How can I access my Time Capsule remotely?

If You Have a Time Capsule or an AirPort Extreme Base Station with Shared USB Hard Drive

If you have either a Time Capsule (which is basically an AirPort Extreme Base Station with a built-in 500 GB or 1 TB hard drive) or an AirPort Extreme Base Station (AEBS) with an attached USB hard drive, you can share out the Time Capsule/AEBS hard drive and make it accessible via the Internet. To do this:

Start the Airport Utility.
Select your Time Capsule or AEBS. Make a note of the IP Address shown on the right -- you will need it later.
Click Manual Setup.
Check your "Connection Sharing" setting under the Internet Tab. The following tutorial is valid if your "Connection Sharing" is to "Share a public IP address", the normal setup for a home network. You will need to have a static IP address, or use a free dynamic DNS service. If you have a different type of "Connection Sharing," you probably don't need a tutorial to set up remote access to your disk; adapt this one as needed.
Click Disks (at the top of the dialog box), and then click File Sharing.
Select (check) the "Enable file sharing" checkbox and the "Share disks over Ethernet WAN port" checkbox. It is strongly recommended that you also set Secure Shared Disks to "With base station password" and Guest Access to "Not allowed"; not making these changes may allow unauthorized users to access your Time Capsule/AEBS hard drive.
Click Airport (at the top of the dialog box), and then click Base Station.
Enter a Base Station Password and verify it in the Verify Password box.
Click Advanced (at the top of the dialog box), and then click Port Mapping.
Click the plus sign (+) to add a new port mapping.
In the Public UDP Port(s) and Public TCP Port(s) boxes, type in a 4-digit port number (e.g., 5678) that you choose. In the Private IP Address box, type the internal IP address of your Time Capsule or AEBS that you wrote down in step 2 (for example, 192.168.0.1). In the Private UDP Port(s) and Private TCP Port(s) boxes, type 548. Click Continue.
In the Description box, type a descriptive name like "Time Capsule File Sharing" or "AEBS File Sharing". Then, click Done.
When you have made all changes, click Update.

Your Time Capsule/AEBS will restart. Once it does, you are now ready to connect to the Time Capsule/AEBS hard drive via the Internet. To do this when your MBA is away from home:

In the Finder, click Go > Connect to Server.
Type in the correct domain name or external IP address for your network, plus a colon and the port number you specified in step 11. For example, "www.myhomedomain.com:5678" or "123.123.12.123:5678".
Click Connect.
You will be prompted for your user name and password. The user name can be anything you like; the password should be the password for the Time Capsule/AEBS which you specified above.
Click Connect.

Voilà! You are now connected to your Time Capsule/AEBS hard drive from your MBA. You can access files, copy files back and forth between your MBA and the hard drive, delete files, whatever you want, as long as your MBA remains network-connected. The next time you go to connect, it should go even more quickly (especially if you save your password in your keychain, and if you add your home IP address/domain name to your list of Favorite Servers in the Connect dialog box).

Note that the Time Capsule/AEBS will appear in the Shared section of your Finder's sidebar as a server, with the Base Station Name of the Time Capsule/AEBS as the server name.

Taken from http://forums.dealmac.com/read.php?4,2800627

Additional Info:

I know port forwarding can be a big hassle so I thought I would add that you could also use apple's built in "Back To My Mac" feature. This way you can access your Time Capsule's files as well as accessing you home mac files and screen share with your mac over a secure connection.

Try this article: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204618


This post at the macrumors forum lists which CPUs are capatible, outlines the various issues with upgrading, and has links to detailed guides on the upgrade process, including the firmware upgrade.

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-cpu-compatibility-list.1954766/

Read everything through before starting and you should be fine. I spent a lot of time making sure I had it all clear in my head before buying the processors and starting the job. Double check everything and ask questions(I recommend the same site again) if you are unsure about something. Drop me a line if you are having problems finding a particular guide and I will see what I can dig up and upgrade the answer here if relevant. I used lidded CPUs and did the 'washer stack' method mentioned on the site to upgrade my 4,1 with few problems following the guide on how to tighten down the heat sinks. De-lidded CPUs cost quite a bit more and are not worth it IMHO, or worth the risk of de-lidding them yourself. YMMV.

The firmware upgrade to a 5,1 is very simple and required to use Westmere processors. It is the easiest part of the upgrade. In fact you can do it all by itself without upgrading anything else with the system and you computer will for a practicable purposes be identical to a 5,1.

I upgraded my system last year with two Westmere four core Dual Xeon X5677 3.46Ghz CPUs from two Nehalem four core E5520 Xeon at 2.26Ghz. I decided that the additional cost of going to hex core processors was not worth it to me for the work I do. It was over twice the cost for used hex core processors at the time and they would have had a slightly slower clock speed. Your needs may differ and I'm sure that prices now are very different. Seeing that you are on a single processor system, a hex core may make more sense for you as you wont have to double the CPU cost by buying two as I had too. Watch the prices for a few weeks to see where the market is at and to get the best pice performance ratio that fits your needs.

Also consider upgrading your Video Card if you haven't already. There is a post at the same site with a guide on what PC cards work and which don't with work arounds and any problems or limitations. It is very long, but worth digging through.

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/frequently-asked-questions-about-nvidia-pc-non-efi-graphics-cards.1440150/

Another tip for upgrading is to look for used, registered server RAM. Registered RAM must must all be the same type; you can't mix it with unregistered DIMMS. Normally it is more expensive, but because the type of DIMM the 4,1 and 5,1 uses are quite old now, not being able to mix it, and the motherboard must specifically support registered RAM(which the Mac Pros do, most consumer machines don't), you can find it really cheap from people parting out PC servers on ebay. I can't remember the price, but I upgraded to 24GB(six 4GB 1333 DIMMs) for not much money at all.

The forums mentioned have loads of information and the people are willing to help, just be sure to read up about the process as much as you can before posting a question. Like many forums out there, they will jump on you a bit if you didn't take the time to read the available information beforehand and jumped straight to asking simple questions. Make yourself informed. Don't be put off, this is a doable upgrade and has brought a lot of life to my old system. This era of Mac pros were so well designed and I love to see their life extended. If you really get lost after spending some time gathering information, drop me a line and I'll see if I can point you in the right direction. Good luck.


What the font: the letter i used in Apple's information button

Hoefler Text Bold Italic

http://www.typography.com/fonts/font_styles.php?productLineID=100010

It was designed for Apple:

  Hoefler Text is a contemporary serif Antiqua font that was designed
  for Apple Computer to demonstrate advanced type technologies. Hoefler
  Text was created to allow the composition of complex typography; as
  such it takes cues from a range of classic fonts, such as Garamond and
  Janson. Designed by Jonathan Hoefler in 1991, a version of Hoefler
  Text has been included with every version of Mac OS since System 7.5.


I would start with a reset and restart of your Dock.1

To reset and restart the Dock, follow these steps:

Go to Finder
Press and hold the option key down
Now go to the Go menu
Select the Library option to open the User's Library folder. You can let go of the option key now.
Go to the Preferences folder (i.e. within the Library folder)
Find and move the com.apple.dock.plist file to the Trash
Now open Terminal (usually located in Applications > Utilities)
Enter this command killall -KILL Dock
Press enter

Once you've done that, use your MBP for long enough to know if this has resolved the issue.

1 IMPORTANT: After doing this you will need to re-add any non-default icons (i.e. apps) that you've added to the Dock. Before proceeding you may want to take some notes (or a screenshot of your Dock) as a reminder of what you had there previously.

[UPDATE]

Since what you've been doing with your bash script is essentially the same thing, I would try booting into Safe Mode.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your MacBook Pro
Restart your MacBook Pro
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. how does your Dock look, etc)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your MacBook Pro as normal
Now check to see how your icons look

Once you've booted into Safe Mode, if the problem still persists, follow my steps above for resetting and restarting your Dock and see if that makes any difference.

Also, if the problem isn't there while booted into Safe Mode, but returned when booted normally, let me know. This will require further troubleshooting as it's clearly a software conflict/issue.


The default "Search with Google" should be listed in the Keyboard Shortcuts under the Services tab.

You can un-check it and it shouldn't show up in the menu (This doesn't delete it however, just hides it from the menu).


Chax with Lion: downgrading iChat to 5.0.3?

Why you need Chax, if for strict HTML tags in AIM account
You can change option in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.AIM.plist
search option "ForceICQPlainText" change to YES
save and set ReadOnly :)


It sounds like something broke, as the description sounds like you're unlocking the disk but then the OS is running a disk check (that's the bar) and failing (that's why the machine shuts off.)

One thing you may want to try is booting to Apple's Internet Recovery and using the tools available there.

To boot to Internet Recovery:

Start up your Mac and hold down Command-Option-R on your keyboard.
You should see a gray screen with an animated globe appear. It should say something like “Starting Internet Recovery. This may take a while.”

Once booted to Internet Recovery, you should see the Recovery interface.

From there, you use the methods described in the links below to unlock or decrypt your FileVault 2 encrypted Mac:

Using Disk Utility to unlock or decrypt your FileVault 2-encrypted boot drive

Unlock or decrypt your FileVault 2-encrypted boot drive from the command line


MacBook Pro: No feedback sound on changing volume and on mouse clicks

Go to System Preferences → Sound → Sound Effects and make sure Play user interface sound effects and Play feedback when volume is changed are checked.

The sound clip played back when increasing/decreasing volume has been changed starting with OS X Yosemite and, thus, you will find it different from earlier versions of macOS.


Properly sort multiple albums from one artist in a year in iTunes

The tag format iTunes uses allows the storage of year-month-day for release dates. You'll note if you buy songs from the iTunes store they frequently have the release date including the month and day. I do not know if iTunes actually obeys this data when sorting a list, but you can add it anyway, so it's worth experimenting.

The Get Info window won't let you add a month or day - there is only a year tag - but external tag editors certainly do. I had a simple one that looked like the iTunes Get Info window but with more options, I can't remember what it's called... I think MusicBrainz Picard also lets you enter month and day.

