I've got an error "This site is blocked due to content filtering."

DNS stands for Domain Name System. It takes your human-readable URL (e.g. google.com) and converts it to a numerical IP address for your computer to read (e.g. 172.217.11.14).

It looks like the DNS settings on your router are pointing to OpenDNS servers. OpenDNS is a free content-filtering service that prevents access to adult/malicious sites and is not a spying/sniffing tool (in reference to your second question). Basically, when your computer tells OpenDNS "Hey, look up this website for me," OpenDNS compares the website against a list of adult/malicious sites and if it is on the list, it tells your computer "no, you can't access that website."

To no longer use OpenDNS:

If you have access to your router's configuration page, you can change the DNS settings to point to other DNS servers (e.g. 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 are Google's free DNS servers you can use.)

If you don't have access to your router's configuration page, and as long as there are no rules on the router to prevent it, you should be able to enter a different DNS server address in your Mac DNS settings (which you have pulled up in your last screenshot). Click on the "+" button and put in the two Google DNS servers mentioned above.


I'm Michael and I work for connex.io, an address book app.
You can probably retrieve your contacts by taking the following steps:

On your iPhone go to Settings -> iCloud
and disable ‘Contacts’

They should re-appear.
If you want your contacts to be safer, you can always try connex.io. With our service you will always have your contacts with you. So even if you lose your phone, your contacts will still be in the cloud. It can also sync, de-duplicate, merge, clean, complete and update all of your contacts automatically. So you connect your devices once and then you will always have your contacts where ever you need them. If you would like to try it out, check out this link or you can send me an e-mail at michael@connex.io


How to scroll to the top of the page in Safari on iPad?

Tapping the status bar is the system-wide scroll to top.

If the location bar in Safari is collapsed, the first tap anywhere in that area is overridden to expand the bar. If this happens on the first tap, now tap the status bar area.

The tap to scroll to the top only works when the location bar is expanded. This applies to iPhone and iPad alike.


How can I use Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2, Magic Trackpad 2 with late 2011 MBP?

You could just use it wired, meaning connect the lightning cable that is usually used to charge the pad to connect it to your MacBook, it works.

Some people tried using it with older Macs and it seems to work with Bluetooth 2.0 as well, but i doubt the battery will last as long as with Bluetooth 4.0.

The chip in the device itself is only capable of Bluetooth 3, but Apple never sold Bluetooth 3, they went from 2.0+EDR directly to 4.

You will however need El Capitan, without that it won't recognize the device.


Dell Color Laser 1320c with Mac OS 10.15 Catalina: FX Docuprint Driver - Set Paper Tray option

Thank you Allan for your input which helped move toward a solution. Yes, the issue with the Dell driver is that it is 32-bit.
Using the FX Docuprint C525 A-AP v3.2 Driver software as outlined above and in the referenced link I am now printing reliably from this printer via the paper tray.
I now see where the settings with the Fuji Xerox layout including the paper tray can be saved as a Preset. Once saved it is easily reusable.


How to force backup through Time Machine in terminal

After check Time Machine GUI I notice that it was working as expected, but it was tacking a while because after backup there was also a cleaning part. There is no need for higher privileges to use this command.


The way I understand the question, I offer two answer paths:

If you are looking for an application version update date (sometimes also called a "release date" by technical professionals) within the App Store: While viewing an individual app, have the "Details" button selected, then scroll down to the bottom where you can select what is called "Version History" to see consecutive application versions of the particular app, version number with a version update date if that information has been posted.
Another discussion about App Store Missing Application Review Dates is taking place in this Apple Support Communities thread.


iMac with Apple USB Ethernet won't boot after latest Security Update

It seems the latest update (10.12.3) for Sierra clients has fixed this problem, I was able to start one of the affected Macs from cold and restart without it sticking on the black screen.


How can I manually delete old backups to free space for Time Machine?

Be careful with sudo and making sure you pick the correct Mac's files since there is no undo or confirmation of the following command:

sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/drive_name/Backups.backupdb/old_mac_name

The sudo command needs your password (and it won't echo to the screen, so just type it and pause to be sure you're dating the correct files before pressing enter). If you want to be safer, you can pick one snapshot to delete first to be sure the command works as intended. This is nice since it could take hours to clean up some larger backup sets and you want to leave the Mac confident it's deleting the correct information store.

You can use the tmutil tool to delete backups one by one.

sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/drive_name/Backups.backupdb/mac_name/YYYY-MM-DD-hhmmss

Since tmutil was introduced with Lion, this will not work on earlier OS versions.

If you want to get the current directory of backups (there can be multiple destinations defined and only one will be "current")

sudo tmutil machinedirectory


How to update Git (actually remove apple git and install new one via brew)?

You can try to remove CLI tools alone, which is what comes with Apple git and that may solve your problem.

CLI Tools Removal

https://gist.github.com/yoneken/3284561

if that didn't do it, that means that CLI Tools were downloaded separate from Xcode and you can try this to remove it:

sudo rm -rf /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

Once that's gone you just check to make sure it got removed and then reinstall it with Homebrew. Hope this may help.


Macbook Mail takes very long to receive mail

In Apple Mail you can check what's going on by clicking on Windows -> Activity or pressing Command+Alt+0.

Press Command+, and click on the tab General. Check what intervat you set there. You might want to set it to Every minute.


What's the rule of thumb for interacting with inactive OS X window content?

Sit, my children, and let me tell you of the world and its tricks...
Scrolling
You can basically always scroll inactive window content. I can't even think of a case where this isn't true. (This also means that scroll-to-navigate works in Lion.)
Dragging
In many cases, you can drag content from inactive windows/apps without focusing the app. For example, you can drag a file from Finder or a message from Mail.
Clicking
When you click a button that's on a window, it usually "accepts first mouse events" — meaning your mouse-down will both focus the window and act as a mouse-down event on the button. Then when you let go, the button will carry out its duty.
(Also note: in the case of the close/minimize/zoom widgets,

you can actually click them without focusing the window.)
(Second aside: in toolbars, it's not uncommon to disable some buttons while they're inactive, so you don't accidentally click them — take Mail's delete button, for instance. However, this functionality is slightly broken in Lion, because if you start clicking (so the window focuses) and then drag, you can actually still activate the button.)
However, this mostly only works for buttons. As you've noticed, when you try to click a link (or select text, or another similar action), you have to focus the window first by clicking, and only then can you interact with the content.
The Great Workaround
(or the rule of thumb, as you say; hehe)
To get to the point: In most cases, when you hold down ⌘ Command, you can interact with inactive window content. You can hold down ⌘ and select (and even drag) text in the background, drag things around (including scrollbars!), click buttons, and more, without activating the window.
"But wait!" I hear you say. "Holding down ⌘ opens links in a new tab!" Ay, there's the rub:
When you hold down ⌘ and click a link in Safari or Chrome, it will work without activating the window... but the link will open in a new tab.
And to my knowledge there's no Great Workaround for that, unless you want to disable ⌘-clicking in your browser.
There you have the facts — make the workflow you will of them!

An update, quoting some content from Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (this is just for reference, not to prove a point):

Avoid providing click-through for an item or action whose result might
be dangerous or undesirable. Specifically, avoid enabling
click-through for an item that:

Performs a potentially harmful action that users can’t cancel (for
example, the Delete button in Mail)
Performs an action that is
difficult or impossible to cancel (such as the Send button in Mail)
Dismisses a dialog without telling the user what action was taken (for
example, the Save button in a Save dialog that overwrites an existing
file and automatically dismisses the dialog)
Removes the user from the
current context (for example, selecting a new item in a Finder column
that changes the target of the Finder window)

Clicking in any one of
these situations should cause the window that contains the item to be
brought forward, but no other action to be taken.
In general, it’s safe to provide click-through for an item that asks
the user for confirmation before executing, even if the command
ultimately results in destruction of data. For example, you can
provide click-through for a delete button if you also make sure to
give users the opportunity to cancel or confirm the action before it
proceeds.
Think twice before supporting click-through for items that don’t
provide confirmation feedback. Specifically, consider how dangerous
the action might be, and determine how difficult it will be for the
user to undo the action after it’s performed. For example, the Mail
Delete button does not provide click-through because it deletes a
message without asking for confirmation, which is a potentially
harmful action that can be difficult to undo. On the other hand,
click-through for the New button in Mail is fine because its resulting
action is not harmful and is easy to undo.
Ensure that items that do not support click-through appear disabled
when their window is inactive. The disabled appearance helps users
understand that these controls are unavailable. For example, the
delete and mark as junk buttons in the inactive Mail window shown
below do not support click-through.


There is one video which plays but sound not coming in Mac

Mac and iOS only supports AAC and MP3 Audio CODEC, while my video has MPEG Audio layer 1/2 Audio CODEC. So, while converting/compressing this video, my client has selected audio CODEC to default rather than AAC.

Here are difference between those two video files:

  Screenshot 1 shows the CODEC details of video that gives sound:

  Screenshot 2 shows the CODEC details of video that does not give sound:


Ridiculously Slow Macbook Pro 15inch Early 2013

I have yet to see a horrible, measurable slow down, but that is exactly what is expected as SSD wear out.

What happens at the user/OS level when an SSD finally wears out?

If you have an easy SSD handy to swap, I would get a black magic disk test benchmark before and after the swap.

If you don’t, perhaps get a benchmark of disk IO and then erase the drive after backing up and repeat the test in a fresh os install that is mostly empty of user data.

Once you can post some specific read and write speeds, that would let other people chime in if you're in the same ballpark for speeds.


IMO the MacBook is an addition to the product line which I believe is somewhat like a "netbook" and the Air line is somewhere between "netbook" and MacBook Pro line. The MacBook uses a Broadwell Mobile Processor and the Air is using Broadwell i5 and i7 processors. There are many comparisons on the Internet even though the MacBook hasn't been released yet. Here is one example of a comparison. http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/macbook-2015-vs-macbook-air-2015-spec-showdown/


How Can I Create a Multi-Line Input Dialog using Applescript?

