will then show all the events for that day underneath it.

Tap the month in the upper left to pan out to year view.

Alternately, from month view, you can also tap any day on the calendar to view a day view. Keep in mind that in order for day view to work, you need to have the list option turned off in month view.

Lastly, tap the list button in the top of day view in order to view a scrollable endless stream of all of your events.


Windows repositioned to macbook screen after sleep

I found the answer after pulling my hair for a few days...

I actually had to tick the "Displays have separate Spaces" option in System Preferences => Mission Control

Does this setting depend on the monitor that is plugged in? I would suppose the answer is yes, otherwise it would not work with my home monitor... To be tested and confirmed!


"Can't make "documents" into type integer." -1700

The joys of variable typing in AppleScript. I think that your problem is in the line

set fullKindlePath to POSIX path of (kindleLocation as alias) & "documents"

I would try changing this to

set fullKindlePath to (the POSIX path of (kindleLocation as alias)) & "documents"

then if that doesn't work try & ("documents" as POSIX PATH)

By the way, are you sure that fullKindlePath has a '/' at the end?


Is there a way to always ignore a particular wifi network on your iPhone

The only way to do this would be to set "Ask to Join Networks" [sic] to OFF in your iPhone wifi settings.

I find this to be preferable. The main consequence is that, when you are in some place new, you'll have to manually select an available wifi network. But once you HAVE joined a network, it'll automatically join it when next available. And (more germane to your question) it WON'T ever join a network that you haven't explicitly joined.


Error when reinstalling macOS Sierra - cannot reinstall

The previous content of the main volume has been replaced with the content of the BaseSystem.dmg in the Recovery HD by unfortunate circumstances. These circumstances are unclear. Some files have been recovered with the usual tools to an external volume.

To reinstall macOS do the following (all data on your Mac will be erased so don't proceed if you still have some data on your main volume/disk or if you want to recover it!):

Boot to Internet Recovery Boot (hold altcmdR while booting). You will see a spinning globe while booting to a NetBoot image from Apple. Depending on your Internet connection this will take some time (~5 minutes on a 50 Mbit/s line)
Open Disk Utility and erase/repartition your internal disk
Quit Disk Utility and open "Reinstall OS X..." which will install the system your Mac was delivered with.
After installing the (old) system and configuring your Mac open App Store, enter your Apple ID credentials, download Sierra and upgrade the system.


An adaptation of the code from the above mentioned thread

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "System Events"
        set thePath to POSIX path of (container of container of (item 1 of input))
    end tell
    return thePath
end run

worked like a charm.

So I guess, the problem as in the presentation of the folder. While the "Set Variable" action can deal with a finder folder object and preview it correctly, the split PDF action apparently can't.


How do I automatically store photos from emails or texts directly to the Camera roll?

On iPhone, there's no way currently that I know of to automatically save images from Messages to your Camera Roll. However, you can save images in bulk from Messages to your Camera Roll:

Open Messages and select the conversation with the images
Select Details in the upper right (iOS 11) orTap on the top bar and then select the info icon that appears (iOS 12)
Lightly press and hold on one of the images you'd like to save.
Select More in the popup menu
Select the rest of the images you'd like to save
Select Save Images in the bottom left corner.


Can't install Homebrew on MacBook Pro, password field won't input

Correct. The password does not show up its appearance, but you just type it correctly anyway, and then it'll bring you to the next "Intallation successful". Good luck.


Why does macOS have many strange ports open and what do they do? 50323, 50334, 50641,57621, 57650, 64448

I have compiled a list of all the services and what they do.

Checking it yourself

If you have different ports open and want to check for yourself, you can use

sudo lsof -i :50323 to see the service running on the port 50323.

ps aux | grep rapportd to find out some more information about the service rapportd, like the executable path.

codesign -vvvv -R="anchor apple" /usr/libexec/rapportd to see if the service is correctly signed by Apple. Doesn't apply to programs that aren't made by Apple.

man rapportd to read the documentation about the service

Results

Port 50323:

Service rapportd at /usr/exec/rapportd, signed by Apple. It is a Daemon that enables Phone Call Handoff and other communication features between Apple devices.

Port 50334:

This is Spotify, which is a music streaming service. Not installed by default. I think it might be related to Spotify Connect, a service which allows connecting your phone to your computer, and streaming music from your computer to your phone (or any other device which supports it)

Port 50641:

This is IntelliJ Idea, an integrated development environment for programmers. Not installed by default. Also it's tcpwrapped, meaning you can't actually do anything with it, since it drops the connection whenever you actually try to send it anything (correct me if I'm wrong). I think IDEs usually need a port open for the debugging functionality.

Port 57621:

Also Spotify.

Port 57650:

This is gradle's daemon. It's a tool programmers use. Not installed by default. Also it's tcpwrapped. Not sure why it needs to be listening on a port. If someone knows, then I'd be curious to know.

Port 64448:

Also gradle. tcpwrapped.


In most cases, contacts and calendars "disappear" from the iPhone due to incorrect sync settings. On your iPhone, navigate to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and make sure to enable Calendar sync for each of your listed accounts.


When troubleshooting charging issues, I would do the following (in order):

Always try another Lightning cable and charger, preferably Apple original or MFi certified units.

The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_(connector)|Lightning cable 8-pin connector] should be sitting flush with the housing and completely inserted. If it is not, there could be lint/dust/debris inside the port impeding a proper connection. You can clean it out with fine point tweezers or a dental pick. Just be careful not to damage the pins inside the Lightning Port.

Change the battery. The battery is the weakest link in the entire phone and certainly for charger related issues. It is also the easiest thing to replace. Use a battery utility, such as coconutBattery (for Mac) or 3uTools (for Windows) to test the battery prior to removal if you can get the phone to boot properly. Anything less than 70% of design capacity will require replacement.

If the battery is in good condition, you can use a [https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=USB+Ammeter|USB Ammeter] to determine if the phone is really drawing current when it says it's charging. If it isn't drawing current, then I would change the Lightning/Charge Port.

If a new battery and charge port still don't resolve the issue, then you either have faulty replacement parts (possible) or a logic board issue.


You're just interpreting the figures incorrectly.

