Why aren't my profile and bashrc files hidden?

However, I've been able to follow these tutorials just fine, I just
  edit my profile file instead of .profile, and bashrc instead of
  .bashrc.

  Is there a reason why these files are not hidden for me? And does it
  actually matter?

Yes to both questions.

Basically .bashrc ≠ bashrc

(same hold true for the other files mentioned as well)

A Unix dot-file (.filename) is treated as a hidden file.  The dot preceding the filename is actually part of the filename itself; it's just interpreted by the system to be hidden.

To look at it another way, it's as if you used any other character at the beginning of the filename (a dash for example).  -filename is a very different file from filename.

So, when you say you've edited your profile, your actually editing the wrong file, you need to edit your .profile.

There's an excellent post on StackOverflow that explains when to use .bashrc and  .bash_profile

  So shouldn't there be an error from the terminal/bash initialisation
  program that's looking for .profile and .bashrc, since I only have
  profile and bashrc?

You're not getting an error message because there's no error

these files are optional
.profile and .bashrc don't exist (see above)


Access Applications directory in Terminal

In the Terminal you can type the absolute path...

cd /Applications

to access applications installed for all users.

If you want to access the root folder (named "Macintosh HD", in your case), it called / in Mac OS X (and other UNIX variants).

And cd, meaning change directory, is used to navigate.

Alternatively, you can use the shortcut ⌘+⇧+G in the Finder and type...

/Applications

You do not need to type out the whole name. Tab-completion automatically adds the last letters. You can invoke tab-completion by pressing ⇥ while typing /Applications.


How to move hosting from mobile.me to iCloud?

You will still be able to access the mobile me website and files making the website through June 30th, but iCloud does not offer web hosting or internet-based disk storage. After June 30th you will need to find a different web hosting service.

Longer version here: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/transition.html


I understand it wrongly first. Try first

export DISPLAY=:0

And run your ssh, this might help.


No. While an individual press of the power button can be reconfigured into a keyboard shortcut/function using third party software, the Press and Hold feature of it is a failsafe commonly included with computer systems and is stored at the firmware level of the system to allow you to shut the system down should it lock up. You will not be able to change the behavior.


VMware Fusion 2.x not running with 64 Bit Kernel Lion

Upgrade to VMWare Fusion 3.1 which is compatible with Lion, with limited support from VMWare.

VMWare's knowledge base says

  VMware Fusion 3.1.3 was designed for OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and OS X 10.6
  (Snow Leopard). It is compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), with the
  limitations listed below.

  If you are running an older version of VMware Fusion, upgrade to
  VMware Fusion 3.1.3 before upgrading to Lion. Fusion 2.x is
  incompatible with Lion.


Apparently, removing set lines=40 does the trick. The manual says:

    Number of lines of the Vim window.
    Normally you don't need to set this.  It is done automatically by the
    terminal initialization code

so be careful when you copy-paste ready configs, as I did :)


Is there a way to have iOS remember passwords to HTTP authenticated sites?

It seems that Safari on iOS doesn't support this natively. You have a couple options:

Workaround:

If you're not too worried about security, you can embed the username and password in the link itself, and bookmark that:

http://username:password@hostname.com/...

(Also of note: it sounds like iOS may pop up a warning when you visit a link that includes a username and password.)

Alternative:

There is another browser called Atomic Web Browser [App Store link] that can autofill HTTP authentication, among many other neat features.


Restore an older version of iCloud keychain

I just ran into the same situation and unfortunately no you cannot restore iCloud keychain from your own backup.

See Apple's support note on the topic https://support.apple.com/kb/PH20120, specifically:

  Passwords stored in the iCloud keychain are encrypted and stored on your computer and can’t be copied.

As you, I tried copying other keychain files and 'keychain-db' files, but none of the iCloud passwords were contained in those.


How to plug into Mac Air a 4pin Microphone with 4pin headphones through a splitter?

You are probably correct in assuming you need a 2x4 pin(f) -> 4 pin(m) adaptor. You have an adaptor that splits for a headphone and microphone. What you need is an adaptor that splits for two headsets. In other words, everything (headphone, microphone and Mac) is TRRS.
I was able to find TRRS Y adaptor/cables for purchase by searching Google for TRRS Male to Dual TRRS Female. For example, this was the first link I encountered. The excerpt below was taken from this link. This excerpt actually states for use with 4 pin mini jack microphones.

Plus, allow you to connect one headphone, and one external 4-POLE TRRS microphone (NOT 3-pole TRS microphone) to Laptop, Tablet, PC computer or Smartphone into the 4-POLE 3.5mm jack at the same time.

Be aware there are two standards in use for TRRS. Basically, the difference is the sleeve and adjacent ring are reversed. See the image below.

You may need a converter which switches the ground (common) with the microphone. An example of a converter is shown below..

The above adaptor can be found here.

Note: If a adaptor is needed, then the adaptor should be placed either between the headphone and the splitter or between the splitter and the Mac.


How am I supposed to use ProXPN on an insecure network?

The reason your Proxy will not connect without an active connection is because inherently it encapsulates traffic, pipes it over an insecure connection in a secure fashion, and forwards that traffic to another host which actually makes the request. It is like saying you would like to send a secret letter without using the post service, unfortunately it is the base of how you are communicating.

If you join an insecure network and you dont actually perform any actions, there is no risk, that being said, on a mac you do have programs that may automatically request a connection (mail) and send out credentials or try to visit a URL. This is a fairly small risk, you can always keep them closed until you run your proxy software.

In terms of open ports or shared files and folders, if you are advertising these services and you connect to an insecure network, the thing to stop them is your firewall.


MacBook Pro (Mac OS X Mavericks) not displaying full resolution on external Philips QHD monitor

According to Apple, my MacBook Pro model will not support external monitors other than theirs. If I was to upgrade my MacBook I could use the screen I bought.


Image Compression Power point Presentation 2011

Insert the image> Highlight it> Format picture tab> Compress> Picture quality> Select the desired option.
You'll likely want to choose Picture Quality: "Keep current resolution"
and Apply to:  "All pictures in this file"
You'll need to do this once for each new file you create, since it's a per-file setting, not a PowerPoint-wide setting.

Source


Dropbox109 process asking to access firewall on Yosemite

No, it’s a legitimate, routine request from Dropbox used to check your OS X version. Due to formatting limitations, I’m unable to directly embed this tweet from the official Dropbox support account. See the screenshot below, and click the link to view the tweet.


Can't change color default folders yosemite 10.10.2

Try candy Bar, I use it to change my icons and it works all the time.
It's no longer supported by it's developers but the current version still works

http://www.panic.com/blog/candybar-mountain-lion-and-beyond/


Yosemite grey background on login screen

The grey screen during boot is new to Yosemite and no, there is no way to disable it.


I suddenly cannot open any files in Script Editor.app

Personally if it was me, I would run disk utility app on my system first..  Then I would reboot and see if that fixes the problem. If that did not fix the problem, I would then go to /Users/your short name/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScriptEditor2.plist. <—- and delete that .plist file, then reboot and fire up the script editor app to see if the problem is fixed.  You may want to make a backup copy of that plist file before you delete It.

I'm not quite sure if that file is hidden in the system, So you may have to unhide hidden files before you can find that plist file

This is the script I use to show hidden files in the system...

do shell script "defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE\nkillall Finder"

An alternate solution would be trying to restore that .plist file using Time Machine


You can download old versions on the Apple website: https://support.apple.com/downloads/macos
Edit:
This is where you will find installers (going back to El Capitan)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372


Is it productive to use a Stylus with the iPad?

The Cosmonaut is about the only stylus worth the effort in my opinion. I've tried a few different ones, but the Cosmo' has always felt right. I think it's to do with it's weighting and general sturdy feel.

I think with practice your son will produce excellent results using the Cosmonaut, especially with the right app (Paper or Sketchbook Pro are excellent for art.)

--

'Random' 2yr update: After using the Cosmonaut on and off for the last couple of years, mainly with Paper by 53 and Procreate, I feel a small update is in order.

I've used the stylus with the iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad mini and iPad Air. I've noticed a gradual loss of effectiveness of the stylus - it feels harder to use resistance-wise than it used to. Could be a change in screen surface technology or just the wear-and-tear you'd expect from using a stylus. So my opinion of this has lessened to a degree. Perhaps Paper's 'Pencil' product will be the one for me, when it's finally available for non-silly money in the UK.


It is not in itself evidence of a fake, no. It is common for Apple to have the name of the production facility written on the power supply. For example my 85W power supply has "Delta Electronics (Jiang Sui) Ltd." written on it in the same place.

An image search on Google for the 60W adapter also reveals that other power supplies have the same writing on it as yours.

However, it is not a 100% proof that your charger is original, as anyone could in principle write such texts on a charger. It would obviously be illegal however.


I had to give up and download my entire library from iCloud.


Allow Apps won't unlock in Security & Privacy - El Capitan

Log in as Administrator; unlock the SystemPreferences->Security&Privacy Applet (left bottom), then click the General tab when it is not already chosen: check the middle Allow line.
Hold the Alt/Option key while selecting/opening the App.


You can go for a re-index of the whole drive. Check out this help page at Apple: Re-index folder or drive

Also looking in there might show that the mail folder has been hidden for privacy.


How to use the secondary mac's keyboard when using Target Display Mode

That's exactly what Target Display Mode does. The only caveats are that "stationary Mac" must be an iMac that supports Target Display Mode, and you must have a keyboard connected to the iMac to turn Target Display Mode on and off.

Follow these steps to start using your iMac as a display:

Make sure both computers are turned on.

Connect the Mini DisplayPort or Thunderbolt cable between the two computers.

Press Command-F2 on the keyboard of the iMac that you want to use as a display.

After you press Command-F2, your iMac displays the desktop from the connected Mac.


Exact string matches considering Case with COUNTIF

It would be great if this could be accomplished with a single formula, but as of this writing Numbers does not support Array formulas.

I was able to solve it by testing for "US" and returning "1" for true and "0" for false.

Formula in adjacent or other column: =IFERROR(FIND("US",A1),0) and drag formula down. (The FIND function allows for Case testing.)
Then using =COUNTIF(range,1) where range is the cells containing a "1" get the count.