One workaround is to make the default answer include a linefeed, but it will also be included in the default answer:

display dialog "" default answer linefeed

CocoaDialog supports multi-line dialogs:

do shell script "/Applications/CocoaDialog.app/Contents/MacOS/CocoaDialog \\
textbox --editable --title Title --button1 OK --button2 Cancel" without altering line endings
tell result
    if item 1 is not "1" then return
    set answer to text 3 thru -2
end tell

I couldn't get the text view to have focus when full keyboard access is enabled, even with ‑‑focus‑textbox or --selected.


iTunes automatic downloads log-in prompt

Essentially, there are two different options you can try - depending on the way you want to use iTunes. I'll be writing this answer for Mac users, but Windows users can probably suss it out using these instructions.

Both options will only require you to click "Store" from the menu bar from within iTunes.

Option One (red) - If you intend on using the Store, you can simply click the "Authorize This Computer..." menu option. This will prompt you for your password and tie your computer and iTunes library to your iTunes account.

Option Two (blue) - If you don't intend on using the Store and would simply like to not see the dialog box prompting for your password, you can click the "Sign Out" menu option.

One of these two things should solve the problem of the persistent password prompt.

Best of luck!


In order to open a file with a specific program, you can right click the file and hover over the Open With menu item that appears.

First, find the file in Finder, then right click the file. From the top, the second option will be Open With. You can hover over that menu item to see a list of every app that the system knows can open that particular file.

At the very bottom of the menu containing the list of apps, there will be an item titled Other.... This allows you to choose any app on your Mac to open the file with.


MacBook Pro stuck in gray screen when booting

http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/

Apple has issued a Repair Extension Program for Video Issues. I was experiencing the same problem and had tired several solutions that worked for a short period of time, but ultimately I was unable to get my MBP up and running last night and brought it into an Apple store. They determined that my issues was in fact a video issue and qualified for free service.

If you purchased a MBP between February 2011 and December 2013 and suspect that your MBP is experiencing the same issue, then check out the page URL above to see if your MBP qualifies for service.

Here's an excerpt from the page

=========

Apple has determined that a small percentage of MacBook Pro systems may exhibit distorted video, no video, or unexpected system restarts. These MacBook Pro systems were sold between February 2011 and December 2013.

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will repair affected MacBook Pro systems, free of charge. See below for details on affected models and service options.

Symptoms

An affected MacBook Pro may display one or more of the following symptoms:

Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on Computer restarts unexpectedly

Products affected 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models manufactured in 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina models manufactured from Mid 2012 to Early 2013


Can't get iTunes music library to replicate on iPhone 6+

Syncing doesn't actually overwrite the iPhone music library, for whatever reason. Try turning Music sync off entirely (plug-in iPhone, select it in iTunes, go to the Music tab and uncheck the main box), sync, and then turn it back on and sync again. This should cause all of the unwanted songs to be removed.


Can I install CentOS via Target disk mode on a 2010 MacBook Pro

Yes, there are absolutely no problems with that:

Plug the Thunderbolt cable to both Macs;
Start the broken Mac in Target Disk Mode by pressing T during startup;
Plug a USB drive or insert a DVD with the installing image of CentOS to your second Mac;
Start the second Mac by holding option (Alt) at the startup and select the CentOS drive to boot it;
Complete the installation process paying attention to not wipe your second Mac's HDD but installing the OS on the broke one;
Create a user account with password, not just root;
After installing everything, reboot both Macs normally;
Connect the broke Mac with a Ethernet cable to the same network of your second Mac or you can just run a cable directly to it;
Find out what's the IP address of your broke Mac by looking at your Gateway interface or type arp -a in the terminal;
Use a SSH client and connect to the IP address of the broke Mac logging with the account you created earlier and then type the password: ssh youruser@192.168.1.20.

Enjoy your new server!


If you look in to the available categories there are files that do not fit in to any.

That is why are they called others.

Nothing wrong with those files, they just did not fit the given categories.


Is there a way to search for locked files in the finder?

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Carbon/Reference/MetadataAttributesRef/Reference/CommonAttrs.html Goes over all the attributes spotlight has, and it looks like you could possibly create a smart folder with any of these attributes, unfortunately none of them mention locked file status.

ls -lO | grep uchg will give you a list of all the files in a folder which are locked or unchangeable, but only in the terminal.


The standard shell shortcuts (M- = meta = option or esc, C- = control):

M-b and M-f correspond to ⌥← and ⌥→
C-a and C-e correspond to ⌘← and ⌘→

⌥← and ⌥→ are bound to M-b and M-f by default on Lion's Terminal. On 10.6 you'll have to add them manually:

I haven't found any way to reassign ⌘← and ⌘→ in Terminal.


DISCLAMER: I can't check this (that it actually works) at the moment, but I will later.

This script to turn on/off wifi is taken from here:

try
    set makiaeawirelessstatus to do shell script "networksetup -getairportpower en1"
on error
    display dialog "The script did not work as intended, please check the networksetup command (in terminal) works on your system. It has been tested on mac os 10.7 (Build 11A459e). Other versions of mac os may not have this command available. Please open the applescript in applescript editor for more details." buttons {"kthxbai"}
end try

if makiaeawirelessstatus is "Wi-Fi Power (en1): On" then
    do shell script "networksetup -setairportpower en1 off"
else if makiaeawirelessstatus is "Wi-Fi Power (en1): Off" then
    do shell script "networksetup -setairportpower en1 on"
else
    display dialog "The script did not work as intended, please check your wireless connection is specified correctly. The default in this script is en1 (please open the applescript in applescript editor for more details)" buttons {"kthxbai"}
end if

You'd need to edit it to make it accept arguments (I would, but it'd turn out something like javascript)

Then, if you want the script to run reaccuringly, use something like LaunchAgent or cron. I prefer LaunchAgent, because it's more forgiving.


Keep iTunes movies and TV shows on iPad for offline viewing?

First you need to enable viewing your cloud content on your iPad. This is done from the Settings app. Go to: Settings.app > iTunes & App Store and under the Show All section make sure Videos is set to green.

Now go to the Videos app on your iPad and you'll be able to see all your cloud-based video content you've purchased.

To download a movie or show for offline viewing, tap the icon for the show and on the show detail screen, in the upper right hand corner, is a little cloud icon with an arrow pointing down in it. Like this:

Press that button and, assuming you have enough free space on your iPad, the video will download and be available to you to view when the iPad is in airplane mode.


Sum an entire column in Numbers from a different sheet?

Turns out this is dead simple: SUM(Sheet1::Table1::A), or SUM(Sheet1::Table1::ColumnName).


How do I resize OS X main partition when I already have other BootCamp partitions?

Here is my current solution:

boot from OS X DVD - mandatory!
open terminal
diskutil list
umount "/Volumes/Macintosh HD"
fsck -f /dev/disk0s2
diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 100G


Mail app always shows most recently read email

There is no way to adjust this behaviour on iOS with the current version (iOS 6.1 and prior)


Record click action and replay via command line?

So this might be an Accessibility issue. I was able to resolve it by going to System Preferences>Security & Privacy>Accessibility and then making sure Terminal had a check in the checkbox under Privacy.

This link does a great job of explaining it. Automator in Terminal

And by the way console can be very useful in getting meaningful error messages.

Hope this helped.


"You don't have permission to save files in the location where screen shots are stored"

If you type defaults read com.apple.screencapture location into a Terminal window it should tell you where OSX is currently trying to save screenshots.

You can change the location with a similar command. For example:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop will save screenshots to your Desktop.

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Documents will save screenshots to your Documents folder.

Once you've told it a new location you need to run the following command for OSX to pick up the change.

killall SystemUIServer


Unable to install an OS on Mac (prohibited sign)

To start with your MacBook Air will not run Mavericks, so you can put that one aside as incompatible.

As for Yosemite, the earliest possible version that will run on your model MacBook Air is actually Mac OS X 10.10.2 (build 14C2043). My guess is that the copy of Yosemite you've downloaded is either 10.10.0, 10.10.1 or a build version of 10.10.2 earlier than 14C2043.

Regardless, your best option is usually to boot into Recovery Mode.

Recovery Mode

You can boot into Recovery Mode and reinstall macOS from there. You will have up to three options:

Hold down the commandR keys as soon as you power up to reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version
Hold down the optioncommandR keys as soon as you power up to upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac
Hold down the shiftoptioncommandR keys as soon as you power up to reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available1

1 That third option is a new option only available since 27 March 2017 and requires macOS Sierra 10.12.4.

For more info refer to: About macOS Recovery

IMPORTANT - Your question doesn't specify where you've downloaded the installers from. Please note that if you haven't downloaded them directly from Apple then there is no way for anyone here to confirm the suitability/safety of what you've downloaded.

[UPDATE]

Since you're having problems with Recovery Mode I suggest you reset your Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM).

Resetting the NVRAM

To do this on your MacBook Air, follow the steps below.

NOTE: Before following the steps below, ensure you have no external hardware connected and make sure you use the built-in keyboard.

Fully shut down your machine.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionPR keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you hear the startup chime for the second time.
Let go of the keys

Once you've reset the NVRAM, power off and try the various Recovery Mode keyboard shortcuts again.


Make VIPs folder on OS X Mail the same as on iOS?

It’s obscure:

expand the VIP mailbox so the mailbox list on the left shows all your VIPs — each one has a separate mailbox
go up to the View menu, select Sort By (!), and down the bottom you can choose Inbox Only or All Mailboxes

Notes:

despite appearing to be specific to each VIP, the setting seems to affect all of them at once
you seem to have to click off a VIP for the setting to show

Mail 8.2


What's the shortcut for Show/Hide Playlist in VLC?

Window Menu > Playlist…
 Opt ⌥   Cmd ⌘   P


Spotlight considers anything in Library (all of them: /System/Library, /Library, and ~/Library) to be a "System file". (Exception: Yosemite considers /System/Library/CoreServices to be an applications folder and not a system files folder.) By default, it won't find such files unless you start inside the Library folder or add "System files" "are included" to the search terms. (If you don't see "System files" as an option, select "Other". Scroll through the list to find "System files", or instead of scrolling start typing "System files" in the search field. Optionally, turn on the check mark to add "System files" to the menu so you won't have to look for it again.)

