To check which cells have the font family "TIMES-Roman," run the following script. It will generate a dialog that will display the column and row of any cells that contain that font. To run the script:

Open your spreadsheet in Numbers and close all other open spreadsheets
Open Script Editor (/Applications/Utilities/Script Editor.app)
Switch the language in the top left corner of the window from "AppleScript" to "JavaScript"
Paste in the script below and click the button with a "play" icon at the top of the window

If you see a blank dialog box, the script couldn't find any cells with the offending font. Please also note that this script assumes that you only have one table and one sheet in your document.

var offendingFont = "TIMES-Roman"

var culprits = []
var table = Application('Numbers').documents[0].sheets[0].tables[0]
var cols = []
for (var i = 0; i < table.columnCount(); ++i) cols.push(String.fromCharCode(65 + i))
var rows = []
for (var i = 0; i < table.rowCount(); ++i) rows.push(i + 1)
for (var r of rows) {
    for (var c of cols) {
        if (table.cells[c + r].fontName() === offendingFont) culprits.push(c + r)
    }
}

var app = Application.currentApplication()
app.includeStandardAdditions = true
app.displayDialog(culprits.join(", "))

Since you said you never use any flavor of "Times" font, here's an additional, altered version of the script that finds any font with "times" anywhere in the name (this might produce better results):

var offendingFontExcerpt = "times"

var culprits = []
var table = Application('Numbers').documents[0].sheets[0].tables[0]
var cols = []
for (var i = 0; i < table.columnCount(); ++i) cols.push(String.fromCharCode(65 + i))
var rows = []
for (var i = 0; i < table.rowCount(); ++i) rows.push(i + 1)
for (var r of rows) {
    for (var c of cols) {
        if (table.cells[c + r].fontName().toLowerCase().indexOf(offendingFontExcerpt) > -1) culprits.push(c + r)
    }
}

var app = Application.currentApplication()
app.includeStandardAdditions = true
app.displayDialog(culprits.join(", "))


I use a product from http://xlr8.com/ to give me a video input on my mac, then use a VGA-to-TV adapter to stream powerpoint over ustream.  Video is really choppy and crappy looking, but for simple non-moving slides, it's OK for ustream.


How can I distable coub.com weekly notifications

Assuming the notification is really coming from the coub.com website, you would disable that in Safari preferences, not System Preferences.

Go to the Safari Preferences > Websites tab, select Notifications on the left, and you'll see a list of all the websites that have asked you for permission to send notifications. From there, you can change the notification preference for coub.com to "Deny".


How to connect mini dv camcorder to my 2013 MacBook Air

Apple sells a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter. And you would need a FW800 to 4 pin FW400 to connect to your DV camera. Then I think iMovie will be able to handle your DV camcorder.


What corrupted TextEdit's rendering of RTF files?

This is not garbled but the raw RTF code being displayed.

You have likely been examining at some point what RTF code looks like and checked off Display RTF file as RTF code instead of formatted text under TextEdit / Preferences / Open and Save / When opening a file, and
then forgot that you did.

After unchecking the Display RTF file.. checkbox button , the block of code in the question will be rendered as "This is some bold text."

If you are using the File > Open dialogue, make sure the box for "Ignore Rich Text Commands" is UN-checked.

It is easy to determine that this is a settings issue by checking the settings first.

If all is as expected there then create a new user and look at an RTF file. From the new account it should appear rendered, not as code.

I'm documenting this issue here since searching for an answer leads to incorrect advice—in particular: that ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TextEdit.*.plist are corrupted and should be (re)moved.


Add/replace image in Keynote 9.1 (6369) from outside Photos or Movies

In Keynote 9.2.1, if you can't find the image you're looking for in the built-in pop-up, you can simply drag and drop an image file from Finder into your slide.

I believe this feature is available in all versions of Keynote.


Help me determine what runs when I open a new Terminal window

At startup bash executes (in that order)

/etc/profile
~/.profile
~/.bash_profile
~/.bashrc

So any unexpected code should be called from one of these scripts (or a script called from one of them etc.).


Based on my reading of Lua 5.0's makefile, I'd say:

Run make echo, and note the folders INSTALL_BIN, INSTALL_INC, INSTALL_LIB, and INSTALL_MAN
For each file in bin, remove that file from INSTALL_BIN
For each file in include named *.h, remove that file from INSTALL_INC
For each file in lib named *.a, remove that file from INCLUDE_LIB
For each file in doc named *.1, remove that file from INCLUDE_MAN
Upgrade to Lua 5.2 so if you accidentally install again, you can uninstall  :-)

Alternatively: if you download Lua 5.2 and configure it in exactly the same way (so all the INSTALL_* folders are the same), then its make uninstall will delete almost all of these for you.  You only have to delete liblualib.a from INCLUDE_LIB.


Why does the phone light up at times but other times it's dark with a green dot?

The grey dot and a device shown with the display off is used when the device is offline and cannot be tracked with Find My iPhone.
The green dot and a device shown with the display on is when the device is actively reporting its location to Find My iPhone.

A green dot and an 'off' display as you mention in your question is mutually exclusive.


Is 5-6 hour of battery life normal for 4-year old mid-2013 13" Macbook Air?

A 17% drop in capacity over 4 years is not an issue.  Batteries have a useful life of 3 to 5 years depending on cycle count; if you get 1000 cycles, you've gotten the full life out of it.

The key here is the number of cycles.  It's important to note that it's not what you do, but how many times you charge the battery.  It doesn't care that you're reading reddit, browsing with Chrome, or rendering video.  What matters is how often your battery is drained and recharged.

Note:  A cycle is one complete drain and recharge.  If you drain only 5% and then recharge, it's only a 5% of one cycle; you have to do that 20 more times to to equal one whole charge cycle.

See:

Fully charged MacBook Air turns off when power cord removed
How to preserve MacbookPro battery from degradation?
Why does a 12 inch Macbook refuse to turn on with a lot of battery remaining unless it is plugged in?


Home Sharing is a method to share music directly between Mac's on a local network authenticated with the same iTunes account.

Family Sharing is the method for sharing purchases made through iTunes or App Store by a defined group of iTunes accounts all using the same credit card.

Share My Library is a preference in iTunes that allows local network user to stream, but not copy, music from your library.

The Home Sharing feature allows one to view, copy, and play music from a locally networked Mac. In iTunes 11 and earlier, it was relatively simple to drag content over to your own library and thus copy the files over the local network. With iTunes 12 it can be a bit less obvious.

With a properly configured pair of Macs on Home Sharing, you can drag a song to the left and a sidebar will reveal allowing you to pick a target location. This function is often broken and requires you unconfigure/reconfigure the Home Sharing.

See this Apple Discussions thread for more details.


This looks suspiciously like a problem with permissions. Open /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility and fix permissions on your drive then reboot and see if it works.

EDIT: After comment, repair permissions is not available anymore in newer macos releases.

Then you will have to reinstall macos, I am afraid.


How can I tell Time Machine to keep using its former backup?

On OS X 10.7 Lion or later, yes. You need to look at the tmutil command, specifically the inheritbackup verb (which tells Time Machine that this is a backup of this machine, and not some other), and the associatedisk verb (which tells Time Machine that the disk it was backing up before is this other disk that you have now).


Is there any keyboard hotkey to undo hiding an application?

Doing Command+Tab will let you go through all the running applications, even if it's hidden. More tricks are discussed at SuperUser.


problem with high sierra multiple users simultaneously

First item, you get two sessions max. If you are struggling with the first or second session, then the issue could be your VNC software that connects to the mac isn’t following Apple’s conventions to allow the second session to start. Since you didn’t specify versions of software you use on the connecting side, I’ll guess and give general advice.

There is no change I’ve needed on the mac that’s sharing the screen, just your client needs to be updated or you need a different client, but some people from Windows report you need specific settings.

Screens iOS app works to open a second session
Screen Sharing app on the Mac (connect to server Finder menu - use vnc://whatever to connect) and Screens app on macOS all work with multiple sessions.

Apple Remote Desktop doesn’t open a second screen by default. It might have that option, but I only use it in the way you don’t - to share one session together.

Based on what os you are connecting from - these might help:

How to use Mac OS X "Per-user screen sharing" from a Windows PC?
Force screensharing to open new session
Are the changes to Lion's screen sharing documented anywhere publicly?


How do you enable Oracle VirtualBox's autostart daemon?

Working through Section 9.24.3 of the User Manual, the following will allow all users to set virtual machines to autostart:

cat /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/org.virtualbox.vboxautostart.plist | sed '6s/true/false/' | sudo tee /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.vboxautostart.plist
sudo mkdir -p /etc/vbox/
echo 'default_policy = allow' | sudo tee /etc/vbox/autostart.cfg
VBoxManage modifyvm VM_NAME_HERE --autostart-enabled on

To restrict this ability to a single user, use this line instead:

echo 'default_policy = deny\nUSERNAME_HERE = {\nallow = true\n}' | sudo tee /etc/vbox/autostart.cfg


Solution for some cases could be:
Copy cell(s) (⌘ + C), paste special (⌃ + ⌘ + V), select 'Values', click 'OK'
Caveats: there must be space at the end of line, otherwise there will be no separation between lines (it removes newline but doesn't replace); it doesn't work in-cell (source and destination cells must be different)


What is "TALagent" and why is it "Exiting out of boredom"?

It's not a virus and it's not a customer facing tool since it uses the terminal. Sometimes command line tools don't even get a manual page - so this is one of the much better documented tools.

The Transparent Application Lifestyle is fancy words for versions and auto-save. If you open TextEdit and make a document, you never have to save your work or choose where the untitled document is stored. TAL saves it and then assists with versioning once you explicitly save the document to the filesystem or cloud.

If you're not convinced it ships from Apple, use mdfind talagent to examine where the tool is installed.

Apple runs it at 3 am on Mondays and Thursdays on your Mac by default, so there's not much mystery that it runs and then exits as opposed to something that runs forever waiting for work to do.

It's nice to double check since governments are now clearly equipped to suppress knowledge of their state sponsored malware by using legal threats and gag orders. I'd say some healthy skepticism is in order when you see something not right on your computer.


