softwareupdate shows 2 updates for Command Line Tools - get rid of one entry

I found one way to get rid of the duplicate by executing: softwareupdate -i "Command Line Tools for Xcode-12.0".
Now beta 5 is gone as well.

But how to get rid of entries I do not want there? "System settings" were nudging me once a day to install the beta.


DVD mounted but not accessible from Finder

Indeed - it turned out the ampersand was causing the issue. The same DVD without the apostrophe in the DVD label works just fine.


What to do with outdated hardware in terms of Meltdown and Spectre

Depends on what your definition of safe is.

If you want to have a guarantee that your computer will not be compromised through the Meltdown/Spectre techniques - no, it is not safe.

If you want to be reasonably sure that the risk of your computer being compromised through the Meltdown/Spectre techniques in the short term is low, then yes it is safe.

Please be advised that even if you do no install new third party programs, you will still be vulnerable through Javascript, Flash and similar on web pages, and through programs that feature auto-updating systems that could potentially download malicious software.

As far as know right know, there is a significant difference between the safety of iOS devices (iPhone/iPad/AppleTV (not first gen)) and Intel Macs. This is due to the fact that the Intel CPUs in the Mac is more susceptible to Meltdown/Spectre than the ARM CPUs in the iOS devices. I.e. more variants of exploits are successful on Intel than on ARM at the moment (considering that you the device is outdated and will not receive any software or firmware updates to mitigate these attacks).


How to test and debug website on older version of Safari

Very easy.

Get a copy of Parallels or VMware Fusion. Set up a virtual machine and install Mavericks on it. You will then have all the benefits of running Safari 7 in the original environment without having to dust the hardware.

I have Fusion, and virtual machines back to 10.5 Leopard. Also have Windows back to W98, and DOS 6 just for Duke Nukem in all it's 8-bit glory. modern.ie has free downloads of ready-to-go virtual machines for all versions of MSIE.

Other things you should have:

lots of disk space. Like > 250GB
lots of memory. VMs don't share memory, they need their own. I have 24GB.
a big monitor, or a second monitor.


How can I run command line software with Rosetta 1?

Provided you're on a system where Rosetta v1 is available (up to and including Mac OS X 10.6), you can direct the system to execute the ppc segment of a universal binary using the arch command.
/usr/bin/arch -arch ppc /path/to/some/executable

I've found it useful to keep a virtual machine in Parallels Desktop running OS X Server 10.6 with Xcode and other developer tools installed for this scenario, of compiling older software for obsolete PowerPC Mac systems.


Is it possible to run os x 10.8 on a modern mac?

Dual booting is likely out, the older OS won't have the drivers for newer hardware.  What you could do is run the older OS in a virtual machine.  There's VMWare Fusion, Parallels, VirtualBox, and maybe more I'm missing.
I run virtual machines routinely and don't experience performance issues so long as there is enough RAM.  As I plan to run virtual machines I buy computers with plenty of RAM from the start.  After that the performance is limited like it was installed "on the metal".  There's some quirks with virtual machines that may or may not be problematic and they generally have workarounds.  One issue that comes up is the guest OS is effectively behind a NAT internet sharing from the host, if this is a problem then it can be rectified with a USB network adapter.


caffeinate launches executables. However, shell functions exist only within the shell. Shell functions are not executables.

Workaround: call bash directly

This works best for one-liners and simple commands.

caffeinate bash -c 'sleep 2'

Multi-liners work too:

caffeinate bash <<EOF
  sleep 2
  echo "done :D"
EOF

You can use functions:

caffeinate bash <<EOF
  function mysleep {
    sleep 2
  }
  mysleep
EOF

Workaround: call a script instead of a function

Instead of doing your work inside a function, split it out into a separate script:

caffeinate mysleep.sh

#!/bin/bash
# mysleep.sh
sleep 2


Lost search function iPhone after upgrading to 4.3

Searching SMS messages was disabled due to battery life and performance concerns for the 3G, you can see this in the iPhone: Which iOS 4 software features does my iPhone support? article on apple.com

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4204

  iPhone 3G does not support Spotlight search for SMS/MMS messages.


Mac keyboard shortcut to press the replace button

You can press Tab to move the focus from Stop to Replace, then Space to select the focused element.


Where are OS-level crash reports stored?

They live in /Library/Logs/CrashReporter.


Just got a MacBook Pro, the calender appointments do not transfer to my iPhone 5 calendar

On both devices make sure that under iCloud settings Calendars is on. This will ensure that both calendars are syncing with iCloud simultaneously.


Ask your friend to recover the password via https://iforgot.apple.com/ and then to follow the steps documented in What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.


Mail.app does not fetch mail regularly with Exchange accounts on Lion

This is a problem with Mail.app on OSX Lion which affects Exchange accounts only when Mail rules are enabled. All other IMAP/POP accounts work fine with rules. The "fix" I received from my sysadmin was to disable Mail rules — a bit harsh, but in the end I ended up implementing the same set of rules (mostly moving to different mailboxes) server side.

Digging further into this led me to this thread, and it seems the issue, while observed among Exchange users, has also affected others. Some of the suggestions there that worked were (not counting highly specific ones):

Delete all rules that were formerly in Snow Leopard and recreate them from scratch in Lion.
Use MailActOn, a paid app that costs US$25 to set up your rules. Several users commented positively on its usefulness.

One thing in common with nearly all the complaints there (and mine) are that the rules involve moving messages to different mailboxes. Simpler ones like highlighting messages still work (for me too). So until this is fixed by Apple, I'd recommend implementing rules that involve moving mails on the server side or using the app above.


iPhone SE on iOS 9 - Possible to restore messages from an iOS 10 backup?

No, the database used has changed between iOS 9 and 10, and as such you can't copy the messages database over, since iOS 9 will detect an error with the database and start fresh.


The best way to do a factory reset of a Mac is basically to wipe the hard drive and reinstall from scratch. You can boot off the installation DVD (insert the DVD, reboot and hold down the ALT key to get the boot selection menu), then once you see the first page of the install wizard choose Disk Utility from the menubar to wipe the drive. Then you can continue the install to get a fresh copy of Snow Leopard. Once that is complete you'll be able to freely update to El Capitan from the Mac App Store.

Unfortunately it looks like you won't be able to upgrade to Sierra. The earliest MacBook Pro supported by Sierra is the Mid 2010 model. https://www.apple.com/macos/how-to-upgrade/#hardware-requirements

However if this MacBook hasn't been used since reconditioning, then perhaps just creating a new account for yourself and deleting their account would be enough. Just select System Preferences from the Apple menu, and click on "Accounts". You'll be able to create a new account there (make sure to tick the "Allow user to administer this computer" box), and then once you've logged into your new account you can use the same Accounts pane to delete their account.


How to turn off the screen without sleep on a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar?

There are two methods I will explain.
1. Use the 'Lock display' touch bar shortcut
In System Preferences -> Keyboard settings, click 'Customise Touch Bar'. There is a shortcut 'Screen Lock' which you can use to lock the display, as well as 'Sleep' and 'Screen Saver' shortcuts which have their own respective functions.
2. Leave computer open, but screen turned off
If you need to turn off the display, without actually sending the computer to sleep, simply turn the brightness down to the minimum.On an MacBook Pro (Touch Bar) leave brightness at lowest (with slider as left as it can go)
If you're comfortable with the terminal, try $ caffeinate -dimsu -p <process-id> for leaving a long process running without sleeping computer, where <process-id> is the PID for the process (you can look this up in Activity Monitor)


It turns out that even an admin user needs to use sudo to edit the sudoers file at /private/etc/sudoers so the following did the trick to open the file for edit:

$ sudo visudo /private/etc/sudoers

As usual, a user can be added to the list of sudoers by adding a line such as this:

username ALL=(ALL) ALL


MacBook Air 2015; Login and recovery mode failed

Can you provide screenshots/videos of the console text during verbose boot?
Do you have a second computer and a USB or Thunderbolt cable that you can use for booting your MacBook into Target Disk Mode (hold T during boot) to run Disk Utility on the hard drive?
(Unlikely to help but might be worth a shot if convenient.) Do you have an external display that you can attach to the MacBook and try booting while in clamshell mode? (Attach the display with the computer off, press the power key, and close the lid.) Trying to wiggle a GPU-related variable here, given your IGPU timeout messages.

Ultimately you may need a reinstall of macOS but let’s try to debug incrementally. The fact that single user mode works is a very important clue.
UPDATE 1:
With the additional data,
I can’t tell immediately from your boot logs what the root cause is, but it’s clear that your IGPU driver is unhappy. Single user mode works because it doesn’t require switching to accelerated graphics (but, then, neither should Safe Mode).
It may be interesting to capture logs from the point after you enter single user mode and then type exit. Make sure you’re entering verbose mode first (i.e., hold CommandV upon reboot and then immediately switch to CommandS once you see console text). I suspect we’ll stall at IGPU timeouts again.
Beyond this point, you can try two paths.

We can wait until you get a second computer available for Target Disk Mode and try to debug this incrementally.
We can try Internet Recovery and try either a newer or older OS via OptionCommandR or ShiftOptionCommandR, respectively. (How to Install macOS via Recovery Mode)

I would personally give #2 a try right now.
UPDATE 2:
It’s unusual for Recovery mode to fail to transition to graphics mode while single user mode works fine. The new logs didn’t reveal a root cause to me either, other than reconfirming that we aren’t able to enable accelerated graphics in the GPU and thus enter graphics mode.

I’m always reluctant to suspect a hardware failure until we’ve ruled out software issues, which are far more common, but I would encourage you to run Apple Diagnostics if you haven’t already: Hold D during boot.
If diags passes, use Target Disk Mode to run Disk Utility on your SSD through your second computer.
If the scan completes successfully and finds no corruption, I would take this opportunity to make a full backup of your drive, as it’s looking increasingly likely that you’ll need to do an erase-install as a workaround in lieu of root-causing this yourself.


I've found how you do it.