Note: this can be made dynamic by changing the formula slightly.  If Find() is changed to look at a cell where the user can input the search criteria, then the result can be any of the variances.   =IFERROR(FIND([absoluteCellReverenceWithCritera],A1),0) - See last screenshots.


You can set the time in System Preferences, and that time should be reflected back in /etc/localtime.

If you want to do it at the command line, use the systemsetup tool (which has to be run via sudo, fyi).

Here are the relevant commands from sudo systemsetup -help:

Usage: systemsetup -gettimezone
    Display current time zone.

Usage: systemsetup -settimezone <timezone>
    Set current time zone to <timezone>. Use "-listtimezones" to list time zones.

Usage: systemsetup -listtimezones
    List time zones supported by this machine.


I imagine you'll want to set the LANG environment variable.


Mission control shortcuts stopped working, how do I restart it?

You can restart Mission Control using the following command in Terminal:

killall Dock

This will usually fix the mouse gesture shortcuts.


Exchange Account on iPhone Without Unlock Pin

Read this thread for suggestions for things that you do - but be aware that if your employer has a policy that you shall have a passcode on your phone while connecting to their Exchange server, that it could involve written warnings and possible termination of employment if you are seen to be in contravention of the company's security policies.

Options are:

Delete the Exchange mail account on the phone
Buy a beer for your friendly IT dude where you work (always stay friendly with these guys!), and get him to add you as an exclusion to the passcode requirement
Use a passcode

You should probably always use a passcode anyway, as without one your phone is worth a lot more to a thief (think of all that lovely personal data on there!). If you have an iPhone 5s just set up Touch ID and it's even better.


Chess.app is, as everything else installed by default, protected by SIP and can't be removed. If you absolutely want to reclaim the 5mb used by the application you can

Reboot into Recovery Mode to disable SIP
Reboot normally, log in and remove Chess.app
Reboot into Recovery Mode to enable SIP
Reboot normally
(and then repeat this with every macOS upgrade)

See How do I disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) AKA "rootless" on OS X 10.11, El Capitan? for details about disabling/enabling SIP.


OSX Yosemite network-popdown suddenly have a permanent Device entry

What's that "Device" entry?

The entries under Device are wireless ad hoc networks, a type of wireless network that doesn't involve an access point or router, that is, a point-to-point wireless network, which usually connects two computers or a printer to a computer.

I couldn't find any Knowledge Base article at support.apple.com but theMacObserver has an excellent article about it.

What's that SETUP node? - I guess it's something running on my Mac?

In your case, the ad hoc network is probably a printer nearby that is broadcasting its name. Another usual ad hoc network name is hpsetup, the default ad hoc network used by HP printers.

How do I best scan the SETUP node, to learn more about it?

You could connect to it and run /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport -s to get some information, but I don't think that's going to be of much use. You better go over to your neighbor's house and ask whether they have bought a printer lately.

How can I create an ad hoc network?

You can easily create an ad hoc network yourself:

In the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar choose Create Network...:

Choose a name (that's the name that will appear under Device) and press Create:

This is the new entry:

If you select Disconnect from <network> the ad hoc network is torn down.


safari iPad: disable ipad cache while its connected to mac?

By connecting your device to your Mac, you can use Safari Developer Tools to open the JavaScript console for the WebView on your iPad. Therefore, you can use the following JavaScript to refresh the page which will ignore the cache:

window.location.reload(true)


Can an old iPad see my iMessages/emails after resetting content and settings?

No, unless she is using your Apple-ID this will not be possible.
As your old iPad appears offline, this probably is not the case.
You can delete your old iPad from the Find my iPhone app in order to tidy up the list, this won't disable any Apple-ID on her iPad though, should that still be on there.
If you reset the device though and didn't set up the iPad with YOUR Appe-ID then you're good to go.
Also: notice that when a new device starts using your Apple ID, Apple will send you an email notifying you about that. So you can also check that even for now and in future.


Why Are My Cache Files & Other "Hidden" Files/Folders Visible? & How Do I Get Rid Of Them?

try "defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO" in terminal.

or you could do a "chflags hidden /path/to/folder"

how did you hide private and mach_kernel


Convert .bat command for mapping shared drive to AppleScript

You can connect to a server just with Finder. From Finder's Go menu, choose Connect to Server (⌘K). Enter the server address as smb://10.0.2.3/web then choose Connect. You'll be prompted for your username and password which can be saved in your Keychain.

If you want to use AppleScript, you can use the following:

tell app "Finder" to open location "smb://username:password@server/share"


Create a contact in people in Outlook 2016


There is no getting around the pain of managing dependencies. What you are seeing is that for many, many years python 2 was the standard and as we finally are reaching the end of support, some major frameworks are making the move after preparing for years to do so.  For the next 6 months, I would expect most active or easy to port projects to move to python 3. Time will tell of course.

If you feel you want or need to force your transition to python 3 in homebrew, I would try first removing it so you can validate you actually need it.

brew rm python@2

If you do have it as a dependency, you probably can do nothing and just give up a little space and a little time as every package you care about gets updated to use python 3. Set your path to use the version you want and just let it fade into history.


Not seeing this behaviour.

I put my iPhone into Airplane Mode, took a picture of a coffee cup. When I tapped the search icon in Photos, at the bottom, saw an "Indexing" spinner for a while (less than a minute). After that, search on "cup" found the picture. Repeated with a photo of a candle, same behaviour.

Maybe you should wait a bit longer.


Apple Books won't download any books/files saved in iCloud only on Mac (macOS Big Sur)

This seems to be related to the storage optimisation feature for iCloud (maybe it is somehow stuck or blocking these downloads). It can be found under System Preferences -> Apple ID -> Optimise Mac Storage. After turning the future off and on all downloads in Apple Books now work again.


Files wrongly considered as damaged in encfs volume

I've found the answer here (for BoxCryptor):

Under special circumstances, Mac OS X adds the extended attribute 'com.apple.quarantine' to a file which was e.g. downloaded from the internet. This can also happen to files within the BoxCryptor Folder. If an encrypted file has this extended attribute set, you receive the "is damaged" error message when trying to open the plaintext file in the BoxCryptor Volume.

Also try this, more secure workaround:

x) Open Terminal (Applications -> Utilities)
y) Run the following command (substitute the path):
$ xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/encfs/mount/point


mac Book air shows abttery loaded 99 % but still needs to plug the chager

This is typical when a lithium battery fails. You could buy a new battery or take it in for service in the unlikely instance that the charging circuitry is what has broken. Batteries are designed to fail and are consumable. The circuitry is far less likely to fail, but you can't tell the difference without servicing the hardware.

You can learn more at http://www.apple.com/batteries/ and perhaps see what your full charge cycle and other batter information show - that would perhaps reinforce the notion that it's time to get a battery replacement.

The System Information app can show your your power measurements.


If you login to  Gmail (not the mobile site) via the browser, you can go to:

Settings (the wheel right on top)
Filters
Uncheck the Show in IMAP
after a short time the folders will be invisible in the mail apps.


How to combine two windows as one in Terminal?

If you want to be able to drag one into another, you have to turn the Tab Bar on from the View menu, or use ⇧⌘T, and then drag the tabs.  Both the source and the destination need to have the Tab Bar turned on.
Or, from the Window menu... Merge All Windows.


Why can't I control volume of DisplayPort device?

Generally speaking, audio output devices with their own volume control can't have their volume regulated by OS X.

Example:
In some schools, teachers connect their Macs to projectors. On some models, the projector has its own volume control and you can't modify the volume using the volume keys on your Mac. If you try to do so, an icon similar to what you have posted appears. You have to use the volume control on the projector's remote.

The same is happening here. Your speakers have their own volume control. Therefore, OS X can't control it.

In some other cases, OS X will allow you to "change" the volume, but this change is only apparent on your Mac. For example, in some TVs with HDMI ports, you can change the volume using the volume keys when using it as an external display, but the sound output will be of the same loudness. You have to use the TV remote to change the volume.

You can confirm this by going to  > System Preferences > Sound. The output tab will say "this device has no output controls" and you can't modify the volume.


Email "from" is not using Default account

It's a known bug introduced in Mountain Lion and was submitted to Apple by several people.
Mail ignores the Send new messages from: Account of selected mailbox setting.

See for example:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4148125?start=0&tstart=0
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1414206
http://mjtsai.com/blog/2012/08/03/mail-mountain-lion-reply-account/

I submitted the bug and is now marked as duplicate (but Apple's reporting tool does not allow you to see the duplicated entry).


How do I make automator only perform an operation on one file at a time?

You can do this multilpe ways, one is to use applescript to do a 'for each' loop.

Take this applescript code snippet as an example and work it out from there.

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving these_items
   repeat with an_item in these_items
       tell application "Adobe Photoshop CC"
           activate
           open an_item
           do action "frame for print" from "Zak's actions"
       end tell
   end repeat
end adding folder items to


How to run third-party iOS apps in OS X?

The reason you can run programs that you have source code and libraries for is that Xcode cross compiles that code to run on x86 architecture inside an iOS simulator.

What you are looking for is an iOS emulator and that's something that Apple doesn't provide. There are emulators around, but they all seem to be startup / venture funded efforts at this point. Time will tell if they decide to release the product to paying users or otherwise monetize that work. As of fall 2013, there are no feasible options to do what you ask.

Realistically, you would need to have source code for those third party apps to be one Xcode build away from simulating those apps on your Mac.

This restriction also applies to the dozens of apps Apple ships as part of iOS that aren't shipped in the Xcode iOS simulator.