If you've edited a track with an external editor, you can force iTunes to refresh the data using an Applescript (assuming you're on Mac OS). There are other tricks that are documented here on the MusicBrainz site. The Applescript in question is near the bottom, I use it all the time after editing tags with Picard.

EDIT: Let me know if it works, eh?


How to disable accentuated char suggestion on long click on mac?

As given in the link by Tom Gewecke, you can disable the Character Picker by typing the following in a terminal :

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false


It it possible to convert DVDs to my iPad?

Handbrake is a great tool for ripping DVDs and otherwise converting video.

The legal question is probably beyond the scope of this forum, but if you own the dvd and are only ripping it for your own personal viewing, I wouldn't worry about it.


How to change configure system.log file in macOS?

Your settings for for the syslog are found in /etc/asl.conf.

There's a section that governs how the system log operates.

# Rules for /var/log/system.log
> system.log mode=0640 format=bsd rotate=seq compress file_max=5M all_max=50M
? [= Sender kernel] file system.log
? [<= Level notice] file system.log
? [= Facility auth] [<= Level info] file system.log
? [= Facility authpriv] [<= Level info] file system.log

Specifically, the log will rotate (by default) when it hits 5M in size, not overnight and the whole set of log files will rotate when it hits 50M cumulatively (10 files in total).  If you wan to increase the size, just edit the line as you see fit.

> system.log mode=0640 format=bsd rotate=seq compress file_max=5M all_max=50M

I wouldn't increase the size of the individual files themselves, but rather the collective total.

That said, if you are collecting logs for a number of machines, you should be using a syslog server.


How can I make a playlist from a shuffle sequence?

From any list of songs in iTunes (like for example, when you're on iTunes DJ) you can select the range of songs by clicking while holding the Shift key. Once all songs are highlighted you can go the File menu and select New Playlist From Selection. A new playlist will be shown at the bottom of the Playlist section containing the exact same song selection and ordering. Hope this helps.


Limit what a tethered iPhone internet connection can be used for

I had the same issue and have been using "Trip Mode" on my Mac to good use. Currently sells for about $10CAD.

http://tripmode.ch

What I need now is something that will do the same on my iPad...


Launch AppleScript when bluetooth device is disconnected

system_profiler SPBluetoothDataType can check you bluetooth status.

There will be connection parameters  Connected: Yes  or No


Create 2 resizable logical drives from one physical drive under Catalina

Here is Apple's guide on the much better way of using containers to hold all the space on a drive and then make resizable and shares space logical volumes.

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/add-erase-or-delete-apfs-volumes-dskua9e6a110/mac

In practice this is so much better than the old way of having to guess beforehand how much space each needed and being forced to jump through hops to grow and shrink volumes. APFS does need SSD to run fast, but you gain so much flexibility to create new volumes it's worth selling an old Mac to get a new one IMO. I don't recommend this on Fusion Drives - there, try to void any split unless you can't get external SSD for a better APFS experience.
If you like hearing how this works, watch this video alerting at 12 minutes in on the benefits of space sharing...

https://developer.apple.com/wwdc17/715 Check out What's New in Apple File System

As to how to add, back to the first link. I have never needed to reserve space or use quotas, but feel free to experiment if you feel it’s better to restrict things for your setup.


Why doesn't my wireless mouse connect automatically?

If you've paired it before, clicking the mouse after turning it on should do it.


How in IRSSI can I switch channels? CTRL + number doesn't work

My Google skills were horrible so I posted the question. Found out it is ESC+number.


How to disable single-user boot (command S)

The best you can do is set a firmware password in hopes that someone won't change the boot options stored in NVRAM or let the keyboard select an alternate software to boot and bypass your administrative passwords.

Older macs use Open Firmware to enforce this password, newer ones use EFI Password to prevent booting into single user mode.

Physical access means with tools, your mac is vulnerable to physically reset the firmware password or remove the drive. To protect there, consider FileVault which encrypts the contents of your disk and requires the correct password regardless of physical access to the mac.


Which program installs *osxfuse* files in / (root folder)?

After some investigation, the *macfuse* files were mv'ed to root folder by a mis-configured bash script.

The script was supposed to move the *macfuse* files to somewhere else and ln from /usr/local/lib/*.macfuse*, to kill some homebrew warning. Too bad, the destination path of the script was missing and so files were mv'ed to root folder.

It's now fixed by:

rm all symbolic links of *macfuse* from /usr/local/lib/
mv *macfuse* files to a proper folder
ln each file from /usr/local/lib/


Can the iPad 2 be used for everyday telephony?

There are numerous possibilities outside Skype.

First; the iPad fully supports the three ring headset that Apple sells. Both the stock Apple Earphones that ship with every iPhone, and even the Apple In-Ear Headphones. Meaning that you can use third ring microphone for any/all input methods. And, of course, all iPads have built-in speakers and microphones, so you can even use it in a "Speaker Phone" style of use.

If you have access to a Asterisk or similar SIP PBX server, then you have access to a myriad of Softphone applications, many of which are very capable and support all the latest features (namely backgrounding) including 3G calling where applicable. Take a gander at AppShopper.com's list of results when searching for "softphone".

While not an official recommendation because I haven't used it personally, I do give a nod to Counterpath's Bria app, because I've used Counterpath's SIP clients on the desktop for years.


'Use mobile data for' toggle changes won't save on iPhone 6, iOS 9.0

As a troubleshooting step, I often will back up an iPhone to iTunes and then the cloud (just to be safe/sure) and then erase all content and settings.

Settings app > General > Reset

At that point, set up the phone as new and don't sign in to iCloud. I opt in to all the other settings and then go check the setting that was "stuck"

At this point you will know if the setting works or the phone needs the OS restored. If so, do the restore or seek service. When that's done, you can either decide to erase all content and settings to then restore one backup or if you want to just start downloading your apps, signing into iCloud and moving forward with a base that works.


is there Dictionary app on iphone that can translate word printed on real paper?

Yes, application is called Word Lens, and the technology behind it is darn impressive :)
Have a look at the video presentation.
But it only works for translations from english to spanish (and vice-versa). Supposedly more languages to come but no progress since it launched.


When does Messages message via iMessage vs. SMS?

To send SMS text messages I use the green callout balloon button that's near the phone button.

You are using the correct app.

  My colleague said I could save money by using iMessage instead of paying for each SMS text message.

Your colleague is absolutely right. At least in this context. iMessage is Apple's Internet messaging service. You can send an iMessage to anyone who has an Apple device (such as iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac desktop or laptop computer etc.). The requirements is that the recipient must have registered their Apple ID with iMessage service and enabled iMessage. Either of email address (Apple ID) or mobile number (associated with your iPhone) can be registered with iMessage and can be used as sending destination.

The same Messages app is used for sending both an iMessage and SMS to contacts and recipients. An SMS is identified with a green bubble while an iMessage is identified with a blue bubble.

Additionally, you need not remain online all the time for iMessage to work, if either the sender of receiver is offline (not connected to the Internet), the sent message gets stored on device or Apple's servers respectively, and dispatched as soon as the Internet connectivity is restored (either via Mobile Data or Wi-Fi). It in a way works for how email works. Unlike some other messaging app, there's no concept of user being "online" or "offline" in iMessage.

When the recipient is either using a non iPhone phone or they don't have their number registered with iMessage service, your text message gets sent as a plain SMS, and all the same restrictions apply (character count, carrier charges). However, iMessage allows you to send text messages, media such as photos and videos and with iMessage apps stickers etc.

It's important to note that iMessage is a service available free of cost and is exclusive to Apple ecosystem of devices.

You can force an iMessage to be sent as a plain SMS if you suspect the recipient may have their Internet connection (Mobile Data or Wi-Fi) turned off, and you want the message to get across as quickly as possible (as an SMS is sent over cellular network).

  Is it possible to explain in a few clear sentences how the messaging functionality works on my iPhone6 and when internet is used and when traditional SMS messages are used?

Answers below inline:

  Does it check first for an active internet connection on the sender's phone?

No. Sending iMessage has nothing to do with active connection on recipients end.

  Does it also check if the recipient is also connected to the internet?

No. The recipient gets the message whenever they turn on Internet on their device. The messages you sent are held on Apple's computers in the meanwhile.

  Could a message go out as an iMessage and then not be delivered even though the recipient could have received an SMS text message?

If a message is sent out as iMessage, it will indeed get delivered (as long as their number is registered with the iMessage service) when the recipient turns on Internet on their device.

P.S.: I can direct you to this excellent document online officially maintained by Apple, which explains iMessage service and it's features in an easy to understand way.

Messages for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac

Force Messages app to send a text message as SMS instead of an iMessage

Here's a workaround that you can use to force the Messages app to send a test message as SMS instead of iMessage to a contact's phone number. It is slight clumsy, but gets the job done in the scenarios like you described:

If you have Internet access available on your iPhone via either Mobile data or Wi-Fi (indicated by the presence of appropriate icon in the iPhone's status bar), and the receivers contact number is registered with iMessage, you'll only be able to send an iMessage, irrespective of the online/offline status of the recipient. You can check if a message would be sent as an iMessage by the presence of a blue colored upward facing arrow besides your typed text message.

To force the message to be sent as SMS instead, temporarily turn off Mobile Data/Wi-Fi on your iPhone to disable Internet access. You'll still only be able to send an iMessage (Blue arrow icon) as your iPhone knows that the receiver is registered with iMessage. Send the message normally.

The message won't get sent from your iPhone due to the absence of an Internet connection. Now tap an hold on the message bubble, and you'll see an alert at the bottom of the screen with an option that says Send as Text Message. This option is not shown when you have Internet connectivity on your iPhone, or the message is already delivered to the Apple's servers.

This will cause your iPhone to re-send the message as SMS. The receiver will be able to get the message even in absence of the Internet connection on their device (as long as they have cellular connectivity on their device).
Don't forget to turn Mobile Data/Wi-Fi back on on your device to regain access to Internet.


How do I check the country of origin for apps in the iOS App Store?

You are not safer in the Appstore than anyware else: the only thing that is scrutinized by Apple is how the app works correctly in OS and that it works only in the api (which already is a good direction) but it can still be a bad app.


