Third party application cannot write to disk

The logs are indeed getting created. I executed the app on a Mac running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 (17E199). I have verified the log creation by precisely following the steps documented on the linked download web-page. Three important instructions to take note of from the linked web-page:

  If logs are not being generated you are probably running a version of OS X that sandboxes untrusted applications. This prevents the simulator writing to disk. To resolve this, move the executable within the Applications folder.

  This simulator can create log data in the donkey tub format. This is stored in the log dir at the root of the folder next to the executable. On the mac you will need to browse the package contents to see this folder. If this folder is missing, no data will be recorded.

  Hit Auto Drive w Rec button.

Now, follow the steps as described below:

Double click the downloaded DonkeySimMac.zip file. It will extract DonkeySimMac/donkey_sim.app app bundle.
Move/copy donkey_sim.app to /Applications directory.
Run donkey_sim.app by right clicking (please don't double click) on the app icon. Upon first launch (only), you'll be presented with a dialog box stating

"donkey_sim.app" is an application downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?

Click Open to launch the app.
Select your preferred Graphics options and hit Play!.
Start scene of your choice by double clicking.
Hit Auto Drive w Rec button.
You'll be able to see a running counter against the label Log in bottom left corner of the app window. This verifies that the logs are getting generated.

Once you are done, click Stop → Exit → Quit.
Navigate to /Applications directory.
Right click on donkey_sim.app and select Show Package Contents.
Double click to open log directory.
Voila! Your logs are here.

Observation: Log generation only works when either Joystick/Keryboard w Rec or Auto Drive w Rec option is selected. (Yes, keyboard is mistyped as Keryboard!).


Yes, you can select the RAW photos, then select "Export..." from the File menu.

There you can select JPEG as the file format, then also select any options for size and quality you desire.


Can I select United States if my country is not listed?

You can put United States as the country for your Apple ID and, if necessary, use your friend’s US address (or any US address at all) as yours. Apple does not try to verify that you are actually from the US or, by any means, you or someone else is associated with that address. However, Apple will ask for a US-based credit or debit card or a US-based PayPal account whenever you want to buy anything from Apple such as music, videos, an app or a service like iCloud.

Or you might keep buying US iTunes gift cards off of the internet (or you may buy them yourself if you are visiting the US frequently or your friend may buy them for you and send them to you once in a while) but the first option is a bit costly and slightly risky and it is up to you to decide about the sustainability of the latter two.

In addition, if you would like or need to change your Apple ID country in the future, you might eventually lose some of the stuff you have bought from Apple until then under that Apple ID.

You can find here at Apple’s support site payment options accepted by Apple.

P.S. You shouldn't need a phone number to create an Apple ID. But if you put your friend's phone number in and confirm it for another purpose later on, then, unlike the address, s/he would not be able to use that number for another Apple ID.


Only a small portion of the sim tray is really covered by the smart cover.  Or, in other words, the smart cover attachment does not hide the sim tray.  However, the sim tray pops out straight, parallel to the display, so you cannot remove the sim without detaching the smart cover:


Checking the network settings I saw a hide.me VPN active.

Disabling this resolved the issue.

No idea how it got installed.


How to determine if Macbook Pro Retina anti-reflective coating is damaged and/or removed?

(disclaimer) I'm answering my own question, just in case someone else faces a similar problem, even though I realize the question itself maybe never really belonged on this site.

I had a chance to compare the screen of my Macbook Pro Retina with another (identical) model that does suffer from actual stains, i.e. partially removed anti-reflection coating.

The good news is that, apparently, I did in fact only 'rub off' some very solid dirt, that only looked like the 'stains' that some people see on their damaged screens.

How do I know the other one had a damaged screen?

When I cleaned my screen, I removed some 'silvery' stains, revealing a dark, almost totally black color of the screen/glass. In the case of the other, damaged Macbook screen, the opposite was the case: cleaning/rubbing seems to have removed the dark parts of the screen, and revealed the silvery stains.

How to tell if the coating has peeled off or not?

If you're unsure, the coating is (in all likelihood) still intact.
The silvery stains are very noticeable, and while I couldn't tell whether the other screen seemed more reflective or not, I could tell definitely that the stains are not even nearly dark in any way. In other words, when I removed the dirt (as I know now) from my screen, the resulting dark color of the screen when turned off, while not perfectly black perhaps, is drastically different from the damaged parts of the screen, which I can only describe as 'dirty grey/silver'.

Wasn't that kind of obvious in the first place?

Maybe. I'm a bit slow sometimes.


Move iPhone sync home computer from someone else's to mine

iTunes media can be simply copied to another drive and
restored at leisure.

As for leaving gifts behind, iTunes' music has been DRM-free for a pretty long time now, so you should just be able to copy the files between machines. Be aware that they are still traceable to you — if your friend starts distributing them, you could get in trouble.


Difference between flash drive and hard drive?

The primary difference between a flash drive and a hard drive is the speed at which the computer can read stuff off them. Flash drives are faster than hard drives, because of the way they work, so if you buy one of those your computer will boot up quicker when you turn it on and you'll likely find your apps load quicker, too. So, on that basis, the flash drive is good and will make for a better MacBook Pro.

However, if the main reason you're asking is because you don't want to lose files when your drive fails, then what you want to do is buy an external drive. Get one that's twice as big as the drive in the MacBook Pro that you're buying, and use Time Machine with that drive. That will help protect you against data loss. If you don't know where to start looking for external drives, two popular manufacturers are Western Digital or Seagate. The reason I'm recommending this is because neither the flash drive or the hard drive you're asking about are impervious to data loss.

So, to summarise: if you have the money, get a flash drive and an external drive. If you don't, get a hard drive and an external drive. But you should definitely get an external drive.


Search for files in external storage in Finder (and if possible, Spotlight as well)

You can add the Volume to your Spotlight index.

Go to System Preferences then to Spotlight.

Click on the Privacy tab Click the + button and browse to your
external drive to add it
Now, remove the drive you just added by selecting it and clicking
the minus "-" button. (Yes, I know, crazy right! But this tells
Spotlight that the Volume exists.)
Close Spotlight Preferences.

Source: Apple Support - Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes.


How do I remove the source (base) from my terminal?

That's the "base" environment from Anaconda or Miniconda. It means the Python environment from conda is enabled by default.

There're two solutions.

Just disable the base environment, make sure your conda >= 4.6. Whenever you wanna use Python, enable an environment from conda manually with following command,

# run this in an interactive shell
# enable environment called "base", the default env from conda
conda activate base
# deactivate an environment
conda deactivate

Enable the base environment, which is the default behavior of conda, but don't modify your prompt. Run the following command in an interactive shell once.

conda config --set changeps1 false


Keyboard shortcut to view next page in Microsoft Word for Mac?

In Word 2011 (the only version I have to test) Command-page up and Command-page down go to the top of the previous and next page respectively.

Unfortunately I don't have a Mac laptop with Office loaded to test but on my Apple keyboard fn-command-up arrow and fn-command-down arrow also work.


Besides images or other media that can natively be placed into Keynote, for a document or binary file of arbitrary format, you would almost certainly have to post it elsewhere (Dropbox/Google/web page) and embed a URL to the sharing link in your presentation.

Unfortunately, it seems you can't make the URL have the format of file:// instead of http:// You can, however use ftp:// or sftp:// or smb:// !


Troubleshooting: how to see errors from folder action scripts

I've found it useful to put the folder action code into a template that can also be run as an applet, droplet, or from the Script Editor.  It can then be used for testing and/or manually run for chosen files:

on run -- applet or from the Script Editor
    doStuff for (choose file with multiple selections allowed)
end run

on open droppedItems -- droplet
    doStuff for droppedItems
end open

on adding folder items to theFolder after receiving newItems -- folder action
    doStuff for newItems
end adding folder items to

to doStuff for someItems -- do stuff with the file items
    try
        repeat with anItem in someItems
            -- whatever
        end repeat
    on error errmess number errnum
        display alert "Error " & errnum message errmess
    end try
end doStuff


How to get macOS High Sierra file vault encryption to continue/How to cancel encryption and decrypt drive?

You can check the status from the terminal with diskutil cs info /Volumes/<name> and look for Conversion State and LV Conversion Progress. If you want to cancel the encryption with diskutil cs revert /Volumes/<name>

srv:~ onik$ diskutil cs info /Volumes/OSX
Core Storage Properties:
   Role:                       Logical Volume (LV)
   UUID:                       00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   Parent LVF UUID:            00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   Parent LVG UUID:            00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
   Device Identifier:          disk1
   LV Status:                  Online
   Conversion State:           NoConversion
   LV Conversion Progress:     100%
   Content Hint:               Apple_HFS
   LV Name:                    OSX
   Volume Name:                OSX
   LV Size:                    126804688896 B

Oh, and if you're using APFS (new in High Sierra), the commands are diskutil apfs list and diskutil apfs decryptVolume /Volumes/<name>

Then you can wait  15 minutes and check again. The conversion should continue and might go faster if you log out or just restart your machine and don’t log back in.

There’s no need to reinstall the operating system in almost all cases. You may need to leave the machine running for a day or two if for some reason it’s not progressing at a good rate. There also is no cancel. It needs to proceed or you could wipe the entire disk and reinstall everything.


I have /usr/bin/cvs, which has been installed together with Xcode; albeit, it might be Xcode 3.

just doing a check the file is still here under Mavericks and Xcode 5 and I have done clean upgrade since the original answer


You have a lot of cores, and hyperthreading makes it appear to the system that you have twice as many. The reason you may not ever see activity on half your cores is because the system is not utilizing them. While the system may be multiprocessor aware, not necessarily will every application you run. Today's processors are very very fast, which means that most of your cores will sit idle most of the time unless you're doing something really really interesting.

