App Store Review Guidelines 3.1.1 - Allow users to convert their virtual currency to USD?

I don't see anything in the guidelines that would prevent you from making such an app. However, it is always best to check with Apple as they are the ones making the final decision.

There's no need for you to actually implement this as "buying back gold". You can just let users buy an in-app purchase that is "gold", that they can use to tip the content providers.

Then on your web site you can make a section where content providers can login to see how many times they have been tipped. This doesn't need to have anything to do with "gold" or in-app purchases or anything like that.

As you write that the withdrawal (payout) is made through your own web site, and not the app, this sounds perfectly doable.

As for legal issues, you need to contact a lawyer in your area. Laws are different in various countries, states, etc. and could depend on how you have incorporated, and other details. In particular you would probably want to ensure that everything is setup correctly in terms of taxing.


Recover FIles/Folder from sudo rm -rf Terminal Command

The command you ran first deletes all files and folders in /PATH/TO/COPY; note the warning above the command in the article you linked to: "Next, remove the existing Downloads folder (make sure it is empty first)."

Though the data is probably still present on the drive, the operating system now has no idea where it is.

Assuming that you don't have backups available, your only option at this point is probably to use some kind of file recovery software. This answer at Superuser has some links to potential options. PhotoRec is a free, open-source solution that might work.

Best of luck, and be sure to back up your data (ideally to multiple places) in the future.


What's the maximum length of a SIM card PIN that iOS supports?

The SIM PIN has a minimum of 4 digits and a maximum of 8 digits.

This goes for the iPhone, all iOS devices - and indeed any other standards compliant GSM cellphone.

For the latter statement, please consult this standards document:

https://www.3gpp.org/ftp/TSG_T/TSG_T/TSGT_05/Docs/PDFs/TP-99185.pdf

From page 66 and on, the PIN functionality is documented. Note that the PIN data length is 8.


How do I share an entire album in iCloud photos? Not just individual pictures

Unfortunately, Shared Albums are not currently available on the web:
Can I view shared photo albums on the icloud.com web interface?

You cannot share albums created on your iPhone or Mac or on iCloud Photos with other iCloud users.

These albums are synced to your other devices via iCloud, which is why you can see them on the web.

In the image you are attempting to share a normal album. These cannot be shared.

You must use the dedicated "Shared Albums" feature of iCloud Photos. This is different than the "Albums" feature, which you cannot share.

Shared Albums are not available via the web interface.


Access both Hotmail and Gmail from iPhone

The built-in Mail app on iOS is able to show both your Hotmail and GMail accounts. To see both of them you can either switch between them by pressing the back arrow and then choose the other mailbox or you can use the view "All Inboxes" instead where you will be able to see e-mails from both accounts in the same view. If you enter a view, the Mail application will remember which one you used and will open with that one when you launch it next time.


Boot camp attempting to boot off wrong MBP internal drive

According to a few people on the Apple Forums (https://discussions.apple.com/message/22626184#22626184) it is not possible to use windows on the 2nd drive (disk1).

Perhaps put Windows on the SSD, at least the System, and create a NTFS partition on your HDD for large files.


Where does the Apple app Contacts store its files in Mavericks?

Contacts.app stores its data in ~/Library/Application\ Support/AddressBook.

For the individual databases, you can list them using the following command:

find ~/Library/Application\ Support/AddressBook/ -name "AddressBook-v22.abcddb"


MacBook Pro battery drains when connected to AC power

There are two things that can be attributed to this:

There is a technical issue with your charger
The Battery Health Management feature (released in Catalina) can make it appear you have a charging issue.

Wrong charger
You are likely using the wrong power adapter; it's too "small" for your particular MacBook.  Your machine requires the 87W power adapter.
If you take a look at Apple's support document Find the right power adapter and cable for your Mac notebook under the USB section, you'll notice that all of the adapters from the 29W that charges the MacBook to the 91W that charges the 16" MacBook Pro all look identical so it's quite easy to mix them up. While you can plug in any of these into any of the MacBook computers (plain, Air, or Pro) and while it will "charge," you won't get optimal results.

A "larger" charger can be used to power a "smaller" device.  In other words, you can use the 91W charger from the 16" MBP to power/charge the 2015 MBA that only required the 29W charger.
A "smaller" charger should not be used to power a "larger" device.  While USB-C will negotiate the power being delivered, if the adapter cannot supply the requested current, it simply won't be there.

What you're experiencing is what's in the second  point.  The adapter is connected (and detected) but it simply cannot supply enough power to charge and for you use the computer at the same time.  If you notice, Coconut battery is reporting that it's charging with only 49W, yet the battery isn't charging.  You're likely using the 61W adapter. (That number is a misnomer because that current is what it's drawing from the power adapter current, not what's going to the battery).
Battery Health Management in Catalina
As of Catalina (10.15.5) Apple has implemented a feature called Battery Health Management that will stop charging and allow it to discharge to a predetermined charge (about 80%) before recharging again. This happens even while the charger is plugged in and working.
You can learn more about Catalina’s Battery Health Management feature in the Apple Support Document About battery health management in Mac notebooks
Therefore, assuming you're using the correct wattage charging adapter, this could be perfectly normal behavior.


Where is the temp file created by Disk Utility during erasure of free space kept on a non-boot volume?

Whilst I don't know where its stored, it is at least able to be removed by running Repair Disk in Disk Utility freeing the space for a subsequent free space erase.


Legit email is consistently going to junk folder despite NOT being marked as junk

It turns out that the solution was to log into icloud.com, find all the emails that keep being marked as junk (since they will actually appear as junk in icloud) and mark them as not junk.  Now mail.app correctly treats them as not junk and is no longer sending them (marked as not junk) to the junk folder.


How do the MacBook and the MacBook Pro compare performance-wise to an old model iMac?

Despite what Weird Al would have you believe, it is no longer "All about the Pentiums" (jury is out regarding whether the 'Benjamins' are still a relevant unit of currency).

The answer depends very heavily on the exact specs of each system, but I would expect you to notice better performance out of the laptops for a few reasons:

The Core i series all support hyperthreading, which will make the dual core processors act like they have 4 cores. I forget which versions of the Core 2s have that available, but neither of my Core 2 duo laptops support it, so I'll be spiteful and assume yours doesn't either (feel free to prove me wrong).

The next question is how big your large spreadsheet is. The larger cache on the Core i will mean that spreadsheets approaching the 5-megabyte range will process appreciably quicker.

To build on the theme of low-latency data access, I believe that all Core 2 CPUs use DDR2 memory, while the MacBooks will use DDR3, so you'll feel faster start up times and have an easier time using multiple applications or spreadsheets.

The last piece to consider is the longer instruction pipeline means that the Core i series can do much more with each "tick" of the processor.

All in, you'll likely feel an increase in speed and peppy-ness over your iMac with a newer MacBook (though the MacBooks won't quite keep up with a new iMac). That all being said, I'm just some random guy on the internet who copy/pasted some Wikipedia links. Go to an Apple Store and try one for yourself to see if it's actually worth the money to upgrade!

Edit:

For July of 2015, the relevant processors' passmark scores are:

2009 27" iMac (T7300) with 1201
2015 13" MacBook Pro (5257U) with 4608
2015 12" MacBook (5Y31) with 2484

To answer the original question, from a purely CPU-based perspective there is an appreciable increase in performance, though it may be worth noting the value-based scores passmark gives, where the MacBook with the 5257U trounces the other two options.


This isn't possible. Since WhatsApp messages are (technically) iOS notifications, and WhatsApp (as of now) does not allow this customization within the app itself, you cannot achieve this.


Is it safe to add other files on the same drive that Time Machine uses as a backup destination?

Some guidelines, Time Machine will not delete files it didn’t write to the Backups.backupdb folder and that folder has permissions to make it almost impossible for someone to accidentally store files there.

Other files outside that directory are as safe as they would be without Time Machine using the drive. (Which means unless they are backed up elsewhere there’s nothing safe keeping one copy of a file)

Time Machine calculates how much space it will need before it starts to copy files, and that calculation is pretty safe in that it over estimates the space it will need (sometimes quite substantially) and it will only delete files it wrote to the protected directory if it needs to free up space.

Once that deletion is done, if you asked Time Machine to notify you after it deletes files, you’ll get a warning that the drive ran low and the backup caused more than the normal deletion to happen.


Delete a failed bootcamp partition MacBook Pro

I recall a few years back I had difficulty removing a boot camp partition with the boot camp utility.  I wound up using disk utility to remove the boot camp partition and resize my Macintosh hard drive back to its initial state.

Select the book camp partition in the pie chart and then just hit the minus button beneath

After that I just wound up using the Boot Camp utility again to start the whole process over of creating a new partition for Boot Camp


Can't add DHCP Reservation with Airport Utility

Download Airport Utility 5.6. This older version of Airport Utility will let you make DHCP Reservations. (I had to resort to this because Airport Utility 6.2 ignored the plus sign under DHCP Reservations. It also ignored the Edit button and needed a "Force Quit" to terminate.)


Why does htop show different CPU levels for processes than top or Activity Monitor?

Turned out to be a permissioning problem. Answer from Linux is here https://superuser.com/questions/338749/htop-isnt-returning-cpu-or-memory-usage


Want to do clean install of Mavericks - do I need older OS on computer?

You can install from scratch.

To do so:

Download the update from the App store.
Create an install DVD or an install USB flash drive.
Boot from the install drive (Holding alt or option during boot).
Using disk utility format the desired partition.
Launch the install process on the newly formatted partition.

Enjoy the fresh install.

Edit: One thing to note is the fact that you don't have to format the entire hard drive. You can only format the partition containing your OS and do the install on that partition.

If you want to install Mavericks on a different partition to allow multi boot (Mavericks/Mountain Lion) you can use another partition to do so as long as there is enough free space on it.

One important tip to remember is the ability of disk utility at creating additional partitions :

Open DiskUtility.app
Select the desired hard drive
Go to the Partitions tab
Under the partitions list click on the add button to create a new partition.


How do I downgrade node or install a specific previous version using homebrew?

