Drive numbers are assigned by the OS on a first come, first serve basis. The numbering scheme is as follows (with a capital N being a number):

diskN - always refers to a primary drive (i.e. the entire drive)

diskNs1 - always EFI

diskNs2 - First actual volume on the drive

diskNs3 - Second volume on drive, if there is one...this can go on for as many volumes as you have.

You can get some of the information about drives and volumes with the GUI version of diskutil by opening diskutil, clicking on the drive or volume, and then right-clicking on the item and then selecting "Information" from the dialog.

Another way is to open up a terminal window and type "diskutil list" and it will provide you with a list of all the drives, their partitions sizes and names (don't type it with quotes, though). If you want specific info about a drive or volume type "diskutil info " for example:

diskutil info disk0 OR diskutil info disk0s3

The utility will provide detailed information about each. I personally find using the Terminal.app a little easier because I can pipe the output to a file if I need to instead of cutting and pasting and it shows the relations of the volumes to the partitions a bit more clearly (IMHO).

I wouldn't think that swapping the drives around in the bays would make any difference. On my development systems I can swap around firewire drives, take one offline, take the other offline, bring the first back up, and even though they get different drive IDs, if one is set as bootable it will remain bootable. Mac's use UUIDs to tag the drives which remain unique to the drive regardless of their disk assignment.

The firmware for a Mac Pro might allow a user to provision specific bays to be bootable.


According to one poster in an Apple discussion forum, this may be possible in Lion:

  This is possible with Lion.

  There is a _appstore group. All the users that are in this group are
  allowed to install applications from the Mac App Store.   You can add
  a user to this group with the workgroup manager (install server
  admin tool first). Or by typing in this command on the terminal.

dseditgroup -o edit -a shortusername -t user _appstore

Unfortunately, this approach won't work in Snow Leopard or earlier versions of OS X. There also doesn't seem to be an option to install apps in a directory other than /Applications.


When did this option in the WiFi network selection appear?

In High Sierra when you Hold the Option key and click on the WiFi Icon it will show you this.

The Disconnect from (current WiFi) shows when you use the Option key.


There are apps in the iOS app store that will allow viewing and editing of the files stored in your iCloud Drive account, I use Documents, by Readdle, for this on my iPhone 5s. Documents allows you to manage iCloud Drive files, including downloading and uploading of files. Keep in mind that a desktop Mac includes a file manager, whereas iOS is set up differently and doesn't include the same functionality.


It might be some VDCAssistant programs using it.

Try this ,Open a terminal window and type the command below.

sudo killall VDCAssistant

This will kill all other programs and you will be able to use your camera again.


Applications Folder on Macintosh HD Shows Empty

There are two Application folders. One is under the root directory and should contain all of your Applications. This is /Applications

The other folder is in the User directory, so ~/Applications. ~/ is a shorthand for /Users/<UserName>. That folder is usually empty or has one or two stray Apps in there.


Mac Terminal read each .txt file in folder and write (add) as text to specific file

This command will take all .txt files combine to a single file.

cat ~/name_of_folder/*.txt > ~/combined.txt


This is an optimization task being performed by the iOS. The app icons flicker, i.e. the icon becomes grayed and the name of the app is replaced with the word Cleaning.... iOS is removing temporary files and cached app data.


iTunes now takes up 100% of CPU since updating to 11.3

Since upgrading to iTunes 11.3 I have experienced a very similar problem.  Every time I refresh my podcasts, iTunes' memory/CPU usage surges, and the iTunes UI freezes up for 5-10 minutes.

I haven't found a complete solution, but I have stumbled across a temporary workaround.  On my system, the problem only seems to occur when I refresh podcasts while looking at them in the List view, as in the screenshot below:

If instead I refresh podcasts from the All Unplayed view, there is no freezing at all:

It appears that the issue is related to viewing the podcast list while refreshing all podcasts.  (You can even avoid the issue if you click refresh in List view and then quickly click away to another view, like Music.)

Not a super satisfying answer, I know, but for me it has returned iTunes to a semi-usable state.


Fastest way to get an image from Skitch into OmniFocus?

AFAIK, you can't do it without AppleScript.

Here is my way to do this:

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
    try
        repeat with i from 1 to number of items in added_items
            set this_item to item i of added_items
            tell application "Finder" to set file_name to (name of this_item)
            tell application "OmniFocus"
                tell quick entry
                    open
                    set NewTask to make new inbox task with properties {name:file_name}
                    tell the note of NewTask
                        make new file attachment with properties {file name:this_item, embedded:true}
                    end tell
                    activate
                end tell
            end tell
        end repeat
    end try
end adding folder items to

Save this AppleScript to /Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/Add File To Omnifocus.scpt You must use root access. (Download script)
Create a folder under your Documets folder
Right-click on this folder, and select Services>Folder Actions Setup
Select the "Add File To Omnifocus" script

Now you can drop any file to this folder(I keep it in my Dock) and it automatically create a QuickEntry Task with embedded attachment.

I hope this could help you.


Switch to another desktop faster on macos high sierra

You can disable the animated Space transition effect and speed up switching by enabling Reduce motion under System Preferences → Accessibility → Display

However, this will have the side effect of turning off most user interface animations.


The 2 options are not quite the same, so I can't see anything like this existing.

When you use New Folder with Selection (4 items) (for example) creation of the folder is a simple task, to create a new folder and request a name for it.

But once a folder is created, there are multiple results from a proposed "unwrap" command, depending on if you select all the files in the folder or not.  Let's say you select all the visible files with the mouse instead of cmd+a, but you miss one that's scrolled off the bottom:

Should it abandon the attempt to unwrap, because there are unselected files?
Should it move the selected files back, and leave the orphan file alone?
Should it move the selected files back a level, and then remove the folder regardless of the fact that it still has contents?
What if there are further subfolders?
What if files don't have permission at the next level back, say they were on the users home directory, or the root of the filesystem?

The choices in copying stuff back one level and removing their previous location is far far tricker than simply creating a new folder and moving the selected files inside.

I'm sure that custom scripts can be written to provide something similar, but I imagine the use case it pretty unusual, as well as much trickier to implement in a way that won't confuse, as such it doesn't exist by default.


Time Machine not automatically deleting old backups

If you wish to delete your biggest backups (because Time Machine won't do it automatically), you can download TimeTracker, which will calculate the size of each backup, as well as show you which files are taking up space. From there, you can:

decide to delete all backups of a file (by using the Time Machine UI and selecting "delete all backups of 'file'")
Add the large file(s) to System Preferences > Time Machine > Options > Ignored files
Delete an entire single backup by opening Terminal, typing sudo tmutil delete  and dragging, from finder, the backup you wish to delete. It should say something like this in the end: sudo tmutil delete /Volumes/Backup\ Drive/Backups.backupdb/My\ Mac/2020-08-27-150021


Somebody used my Apple ID on a new iPod touch

The Apple ID was logged in to an iPod touch and used to send spam. The password to the account should be changed immediately and the account secured at appleid.apple.com.


macOS no longer recognizes environment.plist

If you are looking for a system-wide setting, you can add a snippet to /etc/profile for all shells, or /etc/bashrc for just interactive Bash instances.


Calendar.app fails to correctly display starting time of appointment when synced with google calendar

Switching off timezone support fixes the display problems:

Calendar Preferences > Advanced > Uncheck Time Zone Support


Why is my Early 2014 MacBook Air's Trackpad Uneven?

The most likely culprit is the battery being swollen.