Anything whose name starts with a period (like .olk14Message in your case) is considered invisible. Spotlight won't find anything that's invisible or in an invisible folder unless you either start in the invisible folder or add a search term for "File visibility" that says to report invisible items.

mdimport won't help here. Spotlight has already indexed even System files and Invisible files. It just won't show them to you unless you specifically ask for them.

For mdutil -E ..., you need to specify a volume, not a folder. Thus, for example, mdutil -E / would erase (and probably rebuild) the Spotlight index for your entire boot volume. You can't select anything smaller than a volume.


Applescript : refer to an app from a variable

As already mentioned in a comment by red_menace, "The target for the tell statement is needed at compile time."; however, here is an alternative method:

Example AppleScript code:

set SafariBuild to "Safari Technology Preview"

if (SafariBuild's contents = "Safari") then
    tell application "Safari" to do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1
else if (SafariBuild's contents = "Safari Technology Preview") then
    tell application "Safari" to do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1
end if

Or you could use choose from list, as in this example AppleScript code:

choose from list {"Safari", "Safari Technology Preview"}
if result is not false then
    set SafariBuild to result as text
else
    return
end if

if (SafariBuild's contents = "Safari") then
    tell application "Safari" to do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1
else if (SafariBuild's contents = "Safari Technology Preview") then
    tell application "Safari Technology Preview" to do JavaScript ¬
        "document.querySelectorAll(\"[class=\\\"icon-chevron-left\\\"]\")[0].click();" in tab 2 of window 1
end if

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


Conflict between devices in call log if we have the same Apple ID

Yes, this is part of iCloud which synchronises features across multiple devices which use the same primary Apple ID. If you don't wish this to synchronise, change your primary Apple ID on one of the devices.


Using a wi-fi and an ethernet connection at the same time thus having more bandwidth?

Even with multi-homing on iOS 7 starting to allow traffic over LTE and WiFi simultaneously, there isn't a good way to accomplish this on OS X Mavericks and lower.

I have run Link Aggregation on macs since 10.4 and it's really nice when you have a gigabit switch. You will need a switch that runs LACP and two physical ethernet ports like is typical on G4 & G5 PowerMacs days and of course the entire MacPro line. This is built into the OS X network stack and you need nothing but the hardware and a compatible ethernet switch.

Mac OS X won't show LACP as an option without two ethernet ports. I don't know of a switch that does LACP over wireless or allows mixing of wired and wireless interfaces. You might be able to trick the OS some way, but without the switch to cooperate you'll have to rewrite LACP on the switch for that to work.

It's much easier to segregate certain traffic over specific interfaces by modifying your routing table. This will allow you to send some traffic over wifi and others over the wire.

For example netflix and such could be routed over one connection if you set up a route to their network to prefer one gateway IP on the ISP you prefer. It's not feasible to tell an application to use only one interface as that has to be "baked" in to that app and not common practice. What is common practice is to use local routing tables (or routing tables on the router) to steer certain traffic to one gateway. More sophisticated routers have quality of service where you specify some metric like VOIP or video conference traffic is a priority - so when the network is overloaded in some specific, measurable way, then non critical traffic will be shaped or steered to a different route to keep the fast network clear for  better responses.

These routers and the knowledge to run them do not come cheaply. I'd guess $3k us for the hardware and triple that for training and software licenses on the routers.


If you have plutil installed

You can run this Applescript which will create a text version of the dictionary for you to read.

   property copyScriptPath : "~/Documents/" (* path dir for text version*)

tell application "Finder"
    set selectFiles to (get selection) (* get the finder selection*)
end tell
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in selectFiles
    (* convert to POSIX path*)
    set this_item to quoted form of POSIX path of (item i of selectFiles as alias)

    (* get the file name , add it to an alias, then use plutil to read and write atext version out using the original name*)
    do shell script "name=`basename " & this_item & "`;/usr/bin/plutil -convert xml1  " & this_item & " -o  " & copyScriptPath & "\"$name\".txt"
end repeat

OR

There is an old hint on macosxhints - 10.4: Edit binary (and normal) plist files with vim

The post also has the link to the vim script that does all this.

Which may do what you want. ( don't use vim myself )

Quote from the post ( But please go and read it as there are comments and notes that you will need:

  What does it do? It reads a plist file, checks and memorizes if it is
  binary, converts it to plain text if necessary and turns on syntax
  highlinghting for XML. When you save the file again, it is converted
  to binary again for writing if it was binary in the beginning. If the
  file was not binary or if the conversion to binary fails (which can
  happen if you have syntax errors in your file), the file is stored in
  text format. If an originally-binary plist is saved as plain text due
  to syntax errors and you fix the errors and save the file again, it is
  written in binary format. If you open a binary file and just view it
  without making any changes, you can still exit from vim using the
  normal :q (no need for :q!) and the file is left untouched (still in
  binary format). All this should work even when working with several
  buffers (files), when reading a file into an existing buffer, or when
  only writing parts of a buffer to file


From the XLD SourceForge page

  The crash report
  indicates that XLD failed to get a vendor/product string from a drive,
  or lost a connection itself. I guess the crash is caused by "Set
  automatically if possible" option in "CD Rip" preference tab.

This solved the problem.


The instructions outlined in the screenshot are pretty much spot on. However, the missing bit from your point of view relates to Step 3.

Basically, you need to keep the power button down for about 10 seconds before the iPhone will reboot. You can let go once you see the Apple logo.


Where do my notes written in the Notes application on my Mac get saved?

For 10.11 (El Capitan), look in:

~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/


3 Monitors in a row and I want the dock in the middle

Switch off 'Displays have separate Spaces' in System Prefs > Mission control.

Then set the middle monitor to be the primary in
System prefs > Displays > Arrangement
by dragging the menu bar to that monitor

After the question edit -
I'm afraid if you want the Dock on the left edge there is no way to achieve this. The above solution only applies if you have the Dock at the bottom, otherwise it has nowhere to 'sit' & will always go to the first 'edge' it can find, which in this case is the left side of the left monitor.

You could try looking at something like DragThing instead, which can be anchored anywhere. I actually anchor mine to the right of my left monitor on a 2-screen setup, which effectively puts it where the red bar is on this image.

Late Edit
DragThing, after 20 years of sterling service, will no longer be supported after Mojave & is no longer available for purchase.


Missed calls on lock screen iPhone 11 Pro

Notification bodies are protected on the lock screen by default. You don't need to tap the notification to see what the message in the notification is; in fact, that causes the redial.
When you get a notification that just says ‘Notification’, look at your device to unlock it. If your device isn't looking for your face, slightly slide up from the bottom of the device. When the device is unlocked, the notification text will be revealed.
No need to swipe all the way up to the home screen and don't tap the notification.


I assume you have 'tap to click' enabled?

Instead of just tapping on the stack in the dock, do a mouse click and hold down until the stack directory opens.


Block an application's read/write access to a specific file in OS X?

You could just use the built-in sandboxing features of Mac OS X.

Create a custom profile that limits access to the SystemVersion.plist file, using syntax like this:

(version 1)
(deny file* (literal "/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist"))
(allow default)

Save that as for example ~/myprofile.sb and then run your program like this:

sandbox-exec -f ~/myprofile.sb "/Application/My Program.app/Contents/MacOS/My Program"


This is kind of related to macbook pro refuses to boot recover hangs at white screen and question and MacBook Pro will not boot, begins to load then hangs with white screen

Its hardware related. Logic board needs to be replaced


Why can't Finder be closed using command+q?

You can close all windows of an application (including Finder) with ⌘+⌥+w.

You can add a quit option to the Finder by running:

defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YES && killall Finder

Considering Finder is responsible for the desktop icons, quitting it rather pointless, but have it!


Welcome to Ask Different!

I am assuming you are using an app such as Duet Display or Air Display for this purpose. It sounds like you are attempting to extend your desktop, rather than mirror a desktop. You will need to go to System Preferences -> Display -> Arrangement. From there, you can shoes to extend the Desktop.

Following these steps, you will be able to have one or more windows open on your iPad screen, and several desktops on your Mac screen as well.


I want to change clock from 12h to 24h mode via terminal

This is stored in the plist located at ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.menuextra.clock under the key DateFormat.
Here's a quick primer:

12 Hour Mode with AM/PM:
EEE MMM d  h:mm:ss a

12 Hour Mode without AM/PM:
EEE MMM d  h:mm:ss

24 Hour Mode:
EEE MMM d  H:mm:ss

To apply any of these formatting strings, you can either use the defaults command at the Terminal, or if you're looking for a more programmable method, you can use the do shell script1 directive within Applescript.
To apply these via the Terminal, open it up and run the following command:
defaults write com.apple.menuextra.clock DateFormat -string 'EEE MMM d  H:mm:ss'

Substitute the string between the quotes with the version from above that you want.
For the changes to take immediate effect, kill -SIGHUP SystemUIServer will do the trick. Otherwise they will take effect the next time you log out and back in or restart.

1 CyberCiti Primer on Shell Scripting via Applescript


Can I get power from my Belkin Express Dock HD (Thunderbolt 2) for my MacBook Pro Retina?

A Thunderbolt port can provide up to 10W. That's enough to charge a phone or a tablet but definitely not a notebook.

A Macbook (Air/Pro) needs  between 45 and 90W.


Internet is slow on an iPad bought in New Zealand, but used in USA

EDGE is a technology that predates 3G. It is advertised as being capable of "peak bit rates" of 1 Mega*bit*, which is equivalent to about 128 Kilobytes per second, but in practice will be far less.

Anecdotally, cellular data reliability and speed in the Bay Area is rather miserable due to the vast amount of usage, and also the overall lack of towers within the bay area.