If you want to see your cores being utilized, try this google search, which returns multicore aware Mandelbrot set generators. Another suggestion is to try downloading HandBrake and installing and setting it to transcoding some large wmv9 files with deblock and denoise, set to maximum for good measure, but don't expect nice transcodes with those settings; its just something for your cores to chew on so you can watch in Activity Monitor that you can set processes that will use all cores. If you're not satisfied, run multiple instances of these applications. What I used to do to see the cores utilized is launch a ridiculous number of Chess.app instances and set them all to playing against the computer. If you want to try this, have /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app open, and open  /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and enter this line, hit return, hit the up arrow and repeat over and over until you think you have enough instances running to work your processors,:

 /Applications/Chess.app/Contents/MacOS/Chess &

Regarding Parallels, I searched the forums and the documentation. Interestingly, neither the User Guide, nor the Data Sheet, nor any list of features that I could find say anything about how many cores you can assign to each VM. I believe this may be to how things get created in parallel, and while there were issues with multicore in previous versions (if the number of forum posts regarding it are any indication), perhaps they decided to move forward with publishing documentation sans any mention of the abilities to utilize multiprocessor/multicore.

That being said, I found some other sources for you that answer your question

  How many CPUs can be assigned to a Parallels Desktop VM?

definitively:

according to a wikipedia page comparison between Fusion and Parallels:

  Up to 8 processors per VM & Multi Core

according to lowendmac

  In comparison, Fusion 5 and the current version of Parallels support up to 8 CPUs and 8 GB of RAM.

according to macworld

  Both Windows and Linux guest operating systems can be installed via an easy installer, and Parallels supports up to eight virtual CPUs, and 64-bit versions of Windows and Mac OS X Server.

Please bear in mind this last citation is for Parallels 5, which should be good news, as subsequent versions of Perallels will only increase the features and hopefully the robustness of the application.

FWIW, while I have switched to Open Source software for virtualization, I was an early adopter of Parallels and found their support to be excellent. They took good care of me and answered all of the many questions and problems I encountered in timely fashion. That was some time ago (~2005/6 during beta, and the release of 3.0), and I have heard complaints since then, but that was not my personal experience with their forums or their phone support. So I have encouraged others to register and seek help and answers to technical questions there. I would recommend you do this to hear from the source exactly what you want to know regarding how Parallels handles multiprocessing/multicore.

  can I assign all 8 cores to the VM and still use Mac OS X?

Yes, absolutely, OS X is very good at handling resources. It is possible you may not even notice much is happening. I have myself a rather anemic (by today's standards) core2duo, and with 15 instances of HandBrakeCLI running transcodes, and both my puny cores maxed out, I really couldn't notice anything from the desktop while I continued to surf and use other day to day applications. I did keep an eye on how much memory was being used, and I didn't even get close to maxing my 8GB of RAM, nor did I notice any swapping. But if you have a slow (4200 rpm) harddrive, I think you'll probably notice something.


Can I set a delay on Mission Control Hot Corners? Or maybe change how they’re triggered?

Yes! When setting up your Hot Corners in System Preferences, just hold down a modifier key.  For example, pressing the ⌘ key while clicking on a corner means you’ll configure it so it’s only triggered while also holding down the ⌘ key.


Smart Mailbox -- Google Folder Doesn't Work

The solution was in the fact that my Apple ID has been around for a long time and was the same email address as my GMail account.  I had to go into Apple's site, manage my ID, and then change my Apple ID to its associated iCloud email address.  Then I had to sign out of my Apple ID and back in on my Mac.  The confusion within Mail seemed to be rooted in the fact that it couldn't tell the two accounts apart in the filters since they had the same email address even though I could get mail on my iCloud account without issue.


Add text substitution for all words ending with certain letters

What you're looking for is probably a text-replacement suite that supports regular expressions.  They can be cryptic at first but once you learn the syntax, they are extremely powerful.

There was a previous question on another site that netted a product called Find and Replace It which looks appropriate for your usage.


Installing a firmware password will prevent anyone without the password from selecting a different boot disk to start up the computer. It will also disable some startup key sequences, like getting into single-user mode. I don't know how the firmware password interacts with something like rEFIt.

However, if someone can open your computer, they can disable the firmware password by pulling one of the sticks of RAM and/or just access your hard drive directly and do what they want with it.


Can I force external microphone detection after mic is plugged in

I've been struggling with the same issue as you and I've come up with two solutions.

Dedicated headset that stays connected to the system (not really an option for you).
Connecting my headset and briefly putting the system to sleep via the Apple menu. I literally wait for the screen of my Thunderbolt display to turn off and immediately wake it back up. If you require a password to wake the system and have it set to immediate, changing it to 5 seconds allows you to immediately sleep/wake the system without having the reenter your password.

That's the best I've come up with so far. For what it's worth I think the issue we're seeing is how headphone jacks work at an electrical level and how the system itself handles enabling and disabling the port when a cable is detected. My understanding is that headphones work on a closed loop system so when we disconnect the mic from the extension we're breaking that loop and the only way to fix it is by having the port disabled and reenabled (and only the system can do that when it detects there's no cable inserted).


Can I stop the optical audio out from entering 'time out' when idle?

Playing a one-second silent sound every 50 seconds or so might help. Try this:

download 1 second silent .wav file here to desktop (or make your own)
in Terminal, change Directory to Desktop: cd ~/Desktop/
Try the following one-line command and see if your problem is alleviated:

while true; do afplay silence-1sec.wav ; sleep 50; done

The command above enters an infinite loop which plays the empty sound every 50 seconds. This should keep your output busy. You can exit the loop by pressing ⌘+.

NB: afplayis frequently overlooked for terminal sound playback, but is hugely useful.

If that works, one could convert the command to a command that invisibly runs in the background.


Where can I find the APN settings for an unlocked AT&T iPhone 4 running iOS 7?

You need to Reset your Network settings and make sure you don't have any profile saved by you, and after resetting it go to the cellular network menu and you will see the APN settings.


Can I change the default camera app on my iPhone?


Restoring selected iOS apps and data to my new iPhone

Update: apart from iCloud selective app backup which implies that you need to fully restore the new iphone, you can use this to back up and restore only selected apps and app preferences that go along.

Otherwise create another backup of your old iphone, this time via using iCloud. (Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup > Manage Storage). From the options on the next screen, choose which and app data you want to back up exactly. Then hit "Back Up Now".

Upon restore to your new iphone only the app data you selected during the icloud backup will be restored.


App Store receipt email, forwarded as attachment, won't open

App store receipts are multipart mails, first part is text/plain, second is text/html. So in theory forwarding them should work just fine, in practice I see the same behavior you are seeing.

So either forward them directly (not as attachment) or print a PDF first (which might be kind of hassle depending on how often you need to do it).


Can I plug my iPhone 7 directly into the 87W USB C power adapter?

It will charge. It's not dangerous. That power adapter is designed to supply UP TO 87W. If you plug a 15" tbMBP into it, it will draw all 87W provided. If you plug a 13" tbMBP into it, the MBP will only draw 61W, even though the adapter can provide 87W. Same for you iPhone. It will draw the amount of power it needs (~10W, IIRC), and the adapter has no problem providing only that amount of power.

However, it is interesting to note that the USB plug adapters that come with iPhones provide only 5W, iPhones are capable of pulling more power, and will charge faster when plugged into an iPad (10W) or tbMBP USB plug adapter.


No.

Just a visual comparison of the iPhone 6 and the XR tell you that besides the differences in screen sizes, the connectors and connector locations are very different.  The 6 connects from the top where the XR connects from the side.


Install older removed brew formula version

Solution based on Versions.html doc
To install a removed brew formula version, we can follow the suggestion from https://docs.brew.sh/Versions.html:

We create an empty repo on our GitHub account: https://github.com/Coeur/homebrew-repo
We add an empty commit to it (git commit --allow-empty -m "first commit"), otherwise brew may not find HEAD.
We extract the old formula with brew extract git Coeur/repo --version=2.20.1
We install this old formula with brew install coeur/repo/git@2.20.1

(note: uninstall command will be brew uninstall git@2.20.1)
More doc at https://docs.brew.sh/How-to-Create-and-Maintain-a-Tap

Solution based on manual search

Find the repository of the formula with brew info git. It should tell us it's https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/git.rb
From that page, click the History button on the right to get to https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/commits/master/Formula/git.rb
Choose a commit diff with your relevant version, for instance https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/commit/67903b677219559ac72b3fb45932d43426e157f0#diff-3e84bae646d908b93e043833873d316d for 2.20.1
Click View file to get to the full file at this version: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/67903b677219559ac72b3fb45932d43426e157f0/Formula/git.rb
Click Raw to get to the raw file at this version: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/67903b677219559ac72b3fb45932d43426e157f0/Formula/git.rb
We install this formula with brew install https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/67903b677219559ac72b3fb45932d43426e157f0/Formula/git.rb

(note: uninstall command will be brew uninstall git)


Please use the

Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings.

to reset your settings after the ios7 installation.

that should take care of your problem.


The Weather is from Yahoo. See the little icon on the lower left side:

Click it to view the Yahoo-Website. See here for all Yahoo Weather-Services.

Also, the Stock information comes from Yahoo.


Set Chrome to open PDF rather than download them

FYI This answer is outdated and no longer relevant:
Go to chrome://extensions in the address bar, then find and enable Chromium PDF Viewer.
This will tell Chrome to use its built-in PDF viewer instead of downloading. After this is enabled, to download PDFs, just press command+S.


Will an iphone in lost mode enable celular data on its own?

In short - if your device doesn't have cellular, the lost mode transmission won't be received until / unless it rejoins or connects to the internet via WiFi or someone puts in a working SIM chip with compatible data plan.

This link may help you determine the answer to that question.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19299

In this article, you will see the following. Hopefully this answers your question.

  If you used Lost Mode, when tracking begins, you see your device’s current location, as well as any changes in its location on the map.

  If your device is online  when
  you put it in Lost Mode or lock it, it locks and tracking begins (if
  applicable). If Location Services is turned off on the device, it’s
  temporarily turned on to track your device’s location. A confirmation
  email is sent to your Apple ID email address.

  If your device is offline ,
  the passcode lock and tracking (if applicable) take effect the next
  time it’s online.


Is "Ignore ownership on this volume" reversible?