These days if you want to install a different version of node you do it this way:

First search for your desired package:

brew search node

This might give you the follow results:

heroku/brew/heroku-node ✔
llnode
node@10
nodebrew
leafnode
node ✔
node@8
....

And then install the desired version:

brew install node@8

Also remember that you can install more than 1 node package at the same time, but you cannot have them available at the same time. So if you have the latest/generic node package already installed you need to unlink it first:

brew unlink node

And then you can link a different version:

brew link node@8

For some older node versions (which are keg-only), it might be required to link them with the --force and --overwrite options:

brew link --force --overwrite node@8


This sounds like what you're looking for: http://code.google.com/p/osxwinebuilder/


Connect to wireless network without password

Yes, it's possible on Macs as well as Windows.

The router is doing the control of who can get in without a passcode. Just perform the same action on the router to get it to suspend the password for the next client and let the mac be the next to join the WiFi network.

Use AirPort Utility to Add Wireless Clients... from the Base Station menu for your router...


How do I stop my 2013 Macbook Air from putting the computer to sleep?

knodi was close, but pmset sleep 180 does not mean "180 x display sleep time" it simply means 180 minutes.

Before you change any of your pmset settings, I would take note of your current settings. If you enter this line in Terminal.app:

sudo pmset -g live | tee -a ~/Desktop/original-pmset.txt

it will show you the current pmset settings and it will also save a copy to ~/Desktop/original-pmset.txt so you can keep it as a reference.

Manipulating computer sleep time with pmset

If I want my MacBook Air to go to skeep after 60 minutes of idle time when it is plugged into wall/AC power, I can set that using:

sudo pmset -c sleep 60

Similarly,

sudo pmset -c sleep 0

tells my MacBook Air not to put the computer to sleep, even if the display goes to sleep.

If I wanted that same setting for when the MacBook is on battery power (not AC/wall power), then I would use

sudo pmset -b sleep 0

I can also set different sleep times for disksleep and displaysleep

(You can read more about pmset at https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/pmset.1.html or man pmset in Terminal.)

I would be very interested to know if sudo pmset -c sleep 60 (or whatever value you choose) actually works for a Haswell-based MacBook Air.


Apple.ca accepts answer, Apple ID app/ iCloud doesn't?

If one web app works and another doesn't you would probably need to contact support to determine if the problem is with your account or with Apple's infrastructure.

Also, you will want to be sure you are really connecting to Apple sites (some computers and networks are compromised by malicious software). If you are connecting to a site that is imitating / designed to look like Apple's, that could explain the acceptance of your answers as it would actually be collecting your account details.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204759 - phishing / verified Apple websites
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201487 - change back your actual password

In that case the "fake" approves your transaction to get you to keep trying all passwords you might reuse and then when you try a legitimate Apple site you are either locked out or the malicious people/software may have changed your password.


Dynamically (automatically) change the "download folder" in Safari

I am using the Glims Safari Plugin (ver1.0b29) in Safari 5.1 (OSX Lion), which has the feature "Create dated folder for downloaded files".


Prevent double click on application focus

Pending a better answer - in Cocoa applications on OSX I can force a "click through" to the lower window without focusing it by ⌘-clicking. This appears to be a good solution - just needs to be more discoverable.


To sum up:

When the battery of an iOS device is fully depleted, it needs a few minutes of charging before it turns on.
You need to use original cable and adapter
If charging an iPad, use the wall outlet instead of laptop's USB port when possible.


It's the same as in Notepad++, control ⌃+T. Place your cursor at the beginning of the second line, press ⌃ T, and the two lines will be transposed. Your cursor will also move down a line as well, enabling you to repeatedly transpose to move a line down several spots.


How to sync music using other softs rather then iTunes

There are a bunch of Linux applications that do it.  This question on Ask Unbuntu might help: Applications To Replace iTunes For iPod Synchronization.

Around my house, my wife and daughter use RhythmBox for loading up their iPod Touches (2G & 3G).


Update for OSX 10.9 Mavericks:

It appears that you can now sort by Date Added in OSX Mavericks. In Trash right click one of the columns and click to check the Date Added column. The click on the column header until the list of files is sorted by Date Added descending.

For OS X 10.7 Lion:

Go to the AppleScript Editor, paste in the following script and save it in /Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
    repeat with this_item in added_items
        do shell script "find " & quoted form of POSIX path of this_item & " -exec touch {} \\;"
    end repeat
end adding folder items to

Then…

Right-click on any folder in Finder, go to Services and click Folder Actions Setup.
Cancel the dialog asking which script to attach.
Click the checkbox to Enable Folder Actions
Click the plus sign to choose the Trash.

Press ⌘ cmd + ⇧ shift + G and type in ~/.Trash, click Go or press ↩ return, and then click Open.
On the right side, click the plus sign to choose the AppleScript that you saved earlier.

Thanks to Graham for the link which pointed me in the right direction.


how to sync videos from PC hard disk to iPhone with itunes?

I assume you have the video's you want to sync to your iPhone allready in iTunes. When not, you can drag the video's into itunes.

Connect you device with the lightning/30-pins cable to your pc and open iTunes if it doesn't pop up automatically.

At the upper left corner there should be a small iPhone/iPad icon. Click on the icon to view more information about it.
In the left panel is a menu called video (or something like that)
check the checkbox that you want to sync video's with your device. When the video's are correctly loaded into iTunes they should popup here.
select the video('s) you want to have on your device.
in the lower right corner click on apply/sync (if i'm right)

This will start syncing the video's from iTunes to your device.

When i'm right the video's can be found in the app called "video's".


How can I repair partition map after attempting to dual boot screwed it up?

If your Mac's a Late 2011 or later model you should be able to use Internet Recovery - Apple support page here. You could always install OS X on an external USB/Firewire/Thunderbolt drive which would then give you option of retrieving whatever you need from your internal drive before thoroughly wiping it clean. Personally I like Fedora Linux for this purpose, boot up from USB and go into the Disks utility where you will quickly be able to delete all existing partitions including the hidden EFI section, guaranteeing a clean slate before setting it all up again.

If it's an earlier model then you'll need to find someone with the installer for 10.7/8/9/10 and make a USB installer from it, or find a late retail copy of Snow Leopard (the last copies had 10.6.3 which will start up any Intel Mac before 2011).


iTunesConnect no longer allows tester gmail with plus sign?

I am seeing the same thing. It's weird because the title of the validation popup says that the password is the problem.

For what it's worth I'm using a temporary email provider and just generating a new email each time I need one.


Deleted a partition with High Sierra, now unable to reclaim space in partition with Mojave

The command you are using adds any significant amount of free space immediately after the APFS container partition. The APFS partition container is already at the end of the drive. There is no significant amount of free space to add.

There is approximately200 GB of free space above the APFS container partition. The macOS operation system offers no command or application that would add any of this free space to the APFS container partition.

The easiest solution would be to backup you files, erase the drive, reinstall macOS and reload your files.

Another more complex solution would be to create a new APFS container partition above the existing APFS container partition. You could then either:

Install macOS in the new APFS container partition, then use the Migration Assistant to copy all your files and applications. I have used this solution before.

OR

Attempt to clone the old APFS container partition to the new APFS container partition. I have never tried this solution. Maybe some else could comment or post an answer.

Afterwards, you could erase the old APFS container partition to create free space immediately after the new APFS container partition. You could then use the diskutil apfs resizeContainer command to add this new free space to the new APFS container partition

Creating new APFS container partition would involve several steps. Some of these steps would have to be preformed while booted to macOS Recovery. You should backup your files before attempting these steps. However, once you have a backup, you might as well just erase the entire drive and reinstall macOS. If want me to include the steps to create a new APFS container partition, then post a comment.

I should also note that you do not have a EFI partition on the drive. Since the identifier for the APFS Container disk1 is disk0s3, I assume the removal of this partition took place shortly before posting your question. Apple does state in the documentation, that an EFI partition is necessary for the proper operation of the Mac.

How to Create an EFI Partition

  Note: You should only proceed if you understand the steps given below. Otherwise, you may end up deleting your files.

Because of System Integrity Protection (SIP), you can not enter the commands in a Terminal window. You will first have to do one of the following.

Boot to macOS Recovery which can install El Capitan or a newer version of macOS. Use the csrutil command to disable SIP, then boot back to macOS Mojave. You can then enter the commands in a Terminal application window.
Boot to the macOS Recovery that is already on your drive. You can then enter the commands in a Terminal application window.
Boot to the macOS Recovery over the internet which can install High Sierra or a newer version of macOS. You can then enter the commands in a Terminal application window.

The commands with explanation are given in the following steps. Here, I have assumed the device block size is 512 bytes. In other words, the command given below should return Device Block Size: 512 Bytes.

diskutil info disk0 | grep "Device Block Size"

If you get a device block size other than 512 bytes, then you can not use the commands given below.

Reboot the Mac. The command given below should show the Apple_APFS container disk1 as disk0s1.

diskutil list

The command given below should create an unformatted EFI partition with the identifier of disk0s2

gpt -f add -i 2 -b  40 -s 409600 -t efi disk0

The command given below should FAT32 format the new EFI partition and label new volume as EFI.

newfs_msdos -F 32 -v EFI /dev/disk0s2

Create a temporary unformatted partition between EFI partition and the Apple_APFS container disk1. The linux type was chosen to prevent the partition from mounting. This partition should be assigned the identifier of disk0s3.

gpt -f add -i 3 -b 409640 -s 409600 -t linux disk0

Remove the temporary partition. The will reorder the partition entries in the GUID partition table (GPT) in ascending order.

diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3

Restart the Mac. This will reorder the identifiers for disk0 in ascending order. You can enter the command given below to confirm this.

diskutil list


iOS 8/7 keyboard swipe up menu: no control center access

It should be accessible while the keyboard is active. (Source: I can do it now.) Just start your finger below the screen (like on the Home button) and swipe upwards quickly, not lingering on the space bar or any key.


Wrong caller ID showed for call and "000000" in calls journal

I would suggest the following solution but you need to take care of it from Macbook which is using same Apple ID.