When you get a physical "deformity" like this, it's due to one of two things:

accidental (or intentional) damage where the case and components don't line up anymore
something putting physical strain on the components themselves.

I'm assuming you didn't drop the Mac or have something heavy impact it.

The battery swells because of off gasses being trapped and it's something you need to fix right away as the trapped gasses at a minimum can damage your Mac (what you're experiencing) to becoming a fire hazard due to thermal runaway.

If you have the technical skills, you can remove the battery and continue to operate your Mac without it as you wait for a replacement battery to arrive.

The battery is located just below the logic board - the four black "squares".  It's an entire module that can be replaced by removing the five screws (red/orange circles denoting different sizes.)  For full removal instructions, see iFixit.com

Image Source:  Ifixit.com


Which version of iOS 10 are you running? I believe it is fixed now in 10.1 - which hasn't been released to public and is still in beta.


Mail Quits unexpectedly every time it opens

I had similar problem. The crash report was:

Exception Type:        EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes:       0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

If your crash note is  EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY, Then deleting all your accounts and re-adding them will solve your problem.


MacBook does not mount, does not boot, does not read drive

The GUID partition table is a mess.

Just to explain all partitions:

i = 1 EFI partition
i = 2 main OS X volume (wrong partition type)
i = 3 Recovery HD (wrong partition type)
i = 4 Windows partition (wrong partition type)
i = 5,7 Linux partitions
i = 6  Linux Swap partition

I would do the following after booting to Internet Recovery HD:

First you have to unmount disk0 and get the gpt table:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt -r show /dev/disk0

Open Utilities->Terminal and remove the two Linux partitions (5,7) and the Linux Swap partition (6) with:

gpt remove -i 7 /dev/disk0
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 6 /dev/disk0
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 5 /dev/disk0

Remove the Windows partition (marked as an Apple HFS+ partition)

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 4 /dev/disk0

Remove and properly re-add the Recovery HD:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 3 /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 176870968 -i 3 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Remove and properly re-add the OS X partition:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 176461328 -t 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

the type of the partition may also be 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC (CoreStorage). With on-board tool it's impossible to determine the correct partition type.
Verify disk0 and disk0s2:

diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk0
diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk0s2

If you get errors you may consider replacing the default partition type of disk0s2 by a CoreStorage volume:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0
gpt remove -i 2 /dev/disk0
gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 176461328 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

Enter diskutil cs list. If you get No CoreStorage logical volume groups found as result repeat step 5 and continue with the diskutil verifyDisk... and diskutil repairDisk... steps below. If the diskutil cs list reveals a CoreStorage Volume Group check if it is encrypted: Logical Volume Family -> Encryption: locked. Unlock the volume with: diskutil cs unlockVolume lvUUID with lvUUID: the UUID of the Logical Volume and entering your passphrase.

Verify disk0 and disk0s2 again:

diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk0
diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk0s2

If you still get errors try to repair disk0 and disk0s2:

diskutil repairDisk /dev/disk0
diskutil repairVolume /dev/disk0s2

Quit Terminal by entering exit and try to reboot to your main OS X volume

If you get an error saying disk0 Resource busy... you have to unmount disk0 again with diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0.


Copy specific files and keep the subfolder structure

rsync -avh --include='*/' --include='*.xls' --exclude='*' path/to/sourceFolder/ path/to/destinationFolder

Note the / at the end of the source path, it's important. This solution would add all empty directories, if you don't want them, look at the option --prune-empty-dirs.

With brace expansion you can actually include more filetypes at once, rather than having

--include='*.xls' --include='*.pdf' --include='*.txt'

you can use

--include='*.'{xls,pdf,txt}


Windows 10 Boot Camp on Mac mini Fusion Drive is running very slow. How to replace HDD / upgrade disk to SSD without reinstalling OS?

I backed up all my data first so I could try a couple of methods before I found the right one described below.

I carefully replaced the original internal Apple HDD with the same capacity ADATA SU800 1TB SSD. Lack of a special T6 Security Torx Screwdriver was a little problem but I luckily could brake out security pins from the chassis screws, making all of them a regular torx (though I strongly recommend buying a proper screwdriver on eBay as well as the logic board removal tool instead of my laundry wire hanger, especially if your Mac is still covered by a warranty). A detailed instruction of disassembling a Mac mini is available on iFixit.
When the SSD was already inside (I didn't touch a PCIe disk at all), I attached the old HDD as an external drive through a USB enclosure and booted up from an external optical drive with an Acronis True Image HD bootable DVD (you can try another such third party software but I found that cloning a Boot Camp Partition with the Apple Disk Utility doesn't work well).
Then I cloned the whole HDD with the "as is" option to the new SSD without automatic resizing! (SSD was a little bit bigger so I tried that but the result of such attempt was a Fusion Drive malfunction, no access to a Recovery Partition and impossibility to update macOS because of an error). Still don't try any action with a PCIe partition!
After complete operation, disconnection of external drives and restart, the mini instantly started up exactly the same as before the disk replacement. Both operating systems are running properly but many, many times faster.
Finally, just in case boot in a macOS Recovery Mode and perform a Disk Repair of a Fusion Drive and a Macintosh HD partition as well. Excluding one possible warning about some small capacity mismatch, all operations should finish successfully and you should be able to update macOS to the latest version without error.


How to create a hidden partition on a hard drive?

My previous answer is preserved below.

You can use the chflags command to apply the hidden attribute:

chflags hidden /Volumes/Hide_this_disk

And to unhide:

chflags nohidden /Volumes/Hide_this_disk

These commands should take effect immediately.

You need to have the Apple Developer Command Line Tools installed. You can either get them from inside of Xcode (in Preferences under Downloads) or you can download them from Apple's Developer website (free registration required).

After it's installed you'll have the SetFile command:

SetFile -a V /Volumes/Hide_this_disk

This needs to be executed as root, and it won't vanish right away. But after remounting it, it won't be displayed in the Finder any more. You'll need to use Disk Utility (or diskutil) to mount and unmount the disk afterward since it won't be visible to unmount and it will still be available under /Volumes normally.

If it's an internal disk then I believe that it will auto-mount at boot, but I don't know for certain.

To make it visible again just run the same thing, but with a small v:

SetFile -a v /Volumes/Hide_this_disk

Again, you'll need to remount it.


Is there a way to match calendar colors without MobileMe?

There's no official way to achieve this, however you can try a trick involving deactivating / reactivating calendars in a certain order until they match the colour you want.


If you use the desktop client for OS X grooveshark says they have enabled keyboard shortcuts:

  http://wanderr.com/jay/keyboard-shortcuts-for-grooveshark-desktop/2010/06/05/

But if you want to use the web player, it looks like it might be a lost unless you use Firefox for which there is an addon named keySharky:

  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/keysharky/


How to select an operating system to boot without a keyboard?

If you have an Apple Remote for your Mac, you can try the following:

shut down your Mac (by holding the Power button for a few seconds, if necessary)
press and hold the Menu button on the Apple Remote
start your Mac by pressing the Power button
release the Menu button on the Apple Remote

You should now be able to choose a startup volume.

If your keyboard has still not connected to your Mac via Bluetooth, you can select the startup volume by pressing the Left and Right button on the remote. To confirm and boot from the highlighted volume press the Select button.


How to change language of a single Mac app on Sierra?

One way to do this is to go into the app (control click, show package contents, contents, resources) and switch the names of the .lproj files, so that the one corresponding to your OS language actually contains the data for the language you want the app to display in.