Yes, ignoring ownership is reversible, but I wouldn't recommend that as being a solution to your problem because the Ignore ownership on this volume option shouldn't be used on a drive you also want to use as a bootable drive for one of your Macs. And, since your Macs are running different versions of macOS, you may be asking for added trouble. In addition, you mention that this is also a backup drive - while you don't clarify this, in the case of drives also used by Time Machine Apple recommends:

  Make sure "Ignore ownership on this volume" at the bottom of the "Sharing & Permissions" section of the Get Info window is deselected (unchecked).

Source: https://support.apple.com/HT202380

Ignore ownership on this volume

The main reason the Ignore ownership on this volume option exists is to ensure that file servers, applications, operating systems, etc can still function correctly because they require permissions to keep track of which users have access to which files.

However, drives used purely for data storage (as opposed to being boot volumes) shouldn't generally use permissions and ownership (although they can be secured in other ways).

What I'm saying is that the Ignore ownership on this volume option shouldn't be used for boot disks or server volumes (and you may not even get the option anyway - depending on macOS version). It's best this is only used for drives that are used purely for data storage, and even then only for drives that are directly connected to your computer.


Does Parrallel win 10 work well for Macbook 12" 2016?

Yes. Parallels will work with any reasonably new Mac with relatively little performance hit. It uses virtualization technology, and should suit your needs.

With that said, MS Office 365 is compatible with OS X, so I'm not sure why you'd need to use a VM at all.


Lost Pages file in iCloud after update to Yosemite

The iCloud Drive directory is located within Mobile Documents. You can access iCloud Drive via Terminal with:
cd Library/Mobile\ Documents/
credit

Note that the Mobile Documents directory could not be found in Finder. You can get a list of sub-directories in Mobile Documents by typing
ls in Terminal. For example, the iCloud Drive directory for Pages.app is
cd Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~pages
Try to find your documents in these directories. You may better keep offline to avoid iCloud syncing errors, if any, continue deleting your local files. If files are there, copy them out using cp.
If not, please try to log out your iCloud account in System Preference.app and re-log in. This enables OS X to re-fetch the iCloud files index and sync them again. However the chance it works is small, because your files are already missing on iCloud.com.
My guess is that some wrong operations delete all local iCloud Drive documents, and this change is synced to iCloud.com so all your online files are also deleted. The last solution would be to recover your files in iCloud Drive from a Time Machine backup.
Hope things go well!


Sending email from iCloud with a different Reply-to field

I don't know if this works for iCloud account but it works for regular email accounts, try the following.

Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and then choose the iCloud mail account. If there is account information showing the Address as xxxx@me.com simply edit the field to be something like xxxx@me.com,myname@pobox.com

When you send an email tap on the Cc/Bcc,From: field, then click on the From: field. You should be presented with a listing of email address to choose.


Is it possible to copy iPhone data to Mac using Xcode?

The window that popped up was probably the Photos app, that will typically auto start when a new device with photos is attached. Your friend did the right thing by closing it when he saw it happen. No copies of your photos would have been made at this time, only thumbnails were downloaded and those would be removed when Photos was closed.

He theoretically could have copied some data, but Xcode will not automatically copy anything sensitive, so unless he is a really sneaky 'friend' that set up his Mac to copy in the background in advance, I think you are probably OK.


keychain security in a managed device (AD)

When you have to install a custom-made OS and software, there's really nothing you can do. It is completely like giving away root access. Shy of actually doing a full reverse engineering of the whole platform (not really feasible), you have to consider the risk that there's a built-in backdoor or automatic leaking of data to HQ.

Therefore the best would be to treat it as a non-private computer and not store any sensitive data on it that you wish to keep private from the company.


Apache on MacOS Sierra: AH00557: httpd: apr_sockaddr_info_get() failed for Macbook-Pro.local AH00558: httpd: Could not reliably determine…

When restart the httpd.

Try:

sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl restart

Don't use:

sudo apachectl restart


Creating an installer (.pkg file) from the command line

I found an alternative, while not the most ideal, it does the job for me. It's using packagesbuild commandline that comes with Packages (http://s.sudre.free.fr/Software/Packages/about.html). It lets you create a .pkg file through the command line, but you need to create a .pkgproj file, which you create with the Packages application.


Can I make a podcast out of any flash video to listen to on my iPod?

Maybe.

One of the reasons content providers choose Flash is that it makes grabbing the video for your own purposes nontrivial. Some sites provide links for downloading video, even if the embedded player is Flash. But I don't think that's what you're asking.

RealPlayer (http://www.real.com/realplayer/download) provides a free player as well as a program that will run in the background to try to grab Flash video. They also have a free converter program (RealPlayer Converter) for transcoding, if what you capture isn't something your iPod can play. If it's an iPod Touch, then you can play H.264/AAC or H.264/MP3 movies directly. Other formats you'd have to convert.

If you are talking an audio iPod, you need to pull the audio out of whatever movie you capture. I would do that using QuickTime 7 Pro, a $29 purchase. There are free alternatives, I'm sure. But taking just the audio from a Flash video is a bit obscure.


What does the new command on the f4-key do?

Caret and Line is Enter, and the crossed box is clear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Keyboard


Start a new message  Command ⌘ / n   , then with that message front-most [this gives different choices than if the main window is at the front]

View menu > Customise Toolbar...
Drag the default set at the bottom into the toolbar, or just drag the Send icon back to where you'd like it.


Is it possible to set a Custom quick look preview image in OS X?

No. The way Quick Look works is that a plugin, which recognizes your file, is required. Only such plugins can supply images to QL.


How can I get the hexadecimal functionality of Digital ColorMeter back?

Select View → Display Values → as Hexadecimal:

Now the main window displays hex values:

Also, Color → Copy Color as Text ⇧⌘C will now format the color like #C8D8E8 (instead of 200 216 232).


Is there any thunderbolt device which supports daisy chaining and costs less than £100?

I have recently run into a similar situation as yours. Both of the proposed solutions below do not use expensive gear like thunderbolt docks or monitors, and can achieve the same (or similar) desired end result.

This Thunderbolt-to-Dual-HDMI adapter allows your to connect two 1080p monitors to a single Thunderbolt port, and have both those monitors act independently from one another (ie. they are not mirrored). The adapter is also passive, which is nice.
Buy a Chromecast. This solution is sub-optimal, and is dependent on you having a decent internet connection, but with this $35 device, you can stream a browser tab, your desktop, audio, video, and more to an external monitor. The third monitor can then be added with a simple Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapter.


how can I create wifi hotspot on windows 7 that can be shared with my macbook?

The first step is to run the Wireless Diagnostic from the Mac since it's easy. There are iOS diagnostics, but you'll have the best luck determining why OS X won't connect to the network. From there, the iPhone issue will likely be solved, but if not you'll have a smaller problem to solve.

Option click your WiFi icon in the menu bar (place it there in network settings if it's absent) and then select Wireless Diagnostics.


That sounds odd, have you tried repairing permissions on Disk Utility? I assume you're the only owner of that macbook.

Anyhow when you try to delete a critical file it will prompt you for your password.

You can also enable the root user:

  sudo passwd root

If you log in as root it won't prompt you anymore but this will give access to any application to your system. This way you'll be vulnerable to all kind of malware including trojans.


Does using one USB port reduce performance on others?

I have often faced this interesting question. Apple has always tried to make its operations transparent - and although this is fabulous, sometimes this approach obscures information we want.

To discover how many busses your machine is running (as you rightly distinguish from mere ports) go to system profiler, and select USB on the left.

USB is listed amongst all the other protocols within your machine.

You will then be presented with a device tree which (usually) gives a pretty clear idea of what’s going on with the bussing.

If you plug things in to the ports you should see the devices come up.

To get to system profiler, select “about this mac” from the Apple Menu and the click "system report" in the window that comes up. Another way us to call up spotlight by pressing command and space bar together, type system profiler and launch it directly from there.

When you are looking at the usb device tree you may be surprised to learn that the usb bus is also in use internally - for example on some older macs, Bluetooth was running off the buss internally.

Hope this helps.


Mac App Store, reuse apps after changing country

For App Store, see this answer for "Do I need to repurchase apps if I moved countries?":

  All the apps you bought in country A are permanently assigned to your AppleID. Once you move to country B and you updated your details (billing address) you:

  still can use them
  you cannot re-download them
  you cannot update them
  you cannot convert your music to iTunes Plus (but still can listen, obviously)

  There are two solutions to this:

  Switch Store's country and update your billing details each time you want to get your apps up to date (or re-download them). But this is a rather painful process, so a better solution is to...
  Create a new AppleID with the billing details for the country B. Switching between AppleIDs is much easier and quicker than switching Store's country and updating your billing address.

  Let me quote why it has to be this way:

    [...] this how iTunes has been designed.

For MAS - recover purchased apps on Mac App Store (formatted better and corrected typos):

  Dah•veed
  Re: recover purchased apps on Mac App Store.
  Sep 14, 2013 10:16 AM (in response to Mariokart)

  When you switch regional/country stores your Purchases list does disappear and the MAS will no longer alert you to an update that may be available for an app.

  However, all is not lost. But the one caveat is that is an app that you bought in a particular store is not sold in the new store then you cannot update it. Apps that are available from both stores can be updated, it's just that you basically need to hear through the grapevine that there is an update for the app. Then you go through the steps of buying the app and in the final steps the MAS recognizes that you have previously bought the app and downloads it for free. Once you have done this with an app it again appears in your purchases list for the new store and you are alerted to any further updates as before. You have to go through this process with each app.

Also see iOS: Changing the signed-in iTunes Store Apple ID account


Generally as long as you use an OS X build later than the one that came with the machine you should be good to go. In your case, it looks like all the 12 inch G4s can run 10.3, so most likely any retail 10.4 version should be fine.

For maximum safety, I'd go for 10.4.3 or later, as it seems that the last packaged version for a 12 inch G4 was 10.4.2 (build 8E90A), according to MacTracker.


Disk Utility Cannot erase USB Drive (Error: -69877: Couldn't open device)

Before trying anything more radical, do make sure (if you're using a microSD-SD adapter) that the adapter isn't write protected / locked. D'oh! It can be missed easily.