It is best to always have a backup before attempting something like this

Open the AddressBook folder located on:

~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook
In that folder, you will find three files:

a.  addressbook-v22.abcddb

b. addressbook-v22.abcddb-wal

c. addressbook-v22.abcddb-shm

Delete them.

Open Contacts and your list of contacts should quickly populate as the index is rebuilt.


"Google Chrome wants access to control Finder", should I be worried?

Is this normal or should I be worried about malware?

I'd say it's not unusual that apps ask for additional access to the file system or permissions to control other apps, and you shouldn't be worried about malware, but that doesn't mean you have to blindly accept such requests.
I recommend that you ponder carefully whether to grant them by answering these three questions:

Do you understand what is requested?
Was the request triggered by user interaction (like launching the app, saving a document to disk or starting an Automator Quick Action)?
Does the app require the requested access for normal or desired operation?

If you can't answer all questions with "yes", be wary of granting the permission. (Note that this is not a bullet-proof security checklist, but a rule of thumb that has helped me in the past, so I share it here).
Let me give you some real-life examples:

VMware Fusion, an app that let's you run virtual machines, asks at launch for access to the system's accessibility features, so I ask:

Do I understand what is requested?
Yes, by requesting access to accessibility features, the app can control my  Mac. That's quite a lot to ask, although VMware nicely documents why some of their apps need it.
Was the request triggered by user interaction?
Yes, when launching the app.
Does the app require the requested access for normal or desired operation?
After declining the request I don't notice any performance issues, so the answer is no and I won't grant access in future requests.

The Terminal app requests access to my Desktop folder when running a shell script, so I ask:

Do I understand what is requested?
Yes, if I let Terminal access my Desktop, it will be able to read all files and folders on my Desktop, including the script I'm about to run.
Was the request triggered by user interaction?
Yes, when running the script.
Does the app require the requested access for normal or desired operation?
Yes, because I trust the shell script and need it to process files on the Desktop, so I grant access.

As you see, there are no "right" answers, they depend on your use case, but  a healthy dose of mistrust doesn't harm.

Is there anything you would recommend to make sure my system is safe?

In the context of downloading and running apps, these three questions will help to keep your system safe:

Is the app made available on the Mac App Store or on the the developer's website of a reputable developer?
If a website asks you to download an app, is it simply providing a link to the developer's website?
Is the app supported?

If you can answer all questions with "yes", you are most probably on the safe side.
Again, let me give you a real-life example:

After clicking a link on an e-commerce website some days ago, I came across this page:

The page claims you need Adobe Flash Player to continue and insistently asks you to download from one of the offered links, so I ask:

Is the app made available on the Mac App Store or on the the developer's website?
No, it's not, this is not Adobe's Flash Player download page.
If a website asks you to download an app, is it simply providing a link to the developer's website?
No, the link provided doesn't point to Adobe.
Is the app supported?
A quick Google/DuckDuckGo search leads to this end-of-life information page on Adobe's website, which makes it clear the developer doesn't support it anymore so you don't download anything and remain safe.

(In case you're wondering, this is an actual phishing website which I reported to Amazon AWS with their report abuse form.)


If you use CandyBar, you can change the icons for system folders. Selecting a monochrome set of icons will make all the finder icons monochrome. Note that you cannot change the icons for applications from the App store without breaking their code signature, and thus their ability to update.

You can find the sidebar icons and most of the other icons to which you refer in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources

If one doesn't mind mucking about in system folders (something one should do with a great deal of caution), one might duplicate some of the Sidebar* icons and use them to replace the corresponding icons without the word Sidebar before them. I wouldn't try this without a bootable backup in place, however, in case I messed something up badly.


If you look on ifixit.com  for their iPhone tear downs.

The not only show you how to do each iPhone but also list the tools they use.

iPhone 4S

iPhone 5

iPhone 4

For example: iPhone 5

iPhone 5-Point Pentalobe P2 Screwdriver,
Tweezers,
Phillips #00 Screwdriver,
Small Suction Cup,
Spudger


Backup is used by the MobileMe Backup application. I don't recommend using it.
Groups is for a now defunct Groups feature that they used to have.
Library is used for MobileMe's syncing feature - primarily for Preferences and Bookmarks.
Sites is used for webpages or anything you want shared at http://homepage.mac.com/username/. Note: PHP files, CGI files, etc. don't work. It only works with static content.
Software contains free software provided by Apple to MobileMe customers (eg. the Backup application) - this doesn't affect your disk usage.
Web is a folder used by iWeb - otherwise it's nearly identical to the Sites folder but is available at http://web.me.com/username


PBS not working on Apple TV. Other channels are fine

I have similar issues.  All works fine on the Apple TV with the exception of streaming the PBS shows.  PBS works fine on my PC.  I'm using an Apple TV2 and have a Passport subscription to PBS. We just finished watching Victoria and other Masterpiece series a while back but now, after the commercials play, I get 'Error loading Content' or Content not available now, try again later'.

You and I will need to work with PBS support to fix out accounts in all likelihood.


How do I trust a self-signed certificate in iOS 10.3?

I've identified that the specific parameter that Apple looks for when allowing you to manually trust a certificate is the CA Basic Constraint (E.G. critical,CA:true). If the certificate has this extension, the system will allow you to manually trust the certificate.
However the process has one extra step (as opposed to iOS 9.3):

Export the certificate as PEM format
Send the certificate to the device (Safari, Email, AirDrop, etc...) and open it
A message will appear telling you the profile has been downloaded.
Open the settings app and tap the "Profile Downloaded" item below your Apple ID row.
Install the Certificate. You will have to provide your devices passcode.
Navigate to Settings -> General -> About -> Certificate Trust Settings
Enable full trust for your certificate


I think I opened an unsafe unix exe file! Can anyone tell me what this file might've done?

Without analyzing the scripts etc you run nobody can tell what (if anything) happened to your computer. To recover the best course of action is to restore from a backup made before you opened the DMG.


iTunes plays songs one at a time when stored on external drive

Given that you say you're clicking on an album, and iTunes opens, it sounds like you're playing your music from the Finder folder, and not using iTunes itself. If you double-click a song, even if it's within the album's folder, you're just asking for that song.

Once iTunes is open, if you double-click and play a song from iTunes, it'll keep playing the whole album, or whole selection of songs that you've chosen.


Certain apps not updating on Mac App Store with "temporarily unavailable" and "could not complete your request"

I had the same issue and resolved it by signing out (Store > Sign Out) then signing back in again.


How do I recompile Bash to avoid Shellshock (the remote exploit CVE-2014-6271 and CVE-2014-7169)?

Status

Apple has released Bash security fixes for Shellshock and related vulnerabilities as "OS X bash Update 1.0". They can be installed through normal system update for people using OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.5 or OS X Mavericks v10.9.5 (they are included in Security Update 2014-005) and can also be installed manually. Official Apple fixes are also available for OS X Lion v10.7.5 and OS X Lion Server v10.7.5 but those are only available via manual download. The security fixes are available via different URLs based on the operating system version:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1769 - Mavericks (10.9.5 and above)
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1768 - Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1767 - Lion & Lion Server (10.7.5)

(If new patches are released, put them here but please keep these existing ones as well for reference.)

The Apple patch takes care of Shellshock and several other vulnerabilities and is fine for most people. tl;dr people can stop reading here.

HOWEVER, the attention drawn to bash by the Shellshock bug has caused many researchers to take a hard look at bash and more and more (hard to exploit) vulnerabilities keep being found. If you are highly concerned about security (because maybe you are running OS X Server to host a publicly available web site) then you may want to (try to) keep up with the vulnerabilities and patches as they keep rolling in by compiling bash yourself. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

Look for Apple to release another update to bash some time in the future when the dust settles on finding further vulnerabilities.

An official set of patches of bash itself for bash 3.2, patches 52, 53, and 54 (which correspond to Bash 4.3 patches 25, 26, and 27) are available which fix both CVE-2014-6271 and CVE-2014-7169, as well as the 'Game over' displayed below. This has been tested by me (@alblue) and the post has been updated accordingly (and then additional updates were made: see revision 41 for the post that stops at patch 54).

Many additional vulnerabilities have been reported against bash. According to Michal Zalewski's post if you have patch 54 (and presumably Apple's official patch) "there's no point in obsessing about the status of these individual bugs, because they should no longer pose a security risk:"

CVE-2014-6271 - original RCE found by Stephane. Fixed by bash43-025
and corresponding Sep 24 entries for other versions.
CVE-2014-7169 - file creation / token consumption bug found by
Tavis. Fixed by bash43-026 & co (Sep 26)
CVE-2014-7186 - a probably no-sec-risk 10+ here-doc crash found by
Florian and Todd. Fixed by bash43-028 & co (Oct 1).
CVE-2014-7187 - a non-crashing, probably no-sec-risk off-by-one
found by Florian.  Fixed by bash43-028 & co (Oct 1).
CVE-2014-6277 - uninitialized memory issue, almost certainly RCE
found by Michal Zalewski. No specific patch yet.
CVE-2014-6278 - command injection RCE found by Michal Zalewski. No specific patch yet.

It gets pretty confusing. Fortunately Chet Ramey, the official bash maintainer, posted a CVE to patch mapping. His post refers to patches for bash 4.3, I (@OldPro) have translated them to patches for bash 3.2, which is what is applicable to OS X. Also, since this post he has released patch 57, so I added that below:

 bash32-052      CVE-2014-6271                           2014-09-24
 bash32-053      CVE-2014-7169                           2014-09-26
 bash32-054      exported function namespace change      2014-09-27 ("Game Over")
 bash32-055      CVE-2014-7186/CVE-2014-7187             2014-10-01
 bash32-056      CVE-2014-6277                           2014-10-02
 bash32-057      CVE-2014-6278                           2014-10-05

See David A. Wheeler's post for a timeline and greater detail.

@alblue posted build instructions through patch 55. I (@OldPro) added patch 56 and 57 to the instructions but have not tested it.