MacOS Mojave remote access login screen stuck on infinite loading spinner

Remote login should be allowed (System Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote login).

Connect via ssh: ssh user@host
Run sudo pkill loginwindow
Connect using VNC as usual


Why do permissions differ for the HD and the home folder?

I believe this is normal behavior. Read access is granted to a wider group than the admin for many files. The more important thing is where write permission are given.

See this official document for more information:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2963


How does one fix a MBP trackpad which is slightly tipping/popping out from its base?

Sounds like a swollen battery. Same thing happened to me last year, fixed when I replaced the dying battery.


Downloading a pdf from Chrome immediately opens it

When you download a file in Chrome, you have a tab at the bottom of the screen. The right hand side of the tab has a popup where you most likely have "always open with system viewer" checked. Uncheck, and it should no longer automatically open.


How to update or downgrade my iPad 3 that has a jailbreak?

you can not use SHSH on this device. only ipad 1 or ipad 2, nothing newer. if you need to restore you'll be forced to the latest IPSW apple is signing for that device. at the moment this is 7.0.4 if it's an ipad 3.


Downloaded ibooks get deleted when icloud sync is turned off, even under airplane mode

You need to get those books on iPhone via methods other than iCloud sync to keep them there with sync off.

Use airdrop to get the books onto iPhone, open them with Books app and then you can turn off sync and books won't get deleted. That's how, I understand, it works.


Merging Multiple CSV Files without merging the header

You'll need more than the cat command, as described here:

Say you have 3 CSV-files: file1.csv, file2.csv, and file3.csv and want to join them to bigfile.csv and your header is always (only) the first line, then use

either (keep header from first file "file1.csv"):

cat file1.csv <(tail +2 file2.csv) <(tail +2 file3.csv) > bigfile.csv

or (remove header from all files who's names begin with "file"):

awk 'FNR > 1' file*.csv > bigfile.csv


Each time I turn on or off my VPN, it will ask for the permission "trying to modify this system network configuration"

First, click on the Apple icon on the top left corner and select System Preferences.
From here, you will want to go to Security & Privacy.
Once here, click on the Privacy tab, and scroll to Files and Folder and if needed you can do the following action for Full Disk Access.
In the bottom left the corner, click the lock to make changes. This will prompt you for your computer password. Type that in and click Unlock.
Click the '+' button to add a new permitted application. Choose your VPN application here.

First, try in the "Files and folder" option and if that didn't help then try to do similar action for Full Disk Access.


...will the SSD speed up my computers' performance as well as increase it's capacity OR will my expensive upgrade still leave me with a slow computer?

The 2015 MacBook Pro came with an SSD, so the only thing you'll do is increase the storage capacity, not improve the performance.

However, this sounds like you're just throwing parts at the problem in the hopes of solving it.   What you need to do is isolate and identify the problem causing the slowness:

If your SSD is full, it could contribute to the performance issues.  In this case, adding a bigger SSD would benefit.
Take a look at your Activity Monitor - memory and CPU.  See what's consuming either/both.*
Try doing a clean install (wipe the drive and do a fresh install of macOS)

Make sure you have a Time Machine Backup.

* Whatever results you get from here, search this site prior to asking a new question because this topic has been asked/answered numerous times previously and you're likely to find your answer there.


What trackpad gestures does Safari support?

As far as i know, Safari supports pinch to change zooming, three finger swipes to navigate back and forward and that's it.


List & documentation for Open Directory properties

There is a document from Apple called
"Mac OS X Server
Open Directory Administration
For Version 10.4 or Later".

Read Appendix "Mac OS X Directory Data", it contains all what you ask about:

"Standard Attributes in Group Records" at page 222
"Standard Attributes in User Records" at page 217

Here is excerpt from the last one:

…

You can get this document here.

There are a lot of newer documents on Apple site (haven't seen them yet). They may be useful to.


Using the SO answer referenced by Diago, maybe something like the following modification can exclude the currently active application:

tell application "System Events"
    set the visible of every process to true
    set app_name to name of the first process whose frontmost is true
end tell
set white_list to {"Finder", app_name}
try
    tell application "Finder"
        set process_list to the name of every process whose visible is true
    end tell
    repeat with i from 1 to (number of items in process_list)
        set this_process to item i of the process_list
        if this_process is not in white_list then
            tell application this_process
                quit
            end tell
        end if
    end repeat
on error
    tell the current application to display dialog "An error has occurred!" & return & "This script will now quit" buttons {"Quit"} default button 1 with icon 0
end try

Then you can add this as a service using Automator, and assign a keyboard shortcut for it in the Keyboard section of System Preferences.


How can I tell if "find my iPhone" has been used

No, simply using Find My iPhone to find the location of the phone doesn't record the action anywhere.

Turning off location services will mean that Find My iPhone won't be able to obtain the location, unless Lost Mode is activated.

  In iOS 7, if you turn off Location Services and use Find My iPhone Lost Mode, Location Services will be re-enabled on the device as long as the device is in Lost Mode.

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5594


Trying to boot up on Mavericks USB Install Drive, receive prohibited sign on screen

I've had mixed success using that bootmaker utility.  Try Apple's instruction here

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Assuming a) the 'install osx mavericks' file is in the Applications folder and b) your USB drive is named MyVolume, open Terminal and run this command.

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app


How to use Cocoa Emacs as editor for Mutt

With Emacsclient, keeping Emacs running all the time
Emacs uses a slightly different setup than e.g. vim. The editor itself can remain active all the time (because you may have it open for other things as well) and you use a utility called emacsclient to connect to it (pass a file to edit) if you need it.
Add the following line to your config file (.emacs):
(server-start)  ; Starts server for (among others) emacsclient

Or, if you don't wish to keep the server for emacsclient running at all times, you may issue the command M-x server-start to emacs when you're ready to run. Issuing that command is probably the right thing to do when you're already running emacs, unless you want to reload .emacs.
All you have to do now is to make sure that MUTT uses emacsclient as its editor. You can do this by adding the following line to your config file (.muttrc):
set editor="emacsclient"

Recent versions of mutt (at least 1.4.1) require the following format:
set editor="emacsclient %s"

Source: Emacs and MUTT
Starting Emacs every time
set editor="emacs %s"


How to stop two phones ringing when one is called?

You shouldn't have to disable FaceTime entirely, just turn off the other slider labeled "iPhone Cellular Calls".


How to check is Chrome is running in incognito mode using Applescript?

You can check the mode property:

tell application "Google Chrome"
    if exists window 1 then
        if mode of window 1 = "incognito" then
            -- insert your code here
        end if
    end if
end tell


Mail account sync via iTunes not working

Looks like this was an ordinary bug, it's working now (iTunes 11.0.2 + iOS 6.0.2)


Can I use an iMac 2014 as a display for a Mac mini

First of all, your 2014 iMac has to be a mid year model. The late models do not have target display mode.

You do realize you will need two keyboards for this to work. One for the Mac mini and one to put the iMac in target display mode.

I assume the Mac mini is a 2018 year model. This model does not have any Thunderbolt 1 or 2 ports. There are USB-C ports where Thunderbolt 3 devices can be attached.

So, if this is going to work, you will need an adaptor. Apple sells a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter for 49 USD. Next, you will need a thunderbolt 2 cable. Apple sells an Apple Thunderbolt Cable (0.5 m) - White for 29 USD. This is rather short, so you might want the Apple Thunderbolt Cable (2.0 m) - White for 39 USD.

So, 49 USD + 29 USD = 78 USD. You can buy a new 21.5" 1920 x 1080 monitor for 70 USD. Granted, this monitor does not come with a  HDMI cable, so you might need to buy one.

  The point is, you can buy a new monitor with the same size and resolution for about the same cost as the adaptor plus cable needed to use your old iMac as a display.

Note: the 2018 mac mini does have a internal speaker.


I have spent quite a bit of time figuring out automounts of NFS shares in OS X...

Somewhere along the line, Apple decided allowing mounts directly into /Volumes should not be possible:

/etc/auto_master (see last line):

#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master        # Use directory service
/net            -hosts      -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home           auto_home   -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
/Network/Servers    -fstab
/-          -static
/-          auto_nfs    -nobrowse,nosuid

/etc/auto_nfs (this is all one line):

/Volumes/my_mount    -fstype=nfs,noowners,nolockd,noresvport,hard,bg,intr,rw,tcp,nfc nfs://192.168.1.1:/exports/my_share

This will not work (anymore!) though it "should".

$ sudo automount -cv
...
automount: /Volumes/my_mount: mountpoint unavailable

What's the solution?

It's so easy my jaw dropped when I figured it out.
Basically, we trick OS X into thinking we're mounting * somewhere else. *

When you're talking about paths in just about any environment, the root folder is the highest path you can reach, whether it's C:\ (windows) or / (*nix)

When you're at this path, attempting to reach the parent path, via .. will keep you at the root path.

For example: /../../../../ is still just /

By now, a few of you have already figured it out.

TL;DR / Solution:

Change your /etc/auto_nfs config from (this is all one line):

/Volumes/my_mount    -fstype=nfs,noowners,nolockd,noresvport,hard,bg,intr,rw,tcp,nfc nfs://192.168.1.1:/exports/my_share

To (this is all one line):

/../Volumes/my_mount    -fstype=nfs,noowners,nolockd,noresvport,hard,bg,intr,rw,tcp,nfc nfs://192.168.1.1:/exports/my_share

And re-run the automounter:

$ sudo automount -cv
...
automount: /Volumes/my_mount: mounted

..... there you go! Technically /../Volumes is still /Volumes, but the automounter does not see things that way ;)

This configuration persists the mount across restarts, and creates the mountpoint automatically.

I KNOW, RIGHT?


I can reach GitHub from guest account only

The fix was given by the answer to https://superuser.com/questions/1559142/github-com-resolves-but-times-out

My /etc/hosts had the 192.30.253.113 IP for github.com; that IP probably became invalid recently. Removing that line fixed the issue.


Completely reinstall everything on the Mac

You could get a brand new SSD disk and install OS X on it, carefully clean wipe the current one.

In addition you could get EFI and SMC firmware from Apple.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT1557

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201518

The before you do anything (since the malware could creep right in again) install something like LittleSnich and block everything from to Network and only allow fully trusted stuff.


