Generally speaking photos are moved into the Photos Library.photoslibrary file located in your Pictures folder in your Home folder. This is a package file that contains the picture, thumbnails, metadata and changes you have made to picture imported into the Photos.app.

Right or control click on the photos library file and select "Show package contents" to have a look.

Though I don't use this feature I believe it may be possible to import a picture into Photos.app and leave it where it was. That is likely where that menu function comes into play, I believe.


What kind of performance can I expect from Mid 2015 Macbook pro connected to two external 4k displays -- I mostly do development?

EveryMac.com reports that:

This model can support a single external display up to 5120x2160 at 60
Hz via Thunderbolt 2. Via HDMI video output, it can support 1080p up
to 60 Hz, 3840x2160 at 30 Hz, and 4096x2160 at 24 Hz.

So you could have one 4K via Thunderbolt and one 4K via HDMI.
Two 4K displays are at least within spec, but whether it can 'handle' them, in terms of heat generation/dissipation and performance load, while performing other tasks, remains to be seen. (Discrete GPUs on MacBook Pros have a chequered history in terms of reliability.)


Quick Look support for non-native video files (.avi, .mkv) on Mavericks

I've uploaded QuickLook and Spotlight plugins here: https://github.com/Marginal/QLVideo/wiki . These allow Finder to display thumbnails, static previews, cover art and metadata for most types of video files, including .asf, .avi, .flv, .mkv, .rm, .webm, .wmf etc.


To get a file symlinked from your Documents folder to your OneDrive folder (or any folder for that matter) you need to format the command completely and properly
Creating a symlink:
ln -s SOURCE TARGET

More specifically, it must take on the form
ln -s /path/to/source /path/to/target

Let's say we are trying to create a link from a folder called "Personal" that's located on OneDrive and you want it to show up under Documents.
ln -s /Users/USERNAME/OneDrive/Personal /Users/USERNAME/Documents/Personal

Now, in your "Documents" folder, you will see a folder called "Personal."
Spaces in the path and/or filename
There are two ways to address spaces within the path or filename.  Using the example from above, if the folder was called Personal Stuff we could handle it one of two ways:

Use backslashes () to escape the space:
ln -s /Users/USERNAME/OneDrive/Personal\ Stuff /Users/USERNAME/Documents/Personal\ Stuff

Use quotes (") to encapsulate the whole string:
ln -s "/Users/USERNAME/OneDrive/Personal Stuff" "Users/USERNAME/OneDrive/Personal Stuff"

Using the tilde (~) for your home directory
The tilde (~) is just a shortcut to your home directory.  So, instead of typing out /Users/USERNAME/foo/bar/filename.ext you can simply shorten it to ~/foo/bar/filename.ext
You can use it when creating your symlinks with no problem:
ln -s "/Users/USERNAME/OneDrive/Personal Stuff" "~/OneDrive/Personal Stuff"
Keep in mind that the tilde (~) changes for each user.  This is why I have gotten in the habbit of just typing out the whole path; just to be sure I'm putting the link exactly where I want it.
Symlinking per your example
ln -s ~/OneDrive\ -\ Documents/X\ Documents ~/Downlaods/X\ Documents

This will create a link called  "X Documents" in the Downloads Folder of the  "X Documents" folder found on OneDrive.
You can find further details about the the ln command by typing man ln.


Fixed GPU-deactivation but Wi-Fi is not working and textmode remains

Partial answer addressing the "textmode" (verbose boot) problem:

What you called "textmode" in an earlier version of your question is really the verbose boot mode. There is nothing special or malicious or negative about it. Within the tutorial it is just employed to make it easier to get to know immediately the point of failure during boot should anything go wrong with the tutorial.

If you followed the tutorial it is to expected to be there. If everything works and if you do not like the aesthetics of it:

type in Terminal:

  nvram -p

that should output something like:

 boot-args  -v

To get rid of this "textmode", you need tot type

sudo nvram boot-args=" "

Confirm its deletion with another nvram -p and see thge parameter -v for the boot-args gone. Next boot should then be graphical again.


Getting the longitude and latitude from Google Maps

Yes, you can get your coordinates via Maps app. To do that:

Tap on your current location or drop a pin to a location of your
choosing and then tap.
Tap on the arrow within the blue circle
Tap on share location, choose email
Send it to yourself.
On the email, there should be a link and a vcard. Both of them include coordinate information. However to get the actual coordinates you'll need to copy the link in the email and paste it into, e.g. Notes, to then select just the coordinates.

And you can input the coordinates into the Sygic app.


Hammerspoon get working directory from finder

Here's some AppleScript for you:

tell application "Finder" to get POSIX path of (insertion location as string)

If you don't want to get the Desktop if a Finder window isn't active, use this instead:

tell application "Finder" to get POSIX path of (target of front window as string)

This will get the location of the frontmost Finder window, even if none is selected. If there are none open, it will fail.

I don't know how Hammerspoon works, but if it can run Terminal commands, you can use osascript to run the AppleScript.

Also, you don't need to use Hammerspoon to do this. There's already a Service for this, or you can use Automator to make your own:

Create a new Service.
Make it take No Input in Finder.app.
Add a Run AppleScript action, and put this in the box:

on run {input, parameters}

    tell application "Finder" to set p to POSIX path of (insertion location as string)
    tell application "Terminal" to do script "cd " & quoted form of p

    return input
end run

Save it appropriately, like "New Terminal Here".
Add a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences, if desired.
Enjoy!


How to let htop display all columns correctly when using the Homebrew Terminal profile?

Go to the menu Terminal -> Preferences... -> Profiles -> Text

and select Use bright color for bold text

Now you can see everything.


Mouse click event being fired on right mouse-down AND right mouse-up

It's timing-dependant.

If you click & hold, then mouse-up will activate the currently-selected menu choice, or move outside the menu & release to dismiss.

If you click & immediately let go, it will then stay open waiting for a new click, either on your menu choice, or outside the menu to dismiss.


Why is my codesigned app still quarantined by macOS?

The com.apple.quarantine is an OS X feature, this happens every time you download from the internet :
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/releasenotes/Carbon/RN-LaunchServices/index.html


Applescript for specific System Preferences pane

Here's a script I just wrote that'll do it. This will get you to the shortcuts tab of the Keyboard preference pane, and select a row from the left and right columns:
tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    reveal anchor "shortcutsTab" of pane id "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "System Preferences"
        repeat until (window 1 exists)
        end repeat
        tell window 1
            #modify these to specify a row in the left column, or the right column, respectively

            repeat until (row 3 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of tab group 1 exists)
            end repeat

            select row 3 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of tab group 1

            repeat until (row 1 of outline 1 of scroll area 2 of splitter group 1 of tab group 1 exists)
            end repeat

            select row 1 of outline 1 of scroll area 2 of splitter group 1 of tab group 1
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Here's the version you can use which identifies the rows by name. Sort of hacky, but it should work well.
tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    reveal anchor "shortcutsTab" of pane id "com.apple.preference.keyboard"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "System Preferences"
        repeat until (window 1 exists)
        end repeat
        tell window 1
            #modify these to specify a row in the left column, or the right column, respectively

            repeat until (rows of table 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of tab group 1 exists)
            end repeat

            select (first row of table 1 of scroll area 1 of splitter group 1 of tab group 1 whose value of static text 1 is equal to "Services")

            repeat until (rows of outline 1 of scroll area 2 of splitter group 1 of tab group 1 exists)
            end repeat

            select (first row of outline 1 of scroll area 2 of splitter group 1 of tab group 1 whose name of UI element 2 is equal to "Open URL")
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


Macfusion: Can't mount SSHFS directory, "Authentication has failed."

Mostly two things happen when key authentication is not working:

Your public key is not in the destination user's authorized_keys file
OpenSSH server is very picky when it comes to permissions:

The destination user's .ssh directory must belong to the destination user and needs 700 permissions. (drwx------)
The destination user's authorized_keys file within the .ssh directory  needs 600 permissions. (rw-------)

Additionally, take a look at the destination SSH server configuration:

...
#StrictModes yes
...
#RSAAuthentication yes
#PubkeyAuthentication yes
...
AuthorizedKeysFile      .ssh/authorized_keys
...
#PasswordAuthentication no
#PermitEmptyPasswords no
...

With these options set, it works on my side...


How do I fix a syntax error in .bash_profile

Edit the file with a GUI program e.g. TextEdit

Open TextEdit and select the home directory. .bash_profile is hidden so instead of a simple selection then you might have to hit CmdShift. to show .bash_profile When saving delete the .txt ending TextEdit adds or alter TextEdits's preferences.


Is there a way to force mail to ask from which account the email needs to be sent?

I would add this as a comment instead of an answer if I had enough reputation.

An untested dirty solution might be to add another mail account with incorrect login info (so you can't actually send mail from it), and set this account to be the default account for sending new messages (see NEO's comment).

This way, if you forget to change the sending account, it will fail to send (it'll get stuck in your Outbox, I believe; obviously not the ideal solution if you don't think you would notice this!)


Restoring to a 10.6.8 from Time Machine that backed up a 10.8 system

Options:

Upgrade to Mavericks: it's free, and you can upgrade directly from 10.6.8 to 10.9. Then use Migration Assistant to restore the Time Machine backup. This is fully supported.
Upgrade to Mountain Lion; if you don't already own it, get it here. Then use Migration Assistant to restore the Time Machine backup. This is fully supported.
With some difficultly, you might be able to migrate your data manually. If you try this, you should probably clone your Time Machine backup volume first (just to be safe).

Edit:

When I wrote this response, I assumed the old "Macbook 2008" supported OS X 10.8 and 10.9. Then I checked everymac.com:

MacBook (2008 white or black): Maximum OS X: 10.7.5

OP did not specify which model the old 2008 MacBook is. If it's a unibody MacBook, or a MacBook Pro, or an "NVIDIA" MacBook Air, then the best option is to update to Mavericks (option 1), or if you really don't want Mavericks, then upgrade to Mountain Lion instead (option 2).

If it's a black or white MacBook, or an "original" MacBook Air, then it won't support Mavericks or Mountain Lion at all.


Cannot reinstall OS X. Will Apple Store do it on the spot?