Testing for the original Vulnerability

You can determine if you are vulnerable to the original problem in CVE-2014-6271 by executing this test:

$ env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c 'echo hello'
bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt
bash: error importing function definition for `x'
hello

The above output is an example of a non-vulnerable bash version. If you see the word vulnerable in the output of that command your bash is vulnerable and you should update. Below is a vulnerable version from OS X 10.8.5:

Testing for the new Vulnerability

There has been an update to the original post and Bash 3.2.52(1) is still vulnerable to a variation of the vulnerability, defined in CVE-2014-7169

$ rm -f echo
$ env X='() { (a)=>\' sh -c "echo date"; cat echo
sh: X: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token `='
sh: X: line 1: `'
sh: error importing function definition for `X'
Thu 25 Sep 2014 08:50:18 BST

The above output is an example of a vulnerable bash version. If you see a date in the output of that command your bash is vulnerable.

Disabling auto-imported functions to prevent "Game Over"

Researchers noted, without classifying it as a vulnerability, that a script could hijack a function in a subshell using auto-imported functions:

$ env ls="() { echo 'Game Over'; }" bash -c ls
Game over

The above code on an affected system would display Game Over instead of the directory listing you would expect from ls. Obviously, echo 'Game Over' could be replaced by any nefarious code you want. This became know as the "Game Over" bug.

Prior to the availability of patch 54, both NetBSD and FreeBSD disabled auto-importing bash functions by default, partly to prevent "Game Over" but mainly to contain any further errors in the parser (such as CVE-2014-7169) as they were continuing to be discovered, and added a new command line flag --import-functions to re-enable the old default behavior. I (@alblue) have prepared a patch (against 3.2.53) for others to use if they want to adopt this behaviour as well and have included it below. By default this patch is not enabled in the build script below. I (@OldPro) believe this patch is no longer necessary or a good idea, because it breaks backwards compatibility and the vulnerabilities it protects against are very well addressed by patch 54 and earlier patches, and enabling this unofficial patch prevents future patches from being applied.

(Note to question editors; please do not enable this by default, as it is an unofficial patch.)

a0c5c4d66742fddd0a35001cb91798a5fbf8a2f5  import_functions.patch

The patch can be enabled by running export ADD_IMPORT_FUNCTIONS_PATCH=YES before running the build. Note that enabling this patch will disable patch 54 and any future patches because future patches cannot be guaranteed to be compatible with the unofficial patch.

Apple Patch has Game Over vulnerability, sort of

As pointed out by @ake_____ on twitter the official Apple patch is still vulnerable to environment clobbering of executables:

$ env '__BASH_FUNC<ls>()'="() { echo Game Over; }" bash -c ls
Game Over

Users should decide for themselves how important this is. I (@OldPro) think it is nothing to worry about because there is no known exploit for this behavior (it was not even given a CVE identifier) because in general unprivileged remote attackers cannot set the name of an environment variable and attackers with privileges cannot use this to gain privileges they do not already have (at least not without exploiting an additional vulnerabiltiy).

To provide a little background, bash allows you to define functions, and furthermore allows you to export those functions to subshells via the export -f command. This used to be implemented by creating an environment variable with the same name as the function with its value set to the function definition. So

$ ls () { echo 'Game Over'; }
$ export -f ls
$ echo $ls
Game Over

This happened because export -f ls created an environment variable named ls. The "Game Over" vulnerability was that you could directly create this environment variable without having to first define the function, which meant if you could inject the right variable name you could hijack a command. Apple tried to fix this by making it hard to create a variable with the right name. The official bash patch 54 actually makes it impossible to create a variable with the right name by using variable names that include % which is a character not allowed in a variable name, effectively putting exported function definitions in a different, reserved namespace.

If none of the above makes sense to you, don't worry about it. You are fine with the Apple patch for now.

System Binaries

OS X 10.9.5 (the latest stable release at the moment) ships with Bash v3.2.51:

$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.51(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin13)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

You can obtain and recompile Bash as follows, providing that you have Xcode installed (and have run xcodebuild at least once before to accept the license):

$ # If you want to disable auto-imported functions, uncomment the following
$ # export ADD_IMPORT_FUNCTIONS_PATCH=YES
$ mkdir bash-fix
$ cd bash-fix
$ curl https://opensource.apple.com/tarballs/bash/bash-92.tar.gz | tar zxf -
$ cd bash-92/bash-3.2
$ curl https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-3.2-patches/bash32-052 | patch -p0
$ curl https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-3.2-patches/bash32-053 | patch -p0
$ # See note above about ADD_IMPORT_FUNCTIONS_PATCH
$ [ "$ADD_IMPORT_FUNCTIONS_PATCH" == "YES" ] && curl http://alblue.bandlem.com/import_functions.patch | patch -p0
$ [ "$ADD_IMPORT_FUNCTIONS_PATCH" == "YES" ] || curl https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-3.2-patches/bash32-054 | patch -p0
$ [ "$ADD_IMPORT_FUNCTIONS_PATCH" == "YES" ] || curl https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-3.2-patches/bash32-055 | patch -p0
$ [ "$ADD_IMPORT_FUNCTIONS_PATCH" == "YES" ] || curl https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-3.2-patches/bash32-056 | patch -p0
$ [ "$ADD_IMPORT_FUNCTIONS_PATCH" == "YES" ] || curl https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-3.2-patches/bash32-057 | patch -p0
$ cd ..
$ # Note: DO NOT ADD SUDO TO XCODEBUILD HERE
$ xcodebuild
$ build/Release/bash --version # GNU bash, version 3.2.57-release
$ build/Release/sh --version   # GNU bash, version 3.2.57-release
$ sudo cp /bin/bash /bin/bash.old
$ sudo cp /bin/sh /bin/sh.old
$ sudo cp build/Release/bash /bin
$ sudo cp build/Release/sh /bin

(Note: you can run this by copy-and-pasting the above code block, going into Terminal and then running pbpaste | cut -c 2- | sh. Always take care when running random scripts from the internet though ...)

After this, the Bash version should be v3.2.57:

$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.57-release (x86_64-apple-darwin13)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

For security, and after testing, I recommend that you chmod -x the old versions to ensure they aren't re-used, or move them to a backup site.

$ sudo chmod a-x /bin/bash.old /bin/sh.old

Other answers have solutions for those using MacPorts or Homebrew; these don't fix the problem, they just install additional versions of Bash. Please see those answers if you want to upgrade those specifically.

Thanks

Thanks to Chet, who looks after bash, and has been making these patches available. Thanks to everyone else who has commented on this and improved it over time.

Now Apple has released the real fix, though this might still be useful. Because they only released a fix for Lion and up, and the official patch provides GNU bash, version 3.2.53(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin13), however, the Game over bug is still somewhat vulnerable. At this point, rebuilding your own version of Bash against 3.2.57 is probably more secure than relying on Apple's patch, unless you do it wrong.


I think you need a keyboard to boot holding Alt ("Option") key, to show boot partition and disks.
Yes, if you plug in a USB keyboard it simply works. Mac OS X has the driver for standard keyboards.


How to unlock iPhone 5 (iOS 7.0.2) after forgetting my Apple ID?

It is currently not possible to bypass Activation Lock, since the activation lock data is stored remotely on Apple's servers.

You can attempt to recover your Apple ID by following the instructions at iforgot.apple.com.

You can read more about Activation Lock (and whether it can be bypassed) here:

How secure is Activation Lock on iOS 7 (and later)?


What happens if I delete an icloud backup?

A backup is just a copy of data on your iPhone, yes. However some types of data on your phone are not stored in iCloud Backup, but rather in other parts of iCloud or similar services. This includes for example photos in iCloud Photos, files in iCloud Drive, and Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Mail, Notes, Health Data and Voice Memos in iCloud.

Deleting a backup from iCloud will not delete the data on your iPhone.

If you delete all the backups of your phone, you'll only have the data on your phone. Data that was previously stored only in the backups, and that is not stored on your phone or in other cloud services, will now be gone.


From a quick google it seems you are out of luck.

The basic reasoning is that you (normally) would want to wake from key or mouse press, and if these are connected via USB then the mac needs to detect activity on the USB, and rather than distinguish between clicks and movements it wakes on both.

Most of apples own mice are bluetooth, and mac os x has an option within the system preferences not to wake mac on bluetooth (either disable on move and click or just movement, I forget which).

Can you pull out the trackball's ball?  Turn it upside down, or you might just have to disconnect it.

Good luck!


System Preferences continues to open on my broken laptop screen even though everything else works successfully on my external monitor?

Even though the monitor is broken, macOS doesn't know this and it's still being detected as the main display which is where System Preferences opens to.

One easy solution is closed clamshell mode.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201834

When the lid is detected as shut, you get one screen. A magnet placed by the top case can trigger the closing if the damage prevents you from actually closing things.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203315

A strong magnet used to be bad for floppy storage and hard drives that didn’t have shielding but now everything Apple makes basically has small strong  magnets and any fridge type magnet won’t harm things other than sleep mode. You need an external keyboard and pointer for this to work long term, though.


Shamelessly stolen here: Enable Google two-factor authentication for SSH connections on OS X and updated:

Prerequisites on the remote host:

Xcode command line tools, Xcode
brew working (updated, upgraded, doctored)

Other prerequisites:

Google account and some registered mobile device (Android/iOS/Blackberry)

Install google-authenticator-libpam:

brew install autoconf automake libtool
git clone https://github.com/google/google-authenticator-libpam.git
cd google-authenticator-libpam
export LIBTOOL=glibtool
export LIBTOOLIZE=glibtoolize
autoreconf -ivf
touch AUTHORS NEWS README ChangeLog
automake --add-missing
./configure
sudo make install
sudo cp /usr/local/lib/security/pam_google_authenticator.so /usr/lib/pam/
sudo vi /etc/pam.d/sshd

Add the following line in sshd:

auth       required       pam_google_authenticator.so  nullok

Reload ssh:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist

Install and configure Google Authenticator on your iPhone (or a similar device)

Set up Google Authenticator on the remote host interactively or non-interactively. Example:

google-authenticator  -t -d -r 1 -R 30 -w 21 -f

Use google-authenticator -h to sho the options.

Connect to the remote host after setting up the Google Authenticator PAM module on the remote host and Google Authenticator on your mobile device (adding the token for your user and remote host!):

ssh user@example.com
Password:    #password of user
Verification code:   #6-digit code you received on your mobile device.