The TL;DR summary is you need an iOS device do to most development and testing since:

the simulator isn't an emulator
the simulator  designed for very specific subset of the development and QA/testing tasks needed to ship and support an app
the simulator won't run arbitrary IPA or apps to which you lack the source code


How to fix an accidentally created Apple CoreStorage Volume, LVG, Logical Volume Group (broken partitions)

The following should work:

Open Terminal and enter:

diskutil list
diskutil cs list

Verify (and repair) the volume if necessary:

diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

If a repair is required boot to Recovery Mode and repair the main OS X volume.
Delete the Logical Volume Group

diskutil cs delete 28A99931-20D1-4D0C-8B5A-9872BC7270E2

This should convert the LVG LINUX to a normal partition
Then enter diskutil list again and erase the 134 MB and the 1.3 TB partition (use the proper disk identifiers found in your listing above here):

diskutil eraseVolume Free Space disk0s5
diskutil eraseVolume Free Space disk0s4

Verify the volume again:

diskutil verifyVolume disk0s2

Check the limits of disk0s2

diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 limits

This will output something like that:

For device disk0s2 iMac HD:
    Current size:  1.4 TB (1396811730944 Bytes)
    Minimum size:  ?
    Maximum size:  ?

Try to expand the main volume - you can't expand the volume beyond the limit shown in the previous output

 diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 R

If the R size option fails try to use a real size like 3999g or a percentage 100% (on some external disks this may fail because of some 2 TiB limit).

 diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 3999927271424b

or

 diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 100%


Can I configure my Macbook to unmount all external drives when I close the lid?

There are a number of apps that can run scripts on sleep:

SleepWatcher — simple yet effective.
Scenario — can also run scripts at other times such as after wake.
ControlPlane — more customisable, lets you run scripts after many different events.

A bash script such as the following will unmount all specified disks:

VOLUMES="/Volumes/drive1 /Volumes/drive2 /Volumes/drive3"
for volume in $VOLUMES ; do [ -d $volume ] && umount -f $volume done

To unmount all volumes except /:

umount -A

or more cleanly…

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to eject (every disk whose ejectable is true)'


AppleScript error -1728 while accessing menu

This works for me to sync my iPhone in iTunes:

tell application "iTunes"
    activate
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        click menu item 1 of menu 1 of menu item "Devices" of menu 1 of menu bar item "File" of menu bar 1 of application process "iTunes"
    end tell
end tell

click menu item 1 can also be e.g., click menu item "Sync “Iam’s iPhone”"
Note that the value of the delay command(s) may need to be adjusted for your system, and or additional delay commands may or may not be needed. Adjust values of and or add/remove the delay commands as appropriate.

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not employ any error handling and is meant only to show one of many ways accomplish a task. The onus is always upon the User to add/use appropriate error handling as needed/wanted.


How I disable or remove shortcut global (Shift+Cmd+C)?

As far as I know, ⇧⌘C is not a system-wide global shortcut, so it sounds like something Visual Studio is doing. It probably has a way to disable it within the application, but if not, you can try to remap it to something else (this works for any application where the thing you're triggering is a menu!):

Open System Preferences, and go to the Keyboard pane.
Head over to the Shortcuts tab, and then App Shortcuts.
Hit the plus button, and enter the name of the "open in terminal" menu item exactly as it appears.
Put in some other shortcut that you want to trigger it with.

(This works even when the menu you want to trigger doesn't usually have a shortcut. Unfortunately, it only works if the feature is a menu item.)

(Unfortunately, I probably can't release this as CC-BY-SA as per the content policy, because it's a screenshot of copyrighted proprietary software. But I don't see anyone else worrying about this, so....)


Verizon switch to Virgin mobile for iPhone 4

There are 2 telephone systems in the USA. They are named CDMA and GSM.

One with SIM card and the other without SIM card.

Verizon is without SIM card!

So just check with the new provider what system they use and you will know if your phone works.

Major carriers Sprint and Verizon networks mainly use Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, while AT&T and T-Mobile use Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) technology. All of these carriers also support 3G or higher networks. The network plays a big part in the capabilities your phone will have and, to some extent, its performance.

GSM phones have a SIM card that stores your account information and, if you choose, your phone book. When you switch to a new phone, you can simply remove the card from inside the old phone and insert it into the new one. But you can't use a T-Mobile SIM card in an AT&T phone, or vice versa. Also, GSM phones work more widely across the world than do CDMA models.

The good news is:
If you have the iPhone 4s
the iPhone 4S is a world phone," it will support both GSM and CDMA networks. Regardless of your carrier, you can be sure that the micro-SIM slot will be there to accept your GSM micro-SIM cards, as well as any CDMA "roaming SIM.""


Can't use command+space to change input source

You are in the right place, but the wrong selection.

Select "Spotlight" from the list on the left. You can then uncheck the shortcut for Command Space allowing you to assign that to the shortcut you want to.


What does the emergency dialer let you do?

You can only dial emergency numbers, which vary by country/region (911 in the US; certain countries such as France have multiple emergency numbers). Dialing regular numbers produces the following error:

Starting with iOS 8, you may also dial emergency contacts by opening your Medical ID. Interestingly, as of iOS 9.3.4, if you have one of those numbers memorized, you cannot punch it in directly. You must go through the Medical ID to ring it up.


iOS 10 stuck on approve this iPhone from another one of your devices

This is almost certainly a keychain issue. Try these steps:

Turn off iCloud Keychain on both the MacBook and iPhone.
From your iPhone, go to Keychain and tap Approve with Security Code.
When prompted for the 4-digit iCloud Security code tap Forgot Code.
Follow the prompts to reset the code.
Now this device should have iCloud Keychain enabled and working.
Now from your MacBook, enable iCloud Keychain.
You should get a notification on the iPhone about this. Enter your iCloud password in the prompt.
iCloud Keychain should now be enabled.

Hopefully this gets rid of the Approve your device notifications! Let me know how you go.

[EDIT]
***Make sure you have a passcode setup on your iCloud Keychain on your computer. If you don't set one up and then try approving your phone again. That is what made mine work. Hope this helps!


Having Finder closed shouldn't cause any problems.

You can add a Quit Finder ⌘Q command to the Finder menu...

Copy and paste the following command into Terminal, then press enter.

defaults write com.apple.Finder QuitMenuItem 1; killall -HUP Finder

Note: When Finder is closed and an external disk is plugged in it will still be available to applications through the File > Open, File > Save, etc. commands.

To remove the Quit Finder ⌘Q command from the Finder menu...

Copy and paste the following command into Terminal, then press enter.

defaults delete com.apple.Finder QuitMenuItem; killall -HUP Finder

One of the nice benefits of having Finder closed, is it hides the clutter of files and folders I have on my Desktop. Sometimes I just don't want to be distracted by what's on my Desktop, so I quit Finder.


Why are the iPad games Epic Citadel and Gravity HD crashing on startup?

Try rebooting the iPad to free up some memory. Hold the lock button until the "slide to power off" slider comes on, slide it, then turn the iPad back on.


Yes, I can confirm that I have installed an SSD into my Mac Pro 1,1. Because the drive is a 2.5" drive, though, I am using a 2.5" to 3.5" SATA converter sled. Note, if I recall, there are some of these converters that only work with certain models.


Apple TV - Remember Airplay speaker choice

As this issue still persist in 2019, wanted to add a temporary solution.

Big thanks to the answer from user quip above that pointed in the right direction: the Apple TV checks for Speakers before looking for a Network Connection.

The semi-solution is to set the Network Connection on the Apple TV to Manual.

Go to Settings > Network > Ethernet > Configure IP and select Manual.

You can just click on "Done" on all the prompts if you want to use the same settings as before.

After this fix, most of the time, the Apple TV remembers the AirPlay Speaker selected after wakeup.

Update: Here is a step-by-step video tutorial for the procedure: https://youtu.be/wb4-U0TUB0Y


Can the Mavericks install binary be shared between two different apple accounts?

Yes, you can reuse the downloaded installer across Macs, even if they're using a different Apple ID account for The App Store. The installer contains nothing in it that prevents it from being used this way.

Data about App Store accounts comes from existing user data on the machine during the upgrade, it's not embedded in the downloaded installer.

The legalities of doing this seem fine: the upgrade is free and the user is required to accept the EULA when they run the installer application, before the install begins, so you're not bypassing some acceptance of this agreement by sharing the installer instead of downloading it from the App Store.

Edit and field test: A friend used my pre-downloaded copy of the installer on his MacBook Pro tonight and it worked just fine.


Improved Terminal autocomplete funcionality (similar to Matlab's)

In a Bash shell, you can hit Control+R to do a reverse intelligent search in the history. Start typing the command and the shell will autocomplete with previously entered commands.

Then you can either press Enter to execute the command again, use the arrow left or right key to edit the command, or keep pressing Control+R to cycle through other possible completions.


iOS 11 on iPhone 5s: Should I expect a decrease in performance?

I own an iPhone 5S but I have not yet upgraded to iOS11. That is mainly because I like to let all the bugs get worked out first. Once it hits 11.1, I'll upgrade. However, to answer your question, take a look at this article that goes through a detailed evaluation of performance on the iPhone 5S. Overall, it doesn't seem to affect it to negatively.

Conclusion from the article:

Should you update?

I could understand wanting to hang around on iOS 10 if you have an iPhone 5S. Apple's oldest supported iPhone indisputably loses some of its pep in the move to iOS 11, and while it gets a lot of the same things as other newer devices, it does miss out on things like ARKit, the improved Siri voice, and some contextual Intelligence features.

But as I do every year, for most people I would come down in favor of updating. The iPhone 5S is slower with iOS 11, sure, but it's not as slow as the iPhone 4S was with iOS 8 or 9, or even as slow as the iPhone 5 is with iOS 10 most of the time. And as we mentioned, you still get a bunch of new iOS 11 features, and you're bound to find something worth upgrading for in that list.

Even more importantly, though, you need to be on iOS 11 to get new security updates at this point. Apple only very, very rarely issues any kind of patch for older iOS versions after the newest one is out, so the first disclosed vulnerabilities that come to light after today are only going to get patched in iOS 11. Really, practically, you can probably afford to wait around until iOS 11.1 barring any major catastrophes—those updates usually come out toward the end of October—but in the long run it's not safe or responsible to use old unpatched operating systems indefinitely.

So, update. If not today, then soon. The iPhone 5S gets a little slower, but that's how it goes when the oldest hardware that runs an operating system is only 20 or 25 percent as fast as the most recent hardware. It'll never be as fast as it was, but it's fast enough for a budget or hand-me-down phone, and it keeps doing new things; that's an acceptable trade-off.


trying to retreive txt messages from old disconnected iphone 4s

You might have already tried all basic troubleshooting, but if not, it’s worth trying

a force restart or/and
iPhone Reset: Tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings
logging out and back in to your iCloud account

Let me know if any of these worked.