This will only work if the application in question is properly localized for the locale you choose. Also, be sure you have a backup copy or plan to reinstall the app in case modifying it breaks anything.


Buy from the App Store via Desktop browser and have app auto-install to my iOS device?

It is not possible to install apps on your iOS devices by invoking the download using a Desktop browser.

Till recently (iTunes 12.6.3) it was possible to purchase an app on iTunes running on a Mac/Windows PC and have it automatically downloaded on linked iOS devices (The iOS device should have the setting enabled to auto-download newly purchased apps). With iTunes 12.7, the iOS App Store has been removed from iTunes for Desktop.

Thus, currently there is no way to push an app on an iOS device.

However, you can have a newly purchased (free/paid) app automatically downloaded on all your linked iOS devices, by going to Settings app → iTunes & App Stores and toggling for Apps under Automatic Downloads.


Hard drive renamed after restart, apps can't see it

I would run basic permissions & disk checks, just to be sure, but it wouldn't be the first time I'd ever heard of someone [or their cat] accidentally renaming a drive by leaning on Return & a few keys, without being aware that the HD was selected at the time.

If you find no disk corruption I'd work on that assumption for now - but I'd also make doubly sure of my backup strategy, on the chance it's a sign of an imminent failure.


How to cd to a directory with a name containing spaces in bash?

You can use the Tab key after pressing the first few characters (this will then "fill in" the rest of the folder for you e.g. type cd ~/LTab fills in cd ~/Library/ then type ApTab and it will fill in the rest for you.

If there is a space between words and you don't want to use the methods above, put a \ (backslash) before the space, e.g. cd ~/Library/Application\ Support.


Internal microphone does not register input in System Preferences -> Sound but registers in dictation and speech

I just noticed this question was upvoted. Sorry, I forgot to update it. I'm posting this as answer because it was the answer for me.

Unfortunately, I never found a software fix. Apple Store employees said it was a hardware issue and warranty repairs fixed it (I don't know what was replaced).


AirPods choppy/unreliable when connected to Mac, but not iPhone

I solved this choppy audio issue with just one simple trick.
(This might not work for everyone, but I solved it this way)

Short answer

If your hardware uses Bluetooth 4.0 instead of 4.2 or above, this solution is highly likely to work for you.

Open System Preferences > Sound > Input

Change sound input from Airpods to Internal Microphone

Long answer (+ Possible explanation)

(This is just my hypothesis based on my observation)

First of all, to clarify my symptoms,
I am using a MacBook Pro 15 inch (Late 2013) which has Bluetooth 4.0 hardware.
The choppy audio issue only happened in my MacBook Pro, and it did not happen in my other Apple devices such as my iPhone 7 Plus (which btw, has Bluetooth 4.2), nor my iPad Pro (also Bluetooth 4.2).

Based on these observations, my hypothesis is that Bluetooth 4.0 devices have too low bandwidth to handle both input/output (microphone & speaker) at a high quality. However, if I just change the audio input to the internal microphone, the Bluetooth connection only delivers sound output, so I think it can handle higher quality audio. On the other hand, if I use both microphone & speaker on a Bluetooth 4.0 device, I think the connection degrades and sacrifices audio output bandwidth in order to make room for delivering audio input.

Indeed, according to some sources, Bluetooth 4.2 is 250% faster and has 10x more capacity

Reference:

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-main-differences-between-Bluetooth-4-0-4-1-and-4-2-in-the-Layers-Baseband-LMP-L2CAP-app-Layer
https://www.semiconductorstore.com/blog/2015/BLE-4-2-vs-BLE-4-1/1548/


WPA2 Enterprise TTLS PAP connection for iPad

Okay so I figured it out myself. Apple provides a configuration utility for configuring WiFi and some other settings.

For Windows - http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1466

For Mac - http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1465

I created a configuration profile using it and entered the WiFi settings there -

Security Type - WPA/WPA2 Enterprise

Protocols

EAP Types - TTLS

Inner Identity - PAP

Authentication

Username - yourusername

Password - yourpassword

I then emailed this configuration profile to myself and opened it from my iPad and it worked.


Mac mini (mid 2011) fan at full speed constantly

check the thermal sensors. I broke one off of my Mac mini trying to upgrade the HDD and the fan ran at full speed since. I had to replace the Logic Board to fix the problem.


pgAdmin 4 (/Applications/PostgreSQL 12/pgAdmin 4.app) is a simple launcher for /Library/PostgreSQL/12/pgAdmin 4.app which itself is some kind of a service wrapper.

Besides launching a small web server, it also starts the menulet "pgAdmin 4" (the black elephant) and probably does some other things too.

The recommended way to restart pgAdmin 4 is to quit the menulet pgAdmin 4 ("Shut down server") and launch pgAdmin 4 again from the Dock.

If you insist to use the shell or a shell script, the best you can get is probably something like:

kill -s TERM $(ps aux | grep '[p]gAdmin4' | awk '{print $2 }') && open -a "pgAdmin 4"

You have to clean up (i.e. close) the now defunct browser window of the previous session manually.

If you just want to re-visit the pgAdmin PostgreSQL management page (after accidentally exiting the browser or closing the browser window/tab or if you want to use another browser) you don't have to quit and relaunch pgAdmin.

The formerly displayed url (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:49211/browser/) won't work anymore but a file in your home folder contains a working url with an auth key:

cat ~/.pgA*.addr
http://127.0.0.1:49211/?key=c1b4f6c8-fa99-4af2-9ebd-06d71586c266 #example

Enter this url in your browser and you can visit the page without authorization error .

In the shell this is: open $(cat .pgA*.addr). This will launch your standard web browser and open the management page.


Suggestions to make a old Macbook Pro faster?

I put a 260 GB Intel 530 Series SSD into my mid-2009 MacBook Pro and it did wonders for it, cut the boot-up time in half. Just get a good brand, my Intel hasn't had any problems

You could also upgrade the RAM. Other World Computing is a great place to buy RAM for your specific model of Mac.

My Mid-2009 MacBook Pro runs El Capitan pretty well, so you may as well update to it, as El Capitan is supposed to make Macs (even older models) run faster. That's my experience with El Capitan, but YMMV.

An SSD, RAM, and El Capitan is where I would start if I wanted to upgrade any Mac.


How to format new internal HDD on MacBook Pro

Unfortunately, the Disk Utility UI included in Mac OS has become almost unusable (as you have discovered), but the grunt work can still be done in the Terminal.

If you're willing to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, visit this page from AppleGazette: http://www.applegazette.com/mac/pro-terminal-commands-using-diskutil/

I would first try simply erasing the disk and see if that gets you where you need to be. On the aforementioned web page, scroll down to the "Format and Erase Drives with diskutil" section and read about formatting and reformatting. Give that a try first and see what happens.

If you have problems with formatting/reformatting, try partitioning the drive instead. To do so, scroll down to the "Partition Drives with diskutil" section and follow the instructions. If done correctly, this should partition your drive and format it in just one step.

Good luck!


Since you don't have the ability to perform a full reset (well, you can, but you won't have any personal data on it anymore, including whatever videos you're watching), I have a couple of suggestions.

First is a strange bug that I know has affected some iPad users and so might be an issue for you; it's one of those "how can these two things possibly be related" bugs.

Launch the Settings app and choose General=>Reset=>Reset Network Settings. All this will really mean is you'll lose your saved WiFi networks. If that doesn't solve it then I'd try the next suggestion (below), and if it doesn't work then in this same area choose Reset All Settings; I suggest trying this one third just because it means all of your apps will lose their stored settings and revert to their defaults, which is a hassle to manually restore.

