will jailbreak cause any damage to the device

During the process of jail-breaking an iDevice, there can be complications.  It can sometimes render the device unusable or it can brick the device.

The device being unusable is usually fixable by simply putting the phone in DFU mode and restoring the software back onto the device.  This would cause your device to lose its information such as contacts, emails, photos, apps, app information.  This is usually recoverable because we usually have a back up.

When a device is bricked, it will not function. Your iDevice will not turn on, as if the device has no battery at all or will just sit at the Apple Logo and keep restarting.  This is the worst case scenario.  Sometimes, a brick device can be restored.  This is very very rare occurrence though and never usually happens.

If my iDevice is not working, you take it to the Genius Bar.  Make an appointment and see a Genius.  Now, if you take a jailbroken iDevice to a Genius, they can not service them in their current condition.

Example: I have a battery issue where the battery only lasts half an hour, I take it to the Genius Bar and tell them that this is happening, I am under warranty.  They will look over your device and inspect it to see if something else could be causing the issue before replacement.  They see it is jailbroken.  Usually they will tell you that reason this could be happening is because it is jailbroken.  You did something to the iDevice that you "weren't" supposed to, so it is technically your fault.  Every time this happens though, they will tell you to just go home and restore it back to normal.  Removing the Jailbreak might fix the issue, if it doesn't, bring it back un-jailbroken and they will replace it.

This is just a small example of one of the things that would cause you to go to the Genius Bar to have service done.  But it shows that if your device can be looked through and they can tell it is jailbroken because they can see the software that is on it is obviously jailbroken, they can not act on their warranty until the jailbreak is removed.

This being said, if your device is bricked or you device is at a point where your device can't be powered on or they can not turn it on to see it is jailbroken, then they will assume positive intent and replace it under warranty if it possible about 80% of the time. (Physically Damaged Items are Replaced for a Fee).  This is never a sure fire thing but just optimistic and don't say that you have ever jailbroken your device if they ask.

So, if you are going to try and jailbreak your iDevice, the best thing you can do is learn as much as possible about it before hand.  Know the risks that come with it.  Always have a back up of your information.  Don't update to the newest version of iOS if you are on an older version because it will remove the jailbreak.  And if you are having issues with your iDevice and it might need to be replaced, simply remove the jailbreak before hand, see if that fixes the issue, if not, then take it in.  As long as it is under warranty and it isn't jailbroken, you should be fine, or as long as they can't tell it is jailbroken (IE it won't boot and you obviously didn't smash it or disassemble it and it is totally obvious that you did)

I hope that this helps clear some things up about jail-breaking and helps you out.


Thunderbolt to HDMI (Not DisplayPort to HDMI)

Mini DisplayPort and Thunderbolt are essentially the same connection, just with different hardware controlling them. Thunderbolt is essentially a combination of Mini DisplayPort and PCIe. I assume this was done for backwards compatibility with older hardware that was Mini DP (so you could use an Apple Cinema Display on a newer model MacBook Pro, for example). Of course, Mini DP doesn't have the same power behind it (in that it doesn't combine with PCIe) as Thunderbolt so you can't daisy chain them.

Unfortunately, from what I have been able to see, and from my product knowledge working at an iStore, there is no Thunderbolt to HDMI, only Mini DP. The actual daisy chaining that goes on inside Thunderbolt devices is done within the device itself and would require a power source to power it. Since there is no power source to an adaptor, there is no point making a Thunderbolt to HDMI connector when Mini DP is (for all intents and purposes) the same thing. Apple also says here that if you have a Thunderbolt chain, the Mini DP connection should come last. This could be the reason for only one of your HDMI ports working as the built in one would most likely be positioned after the Mini DP connection.

Of course, that isn't to say there is no multi-output HDMI Thunderbolt peripheral (a single Thunderbolt cable to a device with multiple HDMI ports), it may exist as it is possible, I just haven't seen one. The closest I could find for you were these two devices, Mini DisplayPort to HDMI® (2x HDMI® Output) Converter w/ Audio and Zotac ZT-MDP2HD Mini DP to Dual HDMI Cable.


I am surprised the suggestions have not piled up in the hour since you posted...
1-Best answer: Put an SSD on the Mini, it will feel way better than even maxing out RAM (I assume you already have a decent amount of RAM to start with, i.e., not less than 8GB and are running Mavericks)
If you've already done all of the above then anything else you might do will probably give you less of a performance jump.


Is / always the path of the system drive?

The basic answer is yes, although it depends a bit on exactly what you mean by "system drive". A few versions ago, Apple introduced what they call "Boot≠Root"; I can't find much documentation on it, but the basic idea is that OS X can load the booter file from one volume, then use a different volume as the operating system root.

For instance, when your startup volume is encrypted with FileVault 2, it actually loads the booter from a different volume (the hidden "Recovery HD" volume); the booter decrypts the startup volume, and then loads the operating system from the encrypted volume.

The rule is that / will always refer to the volume you are running the operating system from, just not necessarily the one that the boot process started from. This applies whether you're starting from an internal disk, FireWire disk, USB disk, NetBoot disk image, disk image,... whatever.


App that displays real or fake busy data-visualization?

You could use one of the many Matrix-y screensavers around:
https://miteshshah.github.io/mac/redpill-matrix-screen-saver-for-mac-os/
http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/matrixgl.html
https://github.com/winterbe/github-matrix-screensaver


Siri Window is not in native resolution when connecting external monitor to MBP

Maybe your should try updating the macOS Mojave. If you don't want to for now,

Did you try resetting the NVRAM and SMC? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063
Try using Onyx to clean application and system caches and reboot.

Let me know if that works.


Password Reset using Mac OS X install media

No you will not, resetting your password using the installation media will leave all data intact. However if you are using Filevault you would need your password or the recovery key to access any encrypted data.


A modern and faster alternative to Disk Inventory X

Starting with macOS Sierra, macOS comes with an built in app from Apple called Storage Management, which is a part of the System Information app. In different tabs it shows you the largest apps installed, as well as a folder viewer with their sizes listed. A special tab shows the largest files over all of your folders, which I find very practical.
To launch Storage Management open Spotlight Search by hitting ⌘ Command  Space, type "Storage Management" and hit ⏎ Return.
Pros:

Free,
Fast,
Provided by Apple, so it knows what it's doing.

You can find more information here.


Can I install iBitterlich forestry app on an iPhone 4S

Yes, you can, although if you can connect your computer to wifi, it seems like you can connect your iPhone to wifi. The standard way to install apps on an iPhone is to connect it to wifi. However, assuming that isn't possible for you, it is easy to install via iTunes.

For more information:

Install Apps Via iTunes
OS X Daily Article


How does the iPhone handle connection priority?

The iPhone will always try to connect to the wifi if it is in range. If it already knows how to connect it will do so automatically. If it does not know it will notify you that there are wifi networks available.

But to come back to the situation you described:
If it is already connected to the wifi it will use that for all data even if it is also connected to a 3G network.


What are the consequences of using DDR3 RAM in DDR2 MBP4.2?

DDR3 has a different pin and spacer configuration than DDR2. The two are not interchangeable.

If you manage to cram the DDR3 stick in, you'll really mess up your laptop. I strongly suggest you don't try it.

This image shows the difference :

Thanks, your diagram is worth 2^10 words.


how to auto download a certain attachment in mail

This is an edited version — quite possibly not the best one — of the script shown in this answer to the Automatically Save Attachments in Mail.app in 10.8 Mountain Lion thread, I've tested it and it works:

using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
        tell application "Mail"
            repeat with eachMessage in theMessages
                repeat with theAttachment in eachMessage's mail attachments
                    set attachmentName to name of theAttachment
                    if attachmentName is "blank expense report" then
                        set savePath to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourUsername:Inbox:" & attachmentName
                        try
                            save theAttachment in file (savePath)
                            on error err
                            display display "The Following Error Occurred:" & err
                        end try
                    end if
                end repeat
            end repeat
        end tell
    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

This script will save the attachment named "blank expense report" in a named "Inbox" at Machintosh HD:Users:yourUsername:Inbox. Be sure to change the value of savePath variable accordingly to your needs.


Error message "The location of the document “Social Stats record Spreadsheet.numbers” cannot be determined"?

A couple of possibilities:

1) save to a different name in a local directory - not a network drive or dropbox,

2) open a new workbook and copy from the "old" workbook and paste-formulas into the new workbook

Either can save your work so it is not lost.


Driver for TP-LINK TL-WN721N Wi-Fi Adapter

According to the TP-Link company website, TL-WN721N is only supported under Windows.


Run script before every Time Machine backup?

That's not possible as far as I know. There aren't any real “hooks” into Time Machine.

However, you can do something nearly as good: you can disable the automatic backups that Time Machine does and run it manually instead:

#!/bin/sh

run_your_command_here

run_another_command_here

and_so_on

tmutil startbackup --block --auto

exit 0

Note this bit from man tmutil

  The --auto option provides a supported mechanism with which to
  trigger "automatic-like" backups, similar to automatic backups
  that are scheduled by the system. While this is not identical
  to true system-scheduled backups, it provides custom schedulers
  the ability to achieve some (but not all) behavior normally
  exhibited when operating in automatic mode.

It is not clear to me what the difference is, but it's worth noting that one exists.


How can I swap the primary display automatically in a dual-monitor setup?

Update: I think I got it.

There's a utility called cscreen which lets you control the display settings. Running it shows all displays:

$ cscreen
DisplayID  Index     Depth     Width     Height  Refresh
 4249fef       1        32      2560       1440     0
 4248344       2        32      2560       1440     0
use -h to display all usage options

Sure enough, you can force one of them to be primary (with menu bar):

$ cscreen -i 4248344 -p

You can script setting the second screen as the primary like this:

$ cscreen -l | perl -lane 'print $F[0] if $F[1] == 2' | xargs -I id cscreen -i id -p

Now, to bind to a key, I first created an AppleScript script, SwapScreen.scpt:

Then I used QuickSilver to bind the script to a F13:

Now, when I plug in my MacBook, if the screens are messed up, I simply hit F13. Sweet!


