How can I automate mouse clicks and keyboard input with Automator in Mac Mojave?

This code requires the third-party utility, Cliclick.

  “Cliclick” is short for “Command-Line Interface Click”. It is a a tiny shell/Terminal application that will emulate mouse clicks or series of mouse clicks (including doubleclicks and control-clicks) at arbitrary screen coordinates. Moreover, it lets you move the mouse, get the current mouse coordinates, press modifier keys etc.

It's free to download but it's donationware, and is easy to install.

On my system I have. cliclick in the following directory: /usr/local/bin/. Because of this location, in my AppleScript code and in Terminal app, I need to use the full path to cliclick to call the command. For example: do shell script "/usr/local/bin/cliclick c:." In AppleScript it's telling cliclick to click at current mouse location.

This AppleScript code works for me using the latest version of macOS Mojave.

repeat 3 times -- Enter Your Desired Loop Count
    -- Clicks At Current Mouse Location
    do shell script "/usr/local/bin/cliclick  c:."

    tell application "System Events"
        delay 0.2 -- Adjust Value If Necessary
        keystroke 5 using {command down}
        delay 0.2 -- Adjust Value If Necessary
        keystroke return
    end tell
end repeat


What is the best way to set up a shared calendar in iCal?

Make a Google Calendar, and sync it to iCal.
Directions are in this Google article.


How to convert a CorelDraw file to Adobe Illustrator CS5?

Download Corel trial version. Import all cdr files and export as AI.
job done !


What you want to do is get the image that you are wanting to change the icon of your image. right click on the folder icon, and click "Get Info," it will load the information, and at the top, it will show the folder icon as it does here.

What you do is drag the new icon to where the folder icon next to School is. It will appear with a + icon next to your image, and let go. It will then change the icon of your folder.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to enable/disable hidden files in Finder?

Actually, there is a keyboard shortcut you can use in macOS High Sierra. More specifically, you can use command + shift + ..

In case that last key isn’t clear, it’s a period (aka full stop).


Macbook Pro Retina 2014 - Quick return from Sleep - Black screen with cursor before login window

It turns out in this case the cause is Spotify. It seems to be a bug with the Spotify app. Yet no bug fix has been released. If you have spotify running, kill it and see if you get this issue still.

If you dont use Spotify go through a process of elimination. Start by killing everything running (processes/background/tray tasks) then make the laptop it sleeps and comes back.

Then start processes/background/tray tasks up one by one and let the computer sleep (change it to 1 minute or something to test) then see if it comes back ok. Keep going until it doesn't thats the process at fault.


That is because the Dock process isn’t getting enough resources and/or is crashing.

TheDock process is not just responsible for your Dock, but also Mission Control, Launchpad, Dashboard and the Desktop background.

If this happens most frequently during periods of heavy use, then it is not getting enough resources or its resources are being swapped to disk.

If this happens totally randomly, then there is a deeper issue. Try repairing permissions first in that case and report back if it works.


App behavior with spaces and minimized window

I am not sure that this is possible, however you could use ctrl+click on the dock icon or long click anbd use the sub menu system to show windows / switch to windows.


Mail.app encounters recurring connection error (to Gmail IMAP server) after installing Mountain Lion

This happened to me while in Snow Leopard. It's a different situation, however I fixed it by removing the mail account, and re-adding it fresh. Worked forever after that.

-Z


How to repeat an entire playlist in order on iOS 10?

Open the Music app, then go to Library -> Playlists -> [Choose your playlist]. Click on the first song to start playing the playlist. At the bottom of the screen, the song currently playing will appear. Click on it. This will bring up your classic playback information (album info, tracking slider, volume slider). Then scroll down by sliding your finger up the screen. Right underneath the airplay symbol are two buttons: Shuffle and repeat. Click the repeat button.


Restricting a user to a specific source network IP address

The solution was to implement a Network Kernel Extension that changes the source IP of the socket based on the user ID.

More on NKEs can be found here


Do you have to keep Bluetooth on to scan for Bluetooth Low Energy devices?

You will need to activate Bluetooth on any iOS device in order for it to interact with other Bluetooth devices, including LE ones.

iOS7 will add a lot of nice compatibility to BT LE devices but it looks as though even with that you will still have to turn on Bluetooth.

Source: http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/13/apple-unlocks-full-notification-center-access-much-more-for-bluetooth-le-devices-in-ios-7/


Mail.app doesn't detect address in address book

Which field is the name "Blast Corporation" in your address book? Supposedly by default Mail only auto-completes addresses that have been used before through Mail. I'm not sure if that is exactly true though, since I just now setup a contact in my address book which I've never used in mail and it auto-completed the company name. It's possible that you need to check a few settings in Mail.app preferences:

Here's another example of a company in my address book, which auto-completes in Mail.app


Applescripts not working in Finder since Mavericks

This looks like a bug. I've tried rewriting the script various ways but the change only seems to take effect for new windows.

So here is a horribly hacky way to get this to work.

tell application "Finder"
    tell list view options of window 1
        tell column kind column
            if sort direction is normal then
                set sort direction to reversed
            else
                set sort direction to normal
            end if
        end tell
        set sort column to kind column
    end tell
    set currentPosition to position of window 1
    set currentTarget to target of window 1
    make new Finder window to currentTarget
    set position of window 1 to currentPosition
    close window 2
end tell


While littlerock's answer works, there are better options. Specifically, you can do one of the following. The order is what I would recommend:

Change the system setting. This is preferred, as it's using the OS as designed. Do this on the console and provide your password:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.captive.control Active -boolean false
Prevent OSX from detecting the fact that we're on a captive portal, by editing the hosts file. Apple uses their domain to test whether we are on the Internet or not. To do this, edit the following file as root with a text editor:

/etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 captive.apple.com
Last, you can follow littlerock by renaming the following file (as root) to whatever you like:

/System/Library/CoreServices/Captive Network Assistant.app


No, that is unfortunately not possible. Adjusting the habit would seem the only effective solution.


The rubber gasket around my Macbook screen is coming off!

Okay, first things first. It's definitely worth you taking it in to an Apple Store (if you're able to) or phoning Apple support about this. I have known Apple to replace this even if you're technically outside their warranty period. Of course, each case is different, and it will depend on the What, When, How and Why of your situation. In a nutshell, it doesn't hurt to ask.

Now, regarding whether this has to involve the replacement of your entire screen, the answer is not so straightforward.

Officially Apple does not supply the rubber as a separate part, instead it comes with a new lid/screen replacement. However, I have known Apple to replace the rubber on its own, so they can do it.

Also, I'm personally aware of this being done by following the same steps of replacing the screen - except that you only go as far as removing the old gasket and then follow the steps in reverse to add the new gasket and put everything back together again.

If you have no joy at Apple you can choose to repair it yourself (if it's not something that scares you).

To repair it yourself you can purchase a new gasket from places like eBay. Of course the steps involved can be found online or you could ask another question here for guidance.


How do I gain write permission for the defaults shell command?

The defaults command normally writes an entry into the relevant .plist file. The whole point of property list files is to retain settings between boots. You should not need to re-apply them after each boot.

Consequently, you should not need to run the defaults command in a .bashrc file, which runs at the start of every interactive shell session.

You should not need sudo for defaults commands such as these:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleShowScrollBars -string "Always"
defaults write -g AppleEnableMenuBarTransparency -bool false
defaults write -app Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -bool false
defaults write com.apple.screencapture include-date -bool false

If you're trying to write some other type of default command to a system-level domain, then that might explain why you need sudo. Otherwise, the need for sudo is 'unexpected'.


Does Apple sell European connectors individually?

Are you talking about the connectors that plug into the power supply?  I would not bother with Apple-branded connectors. They are called "duckhead connectors" and other brands are widely available, individually and in sets, online both in the U.S. and in Europe, and much less expensive than the ones that say Apple. And to my knowledge, Apple only sells them together, all the worldwide varieties in one box. Plug adapters are also widely and cheaply available.


Mail shows 100% usage for Gmail account, doesn't rebuild

Try this. Quit Mail, then go to your home folder's Library folder (*) and move the folder com.apple.mail from the Containers folder to your desktop. Start Mail up and see what what happens - hopefully it will start behaving again. If it does, trash the folder you moved to the desktop. We've had several instances of odd Mail behaviour and trashing the Mail container has done the trick, restoring normal function.

(*) If you don't know how to access your Library folder, select the Go menu in Finder and hold down option/alt key to reveal the Library option.


Apps cannot be installed anymore because of missing signature

Problem solved : was a conflict with "ZoneAlarm Free"
Don't know why it hasn't been resolved the first times I had deactivated it. But now, when I shut it down, no more problem with the sync except some rare apps that may really be corrupted I guess.


US keyboard layout on macOS Sierra switches backtick to other key on external keyboard

Turns out this was caused by Karabiner, I commented on this issue there.


How do you set file permissions in Lion?

The easiest way of setting permission to a file is:

Select the file you want to change permissions to.
Hit Commandi.
In the last part of the information panel, just authenticate and change the permissions as you want them.

This can be achieved, too, through terminal with the chmod command.

Lion does not show the HD by default. In the General tab of the Finder's preferences just check Show this items on Desktop: Hard Drive, and it will be shown. You can also type ShiftCommandC to open a Finder window for the whole drive directly.


Can only one partition of old hard drive been transferred to new MacBook?

I have not look at this related to Bootcamp in a few years, but I my searches indicate this has not changed.

Apple's Migration Assistant will only look for attached Mac OS X system volumes to migrate. It will not migrate Bootcamp partitions or other data on non-boot volumes.


How to add third party app text contact to phone book favorites?

This is not a user configurable attribute, but rather how the 3rd party app was programmed. Signal, Viber and WhatsApp shows up under Call as they support receiving VoIP call over lock screen.

There is no way for users to configure the said apps to get listed under Message.


Can I use my Mac's speakers and AirPlay / Bluetooth at the same time?

Try using the midi setup application included in OS X it can let you group sound outputs together. You just need to create a new multi-output group with the + button.