Assistive Access when script is launched by agent

A simple fix is to save the script as a text file instead.

At the top of the script add the osascript shebang

#!/usr/bin/osascript

example:

#!/usr/bin/osascript
say "hello"
tell application "Safari" to activate
tell application "System Events"

    delay 2
    keystroke "p" using command down
    tell application process "Safari"

        tell application "System Events"
            tell process "Safari"
                click menu button "PDF" of sheet 1 of window 1
                delay 1

                click menu item "Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder" of menu of menu button "PDF" of sheet 1 of window 1
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell

end tell

The in the save dialog choose Text as the file format.
The file will be saved as plain text but with the .applescript extension.

In terminal make the save script text file executable.

I used:

chmod +x /Users/UserName/Scripts/newTest1.applescript

In the command arguments of the LaunchAgent just add the path to the file.

Do not add the osascript command to the arguments. You do not need it.

The saved script text file will act like an executable shell script.

When you first load or run the LaunchAgents you will get a prompt to set the  Assistive Access in System Preferences. If you already have System preferences open you will not but the Script text file will be added to the list.

You now just have to check its check box to allow it.

I would reload the LaunchAgent so it picks up straight away.

I have double checked this with the script above and all works as expected.


File Sharing with Active Directory login not working

Now fixed, computername should be less than 15 characters but it was 16. Changed to fewer letters then it works.


Possibly I am missing something here, but unless you have a very slow internet connection or none at all, recovery mode should be able to install the O/S version that shipped with the computer. The recovery partition downloads and installs the O/S for you, no terminal needed. Unless you want to do it that way as an exercise in technical exploration, this method was developed to eliminate shipping recovery media with every Mac and make the process as easy as possible.

Once that O/S version is on your Mac you can then upgrade/update to the latest version of Mavericks


How to easily save all open Safari tabs on iOS?

Previously:

  Not sure but maybe with "Workflow" app ? But I really don't think that
  that's a thing on iOS. Consider submitting a feedback for it so it
  might get included one day.

September 2019:

As of iOS 13 you can add all the open tabs in bookmark, here is a screenshot of safari I just did


Can I backup using Time Machine and restore to another account?

You cannot directly restore to another account from Time Machine, but you can rename the user after the restore. After the fresh installation of OS X, restore the data and then do the user rename.

Follow the process outlined in Changing user account short name to rename your user "a" to user "b".


Control-Click will highlight the whole word (as user3439894 has pointed out) - to prevent the context menu staying open without you having to press escape or clicking away, you simply need hold the mouse down for about a second.

To clarify:

Press Control key down
Click on word, holding mouse down
Release Control key or mouse - the context menu should disappear, but the word will remain selected


Google has an extremely useful tool for Arduino developers and it simulates serial ports very well on OS X for testing purposes. It only works until 10.6

https://github.com/clokey/PublicCode/tree/master/MacOSXVirtualSerialPort

(previously available from http://code.google.com/p/macosxvirtualserialport/ )

Might this help you?


It appears to be doable. From

http://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/firsttutorial/11.html

To get the application/windows dimensions

tell application "Finder" to get the bounds of the front window
--> returns something like: {72, 90, 512, 481}

to change it

tell application "Finder" to set the bounds of the front Finder window to {24, 96, 524, 396}

and to find the dimensions of your display

tell application "Finder" to get the bounds of the window of the desktop
--> returns: {0, 0, 1920, 1200}


Did they finally disappear?  I suspect it was updating/recompiling your Xcode interface files and once done, these processes should go away.


How to stop Microsoft Skype For Business for starting after reboot

Did you check the Login Items?

System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items

To remove an item, choose it and hit the --button at the bottom. Just checking or unchecking the hide radio button won't disable the login item!


There is not a specific feature of iCloud drive that says "Reset all settings." however paying attention to the warnings when you sign out or turn off iCloud drive will reveal the trick.

So what you need to do is (FIRST!) make sure anything on iCloud drive you have copies of somewhere. Then you will need to turn off iCloud drive on all devices you are signed into iCloud in.

On every device you turn off iCloud drive on you should get a warning about removing files (it's been a while so I don't recall the exact wording). Tell iCloud drive to delete the files.

Once you do that on all your devices iCloud drive should be empty. Personally I'd wait a day before turning it back on but, realistically, that is not likely to matter. Just turn it back on, add your files and watch them sync.

Now if it STILL fails, I would call Apple support and tell them what you have done, why and ask them to fix it for you.


If you’re looking for something on Apple’s site, I do not know of one. However, EveryMac.com has a lookup search that I have had a pretty good success with. You can look Apple products up by serial number, model number, EMC number, or a number of other identification numbers on this search page.


Shortcut to quickly enter .com in browser on Mac OS

You can define shortcuts using the system preferences (Apple menu Top left) and select keyboard as per :

Then add what you want, such as:


Python Call Graph, a Python module that creates call graph visualizations for Python applications.
https://github.com/gak/pycallgraph

code2flow, turn your Python and Javascript code into DOT flowcharts
https://github.com/scottrogowski/code2flow


MEGASync requires an admin password because it installs a Finder plugin.


Does the iMac EFI Update 1.7 change how NetBooting works?

Yup they broke it. Early Internet recovery firmware versions don't netboot. later versions fixed this.


Add Cut file/folder option to right click or Context menu

The short answer is no.

Assuming you may be an ex-Windows user, you cannot perform a "Cut" and "Paste" with files or folders in Mac OS X Lion, or previous versions for that matter like you can in Windows.

Your only option is to drag and drop to move, or "Copy" and "Paste" then delete the original afterwards.


Is there a way possible to make iPad sleep / wake at specific time intervals using Apple configurator?

i do not think it is possible to control an ipads sleep wake interval


Which utilities are available during Internet Recovery?

Yes, All the tools(Disk Utility & Firmware Password) are available when you are booting through internet recovery.While normal recovery keeps a copy of your currently running(Updated) macOS and Internet Recovery will restore to by default macOS to which version comes with your Mac.


How to delete photos from iPhone 5 without removing already transferred photos from iMac?

Were you transferring photos from your iPhone to your Mac using Photo Stream? If you were, no matter what happens to your photos on your iPhone, the transferred photos will always be on your Mac.

Because the Mac would most definetly have more storage space than an iOS device, Photo Stream photos are automatically downloaded and permanently saved to your Mac's iPhoto or Aperture library; the 1000 photo/30 day limit doesn't apply for OS X or Windows unless you clear the photos and start fresh.

If you moved or copied your photos from your Photo Stream to somewhere else on your Mac, they are still safe.


Cron job not exiting in Catalina; leaving zombie processes

This anser solved this problem for me (redirecting stdout/stderr to /dev/null).


Since it's a "virtual drive" is Parallels Desktop unaffected by system restore on a MacBook (2009)?

A "virtual" drive that Parallels creates when you make a Windows virtual machine is like any other file in your Macbook. Once you restore to factory settings (reformat) your old files (and the Windows virtual drive) are no longer accessible (not easily at least, unless they purposely try to recover your files using special tools). So you don't have to worry too much about your virtual drive unless you have very sensitive information there and you think the buyer will try to recover your files with recovery tools.

If you want to be extra safe, when you restore your computer and it is time to Erase your hard disk, click on Security Options and slide the slider all the way to the right to "Most Secure". This process will take some time depending on how large your hard disk is but it will ensure that the buyer will not be able to recover any files.

For more info, read this article and pay attention to step 4:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH22241?locale=en_US


Paste preset html code via Applescript into text edit

Create a 'service' in Automator.

Give it the following settings:
Service receives 'no input' in 'any application'
Check 'Output replaces selected text'

Add the following 'Actions'
Get Specified Text - insert your clip here
Copy to Clipboard
Run AppleScript - replace the (* your script *) with 'the clipboard'

Click the 'Run' button to test the workflow. If there are no issues here, save the service.

To test whether the service works, put the cursor in a text doc of some sort (any place that you can paste multi-line text) and right-click… you should see the service's name in the menu. Click it and see what happens. Hopefully, it will paste your clipping into the text area which the cursor is in.

If it works well, go to the System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts and click Services. Scroll through the resulting list on the right to find the name of your newly created service (should be in the Text section). Give it a keyboard shortcut (hopefully one that doesn't conflict with any other), and you're done.

So what does the service do? You specify the text for the clipping, it copies that to the clipboard. The applescript pastes the clipboard wherever you trigger the service.

As an aside, you don't mention what text editor you're using which might make it easier to devise a solution. BBedit was mentioned in the comments but the are other apps such as Coda that also offer some variation of a clippings feature. And as a further aside, I am unable to include a screenshot with my post.


Many wifi access points look for the quietest band, and start on that.  Your computer when it isn't connected essentialy listens on 1, then 2, then 3, then 4...
It creates a list of all the ones it finds, then presents the list to you.

Some WAP's also can be configured to set a particular channel.  In addition you may be able to change the default power setting.

My experience has been that WAP location and antenna orientation have far more to do with SNR than channel number.  If this is a home network, you may want to look at putting a WAP at opposite ends of your house.  If you do this, only ONE of them serves DHCP requests.  Or both serve to a central computer.  Or you set all local addresses manually.  2 DHCP servers is a pile of grief.

To formally answer your question:  At the client end, no it is not possible.  At the WAP yes it is possible.

Hope this helps.


On the iPad Reminders app, there is no + button when viewing Completed tasks.
What happens when you click on Data? Can you then add items?
Edit
It looks like others are having the same problem. Does this reply work for you:

here's the solution that seems to work... have tried it, reversed it, and retried and it worked twice.  Turn on reminders in icloud.  go to reminder app.... + should now be there.  i then turned off reminders becasue it seems to just drain the battery... but select option to keep remdiners on the iphone when it prompts you.


Once they start to go, they go fast.
Mine went from 'perfectly fine all day' to 'need to carry a charger with you' in about a month.

Switch it into Low Power mode for now, ring Apple & arrange to take it to an Apple Store or for them to collect it.
Battery change takes 2 hours if you take it in or 3 days by post. [They say it can take longer but that's direct experience.]