Transplanting MacBook Air 11" logic board to a 13" one

I'm not going to say it'd be absolutely 100% impossible, but unless you had time (and money) to burn on a side project, it really wouldn't be a practical exercise. By this I mean I can't see a way for you to then be able to use it in the usual manner one uses a laptop.

For example, your USB and headphone/microphone ports won't line up properly, so how easy will it be to connect devices to them? Sure, you may be able to connect extension leads from the logic board connectors to the exterior of the casing, but this isn't practical on a stationery desk let alone a portable laptop.

The other issue is the display module itself. You don't specify the exact models of your MacBook Airs, but the display module needs to be able to connect to the logic board. In order to do so the cabling needs to be in the right location (or long enough) in order to reach the logic board. And, this assumes the connection is the same. Trust me, the cabling inside these devices are no longer than they need to be - everything is a very tight fit!

Some observations

Here are some additional comments:

If you did want to do this as a side project, you'd have to be willing to largely accept the device having to either sit stationery on a desk in order to use it, or be willing to do a bit of soldering and custom cabling in order to try and get it to work as a portable laptop.
Assuming you are willing to do the above, before proceeding you would have to check the cabling (type, location and length) of the 13" MacBook Air display module and confirm you can connect it to the 11" logic board. If so, then that's probably the hardest obstacle overcome (as I can't see a way for you to connect the display module otherwise).
If you have home contents insurance, you may find that your 11" MacBook Air is actually covered by the insurance policy. It would be easier to determine this and just make an insurance claim. You'll likely find that they deem it uneconomical to repair and will replace it for you.
If you don't have home contents insurance (or your 11" model isn't covered by it), since doing what you propose almost certainly restricts it to being a desktop Mac, have you considered just purchasing a used display from a garage sale (or similar) and using it with that?
As for the 13" MacBook Air, I sense you may be approaching this in the classical XY problem manner. That is, you have a problem (X) and decide the solution is Y, so you've come here asking a question about Y rather than the actual problem X. To clarify what I mean, your 13" MBA doesn't boot and beeps at you, so you assume it's a faulty logic board. However, I suggest you ask a separate and specific question about that.


Until recently (like the last week or so), App Review would take 4-7 days.  This was for full reviews, updates, rejects, etc.  Somewhere within that 4-7 days you'd know if it was accepted or rejected.

You're experience with App Review is now the new normal.  For example, I have an app that has been 'in review' for 24 hours and I'm not concerned at all.  I'm used to waiting a week or so to find out if I've been approved or not.  I wouldn't worry if I were you.


Receive FaceTime calls dialed to my iPhone number

You should be able to use your iPhone number for FaceTime on your Mac, but I have heard of cases where the phone number didn't get recognized at first.

Make sure that you have 10.8.2 installed. Then try toggling FaceTime off and on in your iPhone's settings. That re-registers it with Apple's servers, and should list the phone number as an option. If it still doesn't appear as an option on your Mac, turn off FaceTime on the Mac (not quitting, actually disabling it from the menu), then sign back in to it.


Why does my Mac start up immediately when plugged in, while my iPhone needs to start up?

What causes the difference between my mac an my iPhone, where my Mac
  can boot and become useful immediately after being plugged in, while
  my phone needs a couple of minutes before it can even start to boot?

The primary source of power for a mobile device is it’s onboard battery. So it needs to be charged to some degree for the device to work.

When you say your Mac I am going to assume it is a MacBook of some sort. Because in the case of laptops, the system is designed to either run off of the built-in battery power or off of direct AC current if it detects it is plugged into AC power.


Mac Pro will not shut down after Lion upgrade

I've been working through the issue with Font Agent Pro Support. Evidently this is due to the Smasher Application having issues clearing the font cache if Adobe Acrobat is installed.

The solution for me was to remove Smasher. Shut down, reboot into safe mode, and restart.

That seems to have fixed the issue for now at least.


In order to develop ARKit apps you need to use Xcode 9.x. Xcide 8.2.x does not include ARKit.

From Apple's Developer page:

  Get Started with ARKit

  Xcode 9 and iOS 11 Download iOS 11 and the latest version of Xcode 9,
  which includes the iOS 11 SDK to build AR features in your app today.


I found a nice application, Stay, that seems to do exactly what I need. I'll try it out this next Friday when I telecommute.


Based on a research I did on the Internet it seems that the reason for this malfunction could be the sensor (whatever that means). With new phones this usually means warranty replacement. My phone is a bit too old for that unfortunately, but... I accidentally found a workaround!

Covering completely the camera lens with a finger when opening the Camera app seems to solve the problem! Covering the lens when the Camera app is already opened doesn't cause shutter to open though so the lens has to be covered prior to Camera app launch.


format/Erase Equivalence Disk Utility and Terminal Command diskutil

The equivalent commands are given below.

diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS GPT diskX
diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS MBR diskX

Where diskX is the identifier for the drive. The value of X needs to be replaced with a integer of 0 or higher. The command diskutil list will list all the current disk identifiers. The command diskutil listfilesystems will list the available formats.


How do I synchronize keychains between computers?

There used to be, as MobileMe did keychain syncing. Indeed, that was the only reason I was a subscriber.

Since iCloud, that feature is no longer available. I now use 1Password for my password syncing. It isn't quite as good as keychain syncing (non-browser applications can't really use it), but for most stuff it's dandy.


Backing up another user’s mid-2013 Macbook Air

As the end result is to be able to access any forgotten files from a Windows computer in future, rather than to be able to restore to a new Mac, I would forget trying to backup the drive in its current form.

The OS & apps themselves would be of no use; & could easily be re-acquired if ever needed, as they will belong to that user's Apple ID. It would also be reasonably safe to assume that any 'hidden' files wouldn't be portable to Windows - unless the machine was previously used for programming/coding. [Let us know if that's the case.]

That leaves you with, essentially, "Documents".
These would to a large extent be cross-platform, in & of themselves - txt, rtf, jpg, mp3, etc etc
I'd say in that case that simply copying the entire User folder [Macintosh HD/Users/username/] would be more than enough. If you copy it to a drive formatted as ExFAT, it can live there as just another folder, accessible from any OS. You will probably be saving 'too much' data that way, but it will save having to make individual decisions on the contents of each sub-folder.

This solution does, of course, ignore any security considerations. The files will be in plain sight on the new drive.


Two things come to mind - booting from recovery HD might let Disk Utility be more free in changing the filesystem where your OS resides. You could also try removing it using diskutil in terminal:

diskutil unmount disk0s4
diskutil mergePartitions ignored ignored disk0s2 disk0s4

You will want to have a backup or be familiar with command line and also verify that your Macintosh HD is really disk0s2 by reviewing diskutil list before making any changes.

Once the disk0s4 is subsumed by Macintosh HD you may need to expand that to fill the drive:

diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 R

If done properly on a system with no issues, all the above commands are non-destructive to disk0s2 (presumably Macintosh HD) and the boot volume support. You will need to go in and set your startup disk to the resized volume using System Preferences to avoid a long delay each time you start your Mac as it looks for the old location of disk0s2 from which to boot. The bless command would work to set the boot destination as well.


Accessing encrypted FileVault 2 (?) partition from Snow Leopard

Sadly, no one has broken the storage format and back ported a working patch to access these volumes through Snow Leopard. You will find it faster to send it to someone with Lion and have them disable the encryption and send the drive back to you. That or find a Lion machine to borrow. Sorry I don't have any other alternatives that I know will work at present.


macOS Automator : is there an event for "iOS device connected"?

In order to import your iPhone's photos using Image Capture and AutoImporter you need to disable iCloud Photo Library and My Photo Stream.

How to disable iCloud Photo Library

On your iPhone

Go to Settings > Photos & Camera
Disable iCloud Photo Library and My Photo Stream.
Connect your iPhone to you laptop

Be aware that your photos won't be uploaded to iCloud any longer.

As long as your iPhone is unlocked you can import your photos from any computer that supports USB cameras.

Now you are able to import your photos with AutoImporter.app.


install an older version of xcode on mac lion 10.7

You should be able to login to Downloads for Apple Developers with your Apple ID. From there, search for "Xcode 4." You should see "Xcode 4.6.3" at the top of the list. It includes the iOS 6.1 SDK and OS X 10.8 SDK. This is the last version of Xcode supported by OS X Lion (10.7.x) and was released on June 13, 2013.


Cloning iMac HDD to blank HDD to be used in MacBook Pro?

I would not recommend it since this may cause issues. The installation process of OS X is specific to the underlying hardware. So if you just clone the iMac HDD and use it in a MacBook Pro, it's possible that you may encounter issues.

It won't hurt to try it out, so do try. But when you try it:

Make sure that you press Cmd+V when you hear the startup chime on the MacBook Pro and hold it until you see a Verbose Boot initiated (with many Unix related messages coming up on the text screen and scrolling up). You can read through the messages to see if any serious looking errors appear before the login window comes up.
Also note how long the startup process takes and whether it seems slower than it should be.
After you're logged in, you can also check Console.app for errors during startup.

For a good experience, I would instead recommend that you do a fresh install on the new HDD (with the HDD installed on the MacBook Pro) and then use Migration Assistant to copy applications and files over.


Force Messages to send as SMS on Yosemite

you can choose where your message will go: click on the little down arrow right to the recipient's name, and select the destination Message or iMessage (or even other chat system like jabber or bonjour).


Eek! My Photos app says it's going to delete a huge bunch of my images in 28 days!

When you "delete" an image in Photos, what really happens is that the photo gets moved to the Recently Deleted folder, and only after 30 days is it then actually deleted. Photos in the Recently Deleted folder do not show up in other areas of the Photos app, so if the only images there are also showing up in the "Photos" section, they must be duplicates that you deleted.

If you want to delete photos now, you can either click "Delete All" in the top right corner, or select the photos you want to delete and the button will change to "Delete" and only remove those that you selected.

If there are photos there that are not duplicates that you want to delete, you can select those and click "Recover" in the top right, and they will be moved to "Photos".