You should be able to drag the .mov file into iMovie without any problems, so I'm wondering to where within iMovie you're actually trying to drag it?

Perhaps the best bet is to use the commandI shortcut to open the Import window. Once open, use that to navigate to your video file and import it.


How to can I upgrade Xcode 4.1 to 4.5.2 properly?

Setting aside whether you are actually done with the prior version of Xcode (as older versions have some capabilities and older SDK that the newer versions no longer support - you might want to keep an old machine with an old Xcode around if you are supporting legacy software products - but let's assume you don't care about anything other than making new programs with the newest Xcode) let's dive in with the steps.

To prepare for the new Xcode, it is easiest to uninstall all previous versions of Xcode by following the uninstall documentation for each version you have installed.

For Xcode 4.1 you will want to run the perl script to clean things up:

Uninstalling Xcode Developer Tools

To uninstall Xcode developer tools on the boot volume along with the  directory, from a Terminal window type:

$ sudo <Xcode>/Library/uninstall-devtools --mode=all

For the new Xcode, the App Store doesn't normally show the download progress so you must track it from Launchpad or just by watching the /Applications folder in Finder. It shows INSTALLING as depicted above, but the Launchpad view has a live progress bar and summary of the 1.61 GB download as depicted below.


MacBook Pro failing Internet Recovery with exclamation mark

That Mac is too old to use Internet Recovery.
Computers that can be upgraded to use OS X Internet Recovery

Your choices are …

the Recovery Partition
a boot DVD
a USB key, made on another machine
Hardware test


Mac storage is full but iCloud is not, what to do?

As long as you're running High Sierra, you can have your Mac take care of this automatically. Go into the iCloud Drive system preferences and check the box for "Optimize Mac Storage". Your Mac will then remove local copies of old files when more storage space is needed, while keeping them on iCloud Drive.


Boot screen hangup after upgrade from El Capitan to Sierra

I managed to fix it. For future generations, here's what I did:

Turned out I needed to start the device in safe mode and let Sierra finish its installation - sorting out whatever incompatibility there was automatically. I did try safe mode, but when it showed exactly the same behaviour - a frozen bootup screen with nothing happening - I gave up after 15 minutes and restarted the machine.

Luckily, I then decided to try safe mode and verbose mode at the same time. To do this, I logged into the recovery console (Cmd + R during bootup), started the terminal, and enabled both modes using

sudo nvram boot-args="-x -v"

(this does not seem to work when booting the machine in Single User mode because of sandbox restrictions; it has to be the terminal in the recovery console)

With this, I managed to see on startup that while the boot screen would be frozen for a long while in safe mode, too, a lot was happening behind the scenes, and eventually I got through to the login screen.

After logging in, the Sierra installer worked for another while (the installation was not yet complete) and rebooted.

(For the record, at this point, I also removed an extension named SteerMouse - but I don't know whether that was what caused the problem. On its website, it does claim to be ready for Sierra.)

Once I was logged in again, I opened a terminal (from within MacOS now, no need for the recovery console) and turned off safe mode and verbose mode again:

sudo nvram boot-args=""

the system is now booted up in normal mode, and everything seems fine.


Error with App Store Update on iPhone 6 and iPad Pro

search your device for ‘call” and you should see it.   the version you have will not appear in a search for ‘numbo’.

i don’t know a way to ‘go to’ an app in the iOS finder but hunt in the usual way looking for the icon.  the app is simply called ‘call blocker’.   it’s there, when you find it just dispose of it in then usual way,  a long press on the icon and then tap the ‘x’ that appears when it starts to wiggle.

cw


Apple headphone remote doesn't always work

There are 4 contact areas (poles) on your headphone jack, off the top of my head it's Left Audio, Right Audio, Ground and Control (doesn't matter of this isn't wholly right) and each one when inserted into the socket forces a tiny switch to be pushed in, thus alerting the device to the presence of something plugged in.

My google-fu cannot get a diagram as it would explain it better, but when you insert the headphone end into the socket, you are essentially applying vertical force to the rounded end of a tiny sprung push switch, and forcing it to move horizontally to engage the switch mechanism.  It's doing this 4 times against 4 tiny switches.

When these switches get gummed up, they can act odd.  It's not hard to see how they can get dirty given that they are essentially open to the environment, albeit down a little hole.  More common is the switches refusing to reset to the normal position when you take the headphones out, resulting in muted devices as it still thinks headphones are attached, but it's perfectly possibly for them to not push in properly too, or have enough dirt accumulated to make a poor contact.

To rectify it, insert and remove your headphone jack loads of times as fast as you can, spin it round in the socket, and generally agitate the switch mechanisms.  Some would have you apply a tiny bit of WD-40 to the headphone end (Don't spray into the socket!) first.


How to make /private/etc/hosts available on macOS Sierra?

If you can ping your /etc/hosts entries as root but not as regular user then try changing permissions on the hosts file to allow everyone to read. This worked for me.

sudo chmod a+r /etc/hosts


Printing from the New York Times iPad App

The New York Times iOS app doesn't include print functionality.

If you wish to print the article, what you can do instead is to print it via Safari.

Tap on the Share button within the app and either tap on Copy or the Message icon to reveal the article URL.

Once you have the article URL, copy and paste it to open in Safari on your iPad.
Tap on the Share icon in Safari and you can use Safari's print command to print the article.


Why isn't my iPhone 4S charging (apparently) only in some places?

It is possible that there is a problem with the port on the computer, either with the device now being blocked (which is sometimes done via policy in enterprise environments) or the port malfunctioning/disabled altogether. Do other devices, such as flash drives, work if you plug them into the same USB port you were using with your iPhone?

If no devices are working in the port, try the following:

Windows/Mac Desktop/Macbook w/ removeable battery:
1) Shut down the computer
2) Unplug all items from the computer, including power
3) Press and hold down on the power button for ~7 seconds
4) Plug power back in
5) Plug other devices back in
6) Start up and see if the port has started to work again

Macbook without removable battery:

1) Turn off device, unplug all devices except Magsafe charger
2) Hold down left Shift, Control, Option, and Power button at the same time for ~5 sec (note you may see a change in the Magsafe LED color for a second)
3) Power machine on and see if device connects

Sometimes a glitch in the System Management Controller (yes, even on Windows machines) can cause a USB port to go dead. If it continues to not work, reach out to your IT dept./technician to see if perhaps there is a hardware failure.


Mac is slower and has strange nuances in operation after liquid contact

I really think your best option is to take it into an Apple-licensed fix-it person and have them open it up. I expect they'll find some kind of damage on the motherboard (probably up and around the underside & top). Water does some gnarly things to electronics, so just because it's still turning on and 'working' doesn't mean there isn't something damaged on the mobo.


iphone app now is Pending Contract will it be removed from the itunes store?

From this Apple FAQ :

  What happens if I do not renew my iOS Developer Program membership?

  Once your membership expires, your apps will no longer be available on
  the App Store and you will lose the ability to submit new apps. You
  will lose access to pre-release software, the Apple Developer Forums,
  Developer Technical Support, and the Certificate Utility. In addition,
  your existing iOS Distribution certificates will be revoked and
  invalidated. Finally, if you enrolled in the program as a company, you
  will lose the ability to manage your development team.

  You will, however, retain your status as a Registered Apple Developer
  and will have access to free development resources.

In order to conserve your app on the AppStore, you must renew your iOS Developer Program.

Hope this helps !


Is it better to have more cores or higher processor clock speed to decrease build time for iOS projects

Here's great article about this subject.

  More cores, slower clock speed

  Pros

  Applications that support multi-threading will greatly benefit from having a higher number of cores at their disposal
  Increasing the amount of cores in your CPU is a cost effective way of increasing performance
  Multi-threading support for applications will continue to improve over time
  You will be able to run more apps at once without seeing performance drops
  Great for running multiple virtual machines

  Cons

  Lower single threaded performance than a higher clock speed processor

  Fewer cores, higher clock speed

  Pros

  Better single threaded performance
  Lower cost option

  Cons

  Fewer cores to split between applications
  Not as strong multi-threading performance

Since Xcode is able to compile sources in parallel, I'd recommend using more cores. To compile one file You don't need so much speed on one core.


To use that refresh rate you would have to lower the resolution to a maximum of 1280x1024. See the manual, page 29.


Having the same issue. It's not very good even in Safari. I suspect the mtlcompilerservice, as I load pages I see a lot of instances of it in the Activity Monitor, consuming high CPU. TGPro shows high temperature of the CPU, 90+ celcius. Video playback heats up the device but loading pages and browsing around is the worst offender.
I have the 15" mid 2014 model with Iris Pro & Nvidia gt 750m. I thought the reason for overheating/fans-kicking-in-whenever-they-please was that Apple changed some things as to how GPUs work in Big Sur.
I'll try installing Big Sur to a separate volume, and if that doesn't help, I'll re-install macOS, starting from High Sierra and update here.
--

Idle temp: 54-60 C  Browsing: 70+ C


The python bin is located in /usr/bin/python

You should try a symlink ln -s /your/path/to/python /usr/bin/python/


Glitch or bad design during booting on Mojave?

The firmware controls that rendering process and it’s by design not using the full graphics library so it’s hard to say if it’s a glitch or hardware issue or if an engineer figured the risk (or manager figured the priority/cost) to embedding more code outweighed the “let’s be pretty about everything” design goal.

Time will tell if Apple patches that or if others can reproduce it on their equivalent hardware and then you’ll know if it’s hardware defect, by design and if that design got someone to tweak the code / drivers to remediate that visual artifact.


What is this virtual memory for the applications on macOs?