To get around the error "Failed to use libqrencode to show QR code visually for scanning." install libqrencode with brew:

brew install libqrencode

and create a QR.png yourself if you don't want to create the QR code at google.com by omitting the first part of the URL and starting with otauth...:

qrencode "otpauth://totp/demo@myhost%3Fsecret%3DSECRET_KEY%26issuer%3Dmyhost" -o qr.png


Why are some characters being replaced with boxed question marks on High Sierra?

The font does not contain a glyph for that particular IPA symbol, and the font substitution algorithm failed to catch it.  Report it as a bug.


Shortcut to switch off and on individual cellular network

With iOS - you can automate enabling airplane mode with Siri. Have you tested if you can say ‘Hey Siri - turn off AirPlane Mode”

Automation options in general are:

Siri is the easiest if Apple has programmed that interface and operation
Next easiest if third party / first party automation like Shortcuts and Toolbox Pro apps.
Least easy is assistive touch and voice over. These have a learning curve and you may find it faster to perform a manual step - but they do automate powerfully by non-touch events or not traditional touch events.

As for the other part - how do you have Network Selection in your settings app and how do you accomplish the steps above manually? Putting down step by step might let someone who knows how to automate things help you without needing to see your phone or establish two service accounts.


How can I use the automator to create text-to-speech service that talks faster than the current service?

Do this:

Remove the "Speak text" action.
Add the "Run AppleScript" action.
Clear all the default text in the action.
Copy/paste this script in the action:

on run {input, parameters}
  repeat with thisText in input
      say thisText speaking rate 400
  end repeat
end run

If you want a specific voice, append using "SomeVoiceName" after the say command.

Example : say thisText speaking rate 400 using "Bruce" -- Bruce is a name of the voice


How do I know which nvidia graphics cards work with a Mac Pro?

This might not be exactly what your looking for but Bare Feats has several articles on the current state (or lack there of) video cards for the Mac Pro.

Take a look at CUDA compatible GPUs for the Mac Pro and Abandoning Apple 'Blessed' GPUs

I recently had to replace a second dying NVidia 8800 GT in my Mac Pro (early 2008) but decided to stick with an Apple card.

Most of the non-Apple branded cards will not work until the machine is past the boot volume selection screen (if you need it) and I seem to find myself switching boot volumes frequently.


Is migrating using a Time Machine backup the same as using the old Mac in target disk mode?

Yes and no. Let me explain.

Yes if you do it manually in the sense you're just copying the data manually from your Time Machine backup.

No if you do it via the installation process or if you do it afterwards using the Migration Assistant app (usually found in your Utilities folder). It's also a 'No' if you use the restore options built into Time Machine itself.

One of the advantages of migrating from a Time Machine backup is that you can easily migrate your applications etc instead of having to reinstall them again. Another great advantage is that some of your hidden data gets transferred across - so you're not having to manually delve deeply to find things such as your email data.

Regardless of how you choose to migrate your data, once you're done I would strongly recommend you use Time Machine as part of your backup regime.

For more information you can refer to:

Move your content to a new Mac
Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac

[EDIT]

If you're intending to use Migration Assistant and selecting between transferring your data from a TM backup or from your old Mac, then it's effectively the same thing in terms of what Migration Assistant is doing. The only difference is the source it's connected to, but since the TM backup is a backup of the old Mac, the data being transferred is the same.


You can sort your movies into Genres, that is the only way I have found to sort of make a subfolder.


Synchronize calendar between Mac, Android mobile and Windows 7

Your best option is probably Google Calendar. It is an "online solution", but you don't have to make use of the webapp at all, just use it as a method to sync.

For OSX, you can use iCal synced to Google Calendar using CalDAV. It's not perfectly polished, but it works fine. You may need to enable any other calendars via the Delegation tab, under Accounts in the iCal preferences.

I'm not an Android guy, but I think Google Calendar support should be automatically set up when you activate your device with a Google account.

For Windows 7, it depends what app you're wanting to use. It looks like they removed the Calendar app from Vista. The simplest option may be this desktop gadget that syncs to Google Calendar. If you're looking to use other software, Google provides a sync option for Outlook, or you can use anything that supports the CalDAV standard.


Believe me you are looking for something like Apple TV and Apple computer made in or after 2011 with Mountain Lion installed. It's called Airplay Mirroring.

Or alternatively you can achive something similar with this app


It'll eat all your apps souls? Aside from that you should be fine, the process works pretty well.


This worked for me:

Reboot and hold shift key to enter safe mode
Launch Safari
Reboot normally


How to move control strip on mac touchbar

In order to change Touch Bar icons press commandspace and type keyboard then press  enter. It will open to the Keyboard pane in System Preferences.
Then click the Customize Control Strip… button and from there and you can drag icons down or move down your mouse pointer to select and drag icons from or to elsewhere on the Touch Bar.
Note that if your Touch Bar is collapsed, touch the < on it to expand it before modifying it.


Install csrutil or new recovery partion on High Sierra volume?

Install rEFInd to your hidden EFI volume. You then can restart the Mac, hold down the option key to invoke the Startup Manager, select rEFInd and instruct rEFInd to enable/disable SIP.

Actually, this is the fastest way to disable SIP because you an also instruct rEFInd to immediately boot macOS after disabling SIP.

Since you currently can not disable SIP, you will have to install rEFInd by not following the installation instructions. For example, to install to the internal drive EFI volume, you would enter the following commands.

  Note: The commands below may overwrite boot files if you already have Windows or Linux installed on your Mac.

cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.11.4/
./refind-install --usedefault /dev/disk0s1

You can also create a USB flash drive with rEFInd instead of installing to your internal drive.

You may need to add the following lines to the bottom of the refind.conf file.

csr_values 10,77
showtools csr_rotate, shell, gdisk, memtest, mok_tool, apple_recovery, windows_recovery, about, hidden_tags, reboot, exit, firmware, fwupdate


Is it possible to force the next boot to be a recovery mode boot with a bluetooth keyboard?

This model seems to respect the option key only - so that will get me to the startup manager and I can select the Recovery HD.

I have not had luck getting command R to work but it's clearly meant to work as well - perhaps that's for newer macs with better bluetooth hardware (or my mac is just cranky and not working as designed)


The only way to replace or repair the fingerprint sensor is for Apple to do it for you.

It is tied to the secure enclave in the CPU & any unauthorised tampering will disable it.


There is the choose app and it does exactly what you ask for. It takes stdin, shows GUI selector and returns selected item to stdout.

You can install it using brew install choose-gui


Can I use my iPod classic to store photos for my Canon 5D MkII?

Yes.

You need the discontinued "iPod" camera connector. (not to be confused with the iOS iPad camera connector)

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA38187

They are for sale on Amazon (and of course at local thrift shops and electronics shops worldwide).

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Camera-Connector-iPod-White/dp/B000KIRGF4


Restore Windows 8.1 System Image Backup to new Boot Camp partition

if you already installed WIN8.1 how or why would you also restore a backup image as well?

it seems like that is what is going on based on "next step where you choose/format/partition the drive" would indicate an attempt to restore the backup image on the new WIN8 install partition. btw, did you use winclone?


Bluetooth headset A2dp on iPad not working

My mistake.  I did consult the headset manual, which had one sentence about A2DP, which just said essentially "it only works on phones that support it".

In fact, all I had to do to move from where I was to the headset working as I expected was to force-close and reopen each iPad app that I wanted to hear through the headset.


Adapter for retina macbook pro to external monitor

The MacBook Pro retina display already comes with a HDMI. so all you have to do is buy a quality HDMI cable and connect them together. Then MacOSX will recognise the display and then you can use it as a normal display.


Applescript to click green (zoom) button with Option down

You can use one of the actions of the "AXFullScreenButton":

"AXZoomWindow" action to maximize.
"AXPress" action to full screen.

Use the perform action command, like this.

tell application "System Events"
    perform action "AXZoomWindow" of (first button whose subrole is "AXFullScreenButton") of (first window whose subrole is "AXStandardWindow") of (first process whose frontmost is true)
end tell


How do I switch between Finder tabs with a keyboard shortcuts?

To move forward (Show Next Tab) through the tabs use the keyboard shortcut ControlTab, to move in the reverse direction (Show Previous Tab), use ControlShiftTab instead.


USB devices are greyed out in VirtualBox

I found the solution myself. All I need was to eject usb pen drive from mac's desktop. When the drive ejected, it became available in VirtualBox.


Transpose the sheet (Table->Transpose rows and columns), sort, and then transpose back. However you may lose some of the formatting, like column widths and row heights.


Would this memory work on a MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2011)?

I don't know if the 1600 MHz memory would work in that machine, but you can get an 8 GB upgrade that's guaranteed to work in your Mac for less than the product you linked to (click 'View more compatible memory upgrades' to see the single 8 GB module).


Spotlight shortcut (cmd+space) no longer working

On MacOS Catalina, the issue may be caused by the SystemUIServer process hanging.

You can restart it by launching the command

killall SystemUIServer


Applescript to Heart or Love or Favorite song

This is the script I use. It toggles the loved status of the current track.
tell application "iTunes"
    if loved of current track is true then
        set loved of current track to false
    else
        set loved of current track to true
    end if
end tell

It also works for Apple Music; just replace "iTunes" with "Music".


Numbers: Grouping daily data into weekly data

Figured this out, finally. Thanks, community!

I created a table with weekly dates. Then I added summary columns for the daily data:

=SUMIFS(
  column_I_care_about_from_daily_spreadsheet,
  date_field_in_daily_spreadsheet, ">="&date_in_this_spreadsheet,
  date_field_in_daily_spreadsheet, "<"&date_in_this_spreadsheet
)

I then added a "summary" column to match the weekly data

=SUMIF(
  date_field_in_daily_spreadsheet,
  "="&$date_in_this_spreadsheet,
  column_I_care_about_from_daily_spreadsheet
)

Two things:
- Yes, the second formula is overkill
- Yes, SUMIF and SUMIFS reverse their fields from each other

From here, I could easily get a graph.