The terminal on my Mac does not work anymore after installing Python & Sublime Text

Your PATH environment variable seems to have been changed somewhere.

Type the following command at your Terminal prompt:

echo 'PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:~/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile

Exit terminal and the shell by typing exit and closing the Terminal app. Relaunch.

Everything should be working now.


Restore Recovery HD partition from Yosemite downgrade

The simple solution is to reformat the whole disk and reinstall Mavericks from scratch.  Doing so will get your Mavericks recovery partition back and you can migrate your data back from time machine.  I get the feeling you don't want to do that however?


How to report competing app which has bypassed In-App-Purchase and started using third party payment processor

Apple's App Store Review Guidelines changed in September last year, specifically regarding these types of apps, known as "reader apps". It might be that your app that was rejected earlier might be approved today.
I don't think Apple has any official contact for complaining about competitors. You have no proof that they are in violation of anything, as your competitor might have a special agreement with Apple that you know nothing of.
I would try submitting your app for approval again and see if you can pass the test this time around.


Mac does not automatically restart when power is re-applied after `shutdown -hu now`

The NVRAM setting to power on when power returns has nothing to do with the shutdown command, so I wouldn't worry about the shutdown options and instead focus on the NVRAM settings for what to do when the machine senses a return of power.

If you don't have an actual UPS - I would get an internet enabled power switch like WeMo or other or just train staff to power cycle the hardware.

The setting to power on automatically is quite reliable in my experience, so you should only need that to recover from 95% or more of the power failure events you have. Also, kiosk machines generally just run apps and open files, so you don't have work that needs to be saved to disk. I would just let the power cut from the Mac and make sure the filesystem is journaled so that the restart is quick.

If you have an actual UPS - use the energy saver control panel to tell the OS to shut down N minutes before the power runs out and you will be well protected from data loss.

Here I have a server with storage attached so I'm having the shut down scheduled 10 minutes before the battery expires.  For a kiosk, I would disable all three sliders/check boxes for UPS or get a simple UPS like APS BGE70 that lacks USB port entirely and just gives you some time when people accidentally trip the power or a substation feeder shifts and your outage is a minute or so in length.


Hide a user account from the login screen of macOS Catalina

The trick still works in Catalina:

Log out as admin (below "admin" is meant as name of the admin user account - adapt accordingly) and login as foo.
Open the Terminal and enter:

su admin
sudo dscl . create /Users/admin IsHidden 1

If you want to remove the login screen's "Others..." option, which appears after disabling the admin account, enter:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow SHOWOTHERUSERS_MANAGED -bool FALSE

To reverse the hidden admin user and enable "Others..." again enter:

su admin
sudo dscl . create /Users/admin IsHidden 0
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow SHOWOTHERUSERS_MANAGED

Tested in a Catalina VM. This might not work for T2-equipped Macs and definitely not if FileVault is enabled.

To remove the user admin from the login screen on a filevaulted Mac you can simply remove this account from the FileVault enabled users:

Log out as admin and login as foo
Open the Terminal and enter:

su admin

List all users to be sure that user admin and foo are FV enabled:

sudo fdesetup list
sudo fdesetup remove -user admin

After removing admin only one user is left to unlock the system volume!
To remove the user admin from the intermediate login screen (i.e. volume still unlocked and after logging out as foo)

su admin
sudo dscl . create /Users/admin IsHidden 1
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow SHOWOTHERUSERS_MANAGED

Use at your own risk! Tested in a Catalina VM. This might not work for T2-equipped Macs.


Using 3 External monitors on my macbook pro, problem with DVD player

Yes.

When you are in DVD Player, <command>-F to exit full screen mode.  Then drag the window to the monitor you want to use and <command>-F to switch back to full screen mode.


Why does backslash work for file or folder names, but question mark less so?

Characters to avoid in filenames
You shouldn't be using slashes or question marks in your filenames.  This can cause issues depending on the operating system/file system being used.
There's already an excellent answer in SuperUser What characters are safe in cross-platform file names for Linux, Windows and OS-X addressing this, but to summarize:

forward slashes are used to separate values in the path in *nix operating systems
back slashes are used to escape spaces in file names in *nix operating systems and as path separators in Windows.
Windows does not like \/:*?"<>| in paths or filenames.

As for the "double colon" (::) this is a convention used by Finder to represent the home directory.  The single colon is a path separator.
Question Marks (and other characters) in URLs
This is not a good idea. First off, Windows users (the browsers actually) are going to have a hard time with the the file with the question mark.  Secondly, The question mark indicates a query string in PHP meaning, you're sending the PHP language a query or a command to execute.
For instance, take a look at this URL:
https://www.bing.com/search?form=MOZLBR&pc=MOZI&q=php+url+question+mark

Putting an arbitrary question mark in the file name of the URL will definitely throw a monkey in the wrench.
Additionally, you're not "escaping" characters in the URL with the percent sign - it's called "Percent Encoding or URL Encoding."  This allows you to use special or reserved characters (like a space) in the URI and have it be functional.


The trackpad getting stuck is also a well known symptom of a bulging battery in the MacBook Pros of this generation. I'm dealing with this issue myself and am very annoyed about it too, because this 2007 Santa Rosa MBP I paid for is essentially the most lemon computer I've ever owned (at least four other hardware failures besides this one).


How can I play music from my computer through my iPhone 5?

You can share your iTunes library and then access it from your iOS device, after connecting it to your library. To do so, check your settings in iTunes according to this:

On your iOS-device under Preferences→Music check the settings for Home-Sharing on the bottom of the page.


Not on iPhone X/XR/XS

  Face ID, as currently implemented (2017), does not work in landscape orientation. (The camera system is optimized for portrait.)

From Rene Ritchie's iPhone X review.

However the new 2018 iPad Pro devices do support Face ID in any orientation.


Different iCloud and iTunes accounts on one device

There are separate places in settings for iCloud accounts and iTunes accounts.  You can be signed into different accounts there.  You will need the current iCloud password to sign out of that account in order change to a different one if Find My iPhone is turned on.


Is there an upate to Apple Hardware Test? It locks up while testing

There have been many updates…
unfortunately your machine is too old to use them.

It can only use a DVD-based version, not the latest internet-based test.

There is a blog post about how to boot to AHT from a downloaded AHT file, loaded to a USB key, but you will need a working Mac to be able to construct it.

From : Riven by Five - Download and run Apple Hardware Test (AHT) from a USB drive.

My additions in italics

  1) Download the AHT for your computer (see downloads below for specific models).

  1b) My copy had me convert the downloaded .dmg from some “old” type using Disk Utility. (Just open the .dmg in Disk Utility and “Convert” to a new target, then mount the target.)

  2) Mount and completely wipe a USB stick.
  Format it GUID/Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
  Most USB sticks will be MBR/FAT by default, so just formatting to Mac OS without changing the underlying structure to GUID will not work

  3) From the AHT image, copy /System to the root folder of your USB stick:
  by typing the following in Terminal [Applications/Utilities]

  cd /Volumes/USB_STICK/ && cp -r ~/AHT_ARCHIVE/System

  4) Now, from the USB drive, copy the /System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics/diags.efi to the root directory:

  cd /Volumes/USB_STICK/ && cp ./System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics/diags.efi

  5) Shutdown all applications, except Terminal.

  6) the original 6) below assumes you are booting to the same machine you are trying to test
  to attempt to use this on a different machine omit the && sudo reboot & instead eject the USB after that command, then move to your target machine

  6) “bless” the USB drive in mount-mode, with the EFI file, and immediately reboot:

  cd /Volumes/USB_STICK/ && sudo bless --mount /Volumes/USB_STICK --setBoot --file diags.efi && sudo reboot

  7) Cold boot your target machine
   You should now be booting into AHT -- don’t hold down any keys.

  8) Run the tests, and yank the USB key after AHT reboots you.

  You can download the AHT package for your computer using this URL:

  http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Hardware_Test/018-[MODEL NUMBER]-A.dmg

  where [MODEL NUMBER] is the four-number ID below:

  3282 for Mac-F4208AC8, Mac-F42289C8 Xserve1,1 and Xserve2,1
  3259 for Mac-F42C8CC8 MacBookAir1,1
  3273 for Mac-F42C88C8 MacPro3,1
  3254 for F4238CC8, F42386C8, F4218EC8, F4208EAA, F4208DC8, F4208DA9, F4238BC8, F42388C8 and F22788C8 inclusively.

  or more specifically:
  3085 for Mac-F22788C8 MacBook3,1
  2886 for Mac-F4208EAA Macmini2,1
  2845 for Mac-F42386C8 iMac7,1
  2833 for Mac-F42388C8 MacBookPro3,1
  2770 for Mac-F4238BC8 MacBookPro3,1
  2769 for Mac-F4208DC8 MacPro1,1
  2667 for Mac-F4208DA9 MacPro2,1
  2766 for Mac-F4208CAA MacBook2,1
  2592 for Mac-F42189C8 MacBookPro2,1
  2591 for Mac-F42187C8 MacBookPro2,2
  2590 for Mac-F4208CA9 MacBook2,1
  2579 for Mac-F4218FC8 iMac6,1
  2535 for Mac-F4218EC8 iMac5,2
  2534 for Mac-F4228EC8 iMac5,1
  2533 for Mac-F42786A9 iMac5,1
  And these are there, but too old to identify: 2418, 2405, 2398, 2393, 2392, 2342, 2216, 2215, 2158, 2120, 2079, 2056, 1880, 1879, 1680 and 1594.


From the Preference pane I do not think you can do it.

But I just wrote an applescript that works on both my displays.

---------- UPDATE:

I was having a problem with the LaunchAgent loading on login.

Thislooks like it was because the system was trying to compile it and failing.

So I have updated the Answer to fix this by using a compiled Applescript instead of a plain text.

  NOTE: you must turn off the change picture settings in the system
  prefs when running this script. Otherwise you will get the right
  results.

Each desktop changes to the same image. If I switch to a new space on a desktop it's image will change when the time comes.