Setting up iPhoto library on external HDD

You can simply copy the iPhoto Library to an external hard drive and access it form there. Of course you need to have the external HDD connected whenever you want to run iPhoto.

To copy the library: Quit iPhoto. In your Pictures folder there should be a file (actually a special folder called a package) called iPhoto Library. Copy this folder to the new location on the external HDD. Since you're using iPhoto '09 you can just double-click on the library in its new location and iPhoto will open it and use it as the default library from now on.

This Apple Support document also covers the copy process.

However, you need to be very careful if you have images that are not contained in the iPhoto Library (referenced images) as these won't be copied to the new location. If you have the "Copy Photos to Library" option checked in iPhoto preferences, and have always had it checked (it's the default), then you shouldn't have a problem.


/opt directory doesn't exist on OS X 10.9

Yes, OS X does not come with anything in /opt or even the directory itself. I presume you're looking for MacPorts, which is a 3rd-party package manager that installs port. MacPorts has to be installed separately.

Various other apps can place files in /opt though. For example, even though I've never had MacPorts, I have the /opt directory and it contains the X11 directory.


How can I get Nike+ to play songs from Spotify?

I'm afraid there isn't a solution currently available for this.  I've been using Nike+ alongside Spotify for over a year now by starting my Spotify playlist then starting a run in Nike+ and selecting "no music". I used to use iTunes playlists which worked with the power song feature and while that was kinda cool it's really not something I miss.

You might email them through their support page (couldn't find a feedback form) and mention it as a feature for future revisions.

http://nikeplus.nike.com/plus/support/#contact


You can try the following:

In Preferences (cmnd+,)

Privacy:

Check: Allow from websites I visit.
Remove all website data..
Prompt for each website one time only
Ask websites not to track me

Notifications:

Remove all

Extensions:

Disable them all for now.

Search:

Untick all and only tick: Enable quick website search

Quit (cmnd+Q) and re-open the app. Let us know if it happens again? :)


This article references VMware Workstation 6 as being able to run OS X with some hacks, but it's slow. But more importantly, that article runs down what I thought was the only known solution to running OS X in a VM: VirtualBox. So you aren't going to be able to do this with Fusion, but you can do it with VirtualBox.

Also: Apple does allow virtualization of OS X Server (check the date on that article - circa 2007). It honestly wouldn't stand much of a chance in the big, corporate IT world if it couldn't be legally virtualized these days.


Calibrate laptop display to simulate TN display problems

Since choosing the "right" color is a personal choice, I would recommend to use the ColorSync Utility located in your Utility folder.

Here you can set what profile to use or adjust the settings to your needs.

If you need to you can get ICC profile that suits your needs from here.


keyboard shortcuts doesn't work on 'screen sharing'

In short, you need to set it to something that won't be interpreted at the local machine first.

This same thing happens for such as the key to invoke Mission Control - if the key command is the same on both machines, the local one responds instead of the remote.

The only solution I've found is to change the local key command to something different, or to have to go the 'long way round' each time.


iCloud tabs only shows one iOS device at a time

This is caused by setting up your iPad from your iPhone’s backup.

In macOS, the file ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Safari.*.plist holds a key named SyncedTabsDeviceUUID. The value of that string uniquely identifies your browser’s synced iCloud Tabs.

Since I have Safari Technology Preview installed, I have a second file ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.SafariTechnologyPreview.*.plist, with a different SyncedTabsDeviceUUID allowing both Safari and Safari Technology Preview to sync their tabs independently via iCloud.

When you restore a device from backup, that SyncedTabsDeviceUUID gets restored as well, leading to collisions during iCloud Tabs syncing.

If you want to get fancy, you could try backing up your iPad to iTunes, find and edit that file within your iOS backup, then restore it back to your iPad.

Or you could just setup your iPad as new and get a legitimate unique ID for it.


Is there an API to Apple Books sync metadata?

There's no publicly available API for that.


Is Internet Explorer 11 mode available in the new Microsoft Edge for Mac browser?

No. Microsoft Edge team confirmed here that IE Mode is only going to be supported on Windows:

  IE mode will be supported where IE11 is currently supported so yes, it is Windows specific. Thanks!


Gatekeeper won't let LibreOffice open .csv files

I had the same problem and finally managed to fix it.
Simply adding 'Libreoffice Vanilla' by doing a right click on a csv file and choosing that app did not remember this for all csv files, as you state.

I was able to configure it by going to the info of a single csv file (mac button & i or rightclick and 'Get Info'). Open the 'Open with' apps list and you'll probably need to choose the 'Other' option at the bottom. Choose the 'All Application' selection and 'Always Open With' option while finding the Libreoffice app in the list and confirm that selection.

Now you'll have to click the 'Change all' button right under the App selection combo box on the general file info window. This step ensured all other csv files to open using Libreoffice from then on.


It just means someone on the same local network as you is sharing their own library.

As it has a padlock, it means a password would be needed to listen to it.

If it wasn't password protected, you'd see a note symbol instead.

The chances of seeing 'stray' shared libraries are of course greater if you're on public wifi - you need only worry if you were connected to a supposedly private network & you don't recognise the name.


Prevent pages form automatically linking to email addresses and urls

Go to the menu found at "Edit" > "Substitutions" > "Smart Links" and you can edit automatic hyperlinking.

More information can be found in the Apple knowledge base.


Kevin is right. Not sure why Keynote wants to copy a link to media on drag from websites. Something to do with copyrights and attribution, I'm guessing. I'm not sure of your skill level, so I will try to be detailed (which may help someone else, as well).

Right-click (or control-click) the image you want. Choose 'Save image as...' and change the name of the image before saving. It appears the images on the site are named dynamically 'giphy.' Then, in Keynote, use the Media button to select 'Choose.' Navigate to the image and [insert].

Unless you want a big play button on the gif (or if the gif is not animated), you likely need to change the image's behavior in Keynote. Make sure the image is selected (if not, click it once) and on the right side you should see a few options. Click Movie and deselect the last option: 'Start movie on click.'


Auval and Auvaltool not working through SSH

This is a long shot, but I once had to install tmux with brew install tmux (and I already had https://brew.sh set up and ready to run) so that I could graphically log in and establish a terminal session for the user in question.

With fast user switching, you can then return to the log in screen - leaving that one user console session blessed with full GPU and full graphical console permissions and then ssh in to attach to the existing TMUX sessions.

Hopefully someone has a more direct answer, but after several days of bounties and some great comments trying to back into the answer, I wanted to get on the record that a graphical log in does have higher powers and permissions and you just might need that for now if no-one has a better fix for this.


What does it mean if IPSW file is not signed anymore?

Easily spoken, you could say ipsw files are not complete.  They're missing that so-called signature.  It's like a contract; it has no value without the signature.  Every time you install new firmware on the iPhone, iTunes calls to the Apple servers and ask for that approval signature.  For numerous reasons, Apple doesn't give out those signatures for older firmware versions.

There's not much you can do.  The only thing you can do is downgrading to 8.4.1 and hope one day somebody releases the jailbreak for it.  But for now, you're stucked.

UPDATE: As of Oct 2015 Apple stopped signing 8.x.  As of Oct 2016 Apple stopped signing 9.x.  While this answer is not correct any more it still describes the general idea behind Apple firmware signing.


Are the results of Apple Photos processing shared between my computers?

No. In general, all photo library generated metadata is not strictly shared from iCloud to iCloud on macOS Mojave 10.14 and iOS 12 but some of the overall categories / extracted data does sync. (So it’s pretty confusing / grey area at the moment)

Most of the AI training models to identify photos by subject, finding faces, making memories run locally on each device and only after you name a face, save or customize a memory or make an album does that higher level data sync.

You might need to erase the long running library and let it redownload or better, engage apple support for iCloud and give the engineers permission to look at the sync logs server side and submit some local diagnostics if the process can’t catch up.

I’ve don’t that in the past to get excellent support and a precise fix. Sometimes the algorithm gets stuck and you need an assist rather than just restarting the OS or downloading a clean copy from iCloud to one Mac (assuming that Mac isn’t your “source of truth” or master copy of photos for you).


Why can't my wife's iphone see my phone on Airdrop when I set it to "Contacts Only"

I just solved this problem after google brought me to this question.
This problem has been bugging me for months.

My wife and I couldnt airdrop to each other unless we set airdrop to everyone and then we could send if we showed up in the "other people" section when using airdrop.

In my case I we had been using one apple id across both our phones and after we setup an appleid for my wife there were some issues.

I'm not sure if all of this is related but it seems that AirDrop is a feature of or at least linked to contacts. So after checking that all of our iCloud details were distinct I started to look at contacts.

Not sure if this is directly related but her 'My Info' in Settings/Contacts was still set to me. So I fixed that.

Did a restart of both hers and my phones.

Then she had multiple contacts for me. I beleive this is due to her and I working at the same organisation and both our phones being managed by the corporate MDM. When trying to link the two different contacts it would show a third contact with one of her email addresses, like the second contact had some link to a third contact that I couldnt see in her contacts list. Seemed a bit like an errant record. So in the end, I deleted all  contacts entries for me from her phone and added myself back using the minimum appleid  email address and mobile phone number.

I also deleted the instant messaging details for each other from both of our phones contacts.

After this I got the 5 airdrop requests that I had tried to send to her contact from my phone.

This is a bit of a ramble and I'm not sure if all steps are required for others in this situation but figured more information for others struggling with this issue.


Where are the power-on jumpers on a mid-2013 MacBook Air logic board?

They are located just above the airport card.  A small flat head or T7/T8 bit should work for bridging them.
You can see them in step 17 of iFixits Logic Board replacement guide:

Power Pads highlighted with a red square along the top edge of the Mac, picture courtesy of iFixit
Something to keep in mind is that a damaged or faulty keyboard could prevent a Mac from starting if the power button is always registering a press. If I were troubleshooting this I would first try to short it using the power pads. If that didn't work after a couple of attempts (the flat ones are more difficult to short) I would disconnect the keyboard's flex connection (to the right of the battery connection) and attempt it again.
Obviously, always use caution when working inside of a Mac that has power supplied to it.
Good luck!