About Virtual Memory
Virtual memory allows an operating system to escape the limitations of physical RAM. The virtual memory manager creates a logical address space (or “virtual” address space) for each process and divides it up into uniformly-sized chunks of memory called pages. The processor and its memory management unit (MMU) maintain a page table to map pages in the program’s logical address space to hardware addresses in the computer’s RAM. When a program’s code accesses an address in memory, the MMU uses the page table to translate the specified logical address into the actual hardware memory address. This translation occurs automatically and is transparent to the running application.
From Apple Developer Documentation

What is secure virtual memory on Mac?
To keep your information safe, macOS uses secure virtual memory. Virtual memory is a technique computers use to temporarily move data from random-access memory (RAM) to the hard disk if the amount of available RAM is limited. If the data written to the hard disk as virtual memory is unencrypted, and is never overwritten, it could be captured if the hard disk is scanned, creating a potential security risk.
Secure virtual memory in macOS eliminates this risk by encrypting the data in virtual memory. Secure virtual memory is always on, so data is kept secure while it’s swapped between your hard disk and RAM. The RAM on your Mac contains no information when it’s turned off.
From Apple Support


MacBook Pro 2008 Aluminum - keyboard problems

Try an external usb or wireless keyboard.  If it works ok, then most likely you internal keyboard is damaged and needs repair or replacement.


Is it possible to perform donation with In-App purchase for amount the user want to donate?

No, in-app purchases can only have predefined prices set in iTunes Connect. You can charge the same in-app purchase multiple times, meaning you can calculate the donation to the nearest Tier 1 multiple and repeatedly charge it, but you can’t have custom tiers. Using Apple Pay to get around this is prohibited by App Store guidelines.

Here’s how PCalc shows the various donation levels:


Can I separate Facetime audio from system audio?

Have you considered trying Sound Siphon or Audio Hijack Pro to control your audio?


cputype 16777223 is “x86 64” (64 bit mode); 7 is “i386” (32 bit mode). Incidentally, 16777223 == 0x1000007, so bit 24 means “64 bit”.

Looking in /usr/include/mach/machine.h (pointed out by …/mach-o/fat.h, which seems like a reasonable place to start), we find the following:

⋮
typedef integer_t       cpu_type_t;
⋮
#define CPU_ARCH_ABI64  0x01000000              /* 64 bit ABI */
⋮
#define CPU_TYPE_X86            ((cpu_type_t) 7)
#define CPU_TYPE_I386           CPU_TYPE_X86            /* compatibility */
#define CPU_TYPE_X86_64         (CPU_TYPE_X86 | CPU_ARCH_ABI64)
⋮
#define CPU_TYPE_POWERPC                ((cpu_type_t) 18)
#define CPU_TYPE_POWERPC64              (CPU_TYPE_POWERPC | CPU_ARCH_ABI64)
⋮

Of course, you can also just add the -v option to your otool command to have it show the symbolic values:

% otool -vf /bin/ls
Fat headers
fat_magic FAT_MAGIC
nfat_arch 2
architecture x86_64
    cputype CPU_TYPE_X86_64
    cpusubtype CPU_SUBTYPE_X86_64_ALL
    capabilities CPU_SUBTYPE_LIB64
    offset 4096
    size 39600
    align 2^12 (4096)
architecture i386
    cputype CPU_TYPE_I386
    cpusubtype CPU_SUBTYPE_I386_ALL
    capabilities 0x0
    offset 45056
    size 35632
    align 2^12 (4096)


Scrolling in Terminal when program is opened in MacOS Sierra

You can scroll the screen while holding fn or Shift ⇧ key.

You can disable this completly by unthicking:

Terminal Preferences → Profiles → Keyboard → Scroll Alternate Screen.


How do I install fuse-ext2 to use with OSXFuse

The build from source how-to is available at the git homepage of fuse-ext2. Please use the lines below though, because I had to make slight changes to get it working (e.g the libtool download source has been moved).

At least the appropriate xcode-command-line-tools and OSXFuse have to be installed.

Download the source from github and unzip the file. Then open Terminal.app and enter

cd ~/Downloads

assuming the fuse-ext2 file was unzipped there.

First you have to download, make and install several tools (m4, autoconf, automake, libtool, e2fsprogs). Then you can build fuse-ext2. This is all done using Terminal.app.

export PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:$PATH

mkdir gnu
cd gnu

# m4
curl -O http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/m4/m4-1.4.17.tar.gz
tar -zxvf m4-1.4.17.tar.gz
cd m4-1.4.17
./configure --prefix=/opt/gnu
make -j 16
sudo make install
cd ../

# autoconf
curl -O http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.69.tar.gz
tar -zxvf autoconf-2.69.tar.gz
cd autoconf-2.69
./configure --prefix=/opt/gnu
make
sudo make install
cd ../

# automake
curl -O http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/automake/automake-1.15.tar.gz
export PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:$PATH
tar -zxvf automake-1.15.tar.gz
cd automake-1.15
./configure --prefix=/opt/gnu
make
sudo make install
cd ../

# libtool
curl -O http://ftp.hawo.stw.uni-erlangen.de/gnu/libtool/libtool-2.4.6.tar.gz
tar -zxvf libtool-2.4.6.tar.gz
cd libtool-2.4.6
./configure --prefix=/opt/gnu
make
sudo make install
cd ../

# e2fsprogs
curl -O https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/tytso/e2fsprogs/v1.42.12/e2fsprogs-1.42.12.tar.gz
tar -zxvf e2fsprogs-1.42.12.tar.gz
cd e2fsprogs-1.42.12
./configure --prefix=/opt/gnu
make
sudo make install
sudo make install-libs
cd ../../

# fuse-ext2
cd fuse-ext2-master
export PATH=/opt/gnu/bin:$PATH
./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-idirafter/opt/gnu/include -idirafter/usr/local/include/osxfuse/" LDFLAGS="-L/opt/gnu/lib -L/usr/local/lib" ./configure
make
sudo make install

All lines without a # have to be entered in Terminal and then executed by hitting the Enter key. You may use copy and paste.

An easier way is to install brew and use these instructions below (also in Terminal).

brew doctor #repair everything you are warned about!
brew install homebrew/dupes/m4
brew install e2fsprogs automake autoconf libtool
cd ~/Downloads/fuse-ext2-master
./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-idirafter/$(brew --prefix e2fsprogs)/include -idirafter/usr/local/include/osxfuse" LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix e2fsprogs)/lib" ./configure
make
sudo make install

After finishing either of the two methods all necessary files are installed (including a prefpane) and you should be able to r/w ext2/3/4.


MacBook 13" white (mid 2007) - how to treat a new battery for optimal battery life?

I remember asking the guy at the Apple store this very question back when I bought my black MacBook 13" back in 2007. From what he said and from what I've read over the years regarding battery health, most of what Apple have stated on the page you referenced is applicable to you. If I could offer some more advice, it would be this.

Cycle your battery at least once a month by charging it to 100%, discharging it completely (until the MacBook puts itself to sleep) and leaving it discharged for about 5 hours, then charge to 100% again and let it "over"-charge for about 2 hours. According to Apple, you should get 300 cycles out of your battery before it is considered to be "consumed". That's 300 months of use if you only cycle it that many times.
Only charge the laptop when you need to. Don't leave it constantly plugged in. If you know you're going to be running off of mains for an extended period without the possibility of power failure, then consider  removing the battery altogether to prolong its life. The 2007 model MacBooks have easily removable batteries so it's not too much of a hassle.
As for first use, as far back as I can remember, all Apple products are ready to use straight out of the box. It's annoying to get so excited to have a device, get home, and then have to wait 16 hours for it to do an initial charge. As far as I am aware, this should extend to their batteries as well, although I would hazard a guess that the batteries come with a 50% charge instead of a full charge as the batteries should be stored at around 50% for long-term storage. I would suggest, based on that and the above advice, to utilise the battery the first time without an initial charge, deplete it until the MacBook enters low power state, then charge it fully.


How to restore EFI in MacBook Pro Retina 13"?

Based on the chat we had, where I was able to get more details like:

You wiped out all partitions on the HDD
You were getting the -2002F error during Internet Recovery

(Both of these are key pieces of info to put into the original question, by the way. )

Your only option is to reinstall OS X from boot media.  You can either take it into an Apple Store and have them reinstall or have someone you know has a Mac download OS X and create a bootable USB for you.  See the answer here - different question, but the answer is still the same:  reinstall OS X from scratch via boot media.


ssh to non-existent .local name never times out

Rather than make a bunch of comments, here’s how I would start to corner this. I can’t reproduce this yes, so I might be totally wrong.

First, does ssh using a known bad local IP address time out fast or understandably / reliably?

Second, does the potential (or any) machine show as advertised?

 dns-sd -B _ssh._tcp local

Third, do you have any apple device that’s proxying bonjour sleep wake?

If not, why even try ssh to something that mdns could dig up later or have bonjour sleep proxy trying to keep waking that device. I could see how this longer time-out is by design to allow WOL via sleep proxy and multiple network segments to have a chance to wake your sleeping beautiful Mac.


How to create multiple printer profiles on Mac?

While this is not a direct answer to your question, you can create settings presets for that -- which can be selected in every GUI app using the standard print dialog as easily as a different printer:


Mount it, and then copy?

Why won't that work?


Well, first of all, touching the keyboard will not crash you computer, even if you're doing heavy process.

So if you're deleting a big number of files or downloading a big file, you can still go ahead and browse the web or write on a text editor, or whatever.
And even if Safari or Pages would crash, the OS is robust enough not to let this crash affect the download.

To sum it up, go ahead multi-task! Mac OS X is a really strong OS and you shouldn't worry about asking him to do multiple things, he's great at it.


Aperture 3 Library from pre Mavericks to Mavericks

The answer is easy: Open the library, you will be asked to update it. Do it. Than one can import it.


Yosemite Server, adaptive firewall not stopping screensharingd attempts?

The only sure solution I know of for this is to configure VPN on the server then lock down port 5900 on the WAN interface. That will kill the attempts for screen sharing from the public side but allow it when you VPN into the server.

If the port is open on the public-facing WAN side, you can be sure that the port-scanners are going to find it and attempt getting in.


The 3 dots indicator appears when a user is typing and they have enabled the "Show typing" setting. However, they may start typing and then decide not to send the message, or stop to do something else, and therefore the message is never sent. The 3 dots indicator is not an indication that a message is incoming, simply that the user is typing.