Even more amusingly in this scenario, iOS devices do not work with T-Mobile's 3G. Either the T-Mobile store rep was poorly educated, otherwise they were making a bold-faced lie to you, since they would be unable to provide a better solution, as they would only be able to provide EDGE capability to any iOS device as well.

According to this CNet article, Simple Mobile uses T-Mobile anyway:

  Enter Simple Mobile, an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) that I confess I have not heard of until this month. This relatively young carrier alternative (it started business in 2009) offers even cheaper monthly rates, aimed primarily at those who have unlocked GSM phones. This MVNO runs on T-Mobile's network, meaning it uses T-Mobile's existing infrastructure for its service. Simple Mobile offers no phones of its own and relies on its customers to come up with their own hardware.

So using T-Mobile instead offers no better quality of service. Since you appear to have a GSM iPad, it would appear that your only chance of improved service would be using AT&T, or a smaller carrier that leverages AT&T's network.


Looking for Working Weather Dashboard Widget

I modified Apple's Dashboard widget to use an entirely different weather API. You can download it from https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/i-fixed-apples-broken-weather-dashboard-widget.2225715/.

You'll need to grab API keys from DarkSky and MapQuest and add them to the top of weatherParser.js inside the modified widget. This process is extensively documented in Widget's readme.

Alternately, you can also use the FairWeather widget.  It's not quite as pretty as Apple's widget, but it gets its weather data directly from the NOAA's servers, so I suspect it's less likely to break than something which pulls from a private company.

Sadly, the original download link is broken, so I uploaded it here: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/fair-weather


Although Sorting by reply status is not possible, you can certainly Filter by reply status.

Using Smart Folders you can collect all replied to messages in one 'folder' and unreplied to in another.  These folders just gather the messages, they do not move them from their original folders unless you delete them.  But this can help you keep mail sorted.

Then you can sort by date or other desired criteria.


Browse website developed in BootCamp via OS X/Safari

You won't be able to browse the website on the Windows BootCamp - as Windows wont' be running while Mac OS X is. You possibly could browse to the bootcamp file system via safari, but the webserver wouldn't be running, so that may not be valid testing if your site is anything more than static files.

You could as you suggest used Parallels/Virtual Box or VMware Fusion to run the Bootcamp Windows instance while the Mac is running - one issue with this though is that if you switch between running Windows as a VM (under one of those products within Mac OS X) and between it running natively via bootcamp (i.e. Mac OS is shutdown, but windows is running) then you may have to keep reactivating windows, as it considers the hardware to be different when you boot it under the alternative method.

Whether or not testing from a Linux machine is important or not, would be up to you. Linux browsers would be a pretty low statistic for most websites. You could easily run Firefox in both Windows and Mac to do your testing - personally, I'd feel also doing it under Linux might be overkill.


Toggle caps lock programmatically using applescript

Submitting a separate answer, as it is entirely distinct from my first in that it solves the issue at hand.  Credit goes to @user3439894 who pointed the OP and I to a link (Toggle caps lock programmatically) that features some source code written in C that can programmatically toggle/set the state of the caps lock.  Thus credit goes also to the original author of that code, for which I offer a translation into JavaScript for Automation (JXA), which is the JavaScript flavour of AppleScript.

This script toggles the state of caps lock upon each run:

ObjC.import("IOKit");
ObjC.import("CoreServices");

(() => {
    var ioConnect = Ref();
    var state = Ref();

    $.IOServiceOpen(
        $.IOServiceGetMatchingService(
            $.kIOMasterPortDefault,
            $.IOServiceMatching(
                $.kIOHIDSystemClass
            )
        ),
        $.mach_task_self_,
        $.kIOHIDParamConnectType,
        ioConnect
    );
    $.IOHIDGetModifierLockState(ioConnect, $.kIOHIDCapsLockState, state);
    $.IOHIDSetModifierLockState(ioConnect, $.kIOHIDCapsLockState, !state[0]);
    $.IOServiceClose(ioConnect);
})();

This, like any AppleScript, can be run from within Script Editor (choose the language option in the navigation bar at the top of the window).  Sadly, Script Debugger doesn't cater for JXA.  But, in practice, the script will be most usefully executed by way of some other automation software, such as Automator, Keyboard Maestro, Alfred, etc., all of which can execute JXA scripts directly; and any software that doesn't provide this option can execute it by way of the shell command osascript:

osascript -l JavaScript /path/to/script.jxa.applescript

You can use an .applescript or .scpt file extension to save the script.


Is the length of Facetime calls made with Apple Watch recorded?

It will, as you call with your phone to make the call.


Is it possible to disable the interlocutor's video in BlueJeans Prime for iOS?

BlueJeans' tech support told me it is not possible. They don't have any plan to support the option in the future.


In-app purchases of an app downloaded from a different country

I think it won't work. From the Apple Support pages:

  After you change the country of your account, you won't see the items you purchased from the previous country’s store in the Purchased section.


How to get Mavericks Calendar to sync with Microsoft Exchange

Open System Preferences → Internet Accounts.

Select Exchange from the list.

Enter your account information and follow the instructions.

Make sure that the Calendars option is selected.


I use three avenues to prevent hurt feelings all around.

First the policy for employee use of equipment spells out that it's their responsibility to turn in their company equipment and assets. For iOS devices, that means that they remove iCloud activation lock and return the hardware in working order. The financial consequence of failing to do both is explained when the hardware is issued. HR can then choose to deduct that amount from any final pay check as appropriate should the employee choose not to return company property.
Apple is very helpful in unlocking equipment that was bought through their channel or that you have a purchase receipt with serial numbers included proving original ownership. Any genius bar or web/phone Apple epmployee can get you started with unlocking one or several devices should you have them but not control of them.
MDM solutions such as JAMF casper suite or Configuration profiles to enable remote wipe and/or iOS policies that prevent iCloud usage in the first place if desired and/or allow wiping them to a known original configuration.


No, that is not extremely large. The command "stat -f %k ." does not as such give you the block size on disk, but rather it is a guide from the OS to user programs as to how large amounts of data at a time it should transfer to/from disk for optimal performance.

With modern SSDs it is not uncommon for that value to be 4 MB as you indicate, instead of the 4 kB that was a kind of "default value" for many years, and not really observed by user space programs anyway.


Weird issues ejecting external hard drive

disk3s3 is the extra partition on the time machine disk which OS X is complaining about.  From what I have read (https://discussions.apple.com/message/19675983#19675983) this is a partition called "Boot OS X" which might have been installed on your time machine disk around the time of upgrading to 10.8.2.  According to the linked article, this partition contains a copy of the Recovery Partition (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718) which you can boot from in the event that you cannot boot from your primary hard disk.  This will only give you access to Recovery Mode, not a full OS installation.

I have observed that this partition is not mounted when you plug in the time machine disk (use the "mount" or "diskutil activity" commands to see this) but instead appears to be mounted when Time Machine finishes a backup.  I don't know why it does this.

When you "eject" the disk from the Finder, you probably need to wait a few seconds before unplugging it.  When the drive icon disappears, this probably means that the main time machine volume has been unmounted, but maybe it is still unmounting the recovery partition.  This is likely the cause of your error message about having unplugged a disk without ejecting it.  If you are paranoid, type "mount" to see all the mounted volumes, and verify that the time machine volume is no longer mounted before unplugging the disk.


between iOS 6.1.4 and iOS 8.2, what is the difference and which one is better?

In short, it is impossible to run most modern applications under iOS 6. So, yes, updating to iOS 8 is long overdue.


What are some good open source text editors on Mac OS X?

There is Aquamacs that is a version of Emacs that has been customised to be more OSX like.

Apple supplies the source for TextEdit as an example with Xcode.


Which version of Mac OS X was the first to support RTL (right-to-left) languages?

It was introduced in 10.2, Jaguar, and greatly improved in 10.3, Panther. See this article from MacOSXHints for evidence and more details.


OSX hangs on startup after large file search caused a crash (Mavericks 10.9.5)

It boots! I finally found a thread of others with identical symptoms: Gray screen on normal boot, blue screen with lines even when booting to recovery, crazy fan spinning.

It was my GPU.

Standard problem for this model of macbook, and Apple willfully ignores it.

Instructions on how to fix it can be found in this thread.

I'm reposting them here for the sake of making this information as widely available as possible.

Disable your AMD graphics card by doing the following (it'll force you to use your intel graphics card instead -- not powerful, but functional).

/sbin/fsck -fy /
/sbin/mount -uw /
mkdir /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions
cd /Disabled_System_Library_Extensions
mv /System/Library/Extensions/ATI* .
mv /System/Library/Extensions/AMD* .
touch /System/Library/Extensions
exit

Reboot and your computer will startup as normal.


Mac HDD Partition has wrong size after removing Bootcamp Partition

I'm wondering if selecting the "View" button, followed by "Show All Devices" might shed some light here?

Usually when I have trouble partitioning and it involves the drive I'm booted from, I will start up from Internet Recovery Mode or (preferably, for loading times) a version of macOS I've previously installed on an external hard drive or USB. Regular Recovery Mode might be fine as well, but it's still booted from the hard drive you're working on.

Internet Recovery can be started by holding the Option, Command and R keys while the computer turns on (you can let go once a globe icon or Apple logo appears).

Before you're starting up to do this, make sure you have a current backup!!! :)

One other thing I can think of that would stop you doing this is if macOS had to move the Recovery HD partition to be between your Macintosh HD partition and your Boot Camp Partition. It doesn't always have to do that, but if it does, you might have to manually delete the Recovery HD partition via Terminal and then expand Macintosh HD.

I'd suggest you use Apple's "Recovery Disk Assistant" to make a Recovery HD on an USB or external Hard Drive before doing that, in case you need to reinstall later, cause I don't think you can put Recovery HD back on the internal drive without a Major OS upgrade (like 10.12 > 10.13) or a reinstall.

If you run:

diskutil list disk0

in Terminal, it will give you a listing of all the partitions on the  first mounted disk.

If there is a volume labeled "Recovery", and then a unformatted amount after it, that's why you can't expand Macintosh HD, but if it lists empty space and then the "Recovery" after that, then you can probably just expand Macintosh HD with a external hard drive version of macOS or Internet Recovery.