Does Facetime work over a cellular connection as well as Wifi

No, you need to jailbreak your device to enable Facetime over 3G as of iOS 5.

Here's an extract from the official documentation:

  With FaceTime, you can participate in video calls with another iPhone 4 or later, iPad 2, iPod touch (4th generation), or a FaceTime for Mac user over a Wi-Fi network connection.


Can't click using trackpad on Macbook Pro (2010)

OK, I did some more troubleshooting and took the thing apart. No signs of battery swelling though I did unseat/reseat the thing. When I put it back together I literally banged on the trackpad until it started being responsive again. This would not normally be my plan but a tech suggested it and, oddly, it seemed to work.

Long term plan is probably replacing the battery or just replacing the entire unit altogether.


Voices can be downloaded from:

System Preferences... → Accessibility → Speech

Select the System Voice and click Customize...

There You can search for Good or Bad. Voices will be downloaded and will be available in say command as well. I've tested this a moment ago.


Disable automatic switch to Bluetooth carkit on iPhone

To remove a paired device (your car BT) from Bluetooth on iOS:

Touch Settings
Touch Bluetooth
Ensure Bluetooth is turned on and touch the Arrow next to the required Bluetooth device
Touch Forget this Device
Touch Forget Device
The pairing has been removed

A personal Note: Please do not text while driving!


Combine multiple PDFs into multiple PDFs

I'd use the third-party command line tool, cpdf, and script the process of creating the separate PDF documents for each student.

Have a look at: Coherent PDF Command Line Tools Community Release

Download pre-built cpdf tool (This is a direct download link. Building from source is available from link on main page linked above.)
A comprehensive user manual for the PDF tools can be found as a PDF document, or browsable online.
Note: the Community Release version of Coherent PDF Command Line Tools is free.

There is no need to first extract the the scanned PDF document into individual files to then combine them as the following example shell script code extracts the pages from the scanned PDF document four pages at a time while naming each new PDF document for each student:

#!/bin/bash

    # Replace e.g. "Student 01", etc. with the students name
    # in the order required as scanned in the PDF document.

my_students=("Student 01" "Student 02" "Student 03" "Student 04" "Student 05" "Student 06" "Student 07" "Student 08" "Student 09" "Student 10")

    # Replace "/path/to/scanned.pdf" with the
    # actual pathname of the scanned document.

scanned_document="/path/to/scanned.pdf"

    # NOTE: If cpdf is not in your PATH, then use its fully
    #       qualified pathname, e.g: /use/local/bin/cpdf

x=1
y=4
for this_student in "${my_students[@]}"; do
    cpdf "${scanned_document}" $x-$y -o "${this_student}.pdf"
    x=$(( x + 4 ))
    y=$(( y + 4 ))
done

To use this shell script in Terminal, first run the following compound command:

f="processpdf"; touch "$f"; open -e "$f"; chmod u+x "$f"

Then in the document that opens, TextEdit by default, copy and paste the example shell script code into it, make the appropriate edits, and then save it.

It can now be used in Terminal using e.g. ./processpdf or /path/to/processpdf or if placed in a location that's within the PATH, then simply, e.g.: processpdf

Note: As coded the new  PDF documents are created in the PWD in Terminal. You can add e.g. /path/to/ to "${this_student}.pdf", e.g., "/path/to/${this_student}.pdf" if you want.

If you need/want to apply this to a Run Shell Script action in Automator, instead of regular shell script usage, let me know an I can update the answer.

In either case, if you want to pass the script a file with the names of the students, instead of using an array, as presently coded, that is doable too.

Note: The example shell script 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. As an example, as presently coded, the  new PDF documents will overwrite existing documents of the same name  without warning.


The Bundlore adware is a collection of related adware programs with widely varying names, but that all appear to be made by the same group.

It is actually a Windows malware.

Removal

Delete all of the following browser extensions that you find: Shopy Mate, FlashMall, Cinema-Plus Pro (and variants like CinemaPlus, CinemaPro, Cinema + HD, Cinema + Plus + or Cinema Ploos).

Then Move the following items to the trash.

/Applications/WebTools.app
/Applications/WebShopper.app
~/Applications/WebTools.app
~/Applications/WebShopper.app
/Library/cinemapro1-2/
~/Library/cinemapro1-2/
~/Library/WebTools/
~/Library/Application Support/webHelperApp/
~/Library/Application Support/WebShopper/
~/Library/LaunchAgents/WebServerSocketApp
~/Library/LaunchAgents/UpdateDownloder
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.webhelper.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.webtools.update.agent.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.webtools.uninstaller.plist

If you find NONE of those files then the Malware has not installed, you just have the Installer.

More Information here


Is there an easy way to clear/empty the clipboard?

To set a combination of keys to clear the clipboard, you can create a Service using Automator.

Your service will have a single action, Run Shell Script

The shell script you will use is this:

 pbcopy </dev/null

Then save the service and assign it a keystroke using System Preferences » Keyboard » Keyboard Shortcuts » Services.

The challenge of an application that automatically clears the clipboard one minute after the last paste operation is that said application would have to monitor all the copy and paste events across all applications; presumably you would want the action cancelled if you pasted and then copied new text (you wouldn't want to clear the new content from the clipboard one minute after the last paste of the previous clipboard contents). Such a program could be written, but implementing it with AppleScript or Automator would be a challenge.


Are there any "App Store quality" apps for creating animated GIFs from a series of image files?

You might install ImageMagick with brew install imagemagick and then use something like this:

convert -delay 4 *.png output.gif

-delay 4 sets the delay between frames to 0.04 s.

See http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_basics/ for more information.


Add colours to output of existing CLI commands

Especially since you're already using zsh, I would recommend using the existing highlighter framework (and builtin highlighters) of zsh-syntax-highlighting or fast-syntax-highlighting Based on a preliminary review, both should have sufficient documentation to hopefully allow you to set up your preferred environment.

Here's a screenshot of zsh-syntax-highlighting's default parser operating on the parsing command you provided (meta, right?)


Hard drive will not format - bad drive or enclosure?

Try using some other means of connecting to the drive other than the Thermalake docking station. I had the same problem with one awhile back. I ended up using a plain ol' SATA to USB cable and that fixed my problem.


iPhone 6s restarts - apple offers a "new one" (refurbished) as exchange solution

Apple refurbished phones work great.
I actually use one right now, since the battery on my old phone had expanded. These phones have been tested well to make sure there's nothing wrong with them. Sure, you might get a recycled camera, but you'll never know. My phone was good as new when I got it, and I am still happy with it to this day.
The three-month warranty will cover any problems that a refurbished phone may have - bad battery, touchscreen, etc will be covered in that.
If you'd like to keep all your data, you can simply do an iTunes backup (not necessarily to your own computer as it is freezing), then restore that backup to your new phone.
Also, your phone is respringing (not rebooting)


To activate Illustrator CS6 on El Capitan, you may need to temporarily deactivate the "rootless" mode. To do this, boot into the recovery partition by holding down Cmd-R upon startup. Then use the terminal app to disable "rootless". The command is

csrutil disable

It will advise you to reboot. After rebooting, you can now create the directories

/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk

and

/System/Library/Java/Support/Deploy.bundle

Then you may reboot back into recovery mode, and run

csrutil enable

to reactivate the "rootless" mode.


The same happened to me. This is how I fixed it: go to /Applications/Microsoft Office 2011/Office/ and launch Microsoft Database Utility.app and rebuild the Main Identity.


MongoDB doesnt' work after update to macOS Catalina 10.15

Move your old /data/db folder into a non root folder and do the following:

brew uninstall mongodb
brew tap mongodb/brew

brew install mongodb-community

"brew install mongodb" won't work anymore as the mongodb is removed from the homebrew-core.

check https://github.com/mongodb/homebrew-brew for more info

ref: https://stackoverflow.com/a/57881349/10818622


Number in brackets appended to Apple TV Bonjour name

The quickest way to fix this issue is to add a simple space to the end of the name of the Apple TV. Restart the device and it will now show up without the bracketted number appended. My guess is that the Space acts like a wild card in the Bonjour Log and won't treat each instance of the apple TV as another instant of the last.


According to Apple, some of the symptoms are:

When you are calling someone on FaceTime, the number on their screen
is not your number.
People are unable to initiate a FaceTime call
with you.
After installing a new carrier settings update, FaceTime
does not activate.

How to fix:

In Settings > Phone, turn FaceTime OFF and turn it back ON again
Go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset all settings
Done


Wrong factory display callibration for MacBook Pro 2016 15"

After waiting for almost two years for Apple to fix this clearly software bug (Apple Care active for this machine), I went to an AASP and requested a display replacement. The issue was demonstrated (along with a few sq. mm of missing coating) and was replaced for free.


Playing Hi-Res audio files on mac with M-audio Revolution 5.1

I used to own one of these cards and used it on a Windows PC. If I'm not mistaken, M-Audio (now owned by Avid) no longer supports this card. It's been declared obsolete and orphaned. Good luck.


Macbook Pro 17" mid 2010 + NEC upd720202 Express Card USB 3.0

As pointed out, the info is inaccurate for the MacBook Pro 2010 as it doesn't have Thunderbolt yet. The 2011 models have Thunderbolt and the info is accurate below. The 2012 models have USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, so the adapter is irrelevant

I'm not a big fan of adapters used to try and improve speed as they tend to not work as well as you expect.

I hunted around for a product that might help and the best option I could find was to get you Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 via the Kanex Thunderbolt to eSATA plus USB 3.0 Adapter.

Kanex makes a bunch of stuff for Macs and their stuff is hit or miss. At least they offer support for their products so if it doesn't work you can return it or talk with someone who makes the product.

If you have Amazon, you can find the adapter there, or you can get it straight from Kanex directly. It's a bit pricy though at around $75-$100 USD so it might make more sense to get yourself a thunderbolt drive or put the money towards a newer system at this point.

Here's the Kanex link for the product: Thunderbolt to eSata + USB 3.0 Adapter

Note: Sonnet used to make a ExpressCard to USB adapter that would have worked, but they no longer sell the product or support it. I would advise skipping the ExpressCard slot on your Mac altogether for this issue.