I posted this DIY solution to the Apple Discussions thread here as well with a bit more "story line" as this isn't the place for that.

I created a vinyl wrap for the front edge with some sort of "padding" under just the corner! This is just a prototype and I intend to have my wife use her Cameo to cut a custom design for the vinyl wraps.

Here you can see that the vinyl is very thin and adds almost no thickness to the wrist area:

You can see the slight padding I have under the vinyl that just wraps the edge. For this "prototype" I just cut about a 1/4 inch strip of a paper towel. I used a "towel" type paper towel, not that harsh rough stuff. I had Viva brand on hand:

It's not impacting closing the MacBook at all as you can see here:

I've used this for 2 days now working for approx 12 hours each day and I have no more harsh edge lines on my wrist. And she happened to have some scrap black vinyl that happens to match the keyboard perfectly. Looks pretty sweet. Of course I could find a brushed or just aluminum color so they would virtually be unnoticable.

Also, these are completely removeable without leaving any residue. If there is any left, it's very minor and removed by just slight rubbing of the residue. This is the same vinyl used for signs or crafts.

I may have my wife cut these on her Cameo with the theme of the OS releases. Lion (would have been) lion paws, Mavericks will be waves and Yosemite will be silhouettes of El Capitan and maybe Sentinel Rock. But who knows, maybe they will be flames or something else fun. We'll see.


MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 does not support multiple keyboard collaboration

OK problem solved. After installing Karabiner (originally to solve the caps lock delay), I found I can work on two keyboards at the same time. The version I installed was 11.6.0.


Recurring window manager performance issues in 10.10.x

This finally appears to be resolved with 10.10.4.  I am thrilled beyond measure at the moment and hope that others find the same relief that we've all been waiting for who have been experiencing this dreadful problem.


Prevent Mail.app from opening in split view

Go to Mail -> Prefrences:

Then click on general and untick this box:

After unticking the box mail should return to its previous behaviour.


Make sure you click the "Change All" checkbox in the Get Info window.

(Credit for this answer goes to Lyken. There was just no sense in letting this question masquerade as unanswered any longer.)


Macbook Pro Mid 2010 NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M random glitch showing when scrolling, writing or watching videos

I have experienced the same glitch.

This seems to be the problem reported here: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=359108

They claim it's an issue with Mavericks, GPU-accelerated graphics, and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M. I also have a mid-2010 Macbook Pro with the same graphics chip

This glitch started happening on mine after I upgraded to Mavericks. Also my Macbook started rebooting spontaneously every couple of weeks, with kernel panic messages about the GPU.

The suggested workaround is to go into Chrome's advanced settings, and disable the checkbox for "Use hardware acceleration when available" (second from the bottom). Then restart Chrome.

I just tried that myself, so I can't report that it works reliably yet.


Apple TV and sites like VideoBB/Screen mirroring/Flash?

No, a non-jailbroken Apple TV does not display Flash videos.

I've resorted to downloading videos and converting them to MP4 for the ATV.


osx service for `mpc add`ing files to mpd’s playlist

Following code …

for arg in "$@"; do
  dir=$(cd -P "$(dirname "$arg")" && pwd)/ || continue
  /usr/local/bin/mpc add "${dir#"$HOME/Music/"}$(basename "$arg")"
done

does the trick.


How can I allow the cursor to continue moving immediately after clicking the trackpad?

I tried moving the curser with my left-hand, and clicking with my right as I dragged. Nothing unexpected happened; The curser changed temporarily during the click then reverted.


Using Automator to recall open Windows of (multiple) Applications

I do not know the effectiveness of assigning numbers to the windows,

since I would forget who is who after the third window or after 5 minutes.

I use the cmd + tab to see the open windows and then select the one I want.

That works showing open windows by application, and to see them within the application like Chrome use the ctrl + tab.

But that's me, so let's hope someone will be kind enough to spend time writing the script for you since you asked so nicely.

This might be also something for you: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11158


Assuming your 'teach tracks' are DRM free and not buy from iTunes you could add them to iTunes as long as their fileformat is compatible with iTunes. You don't need an Apple Cloud Library to create playlists, just create a playlist with these songs inside itunes. You can then transfer the songs and the playlist to an iPhone/iPod just by connecting it to your computer.
If you still want your songs in iCloud you must subscribe to iTunes Match from apple. Your songs will be match with iTunes catalog to be available in the cloud from your account, if a song doesn't match the itunes catalog it will be upload to the cloud in order to be available.

If your songs are bought from iTunes they are already available in the cloud.


Move the following directories and files somewhere else to back them up.
~/Library/Application Support/iTerm2
~/Library/Preferences/com.googlecode.iterm2.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.googlecode.iterm2.private.plist

See if iTerm2 starts up without crashing.  You may need to redo all your settings or attempt to decipher them from the backed up files. You can open the PLIST files in Xcode in an easy to reference view.


Assuming a newer version of OS X (10.9+ ?).

You have to kill two processes: the process that manages the preference you are modifying (e.g. killall Finder if it is com.apple.finder that you are modifying) and "cfprefsd".

"cfprefsd" is a newer preference caching service of OS X.

In Terminal.app: killall cfprefsd && killall Finder.

You could also restart your computer.


What prevents the iMessage slider from working on a new iPhone 5?

You will need to work through the various causes at will contribute to the failure of your device to register for iMessage service.

My guess is there is something wrong since normally, you get signed in and find a password error when entering your Apple ID elsewhere on the phone. Also, a problem with SMS activation happens after you manage to get the phone to accept the slider in the ON position.

Start here http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4268 in troubleshooting and know you can also call Apple (or visit a convenient store) for more personal help. New devices, no matter where you purchased it, get free support for setting it up in the first 90 days.


Puffin Browser (free with limitations, 99¢ to subscribe for 6 months)

Photon Flash Player ($9.99)

You could also use many remote desktop applications to stream from a desktop PC or Mac. Probably doesn't help much on a flight, though.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2599798/apple-ios/how-to-run-flash-on-your-ipad-if-you-must.html


iCloud: Troubleshooting Safari bookmarks sync between Windows and OS X

I diagnosed and fixed my sync problem. It's been three or four days of bookmarks syncing without any hiccups.

Narrowing the scope

The original problem was so tough because I had no simple way to find it whether the Mac Safari, or Windows Safari, or both, failed to sync.

To find out if the iCloud on Windows works, do this:

Change the Sync bookmarks with option in iCloud to Internet Explorer, wait a bit (sadly, iCloud doesn't seem to display any kind of sync progress anywhere).
Open Internet Explorer, add a bookmark or two, wait to give iCloud a chance to sync.
Change the Sync bookmarks with option in iCloud to Safari, again, wait.
Open Safari, check if the bookmarks added in Internet Explorer are there.
Add another couple of bookmarks in Safari, wait.
Change the Sync bookmarks with option in iCloud back to Internet Explorer, wait.
Open Internet Explorer, check if the bookmarks added in Safari are there.

Now, in my case, all worked OK on the Windows iCloud part, so next thing I had to do was diagnosing the Mac part.

Fixing the problem

Apple KB article iCloud: Troubleshooting iCloud Bookmarks was an excellent source of help, once I knew which part of the setup to fix.

The steps that actually helped me in my Mac Safari problem case were these (see Troubleshooting iCloud Bookmarks update/setup issues on OS X Lion):

  Quit Safari.
  Choose System Preferences from the Apple () menu and then choose iCloud.
  Remove the checkmark in the checkbox next to Bookmarks.
  Close System Preferences and wait about a minute.
  Open System Preferences and choose iCloud
  Replace the checkmark next to Bookmarks.
  Close System Preferences.
  Open Safari and test to see if the issue has been resolved.

For Windows iCloud problems, there's a separate section,
Troubleshooting iCloud Bookmarks update/setup issues on Microsoft Windows, which probably should be helpful as well.


Remove duplicate smart playlists in iTunes

Forgive me if I'm mistaken but can't you just right/second click and hit delete?

and then set to sync with your iPod under the music tap of the connected iPod


While replying you can turn on the Reply-To header which will let you set this. You can do that by either going to the View menu and turning on Reply-To or you can do it right from within the message itself, which is easier.

Alternatively you can try changing the default preferences via the command line. Chances are the Mail defaults won't have a Reply-To header defined, but you can add the key-pair with this:

defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Reply-To" = "theemail@goes.here"; }'

or

defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"Reply-To" = "theemail@goes.here"; "Bcc" = "another@address.here"; }'

If that doesn't work and you're like me and want to reverse those changes to keep preferences clean, you can edit the .plist file and remove them. The .plist can be found at:

/Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail

I haven't tested the command line approach, but it should work because I looked this up and used that approach on a work machine once.

Hope this helps!


Are there any Lion optimized text editors with VIM keybindings?

Check Sublime Text 2, it is still in beta and they have adding full-screen support in Lion but not others you mentioned.  And you can use Vim key-binding too.

MacVim is also working on some of the Lion refinements (the ones that are included have some rough edges) - it's certainly not stable since it's being fixed as the days go by, but as an open-source program, you can see the bugs/defects and know when the features you care are shipped or have issues.


Game performance halved with screen mirroring on macOS

Sounds to me like you have Vertical Synchronization enabled. This feature locks your frame rate to a fraction of your display’s refresh rate (1, ½, ⅓…) to prevent visual artifacting (specifically, “tearing”) and runaway frame rates (which may damage a GPU). A pretty good indication of this is a frame rate that jumps from 30 to 60 FPS and back, with nothing in-between.

Mirroring is affecting performance just enough to drop your frame rate below 60 FPS. Even if you would otherwise get 59 FPS, Vertical Synchronization would drop your frame rate to 30 FPS.

This may also result in input lag. Since your screen/cursor is now redrawn half (or one-third) as frequently, the delay between you moving the mouse and seeing the result on the screen would be twice or three-times as long.

Go into Portal’s video settings and Disable Vertical Synchronization. I don’t play Portal, but almost every game has that option. It may be named V-Sync.

You may need to switch from Windowed mode to Full Screen. Since macOS forces V-Sync for the main desktop, V-Sync may still be enforced while playing in a window.