On startup hold Command+Option+R. You can now use Internet Recovery to install OS X. Don't download from shady sites. You are compromising your security this way.


Here's a demonstration script which uses stat to print the device identifier of the running script. The device identifier can then be used to get the partition name with a utility such as diskutil.

#! /bin/bash
#
#  whscript: Print the Device Identifier
#            of the running script
#

#  This will return the name of the script

echo "$0"

#  Use stat to produce the Device Identifier

stat -f '%Sd' -- "$0"

#  Have diskutil print information
#  about the Device Identifier. Parse as
#  needed

diskutil info "$(stat -f '%Sd' -- "$0")"


Why are (Pages for Mac) templates, in the Library folder different than what's available in Pages?

The pre-installed templates are stored within the application bundle. You find them by right-clicking the Pages application in the Applications folder and choosing 'Show Package Contents…', then navigating into the subfolder Contents—>Resources—>Templates.

The 'MyTemplates' folder is meant as a standard folder for templates you create yourself.

(based on Pages 4.3)


Recovering photos deleted from iOS devices

If you didn't delete your photos from "Recently Deleted" album and it hasn't been 30 days since you deleted them, you can check that album in the Photos app. They should be there. Otherwise, they are gone for good if you don't have any copies or backups of them.


Cannot access administrative share (c$) on a Windows 8 PC from Mountain Lion

Administrative shares have been disabled in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows for security reasons.

According to Microsoft Support Knowledge Base article 947232, you can do one of the following:

Create your own shares with the appropriate permissions (recommended);
Run the Microsoft Fix It to perform an automatic workaround; or
Add to the Registry subkey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System a DWORD (32-bit) Value LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy entry with the value data of 1.


Most components of macOS since Sierra use Unified Logging. This means there's not a separate file for writing logs, but rather logs are kept for as long as needed in memory and only important logs (e.g. errors) are written to disk in the unified system.log (which is also rotated frequently).

If you want to see messages as they go through the logs, you can use Console.app and filter by keywords you're interested in, but most of the log messages you see are unlikely to be persistently stored anywhere.

Metadata about Gatekeeper (e.g. files checked) and XProtect (e.g. when the definitions were last updated) are kept, not in logs, but in the relevant preferences and bundles the app uses to get data from. It doesn't appear that this meets your full requirement of keeping logs of actions.


Why does my iPhone not have any audio during phone calls?

Go into settings on your iPhone then General -> Accessibility, scroll down Call Audio Routing and finally tick Automatic. This should solve your problem.


Can I invert my Mac screen colors without affecting an ext display?

In Display Settings inside System Preferences different color schemes or filters can be applied to each display. Try applying a regular filter to the external display and invert colors filter on the main display. If you have any other questions feel free to ask!


Apple App Store (install and get) loop, how to fix it?

I figured out that the problem came from fingerprint (Touch ID), as when I turned their options off, it worked like charm.

Just turn off those settings under "Touch ID & Passcode" section:
1. iPhone Unlock.
2. iTunes & App Store.


Does the motion co-processor chip register if your iPhone hits the floor when lost?

Apple does not expose this data to users, so the answer is a general no.

Whether the data was captured doesn’t matter as much as observability does - similar to the “if a tree falls in a forest” thought experiment.


iOS Simple Counter App with multiple counters and data export?

Have a look at Cosy Counter, my new free App for the iPhone. You can manage unlimited different Counters. I intend to update it regularly to add features.


Why is my .ssh/config file not readable?

Looks like your config file got copied by somebody else. Log in as an admin user if you ain't one already and run

sudo chown firestarter /Users/firestarter/.ssh /Users/firestarter/.ssh/*
sudo chmod 700 /Users/firestarter/.ssh


How to upgrade multiple Macs to OS X 10.10.4?

For every OS X 'delta' release  - 10.10.1/2/3/ ...10.10.4 etc - which App Store will download to each Mac there is a simultaneous 'combo' update release which rolls up all the previous deltas into one single downloadable update.
It was for many years considered the 'pro' way to do the update, as it can also correct potential update issues that the delta can't.

You can always find updates related to OS X here.

As the combo update doesn't use the App Store "download, install, delete" structure, you can pass it from machine to machine at your leisure.

Maybe not as slick as using the server - but it's free ;-)

From comments -
The combo update can also be applied to machines which are already running the current version of the OS, unlike the App Store's delta "update" mechanism. This can sometimes correct issues that may linger after doing a series of incremental [delta] updates.
The combo updater is invariably larger than the incremental updates; but it is worth it, just for the peace of mind.


How can I transfer pictures from a Macbook Pro to an iPad I don't own?

Not perfect for so many images, but the simplest known solution would be the cross copy tool. I created this Open Source project to target the ongoing hassle of inter-device file transfer:

Download and install the App called cross copy (or open http://www.cross-copy.net if you prefer the web app)
Enter the same code word on both devices (the more unique the merrier security)
start uploading files --- they will instantly appear on the other side

To be honest, the App should (and could) be extended to make multi file upload possible -- otherwise transfering a whole collection of images is much to cumbersome.


Transfer files between bootcamp partitions

You have a few choices:

NTFS in Mac OS X:

Paragon NTFS (US$19.95)
Tuxera NTFS for Mac (€25)
NTFS-3G (free)

HFS+ in Windows:

MacDrive (US$49.99)
Paragon HFS for Windows (US$19.95)

There is a bundle promotion for Paragon NTFS and Paragon HFS for Windows, available here.


Sharing > Remote Management and network security

You shouldn't be, no.

But that may depend on whether you are then also internet connected on your Winbox at the time you're VNCing into the Mac, especially if you're using IE, even more so if you're using IE with .net framework applications, or even more exposed, Active X as well.

You could potentially end up exposing the Mac to attack via the VNC connection if your Win box were compromised.


OS X Maps app, seek with longitude and lattude possible?

It works for me with the following syntax:

51.10N,17.02E


Visibility Issues with Mail and iCal in OS X Lion

It seems like the contrast on your display is too low for you. If you can adjust the contrast on your monitor, try increasing it. If you cannot change the contrast (such as the internal laptop displays), fuss around in the color calibration utility (go to System Preferences > Displays > choose the window on the monitor you want to change > Color tab > Calibrate… and follow the instructions). Make sure Mail and iCal are visible behind the calibration window so you can see if your changes are sufficient. I'd suggest using Expert Mode and paying especial attention to the vertical sliders on the left.

To answer your final question regarding resolution, upgrading to a higher-res machine would not help. Apple's machines are usually fairly standardly calibrated from the factory, so a higher resolution would simply make the pixels smaller, not easier to distinguish, and might even make things worse.


Apple moved to SMB2 in Mavericks.  There have been many reported issues regarding Macs using SMB2 to access Windows shares.  There's even a site dedicated to this specific set of issues!

For a dated, but good explanation of work-arounds see this ZDNet article.

TL;DR

Have your users try cifs:// instead of smb:// (assuming your Windows share supports CIFS)...and hope that 10.9.4 comes with an SMB2 fix. :)


Rules for Spotlight search (on osx 10.8)

I rans a few tests in 10.8.2. My empirical results show that spotlight returns results for partial matches when the start of the name matches, but not any part of the name. I have not found a way to change this.

I have another challenge with multiple word searches. My empirical experience is that a filename search containing multiple words (separated by spaces) yields results only if the search words are contiguous in the filename. For example:

Given some files with these names:
xxx rules and roles yyy.zzz
aaa roles and rules bbb.ccc

a search for {roles} or {rules} will find both files
(note: the braces are included here for clarity; they are not part of the search string)
a search for {rules and roles} will find the first file only;
a search for {roles and rules} will find the second file only;
a search for {roles rules} or {rules roles} will find nothing;

I find this last behaviour frustrating, as I don't want to have to remember the word order in my filenames. And one-word searches get too many hits.

Anyone with answers for this?


Remove notifications for one specific email account on Mountain Lion's Mac Mail

Actually, it is possible - here's how:

Create a smart mailbox ( Menubar > Mailbox > New Smart Mailbox ) which shows the content of all the mailboxes that you would like to get notifications for, and give it a nice name (for example, 'Notifications'). In my case the only rule in this mailbox is a 'Message is in Mailbox' - but you can be creative!

Go to the General section in Mail preferences ( Menubar > Mail > Preferences ) or press ⌘ + ,. About half way down you'll see the setting 'New message notifications' - open the drop-down and select the smart mailbox created under step #1.


You can use Activity Monitor that comes with MacOS in Applications>Utilities

Choose Window>GPU History

or press ⌘4


Can I create 2 "displays" on a headless server?

No, only one screen can be viewed at a time over Screen Sharing. However, if you have configured two screens, you can view each screen, one at a time, by selecting "Displays" from the "View" menu item in the screen sharing app on your User Mac.  This way you can switch which screen to view.


Why do applications I install only sometimes appear in the Applications directory?

Its the path of the installer. Most will automatically download in Applications.Notice how at the end of most installers, the finder window pops up with only its contents, and a symlink to your Applications folder for you to drag & drop into it. If an application does not follow that installation structure, its because the developer didn't invest the time to do so.


Where can I find the official documentation of macOS Kernel Debugging?

Yes, Apple does the same...

You can read the documentation here:

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/build/build.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000905-CH221-CIHBJCGC


Can Pages 5 (a.k.a. Pages '13) import Pages '08 documents?

According to Ars Technica's iWork '13 review, Pages '13 can't open '08 documents.

  The iWork '13 apps on the Mac can open iWork '09 files but not iWork '08 files.

If you still have a copy of Pages '09 you could save the documents in '09 format and then use '13 to save them in '13 format.


Your Google Calendars won't sync with iCloud. The two are entirely unrelated services. However, you can do a couple of things as a pseudo work-around.

In one sense, if you have your Google Calendars on the iPad, they'll automatically sync with Google calendar and any other device that's configured to read the calendar.

Another option is to use something like BusyCal to combine the Google and iCloud calendars. I wouldn't recommend this, as it's a much better idea to keep the data from the two services seperately.