Do it soon because the low price battery replacement offer ends in September, so I've heard.

You must release it from Find my iPhone before they will accept it.
Safest is to fully back it up & erase it before handing it over.
If you have a spare iPhone, restore it from that backup & drop the SIM into it for the duration.


Welcome to macOS High Sierra message keeps appearing

This seems to be fixed in High Sierra 13.1


How to disable auto charge when my iPad plugged into my Mac?

Plug it in to a USB hub.  When my ipad is connected directly it charges, but when its plugged in to a hub thats connected the ipad reads "Not Charging" next to the battery icon.


A single dual-link DVI connection can deliver up to 2560 × 1600 at 60 Hz. Achieving 4K at 60Hz requires two dual-link DVI cables, or DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 2.0.

So, yes, as you put it, that's a limitation of DVI.


You aren't forced to use app-specific folders, it's just the initial setup. Why not just store things outside the app folders by dragging your existing file structure into the drive folder itself?

On OS X - iCloud drive works just the same as Dropbox. You get a folder and it syncs. Apple makes special folders for some apps and categories, but you don't have to use them.

On iOS - in the settings app under iCloud - enable the toggle that says "Show on Home Screen" for iCloud Drive and you can browse away just like Dropbox (and other file sync apps allow).

Also - finder tags are now portable across devices, so you could use tags as well to help categorize client files no matter where they are stored on the filesystem.


Ethernet not working after installing Security Update 2020-002 10.14.6

As follow up to this very frustrating problem ...

On further analysis, the problem is that ONE of the USB-C ports stopped working (for both ethernet adaptors, and also for standalone USB to USB-C adaptors). The other USB-C port remained working fine.
After shifting the power input to the 'dead' port, that appears to have reset it, and it is now working again. I am suprised that this helped when re-starting the computer etc made no difference.


How can I ask Siri what my current cell phone number is?

As a one time incident take the number from Settings>Phone>Number and save it as a contact, you can then quickly get Siri to give it to you when required.


Where can i find and clean up partially downloaded content?

The temporary location that stores downloading files varies between computers. Here's how to find it:

Start a rather large app store download
Open Activity monitor, and select the storedownloadd process. (storeagent for 10.9 and below)
Open the Inspector (press the "i" button, or ⌘+i)
Select the Open Files and Ports tab, and scroll to the bottom
Select the path that starts with /private/var/folders that contains com.apple.appstore from the beginning, up to and including com.apple.appstore
Open Terminal and type open [paste path here] and hit return
From here, you can see all the temporary files the Mac App Store has made. You can get info on each one to see their sizes, and dispose of them accordingly.


It is common for the Macs battery to stop charging around 93-98%. It does it to prolong the overall life of the battery. Plus, your battery will have some wear and tear now depending on how many charge cycles you have used up.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1446#Troubleshooting

But if your MagSafe adapter is charging to 98% consistently and the off brand one is not, then the new cable is a suspect. Charging on Apple devices depend on several factors and there is some intelligence built into the battery IC which I believe communicates with the adapter to tell it when to stop charging. I am not sure if an off brand adapter plays well with the battery IC.


icdd process consuming substantial memory on macOS

I have been working with a senior technical advisor at Apple on this issue for over a year, and was working with another senior advisor for some time before that.  We have done "data capture" to send to Apple Engineers on several occasions and done screen recordings on several occasions to demonstrate what is going on in Activity Monitor, Image Capture, and, ultimately, in a plist that icdd maintains at /Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/icdd/deviceInfoCache.plist (by displaying it in Xcode).

At this point, here is my best estimate of what is happening:

The icdd (Image Capture Device Database) process sees scanners come and go on a busy network.  It attempts to keep a list of their icon files in a hash table, which it also writes to the deviceInfoCache.plist file mentioned above.  Yes - this sounds crazy - it is keeping references to the scanners' icon files.  But even crazier is that, for some reason, almost all of the entries in this file point to .icns files that do not exist.  Of several systems I've looked at, there have been many thousands of entries in the file, yet only a few of the .icns files existed on one of the machines, and none existed on the others.  I believe that when this file gets large, icdd is spending a lot of time trying to check for the existence of entries in the .plist file and modify the file.  I believe this for two reasons.  First, when I take my laptop home, the icdd process sometimes continues to run at about 100% of a CPU, but when I then kill it, it goes back to the "normal" approximately 0.0 to 0.1%, every time.  Hence, I think it is sometimes still trying to process information about the entries when I open it up at home.  But when I kill it while on the busy network, it often comes back at near 100% right away.  When the number of scanners shown in Image Capture goes down (which it often does, but will periodically spike for some reason), icdd will eventually settle down.  And second, deleting the deviceInfoCache.plist file causes icdd to behave reasonably for a short while - until the number of entries builds up again.  Note that icdd maintains a copy of these entries in memory, so if you delete the file from the user account, icdd just rewrites it immediately.  And, of course, you can't kill icdd long enough to delete the file, so you have to log out and delete the file from another administrator account via the terminal.  icdd will recreate the file when you log back in, but it will have relatively few entries and behave well for a while.

To give some idea of scales, Apple Engineers were shocked to see that I had as many as 85 scanners displaying in Image Capture.  Often, however, this number will settle down to about 6 on the same system and during the same timeframes.  The deviceInfoCache.plist file has had between 8,000 and 12,600 entries on the systems that I've looked at that have had icdd problems - mine is the larger one, and I believe this got carried over from an older machine since I was having icdd issues from the time I set up my new MacBook Pro in 2016-Dec.  When I deleted the plist file, the number of initial entries in the newly created file was 44, and for a few days icdd cpu usage hovered close to 0.0%.  However, after about 5 days on campus, my plist file has 964 entires, and icdd cpu usage will routinely bounce between 30% and 90% on the busy network at the university.  When I am at home, the plist file will only increase its number of entries by 0 to 2 over the course of a day.  Of the 12,600 entries in my previous plist file, only 2 of them contain a "deviceName", the rest contain an "iconPathLocation", all of which point to nonexistent .icns files.  With the current plist, there are still exactly 2 entries that contain a "deviceName", and the rest contain an "iconPathLocation" that does not exist.

So, the short-term solution is to delete the plist file from another administrator account via terminal while logged out from your user account.  Hopefully, with this information now being provided to Apple Engineers from my Senior Advisor, Apple Engineers will have enough information to figure out why icdd is acting this way and fix the problem.  Of course, it would probably help if you can verify my short-term solution and continue reporting what you find to Apple.


How to automatically mount network share when iPhone backup screen is opened in Finder?

Yes, a script can be triggered when the iPhone is connected...
When the iPhone is connected to the Mac, the following file gets modified:
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist

Using a Launch Agent with a WatchPaths key it can be determined if the iPhone is connected to the Mac when the NetworkInterfaces.plist file is modified.
For testing purposes, I created the launch agent as:
$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.me.iphone.connected.plist

Contents of the com.me.iphone.connected.plist file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.me.iphone.connected</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/iPhone</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <false/>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

In the XML PLIST file, /usr/local/bin/iPhone is a shell script that gets executed when there is a change to the   NetworkInterfaces.plist file and the contents of the shell script is:
#!/bin/zsh

iPhone="$(/usr/bin/defaults read /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist | /usr/bin/grep -m 1 -o 'iPhone')"

if [[ -n "$iPhone" ]]; then
    if [[ -d "/Volumes/Data" ]]; then
        if [[ ! -d "/Volumes/iPhone Backup" ]]; then
            open "/Volumes/Data/iPhone_Backup.sparsebundle"
        fi
    fi
fi

When the example shell script is executed it assumes I'm already connected to the Network Share, in this example it's "Data", but it first sets the value of the iPhone variable by using the defaults command to read the .plist file and pipes its output to grep to return the first occurrence of "iPhone" if found. If the iPhone is connected, then iPhone="iPhone" and the test in the first if statement succeeds.
The next test succeeds if I am connected to Data, and the subsequent test succeeds if I'm not already connected to my iPhone Backup sparsebundle. It's coded in this manner so as not to try opening the sparsebundle if it's already mounted if the NetworkInterfaces.plist file is modified again while the sparsebundle is already mounted. In other words, the sparsebundle is only opened if it's not already mounted.
If you also want the mounting of the SMB share to occur in the, e.g. iPhone, shell script, you can add the following example command directly after the opening of the first if statement. In other words, literally between the first two if statements:
/usr/bin/osascript -e 'mount volume "smb://user:@server/share"'

This uses AppleScript code to mount the target share and assumes the credentials are already stored in your Keychain. It also is not problematic if the SMB share is already mounted, then the command just fails silently.

Notes:
Had you included the script or code you are already using, I would have created a working example that would have incorporated it, however what I've submitted is an example that works for me tested under macOS Catalina.
I recommend you read the manual pages for launchctl, launchd.plist and launchd. You can read the manual page for command in Terminal by typing command and then right-click on it and select: Open man Page
After creating the $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/com.me.iphone.connected.plist file I loaded it using the launchctl command, e.g.:
cd "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/"
launchctl load com.me.iphone.connected.plist

Once loaded, it will automatically load when you login to your account, so you shouldn't need to do it manually again under normal circumstances. To unload it, use the unload subcommand with the launchctl command.
After unloading it, you can use the disable subcommand so it doesn't load again or you can delete the .plist file, if/when you want to undo changes you've made to your system.


What are the storage locations of the various types of Automator workflows

Tested this on 10.7.1, Automator 2.2.

Workflow - for me this defaults to ~/Documents, but these can be saved anywhere you like.
Application - same as above. When saving a workflow/application for the first time, it even lets you change the type in the save dialog.
Services - ~/Library/Services
Folder Action - The actual workflow is saved in ~/Library/Workflows/Applications/Folder Actions. When creating the folder action, it asks for a folder to 'attach' to in the dropdown at the top. The actions will apply to the folder you choose here.
Print Plugin - ~/Library/PDF Services
iCal Alarm - ~/Library/Workflows/Applications/iCal
Image Capture Plugin - ~/Library/Workflows/Applications/Image Capture

Easy way to find this out in case you forget - after creating/saving one of the types that doesn't prompt you right away for a save location, right click the proxy icon in the title bar to see the path:


Can I sync drafts to gMail from iPhone mail?