Second, is it possible that your iPad is full or near-full? I've heard of this problem when there's so little space left that the Videos app can't even clear out any caches and so is stuck.

If so then you might try deleting a few things that you can get to. For example, delete some files in the iPod app, or delete any particularly large apps that you can live without until you next synch. Large apps include complex games (pretty much anything that renders 3 dimensions like first-person shooter, racing games, etc.) and apps with a lot of documents like iBooks or Pages or what have you. You can also delete photos via the Photos app if you have a bunch of large ones that are stored elsewhere.

After clearing out some space, restart your iPad again.

If all three of those fail then you're pretty much stuck with resetting your iPad, but again, that wipes everything and returns the device to its factory settings, which is likely not ideal in your situations since a restore requires your computer.


Can I get Mavericks QuickLook to display Finder images scaled up to full screen like before?

I finally figured out how to do this (sort of).

Again, easier to do with more than one monitor - I don't know how it would work on a single monitor.

In the Finder, sort the images as you like then right click (ctrl-click) on the first image in a Finder window you wish to see. A pop-up menu will appear with an item about half way down called Quick Look "name-of-image.xtn" (where "name-of-image.xtn" is the name of the image you clicked on). Now, before doing anything else, hold down the Option key. The menu item will change to Slideshow "name-of-image.xtn".

NOTE: You must do it in that order - if you hold down Option before you right click on the image, you get a completely different menu pop up.

When you release the mouse, the image will open up full screen but not full size. When you release the Option key, the image will go full size. However, the image will have focus and arrow navigation won't work, so you have to bring focus back to the Finder window, easiest done by clicking on the Finder window (which is why I don't know how to do this with only one monitor).

Now: if you hold down the Option key while tapping the right arrow key, each image will open up fullscreen and full height/width, regardless of whether it is smaller than your monitor resolution or not.

Problems:

Navigation doesn't work in List view.
In Columns view only Opt-RightArrow is of any use. If you type Opt-UpArrow or Opt-DownArrow you will go to the first or last image in the Finder window. If you type Opt-LeftArrow you will exit out of the folder you're in. Additionally, if you have your window sorted by tags, the cursor gets stuck on the virtual folders separating different tag groups.
Opt-Navigation works fine in Icons view. No problems there, but having to remember to hold down the Option key becomes annoying pretty quickly.

All things considered, this is pretty awkward. It's a real kludge for something that "just worked" in Lion. I hope it's something they fix for Yosemite, or at least give us a preference somewhere to toggle fullscreen behaviour.


Can we load video onto iPad without iTunes?

You can use the "File Sharing" feature of various apps THROUGH iTunes, but without having to actually SYNC with iTunes.

Install the free CineXPlayer app. This will allow you to play a much broader range of videos.

Then plug your ipad into any computer with iTunes installed. iTunes will recognize the device, and let you browse it WITHOUT syncing it. If you go to the "Apps" tab inside the device's pages in iTunes, you'll see CineXPlayer listed below, in "File Sharing". Select CineXPlayer and drag movies to the "Documents" pane.

Ta da!


Have you considered Dropbox?

It allows for any folder structure you like, and has a decent photo viewing and slideshow capability. And it's free up to a certain size, although depending on the size of your library, you might need to pay.

It's great at a Ton of other things, too.


Facebook and Mint Badges seem to be ignoring iOS 4 Notifications Settings

The Notifications settings panel only controls what push notifications can do when the app is not running.  Background changing of the badge, essentially.  When you run the app, it is free to change its own badge and as far as I know there isn't a way to keep an app from doing that.


Is it useful to upgrade MacBook Pro to 16GB RAM?

With the GPU - the extra RAM won't make any graphics faster in my opinion. Running "out" of memory isn't something that virtual memory allows - and when you start to get under memory pressure the apps can release memory to the system and the system starts to slow down as memory swaps. At some point, performance suffers - but I'm having a hard time justifying cases where 16 GB of RAM is the "straw that breaks the performance camel's back".

I'm in the process of evaluating this for our company. Traditionally we have predominantly maxed out memory in our MacBook Pro fleet, but I'm probably going to split our orders 50 / 50 to see if we really need 16 GB RAM for our pro users.

Even our photo department processing 50 to 100 megapixel images in Capture One or Lightroom - we're struggling to justify more than 8 GB of RAM.

Once we have about 10 of each model, we will re-measure the RAM needs. My suspicion is we're being overly cautious and could go 90% smaller RAM and 10% larger RAM.

The reasons for this are:

The apps we need just aren't RAM hungry with the better frameworks and memory management on macOS.
The penalty of swapping to the NVMe based SSD is no longer a deal breaker for people that only occasionally push their Macs into memory pressure makes this a slight slowdown as opposed to a crawl when swapping used to hit HDD storage.
Statistically - our fleet of Macs just doesn't enter memory pressure.

Basically, when our developers and designers are waiting - it's for file transfer, for network and the machines aren't the bottleneck to productive work. Yes - I can benchmark situations where I can exhaust memory, but in practice - people in that situation know they have too many other chrome tabs open, or outlook has hung on them or there is a memory leak and they can log out and clear that issue for days to come.

Unless you 100% know you have to run multiple OS at the same time, are a heavy windows user (we have some that allocate 4 to 6 GB of RAM to a PC and still work fine with 8 GB of RAM! on the Mac) the chance that you need 16 GB of RAM is slim. I would advise most people to spend that extra $$ on AppleCare or on new software or on books and training to make you more efficient rather than being "safe" with the maxed out RAM.


Not all certificates are supported by iOS, it depends on the encryption method.
I had issues with the free Comodo S/Mime certificates and switched to the free S/Mime certificates from Startssl.com, they work fine


Multiple devices getting same text messages

From my understanding, they will probably be getting the same iMessages due to the same iTunes account being used and being the default for iCloud.

What you could do is go to Settings > iCloud and change or create a personal iCloud account for the person.  In Settings > App and iTunes Stores, the original email you used for apps should stay there.

Or just turn off iMessage so the phones default to SMS. This can be done in Settings > Messages.


macOS catalina ignores shell in AD and uses zsh instead

The instructions for enforcing a default shell for users in macOS Catalina through Active Directory is available at Apple: https://support.apple.com/guide/directory-utility/set-a-unix-active-directory-user-accounts-diru34cb1e36/mac

Here's the procedure to manually update the shell (independently of any AD setting):

If the computer a natively installed with Catalina, then all user accounts will use zsh.

If the computer was upgraded to Catalina, then:

all existing accounts will use bash and will see a warning that zsh is now the preferred shell in macOS.
all newly created accounts will use zsh

If a user wants to change their default shell environment from zsh to bash, the following command can be issued at the command line prompt in Terminal.app:

chsh -s /bin/bash

You can also change the default shell via System Preferences → Users & Groups. First unlock the padlock at the bottom-left, then control-click the user to edit and chose "Advanced options..." from the popup context menu. Edit the Login shell property by selecting the shell from the drop-down control.


Mac Pro install disk keeps ejecting itself

According to everymac.com, your Mac is a 2006 model which was discontinued January 8, 2008. (I made the assumption 2.66QX means 2.66 GHz Quad Core Xeon) This model originally was designed to run OS X 10.4.7. Since the
Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update is dated Nov 9, 2009, I doubt the disc you have is the correct one for this model Mac.