Your main decision is to which will be your main calendar. It's solely a personal preference, as both calendars will largely give you the same functionality. If you prefer editing your calendars on the web, maybe stick with Google calendar. If you want to be able to share calendars with other iCloud users, move to iCloud calendars.


The following seems to be the solution. I haven't tried it myself though.

Copied from here:

Go into Disk Utility and click on your main hard-drive that say either 256 GB, 517 GB, or 728GB.
Up the top, Click Partition.
Then down the bottom of Disk Utility, Click the + sign.
Now, select the new startup disk by clicking on it and then name it "Macintosh HD (Lion Installed)" or you can name it what ever you want.
Now size the new startup disk to the size you wanted your other startup disk with Lion installed on it to be and click apply.
After the process is done, Restart your mac and while it is starting up, hold down options.
You will see a grey screen for a second, but don't worry, it is normal.
Now, all your startup disks that you have will appear on the screen. Click Recovery HD.
You will see a grey screen for a second, but don't worry, it is normal.
Now, you will see the option to go into disk utility. Click on it and then click to continue.
When disk utility opens, click on your new startup disk on the left side of disk utility, now click on restore, now you will see 2 rectangular boxes that say source and destination.
Drag your startup disk that has Lion installed into the source box, then drag the new startup disk that you made 3 minutes ago into the destination box and click restore.
Once the progress is done, you can delete the old startup disk that had Lion install on it by going into your main startup disk that says 256 GB, 517 GB, or 728 GB and then clicking on Partition and then selecting that particular startup disk and then hitting delete on your keyboard.
(Last Step) Now, you are ready to restart you mac by clicking on the apple sign in the top left corner of the screen and clicking startup disk, now you will get the option of choosing which startup disk to startup your computer with. You just choose "Macintosh HD (Lion Installed)" or whatever your new startup disk is called and then click Restart.

Your Computer will now restart. Now all of your files that were on your old startup disk with Lion installed will be on on this brand new fresh startup disk on your beautiful Mac.


"New Screenshot" button is disabled in XCode Organizer

Select the iDevice
Click "Use for development"
Enter your Apple ID and password

Now you should be able to take screenshots.


What sets the language of iCal invitations?

Go to appleid.apple.com and set the preferred language for your account.

iCloud calendar invitations will use that language.


Why do colors appear washed out on macOS Chrome and Safari versus Firefox?

To Get Firefox looking like Chrome and Safari
By default, Firefox only applies color correction to images that have embedded color profiles. You can enable full color management to apply color correction to everything, including colors defined in CSS. Then it should look more like Chrome and Safari.
In about:config (type that in to the address bar), set gfx.color_management.mode to 1.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/3.5/ICC_color_correction_in_Firefox
Color Correction, Over Simplified
Monitors have different response curves. For example, the difference between #FF0000 and #FA0000 may be noticeable on some monitors, and not on others.
Color profiles contain the skews to compensate for this by altering the actual output, in an attempt to preserve contrast and overall accuracy of the intended appearance. They can be applied to monitors, printers, and other devices.
Many image formats support embedded color profiles; think of it boiling down to descriptors on how it’s supposed to look. If the system knows the inaccuracies of your monitor, it can combine that profile with the image’s profile to skew the output for the best possible reproduction.
When it comes to things without profiles, such as color values in CSS, some assumptions about intent must be made.
Let’s say your monitor does indeed produce a discernible difference between the two similar colors mentioned before. You use those colors in your CSS. The assumption is that your intent was to show the subtle difference. Some monitors out there may end up displaying the same color on the screen, despite the two colors being sent to them. Color correction alters the colors sent to the screen so a subtle difference actually is reproduced. If you wanted them to appear the same, you’d have just used #FF0000 and never bothered with #FA0000, right?
Digital Color Meter is aware of color profiles in use. This is why it gives different values over the same image across two different displays, and different values depending on what color space you’ve selected.


iPhone: After creating the photostream select the arrow to the right of it (or the people tab if you are running iOS 7) and you will see the link under public website - if you select share link, you can copy it, send in email, tweet, post to fb or send in text/imessage.

All these of course if public is set to on.


Why can I browse with Firefox but not with Safari or Chrome?

I can't be 100% sure which of these resolved the issue but i took these steps and everything is now working (touch wood):

Terminal

sudo mv ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain.bak
sudo mv /Library/Keychains/System.keychain /Library/Keychains/System.keychain.bak

Reboot
I'd now lost network connectivity and wifi wouldn't connect- i think this is because the wireless key is stored in the keychain which i'd "deleted". I managed to resolve this by going to network preferences, wifi, assist-me and stepping through the wizard.
Lastly i ran software update and upgraded to 10.7.3

Voila


How I can make sure my code is keep running?

A simple way would be install a GUI app. A good one is KeepingYouAwake. This app is a GUI front-end to caffeinate command. It's very simple to install and configure, and keeps your computer from sleeping.

You can install it via Homebrew by running:

brew cask install keepingyouawake

If you don't have Homebrew installed, you can follow the instructions to install it on it's homepage:

https://brew.sh


Integrate Lightning (Tunderbird AddOn) into Yosemite's Notification Center

This has probably crossed your mind already, but you could sync all your Lightning calendars with the native Calendar app too (and just keep them unchecked in Calendar if you don't want those events shown in that app). That should take care of notifications, although you wouldn't be able to interact with them without launching Calendar.


How to clean an iPhone to guard against Coronavirus?

I use non-alcohol wipes made by Seventh Generation to clean my family's iDevices, computer keyboards, laptop and desktop screens, kitchen counters, etc. It uses thymol, an extract of thyme for its germ-fighting goodness. The label indicates it kills Influenza A virus, H1N1, Rhinovirus type 37, MRSA, Staph. aureus, Salmonella enterica and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.


If the files you have issues with are self-created simple files like the text file you depicted, you can run a Terminal command on those files to clear out specific or all extended attributes.  This will effectively remove ANY tag you attached previously.  Once done, you can re-attach tags in the fashion you already know.

Keep in mind that some applications may use extended attributes to complement the data inside a file.  So, deleting all attributes is not always the best idea.  For simple (text/image) files, it should be ok however.

Here are the commands to clear the responsible extended attributes:

xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo /drag/your/file/from/Finder/here
xattr -d com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags /drag/your/file/from/Finder/here

Here is the command for clearing ALL extended attributes on a given file:

xattr -c /drag/your/file/from/Finder/here

To know what extended attributes are attached to a file, you can run the following command in Terminal to list them:

ls -ld@ /drag/your/file/from/Finder/here

Output from that last command will look something like this:

drwxr-xr-x@ 2 youruser  staff  68 Apr 19 14:28 /your/file/from/Finder/here
    com.apple.FinderInfo    32
    com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags 52


How can I force focus or fix a blurry and 'washed out' Apple Thunderbolt Display camera?

Just fixed mine, my camera is inside the TB Display, I took the camera out and since it is fixed focus I turned the objective lens  1 quart and connected again. It was fixed!

Instructions to tear down the monitor are at  Ifixit
https://es.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Thunderbolt+Display+Teardown/6525


Missing space on Fusion Drive (partition problem)

Starting with OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) you'd have to enter a distinctive (> 0) size to execute the resizeStack command. The magical ... 0g doesn't work anymore.

But in your case the resizeStack option is the wrong one because your Logical Volume Group already occupies almost all available space on the Fusion Drive:

Total disk space: 1240 GB
LVG size:             1239 GB
PV1 + PV2 size:   1239 GB
LV size:                  616 GB

The resizeStack option is appropriate if you want to resize the LVG and all subsequent Core Storage items (like the LV, PV and LVF).

Here you just have to expand your Logical Volume to completely fill the LVG with the following command:

diskutil cs resizeVolume lvUUID size

In your case that is:

diskutil cs resizeVolume 7EE2FE6D-3D37-46AA-B948-52243490F324 1239g

If you get an error (not enough space...) choose a slightly smaller size like 1238g.

After further investigations one have to state that the Fusion Drive is corrupted:

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode, destroy the LVG, rebuild the Fusion Drive and restore your Time Machine backup: here is a how-to. Start with 'Rebuild Fusion Drive' (recommended if you have a Time Machine backup).


How can I find the passphrase in the keychain after adding it with ssh-add -K

AFAIK the security command line tool does not work with icloud keychain but with an independent keychain. I can find my ssh key using keychain access (the desktop app) and searching for the filename or the file path.


"Power button HID event - flushing proactively" -- what does this mean?

A little Google searching led me to the fora at MacRumors with this tantalizing comment and log file excerpt:

  Ok, what’s in this log is not the kernel panic on boot but apparently
  the last thing the computer was doing when my mother started having
  problems (Safari seemed to freeze up) and she killed everything by
  long pressing the power button.

  Nov 15 15:06:52 macintosh logd[75]: Power button HID event - flushing proactively


MacBook Pro (6,2 - Mid 2010) Crashes During Graphics Acceleration

It sounds like a problem happening when the computer switches to the high-performance (discrete) chip–something in that transition is failing. Open Console from the Utilities folder, and find kernel.log.  See if there are any interesting lines at the time the crash happens.  Probably a few lines with "NVDA" in them.

If you open System Preferences and then Energy Saver, you can adjust the graphics mode - try setting it to high-performance (discrete) all the time.  Either the system will freeze right then, or you can attempt the same tests.  If you still see trouble, it's time to talk to Apple.


I do this by using AirPort utility to turn off WiFi on the second Time Capsule. Configure it for:

turn off the network which places it in bridge mode
allow setup over WAN if you want to plug the WAN port of the second AirPort into one LAN port of the Time Capsule that runs as a router.

Leave all other settings default (so wipe restore the settings) and then give it a name and make the changes above.

So ethernet goes from the cable modem to the first TC WAN port. Then ethernet goes from the LAN port of first TC to the WAN or LAN port on the second TC.


how long does it take to synch across devices

I am seeing the iCloud Photo Library syncing getting faster in iOS 11, even with my backup phone iPhone 5s.