And again, Backup all your files first please!!!!


How to wipe a thoroughly secured old computer

You can remove the firmware password by changing the RAM configuration, booting up to the startup menu, shutting down and changing it back. Basically, if you have two 1GB chips of RAM in there now, you can remove one of the chips, start up holding alt/option, shut down and put the other chip back in. This will remove the firmware password.

Now, you can follow these instructions for doing the erase and install.

Good luck!


Replacement for ASM's Classic Window Mode in Mavericks?


Do I have to downgrade from iOS 7 Beta in order to get iOS 7 today?

You will have to download the GM seed from the Developer Portal to move off the Beta. This will once again be a complete clean and restore so make sure your backups are up to date before starting.

Barring any last minute showstoppers the GM build will be the released version.


2nd gen iPod Touch with a faulty screen, home button, or both?

It sounds like you have a bad front panel.

The front panel of the iPod touch (screen cover, touch sensor and home button) is a single piece with a ribbon cable connecting it to the rest of the iPod.

If you are at all handy changing the screen cover & home button is not that difficult. You can get the parts and tools you need from iFixIt for about $75 with Shipping.

There is a video demonstrating the removal of the front panel.

When I cracked the screen on my 3rd gen iPod touch, Apple was going to charge me half of the iPod's new price to replace it. Since I didn't really care if I completely trashed it I decided to go this route. The surgery was successful and the iPod works perfectly.


10.12 Sierra Mail not rendering some emails correctly

This seems to be related to an image rendering bug in the new version of Apple Mail (Sierra).

When an <img> element in an HTML mail doesn't have both a "width" and a "height" attribute, the image is not displayed the first time the email is opened. If both attributes are defined, the image is properly displayed. If either one or both are missing, the image is not displayed.

The same <img> element is properly rendered in previous versions of Apple Mail.


OS X Safari: Toggle Socks Proxy from command line

To turn on SOCKS proxy for the network service called Wi-Fi, run

networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Wi-Fi on

Replace ‘Wi-Fi’ with the name of your network service.
Replace ‘on’ with ‘off’ to turn off the proxy.


Disable mouse interference in Cmd-Tab overlay?

You can prevent mouse interaction with Keyboard Maestro's app switcher:

Demo:

Alternatively, you can lock the mouse position whilst the ⌘ key is still held down:

However, this doesn't appear to be possible without third party tools. You can provide feedback to Apple regarding this on the following page:

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


Keyboard shortcut for AppleScript works only when preferences window is open

As I mentioned in my comment to wch1zpink's answer "Making sure the Service's settings are correct and the shortcut key sequence is not in use by another is the first step" and mentioned afterwards by jackjr300 in his comment. Changing the keyboard shortcut to one that is not used by anything else in the system or any application (that is if 'Services receives no input in any application' is set), works for me, whether or not System Preferences is open, when using the code, as is, in the OP and a non-conflicting key sequence.

There also is no need to have any applications set in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility for this particular use case, whether running from Automator or when using a non-conflicting keyboard shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services > (Name You Gave The Service).

To resolve your issue, you must use a keyboard shortcut that is not already assigned elsewhere in the system and or any applications.

You might have to use a three or four key sequence as there are very few, if any, two key combos that aren't already in use.

On a side note, return input is not at all needed in the code in this particular use case.


Main user gone after upgrading to MacOS Siera

If it's on a different partition, it's basically a different system. You'll need to upgrade the correct partition.


What's the difference between the OS X version and build numbers?

System Version Number follows the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH convention. From this site:

Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:

MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.

Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.

The number in brackets (14D136) is the build number (more info on the Apple site). This number is mainly for Apple developers, since normal users do not have access to non-public builds. In continuous integration, new builds can be made daily/weekly - every time the build number is incremented. When the developers/PMs (or anyone else in charge) is "happy" with the build, it can be released. Build numbers are constructed arbitrarily (I don't know of any standard numbering). It looks like Apple increments the first number by every MINOR release, then the letter with PATCH release and the last number is the real build number.


Lost all previous notes after upgrade to El Capitan

Here's how to recover all our notes:

Open the terminal. We find it in Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal, or simply by searching in Spotlight.
Entered the terminal, let's move to the folder where the files where there are our notes by typing cd ~ / Library / Containers / com.apple.Notes / Data / Library / Notes / followed by pressing the enter key on the keyboard.
We initiate the SQLite command shell by typing sqlite3 and pressing the enter key. At this point we find ourselves on the message screen sqlite> . Great, we are prompt in the program.
We type .open NotesV6.storedata pigiamo and the enter key of the keyboard. It should not happen anything, but everything is normal.
We type select ZHTMLSTRING from ZNOTEBODY; therefore sending. At this point you should be displayed several lines of html code containing inside all our notes.
By scrolling through the results on the screen, select all lines of code that are present from the tag  to    and clicking the right mouse button on the selection, then choose Copy.
We type .Quit to exit the SQLite shell and close the terminal.
Paste the text you just copied into TextEdit and save the file in web page format (.html).
At this point, opening the .html file you just created, we will meet within it all our dear old notes that were lost.

-- Directions retrieved from here: http://www.maccanismi.it/2015/10/06/problema-risolto-note-scomparse-da-os-x-el-capitan/

I had some trouble after copy and pasting to text edit and then saving as html. What I had pasted was html content inside of html. So when I opened the newly saved html file in chrome, it just displayed the html code. Just copy and paste the information in the webpage to a new text edit document and save as html again. Now you can open it in and it will render correctly.


Transfer iPhone contacts to iCloud or Mac

Try My Contacts Pro (Free). You could export all contacts on your iPhone and send them via e-mail, also could import them to your Address Book on your Mac.


Memory test that fails with a different address each time

I haven't been able to find documentation of what these fields mean.

However, given that memory failures that I've seen and those posted by others all appear to be around "address" 0x842XXXXX, I suspect that this is not in fact the address. It may be the pattern being written to some address when the failure occurred.

The field where you have a value of 62 seems to be the only one that varies significantly. It may be that this value represents the address to some very course degree (eg. maybe 1-64 could represent one DIMM and 65-128 the other; or maybe odd numbers vs even numbers).

It would be nice if Apple would document these very basic and useful error code formats.


You don't need to upgrade. OS X 10.11 GM and final release are the same according to Apple and once 10.11.1 is released both the GM and final release will update to it.


Replacing hard drive in Macbook late 2009 what do I do about osx?

You can use the drivers CD present in the MacBook box at the time of acquisition. Following the steps you can instal an old version and then update to the last one. Otherwise there should be the possibility of start a recovery and directly download (using a WiFi connection) the last versione of the OS.

An other option is to use Time Machine, if and only if, you have previously made a backup of the entire system before the swap of HD.


How do I stop iOS 4 from draining the battery of my 2nd gen iPod Touch overnight?

If you don't need any network activity, I would recommend enabling Airplane Mode overnight.
Failing that, disable bluetooth and/or wifi if they are unnecessary
Disable as much Spotlight search as you can afford to by going to Settings->General->Home Button->Spotlight Search.


AppleCare on the prizes from the new iPad contest?

Apple will register a device to anyone who presents it for service. It doesn't mean some database doesn't still remember to whom it was sold or registered in the past, but in practice it doesn't matter since possession is all that matters.

As to paying for AppleCare, you should get it in the country where you live if at all possible. That ensures you don't have to ship the device elsewhere if asked to do so. The plans are customized for the laws of each country - and in some cases, customized for states or provinces as needed within a country.

Assuming the device was purchased from the US - you should also be fine buying AppleCare from the US store. Again, the warranty and service are valid worldwide, but in some cases, you will be responsible for shipping it to the country of purchase / AppleCare in cases where local service is not readily available.


Can you save the current desktop background as an image?

Go to System Preferences → Desktop & Screen Saver and drag the image out of the image well.


What is the function(s) of the hidden Debug menu in Disk Utility?

The Debug menu mostly gives access to functions in relation to hidden partitions (e.g. the system-restore-partition in Lion).  see Debug Menu

Most likely the Debug menu is mainly for Apple internal use (their techs dealing with stuff probably found these functions useful) so it's hidden by default.


How to make clicking on icon in dock == open new instance

You can kludge something together with some AppleScript and some clever icon image pasting. Here's how you'd do it for iTerm/iTerm2.

Open the AppleScript Editor and paste in the following AppleScript:

set myapp to "iTerm"
on appIsRunning(appName)
    tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains appName
end appIsRunning
if appIsRunning(myapp) then
    # What you do here will depend on the program. This works for
    # iTerm but you'll need to look up the actions for other programs
    # since this bit is iTerm-specific.
    tell application "iTerm"
        set myterm to (make new terminal)
        tell myterm
            launch session "Default"
        end tell
    end tell
else
    tell application myapp
        activate
    end tell
end if

You can use the Run button in the editor to test that it works. If you want a different profile opened change "Default" on line 12 to the name of the profile you want opened.

Now save this AppleScript. In the Save dialog under "File Format" at the bottom select "Application" from the list.

I saved mine as "New iTerm.app" to my Desktop.

Now every time I click on "New iTerm.app" on my Desktop I get a new iTerm window. I can drag "New iTerm.app" to my Dock and it'll be a Dock icon I can click on any time I want to get a new iTerm window open. But the icon is the generic AppleScript icon.

Let's change it to the iTerm icon. Select "New iTerm.app" on the Desktop and click Cmd-I to bring up the properties screen for the application.

Now navigate to /Applications in a Finder window, find iTerm in the list of installed applications, select it and click Cmd-I to open the properties screen for the iTerm application.

Click the icon in the iTerm info window so it gets a soft blue shadow around it. Press Cmd-C to copy the icon to the clipboard.

Now click the icon in the "New iTerm.app" info window and press Cmd-V to paste the iTerm icon on to the "New iTerm.app" application.

It should now have an iTerm icon.