No, this is limitation of GMail via Exchange on iOS.

The only way to have draft support is to use the GMail template when adding a new mail account.


Is there a simple UI hack to auto-hide the menu, but keep the menubar?

Yes there is, and it's free :)

I asked this same question on reddit a few months ago and the amazing @w0lfchild (dev of mySimbl) created it!

https://github.com/w0lfschild/moreMenu


Kernel Tasks Swamping processor-2012 13" Retina

I'd suggest running AHT to check the temperature sensors are giving within-range results.

An Apple Certified Technician will also have access to ASD, which should give a more thorough test.


If you know your old password, then it is quite straight forward to change your password.

In addition, you can reset your password, but this won’t give you access to your old notes. It will, however, let you password protect any notes that you create from that point forward with the new password. This could lead to you having multiple notes with different passwords.

On your iOS device, tap Settings

Tap Notes

Tap Password

You will see a Changed Password option. You can change your password if you know the original password. The other option is “Reset Password”. Tap Reset Password.

You will have to enter your Apple ID password and tap OK.


Why do my apps open in a single space when resuming?

Not certain in Yosemite, but in Mavericks apps would only restore to the Space they were on if they were set to specifically open in a given Space - otherwise they would all huddle together on the front-most Space at launch.

Right click the app in the dock to set to 'This Desktop' once you have it in the correct one.

Quickly move an app to another Space by left-click-hold the top bar of any window then hitting your key-combo for the desired Space.


How unlocking via Watch uses the laptop password?

Apple has now transitioned much of the “enter your iCloud password” to be “enter the password for device X” for unlocking the keys in the keychain.

The rest of this answer is likely out of date, but was the best I knew in 2016.
I've tested most of your scenarios and don't believe the password ever leaves the Mac. Instead, Apple builds up a cryptographic key pair to sign packet exchange between the watch and the computer with anti-replay aspects and time of flight calculations to ensure the watch is really sending the packets now in real time before the unlock happens.
The anti-replay means that you can't record those packets and then play them later to unlock the Mac. Basically Apple leverages the iCloud security that is set up for two-factor authentication and keychain syncing to exchange the cryptographic keys needed to sign the data to establish a verified signal and prevent hacking into your Mac with a synthetic or bogus signal.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206995

The iOS 10 security guide is not out yet nor is the watchOS 3 guide. I'll update this post if I can find more technical details going forward.


Moving files in Finder with drag and drop opens a new window

You can disable this in Finder's preferences by unchecking "Spring-loaded folders and windows":


`devfs` runs in fully capacity continuously

It is a shim to hold just the directory entries needed to abstract the hardware devices and software outlets that the system mounts over /dev

Pay it no mind.


Can I remove a photo or video from the Memories feature in iOS 10's photo app?

Yes, tap the edit button in the lower right corner than select the 'Photos & Videos" item to remove or add media to a memory. It is also broken out on MacRumor's guide.


Can I install dual-boot OS on the external USB drive?

It is not a question of whether this will work, but rather that this is not a wise idea. Basically, ordinary flash drives are not designed to withstand the amount of reads and writes that an operating system will require. Certain versions of linux provide a solution referred to a persistence. This is where the operation system creates a temporary drive in volatile RAM which can used be for read and writing. When you shutdown the operating system, the contents of this RAM drive is written to the flash drive. When you restart the operating system, the saved data is read from the flash drive into a new RAM drive.

  To be clear, most of the operating system is considered read only and resides on the flash drive. Only the files that may may change often reside on the RAM drive.

There are many utilities that can create a flash drive version of linux with persistence. However, the few I have tried would not boot on a Mac.


You could build such a service using any tool that results in an application bundle; this includes AppleScript/JavaScript (OSA), Objective-C, and Swift. Apple would likely prefer you used Swift.
Investigate the Accessibility APIs for interacting and manipulating windows owned by other applications.
See the Info.plist value LSUIElement for making an agent application:

LSUIElement (Boolean - macOS) specifies whether the app runs as an agent app. If this key is set to YES, Launch Services runs the app as an agent app. Agent apps do not appear in the Dock or in the Force Quit window. Although they typically run as background apps, they can come to the foreground to present a user interface if desired. A click on a window belonging to an agent app brings that app forward to handle events.
The Dock and loginwindow are two apps that run as agent apps.

To be distributed on Apple's Mac App Store, an application must have a user interface. This can be a simple window that enables your service, or handles preferences.
Search GitHub for status menu app for open source examples.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to change tabs in Notification Center?

I hate these kinds of answers, but there doesn't appear to be one.

Another question points out that you can use some kinda-hacky Applescripts to work around the limitation: Does Notification Center have keyboard shortcuts?

I was toying around this, and it seems the key combos that notification center responds to depends on the active widgets. If you're in notification mode, you can reliably jump back to widgets by hitting TabTabEnter, but on Widgets, I find that the calculator tends to monopolize all keyboard input and prevent any tab jumping from working.


How can I remove/change the icloud.com alias on my apple id account

Apple does not let you delete or change the primary iCloud email address. You can stop using it, but it'll always be associated with that account.

See also https://support.apple.com/ht202667, the section titled "If you can't change your Apple ID", which while is not the exact situation you're in, it explains how they look at it.


Missing Photos after airdropped from Mac to iPhone

There are two likely culprits:

The transfer didn’t complete and then the clean up didn’t happen.
The transfer did complete, but the library catalog to show photos is corrupt or was interrupted.

Both cases, the primary way you can clean up is to power down the iPhone - slide to turn it off and let the cleanup / shutdown process run. Then at start, the library often will run a sanity check on next launch and show you what the library has received.

If you were sending hundreds of photos, it’s quite likely the transfer started and once you saw the visual indication that the transfer started, you closed the sending window before the send was complete. When training people to AirDrop, most seem to think they are done when the transfer is just getting started.


FaceTime Video Calls on multiple devices

FaceTime audio and video route to one device by design. You would need to add a second account on the second device to get two seats at a FaceTime meeting with your two devices.


Xcode failed to download, use the purchases page to try again

I encountered this problem many times, and I found today that it's caused by lack of disk space.

In my machine there is more than 7GB spare space, and after downloading the files, it reported this error.

Today I find the real problem from /private/var/log/install.log, it is caused by low disk space, so I made more space, and the update succeeded.

Since the download is 6 GB you'll want to delete old versions and have at least 15 GB free space before trying again to download. Look in /var/folders for paused / stuck downloads as well as perhaps cleaning any local time machine snapshots once you delete a large app like Xcode. Even after emptying trash, it will consume space for a few days or longer if you don't regularly have a Time Machine volume attached to let the snapshots age out.


List of Apple Watch Workouts and Metrics

The 12 workout types are:

Cycling (Indoor & Outdoor)
Run (Indoor & Outdoor)
Walk (Indoor & Outdoor)
Swim (Pool & Open Water)
Elliptical
Rower
Stair-Stepper
Other (these can be labeled as various activities like Strength Training, but the label is purely cosmetic—it has no incidence on calorie computations)

The various metrics are:

Duration
Current Pace & Speed
Average Pace & Speed
Distance
Laps
Active Calories
Total Calories
Heart Rate

They are not all available for every workout type. For instance, Pace is available for Run/Walk, while Cycling may show your Speed.

Swims cannot display Current Pace, only Average Pace.

Laps are only available during Pool Swims, whereas stationary machine workouts (such as Elliptical and Indoor Cycling) cannot display Distance-related metrics (eg. Speed).

Pace and Distance calculations for Indoor Walks/Runs are dependent on how well you’ve calibrated your WATCH, and require that you swing your arms throughout the workout. Holding onto the handlebars will cause WATCH to think you are not exercising.

Duration, Active/Total Calories and Heart Rate are available for all workout types.

Calorie computations are calibrated over time, as you wear and use your WATCH. They factor in both your heart rate and the weight you’ve recorded in the Health app.


I need help uninstalling PostgreSQL on my Mac running 10.7

http://www.enterprisedb.com/resources-community/pginst-guide

There is a one-click uninstaller that removes everything except the data director and user account. The default data directory is /Library/PostgreSQL/$VERSION/data, so rm -rf that directory (or wherever you instructed the installer to create it).

To remove your postgres user (assuming it is named 'postgres'), first list your users to verify that the user 'postgres' and group 'postgres' are what you expect: (just a safe check) before deleting anything.

sudo dscl . -read /Users/postgres

sudo dscl . -read /Groups/postgres

Look for the "real name" field, to ensure that it matches the version of the db you are removing.

Then remove the user and groups:

sudo dscl . -delete /Users/postgres

sudo dscl . -delete /Groups/postgres

Obviously, be careful when using sudo.


Is it safe to run/jog with a Flash drive Macbook Air?

There are definitely no moving parts. I wouldn't worry about jogging with it. I wouldn't even worry about jogging with a non-flash drive equipped laptop if it was turned off. The drive spindles and heads are immobile when the drive is powered down.

For a pack, look for something that suspends the laptop away from the sides. Preferably holding it in something that'll absorb the shock a bit.


You need to change the name of the MacBook, not just the user account.

You will find this in System Preferences -> Sharing.  The Computer name can then be changed by selecting edit (you may have to unlock, first).


Apple File System (APFS) and Clones

Copying a file creates a clone of that file. Clones take very little space. Only when a clone is modified, is significant additional space required.

  Clones

  Clones allow the operating system to make efficient file copies on the same volume without occupying additional storage space. Changes to a cloned file are saved as delta extents, reducing storage space required for document revisions and copies.[9] There is, however, no interface to mark two copies of the same file as clones of the other, or for other types of data deduplication.

See also iMore's Apple File System (APFS): What you need to know.

To understand how APFS works, see the Apple File System Reference.


How can I import text substitutions from Wikipedia "Lists of common misspellings for machines"?

After having read How can I export text substitutions from Lion for import into Mountain Lion made clear to me that PlistBuddy was a good way to go.