Prior to iOS 11, it takes as soon as several hours, and up to days for the new photos to show up on all my devices. And at that time, it needs WiFi connection for the sync to happen. **The feature is designed the way that plugging into power and connected to WiFi triggers syncing. **

But in iOS 11, the photos even sync on cellular (but limited, eg. videos excluded). And the photos show up on all my other devices almost instantaneously - within minutes. (And my home and office WiFi is upgraded at all)

To conclude, to make the syncing faster:

Update to iOS 11 (it really helps with the photo syncing process)
Plug the device to power
Connect to good WiFi
Suspend other network heavy applications such as App Store Updates.


Why do browsers not render pictures in native pixel density on retina display?

This is intentional. Most websites aren't designed for retina displays and only have 1x assets. If these 1x assets were drawn at native resolution on a retina display, they would appear at one quarter the size (half the height, half the width). That would obviously be impractical: it would be like browsing the web with your browser's zoom level set to 25%.

To get around this, the browser simply draws everything at 2x (retina) by default and then upscales any 1x assets to match. This way, websites appear at the same physical size on a retina display as they do on a non-retina display.


I assume you bought it in the USA.  I have the same phone, it works in the US with AT&T, Australia (Telstra), Europe (LeBara-France) and India (Orange), picking up 3G with no issues.

Yes, your unlocked phone will work in India.


Go to Settings > Messages. Check that the type of message that you're trying to send is turned on (iMessage, SMS, MMS, or Group messaging).


Are these Canon websites safe to download printer software?

You can check the signature/authenticity of a downloaded package installer (*.pkg) quickly yourself - independent of the shabby look of a website:

Open Terminal and enter pkgutil --check-signature. Then open the downloaded dmg image and drop the pkg onto the Terminal window and hit the enter key:

pkgutil --check-signature  /Volumes/PrinterDriver_MG8100\ series/PrinterDriver_MG8100\ series_161000.pkg
Package "PrinterDriver_MG8100 series_161000.pkg":
   Status: signed by a certificate trusted by Mac OS X
   Certificate Chain:
    1. Developer ID Installer: Canon Inc.
       SHA1 fingerprint: 5B B8 FC D3 38 4C CA 03 CD B6 14 EE 1B 01 34 A7 75 A2 82 58
       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    2. Developer ID Certification Authority
       SHA1 fingerprint: 3B 16 6C 3B 7D C4 B7 51 C9 FE 2A FA B9 13 56 41 E3 88 E1 86
       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    3. Apple Root CA
       SHA1 fingerprint: 61 1E 5B 66 2C 59 3A 08 FF 58 D1 4A E2 24 52 D1 98 DF 6C 60

You get a more OS X GUI like approach by simply clicking the lock in the upper left after opening the pkg with Installer.app:

Valid SHA1 fingerprints for Apple updates are

SHA1 FA 02 79 0F CE 9D 93 00 89 C8 C2 51 0B BC 50 B4 85 8E 6F BF
SHA1 9C 86 47 71 48 B3 D7 04 24 7A 3C 3F 56 EA 2D E5 94 4B 01 C2

for third party software signed by an Apple Certification Authority and some Apple updates also:

SHA1 3B 16 6C 3B 7D C4 B7 51 C9 FE 2A FA B9 13 56 41 E3 88 E1 86


Are there QuickLook plugins that show more details about Applications? (.app)

Simple answer, no.

More complex answer is still no, but that doesn't mean it can't be done (Late Night Software's Script Debugger overrides the default QuickLook viewer for applications (com.apple.application) but you as the user don't see any difference).

There are a few sites around such as Quick Look Plugins and QLPlugins that offer plugins (.qlgenerator files), however there are none that enable more information on .app files to be shown.

The qlgenerator that does the job is StandardBundles.qlgenerator and is found in the /System/Library/QuickLook/ folder which is OSX's base folder for all QuickLook plugins that are OSX base types such as applications, Text files or Emails.

It provides the QuickLook functionality for the following base file "types".

com.apple.application (base type for ALL OSX application)
com.apple.systempreference.prefpane (Preference Pane files naturally)

Any replacement plugin would have to provide all the functionality of the existing plugin, in this case the Preference Pane quick look functionality.

Plugins live in 4 different places, and the order in which plugins are preferred is as follows:

Inside an application bundle - an application specific QuickLook plugin usually used to provide QuickLook functionality for bespoke file types
~/Library/QuickLook - your user plugins (does't exist until created by the user)
/Library/QuickLook - your mac's system wide application plugins
/System/Library/QuickLook - your mac's system wide Apple base type plugins

Overriding the system default behaviour for .app can therefore be done with the following caveats:

If another application also provides QuickLook functionality for the
type (com.apple.application) and it appears higher in the
hierarchy (1 highest, 4 lowest) then it will be used instead.
Apple do state in the QuickLook developer documentation that
for each of the above levels of hierarchy, if more
than one plugin is found for a specific type (e.g.
com.apple.application) then only the first one is used and you have no control over which one under normal circumstances except by forcing QuickLook to use a specific plugin using qlmanage -g

So yes it can be done, but nothing currently exists in the public domain that provides this functionality and therefore something would have to be written bespoke to provide it.

If it was implemented, using it has it's issues since it would be for an OS X base type... so replacing the base type is not a good idea; the priority of the plugins is not fixed and you cannot be sure that the plugin would actually be the one to run.


How to back up Photos Library to an external hard drive?

You can move the entire Library if you first Consolidate it from Photos' File menu.

This will pull all externally referenced files into the Library, after which you can move it in its entirety to a new drive. Next Launch of Photos it will ask you where it went & you tell it.

If you then keep the 'Copy items to Photos Library' checked, then in future it will always ensure they are kept within the Library & you can delete any & all external files, should you wish.


If you are talking about the App Store, the important thing is the AppleID you used to sign in. Assuming two devices both signed in with the same id, the default behavior is: when you make a purchase on device A, it is installed on device B at the same time. Downloading an already-purchased app does not propagate. Deleting an app does not propagate. iCloud data associated with the app is not deleted if you delete the app from only one device.

You can disable the "purchases installed everywhere" choice from the Settings > iTunes & App Store page.


iCloud itself does support document revisions, and my understanding is that it does the same job OS X does for versions stored locally (keeps track of all the small changes, and is in charge of assembling all the chunks into different versions). So any OS X app that supports versioning and iCloud storage should handle both together seamlessly, the same as if it's stored locally. It sounds like you're seeing the expected results in this case.

On iOS it's a bit more complicated - apps have access to other revisions of the document, but because there's no standard way for a user to see different versions (as in OS X), it's up to the app developer to deal with this. I believe the recommended practice for iOS apps is to only keep versions as necessary (for example, dealing with two conflicting versions).

Based on my understanding, if you create a document on iOS, then edit it on OS X, you should be able to view the revisions on OS X, but iOS will only show the "current" one, and OS X will probably only include one iOS-edited version of the file, with whatever versions were edited on OS X. However, this all depends a lot on how the iOS developer implements iCloud storage, and based on my reading of the developer documentation, if an iOS app has what it can satisfactorily decide is the canonical up-to-date version of a document, it may discard all previous versions. That may be why you were running into issues with iOS-created Pages documents.

Ultimately, iCloud is a pretty complex thing, and while they go to great lengths to make it seem simple for the user, some of that complexity can get in the way.

TL;DR version: using OS X only, versions should sync fine. Bringing iOS into the mix can change things depending on the developer's implementation.


Why does Apple TV show screensaver when playing video?

That is very unusual behavior and should not be happening. Try restoring the firmware of the ATV by plugging it into a computer, opening iTunes, and selecting Restore.

Note you will have to re-enter all of your passwords into the ATV afterwards.


Find my Mac: "Online, no location available"

Turning on Wi-Fi did the trick for me.

My MacPro's location wasn't showing up.  It is connected to the Wi-Fi router via ethernet.  I turned on Wi-Fi (to the same router), and my MacPro's location now shows up in icloud.com under the Find My iPhone pages.


How to change thumbnail size without Command + J

I’m assuming you also don’t have a trackpad,  so the easiest option would probably be to make sure you enable the Status Bar in Finder and then you can just use the slider at the bottom right of any Finder window.

To enable the Status Bar, go to View > Show Status Bar.


Transfer labels ("tags") from a SMB share to an AFP share

You could use a shell script instead of AppleScript. A tool like this can list and change tags on files.


How many different VGA adapters for Macbooks exist?

With the help of Mactracker, I've compiled a list of all the connectors used on Mac portables in the last decade or so.

If you stick with machines since 2009 (actually late 2008 discounting one iteration of the 17" MBP), you can get away with just a mini-Displayport adapter.

Adding to that a DVI and mini-DVI adapter will cover you every Intel (2006 and on) portable (as well as most G4 PowerBooks), except for the first MacBook Air (of which there aren't many, but it requires a micro-DVI adapter).

Mini-Displayport/Thunderbolt

MacBook Pro 13" and 15": Late 2008 and on

17": Early 2009 and on

MacBook: Late 2009 and Mid 2010
MacBook (Aluminum): Late 2008
MacBook Air: Late 2008 and on

DVI (full-size)

MacBook Pro: 2006 to early 2008; late 2008 (17" only)
PowerBook G4 (15" and 17"): April 2002 and on

Mini-DVI

MacBook: early 2006 to Mid 2009
PowerBook G4 (12"): September 2003 and on

Micro-DVI

MacBook Air (original, early 2008)

Mini-VGA

iBook: May 2002 and on
PowerBook G4 (12"): January 2003 model (PowerBook6,1)


US Letter or A4 PDF - which is better for iPad?

Letter.  A4 is slightly longer and narrower than US Letter, and would result in wider borders at the side to fit a full page vertically.  US Letter won't fit perfectly, but the aspect ratio of it's dimensions are a much closer fit to the iPads 4:3 (or 3:4 in portrait) screen and the slimmer borders top and bottom would be less noticeable than the A4 equivalent:

        Millimetres Inches

        Width   Length  Width   Length
A4      210.0   297.0   8.26    11.69 (3:4.24 APPROX)

or 6% too long when scaled to fit the shortest edge, resulting in vertical borders when scaled to fit the longest edge

Letter  215.9   279.4   8.50    11.00 (3:3.88 APPROX)

or 3% too short when scaled to fit the shortest edge, resulting in horizontal borders when scaled to fit the longest edge

See this link for good comparative info and this one for a ratio calculator


How to make a simple app from an applescript!