You can move the "New iTerm.app" to your /Applications folder if you like. Drag it from the folder you decide to keep it in, back to your dock, and you can now click on it in the Dock to open up a new iTerm window with every click.

If you wanted to be able to distinguish it from the running iTerm.app Dock icon you could consider pasting the icon in to an image editor like Pixelmator and adding a big red + to it so it's clearly identified as the icon to press for a new iTerm window instead of the icon to press to see the exiting, open iTerm application.

Here are some more scripts for some other applications to get you started customizing things:

Google Chrome (New Window)

set myapp to "Google Chrome"
on appIsRunning(appName)
    tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains appName
end appIsRunning
if appIsRunning(myapp) then
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        make new window
    end tell
else
    tell application myapp
        activate
    end tell
end if

Google Chrome (New Tab)

set myapp to "Google Chrome"
on appIsRunning(appName)
    tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains appName
end appIsRunning
if appIsRunning(myapp) then
    tell application "Google Chrome"
        make new tab at end of tabs of window 1
    end tell
else
    tell application myapp
        activate
    end tell
end if

Sublime Text 2

Unfortunately ST2 doesn't seem to have an AppleScript accessible extensions. You can always take a look at the OS X command line tool that ST2 ships with. You can call that from a simple script in the Dock to open a new window in ST2. So:

set myapp to "Sublime Text 2"
on appIsRunning(appName)
    tell application "System Events" to (name of processes) contains appName
end appIsRunning
if appIsRunning(myapp) then
    # Assumes you've installed the subl command line tool for ST2
    # in to /usr/local/bin. Adjust accordingly.
    do shell script "/usr/local/bin/subl --new-window"
else
    tell application myapp
        activate
    end tell
end if


Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure you're out of luck. A year or two ago Apple decided that the startup sound is enough of a diagnostic (which it is, in fact: it lets you know the logic board is functioning properly enough) that it needs to sound on every boot, from the internal audio device, regardless of what your sound settings and interfaces are.


Diagnosing possible failing drive to see if it's worth reinstalling macOS

I believe you're overlooking the obvious:

  Removed drive, attached to another Mac via USB/external enclosure

  Disk Utility sees the drive but no volumes under it
  Mount button is disabled
  First Aid says "Problems were found with the partition map that might prevent booting"

Remember, First Aid and fsck can only fix logical problems (filesystem level), they cannot fix physical problems with the drive itself.

Your drive is failing.

One of the tests that should have been run was to get the SMART status of the drive in question (you cannot do this via USB)

$ diskutil info disk0 | grep -i smart

If it comes back as anything but "Verified," you've got a failing disk.  This test however, isn't the end-all.  It's good for a quick diagnostic, but may give you a false positive.  Even if you get "Verified" you'll still want to run a disk utility like Disk Drill or Disk Warrior to do a deeper scan.

Now, given that this is a 2011 MacBook Pro, it's a coin-toss as to whether you should spend money fixing it.  A new Samsung EVO SSD can be had for about $60 USD, but no matter how inexpensive the drive, you're still left with a 9+ year old Mac.

Personally, I'd look at either finding a super cheap SSD and resurrect it for knocking about, or I would part it out (worth more on eBay as parts than as a whole) and put the funds toward a new machine.


How do I share purchased iOS apps without my Mac?

Yes. Assuming they haven't run out of authorizations, they can sign into the app store on your iOS device and download the apps they wish to "share".

Just go to the preferences app, Store and sign in another Apple ID.

You'll have that app to run until you erase it or the whole device. It of course won't transfer that app to a computer where your friend hasn't authorized iTunes, but iOS will be happy to run that version of the app indefinitely.


Cannot add applications to favorites bar in Finder

Although this tip does not add Application Alias' to the Sidebar, they can be added to the toolbar.
Add Application Shortcuts (Alias') to the Finder Toolbar

Open 2 Finder Windows (From Finder use ⌘+N)
Be sure one of them is showing your Applications Folder and both can be seen on screen together
Using the other Finder Window, right click or option+click in the toolbar area and select Customize Toolbar... from the dropdown.  (This can also be accessed from the Menu - View > Customize Toolbar...)
Drag your desired application from the first window (your Applications Folder) to the Toolbar on the Finder Window being edited.  Select Done button and all Finder Windows will now display your favorite Apps for quick access.  See the screenshots below.


Getting iPads ready with paid apps and customized settings for a large amount of personnel?

Apple has a whole section of their support site for deploying iPads "to the Enterprise". What you'll likely find the most useful are the items about the Apple Configurator, which is a free app (available here) for managing and configuring large numbers of iOS devices.

You may also be interested in this Ars Technica article about iOS 6's management features.


How do I get QuickTime to store temporary recordings on another drive?

Turns out this is actually possible by employing a double link trick. In the terminal:

$ cd ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX
$ mv Data Data_bak
$ ln -s /Volumes/SSD/QuicktimeScratch DataSSD
$ ln -s DataSSD Data

and voila! This sets up Data as a link pointing to the local DataSSD file, which in turn is a link pointing to the actual SSD scratch location.

QuickTime works fine now, and puts its temp files on my SSD just as I wanted. No more screengrab stutter!


The tmutil command line tool, included with OS X, supports the ability to add and remove items from the exclusion list.

sudo tmutil addexclusion ~/.ivy2

See the tmutil manual page for more information about this tool's options.

As tmutil is a command line tool, it can be incorporated into AppleScripts using do shell script, combined with Automator workflows using the Run shell script step, or as part of a traditional shell script.


Problem with updating apps in iPad 3 with iOS 7.1

Did you Jailbreak your phone?

If no, try go to Settings->iTunes & AppStore and turn on automatic updates. And make sure you have update you iOS version and check if you have enough storage space to download update.


Start by selecting "New Video Recording" from the File menu.
Quicktime Player will open a preview window streaming your webcam video.  Resize and position as desired.
Select "Float on Top" from the View menu.
Now start your screen recording.


Using Spotlight to play iTunes songs causes another song to play after resuming from pause

Unfortunately there’s no ‘fix’ for the described behavior that I’m aware of.

However, there are a lot of free/paid utilities that will not only do what you need, but also improve the experience overall.

I could list you a dozen utilities but instead I will let you do your homework and decide what’s best for you. This list contains an important amount of utilities for iTunes controlling.

I can tell you which ones I use and my experience with them.

1) Coversutra: It’s a very well designed paid application. You can check their website for a more comprehensive summary (and a trial). The developer (Sophia) reads the suggestions and bug reports.

Pros: It’s very good for searching, very good. Think of a spotlight music dedicated. You can easily switch between playlists, songs, artists, etc. All from the menubar. (I activate it with shift + cmd + space. It also has a controller where you can define your keys for showing album art, define song rating, next, prev, pause, etc. The typical controller stuff. You will rarely need the keyboard.

Cons: Although it has been optimized several times and results come extremely fast, scrolling the results is not as fast as one would expect. Sometimes certain actions might need a “click”.

All in all, it’s a product that works fantastically for me.

2) Launchbar: I use Launchbar for everything, and sometimes for music too. Since it has iTunes support, you can easily type the name of a song/artist/list and will happily play it. What it does is create a playlist called Launchbar and whenever you make a selection, it adds the relevant songs to that list, therefore when you pause/play, things work normally. You can also do the same things (pause, play, next) from launchbar.

Pros: It’s also very fast and it does a lot of things (can’t live without it!)

Cons: Might be overkill for a song launcher/iTunes controller only.


How to stop Mail from forwarding all emails from one Gmail to another

I had the same problem and once I unchecked (in the email I was receiving the forwards into) that I could send from the other email as an alias the problem stopped and the forwarding ceased.


(2010 Macbook on Sierra) White Screen of Death "Legacy Shim 2"

From what I understand, I think that this is a trackpad driver issue. Try booting up while holding the Command and R keys, and then re-installing macOS.

If that doesn't fix it, then you may need to install a new trackpad. You can find instructions on how to do this here. As for buying a trackpad, you can probably find one on eBay here, like this one.


Yes. You get prompted to install each build, so don't click for beta 3. Once 4 arrives, you'll likely have to first jump to 3 and then jump to 4.

This is documented at http://openradar.appspot.com/22307567

Your comment about not opting out is also confusing - I'm not sure how that relates to your ability to choose whether to install a specific update.


There are two different German TV apps as far as I can see.
They are both available to download for free.

As for the Apple ID and iTunes account confusion; maybe this will help. I've taken a photo of my Apple ID for you:

Now I've censored the beginning of the email addresses, but you can see that I have more than one account associated with my Apple ID; one for iCloud, one for iTunes, and one for Game Centre.

Most people probably use the same account for everything. And you probably do too. So when it asks for your iTunes password, it's probably the exact same one that you've already provided.

Also; your iTunes account is not just for downloading music. It's also for downloading apps, movies & TV shows, and more (like virtual books and podcasts).

I hope this helps, and if you have any follow up questions, feel free to ask.


Why is "Verify Backups" in the Time Machine icon menu disabled?

"Verify Backups" is applicable only to backups on network drives.  It will be greyed out if you are backing up to a local drive.
Apple should have been clearer in indicating this.
From Finder > Help > Verify your backup disk

Verify your backup disk
If you back up to a network disk, Time Machine periodically verifies that your backups are in good condition. If you like, you can perform a verification at any time.

Open the Time Machine menu in the menu bar, press the Option key on your keyboard, and then choose Verify Backups.


macOS Sierra: Configuring Subversion/SVN on Apache

Yes, you can run a native subversion server on your Mac to serve your virtual machines.

If your virtual machines can access services on your Mac, as your question suggests they can, then you can offer a subversion service natively on your Mac.

svnserve

The easiest approach is to use subversion's standalone server, svnserve:

  The svnserve program is a lightweight server, capable of speaking to clients over TCP/IP using a custom, stateful protocol. Clients contact an svnserve server by using URLs that begin with the svn:// or svn+ssh:// scheme. This section will explain the different ways of running svnserve, how clients authenticate themselves to the server, and how to configure appropriate access control to your repositories.