There are couple of ways to run the script.

But in my opinion using LaunchAgents is the best way.

This answer may look complicated but should only take a minute to set up and start using.

1,  Create paste this script into a new Script Editor document.

#!/usr/bin/osascript

tell application "System Events"
    (*Get a list of images in the pictures folder*)
    set DPFolder to ((POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures") as alias)
    set DP to every file of DPFolder
end tell

(*get a random number limited to the count of the image count in the pictures folder*)
set randomNumber to random number (count of DP)

    tell application "System Events"

        (*get each desktop*)
        set theDesktops to a reference to every desktop

        (* repeat with each desktop*)
        repeat with i from 1 to (count theDesktops)

            (* Change the picture to the random image*)
            set picture of item i of the theDesktops to (POSIX path of (item randomNumber of DP))
        end repeat
    end tell

2, change the path in the line

  set DPFolder to ((POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures") as
  alias)

to contain your pictures folder if it is not the standard one. Make sure what ever folder you use only has images in and no other type of file or folder.

3, Save  the document file format as a Script file (scpt)

4, In Terminal.app  type:

chmod +x /Users/USERNAME/path/to/your/foo.scpt

chmod +x will make the file executable. Chang the path to the path of your script file.

5, In TextEdit.app

Open a new Plain text document and paste:

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.markosx.randomDesktopImage</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>usr/bin/osascript</string>
       <string>/Users/USERNAME/path/to/your/foo.scpt</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>60</integer>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
    <false/>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Change the line:

  /Users/USERNAME/path/to/your/foo.scpt

to contain the real path to your script file.

Change the line:

<integer>60</integer>

to contain the number of seconds you want the interval between runs.

6, save the file with the extension .plist in your users LaunchAgent folder.

~/Library/LaunchAgents

7, Now in terminal type and run:

  launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/foo.plist

Replace foo.plist with you real plist file name.

This will load the launchAgent to the system and start it running.

Or you can log out and back in.

To unload the launchAgent

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/foo.plist


iMac screen won't turn back on after a sleep session in Windows 8.1

I have a 2011 iMac which I have been having the same issue with since windows 8.  For me, it is an issue with when "turn off the display after..." is set. I have turned off this feature, and my PC just goes into sleep mode instead. It is slightly inconvenient though, as I can't run things in the background during.


iTerm2 : Prevent lines from vim from going into scroll back

Evidently I have the option Preferences-> Profile-> "Save lines to scrollback in alternate screen mode" checked.  Unchecking this feature seems to have stopped this behavior.


How do I enter chinese names in Address Book?

Go to Keyboard Preference Pane.There are four tabs there. Select Input Sources. Click the + button located at the bottom of the language sidebar. Select Chinese language from there. You can also switch languages with the "Show input menu in the menu bar".


This is a common issue with Safari 6.0 (screen tearing, text not showing up, etc.). I've updated to 10.8.1 developer build and can confirm that I haven't had the issue pop up since I've updated.

The update will be going live in the next few weeks and that should help fix any tearing issues.


How to change resolution of external monitor from main monitor on Macbook Pro?

Try clicking on 'Gather Windows' button in the bottom right corner. It will bring the resolution choices onto the built-in screen. Then you can choose one that suits. If you hold down option while clicking the 'scaled' button, it will bring up all available resolutions.

I have a third party screen, but Mac picked it up as an Apple screen with unusual resolutions and all I could see were grey streaks. Once I gathered the windows and changed to a suitable resolution it worked fine.


Upgrading to latest software version is generally a good idea for security and performance reasons.

Specifically Safari 6.1 brings its lot of security fixes: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6000?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US.

In terms of functionalities, Safari 6.1 brings the following:

Shared Links: See links shared by people you follow on Twitter;
New sidebar (Reading List, Bookmarks and Shared Links to the left of the browser; can be hidden);
One-click bookmarking;
(Performance enhancements) Safari Power Saver: Only play content from accepted plug-ins;

See more here: http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/22/apple-releases-safari-6-1-for-mountain-lion-with-shared-links-new-sidebar-power-saver-and-more/.

Whether you should upgrade to Safari 6.1 is up to you. I recommend you do.


27" CinemaDisplay with (non Bootcamp) Windows 7

It's hard to tell what is your problem connected with, I'd rather try connecting another monitor to the videocard you have so that it could be possible to check whether your DisplayPort is working or not?

As to the bootcamp install on Windows the following worked well for me:

in the folder BootCamp\Drivers\Apple BootCamp.msi is located.
Try launching it with Admin privileges using context menu


Aircrack-ng Makefile error with ‘#include ’

You can use Homebrew to install it. This will install all the dependencies for you automatically.

brew install aircrack-ng


Prevent switching workspaces when clicking on dock icon

Open Terminal.app, then run the following commands.

Change the default workspace preference:

  defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-auto-swoosh -bool NO

Next, restart the Dock with this command:

  killall Dock

References:
How can I disable auto-switching desktops?
Disable Space switching on Command-Tab


iPhone 4 Battery Leaked if I Don't Charge to 100%

This sounds like it could be an issue with the your battery's fuel guage. Lithium Ion batteries have a problem with the meter that detects how much charge is left in your device. If you don't full cycle the phone every 30 days, the meter will get worse and worse.

Full cycling involves:

Charge the phone to 100%
Do not charge your phone again until all the battery is depleted (i.e. until the phone dies on it's own).

This is recommended both by Apple:

  Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).

... and by Battery University:

  Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely.


How can I type in half-width number in Japanese Kana keyboard?

This Apple doc says you should uncheck the box for Full Width numbers in the Japanese keyboard Preferences.

However this does not seem to work with Kana input (presumably a bug).  As a workaround, you can use the Convert Text to Half Width service (turned on in system preferences/keyboard/shortcuts/services).


Why won't the New York Times "skimmer" web site run in Fluid?

Unfortunately, Fluid doesn't seem to work with that site (either to do with the HTML5 or the caching). However, Prism (http://prism.mozillalabs.com/started/) works the same way as Fluid (separate process, dock icon, etc.), and presents the content perfectly. It doesn't have many features, such as User Agents, Preferences, or Themes, but for something like Skimmer it looks great!
Hope this helps you,
Charlie


Is there any cost associated with using Apple Maps? Is it free, or does it depend on the type of use?

It's free to use within a map view in your iOS app, in any way.

  Does Apple Maps have the ability to run predefined queries based on device location? (nearby attractions, for example).

Yes. Implementation is off-topic here.


Why does the Citrix Workspace installer fail on macOS 15 (Catalina)?

The installer log view showed that a File Not Found error was occurring in /private/tmp.

Inspecting directly, /tmp was a symlink to /private/tmp, which itself was a symlink to private/tmp, that is to say /private/private/tmp! This target did not exist. The erroneous symlink had a modification date in 2016, which made me suspect a problem relating to Migration Assistant.

I think System Integrity Protection was preventing me from modifying /private/tmp, even as sudo and with System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Full Disk Access granted to Terminal.app . I didn't really want to disable it.

In the end I just created the missing target sudo mkdir -p /private/private/tmp and the installer worked.

It'd be nice to know how the erroneous symlink came into existence. The Migration Assistant theory is just a theory at this stage.

addit

Problem recurred while upgrading to macOS 10.15.4 (presenting with An error occurred while updating firmware.). Booted into recovery mode and inspected /Volumes/Macintosh HD/private/ to find that my ./private/tmp directory wasn't there any more. SIP seemed to be off so I could just remove the ./tmp symlink and create a real ./tmp directory. Then upgrade worked!

Hopefully this will be a more durable fix.


Recently added songs do not finish playing on my iPhone 6 Plus

I had that kind of problem too. When I asked about that from Apple Support their first solution was delete newly added songs and resync them to iPhone. If they are perfectly playing on iTunes, then obviously there was a syncing problem when adding songs to iPhone. Try what I suggested. Good luck.


Keyboard shortcut for accessing address bar in Firefox


How to disable Password Prompt for select apps

It is not possible to bypass the requirement for administrator password unless the application in question supports remembering the password.

This is because the password is required in order to achieve what you are trying to do and macOS doesn't support bypassing security. Potentially it would be possible to run the application as the root (administrator) user and this might help, but this isn't advisable, and it seems likely that the app would still require your password.

You could do this by running the application from Terminal and prefixing the command with sudo.


Installing MacOS 11.3 creates a Relocated Items.nosync with changes to private/etc/group

After few months realized there is an extra item on desktop which I didn't create (called Relocated Items) so I guess machine was running even when this was not merged into /etc/group anymore. So I deleted it.
The only thing came up on my Filemerge was:
LHS: /Users/Shared/Relocated Items/Configuration/private/etc/group
RHS: /etc/group


10.15 Catalina - Not showing Sync Mark on Finder

I have solved this particular problem by unticking "Show file sync status icons and right click menu" and reticking it. Open another Finder.


MacBook Pro 17" (A1297) - Keyboard backlight dimmer than when first purchased

White LEDs, as used in the keyboard backlights in apple laptops, do dim over time.

White LEDs use a blue LED, and an phosphor which is excited by the blue light, and re-radiates the energy in the orange-yellow spectrum. Unfortunately the phosphor does decay over time, reducing the efficiency of the LEDs.

However, the lifetime of modern LEDs is typically something in the range of ~50,000-100,000 hours to 50% brightness, so it's likely that there is some other mechanism in play for your situation. There are a number of external factors that can effect LED brightness, from poor-quality phosphors to overdriving of the LED die.

Can you estimate the brightness difference? If it's only a few percent different, it may just be normal aging, or lot-to-lot LED variance.

Anyways, if it bothers you, it may be covered under the apple-care warranty. It might be useful to take it to an apple-store and have them look it over.

Here is an interesting white-paper on LED life expectancy and ageing effects.


iPhone 6 suddenly lost it's "Name" (I.e. "Nancy's iPhone")


iPhone 5s has full AirDrop support, so the problem you're describing is strange, and something I don't have an explanation for.
AirDrop for iOS uses both Wi-Fi (Direct) and Bluetooth technologies. AirDrop for OS X uses Wi-Fi (Direct) only.