Missing two of the black "feet" at the bottom of my Macbook Pro/Started making a clicking noise inside

The feet help air to get under your Mac and cool it, which is essential because heat destroys just about everything a computer needs to keep working, like the processor or hard drive. The clicking noise is probably your internal harddrive beginning to fail. You should back up your data immediately and prepare to replace your hard drive, as clicking is often a good indicator that the drive is about to stop working. You can check the drive's SMART status using Disk Utility.app, but it may not report anything amiss until its too late.

You can find detailed instructions on checking the drive's SMART status here, but the meat of it is accomplished just by stealing their image, which I'll link to below.


Question about cables needed for using a Macbook Air 2013 OR Macbook Pro 2020 laptop with iMac 2013 AND Thunderbolt Display screens

Your question(s) are answered in this existing post:
What are the requirements to use iMac screen as a second monitor - Target Display Mode?

What I would like is to be able to hook up EITHER my Macbook Air (for personal use) OR my Macbook Pro (for work use) and use the laptops as the main 'hubs', linked to two large displays for both from the iMac and the Thunderbolt Display, so that I can transport my stuff easily to/from the office if I need to (where I can hook into another display at work).

Laptops are not "hubs" of any kind so, it's not clear what you're attempting to do here.  If you're attempting to sync all your work/personal things between the laptop and the desktop, then it's a different topic altogether (a different question) and easily solved with a Cloud service (OneDrive, iCloud Drive, etc.)
As for the cables - what you want to do is really not feasible.  First off, you are limited to Thunderbolt because that's what the 2013 iMac requires.  However, each notebook has a severe limitation to accomplishing what you want to do.  Let's look at them individually and not as a part of a larger puzzle:

2013 MacBook Air

Single Thunderbolt port / only supports one external display
To get a second display, you'll need a USB Video Adapter (it's like installing a second video card in a desktop machine)

2020 MacBook Pro

No longer supported for Target Display Mode to the iMac

So, right out of the gate, your MBA can't support the two displays and while your MacBook Pro supports up to 2 external displays it can't support your iMac as a second display (see the above link about Target Display Mode).
So, to connect your MacBook Air to either the iMac or the Thunderbolt Display, your need a Thunderbolt Cable.  That's assuming it's the older Thunderbolt Display.  If it's the new LG Ultra Fine, you'll need a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 1/2 (Legacy) Adapter.  However, it's probably "too much" monitor for that legacy MacBook Air - it'll work poorly.
As for your MacBook Pro, if it's the older Thunderbolt Display, you'll need the same thing as your MBA - the Thunderbolt Legacy Adapter and the Thunderbolt Cable.  If it's the new UltraFine Thunderbolt Display, you'll need a quality Thunderbolt 3 Active Cable.
TL;DR
You can't do what you're asking.  The MBA only supports one display and while the MBP supports 2 external displays, it no longer supports Target Display Mode meaning, in this scenario, it only supports one display.  You might get the MBA to support two displays with another USB Video Adapter, but it will put a hurt on performance as USB is not an ideal interface for video.
My suggestion is to focus on your workflow to ensure all of your data is where you want it to be so that you can use any device, where ever you happen to be, and be assured that your data is intact.


How to change color scheme of Keynote slide design/template?

If you want to change the appearance of all the slides:

While creating a new document, choose any template.
From the menubar, select View > Show Master Slides.
Select the layout you want to edit from the navigator pane on the left.
On the Toolbar, click on Inspector (“i” icon).
Choose the second tab icon (slide icon) in the Inspector window. Click on Appearance.
Here you can specify any background for the slide. It can be an image, a colour, a gradient or a tint.

If you just want to change the appearance of the current slide, follow steps 4 to 6.

To change the style of text for all the slides:

Follow steps 1 to 4.
Choose the capital “T” icon in the Inspector window.
Select the text whose colour, font, etc. you want to change.
In the inspector window, there are various properties like text colour, character spacing, etc. which you can change.
You can change the font from the toolbar.

To change the style of text for the current slide, just follow the steps without opening the master slide.


iTunes Media Folder Location seems to act oddly

In iTunes, go to the File menu, then select "Organize Library" and tick the box next to "Reorganize files in the folder 'music'".


How to make Mail not to open it's window automatically?

This has been an ongoing issue since I got my first Mac way back in 2014. There are a lot of window related issues with mail, but they haven't been resolved for years and probably never will be. Sorry to tell you you're going to have to get used to it. Another annoying problem I've experienced with every Mac I've ever used now is if you have a Mail message open in its' own window but not the main window and you click the Mail icon in the dock it'll open the main window on top of the message window. Intuitive!


Installing OS X 10.1 "Puma" on new HDD from CD onto a iBook G3

So, as it turns out OS X 10.1 DOES come with Disk Utility, but you need to access it BEFORE you start the installer!  If you start the installer and move past the Introduction section, you cannot get back to the Disk Utility, you have to restart the computer!

So, to format my new hard drive:

Booted up with the OS X 10.1 CD in the CD-ROM drive, held C to boot to the CD
After first load, BEFORE selecting a language in the dialog
Go to Installer > Open Disk Utility... in the menu bar at the top
It found my new HDD in the side menu
Erase and partition it from the separate tabs
Close the Disk Utility and go back to the installer wizard

Your HDD should now show up under the Select a Destination menu in the wizard!

The YouTube video of the installer that klanomath posted was a huge help.  I'm reposting it here for future people:

Mac OS X 10.1 Puma: Installation and first boot

Thanks!


Encrypted sparsebundle password appears to be cached

From the hdiutil man page:

unmount volume [-force]
            unmount a mounted volume without detaching any associated
            image.  Volume is a /dev entry or mountpoint.  NOTE: unmount
            does NOT detach any disk image associated with the volume.
            Images are attached and detached; volumes are mounted and
            unmounted.  hdiutil mountvol (or diskutil mount) will remount
            a volume that has been unmounted by hdiutil unmount.

The image encryption key isn't discarded until the image is detached, so after hdiutil unmount you'll be able to remount it without supplying the password. Solution: use hdiutil detach (or the eject button in Finder) instead.


With IMAP, it is the device (or clients) responsibility to know which folder to put various messages in as actions are performed on messages. I suspect you have an IMAP misconfiguration. There are 4 special folders: Drafts, Sent, Deleted and Archive.  These can be specified for each mailbox on each device that accesses that account.  (Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calenders > (pick your account) >  (pick it again) > Advanced Settings)

To complicate matters you will have to check each device that you have the mail account configured on.  For Example, if it's configured on a MB, iPhone and iPad then check the special folder designations on all 3.   If you are having this problem intermittently that fact suggest these folders are set correctly on one device, but not another.  If you only have this account on one device, the error in setup will still be in this area of settings.


How to bypass iMac 2015 Firmware Password?

To my knowledge, you have no alternative to contacting the former owner in order to have the information or at least to recover an invoice to ask Apple to intervene.


Adding new contact to iMessage group chat

No. Its not possible, though its nice feature to add to in next version.


I'm the owner of Intel Power Gadget on macOS.

  Which core's frequency and temperature are shown by the Intel Power Gadget tool?

On any Intel processor prior to Icelake, all cores run at the same frequency. In the current version of Power Gadget, frequency is read from a package scope register, so it's not reading a specific core's frequency. A future version of Power Gadget will measure frequency on all cores.

At present Power Gadget measures temperature at the package scope, although there are core scoped temperature readings provided by the hardware. I haven't seen any particular need for core scope temperature readings, but let me know if you have a justification for that.

  How can I observe the frequency of all the independent cores on my MacBook?

Because you are running on a pre-Icelake system where all cores are running at the same frequency, there is no need to observe the frequency of cores independently.

  Can the Intel Power Gadget be configured to do so?

In the current and older versions of Power Gadget there is no mechanism for reading frequency on all cores, even if you were to use the public API. However, a future version of Power Gadget will provide this capability.


What data is syncing with the iPad?  It sounds like the other person logged into their iCloud account on your phone which would give you any or all of: mail, contacts, calendars, reminders, safari bookmarks, notes, passbook, keychain, photos.  Is that what you're seeing?  If so you need to log your phone out of their iCloud account.  Go into Settings -> General -> iCloud and at the bottom you'll see "Delete Account".

If the other person enabled Find My iPhone with their iCloud account you MUST have them disable it on your phone, which they can do that directly on the phone or on iCloud.com.  There's no other way to disable it.  If you try a full reset the phone will boot back up with the Activation lock (aka: iCloud lock) switched on and it'll be nothing but a paperweight until the other person unlocks it.


How can I get the Finder to show metadata?

Under the View menu, there is an item "Preview Options". This allows you to specify what data will be shown in the Preview pane.
This item (and the various parameters it contains) may only be available when you the Preview panel is showing and you have an image file selected.
These are the defaults:


In the terminal...

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.cups.cupsd.plist

...will unload cups.  This stops the service.

After that,

sudo launchctl remove /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.cups.cupsd.plist

...will ensure that cups does not come back after a reboot.

I don't know how OS X will react if you try to leave cups unloaded in the long term.  Also, I am nearly certain that major (and likely some minor) OS updates will "correct the issue" and reload cups for you.   So helpful.

Last, you can check to see what services are currently running by using sudo launchctl list


Read specific file in Time Capsule from someone else's computer

I finally got the answer to my problem from the Apple Technical support. A double click on the file my-computer.sparsebundle should mount the Time Capsule as a Time Machine virtual disk. It didn't work in my case. The guy from the Apple support just told me to reboot the Time Capsule. It worked.


Catalina import Library.xml into music app?

According to turingtest2 on Apple Support forums, you might be able to import the XML using the 'Import Playlist' function.

The XML file is for third party support. The active iTunes library
would normally have been called iTunes Library.itl though in some
legacy systems the .itl extension might be omitted. You can hold down
option while starting Music (or TV) and then use the Choose Library
option to access an existing .itl file. You will be prompted for the
path to store a new music (or TV) library converted from the old one.
Alternatively you can use File > Library > Import Playlist... to
import an XML file, but that will lose date added information that
would be preserved by working with the .itl file. Either method should
bring in ratings and playlists.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250869304


Using a Mac, is there any way to purchase iPad-only HD content from iTunes?