Create a folder for storing related files, for example using Terminal.app:

$ mkdir ~/Documents/OS\ X
Create a backup of the existing text replacements:

$ /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -x -c "Print NSUserReplacementItems" ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist > ~/Documents/OS\ X/UserReplacementItems-backup.plist
Create a new document in TextWrangler.
Change the encoding of the document (bottom of the window) to Western (Windows Latin 1). Otherwise Plist Converter.app replaces any accented characters with an incorrect value.
Copy the text from Wikipedia and paste it into the newly created TextWrangler document.
[Replace All] occurences of '->' with ',' using the menu command Search -> Find.
Insert the Prefix '1,' on all lines using the menu command Text -> Prefix/Suffix Lines....
Prepend the file with this line (as first line): on,replace,with
Save the file to the  ~/Documents/OS\ X folder and make sure that the file name ends with '.csv'.
Drag the '.csv' file to Plist Converter.app and click the button [Convert Plist].
Open the newly created '.plist' in TextWrangler.
Replace all occurrences of '<string>1</string>' with '<integer>1</integer>'.
Save the replace .plist file and quit TextWrangler.
Now make sure you don't have System Preferences open while doing the import, or it may not work!

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Merge '$(ls ~/Documents/OS\ X/common-typos.plist)' NSUserReplacementItems" ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

Don't forget to replace common-typos.plist with the file name you created.


how to "store" a specific keyboard shortcut on mac touch bar?

Yes, you can assign custom shortcuts to the Touch Bar.

For this you need a separate application called BetterTouchTool (BTT).

With BTT installed

open the app
Click "TouchBar" to assign a TouchBar setting
Click "TouchBar Button"
Enter a Name below "Touch Bar Button Name"
Click below "Custom Keyboard Shortcut"
Press your desired key sequence


How to prevent filename overlapping on an image preview?

i was just having the same issue and came across this question.

I think I solved it. Go to Finder > View > Hide Preview. Then click Show Preview, it should fix the glitch. Did for me. Good luck.


There should not be much difference based on the type of products they are.
However quality wise you must do research ex: Reading reviews, googling the product, etc.
I don't really have any recommendation but you can try the research it should help.

Sometimes you gotta go with your gut, and you might also want to check out the return policy with Amazon because you may be able to order it and try it out and return if you don't like it or it's bad quality etc.


Need a formula for a conditional formatting of a cell based on another cell's data

Sounds like Conditional Format is what you are looking for.

Select the cell which have to be formatted and choose Format->Conditional Format in the menu of Excel.

For more information have a look at: use a formula to apply conditional formatting


Does the app vendor obtain your name upon In-App subscription?

The app vendor does not gain access to your name when doing an in-app subscription. No personal information at all is transmitted to them in the process of buying in-app subscriptions (nor during the initial app purchase). This is contrary to how the Google Play store works.


VirtualBox VMs won't launch post re-install, kernel extensions unable to be loaded

Installing the VirtualBox 6.1.22 update was able to correct the issue. During the installation process I received the notice to accept the kernel extension security permission that was not appearing previously.


Can I assign a gesture to Mission Control on an older MacBook?

You can assign a hot-corner in Mission Control. This replaces the previous Exposé hot-corner.


umask is a user- and process-specific setting and can be overridden. Setting a umask on the server does not affect any clients that accessing the shared folder - each of them will use their own default file creation permissions.

If you want to set default permissions on a shared folder, the answer is to use Access Control Lists (ACLs), which are much more flexible.

Here's a somewhat terse support article from Apple on setting up ACLs in Snow Leopard Server.
And here's a slightly friendlier guide.


Dictate and speak/read text from Terminal

say. You can download different voices in Mountain Lion (not sure about older versions) and can be looked up from System Preferences

Usage: say [-v voice] [-o out] [-f in | message]

You can use command | say to stream output of the command once its completed.

The famous Vicki voice from Portal.

say -v Vicki Do not adjust your screen. You will be assimilated. The process is quick and painless, stand by


How to Change iPhone between Silent and Vibrate

If you set the phone to not vibrate on ring, but vibrate on silent, then you could swap your ringtone for one that makes no sound.
You'd have to repeat that for each notification type below, if you wanted nothing at all to make a sound.

I made my own, but Google has a lot of results if you search for 'silent ringtone'

The side switch will then swap between silent [on] & vibrate [off]


Where can I download previous version of itunes?


How can I draw freehand circles on screenshots?

But you can draw freehand circles in Preview, just select the shape you want to use in the upper left corner after you draw the shape. If you don't see the controls as below, go to View → Show Markup Toolbar


Logs are stored in ~/Library/Logs/Homebrew.
You can browse this in Finder or using Console.app.

If you want to save your own log of an install, you can use…

brew install <formula> 2>&1 | tee install.log

Source: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/10430


Accessing iOS iCloud app data from a Mac?

Try this:

Go to the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder. Type anything in the search field in your Finder window. Make sure that Mobile Documents is selected in the Search bar, not This Mac.

Next, click on the + icon, and choose Kind is Document. Go back to the search field and erase what you typed. Now all your iCloud documents will display.

Click on Save, and check Add to Sidebar to add this search to your Finder window sidebars.

Note: one submission said to type a period (.), and, while this starts the search, this may not find all your documents if extensions are not visible. So it's best to start a search, then choose Kind is Document and delete the search.


Is it possible to backup an iPhone to both iCloud and iTunes?

Yes, this is possible.

The options you're referring to in iTunes relate to automatic backups. You can achieve what you want by enabling iCloud backups (either in iTunes or in your iPhone's settings) and then manually doing a backup to iTunes whenever you want.

To do a manual backup to iTunes, simply connect the iPhone as you usually do with iTunes and then in the device's Summary screen within iTunes (the one with the backup options) you'll see to the right a Back Up Now button. Just click this whenever you want to also backup to iTunes.


I haven't seen that problem with iOS 7.

Have you tried restarting or resetting your iPad?

  Restart: Press On/Off button until the Slide to Power Off slider
  appears, select Slide to Power Off and, after the iPad shuts down,
  then press the On/Off button until the Apple logo appears.

  Reset: Press the Home and On/Off buttons at the same time and hold
  them until the Apple logo appears (about 10 seconds).

If these don't correct the problem connect to iTunes and do a restore.

If all else fails to do so:

In Settings, turn on Airplane mode, then reset your device by holding Power + Home button 15 seconds until you see the Apple logo. Power back on, then turn off Airplane mode.


Can AppleScript display when a script was last run?

You can retrieve the time that any file was last accessed using the command-line tool stat with the following arguments:

    stat -f "%Sa" -t '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S' /path/to/file

-f "%Sa": This requests only the file access data, as stat can provide other data as well, such as modification times, creation times, device information, ownership and permission data, etc.  See man stat if you want to know more about the other capabilities of stat.
-t "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S": This tells stat what format to output the date and time in.  You can change this to suit your needs, but for the purposes of this answer, I chose a standardised format that output this for one of my AppleScripts: 2018-03-31 16:55:42.

Bear in mind that the access time for an AppleScript file will be updated, not just if it is run, but also if it gets read or copied or moved.

To use this within an AppleScript, you can wrap it within a do shell script:

    do shell script "stat -f '%Sa' -t '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S' " & ¬
        quoted form of POSIX path of theFileAlias


mac mini > apple tv: no audio except using itunes

To route all sound from the Mac to the Apple TV, option-click the Sound menu in the menu bar on the Mac, and select Apple TV.

(Note: running Sierra)


Can I use AirPlay with an Airport Express when the WAN port is not connected?

As long as you can find them with AirPort Utility you will be able to use them as AirPlay device. I've used the same setup and you can wirelessly connect them and they will still function as AirPlay device (they can even make your network more powerful)

Please also check this Apple KB and question with answer on SuperUser

To make your answer complete: you can do this with both versions.

If you have no internet connected, you will still be able to let the Express function as Accesspoint. You just won't have access to the internet via it, but that's not weird as you don't have an input ;)


How do I force homebrew to update installed software?

I don't know why this happens with Homebrew when you don't do anything to mess with it, but here's how I fixed it:

Change to your Homebrew cellar directory cd `brew --cellar`
Reset git repository git reset --hard HEAD
Upgrade pianobar, at last! brew upgrade pianobar

FYI, brew update will update Homebrew to the latest version, so you may want to do that before step 3.


iPhone 6s plus black and didnt have visual after screen replacement

Here is our overall answer how to revive a phone that is frozen and you can’t operate the screen, can’t turn it off or can’t turn it on.

iPhone 7 is frozen and I can't turn it off

Once you’ve exhausted these steps, you will need to repair the part that’s not working and if you’ve repaired the screen already, it might be a more costly piece or a cable that’s failed.


Can you remap keys to only be used while using VMware?

The answer to the question is yes, you can.

VMware Fusion (from v2) provides this built-in to the application (and incidentally Parallels provides almost identical functionality)

Under VMware Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse you can turn on/off the mapping of keys to other functions.

This document over on VMware's document repository itemises how.

This video over on Vimeo shows how it works in practice (the video shows it working in Fusion 2, but the functionality hasn't changed drastically since).


Erase MacBook hard drive without OSX disc

Target Disk Mode

If the Mac you want to erase supports Target Disk Mode, and you have a second compatible Mac (you need to use either Firewire or Thunderbolt on both), you can use the second Mac to erase the target one. Boot up into Target Disk Mode (hold down T), and the target Mac will appear as an external drive on the second Mac. Then you can run Disk Utility to wipe the drives as per usual.

DBAN

If you can't use Target Disk Mode, you can download DBAN and burn it to a DVD. Boot up using the DVD and you'll be presented with a multitude of options for wiping the drive.

Extract the Hard Drive

The last resort is to open up the Mac and extract the hard drive. You can then use a SATA dock or enclosure to attach it to another computer and wipe it using the tools available (Disk Utility on the Mac, or other tools on Windows). With the exception of the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro, all MacBooks have standard 2.5" SATA drives, so any enclosure that takes SATA will be compatible.


Reinstalling Everything after HD Replacement

You can do this with Time Machine, but there is another method, if you have the equipment. Instead of Time Machine, use a shareware disk cloning utility. I use Carbon Copy Cloner.

If you are paying someone to swap out the hard drive in your iMac, ask them if they can do the following for you.