The percentages are not % of the battery used, but % of the usage by each app contributing any usage in the past day or week.

Note it always adds up to 100%, no matter how much battery charge you have left, or when you last charged it.

It just happens to be, that of all the battery used since yesterday, your phone call used ⅓ of that usage - not ⅓ of a full charge.

Check the 7-day figure to see that also always adds up to 100.

It would be incredibly difficult to show the stats any other way.

Imagine... you used an app on a full charge, recharged when it was barely used, used another app for 2 hours, recharged it for 20 mins, then the phone rang, you spent an hour on the phone, then recharged but only halfway, after which you used another app...
...nothing could keep track of that in any meaningful way.


How do I secure the Firewire cable on my MacBook Pro?

It is very low tech, but some tape is both cheap and effective at holding a cable securely when you start the tape around the cable and then have an inch or two of tape holding the cable securely along the bottom surface of the mac.

Choose one with adhesive that cleans with alcohol and most cables and bottom cases are safe for cleaning any adhesive residue that may remain after your session.

I have also seen people use velcro cable wraps with the hook portion affixed to the cable and a loop pad semi-permanently affixed to the bottom of their MacBook Pro. The loop isn't that disruptive in daily use and you only have the hook portion of the velcro on the cable so it can be tucked away when not in use. This is far superior to tape or rubber bands for a more heavy duty connection under repeated use cycles.


Synology NAS offer both AFP and SMB2, Mavericks always choose AFP

When you access a file share, you could try using CMD + k in Finder (Connect to server), and then type the address as a CIFS or SMB path - ie.
cifs://my.server/SomeFileShare or smb://my.server/SomeFileShare
Disclaimer: I don't have Mavericks, and no access to my Mac right now. And I'm not even certain that Finder doesn't somehow jump on AFP anyhow.
Edit:
Ok, I can understand that you don't like to do the clicky-clicky every time.
Here's a description of how to set your OSX account preferences to do the SMB mount for you at login: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/21600/mount-a-windows-share-in-os-x-and-have-it-reconnect-at-login/
-and here's a slightly more technical recipe for making OSX automatically mount the SMB shares when needed by editing the fstab: https://superuser.com/questions/336665/how-to-automount-smb-shared-network-drives-in-mac-os-x-lion
Regarding priority, Apple says (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5884) that in Mavericks SMB is the default protocol, and if not available, it will fall back to using AFP. This seems contrary to your experience, which makes me think that maybe you upgraded from Mountain Lion, and somehow the (hidden) setting of file protocol prioroty didn't get changed according to spec.
The link also says how to force a specific protocol:

To connect to a file server directly, use the Connect To Server feature of the Finder. Select Go > Connect To, and enter a URL, IP address or DNS name.
You can attempt to force a specific connection protocol (such as SMB or AFP) by using a valid URL. As long as the server you are connecting to allows the protocol you specify, the URL should work.
smb://ServerName/ShareName
afp://DOMAIN;User@ServerName/ShareName

Same disclaimer as above - I am only on 10.8, so everything might have changed in Mavericks.


Chrome and Firefox not remembering session

Seeing your comment, this is because when you click the X on a Mac app, you are only closing the window, not the Application itself (like it does in Windows). Therefore you were still in a 'current' session, and that session had no windows.


IPhone Set up for small to medium size business to be used by employees

You should consider using an MDM solution for managing the enterprise devices.

If you simply hand out devices to users to set them up themselves, and they log in with their Apple ID, the devices remains associated with their Apple ID unless the user explicitly removes it or log out of it.

This may be cumbersome and difficult to manage. Using an MDM solution to centrally manage and pre-configure the devices for employees would be the recommended approach. The MDM solution also makes it possible and easy to manage usage policies. It would also make it easy to pass around the device to a different employee.


Reliable, Simple Transfer of Really Large Files?

Transmit is my personal favorite but Fetch also does the trick you ask.

iCloud will help you locate the IP of the remote machine and screen share if needed and is much simpler than getting a free DNS software solution to locate the IP of the other endpoint (assuming you have dynamic IP address or are behind a NAT router on either end of the transfer).


Handbrake is a nice program that you can use to convert videos and DVDs. Since VCDs are nothing more than mpeg files (with .dat) extension, you can easily use Handbrake to transcode them to m4v.

Handbrake also allows you to select which tracks you want to keep, although if each track is its own file, you may need to use MP4Box to merge them together.

Handbrake is available at http://handbrake.fr, and MP4Box can be downloaded from http://gpac.wp.mines-telecom.fr/downloads/.


Turns out it was a bug with an equaliser app I was using, Boom 2.

They have fixed this in their latest update.

Hope this helps anyone with the same issue.


Move videos from photo seems downsizing it or compressing

Ok I found an option File>Export>Original


Should I let malwaredomainlist.com connect to the net?

I found the answer to my own question. You can see both the question and answer here. The problem seems to have to do with a firefox plugin named uBlock Origin. In the preferences pane you will find a list of addresses which you can enable or disable. the addresses are related to websites which update maleware sites, etc. It Looks like the malewaredomainlist.com was one of those addresses. In short, it is safe to let it connect to the Net.


Where can I find the unicode symbols for Mac functional keys? (Command, Shift, etc.)

If you are talking about something like this: &#8984; (the ⌘ key), then you are looking for this chart:
HTML Entity     GLYPH  NAME
&#63743;              Apple
&#8984;         ⌘      Command, Cmd, Clover, (formerly) Apple
&#8963;         ⌃      Control, Ctl, Ctrl
&#8997;         ⌥      Option, Opt, (Windows) Alt
&#8679;         ⇧      Shift
&#8682;         ⇪      Caps lock
&#9167;         ⏏      Eject
&#8617;         ↩      Return, Carriage Return
&#8629; &crarr; ↵      Return, Carriage Return
&#9166;         ⏎      Return, Carriage Return
&#8996;         ⌤      Enter
&#9003;         ⌫      Delete, Backspace
&#8998;         ⌦      Forward Delete
&#9099;         ⎋      Escape, Esc
&#8594; &rarr;  →      Right arrow
&#8592; &larr;  ←      Left arrow
&#8593; &uarr;  ↑      Up arrow
&#8595; &darr;  ↓      Down arrow
&#8670;         ⇞      Page Up, PgUp
&#8671;         ⇟      Page Down, PgDn
&#8598;         ↖      Home
&#8600;         ↘      End
&#8999;         ⌧      Clear
&#8677;         ⇥      Tab, Tab Right, Horizontal Tab
&#8676;         ⇤      Shift Tab, Tab Left, Back-tab
&#9250;         ␢      Space, Blank
&#9251;         ␣      Space, Blank

You also can copy the glyphs directly!