Use the built-in AppleScript Editor located in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Then go File>Save As and select Application as the file format. Then, to select the type of file you want it to be opened with, select the file, right click on it and select Get Info. Expand the Open With: tab and choose your applescript application and click on change all.


Which adapter to get in order to use Dell U2515H with Thunderbolt port?

The MacBook Pro Thunderbolt ports are fully compatible with DisplayPort so as long as you have a DisplayPort cable, there is no need for an adapter.

I own 2x Dell U2715H myself. Dell is so nice to deliver their display with the needed cable. Working like a charm and I love the displays.


How to extend the standard color picker to pick and edit HEX colors?

Test it and you'll see that Photoshop is guilty for not rendering in the same color space.

You need to change the color profile of your image in photoshop.


Did you click on the icon to select it before pasting?  I found I needed to do that or it would ignore my paste.


Unless you explicitly backed up your iPhone to your work PC using iTunes (or ran some other type of program like Macroplant's iExplorer), you're probably fine. Tapping the "Trust" button does allow a computer to access an iPhone's information, but doesn't initiate any particular kind of access.

For more information, see 'Trust This Computer' alert on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Let me know if this helps.


How to convert Apple's .textClipping files to plain text?

Futher googling about Apple's binary property lists lead me to try plutil  -convert xml1 note.textClipping which produces an XML file with the readable text of the snippet as UTF-8 text, then base64-encoded versions of the same text in UTF-16, mac-plain, and HTML.

Even after converting the binary to XML format, Finder still opens the file in its own viewer no matter what extension is set (e.g. .plist or .xml).

Running /bin/ls -al in the folder shows a @ next to the file name which indicates the file has extended attributes so it looks that they are causing the 'special' behavour in Finder.

This answer lead me to try

xattr -l note.plist

which reveals that some of the note's content is stored as an extended attribute key.

And finally, clearing all extended attributes turned the file into a 'normal' file, so now it opens with the associated app:

xattr -c note.plist

The command above is for a single file, to strip extended attributes for all files in the current folder run:

xattr -rc .

  Extended attributes might be useful in some cases — for example, if you downloaded a file with safari or chrome the original URL will be stored as an extended attribute which you can see with xattr -l myfile.zip or right-clicking a file in Finder and selecting Get Info > The URL will be displayed under More Info > Where from. (Another reason not to use wget when you want to keep track of the file's origin.)


Launch iTunes and iPhoto when external USB drive is connected

You can do that very easily using ControlPlane, a free (open-source) application:

  ControlPlane, a fork of MarcoPolo, brings context and location sensitive awareness to OS X. With ControlPlane you can intelligently reconfigure your Mac or perform any number of actions based on input from a wide variety of evidence sources [...]

from: https://github.com/dustinrue/ControlPlane

It's very easy to set-up. You define a "context", select a rule (or multiple rules):

And link an action to it:


Time Machine works on file level, so every time a file changes the full file will be backed up. As you‘ve found out it‘s not well suited for large files with frequent small changes.

One way out would be to exclude the directory containing your blockchain file from Time Machine and use rsync to do backups.


No, the colors are linked to the calendar, and in iCal a calendar can only have one color. All events for this calendar will be in the same color.

Alternatively, you could create a seperate calendar for shared events with a different color, and save the event there, or you can share each other's calendar so your wife's calendar appears in your calendar list with a different color.


Is there an iPad PDF reader that allows in-app dictionary customization?

PDF Expert lets you choose from the different Apple dictionaries available (whether they are installed or not), if that is what you are searching for. If what you look for is another, custom type of dictionary where you can load your own dictionaries, I don't think PDF Expert can do so.


Can you chain a USB hub off a USB port on a Thunderbolt display?

Yes. The Thunderbolt Display USB ports work well to connect a hub for more downstream devices. There is also enough power for unpowered hubs to connect low power devices like mice and USB flash storage. You will want a powered hub if you have multiple spinning hard drives or devices that you wish to charge from the hub itself.


Record video in 16:9 aspect ratio on the iPad running iOS 11

Double tap on the screen while the camera is in video mode. That will switch the aspect ratio between 4:3 and 16:9.

I was fooling around with my iPad 2 and I found that you can change the aspect ratio when taking video! (not sure if this works on other iOS devices running iOS 4.3) But all you have to do is go to your iPad 2’s camera app, and double tap on the view finder. (I double tapped on the right side of the screen).
That’s it! Now you can record widescreen (16:9 ratio) 720p video instead of the regular “legacy” full screen (4:3 ratio) 720p video!

Source


Bootcamp Windows 10 Fails to Start After Interrupted macOS Update

A workaround I have discovered is to go to System Preferences -> Startup Disk, and select the OS that you cannot now access from the boot screen as your default startup OS (in my case Boot Camp Windows 10). Then at the boot screen you can access Mojave as normal when you want to. It is not really a fix but an easy workaround until the fix comes out. It worked for me at least.


If you use the proper keyboard layout this won't happen. Proper keyboard layouts are US-english, US-english extended (or ABC Extended in El Capitan) or UK-english.

' is a single quote while ` or ´ are accents. The single quote will only yield an Á if you have the US International PC keyboard layout active.


Stuck after entering login user password

Okay so the problem is my user account is broken and in the end i need just to create a new user account but because there is so much to taken care of i end up doing erase all and reinstall mac...

and now everything is works just fine.


How do I sync/merge my local Xcode git repository with a remote git repository?

You need to connect your local git repository to the remote git repository. Unfortunately, Xcode (as of v4.6) doesn't provide a UI to do this. Since you are using Github for your remote repository, I would advise that you follow Github's instructions for adding a remote.


Compare battery life between two (same model) iPhones

Monomeeth provides a good guide on how to do the process of testing your battery manually, but there are two ways to do this automatically (and with fewer variables that could affect results).
Method 1: App
Battery Life (free ad-supported app) lets you check the health of your iPhone's battery immediately after downloading. In my experience, it's very accurate, and reviews seem to agree. Opening it up, you'll see a battery wear percentage on each of the iPhones, and approximate runtimes for talk/browsing/video usage.
The app is a simple way to objectively see if it's time to replace your iPhone battery.

Disclaimer: I have personally used the app but I am not affiliated with its developer in any way.

Method 2: Genius Bar
If you bring your iPhones into the genius bar, a genius can help you run diagnostics on the iPhones to see each battery's wear and current capacity (at no charge).
This is definitely the more official way to do it, but it does require taking a trip to an Apple Store. Read more about Apple's battery diagnostic here.

tl;dr: Download this app or go the genius bar for a battery diagnostic (which is a real thing).

Note: In my personal opinion, whether it's time to replace your battery is more subjective than objective. If the battery life is significantly worse than you remember it being, it's probably time to get a new battery!


I finally decided to give HP Support a call to see if they had a solution.  After an ungodly wait on an antiquated support call system with reminders every minute that all their agents were busy and with no indication of an expected wait time I managed to get through to them.

They recommended unplugging one of the two monitors to see if the problem would still occur.  It didn't.  Swapping it and trying the other monitor as the primary also didn't show the blinking.  Connecting them both back up to the macbook pro also then didn't show the problem !

Seems like the issue only happens when the monitor activates sleep mode.  I didn't realize that I had to wait for not only the screen to blank out but the monitor to say it is going to sleep.  The issue still occurs.  The HP monitor has a power control option and an auto-sleep mode.  Setting the auto-sleep mode to off prevents the problem from occurring.  I likely didn't have this issue with the old monitors as they didn't have a power saving sleep mode.  Unfortunately there is no auto-sleep mode delay.  My typical use case is locking the computer and going to grab a coffee which is typically a one minute away period but is quick enough for the monitors to auto sleep.  The blinking is annoying enough that I'll just keep the monitors setup with auto sleep set to off.  Ideally I'd be able to power save and have them auto sleep unfortunately it is just too annoying.

Do other people have auto sleeping monitors that when waking take 3 blinks and around 10 seconds for the monitors to settle back down?

Be interested to know if 2 external monitors on a macbook pro that have auto sleep will always have this issue, if the issue is HDMI related, or HP monitor limited.  I'll play around with this some more and see if having it only using a single monitor changes things, maybe try out the old vga cable (these monitors are at 1920x1080 so maybe I wouldn't see any difference not sure on the analog vs digital signal difference with the different cables).


SSD not selectable for Yosemite installation

Are you booted from another drive or Internet Recovery and, if so, are you able to repartition instead of erase the disk using Disk Utility?

Select the drive in the Sidebar
Select the "Partition" tab
Change the "Partition Layout" to "1 Volume" (or however many volumes you wish the drive to have)
Click "Options" and change the partition map to "GUID Partition Table" and click "Okay"
Name the partition whatever you would like and set the format to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"
Click "Apply"

If everything went according to plan, you should be able to install Yosemite from the OS X installer. If not, you can try my solution posted here to sort it out via Terminal.


What is the range of the Unlock With Watch feature for iOS?

I'm not sure exactly what the distance is, but this Verge article suggests 3 feet:

...your phone isn’t looking for your face with a mask, it’s looking for a face with a mask. With this feature on, when my wife was wearing a mask, she was able to unlock my phone with no problem if I was within three or so feet.

If you're concerned that somebody may unlock your phone without your permission - the same article addresses this:

...whenever your Apple Watch is used to unlock your phone, the watch buzzes you, along with a notification saying your phone has been unlocked and a button to lock it. Pressing that lock button immediately locks your phone and requires a passcode on next unlock.


How do I type a schwa character - ǝ (the upside-down e) on MacOS?

In Emoji & Symbols, type schwa in the search box.
On the ABC Extended input source, type option shift semicolon, let go and then type e.     ǝ


iPhone 5s, iOS 8.2, Fingerprint sensor is suddenly not working.

The clip that holds the ribbon cable plug in
Place on the home button has come lose allowing the plug to Free float in the socket.
Open the phone being carful not to open
It too far and snap the clip back in place,
And never subject your phone to excessive
Vibration like a bike Handlebar cradle.
Close the phone and you are good to go.