Problems reconnecting to WiFi if connection is lost

The WiFi on your MBP is, by design, supposed to reconnect to known networks automatically without the intervention of the user and/or an automated script.

That said, WiFi issues seem to have been an ongoing issue for Apple:  How do I connect my Mac to wifi automatically?

Now, I am assuming that this is a simple home network where you just have to select the network you want to connect to and provided you have the right passphrase or key, you get connected and away you go.

Given that you have a MacBook and it's portable, have you tried different networks - like gone over to a friends or a relatives home and see if the systems exhibit there?  If so, then the issue is limited to your MB, and not the router.

Also, does anyone else report having the issue with your router?  If not, it will again confirm that the problem is with your MBP and not the router itself.

What you can try:  Delete the Airport .plist

To  delete the plist file associated to the Airport,

Disable Airport
Delete the plist file; /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
Re-enable airport and select your favorite network again

This will delete ALL connections of the connections in your saved WiFi networks. You will need to save all of the passwords for all the networks that you want to connect to later.

How to get your WiFi Passwords

Before you delete the plist, you will want to make a copy of all your SSID passwords.  They are stored in your Keychain.

When you open your Keychain (CommandSpace and type "Keychain" to use Spotlight to open it) you will see a list of saved credentials from websites, to network passwords and of course the one we are interested in, Airport Passwords.

If you right click on the WiFi network you are interested in, you will have the option to "Copy the Password to the Clipboard" (how convenient is that?!?!)

You will be then asked to authenticate 2 times.  The first time because OS X will want to "make changes to your computer" and then a second time because it wants access to your "System Keychain"

This will require you to type your user name and password of an Administrator (if that's you, then your username and password).

You can now paste that password anywhere...

Or maybe in a spreadsheet for safekeeping...


AppleTV and other Apple devices connecting by wifi but not by LAN

This is usually down to the router involved, and a security setting disallowing traffic from machines connected to the Wifi interface to the (technically) more secure LAN interface.

If you provide more information on your router manufacture, model we may be able to assist more.


Making and applying a custom design to a chart in Numbers

You can use the Graphic Inspector to set a gradient fill for any object, including a cell, in Numbers. This might work for the two-color combinations.

However, the best way to accomplish this would be to create an image file for each of the combinations and use the necessary file to fill the cell. The image can be scaled to fit within a single cell.


Use MacBook Air as a monitor for Win7 Desktop PC

According to Apple's documentation notebooks do not support Target Display mode.

However, if you run any kind of VNC software on your Windows machine you can use the Windows desktop from your Mac using the Screen Sharing application. No additional software is needed on the Mac end.

If your Windows machine won't boot to the desktop the VNC software will not run, so you will need a temporary monitor here. And you will need to install the VNC program somehow.

In short, Windows computers really expect to have a keyboard, monitor and mouse connected.


Snow Leopard Time Machine backups are not visible in Lion

Well, without doing anything apart from rebooting my Mac and my NAS drive the backups are now visible so I wasted 50 points on a bounty I didn't need.  Oh well...


Notification on new app version in IOS app store

No, there's no way to do this from the App Store.  Developers do not have access to any Apple API to notify users when a new version is available within the App Store.

Developers can notify users within their own app that a new version is available.  For example, I have several apps that send me a popup message about a new version but I must open an older version of that app first, before I can see the notification.


Opening Notes of another user account in OS X EI Captain

Create a new user with the exact same name in system preferences as the old one. When given the option, choose to use the old folder as their home folder. Then log in with this user and open the Notes app as that user.


Clone strategy - alternating partitions on USB drive?

It’s much more important to back up your data than to make clones of your computer.

The idea is that you can get back up and running quickly even if you’re on a different computer; even if it’s a PC!  A clone will be specific to your machine.  If it’s a 2015 (for example) and it gets lost/stolen or sent in for repairs and a kind soul loans you a 2013 model, that clone is useless as it won’t function on an older machine.

How to backup Time Machine's backup to a cloud?
Offsite Backup Strategy for Multiple Macs
How to backup data from one external drive to another (one-way)
What's a good setup to back up macOS data and restore to Linux?

(IMO) a clone isn’t necessary anymore especially if you’re using APFS as it has a built in snapshot feature that allows you to make an immediate point in time backup of your drive. Instead, put together a strong backup strategy that allows you to get up and running quickly.

And speaking from personal experience, while I have a Time a Machine backups, when I upgraded to Catalina I didn’t even do a migration.  I took the opportunity to “tune” my new system with respect to the new shell (ZSH) new features like iCloud Drive, etc.  I relied much more on my cloud files than Time Machine.  That said, I still wouldn’t go a single day without having that continual TM backup.


Error when installing Apache 2.4, PHP 5.5 and MySQL via Homebrew

Yosemite ships with apache 2.4.9, php 5.5.14 already installed, tuned up and ready to roll.

MySQL is readily available from their website in either tar or pkg format. It is a drop-in installation, php already knows about it. There is occasionally a socket issue, easily fixed by editing the php.ini file or just making a symlink.


Synchronizing apple id and google play store

Unless this feature is implemented manually by the specific developer of the app in question, no.


How to get rid of firewall asking when developing a program?

Code Signing
Your binary needs to be code signed with codesign.
The permission to accept incoming network connections is associated with the meta-data and signature of the binary, not the specific binary. The intent is to allow users to upgrade their software without discarding all their previous security settings.


How to track down Facebook notifications on OS X to disable them

Check Safari prefs too, as Facebook is not an app, but a web-based service…


Can you use the iPad to manage your iPod?

Sorry mate, but although it is possible to use an iPad separately from any computer, managing an iPod with an iPad is currently impossible. Both the iPad and the iPod require a computer to sync.

(Unless you jailbreak it, and somehow convince the iPod that the iPad is a computer with a registered version of iTunes. But I doubt you would want to risk that.)

Probably the closest you could come to this, is using the iCloud feature to sync photos, and movies across both devices, via your computer, and the internet. This is, however a different matter altogether.


This is a scam site.  You'll be ok as long as you didn't fall for their tactics and download and install their software.  There's nothing to remove from your system if you didn't install anything.

The info below is from a 2011 article on Bleeping Computer so that tells you how long this type of phishing scam has been going on.

  Mac Shield is a fake rogue anti-spyware program that for the Mac OS
  operating system from the same family as Mac Guard. This infection is
  spread through spam, hacked sites that have poisoned the search
  results for image search engines such as Google Images, and hacked
  sites that infect you when you visit them. When you click on images
  belonging to the hacked sites, you will automatically be redirected to
  a page that shows an advertisement that pretends to be a fake online
  scanner.

I'm not sure why you got this result page in the first place.  Are you using your normal internet gateway and service provider?  A free Internet cafe or something similar?

Make sure you clear Safari's cache and browser history.


How can I access my iCloud files on my Mac?

The iCloud files are cached on your Mac, so you can access them even when you have no internet connection. They are stored in ~/Library/Mobile Documents/.

To make it even more accessible, you can add the folder in your sidebar.

There you'll see that each application has it's own folder with it's own documents. Files can be added or removed in this window.
To make sure you're working in your iCloud, you can try and delete a file. Your Mac will notify you, you're deleting the file in iCloud.


How can you put new songs from a computer to an apple device after you wiped the computer and it counts as a new one?

You can use a product like iExplorer to first copy your music off of the iPad on to the computer.  Then use the copied music to rebuild iTunes and then when the music on the iPad gets wiped it won't matter as it will get replaced with what you copied to the computer and added to iTunes.


Upgrading to a SSD, any possible issues with the OS X upgrade?

Nope. While you've got to re-install the OS, now would be a great time to just do a clean install and use Migration Assistant from the old hard drive, using it as a pre-install "backup".


Safari on iOS 11.1.2 is using the wrong email address

You can go to Contacts > find your name and click on it > click Edit > and you will see that you can choose which email you want to be your personal, work etc.


Can I start a new conversation with the same number or Apple ID in Messages?

I think that when you send a new message and it has the same receiver, the messages app automatically groups that with any old messages. The threads are really designed to be conversations between people and not separate threads with new conversation topics like email


Bootcamp partiton in VirtualBox returns errors VERR_ACCESS_DENIED and VBOX_E_FILE_ERROR

I have figured it out you have to run this command in Terminal:
sudo chown (username) win10*.vmdk


Does a battery's remaining power drop consistently regardless of remaining charge?

First, in answer to the first question: No, a batteries remaining power does not drop consistently regardless of remaining charge.

The simplest answer to the rest of the question is: you want to run the power inverter for as little time as possible. The explanation of this and method to accomplish it follows.

The power inverter uses some power itself, so you'll want to have it run for as little time as possible. This can be accomplished by only charging the battery up to around 60%-70% and turning off the inverter. The full step by step instructions might look like this:
1-turn on the power inverter with everything plugged in or ready to plug into the laptop
2-charge the battery to around 60%-70%
3-turn off the inverter, running the laptop off its battery until it's quite low again
4-repeat until the deep cycle battery and laptop battery are both empty.

Charging the first 60% to 80% of a battery can happen much faster than finishing the last 20% to 40% of the charge. You can easily see this by experimenting with your cell phone or laptop on a near empty charge; just plug it in at about 5%-15% charge and see how much it's charged at 15 minutes 30 minutes and 45 minutes of charging.

Here are some resources which explain some of these principles in action:

Chart showing how much charge is kept in an unused battery after 6 months -- ( http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_store_batteries )

"Ultra-fast charging only applies during the first charge phase. The charge current must be lowered when the 70 percent state-of-charge threshold is reached." -- ( batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/ultra_fast_chargers )

"As you can see from this one, if your inverter regularly operates below 20% of its rated power then your efficiency is down the toilet!" -- ( http://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/two-reasons-you-must-look-at-efficiency-curves-when-choosing-your-solar-inverter/ )


You can delete the BlackList array with

defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.usbmuxd BlackList
#        delete <domain>                               <key>

Apple doesn't provide an easy way to remove an array element. You can either set the BlackList array with -array with the item excluded, or edit the file manually using Xcode for example.