To minimize the adverse effects of disabling V-Sync, many games offer the option to cap your frame rate. If that option is available, try setting a maximum of, eg. 90 FPS or even 60 FPS. This often offers the best of both worlds.

See if a combination of these solutions resolves your problem.

If you’d rather keep V-Sync enabled, many games offer an option to enable Triple-Buffering. This will help smooth out your frame rates (therefore minimizing sudden drops in frame rates). Enabling it may also result in increased input lag, though usually not as severe as one caused by dropping 30 FPS.

One last suggestion would be to try to extend your desktop onto the external display as a separate Space instead (possible with Yosemite and above, I believe). Does your use-case even require Mirroring? I’m not all that familiar with this on the Mac, but I don’t see why this wouldn’t be possible.

Bird’s-eye explanation of what’s causing your frame rate drops with Mirroring:
With Mirroring, your Mac has to display the same frame to your internal display and to your external display. In addition to causing your displays to wait on each other, this involves additional “work” including extra computational time and buffer management (to make sure they’re displaying the same thing at the same time), as well as the round-trip delay over your external cable or worse, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth.

While this is happening, your GPU is rendering the next frame in its internal buffer, but doesn’t send it to your display until it gets the OK (because of V-Sync). During this wait period, your GPU is effectively paused, not rendering additional frames (unless Triple- or N-Buffering is available), which further reduces your frame rate. Then, depending on where the slowest display is at in its refresh cycle, display of the next frame may be delayed yet again to the next fraction.

You have to keep in mind that in order to render your game at 60 FPS, your graphics subsystem only has 33ms to perform all that extra work (minus the time needed by the GPU to render those frames in the first place). The roundtrip to and from your external display alone may take a couple of milliseconds. Synchronization work is in and of itself costly (time-wise). It’s not unfathomable that synchronizing two displays takes more than 20 or 30 milliseconds.

Now, in the previous paragraph I was assuming that your GPU was ready with the next frame by the time your displays were done drawing the current one. Imagine that it wasn’t. Well, now the displays are starved, and they’re the ones that end up waiting on the GPU. You probably end up dropping to the next fraction of your slowest refresh rate. What might mean a 1-2 FPS drop V-Sync Off turns into a 30 FPS with it On.

So you’re trying to synchronize two displays (through Mirroring), then trying to synchronize THOSE against your GPU (through V-Sync). The result is potentially lots and lots and lots of waiting.

It is not unusual to experience some performance degradation when connecting subsystems with disparate performance levels. That is why buffers and asynchronous operations were created.

When synchronizing, a delay anywhere causes delays everywhere.

To maximize performance, best let everyone do their job on their own time.


Your first step should be to head to https://iforgot.apple.com and change your Apple ID password. Since one of the methods of retrieval will be to have a link emailed to you, do this before wiping your iPhone. If you have Activation Lock enabled, you will need to provide this password anyway after wiping.

Don’t create a new Apple ID unless you specifically want a new one.

When you backup to iTunes, make sure your backup is encrypted:

This will allow your account passwords, Health, and HomeKit data to be backed up, and will encrypt your local backup with a password. Do not lose this password!

iTunes should immediately start backing up your iPhone. After that you should be safe to Erase All Contents and Settings on your iPhone, then restore your local backup via iTunes.

Do note that it is not possible (or very difficult) to selectively restore apps, settings, etc. A restore restores all your apps and settings as they were at the time of the backup. However if there was any system corruption, etc. a wipe & restore should take care of such problems.


How to register Outlook 2011 to send emails from iPhoto?

There is no built-in way to do this, but some poking around turned up this article, which basically involves modifying the Entourage script to use Outlook instead. The instructions are for iPhoto '09, but the comments indicate that it should work with iPhoto '11.


Seeking a clean way to mount a directory on one HFS+ drive as a directory on another such drive on same machine

To mount a hard drive on a custom mountpoint:

  You can do this with diskutil mount and the -mountPoint option.
  From the man page:

    mount [readOnly] [-mountPoint path] device

    Mount a single volume.  If readOnly is specified, then the file system is mounted read-only, even if the volume's underlying file
    system and/or device and/or media supports writing; even the
    super-user may not write to it; this is the same as the rdonly option
    to mount (8).  If a -mountPoint is specified, then that path, rather
    than the standard path of /Volumes/VolumeName, will be used as the
    view into the volume file con- tent; a directory at that path must
    already exist.

    From man diskutil, section 'Verbs'.

  The syntax to mount to a custom mountpoint is as follows:

diskutil mount -mountPoint /path/to/custom/mountpoint [volume (identifier/UUID/label)]

  Bear in mind that /path/to/custom/mountpoint must be a
  directory, just like with mount, and that your
  identifier/UUID/label are specific to the volume (i.e. /dev/diskXsY
  not /dev/diskX). Mounting to a custom mountpoint cannot be done with
  diskutil mountDisk, and only works with a single volume at a time.

From my answer to How to mount disk by UUID or LABEL in OS X El Capitan.

I've tested this by "mounting" a USB stick on an external hard drive. As an example,

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.3 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh SSD           499.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS HDD-1T                  999.8 GB   disk1s2
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *31.6 GB    disk2
   1:               Windows_NTFS USB-32                  31.6 GB    disk2s1

As you can see, /dev/disk2s1, or USB-32 is the name of the USB stick I am going to mount on the hard drive, /dev/disk1s2, or HDD-1T. To do so, make use of the -mountPoint option. But first, make sure there is a landing directory to mount onto:

$ mkdir /Volumes/HDD-1T/mountpoint

And now, to mount:

$ diskutil mount -mountPoint /Volumes/HDD-1T/mountpoint /dev/disk1s2

The mounted disk will appear in the following locations: /Volumes,  and /Volumes/HDD-1T/mountpoint as USB-32 and mountpoint respectively.

Be sure to unmount (diskutil umount) your USB-32 equivalent before remounting on your HDD-1T equivalent.


Multi-view PDF reader (support for multiple screen views)

I am not aware of any PDF viewer which can have the same document open in two windows.

A workaround would be to use Acrobat for the main work, and Preview for "reference", accepting that Preview may not have write rights for the document.


What is the most OSX or Darwin-like command-line experience available (without buying an expensive Mac or hauling my production machines home)?

Use ssh on the netbook to log into a remote Mac and learn the commands that way.


ICMP packet with a negative round trip time?

There are several possible explanations for negative ping times:

You are running OS X on a PC with a AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor which has a bug in the power management which may not only effect Windows but also OS X installations.
Google is tired of getting pinged 38325 times and is sending erroneous timestamps in the ICMP echo replies - simulating a relativistic twin paradox. The -520.236 ms echo reply packet pretends to come from the fast moving  "younger" twin server and the 7219027.621 ms echo reply is the silver-haired "grandpa" twin server standing still - both behind a misconfigured Einstein-Rosen voodoo load balancer!
ntpd did its work and adjusted the time while a ping was sent. This explains the negative time as well as the two-hour-ping: 7219027.621 ms are two hours and 19 seconds - the most prolonged ping I have ever seen!

You can reproduce it yourself by adjusting the time manually like in this ping listing:

64 bytes from 185.62.237.118: icmp_seq=17 ttl=55 time=290.491 ms
64 bytes from 185.62.237.118: icmp_seq=18 ttl=55 time=310.241 ms
64 bytes from 185.62.237.118: icmp_seq=19 ttl=55 time=-11797.674 ms
64 bytes from 185.62.237.118: icmp_seq=20 ttl=55 time=303.643 ms
64 bytes from 185.62.237.118: icmp_seq=21 ttl=55 time=326.527 ms

I turned the time back for several seconds while ping 19 was sent.


Scrolling or resizing windows are no longer smooth on my iMac

Sounds like something might be stealing all your processor cycles - run Activity Monitor (in the Utilities folder) and see if anything stands out as the culprit.


Step one is to ensure your ports are open and there isn’t a network issue.

In the Finder, open /Applications/Utilities/Network Utility.app

Then choose "Port Scan". Enter the IP address (or the name if DNS is set up in your network) of the Linux Box and scan all ports less than 4000.

A success would look like your results:

Port Scanning host: 192.168.1.2

     Open TCP Port:     3306        mysql
Port Scan has completed…

That should be a quick check that the network and/or DNS are working. It's almost certainly not being blocked - you have to do a lot of non-default work to block arbitrary outbound ports.

If not, you’ll need a follow on question with enough details for someone to help.

If the network is working, you can be assured it’s not related to OS X and perhaps focus on a code level question on Stack Overflow.


Note that my answer doesn't offer any technical explanation of why my answer works. Only empirical and anecdotal experiences.

Some people have encountered similar issues in one form or another (duplicated Apple IDs, Apple iMessage keys, Apple ID certificates). Apparently this seems to be a bug introduced in El Capitan update, which causes many keys and certificates to be, for some reason, multiplied over time.

Deleting them seems ok, as your device will request new ones as needed for your purposes. For my purpose, it's to speed up Xcode codesigning build time, and it works wonderfully.

Related thread on deleting:
https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/67063

iMessage keys deleting:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36259684/why-are-there-so-many-imessage-signing-keys-in-the-private-key-section-of-keycha

People noticed this since El Capitan:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7353727?tstart=0


MacBook Pro external display support (different resolution from notebook display)

Yes, mismatched resolutions are no problem. I'm running a similar set up right now. You can arrange them however you like in the Displays section of System Preferences.


Why does iPad run out of batteries while it's plugged in?

The 12.9" iPad Pro can use power faster than the 12W power adapter can supply it. That's why it can run out of power when running for example a game, even though it is connected to the charger.

To avoid that, use the 29W Apple power adapter instead. The 29W adapter is not supplied with the iPad Pro, but must be bought seperately.


This is normal. System binaries are located in /usr/bin and other such directories that need to be in your path so that you can run them without needing to type the entire path in your shell.

Homebrew and other such package managers tell you to add the path to the folder for their own binaries so that they can also be run without typing the entire path. This folder should be added to the list of paths so that both the original binaries and the new binaries can be run in the same way.