Any iPhone free app could convert *.wmv file to *.MP4?

Try "The Video Converter," an iPad and iPhone app, that promises to convert files including .WMV files to formats like .MP4.

Download The Video Converter


How do I turn off the text tone swoosh when sending text messages?

Although it's not exactly what you might be looking for, if under Settings / Sounds / Sounds you set Text Tone to None, no sound will me made, neither when receiving nor when sending a Message.


How does Apple Pay work when used with Family Sharing?

Apple Pay is separate to Family Sharing. Each person maintains their own Apple Pay cards and being part of Family Sharing has no effect on this. It's just like not being part of Family Sharing.


Apple Watch 1st Gen serial number and pairing issue

It's under Settings on the Apple Watch.
Tap General then About.  Scroll down until you see Serial Number and the IMEI (where applicable).  If it's paired to your phone, it's under General → About in the "My Watch" App.

How to find the serial number or IMEI for your Apple Watch


Apart from opening Safari manually and selecting the bookmark from your favorites, you can also pin it to your homescreen were you can tap the icon and it'll open Safari for you and run the Javascript. Although for that you need to use a slightly different address.

data:text/html,<script>alert('test')</script>

Visit the above and after the page is loaded you can then tap share and select pin to homescreen. After that you can just tap the icon.

Those are the only two ways to run JS/HTML script.


Archive mails in Apple Mail plus Office 365 setup

Sorry for not explaining much in detail considering that the questions are self-explanatory and the links I added had the rest of the solutions.
As been already explained, the mails have heaped to a huge bulk, probably, thus filling up the inbox and slowing down your account. Archiving them all is definitely a good option.
This article will explain you how to archive your mails for Apple mail:
https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mail/use-the-archive-mailbox-mail35918/mac
Avoiding machine storage leaves you to options like Dropbox and Google drive.
I recommend Google drive for its unlimited storage capacity. You need to install google drive on your system.
This thread speaks how to save your emails to google drive:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/gCc99XgqMzw;context-place=forum/gmail/categories
This manual process carries the chances of losing out some of your mail contents. You can use Mail Backup X for the job. It sets the right sync between your mails and the storage location.


How is the UUID for a user used by macOS?

The UUID (aka GeneratedUID, so Google that one instead) is used by Open Directory Services on macOS X. You can see this and more using the macOS app Directory Utility. Read more the book Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Directory Services.

Ownership and Permissions problems would result from a change of UUID. Not just regarding files and folders, but other data such as that in Calendar.

PS: I no longer see the Create New button in High Sierra.


How can I use a 3rd party font on an iPad?

You should be able to do this by following these steps:
- send to your iPhone the signature text styled the way you want it (including font)
- copy the signature
- paste it as is in your signature settings

Voilà!

FYI, the steps are illustrated here (despite the older iOS version)


You don't need to.

See
iOS Multitasking in Detail
and
iOS: Understanding multitasking

Basically, if you're using an app (you can see it on your screen) then you're app is running. When you press the home button and leave the app or switch to another app then the app is NOT running. It may be in one of a few other states (see first link) but it is not consuming any processing power or memory. There are very few situations where closing the app will save you any time or effort and it's best forgotten.


Why does Reminders seem to be syncing with the network, even though I have reminders turned off in iCloud settings?

Settings > Locations Services > Reminders > Off

If this is on, it'll be periodically checking your location, having nothing to do with iCloud.


Do Solid State Drives need Power Management? Do they need sleep?

There is no advantage or effect on SSDs with the "Put hard disk to sleep". This setting enabled a spinning disk to spin-down while not in use. With no mechanical moving parts, there is no effect on an SSD.

Externally connected mechanical drives will still adhere to the setting.

See Apple Support page: OS X: Saving energy with Sleep


How does iWork for iOS know what account to use for icloud?

You can use different accounts for iCloud and the App store by logging in in Settings. For document storage the iCloud account is used.

Keeping iWork apps on an iPad you sell is probably violating the license agreement. And there will be no way to update the applications later because this would require the original iOS App Store password.


How to install CLISP under OS X El Capitan (10.11)?

The problem was an outdated XCode version. I had XCode 6.4 installed, but for El Capitan, Version 7 is needed.

See here.

So, for future readers:

  Update XCode to version 7 via App Store (or Apple Developer website)
  brew install works again like charm


How to cut message "This computer has been scheduled to go to sleep automatically" and send it to sleep immediately?

launchd (ref) is the preferred method for scheduling events in OS X, as opposed to using cron.

Here is a method for putting an OS X computer to sleep at a specified time using built in OS X tools without the override alert prompt. Waking the computer up can still be handled via System Preferences → Energy Saver → Schedule.

First create the following shell script in /usr/local/bin named sleepnow.sh:

#!/bin/sh
pmset sleepnow

Then create a launchd plist file for scheduling a script to be run daily. It would look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.myschoolname.sleep</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/sh</string>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/sleepnow.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>14</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

You would probably want to put this in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ with the filename org.myschoolname.sleep.plist. Adjust the time and name as needed.

You can load the plist using the command sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.myschoolname.sleep.plist or reboot the computer and it should be loaded on system startup.

If you are not comfortable with using launchd files and command line tools then search for the paid OS X app named Lingon which handles the creation of the plist file and loaded it.

Here is a good reference on pmset, which is the command line tool for managing power setting in OS X.

Although pmset can be used to set sleep and wake schedules, you'll still get that alert box on scheduled sleep. The pmset sleepnow command causes the computer to go to sleep immediately without an alert.