Is there music library software for OSX that works like Picasa does to replace iPhoto?

If you like the basic functionality of iTunes, you can just disable its folder management activities in iTunes Preferences by removing the highlighted check marks below:

(English):


Preview app not working properly in macOS Mojave

Ensure in Preview's preferences, that either Open all files in one window or Open groups of files in the same window is selected. If that looks OK and you're still experiencing the issue:

Quit Preview
Move ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview.plist to the Trash
Re-launch Preview
Re-check preferences & ensure Open all files in one window or Open groups of files in the same window is selected
Attempt to reproduce your original issue


Photos "People" Function Keeps Merging People

Talking to Apple Support, they said the only thing they could come up with was to delete my Faces database. That hurts -- it involved deleting 116 people covering 170,000 photos. All of my devices are still "processing" after several days, but I've been adding many faces back in the time being.

One helpful comment from Apple Support was to make sure to ignore the automatically generated circles around faces if they covered multiple faces and simply to draw new circles (on Photos for macOS) that only cover the face in question. Previously, if it drew an automatic circle, I would label that with whichever person was most prominent and draw a manual circle for the secondary person in the circle. (This isn't as helpful on iOS where it lacks those circles and the ability to add manual faces.)


Which iOS versions are affected by the 2nd December date bug?

iOS (11.1.1 & 11.1.2) version are affected.

This bug fixed in iOS 11.2

Article link : https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/12/02/new-ios-bug-causes-some-devices-to-crash-on-dec-2-heres-how-to-fix-it


MBA wifi busted - can I just install a USB Wifi dongle?

I don't think it is that easy: isn't a working Wifi Airport Card a prerequisite for connecting/authenticating with the App Store?

On my MB Air 2,1 (mid 2009) the wifi is broken. Connecting with the internet is possible via an Apple USB-Ethernet-adapter but when trying to install an App/update OSx El Capitan the message in App Store is:

  Your device or computer could not be verified.

I've googled a bit and as far as I can tell the options for this 5 year old machine are either to have the wifi repaired (€125) or buy a USB wifi dongle (€22) and accept that OSx will not be able to update.

E.g. this post:

  A NIC (network interface card) is needed for authentication purposes to make sure the computer is what it claims to be.

on forums.macrumors.com reads like a sound argument.

On Hackintosh this seems to be fixed with various work arounds - but that's too much tinkering for me.


Why is Apple hardware test (AHT) not loading when pressing key D on system start?

Pressing ⌥+D right after pressing the power button and before the gray screen appears works on my late-2011 15" MBP. This forces an internet-based hardware test, which will work even if you've lost the the local hardware test software. (It will probably work over WiFi, but you have more chance of success with ethernet.)


iCloud photo library on iOS 9.0.1 only uploaded when screen is on and photos app is open

I'm having the same problem, except that no even opening the photos app makes the photos upload. They just won't. The iCloud > Photos tab on Settings just says "Low Disk Space - Uploading 20 photos" and it never shows a progress bar or anything. I have selected "Optimize iPhone Storage" because I'm obviously low on space.

My understanding is that you might need to clear some more space for the "optimization" to take place.

Open Settings App - under Storage & iCloud usage - compare the Used/Available numbers with Photos & Camera storage used currently. If you have less than 1 GB available, try clearing other data and then powering off and on the phone.

under Background App Refresh - consider turning that on before the restart above (or another restart) in case Photos respects the global refresh settings.

A more drastic measure might be clearing all photos and letting the phone try to start over with no photos, but depending on how large your library is, that might take some time and battery and network bandwidth to download.


High Sierra occasionally shows a white/grey screen and I have to switch off and restart

I would ssh into the box and run sysdiagnose and top to see what’s happening.

If SSH won’t let you spawn a new process then you have a key piece of information and can press the key card to get a cyst diagnose and then look at the system logs want to to force the system down by holding the power button.


ls -a specifically tells ls to list all files/directories and especially those starting with ., there is no direct way to suppress them. Of course there is always
ls -a | fgrep -v .DS_Store

but this may be rather cumbersome.


MacBookPro8,2 early 2011 boots into safe mode but not to recovery mode (even with USB)

I would say that you have a dying/dead discreet GPU, as that's a known problem with your model of MacBook Pro. Booting into safe mode may be doing something to help your GPU (I have an Xserve with a confirmed dying GPU that boots in safe mode but not without it) so it boots properly. I would highly recommend getting your MacBook Pro replaced as soon as possible via the Apple program. I would suggest you run Apple Hardware Test and verify that your GPU is dead/dying, but this may not be possible given your current state. Similarly, you can run a GPU stress test program like Unigine Heaven and see if your GPU quits.

The only thing I find interesting is your previous shutdown reason: overheating. According to this post, shutdown code -3 is temperature based. That's strange, but not impossible.

In any case, seeing if you can get your computer replaced probably isn't a bad idea since it's pretty likely your GPU is dying. Go to an Apple store, explain the issue, and they'll probably give you a new computer.


Assign a computer name to each network interface

Names aren’t associated to adapters, it’s the hostname of the computer.

Why it’s the WiFi and not the LAN is basically which one got assigned first.

You only have one entry because, well, you can only have one.  Many routers have a mDNS service (usually attached to DHCP) that manages the resolution of host names to IP addresses.  This is a 1-to-1 relationship.  If you had one name pointing to two different IPs, your computer wouldn’t know where to go.


Using Automator.app:

Open Automator and create a new Work Flow
Go to Actions / Library / Text
Choose Ask for Text and enable the Require an answer checkbox.
Go to Library / Utilities
Choose Run Shell Script
Select as arguments on the pass input: drop down.
Type adb install /Directory/$1.apk as the actual script.
Save as Application.

Now you'll have a clicable file which will ask for the parameter for the script.


AppleScript current path for network drive or mount

Based on the following answer, I edited the AppleScript in the first step to:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Finder"
        set the currentFolder to (folder of the front window as alias)
    end tell
    return currentFolder
end run

And now works correctly on network drives.


External mic with iPhone and Bluetooth output

I found this app on App store that might suits your needs.

  Megaphone transforms your iPhone into an instant Microphone, PA system
  or Megaphone when you plug it into amplified speakers.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/megaphone-free/id304955183?mt=8

As you plug in external microphone your system should switch to that input, same for the Bluetooth speakers as output.


iCloud preference pane loads indefinitely and prevents access to System Preferences

Launch Activity Monitor (in /Applications/Utilities) and look for a process named "com.apple.preferences.icloud.remoteservice".  Select it, click the little stop sign with the x inside it, and select "force Quit".


The instructions for switching to Windows date format on Excel for Mac can be found here.

So the steps are:

On the Excel menu, click Preferences.
Under Formulas and Lists, click Calculation.
Under Workbook options, select the Use the 1904 date system check box.


Installing Mountain Lion on multiple macs with one application install

Five.

I wish I could give better answer, but I can't fully resolve the problem of Apple's differentiation between iTunes Store, Mac App Store, App Store and iBook Store.

If you read the following official document, Apple only talks about the iTunes Store when it comes to licensing and iTunes-authorized computers.

My understanding is that the same rules apply to all purchases made in any of these stores because the receipt via Email is always from do_not_reply@itunes.com - no matter if the purchase is an iOS App, a Mac App, or a a song...

  http://www.apple.com/legal/itunes/us/terms.html#APPS

  USAGE RULES

  (ii) You shall be authorized to use iTunes Products on five iTunes-authorized devices at any time, except for Content Rentals (see below).

Since you purchased Mountain Lion in the Mac App Store, it's an iTunes product which you can install on up to five Macs at the same time. I've installed Mountain Lion using the same self-made USB installer on three different Macs without problems.


Under Safari Preferences -> Search -> Smart Search Field -> uncheck the "Show Favorites" option


Does iCloud Drive automatically download all files?

Yes, iCloud drive on Macs keeps all of the files locally on every Mac, and needs enough space to do so. There's (at present) no selective sync option to keep some folders or files off some Macs.

If you have more files in the cloud than space on your devices, you will not have all the files stored locally.

Windows is designed similarly and there isn't a specific article by Apple to document how iCloud is designed. The general page says your files exist everywhere and glosses over the reality that when you initially add files, there's a delay in uploading and checking the files in.

https://www.apple.com/icloud/icloud-drive/

On the Mac you can use brctl log -w to inspect the internal status of sync, but be aware there are lots of "errors" and "warnings" that don't impact the actual results of an account with all files synced.


My MBP won’t start up and I can’t recover it using Time Machine

Is the Time Machine backup on an external drive, a Time Capsule or NAS? Is it possible to inspect the state of the Time Machine backup at Finder level connected to another Mac? You should be able to see the date of the last successful backup and possibly an 'in progress' file which would signify the last backup failed to complete. Try delete this file, it might be the cause. Assuming the TC backups are accessible through the Finder, I would choose the 'Reinstall MacOS' option and install via Apple's servers, then do a restore via the Migration Assistant.


Cakebrew says "Error: Calling 'brew search' with no arguments to output formulae is disabled!"

Your error is from the brew command, and Cakebrew is just reporting it. You can see the error if, in Terminal, you do: brew search.  I suspect that your Cakebrew has not kept up with changes to the brew command.
The version of Cakebrew installed via HomeBrew is version 1.2.5. I have always used that from Cakebrew web site. From there you will get version 1.2.7.  Try that.  The "All Formulae" list works for me.
Edit: The question was also asked here github. The recommendation is to update to version 1.3.  This fixes the issue.


Slow install (hours-days) of El Capitan on 2009 macbook pro SSD

Solved this a while ago, but will post the answer here: the SSD was incompatible with the hard drive. Since it was an older Mac, the TRION 100 OCZ was not compatible. I took it back to the store and got a Samsung SSD for $20 more, and the install went smoothly.


On a Mac, to mount a vhd , it is safer to be of fixed size, using "/usr/bin/hdiutil" according to

"/usr/bin/hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage  /path_to_your_vhd"


Is there an app that allows me to set music as an alarm?