A copy of svnserve is included with Xcode:

/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/svnserve

svnserve does not require an Apache httpd instance or any other server to work. The svnserve process listens and handles connections from svn clients.

Security Considerations

You can add tunnelling over ssh and other approaches to add security. Without additional configuration, a plain svnserve instance is not recommended for exposure to the Internet; it is not secure by default.

However, for your local-only situation svnserve is likely enough.


Can I set a specific Time zone for an app in macOS?

Background
With standard UNIX CLI tools you can set the environment variable TZ=<XXX> with a timezone and any application that runs within the shell where this was done will pick it up and use its value as their timezone.
Using TZ
For example, you can use this command to get the complete list of valid values to set TZ= to like so:
$ sudo systemsetup -listtimezones

And here I've listed just the first 10:
$ sudo systemsetup -listtimezones | head
Time Zones:
 Africa/Abidjan
 Africa/Accra
 Africa/Addis_Ababa
 Africa/Algiers
 Africa/Asmara
 Africa/Bamako
 Africa/Bangui
 Africa/Banjul
 Africa/Bissau

For this example, I'm going to use Tokyo's timezone, so we can find it like this:
$ sudo systemsetup -listtimezones | grep -i tokyo
 Asia/Tokyo

CLI Example
We can see the effect of setting our shell to this like this:
# My default timezone, EDT
$ date
Sat Apr 13 22:44:55 EDT 2019

# Using Tokyo's
$ TZ=Asia/Tokyo date
Sun Apr 14 11:44:59 JST 2019

GUI Example
In my limited testing this same approach works with GUI applications as well. In this example I installed this application that I found called the-clock.
$ brew cask install the-clock

Now we can invoke it like this from the shell:
$ '/Applications/The Clock.app/Contents/MacOS/The Clock'

It looks like this when you run it in the menubar at the top:

Now if we invoke it with the environment variable set:
$ TZ=Asia/Tokyo '/Applications/The Clock.app/Contents/MacOS/The Clock'

And look in the menubar:

We can see that the timezone was changed when we invoked the GUI application.
What about defaults?
In investigating any methods that you could use with the defaults command I didn't find anything compelling that led me to believe that you could do this through the defaults as in your example.
These resources led me to believe that you cannot:

CHANGE MACOS USER PREFERENCES VIA COMMAND LINE
Is there any way to save Mac OS X preferences into a shell file?
A database of hidden settings for Mac OS X

References

output from timezone.txt


Spotlight not indexing attachments of exchange Mail

Spotlight is now indexing the attachments :-). What I did is the following. (Not sure if it will solve anybody else his problems but you never know)

I wanted to know if the issue was Exchange specific so I made a new gmail account and sent an email with an attachment to that account. That attachment got indexed. I opened the attachment and then saw that it was located somewhere deep down in ~/Library/Mail. I then also checked if Attachments were really downloaded by the exchange client by looking for *.pptx files by running

find . -name "*.pptx"

in ~/Library/Mail. When I used spotlight after that I all of a sudden could find all attachments in email. So I guess adding the gmail account to mail triggered spotlight somehow


Looks like it's available with MacPorts - https://trac.macports.org/browser/trunk/dports/fuse/mhddfs/Portfile


Why setting image as its own icon with sips result a blurred icon? Are there any alternatives?

I think I've found a workaround!

First off, install osxutils bundle which is a bit dated (2005) but nevertheless it works. (see the osxutils contents and man pages)

Prepare the PNG to ICNS†—ironically you can use sips‡. Then use seticon from the osxutils bundle to change the icon:

$ sips -s format icns FIN.png --out FIN.icns
$ seticon -d FIN.icns FIN.png

The seticon also changes the file's attributes, ie. using SetFile -a C isn't necessary.

†: Using a PNG as a source file for seticon changes the icon to a generic PNG icon, even with -d option. Furthermore, using seticon FIN.icns FIN.png changes the icon to a generic ICNS icon. (Consult the seticon's man pages)

‡: NB: the source file must be a square and possible side-lengths are: 16, 32, 48, 128, 256 and 512.


How to clean install the macOS Catalina?

macOS Catalina runs on a dedicated, read-only system volume called
  Macintosh HD. This volume is completely separate from all other data
  to help prevent the accidental overwriting of critical operating
  system files. Your files and data are stored in another volume named
  Macintosh HD - Data. In the Finder, both volumes appear as Macintosh
  HD.
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650

Then, these are the procedure.

Click the Macintosh HD - Data (1) then click the minus above the Volume (2)

Click the Macintosh HD (1) then click the Erase (2)

The rest is the same as usual.

Copy right of the images: https://qiita.com/PaSeRi/items/59e9785580dbd518ac93


Your wish is my command!

Homebrew Formula: sc.rb

I'll try to get the formula merged into homebrew proper sometime this week.

In the meantime, you can simply:

brew install https://gist.github.com/geoff-codes/d8c16ada1de10e6387b3/raw/sc.rb


Can I add an arbitrary RSS feed to Flipboard?

Actually, it can be done very easily: Just put the name of the feed, or its URL, in the search box. Flipboard will find it. And then, you can select it, and add it.


Does it also happen when you log out? Did you already check system.log?

Is there a logout hook (sudo defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LogoutHook)? I guess not though, because normally when a logout hook does not terminate, there is a solid light gray screen without any process indicator.

You could try unloading the kernel extensions with sudo kextunload -b $bundleid before restarting. Or just move the kext bundles outside /System/Library/Extensions/ and restart once so the kernel extensions won't be loaded.

You could also try terminating different processes before logging out, or for example run for f in {~,}/Library/Launch{Agents,Daemons}/*.plist; do launchctl unload $f; done.


Which directories should I back up to save all of my data?

A lot of applications store critical information in ~/Library so you might be better off with backing up your whole user folder (with the exception of Trash of course). If you use incremental backups the size will not be too big after the first run. And you can at least exclude ~/Library/Caches anyway. You also may want to back up any registration codes for applications (by keeping them in separate file for instance) you've bought so you can reinstall them easily.

OTOH you might want to consider the time required to rebuild all your configurations and installations from scratch and compare this to the price of an external USB drive.


Try using login/logoff hooks.

https://support.apple.com/de-at/HT2420

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CustomLogin.html

https://wiki.afp548.com/index.php/Login/Logout_Hooks_in_OS_X

Note. I should have posted this as a comment, but I do not have the rep.


Macbook Pro 2015 Horrible Ping w/ Slow Download/Upload Speeds

Tether the Mac to your iPhone temporarily. You'll likely find the problem isn't the Mac but it's the service upstream from your WiFi router.


Problem downloading photos from iPhone Photostream to Windows

It seems that Apple dropped the ball with the new iCloud services for Windows. I've had the exact same issue on 3 different machines and iPads/iPhones from different family members.

What worked for me:

Make a backup of your PhotoStream folder on your PC.
Open the Windows Task Manager (CTRL-SHIFT-ESC) and kill the following processes if they are listed:

iCloudService.exe
iCloud.exe
AplePhotoStreams.exe
ApplePhotoStreamDownloader.exe
APSDaemon.exe

Then go to the following locations and delete the whole folders (or move them somewhere else for backup):

Your photostream folder:
C:\Users\<YOURNAME>\Pictures\My Photo Stream
Mediastream Data folder:
C:\Users\<YOURNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MediaStream

Then run iCloud directly:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple\Internet Services\iCloud.exe

In theory, things should sync again with the following caveat:

Only pictures taken in the last 30 days will be synced.
At most 1000 pictures will be synced (if you took that many in the last 30 days).
Try some of the other solutions from the Thread My Photo Stream is empty with iCloud Control Panel 3.0 from the Apple forums.


Is there a data collection app that exports CSV to Dropbox?

I was able to complete this exact process using Tap Forms for iOS.

Once installed you can use an existing or newly created custom form to collect your data.  Once complete you can export the file.  The .csv will be available in the Export folder in the Files area.  From there you can select the .csv and Upload to Dropbox.  This will upload the .csv file to the root of your Dropbox.

Additionally you can open the .csv in Tap Forms and then use the share button (top right) to "Open In...", which will allow you to select the Dropbox app (assuming that you have it installed.  Once Dropbox launches, you will be presented with the Dropbox upload process, which allows you to select the upload folder in your Dropbox account.  You can also create a new folder as an upload destination.

Tap Forms also appears to support importing files from Dropbox as well.


Mojave: Trimming video in Finder doesn't work

Expanding from comments I left earlier this morning. While I don't know Apple's exact process, here is what I surmise is going on:

Apple does not want to have to re-encode (recompress) your video. Doing so would take a considerable amount of time, use a considerable amount of CPU, and decrease the overall video quality of your file.

So how can you cut out part of a video without re-encoding it? If videos were a series of discrete frames, this would be easy—just delete the frames you don't want, and don't touch the frames you do want.

However, modern video codecs are more complex than this. Individual frames are not discrete—they use information from previous frames in order to save space. To put it another way, in most cases, only the difference between each frame is stored.

This isn't a problem if you need to cut off the end of a video, and in fact, you'll notice that in this scenario, macOS will do as you expect—create a shorter video that ends at the exact time you specified, in all video players. But what happens if you cut off the beginning? The start frame you selected can't stand on its own; it requires the information from previous frames in order to work. You'll be left with a garbled mess, if anything displays at all.

So instead, Apple cheats. They cut out as much of the video as they can, leave however many frames are necessary for the first frame you selected to display correctly, and then tell Apple players (eg QuickTime, iMovie) to jump ahead to your desired starting frame. While this appears to work correctly in Apple programs, VLC will skip only the parts that are truly gone.


Hiding email address associated with Apple ID when using iMessage

You can choose which ID (phone number or Apple ID email) to use when starting a new iMessage conversation.

To configure, on your iPhone, go to Settings app → Messages → Send & Receive and under Start New Conversations From, select the phone number instead of email addresses associated with your Apple ID.