FWIW I have plenty of paths in my $PATH:

/Users/grgarside/.autojump/bin:/Users/grgarside/.autojump/bin:/Users/grgarside/.rvm/gems/ru
by-2.0.0-p247/bin:/Users/grgarside/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p247@global/bin:/Users/grgarside/.r
vm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/bin:/Users/grgarside/.rvm/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr
/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sb
in:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/Users/grgarside/.rvm/bin


You have to include it yourself. In Safari go to 'Preferences' > 'Advanced' and select "Include Bonjour" where you wish to - either in Bookmarks or in your Favorites bar.


Sounds like you might not have VMware Tools installed in the second VM. Do you see the VMware Tools icon in the taskbar tray?

If not, you can select "Install VMware Tools" from the "Virtual Machine" menu (mine says "Reinstall" as I already have it installed)


How can I take screenshots of web browser including a select input?

As a UX Designer I very routinely need to capture menu dropdowns as well as the selected item within the drop down menu. Most of the time (though not always) I am able to do this via CMD-SHIFT-4 by first clicking the field, keeping the mouse pressed in one hand while pressing CMD-SHIFT-4 with the other hand. Most of the time the dropdown and even selected menu item will "freeze" and remain stationary on the screen while you draw your marquee around the screen area you want to capture. Then you release and have your custom shaped image. (I just did this on Youtube.com, Chrome Browser 64.0, High Sierra 10.13.3 )

Though quite often on a multitude of sites you can do this all via CMD-SHIFT-4 and thus no-need to later crop, the dropdown and selected item does not always "freeze" while you marquee around it. And there are also many times when I want to show an on-screen notification or confirmation effect in addition to the menu choices and selected item. In both cases I absolutely must resort to CMD-SHIFT-3 and, yes, crop afterwards.

I believe Leonard Challis's answer is sound and I know of no other way to achieve this than to use the full-screen screenshot command as he described. So what that it then requires having to crop the full-screen image captured to isolate the area you want to show. Maybe someone has found 3rd party software that let's you achieve your goal on the fly. Perhaps there is a Chrome or other browser extension that will freeze the screen to display the menu-dropdown selection state. Or maybe recorded Screen-capture is the better tool, particularly if you want to document a whole sequence of interface/selection instructions. And you can select key frames to crop into images. Doesn't appear anyone has provided any such suggested software.

I specifically and categorically disagree with grgarside's answer claiming that the CMD-SHIFT-3 solution is "even worse than OP's already described ⇧⌘4 for selecting a region, since you then have to open the image in Preview for cropping for no added benefit over taking a screenshot of a region." That's completely incorrect as the OP specifically wanted to be able to display the drop down menu. That's the added benefit.

ONE ADDENDUM:  The CMD-SHIFT-4 "all in one" action also works the majority of the time on most sites when right-clicking a link and wanting to capture the pop up menu and your selection. 2 EXAMPLES right here on this thread:


(Mistakenly) Deleted all partitions except for disk0s2, can't mount or repartition

You should be able to repair you existing partition so you can boot to OS X. The steps are given below. Here, I assume you were using Yosemite or some other version of OS X that installs to a "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" formatted volume. Also, I assume encryption was not being used.

  Note: The examples were made using a disk image while booted to High Sierra. So, your output may vary from what is shown.

Start up the Mac from macOS Recovery over the Internet by restarting and immediately pressing and holding the the key combination ⌘-R.
From the menu bar, select to open a Terminal application window.
Enter the following command to get the GUID Partition Table (GPT) entries.

gpt -r show /dev/disk0

An example output is shown below.

$ gpt -r show /dev/disk0
       start        size  index  contents
           0           1         PMBR
           1           1         Pri GPT header
           2          32         Pri GPT table
          34           6
          40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
      409640  1757812496      2  GPT part - FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF
  1758222136   194902871
  1953125007          32         Sec GPT table
  1953125039           1         Sec GPT header

Enter the commands given below to change the GPT.

diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0
diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk0
gpt add -i 2 -b <start> -s <size> -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Where <start> and <size> are integers taken from the row with index equal to 2 in the table shown in step 2. An example is shown below.

$ diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk0
Unmount of all volumes on disk0 was successful
$ gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0
/dev/disk0s2 removed
$ diskutil unmountdisk /dev/disk0
Unmount of all volumes on disk0 was successful
$ gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 1757812496 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0
/dev/disk0s2 added

You will need to replace 409640 and 1757812496 with the values shown in your GPT table.
Restart the Mac back to OS X.
Enter the command given below in a Terminal application window to reclaim the free space.

sudo diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 R

An example is shown below.

$ sudo diskutil resizevolume /dev/disk0s2 R
Resizing to full size (fit to fill)
Started partitioning on disk0s2 Macintosh HD
Verifying the disk
Verifying file system
Volume was successfully unmounted
Performing fsck_hfs -fn -x /dev/rdisk0s2
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume
Checking extents overflow file
Checking catalog file
Checking multi-linked files
Checking catalog hierarchy
Checking extended attributes file
Checking volume bitmap
Checking volume information
The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK
File system check exit code is 0
Restoring the original state found as mounted
Resizing
Modifying partition map
Growing file system
Finished partitioning on disk0s2 Macintosh HD
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.7 GB   disk0s2

Addition Comments

Your internal recovery partition no longer exists. When you reinstall OS X or upgrade to a newer OS X or macOS, a new recovery volume will be created.
Grub still exists in your EFI partition (disk0s1). You should consider removing Grub.


Notifications sounds not affected by iPad 2 volume

In Settings | General | Sounds, you can either set the sound level of the alerts, or choose that it will be affected by the Volume buttons (which is off by default).
Update
In iOS 10 (and maybe earlier versions, I'm not sure when the change happened) this setting is under Settings | Sounds and is called Change with Buttons in the Ringer and Alerts section.


How to copy iTunes Library from one user profile to another?

The easist way would be to copy the files in "C:\Users\thomas\Music\iTunes" to the same folder in your new user account.  This should link everything back to the external drive.  The files are:

.iTunes Preferences.plist
iTunes Library Extras.itdb
iTunes Library Genius.itdb
iTunes Library.itl
iTunes Music Library.xml


How can I backup my apps from the iPad to my mac?

First, you should authorize your computer with your iPad if you haven't already.

From the Store menu, choose Authorize Computer.
In the dialog that appears, the Apple ID button is selected by default. If you have an  AOL account, select AOL.
Enter your Apple ID or AOL screen name and password, then click the Authorize button.

Then, transfer your purchases:

From the File menu, choose "Transfer Purchases from "Lipis' iPad" "

Wait for iTunes to complete the transfer.

Check in your library for your apps and the like.

Then you can sync without worry.


Obtaining windows menu from the dock with a quick click

If you mean this menu

you can show it immediately by just secondary-clicking (which usually means right-clicking) the Dock icon.


Unchecking "Enable mouse Keys" using keyboard?

Press right option key five times. That will disable Mouse Keys. Or you can press the M key to emulate a click.


What happens when someone sends me an iMessage/SMS during a restore?

In my experience, when I send a user an iMessage while that user is unable to receive one, my iPhone (or whatever device as long as it is sending through my phone) will switch to SMS. When the message is sent as an SMS it will still arrive even after the recipient is re-connected.

Note: I haven't looked through docs - this is just what I have come to through observation.


Traveling with laptop without iPhoto, How do I acquire older version like 8.1.2?

You say the camera is jammed, do you just need to move to make space on the camera?

Most logical answer is to buy a new card for the camera... or connect the camera, use the USB features to move the photos off.  You will still have them when you back home to use on the big iMac at home.

However, if you want the version just download 8.1.2.
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL970


Can I disable the linear image scaling in Safari on a retina display?

What you want to do is force the image-rendering CSS property to be set to optimizeSpeed (see here). You could use the Stylish browser extension to achieve this.

Create a new custom style:

* {
image-rendering: optimizeSpeed !important;
}

Set "Apply to" to "Global".


Make sure the password is cleared in your login Keychain. Open the Keychain Access utility (spotlight > Keychain Access). IN the left hand panes, select Keychains > login and Category > All items. Now search for diskstation in the top right to filter the results.

Delete the offending keychain entries.

Change the username and password for these entries so as not to disrupt anything else going on with those servers.


Fan / Processor picks up and runs hard when I let MacBook idle and sleep. Botnet?

Could be running Spotlight. Leave it on overnight and see if it eventually stops.


Mac mini connected display not showing full screen

Go to System Preferences → Displays and adjust the Overscan slider (or checkbox, depending on the screen model) so the content fits on the screen. Alternatively, you should be able to change the settings on the display itself to adjust the overscan.

For more information on overscan and underscan, see the Apple KB article:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5841


Yes. Open up security preferences.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210595

Add Terminal app to full disk access, same as described for the systemsetup command.


Looking for a mac app to design beautiful illustrations automatically and easily

Apples Pages.

I have used this only a little bit. But in most case it suits my basic needs. I have not tried to do anything really fancy. So cannot tell you if it is too limited for you


This would appear to be the epitome of an XY Problem…

Rather than go to all that effort, would it not be simpler to just set your password requirement to 'Never' ?


This is not the perfect answer, but it is an answer...

Move everything away from your MBP that's plugged in to it.

When in location A my set up is different to a more cramped set up B.

My MBP was sat underneath a 43 inch ultra-widescreen monitor, with a usb 3.0 hub containing, amongst other things, my external drive, sat atop it. As soon as I separated them all as far away from each other as possible the speed went back up. Not back up to anything like it was with nothing attached, but acceptable.

Hopefully might help someone in the future. No idea why it's even an issue, I'm guessing everything emits something that clashes (potentially) with something else.


How to create a custom iPhone ringtone using MacOS 10.15 Catalina?

'Create ringtone' part for Catalina (and older macos versions as well) is pretty simple and straightforward if you are comfortable with terminal.

MacOs comes with built-in afconvert. For example, to convert mp3 file 'mysound.mp3' to ringtone (.m4r file) mysoundringtone.m4r:

afconvert -f m4af -d aac mysound.mp3 mysoundringtone.m4r

Need to be in same directory with source file or pass path along with filename(s).