With Xcode installed, open your terminal and run:

open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPod.plist

This will open the property list editor.

Navigate down to Root -> Devices and look under each device to recognise the one you're looking for. There are 2 identifying factors: DeviceClass (which can be iPod, iPhone or iPad) and Firmware Version String. Through those two I was able to get the serial number I needed.


Where does the OS X routing table come from?

In OS X, the routing table is mostly managed by configd, based on the network settings in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/* and the live status of the network interfaces (e.g. is there something plugged into the ethernet jack at the moment?).

The network settings can be examined by looking in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist, but the format is very hard to understand; I recommend using the Network Preference pane, or the networksetup command to view & change settings.

The routing setup itself is pretty simple: each configured interface gets a route to its local subnet, and for destinations not on any of the local subnets, a default route is set based on the "Router" setting for the highest-priority "live" interface (see the order of the interfaces in Network prefs, or use networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder and then look for the first "live" interface on that list).

Starting in 10.6, things got a little more complicated, because Apple added source-based default routes for the defined routers of all interfaces. Essentially, this means that if traffic from a particular IP address comes in on an unexpected interface, it'll be replied to through the router defined on that interface.


How will Apple's switch to ARM (Apple Silicon) affect compatibility with Linux / Unix tools and APIs?

The betas of Big Sur (on Intel, at least) have the all the same Unix underpinnings and other components as before. (Even python 2.7, which was widely expected to be removed!)
You would hear a lot of noise it if Apple ditched its 'certified Unix™' status.
Xcode isn't going anywhere either, so you can compile any Unix code you've got source for.
As for X11, that hasn't been updated for years, so will have to run in emulation until someone recompiles it (hopefully fixing the Retina display issues while they're at it).
There may be teething problems, particularly in the early days. But I'd say that recompiled code is likely to have fewer problems than Rosetta emulated stuff.


I remember your other questions, so will try and help you get to the bottom of this. You need to understand though, that troubleshooting is a process of elimination and, as a result, can take some time.

Before we start, I am going to ignore that you had a virus a few weeks ago, because that could be confusing things. In other words, we need to start afresh because the virus and this issue may be totally unrelated.

I can see from the various images you posted that you do have plenty of free hard drive space, so that's one possible cause we can eliminate. So, one by one, let's try and resolve this.

1. Let's start your computer in Safe Mode

Our first test will be to see what happens when you start your iMac in Safe Mode. Doing this forces your iMac to perform some tests and also prevents some software from automatically loading or opening.

Follow these steps:

Shutdown your iMac
As soon as you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Shift key
Once you see the Apple logo, let go of the Shift key

Don't be concerned if your iMac takes longer to boot up (remember it's performing some tests). After it's booted, use it for a while. Do this for long enough for you to be satisfied that the problem still persists (or not). Once you're done, restart the computer normally to exit Safe Mode.

Note: While in Safe mode you won't be able to do everything you normally can, and your macOS environment may appear/work differently. Do not worry about this.

When ready, report back on how you went.

2. Create and log in to a new user account

Our next test is to create a totally new user account and check whether logging in to this has any impact on performance. In case you don't know how to do this, follow these steps:

Go to Apple Menu > System Preferences
Select Users and Groups
Click on the + sign at bottom left to add a new user (you may need to unlock the padlock below that to make changes)
Set your user options and ensure that automatic login is off
Exit System Preferences

Now restart your computer and log in to the newly created user account. Once logged in, do not install any new software etc. Instead, just use the computer for a while to determine if it is still slow.

When ready, report back on how you went.

3. Install macOS Sierra on an external drive

Our next test is to take advantage of your external hard drive to try and determine whether we have an issue between macOS Sierra and your computer. If not, it may indicate either a problem with your internal hard drive or 3rd party software.

Use this process:

Do a full installation of macOS Sierra on the external hard drive but do not install any 3rd party software.
Restart your Mac.
Immediately press and hold the Option key.
The Startup Manager will appear and shouldn't take too long to list your internal hard drive and the external drive.
Use your mouse or the left/right arrow keys to select the external hard drive you just installed macOS Sierra on
Double-click or press the Return key to start your iMac from the external hard drive

Now use your iMac from the external drive for a while doing a few things to get a sense of how well it's responding. Please only use default Apple apps (such as Safari etc) for now.

When ready, report back on how you went.


Which iPad/OS X apps can be used to create music for a game?

Apple's very own GarageBand is a good choice.


MacBook Air forgetting display arrangement

Deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist as well as all files in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost which began with com.apple.windowserver seems to have fixed the issue.


To troubleshoot this, you could use System Information to inspect the USB tree on all ports and see if you can see the connected hubs.

That might make it easier to diagnose what part of the chain is dropping.

Additionally, the console app can let you search for error messages around the time when the devices go missing. Searching for USB and other disk related messages might turn up some idea if it's an overpower condition where the hardware is shutting down the ports as a preventative measure or due to sustained errors on the USB bus.


Is there an SVG version of the Finder icon from macOS Big Sur?

I decided to just trace over the macOS Big Sur Finder icon in Inkscape, and it turned out pretty great.
It's simplified compared to the PNG that Apple provides, there's no shadows around the icon and no shading on the eyes and mouth, but that might not be noticeable anyway at small scales. I compressed the SVG file using the svgcleaner tool, it's 1,729 bytes.


How to create a password protected ad-hoc network on Yosemite

You can create a password-protected ad-hoc network by sharing your internet connection. To do so:

Go to Apple Menu -> System Preferences
Go to Sharing preference pane
Select "Internet Sharing"
Choose the source port
Set your connection to be broadcast over WiFi
Click on WiFi options and set a network name and security

While this is a little more involved than just creating the ad-hoc, it will serve the same purpose as well as having the benefit of sharing your connection. At this time, there is no way to add security to an ad-hoc only network on Yosemite.

Source


From Apple's netbiosd man page:

  netbiosd is responsible for interacting with NetBIOS networks.  netbiosd registers and defends one or more NetBIOS name, depending on the set of configured services. It also browses and scavenges names from the NetBIOS network, making them available to the system through mDNSResponder.

Simply put, no, netbiosd is a perfectly safe daemon included in OS X by Apple.


You have to format the SSD without using it as your primary disk.

If you're able to run Mac with the old disk, connect the SSD via external enclosure and format it (or make a clone of the running HDD).
After this swap the disks, boot form installer and install OS on SSD.


Update:

There are two ways to reset a USB:

Hardware (see below).  This acts like plugging and unplugging a device. Great for when testing a single device that needs to be reset.
Software (How to restart USB subsystem?).  This will completely reset the USB bus.  Great for when the USB subsystem is hung up.

I saw a similar scenario solved by putting a momentary switch in-line with the USB +5V line on the USB cable (usually the red connector).  When the engineer wanted to reset the device (simulate removing then reinserting the device), he would depress (held it for a second or two) the switch cutting power to the USB device.  When the released it, power would be restored re-powering the device and the computer would reload it.

The advantage this had over doing something on Terminal was that it affected only the device in question and not all devices on the entire USB bus.

Doing a quick search, I was able to find pre-made switches that accomplish this for less than $10 USD

For a less "cludgy" solution, you could get a USB hub with individual power switches like the Sabrent 4 Port.


Crashplan headless suppport: .ui_info resets every time I reboot

I'm having the same issue. After googling for a while I found what Code42 (CrashPlan's developers) state in their instructions for running CrashPlan on a headless computer:

Changes Can Be Reset
The changes made in this step are reset when the CrashPlan service on the local computer restarts. To avoid overwriting your changes, leave the CrashPlan service running on your local computer.


Does an ipad (iOS) need to be restarted occasionally?

I tend to try and restart my iPhone/iPad every few weeks or once a month. I've found it to be a good best practice. If nothing else it just gives you a clean slate to begin on again! I hope this helps you out!


It could very well be a broken logic board.  But try to do the following and see if it fixes it :

Reset System Management Controller as per these instructions

Reset PVRAM as per these instructions

Doing these two resets generally fixes most hardware based issues on Macs.  You can also eliminate that its your monitor by trying to see if you can replicate this problem on other screens.

But I would trust the advice you've been given by Apple on this one.


How to detect external VGA display on retina MBP running Sierra?

Resetting MBP with display plugged in will detect it, they had the same issue with El Capitan as well. Hopefully Apple will fix this bug.


Changing file permissions on 10.6.8 after restore

If you are not comfortable with chmod commands, (as an administrator user) right click on the folder with the incorrect permission and choose "Properties". Then under "Sharing and Permissions" click on the Settings wheel button and select "Choose new owner..." and enter the new owner's name (you may need to "Apply to enclosed items..." too)


How can I update my iPhone 3gs to ios6 so my nephew can use it as an iPod?

I had a 3GS on iOS 6 for a whole year, until I went to a 5S & iOS 7 when that was released.

It was a bit slow & clunky compared to a newer device, but it worked just fine for what I needed. My main usage was as an e-reader & iPod, plus some mail & web.

One thing I did find was that after reducing the total memory used on the device [in my case by removing about 3GB of songs from it] to about 10GB total used on a 16GB phone, it appeared to run noticeably faster than when it was near full.

Depending on how you are going to set up your nephew's phone, it's probably best to do this on his computer, setting it up as a new device under his own Apple ID [this will, of course, wipe all data from it. All apps etc would need to be re-purchased under that account] - otherwise he'll need your ID & password & also it's likely you'll be sharing the same diary & contacts etc... not really what you'd want, I presume.
You might want to see if Family Sharing would be a useful option - individual accounts, shared apps & songs, one credit card, parental controls.

Once set up as a new device, it may do the update automatically, as part of the setup process - if not...

You can source the updater file from http://ipswdownloader.com just by dialling in the required iPhone [get the latest available for that device, ie 6.1.6 as Apple will not sign anything older than the latest the device can run].

Launch iTunes, with the device connected
Hold the alt/option key whilst clicking "Check for Update". This will bring up a file-picker where you can navigate to the ipsw file & start the update process.