As of iOS 8, the native Clock app supports selecting your own music. When selecting a sound, choose "Pick a song" at the top. Presto!


In Sierra, did Apple remove the ability to play HLS streams in Quicktime Player?

I have macOS Sierra 10.12 Beta (16A313a) and it seems, that Apple has fixed the issue.

I can't find release notes or something like this to point on exact QuickTime version, where this was fixed.


VGA monitor doesn't work at boot time on Mac mini 2011

Could be something to do with the energy save technology and standy mode on old tft monitors, if your monitor has energy save.

Probably that's not 100% compatible with new Macs.


If an app was downloaded and later deleted would it appear on others devices with the same Apple ID?

Welcome to Ask Different.

Yes, any downloaded app can be run on any other Apple device as long as

The device is signed-in with the same Apple ID that originally purchased/downloaded it.
The app supports running on that device.
The app doesn't have any limitations on the number of devices it can be run (some apps limit the number of users and/or devices).

The software won't automatically be downloaded to the other devices, however.  You must download the app specifically.

Your question reads like an XY problem so if you want add the exact issue you're trying to resolve you can [edit] your question.


Upgrading a 2006 MacBook Pro to 3 GB Ram, is this a good idea?

You might know already the discussion here:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/8053632#8053632

If you are actually limited by RAM, then I would not assume that the performance impact of a mixed 1GB/2GB setup would change much. Swapping to disk is so slow, it's hardly compensated by RAM timing issues.

However, first make sure that RAM is actually your issue.


Safari extension for Google results navigation (↑/k, ↓/j)

I am also very annoyed by this. I found an old extension that isn't supported anymore called Mafuyu (http://wakabamac.blog95.fc2.com/blog-entry-1013.html). I've tried to run it but it's obsolete.

Another option seemed to be knogs which I found on GitHub (https://github.com/nqzero/knogs), originally for Chrome and Firefox but apparently someone adapted it for Safari. However, I have been unable to find the version for Safari because the only link i found was broken. (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/90126/GoogleJK/GoogleJK.safariextz)

If someone found the solution to this it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.


Is the logo on the back of the iPhone 5S a mirror like on the iPhone 4S?

As you can see in this video : Yes it's the case on all 3 models.

With the iPhone 5, it's was only the case with the white model.


How can app file be treated as a file in Package Explorer for Mac OS X?

You can't talk Eclipse into treating app bundles as files.

Mac apps are actually "bundles", which are special folders, not files. The Finder treats them as files, but anything that uses lower-level file system APIs will see a .app file as the folder it actually is.

If you look at the appify script on Github, you can see that just making a few plain folders in a specific structure will cause the Finder to treat them as a file.


Symlinks work for hidden files.

When you

ln -s ~/hiddenfile  ~/folder/hiddenfile

there is a new file. But of course, you can't see it.

  If the files name begins with a point (".vimrc"), you can't see it
  because finder doesn't show files with a point before the actual name.


It's on the exclude list because a 169.254/16 address is by definition not external to your network. A proxy server relays your requests to other networks. Proxy servers are much less common today than they used to be, but if you are using one, and you didn't have that exclusion, you could get some very strange results.

If you have the proxy enabled without exclusions, you run the risk of the proxy intercepting a request intended for a device on your network, and trying to relay it to the outside world. The possibility exists that the traffic would never reach its intended target on the local network. So the exclusion is telling the OS not to send traffic that should stay local to a proxy meant for external traffic.

I don't know of any reason why it would compromise your own computer's security either way. You can get rid of it, but I don't any advantage of doing so.


Why is this specific video on Youtube not playing sound on my Macbook Pro?

That's an interesting question! There's a pretty simple answer - there's only sound recorded onto the left channel.

You should first check your sound output settings and see if you have the balance set to the center. Go to System Preferences--> Sound--> Output tab. Then check your balance.
You can play around with dragging left or right and anyone can recreate the issue by dragging the Balance all the way to the "right" when playing that video.

If you have your sound output in the center on the Balance, then you should try playback of your audio through your internal speakers instead of through the HDMI connection to your display (or other sound output).
That way you can isolate if the problem with your Display itself or in its settings.

If you find the problem only happens on your external display, see if you can adjust the sound settings on it and see if there's different audio selections.


How to change date format on menu bar without extra apps?

I don't know whether you ever got the above method to work, but it never did the trick for me. However, I seem to have found a way that works without resorting to a 3rd party app. I was pulling my hair out about this because I wanted to have a '.' as the time separator, and even when using the defaults command like so:

defaults write com.apple.menuextra.clock "DateFormat" "EEE MMM d  H.mm"

It would successfully assign the value, but every time I killed the menu bar, it would inexplicably revert to the default format. I'm not sure how permanent this will be, but I did a quick loop in bash and after running it for a few seconds, I killed the menu bar from a separate shell, and then returned to the loop and killed it - voilà!

So, basically from shell 1:

while true;

    > do;
    > defaults write com.apple.menuextra.clock "DateFormat" "EEE MMM d  H.mm";
    > done;

...then in another shell:

killall -KILL SystemUIServer

And then return to the first shell and kill the loop. I haven't restarted yet, but so far the change has stuck. HTH!


How can I remove an individual name from a Group on the Autofill feature of Mail?

You've edited the groups in the correct place — Address Book — but there's one more step you need to take. Mail.app reads the core data from Address Book when it starts up. After editing entries in Address Book you'll need to quit and restart Mail.app for any changes to be recognized by Mail.


All users account starting with an _ are automatically generated by the system. For example, _lp is an account used to manage the Printing Services without the use of the priviledged account root.
This is a separation of priviledges and a good protection.

For all other account names,
daemon and nobody are also generated by the system.

For the remaining accounts, let's say you see a suspect user account bond, use the following command:

finger bond

to check what bond account is used for and when it was last used to connect on your system.


Why is the IP address to my MacBook Pro being zapped by another computer?

Once Macs are given a dynamic IP in a DHCP-based system they prefer to hold onto it at all costs, even with releasing/renewing. Check to make sure there are no static IP configurations for another computer that your Macbook is trying to use instead.

If there're no IP's configured statically then try resetting the router to default settings.


How to type numbers while using pinyin input on a non-qwerty keyboard?

Could you use the numpad keys under fn? For example fn-J is numpad 1 and fn-K is numpad 2.

Edit: You might also use a private.xml private.xml like this with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>test</name>
    <identifier>test</identifier>
    <inputmode_only>CHINESE_SIMPLIFIED, CHINESE_TRADITIONAL</inputmode_only>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_0, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_0</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_1, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_1</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_2, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_2</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_3, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_3</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_4, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_4</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_5, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_5</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_6, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_6</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_7, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_7</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_8, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_8</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::KEY_9, VK_SHIFT, KeyCode::KEYPAD_9</autogen>
  </item>
</root>


Adobe Acrobat opens whenever I save a PDF file. Please make it stop!

You can disable/remove the Adobe PDF plugin from chrome://plugins/.

As part of the installation of Adobe Acrobat, there is an option to Customise the install and choose whether to install the plugin. It's enabled by default.


Use the drive as little as possible.  Plug it into an enclosure or simply boot the machine in TDM mode and connect it to another machine.

Pull over only the files you need (to minimize the time you spend accessing the drive).

You may want to do something like, just your ~/Desktop, ~/Documents, ~/Pictures, ~/Library/Mail, and ~/Library/Mail Downloads.

Do either:
a) the biggest folders last, again, so that if the drive suddenly dies on you, you got as much stuff off it as possible, or;
b) the most important folders first, such as any pictures you don't have backed up.


Assign spotlight short cut to different keys

just go to Preferences -> Keyboard. There you select the Shortcut tab and on the left Spotlight. Here you can enable/disable shortcuts and also customize them. Just click on the Shortcut on the right so it becomes selected and then press the new combination of keys you want to assign to it.

Hope that resolves your problem.

Best regards


http://bugreport.apple.com is the canonical bug reporting mechanism. Once you have submitted an issue, it will be given a "radar" number and you will be treated to possibly the most archaic customer-facing bug reporting interfaces on the planet.

You will want to first select a developer account and agree to Apple's terms. In your case, the free of cost Safari developer program might be very useful if you care to know what changes are in store for Safari.

https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/safari/index.action


On iPad's iBooks, is there a way to sync and download all ebooks purchased elsewhere?

iTunes is the solution that Apple offers to load content into iBooks if you don't want to perform that loading on the device itself.

I'm not aware of another product that does the same on a regular basis for easy set it and forget it syncing, but several others like PhoneView can read and write to the space iBooks uses to store content on iOS.


Is there a way to automatically add a tag to a song once its added to a smart playlist in itunes?

Short answer: No.

Long answer, still no, but there are workaround. You cannot have the label added in the grouping tag as soon as you rate the track. However, you can write a small Apple-Script that you would setup to run everyday (or every hour, or anything else) that would scan your iTunes library and write the tag to the tracks, depending on their rating.


Applescript problems with renaming a file and getting the alias to change it's name as well

I think that got broken somewhere, as an alias is supposed to be a reference to a file item that remains valid even if it gets renamed or moved.  If you are going to be using POSIX paths anyway, you might take a look at using Cocoa's NSURL class (via some AppleScriptObjC) to keep track of the file references, since that is ultimately what is getting used (or is supposed to be used).

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use framework "Foundation"
use scripting additions

tell application "Finder" -- get the selection
    set theSelection to selection
    set theFiles to the files of (first item of theSelection) as alias list
end tell

repeat with anItem in theFiles
    set anItem to POSIX path of anItem
    set fileRefURL to (current application's NSURL's fileURLWithPath:anItem)'s fileReferenceURL() -- get file reference from path
    tell application "System Events" to set the name of disk item anItem to "temp_" & (name of disk item anItem)
    set posixPath to (fileRefURL's |path|()) as text -- get path from file reference
    display dialog "Before:" & return & anItem & return & return & "After:" & return & posixPath buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button "OK"
end repeat


iTunes keeps crashing - malloc_history possible for iTunes?