Transfer a voice memo in iPhone directly into Music app

I think this is not possible! You have to import them into your computer with iTunes or 3rd party apps. Then put them in music app.


Mail.app just attaches pictures as they are. If you want to edit the picture, you need specific software for this. iPhoto and Preview provide some basic image editing capabilities. For more functionality you may want to look at Skitch or one of the many offerings in the App Store.


I don’t use iTunes Radio, but judging from the nature of how iTunes plays music, I can safely say you can scrobble to Last.fm with Bowtie.

I don’t know if there any apps that can scrobble to Last.fm on iOS though since streaming to iTunes Radio requires the official app, which can’t be used by third party apps.


gnuplot warning: "plotting with an unknown terminal"

You need to install DirectX11 and XQuartz.
Restart your Mac and Retry.

https://csml-wiki.northwestern.edu/index.php/Binary_versions_of_Gnuplot_for_OS_X:

  Binary versions of Gnuplot for OS X/macOS. These are primarily
  intended for users who normally work on Linux and wish to replicate
  their tools on a Macintosh.

  Compiled on OS X 10.11.6 (El Capitan). Confirmed to work also on macOS 10.13 (High Sierra).
  Prior to installing this, you need to install X11/XQuartz (http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/).
  The versions provided here include the GNU Readline library.
  In addition to the standard terminals, the PDF terminal is included as well.
  Simply download the package from one of the links below and install. You can then invoke gnuplot from a terminal window via
  /usr/local/bin/gnuplot
  Currently available versions:

  5.2.2
  5.2.3


How can I enable invisible files with "Transmit" FTP client?


iOS can’t add some widgets to home screen

It won't work because it's not the right type of widget. NordVPN's 'Quick connect' widget is a 'Today extension', while for the widget to work on the Home Screen it must be a 'Widget extension'. This terminology is even more confusing since 'Widget extensions' can appear on the Today View (but only at the top, above the older Today extensions).
See e.g. the Human Interface Guidelines for some background, but it's all quite technical. I expect most major app developers to convert their extensions, but they do have to support users on iOS 13 and lower (where the new widgets won't work), so it might take a while.

NOTE
Today widgets designed for iOS 13 and earlier aren’t available on the Home screen, but remain accessible at the bottom of the Today View and in the macOS Notification Center.


how to concatenate csv files so each file is added adjacently i.e., to the right, instead of sequentially i.e., to the bottom

Try the paste command:

paste *.csv > merged_files.csv

You may have to experiment to be sure that the column order matches your expectations...


How to automatically close an app when I shut down the mac?

Basically all apps will be closed when shutting down, simply because the computer will be turned off. Just to be sure: Shutting down means: Turning the computer off.

However the behavior after rebooting differs depending on the operation system version you are using. If you are running Lion or Mountain Lion there is a feature that allows to automatically  restart all open applications after rebooting/start up. In Mountain Lion you will be asked before the computer shuts down if you want the applications to be restarted after reboot. Just uncheck the checkbox.

If you're confusing shutting down with standby and/or sleep mode you will have no built-in way to solve it (but an AppleScript may help). But at least I can provide you with a shortcut: Pressing ⌘ Command  Q will "completely" close an application. You can use this shortcut instead of right clicking the dock icon to close the app.


Metadata Rejection; Guideline 2.1 - Information Needed

Submit a New Binary

You have the following options:

Submit a new binary for review with the corrected meta-data;
Wait for the appeal; this could take a week or more;
Contact Apple Developer directly and ask for an update.

Anecdotally, submitting a new binary for review tends to be the fastest approach.

Given the application was rejected for a valid reason you agree with, there is nothing to appeal. The appeal can only fail. Resubmit the application with the corrected In-App Purchase meta-data.


Is it possible to use Bento for Mac as the database for a database-backed website?

Bento isn't well-suited for your needs, in my opinion. It's possible to export information from Bento into a variety of formats, including text files, Numbers, or Excel. But it doesn't have the hooks needed to be queried by a Website creation tool. As you mention, FileMaker Pro does have that ability. Here is their web publishing page.

This may be overkill for you, but if you're familiar with SQL databases, you might also take a look at Sequel Pro.


Are photos still backed up in iCloud backup even if iCloud Photo Library is off?

iOS does backup your photos as part of its normal backup process, unless you enable iCloud Photo Library, in which case:

  Photo Library is backed up separately as part of iCloud Photo Library.

Through the normal backup process (iCloud Photo Library disabled), your photos are backed up at most once every 24 hours along with the rest of your data, when your iPhone is on Wi-Fi, charged, and locked. Those photos can only be recovered by restoring your iPhone from your iCloud backup.

With iCloud Photo Library enabled, your photos get uploaded to iCloud every time you’re on Wi-Fi. This is a syncing process rather than a “backup” per se. However in the event that you lose your iPhone you will still be able to recover your photos from iCloud (even without restoring your new iPhone from backup). Therefore this option acts as a backup for your photos.

This distinction is a bit of a technicality, but the important part is you can consider your photos backed up to iCloud, no matter which option you choose. Since there is no need to backup your photos to iCloud twice, iOS only does one or the other.

What you’re seeing in that second screen is your photos being uploaded to your iCloud Photo Library specifically. It’s a different/separate method from the regular backup, which is why the photos need to be uploaded again. It doesn’t mean your photos never got backed up before.

If you have multiple Apple devices, I would advise you to keep using iCloud Photo Library, since that presents many advantages beyond a simple backup: quicker backup of your photos, synchronizing photos across devices, saving storage on your iPhone, allowing you to bring all your photos onto a new device, etc.


Does anyone have experience with buying an officially unlocked iPhone 4 in the US?

No, this isn't possible to do through official channels. The officially unlocked phones are unlocked from the manufacturer; this isn't possible to do after the phone has been provisioned (otherwise the iPhone hacking community would be all over this avenue rather than going after security holes in the baseband to achieve the same effect). Because if their agreement with AT&T, Apple does not sell these units in the US, and every distributor outside of the US has to agree not to sell the units to US customers.


You have the perfect test setup here:

  iMac late 2009 model ... to export a 3gb video file in Final Cut Pro it takes 1 - 1.5 hours

You can restart your Mac and quit all the apps except FCP and open activity monitor. You can watch the memory usage during the export. If the memory pressure is green, then no amount of RAM will help speed up the export.

Assuming RAM isn't the bottleneck, next to eliminate is the storage - watch the iops and data rates for read and write. That too is easy to benchmark - ssd gets higher iops than most single hard drive. The other answers have great advice and your bottleneck is likely CPU/GPU but you can measure precisely what you need with activity monitor.


How do I loop the last action in the Automator app?

Automator has a Loop action, which causes the first action in the workflow to be the next action executed; however, it does not have a Loop action to act only on the last action.

Another option, if applicable, is to use a Run AppleScript action or Run Shell Script action where you can code in some form of looping action.

If appropriate or applicable, you can add any given action more than once. Without knowing what your workflow looks like it's hard to advise.


You need to hit redeem in the App Store. If your account is logged in, then the credit will go to your account. And apple will use the credit first.


Is there a remote desktop solution that will transfer sound output to the client?

RogueAmoeba's AirFoil product may be helpful -- it allows you to send sound from any Mac or Windows machine (or any specific application on that machine) to one or more other Apple devices or Windows PCs on the same LAN.

The product has many features, e.g. a custom video player that ensures the sound your receive locally is in sync with any video you are viewing remotely.

Because AirFoil only streams audio, you can use it in conjunction with whatever remote desktop viewing solution works best for you.


Can I script my mac to reboot and login at a specified time?

You can

use System Preferences/Energy Settings to define shutdown/restart times
run sudo shutdown -r 23:45 to automatically reboot every night
combine the second option with a cron/launchd job to reschedule the reboot daily (or just call shutdown -r now from cron/launchd)

You also can set one user to auto-login after reboot in System Preferences/Users & Groups. But at least use a password-protected screen saver in this case, otherwise anybody can walk up to your computer after a reboot and start using it.


How can I make focus follow the mouse cursor?

This is freely possible for the Terminal and X11 :

defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string YES
defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true

Or, OS-wise, with a utility that seems to fit your needs, called MondoMouse.


Is there an easy way to install Linux similar to Boot Camp?

Apple's disk utility is all you need to partition your disk.

It's what Boot Camp calls underneath the hood.  Most Linux distributions have adequate information to make a DIY installer, but if you want something as polished as Boot Camp I would recommend Boot Runner by Two Canoes.  It comes with support so you don't really have to learn anything other than how to install Linux as it manages the dual-boot environment very well.

http://twocanoes.com/products/mac/boot-runner


Cannot connect to wifi after resetting network settings

I had that issue on an iphone 5 a bunch of times. All the other apple devices worked just fine. Very frustrating. There's a thread on one of the support forums with hundreds of replies from folks with similar issues but no real solutions. We replaced the router as well but that did not fix it. After the phone was replaced with same model it went away so I think it may have been a hardware issue. When I had the issue, a workaround I found was to use 5GHz only as the 2.4Ghz gave the issues but the 5GHz did not. HTH


Publishing build uploaded to iTunes Connect before provisioning profile change

We ended up submitting the build to Apple for approval and they approved it, so apparently the provisioning profile on the build waiting for review was still valid.


How can I see which app/process is using up my VRAM?

A TL;DR answer is that the GPU takes all the RAM and manages it, always. On an OS level, the window server decides what is visible and the kernel schedules any request for GPU assets.

So, you choose which programs run and they send their commands to the driver and then you get a variable amount of work between vsync events when the display updates.

We get to control external refresh rates / the pixel specifications of attached displays and the number of connected displays.

If you are developing an app or just really curious, you can use Instruments in Xcode to inspect precisely gets done on the CPU side and the calls out to the GPU using metal in this example below:

It shows you the CPU calls that then get passed down to the Metal Application calls which then call out to the graphics driver both of which perform rendering passes. This graph is the result of one window to http://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html in Safari on High Sierra later in the game when the screen is busy constantly. The color area is about 75 ms on the first image and if you zoom in to 3 ms or so, the CPU activity with the circled R are about 15 stack traces each so you can inspect the heaviest user of time in that moment. That's the lower image:

Evan at this level of detail, measuring what's using VRAM isn't even considered something worth measuring since the constraint that matters is time to render and the VRAM is what it is so you reduce what you load in to the VRAM to get the renders you need between vsync events so that the frame rate is where you want it to be (as a programmer or as someone benchmarking a program).