'Upload part': one can connect iPhone to computer and drag-and-drop ringtone file to iTunes while it's on iPhone 'General' tab. After that locate newly created ringtone on iPhone in Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Ringtone (above built-in ringtones, separated by line).


How to disable default keyboard layout shorcut in OS X 10.8?

You can change the shortcuts from the keyboard preference pane:

In 10.9 the Show Punctuation and Show Facemarks menu items were combined into a single item that has option-shift-B as the shortcut.

On some keyboards you can also insert 6 by pressing fn-O.


stopping the expansion of the safari window after opening a new tab

I'm not sure of an elegant solution, but choosing to always show the tab bar will never have to increase the size of the window, since it would always be there


Where do I go to download the correct software to do an untethered jailbreak on 4.2.6?

Better option if your iPhone 4 is not unlocked would be to update to 5.0.1 and then jailbreak it.  There are untethered jailbreaks available for this firmware. This would give you the benefits and new features of ios5.


There is no official way to enable TRIM on non-Apple drives. In all likelihood, idle time garbage collection on a Samsung 830 will be sufficient to maintain performance so you might want to ignore TRIM unless you see a problem.

I've been using that drive in a late-2007 MacBook for months even when the drive is full and have not seen any issues without TRIM. Not an exact comparison as the lower speed interface on mine might mask any problems but still a positive sign.


iPhone 4S/IOS6 - battery drain after the camera usage

I don't think its the GPS, do you have Photo stream turned on?  That will upload your pictures to iCloud.  One thing you can do is check usage to see what is doing on after you take pictures.  Is my iPhone 5S draining battery too fast (and is it due to process mediaServerD?) has good information in the OP about checking what is using your battery.


How do I revert Gmail back to normal after I switched to HTML by mistake?

Scroll to the bottom of the page and select "Standard".


Is it normal for it to take hours to delete a Time Capsule "sparsebundle"

It is theoretically possible if the drive is near full that a delete operation may take a lot of time. You can try to delete the file via the command line, which bypasses the Finder and does it the Unix way.

In any case there must be hard drive activity during the process. If the drive is not making any noise or light, then it’s not doing anything and that’s not good. But be patient.


I finally found a terminal command for changing the Simple Finder interface back to the Standard interface and it did the trick ;)

defaults write com.apple.finder InterfaceLevel standard;killall Finder

Got this from http://www.amsys.co.uk/2013/blog/how-to-quickly-enable-os-x-finders-simple-finder-mode/#.VI9WasZINv1

Thanks for the troubleshoot suggestions. It helped get me headed in the right direction.


What is the difference between thunderbolt and displayport iMacs when used as monitors?

The following options will work for you:

old iMac as a display for MBP, MBA and new iMac. Use a mDP cable.
new iMac as a display for MBA. Use a TB cable.


Chances are, it's just a folder created randomly by some app or another at some point to use as a mount point and it was never deleted. It should be perfectly safe to rm -rf it, especially if it is empty.

Note: If you rm -rf in /Volumes, make sure you specify which directory  to operate on (i.e. DON'T JUST rm -rf /Volumes!) otherwise you will delete everything on every mounted disk, including your root drive (granted, it will throw permissions errors before doing anything to your OS first but still). Try to delete things in Finder if you’re not sure of your rm skills or if you don’t have a backup or time now to restore from that backup.


Can you hide/disable the internal SDD blade in an iMac (originally Fusion)?

I'd suggest this a hardware problem: you'd be best served by finding a local independent Apple repair company, and asking them to replace the SSD with a new/secondhand Apple unit.

They'd be experienced at taking it apart and would charge a reasonable price. An Apple Store might say it's too old, or charge a lot.

The same modules are used across Apple's hardware of a similar age, so you should be able to get a larger size -- 512; 1Tb. (Don't Fuse with the HDD!)

If your OS is on the HDD, that's massively limiting the performance of your iMac.


Deleting contacts on iCloud does not remove them from iPhone

It appears that the contacts that were not being deleted were linked to Google and Yahoo accounts. The data from them were imported to iCloud. I'm pretty sure iCloud was deleting the contacts from the iPhone that I deleted on the website/desktop. I went in to Settings, Accounts and disabled showing the contacts for Google and Yahoo and all the trashy contacts disappeared.


Enable Flex Time in the Editor

Drag from the beginning of the track so that the waveform turns white. It sometimes trims instead, but it generally works when clicking the middle of the left side.


Depending on how old the charger is, it is possible the agent causing the discoloration is leaching through from what the casing covers instead of being caused by an external source. In this case, bleaching and cleaning will affect only the surface of the cable.

I used to have several cables like this, on old barrel-shaped (non-MagSafe) chargers, but when the laptops were recycled, so were the chargers, so I don't have anything to dissect to prove my assertion.

The power charger can also get quite hot when charging, and if the charging cable is partially or wholly wound on the charger body's cable-storage fingers, they may become very hot as well, causing some of the discoloration you see. I always fully unwind the connection cable before charging.


Larger resolution than proposed in El Capitan

A large screen resolution results in smaller icons and windows. Have you tried the large setting?


Automate arranging files into folders based on beginning of file name?

for i in {10..99}
do
    mkdir 000$i
    mv 000$i* 000$i
done

for i in {100..999}
do
    mkdir 00$i
    mv 00$i* 00$i
done

for i in {1000..9999}
do
    mkdir 0$i
    mv 0$i* 0$i
done

This bash script should work for 10-9999 directories.


El Capitan Mail 9.1: Disable remote content loading for junk mail only

First, make sure Mail's junk mail filtering is enabled in Mail preferences under Junk Mail.

Messages marked as "Junk" in Mail (orange-tinted, with the  icon) will automatically not display remote content, even if "Load remote content in messages" is turned on in Mail preferences! If Mail automatically detected a message to be junk, the following banner will be displayed:

However, if a message arrives that Mail doesn't think is Junk, this leaves you with a problem: if you view the message to mark it as junk, the remote content will be loaded. To mark a message as junk without loading it, right-click it in the message list and click Mark > As Junk Mail.

Now if you view it, it will show this banner instead of loading remote content:


There is no way to customize it yet. Seems to be ample space to place them around the "Play" icon.


Open the webpage in your preferred browser, then click on the website's icon on the left of the URL bar and drag it to your Desktop.   This creates a shortcut.

Applescript to create a webpage shortcut seems like the hard way.


Is there a comparison of networks and costs for iOS 4.3's Personal Hotspot?

The hotspot feature is, in essence, very similar to the Internet Tethering feature. The differences are that a) there's no cable required and b) you can connect up to 3* wifi-capable devices, so you're not restricted to tethering only devices that have USB or Bluetooth.

*See the below comments for the correct answer.


Get Lyrical
I use this. It will display the lyrics and add them to your iTunes library (if you choose to) I would highly recommend it.
There is also LessLyrics. I haven't used it before.


Increasing video memory on an older macbook

Generally, VRAM is soldered on/in somewhere.  I suppose you could, if you had the know how, but the short answer is, no.

Edit:  That is, VRAM is not (usually) taken from the pool of "available RAM," it's actually separate RAM entirely.  And dedicated to the GPU, only.


How can I adjust brightness of 3rd Party external monitor on iMac, Macbook or Mac Pro via keyboard?

I've found Lunar.app and it syncs the brightness from your PC to the external monitors. It has a lot of other features that I not yet have played with, but a uniform brightness is already great. The app looks nice, so thats a plus (and it's free).

Here is an article on lifehacker.com, because the information on the Lunar site is really sparse.


https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39790639/webrtc-support-on-chrome-browser-in-iphone-ipad

According to this post, the answer is no. Because Apple don't allow Apps in their store that implement their own web rendering engines (aka browsers). Therefore every 'browser' currently available on the App store is just a skin on top of the built-in web render, which explicitly doesn't implement VP9 / webm support.


If it is running iOS 5, you should be able to change it in Settings>General>About>Name:

If it is running anything less than iOS 5 (or is just a click wheel iPod) you'll need to plug it into your computer and change it from iTunes. Click on the name in the sidebar and change it:

If this still doesn't work (and doesn't show up on the iPod), try restoring (in iTunes) it, or restarting it (hold down the center button and the menu button for 10 seconds)


Prevent Mac terminal from changing tabs when reopened

How about instead of minimising by pressing minimise button, using ⌘  H (COMMAND H) instead? Then it will not shift to the oldest tab.

Then, use ⌘ ⇥ (COMMAND TAB) to navigate the terminal.


Time Machine seems to think my MacBook Pro is a new backup after Yosemite upgrade

You may want to check this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/message/27031297

It seems that if you backup external drives with Time Machine and you disconnect them at a later point, for instance for a few hours or days, and reconnect them, Time Machine will want to make a full backup of them (even if nothing has changed). That behavior appeared with Yosemite. I have not heard about any solution or workaround (yet).


On dual-boot macOS/Ubuntu Mojave install failed with "This disk cannot be used to startup your computer."

I deleted the Ubuntu partition and then used macOS utilities, Disk Utility and diskutil to recover that space. Then the upgrade to Mojave proceeded normally. At that point I used these utilities to resize the Macintosh HD partition to half the disk and created a following spacer partition of 128 MiB (see rEFInd forum). I then reinstalled rEFInd from macOS and Ubuntu in the remaining free space. The result is a working Mojave/Ubuntu dual-boot system.


What is the best way to record an audio conversation made in Skype?

I suggest you use Ecamm Call Recorder. It's a plugin for Skype that will record both sides of the conversation into separate tracks. If you need high quality audio, you could have your interviewee record their own audio locally with QuickTime and send you the audio file. We use a combination of these two to create the Ask Different Podcast - individual QuickTime recordings for quality, and a Skype recording that we use to sync up the conversation.


Can I use my Apple Watch 4, having only an iPhone 8 Plus? If not, what is the latest Apple Watch that will pair with my phone?

Your iPhone can work with any Apple Watch starting from the original one to the latest one. The only thing that needs to be ensured is that both the iPhone and Apple Watch are running the compatible versions of iOS and watchOS.