See here: http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/

TL;DR: buy a DVD to update to Snow Leopard and then update it to Mavericks (if your hardware supports it).


Is screen sharing under Sierra secure, i.e., a fully encrypted connection?

The answer depends on how you connect to it.

If you're using a standard VNC client to connect with a password only, nothing is encrypted. Not even the password.

If you're using the Screen Sharing app on macOS 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or later to connect with a username/password or AppleID, everything is encrypted.

If you're using the Screen Sharing app on macOS 10.7 (Lion) or earlier to connect with a username/password, the exchange of credentials as well as keypresses and mouse moves are encrypted by default. However the actual screen display (i.e. the graphical content) is not. You can enable full encryption from the Preferences menu in the Screen Sharing app.

If you're using VNC, I would recommend wrapping it in encryption using for example an SSH tunnel, encrypted VPN or similar measures.


You need to download and install a Syriac font from someplace like

http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Syriac.html

In more detail the installation is documented here:

Download the Meltho Syriac fonts
Unzip the file, select all the OTF files and press Cmd-O to open/install them
You may get some warnings about small font errors, just proceed nevertheless
Go to Fontbook and Disable the Damascus font.  It has a bug which interferes with Syriac fonts.
Fonts should now display correctly in documents and browsers


How to get the Column Browser in iTunes 11 on the left side?

You cannot bring back the left-side column browser. It is not possible in iTunes 11. The closest approximation I have found is to go to "Artists" view and enable the Sidebar (under the View menu). You can also downgrade to iTunes 10, depending on your system but that can present its own problems.


does iTunes DRM depend on the wifi connection with which the purchase was made

Blatantly stolen from Apple's support website, Make sure iTunes is closed and go into your iTunes folder and delete the following files:

iTunes Library Extras.itdb
iTunes Library Genius.itdb

You may even have an additional "Extras" file with a time/date stamp on it and delete that as well.

Of course, please do this at your own risk of losing any preferences that these files may contain. I don't know exactly what these files do, but I've done this fix for a number of iTunes related issues and it works almost every time.

Hope this helps!

Apple Support Community


Linking python as external build tool in Xcode 7 El Capitan

trying run Python 2.7.11 on Xcode 7.2 on OS X 10.11.2;
I could not select 'python' under "Edit Scheme" > "Info" > "Executable"
It was grayed out. I do not know what SIP means, but I got it to work by right-clicking the grayed out 'python' under usr/local/bin in the window and selecting "Quick Look"
A box opened and I closed it and 'python' was now selectable and ran the file like a champ!


Macbook Pro 2017 with 2 thunderbolt ports with triple monitor setup

In order to get this setup working, you'll want to get the following:

2 x Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI cable
1 x DisplayPort to HDMI adapter-cable
1 x USB-A to USB-C adapter

You would connect the first monitor directly into the MacBook Pro using the Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI cable.

The second monitor connects to the dock's Thunderbolt 3 connector using the Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI cable.

The third monitor connects to the dock's DisplayPort connector using the DisplayPort to HDMI adapter-cable.

The YubiKey connects to one of the dock's USB ports using the USB-A to USB-C adapter.

Example products:

Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI cable:
https://www.amazon.com/uni-Thunderbolt-Compatible-MacBook-Pixelbook/dp/B075V5JK36

DisplayPort to HDMI adapter-cable:
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-DisplayPort-HDMI-Cable-Feet/dp/B015OW3M1W

USB-A to USB-C adapter:
https://www.amazon.com/ARKTEK-Adapter-Convert-Samsung-Aluminum/dp/B075R95QM7


MacOS High Sierra : Xcode failed to download Use the purchase page Error during installing Xcode 9.3

I had the same issue and finally got this working, however I'm not sure exactly which step made it work, so I'm posting all of them.

From How to fix / Reset App Store app on Mac OSX - El Capitan:

Delete:

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore
~/Library/Caches/storeaccount
~/Library/Caches/storeassets
~/Library/Caches/storedownload
~/Library/Caches/storeinappd

I didn't have some of those folders, but I did have a couple of extras that looked fishy, so I deleted them too:

~/Library/Caches/storeassetd
~/Library/Caches/storedownloadd

Run sudo softwareupdate --clear-catalog [Note: I did this but I don't think it helped]

From http://osxdaily.com/2016/10/08/mac-app-store-temp-cache-folder/ (paraphrasing):

Quit out of the Mac App Store
Open Terminal and run open $TMPDIR../C/com.apple.appstore/
Hit Return and the com.apple.appstore folder will open in the Finder of Mac OS
Delete the contents of this folder

And finally:

Navigate to ~/Applications in Finder and move Xcode to the Trash [Note: This step was necessary for me, but ymmv]
Reboot
Launch App Store. Search for Xcode. Install it fresh.


How to import self-signed certificate over SSH? (bounty)

There's quite a few ways you can do it easiest way would be to get a chrome Dev browser and then connect the two users together with separate names you encrypted the certificate as you clear using Firefox tabs in Chrome Dev


No java installations was detected, although I have Java

I had such problem in sbt run having $GREP_OPTIONS=--color=always --ignore-case. Unsetting the environment variable helped.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/47180447/907576


How do I disable auto-turn-on Bluetooth after rebooting iPhone?

To stop the automatic enabling of Bluetooth on reboot, you must go to Settings > Bluetooth and shut off the Bluetooth radio completely.

Control Center is but a command for our convenience, not ultimate control.

I just tested this three times on my iPhone 7 running iOS 11.1.


HTTP URLs aren't working on OS X Yosemite

I've experienced the same behavior twice, Once with Time Warner and again with Comcast Xfinity.  Browsing to HTTPS is fine, HTTP is empty response.

In both cases I contacted the ISP and they resolved it.   It's possible some site tripped an upstream alarm.

See here for similiar experience


Perian gave Finder broken 'click to preview' UI feature. Now, how do I get rid of it?

Alright, here's how I got rid of
- FLAC files having those ‘click to play' icons and their ensuing endless 'preview loading' spinning wheels.
- FLAC files with those Quicktime/iTunes style music icons

We don’t want either because at least in 10.9, neither Quicktime nor Finder nor Quick Look can play them (even with Perian installed). A fresh installation of OS X simply gives you no option to play FLAC files whatsoever, but when you uninstall Perian, which is supposed to let you play such exotic formats, the option to preview FLAC in Finder et al is not removed.

Apparently the problem is caused by Perian associating FLAC files with the Quicktime Player.

Right click on a FLAC file with a specious ''
Choose 'Open With' and select 'Quicktime Player'
Quicktime Player says ‘converting’ in the video window for a couple of seconds then gives you a dialogue box saying it cannot play the FLAC file after all.
Close Quicktime
Close Your Finder windows and reboot OS X.

Think of this as a way to completely remove all traces of Perian after you've uninstalled it.

Now when you interact with FLAC files in Finder they should look like this again:


Step 1:

On the Mac, go to  System Preferences > Network.  Then on the active network (WLAN or Ethernet, whatever you use) click Advanced > WINS.

Give the computer a name and the same Workgroup as the Windows computer:
To find the Workgroup on Windows, start Explorer, right-Click "My Computer", "Properties".  This will show the workgroup the Windows-PC is on.  Use the same workgroup on the Mac.

Also make sure that IP-V4 and IP-V6 is enabled on Mac OS (also System Preferences > Network).

You can now try to shortcut to Step 6 and see if it works.  If not, proceed with Step 2.

Step 2:
On Mac OS open a Terminal and type ifconfig.  You should get an output like this.  Find the ip-address (something different than 127.0.0.1):

Step 3:
On the Windows computer, open a command prompt.  Type ipconfig ... this should give you output with an IPv4-Address that starts with the same numbers as the one from the Mac (e.g. also 192.168.1.xxx).

Type ping 192.168.1.149 (but with your Mac's IP address from step 2).   If that works, type ping computername (but with the name you gave your Mac from step1).  Both should result in the same output, like this:

Step 4:

In windows explorer, in the address bar, type \\192.168.1.149  (but again with your IP address).  You should now see your shared folders (thse from your own screenshot).

Step 5:

\\computername  (but with the name from the mac network config).

This should also show your data folders.

Step 6:

If all that works, you should also see the Mac in Windows > Explorer > Network (on the left bar in Explorer).


I have compiled older gcc in the past as a last resort.

Get Xcode - it gives you clang and lots of header files. If you can't stomach it, get the command line tools.
Get http://brew.sh
brew install gcc

From there you can see if an older gcc is available or worst case, pull that source and compile it from the version of gcc you have running from above. It looks like you'll be able to use homebrew to get at the version 4.3 from the versioned source already in the tool:

mac:~ me$ brew search gcc
gcc
homebrew/dupes/apple-gcc42       homebrew/versions/gcc44          homebrew/versions/gcc47          homebrew/versions/gcc5
homebrew/head-only/gccxml        homebrew/versions/gcc45          homebrew/versions/gcc48          homebrew/versions/llvm-gcc28
homebrew/versions/gcc43          homebrew/versions/gcc46          homebrew/versions/gcc49


Sadly, with MacOS Sierra, Karabiner has gone into a strange kind of hiatus-but-not-really-because-someday-we'll-fix-it.

Which is too bad, because Karabiner was the perfect tool for what I needed (which was make MacOS behave like a forty-year-old UNIX terminal because my stupid fingers still hit ^W to delete a word and I kill the window and I can't stop, no, don't help me, I'll die eventually and then my problem is fixed).

My other main tool is Typinator for abbreviations--w for with, h for the, n for and, etc; those really add up.

So far, I've found BetterTouchTool to be a viable replacement for Karabiner, even better in some ways. But worse in others; key repetition doesn't work for me despite the developer saying it does. (Possibly it interacts with Typinator, but turning the latter off doesn’t fix the problem.)

I've written a whole novel using these two tools (Typinator and BetterTouchTool), but I'd appreciate anyone chiming in if they've found something better still.


iPad initial setup join Wi-Fi by scanning QR code

It is not possible to access the built-in Camera app before the initial setup is complete.