The OS X 10.7.5 (Lion) was the last version designed for your Mac model.

  Note: Since this model has a 32 bit EFI, you can only run 32 bit EFI booting operation systems. However, you may be able to run 64 bit BIOS booting operating systems such as Windows and some versions of Linux.

If you were to purchase Lion from Apple, then a requirement to install would be to have Snow Leopard already installed. In other words, the DMG file only offers an upgrade to Lion. You probably can not use the DMG file to create a bootable installer. You can read the requirements from the Apple Lion website given in the above link.

You would not need a Apple ID to install Snow Leopard, but the installer will still ask. You can decline to give an Apple ID if you wish. Snow Leopard was released on a DL DVD. Apple still sells Snow Leopard DVDs, but you can also download an ISO from the internet. Instructions are given below for creating a Snow Leopard USB flash drive installer. If you chose to burn a DVD, then you will need a DL DVD, since the contents of the ISO is over 4.7 GB.

Once you have Snow Leopard installed, you should install all the available Snow Leopard updates. This would update Snow Leopard to OS X 10.6.8. From here, you could upgrade to Lion by using a purchased DMG file.

Creating a USB Flash Drive Installer from a Snow Leopard ISO File.

This was done use an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 with MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6 installed. The flash drive was testing using VirtualBox Version Version 5.2.26 r128414 (Qt5.6.3). The flash drive needs to be at least 8 GB in size.

Use the Finder application to mount the Snow Leopard ISO file.
Use the Disk Utility application to erase the flash drive, as shown below. I chose the default name Untitled. Finally, click on the Erase button.

Highlight the name Untitled, then click on the Restore button on the top of the Disk Utility application window. In the popup window, select restore from Mac OS X Install DVD, as shown below. Finally, click on the Restore button in the popup window.

The flash drive was tested using Virtual Box. Other than selecting the flash drive, I used the default settings for a 64 bit Snow Leopard installation. After booting from the flash drive, you need to use the Disk Utility application to erase the internal drive before installing Snow Leopard. Basically, select the setting shown below, then click on the Erase... button.

The result is shown below. Make sure the partition map scheme is GUID Partition Table.

Return to the Mac OS Installer and choose to install to the Macintosh HD disk.

When the installer finishes you should get a Welcome window similar to what is shown below.

The result after answering all the questions is shown below. I selected About This Mac from the menu bar.

Software update includes OS X 10.6.8.


Yes, you can do that. I use two Apple IDs on my iPhone 4S.

It is not the most comfortable setup though: You must switch IDs in Settings>iTunes & App Stores. Just tap on your Apple ID and select Sign Out. Then log in with your brother's Apple ID.

I don't think the iPhone will pull the apps your brother bought when he signs in with his Apple ID. He will have to install them manually.


Connecting to MacBook Air 2017 with usb-c connection

Assuming that you have a USB hub/dock with a USB-C connection....

The answer is no because the USB ports on your MBA is USB 3.0 while the USB-C connection is at minimum, 3.1.  USB is backward compatible with downstream devices and in your case, the downstream device (the hub) is a higher spec.


Images are intermittently distorted when copy-pasted into Power Point

Bypass the copy/paste directly into PowerPoint procedure and instead, paste the copied image into a new Preview.app document, export the image into a .gif, .png or .jpg formatted file onto your computer, and then import the file into PowerPoint. It takes more steps, but it should work.


Problem Installing Boot Camp Windows Partition on new Mac Pro

Finally got this working, thanks to a person named "turbostar" over on discussions.apple.com:

Re-run Boot Camp Assistant to remove the Windows partition and restore the full Mac HD as a single partition.
Run a PRAM reset (restart, while screen is still black, hold down ⌘+Option+P+R and keep them pressed until you hear the startup sound a second time).
Open disk utility and repair permissions on the Macintosh HD partition. TWICE.
Start Boot Camp Assistant again.

Seems hokey. With those instructions I thought I would also have to stand on one foot, point to my nose, rub my belly, and hope for rain. But it did end up working.


Macbook air stutters during streaming video

According to a post on VLC's own forum, there is a "known issue" with streaming directly from a NAS.

Here's what they have to say on the streaming from NAS issue.

  "Known issue, but I agree it's really annoying.
  I also met the lagging issue when playing directly from NAS, but through UPnP, playback is really smooth.

  If your NAS has UPnP server, consider using it."

So, the user "nkoriyama" suggests enabling uPnP as the solution, if it's available as an option for you.

Note: This answer is taken from the comment stream under the op's question


Select all the shortcuts you wish to export and drag them to a location in Finder. This will create a ‘Text Substitutions.plist’.
Move this file to another account/computer, then drag it back on top of the list to import the file.

Full details are provided by Apple in their support document on the matter:

How to export and import text substitutions on your Mac - Apple Support

In direct answer to the question title, the actual location used for storing substitutions is within the UserDictionary.db somewhere within ~/Library/Dictionaries/CoreDataUbiquitySupport/. This is not something you should modify manually. Also - since this data is iCloud backed - some versions and point in time it used an older storage method and API (iCloud Core Data) and now it's using a more modern key value store (CloudKit).

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/09/26/stucki-text-replacements
https://www.macstadium.com/blog/science-confirmed-text-replacements-do-not-sync/


There are very few video cards that will work with the Mac Pro 2,1. When Steam was released in early 2010 and I realized that the stock video card did not have enough power to run Steam games, I searched for a replacement. I ended up purchasing the nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Video Card from a vendor on eBay. It wasn't especially cheap; it cost me about $260.

My criteria were as follows:

Must provide more graphics power than the card it was replacing.
Must be a drop-in replacement for the stock card; I did not want to mess about with stuff like reflashing the ROM on a card that was intended for Windows machines, for example.
Not obscenely expensive. The card that I bought really pushed the limit; I had originally wanted to spend no more than $150.

The 8800 GT provided enough power to run Steam games, and also improved screen redraws for everyday work, including my light-duty work in Photoshop and InDesign. Though the 8800 GT is a couple of generations back in terms of the hard-core gamer crowd, it should serve well as a more-powerful replacement for the stock card.

I'm pleased with the result, as it has allowed me to extend the operational life of my Mac Pro.


Yes, you can disable Versions globally, I described it here:
How to disable Versions in OS X Lion
I found a way to disable Versions (not Autosave) in a (hopefully) non-destructive reversible way: (re)move the SQLite database that Versions uses
Careful, this comes with absolutely no warranty and may break your system!
sudo mv /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1 /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1_off; sudo touch /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1; sudo killall revisiond
If it worked you'll be notified e.g. in Textedit when you close a document:

That (probably) means that your document will still be automatically saved in certain intervals, but once you close it (or the program) you can only retrieve the latest version (and Time Machine backups, if available).
The changes can be undone with sudo rm /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1; sudo mv /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1_off /.DocumentRevisions-V100/db-V1; sudo killall revisiond

Edit 2012-04-04:
Versions (especially of Autosave) may still end up in ~/Library/Containers as nicely described in this answer.


No + sign in Contacts app on iPhone 5 with iOS7. Now I cannot add any contacts at all and all my old contacts were lost, too

Your contacts may have been there all along.

First you need to go to groups and select at least one before the + button will show up.

If you have no groups or no groups selected then the contacts have nothing to add to, therefore no button.

Group selected

No group selected


What is this square icon and square + triangle icon in Mac OS X bar?

The second menulet from the left is Karabiner - a tool to customize keyboard and some mouse/trackpad settings.