How can I stop windows from being resized on fast-user-switch?

It's a known bug of the 10.9.3 update that has been reported last May. Sadly, it has yet to be fixed.

Possible workarounds:

Hide your windows before fast user switching. The app Notes is immune to the bug, so you can switch to that app and hide all other windows from there.
Use the app stay (cost $14.99, not checked)

Another workaround that works for some people (but not for me) is to kill the dock before fast user switching. Can even be automated following these instructions.


I know you asked about a fix without restarting, but I really think your best option is to reset the NVRAM which, of course, requires you to restart your Mac. The reason for this is that your Mac's Non-Volatile RAM stores its timezone information.

Reset your NVRAM

To reset the NVRAM you'll need to follow these steps:

Fully shut down your Mac
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down for about 20 seconds (or until you know for sure your Mac has rebooted a second time)
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.


Does archiving already archived messages means deleting them?

I just tried this in a non-Gmail account and the message has vanished! It is in none of my folders, including the trash. You can use Time Machine on Mail to get your messages back. Also, I suggest reporting this bug to Apple http://apple.com/feedback/mail.html

(In Gmail accounts, the message goes away for a few minutes until the next time Mail synchronizes with the server.)


Is there a way to use my USB web Camera which I use with my windows PC to use with my iPad first edition?

The iPad does not support using external cameras with it, as it does not have the drivers required.

Thus, the iPad cannot use an external camera. However, the new iPad 2 has cameras.


Try under Settings > iCloud > Sign Out at the bottom of the page. You shouldn't be prompted for a password again until you sign in under the same menu.

Edit 1

Not sure whether that's exactly what you meant, but I cannot seem to recall Apple asking for a log in when no data is entered under the iCloud tab.


No need for a jailbroken iPad, iCab can block ads http://www.icab.de/mobile.html
And it is a great browser.


Macbook Pro 2011 Snow Leopard Boot Camp with Parallels Desktop 8

Found the solution and can confirm that the bootcamp works with Parallels (with additional shared drive): https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3293948


How to fix broken GPT, GUID and unmountable, no type volumes?

The content type of the second partition is wrong. Instead of FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF it has to be 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC.

To edit the content type you have to boot to Internet Recovery Mode and use gpt. Additionally the fourth partition will be removed (probably the "deleted" partition). Please check that it doesn't contain any data!

Preparation:

Detach any external drive (especially your external Time Machine backup drive)
Restart to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing alt cmd R at startup.

The prerequisites are the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot into a recovery netboot image which usually is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

I recommend ethernet because it's more reliable. If you are restricted to WIFI and the boot process fails, just restart your Mac until you succeed booting.

Alternatively you may start from a bootable installer thumb drive (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan) or a thumb drive containing a full system (preferably Yosemite or El Capitan). If you boot to a full system and login as admin you have to prepend sudo to execute special commands like gpt ...!

Remove the fourth partition and change the content type of the second partition

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode open Utilities → Terminal in the menubar and enter:  diskutil list to get the disk identifiers. Below I assume that your main disk has the disk identifiers disk0.
First you have to remove the fourth partition (only do that if it is really empty!):

gpt -r show /dev/disk0 #to get an overview

To delete a partition with gpt the disk has to be unmounted:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk0 #remove the fourth partition

Then you have to change the content type of the second partition:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0 #remove the second partition
gpt add -b StartBlock -s NumberOfBlocks -i 2 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

In your case:

gpt add -b 409640 -s 776617328 -i 2 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Now you should be asked for the FileVault passphrase. Enter it.
Enter exit and quit Terminal
Check the main volume Macintosh HD for errors
Quit Disk Utility and reboot to your main volume

Addendum: Removing the stubborn MBR

You can either use fdisk or gpt to remove the MBR at block 0. If you use an admin user prepend sudo using the gpt .... commands.

First get an overview again. This step is important before you destroy the gpt, because it's the source to rebuild it from scratch:

gpt -r show /dev/disk0

Then delete the gpt:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt destroy /dev/disk0

Create a new GUID partition table:

gpt create -f /dev/disk0

Finally add all partitions one by one:

gpt add -b 40 -s 409600 -i 1 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 777026968 -s 1269760 -i 3 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -s 776617328 -i 2 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Hint: You may add and remove partitions in an arbitrary order if you keep the right index number. In the above commands I added the third partition (... -i 3 ...) before adding the second partition (... -i 2 ...). You don't have to unmount disk0 then because the partitions i=1 and i=3 don't contain auto-mounted volumes while the second partition does.

I missed to detect the wrong partition type of your Recovery HD (the third partition with the index number 3) in the first part of my answer. Therefore I used:

gpt add -b 777026968 -s 1269760 -i 3 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

above instead of the wrong

gpt add -b 777026968 -s 1269760 -i 3 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0 #wrong partition type of the Recovery HD

to re-add it.

If you still get errors, tackle the MBR with fdisk. If you use an admin user prepend sudo using the fdisk ... commands.:

fdisk -i -a hfs /dev/disk0

and add the gpt entries with gpt ... outlined above.

Resizing the main volume to fill the whole disk

Finally you probably want to resize the main volume to fill the whole disk.

Get an overview with:

diskutil cs list

You may have several CoreStorage Logical Volume Groups, if you boot from an external drive with a full system! Use the proper one!
Resize the whole stack:

diskutil cs resizeStack lvUUID size #lvUUID is the UUID of the Logical Volume. Usually it's the last one listed.

Booted to Yosemite you can use 0g for the size to expand it. 0g is a "magical" size here.

diskutil cs resizeStack lvUUID 0g

Booted to El Capitan you have to use a real size like 500g. If you get an error use a slightly smaller size like 499g or499500m.

diskutil cs resizeStack lvUUID 500g


How do I use multiple webcams at once on Mac OS X?

There are Mac applications that can do this, although I don't believe that any of them run on Flash.

Here's some that I found:

Wirecast from Telestream
BoinxTV from Boinx Software
CamCamX from Black-Op

They're all commercial, but there's a wide range of pricing between the three.


How can I read the previous edition of a book on iBooks?

In short, yes. It's not actually a "revert" back to the Swift 3.1 ebook. You simply just re-download it side by side the Swift 4 book, as I have done. Just open your Books app and search for the title, and if it's still available it'll show up.


How can I find exactly what files are included in my last Time Machine backup?

You could try BackupLoupe: it will give you the size of each backup, the backed-up files and catalog the backups with colors to quickly identify the big ones.

There are also lists of files excluded by rule or that you add manually to exclusions:

On OS X, what files are excluded by rule from a Time Machine backup?


is thre a way to find recent files with locate OR automatically update the database each time a file is created

I prefer to avoid using the command mdfind

Why is that? It solves your problem with no additional work. Getting locate to do update constantly is going to keep your Mac busy scanning the entire hard drive almost all the time. In the meantime,

mdfind -name filename.txt

Will produce the same result with no extra work by you or by your Mac. Since macOS keeps Spotlight up to date automatically, this will find files immediately after they're created. You could even use a really short shell script like this:

#!/bin/sh

if [ "$1" ==  "" ]; then
    echo What files do you want to find?
else
    mdfind -name $1
fi

Then alias locate or some other command to call the script.


Where is USB -stick automounted in OSX? Not /media/usb/something like in Ubuntu

All volumes (CDs, USB, harddrives, etc) are mounted into /Volumes.

After inserting a USB stick called USB I see the following:

alex@smiley:/Volumes|⇒  ls -lrt
total 8
drwxrwxr-t  30 alex  staff  1088 Aug  4 14:34 USB
drwx------   1 root  wheel   568 Aug  4 23:59 Family Backup
drwxr-xr-x   6 root  wheel   340 Aug  5 00:00 Time Machine Backups
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  admin     1 Nov 14 20:55 System -> /
drwxr-xr-x  39 root  wheel  1394 Nov 14 20:57 SmileyBackup

In addition there you can see that my main drive is System. OS X creates a link to / for it automatically.

Also, Smiley Backup is another disk, and Time Machine Backups is a TimeMachine volume, and Family Backup is a remote shared drive I've mounted from another system.


PowerPoint AppleScript: How do I set Play = Automatically for a media2 movie shape?

To set the play on entry property, use one of the following lines

set play on entry of playSettings to false -- to Start: When Clicked
set play on entry of playSettings to true -- to Start: Automatically


iPhone 5s starting up takes a lot of time

You can't short the time to use the device. It's normal you can't use your iPhone for at least 5 to 10 minutes untill it's 5%. It will auto startup the system and you can start using it again.


You can have additional file in Dropbox folder and then on every machine inside your .bash_profile file put this:

FILE="/path/to/DropboxFolder/shared_bash_profile_file"
if [ -f $FILE ];
then
    source $FILE
fi


How can I retain geotagging information on my iPhone pictures?

You can just copy those images. Those location information is coded into EXIF data. It will not be deleted upon transfer.


trying to run FSF emacs in character based mode ( -nw ) on Catalina

I actually solved this before I posted but decided that it is worth documenting what I found out.

It turns out that /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs is a small ruby script that figures out which binary to run (there are three):

ls -l /Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/
total 110296

-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rful011  admin      3408  2 Sep 19:19 Emacs
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rful011  admin  18889792  2 Sep 19:19 Emacs-x86_64-10_10
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rful011  admin  18690016  2 Sep 19:19 Emacs-x86_64-10_14
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 rful011  admin  18883904  2 Sep 19:19 Emacs-x86_64-10_9

and if I make my alias

  alias emacs='/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs-x86_64-10_14 -nw $1'

it works.


Repeated MacBook Pro 2012 HDD Cable Failures

Looks like it was just bad luck. Got a cable from Amazon here as recommended by Allan in the comments and installed it. It's been working for almost a month with no issues.