As detailed in this article, right-click on an MP3 file, click "Get Info" and open the "Open with" section. Choose QuickTime Player as the app OS X should use, and click "Change All...".


I eventually found my own answer.

The error is caused because the the account is looking in the wrong place for the home directory.
If you change the name of the internal drive which contains your accounts Home Directory you must also update the pointer to the Home Directory.
You can do this by going to

System Preferences -> Users & Groups
Right-click your Username and select Advanced Options
Change the value next to Home Directory to match your new location.

In my case I changed:

/Volumes/High Sierra HDD/<Username> to /Volumes/HighSierraHDD/<Username>

Apple provides instructions of how to do this, as well as other changes you can make to your account, here.

Be warned because I have my OS installed on one drive and my home drive on the other you may get different results when you change yours.


Why do our iDevices give a page not found error when trying to connect to profile manager website?

Have you verified that all required ports are open from the iPads to the server? (Port 1640 specifically, but also you'll want to ensure access to 80/443 for web and 2195/2196/5223 for push)

Lion Server: Ports used by Profile Manager

You can also run some tests to see if this is a problem with the server itself or with the network. Connecting to the server's IP address from the iOS device will rule out DNS and other issues.

I've found it helpful to open the Console app and watch /var/log/apache2/access_log for incoming requests so you can see which iOS devices are getting through to the server. That log shows you the IPv4 or IPv6 address of each connection request so you can detect which devices are networked correctly to send traffic to the server and narrow down in the chain where your problem lies.

Hopefully this helps others with DNS issues in getting to the same resolution as you.


Here's some information to keep in mind for the future. If you had ever installed a version of some app, then the App Store will allow you to continue either installing that app (if you had deleted it), or to install the last version compatible with that version of iOS. But if you never installed the app in question, Apple, the App Store will prevent you from installing it, even though there is obviously a version from App Store that will install if they'd let you. This is Apple's restriction and not something the individual app developers can decide.

Jailbreaking provides many options, but in my experience, introduces some new problems. I am just astounded by what, in particular, the Dev Team has accomplished, and more so what Jay Freeman (aka saurik) nearly single-handedly has accomplished. Cydia existed before the App Store, and is an implementation of Debian linux Advanced Packaging Tool. Developers began selling software there a good 5 months before App Store existed, as far as the public was concerned.

The new problems introduced by jailbreaking are merely that you really need to keep on top of things, and things change pretty fast in the jailbreaking community, which you necessarily need to become a participating member of if you want your device to continue working, or ever need help from someone because something stopped working. By and large, I found everyone in the jailbreaking community to be refreshingly shocking, but ultimately gave me a really great experience with it. But once my curiosity was satisfied, I found that maintaining my jailbroken device required more effort and time than I had to spend on it.

That being said, I just purchased a new iOS device, on the way... and because I really can't stand iOS7, I intend to get reaquainted with the jailbreaking community to mitigate what I just can't stand about it.

I recommend that you seek out more information from the dev team blog linked above, and also rediscover IRC, and the various jailbreaking IRC servers and channels, on Freenode and elsewhere (google helps), and involve yourself in that community in whatever positive way you can. And be patient with your desires.

Sorry for the magna carte here! And best of luck on your adventure!


Is there a rpmbuild that works on macosx?

Building RPMs or more specifically the binaries/libraries within them on a Mac is not a safe bet because you can run into a number of issues involving architecture mismatches, among other issues like library linking.

In short, if you're building for Linux, you really want to build on Linux. It's possible to cross-compile, but IMHO this is incredibly difficult on OS X.


MacOS Catalina 10.15.7 is causing a Kernal Panic - Forced an update to T2 chip by installing Big Sur - My machine is now bricked

You should use the Configurator to restore the T2 chip. Follow the steps shown here:
Apple Support: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-mac-firmware-apdebea5be51/mac


iMac with Mavericks sometimes won't sleep

backupd is most of Time Machine. I think your computer is constantly backing up over a slowish network link such as WiFi.

I suspect that you have a large amount of file changes every day. Is the Windows image you are running in in Parallels being backed up? That could do it? Go into System Preferences > Time Machine and click on Options...

This will allow you to exclude your image files from Time Machine.

If that doesn't work turn off Time Machine for a couple of days and see if the computer sleeps.


How do I change my iCloud password when it’s stolen?

Start at https://iforgot.apple.com/. You may need to know the answers to your security questions and access to the email account associated with your AppleID.


Lock down OSX 10.7.5 app into kiosk mode?

You could enable the Guest account along with Simple Finder, then write a launchctl to watch for the front-most app and re-open it if necessary.

There are also a number of 3rd party products, such as eCrisper:

  eCrisper makes it easy to turn a Mac into a secure public access Internet kiosk. It is used by schools, museums, hotels, churches, and libraries to reliably and elegantly give access to web content.

xStand:

  xStand allows you to setup a full internet kiosk in a public space in a couple of minutes.

Also found this question which mentions both Opera and Chrome.


iCal is limited to the view modes you see in the main window - Day, Week, Month and Year. It's not very customizable.

However as an alternative, you might want to look at BusyCal. It's a pretty well regarded app. The two word pitch is "iCal Pro". It integrates with the system calendar, so all the built-in calendar based functions work fine, and in addition to iCloud sync, it has much better Google Calendar sync if that's a selling point. Most importantly for you it's more customizable in terms of views, and the month view scrolls by week.

Sorry there's nothing to be done with the existing app, but BusyCal is probably the best option to get what you want. There's a 30 day demo, so give it a try.


Is there any reason why I shouldn't install Java?

Installing java won't have much effect on battery life.

I don't think installing Flash will have much effect either.

Where the issue is is when you hit a website with badly written flash (and to a very much less extent Java) where the animation takes up CPU but you can just leave these sites - you will be no worse off than not installing.

Java is now rare on websites and not really used for parts of the web site the user does not need.

I think a better way is to install a plugin for your browser like ClickToFlash which stops Flash loading until you tell it.


Method of uploading contacts to a new iPhone?

Looking around, it appears there may be an app called Contacts Kit on the Mac app store. If I read correctly, this can be used to export the contacts to a file (which I know you have already done, however your file may be corrupted considering the process crashes) and then you do the steps in mail you did previously.