Please note that some colors in the menubar are inverted


iPhone 6s Plus calendar not properly syncing to Outlook 2007

Avoiding cloud in 2016 is strange, especially with Apple devices. However, you can set both devices to properly sync with Outlook 2007 using the software called Akruto. It works like Exchange server on your PC and allows syncing via Wi-Fi and over the Internet (without the cloud, through a 3-rd party DNS service).

Here's the link: http://www.akruto.com/sync-iphone-with-outlook/
What's good is that you don't have to install any apps on your boss' phone, everything will show up in the native calendar app.


Macbook Pro 2016 13 inch - Display turns off whenever I physically adjust it

After further Googling turns out this is a common issue with this model of Macbook. Apple will fix it for free. https://support.apple.com/13-inch-macbook-pro-display-backlight-service


The best way to sandbox programs in OSX?

easiest and most secure way

Please choose A or B, not both.

  really malicious programs

Are we talking invasive virus software, like the stuff that came on Sony CDs?

Either a carefully-configured virtual machine, like VMware Fusion, or an isolated physical machine. By "isolated" I mean not used for anything else and not connected to any network. Make a fresh install of the OS, do what you need, but then never use the machine for anything else. I would assume that "really malicious" software would modify the recovery partition, bootloader, and even the firmware.


Why don't you put the laptop on a bookstand? that's what I do with my MB.
typing while the laptop is on the bookstand might not suit everyone's taste, but you can easily slide a keyboard right in front of it, leaving the screen where it needs to be!


You should be able to use the keyboard in order to boot into recovery mode and execute the command while "blind". Do the following:

Boot your Mac while holding down the ⌘+R keys.
Wait 3-5 minutes for your computer to boot up. It will likely boot more quickly than this, but better to be safe.
Press the following sequence of keys:

fn+ctrl+f2 (leave out fn if it's not on your keyboard)
→ x4 (press the right arrow key four times)
↓ x4 (press the down arrow key four times)
enter

Wait around ten seconds to give the terminal time to open. Then, type csrutil disable and press ENTER.
Wait another ten seconds, then type reboot and press ENTER again. Once your computer boots back up, SIP should be disabled.

This was tested on a 2015 Macbook Air running macOS 10.14.1.


Apple ID for employees having no credit card

Apple IDs can be created with the None payment method providing you are attempting to do something that doesn't require payment. For example, you can create an Apple ID without a payment method by going to the iTunes Store and purchasing any free app. You will be prompted to create an Apple ID and can select None as the payment method.

For more information, see:

Create an iTunes Store, App Store, or iBooks Store account without a credit card or other payment method


Lenovo firmware ISO ruined my USB thumb drive - how to fix?

Ok, fixed it via:

diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk5 1 MBR ExFAT whatever 32GB

I wasn't sure what the 'whatever' argument was supposed to be, but it worked.


Why would a python3 script not find a module when run in Automator?

Solved:
I'm not sure why it worked, but running pip3 install pyperclip in the automator window installed it in the correct location for it to be used.


Block device from accessing the Internet, but not Wi-Fi

To prevent a device from accessing the internet, but allowing it to access files on a local network over Wi-Fi you can setup an ad hoc network.

The ad hoc network will be hosted by your Mac and devices, like your Eye-Fi card* or your kids laptop, can connect to it and access shared local folders.

Turn Airport On

Click on Create a Network. The following screen will appear:

If you want password protection, check Require Password and type a desired password.

Hit Ok. Now you're Mac is broadcasting a network.

The Eye-Fi support page explains how to connect to an ad hoc network.

Note on the Eye-Fi card: according to this website only the Eye-Fi Pro and Eye-Fi Pro X2 can connect to an ad hoc network.

General note: if you want other devices to access files and folders on your Mac those files and folders have to be shared. How to do that is suitable for another question.


Weird "Network" folder on lion's sidebar

I don't know how that folder got there but you can try to get rid of it by holding Command and dragging it out or trashing ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist (it will reset the Sidebar to default) and reboot if necessary.


How do I share a Wi-Fi connection via a Wi-Fi hotspot?

You can't "share" a Wi-Fi connection via a Wi-Fi hotspot.

What is misleading everybody is the inapropriate use of the technical
term of sharing when the function we are talking of is a redistribution.

When 2 PC are connected on the same Wi-Fi hotspot they are truly
sharing the same connection: they are using the same Wi-Fi channel,
they are sharing the router IP public address.

When you start up InternetSharing within System Preferences > Sharing
you are not starting a sharing, but the redistribution of a main network access toward a secondary network access. On this secondary network access,
you are acting as an access router. You are distributing IP private
addresses.
On your primary network access you have a public IP address, on your secondary network access, you have a private IP address, and you translate the traffic IP addresses from the
public side toward the private side and the other way around.
To be able to perform this redistribution of IP traffic coming
from your primary network access toward the same physical access
your OS should be able to present you this physical interface as 2
differents virtual interfaces, typically en1 and en2.

MacOS X doesn't provide such a virtualisation function.

You can't redistribute your Ethernet connection toward your Ethernet
connection.
You can't redistribute your Wi-Fi connection toward
your Wi-Fi connection.

Connectify (on Windows 7) is simply selling a standard function of Windows which permit to create 2 virtual Wi-Fi interfaces on top of
one physical one (see: Wi-Fi hotspot for Windows 7). Then Windows
redistribute the network access of the primary Wi-Fi toward the second one.


system sounds coming from thunderbolt display, all else through headphones

Under "Sound Effects" tab, change "Play sound effects through:"

Instead of automatically changing this option, when I plug in headphones this setting remains unchanged.


White on black without inverting colors?

Create a Custom ICC Profile

Theoretically this is possible by creating a custom ICC profile for your monitor. However, creating an ICC profile is not trivial.

You can see this ability by looking at some of the specialised profiles in /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/. The Gray Tone profile for example compresses all the colours into a single black to white strip.

The Lightness Increase profile's 3D representation demonstrates how any colour can be mapped to any other colour.

There are a number of problems to this approach. Mac OS X's text is anti-aliased. Inverting just black with white will likely result in outlined text; the gray pixels surrounding each letter will not be inverted.

An Alterative Approach: Editing System.clr

An alternative approach is to alter the colours returned by Apple's NSColor class. This class provides the colours and patterns used across Mac OS X. The file that stores the Developer colours is located at /System/Library/Colors/System.clr.

Looking at Apple's Color Programming Topics guide, I suspect a developer may be able to load the file into a NSColorList instance, alter the colour, and write back the file.

This goes against Apple's advice not to alter files in /System, but it is probably your best solution. The modification task requires someone with Objective-C knowledge and available consulting time.


How to reinstall Java 6, for development for Android, on Mountain Lion?

From my understanding the actual components that need to be removed first are in /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/*.jdk

So if you get rid of those:

$ sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/*

Also, as you mentioned, you're supposed to remove this:

$ sudo rm -rf /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

At this point it should simply be a matter of downloading 1.6 and installing it.  If you do $ whereis java you will see that the java binaries are stored in /usr/bin/{java,javac,etc}.  But $ java -version apparently gets its information from the first folder I mentioned you should delete.

After you remove those, try running $ java -version again.  You should be prompted to install it.

Hope this helps!


Downloaded items with Chrome always have incomplete icons

I found if you Get Info (⌘I) the file then close the Get Info window without doing anything it will magically complete. Then to force an icon put the file into a new folder.