The indicator only appears when they are typing a message specifically to you. It does not trigger when they are typing messages to others.

However, the indicator can get stuck if there are network errors or slowness, if the server is overloaded or has stale data. In practice, it can remain stuck until you get another complete message from that sender or you decide to delete that conversation.


Neither mpicc nor mpirun are installed on a stock Mountain Lion system nor present with Xcode v5 or lower.

The homebrew packaging system has a trivially simple install (v2.0.1):

brew install open-mpi

You could also build your OpenMPI from code:

https://sites.google.com/site/dwhipp/tutorials/installing-open-mpi-on-mac-os-x

It appears from this article, that Lion dropped the inclusion of a build of OpenMPI - but I'd go with the instructions above rather than the MacPorts version if you don't already use MacPorts.


Can I tell MacPorts to build against its own X11 or Xorg?

No, there's no such possibility within MacPorts. This port does not come with such a choice.

kitty is based on OpenGL, and doesn't really use ordinary UI controls from a library such as GTK, QT, Aqua or similar.

kitty is a native Mac-application, as well as existing as a native Linux application. When you compile kitty on a Mac, the backend used is Cocoa (i.e. native Mac). X11 does not come into the picture at all.

You could try manually recompiling kitty and then force it to use its X11 backend. I don't think that backend has been tested on macOS though, as the author intends the user to use the native Carbon backend.


MacBook Air - Upgrading from Mac OS X Lion to macOS Sierra

I figured out I can still download El Capitan so should solve the problem.


iOS App Preview videos - are all 3 iPhone resolutions required

In the end I only uploaded 3 videos - iPhone 5 resolution, iPhone 6 resolution and iPad resolution. When I visited the app on the App Store on an iPhone 6 PLUS - the iPhone 6 video was shown.

So it looks like larger iPhones will fallback to smaller videos if the larger preview video is not present. Presumably the iPhone 6 will fallback to the iPhone 5 video as well.


How do I take a screenshot of the keyboard viewer with modifiers (e.g. Alt Gr, Shift)?

You should be able to use Applications/Utilities/Grab.app for this kind of thing, it offers more kinds of capture including timed.


How do I forward iMessages from my computer to my Android phone?

There are a number of third party solutions to this problem which the first party (Apple) has never resolved. Most of them involve forwarding your messages to a server somewhere, where they'll use a cell phone gateway to forward them as SMS to a phone you choose. Obviously, this represents a significant security vulnerability, as whoever owns the server has full access to your messages which could contain sensitive information.

The only way around this vulnerability is to own the server yourself, which is basically what PieMessage does. It's an open source project hosted on Github, also available on the App Store somewhere. I haven't actually tried it out yet -- I don't have an iMac that stays at home all day to use as the server -- but it seems to have trusted reviews.


How to Change the Dock Indicator Lights Color in Mac OS X only for an app that I'm using right know?

The Dock indicator light does not differ between which app is in the foreground.

As a workaround, you could install a third party item called HyperDock (for EUR 6.95 as of this writing) to show you the content of the window when hovering over the icon with the mouse (similar to how Windows' Aero Desktop does).


Most times when I install something it asks to be dragged into applications

It's just a convention that adds a layer of security.
Some apps like VirtualBox, for example have an install script that will do this for you, so obviously it can be done. However, if you have to manually do this, there's no way an inadvertent double click will install the App.
Secondly, apps can be installed for both users system wide or for individual users (~/Applications) so this manual step gives you a choice of which Applications folder you wish to install it to.
“Completing the installation” is a misnomer here on macOS.  Unlike Program Files on Windows, you don’t have to have a special place to run an app. You can put that app bundle  almost anywhere (obviously not protected volumes) and have it work. You're only copying the the app bundle to the Applications folder for convenience.


Is Apple's Device Enrollment Program (DEP) tied into the OSX Installer, Hard Drive or Machine?

DEP follows the machine, not the installer or drive.
Apple doesn’t have a neat article for this like it does for iPhone or Apple Watch.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201365
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208855


Are there third-party keyboards that have the Apple layout?

Yes, there are several companies producing keyboards with Maclayout, e.g. Logitech: http://reviews.logitech.com/7061/4741/logitech-dinovo-keyboard-mac-edition-reviews/reviews.htm, and also Keysonic: http://www.computerbild.de/artikel/cb-News-PC-Hardware-Keysonic-ACK-540-MAC-RF-Spezialtastatur-fuer-Apple-Rechner-3364609.html


That is a 7 year old link!  Try just opening the resolv.conf file which is a text file that contains a list of DNS servers.  It may be blank, in which case you can just add lines using the following format as an example:

nameserver 172.16.1.254
nameserver 172.16.2.254

Check this link for a bit more


It sounds like you have "Log out after 60 minutes of inactivity" selected in the "Advanced…" pane of "Security & Privacy" settings enabled.


El Capitan Realtek 8812au Installation stuck at "Destination Select"

I've a ticket with D-Link Egypt and here's their reply:

Simply it's working :)


How to fix no backlit keyboard on BootCamp Windows 8 partition

Keyboard lights work perfectly in both W7 and W8. (and Fn F5 and Fn F6 control the intensity)

Try reinstalling the WindowsSupport files (which reinstalls the keyboard driver), you should not lose T++ functionality, but if you do just reinstall it (Power Plan Assist reinstallation is not needed)

Sometimes after some sleep-wake cycles the dimmer function stops working (Pressing Fn F5-F6 brings up a gray panel with a disabled sign), rebooting fixes the problem.


How to unmask the SIP credentials in the Zoiper VoIP application?

From zoiper.com:

  Use the password recovery option to reset your password. You will receive your new password by email.
  Once changed the password becomes applicable for all your certificates.
  This password is to be used for activation and reset of your Zoiper certificates. It is not part of your VoIP account credentials.


If I'm not a gamer, what are the reasons I might need a higher-end GPU?

For your current needs, the higher end GPU will speed things up a bit, but won't be absolutely essential.  However, upgrading your GPU now will make your iMac a bit more future-proof, allowing it to continue to run applications like these at a decent performance level in the future, as they will need more power as time progresses.


Allow port arbitrary port (such as 5432) open on El Capitan.

The ipfw firewall has been replaced by pf in Mac OS X Lion and later. Try looking at the man page for pfctl to start.

An old, but still good cheat sheet for pf

As for debugging network connections on the Mac, I would run netstat to see what ports had listeners. And possibly sudo lsof -i to see which process had which port open.


You can use lsof to list open files:

sudo lsof|grep /Volumes/Volume\ name

If you run lsof without sudo, it doesn't include processes owned by other users.


Formatting an external harddrive with TrueCrypt as NTFS?

I don't think you can format your external hard drive as NTFS using TrueCrypt -- in my experience it can only be done from a PC. I also work with macOS and Windows, so what I did was to use the Portable TrueCrypt for Windows on a PC, and then I was able to encrypt the external NTFS-formatted hard drive with TrueCrypt. The advantage of using the Portable TruecCrypt for Windows is that the program doesn't have to be installed on the PC, and the TrueCrypt volume can be mounted on both OS. Hope this helps!


Turned out I had to trust the device. I tethered the iPad to the mac, went to Finder on the mac, clicked on the iPad menu item in the side bar, then it asked me if I wanted to trust the iPad, I said yes, and then on the iPad it asked for the lock password. After doing this usb internet sharing started to work. I hope this helps someone because this step was not mentioned in any of the other questions or the documentation.


How to batch forward messages from Mail.app

You can set Rules in Mail.app preferences to take actions on emails. What should work is a rule configured like this:

You would just need to fill in the to: field with the account that should be receiving all email.

Another option is to forward mail from the source. If the source is iCloud, you can Forward all messages automatically. If you use Gmail, Gmail can do it too.


Possible to uninstall OS X apps without admin password?

No, but you can revoke the computer from your AppleID account.


MacBook Air at 5700 RPM fan speed during summer?

47.5°C is normal operating temperature and you have nothing to worry about. When your computer reaches around 100-110°C (~230°F), it will take cautionary actions. Your computer will automatically cap CPU load depending on the temperature.

It also depends how long you are using your computer at these hot temperatures. If you are doing CPU intensive tasks on your laptop (3D gaming, rendering, etc.) for extended periods of time, you may want to look at manually controlling the fans. iStat has built in fan control settings but I also use Macs Fan Control. In this you can increase the Fan speed and set automatic fan speeds. Do note that you shouldn't always run your computer with max fan speeds because that will slowly decay the life and effectiveness of your fans (you usually don't need to worry about this).

If you're like me and use your computer as a workhorse, you may want to consider purchasing an external fan (only get one if you are really stressing your computer on a daily basis).

Usually, you don't need to do much but you can always help and care for your CPU by keeping it cool (which will extend it's life). If your computer is constantly getting very hot (~90°C) you might wan to start taking measures. 40°C is usually nothing to worry about.

Also, the only hot air outtake is at the bottom of the MacBook so you want to make sure those aren't covered up, if you use your MacBook on your bed, maybe even your lap, try seeing if you can get a desk to help ventilate the laptop.

The laptops temperature is definitely influenced by the temperature in the room. Because you say it cools down when going to the basement, it sounds like a ventilation thing.


Stop Safari window closing when only pinned tabs are left

If you watch the File menu, you can see ⌘W changes depending on the number of open tabs. If there are multiple, it's "Close Tab", if there is one (not counting the pinned), it's "Close Window".

There is a workaround! You can overwrite ⌘W to always execute "Close Tab".

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts

Add a Shortcut for the application "Safari", menu item "Close Tab", shortcut ⌘w.

If you're not using English in Safari, lookup the exact name of the menu item for closing a tab. In the Dutch version of Safari, the menu item is called "Sluit tabblad".


You can not enable apps in the latest version of iTunes. All apps are now downloaded and managed from the iPad or iPhone.


Why does my Mac Pro running Snow leopard freeze on blue screen on shutdown?

Seems like the problem persists even after many trails of fixing it on different levels. The title is about the problem and the rest is just details of many possible solution that didn't work.

I'd suggest looking into the system.log file to start with. Specially before the last boot-up and after the last freeze points.