I found the answer while playing with Path Finder's preferences and finding this option: "Enable Finder's "Remove from Dock" menu option. Upon clicking on it, I got the following message:

To disable SIP, however, you have to enter recovery mode. Here is more information about it on HowToGeek:

https://www.howtogeek.com/230424/how-to-disable-system-integrity-protection-on-a-mac-and-why-you-shouldnt/


SecurtiyAgent process offload work to SecurityAgentHelper

Stability and Privilege Separation
XPC services are used to isolate sections of a process that require specific security considerations. SecurityAgent will pass SecurityAgentHelper work that needs to be isolated. It will not act as a fallback; this is not the intention of XPC services.
See Apple's Creating XPC Services for a detailed explanation of XPC Service's role and design:

The XPC Services API, part of libSystem, provides a lightweight mechanism for basic interprocess communication integrated with Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) and launchd. The XPC Services API allows you to create lightweight helper tools, called XPC services, that perform work on behalf of your application.
There are two main reasons to use XPC services: privilege separation and stability.


How to send to front/back ("z-order") when editing an image in Preview

To make it transparent, open the color picker on the very right, and chose the white square with the red line through it.

The other options are disabled because there is no object underneath/above it to send behind/in front of. The image itself you are editing does not count as an object.


How to recover all stored text message data on old iPhone (A1241) to external drive?

For anyone not bound by the strict “no third party” requirement - go get a copy of Phone View.

http://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/

It does everything asked for and you can use it on all devices for one license. The free trial let’s you install and be sure it will work before paying for the software.

If I discover a way to get started or accomplish this using only Apple terminal and free Mac App Store apps, I’ll edit that in here as well. I would start with Apple Configurator and the command line tools it installs since that can read log files and get past the “trust” steps that iTunes and iCloud typically perform when getting data from iOS to macOS.


On a Mac, open the iBooks app.
Go to the iBooks Store (left of the toolbar, at the top).
On the right-hand-side, in the Quick Links list, click the Purchased link.
Books will appear; find the one you want to remove and hover your mouse over the cover.
A little 'x' will appear; click it to remove the book.

The book will no longer come up in iBooks (or any other locations), no matter whether you have set iBooks to show or hide iCloud items.


Mac OS X El Capitan BootCamp doesn't target Windows 10 ISO

Unfortunately your particular Mac does not seem to support Windows 10. You can check the link here to verify. The last supported version of Windows on your Mac is 8.1.

Some people have had success installing 8.1 and then upgrading to 10, but you will not get Apple supported drivers and installation might be problematic. Unless you have particular reasons for needing Windows 10 you may want to stick with Windows 7.


Can AppleScript or any other script measure a Macbook's wifi signal strength?

If your main priority is to have your Mac automatically switch to next strongest access point.....

Your Mac can do that for you already.

Of course you have to have set up both routers as Automatically Join and at the top of your list.

Then tell it to roam and it will automatically connect to next stronger signal network.

Even better is if your SSID and WPA are the same for both.

To turn the roaming on in case it was off do this in Terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.airport.opproam enabled -bool true

Then set it up to automatically join next strongest access point

sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport prefs joinMode=Strongest

You are done, now you can move around and your Mac will keep you connected to the strongest signal.

More reading material here

And Apple explains it how it works

If you still prefer scripting this process here is the list of Airport commands /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airport


Bluetooth mouse stops working almost everytime I wake my mac from sleep

I've had issues reconnecting my bluetooth keyboard & trackpad since upgrading to Yosimite.
I run this script via custom Automator Application:

Search for (Spotlight search) and run Automator
Click "New
Document" at bottom
Choose "Application" for new file type
Click on "Utilities" from list
Double-Click "Run AppleScript"
Replace (* Your script goes here *) with:

do shell script "kextunload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport;
kextload -b com.apple.iokit.BroadcomBluetoothHostControllerUSBTransport" with administrator privileges

Press play to test (will prompt for password)
File->Save to desktop or wherever

Run the automator app whenever bluetooth devices won't connect


Is it safe to store a mac pro at a tilt?

Yes - the only problems with storing the Mac Pro are exceeding the temperature ranges or very hard drops. It's an amazingly solid machine, but at some point anything will break if dropped or shocked hard enough. Also, the Mac Pro is 9.9 inches tall and 6 inches in diameter, so you might fit it in quite nicely in a 12 inch safe since the longest dimension of the unit is 11.9 inches.

You might also look at the Apple lock for the Mac Pro and leave it anchored with a robust cable to a secure anchor.


in terms of battery life for the iphone 5, which battery is better? 3.8v1440mAh or 3.8v1560mAh?

The battery life of your iPhone depends on it's usage. 1440mAH or 1560mAH refers to the basic term that if your phone uses 1mA per hour(i.e 1 W/v) it can last for 1440 hours. But the usage will depend on what all software you are using. Like mobile network and heavy graphic intense games will use more power, applications that don't require a lot of processor power to work,(such as a clock) will not take so much amount thus you will have a longer battery life.

There are various articles explaining this online, if I find a suitable one I will post it in an edit soon.


Quick Look a URL via a script (Applescript, Automator, Shell…)?

There is also an Automator action for displaying a website in a Quick Look like window:

automator -i http://apple.com Desktop/Website\ Popup.workflow


Screen Rotation Lock now turns off iPad speaker

At iPad: Understanding screen rotation lock, Apple says:

  Beginning with iOS 4.2, the switch previously used for screen rotation lock functions as a silence switch for notifications and system sounds.

Sucks, doesn't it?

It is still possible to lock the screen rotation on an iPad (and that article explains how); there's just no hardware solution any more.


How do i remove this Guest User / greyed out remove button

You can not delete the Guest User.

What you are seeing is the correct behaviour for OS X; the minus button (-) is automatically disabled when the Guest User account is selected.

You appear to have disabled the Guest User account by unchecking all the options. This is enough to stop anyone logging in as guest on your Mac.


List of iPhone voice commands? (prior to Siri / iPhone 4S)

via http://atmac.org/iphone-voice-commands

Phone Commands

Call a contact
“Call” or “dial” plus the person’s name or nickname as entered into your address book. Optionally add the phone number type at the end, such as “home”, “work”, “mobile”. For example, “Dial John Smith Work” or “Call Mum”.

Call a number
“Call” or “Dial” plus the number, just as you would recite it usually. For example, “Dial 555 9592″.

Make a correction
Say “not that one”, “wrong”, “nope”, “no”, or “not that”.

Music Commands

Start music
Say “play” or “play music”.

Play from a specific playlist
Say “play playlist” and the name of the playlist. For example, “Play playlist gym songs”.

Play from a specific album
Say “play album” plus the name of the album. For example “Play album Dark Side Of The Moon”.

Play from a specific artist
Say “play artist” plus the name of the artist. For example, “Play artist Pink Floyd”. The alternate “Play songs by” plus the name of the artist has also been reported to work.

Pause music
Say “pause” or “pause music”.

Skip to next song
Say “next song”. The shorter “next” has also been reported to work.

Go back to previous song
Say “previous song”.

Shuffle the current playlist
Just say “shuffle”.

Turn on Genius feature
Say “Genius”, “play more like this”, or “play more songs like this”.

Get information about the current track
Say “what’s playing”, or for more specific information say “what song is this”, “who sings this song”, or “who is this song by”.

Misc Commands

Ask the time
Say “what is the time” or “what time is it”.

Cancel voice control
Simply say “cancel”. With iOS 4  you can also say “stop”.

Get help
Say “help”.


How to change credit card data for Apple ID?

One way is to go to http://apple.com, click "Store" in the top menu and then click "Account" and "View Account" as in the below screenshot.

Under "Account settings" there is the choice to "Change your default shipping or billing info", click that link and then enter your Apple ID e-mail and password to login. You'll see a box with the heading "Payment Information" under Account Information, click the Edit button there.

You will then see a form for entering your payment information, add your new card details on the right and click save. The card you enter here will be used on the Apple Online Store, iTunes and Apple App Store.


From Apple.com's Q&A section:

  The Mac Mini has two video outputs: a mini DisplayPort and a mini DVI port. The mini DisplayPort is the same one you find on the current generation MacBook, MacBook Pros (as well as the Mac Pro) and the mini DVI is the same as the on the old black/white macbook.

and:

  For 1920 x 1080 connect mini display port to DVI or HDMI.
  For 2560 x 1440 connect mini display port to DisplayPort.

All you need are the adapters to connect the monitors, the Mac Mini will be able to handle both displays.


You could try this fix:

In Finder use the Go to and go to /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/XPCServices

In XPCServices Folder and move the com.apple.dock.extra.xpc file to desktop.

Then go back to the activity monitor and force quit the process and test!

Source: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4263912 user jximo 07


Where does the Photos app store its files?

It's not as simple as changing the path based on the locale. The Photos library could be renamed and moved anywhere. You can find the current library by extracting the IPXDefaultLibraryURLBookmark from the Photos plist.

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "print IPXDefaultLibraryURLBookmark" \
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Photos.plist

The IPXDefaultLibraryURLBookmark contains a CFURLRef. This will require deserialising.


A1398 2015 - inadequate fan behaviour/noise

I understand how frustrating this can be when you set your expectations and they don't quite line up with what reality is giving you.

In my comments, I stated "If you want complete silence with performance, you bought the wrong product - you need a desktop with much more efficient cooling."  I know you're not expecting complete silence, but you've got the wrong product for the job you're asking the machine to do.  Here's why...

The most top of the line MacBook Pro from 2015 comes with an Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a discrete GPU, an AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2 GB of dedicated VRAM

The GPU VRAM recommendations from Maxon Cinema 4D for the for the Cinema 4D R21 and S22 is 4GB.

  We recommend at least 4 GB VRAM for GPU rendering

So, the Mac that you've selected only has half of the minimum recommendation for this particular piece of the software.  You Mac has no other choice other than choice but to spin up fans to cool off due to the extreme load they now have to deal with.

So, yes, these are problems, but unfortunately, it's not a problem with your Mac nor can it be fixed.  Unfortunately, the 2015 MacBook Pro is not the right fit for your particular need.