Any ideas why my Airport Extreme identifies itself as a Time Capsule in Time Machine?

Apple only supports backup to Time Capsule, so the wording there is a constant and not something designed to know it's not backing up to Time Capsule as opposed to an actual server or directly connected drive.

You can test this (since I doubt they recently changed course on this with an update) by connecting a totally new drive to the Airport Extreme, wipe the drive from AirPort Utility and then try to set up Time Machine to back up to that newly erased drive.

Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Extreme AirPort Disks


Blank windows in some apps in macOS as guest OS in Parallels virtual machine

I don't think your guess is correct no - there's no requirement to use Apple's drawing libraries for stuff to work in Parallels.

However, it does seem likely that these programs that don't work are 3D-accelerated and you have problems with 3D-acceleration (which is a known problem-area for programs like Parallels). Therefore try disabling 3D acceleration in the Parallels settings for the virtual machine, reboot the virtual machine and your programs should work again.


How to prevent iTunes/QuickTime Player playing both the main (5.1 AC-3) and backup (2.0 AAC) audio tracks at the same time?

It turns out that streams have a 'default' status, and I guess that this status is copied from the input stream to both the output streams, even though you'd usually only want the high quality one to be the default. All Apple software plays all the default audio streams simultaneously.

To fix this, ffmpeg provides a disposition flag which can be 0 or default (see documentation for further options). To have the first audio track as default and the second one not, you would add as parameters:

-disposition:a:0 default -disposition:a:1 0

Having the AC-3 stream as default appears to automatically play the AAC stream if an AC-3 decoder isn't available, which is exactly what I wanted.


Why does iPhone 6 have a thick line on its edge

Those are for the phones antennae (theres one towards the bottom of the phone as well).

The anodised aluminium causes really bad signal attenuation, hence the plastic-like strips are necessary to create a break in the metal shell.

I decided to delve a bit further and found that Apple is trying to get rid of them.


USB pendrive/disk formatting clarification

Not sure of a quicker way than that, my only advice is to not try to find direct correlations between Windows and Mac functions, some stuff is just different, for example the Eject options are similarly more work to find on Windows.
Erase will remove all files from the target volume, often via the expedient method of just creating new Table of Contents areas whilst technically leaving the old content there, just not addressable without specialist utilities.  Erase Free Space will actually hunt down files which should no longer exist, and rather than just remove the pointers to those file, will actually overwrite them with junk data (all zeroes for example)
Files in the Trash are often per volume, so delete a file on a USB stick, and it goes in the Trash area on that USB stick.  The file still exists, so the space is still allocated. Empty the trash to free up the space.  This (similar to above) will actually just remove the pointer to the file, unless you choose "secure erase trash" which will genuinely remove the file contents also.


Is there an iOS equivalent of Bonjour for Mac?

There is, in fact, Bonjour on iOS: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/NetServices/Introduction.html


Is there a way to force iPad to show a mobile version of a website?

In the URL, instead if "www" you can type "m".
For example, http://m.google.com/

**This does not apply to some websites.


What does the arrow on the bottom left of the folder icon mean?

The arrow means it is an alias or link, but it could lead anywhere. To find the destination, select the alias and press ⌘I (or right-click and choose Get Info), then look at the ‘Original’ path (or just open it and see where it leads).


How to automount SSHFS volumes with FUSE OS X on Mavericks

I have using Homebrew and its sshfs bundle to mount SSH filesystems on my Mavericks Mac for a while now, it has been solid.

So if you run Homebrew go ahead and try the following to install sshfs: brew install sshfs. Then maybe reboot (?) and once you're back sshfs <username>@<hostname/IP>:<remote-path> <local-path>. You will get a password prompt at this point if you're using that kind of authentication. If you're using SSH keys then probably no prompt.

Update: maybe you should modify your bash script to use nohup. it sounds almost like the process dies after it runs your bash script. checkout nohup on wiki or man nohup.


How to have character accent menu _and_ key repeat

OK I think I finally understood what you want, and that is not possible.

Holding a key will bring up that character accents.

But you do not want to pick one you only want to have the pressed key repeat.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

So to do that you need following command in Terminal to enable it.

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

Since the keyboard is initialized during the boot cycle, you need to restart for it to take effect.

To set it back just use True at the end instead of false.

Unfortunately that will disable the "Accents" pop up since those 2 functions are conflicting.

Writing a Script that switches the function for the press and hold is useless since you would need to restart anyway.


Kiosk app for iPad that allows using a client side certificate

It is not possible by any browser besides Safari due to keychain access.

The only solution would be then to develop your own app.


Why can't I update to iTunes 10.6 via Software Update on Lion?

I don't know whether Apple delivers these upgrades via Software Update at all (maybe just the minor ones). But you can easily download the current version of iTunes directly from Apple's iTunes page.


Finder does not launch from Dock unless I click on the icon and New Finder Window

Tick the second option listed in Mission Control Preferences. "When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application."


Unfortunately, without having access to another dock, or iPod, your options are somewhat limited, as there could be a number of things that failed. Because without another dock, or iPod, either the dock, or the iPod could be at fault. With that in mind, your best options are probably to take the iPod to an Apple store (schedule and appointment) and see if they can offer assistance in testing to see if your iPod had a hardware failure.

If the Apple store can't find anything wrong with it, then it may be time to send your Bose SoundDock into Bose to see about repair.


I found the way to do it on iOS 8:
Settings > Privacy > Location Services > Share My Location > From

Then is will show the list of current and old phones.  It has instructions:  "If you're no longer using a device, swipe left on the device name, then tap Delete."

It worked for me!


Tap Continue and verify your payment information. There is no way around it. If you do not have a credit card or debit card to add to your account, you won't be able to download any more apps.


Depending on the model year of the Mac mini, you could run Apples hardware diagnostics if supported.

Shutdown your Mac mini.  Turn back on and press and hold the keys: option + D during the grey screen before the Apple logo.

If asked join a network and let it boot into the Apple hardware test.  This will tell you if the fan is reporting an error along with other hardware tests.


Unable to boot/install any Mac OS/OS X system from/to SSD on my Macbook. Can't read any bootable USB device

I'm pretty sure the last non-retina MacBooks shipped with a SATA II drive cable if it came with a SATA II HDD. (Which makes sense because it shipped with a SATA II HDD... Not sure if it was different if you chose the Apple branded OEM SSD option, or if that was even an option for your model.)

You say you have a late 2012 MBP, but it must be either a late 2011 or mid 2012, to have user upgradable drives and memory, but I think this Is the case for both iterations.

So basically what I'm guessing is happening is that your MacBook and SSD are trying to communicate with each other at SATA III speeds, but over a SATA II cable.

This cable is compatible with SATA III, and replacement should fix your problem. To check if this really is the issue, you can try to use the SSD over any other interface (with an external FW, USB, Thunderbolt enclosure, for example) and see if the same issues exist. If not, the cable's probably the culprit.


Macbook Pro 2011 white screen - can't install MacOSX

Thanks to @Allan, I was able to find out how to solve my issue. I did the following:

I had another Mac's SSD be cloned using a program called carbon copy cloner to my Macbook's SSD.
I ran the High Sierra installer on that Mac, specifying the Macbook's SSD as final medium (this added a recovery HD)
Boot into single user mode to tweak the NVRAM using this guide, and this question was also very relevant.
Step 3 needs to be redone every time you update your OS. Note: your brightness function keys will also not work anymore!

Important command for temporary fix:

sudo nvram fa4ce28d-b62f-4c99-9cc3-6815686e30f9:gpu-power-prefs=%01%00%00%00

Transcript of the MacRumors thread in case it get's removed:

First of all, it is possible to successfully boot a MBP to OS X while still using the failed GPU, after you remove the AMD drivers by booting in command line mode (CMD+S) and entering these commands:
1) fsck -fy (to check a disk)
2) mount -uw / (mount a root filesystem with read/write permissions)
3) sudo mkdir /AMD_Kexts/ (make a directory to store the AMD drivers in case you'll need them in future)
4) sudo mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD*.* /AMD_Kexts/ (move the AMD drivers)
5) sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/ (remove the AMD drivers cache)
6) sudo mkdir /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/ (just in case OS X will be dumb and will not recreate this directory, I am creating it for OS X)
7) sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/ (to update the timestamps so that new driver caches - without AMD drivers - will be definitely rebuilt)
8) sudo umount / (umount a partition to guarantee that your changes are flushed to it)
9) sudo reboot


Are iOS applications required to have retina images?

No. You could submit an app with purely hand drawn images or 8 bit old school graphics and soundtrack

The only required retina assets are the store icons and app icons as specified in the iOS HIG:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/IconMatrix.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40006556-CH27-SW1


Using iPad as second screen without sidecar

Astropad and their luna display hardware and app are what you want when sidecar isn’t fast enough or doesn’t support your hardware.

https://blog.astropad.com/astropad-vs-apples-sidecar/
https://lunadisplay.com/

I’ve used Luna since the kickstarter days and you should be able to find one used if you need that specifically instead of the full AstroPad app. The new hardware is excellent as well, so give them a chance if you like what you see.

I used duet before and the astropad performance and experience on the Mac side were substantially faster, more reliable and used less cpu / energy.


Anyone stumbling across this entry might be interested in the solution mentioned in this Apple Support Community entry (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4314429?start=0&tstart=0):

Excerpt of the solution:

  In the settings app, go to iCloud and turn notes off.

  Next, scroll down and select "Delete Account". Choose save data onto phone.

  Re-activate the iCloud account on your phone (you'll have to type in your password)

  Turn notes back on.

Seems a bit radical at the first glance but it worked perfectly for me.