One thing I may suggest is that you open the App Switcher by double pressing the home button, and swiping upwards on every app but the mail app to close them off and free up memory. Considering your contacts list is in the hundreds of thousands you may simply be running out of memory, as I've had apps crash before when I ran out of memory. This can especially happen if the phone is older (thinking iPhone 5 as it can have as little as 512mb of RAM, yet still run iOS 10).


macOS High Sierra: Create Windows bootable Usb

This can be done by console for Windows 10 iso images (Not sure about 8/7, but leave any comment if it worked for you).
Start connecting your usb drive and type diskutil list to display all connected drives.
You'll see something like:
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         500.0 GB   disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +500.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            185.7 GB   disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 47.1 MB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                512.8 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume VM                      4.3 GB     disk1s4

/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *15.6 GB    disk2
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 LALA                    15.6 GB    disk2s1

For my case, the usb drive was /dev/disk2. Knowing this, format your usb drive with:
diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS "WINDOWS10" MBR disk2

where disk2 is the usb drive id known in the prior command and "WINDOWS10" is the volume label (to be used later).
Please double check this step, or you could delete all data in another drive.
Then mount your image with:
hdiutil mount your_windows_10_image.iso

the command will return the location of the mounted iso
/dev/disk3                                      /Volumes/CPRA_X64FREV_ES-MX_DV5

so finally copy all the files from the mounted iso to your usb drive:
cp -rpv /Volumes/CPRA_X64FREV_ES-MX_DV5/* /Volumes/WINDOWS10


How do I Find a string in a file and place a string above it?

s/…/…/ is a substitution, replacing the first … with the second …. You can use a new line in your string to insert text above or below a line break.

sed -i -e 's/__MARKER__/Hello world\
__MARKER__/' someFile.txt

Escape the new line with a backslash, else you'll get "unescaped newline inside substitute pattern". To type a new line in Terminal, use ⌥↩.

You can use & as shorthand for the match, so you don't need to retype it in the replacement.

sed -i -e 's/__MARKER__/Hello world\
&/' someFile.txt


A jabber chat client that displays a list of rooms?

So the answer to my question is to use Adium. A lucky discovery: I was about to disconnect my chat account using the File menu, but when I moused over the text "Disconnect: ...", a context menu appeared as one might expect. However, I had never clicked the item labeled Discovery Browser. Under the server's "Public Chatrooms" I found a list with the JID of all the active chat rooms.


Bluetooth/WiFi cannot be turned off in control Center on iOS 13.4.1

Turning it off from the control center should give you the message you mentioned, but turning it back on writes a message to the iphone Control Center Screen. Maybe when you tried it in Control Center you were turning it back on. I'd try it again from Control Center and press the bluetooth button twice to make sure you get it off and on. After pressing be sure to check the top of the Control Center screen.


Arrow sign appearing in top bar after upgrading to OS X El Capitan

Yes, it's VMWare Fusion. If you launch VMWare and go to Preferences, you can disable that menu item.


The '?' generally means that the system is not able to detect a properly-formatted hard drive. If your SSD is new, your will need to format it to Mac OS Extended Journaled using disk-utility.

Here is the link that will help your through most of this stuff.

http://mashable.com/2014/10/17/clean-install-os-x-yosemite/


How can I have more than 16 keyboard shortcuts for Spaces (i.e., Mission Control)

Here's something I tried (on 10.9.5).  Unfortunately, it didn't work, but I'll note it here in case it inspires someone.

I noticed that enabling System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Switch to Desktop 16 caused ~/Library/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist to update.
I found some information (1) (2) about that plist.
According to that second link, "Switch to Desktop 1" is action 118.
I tested enabling / disabling Switch to Desktop 16 in that System Preference pane whilst looking at the plist file, using /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :AppleSymbolicHotKeys" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist and, as I expected, the "enabled" value for action 133 (=118+15) changed.
I added a value for action 134 based on action 133, which I hoped would cause ctrl-alt-6 to switch to Desktop 17: defaults write com.apple.symbolichotkeys AppleSymbolicHotKeys -dict-add 134 "{enabled = true; value = { parameters = (65535, 22, 786432); type = 'standard'; }; }"  Unfortunately this doesn't seem to have any effect on my system.
So: I think that the symbolichotkeys plist file contains a mapping from key presses to actions.  The actions include Switch to Desktop 1 through
to Switch to Desktop 16, but there are no corresponding actions for desktops with higher numbers.  Sorry!


Mac Pro: Splitting network traffic based on destination

The solution was to perform the following:

sudo /sbin/route -n delete default A.B.C.D
sudo /sbin/route -n add -net A A.B.C.D
sudo /sbin/route -n add default E.F.G.H

(details as to the above can be found in the question.)


Within the Users & Groups panel, click and drag the image onto the profile picture circle.


EDIT 2:  Very strange addendum here.  This issue began again a few weeks after posting this answer.  BUT, I just discovered that while I have inconsistent problems manually getting the iMac to boot, a scheduled startup works perfectly fine, every time.  Go figure!

So this is totally weird and I can't explain it but...

Unplugged the mac before I went to bed last night.  Came in this morning and tried firing it up before I remembered it was unplugged.  Spoiler alert - it didn't boot.

Remembered about an hour later that it was unplugged.  Plugged it back in and just like that, normal boot!

Plugged all my peripherals back in and it's like nothing ever went wrong.  I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what actually happened but, I'm back up & running.

So if by chance you're in my same boat, try letting it sit completely unplugged overnight and see if you have a similarly miraculous solution appear.

EDIT:  Some additional information I just figured out over a month later that is related to this:

Shortly after "solving" this issue originally, I realized my UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) was crapping out and no longer holding a charge.  I suspected this was related to my problems so I ordered replacement batteries, swapped them out, and all has been good.  Until this morning.

I woke up and once again, my machine was in a hosed state.  Wouldn't power up at all, no matter what I did.  This time even letting it sit several hours unplugged, changed nothing.

Finally out of desperation, I decided to unplug from the UPS (which was still running and showing 100% battery) and plug into the wall directly.  Immediately, the Mac booted up fine.  No problems at all.