If nothing is a suspect of causing the problem in the system.log, then it might be some third-party extension/daemon that is the cause of the problem.


Mapping USB keyboard Fn key to Option key with DefaultKeyBinding.dict

Using Karabiner event, it seems like keystrokes on Fn keys are not detected by the Mac. Can I fix it?

You can’t remap the Fn key as it’s an internal keyboard modifier and not sent to the OS

See this answer from a similar question for full details.

Basically, if a scan code isn’t sent by the keyboard to be received by the OS (and the Fn code isn’t), nothing can be remapped.


Why can't I paste an image into a PDF Doc in Preview? (need to insert wet signature)

It's not the same concept.  There's annotating a PDF and then there's editing a PDF.

Annotating is also known as "marking up" a document.  Inserting an image is editing it.  Preview isn't a PDF editor.

Think of it as a written document submitted to a teacher, professor, or a manager at work.  They may take a red pen and write comments in the margin, make several comments and circle it or box it in, strike out portions, correct spelling, etc.  However, inserting an image would change the whole document.  The reviewer isn't going to rewrite/reformat your document so that the image would fit.

To get another perspective of this, consider the two PDF products from Adobe are:

Acrobat Reader (Free)
Acrobat Pro ($12.99/mo)

Reader allows you to do everything that Preview does from marking up, signing and even filling out and collecting responses from PDF forms.  However, you can't edit the document (which includes inserting graphics).  For that, you need the Pro version (if using Adobe; there are other editors available on the market).

Signatures

Preview allows for the capture of signatures via the following methods:

Sign on your trackpad.
Capture with your camera
Capture by using your finger or Apple Pencil with your iPhone or iPad

You’ll find this on the Markup Toolbar and then selecting Sign.  You can find full details on how to do this on Apple’s support document Fill out and sign PDF forms in Preview on Mac.

Acrobat Reader allows you to use a graphic image as your signature.

  To sign a PDF document or form, you can type, draw, or insert an image of your handwritten signature. You can also add text, such as your name, company, title, or the date. When you save the document, the signature and text become part of the PDF.

(Emphasis mine).


Attachments missing from messages in "inbox" folder in apple mail, when using google apps

I had a similar problem in Mail on Mountain Lion, where attachments did not show up for a message. When looking at the raw source (⌘⎇U) of the message, I also found that headers of the message were missing.

I managed to fix the issue by selecting the mailbox containing the broken email, and then using the "Rebuild" command from the "Mailbox" menu. After a short time, my emails reappeared, complete with attachments.


Time Machine Keeps Weekly Backups.

If you want to keep backups that are more regular than weekly, but less regularly than hourly then it's probably best to use a different solution. Time Machine doesn't have these settings (apparently not even in hidden settings).

Time machine keeps weekly backups as space permits. It also stores daily backups for the past month, and hourly backups for the past 24 hours.

Pros and Cons (case examples)

In the case that you create a file one day and then delete it about two days later, more than a month passes before you want to recover the file, and the weekly backup that is kept for that time period is not between the time the file was created and the time it was deleted, then a daily backup will keep the file and a weekly backup will not. This is the specific scenario where another backup solution will be desirable. However if you create a file one hour, delete it two hours later, and less than a day has passed, then Time Machine would have the file backed up, but a daily backup is unlikely to have it backed up.

I suspect that you'll find doing hourly backups with rsync will be more intensive for your computer than Time Machine's hourly backups.


What is the root cause of famous iPhone 4s battery draining issue?

If it's convenient, get a Genius Bar appointment and take it to an Apple store. I have heard that further software updates to correct battery drain problems will eventually be released. However, you have every right to be unsatisfied with the product in the condition it is in right now.


How can I easily toggle the cursor size back and forth between normal and largest?

Perhaps this is too excessive but you could create an AppleScript which would toggle the size of the cursor. To do so just:

Go to System Preferences / Universal Access and check Enable access for assistive devices, this will let you use AppleScript to query and control the user interface of most Applications.
Go to /Applications / Utilities / AppleScript Editor and paste this code and save it as Application:

tell application "System Preferences"

    set current pane to pane "com.apple.preference.universalaccess"

    tell application "System Events"

        repeat until slider "Cursor size:" of window "Accessibility" of process "System Preferences" exists
        end repeat

        set theSlider to slider "Cursor size:" of window "Accessibility" of application process "System Preferences"

        set stash to value of theSlider
        if value of theSlider is 1.0 then
            set value of theSlider to 2.2
        else
            set value of theSlider to 1.0
        end if
        stash

    end tell
end tell


Should I disable wifi if I use ethernet?

but will it affect speed of LAN transfers?

Well, you can choose which one would be preferred (by dragging it to the top in the Network preference panel):

As far as I know you cannot get a FASTER transfer by using both at once...


Mavericks Server: DNS: Increase forwarder timeout

A DNS server that is configured to use a forwarder behaves as follows:

When the DNS server receives a query, it attempts to resolve this query by using the zones that it hosts and by using its cache.
If the query cannot be resolved using local data, the DNS server forwards the query to the DNS server that is designated as a forwarder.
If forwarders are unavailable, the DNS server attempts to use its root hints to resolve the query

I doubt such timeout setting exists. Any timeout setting would just slow down the query forwarding to the forwarders. Additionally both forwarders (Fritz!Box/OtherDNS) you define in the Mac Server settings would suffer from a timeout.

Skip the Fritz!Box and add one or two reliable & fast DNS servers (OpenDNS/Google).

You may check namebench to get some other fast and reliable forwarders.

I use the same setup (Server/Fritz!Box) and i get 50 ms from localhost and 77 ms from dnscache.berlin.ccc.de.


You could try Activity Monitor located in the Utilities folder.
Select View > All Processes then filter on AdSSO-v2. When you found it, select it then click the Info button (or ⌘-I). In the window that pops up select the third tab. (Open files and ports). You will see a list of files and where they are located. The culprit may be in that list.

If that doesn't work try selecting Autocad and do the same.


A quick check that I will use is the id username command in terminal, replacing username with a user other than the one you are logged in with.  For example, if I'm logged in as SJobs I would instead use the query id TCook, assuming that TCook is another user within the domain but not on this computer.  This will attempt to query the domain for the specified username and return all of it's values.  If you are not currently connected to the domain it will instead return "no such user".

If this fails I go back, check my binding, check my network connection, log out and login again.

Hope that helps!


How precisely can I track distances using the iPhone accelerometer?

From what I've heard, the iPhone accelerometer output is very noisy - most applications that utilize it for any sort of moderate precision work do a lot of filtering and output modification to smooth out the noise.  The iPhone can be placed flat on a table, and the accelerometer will still output a fair bit of data.  I imagine you could certainly use it to measure longer distances (>10m), but I probably wouldn't trust it for high resolution measurements.


Apple TV (4th gen) - ability to prevent episodes from playing consecutively?

This is currently not possible with any default app.

As a workaround, Plex allows this if you set up a playlist (Play Queue) for each item and play the queue rather than choosing an individual video from a collection.


Is it possible to download full iCloud backup for iOS 13?

Yes what you ask is generally and technically possible and also requires some skill and/or funding to perform.

If you intend to access your account, I’d read over the Apple terms and conditions carefully. The US license has language that prohibits anyone from accessing the service (which has the data) through automated means including scripts.

Then decide if you need a lawyer to make sure you are not in violation of the terms before you access your data with a tool or script like the commercially available tools like Elcomsoft phone breaker suite.

https://www.elcomsoft.com/eppb.html

I would instead use Apple’s iOS and hardware to download your full backup unless you’re sure you need other means and have evaluated the legality and risk to access the data in a way that’s potentially not licensed.

The terms also explain what a “full backup” is and is not - so you might need to use a backup method other than iTunes based on what full means to you.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207428
https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/icloud/en/terms.html

  The following content is not included in your iCloud backup: content purchased from the iTunes Store, App Store, or Apple Books, media synced from your computer, and your photo library if you have enabled iCloud Photo Library


PDFs always open in Photoshop on Macbook Pro 2015 even when I change default program

Because 1.) You are experiencing persistent and unrequested filetype association changes and 2.) Both third-party software and Mac OS system utilities are being set--again, without request and persistently--as first-responder applications for major filetypes, I therefore believe you have a corrupted Launch Services database. (While there is a known issue with Adobe CC2017 being the cause of .pdf files opening in Photoshop rather than in Preview.app, this does not explain the behavior of Grab doing the same to .jpg files.)

[NOTE: The following paragraphs are taken from The Eclectic Light Co. site. I include them here to provide a backup set of instructions for attempting a solution should the link die, but I recommend visiting the actual site if possible.]

There is no simple way to rebuild your Launch Service database, unless you have a utility such as OnyX which includes this as a feature. Restarting in Safe mode (with the Shift key held) flushes quite a few caches, but does not touch the Launch Services database. Even if someone were to tell you where to find the files, you cannot just trash them.

The tool which maintains the Launch Services database is lsregister, which is tucked away in /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support.

It has no man page, but typing /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -h in Terminal will return its usage information.

To reset the Launch Services database, you should use its -kill option. You want this to be applied through a recursive directory scan, so also need the -r option. It’s wise to watch its progress in verbose mode (-v option), and you need to specify the domains to which this will apply. Generally, the command advised is:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain u -domain s -domain l -v

to which some add the option to scan default locations to seed the database, -seed.

There are some issues with that command as given. It covers three domains – system, local, and user – which makes it very extensive, perhaps more so than is required. It also uses a different syntax from that given for the command in Sierra 10.12.6. Instead, I suggest that you try in the first instance

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -v -apps u

That should do the trick. If it doesn’t, then widen the domains with
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -v -apps u,s,l

and finally try
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -v -all u,s,l

which should wipe everything from the database.

It is also not impossible that you find you have to use the older syntax with
/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -v -domain u

The snag with resetting the Launch Services database is that your Mac will take time to gradually rebuild it, during which its functions will run much slower. After a while, though, it will have been rebuilt, and the right app should be associated with each document type.

As to how the database was corrupted, there are dozens of ways. Here's an example involving a recent cause (not necessarily related to yours): Firefox version corrupts MacOS file association database.