Buying used Mac mini to run latest Xcode

When I open only Chrome and XCode with a small project, my Mac uses 3.2GB of memory. You don't want swapping. If you only want to do simple programming, 4G of memory will work fine. You will want to be able to open Stack Exchange in the background...
The standard SSD and CPUs will do
Make sure your system is compatible with the latest OSX. If it is not, you cannot test compatibility with the latest version and might not be able to upload your software to App Stores. I would buy a version that I expect to be supported in the next OSX software update.
(currently Mac mini 2010 or newer, at least)

So, in short, Mac Mini 2010+, 4G, better 8G of ram. First hit online sais 260$, so that's around your budget.


Can't boot from external APFS formatted SSD

Answering my own question... (happens a lot to me lately)

I did manage to get it to boot from the broken SSD by first booting from a USB drive I prepared earlier with High Sierra install files on it and then installing to the SSD drive on top of the old system.

There was a weird thing happening during first reboot after the installation where my screen would flash and turn off. In fact I think I didn't really finish the installation, I think the installer didn't even copy all the files, but everything seems to work fine now so I'm pretty happy (and my old files and apps are in place).


Icons disappearing from cmd+tab application switcher

I had the same issue, and after restarting Dock, I still couldn't see the app icons popping up when I pressed cmd-tab. However, if you could see the Dock restarted after following the instructions to restart it, then the problem might be your external monitor. Unplugging the video cable to my external monitor and plugging it back in fixed it for me.


Facebook messenger calls, show only short name

You could try setting the Messages display name and see if Facebook Messenger respects it; however, I'm not sure if this will help.

Open Settings and go to “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” then scroll down to the ‘Contacts’ section and go back to “Short Name”, then
choose one of the following options:

First Name & Last Initial – good middle ground choice
First Initial & Last Name Only
First Name Only – the annoying default
Last Name Only – OK if you’re on a football team
Optionally, set “Prefer Nicknames” to your preference

Go back to Messages and view a thread to see the change.


Currently, no, this isn't possible.

There's no such thing as maximising a window in OS X — I therefore presume you are referring to a window which has been stretched to fill the entire screen (as much as possible — i.e. not behind the menu bar). Since there is no difference between a window which has been enlarged and a 'maximised' window, there's no problem in dragging the window away from the menu bar, and it's not possible to prevent.

If you're always moving your windows, try something like BetterTouchTool. This lets you maximise any window by dragging it to the top of the screen.


How to hide Yosemite "search tip" on spotlight search?

It's supposed to disappear after you use Spotlight three times, but you can force it to disappear by setting the use count to three and setting showedFTE to true:

defaults write com.apple.Spotlight showedFTE -bool true
defaults write com.apple.Spotlight useCount -int 3
killall -HUP Spotlight


Where can I find a replacement screen for my 13" MBP?

You should contact the company you bought it from, they should replace the Macbook Pro for you. If for some crazy reason they won't, contact DHL and see if there was insurance on the package, you might be able to get it replaced by them.


I had the same problem, there are two things you can try:

It is possible that your carrier's network is having problems. The best course of action is to see whether the problem goes away after a day or two
Have the person you are trying to message send you a message to your phone and reply then to see whether this fixes the connection issues


How do I make my macbook pro (2011, OS10.7.5) reconnect to the network when the signal goes down?

Are you sure it's Wifi outages and not a DNS server problem? If you've been using Safari, check with other browsers – if they get through while Safari doesn't, set OS X to use an alternative DNS server (System Preferences > Network > Advanced…), e.g. OpenNIC.org, OpenDNS.com


How can I manually change default applications in OS X?

RCDefaultApp is a Preferences Panel which allows you to edit the default application used for various URL schemes, file extensions, file types and MIME types.


Use 3.5mm jack as line in for a musical instrument

I would like to plug in a 3.5 mm cable to the output jack of the electronic drumset and connect the other end to my computer to record the drumset's sound.... This was possible with my very old 2009 white MacBook. Can this be done in the newer models?

You can’t.  The audio jacks on all Macs are microphone inputs and not line inputs. Your 2009 MacBook had only a microphone input and not a line input.

Microphone versus Line Inputs

The key differentiation between mic and line signals is the voltage.  Microphone voltage is extremely tiny (millivolts) where line level input is about 1 1/4 volts.  Macs aren’t recording/pre-amp devices and do not contain the necessary components to raise the voltage to line level.

The thread you referenced is about the TRRS jack or Tip, Ring, Ring, Sleeve and these are typically used in telco, not pro audio (yes, you can get very good quality sound from them, but they’re never found in even the smallest recording studio).  The cable, was just a "breakout" that separated the headphone (out) from the microphone (in) connectors.  It never converted a signal to line level.

  I realize the proper way of doing this would be to get an audio
  interface, but I don't want to invest in one just yet.

Yes.  However a simple audio mixer that handles mic, line, and instrument (what you need for your drum kit) that also includes a monitor port can be had quite inexpensively.


How do I resolve FW800 daisychaining issues?

Firewire attempts to use "smart" daisy chaining, which permits links in the daisy chain to be off. Unfortunately, that doesn't always work effectively. Apple recommends you first plug the device into the Macintosh, wait for it to become visible, and then add devices one at a time. 1
As for particular details with regards to your problem, I've had issues with card readers in which they either didn't really truly meet the firewire spec and therefore were unhappy with daisy chaining, or they would attempt to "smart" turn-off when a card was not in them, which caused it to also disable other parts of the chain.
In short, daisy chaining with Firewire is great, except when it isn't. YMMV.


difference between tty[p,r,s][N] and pts

OS X, like other UNIX-iod systems, implements two systems of pseudo-terminals: the pty system and the ptmx system (links are to the kernel source used in 10.9.5).

They both ultimately offer the same functionality: they let one program (e.g. a terminal emulator) open (the master side of) a pseudo-terminal and subsequently start other programs (e.g. a shell) running “in” (the slave side of) that same pseudo-terminal.

The pty system is older. The device nodes for the master sides of its pseudo-terminals match the pattern /dev/pty[pqrstuvw][0123456789abcdef]. The slave sides use corresponding nodes named with tty (/dev/tty[pqrstuvw][0123456789abcdef]). These device nodes are allocated when the system starts (i.e. they are always present in /dev/).

The ptmx system is newer and uses a single master device node, /dev/ptmx, and uses /dev/ttys[0-9][0-9][0-9] for the slave sides. The slaves device nodes are dynamically allocated (so only the nodes that are still in use exist in /dev/).

Basically, any program that uses the “modern” pseudo-terminal APIs will automatically end up using ptmx-based pseudo-terminals. Programs using the older pseduo-terminal interfaces will use pty-based pseudo-terminals.

In your case, when spawning its children, your sshd used the newer ptmx system (or an interface like openpty that uses it “under the hood”), but the pertinent ancestor of those root shells used the old pty system. If you are curious, you could trace the parent PIDs (PPID, the third column in your output) to find the ancestor program that spawned the line of processes that ended up running those root shells (the leading hyphen indicates that they are login shells).

Also, other systems may use variations on the device names. Some systems might go beyond 0–f for the pty names, and some systems use /dev/pts/<digits> (i.e. in a subdirectory instead of putting them all in /dev and having to use three digits to avoid conflict with the ttys0–ttys9 slave nodes from the pty system).


How can I rename Device ID from disk1s5 to disk1s1

Device IDs are what the system uses to identify the drive.  They often change depending on when and even where they are detected (Internal vs. USB vs Thunderbolt).
For instance, an old hard drive bootable drive might be identified as disk1s2.  Take it out and put it in a USB enclosure, attach it to another Mac and it  suddenly becomes disk3.
This is not something you need to try and manage and trying to make of “match what came out of the box” does nothing except create a massive amount work on your part.
Now the fact that the data partition went from slice 2 (disk1s2) to slice 5 (disk1s5) tells me that you may not have removed/reformatted the drive properly.  However, this is now moving into a new question so issue the command diskutil apfs list and post it to a new question as to the structure of your partition layout.


The brew doctor should be helpful about this, next best thing to try is repairing formulae from taps with brew tap --repair. If that still does not help, try the following steps:

brew untap <X> where  is from brew tap.

cd $(brew --prefix)

git clean -fd

git reset origin/master --force

brew update

brew tap <X> to have your taps again.


I've mistyped my client's name while creating iCloud account on his behalf

I would stop what I'm doing with the misnamed account, and contact Apple Developer Support. Apple's Developer Support contact page is here: https://developer.apple.com/contact/phone/


fsck_apfs not working from terminal in single user mode

Correction

Apple's official word is that the traditional single-user mode which one enters by booting whilst holding ⌘S is deprecated on macOS Mojave (10.14) and later. This is due to the presence of the Apple T2 security chip in Macs which initially went to market with Mojave or later.

From Mac startup key combinations:

  Command-S: Start up in single-user mode. Disabled in macOS Mojave or later, or when using a firmware password.

And from the small print on the linked "single-user mode" page, Start up your Mac in single-user mode or verbose mode:

  These steps replace the Command-S method, which doesn't work with the recommended settings on current Mac computers.

The linked page "current Mac computers" refers to those which have a T2 chip.

Despite the claim that the traditional single-user mode is outright disabled on Mojave and later, you can still boot into it using ⌘S on devices which don't have a T2 chip, even if you attempt to do so on a system running Mojave or later. However, this single-user mode will require access to the data and VM volumes of the APFS container that contains the OS, and you will find that you are unable to unmount these volumes in order to run fsck_apfs -y on that container. This is because umount will refuse to unmount the volumes due to them being actively used, and you cannot forcibly unmount them using diskutil since the DiskManagement framework required by diskutil is not loaded/present in this mode — and even if this were possible in some other way, it is unadvisable to forcibly unmount elements of a filesystem that you are trying to repair!

Having said that, macOS still technically has a single-user mode in Mojave and later: the Terminal in macOS Recovery. After actually trying to use fsck_apfs -y in this environment, it turns out that it is possible, but you will first need to unmount any mounted APFS volumes belonging to the APFS container that contains the OS; macOS Recovery will automatically mount the data and VM volumes by default. Because macOS Recovery isn't as stripped down as the traditional single-user mode, you can do this simply with e.g. diskutil unmountDisk disk2. You can use mount and diskutil apfs list to determine the device nodes.