It's recommended that the devices run the latest available version of the respective OS. Currently the latest version of iOS available for iPhone 8 Plus is iOS 13.2, while the one for Apple Watch Series 4 is watchOS 6.0.1.

To answer your questions specifically:

  Can I use my Apple Watch 4, having only an iPhone 8 Plus?

Yes.

  If not, what is the latest Apple Watch that will pair with my phone?

As stated above, you can pair technically pair any Apple Watch with iPhone 8 Plus.

  Can I get my Apple Watch working without buying a newer iPhone?

Yes.

  If not, what is the latest generation Apple Watch that I can use without buying a newer iPhone?

Apple Watch Series 5, which is the latest model released by Apple.


Finding Apps that do not appear in Macbook dock

Another option is to click the magnifying glass in the upper right corner (Spotlight), and type the name of the application you're looking for.  Once the application is running, you can add it to the dock permanently by pressing control and clicking the trackpad over the application's icon, then selecting the Options and finally, the Keep in Dock option.


Can a "normal" user see all processes with htop?

Yes, you can see all processes with htop as the default user.

Note that if you for example use virtualization to run multiple systems on one, htop will only show you the virtualization program as a process - not the processes running within that virtual machine.


First of all, as you already mentioned, the firmware can be updated on a mac, too. So you do not need windows for that. Here is a Manual. It does not mention 840 EVO, but it should be fine. (Maybe EVO isn't mentioned just because the EVO update came out 30 days later than the non-EVO update and the manual wasn't updated after that?)

Secondly, not the cells are decayed, only their content is decayed. And this can be fixed by a rewrite of the data. The first firmware update (from October 2014) only modified the algorithm used to read data (trying to compensate the aging of files). As you indicated, this alone does not completely solve the problem. A refresh of the old data was necessary. This is where the Performance Restoration Software came into play. It just does this (a full rewrite) in order to ensure that there are no old files.

As it seems, the first firmware update wasn't sufficient and the reading of files got again slower the older the files became.

With the second firmware update (in case of 840 EVO it is EXT0DB6Q) Samsung again modified the algorithm but also introduced a recurring (hardware performed) rewrite of all data. Thereby data does not grow old and the explicit Performance Restoration process is not necessary anymore. Instead, the Performance Restoration will be done by the new firmware recurrently when the drive is idle.

If you really want the data to be rewritten immediately, you could clone the drive and copy the clone back to it, I guess. But there should be no need for that.

Source: Various websites, primarily the ssd review. I suggest to give it a read for a deeper understanding. :)

To your question regarding the Advanced Performance Optimization let me quote anandtech:

  The new Magician 4.6 also includes an Advanced Performance
  Optimization feature, which is similar to the performance restoration
  tool that Samsung released earlier. Basically, it's a command that
  tells the SSD to rewrite all of its internal data, which resets all
  cell charges and hence recovers performance. It's merely a
  supplementary tool as the firmware upgrade itself should be enough to
  restore performance, but in case the performance isn't fully restored
  after the firmware upgrade (and some idle time to let the drive
  refresh the cells), the tool can be used to force a cell charge
  refresh.


How can I get application windows to remember my desired position for them?

This is by no means a perfect fix, but I use Divvy as my solution to this issue - probably the single best Mac addon I've ever bought. It's not free but it has global keyboard shortcuts which would mean a badly placed window is a ctrl+something away from being perfect again.


Are Photos from the Photos app in iOS backed up to iCloud?

The last 1000 photos and 30 days are, via the photo stream. Apple details here. But this should be seen as a temporary solution.


Apple MainStage audio output device changes automatically after some time

After some frequent contact with Rogue Amoeba we came to the following solution.
Strictly speaking is this not an answer to the original question, but a workaround.
I used the Loopback device to connect to Audio Hijack, but another solution is to select System Setting as Audio Output in MainStage. Then I captured the MainStage application in Audio Hijack instead of the Loopback device. Thus circumventing to whole need for Loopback as an input device into Audio Hijack.
BTW I still use Loopback to connect the Audio Hijack output further in the chain.


Can I buy iOS apps on a computer, and then gift them to the end user?

You can’t gift iOS apps from your computer. You can do simply from an iPhone or iPad that supports iOS.

However, another alternative that you can use is:

Apple Business Manager and MDM Tool.

Once you purchase the license for the app/tool, you can push it for the user from MDM Tool which will synchronize with ABM. ABM is free but should be associated with the company with valid registration from the Apple support team and you need to purchase the MDM tool for it. You can deploy on-premises or in the cloud. This is a solution for big corporate companies who want to have a proper inventory of their Apple Devices too.

Just a reference to show you how ABM Apps distribution looks like:

Note: The above solution is expensive and needs a proper plan. So an easy way to gift will be to use one iOS device quickly and push it as a gift for a desired user once you purchase it. Check this detail: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201783


Where does OS X store the list of disabled fonts?

I don't have Fonts Disabled folders either, but the list of disabled fonts is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.FontRegistry.user.plist. If you copy it to another computer, run sudo atsutil databases -remove; atsutil server -shutdown to apply the changes.


iTunes cannot convert Apple Lossless tracks to 128 kbps AAC files when sync'ing with iPhone

I had a similar problem with few of my tracks. The conversion is done live, while syncing. Basicly the problem is with the particular sound track, not the lossless codec (ALAC) itself. I used a third party utility to re-encode the original (keeping it to ALAC) and then iTunes managed to re-encode the track back to 128kBit AAC. Hope this helps.

  Does iTunes maintain a parallel, down-sampled, library on disk when I check this option?

No - re-encoding is done live, that's why it's so slow.


Disable video preview/quicklook in Finder

You can turn off the preview pane in Finder windows (column view) by going to Veiw: Show View Options (⌘+J) and unchecking Show Preview Column. This will disable video auto-play but I think your real issue is with a corrupted QuickLook or QuickTime preferences file. To find out if the root cause is as I surmise, create a folder on your desktop and move these files from /Library/Preferences (if you have them) into it
com.apple.quicklookconfig.plist
com.apple.QuickLookDaemon.plist
com.apple.quicktime.plugin.preferences.plist
com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX.LSSharedFileList.plist
com.apple.QuickTimePlayerX.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist

then restart & see if the problem persists. Let us know the results please.


Copy/Migrate FileVault 2 encrypted hard drive

SSD is different, it needs a separate driver from OS to work properly. It is better that you archive your drive using time machine, install OS X as usual and than, during the last install step, restore your home directory. This will ensure that your system uses all correct drivers and your SSD will live a healthier life.

When archiving with time machine, you can drag /System into the exclusion list to avoid archiving OS X itself (you'll be reinstalling it).


There is a solution for that on the internet I believe. http://macreports.com/icloud-this-backup-cannot-be-deleted-at-this-time-error-fix/

Try restarting your phone and reconnecting to the wifi or even logging out and logging back in to your Apple ID. If it still doesn't work, you might want to consider doing that from a computer. You can follow the instructions here. https://support.apple.com/kb/ph12792

Remove a backup using your Mac

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Manage.
Click Backups on the left, select an iOS device on the right whose backup you don’t need, then click Delete.
If you don’t see Backups on the left, your iOS devices don’t have iCloud backups. For more information, see Back up your iOS device to iCloud.

Remove a backup using your Windows computer

Open iCloud for Windows, then click Storage.
Click Backups on the left, select an iOS device on the right whose backup you don’t need, then click Delete.
If you don’t see Backups on the left, your iOS devices don’t have iCloud backups. For more information, see Back up your iOS device to iCloud.


Finder does not take into account Time Machine's Local Snapshots. The storage space of these local snapshots will be given to files if necessary and therefore the space is not actually being consumed. Daisy Disk sees these files though and takes them into account when calculating the free space.

You can disable local snapshots by turning off Time Machine completely, or to retain Time Machine functionality without local snapshots you can run the following command:

sudo tmutil disablelocal


iPhone iOS 5 showing incorrect time zone

You should see the Location you are in under the set automaticly button. As below. It is greyed out, as this is taken from your current location, so you must have location service enabled.


Backing Up OS X Server to Local Time Machine Server Folder

No, you cannot. Backing up to a local volume (what you're having the server do) uses a slightly different backup format than a network backup (what your server is allowing clients to do). With a local volume backup, the backups are stored inside a folder named Backups.backupdb which is at the root of the backup volume (not in a subfolder). With a network backup, the backup is stored inside a disk image, and the Backups.backupdb folder is at the root of the volume inside that. Because the network backup is wrapped in a disk image, that image can be almost anywhere (volume root, folder, subfolder, whatever); but this flexibility does not exist for a local volume backup.


You previously installed Windows (or another OS) and deleted it afterwards - except an orphaned Apple_BOOT or 2nd EFI partition (disk0s3 - 134.2 MB).

The 50 GB are simply unallocated disk space.

To expand your APFS container you have to remove the third partition and resize the container:

First convert the third partition to free space:

sudo diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" %noformat% /dev/disk0s3

Then expand your APFS container to the max (0 is a magic size here):

diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0


Focusing On An Input Box Quickly Will Delete The First Two Characters Typed!

I figured out the answer by myself.

Input boxes in web forms tend to lag a little, and so does my selection. If I select all the text in the input box, dragging my cursor from the end to the beginning, the selected area will lag behind half a second.

That lag is what causes the problem. When I start typing afterwards, the selection is still active, causing it to replace one or two characters if I type too fast.


Is it possible to limit the size of an APFS volume?

When creating an APFS volume, you can set a quota. In Disk Utility, in the sheet to create a new volume, choose Size Options and set a Quota Size.

The optional quota size limits how much storage this volume can allocate.

This can't be added or changed for an existing volume.


Notification when user opens a certain folder in Finder

Create an AppleScript file with the content

on opening folder theAttachedFolder

    do shell script "echo 'The folder \"folder name\" has been opened' | mail -s 'folder opened' 'name@sld.tld'"

end opening folder

replace folder name in  \"folder name\" with the real folder name, enter a proper email address in the .scpt file and save it to /Library/Scripts/Folder\ Action\ Scripts.