I shut down, plugged back into the UPS, and... nothing.  No boot, at all.  So I shut off the UPS, waited 5-10 seconds, and turned it back on.  Just like that, the Mac booted up again fine!

Moral of the story here is, if your Mac won't boot and it's plugged into a UPS, try power cycling the UPS itself.  Might save you a lot of headache.


Can't run python script from Automator on Catalina "Operation not permitted"

I ended up in-lining my python script. The finished product looked like this:

for f in "$1"/*.mp3;
do

    updated=$(python -c "import eyed3; import sys; eyed3.log.setLevel(\"ERROR\"); filename = '$f'; from eyed3 import mp3; f = mp3.Mp3AudioFile(filename); album = f.tag.album; f.tag.comments.set(album); f.tag.save(); print(album); exit(album);")

    comment=$(mdls -r -nullMarker "" -n kMDItemFinderComment "$f")

    printf "%s ( comment ): %s\n" "${1##*/}" "$comment"

    /usr/bin/osascript -e "set filepath to POSIX file \"$f\"" \
    -e "set the_File to filepath as alias" \
    -e "tell application \"Finder\" to set the comment of the_File to \"$updated\""

done


How to fix paths when iTunes truncated path names after adding music to a folder

iTunes for Windows truncates file names to 40 characters. You'll notice that your original file name (not including directories) is 47 characters and the truncated file name is 40 characters. Why does it do it? I don't know; I wasn't able to find out.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3322627

  If you let iTunes "Keep the iTunes Media folder organized" it will use folder and file names with a maximum of 40 characters, inclusive of the extension characters. The following characters are replaced with an underscore.  \ / : * ? " < > | and also ; (which is a valid filename character). A leading space or period is also replaced, as is a trailing period for a folder name. Trailing spaces are stripped.

The author of that post has a script that can consolidate your iTunes library while still keeping your long file names. You can find it at http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/scripts.asp#ConsolidateByMovingLong.


Spotlight should already index these files, it does on my Mac.  Try searching for them as follows:

Open a Finder window
Press Command+F
Change the search parameters to "Name" and "contains" to search for file names or just "Contents" to search text within the files
Enter your search term

Once you start typing, spotlight should start showing results in the window

Note: Check in the 'Privacy' tab of the Spotlight preference pane in System Preferences to ensure you haven't excluded the folder/drive where your .h and .cpp files reside.


How do I get my iTunes "Album Artwork" to add to the individual files instead of "~/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork/"

Check out this AppleScript from the excellent dougscripts.com: Re-Embed Artwork v.1.0. If that doesn't do it for you, you may find something else useful on that site.

Note: I haven't run this script myself and can't vouch for its efficacy, though I believe its source is well-regarded. Use at your own risk.


How can I stop my retina display from taking 2x sized screenshots?

Here is the most convenient solution
(Taken from http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-get-my-retina-Mac-to-not-take-screenshots-that-are-too-big and modified a bit)

Use OsX embedded Automator to downsize screenshots automatically after they taken.

Open /Applications/Automator
Create a "Folder Action"
At the top of the window, where it says "Folder Action receives file and folders added to", select "Desktop"
From the panel on the left, select "Files & Folders" and drag the item "Filter Finder Items" to the right panel.
Add the following conditions to the Filter Finder Items action: Name begins with "Screen Shot"; Kind is image.
(Optional step: if you want to keep copy of originals) - From the Actions list on the left, find "Copy Finder Items" and drag it to the panel on the right. Set the destination folder for the image copy (for example: "To: Pictures")
In the Actions library on the left, click on "Photos" and drag the "Scale Images" action to the right panel.
In the Scale Images action, select "By Percentage" from the drop-down and set the value to 50.
Select File > Save and give the Folder Action a snappy name like "Smaller Screenshot Copy"

Here is saved workflow file


iPad: DjVU reader with the support for DropBox?

On my iPad, Djvu reader works fine now, and it dates back to in update in August or September.


Read Remote Changes to a Published Calendar before Publishing

I discovered this is "working as intended", and switched to a CalDAV implementation, as it performs the functions I'm looking for.


How to download iTunes song (via iTunes Match) using AppleScript

tell application "iTunes"
  set matchedSongs to tracks of library playlist 1 whose rating is 100 and cloud status is matched
  set uploadedSongs to tracks of library playlist 1 whose rating is 100 and cloud status is uploaded

  set results to matchedSongs & uploadedSongs

  repeat with aTrack in results
    if class of aTrack is shared track then
      try
        download aTrack
      end try
    end if
  end repeat
end tell

This does the job!

I couldn't figure how to do a nested condition on the whose so I simply acquire both set of searches for matched and uploaded songs and combined them.

The try and if just ensure we download the valid tracks if they don't exist locally.


Which countries can receive payments from Apple?

In-App Purchases are the same as the sale of an app, from the perspective of where they can be made available.

Apple has a list: App Store Territories


That's the log entry performed when sshd denies a connection. You're probably seeing unauthorised users trying to brute force their way in by trying common usernames and passwords. There used to also be a log entry directly from sshd itself telling you the IP address and username attempted, but Apple has decided to labotomize standard UNIX logging from sshd.


Preventing iCloud out of space pop-ups on 128gb iPhone 6s

You can't turn off the out of space message, instead you will need to manage your iCloud storage space.

To manage your storage first find out what is stored in iCloud. Settings > General > Storage & iCloud usage > Manage Storage.

Backup size to iCloud storage usage is not a 1:1 relationship as your question suggests, I.e. 128gb of iCloud storage is not needed to backup a 128gb phone.  Music and Apps are good examples of items not included in the backup.

Photo's and videos are stored in your iCloud space but as part of iCloud photo sharing, not a "backup".  As your question suggests this is the largest use of space on your phone, you might want to switch off iCloud photo sharing (settings > iCloud) to save the space.  Another good solution might be to switch this item off and download the Dropbox app, and let it backup photos and vids.

Another iCloud space waster might be old device backups.  A new device won't overwrite the old devices last backup.  When that backup is no longer needed it must be manually deleted.