Automatic iCloud backup without locking iPad

Unfortunately not. According to this knowledgebase article, Apple has it set up to only automatically back up when it's connected to Wi-Fi, connected to a power source and (unfortunately for you) the screen is locked.

You can, however, get in the habit of doing a backup before you go to sleep, kind of like setting your alarm clock. Just a suggestion, but I think this is the only way to make it happen daily without jailbreaking (truth be told, I don't know of a way to do this even if you did jailbreak).

Good luck.


Uses for Force Touch in the Xcode editor

In Xcode 10 you can use Force Touch inside Interface Builder to select from a list of views and windows under the cursor (i.e. topmost view, its ancestor and all the way to the window):


Run script/ifttt recipe.... upon notification

Try Pushbullet (pushbullet.com). This service will sync the notifications from your computer, phone and tablet - it should work both ways. You will need a Google account to sign in.


Open the up next queue and double-click on the title of the first song in the queue.

(In iTunes 12) the up next queue button looks like this:

It is in the top right corner of the playing now area of iTunes.


Do Sophos and Spotlight conflict and if so, how can I run both applications without problems?

They don't conflict. Spotlight is a pig on any first run on a newly accessed filesystem. On the other hand, Sophos will double the load caused by controlling all these filesystem accesses.

I suggest you to let Spotlight terminate its heavy initial run alone
by temporarily turning off the On-Access control of Sophos:

I also suggest you to turn off the scan on Files on network volumes, because this will load your Mac, your network and finally
your network volumes. On a well managed network, this scanning should be
run directly on the storage servers.

Once this 1st run terminated, Spotlight will less tend to be a CPU and I/O hog.


WiFi connection problem (iPhone to TP-Link router)

I had the exact same issue with a tplink access point and this made me crazy. Nothing worked for me, until i found the solution:

Disable WMM in the wireless advanced settings!!!


"No connected camera" error using MacBook Air

Probably there is some process holding the camera. A dirty hack to solve this issue is to kill the culprit with:

sudo killall VDCAssistant


How can I upload videos to Flickr using Uploadr?

Open the Uploadr app and click the about tab. Then click on the logo to make a hidden menu appear:

Click "Enable Video Upload" and that's it! You can now upload videos in the formats that Flickr supports.

Reference: UserVoice request about this issue


How do I import photos from my iPhone when using iPhoto in full screen mode on Lion?

Use iCloud’s Photo Stream feature. As you noticed, you can’t access an iOS camera device connected via USB from iPhoto in full screen mode (in fact, iPhoto will leave full screen mode when you connect such a device). Photo Stream however is available in full screen mode (in the “All Albums” section). You can even setup iPhoto to automatically import photos from Photo Stream (sorry for the German screenshot, but you’ll get the idea).


Storage Apps more than 800 GB on 256 GB SSD

Although the issue I see normally is with "Backups" growing to ridiculous sizes, it's possible this issue is a variant of the same problem... Try typing sudo tmutil disablelocal into the Terminal and enter your password, then turn Time Machine off and on,. If this is the same issue, in a minute or two the numbers should return to normal.

What this does is it disables local time machine backups, which are occasionally useful if you don't backup often, or if you don't have access to your backup drive for an extended period of time, and would like to restore a recently modified document. It often bugs out in various ways.


How to increase font size for Urdu Language?

In a Word document (or any other similar text) you just select the text and then go to the area where it gives the name of the font and the size and change the size.

For a web browser you probably  have to use the zoom function (View > Zoom In for Safari).

Urdu is no different than any other language as far as increasing the font size is concerned.


Time Machine won't backup with Mountain Lion Server

I kept getting Backup not available so before doing a tmutil setdest I unmounted the drive and manually mounted using mount_afp, that did the trick for me.


Keeping MacBook Pro on Sleep Mode for days

This is pretty close to my typical MacBook Air usage. Luckily, it seems that we're on track:

  For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time. An ideal use would be a commuter who uses her notebook on the train, then plugs it in at the office to charge. This keeps the battery juices flowing.

See Apple's page on laptop batteries for lots more information: apple.com

Keep in mind that MacBook batteries are estimated to live through around 1000 charge-discharge cycles before their max capacity drops to 80% (same source). Try to approximate the ideal scenario Apple describes, and avoid running the battery to near-zero between every charge.


set checkbox based on parameters in iWork Numbers

Unfortunately, cells formatted with as "Checkbox" type will not accept a formula in the current version of Numbers. (version 4.3 as of this posting)

One workaround is to use a formula such as this: =IF(ISBLANK(DateCell),"","✓" in the cell you wish to have the tick mark.  Of course, one can get much more creative than this, but it is a start.

The 'Check Mark', as it is called in the system can be found in the Character Viewer.


Frequent freezing and random reboots in iMac (2015) running Mojave

My friend, I noticed something similar with my iMac 14,2 made in 2013.   My iMac began to do kernel panics or reboot, denying me use of my machine.

I narrowed the problem down to the wireless, there appears to be a potentially exploitable bug involved, and the solution I have used for some years now is to simply turn off the wireless interface in network systems preferences.  This has afforded my the ability to use my machine without problems.

F.


I had the same problem.

The reason it's happening is that Apple is having a problem with their Australian download server. You can get around it by using a VPN to connect to somewhere in America, and then downloading Logic via the App Store as usual.

Alternatively, if you have Logic on another computer, you can copy it from the Applications folder - just drag and drop onto a USB thumb drive. Then drag it from the thumb drive onto the Applications folder of your new computer.


How can I diagnose a superdrive that won't read disks?

Try running the Apple Hardware Test.  If I remember right, reboot holding D.  If that doesn't work, reboot while holding D, with an OS X disk in.  Of course you'll need to have an external DVD drive for that to work.


Help troubleshooting Early 2009 Mac Pro (2x 2.66 GHz Quad Core) Fan Issues

After some research I discovered that the fans were blowing because I put a single CPU tray into a machine that originally had a dual CPU tray.  Apparently it doesn't like this mismatch and runs the fans full, as it thinks it has suffered failure of a CPU.


Cannot open sparsebundle to review Backups.backupdb

First, disable Time Machine backup. Then Try this: https://blog.davekoelmeyer.co.nz/2011/03/03/browse-a-time-capsule-disk-image-in-the-mac-os-finder/


iCloud sign-in asks for password of MacBook that's running my Fusion VM of OSX 10.11, then rejects the correct password. Fix?

This is a new authentication method. It really doesn’t have anything to do with your app or your VM - Apple is using another trusted device to prove you’re in control of the sign in request.
This all started around April 2017:

iPhone asks for Mac password (or Mac asks for iOS password)


iOS 10 people album: How to change the name of a person

To change the name:

Open the Person (tap Davr)
Tap their name in the top, center of the screen (Davr in bold)
Change it's value.


Removing all the custom GUI from the plugin solved the problem


Why is my site getting error reports from users with iOS7 on a MacBook?

Ruling out a possible hack to get iOS to run on a MacBook natively (which would get a lot of publicity), I can see the following options

Users didn't know enough about their system and just picked the things most likely (which means that you could have error reports from users with OS X 10.7 on a MacBook as well as from some with iOS7 on an iDevice mixed together)
One or the other is just the default option when filling in a bug report on wherever you are getting them from and people are lazy
Users have been accessing your site via the iOS simulator on OS X. Possible but rather unlikely (unless you have a very special site :-)


Display contents of file and also copy it to the clipboard

Just paste the clipboard into the terminal window-

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | pbcopy; pbpaste

or use tee in the pipe with process substitution

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | tee >(pbcopy)

or forget about using pipes altogether

pbcopy <~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub; pbpaste


Determine the exact date of creation of an Apple ID

You can request a copy of your data that Apple has (Apple ID account and Device Information) by visiting https://privacy.apple.com.  It can take up to 7 days to prepare the report and you will have up to 14 days once it's ready to download it before it's deleted.
You will need to login with your Apple ID, password and two-factor authentication token.  You will be able to select what data you wish to download.
Select Data to be downloaded...