Automator: combine images as PDF with useful file name

But I would like the name of the PDF to be based on the name of the first (or any) of the images.

Note that the following was tested and works for me as shown, under macOS Catalina, to have the created PDF document named for the name of the first file in the sorted files list.
With the Automator Quick Action set to Workflow receives current [folders] in [Finder], the following actions achieve the goal.

Get Folder Contents

[] Repeat for each subfolder found

Sort Finder Items

by [name] in [ascending] order

Set Value of Variable

Variable: sortedFiles

Run AppleScript
  on run {input, parameters}
      tell application "Finder" to ¬
          return displayed name of ¬
              first item of input
  end run

Set Value of Variable

Variable: fileName

Get Value of Variable

Variable: sortedFiles
Options
[√] Ignore this action's input

New PDF from Images

Save output to: [2020_Projects]
Output File Name: New PDF from Images Output

Rename Finder Items: Name Single File

[Name Single Item]
Name: [Basename only] to [fileName]

Note: Drag and drop the fileName variable to the to field.

Reveal Finder Items


How can I show the login window after a period of inactivity?

One solution could then be this one...

Download this ScriptSaver (ScreenSaver): http://swannman.wordpress.com/projects/scriptsaver/ - which can run AppleScripts.

Then write an AppleScript script with this content:

tell application "Finder"
    do shell script "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend > /dev/null"
end tell

Setup a ScreenSaver in "Desktop & Screen Saver", and configure this with the ScriptSaver, which you then setup with the AppleScript script from above.

After min. 3 minutes the current user session will be switched to the Fast User Switching window.


To get started, you need at least to re-install the OS. Boot into the recovery system by pressing Cmd-R on system startup and the proceed with installing the OS. This will (unless something goes very wrong) not impact your existing data

After that, you will at least have a system which boots again. What still needs to be done (and which may turn out to be a rather cumbersome process) is to fix permissions for all non-standard applications and their support/library files. Again, just reinstalling these applications might be the easiest way.


The first thing is to check that your iTunes is new enough for the subscription service. You didn’t mention how old your OS is so if you need help figure I get that out, Apple offers presales support via phone and web chat.

I believe iTunes 10.5 is required, so try to update your Mac OS and then iTunes as far as you can to current.

Next, if you’re sure your iTunes is ok, it’s likely a payment or date/time error. Again, without some specific details we might struggle to help you out further.


Multi-Monitor Mac -- Possible to keep one screen static in Mission Control?

Unfortunately I'm not aware of anything that can do what you're looking for. Mission Control is fairly limited in the ways in which you can customize it, either through the user interface or for developers. Similarly, OS X is pretty constrained in how you can configure multiple monitors (sadly, it's actually regressed a bit in this regard since 10.6).

You can set an app to appear in all spaces by right clicking its Dock icon, and selecting Assign To: All Desktops under the Options sub-menu. However this applies to all windows for that app, regardless of what monitor they're on. But if you keep all your iChat/Messages windows on your second display, it may be useful.


Does MacOS on M1 prioritise arm binaries later on path?

This was just zsh caching at play.
You need to run rehash after you change $PATH which rebuilds zsh cache and then executables are found as expected.
See Section 3.1 of the Z shell guide http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Guide/zshguide03.html

There is a subtlety here. The shell tries to remember where the commands are, so it can find them again the next time. It keeps them in a so-called hash table', and you find the word hash' all over the place in the documentation: all it means is a fast way of finding some value, given a particular key. In this case, given the name of a command, the shell can find the path to it quickly. You can see this table, in the form key=value', by typing hash'.
In fact the shell only does this when the option HASH_CMDS is set, as it is by default. As you might expect, it stops searching when it finds the directory with the command it's looking for. There is an extra optimisation in the option HASH_ALL, also set by default: when the shell scans a directory to find a command, it will add all the other commands in that directory to the hash table. This is sensible because on most UNIX-like operating systems reading a whole lot of files in the same directory is quite fast.
The way commands are stored has other consequences. In particular, zsh won't look for a new command if it already knows where to find one. If I put a new ls command in /usr/local/bin in the above example, zsh would continue to use /bin/ls (assuming it had already been found). To fix this, there is the command rehash, which actually empties the command hash table, so that finding commands starts again from scratch. Users of csh may remember having to type rehash quite a lot with new commands: it's not so bad in zsh, because if no command was already hashed, or the existing one disappeared, zsh will automatically scan the path again; furthermore, zsh performs a rehash of its own accord if $path is altered. So adding a new duplicate command somewhere towards the head of $path is the main reason for needing rehash.


Are there informed speculations about what is the next Mac that is going to be upgraded?

MacRumors Buyer's Guide seems to provide the best predictions for updates. They use the average timescale for updates to provide a guess as to whether an update will come soon. They also include prominent rumours towards updates.


Search across networked drives that are only sometimes connected

EasyFind is the answer.

Does a search without indexing anything, in real time. Slower than Spotlight, but comforting to us Windows folks, who like to see exactly what the thing's doing. (And in practice it's actually very fast when searching for a filename.)


Screen turns off when I move my MacBook when it is on the sleeve

It's because the sleeve has a "Magnetic snap closure with no zippers" which actually mimics the magnetic latch that's triggered while the lid of the MacBook is closed which turns off the screen.

I've noticed this happen to me a few times in different situations when I would put my iPhone on the hand rest part of the MacBook or If i left my Adonit Jot Pro(which has a magnet to attach itself to the iPad) stylus very close to my MacBook.

You can try to reproduce the effect by taking a magnet over the marked location (at least on my non-retina MacBook Pro it happens over there, not sure if the position has been changed on Retina MBP)

EDIT - I now have a MacBook Retina, I haven't noticed this effect anymore. I'm guessing the position of the magnetic latch has been moved.


Can iPhones with ActiveSync use Exchange shared mailboxes?

As of August 2013, Exchange ActiveSync doesn't support shared Exchange accounts.  This isn't an iPhone issue, but rather with the ActiveSync protocol.

One option would be to use Outlook Web Access to access the shared Exchange account.  This would allow the team to do everything that you've outlined here.

Another option would be to set the individual Exchange accounts for the team to automatically copy mails from the shared account into a folder on the individual's Exchange account.  However, I don't think that this will meet your needs, especially moving/deleting and responding to mails from the shared account.  I mention it for the sake of completeness.


In iOS 9 why is some text from speech to text underlined in blue?

You are actually correct as the highlighting appears for words that the system doesn't think that it fully recognized. If it can determine similar words to suggest than when you tap the segment of text, it will provide those alternates - to a remarkable degree of accuracy at times. However, if it cannot determine other possibilities, the text simply becomes highlighted when you tap it so that replacement of the erroneous word becomes very easy: just tap the word and type the correct one.


Might I suggest using one of the myriad apps available at your disposal to hunt down and find the rogue files that plague you? An excellent option that I found (and free to display the content, though not to delete from within the app) would be the DaisyDisk app. It'll show you exactly what's using up your space in a relatively intuitive/futuristic display.

From there, it's a little matter of simply deleting the files in question.


Mac folder which is Not Shared is shared and fully accessible from a Windows machine

According to this answer on the Apple Support forum, if you enable (tick) a user for SMB sharing, it shares the root of the system drive (provided they are an Admin):

  Users you have set up with accounts in Accounts preferences can access
  your computer by connecting to it over the network. A user with an
  administrator account can access your entire computer.

You can see the drive because you are an administrator, and you entered your password on the windows machine. If you hadn't entered your password (or had used a non-administrator account) you wouldn't have been able to see the drive.


I use Store News which is excellent for finding out price drops and discounted apps.

If you have an iOS device, try AppZapp - allows you to set watch lists, and push notifications and has the ability to track Mac Apps too.


Should I buy Coda 2 on the app store or directly from Panic?

As you can read on the FAQ page of Coda, there is indeed a difference:

Should I buy from you directly, or from the Mac App Store?
It's largely a matter of personal preference. Please refer to the pricing FAQ above to see which way gets you the best price.
At the moment, there is only one difference between the two versions: the Mac App Store version will support iCloud syncing of Sites and Clips, and the direct version will not. This is a restriction imposed by Apple.
Apple often changes the conditions for Mac App Store eligibility, and it's possible we may have to modify or remove features from the Mac App Store version in the future. It's our intent to keep them as close to identical as Apple will let us.

So there you have your answer.
So, if you like to sync with iCloud, you should buy from the Mac App Store.
If you like to have a 50% discount, buy from Panic directly!
I would go for the 50% discount. :)


Get selective folders of Time Machine backup on a new iMac

Open finder and navigate to the folder on the Time Machine volume and drag it on to your desktop.

Time Machine places each backup in it's own folder so you can easily get to the one folder you want to restore and do it by hand. You can use the Time Machine interface to restore that folder as well, but Finder is more direct. You are correct so skip migration assistant as it's not the right tool for your job.


Why can't I use this monitor full resolution at 60hz on my 2013 Mac Pro with OS X Mojave?

In order to drive a 4k display at 60 Hz over HDMI, you'll need a GPU supporting HDMI 2.0. The 2013 Mac Pro supports HDMI 1.4 by default.

To get this working, you'll want to use a cable plugged into the DisplayPort connector on the monitor, and into the Thunderbolt 2 ports on the Mac Pro.


How to add a .crt certificate to iPhone's keychain?

Updated for iOS 12.0.1
As Andrew and Michal mentioned, apparently iOS only allows the Mail and Safari apps to open and install certificates. Other apps are blocked from opening certificates.
So here is how I got mine working:

Put my certificate file (mycertificate.crt) on my private local server temporarily.
Using iOS Safari (very important), browse to my https://mylocalsite.test/mycertificate.crt
You'll probably see a "This Connection Is Not Private" warning and need to click "Show Details" > "visit this website".
When prompted with "This website is trying to open Settings to show you a configuration profile. Do you want to allow this? [Ignore or Allow?]", choose "Allow".
You'll now be in your iPhone Settings > Install Profile. Click "Install" to install the certificate.
Enter your passcode to confirm.
You'll see a warning telling you "This certificate will not be trusted for websites until you enable it in Certificate Trust Settings." Press "Install" to proceed.
Press "Done".
Visit Settings > General > About > Certificate Trust Settings
"Enable full trust for root certificates" for the newly-installed certificate.
(Restarting the phone does not seem to be necessary.) I was immediately able to use Chrome to browse to my site using https, and it worked as I hoped.