Whether it's possible to use malloc or not, this is definitely not a normal thing, so the problem is elsewhere. It certainly doesn't happen to millions of customers out there. The OS Reinstall will probably fix it, but before going that crazy, I'd try to do the usual Mac maintenance stuff.

One trick that usually helps me a lot is to create a blank new user and try from there. If it works, then you can start digging "what is in my account that breaks this?"

Starting in Single-User also helps to diagnose stuff.

TL;DR: something is broken, malloc won't help you much. Start with the basic.

On the other hand, you might have a RAM problem.


Is the iPhone 6 more powerful than a 1980s era Cray supercomputer?

It would really depend on which end of the 1980s we choose. A Cray 2, circa 1985 would be a good midline choice.

CPU speed of the Cray-2 was about 250MHz, with what we would today call 4 cores. 256Megs of memory but at 64bits per address instead of 8, or as we would call it today 2 GB of RAM. In terms of raw power it has been compared to an iPad. that's if you use a CPU benchmark.

However, supercomputers are usually optimized for parallel tasks or rather staggering amounts of input-output. It really isn't practical to say "my phone could replace supercomputer X from year Y" as they aren't capable of performing the same tasks. If we jump back a couple more generations we can say that an iPhone could have run the entire Apollo program assuming we hooked it up to a signal booster (and hold it the right way).

The iPhone beats the Cray hands-down in power consumption: 200 kW, 480 V 3-phase power coming in resulting in over 2000 amps internal power. Pressurized liquid cooling with an external heat exchanger the size of a car.

Looks awesome sitting in your dedicated computing center though.


constant popup: "iTunes has found purchased items on the iPhone "xyz" that are not present in your iTunes library"

I was having the same problem.  When I looked a little more closely, I found I had checked that I wanted "Selected Books" to be synced.  For the three books I had checked as ones to sync, I am now showing multiple copies (10 copies in one case) in the iTunes Books sync page; although there is only one copy of each when I look in the Books app on my iPhone and Mac Mini.  Since I have my Books app on the iPhone set to use iCloud anyway, decided there I didn't need to also sync them when I do my iTunes sync.  After unchecking "Sync Books" and hitting "Apply" in iTunes, the every-time-I-do-an-iTunes-sync reminder to transfer purchased items have stopped.

Maybe when iTunes gets split up into separate apps (as I heard might/will happen) these iTunes sync issues will get sorted out.  But don't get your hopes up.  I think we're lucky Apple supports sync-to-your-computer-without-using-iCloud at all.

Other details: iPhone 7, iOS 12.2, MacOS Mojave 10.14.4, iTunes 12.9.4.94, Lightning cable.


If you save out the files in a Pages format you will not get the errors. You generally only get those errors when trying to open documents from Microsoft Word or something similar. I am pretty sure there is no way to disable the warning though from the preferences or anything.


magic mouse vs other mouse for graphic design

I find the wireless trackpad (Magic Trackpad) to be a much better alternative. Its more responsive and truly supports the multi-touch gestures.


Prevent " quit unexpectedly" message on sigquit

If you never want to see the crash report dialogs, there is a preference to disable them:

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none

Log out and back in to apply the changes.


MacBook Pro only stays on for less than a minute

It could be something as simple as you power button is stuck, forcing it to shut down.

If you hold the power button for 10 seconds it will forcefully shut down the computer.

In that case it will make the tiny clunk noise, which is normal due to HD been turned off and the HD reader head dropping. Do not do this to often, since you might damage it.

The stuck power button happens to computers on the back seat of the car exposed to food and other stuff.

If the hard drive is dead, you will see a gray screen, and that bad hard drive would not turn off the computer.


How do I set my iPhone / iPad to UTC-12 time zone?

It doesn't seem to be possible to set UTC-12 in the Date & Time section in Preferences (see below for more on that).

But I was able to spoof my location with Xcode and a GPS file with these contents:

<gpx>
    <wpt lat="0.194722" lon="-176.479444"></wpt>
</gpx>

as explained in Using Xcode to Test Location Services. The Simulator app thought I was on Baker Island (this is a screenshot of the Maps app showing my current location):

This suggests that you could, with the help of a Mac running Xcode, set your iPhone's time zone to UTC-12. I couldn't test it because I don't have a developer account, and one is needed to sign and run apps on an iPhone.

As for the usual method of setting the time with the Date & Time section in Preferences: as I said above that doesn't seem to be possible.

According the Apple support article Get help with the date and time on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, to manually set the time zone you have to "tap Time Zone and enter a city with the time zone that you need".

But Wikipedia's UTC-12 article tells us that UTC−12 is a nautical time zone and although a number of inhabited islands lie within the longitudinal limits of this time zone, none of them keeps the date and time of UTC−12.

So there are no cities to choose, and none of these names (from obvious to obscure) are recognized:

Baker Island
Howland Island
UTC-12
US Minor Outlying Islands
Anywhere on Earth
AoE
International Date Line West time zone
IDLW

I wonder if turning on "Set Automatically" would properly adjust the time for someone visiting Baker Island...


Can anyone recommend a stop watch or timer which stays always on top?

ActivityTimer is a Timer that's free in App Store and has an option to display countdown time in the Menu bar in digital or analog form.

I do not know that it can count up (like a Stopwatch).


Unable to install Boot Camp 6 Update for Windows 10 due an invalid signature

Found that enabling developer mode under "Update & Security" in the system settings allowed the Boot Camp 6 update to install with no issue.


Is there a Terminal command to get the current front most app's title?

Well there is, however if you run it directly in Terminal it's just going to return Terminal, as that's the frontmost application process that's visible.

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of application processes whose frontmost is true and visible is true'

If you want the second most, use:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to get name of second application process whose visible is true'


this worked for me

Go to Settings >> Notifications.
Scroll down and find Mail section. Tap on it.
Select your mail app. For example, I am using Exchange.
Turn on “Show in Notification Center” and “Show on Lock Screen”.


How can I see a list of events in one specific calendar?

typing a "." into the search field and pressing enter will bring up a chronological list of events.

As far as sorting by calendar, I think the only way is to de-select the other calendars and then do the search.


Rsync isn't the best choice for Mac to Mac copies.

I'd use ditto or asr if you need a command line solution. Disk Utility calls asr internally and you could mirror the volume and then wipe and run Migration Assistant - that's far better than trying to boot from a damaged copy.

Do go ahead and make the full copy for your backup - then consider installing to a new OS.

In fact, you could install OS onto an external USB / Thunderbolt / FireWire drive first before even making a copy then migrate the data and accounts and apps from the internal drive to the external clean OS install.

That saves a step and you don't even need to worry about syntax of asr or ditto or rsync


How big of a HDD can a Mid 2010 Mac Pro handle?

It's not that they can't address a larger drive, it's that the screw holes don't fit the 'sleds' that the drives are mounted on.

OWC sell replacements - http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MPRODBKTLG6/ though I have no idea if they ship outside the US, or indeed if that would be worth it.

Standard sled - 4 mount points.

6TB compatible sled - 6 mount points

Pics from OWC [no affiliation]


How does the hardware manage to save the current workspace state so efficiently?

When you restart a Mac it is the same as restarting a Windows machine as far as clearing out the contents of RAM. The difference is when you log in the state of all of the running apps is saved when they quit so they open to the same place they were. This is dependent on how well the application is written. Apps where less attention was paid to saving state don't come back to exactly where they were. Apple apps are very good at this so it appears as if they were never quit.


The best way to synchronize contacts and bookmarks between several Mac and/or iPhone is to use MobileMe (now iCloud). It will sync all as you need where you want.


Superdrive doesn't accept disks any more

Never could find out what happened. I bought to new drives (not Apple-made) and they work.


For the record, the problem appears to have been resolved. Steps I took to fix:

(1) Delete everything from key chain
(2) Remove gmail account from Mail.
(3) Restore gmail to Mail.

Everything works again. For now.


Mavericks Mail will not save preferences

Make sure that all the permissions are correct on your home folder.
You can use the ACL tool on the Recovery HD to do this:

Boot into the Recovery HD using ⌘R.
Run resetpassword in Terminal (available from Utilities → Terminal).
Select your account from the drop-down list.
Click the Reset button for Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs.


How does the iPhone X eliminate borders?

I don't know if this is the full story, but the screen folds over & wraps underneath - presumably this gives them space for connectivity.
It's OLED so needs no backlight, allowing them to do this.

It was visible in the Jony Ive presentation video - https://youtu.be/K4wEI5zhHB0


Textedit crashed and lost a previously saved file

Have you tried looking at File > Open Recent menu item in TextEdit?

Next you can use spotlight to search for the file name or any word in the document. Lastly, look for time machine either local or  external backups.


Microsoft Office 2016 reporting not enough memory

The problem disappeared when I turned off SourceTree, which was locking files during periodic refresh. I also noticed that Office for Mac has issues with synchronization while working on files that were opened from OneDrive. So if you're having a similar memory problem, make sure that while you work on the document no other program accesses it.

It seems that Microsoft's products just don't handle file access denial well and I'd consider this behavior a bug.


Is there a maximum number of files supported/recommended in Photos.app?

My Photos library has about 60,000 photos and about 1,600 movies. The total size is about 560GB. About 30,000 photos are uploaded to iCloud and can be browsed by all my devices and desktop machines. So far no problems and interaction is fluid. With old iPhotos it was annoyingly slow to view the library in its entirety and had to split it into yearly libraries. New Photos does not seem to slow down with library size. It's face recognition is also quite a bit better.


Sending ePubs from PC to iOS iBooks via iCloud Drive?

iCloud Drive and iBooks aren't directly linked, so you have to open Files app on your iOS device (iOS 11+) and open it in iBooks. The iBooks iCloud setting specifically refers to keeping iOS and Mac iBooks apps in sync with each other.

iBooks has a setting at the top that says "All Books" with a down triangle on it or something similar. Tap that and at the bottom of the screen, there is a toggle that says "Hide iCloud Books". Toggle that off and tap done.

Now, navigate in Files app on iOS and find the non-protected .epub you want to move to iBooks and tap it. It should download and open in iBooks.