"default+$5 20GB iCloud plan" makes no sense, you likely either have free 5gb plan or the next level up is 50gb for 99cents a month.  5gb should be plenty to backup your 128gb phone, if you turn off iCloud photo.  My 64gb phone is at about 52gb but my backup is just 1.6gb after compression and subtracting what's not backed up as part of a backup.

In summary, and to directly answer your question.  No you can't turn off the out of space errors, you must manage the use of iCloud space instead.


Does the iPhone 4 geo-tag photos without a data connection?

Yes; The Geo tags are written into the images via the native Location Services within the phone, primarily via the GPS chip the phone contains.

Since the information written is merely latitude/longitude, you do not need to have a data connection in order for that information to be determined and added.

The need for a data connection in tandem with photos is the ability to place them on a map, when using iPhoto for example.


Spring loaded folder settings missing in Yosemite

It appears that these settings have been removed from the Finder preferences window.

The slider is now located in System Preferences → Accessibility → Mouse & Trackpad

You can change the spring-loaded delay by writing the setting manually:

defaults write -g com.apple.springing.delay -float 1.0 && killall -HUP Finder

Replace 1.0 with the delay in seconds before springing.


Can't pair 13" MacBook Air with iPhone 4 via Bluetooth

Have you followed Apples instructions?

It seems that Keynote works better via WiFi than Bluetooth but the link above shows how to setup both.


How to bind a key to press two separate keys

To make this work you have to use a third party tool: Karabiner.

Download, install and open Karabiner
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences
Open the tab Misc & Uninstall
Hit the button Open private.xml
Open the file private.xml with an appropriate editor
Enter the customized keycode

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
    <item>
        <name>X to A and B</name>
        <appendix>When you type X, A and B are written</appendix>
        <identifier>x2ab</identifier>
        <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::X, KeyCode::A, KeyCode::B</autogen>
    </item>
</root>

Save the file
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences the tab Change Key
Hit the ReloadXML button
Enable the remapping. It should be listed at the beginning.

You can restrict the keybinding to particular apps if needed by adding additional tags. Leave a comment if you want to know how or specify your question.


What is the best way to set up Gmail on IPad?

Setting up via Exchange is my preferred iOS Gmail setup. In earlier iOS versions (I think 3.0) you were limited to one Exchange account. So in my case, that was reserved for my work email. But once that limitation was lifted, I switched Gmail to Exchange and have been quite happy with it.

You get push email, which is the main benefit, but you also get push contact/calendar updates. Depending on if you use Google calendar as your main calendar, push calendar updates and invites can be a huge help to managing one's day.

If you decide you don't need push while using Exchange (or ActiveSync, which is the specific mobile protocol used by Exchange and Google), disabling push is quick and simple. Setting up via ActiveSync also saves a few steps in that you don't have to link your calendar and contacts manually.  So I say go for Exchange, even if you don't use push. But it's not a huge deal either way, and as it's so easy to add/remove accounts on iOS, if you pick one and don't like how it works out, you can always switch to the other with minimal effort.


OS X application shortcut folder in dock and icon updates after installation

If you want to avoid the Login/Logout, restarting the dock should be enough: killall Dock from the Terminal should be enough.


Air 11" i7 2011 fans come on, never turn off

The fans are controlled by the System Management Controller (SMC).

The first thing to try when troubleshooting a fan issue is resetting that SMC. In fact, Apple says this:

  After performing normal troubleshooting, these symptoms may indicate
  that an SMC reset may be necessary: [...] The computer's fans run at high speed although the computer is
  not experiencing heavy usage and is properly ventilated.

Apple has directions for all models, but I'll excerpt how to do it on your MacBook Air:

  Shut down the computer.
  Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to    the Mac if its not already connected.
  On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option    keys and the power button at the same time.
  Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
  Press the power button to turn on the computer.

One other thing you can try is the app smcFanControl, which claims to allow you to exercise some degree of control over your computer's fans.

This is about all you can do as a consumer; if there is still a problem you will need to take your computer to an Apple Store.


Cisco AnyConnect prevents Continuity from allowing Mac to answer iPhone

Cisco's VPN software typically locks out all local LAN access.  In other words, your Mac is no longer on your network.  It is now tunneled into your VPN connection.


How to identify plist values for iterm preferences

This is like asking if you can find all the words in a dictionary. Each author chooses the words they place when they publish, same as app developers code what they write into the code when they ship.
Before attempting to answer directly, in the past the user defaults were simple and wrote to one file. Over time, that design failed in several ways and a newer system exists across all Apple OS.

new https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/userdefaults
old(er) https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/UserDefaults/AboutPreferenceDomains/AboutPreferenceDomains.html

In your case, the book is written and published and you would need a disassembler like Hopper to translate the machine instructions into code if that helps you list how it handles parsing and writing to the preference file.

https://www.hopperapp.com/

I’m not aware of a tool that disassembles only the preference handling, but that’s a super idea for side project if anyone is looking. Also, don’t overlook that the current preference system on macOS doesn’t necessarily persist any settings to a physical file. A developer can program that, but with iCloud and managed preferences, most apps skip that appendage as dead weight.  Again, unless dev document is generated when they ship the app, someone has to disassemble things to know implementation for each version of each app.


Apps disappeared since installing Mavericks

A quick google search for purge king came up with no results so the following answer is simply me going out on a limb here picturing the worst case scenario where said application deleted all applications including 3rd party apps and built in stock applications.

Your best bet in this case would be to restore from a time machine backup. As I don't know what purge king exactly did the best way would be to do the following

Connect your time machine backup drive directly to your machine (if
it is an Apple Time Capsule then you can skip this step)
Enter the time machine and delete any backup that has been created after your apps disappeared
Restart your Mac and hold down the "R" key on your keyboard while it is turning on.
Follow the on screen prompts to choose your language etc.
Choose the "Restore from Time Machine Backup" option and click Continue.
Select the backup drive on the presented list and restore your computer

This will essentially wipe your drive clean and put onto it your most recent backup from the drive, in this case, the most recent backup that you left undeleted from step 2.