Then configure a folder action with this script by attaching it to the monitored folder. If mail ... doesn't work in your environment you have to use another CLI mail client. With a working OS X/macOS Server and its configured and running mail server and respective user accounts it works right out of the box.

More advanced version which requires to insert an email address only:

on opening folder theAttachedFolder

    set theFolder to quoted form of POSIX path of theAttachedFolder
    set Username to quoted form of short user name of (system info)

    do shell script "echo 'The folder " & theFolder & " has been opened by " & Username & "!' | mail -s 'Monitored folder opened' 'name@sld.tld'"

end opening folder


Sierra must have changed something because this did not work. The account attempts to log in, then there were a ton of messages asking for the admin password because the Library needed to be repaired. Then there was an error that a valid keychain could not be found (because the account did not have access to any of its own folders.) In the past, an ACL reset would fix that, but that's not possible with Sierra (or at least I haven't found a reliable way to do it.)

What I did instead was:

From an admin account, delete the Mobile User account, but do not delete the home folder.
From Terminal, rename the user's home folder to remove the "(Deleted)" tag. You can also rename it to anything you want at this point, such as "johnspartan" instead of "spartanj117"
Create a new local account, using the same name as the account you just edited. Select "Use Existing Folder." (If you don't see the prompt, you mistyped something. Cancel and double-check the previous step.)
Log out of the admin account, and log into the newly created account. All should be there, minus the Mobile account tag.


Create a mono only print queue for a colour printer

What I've done is:

Use the CUPS interface (http://localhost:631/ - specifically http://localhost:631/admin/#HPColorOptionsPanel) to change the default for Print colors as grey to on.
From a Print dialog, on the Presets menu choose Show presets...
Tick Reset Presets menu to "Default Settings" after printing.

When I want a colour print, I go to the 'Colour/Quality' section of the Print Settings dialog and set up the colour options as I want them.  I've saved them in a preset, so I can just select a colour printing preset when I want it, but after each job it reverts to black and white.


Can I move my iTunes library to a network drive?

You certainly can.

In iTunes, you can choose where your music library is stored:

ITunes->Preferences->Advanced->ITunes...location

If you want multiple iTunes accessing the library, it can get complicated. If other music players just use the folder structure, it should just work.

Extra scripts and config options can be set up so that iTunes uses a small local library if the network drive is not mounted, etc.


Sometimes the homescreen seems to hang on iOS7.  Sliding up for the camera, or down for notifications centre etc can work, but sliding across to unlock doesn't.  It's very annoying.  You need to restart the phone to get past it.  You can either:

hold the power button until the slide to restart message appears, and if you can slide there then do that, or...
hold the power button and home buttons together until the Apple logo is shown.


How do I manually throttle the CPU usage of an app?

You could try AppTamer (not free, trial version available). From the AppTamer website:

  Some applications, particularly web browsers and older apps, continue
  running tasks or animating ads even when they're idle. That uses
  valuable processing (CPU) power, which leaves you with:

  Less CPU power for the application you're using, Increased heat and fan
  noise, Reduced battery run-time

  Find the culprits and get them under control. With App Tamer, you
  simply do this:

  Launch App Tamer and click on its icon in your    menubar, Click on an
  application that's    using a lot of CPU, Tell App Tamer to slow or stop
  the app.


Apparently the problem is not the phone call per-se, but the new notifications screen. It seems there is a notification on top of the slide-to-answer, even though you can't see it. Yesterday's iOS upgrade fixed it, everything is working now.


Embedded vimeo videos can't be run in fullscreen mode in Firefox

In the menu :

Tools > Page info > Permissions > Check Fullscreen mode.


The Time Capsule cannot port forward based on incoming domain request. It is not aware of the domain requested, only the port you are attempting to access. You need software, like properly-configured Apache, to handle multiple virtual domains within a network. I am not knowledgeable enough of the topic to advise you specifics, but it would involve handing off DNS and/or routing duties to a server (such as the Pi or OS X Server) and putting the Time Capsule in bridge mode.

A better way to do this is to hit the Raspberry Pi at another public port, such as example.com:81. The Time Capsule can handle this with ease.


Getting notified when my iPhone is found at a different email address?

You can setup your gmail account as default iCloud account.

To do this :

Go to settings
Mail Contacts, Calenders option
Add new Email Account
Choose iCloud Account
Choose Get a Free Apple ID
When it asks for Email provide your Gmail Address
It will then pair your email with iCloud account so that you can use it as primary iCloud account
Once setup is done go to iCloud in Settings and change the account from iCloud me address to your newly setup Gmail iCloud Account

Hope it helps :)


The following will add a column indicating whether the phone user was sending or receiving each message:

SELECT datetime(message.date, 'unixepoch', '+31 years', '-6 hours') as Timestamp, handle.id, message.text,
    case when message.is_from_me then 'From me' else 'To me' end as Sender
FROM message, handle WHERE message.handle_id = handle.ROWID;


iMessage is Apple’s proprietary messaging service. There is no other cross-platform app that supports it. iMessage does not support calling as it is only a text messaging service. It provides its own peer-to-peer messaging that is available only to users of macOS, iOS (and by extension to watchOS). It also supports SMS for communication with non-Apple devices. Cellular calls can made using the iPhone’s phone app and calls to Macs and other iOS devices can be made with FaceTime app. iMessage is integrated with both, but does not do the actual calling.

If you have no cellular service, it is not possible to contact an Android device with iMessage, as it can only contact Android devices using SMS. (iMessage can text and call iOS devices with just Wi-Fi however).

You could choose other services that are available on both iOS and Android such as WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, or Google Allo. Generally, both devices must have the same app installed for communication between them.


Macbook will only boot into recovery, how to copy files onto other hard drive and boot from it?

Have a look at Carbon Copy Cloner: https://bombich.com/, it allows you to create bootable copies of your internal HDD.


How to import certificates in Cisco AnyConnect iPhone app?

The easiest way to would be to email the certificates to your iphone and install from there.

1. Tap attached certificate in the email sent to your iphone
2. Tap install

Next, you'll associate the certificate in Cisco AnyConnect:

3. Choose desired conection > then select detail disclosure button
4. Tap Advanced > Certificate
5. Tap the name of the certificate you just imported


Can I disable saving passwords in Safari 8?

Your Mac or settings are broken for Safari to be locked like that.

This is likely an issue with your user account settings since all the Macs I have allow you to uncheck those marks. First, try going to the Passwords tab and turning off all check marks there before returning to the AutoFill tab.

Before wiping your user settings and preferences, can you verify that making a new user on the mac and logging in to that account, you are seeing the same issue?

If it's a system issue the steps to fix it are radically different than if it's a user level issue.

See Isolating issues in Mac OS X and Mac OS X: How to troubleshoot a software issue


Is there a programmatic way to save and re-create launchpad groups in Mojave?

In true form, along the way of figuring out how to ask the questions, I seem to have found part of a hint.

There is a folder path /private/var/folders/ that contains a rats-nest of directories with non-human-parseable names.  Supposedly one of these contains my Launchpad's database.

If I can learn which, and how to find it programmatically, I will update the answer

The DB groups name + parents can be found in the DB with via

SELECT *
FROM items i JOIN groups g ON g.item_id = i.rowid
ORDER BY i.parent_id, i.ordering

The issue remains that apps are listed by a UUID, not name.  This suggests that they may not port well to a different computer, since a UUID is typically made in the local context.  However, apps registered via the app store or via Apple's dev program may have consistent UUIDs.


Where does Chrome store login credentials in macOS?

All of your Chrome passwords are encrypted by Chrome and stored in an SQLite database file under Chrome's Local App Data. It is not stored via Keychain.

If you would like to know more about the technical details, refer this answer.


Apps Crashing Due to Mishandling of Fetching Fonts

I figured it out. I use an app called "TinkerTool" that allowed me to change the system font. I went into TinkerTool, and under "Fonts," I clicked "Restore to Defaults."

Problem solved.


How to force Mac (Yosemite) to use USB Bluetooth instead of internal?

To force your system to use an external Bluetooth controller instead of the internal one, open Terminal and type:

sudo nvram bluetoothHostControllerSwitchBehavior=always

then reboot. To revert to the default OS X behavior, type:

sudo nvram -d bluetoothHostControllerSwitchBehavior

You may need to turn off (or un-pair) Bluetooth accessories that are currently using your internal Bluetooth controller, as they can prevent the dongle from being detected by the Continuity Activation Tool.


How to mount Core Storage volume under Linux (or force conversion on unrevertible volume)?

I don't know if it's possible to remove CoreStorage entirely once a disk's been converted, but it is possible to mount the HFS volumes inside (provided they are not encrypted - if so, you'll also need to use libfvde).


Downgrading from iOS 7 to a recent full backup of iOS 6.1.3

Note: this will only work if downgrading from a prerelease beta OS to a regular version.

You can only ever restore an iOS device to the latest public version.

Downgrading is super easy: Just put your iPhone into DFU mode (plug into iTunes, power off, hold down Sleep/Wake and Home button for 8 seconds, let go of the power button and continue to hold down the home button until iTunes alerts you. The screen should be black) and follow iTunes through there.


Does encrypting Time Machine erase the recovery partition?

If you make your Recovery partition as Hidden partition, then the Time Machine wont touch it since it does not see it as available disk space.


How can I remove the File Quarantine warning for a file associated with an Automator script?

From the Terminal.

defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO

This will turn off the warning permanently, or until you change it back with the following command.

defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool YES

You may need to restart for changes to take effect. Info from MacWorld.


This happens to me too. A temporary "fix" is to turn off mail search in Spotlight. (Found on the Apple Discussion Board)


Can applications be using mic/camera without permission?

Unless it's a hacked system, then no, it will not have access since access is only possible via API's that require granting access.


How to pin a URL to OS X Dock with a custom image?

Move/drag the shortcut to the Desktop first
Find an image (on the web, etc.) Open it in Preview, Select All, and Copy.

Open Get Info on your shortcut on the Desktop. Select the current icon at the top left of this window. It will highlight to be blue.