Do note that since they aren't linked, deleting files in iBooks and deleting files in iCloud Drive should affect each other.


How to style notifications in Mountain Lion?

Notification center, like most Apple standard features doesn't provide much in the way of customizable appearance. Even app developers don't have any control over the appearance of the notifications. The most you can do is choose between the Banner and Alert styles in Notificantion preferences:

If you need more styling options, you'll have to keep using Growl where you can.


Disable the disk check when reconnecting an improperly disconnected disk to OS X

Open Terminal and enter:

#Get the disk identifier of the ExFAT partition
diskutil list
#Get the UUID of the ExFAT volume with diskXsY being its disk identifier
diskutil info /dev/diskXsY
#Create and edit /etc/fstab
sudo vifs

Add a line with the following content after activating insert mode (e.g with I)

#Replace the UUID below by the one found earlier!
UUID=2FECDB7A-15F0-36F9-9A47-483B9669D6DC none exfat rw,auto 0 0

Hit esc to leave insert mode. Enter :w! to write the file to disk and :q to quit vifs.

Reboot your Mac.

The last 0 should disable fsck.

An alternative method may be: rename /sbin/fsck_exfat to /sbin/fsck_exfat.paralyzed with:

sudo mv /sbin/fsck_exfat /sbin/fsck_exfat.paralyzed

Since /sbin/fsck_exfat is a link only you may also have to rename the original file: /System/Library/Filesystems/exfat.fs/Contents/Resources/fsck_exfat.

Both methods are not recommended! Instead the USB socket should be repaired.


Can I re-format OS X drive without removing it from my MacBook Pro?

You don’t need to remove the HDD and no need for second Mac.

Boot the MacBook Pro from the USB stick (that you made with OS X El Capitan 10.11)
Using Disk Utilities in the Tools menu, you can reformat the hard drive as part of the installation process.

To boot using the USB, restart your MacBook and press and hold the Option key and Select the USB drive to boot.

Note: you are operating (using OS X) from the USB


MacOS Mojave disappear after successful download

The download performs a check to be sure the package is complete and not tampered with. I wonder if that's deleting what it thinks is a bad download and some bug or system modification is stopping you from getting the typical user alert telling you that the download is being deleted without the option to save it.

First steps, check the console app and look at /var/log/install.log

If there's no helpful item - you could always get with Apple support to troubleshoot. I often look at other logs like system.log but there can be thousands of entries so if you are looking at all the machine logs for the first time, it might be painful to search for or see the item that's relevant.

If you're game, these are the sorts of files and locations you'll move to if your App Store itself is broken and it's not a server side issue with the account or just a bad network where you can't get a reliable download of that large a size. I've had overseas networks where they mess with SSL certificates or just corrupt the data horribly that cause this.

Mac App Store Download Failure - Clear Cache?


QuickLook for files with no extension or an unknown extension

Take a look at the QuickLook Stephen plugin, it opens almost everything I throw at it (as long as it is text based).


How to download the SMS messages in my iPhone to a Windows Machine?

SMS is a strictly cellular service, meaning all text messages use cellular connection. There is no way to access your text messages from the Internet(or by any other means that does not use the phone where he text messages are located). If you could clarify what purpose you need these messages, we could help find a solution.

EDIT:
After clarification, it seems you would like the raw text content. If you have a Macintosh computer running OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" or higher and your iPhone is running iOS 8 or higher, you can use continuity to sync all SMS messages with your computer, then allowing you to manually copy/paste all of the content.

For a guide on how to set this up, see Apple's guide on Continuity


Charging MacBook Air with a fast charger from usb-c

It shouldn't damage anything, but it might not be powerful enough to keep up.
The Macbook Air charger is 30w, which is about 6A.
Amps are "pulled" by the computer rather than "pushed" by the power supply [which is the opposite to voltage; this is why voltage has to match but amperage doesn't] however, your charger will be incapable of supplying all the Mac is asking.
This will just make charging slower. If you're lucky, it might just keep up, otherwise the battery might still lose charge slowly while the Mac is in use, even with the charger connected.


The general advice is that Apple has sales channels (within the retail stores as well as without) to assist organizations understand the various programs and licensing terms. Additionally, organizations typically get tools to assist with license management, support and deployment.

If you don't have a sales contact yet, you could start with this somewhat dated, but very nice white paper on the issues for deploying OS X in a large scale setting:

http://www.apple.com/education/docs/Apple-SolutionsSystemMgmt.pdf

There are more up-to-date presentations for the App Store, but I haven't seen them published on the web.


Finder constantly not responding/freezing

How odd. But I solved it.

Of course, I lost about half my files with the system restores through Time Machine before I worked it out.

nohillside ♦ pretty much got it spot on. It was me using autofs to mount network shares. Quite why a network share going down or being unavailable means that the entire system is unusable is beyond me. It fact, thinking about it, it's utterly insane.

I wonder if now I have to write some really hacky script to automatically disable autofs if it can't connect to the server a few times in a row.

Another thing that I fear will remain an eternal mystery is why various other apps completely locked up and failed to start. Why TextExpander and BetterTouchTool? Why any file manager? Why Excel but not Word?!

TL;DR - how do I fix it?

Simply deleted the auto_nas file with:

$ sudo nano /etc/auto_nas

I kept the line in /etc/auto_master


Is Mac deployment controlled like the Apple iOS Developer Program does?

Without a Mac/iOS Developer account you won't:

get access to OS X betas
be able to publish your apps on the Mac App Store
be able to code sign your OS X / iOS apps.

Code signing is needed if you want to run apps with Gate Keeper enabled.

There is no discount if you enroll in both developer programs.


“Network accounts are unavailable” when logging into OS X Lion Server

You can enter the username and password of the local administrator account at the login window you are seeing. The local administrator would be the user account that was created when first setting up OS X on the MacBook and is not associated with any network account server.

Once logged in to the local admin, open System Preferences, click on Users and Groups, unlock the preference pane, click on login options, and change "Display login window as" to "List of Users". You can also edit Network Account Server binding from the preference pane.


You can always restore a backup of an older version of iOS onto a newer version of iOS, just not vice versa.

If you really want to install an older pre-release version of iOS, then you can if you still have the IPSW. Apple doesn't stop signing pre-release versions like this so you should still be able to install an older version through iTunes.


Text box not appearing in a Messages conversation

From another site, try disabling and then re-enabling the account in question as follows.

Within the Messages app:

Select the conversation that has the problem (I don't know that this is necessary, but I did it anyway)
Go to Messages->Preferences...->Accounts
In the box at the left hand side, select the account in question -- it will probably be your Apple ID with "iMessage" below it
Then over on the right, make sure "Settings" (and not "Blocked") is selected near the top
Still on the right, underneath your Apple ID, uncheck "Enable this account"
At that point, back in the main Messages app you should see the text box reappear at the bottom of the conversation
Then re-check "Enable this account"

Done.

P.S. This was done on OS X El Capitan (Version 10.11.1), and Messages app version 9.0 (5084)


When trying to install Windows 10 on 2011 iMac keep getting error 0x8007000D windows cannot open the required file D:\sources\install.wim

How to Use the Command Line Interface (CLI) to Install a BIOS Booting Windows 10

Part 1: Build the Installation Flash Drive

  Note: The version of macOS is High Sierra 10.13.6.

Use the Disk Utility application to erase a 16 GB or larger flash drive. Choose the parameters shown in the image below.

Download latest 64 bit Windows 10 from Microsoft. In my case, this was the file named Win10_1909_Engish-x64.iso.
User Finder to mount Windows 10 ISO and copy the files to WINSTALL. When finished unmount the ISO. Below is what appeared on my WINSTALL volume.

From the Safari menu bar, select Develop → User Agent → Microsoft Edge. Click on this link, then download gdisk. When finished, select Develop → User Agent → Default (Automatically Chosen) from the Safari menu bar

  Note: If Develop does not appear on the Safari menu bar, then check off “Show Develop menu in menu bar” in Safari Preferences. To reach the check box, select Safari → Preferences… from the Safari menu bar, then select the Advanced tab.

From the gdisk download, copy the file gdisk64.exe to WINSTALL.  Below is what appeared on my WINSTALL volume.

Download the latest Window Support Software (Boot Camp Support Software) for your Mac from Install Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp. Or you can try using the Boot Camp Assistant to download the software.
Copy Windows Support Software to WINSTALL. Below is what appeared on my WINSTALL volume. The files came from the website Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621.

Part 2: Create Space for Windows 10

Use the Disk Utility or the diskutil command to create an ExFAT partition for Windows 10.

When finished, the output from diskutil list appeared as shown below.

Part 3: Install Windows 10

EFI boot from the flash drive.
When you see the windows shown below, press the shift+F10 key combination to open a Command Prompt window.

Enter the command echo list volume | diskpart to list the volumes. Below is an image of my results. If you get different drive letter mappings, then make the appropriate substitutions.

Hybrid partition the internal drive. The commands for my configuration are given below.

  Note: The gdisk version is 1.0.5.

d:gdisk64 0:
r
h
2 3 4
y
af
n
ab
n
07
y
w
y

Once again, enter the command echo list volume | diskpart to list the volumes. Below is an image of my results. If you get different drive letter mappings, then make the appropriate substitutions.

Use the command given below to format BOOTCAMP. When asked for the current volume label, enter BOOTCAMP.

format c: /fs:ntfs /v:BOOTCAMP /q

Copy the Windows 10 files to the internal drive. If desired, substitute "Windows 10 Home" in the command given below.

dism /apply-image /imagefile:d:\sources\install.wim /name:"Windows 10 Pro" /applydir:c:\ /checkintegrity

Install the boot data and files for a BIOS boot.

bcdboot c:\windows /l en-us /s c: /f bios

bootsect /nt60 c: /mbr

Close the Command Prompt window by entering the command given below.

exit

When the image below appears, click on the red X, then the Yes button. The Mac should reboot to macOS.

From the Startup Disk pane of System Preferences, select Windows and restart the Mac. Windows should finish installing. Below is an image of the Startup Disk pane after selecting Windows.