"fatal: Not a valid object name develop" error when running brew upgrade/cleanup

It seems that the error has been caused by a misbehaving tap. After I've cleaned up taps with

brew untap <tapname>

the error disappeared.

P.S. to list all installed taps, just run:

brew tap


Command Line Tool to Batch Convert .EML/.EMLX/.MBOX to Searchable PDFs?

I had to do this with ~180 emails, and I used a command tool I found on GitHub that converts .eml to .pdf via .html: https://github.com/nickrussler/eml-to-pdf-converter

It takes a little while to convert each .eml file - 22 minutes for 186 emails with lots of images - so it's probably not helpful for a 500k email task. (Maybe if you're reeeally not in a rush and not afraid of multiprocessing!) If it is helpful for you or anyone else, though, here's how I got it to work in the bash command line:

git clone the repo
Install the wkhtmltopdf tool from binary (installing with pip is insufficient) from here: https://wkhtmltopdf.org/downloads.html
From within the cloned repo, generate the email converter .jar file: ./gradlew shadowJar
Run for loop to convert every file in the .mbox (or a directory of .eml):

for file in /path/to/mailbox.mbox/*;
do
   java -jar ./build/libs/emailconverter-2.0.1-all.jar "$file";
done


Safari extension builder no "+" sign to add new extension folder

In Safari, from the Develop menu, choose Show Extension Builder.

Choose Continue from the Xcode promotion sheet if shown.
From the bottom-left of the window, click the + button.


Why won't my Airport Extreme mount my USB 3.0 External Hard Drive?

Per Thermaltake support:

  The Airport Extreme Base Station cannot provide the proper driver support for the docking unit. The docking station was designed to be directly connected to a computer's USB port.

Not a very satisfactory answer, but I guess it is the answer.  I expected it to simply function as USB 2.0 speeds, rather than not working at all.


Unable to create a NetBoot image on Sierra

I have the same problem using the imagetool command or the System Image Utility app on macOS Sierra.

As a semi-solution (workaround?), you could follow the steps on this web page that shows how to create a NetBoot image (.nbi) using the Install Sierra.app as source. I was able to create a "plain" NetBoot image with these steps. I assume you could also customize stuff using additional Installer packages and post-install scripts.

I'm still looking for a (free-style, good-old) way to create a NetBoot image from a custom bootable macOS Sierra partition though.


Miniaturise all windows with AppleScript

I answered a similar question over on Stack Overflow, around the time I was still working mostly in High Sierra.  Testing it today, it still works on Catalina.
Here's the salient part of that answer:
tell application id "com.apple.systemevents" to set the value of ¬
        attribute "AXMinimized" of every window of every process ¬
        to true

Unfortunately, it's not going to minimise them all simultaneously, which would be lovely.  It does them one-by-one, not necessary starting with the one that's right in front of you.  Therefore, if you have many windows open, it can appear at first that it's not doing anything, but in fact it's minimising windows obscured by the frontmost one), and they'll minimise in turn, which is fun to see the first time, but irksome every other time when you just want it done now.
Another point that @user3439894 kindly reminded me of is that System Events is only aware of objects that exist on the currently active desktop.  Therefore, this method won't be to minimise windows that are on other desktops/spaces are off-screen.
However, if you aren't specifically looking to minimise windows, but rather just get them out of sight, then you can elect to hide the processes instead:
tell application id "com.apple.systemevents" to ¬
        set visible of every process to false

The major annoyance here is that Finder remains visible, and will need to have an extra line of code after to get rid of its windows, which I suggest should be:
tell application id "com.apple.Finder" to set ¬
        miniaturized of every window to true

The benefits, however, are that all the windows across all desktops/screens will be gone, not just the ones on your current desktop; and this takes place very quickly, almost instantaneously (apart from Finder).  Activating the application by clicking on its dock icon for example, makes the process visible again; typically, this means that the application and all of its windows that were previously visible will re-appear en masse.  Whether that's a positive or negative will depend on your needs.

The reason your code doesn't work is because miniaturised is not a property of the window object belonging to the processes suite of System Events' AppleScript dictionary.  It is a property of window objects belonging to the standard suite of any scriptable application's AppleScript dictionary (including SystemEvents, although it doesn't have any windows of its own); despite sharing a common name, these two window class objects are distinct and unrelated objects in AppleScript.


Extract a GPS track (as .gpx) from a series of jpg photos

exiftool itself can now also generate GPX files. You can download the gpx.fmt template from the exiftool website, then run
exiftool -p ./gpx.fmt *JPG > output.gpx

Some useful options:

-if makes exiftool only process files with a gps tag,
-fileOrder allows processing in a forced order,
-d allows formatting the datatime string.

For example:
exiftool -if '$gpsdatetime' -fileOrder gpsdatetime -p ./gpx.fmt -d %Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ *JPG > output.gpx


Your licence to use and run Space Gremlin are effectively bound to the purchasing Apple ID.

From this discussion, it appears you have chosen to abandon the Apple ID associated with this purchase:

  Since they abandoned help with the account, I responded in kind and abandoned it too.

By abandoning the Apple ID account, you have also abandoned any purchases and licences associated with the account. In this case, that includes being able to run Space Gremlin.

Be aware that you never owned or had an absolute right to be able to run the application; I do appreciate this is unlikely what you want to hear. The first paragraph of Apple's USA default Licensed Application End User Licence Agreement reads:

  The Mac App Store Products and App Store Products (collectively, “App Store Product(s)”) made available through the Mac App Store Service and App Store Service (collectively, “App Store Service(s)”) are licensed, not sold, to you.

From a developer's perspective, the Digital Rights Management (DRM) problems you have suffered are a compelling reason to offer non-Mac App Store editions of their software.

Older Version?

As a workaround, you may be able to find an older version of Space Gremlin that did not implement Mac App Store receipt checking – assuming a version once existed.

Alternatives

Have you considered using an alternative tool, such as the open source GrandPerspective?

Other tools and utilities are mentioned in the answers to these questions:

How can I figure out what's slowly eating my HD space?
What is consuming HDD space on my MacBook Pro?
How do I quickly find large files and folders on my mac?


Renaming the startup disks shown during boot

Maybe I'm missing the subtleties here, but it should be as simple as:

diskutil rename /Volumes/oldvolumename newvolumename


Is it possible to get contacts from stolen iPhone 3GS?

You have a few options.

Restore from backup to another iPhone. If you do not have access to another iPhone, but have a backup file through iTunes locally on your computer, there are applications that can process those backup files. You may have success in browsing through them.
If you were using iCloud, then your contacts may have been syncing there. Login at http://www.icloud.com/ to see if they are there. Perhaps you had contacts syncing with another account, like one you used for email? Check there.


MacBook Pro installation failure (recovery, internet, or disk)... what now?

Appears to have been a bad memory module. I swapped in a known good hard drive (with OS already installed) with no success, reset PRAM (which restored startup sound) but didn't help the boot process. However, as soon as I pulled the RAM and replaced with a known good pair of DIMMs it booted right up. (Unfortunately that also means I went from 8 GB to 2 GB RAM - so I think I'll be placing an order for an upgrade!)


OpenPGP encryption of mails in Mountain Lion

GPGTools' GPGMail is not yet ready for Mountain Lion.

It is now. It seems like they have speed up their development and are now working on 10.9 (Mavericks) support.


Purchasing music with two Apple accounts

Yes. The music is assigned to the old account. In order to play that music you will have to sign into your iPod with your old accounts credentials. There may be a way to merge accounts but I am unaware of that. Apple does this to ensure everyone on different accounts actually has to purchase music separately hence more profit for Apple.


Do MacBooks support NVMe SSD drives via the use of a Sintech adapter?

a little update here...

macOS High Sierra beta 9 (and GM) brings us a BootRom update for ALL Macs supported by HighSierra, so that they can boot from APFS drives.

The very, very good news about this is that this update ALSO brings NVMe boot ability on every mac back to the Mac Pro 6.1 (Late 2013) upwards...

So every Mac which have an Apple 12+16 PCIe connector now owe the ability to boot from any NVMe drive, once they have been at least upgraded to High Sierra (and their BootRom updated).

Put it simply :

take a MacBook Pro retina 13" Late 2013
upgrade it to High Sierra
clone the OS to an external USB drive with CCC
power it off
change the stock Apple AHCI SSD to a brand new Samsung 960 Evo (for example)
use a sintech (or other) M.2 ngff to Apple 12+16 adapter (and protect the pin with kapton tape)
boot from your USB backup of High Sierra
copy back your OS and data to the new SSD

everything works (TRIM, SMART status, deepsleep etc.)

So since the beta of High Sierra and the BootRom update, the new results are following :

As for Apple NVMe drives:

Mac Pro late 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (at PCIe 3.0 4x speed)
MacBook Air 11" & 13" mid 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" late 2013 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" late 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2014 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" mid 2014 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2014 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2015 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" early 2015 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2015 : works from 10.10.3 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)

As for non-Apple NVMe drives, (Samsung 960 evo/pro etc) :

Mac Pro late 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" & 13" mid 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" late 2013 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" late 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2014 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" mid 2014 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2014 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2015 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" early 2015 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2015 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)

PCIe 2.0 speed is around 350 MB/sec by lane so :

with 2x lanes of PCIe 2.0 expect up to 700 MB/sec
with 4x lanes 1400 MB/sec

PCIe 3.0 speed is around 750 MB/sec by lane so :

with 4x lanes of PCIe 3.0 expect nearly 3000MB/sec


how to assign keyboard shortcut to buried command?

Here is the code :

tell application "Google Chrome"
    activate

    tell window 1 to tell active tab to print
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Google Chrome"
        delay 1
        tell window "Print"
            click menu button "PDF"
            delay 1
            try
                click menu item # of menu of menu button "PDF"
            end try
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

Just replace the #with the index of your script in the menu.  (FYI : 1 is Open PDF in Preview, 8 is Save PDF via Messages


iMessage inconsistently failing to work after Sim card swap

Have you tried resetting the network settings with iMessage turned off?

To reset your network settings, tap

Settings > General
Then scroll down and tap Reset > Reset Network Settings

When the device restarts, turn on your iMessage again and let it activate.