These other links helped me, too:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204477
https://support.securly.com/hc/en-us/articles/206978437-How-to-deploy-Securly-SSL-certificate-to-iOS-
For generating a local Certificate Authority and self-signed certificate, my favorite approach as of 2020-09-14 is https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert


Not out-of-the-box.  There are 3rd party adapters that allow this to work.  Belkin, for example, makes a USB-C to Lightning Audio adapter that would work with your current EarPods.  You can also get a USB-C to audio adapter (this would let you use any headphones that have an audio jack -- but not your current EarPods).
The iPhone 7 came with "EarPods with Lightning Connector"
If you check the Apple website on compatibility (for the EarPods), you'll see:

Works with all devices that have a Lightning connector and support iOS
10 or later, including iPod touch, iPad, and iPhone.

The iPad Pro 2nd Generation comes with a USB-C port - it will not work.
Apple provides an excellent document to help you identify the ports on your Mac:  https://support.apple.com/HT201736.  While it doesn't specifically mention iPads/iPhones/etc. it can help you clarify the "lingo" that can get confusing.


I have the same problem. As I don't care about the Dictionary lookup service I disabled it. In System Preferences : Trackpad : Point & Click, I unchecked "Lookup & data detectors" and also "Force click and haptic feedback". Then I force quit the LookupViewService processes which Activity Monitor showed using a lot of Real Mem. Hope this helps.


Apache module run under MacPorts gives SQLite error

All I had to do was add this line to the makefile:

Darwin_LIBS += -lsqlite3

and the resulting module now works with MacPorts' Apache.


How can I access a web server running locally when I don't have network access?

Even if you are not connected to a network, you shold be able to access a website running locally by using http://localhost/ in the browser of your choice.


How to disable SMS for two factor authentication?

Unfortunately you cannot disable the feature.
Your best bet is keeping the number used completely private. I.e. do not use your main phone number for this - use a number specifically reserved for 2FA codes so that this phone number is not shared with others.
Also I would like to point out that the loophole described in the link you have included has actually been closed shortly after that article was written through a collaboration between T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T.
However it is still true that if you have some other means of providing a second factor than SMS, then you should definitely go for that instead. SMS is the least desirable of all options.


Manually adding books to Nook App on iPad

The Nook App isn't very intuitive when it comes to telling you how to sideload books onto your iOS device, however it is possible.  Unfortunately, it's not as simple as just hooking up the device via USB and letting Calibre handle it.  There are two methods:

Via USB (cable) and iTunes
Downloaded from shared site

USB Cable & iTunes
It's fairly easy to drag and drop via iTunes.

Connect your iOS device
Under File Sharing
Drag and drop your eBooks to the Nook folder

Downloaded onto iOS device
This requires the Files App from Apple to access the folders on the iOS device

Download the eBook using your browser (Firefox shown here)
Go into the Downloads directory
Long press the file to bring up the context menu and select Move
Select the Nook directory
Press Move


Are you sure it's FAT32, and not NTFS? MacOS can read NTFS but not write to it natively.

If you can't write to a USB drive formatted as HFS+ (Mac's native format), then I would agree that your office had put some block in place. How to over-ride that may not be easy or possible, depending on how they have implemented and what level of access you have on the computer.


After upgrade to Yosemite Time Machine says "Disk Full" even if there's 350GB free space

If on top of your Mac's hard drive, you are also backuping an external USB drive, you may want to check this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/27031297


That line is added by the machine that received the mail from your Mac, so you don't get to control that from Mail.app or macOS.

This is very intentional, so unless your mail company wants to be taking responsibility for all the mails you send them, they might not be willing to "own" the mails you ask them to forward.

The machine that received the mail already knows the IP address and what it thinks is your host name so you would open a ticket with the team that manages that server if you needed to change the source of your mails or alter that header content in any way.


I think this happens because the window resize signals are sent while the app is suspended, so it won't receive them. One way to fix it may be to manually send the SIGWINCH signal to the process while it is in the foreground. From another terminal, run:

killall -WINCH mysql


It sounds like your system is stuck in the completely empty battery mode (warning tone).

Try holding the cmd+r after you pushed the power button.

or

To completely reset it, remove power and disconnect the battery, then reinstall.


From the software side, all one needs to do is:

Update your iPhone to latest iOS;
Reset the Apple Watch (You can do that from Watch itself);
Setup the Apple Watch using your iPhone.

Once it is paired to your iPhone, it is safe to assume that the device is off the previous owner.


Macbook Pro keyboard does not work on startup

I would reset both the System Management Controller and PRAM/NVRAM.

Reset the SMC

Instructions for resetting your System Management Controller (SMC) will depend on whether your MacBook Pro runs from a built-in battery or a removable battery.

As your question doesn't provide the exact model, use the relevant instructions below:

SMC 1 - For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own (i.e. it's a built-in battery), here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button
Let go
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

SMC 2 - For MacBook Pros, MacBooks etc that you can remove the battery from, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Disconnect the MagSafe plug (power cable) from the computer
Remove the battery
Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
Put the battery back in
Reconnect the MagSafe cord (or power cable)
Turn your computer back on with the power button

Reset your PRAM/NVRAM

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). It may be worth you also resetting this. Here’s how to:

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

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. mouse speed, time and date/timezone, etc).

Give these a go and let us know how you go.


You might want to take a look at Platypus. It is a developer tool for OS X that lets you wrap your Python/Perl/shell/etc script with an application framework that makes your Python script appear and run like it was a native OS X application.

Though I believe you can do the same thing with Automator, there are a few extra nice things about Platypus from what I remember. For example, you can create a custom icon for the application where I think Automator's output would probably have to be modified after the fact.


If I change my iTunes payment method after making a purchase, which one is used?

After trying it; it seems that the payment is taken from the card set up at the time of purchase.


When we toggle between enable and disable safari extensions, where will the state go and sit on different mac os?

Ok so i looked at this and it's a total hack.

Run command with the extension installed, you will see it's name within the field.

Delete the extension from ~/Library/Extensions/Extension_you_Want

Open Safari

Close Safari

Run command again

the item is missing from the password list


How to connect 3 External Monitors in Macbook Pro 13 2017 without Touchbar

According to Apple you have only two USB-C/Thunderbolt ports on that model of Macbook Pro.

The adapter your linked to is a Mini-Display Port to DVI adapter. your Mac does not have a mini DisplayPort, nor does it have a third port to plug it into.

Additionally the specifications say that it will support up to two external monitors. The highest resolution being of the 4K variety, so some good sized monitors, but only two of them. And as you have only two ports kinda hard to use a third adapter to connect a third monitor, even if the Mac supported three monitors, which it does not.

Granted you can daisy chain USB-C/Thunderbolt monitors and theoretically dasiychain three monitors that way but you still run into the spec that says it only supports two.

So no you can't use that adapter and you can't connect more than two monitors, according to the Apple specs.


This short AppleScript using weekday is not working as expected

I'm not sure it's really something you'd ever guess without being told, but Applescript has its own Date class which means the quotes are not required. It will report like a string, but you don't need to refer to it as one.
So all you need is this…
set currentDay to weekday of (current date)

if currentDay = Monday or currentDay = Tuesday or currentDay = Wednesday then
    set earlymorningDisc to 1
else if currentDay = Thursday or currentDay = Friday then
    set earlymorningDisc to 2
else
    set earlymorningDisc to 3
end if

If you try this in the editor where you can see the Result in the lower pane
set currentDay to weekday of (current date)
return currentDay

You'll see it responds with Friday
whereas if you try
set currentDay to weekday of (current date) as string
return currentDay

You'll see it now responds with "Friday" in quotes.
BTW, you can concatenate your multiple ifs, rather than
if currentDay = Monday or currentDay = Tuesday or currentDay = Wednesday

you can use a list…
if currentDay is in {Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday}


iPhone 6 upgraded to iOS 10 and now Outlook calendar not syncing

It looks like a minor iOS bug preventing iPhone from working with Outlook data. I think the best way is to wait for a week or two till Apple will fix the problem in one of the upcoming updates.

If you need to solve this issue asap, try Akruto: http://www.akruto.com/sync-iphone-with-outlook/

It works like an Exchange server, so if that wouldn't work that means Apple messed up with Exchange ActiveSync technology in iOS 10.0.1 and you still need to wait for a new iOS release.


Macbook A1342 2010 - OS Installation Issue

If you have access to the installer have you tried creating the bootable thumb drive from here?

Reading closer you don't have access to the installer.  Running the online installer won't work because apple pulled the download links that it uses.  I suspect this is thinly veiled attempt at pushing people to upgrade.

Check this out:  https://diskmakerx.com. It will create the thumb drive for you.  You will most likely have to go here and buy El Capitan from apple if you haven't installed already.

Its also worth checking out http://dosdude1.com/highsierra/ his tool will download the High Sierra installer for you from apple.  This is the last supported release for your MacBook.  Once you have the installer you can use DiskMakerX.


Export pdf annotations only using preview?

I'll second that answer. I'm doing the same with PDF Expert instead of GoodReader. It is really important that you do the conversion in Skim on a COPY of the original PDF, as otherwise the PDF expert (or GoodReader, I assume) will lose the annotations, once converted (e.g., if you have your PDFs in Dropbox, which you then open either on the iPad or Mac). There is a slightly more elegant solution though. It's trivial but it avoids making a copy of the PDF:

Open the annotated PDF in Skim, convert to Skim notes, export notes to text or RTF, an then close Skim without saving. Your original PDF with notes will stay unconverted (and thus still annotated for GoodReader), but you will have your notes and highlights exported and saved.

As I said, trivial...


Why is my mouse lagging so much it's impossible to use?

I had a similar problem with my 2011 17" MBP and Apple magic mouse.  Frustrated the hell out of me.  I turned off Handoff (Continuity) on my iOS devices and the problem has since disappeared.


What happens when put a Finder alias in a Dropbox folder?

The Finder alias will appear as a zero-byte file in Dropbox. Any files linked to it will not be uploaded.

If you would like to have Dropbox sync the contents of the alias, you can instead use what's called a symbolic link. Basically, it's an alias that the operating system (and Dropbox) treat as indistinguishable from the actual folder. This question on SuperUser answers how to create a symbolic link.


Unable to connect mac from remote using telnet

Apparently, I was using an unstable version of Symantec antivirus which blocked many incoming connections as well as the airdrop feature in mac. I downgraded it, which solved the problem.


The (odd) answer to this question turned out to be a corrupted installer that came from our implementation of O365. When provided with a different installer it worked fine.


Shortcut go to folder containing the file opened in TextEdit

The solution was to use an AppleScript!

Here the code to insert in Automator (during the creation of a new service)

tell application "TextEdit"
    tell front document
        set apath to (its path) as text
        tell application "Finder" to open item (apath as POSIX file)'s container's container window
    end tell
end tell

tell application "Finder"
    activate
end tell

return

Automator window will look like this:


Why does my Macbook overheat and use so much CPU and energy when on YouTube?

You can test the efficiency of video encoding and decoding quite well by getting a video from Apple’s events page and playing it in QuickTime player.

Same in Safari - and then same in Chrome.

You’ll quickly find out which encoding are easy to run for the CPU and which have GPU acceleration.

When that’s done, you can see if Chrome or the app in question can choose a lower resolution or if you can download the file for offline playing so that it doesn’t hit the CPU so hard. Also, you might use an iPad or other far more efficient video handling device if you just want to watch videos with the most economy / least power.


Wi-Fi Through Captive Portal Does Not Connect

I found a solution to the captive portal problem with 10.10.2...

Connect to the internet via iPhone and USB cable.
Now also connect to the wifi network with the captive portal. Change the default route to use the wifi.
Now the laptop uses the phone for DNS requests, but routes other traffic via the wifi interface.
Authenticate on the captive portal page.
Unplug the phone and restart the wifi.

With a bit of luck the captive portal should remember you and you should be able to use just the wifi interface.

My best guess is that the DNS setup process fails (no /etc/resolv.conf file) when the captive portal firewall is not letting traffic through. OS X probably does some test to see if it's on the internet (probably tries to reach a URL like captive.apple.com) and if this fails then it just stops setting up the DNS system).


Open Notes.app notes in an external editor

If you search for some local notes with Spotlight or Alfred, the results will contain files like ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/CoreData/ExternalRecords/*/IMAPNote/_records/0/p8.notesexternalrecord. Opening them opens the notes in Notes.app, but they're just empty property lists.

The contents of local notes are stored in a binary format in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes/NotesV1.storedata.

I don't know if there are any other applications that can edit or import the notes, but there's no rtfd files for them or anything.


Actually, All My Files is a folder, but not the way you'd expect it to be. It exists at the path /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/Resources/MyLibraries/myDocuments.cannedSearch. It is a special type of folder, called a bundle, that has an extension. You can usually access the inner part of these by right-clicking and choosing "Show Package Contents", but with All My Files you can't due to Finder's special treatment of it.

The bundle contains a file called search.savedSearch which is just a Smart Folder property list. This is a search for all files within your home directory.

In your case, this doesn't matter, because when you drag something into the All My Files folder, it goes to ~/Documents. The odd thing about this is it only happens for All My Files, and not other Smart Folders, which don't allow you to drag-and-drop files into them.


How do I install python pyRAPL module on MacOS?

pip3 install pyRAPL

Worked fine for me

If you have any errors try the following:

python3 -m pip install pyRAPL


Tab key on ZSH terminal in Catalina keeps running "bundle exec jekyll serve"

Go to the .zshrc file in your home folder and check if a command like that is listed.  If so delete it. The .zshrc file gets executed every time you open a terminal window.


Can I apply to student discount just with a school ID

If your just looking for the ~5% student discount, yes your student ID card will be enough.

For the Apple On Campus 12% discout, they will check from your student card if your school is registered to this program.


What's the order of USB Cables in the male connector of Apple Keyboard with n. Keypad?

USB pinouts are universal.  So, once you have the IEEE standard used, you should be able to resolder a new connector with no problem.  In this case, the USB connector used on the Apple Keyboard is a USB v1.1 connector.

I have included the pinouts for USB 1.1/2.0 below for reference.

Short of that, I am sure you could use the continuity function on a multi-meter on a USB cable to figure out which pin goes where


How to Repair 15" Mac Book Pro Core 2 Duo 2.16 Ghz That Won't Power On?

In the absence of “chime” there are three things to blame: RAM, GPU or Board/CPU.

I know because I had the same problem throughout the years with different Macs (and even Powerbooks). Try removing some RAM and putting some other modules, also remove the battery as suggested by Philip in the comments.

Using an external display may help identify screen problems too.

And finally an Apple Store, even if it’s out of warranty, will diagnose the box (sometimes for free, it depends) sometimes for a small fee. Bear in mind they will always go for the brute force route: “you have to replace X,Y,Z”, 1000 u$s. Thanks for Coming, Bye. ;)


iPhone: How to ensure iBook files are stored locally

Related question: Books automatically deletes my books when offline, and when there is enough space on device

  how to check reliably that files are stored locally on iPhone (ie not iCloud)? I mean, I could use the airplane mode and see if files are still openable ... but maybe there is a cache or something

If you are on iOS 12, then go to library and next to the book at the bottom-left there will be a cloud symbol if it is stored in iCloud and no cloud symbol if it isn’t.

  actually, how to reliably use only local files - and get rid of iCloud access, at least for iBooks [ iCloud is off on my iPhone for iBooks, but files disappeared anyway ]?

Got to Settings -> [your name] -> iCloud and make sure Books is turned off.

Note: make sure you download all your Books before turning it off.


In the "More about Automatic Downloads" section:

  If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch has an Internet connection and you
  turn on Push Notifications, your content automatically downloads to
  your device. On an associated device that doesn't support Push
  Notifications, your content automatically appears in your iTunes
  download queue. You can manually download the content in iTunes.

I had turned off push notifications for the App Store and automatic updates stopped working. After I turned it on again it started working as usual.


ruby --version says:

  ruby 2.0.0p648 (2015-12-16 revision 53162) [universal.x86_64-darwin16]

macOS Sierra 10.12 (16A323) release installed from the App Store with XCode 8 installed

Update: macOS 10.13.3 has

  ruby 2.3.3p222 (2016-11-21 revision 56859) [universal.x86_64-darwin17]


macOS Time announcement -- how to speak a longer phrase

The solution:

(Optional) to get the plist in com.apple.speech.synthesis.general.prefs correct, set the structure as shown in my original question.  Or, simply delete that file and turn on the Time Announce checkbox in System Preferences (Dock & Menu Bar, Clock).  That will re-create the file.

In the two defaults commands, use -dict-add (rather than -dict) so the commands won't delete any existing parameters.  At this point, the defaults command can be used to turn the time announcements on and off.  But, "it's" and "o-clock" are still missing.

Reboot, and "it's" and "o'clock" will return.  I still don't know what values TimeAnnouncementsPhraseIdentifier can take on, but ShortTime works (after a reboot).

But, my original idea of using defaults write to change the plist didn't work anyway.  The changes do not take effect without a reboot because the OS caches the plist.


Does iTunes in the Cloud/iTunes Match have any effect on syncing ratings between devices?

I'll check my computer when I get home, but everytime I update the ratings on my iPhone there is definitely network activity (The network spinner is displayed everytime I change the rating). So it is definitely updating the iTunes Match library. Whether it updates the PC at home I'll have to see.

I'm still waiting for it to upload about 600 songs.

Edit:  I confirmed that ratings and play count  definitely are updated right away. PC to device changes take a little longer. I had one song disappear from my phone on my way to work because I accidentally removed it from match the night before and it took some time to propagate.


Better notification in Safari when a download starts?

You could create a folder action in Automator, to watch for new files in your Downloads folder and display a notification banner whenever it detects a new file.

Open Automator and create a new Folder Action
Next to Folder Action receives files and folders added to choose your Downloads folder
Search for 'notif' and drag and drop the Display Notification to the right
Enter your own text and save

It should look something like this:

It's not the ideal solution, but at least you'll notice something has started downloading. Hope this helps.


What is Tri-band 2G CDMA (800 (CDMA over ESMR), 850, 1900 MHz) in Iphone 5 CDMA model?

It means its compatible with 3 bandwidth for 2G :

800 MHz (CDMA over ESMR)
850 MHz (GSM)
1900 MHz (GSM)

800/1900 is mostly used in the USA and Canada. It's quite usefull to use 2G since 3G has not a coverage as wide as 2G.


Catalina home directory shows 0Bi storage

I assume you refer to the line starting with map auto_home. This is just the mount point for the automounter, it isn't your home directory.
Your home directory (/Users/YOURNAME) is in /System/Volumes/Data. You can run
df $HOME

to just get the line relevant for this directory.


My username not displaying in Favorites on the left

Finder → Preferences (⌘,) → Sidebar and enable the option for your home folder.

It's enabled by default, so perhaps you removed it accidentally, either by dragging it off the window or right-clicking and choosing Remove from Sidebar?


Switching between windows of one application in multiple spaces

There is a shortcut to do this, though it doesn't cycle between windows; it only allows you to choose one. But it will switch to it regardless of which space it's on. It's a convenient way to access App Exposé for any app.

Press Cmd+Tab to open the application switcher. When the application whose window you seek is selected, press 1. You can then select a window by typing its title, or with the arrow keys.


Did you use an application to get those files off the iPod? If so, did that application create a folder to export the files to?


Both. Upload and download. Upload speed depends entirely on your networks limitations.

Let's take a scenario. You have an iPhone, an iPad, and a Mac. You enable all of iCloud's features, including Photo Stream. You take a picture on your iPhone of your dog. As soon as that picture is saved to your camera roll and your phone is connected to wifi, it sends it to iCloud.

When you access your iPad, the photo will be there waiting for you under the Photo Stream group. But that doesn't mean it's downloaded to the device just yet. You will first have to tap on the thumbnail to view it and at that time, it will be stored locally on the device. From that point, even if you remove the photo from Photo Stream, say using iCloud.com, it will still be stored on your iPad (and any device that has downloaded the image). Because Photo Stream removes content that's 30 days old, over time, it will be the case that photos may be stored on some devices, but not others.

This applies to your Mac as well. Depending on whether you have enabled Photo Stream in the iCloud preference pane, you'll also need to enable it in either iPhoto or Aperture to fully make use of the service. In the respective app's preferences, you can tweak how it manages the service.

Keep in mind this only works for pictures taken after you've enabled the feature. So if you disable it and take a photo, that remains locally stored, never to be transferred to Photo Stream.

Things like documents and calendars sync instantly. So if you make a change in Address Book on your Mac, the changes will be pushed to iCloud. Once you open the app on your iPad, for example, it will download the updates. It's unclear at this time if Apple's servers push the changes to devices connected to the Internet. Calendar too. iCloud will try to keep all your settings ubiquitous across all your devices so you don't have to worry about syncing or manually transferring the new contacts you added on your iPad to your phone or Mac. It's meant to be as seamless and unobtrusive as possible, and require as little user activity and management as possible.

Now most people are still conceptualizing iCloud as a sync service, but it's not. The master version of any file is kept on Apple's servers, and then fed to any device that needs it (read: any device that is deemed to either not have the file at all or simply lack the updated version). Most people think because you made changes to your calendar events on your Mac, that that data is held as the master and pushed through iCloud to your other devices (this is traditional sync), but that's not the case. It's fed to iCloud yes, but it's iCloud that takes it, holds onto it, and delivers it to any device that needs it; your Mac is no longer involved once it sends the necessary information. It's all iCloud from then on, and this is why you'll be greeted with a notice when you disable the calendar feature on your Mac (or any device) that it will wipe all local content. Since iCloud holds the master files, any device that is detached from the "network" will have their data removed in kind (some, like Address Book) won't but the majority will have their local contents deleted. This serves to strengthen iCloud's control (or dominance in the network) and denounces any device that is removed from its fold, so to speak. And if you think about iCloud as a true cloud service, this makes perfect sense, as you wouldn't typically be disconnecting devices unless they were no longer of use to you (when say you upgrade your iPad 2 to the next generation, or when you buy a new Mac to replace your old one). While critical things will remain (contacts), most files won't survive a disconnection from iCloud.

As for storing backups of your applications, and other miscellany, that too replaces your local content. All your app settings, game saves, etc. become part of iCloud. And again, once they are there, your local data becomes just another extension of the service. You can view what it stores by going into Settings > General > Usage. It will show you a breakdown of your content (and the respective amount of space it takes).

iCloud is meant to replace local data and move everything into the cloud so you can access it from any device and a wireless connection. It de-regulates local data, so to speak, as a result. It's a bit confusing at first, but once you understand the general principle, it becomes much clearer to understand as a whole.


Heres a short overview.

The term "firmware" for iOS devices covers some or all of the following items dependant on the device:

the baseband (the phone code implementing the cell tower
communications for voice and data)
the device firmware (akin to the BIOS) otherwise known as the boot
ROM
the device software (iOS itself)

Devices like the iPod touch and the non-3G iPads don't have basebands, however the builds for the devices may cover both the WiFi only and 3G enabled devices so will include the baseband update.

Builds that target different generations of devices may contain multiple baseband's for different versions of phones since the baseband chip may be from different manufactuer's as in Qualcomm for the newer devices or Infineon for the older devices.

So when the phone turns on, the code in the Boot ROM runs, it activates the hardware (the phone and the baseband), and then proceeds to start the software (iOS)


Unicode fonts not stacking correctly (especially Kokonor)

Word 2011 cannot support complex scripts.  Word 2016 can do so, but I think it is still a work in progress, and Tibetan may work properly only with the font Microsoft Himalaya.  Let us know if that one does do stacks correctly.

Sometimes 3rd party keyboard layouts also do not work right with Word.


Is there a 1 cable solution to connect 2 monitors in extended mode and charge a MacBook 15" at the same time?

You need a Thunderbolt 3 dock - many exist.  What you seem to be confused about is that they require a Thunderbolt 3 monitor - they don't. You can buy a simply cable to connect the Thunderbolt 3 port on the dock to the monitor via DisplayPort or mini-DisplayPort.

I'm using the OWC 12-port Thunderbolt 3 dock for attaching dual-monitors to the MacBook Pro while charging it at the same time. Monitors are both connected using mini-DisplayPort. This does not use MST as that is not supported by macOS. Nor does it use DisplayLink. It is all connected to the MacBook Pro with a single Thunderbolt 3 cable.

You can also use other Thunderbolt 3 docks such as the OWC 14-port Thunderbolt 3 dock, the Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD, the Caldigit TS3, the Elgato Thunderbolt 3 Pro Dock, and many others. They all provide 85 watts for charging and allow attaching two monitors.

It would seem that the docks you have tested earlier are USB-C docks. They require MST to be able to support dual-displays, or they use DisplayLink. MST is not supported on macOS, so that's only going to work if you run Windows on the MacBook Pro. DisplayLink is generally limited in performance compared to a native DisplayPort signal.


Is there a way to copy the link URL in Safari (Mac OS X) without using right click?

Select Command-L
That will highlight the URL field
Then just select Command-C to copy.

This is the quickest keyboard shortcuts I have found.


Possible to use Applescript or Automator to authenticate iPhone 5s with my Macbook Pro without entering lockcode on iPhone?

No this is not possible. iOS 11 requires a pincode or password before allowing a computer access to your iPhone.

  With iOS 11, you are required to enter your device passcode before a
  connection with a computer is made, even when the phone is unlocked.
  This is a very nice improvement over the previous "Trust" pop-up.

  Now, even if the phone is unlocked with Touch-ID or the new Face-ID,
  connecting to an unknown computer will still require your 4 or 6 digit
  pin code, or the alphanumeric password if you have one set up.

Source


Can I use an Advanced Format drive in a Late 2010 13" MacBook Pro?

I read that the larger capacity (750Gb-1Tb) WD Scorpio Blue hard drives are physically a few mm's to thick to fit in MacBooks and MBP's. I cannot answer your question about the software compatibility but in regards to alternatives try this one, from OWC:

750 GB 7200rpm Seagate

Hope some part of this helps.


OS X uses a process launching system called launchd which consolidates functions provided by Init scripts, crontab and more in *nix systems (see the Wikipedia article for a high level overview, and Apple’s Developer docs on launch daemons and agents for details). One of the abilities of launchd is to keep a process it launched alive, if so defined by its configuration file – in that case, the process will relaunch whenever it is terminated. Your problem with a process apparently persisting across reboots and manual termination sounds very much like a case of launchd initiated process with a keepAlive key.

launchd configuration files are in plist format and found in

~/Library/LaunchAgents – agents for the current  user account only
/Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchDaemons – agents and daemons for all user accounts
/System/Library/LaunchAgents and /System/Library/LaunchDaemons – system level agents and daemons

and are usually named in reverse domain notation (tld.domain.process.plist). Depending if the user account of server is yours or not (can’t say, as you have blanked it), you should look in one of the first two locations above for a likely plist (if you have Xcode installed, you can QuickLook them easily). If found, your server is indeed controlled by launchd. The correct procedure to stop it is to remove it from launchd’s process list through

launchctl unload <tld.domain.process>

which will unload and stop the process (note you omit the plist suffix).

There is also a GUI for handling launchd files, Peter Borg’s Lingon (make sure to get “Lingon”, not “Lingon 3”, which is a dumbed down version safe for vanilla use), which might be more convenient than manually rooting through the file locations.


Unable to install mac Big Sur beta 11.0.1 in Macbook pro 2020

I have fixed this finally.

I turned off the file vault
Run the update from the terminal using the command
softwareupdate --install "macOS Big Sur Release Candidate 2-20B28"


Remote Simulator to Windows option doesn't exist

There is no iOS simulator for Windows.

Xamarin needs you to connect to a Mac capable of running it.

From Introduction to Xamarin.iOS for Visual Studio

  Xamarin for Windows allows iOS applications to be written and tested
  within Visual Studio, with a networked Mac providing the build and
  deployment service.

  There are a number of configuration options available, so you can
  decide which works best for your development needs. These are listed
  below:

  Use a Mac as your main development Machine and run a Windows Virtual
  Machine with Visual Studio installed. We recommend using VM software
  such as Parallels or VMWare .
  Use a Mac just as a Build Host. In this
  scenario it would be simply connected to the same network as a Windows
  machine with the necessary tools installed.

  In either case, you should
  follow these steps:

  Install the Xamarin.iOS tools on your Mac host and activate your license
  Configure your Mac
  Install Xamarin tools on Windows

  To develop
  with Xamarin in Visual Studio, you must be using at least Visual
  Studio 2012 Professional or higher. Xamarin will not work with Express
  Editions of Visual Studio, as they do not support add-ins.


GeekTool is what you need to accomplish this on the mac.

Addendum: Looks like Uebersicht is an another alternative.


A Cisco AnyConnect VPN alternative for Mac?

OpenConnect works great on El Capitan. I use the text commands to connect to my work VPN.

There's a Gist with a walkthrough of setup instructions using the Homebrew installer: https://gist.github.com/moklett/3170636

On El Capitan, the "rootless" protection prevents you from installing the unauthorized "tun tap" kernel driver extension that OpenConnect needs.

However, a Mac app called Viscosity comes with a signed (authorized) copy of tun tap. Viscosity has a limited trial, but the driver is free. https://www.sparklabs.com/viscosity/

Install Viscosity and run the app once to get the helper (driver) installed. Then use OpenConnect.


If you are still using the same computer, your chances of recovery go down with each minute of operation - recovering deleted files is time-consuming, recovering over-written files is impossible. And your computer is constantly writing things to disk.

Restart the deleted machine in target disk mode and connect it to another mac. Get a copy of Data Rescue 3 and use it in deleted-files mode. You will also need alternate storage equal to the original drive size.

After it's done recovering things you get to rename everything. The filenames are gone (overwritten) at the time of deletion, your stuff will be recovered with sequential names (Image001.jpg, Image002.jpg etc.)

And I don't think we have to do the usual lecture on backups. Point is well made?


iOS 11 default quotation mark changed to ‘ ’ and “ ”

It's in Settings | General | Keyboard | Smart Punctuation.


How can I find hidden items in Automator?

Use a Run Shell Script action like this:

find "$@" -name .\*


Unable to mount Filevault drive after system crash

And the answer is ... please upgrade to High Sierra because whatever is called APFS is not a fixed thing that is supposed to be compatible accross systems implementing it.


How can I get sound working on Bootcamp + Windows 8.1?

Forget EFI and install using boot camp assistant.

After backing everything up, wiping my partitions, and installing Windows 8.1 using Bootcamp, everything works as normal.  The machine boots using bios mode, Cirrus Audio was properly installed after a single run of setup.exe from the Bootcamp support software, and the device is recognized properly as VEN_1013 DEV_4206 --Cirrus Audio CS4206B (AB 82).

It sucks, but it's worth it.  I plan on resizing windows' ntfs partition and booting linux beside it, but that's a problem for another day.


iOS - Bluetooth not auto connecting to previously paired device

Apparently a lot of headset devices can maintain a list of several devices. So did my Skull Candy Ink'd Wireless.

The trick to reset this list, was to power up the device and hold - and + for a few (5?) seconds till you hear a strange beep. Then I paired again and the auto-connect worked again.

My guess is that it didn't like to be connected to multiple iPhones and got confused somehow.


I repartitioned my harddrive while installing Windows 8 and lost my OS X installation, can I get it back?

Repartitioning a disk like that is, unfortunately, a fatal operation for the data on it. There's an outside chance you may be able to take advantage of a data recovery service to extract some of the data from the drive but this is an expensive way to go.

Good thing you have that backup.

As a general rule, before I do anything on my machines at the OS level (upgrade, reinstall, cross-grade, etc.) I take a snapshot of my drive using Carbon Copy Cloner and I test to make sure I can boot the Mac from that copied drive. Once I've confirmed the clone is stable, I proceed with the work on the main drive. If I goes wrong, I just clone the external drive back to my main drive and it's like I never messed it up in the first place.


Making room to take a photo - transfer to the cloud

I had this problem on an iPhone and I found that all the pictures I deleted went to a trash bin (Recently Deleted). Until that is emptied, the storage will not free up.


Just copy over the "iTunes" folder which should be located under your user's music/my music folder. If you can't find a folder there named "iTunes", you must have moved it to another location. To check, go to iTunes preferences and read the location under the "Advanced" tab.

Using any means wether it be network file transfer or using a USB Drive, move the "iTunes" folder to the "Music" folder in your mac's user account


Changing Keyboard/Input Source order on MacOS

It is impossible to re-order them. To fix it, you want to tick Show Input in menu bar. This will cause a little icon to appear in your menu bar with your language:

(The icon might  be different depending on the language set). If you click there you can change the language to U.S. International - PC.

If you still want to use another language for a specific app (say you want to use English for all apps except Safari where you want to use Russian), you can either:

Change the language in the menu bar
Keep Automatically switch to a document's input source checked which will remember your last language for that application


Security issue logging in to the App Store using different Apple ID

The answer is mixed. While the iTunes app store can be signed into with a separate Apple ID, there will be some data (naturally) stored on the second account you use. The device will not be added to their My Apple Devices, though it will become an Authorized Device in iTunes Store. As such, some level of data will be held in the Apple Servers to facilitate this transaction. AFAIK this data is not user-accessible.

However, for data backups, Photos, Find my iPhone, My Apple Devices, etc. that would require the user to login via iCloud on the phone and not just the Apple Store. From there, whatever level of data you set to sync would be replicated up. Please note, you CAN be signed into a separate iCloud and iTunes account, as well as various other services (such as separate iCloud and Messages accounts).


Mail app on OS X 10.10 goes blank with Office 365 Account after displaying for a minute

This seems to be a known bug which has been around since (if Google is anything to go by) at least OS X 10.8 (!) and is still not fixed. That's modern Apple for you.

None of these worked for me (e.g. the "Rebuild" option is greyed out, for starters!) but maybe they'll help you.

Mail.app inbox becomes blank after a few minutes of use


The document "x" could not be saved. You don’t have permission

I was able to fix the problem for CleanWriterPro by removing extended ACL from the affected directories (Documents, Desktop):

$ chmod -R -N Desktop Documents

For others with the same problem, I'd suggest checking the permissions of at least the following places:

~/Library/Autosave Information
~/Library/Containers – see Unsaved Files in OS X Lion
the folders containing the problematic files

Use the command

$ ls -le Documents

to show also the extended ACLs when looking at the problem. Finder will not show all ACL information.

There is a related discussion at Apple Discussion Forums, Lion Permissions Problem. It proposes the solution of removing all ACL from home directory and restoring the ACLs for some default folders. Please read the entire post from there; but the commands are:

chmod -R -N ~
chmod +a "everyone deny delete" ~/ ~/Desktop ~/Documents ~/Downloads ~/Library ~/Movies ~/Music ~/Pictures ~/Public

The ACL prevents the user from deleting or renaming the default folders.

An unintuitive but maybe safer(?) alternative is described at OS X Daily: Repair user permissions in Mac OS X Lion


Can I resize a BootCamp partition without reinstalling Windows?

You can use GParted to achieve this, as it supports HFS+, FAT32 & NTFS resizing.


What's the license for OS X generic icons?

IANAL but I would guess that all the graphical assets in OS X are copyright Apple just like everything else in the OS.

Any assets that you are entitled to use are listed on the developer sites for which typically a licence must be signed.


How are the apps published on the App Store licensed to end-users?

According to the Apple Licensed Application End User Agreement:

Your license to each App Store Product that you obtain through the App Store Services is subject to your prior acceptance of this Licensed Application End User License Agreement (“Standard EULA”), and you agree that the terms of this Standard EULA will apply to each App Store Product that you license through the App Store Service

The Standard EULA license applies to any product that you obtain through the App Store unless:

Unless that App Store Product is covered by a valid end user license agreement between you and the Application Provider of that App Store Product, in which case the terms of that separate end user license agreement will govern.

That will be the case unless you have a separate user license agreement between you and the application provider.
In the article, it mentions nothing about choosing your own license.


How do configure Skype For Business to not start when macOS starts?

Check System Preferences - Accounts for Sierra, Users and Groups for Catalina - Login Items and make sure it's added there.

Alternative 1:

Open the context menu on the icon in the dock -> options -> uncheck "open at login".

Alternative 2:

Open the terminal and type launchctl list | grep skype.

Then use sudo launchctl remove <name from the previous output> to prevent it from starting at login.


Why is my App Updates linked to my wife's AppleID? I can't change it

if she 'bought' them, even on 'your' machine, they are tied to her Apple ID. You would need to re-purchase under your own ID.

App Store purchases are not tied to a machine, they are tied to an ID

… or set up Family Sharing, which would allow you both to download/use any app purchased under that share, without impinging on general privacy.


What all file metadata is available in macOS?

Applications on macOS store similar types of metadata in Info.plist files stored within the application bundles themselves.

For example to see the metadata available for Safari you can run the following command in a Terminal window.

plutil -p /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info.plist

Or to get the version of Safari specifically you can run...

plutil -p /Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Info.plist | grep CFBundleShortVersionString


Delete all Bookmarks / Favorites from Safari

For those who've been in Apple's ecosystem for a while, this would be straight-forward. But since I come from Windows / Linux background, I'm not-so-familiar with the quick and (subjectively) intuitive shortcuts found here-and-there across macOS.

It's quite easy:

Click on Bookmarks menu > Edit Bookmarks
Here you get list of all your bookmarks and favorites (Tip: If you've imported your bookmarks from Chrome, all those that come from Bookmarks Bar of Chrome are listed under Favorites)
Click on the first bookmark (after favorites section), and hold down Delete key till all bookmarks get deleted

Repeat this for Favorites


Smart playlists use the META data that is stored within the audio files themselves to make selections based on your criteria.  Example of META data include the song title, length, rating, and so on.  The folder that the audio file is stored in is not considered meta data, and is not referenced at any point within the audio file itself - this is managed by the iTunes library XML file instead.  So you cannot do exactly what you are doing, but you might be able to acheive it by changing your methods.

Instead of splitting your tracks by genre into seperate folders and then importing them, change your methods to tag the files with the appropriate META data after importing to select a suitable genre.  After importing tracks, no matter where they are located (and as an aside I would always reccommend using both allowing iTunes to manage your media, as well as copying into your library rather than just referencing them to their existing locations) just select them all, right click and select get info, and them change the genre to either Dance, or Ambience etc.  Then create a smart playlist that searches for audio files that match the Dance or Ambient genre META data.


Targeted Display Mode using Henge Docks Vertical Dock

Based on the specs you provided above....

  I have a 2012 MBPr and a late 2012 21" iMac....

This should work.  From Apple's website Use your iMac as a display with Target Display Mode

Basically you need a Thunderbolt cable to connect from your TB port on your MBPr to your TB port on your iMac.

Once connected and booted, you just press CommandF2 to toggle Targeted Display Mode on/off.


Making audio calls on iPhone via Automator in macOS Sierra

This works for me on the latest version of Sierra

set input to "0123456789" -- input real phone number
    open location "tel://" & input & "?audio=yes"
    delay 1
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 36
end tell


Is there any decent Wordpress blogging client for Mac?

You might consider Flock, a free, Firefox-based browser with many other features, including a built in blog editor. It's quite an unusual program, as you can also use it to manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts and feeds. It's worth a look.


Services menu on right click in Apple Mail missing?

Might need to update your plugins for Sierra (if you use that Mac OS). I had the same issue with Omnifocus clip o iron and had to update it here: https://discourse.omnigroup.com/t/clip-o-tron-in-sierra/26977


Is it possible to access the Clipboard as a file from the command line?

You can read and write to the Pasteboard with the Terminal commands pbcopy and pbpaste. So to edit it you could use something like

pbpaste > /tmp/clip.txt && vi /tmp/clip.txt && pbcopy < /tmp/clip.txt

If you need it often, a shell function might be better suited. You can define one by putting the following into your .bashrc

pbedit() {
    local _t=$(mktemp)
    chmod 600 "$_t"

    pbpaste > "$_t"
    ${EDITOR:-vi} "$_t"
    pbcopy < "$_t"

    rm -f "$_t"
}

This tries to minimize the risk of other people accessing the temporary file while editing (but can't prevent anybody with admin or root priviledges from access).


Have you tried Settings > General > Auto Lock?

Now that you've clarified the question:

The reason why I asked if you were in an area of bad coverage/weak signal is if your signal is weak then your battery will drain quicker.  However most people I know with iPhones would only get 24 hours out of a full charge anyway.  I usually plug it in at night and unplug it when I get up in the morning and generally it will last all day.  If you find your battery is draining too quickly for your liking you can do some of the following.

Turn off push notifications
Lower screen brightness
Turn off WiFi
Turn off 3G
Close apps which are running in the background

I'm guessing you haven't had a smartphone before and are used to getting a few days from a full charge.  Smartphones use battery much more quickly than traditional cell phones because of larger screens, more powerful processors and generally more usage.


How to change bash version with homebrew

You'll need to change your account's login shell from System Preferences, Users & Groups. You need to access the Advanced Options by right-clicking on your username and changing your shell to /usr/local/bin/bash. Once you've done that, restart Terminal.app (to make sure no old sessions with the wrong shell are left hanging around) and you should be set.

You can do the same using dscl:

dscl . -change /Users/<username> UserShell /usr/local/bin/bash


Tell iTerm2 not to remember open windows on quit

This is the resume feature introduced with Lion.

defaults write com.googlecode.iterm2 NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false


Preinstalled Mountain Lion and iWork is not found for Updates

There is no way to make App Store output debugging info, all debugging info is that what you see in the Console logs.

App Store doesn’t “detect” that it is on Mountain Lion. Mountain Lion 10.8.0 ships with a different version of App Store that is unique to that version. In addition to this, App Store may check the SystemVersion.plist file to determine on which version it is running.

iWork and Mountain Lion don’t appear in the Purchased tab of App Store, because you did not purchase them through the App Store.

As for the App Store not detecting the 10.8.1 update, that is a problem even I have had (With Xcode, though). About 3 days after the update disappeared, it reappeared. I never found out the cause of the problem.


If you try too many times to login with the wrong passoword, iOS will force you to wait longer and longer after each failed attempt. Your ipad is telling you that you now must wait 13,568 minutes before you can attempt another login.

If you have a beckup in itunes, you can plug the ipad into your laptop and Restore from Backup in iTunes. However, you will still need the correct password to login after restore.

If this does not work, your only options are to wipe the iPad and start over as if new.

You can plug in the iPad into iTunes, and hold down power and home buttons until you get a screen prompting you to plug in your iPad into iTunes. You should get a dialog box asking if you wish to Restore or Update, and you should select Restore.
You can also log into icloud.com and force a remote wipe on your iPad.

For details, see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306


Disk Utility in Sierra won't repartition a disk

In the Disk Utility Screen, try selecting the next option up. It might be the name of the Mounted Volume. Sometimes if you try to format a Disk nested under another Volume it doesn’t work.

Also try different File Systems, some format troublesome disks better than others. For example try FAT before you try NTFS.


Just say "numeral" followed by your number


How to fix Permission Denied error when starting up MongoDB

Use homebrew to install mongodb so you don’t need root would be my help to offer.

https://brew.sh

Then

brew install mongodb
brew services start mongodb

As to sudoers, boot into recovery and use terminal (utilities menu) to mount the filesystem and fix it per this answer from your linked question. Older os can use single user mode, but terminal in recovery is nicer to use.


I am trying to erase and reformat drive with snow leopard, but don't have the install DVD

The Apple Store online sells the Snow Leopard Install DVD for approx. $20.
Link provided- http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard or you may need to purchase a replacement DVD that came with your computer. I would call them first.


Automatically launch a program or action when an external drive or disk is connected

Marco Polo can perform actions (you specify) based on attached USB devices.

Edit: MarcoPolo isn't supported anymore, but there is a maintained fork of it: ControlPlane


Problem booting Ubuntu from newer Macbook Pro (late 2011 model)

Make sure you are using a DVD with the image burned onto it instead of a USB drive. (USB images never seem to work.)

Also rEFIt is still fine for use as the bootloader. Old question, I know, but it might help.


Is it possible to compose Mac OS Mail in an external editor?

I recently got my first Mac and was facing the same situation concerning my mail-writing habbits (using Thunderbird with external editor and vi on Linux). So far, I could not find an appropriate answer. Thus I started to look into Applescript.
I would like to enter mail addresses or add attachments in Apple Mail's composer window, while editing the message body in vi. So, I start with a composer window (either for a new mail or with a reply to another email) and when finished with addresses, I close the composer window and save the message as draft.
With the following Applescript script I can then extract addresses, subject, and message body into a textfile and open it with vi:
tell application "Mail"
        # Set global variables.
        set msgfilename to "/Users/me/Documents/message"
        set msgheaderdelimiter to linefeed & "#+#+#+#+#+#This line serves as delimiter for applescript.#+#+#+#+#+#" & linefeed
        set msgdraft to first item of messages of drafts mailbox

        # Open file to edit message.
        try
                set msgfile to open for access msgfilename with write permission
        on error number -49
                say "Error, file already open."
                close access msgfilename
                set msgfile to open for access msgfilename with write permission
        end try
        set eof msgfile to 0

        # Extract information from the message and write it to the file
        set msgrecipients to to recipients of msgdraft
        write "To: " to msgfile as «class utf8»
        repeat with rcp in msgrecipients
                set addr to address of rcp
                write addr to msgfile as «class utf8»
                write "," to msgfile as «class utf8»
        end repeat
        write linefeed & "CC: " to msgfile starting at -1 as «class utf8»
        set msgrecipients to cc recipients of msgdraft
        repeat with rcp in msgrecipients
                set addr to address of rcp
                write addr to msgfile as «class utf8»
                write "," to msgfile as «class utf8»
        end repeat
        write linefeed & "Subject: " to msgfile starting at -1 as «class utf8»
        set msgsubject to subject of msgdraft
        write msgsubject to msgfile starting at eof as «class utf8»
        set msgcontent to content of msgdraft
        write msgheaderdelimiter to msgfile as «class utf8»
        write msgcontent to msgfile starting at eof as «class utf8»
        close access msgfile
        delete msgdraft
end tell

# Start gvim with the prepared message file
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/gvim /Users/me/Documents/message"

After editing the message body, I save the textfile and close vi. With the following script, I can then open a new message composer window with the information from the textfile:
tell application "Mail"
        # Set global variables.
        set fillinToAddresses to false
        set fillinCCAddresses to false
        set defaultDelimiters to AppleScript's text item delimiters
        set msgfilename to "/Users/me/Documents/message"
        set msgheaderdelimiter to linefeed & "#+#+#+#+#+#This line serves as delimiter for applescript.#+#+#+#+#+#" & linefeed

        # Open file to create outgoing message.
        set msgfile to open for access msgfilename
        set fields to read msgfile from 1 for 10000 using delimiter linefeed as «class utf8»
        # Extract To addresses
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
        set bufferarray to every text item of item 1 of fields
        if (count of bufferarray) = 2 then
                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ","
                set msgtoaddresses to every text item of item 2 of bufferarray
                set fillinToAddresses to true
        end if
        # Extract CC addresses
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
        set bufferarray to every text item of item 2 of fields
        if (count of bufferarray) = 2 then
                set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ","
                set msgccaddresses to every text item of item 2 of bufferarray
                set fillinCCAddresses to true
        end if
        # Extract subject
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "Subject: "
        set bufferarray to every text item of item 3 of fields
        set msgsubject to item 2 of bufferarray as «class utf8»
        # Extract mail body
        set buffer1 to read msgfile from 1 for 10000 as «class utf8»
        set AppleScript's text item delimiters to msgheaderdelimiter
        set buffer2 to every text item of buffer1
        set msgbody to item 2 of buffer2

        # Create outgoing message object
        set newmsg to make new outgoing message
        tell newmsg
                if fillinToAddresses then
                        repeat with addr in msgtoaddresses
                                make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:addr}
                        end repeat
                end if
                if fillinCCAddresses then
                        repeat with addr in msgccaddresses
                                make new cc recipient at end of cc recipients with properties {address:addr}
                        end repeat
                end if
                set the subject to msgsubject
                set the content to msgbody
        end tell

        # Close file
        close access msgfile
end tell

Now, I would add attachments and send the mail.
There are obviously still some weaknesses: The BCC and reply-to fields are still missing, but can easily be added. A bit worse, attachments are lost, when switching from the message composer to vi and back. It would be desired, that the new message composer window is opened automatically as vi is closed, without a manual script start as above. So, I am not completely happy with it yet, but maybe it's a starting point where some more advanced users can add improvements.