OS X Mail: What circumstances are there were Mail rules could be delayed or not invoked

macOS mail app only runs rules when it’s fully powered up (not just power-nap checking mail) and connected to the internet. You would need a server side rule processing provider like Outlook / Exchange / O365 to have rules trigger when your local mail client isn’t running to have a robust mail rule engine to work 24x7.


is there a patch against "Shell Shock" for my system MacOS 10.6.8 bash version 3.2.48(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin10.0)

Apple has quietly dropped support for Snow Leopard and earlier versions. This page has various means of helping you to compile your own version should you wish to do so:

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

There is a lot of attention on all the posts on that page. Read it all and find the solution that feels the most comfortable for you. Asking there is probably going to get you more eyeballs than asking here.


Getting 10.6.7 Build 10J869 installed on an 17" MacBook Pro 8,3 (Early 2011)

Have you tried simply installing 10J869 to an external drive? Then you could migrate the data over and finally use disk utility or deploy studio to clone the external OS back over the internal drive.

In your case, the drivers needed to properly install (or at least pass the preinstall script checking for the correct hardware) were never included in a build earlier than 10.6.6 / 10J3210

You can consult the list of builds that supported each Mac Model upon release at Mac OS X versions (builds) for computers.

Since you are trying to get an older build running - do expect things like slow performance, odd fan behavior, graphics issues and perhaps worse if you manage to get the 10J869 build running.

At this point, you have two less than optimal avenues for getting the build on the mac you intend:

Run the install from a mac that will run 10J869 - you can install to the MacBook Pro in target mode or use a disk tool to transfer the data.
Modify Apple's install package to disable the check for this hardware ( or flip the comparison ) and hope the install goes well running from your mac.

Sometimes running an older version of the OS is harmless, so depending on how urgently you need this, you might give it a go and report back how it works.


MacOS Mojave 10.14.1 Captive Wi-Fi Problem

It may be related to the Sophos antivirus scanner, see https://support.home.sophos.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020126572-Captive-Portal-Login-Page-does-not-load-on-MacOS-when-connecting-to-a-Public-Guest-Wi-Fi-Hotspot-


NTFS external disc restore trashed items

I just tested deleting a file on an NTFS volume under OS X and it placed it in .Trashes on that volume.  Anything in $RECYCLE.BIN is from files deleted under Windows.

By the way, I'm using Tuxera NTFS for Mac for write support under OS X.


Yes, doing a restore, similar to how one does this on an iOS device, will reset it to the factory default settings and install.

You do this by going to Settings -> General -> Reset, and selecting restore.

If that doesnt work, you can also plug it into a computer with Micro USB, and use iTunes to restore.

More information is available in this Apple KB.


In iMovie is there a way to have the background have key frames and motion (similar to picture in picture)?

iMovie is just not meant to be that flexible. You have more options in Premiere Elements, the affordable consumer-grade version of Premiere Pro. Or, of course, the 'pro' applications such as Final Cut Pro.


Can I run non server OS 10.6.8 using VMware?

No.  The End User License Agreement for 10.6 does not allow for virtualization unless you have purchased the Server version.  VMware Fusion (as well as VMware ESXi and VMware Workstation) honors the EULA and does not allow virtualization if the OS X EULA does not allow it.


iBooks, the free ebook reading app from Apple, paginates both ebooks (in epub format) and pdfs. It is not instant, though.


Is Mac hardware with the T2 chip vulnerable to the latest Intel CSME exploit?

Yes.

I was curious about this also, so I tweeted at the security researcher who discovered the flaw, this was his response:

  My understanding is that on Macs with T1/T2 chips, hard disk encryption isn't affected. I don't know whether they use IPT, but DRM is certainly affected. And of course CSME arbitrary code execution is possible even if T1/T2 present (can intercept usb traffic for example)


Is it possible to use an animated image for the user picture?

This is currently not possible. You can provide feedback to Apple here:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


applicationDidFinishLaunching - anyway to get this using script/command?

Resolved by monitoring STATE column for application bundle using TOP. Wait for STATE to change to 'sleeping' for a couple of seconds did the trick (for me anyway).


Battery Life While Using External Monitor on rMBP is Less

The reason is because when you connect an external display, even if you close the laptop and use it in clamshell mode, the laptop automatically switches from an integrated video card (this uses much less power) to a more powerful, discrete video card (this uses a lot of power).

This is also true regarding Intel Iris Graphics, which has different power profiles (see the "Power Management" section). Also read on Embedded DisplayPort (eDP), and it's possibilities in terms of saving system power and further extend battery life in portable PC systems. I'm not the specialist in GPU-chips architecture, but my guess is, that the difference is exactly in using of Embedded DisplayPort on a mobile CPU, against of DisplayPort connections when on external monitor.

So the battery is drained more on when external monitors are connected, it needs more GPU power. Monitor itself does not drain the battery, as it's connected to external power.


How to simulate network connections / ipfw on macOS?

Your own commands are actually almost the solution. You basically just need to ensure that pf is enabled, and then repeat your rule for outgoing packets to also apply to incoming packets.

You can do this like this:

sudo pfctl -E
sudo dnctl pipe 1 config bw 10Mbit/s delay 5 plr 0.005
echo "dummynet out proto udp from any to any pipe 1" | sudo pfctl -f -
echo "dummynet in proto udp from any to any pipe 1" | sudo pfctl -f -


Mysterious behavior: keyboard input is repeating some whole words!

I found the problem. I don't remember the source so help me with the citation if you know it. I uninstalled all Wacom drivers and this solved the problem. Wacom is a pen tablet and I can't imagine what it might have had to do with keyboard input.


Move Time Machine from case-sensitive USB disk to case-insensitive Airport Time Capsule

I just tried the approach from #104277, and it worked.

Apparently Time Machine doesn't care about the file system case sensitivity when copying Time Machine backups from a local USB disk to a networked Time Capsule disk. The only thing that matters, is having Time Machine first create the Sparse Bundle on the Time Capsule.

In other words, the instructions from #104277 can be followed, even in case the Time Machine backup originated from a case-sensitive file system.

I however can't rule out that it worked only because there were no case insensitive file/folder name collisions in the first place (e.g., no distinct files named 'file', 'File' and 'FILE' in the same origin folder).


Built-in iSight camera in MacBook Pro stops working in Skype

I've seen problems like this before with Skype and I'm pretty sure there's nothing you can do about it.  Make sure you're not running any other apps that are using the camera and that you've got the latest version of Skype installed.  I've found that sometimes going into the Skype preferences and clicking on the "Audio/Video" icon can "free" it up.


I installed Stanza on the iPad and tried to load the epub files into that. It failed, but stated that container.xml was missing. That was the right clue: I had created zip files from the modified text files that contained a directory, and that directory contained all the epub files: mimetype, META-INF with container.xml and OEBPS.
Repacking the zip with the files at the root of the archive brought order & peace back.

So iBooks was right after all. I have to take a look at what Sigil validated…

The validator that Mark mentioned has been installed by the IDPF and is available on their web page for online usage. Sure enough, it mentions that container.xml and mimetype are missing. Strange that calibre and iTunes accepted these files.

Last update: Sigil loads the malformed epub files, but saves them in the right format. I guess it validates the format stored in its memory.


How to prevent the Mail app from restoring its previous state?

I finally fixed the issue without data loss. Here is what I did:

Created a backup from the iPhone while the Mail app was still broken
Run Restore iPhone... within iTunes (I tried Restore Backup... which did not fix the issue)
After the iPhone was reset to its factory defaults I set it up using the backup I did in 1.


Ouch - do realize that you will be working against two factors.

If the ping app is in the foreground - it's a easy project.
For it to run in the background (where it will do you any good) it has to play by the background task API - all of which are designed to prevent the usage of the CPU and preventing the WiFi from dropping. Even if it worked a while, it would be a bug and likely to break every time Apple updates it's OS.

Your battery life will be horrible - but that's your call since your network interruption might be more pain than a ten hour runtime. I have a solution that will work out of the box.

Get yourself a mapping app like Runmeter. It can be configured to upload a map to the internet every 5 minutes. It can also monitor a twitter stream, so you could set up a bot account to push updates more rapidly if the mapping alone didn't keep your iPad from detecting the WiFi as idle.


Is there a good iPhone app which syncs with Google docs?

Awesome Note

It syncs well with Google Docs. It also syncs with EverNote. It's feature rich and very polished. I love it.


How can I convert 60FPS videos to work on an iPhone 4?

I use Handbrake to encode my files to iPhone and iPad specs.  Handbrake has presets for all the major Apple devices, so you don't even need to know the specifications for each device.  It even differentieates between an iPhone before the iPhone 4 and an iPhone 4.  Works every time for me.


How to automate the wifi login of a captive window?

Deliberately Restricted

Yes, this is a deliberate choice by Apple's engineers. Automator – and other applications – can not intercept keystrokes sent to password fields.

The restriction is enforced by macOS. The keystrokes sent to secure text fields do not appear in the read-only copy of events sent to other observing processes.

Browsers Using Native Controls

Within a web browser that uses native macOS controls, HTML password fields are represented by a NSSecureTextField.

NSSecureTextField deliberately restricts what can see or record its input. The field also limits copying and cutting of the contents.

Other Approaches

See How I created a Python Bot to automatically log into a Captive Portal or search for script wifi login form for other related projects and tools.


Finder thinks item exists after it's already been deleted (Samba)

Finder caches file/folder metadata from SMB shares. Try if disabling the directory caching helps according to the last paragraph in:

Adjust SMB browsing behavior in macOS High Sierra 10.13 and later

  Disable directory caching

  Your Mac caches file and folder metadata temporarily in local memory. This improves browsing speeds, especially on high-latency networks. Systems with more memory installed can cache more file information.

  If you'd like to disable directory caching so that macOS re-downloads the full contents of the folders and metadata every time you browse an SMB share, you can create or edit /etc/nsmb.conf. See the nsmb.conf man page for more information on how to edit this file.

  If your system doesn't already have an /etc/nsmb.conf file, use the following Terminal commands. Note that you must be logged in as an administrator with sudoer privileges to set this file:

  echo "[default]" | sudo tee -a /etc/nsmb.conf

  echo "dir_cache_off=yes" | sudo tee -a /etc/nsmb.conf

Unmount/remount SMB shares afterwards.