As the iPads in question will be configured via DEP, the appropriate approach would be to provision for your device to join the desired Wi-Fi access point(s) automatically via your MDM solution. When done, the iPad will automatically connect to the said Wi-Fi network if it is available, even during the initial setup.


Can I install Snow Leopard over a network?

You say the MacBook is empty - does this not have any Mac OS on it?

To install from a USB or HDD you will need to open disk utility and from there select the restore option of the dvd with the hard drive or USB as destination, so if it does not have disc utility then no you can't, you will need to write a CD/DVD.


Problems with Parallels and backing up with Time Machine

Parallels have instructions here for making their software (version 6 or later) work better with Time Machine. You can either optimise your VMs for Time Machine backup, or disable backup for them.

  Parallels Desktop for Mac includes improved integration with Time Machine.
  When backing up the virtual machine, it will only backup the recent changes (the latest snapshot), but not the whole virtual hard drive.
  Thus, the backup process will take less time and use less space on your Time Machine storage device.

  To enable improved integration with Time Machine, please go to Virtual Machine Configuration, choose Options and hit Backup.

  Select "Optimize for Time Machine" in SmartGuard menu.

  If you do not want your virtual machine to be backed up by Time Machine, you need go to Virtual Machine Configuration --> Options --> Backup and put a checkmark on “Do not back up with Time Machine”.

In Parallels 7 the control panel looks like this:

Note that when you enable this feature, it will take up more space on the disk. Also, Auto Compress will be disabled.


Which low cost server device is compatible with iOS VPN on demand?

A Cisco box is not required, as there is the open source StrongSwan.

Only a device that is able to run Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, etcetera) is sufficient.

FreeBSD or MacOSX are not ok as those builds only support IKEv2 only, and the iOS built in client needs IKEv1.

Here is how to setup the iOS device for StrongSwan:
http://wiki.strongswan.org/projects/strongswan/wiki/IOS_%28Apple%29


iMac 5k internal SSD vs external SSD performance

Because the maximum throughput of any port on the iMac 5k Late 2015 is only 10Gbps (Thunderbolt 2), no external storage solution can match the internal SSD's speeds.

The short answer is that you would give up a lot of performance.
The internal SSD can transfer data at about a couple GB/s.
An external Samsung 850 Pro 512GB via a self-powered USB 3.0 docking station runs at about 400MB/s during CrystalDiskMark sequential transfer benchmark on an exFAT partition.

That said, for running macOS and applications, the difference between the internal SSD and an external SSD is much less noticeable than that between an SSD and a traditional HDD. Unless you are constantly moving large files on and off your drive, an external SSD won't feel much slower subjectively than the internal SSD.

You did not specify how much data you have or your budget, so I cannot give specific recommendations. But in general, I put macOS and applications on an internal SSD. I would figure out how many GBs macOS and all my applications would consume, and choose an SSD of appropriate size.

If you really value the drive being internal and need large capacity on a budget, consider the 2TB or 3TB Fusion Drive. They have a 128GB SSD built in and intelligently find and put the data you access the most frequently on the SSD portion. The 1TB Fusion Drive only has a 24GB SSD so is less attractive

Thunderbolt 2 enclosures doesn't make much sense

True, an SATA SSD could be bottlenecked by USB 3.0. But not significantly so. That is because SATA itself tops out at 6 Gbps (SATA3), not much more than USB 3.0's 5 Gbps.

For the same reason, even though Thunderbolt 2 eliminates the link bottleneck, the benefit would be small because now the bottleneck is on the SSD side, which is 6 Gbps.

There are PCIe NVMe SSDs (the internal SSD falls into this category), which are faster than SATA SSDs. But to use those externally you still have two problems:

Thunderbolt 2 tops out at 10Gbps, slower than what the internal SSD and other PCIe NVMe SSDs are capable of.
There are few (none?) Thunderbolt 2 to PCIe NVMe SSD enclosures. The StarTech product you linked to takes SATA drives.

All Thunderbolt 2 enclosures I have come across are ridiculously expensive, including the one you linked to, especially considering the limited performance gains. You would be much better off spending the money on upgrading the internal SSD.


Mac Mini - black pixels show up as purple

This sounds like a problem I once saw on a DVD player with a DVI output, where it was outputting YCbCr instead of RGB.  If there is a video format menu on either device, have a look there


how to remove ffmpeg ? and install again

Removal

If you installed with HomeBrew, the following Terminal.app command will perform the uninstall:

brew uninstall ffmpeg

If you are not sure how you installed ffmpeg, try running the command alone. The output will include a line containing the binary's location on your Mac:

ffmpeg

Look for output similar to:

ffmpeg version 1.2.4 Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Nov 21 2013 11:36:01 with Apple LLVM version 5.0 (clang-500.2.79) (based on LLVM 3.3svn)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/1.2.4 …

The key information in this extract is /usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/; this provides the location and that ffmpeg was installed as a HomeBrew Cellar.

If you do not see this output or it does not mention Cellar, please expand your question with the output you do see.

Alternative Installations

It is critical to know how you installed ffmpeg in order to know how to remove it. If may just be removing a folder, or it may be hunting around in /usr/local/ and /usr/bin folders for installed binaries.

Easy removal and upgrading is a strong argument for using a package manager for command line tools. Well supported package managers on the Mac include brew and MacPorts.

Re-installation

To install ffmpeg again, after removing the prior version, use brew to handle the entire process with:

brew install ffmpeg


How do I use my Airport express to connect an AV receiver that requires ethernet?

From the Apple Support Airport Express FAQ:

  Question: Since AirPort Express only has one Ethernet port, does it act as a LAN port, WAN port, or both?

  Answer: Depending on how you have it set up, the Ethernet port can function as a LAN port (defined as either simple bridging or sharing
  your Internet connection via network address translation) or a WAN
  port (connecting to your broadband Internet service provider or
  upstream router). However, it never acts as both simultaneously.
  By default the AirPort Express Ethernet port acts as a WAN port.
  When it is set up as a secondary extended Wi-Fi base station, it can act as a LAN port. Assuming that your Internet service provider only
  gives you one IP address (the most common scenario for homes), this
  means that AirPort Express can only accommodate wired clients when
  acting as an extender or bridge. Therefore, if you need to support
  wired clients and only want to get one base station (or router, as
  it's the routing capacity of AirPort Express that is relevant here),
  you should get the AirPort Extreme Base Station or Time Capsule instead.

According to an answer to a question on an Apple Store page:

  Yes, certainly. Connect Ethernet cable from the Express to your
  non-wireless computer which meets the above listed "System
  Requirements" and use AirPort Utility to direct the Express to "join"
  your wireless network from the list which will show on the popup
  presented to you. The Express will then function as a wireless adapter
  (receiving signals) for your computer, but in that configuration it
  will not extend the wireless network to other devices.

You can accomplish this task via the Airport Utility. In one Apple discussion forum discussion, a user (Bob Timmons) notes that:

  new AirPort Express 802.11n can be configured to "extend a wireless
  network". That is a much simpler setup with much higher performance
  than WDS can offer.

You'll need to use Apple's Airport Utility to set up your Airport Express. Two approaches that you can take are WDS or Extended wireless network, as noted in this Apple Support KB.


What is the keystroke code for space bar in applescript?

Your sample code works properly on my machine (running OS X 10.11.6).

If keystroke space does not work on your machine, try the following:

tell application "System Events"
  key code 49 -- space bar
end tell

Here is a list of key codes for your reference:

Source:

Complete list of AppleScript key codes


First, you are not able to use brew service to start the two different mongodb. Cause the LaunchAgent .plist files have the same name. The former enable one will be overwritten by the latter one. Find the corresponding .plist service file, copy it to ~/Library/LaunchAgents as a different name.

Secondly, the service .plist must be modified to use a different conf for mongodb. It's impossible to make two daemons listen on the same port.


What is wrong when an iPhone ends all calls in failure, texts fail yet the data works?

The phone was replaced free of charge with no clear explanation of what was wrong. The replacement, however, would indicate that it was not a software/firmware issue.


Does macOS 10.15 Catalina no longer support aptX?

I was testing the theory today with a codec name error.

Indeed, aptX remained 100 %. Very similar to
Bug with the name. I hope they correct in the future. Checked in Bluetooth Explorer. Ran using the check box in the SBC codec menu and aptX to check bitrate in one case or another.

It turned out when put in priority aptX the bitrate was exclusively 384 kb/s and it was not possible to change it by any software, which is possible only with this code. Then banned aptX and it turned out bitrate which is possible only in SBC 327 kb/s.

Plus it was possible to change bitpool, which immediately led to the fall of bitrate and sound quality.


What is this blue arrow and how do I get rid of it?

The floating arrow can appear whilst using the Help menu to point out menu items in Finder, and in other apps. The example below is from Finder, but I tried this in Pages and Keynote and the function/appearance is the same.

In this screenshot, the arrow is white, not blue. The arrow is animated and moves around a bit to give a visual hint it is active. Does the blue arrow move around a little when it is visible?

I searched for the single letter 'k' at random, and it found three menu items with 'k' in the title. I chose 'Sort By > Kind' and it opened the View menu and popped up the arrow to point at the Kind menu item.

Looking at Activity Monitor when the arrow appears shows that the WindowServer process CPU% increases, and decreases when the arrow disappears.

As to why this is happening to you, I have no idea, but at least this may be a clue to find out what is happening.

(My 2019 MBA is running Mojave 10.14.6)


The issue is that Oracle is being confusing abut the JRE.

The OSX JRE, which is what you downloaded, does not update /usr/bin/java it just installs itself to /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/

You can either use the path to the java binary beneath that or instead install the JDK from this page which does update /usr/bin/java

@RichTrouton's answer might be correct on what Chrome uses i.e. a 32 bit JRE but this answer explained /usr/bin/java issues. Note that the simple Oracle JRE does not update /usr/bin/java and I think Apple's later installs do not touch this either. Your browser does not use /usr/bin/java but directly looks in /System or /Library


Mail crashes when I open a specific message

Try this, it helped to me, but mail didn't crashed when I was only scrolling through.