Original answer

This isn't a Catalina thing, but an APFS thing. You cannot perform reparatory actions on an APFS container (or any of its volumes, since this requires acting on the container) when that container is mounted. If any volume in that container is mounted, then the container itself is necessarily also mounted.

As such, you cannot use fsck_apfs -y on the APFS partition that you have booted from, whether that's in a regular environment, in single-user mode, in recovery mode, or however else. You can still run fsck_apfs -nl when booted normally to inspect the APFS partition for errors, but this will not repair any such errors.

To run fsck_apfs -y on your Catalina APFS partition, you must access could also try accessing the disk another way, such as:

booting into Catalina Internet Recovery (which also requires you to unmount the automatically mounted volumes).
booting from a Catalina USB installer.
booting your Mac in Target Disk Mode and connecting it to a secondary Mac running Catalina, then running fsck_apfs from the secondary Mac on the affected disk.
physically removing the disk from your Mac and connecting it to a secondary Mac running Catalina, then running fsck_apfs from the secondary Mac on the affected disk.

Since new, significant APFS features were introduced in Catalina ("volume groups" in particular), avoid using any fsck_apfs belonging to an older macOS version, particularly if you are trying to repair incorrectly allocated disk space. fsck_apfs(8) states for the -o option:

  -o — Repair overallocations; please do not run an older fsck_apfs on newer systems with this option.


How to open shell scripts in editor when double clicking on them

Install duti by running brew install duti, save a file like

com.apple.TextEdit public.unix-executable all

as ~/.duti, and then run /usr/local/bin/duti ~/.duti. After that executable scripts with no filename extension should be opened in TextEdit.

Another option is to run plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist, open the plist in a text editor, add an entry like

<dict>
  <key>LSHandlerContentType</key>
  <string>public.unix-executable</string>
  <key>LSHandlerRoleAll</key>
  <string>com.apple.TextEdit</string>
</dict>

under LSHandlers, and then restart to apply the changes.

The default application for shell scripts with a .sh extension can be changed from Finder:


Add a new user with a specific uid and gid

One solution would be to write a simple script to do the whole job at once.

dscl . -create /Users/ali UniqueID 549 PrimaryGroupID 320 RealName "Ali Moeeny"

Or something like that.


Do downloads continue when lid is closed?

Nope. When you close the lid, your Mac goes to sleep and stops all current downloads. If you have a downloadmanager, it will pause the downloads, but it will not keep downloading the files.

If you would like to work with your lid closed, I suggest you connect an external screen or try software like InsomniX, which will keep your Mac awake when the lid is closed.

Also, it might be worth trying extention No Sleep.


Mojave SMB file sharing authentication issues

The answer was here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204021

If you use Directory Utility on the client to have an authenticated binding between the client machine and the server Open Directory, you can mount SMB shares.

There are other workarounds which are either less secure or have poor performance on writing. See the linked support article.


There is no need to port it. bbcp for OS X is available here. After downloading and moving it to an appropriate folder (e.g. /usr/local/bin) modify ownership and make the file executable.

Version number is: 15.02.03.01.1


How Finder can find this file with long name?

I've tried creating a PDF file with that name on two machines and both immediately index the files and provide them in searches for any part of the name. I would be curious to the see the actual content of the file in case the content is somehow causing the indexer to fail, but then you say the indexes okay with shorter names, so it doesn't follow that the content is a problem.

Something you could do is try running mdls against the file. This should show you metadata that is recorded in the Spotlight index for the file. For example when I run it against the PDF I used for testing I get things like the following. You can see here the kMDItemDisplayName and kMDItemFSName are both pulled from the actual name of the file, as the document is just a random PDF about something else entirely that I simply renamed).

kMDItemAuthors                 = (
    se0896
)
kMDItemContentCreationDate     = 2014-12-11 11:38:01 +0000
kMDItemContentModificationDate = 2014-12-11 11:38:01 +0000
kMDItemContentType             = "com.adobe.pdf"
kMDItemContentTypeTree         = (
    "com.adobe.pdf",
    "public.data",
    "public.item",
    "public.composite-content",
    "public.content"
)
kMDItemCreator                 = "Microsoft® Word 2010"
kMDItemDateAdded               = 2015-03-22 22:30:07 +0000
kMDItemDisplayName             = "Hans-Jorg Oestern, Otmar Lorenz Trentz, Lorem Ipsum Lorem Vascular Injuries- Trauma Surgery I (European Manual of Medicine).pdf"
kMDItemEncodingApplications    = (
    "Microsoft\U00ae Word 2010"
)
kMDItemFSContentChangeDate     = 2014-12-11 11:38:01 +0000
kMDItemFSCreationDate          = 2014-12-11 11:38:01 +0000
kMDItemFSCreatorCode           = ""
kMDItemFSFinderFlags           = 0
kMDItemFSHasCustomIcon         = (null)
kMDItemFSInvisible             = 0
kMDItemFSIsExtensionHidden     = 0
kMDItemFSIsStationery          = (null)
kMDItemFSLabel                 = 0
kMDItemFSName                  = "Hans-Jorg Oestern, Otmar Lorenz Trentz, Lorem Ipsum Lorem Vascular Injuries- Trauma Surgery I (European Manual of Medicine).pdf"
kMDItemFSNodeCount             = (null)
kMDItemFSOwnerGroupID          = 20
kMDItemFSOwnerUserID           = 501
kMDItemFSSize                  = 132180
kMDItemFSTypeCode              = ""
kMDItemKind                    = "Portable Document Format (PDF)"
kMDItemLogicalSize             = 132180
kMDItemNumberOfPages           = 5
kMDItemPageHeight              = 841.92
kMDItemPageWidth               = 595.32
kMDItemPhysicalSize            = 135168
kMDItemSecurityMethod          = "None"
kMDItemTitle                   = "Job Title"
kMDItemVersion                 = "1.5"

Another thing you could try is running the manual import tool mdimport with the debug option against both versions of the file (i.e. the file with a long name and again with a short name) and check for differences in the data that is being extracted and imported into Spotlight's metadata stores. The following command (with the correct path to your file of course) should show you which importer is being used and which keys are being extracted. This might help diagnose the fault. This is also a way to force Spotlight to index (or reindex) a file, but I don't think I've ever found that to be necessary. NOTE: The easiest way to perform the following command is to type "mdimport -d 3 " and then drag and drop the file onto the Terminal window.

mdimport -d 3 /Users/USERNAME/Hans-Jorg\ Oestern\,\ Otmar\ Lorenz\ Trentz\,\ Lorem\ Ipsum\ Lorem\ Vascular\ Injuries-\ Trauma\ Surgery\ I\ \(European\ Manual\ of\ Medicine\).pdf"


Can Numbers do conditional coloring of a cell based on a rule?

Here's a better option:

Add an 'Account Status' column
Select the entire column and set the cell format to [Pop-Up Menu] with options for 'Unfinished', 'Paid', '30 Days', '60 Days', '90+ Days' (or whatever options you want)
Select the entire column and set some conditional rules to color the cell according to the text in the cell (e.g. a green for [Text Is 'Paid'], a yellow for [Text Is '30 Days'], etc.)
Add some summary cells with COUNTIF formulas for each of your Pop-Up menu options ([=COUNTIF(Account Status,"Paid")], [=COUNTIF(Account Status,"30 Days")], etc.)

Note that this will color ONLY the cells in the 'Account Status' column. There are some tricks to color the entire row, but this should be enough to catch your eye.

You can also use AppleScript if you need more complex summaries, but scripts cannot run automatically, where conditional rules do.


Where is the purchase history on iPhone apps?

You can see your purchase/download history in the App Store application on your device. It is in the Updates tab. This feature was introduced in iOS 4.3.3.


The "admin" account you set a password for was "System Administrator (root)". You'll either need to type "System Administrator", or "root" as the user name. This "super user" account is part of the operating system, and can do whatever it wants - including things that have extremely negative consequences. I recommend disabling it. See OS X Mountain Lion: Enable and disable the root user[1] for how.

If you want to fix the keychain and can't figure out what password it uses, open Keychain Access and click the "Reset my default keychain" button on the General tab of Preferences. If a problem with "Local Items" occurs after rebooting, see this article.

As for the use of empty passwords, that is probably on purpose. You can't start a new user with no password anymore, and you can't unlock Security and Privacy system preferences without a password.

And finally, Chrome doesn't have a keychain to make use of on other operating systems, so if it can't use the user account's keychain it makes sense to me that it'll fall back on its own internal storage.

[1] It has been the same method for a long time, you can ignore the "Mountain Lion" in the title.


Will the Genius Bar help me transfer my files between macs?

As a former Genius, I can say that we were always willing to lend cables to customers for in-store use, but we would not overtly assist with data exercises. Then primary reason is the legality: if Apple gets involved with your data, they become liable for your intellectual property...which can be a legal mess. It's the same reason Apple doesn't offer a guaranteed backup/restore service during a repair.

So, my advice would be book a Genius Bar appointment, explain your situation to a technician, and go from there. The worst they can say is no.

P.S. Unless Apple Retail Store policy has changed, you have a 14-day return policy. I had customers buy a cable, use it for a few days, then return it due to "buyers remorse." ;)


How does iOS and apps deal with low to no disk storage?

This is a design decision that is made to handle situations where operators of the device choose to ignore low storage space warnings or are not present to see them and react appropriately.
From your comments, you described that the system works well enough to let you inspect storage, choose to delete apps and data and continue working - that’s the case in my experience. The system sacrifices the ability to launch new apps, install updates and do other non-critical functions when storage space is close to empty.
In most cases, the system is able to send a sequence of disk space “warning” and disk space “critical” signals to the OS, the first party apps and third party apps requesting they purge any cached storage, but in the end, you can overload the filesystem and this is the last ditch attempt to get the device in the hands of someone that will realize that files or apps need to be deleted to resume normal operations.
For the nerds that program, there are entire API and processes around this to let an app know how much space is available for opportunistic storage and critical storage:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsurlvolumeavailablecapacityforimportantusagekey

One of the better articles on this is:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsurlresourcekey/checking_volume_storage_capacity

In the end, it’s up to the programmer of an app if they want to check and let you know they may stop working or if they want to be simple in design and let you figure out if your device is full in other manners. Neither decisions is completely right or completely wrong. The OS will nag you about low storage, so most apps let that handle education these days and they just postpone large downloads when things get tight.