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3209

  In order to purchase, rent, and view HD content from the iTunes Store
  on your computer, you need to have the latest version of iTunes
  installed, you can download the latest version here. In addition, you
  will need to have components that support HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital
  Content Protection) installed on your computer.

  Mac System Requirements for HD content:

  Mac OS X v10.5 or later iTunes 10 or later
  2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo or faster processor
  At least 1 GB of RAM
  A display that supports HDCP with a screen resolution of 1024x768 or
  higher.

  If your computer does not meet all of the above requirements, you will be unable to
  purchase, rent, or view HD content from the iTunes Store.

  Note: If you are trying to view HD video on an external display, the
  display must have a digital connection (DVI, DisplayPort, or HDMI) and
  also support HDCP.

If it isn't obvious where to buy the movies, I would guess that your system requirements are not there.


How can I make a script that opens terminal and runs my executable?

When you double-click a .command file, Terminal.app will open, and execute /path/to/file.command ; exit; which means it will execute the content of the file.command script, and THEN exit.

If your Terminal is exiting before your executable can receive input, that seems to indicate that either your .command is not calling your executable correctly, or your executable somehow doesn't wait to receive input before exiting.

To be able to help you further, you'd need to provide an example .c/.cpp file to compile, and the content of your .command file.

I myself tried with a .command file that contains only:

$HOME/Downloads/go.sh

And I was able to ask for input in go.sh (using read -p) before the Terminal exited.


Mail.app in Mavericks moves Gmail mails to Trash instead of Archiving them

Mavericks Mail.app is now actually aware of the All Mail folder and has "archiving" as a separate concept, just like iOS does. The old delete-from-inbox-to-archive was arguably a hack in Gmail's IMAP implementation which now no longer works. Now "Delete" actually means delete and "Archive" means archive.

The new command is in the menu under Message > Archive, its keyboard shortcut is ⌃⌘A. You can add the Archive button to the toolbar via View > Customise Toolbar... if it's not there.

Apparently you will also have to show the All Mail folder to IMAP clients, which is something you have to configure in your settings on the Gmail website. I have not confirmed this though, I always had it on anyway.


You can create a bootable USB from any machine capable of running a version of macOS that has access to the App Store.

If you use a MacBook Air running Yosemite, you can download the installer for High Sierra and use it to create the USB installer and then procede to use it on a MacBook Pro (and every other Mac that supports that version of macOS).

There's no specific installer for Mac hardware types.

(Personally, I keep a USB installer of every major version of macOS - Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, and High Sierra)


Printing to Windows Server shared printers from an iPad

Ignore the offical advice from Apple, they just want you to splash yet more of your cash on a licensed AirPrint printer. Here's the good news. Even on iOS5 (and iOS6), most printers can be AirPrint enabled via Windows without buying a new printer. Here are two ways to get what you want.

Free solution (requires tinkering)

If you don't mind doing a bit of configuration legwork, get JasonHD's fantastic AirPrint Installer from the MacRumors forum: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1293865

AirPrint Installer is fully iOS5 and iOS6 compatible. The first post in the thread contains a link to download the software; the rest of the thread has tips for troubleshooting if you can't get it to work.

Paid solution (just works)

On the other hand, if you're a technophobe and don't mind a small outlay... get FingerPrint:
http://www.collobos.com/

Costs $19.99 and has a free trial so you can confirm it works with your printer.

Either way, you should be AirPrinting without a new a printer in no time...


Can I run a program whenever I open the lid of my MacBook Air?

Use SleepWatcher. After downloading, read the ReadMe. It says how to install and use.


Where to find list of downloads in Safari 13.1 for macOS Mojave?

Open Safari Preferences window (by going to Safari Menu bar → Preferences... or using the keyboard shortcut Command + ,), go to the General tab and check if Remove download list items: is set to Upon successful download.

If yes, then the Download button is shown in the Safari toolbar (towards the right end of the Address and Search bar) as long as one or more download tasks are in progress. As soon as the last active download task completes, the Download button is automatically removed from the toolbar.

The Show Downloads command is also greyed out under the View menu if the Downloads button is not visible in the toolbar.

To view the button, you can change the Remove download list items: setting to a different desirable value.


What was the format for personal sites hosted with (deprecated) .Mac?

homepage.mac.com

The format was http://homepage.mac.com/sitehost/penrithfire and at least some of the pages are in the Wayback Machine.

This penrithfire example came from a signature in a discussion from 2003 about dot Mac.


Try plugging your device into your computer and downloading it from iTunes. If you get any error messages, please paste them here.


Can I use OS X Server 4 to remotely manage an OS X Server 3.2.1?

No you can't.

Server 3 won't run on Yosemite.
So management of remote Server 3 is not possible with Yosemite client.
Server 4 client on Yosemite alerts that it "will only connect to remote OS X Server running on OS X 10.10"
In other words: both Server client app and Server server need to be at Server 4 on OS X 10.10 if either end switches over to Yosemite.


Software update on iPod touch 4th generation

The last iOS release available for iPod touch 4th generation is iOS 6.1.6. If you have a Mac or PC handy, you can install iTunes and restore the iOS firmware using it.

To download iOS 6.1.6 firmware for your iPod touch 4th generation, visit IPSW.me, select your device and click download. Make sure the firmware you select is signed. (Alternatively, you can use this link to download directly).

The firmware is downloaded from Apple's server and safe to use. They are digitally signed and are verified by Apple while installing.


Why is News.app greyed out in the Finder?

Figured it out:  I live outside of the regions where Apple News is available, so the app would normally be hidden in the Finder.  However, I have "Show hidden files" enabled in the Finder, so the app is visible but greyed-out.
Per Wikipedia:

During the 2018 WWDC, Apple announced that the Apple News app would be ported to macOS and be available to users in Australia, United Kingdom, and United States starting in macOS 10.14.[9] The app is installed by default in every region but is not made visible to users outside those three regions.[9]


How add home LaCie NAS to Finder sidebar on work iMac?

You can use this: http://www.chaoticsoftware.com/ProductPages/NetworkBeacon.html to create a sidebar icon on your Mac that links up to some address and port elsewhere.  Keep in mind it will show up regardless of whether it connects successfully or not, so don't take the appearance of your device in the sidebar to mean it's actually available.

A quick sample configuration: I have a VPN I can use to tunnel back into my home network.  Once I'm connected I can start Network Beacon with the following settings, to get my server to show up in my sidebar and for me to get access to the files:

Where the service name is just how it shows up in the sidebar, the service type is "AFP over TCP" - there's a bunch of other services you can choose from, the port number is relatively obvious, and important if you're using port forwarding instead of something like VPN, and then the host proxy information is the hostname and IP address of the device you're connecting to.


How do you get Function keys to work on Mac Book Pro running Windows 7 under bootcamp?

bootcamp.exe should launch upon Login. Sometimes it doesn't or at least it doesn't stay running. You can log out and log back in or try the following, it worked for me:

Open Task Manager and see if bootcamp.exe is running. If not, open C:\Program Files\Boot Camp with Windows Explorer and launch bootcamp.exe.

Function keys will work again.


Change the keys for changing windows gone in Mavericks

On my installation of 10.9 the shortcut can still be changed from System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Keyboard > Move focus to next window:

I don't think it was ever possible to change command-tab to another shortcut though.


Custom shortcut for switching input sources in macOS High Sierra

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Input Sources:

Then double-click the shortcut listed to the right and enter your preference.

References:
macOS Sierra: Use global keyboard shortcuts (Published Date: Mar 28, 2017)
Mac keyboard shortcuts (Published Date: Jun 11, 2017)
OS X El Capitan: Use input sources to type in other languages (Published Date: Sep 15, 2017)
macOS Sierra: If a keyboard shortcut doesn’t work (Published Date: Mar 28, 2017)


What are the dangers of running Flash on Mac?

While it's a bit dated, the below linked document may help address your question. This letter titled Thoughts on Flash was written by Steve Jobs in April 2010. While it was written to address why iOS doesn't support Adobe Flash, few points are also relevant for reliability, security and performance on macOS. I have quoted them below:

  Symantec recently highlighted Flash for having one of the worst security records in 2009. We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now.

As stated by Apple, security and reliability concerns, and availability of open and standards compliant alternatives have propelled them to discourage use of Flash. Flash still continues to be available for macOS for those who need it.


How to configure MacOS firewall to block outgoing IP ranges?

It's not that complex with use of Pf firewall that's been ported from OpenBSD to MacOS quite a while ago. The whole ruleset could be as simple as:

#
# Block outgoing connections to IP ranges given in a table
#

# A persistent table to keep a list of IP networks for blocking
table <toBlockOut> persist { 0.1.2.3/32 }

# local TCP/IP is always allowed
pass quick on lo0

# Attempts to send packets to IP networks kept in the table
# should never work
block out quick to <toBlockOut> no state

After you've saved that minimal ruleset into say pf-block-out.conf file, you can apply it with sudo pfctl -ef pf-block-out.conf — from Terminal. Similarly you can add or remove entries to the table w/o need to re-load the ruleset:

$ sudo pfctl -t toBlockOut -T show
   0.1.2.3
$ sudo pfctl -t toBlockOut -T del 0.1.2.3
1/1 addresses deleted.


Apple doesn't back up music files as part of iOS backups since they either came from iTunes Match / iTunes in the Cloud or they came from a computer.

You should try a tool like PhoneView to see if the files are still on the storage and just the catalog has become missing or corrupt.
You could reconnect it to the computer that has the music.
You could reconnect it to the cloud music.
You could pursue data recovery on the device itself - that would likely be extremely expensive or you'd have to be very lucky and have the device jailbroken and no further usage of the storage since each time a new file gets written, it can and will over-write the music.

If the music was truly on the phone, then it would be best to get a quote from a data-recovery specialist and then see if you want to try DIY recovery and/or if it would be cheaper to get the music elsewhere.


Can't see Internet Radio in iTunes Libary despite it being checked in preferences

If you have enabled it, you should see it as shown on the screenshot.