Don't erase your main hard drive just yet. Take the new hard drive that you are going to install in the iMac and put it in an external enclosure that uses USB or FireWire, and connect it directly to the iMac. Use Disk Utility to make sure it is properly formatted to make it a bootable Mac OS X volume. Install Carbon Copy Cloner on Mac OS X on your main hard drive and us it to completely clone that drive to the external drive. Check the Carbon Copy Cloner settings to make sure that it will create a bootable duplicate drive.

Then you can remove the new drive from its enclosure and install the new drive into the iMac and boot it up.


What's the best way to login to remote servers?

It should Just Work. In more detail: First, don't run ssh-agent yourself, since launchd will run it for you on demand. Make sure your private ssh key is in ~/.ssh/ with appropriate permissions, i.e., not readable by anybody but yourself:

; ls -l .ssh/id_dsa
-rw-------  1 user  13799  736 Oct 12  2001 .ssh/id_dsa

Now run ssh remote-hostname. A dialog should pop up to let you unlock the key. The dialog has a check button for storing the pass phrase in your keychain. Check it, and hit OK. (You need to do this with /usr/bin/ssh, I think, and not any ssh that you might have from macports or fink.) If you don't get the dialog, it could be that ssh needs to be told about the name and location of your private key. If so, specify it using the -i flag, as in

ssh -i .ssh/id_dsa remote-hostname


There was no fatal mistake in the code shown in the OP, however the proper way to use current date, in this case, is by letting the current application do it, not Reminders, as it actually errors out but does recover, hence not fatal. Nonetheless one should write code that's not going to needlessly error out. So, before the tell application "Reminders" code block, set current date to a variable and use the variable within the Reminders code block, as shown in the code further below.

Note that I personally do not use the Reminders app, however going by what's exposed in Reminders's AppleScript Dictionary, the following properties, not marked asr/o, are what can be programmatically changed for the reminder class.

  name (text) : the name of the reminder
  id (text, r/o) : the unique identifier of the reminder
  body (text) : the notes attached to the reminder
  completed (boolean) : Is the reminder completed?
  completion date (date) : the completion date of the reminder
  container (list, r/o) : the container of the reminder
  creation date (date, r/o) : the creation date of the reminder
  due date (date) : the due date of the reminder
  modification date (date, r/o) : the modification date of the reminder
  remind me date (date) : the remind date of the reminder
  priority (integer) : the priority of the reminder

As a test, I created a reminder named "Test" and set the remind me [√] check box to yesterdays date, so as to conform with the search parameter in the code further below.

Then, in Script Editor, I used the following line of code to get its properties.

tell application "Reminders" to get properties of reminder named "Test"

It returned:

{due date:date "Saturday, September 10, 2016 2:00:00 PM", modification date:date "Sunday, September 11, 2016 1:49:35 PM", class:reminder, body:missing value, completed:false, completion date:missing value, id:"3F0EF538-5DF6-4F1C-8024-922B5D45EB9B", name:"Test", container:list id "9EB58C9B-EF63-4B72-88C3-A4FFA3C7272F" of application "Reminders", priority:0, creation date:date "Sunday, September 11, 2016 1:49:13 PM", remind me date:date "Saturday, September 10, 2016 2:00:00 PM"}

I then manually unchecked the remind me [] check box and ran the ... get properties ... code again.

It returned:

{due date:missing value, modification date:date "Sunday, September 11, 2016 1:49:35 PM", class:reminder, body:missing value, completed:false, completion date:missing value, id:"3F0EF538-5DF6-4F1C-8024-922B5D45EB9B", name:"Test", container:list id "9EB58C9B-EF63-4B72-88C3-A4FFA3C7272F" of application "Reminders", priority:0, creation date:date "Sunday, September 11, 2016 1:49:13 PM", remind me date:missing value}

The primary difference between the two was the first and last items in the list, i.e., the due date and the remind me date, went from due date:date "Saturday, September 10, 2016 2:00:00 PM" to due date:missing value with the same for remind me date, having remind me date:missing value too.

So I tested the code below using both preferences, due date and remind me date just to see if there was any difference and there wasn't, as removing one removed the other.

The following code will remove both the due date and remind me date from any Reminder that's older then current date and has not been marked completed, at the time the code is run, as this is what occurs, at least to the properties of a reminder, in one has manually unchecked the remind me [] check box.

set curDate to current date

tell application "Reminders"
    activate
    set myRemList to every reminder whose due date is less than curDate as list
    repeat with myitem in myRemList
        if completed of myitem is false then
            delete remind me date of myitem
        end if
    end repeat
end tell

The code above can also be written as shown below. This actually is a better way to write it, as it makes for a smaller list returned because it's then only creating a list of items (reminders) that have not yet been marked as  completed. As after all, ones already marked as completed are not going to trigger an "alarm".

set curDate to current date

tell application "Reminders"
    activate
    set myRemList to every reminder whose completed is false and due date is less than curDate as list
    repeat with myitem in myRemList
        delete remind me date of myitem
    end repeat
end tell

Based upon your edited OP, if this does not do what is needed, then I do not know what else I can offer, as I can only work within what properties are exposed and editable.

Note: I was not able to reproduce the reminder as shown in your edit, i.e. the line starting with "due" directly under the [] At a Location check box and above "repeat None". However, what is now offered as the answer to "remove all alarms of all overdue reminders with AppleScript on OS X" does mimic the manual action of unchecking the remind me [] check box, which is what you've now asked for through the edit made to the OP. I hope this resolves your issue.


Why Handoff is not working after network reset? (iOS/iPadOS 13.2)

Typically, resetting the network settings clears the network connection so that the keys Apple generates / matches to know which device is yours may be expired or need to be renewed / re-keyed.
Connect to WiFi on all devices and make sure iCloud is working would be my first triage step here.


I believe you now just can look over the connected devices when you wish at:

https://www.icloud.com/#settings

The mails are still sent when you remove a device, but I don't recall getting the sign on ones anymore.


Purchased TV Show will not play - Screen stays black and progress bar won't move

It could be many things from a missing video codec, to a corrupted iTunes/Quicktime installation, to an old video driver or hardware acceleration on the video driver.
Find a video that doesn't play that you have purchased already. Don't use rentals or streams.  This gives you a baseline to test without incurring additional costs.
Make one change at a time then test iTunes with the known troublesome video.

Make sure Windows is up to date run Check for Updates.
Go to your computer manufacturers support web page look up your model and check the video driver version verses the one you see in Device Manager. Upgrade it if it is not the latest version. Some vendors provide tools to make this easier. These tools help you keep your drivers up to date, run such a tool as an alternative option.
Turn off Hardware Acceleration (Display Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Troubleshoot -> Reduce Hardware Acceleration)
Run Disk Cleanup to clear your Temporary folders.
Run virus/malware scans.
Run a Disk Check (Right-click drive -> Properties -> Tools -> Check)
Delete & Re-download the purchased content
Follow this Apple Support guide to completely uninstall, re-install iTunes on Windows. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204275 Also uninstall Quicktime if you have that installed.

It's possible that Apple had technical difficulties, some people report a video that had a black screen working properly at a later date with no changes made on their part.
You can actually report the problem and possibly request a refund from Apple for those rentals that didn't work. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084


Stocks widget on mac os mojave not showing current prices

The Stocks widget gets its data from Yahoo:
$ cd /Library/Widgets/Stocks.wdgt
$ grep http Stocks.*
Stocks.html:    <meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
Stocks.js:              var url = 'http://api.apple.go.yahoo.com/appledwf/q?s=' + symbol;
Stocks.js:      openLink('http://api.apple.go.yahoo.com/appledwf/');
Stocks.js:      var url = "http://api.apple.go.yahoo.com/appledwf/q/cq?d=v1";

The server used seems to be offline though
$ ping api.apple.go.yahoo.com
ping: cannot resolve api.apple.go.yahoo.com: Unknown host

most probably Yahoo changed the API. I also found pages mentioning that the API got deprecated by Yahoo already years ago. Combining this with the fact that Apple deprecated Dashboard as well you may want to use other ways to access that data.


Three phantom monitors after upgrading to Mavericks

I came up with a workaround when I was finalizing the question: mirror only the phantom displays. To do this, go to System Preferences-> Displays and click Arrange (click gather windows if you don't see an option to mirror displays).

While holding the Option key, drag the windows that you wish to mirror on top of one another.  (In my case, I mirrored all of the phantom monitors on top of one another.) Release the option key and arrange the other monitors as you like.


It was an Active Directory issue. Simply taking Tim to the office and using their network was enough to fix the issue.


Can't access internet through network share

Make sure you are sharing internet from Ethernet to others computers using WiFi/Airport


Upgrade an application through itunes instead of directly downloading the update inside iPad

From iTunes, enter the iTunes Store, and search for the app you want to update in the App Store. Once you have found it, redownload it (with the updated version). Then connect your iPad to your PC with the USB cable and sync it. That should do it.


As a developer, what will I miss on a Macbook Air? [MBA vs MBP]

You'll do just fine with a MacBook Air, at least, that's what I'd go for (and I'm in love with the Air as well :))

  I will miss the DVD drive, and upgrade ability if I am choosing a
  Macbook Air over Macbook Pro or a Thinkpad Machine?

Who uses a drive more then 2 times a year these days? I don't and I think most of the Mac users don't. And if you really need one, you can try Apple's USB Superdrive or if you don't want to pay, you can try the DVD and CD sharing within Mac OS X.

  Is the form factor and backup time, worth the choice?

It's the smallest notebook of the two (MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro), so form factor will do just fine. About the back-up time, I'm not sure what you mean, but as it's all Flash storage inside, reading and writing to the hard drive will go extremely fast.

  Is it good for iPhone/Android Development?

Yep. It's full size keyboard and gorgeous screen will allow you to do everything you can on a MacBook Pro, but you'll have a lighter and smaller notebook.

  Will I be able to run my favorite Open Source tools from Ubuntu, like
  GIMP/Blender etc.,? If not will I be able to dual boot Ubuntu? (I know
  I can do Windows)

You'll be able to dual boot Ubuntu without any hassle. Here is a good tutorial how to install it using a Flash drive


How do I change streaming buffer size in iTunes 10.5?