Unable to connect to the internet on my iMac despite being connected to the network

Below are a number of things you can try (apologies for anything obvious, but I take nothing for granted).

Restart the iMac

Does restarting the iMac do anything? Rebooting can often resolve these types of issues.

Disable/Enable Wi-Fi

Similar to restarting, but without needing to. You can use the Wi-Fi menu to turn Wi-Fi off. Try this for about a minute and then turn it back on. This also often works.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. can you now connect to the Wi-Fi network)
To exit Safe Mode just restart your Mac as normal

The act of booting into Safe Mode will actually perform a number of background tasks, and this often resolves issues when you've rebooted normally.

Once you've tried the above let me know how you go.

[EDIT]

Okay, let's continue troubleshooting...

Run Wireless Diagnostics

You can use Wireless Diagnostics to analyse your Wi-Fi network. Follow these steps:

Close any apps you have running
Connect to the Wi-Fi network
Hold down the option key and go to the Wi-Fi status menu and select Open Wireless Diagnostics
Enter your administrator name and password

Now follow the steps to see whether any problems are found.

Try another 'Wi-Fi' network

It'd be interesting to see whether your iMac can get internet connectivity from another Wi-Fi network. Can you share an internet connection from an iPhone's cellular connection (or similar) and connect to that via your iMac's Wi-Fi port? Does this allow your iMac to browse the web, send/receive emails, etc?

If you can't get an internet connection, then I'd be testing your hardware, although it may be worth first resetting the NVRAM and SMC (in that order). See below for steps.

Reset NVRAM

Your iMac uses Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM) to store many of its settings. You can reset this with the following steps:

Shut down your iMac. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your iMac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your iMac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

Now proceed to resetting the SMC.

Reset the SMC

Your iMac has a System Management Controller. It may be worth you resetting this too:

Shut down your iMac
Unplug it from power
Wait 15 seconds
Plug the power cord back in
Wait for an additional 5 seconds
Press the power button to turn it back on

How does your iMac go with connecting now?

Run Apple Diagnostics

If all else has failed, follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

Regardless, take a note of what happens and let me know how you went.


Will Siri work with 3rd party apps after update from iOS 9 to 10?

SiriKit, or third-party integration with Siri, is available on any device compatible with iOS 10. According to Wikipedia:

  Siri is compatible with third-party app-specific requests, such as starting workouts apps, sending IMs, requesting the Lyft or Uber apps or to use payment functions.

Note that not all apps utilise SiriKit, and only those that do will work with Siri.


How to investigate Mail app's random popup bug on Mojave?

Copying the answer I wrote for this question, Catalina has NOT solved the problem.

Looking for a solution I tried to activate the logging of the connection status (from Mail menu: Windows -> Connection Status).
Examining the log when the Mail app is popping up, I found out these error messages at the exactly same time and on every occurrence of the problem (when the app doesn't pop up the error messages don't show up):

READ Oct 10 20:41:21.323 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelTLSv1_2] -- host:imap.gmail.com -- port:993 -- socket:0x6000003b7de0 -- thread:0x60000322d080
5.659 NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Invalid credentials (Failure)
--
READ Oct 10 20:41:21.427 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelTLSv1_2] -- host:imap.gmail.com -- port:993 -- socket:0x6000003b7de0 -- thread:0x60000322d080
6.659 BAD Invalid SASL argument. z66mb54202756wmc
--
READ Oct 10 20:41:21.732 [kCFStreamSocketSecurityLevelTLSv1_2] -- host:imap.gmail.com -- port:993 -- socket:0x6000003b7de0 -- thread:0x60000322d080
7.659 NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Invalid credentials (Failure)

(Just posting the lines containing the errors)

The error messages are present only on the log file of my Gmail account, every other mail account doesn't show any error message.
So as many of you, I also think that the problem is due to the Gmail accounts.

Hope this can help to solve the problem in any meaningful way.


Swiping trackpad no longer wakes Macbook Pro from sleep in OS X Lion

No, I'm afraid Apple has removed this functionality from OS X Lion.  Clicking the trackpad or pressing a key on the keyboard is now the only way to wake your Mac from sleep.


how to change music tonality in runtime?

Have a look at Capo.
From their Website:

  Pitch Adjustment

  Capo lets you adjust the pitch of your songs—so you can change their
  key or fine tune them to match your instrument.


Can someone help me evaluate if this is a scam for Mac support?

Your gut reaction feels correct. The description of sleeping processes and idle % CPU use is misleading.

The description of tracking IP addresses to a single location is unrealistic.

The costs involved are high. For that sum, consider suggesting your father-in-law engages a local Mac expert – or go to a local Apple Store for help.

Erase and Reinstall

If possible, back up your father-in-law's Mac to an external hard drive. Then erase and reinstall OS X:

  Before you begin, make sure your Mac is connected to the Internet.
  Restart your Mac. Immediately hold down the Command (⌘) and R keys after you hear the startup sound to start up in OS X Recovery.
  When the Recovery window appears, select Disk Utility then click Continue.
  Select the indented volume name of your startup disk from the left side of the Disk Utility window, then click the Erase tab.
  If you want to securely erase the drive, click Security Options. Select an erase method, then click OK.
  From the Format pop-up menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Type a name for your disk, then click Erase.
  After the drive is erased, close the Disk Utility window.
  If you’re not connected to the Internet, choose a network from the Wi-Fi menu.
  Select the option to Reinstall OS X.
  Click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall OS X.

This should entirely remove any third party tools and processes that have been installed by the support company.

With the reinstalled OS X, only restore personal files and documents from the back up.

An Aside: Distractions and Blame

Please do not blame the father-in-law. We have not been asked to judge the company or individuals affected. @milesmeow asked for help to decide if their decision was defensible and if others have encountered this type of situation.


iTunes will sync photos only if you turn on photo syncing in the "tab" for photos.

If iTunes is complaining about apps, it's likely that you once started to sync apps (or it got confused) - but it has nothing to do with app syncing. Sadly, if you want to use this iTunes library, you have to deal with the app issue or keep facing that alert.

Think of it this way. Your photos are in a room that happens to have some rotten food. You can either move your photos to a new room or deal with the rotten food by holding your nose or cleaning it up. One didn't cause the other, but they just ended up in the same room as you.


Transmit by Panic - http://panic.com/transmit/

Configure as an SFTP server, click the Key icon.

I'm not sure of the specific implementation (SFTP vs SCP), but testing onto another standard OS X host with SSH keys setup works fine. The other box isn't running a special SFTP setup - appears to work fine.

Transmit is a great OS X app for any sort of file transfer.


How do I get my music off my iPod 4th generation 2004

Use iFunbox or try iExplorer to attempt to get all data off of the device. It will have encrypted file names, but the metadata will remain.

In other words, in iFunbox, find the iTunes_Control folder in the root file system, then right click music and click copy to my computer.

In iExplorer, go into music, then press Control-A then Control-C (paste it in the desired directory after). If you are on Mac, go to music then press Command-A then Command-C. (Paste it in the desired directory after.)


El Capitan - Losing internet connection every 20/30 minutes

If you create a new user account in macOS and that solves the problem, then you have a configuration issue or an app or daemon misbehaving.

If that does not solve the problem, based on the steps you've taken already, check to make sure your router/access point has its firmware up to date.

If it's up to date, you might try resetting it to its defaults.


Can macOS's ramdisk be swapped to disk by the operating system?

Since macOS High Sierra 10.13.x the virtual memory "swapfile(s)" have been encrypted even if FileVault2 disk encryption is off.  Obviously, I would test that theory and review any CVE reports and validate it.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/what-is-secure-virtual-memory-on-mac-mh11852/mac
You might be scratching your left ear with your right hand roundabout the hard way.  Consider creating an additional keychain and using that instead. It's far more secure and this is precisely what keychains are designed to accomplish.  They secure secrets.
Developer API Docs:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security
Command line (scripting):
man security


You are forced to activate the phones OTA or via iTunes before you can sync apps over the 30 pin connector or access iCloud or the App Store on iOS.

You can put the devices into recovery mode and update the OS from iTunes to get part of the way there.

Just because you're a windows shop, don't assume you won't come out ahead getting the configurator and a computer to use as an appliance for saving you valuable time in setting up the devices your employees are using. I understand not wanting to fight a battle with limited time, but this might be a nice time to branch out and come out ahead in experience and tools.

If I were in your situation, I would have each employee make iCloud and ensure the device is backed up to iCloud to do the migration. You can be there to guide them, but they are responsible for moving their data and settings to their new devices. (Your comment about data privacy means iCloud is clearly not something you want so I understand that with sensitive data but perhaps others can rely on that when they have a similar problem)

You can update all the new devices to iOS 5.1.1 and they can get help from you if they can't get their devices up to that level or backed up before they arrive for their exchange.


How to make Spotlight index PDF documents to search faster or on my command?

Spotlight indexes are updated when a file is written, so results should be available within milliseconds of the write operation being finished.

Delays in finding a search result are due to a slow or problematic index or a failure of the scanner to complete that file.

You'll need to diagnose spotlight or perhaps just rebuild your index around the folder if you have problems with the subsystem. It's hard to know what of the three causes is happening without someone who knows how things work poking at the system.


Does Time Machine have a separate phase just for encryption?

I assume you're backing up to a directly attached drive (USB drive or something similar)? When you select a local drive for encrypted backups, it converts the entire drive (or at least the volume you selected) to encrypted format, then starts backing up your data into it.

Basically, it's encrypting the current contents (probably most blank, but it encrypts blank space as well). Once that one-time conversion is finished, it'll start backing your data up, encrypting that as it goes.