Install the Windows Support Software. Basically, try running the setup Application in the BootCamp folder on the WINSTALL flash drive. If the software will not install, then open a Administrator Command Prompt window and enter the command BootCamp.msi in the \BootCamp\Drivers\Apple folder on the WINSTALL flash drive.
Use the Apple Software Update application to install all updates from Apple.

Additional References

DISM Image Management Command-Line Options
DISM Driver Servicing (.inf) Command-Line Options
BCDBoot Command-Line Options
BIOS/MBR-based hard drive partitions
UEFI/GPT-based hard drive partitions
Dual Boot Win 7 on MBR with Win 10 on GPT
How to install Windows 10 into a 2011 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, an optical (DVD) drive or third party tools?


Connecting USB devices wake Mac running Mountain Lion only temporarily

Siracusa's review mentions this behavior, and it's been evolving since Snow Leopard:

  DarkWake has actually been around since Snow Leopard, where it was used to periodically send out a network tickler to ensure that a sleeping Mac doesn't lose its DHCP lease. In Lion, plugging in or unplugging a USB device could briefly put a Mac into DarkWake to reconfigure the peripheral bus before going back to sleep. Mountain Lion does all of the above while also carving out some time to get real work done while the master is away.

DarkWake is the state the system is in when Power Nap is running.  In Lion, it would enter DarkWake to deal with processing the USB connection, then it would go back to sleep.  In Mountain Lion, when a USB device is connected, the Mac enters DarkWake to deal with processing the USB connection and also uses this state to do the various Power Nap tasks.


Exporting highlights from Kindle Personal Documents to a TXT file


Have a look at https://applescriptlibrary.wordpress.com or use the search engine of your choice. The exact document you ask is here:

https://applescriptlibrary.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/open-scripting-architecture.pdf

It's listed as legacy and from 2007. See my comment above about carbon API such as this being deprecated when 10.8 Mountain Lion was released. It might be better to just use the current guide you linked above unless you have specific needs to do research or support older OS and tools.


How to get keyboard focus on login screen password field in OS X 10.8?

I have also been bothered by this and some trial and error led me to discover that the login screen keyboard focus problem is not caused by the display turning off. Setting the display to never sleep in System Preferences revealed that there is a screen saver that appears when the computer is left idle at the login screen. The login field retains focus until the screen saver appears, and when the screen saver goes away, the field no longer has focus.

This screen saver is not controlled by the screen saver settings in System Preferences, so I have not found a way to disable it. However, I did find a setting that I use as a workaround. There is a Terminal command that can be used to set the amount of idle time before the screen saver appears. I just set it to a number of seconds that is higher than the amount of time I am usually away from the computer. To change this setting you can open the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities) and run the following command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver loginWindowIdleTime 10800

Of course you should replace the 10800 with a number of seconds that will work for you. This command is documented by Apple Support in the article "Configuring a screen saver to run at the Login Window."

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4625

The article refers to OS X v10.6 specifically, but I used it on Mountain Lion 10.8.


Very simple; No way Apple will allow you to do this


Number showing on photos in iPad days view for photos

so after contacting apple, they said the number showing is the number of additional photos for that time period.  However, in my case its not - the number of total photos do not match up when I count all photos for a selected time period.  Additionally, I sync the same photos to each device - iPad and iPhone - yet my iPad is taking up twice the amount of space when compared to the same photos on my phone.  Also, I continue to have some photos that don't sync when they are suppose to and duplicates of others.  What a messed up ecosystem!


Can one MacBook charge another over USB-C?

Yes you can. I finally figured out how.

Use a dongle and hook them up like this:

power supply > usb-c cable > mbp > usb-c cable > usb-c multi-port dongle > mbp2

I've tested it with the UpTab displayport with power delivery adapter and with the Apple multiport adapter (A1621).

In my experience, 15w is enough to power and charge the 15" mbp.
Here are discharge rates I've observed on my laptop:

Idle w/min screen brightness: 4.25w
Idle w/max screen brightness: 7.7w
Chrome open, no tabs, max brightness: 8.6w
Chrome open, 2 gmail tabs, 1 pandora tab, max volume: 16.5w
Chrome open, playing 1 YouTube video, min brightness: 9.4w
Chrome open, playing Spotify, min brightness: 6.05w
iTunes open (Chrome closed), playing song, min brightness: 6.1w

The second mpb will only receive 15w from the first. An app like coconut battery can help you see how quickly your laptop is charging.

Using this method, you can even trick your laptop into thinking that it is charging itself. (And then you could upload that video on YouTube, claiming to discover infinite energy, and profit on the ad revenue)

The OEM power supply for the 2016 15" mbp has 3 output modes:

4.3A @ 20.2v = 86w
3A @ 9v = 27w
2.4A @ 5.2V = 12.48w

So even the OEM power supply will occasionally supply only 12.48w to the mpb.

Update:
After playing around with this more, the above method will work if you want to charge 2 identical devices. But if you have a 15"mbp and a 13"mbp, it seems like the larger device always supplies power to the smaller device. I don't have one available currently to verify exact charging watts. Charging a 15"mpb from 0% to 100% battery takes about 8 hours at 15w. This assumes that the laptop is off or is sleeping. In a pinch, I've worked 8 hours with my 15"mbp plugged into my 18w usb-c phone charger. I was able to maintain the battery's charge during light to medium load. The move to usb-c for power has been awesome. You could conceivably charge your laptop with the 5w iPhone charger, but it would take about 15 hours to fully charge while shut down (assuming a 75wH battery and 5w charge rate and no inefficiencies due to charging), I'll have to test this out tonight to verify that it works.


macOS Preview function performance drop since update

The first thing to do is check on some common sense items:

Open Activity Monitor - is the system totally idle or 99% CPU used.
Open System Information (About this Mac) and check the storage - do any cleanup and if you are on a hard drive - consider freeing up 25% of the space to let the optimization run post OS upgrade.
Turn off automatic log in so that when you reboot your Mac - you get to choose which account to log in.
Open the Mac App Store app and apply all updates to Sierra.
After cleaning out CPU / Disk Space - boot to Recovery HD and let Disk Utility repair the Disk, then repair the Macintosh HD, then repair the disk one last time. If any errors are fixed, power down the Mac and start Recovery HD a second time and repeat until you have no errors detected to fix.
Now make a new user account and copy the files you’ll use to test to /Users/Shared - restart and log in to the new account and repeat the test for PDF.

This procedure is very general and catches 4/5 of the issues we have at work with our Mac. It’s not specific to preview, but will ensure you don’t look at a specific app when you actually have a system issue slowing down your Mac.


Mac OS 10.10 Yosemite: Where do I get the patch to fix the Meltdown exploit?

There are no patches for Yosemite as Yosemite is no longer supported. You will need to upgrade to a newer macOS. You can find details of patches for Meltdown and Spectre released by Apple in the question Is there a Meltdown vulnerability fix already available for macOS?.


Is there any way to download and install ei capitan offline?

Yes.

Download the installer you want and then disconnect from all networks.
Use that installer to make a USB drive that boots and installs the OS.


You need to go to Keyboard Preferences and add a new keyboard.

Instead of using USA International keyboard you will need to use USA Keyboard.

So from

Use instead

When you are going to add a Keyboard you select English.
At the end of the list you will see both keyboards. Use the one that is not international.

Another option is to put the ˆ and before you press another key, press the space bar.


How can I repair a scratched MacBook Air screen? (A1369)

The protective plastic cover on the screen is bonded to the complete LCD display and not really removeable as a single element. A video on Youtube ("A1369 13.3" Macbook Air LCD Screen Repair step by step howto guide") explains the removal and disassembly of the display and is one hour long. It involves a heat gun and very careful use of special tools:

Conclusion: there is no way to remove the single element (scratched screen protector) in a simple procedure. It would be probably easier to replace the complete lid assembly, but this items costs 500 USD / 440 EUR (Summer 2015). This seems excessive for a screen which has "only" a few very unattractive scratches.

Mental note for next Mac: always place a protective cloth between keyboard and screen.


How does Homebrew no longer need ownership of /usr/local?

According to this ruby script: update-report.rb, they've just moved stuff to /usr/local/Homebrew, which is still owned by you.


Unable to expand ".zip" into "downloads" (Error - 63 file name too long.)

If you install Better Zip or Pacifist Zip, you will be able to open the zip file and inspect the contents, file by file.

The file with the problematic long name - including folder names -  should be evident. If not, you can then extract the files one by one until you find the one(s) with the long name which are causing the problem.

You can rename the problematic files when using Better Zip and then resave the zip file.

http://macitbetter.com/ Better Zip

https://www.charlessoft.com/ Pacifist Zip


Can I upgrade from iOS 6.0.1 to iOS 8.1.1 directly?

The iPad 2 will run iOS 8.1.2. However, if the storage is full it will not be able to install the update.

Connect your iPad to your computer and open iTunes. Check the iPad's storage. If there is less than 5 GB free space, delete movies, music or larger apps until there is space (you can reinstall easily after the update).

From iTunes, click "Update". iTunes will download the proper update from Apple and do everything necessary.

If it still complains, do this:

While connected to iTunes, click "Backup". When it finishes, disconnect the iPad, open Settings, and choose "Erase all content". Plug it back into iTunes, update it, and choose "restore backup".


Macos sorts file randomly (at least it seems so to me)

The logic is simply that the file names you're looking at are sorted numerically. Finder takes the file names and note that they start with a number - everything up to first non-number character is then sorted numerically.

I.e. from your example 9873613 < 13480567 < 39758380 < 46432537 < 81233033.

Note that some files have 7 digits, others have 8 digits.

In general Finder's sorting takes sequences of numeric digits and treat them as a single number to be sorted. Non-numeric parts are sorted alphabetically like you would expect. This system of collation is called "natural sorting".


MacBook Pro won't turn on after Catalina update

This sounds like it might be fixed by an SMC reset.Apple: Reset SMC

And on current Macs this is done like this:

Shut down your Mac.
Press and hold the power button for 10 seconds, then release the button.
Wait a few seconds, then press the power button to turn on your Mac