Command-V to paste the image over top of the icon.
Close the properties window.
Drag the shortcut icon to the Dock. Note that items can only be dropped between the trash can and the black divider line.


Microsoft has major and minor updates.  Major updates include all previous updates, minor updates only have what is new since the most recent update.  Their downloads website has all of the updates, both major and minor, that have been released for Office.  The most recent Office update is the top of the list.  As of this writing (Feb 2014), the most current version is 14.3.9.  Its knowledge base article says that it only requires that you have version 14.1.0 installed, which would require you to do two updates (but not more than that).  Sometimes, I've seen it not get the update order right if you haven't rebooted your machine between updates, although I've usually not found that to be a requirement.  I've also seen people run into problems on updating if their license key is a pirated one, but I'm sure you're not doing that. :)  So, for your other MacBook, you should only need to do two updates if you're installing 14.0.0: 14.1, and 14.3.9.


I would like my application to overlap the dock (with the app behind of course)

If you turn hiding on for the Dock, using the + button will extend maximized windows to the very bottom of the screen. When you mouse down near the bottom of the screen the dock will appear and be on top of any program windows on the display.

If you turn Dock hiding off after maximizing windows in this fashion they'll stay maximized all the way to the bottom of the screen. The Dock will be on top of the windows.

As promised, here's some AppleScript to make this happen:

tell application "System Events"
    set the autohide of the dock preferences to true
end tell
delay 1
tell application "System Events"
    set frontApp to first application process whose frontmost is true
end tell
tell application (name of frontApp)
    set zoomed of window 1 to not (zoomed of window 1)
end tell
delay 1
tell application "System Events"
    set the autohide of the dock preferences to false
end tell

You can follow these directions to assign that script to a keyboard short cut. I put the delays in there because I found every few runs the dock would unhide before the window had maximized and as such, it wouldn't be behind the dock.


How to sync Yosemite Photos library to Synology Diskstation?

I'm doing that with Phoshare.

I'm using automator for running an apple script when my iMac starts. This script calls phoshare to sync my events with the NAS.

The apple script look like:

cd /Applications/Phoshare-1.5.2.app/Contents/MacOS
./Phoshare \
  --export "/Volumes/photo/2015" \
  --iphoto "/Users/toto/Pictures/iPhoto Library.photolibrary" \
  -e ".*2015" \
  --foldertemplate "{mm}-{name}" \
  --nametemplate "{title}" \
  --captiontemplate "{description}" \
  -u -d -f -K --gps


Performance of Virtual Machines on MacBook Pro with and without discrete graphics

I run three ubuntu VM, light garage band or Logic Pro and Safari, FaceTime and Apple productivity apps on the 2015 MacBook - base model, base storage, base RAM.

You'll have significant CPU hogs choosing Chrome over Safari (in general), Skype over iMessage and Office over Apple's Apps.

Whatever Mac you push with that workload will become thermally overloaded and throttle the CPU, and since you want the Mac to last for half a decade, you might as well get the best CPU, most RAM and go for the 15 inch model.

You could run all the apps on a lesser Mac, but if you don't care how hot it runs, get the most watts you can pump out and you'll have the best performance.

You want the 2.8 GHz CPU, so you get a better value with the dual GPU option since you get another 2 GB ov VRAM which will get used / free up some of the 16 GB main memory for other uses.

If you doubt the 2.8GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 4.0GHz is enough, you should get a lesser portable and run your VM on a desktop even if said desktop is a Mac Mini.

You also might consider getting a MacBook / 13 inch and combining it with an iMac for the cost. Much better VM, but you don't carry it all with you. Remote access to a VM isn't any slower than running the VM locally - in fact, it's probably much faster with a desktop CPU instead of a mobile CPU where much more energy can be had, much more heat dissipated and more bang/$.

Good luck buying. It's an interesting CPU and RAM centric workload, so you have lots of good tradeoffs to make - every $ you upgrade will give you noticeable benefits, so it's really what your time is worth and how much sacrifice you'll endure to buy the top of the line or two Mac to run that workload.


In Software update preferences, click on details under the gear icon and un-enroll there. This stops beta updates.

Emails and feedback assistant features are still there which need to be removed after signing into

https://idmsa.apple.com/IDMSWebAuth/login.html?appIdKey=4b98a8e6a3a3ce265b93c90207c442b53c45a1afa9ff1dc9bde8bb6928078d3b&path=%2F%2Fbetaprogram%2Flogin_to_unenroll&rv=2#

More details: https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/unenroll


System logs, for example, are compressed and then automatically deleted after a week. However, System Diagnostic Reports (whether it be a stall, spin, hang, crash, or panic report) shouldn't be automatically deleted. If you reset the NVRAM immediately following a kernel panic, however, the report is deleted (the NVRAM temporarily stores the report until reboot; if it's reset, the contents are erased). Short of forcibly removing the files (using Onyx, a similar app, or manually), this is the only situation I can come up with off hand as to why a report would vanish.
As a makeshift solution, however, you can save the kernel panic reports as a separate file.

From Console's menu bar, View > Show Log List
Select the panic report (kernel_[longstring].panic) from the "System Diagnostic Reports" drop down
File > Save a Copy As... > save file to folder of your choice

UPDATE:
Onyx is the most likely culprit, however, the option for clearing logs/reports is located in multiple places:

Cleaning > Logs > System Diagnostic Reports
Automation > Cleaning > Logs, including Diagnostic Reports

Uncheck these options if they are checked.


Resize APFS partition and move it to another hard drive

Apple documentation states you should be able to replicate a bootable APFS container to a new drive. Unfortunately, the GUI based software from Apple is wrought with bugs. Below are the steps I preformed to successfully clone Catalina macOS 10.15.5 to a new USB drive. To be honest, I admit this was tested using a VirtualBox virtual machine.

Boot to macOS Recovery. I booted to the macOS Recovery APFS volume on the 465 GB USB drive.

Plug the 320 GB drive in a USB port

Open the Disk Utility.

Under the View pulldown, select Show all Devices.

Highlight the 320 GB Drive, then select the Erase button.

Use the selections shown below, then select the Erase button.

Quit the Disk Utility, then open the Disk Utility.

Highlight the MyNewUSB volume, then select the Restore button. From the Restore from pulldown list, select the existing external USB macOS volume, as shown below. When finished, select the Restore button.

Note: This will replicate the macOS, macOS - Data, hidden Preboot and hidden Recovery volumes.

When finished, quit the Disk Utility, then open the Disk Utility.

Visually, check the results.

Quit the Disk Utility.

Shutdown the Mac.

Unplug the 465 GB USB drive.

Start the Mac and immediately, hold down the option Key until the Mac Startup Manager icons appear.

Hold down the control key and select to boot from the 320 GB USB drive. Note: This first boot took longer than normal.


Is it possible to AirPlay from Mac to iPhone?

No, iOS on the iPhone does not natively support receiving an AirPlay display mirroring connection.

You can use third party iOS apps that employ other types of protocols with accompanying macOS apps that allow you to share the contents of windows from the macOS computer to the iOS device. AirDisplay, that you mentioned, is an example of this.

It is however not native AirPlay and thus has different characteristics. In general, I think it is fair to say that it is a clunkier experience.


How can I work with highlighted text annotations from Good Reader in Preview?

Probably this is not possible with Preview, but there is another (free) PDF reader that allows you to do this (at least your first three points, don't know about converting into another annotation kind): Skim.

After you've opened your PDF in Skim, you can choose Convert Notes... in the File menu. Then you have all your notes from Goodreader in the drawer panel on the right.


How can I diagnose save file issues in Xcode and on my desktop?

I would first boot to recovery mode - run Disk Utility until you have a clean filesystem.

At that point, I would try again using three apps - if all three apps can't write a simple text file to your desktop - it's going to be an account permissions issue.

The problem with user permissions is you'll need a new and functional admin account to fix things.

If you have a good backup - you could wipe the system, make a new admin account and then migrate things back. That would typically fix any permissions issues when you re-create the new user in the new home folder.

Alternatively, you could boot to single user mode and remove the /var/db/.AppleSetupDone file and then boot your "broken" system and run through the setup assistant. Make a new admin with a new name like "new admin" and then use that admin account to delete and re-create your old admin user.

Sorry for the vague steps - you will need to have a troubleshooting / triage effort to nail down what specifically is failing and then ask a follow on question if you don't already find an answer here how to recreate a user, how to make a new admin account, etc...


New programs must be launched twice in 10.7.3?

This may be another case of Lion being a quiter. And utilizing OS X Lion's Auto Termination and additionally OS X Lions Sudden Termination feature.

  Lion will quit your running applications behind your back if it decides it needs the resources, and if you don’t appear to be using them. The heuristic for determining whether an application is “in use” is very conservative: it must not be the active application, it must have no visible, non-minimized windows — and, of course, it must explicitly support Automatic Termination.

A program that is "taking to long to start" seems like a perfect candidate for the OS to kill.

Also it makes perfect sense for when you come back the second time and they start up, since Lion would have saved state on the program.


There are ventilation slots on the sides of that Macbook Pro 16 model. Here's the 3D model view:


What's the implication of deleting /usr/local/var?

What are the implications?

Since /usr/local one of the explict directories that SIP allows applications to write to, you will only harm applications that you install.

Will you crash the overall system?

No.

Will you make your system "unusable" based on what you've installed and configured?

More than likely.


No, your iCloud Keychain can't be viewed online. You need to access the iCloud Keychain service through OS X or iOS to be able to access it, which requires a compatible version of either.

Furthermore, the data is not stored within Documents & Data so you can't access it through iCloud Developer.


In system preferences, general, there is a setting where a single click in scroll bar will move forward or backward one page. The other setting moves to region signified by where you click in the scroll bar. This could be several or many pages depending on the size of the document.


Internal name for "Scheduled" List in Reminders App on iOS

The "Scheduled" list in Reminders is just all of the reminders that have a due date. There is no way to add a reminder to that list.

If you do use the + and add a reminder, you'll see it shows up on another list (Reminders list for me).