Mail unexpectedly quits when viewing certain messages

Learn how to troubleshoot if Mail unexpectedly quits when viewing a certain message or messages.

This can happen if the mail message is malformed or damaged in some way. In certain situations, Mail may unexpectedly quit when attempting to display the message.

If you select such a message, Mail may quit each time you open the application.

Use the steps below to open Mail without rendering any messages that are currently selected:

Open Mail and immediately hold the Shift key until Mail completely launches. This will cause Mail to launch without any Mail message or mailbox selected.
Follow the steps below to delete the problematic message:
Carefully drag the Message Viewer window pane until only the list of messages appears (or, double-click the pane). This will prevent any Mail message's content from being shown unless you double-click the message.
Click the problematic Mail message one time, then delete it (press the Delete key on your keyboard, or choose Message > Move to > Trash).


I'm assuming you're talking of the camera status indicator LED. If it turns on for a svery short time, it means that some program tried to access the camera. From your description this is likely Skype.

As far as I remember there was a problem similar to this in an earlier version of Skype where it repeatedly tried to initialize the camera. Update your Skype to ensure this is not the case.

If that doesn't help, then check the camera settings in Skype. For example try not selecting your built-in camera as a video source in Skype at all. If that cures the flashing light, you know that the cause is Skype.


The songs will not transfer for the same reason iTunes displays the "!": iTunes probably can't find the file. In the Finder (or Explorer, if you're on Windows), see if the files are where they're supposed to be. (One easy way to do this would be to right-click on the file that works and choose "Show in Finder" or "Show in Explorer" and see if the other files are anywhere near that one.)


Change LG UltraFine resolution through AppleScript

Thanks to @wch1zpink and the suggestion to use the Watch Me Do option in Automator, here is a script that finally seems to do the job:

-- Portions of the script found on https://gist.github.com/mvaneijgen/2f48f859ca07d2e75b3a
-- Launch "System Preferences", open the "Displays" options and change to the "Display" tab
(* If error "System Events got an error: Script Editor is not allowed assistive access" appears, then System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy → add Script Editor to "Allow the app to control your computer"*)
(* as per: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31019916/is-not-allowed-for-assistive-access-error-when-running-applescript-from-java) *)

tell application "System Preferences"
    reveal anchor "displaysDisplayTab" of pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
end tell

-- Now lets make the necessary changes
tell application "System Events"
    tell tab group 1 of window "LG UltraFine" of application process "System Preferences" of application "System Events"
        tell radio group 1

            if (value of radio button "Scaled") = 0 then -- Check if Scaled radio button is not selected
                click radio button "Scaled" -- Click the "Scaled" radio button

                -- and click on the icon above "Larger Text" (which is in fact a radio button)
                tell application "System Events"
                    tell tab group 1 of window "LG UltraFine" of application process "System Preferences" of application "System Events"
                        tell radio group 1 of group 2
                            click radio button 1
                        end tell
                    end tell
                end tell

                else -- Scaled radio button is already selected
                    click radio button "Default for display" -- therefore click on "Default for display"
            end if
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


Microphone really REALLY soft after upgrade to 10.15.4

First, perform a SMC reset by following the instructions for your Mac.  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

As commenters have noted, a Safe Boot is also a useful step.  Hold down the Shift key immediately after hearing the startup chimes; you'll notice that login will take longer than normal, and you may see 'Safe Boot' in red letters at the upper right of the login window.  Test the hardware meter again by opening System Preferences > Sound (or press Option and one of the function keys assigned to a Volume control).


Apple's Numbers is designed in a fundamentally different way than Microsoft's Excel or other spreadsheet solutions.  Numbers uses "Canvases" instead of large tables of thousands of columns and rows.  This allows for placing tables, even those made up of a single cell, anywhere on the canvas needed.  Instead of merging cells and hiding borders, (which of course can be done with Numbers) Numbers allows more freedom to create a document designed for printing.  For example, placing text, charts or even graphics anywhere on the canvas that seems logical.  Setting the print range in Excel only allows for a continuous subset of cells.  Also, the ability to have several tables on a single canvas allows for more creative use of the space.  (See this Apple Support article on printing with Numbers.)
One can still use a very large data set in a large table as well.  However, this concept of making spreadsheets on canvases can open up many opportunities for print layouts.  The OP does not state how their spreadsheet is laid out, but it appears from the brief description that is styled in a traditional manner, which is perfectly acceptable, but this limits how it can be presented for printing.
One method I use, particularly with printing off invoice or expense type sheets, is to keep the working data on a separate sheet from my print sheet.  Using formulas, such as one would use in Excel, data can be easily and automatically
displayed in a printable format.
Below is a very simple example.  The Data sheet contains the data not for printing.  The [Print] sheet contains two simple tables with a colored rectangle object in the background.  Changing data in the Data sheet changes the totals in the Print sheet accordingly.  In the case of a traditional spreadsheet, a subset of the table could be displayed in the print sheet, each cell with a reference to the corresponding data sheet cells desired to be printed.  This table could then be formatted for printing by adjusting fonts, size and scaling as noted in the Apple Numbers Help link above.

Data Sheet [Non print]

Print Sheet

Print Sheet - Print view


External monitor not working when in closed clamshell mode

I had the same problem:
Changed refresh rate to 144 Hz while in clamshell mode --> Blackscreen.
But everything worked fine when I opened the Laptop. The problem is that the settings can only be changed back if in clamshell mode because they are stored separately. But how to change them back if the screen is black?
Solution: Team Viewer.
Connect your laptop to the monitor. Get an iPad or second PC and connect via team Viewer. Close Laptop. Now you should be able to see the settings for clamshell mode. Just change them back and everything works fine again.


Can't acces or find BOOTCAMP drive in mac El Capitan

I know this is an old thread, but I had this issue too...

It turns out, the disk was in hibernation mode, and Paragon may have been responsible.  In the System Preferences pane, go to Paragon NTFS, Volumes Tab, and check the box (Bottom left) that reads : "Disable Paragon NTFS for Mac".  This is what worked for me.

Also, on startup you may get a Paragon notification that says the disk is in hibernation.  Click on that notification before it disappears and another dialogue box will come up that lets you force a mounting of the disk.  This warns you that you will loose temp info from hibernation mode (which is not a big deal).  This is another way to potentially fix it.


When do you replace an iphone 5s battery

Your answer can be found here: Battery Service and Recycling.

iPhone Owners
Your battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles.
The one-year warranty includes service coverage for a defective battery. If it is out of warranty, Apple offers a battery service for $79, plus $6.95 shipping, subject to local tax.

My personal experience is that replacing the battery at about 700-800 cycles is a must. But obviously it depends on how the phone is used.
And yea, I'd say the cycle count is kinda irrelevant. Cycle count gives you a good idea of what state it is in... But when you are the one who uses the device, you should know when you've had enough.
I've always used those 3rd party phone repair shops, where the battery replacements tend to be relatively cheap.


Why am I getting a "dubious ownership of file" error when Launch Agent runs my .plist file?

If a plist is owned by root and writable by a user other than root, that's a security issue.

You can change the owner to root with sudo chown root <filename>, and change the permissions with sudo chmod 644 <filename> (4 for read access, 2 for write access, 1 for execute access, added up. The first number is for the owner, the second for the group, the third for everyone.)


Display S.M.A.R.T. statistics for an SSD?

Getting  the SMART status is possible with these disks but not if they are attached to USB. The necessary ATA commands usually aren't propagated through the USB-controller.

You can try to get that working though by using OS X SAT SMART Driver.


Why did iMessage stop working after upgrading to iOS 8.2?

I guess the message is for security purposes(citation?) and for some reason it turned my iMessage off. Turning it back on fixed all my issues.


VMware Fusion - Professional Version 8.5.10

VMware Fusion 8.x is not supported on macOS 10.13.x High Sierra, he needs version 10.x or newer (no v9.x exists, because this release was called 8.5.x - and was a free upgrade).

You can have a look here: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2088571

It could very well be that High Sierra became more strict about how an app should be built (no mix between 32-bit and 64-bit ??) - but still pure 32-bit would be okay, and of course pure 64-bit would also work. But it is only my guess.


Automator Service that opens URL from rich text

You can use the Automator action Extract URLs from Text.


MacBook Pro doesn't detect external display after Lion upgrade

This is from my own experience, I have macbook pro with lion and a dell monitor, I connect via mini displayport to VGA connector, if I connect displayport first to my macbook and then monitor's vga to displayport to VGA, it won't work, I don't know why but maybe some internal implementation detail, just go in this order

switch on both devices
connect monitor's VGA cable to your mini displayport cable,
connect mini mini displayport  to you macbook.
wait for a few seconds, it works every time.


macOS equivalent of the "where" command used in a Windows Command Prompt

The which command prints the most precedent application on the PATH whereas where prints all matching applications on the path.

The difference manifests when you have side by side instances of an application installed and all set on the path. Strictly speaking which by itself returns the instance resolved first on the path left to right, where returns ALL found instances on the path resolved left to right. If you want to see what I'm talking about, on a Windows 7 or above system type:

where notepad you may see two paths returned

C:\>where notepad
C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe
C:\Windows\notepad.exe

The real equivalence is

which -a someApp === where someApp


This command is for comparing values, checking file types etc.

Here's a man page:

NAME
 test, [ -- condition evaluation utility

SYNOPSIS
 test expression
 [ expression ]

It's usually used like this:

if [ -f /etc/passwd ]
then
   echo "Yes"
else
   echo "No"
fi

For more info, please read the man page ( man [ ).


How to Show Apple Wallet without Apple Pay — Boarding Passes Only (iOS 10)

For devices supporting Apple Pay, the feature cannot be disabled and is shown at the top of the Wallet app. There is no option to hide the feature or disable it using Restrictions.

Double-clicking the home button only works if there is a card in Apple Pay, upon which the default Apple Pay card is shown and other Wallet cards/passes can be presented. Unfortunately without any Apple Pay card this feature is unavailable.