Being connected to the internet is one step, next is
softwareupdate --all --install

Should that fail, I would test APNS notifications to see if your network may be blocking outbound and inbound traffic to Apple servers.

https://twocanoes.com/products/mac/push-diagnostics/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210060

The second link explains what network ranges and ports have to be free of interference. One typical situation is a network is performing one of MITM attack / HTTPS Interception / SSL Inspection of the traffic between your device and Apple, rendering the secure connections invalid.
This can also just result from Apple services are in an error condition or your network or OS has issues. I test that with a command line invocation if the software update tool.
You can then run the full installer to accomplish your update or see errors why it’s not progressing in many cases.


App for remembering different mouses' tracking speeds?

According to this article, Steermouse will allow you to save different profiles on the mouses (among other things).

Build Profiles
One of the best features of Steermouse is the ability
to have multiple profiles. This works well if you have multiple people
using a mouse that all prefer different settings, if you have more
than once mouse that you use on a regular basis, or if you would
prefer to use different mouse settings for different tasks, workflows,
games, etc.


It seems to work now after one more tweak; I posted the question because I hope it's of use to some other lost soul.

I tried erasing the SSD once more with Disk Utility. This time I did two things differently: 1) I used the default name 'Untitled' for the disk, and 2) I used the default 'Mac OS Extended' option for the file system instead of APFS when erasing the disk. This time the OS install proceeded successfully past the first reboot.

Thing #2 is probably what matters, but it's unclear why. It is also possible that some of the dinking around with bless had something to do with the success this time, but I doubt it.


How do I turn off News notifications on my Apple Watch?

Actually I was having the same problem and discovered why. In the News app itself there are some notification settings. Why it's so obscure and hard to find is unlike Apple, but it's there all the same.

Go to the News app and tap on the Favorites tab. At the very top you'll see three things: a bell gliph, a Favorites option (for sorting), and an Edit button. Tap on the bell gliph. It's for configuring the notifications.

From there it's pretty self explanatory. You can turn on or off all notifications right there. It doesn't explicitly say Apple Watch notifications, but they are somehow intrinsically connected. I disabled all of them and it stopped harassing me on my watch.

They really should make the notification options separate for iOS and the watch. Seems dumb how I have to go in to a place that makes no sense just to turn off stuff.

Incidentally you can also stop the annoying barrage of default news sources here on the Favorites screen. Just hit Edit and remove them.


Can't resize (FileVault) partition after Bootcamp removal

As @alan-shutko pointed out with a hyperlink, the only way to resize a encrypted partition is to disable encryption, (rebooting again,) then changing the size. It worked for me!

It's a lengthy process if you wait for it, but bearable if you let the decryption happen overnight.


When is a ethernet-to-thunderbolt cable necessary?

The main reason for Apple to develop the Ethernet-to-thunderbolt cable is because the Macbook Pro retina line is too thin to fit the ethernet Port, thunderbolt is thin enough to fit. If you have a MacBook Pro retina you have 2 choses:

Use Wifi
Buy the Ethernet-to-thunderbolt cable to use cabled internet on you Macbook Pro retina

The only reason: People who don't have wifi, don't want to use it, don't have a fast rooter,...

If you have a normal unibody macbook pro there is no reason to buy the cable. :)


Custom Application Keyboard shortcut for Safari not always working

This is a known “bug” which I don’t know if Apple will ever consider a bug.

The problem is that the list of browsers is generated “dynamically” each time you click on it (or at least the 1st time after Safari has been launched); the reasoning behind this is that different users will have a different set of browsers, so the list cannot be hardcoded. So given the above, the shortcut fails to work until the list has been “generated” by Safari. This occurs when you display the menu.

A possible solution would be to use Automator and create a service that opens the current safari page onto Chrome. But that’s beyond the scope of this answer.

TLDR version: There’s nothing you can do other than file a bug report at Apple if you want to stick with the same shortcut technique. Alternatives involve Automator.


Using Applescript in Automator app to run ffmpeg

This takes care of number 3, the double file extension issue.

I've modified the code below from your original code in the following ways:

Added the remove_extension(this_name) subroutine from the bottom of the Essential Sub-routines page.

Changed:

set outputFilePath to quoted form of (POSIX path of file_)

To:

set outputFilePath to quoted form of (my remove_extension(POSIX path of file_) & ".mp4")

Removed & ".mp4" from the end of the do script ... line.

I then tested it on an actual .mkv file and while the process started, nonetheless I did stop it shortly there after, as it was just a test to see the original filename.mkv was writing to filename.mp4, and it was.

on remove_extension(this_name)
    if this_name contains "." then
        set this_name to (the reverse of every character of this_name) as string
        set x to the offset of "." in this_name
        set this_name to (text (x + 1) thru -1 of this_name)
        set this_name to (the reverse of every character of this_name) as string
    end if
    return this_name
end remove_extension

on run {input, parameters}
    repeat with file_ in input
        tell application "System Events"
            set inputFilename to name of (get properties of file_)
        end tell
        set inputFilePath to quoted form of (POSIX path of file_)
        set outputFilePath to quoted form of (my remove_extension(POSIX path of file_) & ".mp4")
        tell application "Terminal"
            activate
            do script "/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/3.0.2/bin/ffmpeg -i " & inputFilePath & " -aspect 4:3 -vf yadif=0:-1:0,scale=720:486 -acodec libfdk_aac -cutoff 20000 -vcodec libx264 -preset medium -pix_fmt yuv420p " & outputFilePath
        end tell
    end repeat
    return input
end run

If you want to use the AppleScript's text item delimiters method, wrapped in a subroutine, then replace the existing on remove_extension(this_name) subroutine with the following one, while leaving the others changes I made to your code as I did.

on remove_extension(this_name)
    try
        set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"."}
        if number of text items of this_name > 1 then
            set this_name to (text items 1 thru -2 of this_name as text)
        end if
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
    on error
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims
    end try
    return this_name
end remove_extension

This is essentially doing the same as the original on remove_extension(this_name) subroutine I first used, it's just a different method using what was mentioned in user14492's answer, only presented in what I'd consider to be a more proper form.


You cannot do it. iPhone are deisnged in a way so that you can't control them externally. Emulation is impossible, iPhone is locked from being reverse engineered. You can still emulate Android apps (many of iOS games are available on Android too) and you would not even need an Android phone. The best program for doing so is BlueStacks: http://BlueStacks.com/


Transfer sensitive data from Ubuntu to iPhone

I’ve been extremely happy with Prompt 2 for ssh clients. It can generate keys and then I set up an isolated network interface and allow ssh in via password while both devices are isolated / secured.

You can then set up the keys as needed over ssh and then disable password if you wish on your ssh server or change back to a network where you disallow password to sign in.

On Apple to Apple you can use all sorts of other ways, too - AirDrop / iMessage / iCloud files or rely on ssh as above. Ubuntu does restrict your other methods. Also, typing out a 2048 length RSA key isn’t too horrible if you absolutely won’t compromise on user/password for temporary ssh setup to exchange keys.

https://library.panic.com/prompt/prompt-key-security/


How to overlay multiple graphs from Apple Health data

The feature you're describing doesn't exist in the Health app. However, it's possible there's some App Store app that reads such data from HealthKit and can display a combined chart.


How to clean up the files left by deleted VirtualBox VMs?

Open the VirtualBox dmg file and double click the uninstall icon. When you are done, eject the diskimage file.


tool to remember window positions when I plug in/unplug an external display

Slate allows giving windows different default positions depending on the connected displays. See the developer's configuration file for some examples.


The python bindings for Net-SNMP are not built by default (Net-SNMP docs) and are not part of the default install on OSX.

The can be installed from the Net-SNMP source code or via package managers such as macports.


Where can I find a list of changes to Terminal.app in Lion?

I don't use mouse events, but they appear to at least partially work in iTerm 2, which does not require Lion or MouseTerm.  I tested with "set mouse=a" in vim and was able to select using the mouse, etc.


Why am I being asked to sign in on itunes on my computer?

Perhaps to authenticate the content for use with the device? Perhaps provide some more detail on what exactly it is you're doing?


How do I log into another user's OS from my network OS using terminal?

Let's say that the user you are trying to become is 'newuser', we'll use the 'su' command (switch user) like so as follows...

Start the terminal and enter:

sudo su - newuser

When prompted enter YOUR password (not newuser's password)

When done you should be logged in to a terminal window as that user.


(For iOS 6)

Open Settings.app
Tap "Privacy"
Tap "Location Services"
Scroll down until you see the "Maps" app
Turn the switch "Off"

This will effectively disable the the blue dot. If you have Google Maps or Google Earth installed, you can also disable the location services for those apps as well. You will find each app that uses location services listed under the main on/off switch.


How can I distinguish a service form a process in Activity Monitor?

All Processes, Hierarchically

Activity Monitor can show the process hierarchy:

Activity Monitor.app > View (menu) > All Processes, Hierarchically

The grouping shows those processes launched by another process. Typically child-process will be services of the parent. On macOS many of these child processes will be XPC instances.

Services are Processes

On macOS, daemons are processes and services are processes. In your example, com.apple.audio.SandboxHelper, this is an XPC service.


Sticky note widgets each have their cursor blinking as if active all together

I have this problem, too. It's SO annoying. I'm on a Macbook Pro (Early 2008) with OS X Mavericks and my dashboard has about 9 sticky notes that appear to be active with the blinking cursor, but it's not just limited to them. Other widgets such as the Dictionary and translator, and others I have downloaded that have the ability to write something, also blink. At least with those I can click on a section of the widget to stop the blinking cursor, but not with the sticky notes.


Did I accidently sync my iPhone with a work computer? What have I shared?

Approving a "Trust this computer" request enables basic communication between the phone and a computer, it doesn't transfer data per se. Basically it ensures that others can't just take your phone, connect it to their computer and transfer all your data without you knowing.
With Windows you will probably see your phone somewhere in Explorer afterwards, mainly the photos should be accessible. But you still would need to copy them to your Computer,


Which graphics applications work with Intuos3? MacBook Pro laptop, Running Mac 10.14.6

Wacom doesn't work as 'plug & play', you will need compatible drivers - see https://www.wacom.com/en-us/support/product-support/drivers