I recall seeing it there once upon a time.  It appears they've removed this option.


OSX and installing Windows applications with Wine

Your Program Files should be here: ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files which you can't see in the Finder (files/directories that begin with a period are hidden) unless you use the "Go to Folder..." feature in the Finder, but you can see it in the Terminal and launching your app with wine will be easier from the Terminal as well.


Macbook Pro headphone jack cuts in and out

The headphone jack has a connection problem - loose/broken solder joints, corroded connectors, and/or worn contacts.
This sentence confirms the diagnosis:

To fix the problems I have to wiggle the cord back and forth until the computer is satisfied.

If you have to take a physical action to solve a problem, it's a physical problem.  By wiggling it back and forth, you're making sure there's a good connection, but after a while it will lose it's connection again.
To fix this, you need to replace the headphone jack and this means electronics rework.  There are shops that specialize in this type of work and even though it's an Apple, it can be done and the shop doesn't need to be "authorized."
If you decide not to fix it, you can use a Bluetooth headset or get a USB DAC that will allow you to connect your analog sound devices to a USB interface.


I had more success with downloading it from developer.apple.com directly

Point Safari to http://developer.apple.com/
Click on Mac Dev Center (on the left, in the OS X Mavericks box
Sign in (or create a free account if you don't have one yet)
In the "Additional Downloads" section at the bottom, click on "View all downloads"
Deselect all categories besides "Developer Tools"
Jump to about page 10 (of 11), the package is from Nov 2, 2007
Click on "Xcode 2.5 Developer Tools"


Manually Copy music from Windows PC to iPhone

I tried using the charging/USB data cable and Windows Explorer to copy music to an iPhone, however it doesn't do anything and there are no error messages.

This won't work. iPhone is not mounted as a storage device in Windows Explorer.

  I'd like to avoid using iTunes as it loves wasting time converting music files to Apple's proprietary format.

If you don't mind using an alternate music player on your iPhone, there's an approach you can take here.

You'll still need to use iTunes to copy your music to iPhone, however you'll have the liberty to retain the original music file format. You can install VLC for Mobile iOS app on your iPhone. This is the same app available for Windows desktop and support similar file formats as desktop version.

Once you have installed the app, connect your iPhone to your Windows PC, select your iPhone and click on File Sharing in the iTunes window sidebar. Now click to select VLC under Apps. Now drag all your music files under VLC Documents pane. This will effectively copy the files into VLC app on your iPhone. The copy progress will be shown in the iTunes toolbar.

Once copied, simply eject your iPhone. Now open VLC app on your iPhone. You'll be able to access your music files there, in the original format that you copied. You can playback the music like a normal music player and can even listen to it in the background.

  I also turned on Bluetooth on a laptop and the iPhone and the laptop did not see the iPhone on the Windows Bluetooth program. So, how do I manually copy music from Windows to an iPhone?

It is not possible to copy files from Windows PC to iPhone over Bluetooth. Bluetooth is primarily used on iPhone/iPad to connect to accessories and for limited form of file sharing between Apple devices using a technology called AirDrop.


Safari 8 fails to play any (mp4) video in-browser

It could be caused by a corrupt or incompatible video codec or interfering third-party software. Playing MP4 video files should work in any browser.

Here is what you can try…

Installing the latest OS X Yosemite Updates also updates the Quicktime framework which is used by Safari. Safari loads video Codecs from the /Library/Internet Plug-Ins directory. So make sure Safari is updated by going to App Store -> Updates -> Safari (version 10.x is the latest version).
Make sure that the Internet plugin-ins checkbox is enabled. Safari -> Preferences -> Security -> Internet plugin-ins -> Allow Plug-ins

Does using a browser with Flash built-in (like Chrome) allow you to play mp4 files? If so, try deleting or updating Flash in System Preferences, which could fix Safari.

If none of this helps, just try switching to a different browser (popular ones include Chrome, Firefox, Vivaldi, and Opera) or a different WiFi network.


You can force Terminal to become frontmost by adding the line:

activate application "Terminal"

into your applescript.

if you launch Terminal with:

tell application "Terminal" to open location "ssh://user@example.com"

then Terminal won't open an extra window.


Completely remove Google Backup and Sync from my Mac

Moving of the Backup and Sync from Google app to the Trash and emptying it only removes the application bundle. It doesn't uninstall the Finder Sync Extension, application script,
 APFS container, preferences, etc.

You'd also want to remove the following & reboot:

~/Library/Application\ Scripts/com.google.GoogleDrive.FinderSyncAPIExtension
~/Library/Caches/com.google.GoogleDrive
~/Library/Containers/com.google.GoogleDrive.FinderSyncAPIExtension
~/Library/Cookies/com.google.GoogleDrive.binarycookies
~/Library/Group\ Containers/google_drive
~/Library/Preferences/com.google.GoogleDrive.plist


Can Browsers on iOS use Content Blocking?

I believe not, unfortunately. If you ask BlockBear (the add filter I personally use):

Nope. Apple limits the content blocker to Safari at the moment, only Mr. Cook knows the future.


In Mac OS X 10.12.6, using a script with scutil to start VPN gives me an error

I found the answer by myself.

I had a similar issue on macOS 10.12.6
Root cause was, that I also changed the configuration name of the VPN.

After removing the old VPN and creating a VPN with another name and configuration "Default",
 it works with both the command scutil and networksetup

With this I can start the VPN from shell with both scutil and networksetup


Change default duration for Calendar events on macOS Mojave

It doesn't seem to be possible. The closest you can get is to open the Day or the Week view, and add a new event by dragging from the begin time to the end time. However, you'll be limited to a duration which is a multiple of 15 minutes:

(of course, you can freely edit the begin and end time afterwards, but that would work for the one-hour events too)


Batch compress multiple folders into individual zip files

There's an alternative solution that's built-in if you don't want to use Automator and are fine with changing Archive Utility's settings.

Open the Archive Utility.app located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/
Go to File > Preferences
Change the "Use Archive Format" preference to "Zip archive"
Drag and drop the folders into its icon in the dock.


Can't sync iphone with Mac after restoring from TimeMachine

After spending almost the entire day on this problem, I found the solution: I had to thoroughly re-install iTunes, using FineWine's step-by-step guide.

Here are the things I did before that, but which had no effect:
- Tweaking every possible setting in iTunes
- tweaking every possible setting on my iPhone
- reinstalling the latest backup
- reinstalling the backup from last month
- reinstalling the backup from a year ago
- deleting files on my phone manually
- doing several iPhone hard resets
- upgrading to iOS 6 (!)
- and more


Has the ability to manage password preferences for App Store purchases been removed in iOS 14?

No, it is located here:
Settings > Apple ID > Media & Purchases > Tap 'Account' Icon > Password Settings:

Always Require Password

Require after 15 mins

NOTE: The 'Account' icon is the little blue circle with a head, located top left.
This is also where the option to sign out of the App Store is located in iOS 14


Force iPhone to use cellular data while connected to wifi

This is possible, as shown here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6448960?start=0&tstart=0

As the link describes, use a static IP in the wifi network but only fill in the IP and Subnet Mask fields.

Edit: this is also answered here: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/174722/120252


Ruby 1.9.3's infamous OS X OpenSSL segfault in http.rb:799

See above - the PG gem was the culprit. Apparently, it automatically compiles against the OS X built-in Postgres (9.0) libraries, which are of course compiled against OS X builtin OpenSSL.

Once I found this to be the reason, the fix was trivial. No need to install RVM, rbenv, Homebrew or anything else. Just recompile the PG gem ...


Could my stolen Mac have been erased before I activated Find My Mac?

If you don't have configured a password to choose boot options the thief is able to delete all your content, without having your root password.
He can simply:

Do not connect your Mac in internet.
Turn on Mac pressing Cmd+S to enter in CLI mode.
Change your admin account password (I have intentionally omitted details on this step).
Logout.
Login using your account with his password.
Disable all services related to iCloud, so disable Find My Mac.

In this case you're unable to locate your Mac.


Will a live USB for a Mac run on a chromebook or windows computer?

No, the disk should still be able to boot.

There isn't actually a difference between the operating system in the .img and .iso. They're just different ways of storing the same information.

Kali(or any other *nix) distro is an operating system, just as Windows and OS X are. Whether or not an operating system will run on a computer is solely dependent on the hardware, not the software already on the computer.


iPhoto does not recognize already imported pictures

Unfortunately, the only way seems to be to import the duplicates and keep them, while manually deleting the original copy (i.e. the one imported from the old iPhone).


Is it possible to disable Junk Mail filtering in mail.app?

If you simply want no filtering & wish to sort mail manually you can just disable Junk filtering altogether from Mail Prefs…

Note: That doesn't actually appear to delete the Junk folder - but it does stop it being populated at all.


Does a black screen save battery on an iPhone 4?

Yes - brightness is the major thing you can change to save power if the screen is prevented from dimming. Having the screen off entirely significantly extends the runtime of the battery across the iOS platform.

I haven't found a good reference to determine if the natural state of the IPS transistors that control whether the pixel is open (colored) or closed (blocking or black) but the amount of power needed to activate all of the transistors and let all the backlight through is certainly dwarfed by the amount of power needed to run the backlight itself.

Since the backlight is dimmable, it could be more of a factor when the backlight is set at the lowest light level, but I would expect the actual panel itself to still be negligible compared to the backlight (and more importantly negligible compared to the CPU / GPU and radio power usage)

If you take a look at the official specs you can see for the iPhone 4S:

6 hours: 3G Internet - screen on all the time
8 hours: 3G Calling - screen off most of the time
9 hours: WiFi Internet - screen on all the time
10 hours: Video Playback - screen on all the time
40 hours: Audio Playback - screen off most of the time

It would be interesting to see how long the audio playback test would last if you had a simple app to keep the screen on the entire time...


I've added a second HD into my Macbook 2011 instead of CD-ROM. Is it safe to encrypt it using Finder?

I think I'm correct to say it's safe! As Mac OS sees it as a drive you can just use the encryption.

Other people have tested it in Apple Support Comunnities and it seems to work so far.


When I go to my calendar it isn't working

Try a double click on the date. It seems to be a bug.