If you don't have a Time Machine backup, from my knowledge (and I could be wrong) I am unaware of another way to retrieve the stock mac applications back without doing a complete system format and reinstall. Airdropping the applications from another Mac may work but it sounds like other information that the applications require to operate are also missing/damaged (which is the most likely scenario for the Mail app). Your last resort option if you don't have a time machine backup would be to:

Setup a time machine drive (either on an Apple Time Capsule or an external drive)
Backup your entire computer.
Restart your Mac and hold down the "R" key on your keyboard while it is turning on.
Follow the onscreen prompts to choose your language etc.
Choose the "Reinstall OSX" option and click Continue.
Once OSX has finished reinstalling and you are on your desktop, connect your backup drive to your Mac, enter Time Machine and restore all your personal data and anything else you would need.

The only problem to this approach is that your applications will be erased. You could restore them from the time machine backup but this could possibly cause similar problems that you encountered with the Mail app.

If you don't have a Time Machine backup from the very beginning, this would be a good lesson to ALWAYS have a plan B. Time Machine is the best plan B for Mac users that exists to date as it not only backs up your personal information, but your entire hard drive so even if your operating system became corrupt or your internal hard drive died, you could clone the backup onto a new drive, boot from it, and it will be as if nothing ever happened.


Apple Mail / Maps 'NSWindow Frame' .plist

Those are in these locations on Mavericks:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Maps/Data/Library/Preferences

Note the capitalization - lowercase mail, capital Maps.

To read and set window frames:

defaults read com.apple.Maps "NSWindow Frame MapMainWindow"
defaults write com.apple.Maps "NSWindow Frame MapMainWindow" '2056 137 1000 712 1920 0 1440 878'

It seems though that some apps (maybe those with AppNap) don't obey the new preferences immediately, so you may have to log out and back in. Maps in particular doesn't seem to work properly, and in Mail, the main window is in a sub key. You could, for example, do:

defaults write com.apple.mail "NSWindow Frame Compose Window" '175 36 718 779 0 0 1440 878'

to set the compose window frame. It all depends on the key you're trying to set.


What are the tools required to develop iOS applications?

You'll need a Mac (any current model will do) and Xcode which can be downloaded from the Mac App Store. It comes with all the tools necessary, including a Simulator. It nevertheless is recommended to test apps on the hardware (aka an iPhone) as well.

Additional details can be found here.


Iphone advice for plan involving only texting and calling

Use the built-in restrictions on the iPhone and disallow to Installing apps as well as Safari. (see this document from Apple.

If you wait for iOS 10 which is due this fall you'll then be able to actually remove most apps which might help out even more.


Apple iPad Air - No screen rotation control

Have you tried turning it on and off in control centre. Access it by sliding up from the top-right on iPad:

Rotation lock off:

Rotation lock on:


How can I paste a screenshot image from clipboard into a folder?

I created an automator workflow to solve this problem

Bottom line: the solution allows you to save an image from the clipboard anywhere with one keystroke (you have to show it where to go in the save dialogue, obviously)

The workflow opens preview, creates a new file from the clipboard, and saves the file (opening the save as dialogue). You can then put it wherever you want. Here's the link to a zip with the workflow. To run the workflow, you'll probably need to approve automator with certain permissions (it'll pop up if and ask for approval, so don't worry if you don't run into this problem). Open the zip, then double click the file (make sure there's an image in the clipboard). A new file should open in preview and ask to be saved.

To create a shortcut, just go to 'keyboard' under system preferences > 'shortcuts' > 'services' and setup the shortcut.


From Microsoft Support:

  If you have an exchange server, you can set that under the calendar
  settings in the ECP for each individual user. But it will only accept
  them tentative: "Automatically place new meeting requests on my
  calendar, marked Tentative"

  Its under Options > Settings > Automatic Processing (Right).

  Make sure your url reads http://exchangeserver.com/ecp not
  http://exchangeserver.com/owa

You can try something.  Use the OWA server, instead of the ECP server.  If that doesn't work, contact your system admin to make the change above.


iOS software updates are stored in ~/Library/iTunes. If it remains there after the upgrade you can easily delete it yourself.


Can't log in to Music/iTunes store on MacBook

I just got an email from the engineer I had spoken to on my last call to Apple Support and it turns out there were some server issues on their side. They asked me to try logging in again and lo, and behold, now it worked perfectly.


How to install Visual Studio Code's `code` command permanently?

Looks like your whole Visual Studio got installed in a temporary folder.

Remove the current link with sudo rm /usr/local/bin/code

Start Visual Studio from within /Applications

Reinstall code as described in https://stackoverflow.com/a/29971430:

Now open the Command Palette (F1 or ⇧⌘P on Mac) and type shell command to find the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.

If it still doesn't work you can also link manually by running
sudo ln -fs "/Applications/Visual Studio Code.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/code" /usr/local/bin/


Airport Express network keeps showing up as protected after soft reset

Hard reset

Press and hold the reset button with a pen, pencil, or straightened **paperclip until you see the status light (LED) start to flash amber rapidly**, which should occur after about five seconds.
Release the button and the device will reset.
Wait about a minute for the base station to finish restarting, then open AirPort Utility from Applications > Utilities.
Select the base station from Other Wi-Fi Devices, then click Edit.
Select the Other Options button.
Select "Restore previous settings" and click Next until you get to the final window.
AirPort Utility will indicate that Setup is complete. Click Done.
Quit AirPort Utility.


Intermittently unresponsive keyboard and trackpad on Macbook Air

I would create a new user and see if the behavior happens under a new account, so you can isolate whether this is System Wide or just related to your own account. Check your Launch Items in system preferences and remove everything just to test.

How much free space do you have? For what is worth, I'm using a MBA 11' mid 2011 and I have the same behavior sometimes when Arq2 starts and I have IntelliJ + Xcode running. Like the CPU is under a lot of "pressure" and I totally experience the same. It lasts a few seconds (10 sometimes!).

So I doubt there's anything to do, unless this happens very often to you, in which case I'd take it to an Apple Store for either reinstall or some hardware check.


DNS Resolution Fails for ping and curl, but not dig

Had this same issue. I think the local DNS cache had bad data from my previous testing. It was quickly fixed by:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder