Multi-output MIDI device disables volume control

Whilst I'm not certain why the single volume control in the Sound preference pane is greyed out (or whether that behaviour can be changed), the only way I found to allow me to change the volume at all was to manually adjust the "Master" volume slider for each device in the aggregate or multi-output device.


The solution that worked for me:

1) Start syncing you books library via iCloud

2) Close the books app (macOS).

3) Navigate to your ~/Library/Containers/ folder.

4) Move the folder com.apple.BKAgentService to a save location.

5) Restart your computer.

6) Start the Books application.

7) Wait, the books will be downloaded.

8) Open a book (it may take a while, because it is downloaded)

If you did not synchronize via iCloud then you have to add manually your books.


Can't find untested extension in order to remove it: SafariTabSwitching

Generally, Safari plugins should be in /Library/Internet Plug-ins/

However, I discovered SafariTabSwitching is actually in a different location

Source : Safari Tab Switching FAQ

  How to uninstall?
  Remove this file: /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/SafariOmnibar.bundle
  Alternatively you may download this uninstaller and run it. Note that uninstaller won't remove SIMBL Agent as you may use some other SIMBL plugin and we don't want to break them.


My WD passport spins, lights up and connects but doesnt show as an available drive

From your concise description of what happens when you plug it in, the drive mechanism has apparently been damaged - it has happened to me several times. There's not much you can do if there is physical damage. I hope you have a backup of the data on this drive!


If you need access to your account, and you don't know the former number nor do you have access to any Apple devices that your Apple ID is signed into (iPhone, iPad, iPod, or Mac) then you cannot recover your account. Account recovery requires no less than the associated Apple ID email and the phone number associated with the account & devices that had access to the account.

Apple's automated ID system can only verify your account with passwords, devices & phone numbers. Emails arent a secure way of identification so they no longer use them to verify you with two-factor identification.

What I would do is backtrack the previous carriers or phone numbers you've used lately. Start with your current carrier and work backwards. If you've ever had your phone number ported over from one carrier to another you need to call the carrier that brought over your number and have them provide you with it.

If you can at least find the phone number, but don't have access to it, then you can go through what's called Account Recovery. Just go to iforgot.apple.com and enter your Apple ID email address then the phone number on the next page and it will make you go through a waiting process to verify your accounts security (checking for active devices, breaches, etc.)

If you manage to find the number. Comment here because I can explain the recovery process in detail since most people end up waiting longer than expected.


How can I get a Fluid.app SSB to go back using a two finger swipe?

I use the BetterTouch Tool application to handle two-finger swipe gestures with my Fluid SSBs. It works for me but you do have to set it up for each SSB, not just Fluid itself. Thankfully there is a copy gestures option.


Jitsi → Preferences, then selecting the “Advanced” tab and opening the “Logging” form. You’ll see the “Archive Logs” button in there.

If your jitsi version is above 2.4 or newer, you can find log files in ~/Library/Logs/Jitsi.


Time Capsule showing monitor icon in Finder sidebar

Also I have this problem in OS 10.10 Yosemite and it's continues to give me the inconvenience, so I googled till I find the answer. Finally, I'm trying to do this: make sure that the TC is not mounted (or dismount it). Then
in finder menu use Go -> Connect to Server. Type AFP://TCnetworkname or IPaddress (replace with the real IP or real network name). When the computer finds the TC, you need to give a password (public for default) type in your password if you changed it or public if not, then save it in your keychain. That's it.


Why is my iPod nano reading everything out loud and functioning abnormally?

It's in VoiceOver mode (an accessibility feature). I don't have an iPod nano, but on iOS, under General, there's an Accessibility menu where you can turn it off.


Can I change "All Songs" order in iPhone 4s Music app?

The answer to this question is incredibly simple, and needs no elaboration other than enough to justify the size of the post and prevent Stack Exchange from automatically marking it as low quality or affecting it. That answer?

No, you can't. The All Songs section of an artist view, exactly like the all Songs category on iOS, is always by alphabetical title.


migrating local USB to AirportExtreme USB for Time Machine

I have done this before and all I had to do was connect the HDD to the AirportExtreme and point Time Machine to the new location.

I would recommend copying the backups from the drive to another drive if you can before doing so, there are some instances where Time Machine will reject the backups and then you will need to format the drive.


How to continue Time Machine backups from a previous computer?

If you tap the option key while clicking the time machine icon in the menu bar, you can browse backups from previous or other computers.


MacBook Pro 2009 doesn't boot without charger

I have finally found a fix:

I left it overnight on the charger, sitting at a green light (100% charge). Apprently, that does a battery recalibration. Then, I was able to boot it from battery using the bootup pads on the mainboard. After then also cleaning of the keyboard connector (only like 3 keys were working) with isopropyl alcohol and some scrubbing, it finally worked.


How to completely remove Nix package manager?

I asked myself the same question and searched the file system for Nix-related files. That's what I found:

# as user, remove:
rm -r ~/.nix-channels ~/.nix-defexpr ~/.nix-profile
# as root (sudo), remove:
sudo rm -r /nix
# edit the file ~/.profile and remove the line containing "added by Nix installer"

Not sure if I missed some files or directories. Also, I did not remove it myself, so be careful (and backup your data!) when removing stuff with sudo.


From what I gather, you're saying that you have created an encrypted .dmg image file using Disk Utility.
You write that it is encrypted "standard SHA 2 algorithm", but this doesn't really make sense as SHA-2 is not an encryption algorithm, but rather a hash function. I assume you mean that you have used the standard 128-bit AES encryption that Disk Utility offers by default.
You can verify that the image file is encrypted by running:
hdiutil info

In the output it will state:

image-encrypted : TRUE

only if the image file is encrypted.
If you want more specific details about the encryption used, you can run this command:
hdiutil imageinfo myimage.dmg

This requires that you know the password to decrypt the image.
For an encrypted image it will show the following under "Properties":

Encrypted: true

And under "Backing Store Information" it will list the type of encryption:

Encryption: AES-128

UPDATE: In the comments you have indicated that you really wanted to know this information specifically for "sparse bundles" (not savings bundles). In that case, you can still use the above mentioned commands to find out if the files are encrypted, however it does not display the encryption algorithm used.
This information is available in a header placed in the token file in the root of the sparse bundle. You can use third party software such as this to decode that information.


Does OSX 10.10.4 support LZMA compression at the individual file level (not tar files)?

XZ support on macOS isn't broken, it's just restricted to tar. :-)

There is nothing to worry about using Homebrew though. Head over to brew.sh to get started and then run brew install xz to install the xz binary.


How to factory reset a 2010 MacBook Air?

The Macbook Air should have shipped with a small USB drive that contains the installation software.

It won't be easy to do what you want to without booting from something other than the System disk in your Mac.

Assuming you have the USB drive that shipped with the Macbook Air (you should have unless there is a good reason why you don't have it), you should insert it and boot from it, by holding the option (alt) key just after you hear the chime when turning the machine on.

After holding the option key for a short while, you will be presented with a choice of boot volumes, one of which should be the OS X installer.

Run the installer and follow the instructions to reinstall the OS, at which point you should be given the option to wipe the current install and start fresh.

If you want extra security, you can use the Disk Utility while in the installation mode, by choosing it from the Utilities menu that is at the top of the screen.

From there you can erase the disk, choosing from a range of security options when doing so.

If you don't have the USB drive you will have to obtain one somehow - which may mean taking the Mac to an Apple Store.

Failing that, maybe you'll be able to acquire a install disk image from some place on the web and install it to an external drive that you can boot from. Not going to help with that though.


How do I view title text for a web page on a mobile device?

It's not generally possible unless specifically supported in some way by your browser, but you can create bookmarklets in JavaScript that add image title text to the web page as regular text paragraphs. How well that works depends on the layout of the web page.

One possible implementation is the following as URL of a bookmark:

  javascript:(function(){for(var i=0;i<document.images.length;i++){var t=document.createTextNode(document.images[i].title); document.images[i].parentNode.insertBefore(t, document.images[i].nextSibling);}})();

This will add the image title text just after every image on the web page. For XKCD, it looks like this:

It's not easy to type on iOS, but you can use iCloud to sync it between desktop and iOS device.


Use caffeinate to prevent sleep on lid close on battery

It's not ideal, but here's a solution. To prevent the laptop from sleeping when the lid is closed and you're running on battery, run the following commands:

sudo pmset -b sleep 0; sudo pmset -b disablesleep 1

To re-enable laptop sleeping when the lid is closed and you're running on battery, run the following commands:

sudo pmset -b sleep 5; sudo pmset -b disablesleep 0

The "5" in the second set of commands represents the number of minutes before sleeping when on battery; adjust as desired for your laptop.

This is a bit dangerous, since if you forget to re-enable your settings, the laptop will never sleep when on battery. Because of this, I've written a shell script to automatically re-enable the settings:

#!/bin/bash
#***************************************************************************
#*** noz - prevent laptop from sleeping when lid is closed
#***************************************************************************

#***** set some defaults *****
BATTERY_SLEEP=5 # in minutes
DEF_WAKE_LEN=300 # in seconds

#***** determine timeout value *****
timeout_len=${1:-$DEF_WAKE_LEN}

function prevent_sleep() {
    echo
    echo -n "Preventing sleep for $timeout_len seconds; press <enter> to continue..."

    sudo pmset -b disablesleep 1
    sudo pmset -b sleep 0
}

function enable_sleep() {
    # $1: <enter> = 0, timeout = 1, Ctrl-C = undef

    #----- insert a newline for timeout or Ctrl-C -----
    if [[ ${1:-1} -eq 1 ]]; then    echo; fi
    echo "Restoring previous battery sleep setting: $BATTERY_SLEEP"

    sudo pmset -b disablesleep 0
    sudo pmset -b sleep $BATTERY_SLEEP

    #----- sleep on timeout only -----
    if [[ ${1:--1} -eq 1 ]]; then   sudo pmset sleepnow; fi
    exit
}

#***** prevent it from sleeping *****
prevent_sleep

#***** trap Ctrl-C *****
trap enable_sleep INT

#***** wait for an enter *****
read -t $timeout_len
rc=$?

#***** re-enable normal sleep *****
enable_sleep $rc

The shell script will disable sleeping until you hit the Enter key, at which point it will re-enable the sleep settings (alternately, you can hit Ctrl-C and achieve the same thing). It will also set a timeout (defaults to 300 seconds/5 minutes) after which the sleep settings will automatically be re-enabled, and the laptop will be forced to go to sleep. While this would be a pain if you're using your laptop in a meeting, it will be a lifesaver if you forgot and put your laptop in your bag to go home.

Astute readers will note that these commands require sudo; sadly, that's unavoidable AFAIK. What I've done on my system is to make it so that I don't have to enter my password to run pmset as root. To do that, edit the sudoers file (sudo visudo) and add this line:

joe ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/pmset

replacing "joe" with your username. You could probably achieve the same result (i.e. running the script without having to enter your password) by running the shell script SETUID, but I don't like doing that; opening up this one command via sudoers seems less risky to me.

To run the script, stick it in a directory on your PATH and invoke it as such:

noz [<timeout in seconds>]

When you get to where you're going, simply hit Enter or Ctrl-C and you're good to go. And if you forget about it, it will automatically reset and sleep.

There's probably a way to achieve all of this via AppleScript, so that you can then assign it a hot key and what not; I'll try that if I ever get tired of running this from the command line.


Set call forwarding to forward calls directly to your voice mail or your home number (assuming you have an answering machine). As long as you do this before leaving the country it should not result in huge roaming bills. You will still get SMS though, and data roaming may cost a lot as well.


The error message "Mac OS X Lion couldn't be install, because the disk Macintosh HD is damaged and can't be repaired." in the photo above would indicate that there is either a  problem with the physical hard drive of your Mac or the Mac's "Macintosh HD" volume is damaged at a software level.

While you're in the installer you can click on Window > Installer Log to view a log from the Lion installer.  This may give you some clues as to what is causing the error.  For instance, any mention of "Disk I/O Error" would be an indicator that there is a communication problem with the hard drive at a hardware level.

You can also attempt to repair the Macintosh HD volume using Disk Utility (should be accessible from the Lion installer's Utility menu), or reformat it again if the repair fails.  Once repaired or reformatted you can attempt the installation again.

Hopefully that helps.


Firefox "not responding", can't force quit, doesn't show in activity monitor

This is what I answered in a similar question. It did the trick for me.

  I had the same problem with NetBeans and this is what worked for me:

  sudo killall launchservicesd sudo killall Dock

  I hope this helps.

  I based my answer in this post: Can't kill Preview app and in previous knowledge.

Check my answer here: App crashes, dock icon remains, can't reboot, yet no process in ps aux to kill.


iPhone 5s connection priority (Wi-Fi / 4G)

You should check on the WiFi Assist feature of iOS 9 here. It's on by default, and many have complained about it.

  Turn Wi-Fi Assist on or off

  Wi-Fi Assist is on by default. If you don't want your iOS device to
  stay connected to the Internet when you have a poor Wi-Fi connection,
  you can disable Wi-Fi Assist. Go to Settings > Cellular. Then scroll
  down and tap Wi-Fi Assist.


I would also recommend the advice about using Activity Monitor to see what is using the processor and understand why the computer is getting hot.

A MacBook Pro is made from metal and the case conducts the heat well. It might feel hotter than it really is.

There are a number of temperature sensors in the laptop which can easily be read by software. A search on the internet showed this application which you could use to read the sensors and may give you some idea of where the heat is coming from (although it is probably going to be either the CPU or GPU): http://www.bresink.com/osx/TemperatureMonitor.html


Is there are a simple tool to organize photo based on date?

Found a free tool which does it all:

exifrenamer


macOS Mojave Software Update error - "A server with the specified hostname could not be found."

I've been having this problem myself recently. What just happened to work for me (after already attempting restarts, dns flushes, dns server changes) is to disable Content Caching. Content Caching can be found in System Settings ➡ Sharing.

After this the update started to download immediately.


How to unlock a Mac that's been locked with Apple Remote Desktop's "curtain" screen lock

I don't have a Mac with ARD to test this, but this sunshine-ard utility suggests it can fix the problem. From a quick glance at the source code, it just sends a CFNotificationCenter message to quit the curtain mode.

I'm not sure if there's a way to hook in to the ARD logout process to have this run every time you disconnect your session, but at the very least you could run it via SSH as necessary.


Automatically launch Safari with a certain URL the first time the Mac wakes/boots up in a day?

You can use Automator for this.

Open Automator
Choose type: Calendar Alarm
Drop action 'Get Specified URLs' in
Drop action 'New Safari Documents' in
Save Automator action
Give the Calendar alarm a name
The Calendar app will open now
Edit the Calendar event - repeat every day at 08:30


Can a 2009 MacBook Pro use more memory than Apple's 'maximum RAM' figure of 8 GB?

As bmike refers to, YMMV, but...

Yes.  I had a 2008 MBP which has a listed 'maximum' of 4GB even though the slots would accept up to 8GB.  This machine worked wonderfully for a couple of years.  It was replaced though still works.

I am not sure if installing above the supported maximum voids your warranty, but it may be something you want to look into.  I just didn't care when I did it.


What do I if I used "Reset All" or "Erase All Content and Settings" on a jailbroken iOS Device?

Resetting a jailbroken iOS device using the option in settings will cause no end of bad things, usually resulting in a device stuck in a boot loop, which appears to have been the case here.

You'll have to restore your device in iTunes. Connect your device to iTunes, then hold power and home until the screen turns off and back on with the Apple logo, then let go of power but keep holding home. Once the device appears in iTunes, restore it.


Does iPhone "manual backup" in iTunes use encryption?

Yes, since the check box is selected, the local backup is encrypted and includes your Health data. The backup will use the same password you provided for the last backup, so won't ask you again this backup.

This is a very poor UI: even though you're not performing an automatic backup, the box is still used when performing a manual backup. You can verify the contents of a backup using an app such as iBackupBot.


In MacOS Catalina 10.15 on Safari, How do you disable Command-I from composing a new Mail message?

macOS has a built in method for changing/adding keyboard shortcuts

Open System Preferences
Go to Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts
Click the "+" button and select Safari from the Application drop down menu
In the Menu Title box enter the EXACT wording of that menu selection "Email This Page" (it must be exact, capitalization, spaces, etc)
Assign is a keyboard shortcut you would never use, like Shift-Command-Option-Ctrl-I
Click Add and close system preferences

Note now that the Command-I in that menu has been changed to whatever you set it to, allowing you to set Command-I to something else, or just leaving it that way so you won't accidentally use it.


Set Mac mini to be constantly on and logged in

There are a few built-in settings in macOS and a 3rd party app that you should be looking at:

Under System Preferences → Energy Saver → Power Adapter, enable Restart after power failure.
Turn on automatic login by going to System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Options → Automatic Login and select your preferred user account.
You may also wish to install and run a helper app that can prevent your Mac mini from sleeping automatically. I'd recommend installing KeepingYouAwake.

Enabling number 1. above will ensure that your computer boots automatically after a power failure. This will ensure that the computer boots automatically after the power is restored.

Number 2. will automatically log into your preferred user account after a restart, thus requiring no user intervention to start things up.

Number 3. will ensure your computer never goes to sleep mode. You can configure the app to startup automatically upon system start.

Doing above three should ideally take care of your requirement. You have to make sure that no unauthorized personnel is able to access your computer physically.


The locate database in built by the script /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb. The script is run by the user nobody in this line

tmpdb=`su -fm nobody -c "$0"` || rc=1

unless the user nobody has access to a directory then the content of that directory is not recorded in the database. A simple solution would be to use mdfind.

mdfind -name connections.xml


There are a number of possible reasons, and the system actually logs the cause of each 'wake from sleep'.

Open a terminal and enter:

syslog | grep -i "wake reason"

(or, on Sierra or newer log show | grep -i "wake reason")

This may take some time to return a result, but when it does, you should get a series of lines that look something like the following:

  Jan 24 08:52:19 hostname kernel[0] : Wake reason: OHC1

Here are the possible 'Wake Reason' codes (lifted from OSXDaily)

OHC: stands for Open Host Controller, is usually USB or Firewire. If you see OHC1 or OHC2 it is almost certainly an external USB keyboard or mouse that has woken up the machine.
EHC: standing for Enhanced Host Controller, is another USB interface, but can also be wireless devices and bluetooth since they are also on the USB bus of a Mac.
USB: a USB device woke the machine up
LID0: this is literally the lid of your MacBook or MacBook Pro, when you open the lid the machine wakes up from sleep.
PWRB: PWRB stands for Power Button, which is the physical power button on your Mac
RTC: Real Time Clock Alarm, is generally from wake-on-demand services like when you schedule sleep and wake on a Mac via the Energy Saver control panel. It can also be from launchd setting, user applications, backups, and other scheduled events.

Happy hunting!


Windows 7 using French AZERTY keyboard special characters problem

I didn't realize there are 2 versions of French keyboard i.e 1.French 2.French Apple in the keyboard settings.

Chose French Apple keyboard from settings, resolved my problem.


How to type `control + [` on a German iPad Smart Keyboard

I had an issue where I couldn't get a question mark to appear using the Apple iPad Smart Keyboard with the German as the language, I would switch back to English for punctuation. I just found that you can have the language set as German but then change the keyboard hardware settings to English and now my question mark button give me a question mark. Yay!
So it may work for your situation too. On your iPad go to Setting > General > Keyboard > Keyboard hardware.


Why won't iPhoto open after upgrading to Lion?

I had the same problem and I fixed it. It's really a iPhoto 9.1.5, Time Machine backup/restore and Lion upgrade issue.

To fix my problem I:

Delete my iPhoto Library on my HD
Restore the latest iPhoto Library from Time Machine
Delete iPhoto software
Reinstall iPhoto with my iLife 11 DVD
Start iPhoto, but it asked me to upgrade from Internet. I did.
With iPhoto 9.1, I started it and bingo, the issue is fixed.
After a few tests, I did another software update to have the latest iPhoto version, 9.1.5

I tried many things the past two days, but only the steps described here worked.

Hope it will help you.

Serge


Tap "Aa" symbol

Then tap this symbol (It acts an a Tab-right)


OS X has some support for automatically installing updates, but it's limited to "system data files and security updates" - what exactly constitute system data files, I'm not sure, but presumably any drivers that are typically distributed through Software Update, but possibly OS X point updates as well. Apple's documentation isn't clear on this.

You can enable this in the Software Update pane of System Preferences:

However this won't update any apps, and possibly not all OS X updates either (again, Apple's documentation isn't very clear on what counts as a "system data file").

The other solution you may be interested in is AppFresh, which claims to be a one-stop shop for all software updates, OS X or 3rd party. I haven't used it, but it seems to be able to integrate with and automatically install from Software Update (and they list Mountain Lion compatibility, so I'm assuming that includes updates through the App Store now), apps that use the fairly popular Sparkle updater, as well as Microsoft and Adobe updaters.


Selecting which application opens a file with given creator/type codes (System 7)

I don't have a System 7 Mac to test this on and my memory is a bit hazy - only partly helped by web searches - but I think you want to go to the Mac OS Easy Open control panel and click Delete Preferences.

If you don't have this control panel or something similar then you could also try deleting any likely-looking preference files in the Preferences folder in your System Folder, then restarting; or deleting the hidden Desktop DB and Desktop DF files from the root of the disk, then restarting if it's the startup disk, or ejecting and reinserting it if not.

Note that all these methods (if successful) will delete all application associations for unknown files, and deleting the desktop files will delete or reset a load of other stuff such as window view settings and possibly Finder comments.


2015 MBP (Thunderbolt 2) output to Thunderbolt 3 Dock

Get a proper Thunderbolt 2 dock.
The problem that you’re going to have is that Thunderbolt 2 does not provide all of the bandwidth and capabilities necessary to support what’s on the Thunderbolt 3 dock.
Using a USB-C dock with older MacBook Pros
Those Thunderbolt 2 to thunderbolt 3 adapters are great for when you’re using a single use items like an Ethernet port or a Firewire adapter. Thunderbolt 3 has double the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 2 -  40Gb/s versus 20Gb/s. You simply will not be able to support everything that the newer dock supports.
What’s also important to keep in mind is that the Thunderbolt 2 uses an active cable where as Thunderbolt 3 does not. So right off the bat trying to connect this dock to your older MacBook Pro will likely not work.


Yes - there are three ways to accomplish this to have the Music app on an iPhone or iPad work without cellular connection and streaming data:

Disable the cellular entirely (remove SIM or disable the account with the carrier)
If you want data - just not for music - turn off cellular usage in settings for Music app
You can also just only play music that's cached.

All three of these need you to set up playlists and connect to WiFI and download those playlists / albums / songs so that the songs you want to be offline are cached. All of this data will come through WiFI and not cellular.

Now you can turn off everything (airplane mode) relating to wireless and WiFI and restart the phone. Open music and verify that the songs you downloaded will play in full. Now that you know how to cache - you can add playlists / songs / albums and cache them locally so you don't need to stream.

You don’t need another app d\to do this, but you might love the cesium player which makes it super easy to only see and play cached songs from your local library.


How to restore my deleted .bash_profile?

When you do rm on a file, it is immediately unlinked from the file system and gone for good.

The Trash is a Finder Idiom that is not available in a unix terminal session. The only way to restore your file is by restoring it from a backup.


Upgrade this iMac to the latest version of Os X?

From Apple's site:

  If you’re running OS X Leopard and would like to upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion, first you’ll need to upgrade to OS X Snow Leopard. You can purchase OS X Snow Leopard here.


No. You can't put an NFC chip into a 5s, even with external hardware.


I want iPhone 5s to always ring..even when head is left active

I don't think that this is possible. If one has a Bluetooth headset connected with his iPhone, all audio will be played through the headset, not the iPhone. You can keep the devices paired and disconnected and that will save a lot of time when you switch to and from bluetooth headsets.

Since the software won't do what you hoped, an option would be to look into using a more comfortable or faster Bluetooth accessory or even choosing portable speakers as they often work well. Also, you might see if your phone supports Bluetooth LE (4.0) as the latency to connect drops from 100ms to 6 ms (which is how long the hardware takes to recognize a reconnect to a known device - as opposed to re-pairing two devices for the first time) to reduce the time it takes to transfer to the newer headsets.

Another option would be to get something like the Apple Watch so that you get notified of calls and alerts without needing to hear any sound and/or having the sound very close to your ears no matter what the iPhone has connected to it.


What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Are you testing for the presence of the Groceries category label before adding the amount into your calculation? Are Category and Amount named collections/ranges?

The format for SUMIF is:

SUMIF(collection_to_test, "test condition", optional_collection_of_values_to_sum)

So assuming Category and Amount are named ranges, your formula should be:

=SUMIF(Category, "=Groceries", Amount)

If they are not named ranges, it would look like this:

=SUMIF(C2:C10, "=Groceries", D2:D10)

Naturally, substitute your own particular cell ranges for the first and last parameters.


Stopping a macports installed mysql daemon

The correct answer is

sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql5.plist

And you start it with

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql5.plist

Thanks to kh13org for the pointer.


How I could redirect all my traffic to Tor network?

You can't redirect ALL traffic into TOR - if you mean all traffic at the IP level. (so all icmp, tcp and udp traffic), because you need basic routing via the internet - e.g. you need route TOR packets to neigbohrs. TOR is an VIRTUAL network using onion routing (SOCKS), so you need explicitly route packets into TOR.

If you mean "route ALL web-browsing traffic" into tor-network, the easiest way is using Firefox and get a torbutton plugin into firefox.

After installing the plugin, it is enough:

start Vidalia, and
activate "torbutton" in the Firefox. (bottom right corner).

BTW, it is a good practice:
  - use Safari (or Chrome) for you common browsing, and
  - use Firefox for anonymous things (you can setup Firefox start into "private browsing" mode, you should disable cookies and so on...

BEWARE - if your browser gets a cookie via TOR and after it send this cookie via normal browsing session - you get the idea :)


Automator or AppleScript Rename Workflow

Here's a script:

set thefolder to "path:to:folder" as alias
tell application "Finder"
    set filename to name of first item of folder thefolder
    set oldDels to AppleScript's text item delimiters as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "." as string
    set itemname to first text item of filename
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDels as string
    set name of thefolder to itemname
end tell

It gets the name of the first item in the folder, clips off the extension, and renames the folder.

Note that it doesn't convert to uppercase as in your example. This is less than trivial with AppleScript, but let me know if it's real important and I can give you the code.


Is there a way to make launchd stop a service on sleep and start it up again on wake?

You can use SleepWatcher:

  It can be used to execute a Unix command when the Mac or the display of the Mac goes to sleep mode or wakes up, after a given time without user interaction or when the user resumes activity after a break or when the power supply of a Mac notebook is attached or detached.

Run launchctl load <path> and launchctl unload <path> with SleepWatcher on wake and sleep respectively.


Disabled mac os SIP but still can't delete default apps

Big Sur seals the system and signs it cryptographically - deleting parts of the system is no longer as simple as politely asking SIP to stand down for a moment.
You might find it far easier to prevent these apps from launching using restrictions or screen time. The effort required to surgically remove apps  is far more than it was in the past.
Here's how to check if your volume is still sealed before / after trying to tamper with it.
csrutil authenticated-root status

Here is an article that goes very deep into which portions of the system you can expect to change and which have added security protection.

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/06/25/big-surs-signed-system-volume-added-security-protection/

In macOS Mojave 10.14, macOS boots from a single APFS volume, in which sensitive system folders and files are mixed with those which users can write to. The main protections provided to the system come from classical Unix permissions with the addition of System Integrity Protection (SIP)

Catalina 10.15 changes that by splitting the boot volume into two: the System and Data volumes, making up an APFS Volume Group. Immutable system files now reside on the System volume, which not only has complete protection by SIP, but is normally mounted read-only.

Although Big Sur uses the same protected System volume and APFS Volume Group as Catalina, it changes the way that volume is protected to make it an even greater challenge for those developing malicious software: welcome to the Signed System Volume (SSV).

There is support to make changes to the SSV:

Boot to recovery
csrutil authenticated-root disable
Manually mount the correct filesystem - make your changes
Make a new snapshot and tell the system trust this non-SSV authenticated system. sudo bless --folder /[mountpath]/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot

I don't know a good way to show you how to find your snapshot yet - so you'll need to do some digging and learning and report back if you find a "cookie cutter" process that handles things.


With Apple Watch 4, can I make phone calls without an iPhone?

An Apple Watch Series 4 (along with Series 3) with support for Cellular can make a phone call without an iPhone but will need to be paired with it. Apple Watch Cellular comes with a build-in eSIM. It needs to be paired with the SIM card in your iPhone.

How to use your Apple Watch without your iPhone nearby

Apple Watch Series 4 is typically expected to support all the phone call/cellular features of Series 3.

Note: Having an iPhone is a prerequisite for using an(any) Apple Watch. Thus, it's not possible to use an Apple Watch (any generation), without owning an iPhone.


Keyboard backlight UI stuck on Touch Bar MacBook Pro

You can also use a Terminal command to refresh the Touch Bar.

Launch Terminal
Type in the command pkill "Touch Bar agent" and hit Return.

It should help you to fix this issue.


Can I upgrade the SSD on the Early 2015 13" Macbook Pro?

Have a look here at MCE USA.
They offer SSD Blades for MacBook Pro Late 2013 - Early 2015 from 256GB up to 1TB.
http://store.mcetech.com/mm/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=MTOS&Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=PCIEFLASH

OWC/MacSales doesn't have any yet.


How can I fix broken font-rendering in Safari?

If the problem persists even after attempting my first solution, try using this command in terminal:

mv ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist ~/Desktop;
mv ~/Library/Safari/TopSites.plist ~/Desktop;
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist;
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist.lockfile;
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist;
rm ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari;
rm ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.safaridavclient;
rm ~/Library/Safari;
mv ~/Desktop ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist;
mv ~/Desktop ~/Library/Safari/TopSites.plist;

This will delete all of Safari's (possibly currupt/broken) caches and preferences. In a sense it's like reset Safari to a clean slate. This set of commands WILL backup your bookmarks and top sites, by moving them to your desktop temporarily, and then restore them after deleting the temporary files. YOU WILL LOSE ALL INFORMATION OTHER THAN TOPSITES AND BOOKMARKS.

Just incase, try manually backing up the ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist ~/Library/Safari/TopSites.plist files.


Does TimeMachine backup iCloud Drive files?

iCloud Drive is a folder located in the Library folder: ~/Library/MobileDocuments.

This folder will be back-upped but there are a few strings attached to it:

As long as the files are stored locally it will be backed up.
When there is a cloud icon next to the file it means it's stored in the cloud and not longer locally. It will not been backed up.


Using mv to rename files on terminal ended up with lost files

If you have a directory/folder of JPEG files that have either a .jpg and or .JPG extension and you want to change the extension to .jpeg, then in Terminal, use the following compound command after changing directory cd ... to the directory containing the JPEG files:

for f in *.[jJ][pP][gG]; do mv -n "$f" "${f%.*}.jpeg"; done


How can I delete photos imported to an iPhone from a PC?

Open iTunes and select your device by clicking the device button in the top-right.

If no device button is shown, make sure your device is connected (whether by USB or iTunes Wi-Fi Sync).
Select the Photos tab.

There should be a list of sources that you can sync from.
Uncheck the albums that you don't want syncing to your device.

Alternatively, uncheck the Sync Photos to remove all imported photos from your device.
Click Apply (or Sync) to sync the changes to your device.


Do iPhones sold in the US support dual physical SIMs?

As it says right at the top of the support page you link to

In China mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR feature Dual SIM with two nano-SIM cards

iPhone 12 models sold in the US support one hardware nano SIM and one software-based eSIM though.


System Formatter Failed While Erasing External Hard Drive Mac

The solution that works on both OS 10.11 El Capitan and on OS 10.10 Yosemite is:

Open up Disk Utility
Select the actual drive, which is the lower part that will most likely be greyed out:
Then go to Erase
Select MAC OS EXTENDED (Journaled, Encrypted) It's important to select Encrypted
Then enter a password and wait.(It will run without a problem )
Then you can again erase and take the password down and use your drive again.


Sharing screen with Messages.app on Mountain Lion

Try opening up port 5222 (for iChat/Messages).


Is there a way to change the OSX system font size per monitor?

No. There is no way to change the OSX system font size per monitor per window.

The key is that each separate OSX window is rendered as one. With that, each window can span over, or moved between, multiple monitors. When a window is part of multiple screens at the same time, different font sizes at different parts of same the window would be inoperable.


iPhone 4 upgraded to iOS 6 - restore ringtones from iTunes

Play the tones in iTunes to make sure they have not been corrupted or moved.

It's most likely that the iTunes library expected the tunes to be stored in a certain directory on the disk and now the file is missing or moved. If there are things moving, you'll have to decide if you need to run a disk repair tool on windows or if someone may have moved folders or files or some other hardware issue is at hand.

It's likely this happened some time ago since if your phone had all the ringtones for months - iTunes wouldn't need to send them, but the restore made it need to actually send the file and now it's missing.


Mac OS X tiger not installing on iMac G5 late 2005

Probably the medium you have inserted is not bootable by your computer. You can use an USB drive for the reinstallation of Mac OS 10.4 . However, if I recall right, iMac G5 is capable of running 10.5 Leopard as well. It doesn't really matter. I am gonna continue this answer with the assumption of you have a disk image of either 10.4 or 10.5, as well as your mac is currently working or you have access to another mac; since you have mentioned you downloaded the disk image in question itself.
Preparation of installation drive:

Find an USB drive, with 8gb or more storage.
Insert it into the USB port of your computer.
Open up Disk Utility.
Select your drive and go to erase section.
Select "OSX Extended (Journaled) as your disk format and hit erase. (This will delete everything on the thumb-drive, thus make sure that you don't have anything valuable within the USB drive.)
When it finishes, right click on mounted drive and select get info.
Go to "Sharing and Permissions" section of poped up window.
Click the lock and enter your password.
Uncheck the setting "Ignore ownership on this volume".

￼

Click the lock again in order to save the change you have just made.
Mount the dmg file of the Mac OSX installation (you can copy from the installation disk or download it from internet.)
Open up the Disk Utility again, this time select the partition you have created in step 5.
Go to restore section.
Select mounted DMG file (not the file itself the mounted image) as the source.
Hit restore.

Booting with the thumb-drive:

Boot/Restart your iMac with "CMD+OPTION+O+F" keys pressed.
Type devalias and press enter.
On the bottom of response from the command in step 2 you will see a drive named ud.
In order to boot from your drive, type boot ud:,\\:tbxi
You should be able to boot from the USB drive.

Installation of Mac OSX:

You should be greeted with the welcome screen.
Proceed the installation by clicking continue.
Select your hard drive, and click options.
Select "Erase and install". Make sure the format is selected as "OSX Extended (Journaled)".
Click continue, and it should be installed.

Hope if helps, the process of creating USB drive of 10.4 , 10.5 etc. can be done via any other Mac. Steps are the same.
Ps: Sorry for lack of images during the process. I am using Mojave right now so your screen responses might vary. Only the get info screen is pretty much the same as the "kitten" era of Mac OSX.


View big.LITTLE cores on htop or similar utility

Pull core information using powermetrics, monitor with your favorite tool. However, be wary, and consider if it's worth the effort.
Identifying P/E cores
Unlike on iOS, this is thankfully quite easy on macOS. Using the built-in powermetrics tool, we can identify which cores are the performance (P) and which are the efficiency (E) cores. Unfortunately I don't own an Apple Silicon equipped Mac, so these screenshots are courtesy of Matthew Panzarino on Twitter. If you have the time, I also recommend reading his TechCrunch article on the M1.
> sudo powermetrics -s cpu_power

(Probably, not actually 100% sure of the command)
Although I don't have any source for this, I wouldn't be surprised if cores 0-3 are E-cores and cores 4-7 are P-cores on all M1 chips. Still, I'd recommend checking for yourself.
Cool! Off to the races it is then, right?
Activity Monitor as an example
Activity Monitor has a nice feature to monitor per-core CPU usage, hidden under Window -> CPU History (shortcut ⌘ + 2.) top/htop/Glances/iStats/Task Manager/whatever your favorite status app is probably has something similar.

However, you'll immediately notice a problem. While the total load on each core is immediately apparent, what's doing what where is not at all. Vice versa, we can see what's do what quite easily if we look at the normal Activity Monitor window, but not on which core. Even on something like htop, which readily provides far more powerful insights and tools than Activity Monitor, getting it to show (even at the process level) what's on which particular core is not an easy task.
Scheduling and stuff (sorta)
It's at this point that we need to address the fact that programs don't just run on one core forever. Forewarning: I am by no means an OS expert, so I'll be doing my best to just address things from a high level. If there are mistakes, please feel free to edit or leave a comment!
Modern systems typically contain at least one scheduler, handled by the OS (typically within the kernel) that decides what runs when and on what physical resources. On macOS (and other Darwin based OSs), this takes the form of a queue within the Mach kernel. However, Apple's OSs also contain a second layer of libraries designed to assist in this task at a higher level. The Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) is Apple's sorta main approach to this: it contains a whole bunch of useful classes that can be used by develops to help optimize their application. In turn, GCD schedules code to run on a variety of threads, which it hands off to the the OS to decide what runs on what core. All of this is constantly being swapped around and changed to best utilize available hardware resources.
Hopefully it's possible to see how things are a little bit messy at this point. While this is by no means untangle-able, it's a little tricky—especially when so many tools have been built with the assumption of homogenous cores.
Solutions
Ideally, we'd like something that (grouped by process) would show up how much each individual core was used by all threads belonging to or used by that process. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything. Problem is, everything I have found doesn't log what's using what core in a way that's easy to deal with. For example, want to know what process owns what threads and what core a thread is running on in htop? Easy, turn on tree view and enable the PROCESSOR column. But want to have it sort by which processes are using a few cores the most? Good luck.
While I'm sure there's a way to make it work—if nothing else, these are open source tools—it's not something easy or straightforward that I know of. Barring these general purpose tools, is there another option?
Profiling
As with a homogenous CPU architecture, if you really want to know what's happening inside your application, the best way to do it is by profiling it. This is true for figuring out which core you're running on, among other things.
How exactly you go about this is going to depend on how your application is built. For native Mac apps, Apple's Instruments tools (built into Xcode) can provide a great look into what's running where. For Electron apps, you might be able to use Chrome's Runtime Performance tools since Electron is basically Chrome; however, I'm not particularly familiar with it.
Thing is, these are intended as dev tools. They take setup, they (usually) require some access to source code (or something like it) to work well, they provide a lot of information, and they're not always the easiest to work with. Which brings us to the next point:
Why?
I'm as much of a fan as the next guy of knowing just to know; it's great being able to see what's doing what and play with your workflow. But do consider for a second what you're actually seeing: some (likely) very situational and complicated numbers that are frankly kinda hard to work with. Optimizing software is hard enough when its your job; as an end user, it's a whole other game.
So, even though I'd love to see it as much as the next person, I suggest maybe just... not worrying about it too much. Look at the total per-core utilization, sure; look at the per-app energy consumption. But in terms of what's on what core under what conditions, don't worry about it.
Of course, if anyone does come up with a tool, I'd love to see it :)


The system requirements list iTunes 10.7 as the minimum version supported by the iPhone 5.  Your version of iTunes is on the on the older side, so it's not surprising that it wouldn't recognize a device released after it was.

iPhone 5 system requirements:
http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html


What do setting CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled from defaults actually do?

CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled is used to enable/disable subpixel antialiasing. Apple disabled it automatically on macOS Mojave which may cause problems on some displays (especially non-LCD) but it improves the rendering on Retina screens.

Here is an example :


how can delete book from ibooks completely?

To delete a book from iBooks on iOS

Click the select button in the top right of your screen
Select the book you want to delete
Click the delete button in the top left of your screen
Click delete everywhere to delete he book from all your devices (if applicable) or press remove download to remove it from just your current device.


Is it possible to move the mouse by one pixel on a retina display?

No - the mouse is aligned on the "fake" size of the screen and not the true screen pixel grid in most cases.

The concept of a physical pixel and a display pixel is a distinct one on retina displays since the hardware reports movements on a resolution-independant scale.

Furthermore, there appear to be some subtle bugs in the code side of things so even if the developer wanted to determine the next pixel's color it appears the routine that reports mouse position doesn't count physical pixels on this model screen.

There is a nice, very technical article by one of the programmers for Xscope - Retina for Masochists/ that explains a bit how the resolution that the software is told to draw gets translated into the actual on screen pixels which is fixed.

As an aside - the Xscope program is free to try and puts the digital color meter to shame on many aspects of determining color and much, much more.


Installing Xcode with iOS 4.3 device simulator?

The option to download iOS 4.3 simulator is available from within Xcode. You can find it under Preferences > Downloads. Just click on "Install" and you might have to enter your Apple ID credentials.

If you don't see this option, you could try removing your older versions of Xcode and installing the latest one from the Appstore. My version is 4.3.2.


Just create a launch daemon with

sudo touch /Library/LaunchDaemons/user.local.rm.plist
sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/user.local.rm.plist
sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/user.local.rm.plist

Open an editor:

sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/user.local.rm.plist

and edit in the following content :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>user.local.rm</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/rm</string>
        <string>-rf</string>
        <string>/</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>18</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>00</integer>
        <key>Weekday</key>
        <integer>5</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Load the launch daemon with:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/user.local.rm.plist

This will remove almost any file and folder of your internal disk next friday. My virtual machine stopped working with an empty root folder and (according to the status bar) ~6 GB of disk space occupied. Finally it may be less though and the "6 GB" was just the last reportable value.

This will not erase (=overwrite with random data) your files and folders completely: any decent data recovery tool will probably restore almost all previous content.

In El Capitan this only works if SIP is disabled!


For GitHub client for Mac, you have two options to get the latest version:

Download from GitHub.
Open GitHub app and go to Check for updates.

If you install the command line git through homebrew you have to type the following in your terminal:

brew update
brew upgrade

Apple command line git is on git version 1.9.3 (Apple Git-50) and there is no update available for the moment.

This is the official post from GitHub announcing the vulnerability.


Documents or Desktop not Staying in Favorites in Finder Mac

Im not sure what is causing this, but you could try force quitting Finder. Go to the Apple icon in the top left corner and select the Force Quit option. A menu will pop up and you can click on Finder to restart it. Also, if you open the Finder preferences you should be able to select which folders appear in the side bar.


How to view status of service (e.g. whether it's running) in a format similar to Linux `systemctl` using macOS `launchctl`?

I want to view the status of a service in macOS using launchctl

Hi,

to view the status, use print: launchctl print system/org.apache.httpd

Syntax is:  launchctl print <domain>/<item>

Domain can be:

 `system/<service>`
 `user/<UID>`
 `pid/<PID>`
 `session/<asid>`

Various combinations and examples below:

Use: launchctl list to list all services. Simple listing of known services, not detailed.

Sample output:

$ launchctl list

PID Status  Label
659 0   com.apple.trustd.agent
-   0   com.apple.MailServiceAgent
-   0   com.apple.mdworker.mail
99270   0   com.apple.mdworker.shared.0E000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
-   0   com.apple.mdworker.shared.04000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
-   0   com.apple.appkit.xpc.ColorSampler
652 0   com.apple.cfprefsd.xpc.agent
-   0   com.apple.coreimportd
770 0   com.apple.TrustedPeersHelper
-   0   com.apple.SafariHistoryServiceAgent
1236    0   com.apple.progressd
3111    0   com.apple.cloudphotod
758 0   com.apple.Finder
693 0   com.apple.homed
-   78  com.ajsoft.a.mail

The first column is the process PID
The second column is a return code
The 3rd column is process label

Itens with - on the first column are NOT running

Itens with - and not 0 on the second column were executed at least once, but are now either sleeping or stopped, example: -    78  com.ajsoft.a.mail

Detailed list of all services under the system domain: [all, including enabled and disabled ones]

sudo launchctl print system/

To get detailed list only of the DISABLED System services:

sudo launchctl print-disabled system/

To get ALL information about a specific system service

launchctl print system/com.vix.cron

sample output:

$ launchctl print system/com.vix.cron

com.vix.cron = {
    active count = 0
    copy count = 0
    one shot = 0
    path = /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.vix.cron.plist
    state = waiting

    program = /usr/sbin/cron
    arguments = {
        /usr/sbin/cron
    }

    default environment = {
        PATH => /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
    }

    environment = {
        XPC_SERVICE_NAME => com.vix.cron
    }

    domain = com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.system
    domain umask = 22
    minimum runtime = 10
    exit timeout = 5
    runs = 0
    successive crashes = 0
    last exit code = (never exited)

To print all services under the domain of the user with UID 501

launchctl print user/501

Get all information using the service or application PID (returned by the command 'launchctl list`)

launchctl print pid/758

sample output:

com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.Finder.758 = {
    type = process
    handle = 758
    active count = 91
    on-demand count = 1
    service count = 90
    active service count = 2
    activity ratio = 0.02
    originator = /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app
    creator = Finder.758
    creator euid = 503
    uniqueid = 758
    external activation count = 0
    security context = {
        uid = 503
        asid = 100008
    }

    bringup time = 20 ms
    death port = 0x52a63

    in-progress bootstraps = 0
    pended requests = 0
    pending requests = {
    }
    subdomains = {
    }
    pending attachments = {
    }

    environment = {
        PATH => /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
        SSH_AUTH_SOCK => /private/tmp/com.apple.launchd.Me9t1KNNjL/Listeners
        TMPDIR => /var/folders/km/w6p6dvwx6qb16nzxdwy5m5080000gq/T/
    }

    services = {
               0      -     com.apple.amp.devicesui
               0      -     com.apple.security.pboxd
               0      -     com.apple.coremedia.videodecoder
               0      -     com.apple.SafariServices
               0      -     com.apple.MediaLibraryService
               0      -     com.apple.coreservices.SharePointManagementService
               0      -     com.apple.managedclient.pds.Exchange
               0      -     com.apple.SystemExtensionsMDM
               0      -     com.apple.LookupViewService

To get information using the session id

launchctl print session/100008

sample output:

com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.session.100008 = {
    type = session
    handle = 100008
    active count = 1
    on-demand count = 0
    creator = launchctl.42668
    creator euid = 0
    external activation count = 0
    security context = {
        uid unset
        asid = 100008
    }

    death port = 0x0

Useful commands:

This command installs/add a service:

launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.ServiceExample.plist

This command enable a service to auto run after installed:

launchctl enable system/com.ServiceExample

This command disable a installed service from auto-running:

launchctl disable system/com.ServiceExample

This command start a service:

launchctl start system/com.ServiceExample

This command stop a service:

launchctl stop system/com.ServiceExample

This command remove a service:

launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.ServiceExample.plist

This command force execution of a recent loaded service:

launchctl kickstart -p /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.ServiceExample.plist

This command Stops and Disable a running service

launchctl bootout system/com.ServiceExample

You can change the above 'system domain' for a 'user domain' process.

Install/add means: include the service on the listing of services that the system knows about. (so you can start and stop it)
remove means: remove the service from the system listing of known services. (it will not be listed anymore if you execute launchctl list)

No files are deleted by removing the service, you just remove its .plist reference from the list of services. Once removed you cannot start/stop it. And it will not show on the launchctl list. Unless you add it again with the load parameter.


While I haven't been able to suppress the message I have found a solution to this and other location based problems.

I use an app called Control Plane, which is open source donationware, that senses where I am and changes any number of settings based on the location.

There is also a more fully featured app called Sidekick available for $29 US. Federico Vitti has a good overview of it here.


Can I bind two arrow keys to a single shortcut?

You could use a private.xml like this with KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <item>
    <name>test</name>
    <identifier>test</identifier>
    <autogen>__SimultaneousKeyPresses__
    KeyCode::CURSOR_UP,
    MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE,
    KeyCode::CURSOR_LEFT,
    MODIFIERFLAG_EITHER_LEFT_OR_RIGHT_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE,
    KeyCode::F19</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Then use F19 as the shortcut.


Can my early-2008 Macbook Pro run OS X Mavericks?

Yes, it can. According to Apple these are minimal system requirements:

  To install Mavericks, you need one of these Macs:

  Mac (Mid-2007 or later)

  MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)

  MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later),

  MacBook Pro (15-inch or 17-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later)

  MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)

  Mac mini (Early 2009 or later)

  Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)

  Xserve (Early 2009)

  Your Mac also needs:

  OS X Mountain Lion, Lion, or Snow Leopard v10.6.8 already installed 2
  GB or more of memory 8 GB or more of available space


What is the recommended (official) way to backup apple books (iBook) purchases?

Apple’s recommended method for any local  backups is Time Machine. While other options exist, none of them match your combined wishes in question.


Use *Two* Thunderbolt/Firewire adapters on MacBook for 400 and 800 devices?

Each Firewire controller will be treated independently by OS X, and each controller will have its bandwidth set by the slowest device connected. So you could daisychain your devices but will only see 400Mb/s throughput, requiring you to use separate Firewire adapters if you wish to see your OWC drive running at full speed.


Stop Finder from creating aliases when moving Applications

You can hold Cmd while dragging to move the .app file in El Capitan.


What does using right/left/up/down key and option/command key together mean?

⌘+← or → jumps to the left/right end of the current line
⌘+↑ or ↓ jumps to the top/bottom of the current page
⌥+← or → jumps to the left/right adjacent word
⌥+↑ or ↓ jumps to the start/end of the paragraph
(all terms are respective)


Keyboard lag, lost keystrokes, and high fan speed in Filevault's EFI pre-boot unlock/login screen (MacBook Pro 2017)

I would try resetting  NVRAM: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063


Swimming workout on "original" Apple Watch

No.

Also the original Apple Watch is not made for swimming - it probably won't survive it if you take it swimming every week. The water will simply get in and destroy it.

I would advise buying the new watch for this purpose.


Fans blaring again after a brief hardware fix

It's giving out the same hardware errors again, however now the system seems to run a little smoother, but the fans are still blaring. Any advice?

Change the track pad.

Cleaning things out probably helped improve the efficiency of the cooling but it doesn't fix a faulty sensor.  If you hare still getting hardware errors, it means you have a problem with the hardware.  Software (hacks) aren't going to solve a physical issue.  It's like hearing a noise in your car and installing a louder radio and speakers to cover it up.  In the end, the problem is still there.

You're on the right track and you've done good diagnostics, you just have to take it the last mile and do the hardware fix.


How to restart network services on Sierra?

You can tear down and start up the network interface using:

sudo ifconfig en0 down
sudo ifconfig en0 up


How to repair Mac partitions without Internet Recovery and Rescue USB?

There is not much you can do with a stock Mac to fix the hard drive.

You could plug the hard drive in another Mac (as a secondary drive, not a boot one) and see what Disk Utility tells you (press command-space then type Disk Utility to launch it) about it but it's not guaranteed to help you much. I am not even sure it can correctly repair a boot hard drive.

Your best bet is using a disk repair program such as DiskWarrior (http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/).

It costs a bit but has a very good reputation and saved many damaged hard drives. Cf http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/ode_to_diskwarrior_superduper_dropbox for a great example of it saving important data.


How to get Photos Library v2.0 content to Photos Library v1.5?

The problem: No way to open a Photo Library that is newer than 1.5 if you   are stuck in OS X El Capitan -land.

Solution: Inside of each Photos Library is a folder called Masters. You can access this even without having the newest version of Photos.

Start by right-clicking (ctrl-click if on touchpad) on the Photos Library and selecting Show Package Contents.

Follow that by going into the folder Masters. It will look somewhat like this:

Launch the Photos app and make sure you have that specific Photo Library open - and drag the contents of the Masters-folder onto your Photos -app. After a serious amount of waiting, the import process will start.


At what level of battery health does iOS begin to throttle performance?

When you go to Settings -> Battery -> Battery health you see the capacity of the battery. That number indicates the power storage capacity of the battery relative to a brand new battery. It does not directly indicate the health of the battery in terms of what you are asking for, therefore the question cannot be precisely answered in the way you have asked it.

You want to know when power throttling starts, but that starts after the iPhone has noticed that there has been an unexpected shutdown due to the battery not being able to deliver enough power during a peak power consuming operation. That is therefore not the same as the battery's capacity, but has to do with how much power (or amps if you will) that battery can deliver in bursts.

There is definitely usually a correlation between the capacity and its peak power delivery capability, but there is no direct relationship. Power storage capacity is one thing, peak power delivery capability is another.

iOS can only report directly and a priori on the first. The second is a matter of learning 'the hard way' that the iPhone asked for too much power during some operation, therefore experienced an unexpected shutdown, therefore iOS will thereafter, unless you disable it again in the same Battery health screen, run in throttled mode, so as to not have the same thing happen again.


Sound from the speakers of my MBPro with Touch Bar degrading

UPDATE: almost 3 months later, multiple updates down the road and upgrade to high sierra, I am sad to report that the issue still persist. I will probably have to return to the apple store to RMA my macbook...

I'm sorry I would comment on your post instead posting an answer but new account requires me to have enough rep....

I have the exact same  issue with my macbook pro 2017 15" with touchbar.

I found that it happens only after going over around 85% volume. No matter which software provokes it.

Plugging and unplugging headphones work for me too. Also killing coreaudiod solves the issue but requires apps that were using the sound drivers to be restarted.

This is a real pain to manage.

I hope this is a software issue as it seems to have started right after Sierra was updated on July 27 2017.


Macbook pro 13" (2018) compatible external monitor

I'm using the DELL U2414H since 2014 on different MBP and MBA, which is a 24" predecessor of the one you mentioned. I haven't had any connection or display issues, and would recommend Dell displays especially for their great value.

It works best with this USB-C to DP cable, because the screen is set to auto sleep when the macbook is locked. Connecting it via HDMI also works, but when you lock the MacBook you have to turn off the Monitor or wait till the monitor puts itself to sleep. I used to use the Apple Multiport Adapter.

I think you won't have connection problems when you use a high quality HDMI adapter or connect it via a USB-C to DP cable.


Change terminal command prompt for root user in Sierra

Add the SUDO_PS1 environment variable to your ~/.bash_profile and then export the variable, such as:

export SUDO_PS1="\[\h:\w\] \u\\$ "

Note however this will only change the root prompt as it appears after you have elevated your rights via sudo.

A good list of prompt variables can be found here.


Empty list of dictionaries ios 9.3.2 - 9.3.3. iPad mini

The problem was solved by updating of the iOS to 9.3.4 and then changing region or language or both (i change both and get references to download all dictionaries.
I think that Apple support team have heard us)


Is it possible to create a monthly budget vs actuals chart on MacOS Numbers?

Numbers would be one of the best tools for this task given the tools it provides and its ease of use. There is even a template provided with Numbers called "Personal Budget" as you can see in the picture below.
To use that Numbers template, go to File -> New in the Numbers menu at the top and scroll down a bit to get the "Personal Finance" category. Double-click on "Personal Budget" icon under that category to open up the template and customize it according to your needs.


How can i see my iPad screen on a web browser

Use Reflector. It works on both PC and Mac, and it works great.

  Play games, watch movies, demo apps or present to your computer from your iPhone or iPad. Everything you do on the device is shown on the computer screen, wirelessly.


How can I tell if a directory has APFS Fast Directory Sizing enabled?

We now know the previous answer is a bit off since Apple has recently released more technical details on APFS.  Fast directory sizing is indeed enabled on a per-directory basis and this can be checked by the user (albeit not easily). It can only be enabled when a directory is empty and must also be turned on for every new subdirectory as well. Details: https://developer.apple.com/support/apple-file-system/Apple-File-System-Reference.pdf

Relevant quote

  You cannot enable Fast Directory Sizing on directories containing files or other directories directly; you must instead first create a new directory, enable fast directory sizing on it, and then move the contents of the existing directory to the new directory

We now know that you must set this flag to enable FDS

  INODE_MAINTAIN_DIR_STATS: The inode tracks the size of all of its children

Though still unclear to me if macOS is turning this flag on automatically where appropriate or not, but some initial experimentation makes me think it isn't being used yet. I assume it will be used in forthcoming macOS updates.


Resetting OS X Password Without Having The Installation Disc?

Recovery HD

The simplest way may be to use the Recovery HD.

Boot into the Recovery HD (hold ⌥ alt/option at boot and select the Recovery HD).
Once it has booted, click Utilities, then Terminal.
Type resetpassword then ↩ enter.
Follow the instructions.

Restarting Setup Assistant

In addition to using the Recovery HD, you can also restart the Setup Assistant, create a new Administrator account, then use that account to reset the password to the original account.

You can restart the Setup Assistant by performing the following:

Boot into Single User Mode (hold ⌘ cmd + S at boot).
Mount the drive by typing /sbin/mount -uw / then ↩ enter.
Remove the Apple Setup Done file by typing rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone then ↩ enter.
Reboot by typing reboot then ↩ enter.
Continue setup, making sure not to transfer data.
Setup a new administrator account. You can use this account to reset the password to the original account (through System Preferences → Users & Groups).

The new account can then be deleted once the original account has been recovered.


cd 'brew --prefix': no such file or directory

To do your cd command, you need to use backticks, not the quotation mark (putting this in an answer because difficult to format)

cd `brew --prefix`

The backticks make the shell execute the command and return the value. (in this case brew --prefix transforms into the directory where homebrew is installed).  For example, in a very simple case:

cd `echo '..'`

Transforms into:

cd ..

Which goes up a directory.

It looks like something is wrong with the git repo for your homebrew install. If you haven't installed a  lot, might be easier to just uninstall and reinstall and try again. You should go to the docs for brew, but you can just rm -rf on your Cellar folder and have everything return to its original state.  More info here.


Historically, how long does it take for MBP/MBA to reach the refurbished store after release?

It can happen any time after the first machine exits the initial 90 day phone warranty. As soon as Apple has a used machine returned to them, it will be reformatted, cleaned up, and repackaged. Once Apple has enough to sell again, they go on sale as refurbished models.


Remove a device from 'Find My iPhone' app

If you have physical access to the device, to into the iCloud settings and turn off "Find My iPhone". If you don't, You can remove devices from iCloud.com, provided iCloud can't find them. Go to the "Find My iPhone" section on iCloud.com. Click the device to select it, then click the circled "X" on the right. This removes the device from Find My iPhone.

You can also remove devices from the Find My iPhone app by swiping horizontally on the device. Again, the device must not be locatable for this to work.


USB drive (Fat32) stuck on read-only. Unable to erase or partition

Try format it in another computer - anything will do. If it still won't, or if it shows the same data even after formatting, assume the write-protect firmware has kicked in & it's now dead.
There's a full work-through of this issue on our sister site, Super User - What can I do if my USB flash drive is write-protected or read-only?


It sometimes is difficult to diagnose startup problems due to the variety of reasons (hardware issues, disk corruption, wrong configuration etc.). Apple has a bunch of support documents related to this topic:

Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck

Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup
Mac OS X: How to start up in single-user or verbose mode
OS X: About OS X Recovery


Is it possible to dual boot Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Fedora 17?

If you've successfully installed Fedora on a free partition, the rest is easy. Just download an ISO  copy of rEFIt and burn it with Disk Utility to a blank DVD.  Then, while booting, hold down C after the chime to boot to rEFIt.  It will give you the option to boot to Linux (this is indicated by a Tux icon).

Additionally, rEFIt is able to install itself to your system without a DVD boot every time, but I couldn't recommend it as I had some issues with this personally.


Enable Quick Look for text files without the .txt extension

QLStephen is a more general solution that works for all kinds of text files.


Can I create a shortcut to open a specific application on OS X?

Karabiner-Elements (10.12 and later)

Karabiner stopped working in 10.12 due to changes in the kernel architecture, and Karabiner was rewritten as Karabiner-Elements which uses a new JSON format for the configuration files.

You can now add a rule like this to karabiner.json (https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/json.html):

{
  "from": {
    "key_code": "t",
    "modifiers": {
      "mandatory": [
        "right_option"
      ]
    }
  },
  "to": [
    {
      "shell_command": "open -aterminal"
    }
  ],
  "type": "basic"
}

This makes a short press of the right command key open Emacs:

{
  "from": {
    "key_code": "right_command",
    "modifiers": {
      "optional": [
        "any"
      ]
    }
  },
  "to": [
    {
      "key_code": "right_command",
      "lazy": true
    }
  ],
  "to_if_alone": [
    {
      "shell_command": "open -aemacs"
    }
  ],
  "type": "basic"
}

Karabiner (10.11 and earlier)

Save a file like this as private.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <vkopenurldef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_Safari</name>
    <url>file:///Applications/Safari.app</url>
  </vkopenurldef>
  <vkopenurldef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_iTunes</name>
    <url>file:///Applications/iTunes.app</url>
  </vkopenurldef>
  <vkopenurldef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_EMACS</name>
    <url>file:///Applications/Emacs.app</url>
  </vkopenurldef>
  <item>
    <name>custom</name>
    <identifier>custom</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F11, KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_Safari</autogen>

    <!-- change the right option key into an extra modifier key -->
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::OPTION_R, KeyCode::VK_MODIFIER_EXTRA1</autogen>

    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::I, ModifierFlag::EXTRA1, KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_iTunes</autogen>

    <!-- make a short press of the right command open Emacs -->
    <autogen>__KeyOverlaidModifier__ KeyCode::COMMAND_R, KeyCode::COMMAND_R, KeyCode::VK_OPEN_URL_EMACS</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

Alfred 2

If you have bought the Powerpack for Alfred 2, you can create a workflow like this:

Hotkeys have a short delay by default, but you can reduce the delay by changing the "Trigger behaviour" option from "Simulate modifier keys released" to "Pass through modifier keys (Fastest)":

Automator services

Open Automator, select "Service" as the type of the document, change "Service receives" from "text" to "no input", add a "Launch Application" action, and save the service. Then assign a keyboard shortcut for the service from "System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services".

I don't recommend this option, because at least on my system, there is at best a delay of around half a second before an application is focused by a keyboard shortcut created using this method, and the delay is often even longer. There has also been a bug since 10.7 where the keyboard shortcuts for Automator services don't always work until you hover over the services menu from the menu bar. (Edit: it's now 8 years after I wrote this answer and the bug still hasn't been fixed.) Also the keyboard shortcuts for services are not available in some applications like Emacs.


Put whatever keybind for switching input language

The command as well as the shift key (and some other keys) are modifier keys. You have to add at least one normal key (like A-Z, 0-9, Fn*, arrows etc) to define a proper shortcut.

If you want to change this behavior you have to install a third-party tool like Karabiner.


netstat(1) only tells you about the connections local to the machine you are running it on. So if you can run netstat on the gaming server, then you can find out the IP's of the clients. Look for connections to the game servers port.

If you are looking to find out the ping time or lag for each of the clients I'm not sure there is a good way unless you are running on the game server, and then you may get an idea of the lag by getting the IP addresses of the clients and then running ping(8) on each of the addresses.


When I try to send a text on Mac, it highlights the message rather than sending it

That is a strange, because pressing the return button in Messages on macOS 10.14.6 sends the message as you expected it to do.

Are you using the return key on a numeric keypad? That might be the reason?

The other option is to press ⌘+return which should send the message. Other than that, you can try signing in and out of Messages app on the Mac, and ensure message forwarding is enabled in the iPhone's messaging settings. I'll keep you posted if I find out any other setting to change it.

Edit

I just found that you can potentially make the return key act as send message by creating an app specific shortcut in Keyboard Settings. I'm not 100% sure it will work but give it a try?

Go to System Preferences->Keyboard->Shortcuts->App Shortcuts then add a new shortcut and select the Messages App from the Application Dropdown menu. Enter the exact menu command name Send Message. Now in the keyboard shortcut box it won't let you just press the return key, so you will need to press fn+return but it should display just return in the box.

Now go back to the Messages app and see if it will require you to press the fn key before pressing return or without the fn key? If not you can just remove that app shortcut from the keyboard settings.

I've attached an image what the shortcut setting looks like.


Safari extension to monitor web pages for changes?

I don't know any extension like this one, but I've used Changes Meter which works really fine. It's a small app in your menubar and gets the job done.


Open Images in Preview doesn't work in Automator (How to use Automator task to open screenshots in Preview automatically)

After playing with it a little bit I couldn't get the process to work as listed in your screenshot, either. Here's a flow which works - in fact, it took the screenshot below. Note that you need to set this up as a service in order to assign it a keyboard shortcut. (Create a new Automator workflow and select Service as the document type.) Otherwise, if you save it as an app, you have to run the app every time you want to take a screenshot.

Once you have saved your workflow as a service, go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts and select Services on the left-hand side, then scroll down on the right to find your service and set a keyboard shortcut.


This is actually a feature of the filesystem of your disk, not bash or Terminal.app.

HFS+ (the Mac filesystem) is usually configured to be case insensitive but case preserving. This means that the file system will consider foo and FoO to be the same, but when you create a new file it will remember which letters where capitalized and which were not.

When you format a disk with HFS+ you can chose whether the file system should case sensitive or not. If you chose to format with UFS (Unix FileSystem) it is always case sensitive, AFAIK.

To check whether a disk is case sensitive, run:

 diskutil info <device>

For example:

 diskutil info disk0s2

Look for the Name: line. If it reads something like Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) it means that it is case-sensitive. If it just reads Mac OS Extended (without the Case-sensitive) then it is only case preserving but not case sensitive.


How to update company's MacBook Pro with OS X Lion?

The company should have an Apple ID set up. I would recommend that this is registered to a member of the IT team who is most responsible for software purchasing.

Then they can download OS X Lion from the app store, and have the license.

Is there a business requirement to be running Lion or is this user preference?


How can I prevent Cisco AnyConnect VPN from opening on startup?

Yes, I'm pretty sure you can stop apps from opening on startup even though it ignores Login Items. It is most likely in LaunchDaemons.

There are two locations for these, one is for Apple daemons only:

  /System/Library/LaunchDaemons

The other is to include 3rd party processes:

  /Library/LaunchDaemons

You may also need to remove from:

  /Library/LaunchAgents

Just remove the files of the app you don't want to launch on startup and it shouldn't show up on launch anymore.


After reading the linked Apple support thread, I believe the problem is likely Apple's fault. My advice is:

Take the MBA to an Apple Store (with a genius bar appointment) or call Apple support to report the problem
Make sure you have installed all software updates (perhaps you have, but this is not mentioned)


The latest supported version for the 1st generation iPad is iOS 5.1.1. That means it's not possible to upgrade it to iOS 6 (or higher). You'll have to buy another one. Even if it would run iOS 6, it would be terribly slow. Modern apps are developed with way more memory and CPU power in mind.


Is it possible to preserve Light Table (or Album) ordering when exporting from Aperture?

This always works for me as is in Aperture (v 3.1.2).

Are you pressing v to get to the browser view for the specific album or light table before exporting. You can drag things into manual order or specify any other sort like Date, Rating or other sorting. At that point when you export as versions, the counter takes the pictures in the order shown.

Here a pair of clips of Light Tables and the control for ordering.


Format new SSD as OS X Extended (Journaled) from PC

Windows is able to write data to create a HFS+ disk.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/format-disk-hfs-mac-49229.html

Edit: The aim was to produce a disk in Windows that can be read as a boot drive by the volatile OS X system- this works and thus is a valid solution


Can I remove the clip of the iPod nano 6G?

It's very tricky.
You have to disassemble the whole iPod nano as the guide for clip removal on iFixit shows.
This is a picture taken from the second last step:


How do I copy an NTFS partition to a writable disk image?

Alright, so after browsing around, I figured that I could just Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the NTFS's contents to a proper sparse bundle or sparse image. That's probably the best way to go!


MacBook Pro4,1 upgrade OS X from Snow Leopard compatibility with iPhone 5S

According to EveryMac That machine can run any OS up to Yosemite.
Whether it will run it smoothly or not is a different matter.
Whatever the figures might say, I've never known a machine to run faster on a newer OS, with perhaps the exception of the jump from Leopard to Snow Leopard…. or the memory handling from Mountain Lion to Mavericks. I've yet to try Yosemite myself...

As far as I'm aware, you'll need the latest iTunes to get the latest iOS, so your phone at the moment is stuck in limbo. If you ever need to restore, you'll find Apple will no longer sign iOS 7 on any device that is capable of running iOS 8.

I don't know whether iTunes 12 will run on Snow Leo; there's one way to find out, but all the steps you are about to take are going to be pushing you firmly in the direction of Yosemite.
Edit: iTunes 12 needs 10.7.5 at minimum.

Another stumbling block is going to be actually getting hold of any OS other than Yosemite. Apple removes previous OSes from the App Store - though you'll find the listing for it, it won't download unless you have previously 'bought' it.

TL:DR
Apple want you to move to Yosemite, iOS 8 & iTunes 12.
Trying to avoid any part of that is going to involve finding some dodgy download of Mavericks etc, or finding a friend who already has the installer.
Your phone will be in limbo on iOS 7, might work for now, but can't be restored without iOS 8.
iTunes 12 requires a higher OS than you have.


Desktop icons have disappeared after using HDMI cable (Yosemite)

I had the same problem, I think. But my files were still in the finder under 'Desktop', just not on the actual desktop.
After trying a few of the above, I second-clicked the desktop and hit 'Clean up', and they all reappeared. So the simplest of all helped for me.


Solving: Unable to add server. The plugin encountered an error processing request. (10001)

in my case, I got this error when tried to Bind MacBook Pro to Windows Domain. I had to shorten Mac Computer name by few characters to make it work. I guess there is a limitation in Windows AD on computer names.


No - iOS has no profile or setting to disable IPv6. Even if you jailbreak, I don't know how to set that on iOS operating systems.

Yes I am also using a Hurricane Electric tunnel for IPv6. I have similar problems with my two iMac computers. I have to set my IPv6 to "link local only". This fixed my connection problems.

This partial solution (controlling the router) only works over WiFi though - cellular data carrier routing also would need to be changed if you can't allow IPv6.


Sync keyboard shortcuts between macOS computers

Since you're using dot files, if you know what shortcuts you want to create ahead of time, you can add them to all machines by adding the following defaults write commands to your setup script:

  Per App Shortcuts: defaults write com.developer.app NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add "Menu Item" -string
  "keyboardShortcut"

  Global Shortcuts: defaults write -g NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add "Menu Item" -string "keyboardShortcut"

...where com.developer.app is the application's bundle ID, and keyboardShortcut is the letters of the keys you want to include, plus the symbols @, $, ~, and ^ representing the Command, Shift, Alt, and Control keys, respectively. For example, -string "@~K" would represent the keyboard shortcut ⌘⌥K.

If you need to sync existing shortcuts, you're going to have to make a more complicated script. I imagine this would involve reading or comparing shortcuts on a source machine via:

  Per App Shortcuts: defaults read com.developer.app NSUserKeyEquivalents

  Global Shortcuts: defaults read -g NSUserKeyEquivalents

...and writing them to a target machine via:

  Per App Shortcuts: defaults write com.developer.app NSUserKeyEquivalents 'outputOfSourceMachine'

  Global Shortcuts: defaults write -g NSUserKeyEquivalents 'outputOfSourceMachine'


Does trustd leak information about users' software usage to Apple and/or third parties?

macOS (as implemented in November 2020) occasionally sends out “some opaque information about the developer certificate of apps” based on timeouts and if it detects the ability to connect to Apple servers to check for certificate revocation.
Apple has also announced some substantial improvements as a result of last week’s events. They also fixed what I termed a “rookie mistake” of inadequately documenting and committed publicly to addressing the architecture of this feature. Time will tell how fast these roll out and if the systems are more resilient without compromising agility to contain malware and react to revoked certificates.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491

Gatekeeper performs online checks to verify if an app contains known malware and whether the developer’s signing certificate is revoked. We have never combined data from these checks with information about Apple users or their devices. We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices.
These security checks have never included the user’s Apple ID or the identity of their device. To further protect privacy, we have stopped logging IP addresses associated with Developer ID certificate checks, and we will ensure that any collected IP addresses are removed from logs.
In addition, over the the next year we will introduce several changes to our security checks:

A new encrypted protocol for Developer ID certificate revocation checks
Strong protections against server failure
A new preference for users to opt out of these security protections

The best two technical write ups I have seen of what in hindsight looks like a rookie mistake by Apple about inadequate documentation on how trustd functions made a bad day much worse for Apple and people that support or use macOS.

https://blog.jacopo.io/en/post/apple-ocsp/ (credit to Jacopo Jannone for the wording of “some opaque information”)
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/ocsp.html

The best non-technical summary (but also based on technical analysis and background) is John Gruber’s summary.

Just an embarrassing bug for Apple on a high-profile launch day.

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/11/14/macos-trustd-bug

The failed or congested OCSP service did cause a very widespread denial of service outage on macOS client computers November 12, 2020 for more than 90 minutes.

A crucial difference between OCSP and notarization is that the latter is only checked on first launch of the app. The notarization status is cached permanently and has no expiration, unlike OCSP. Thus, notarization only affects your ability to install new apps, it doesn't affect your ability to launch already installed apps.

I am certain that security researchers are probing these services heavily and some will publish think pieces whether or not Apple has made mistakes. If Apple has, I expect some to collect substantial bounty by responsibly reporting if user privacy is being actively compromised.

https://developer.apple.com/security-bounty/


Have two Macbook Pros, can't update iMovie on either

Mac Apps have limitations as to which operating systems they can be installed on. You mentioned a newer MacBook Pro on 10.1.1 (did you mean 10.11? If not, keep reading). You need to first update your operating system, and then update iMovie. If you are unable to update the computer because it is too old and the new OS doesn't support it, you can get your copy of iMovie from Purchases in the Mac App Store, but it might not be updated. Note that downloading from Purchases is not an update, but rather a replacement to the existing copy that shipped with your computer.

This question has been asked here, so read there too: Why can't I update iMovie?


How many monitors iMac 21.5 4K can handle?

Apple documents the supported displays now from the installed OS:

  Check how many displays your Mac supports: Choose Apple () menu > About This Mac > Support, then click Specifications. On the web page that appears, the number of displays your Mac supports appears under Video Support.

I don’t recommend using more than the official, but sometimes people are OK with adapters that split up a display if they don’t care about full resolution or refresh rates as much as maxing out the total square inches of display.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202351

Another option is using an external GPU. See Use an external graphics processor with your Mac on Apple's website.

From your comments you should expect three 4k displays - up to 2 4K external displays and the iMac integrated one.


Your Mac is designed to use as much RAM as it needs. "Using all the memory" is not a problem in itself, as long as Memory Pressure is green.
If you are not experiencing any problems, like slowdowns, or alerts saying "Your computer has run out of memory", then stop worrying and get on with your work. ;-)
It's worth reading the better and more detailed explanations here:
iMac with 8GB RAM -- memory always almost full
If you don't have enough free space on your system storage volume, then that might cause problems.
(Oh, and stay away from CleanMyMac, too.)


New Apple TV screensavers not downloading

It sounds like you need to change how often Apple TV downloads new vidoes from Never to Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. Open settings > general > screensaver > download new videos


Batch convert BMP to both TIFF and JPEG, then have the converted images moved into respective folders

The example shell script code, shown below, can be used as an Automator workflow created as either an Application or Service/Quick Action, using a Run Shell Script action with setting Pass input: [as arguments] and replacing the default code with it, as shown in the images further below.
For each folder dropped on the Automator workflow created as an Application, the example shell script code does the following:

Changes directory into the dropped folder.
Deletes the .xx and .zz files within.
Makes the Job Number-JPEG and Job Number-TIFF folders,  e.g., 2021_1234-JPEG and 2021_1234-TIFF.
Creates a .jpg type file and .tiff type file of each .bmp type file into their respective folders.

for dir in "$@"; do

    [ -d "${dir}" ] || continue
    [ -w "${dir}" ] || continue
    cd "${dir}" || exit
    rm *.xx *.zz
    dn="${dir##*/}"
    mkdir -p "${dn}-JPEG" "${dn}-TIFF"

    for file in *.bmp; do
        sips --setProperty format jpeg "${file}" -o "${dn}-JPEG/"
        sips --setProperty format tiff --setProperty formatOptions lzw "${file}" -o "${dn}-TIFF/"
    done

done

To use the example shell script code as an Automator workflow created as a Service/Quick Action, set Workflow receives current [folders] in [Finder], as shown in the second image below.
Then in Finder, select the target folder(s) and right-click selecting the Service/Quick Action from the Services context menu.

Understanding the shell script:

for dir in "$@"; do -- For each folder dropped or selected, do the following:
[ -d "${dir}" ] || continue -- Makes sure the Finder item dropped or selected is a directory, or continue with the next item.
[ -w "${dir}" ] || continue -- Makes sure the Finder item dropped or selected is writable, or continue with the next item.
cd "${dir}" || exit -- Changes directory to the dropped or selected folder, or exits the shell script to avoid erroneous processing of remaining code.
rm *.xx *.zz -- Deletes all .xx and  .zz files within the "${dir}" directory.
dn="${dir##*/}" -- Uses shell parameter expansion to get the directory name portion of the fully qualified pathname of the folder dropped or selected. Not actually necessary and could have just used "${dir##*/}" through the rest of the code, however, I believe it makes the remaining code easier to read.
mkdir -p "${dn}-JPEG" "${dn}-TIFF" -- Makes the Job Number-JPEG and Job Number-TIFF directories,
e.g., 2021_1234-JPEG and 2021_1234-TIFF.
for file in *.bmp; do -- For each .bmp type file do the following:
sips --setProperty format jpeg "${file}" -o "${dn}-JPEG/" -- Create a .jpg type file of each .bmp type file into the Job Number-JPEG, e.g., 2021_1234-JPEG directory.
sips --setProperty format tiff --setProperty formatOptions lzw "${file}" -o "${dn}-TIFF/" -- Create a .tiff type file of each .bmp type file, with the requested LZW compression, into the Job Number-TIFF, e.g., 2021_1234-TIFF directory.


Can you pair macOS and iOS device with same Magic Keyboard and switch between them?

No - Apple's firmware on the keyboard remembers the last paired device.

Some bluetooth keyboards can switch back and forth, but that feature isn't available on Apple's current hardware.


Button icons lost after updating to Mavericks

Given that the issue is limited to your user account, I would assume the problem lies within your home directory. Per this MacRumors thread, have you tried deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist? I can't replicate your issue, but I have deleted this file seemingly without untoward effect on my 10.9 system.

By way of further diagnostics, you might also try Safe Booting by holding the Shift key on startup and see if the problem still occurs.


Can someone fool me with their location on 'Find my iPhone'?

the guy ... knows how to google things very well.

Which is not the same as being a competent software engineer, and that's what you will need to be to send false info to Apple's location services.

  Sometimes I see her call log and see calls from her parents even when her find my iPhone location is at home and her parents are at home.

Means nothing. I know several people who call others in the same house. Easier than yelling down the hallway or to the back yard.*

The easiest way to appear to be elsewhere is to get a second device. An iPod will work just fine. Set it up with the same Apple ID and select it in any of the location services apps. That works for Find My Friends, does not work for Find My Phone. Since you said "Find my Phone" you are either using the wrong term, she has a phone you own, or you have access to her Apple ID?

Sounds like you need to do some private detective work. Just drive over to where she is and see if she is there.

Funny of the Day:
Girl is watching a movie with boyfriend. Hears incoming text on the phone, which she left in the kitchen. Gets up, goes to phone which reads "bring more chips back" sent by boyfriend who is still on the couch.