You will then receive an email from Apple confirming the request...

When you Receive your report.
My report came in 4 days after the request. It was an email message that takes you to a secure Apple website (you must authenticate) and will allow you to download your report.
There were 3 files in mine.  The Apple ID & Account Information.csv is the file of interest.

After opening it in your application of choice (Excel or Pages is probably best), you will find a "Created Date" for your Apple ID in chronological order.  So, looking at mine, my ID was created 5/13/2009 (not the actual date, I changed it for this answer).  It includes the time as well; select the cell to see the time stamp.

Why so many entries?  Everytime you update something, your address, your credit card info, your sharing, etc. it creates an entry.  So, you may see many entries for the same Apple ID.
This report will provide you with every bit of information with respect to your Apple ID account info from creation to the last update.  A lot of columns were hidden for privacy, but I encourage you to explore the report(s) to see what data is collected.


Privacy fail? Spotlight shows the Safari pages read by other user accounts

If it is a bug rather than a setting, it's never going to get fixed in a 2-year-old OS, only in some future update.
It still does it in Yosemite, btw, just tested.

You could add all other users' home folders to the Privacy tab in Spotlight prefs - but this, of course, would require the complicity of each user.


Migrate files from OS 9 software and hardware to OS X

ftp.  osx hosts it, os9 goes in as client.

ever faithful, ever sturdy.


Can someone point me to resources to reverse engineer ancient Mac software?

"ResEdit" was the basic utility to inspect/edit resources such as images, video, and sound in Mac OS applications and games. It runs in Mac OS or Classic environments and can be downloaded from http://www.mac.org/utilities/resedit/

"ResFork" runs on OS X 10.2 and provides similar functionality to ResEdit.

Using ResEdit or ResFork you should be able to find the codec identifier. You can then usually work from the codec identifier to a video converter. Perhaps focusing on converters from the same timeframe as the application you are working with.

If you don't have a machine that can run a Mac Classic environment, then the emulator "SheepShaver" will be useful as a debug/reverse engineer environment. SheepShaver can be downloaded from: http://sheepshaver.cebix.net/


Is it ok to let Mac air run 24 full hours?

Yes of course. I had my MacBook running for a week once. And as long as you don't do any heavy tasks, such as rendering or video compression, you won't have any overheating issues.


Why /usr/local/bin is showing as a file in mac?

This is definitively not how it should be, but without a lot of additional analysis it's impossible to figure out what else is wrong. So to be on the safe said, I would

create two good, verified backups
do a clean install (not an upgrade)
restore Applications and user directories from Time Machine
install Homebrew from scratch.


How to increase max socket connections for Yosemite 10.10

So it turns out that the Go socketio library  has a default max setting of 1000 simultaneous socket connections. Calling server.SetMaxConnection(10000) (in conjunction with an appropriately high ulimit -n, as mentioned in the question) will allow > 1000 simultaneous client connections.


Can iCloud see apps I download if i use a different Apple ID for theApp Store

The logins are totally seperate. You can use one login for the app store and another for iCloud. There's no problems in that - iCloud wouldn't suddenly require the password for the App Store login or anything like that.


Can't login in Mac App Store or iCloud - login loading forever

NOTE: This solution is primarily meant for users of physical Apple devices, such as MacBooks, iMacs, Mac Pros, etc. While I will mention a link to a solution for virtual machine users as well, that is not the primary objective of this post. As such, that will not be posted here, for succinctness.

Also, while NVRAM (non-volatile RAM) does save certain settings and parameters for long-term, iCloud settings don't appear to be among the settings saved in NVRAM.

The solution will sound simple - but it's not. The full-out solution is a three-step process, which will force OS X to do the following:

Wipe the existing, problematic settings file(s), and force OS X to reproduce valid ones in there place.
(Re)Start the iCloud service and/or its required related Daemons.
Validate/rewrite (hardware) machine details if required.

We’ll start by deleting the following file (admin permission required):
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.apsd.plist

We’ll then ensure that the proper LaunchDaemons are running - in this case, Push Notifications. iCloud needs this running to operate. Enter the following into Terminal:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.apsd.plist

Finally, please check to make sure that your OS X device has a (valid) Serial Number. Whether it’s real or virtual machine, the Serial must be less than 12 chars - otherwise, iCloud -based services like FaceTime and iMessage won’t be able to sign in (or will ‘hang-up’ at sign in attempt). Check this in your Mac’s ‘About’ section. If you have either a NULL or invalid Serial Number, please do one of the following:

Either use your Apple Care/Warranty to contact Apple. Have them set your hardware Serial Number, seeing that they were supposed to do this when they were done servicing your machine.

OR

Use the following application to change this (if you can't go to Apple for any reason, and aren't worried about voiding the device's warranty). Please do NOT use this tool if you have Apple Care or would like to preserve your Apple Warranty:

Blank Board Serializer -
Downloadable from here:

http://rogersm.net/icloud-problems-mountain-lion-serial-number

Now, for those of you using a virtual machine, please go here to complete the third step (Serial Number reset). You'll need to generate a valid, new Serial Number that is NOT currently in-use:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/292170-how-to-spoof-real-mac-in-vmware/

That should fix any issues with iCloud sign in and use of its related services for El Capitan. Works for most physical Mac OS X devices and VMware Workstation installations.


How to take a full page screenshot in Mac OS Safari?

No plugins or anything needed - latest Safari (7, not sure from which version this works) can save to PDF. File -> Export as PDF... and you get entire page, images and all. And it's a lovely hi-res PDF.


I would advise using Activity Monitor to examine the CPU usage of the running processes. There's most likely a process taking up huge amounts of CPU-time responsible for slowing down the rest of the system.

When you have identified the process, decide whether to remove the program, look for updates, contacting the developer or otherwise rectify the issue.

Note: Right after installing Mojave the system will be slower than usually because it is creating Spotlight indexes, caches, and other types of one-off computations. Please wait a day or two for this to complete.


Make iTunes delete old listened podcasts (after a while)

The way to control Podcast longevity is built into iTunes (although the options are limited).

Select “Podcasts” in iTunes and the Settings button should be visible in the lower part of the iTunes window:


Two-factor authentication: why was I asked for my iPhone passcode after I entered the verification code?

Apple does not hold encryption keys to certain types of protected data held in iCloud such as passwords, health and home. You need to enter your passcode to allow this new device to decrypt your data.


Can't connect to shared folder on the network because the "original item can't be found"

Apple HFS filesystem tracks files according to a (hopefully) unique identifier instead of a path when it can.

The fastest way forward is to forget the old location / clear the recent history / and navigate to the shared folder and reconnect.

If you can't clear up the history, please post a screen shot of where you are seeing the "old" mount point and perhaps we can guide you there once more detail is provided. In the absence of detail, this general procedure is offered in hopes it helps you resolve things.


Has anyone had troubles with an iPhone 4's battery life failing after upgrading from iOS 6 to iOS 7?

There are a few reasons iOS 7.1 upgrade slows down your iPhone 4/4S.

http://www.imore.com/top-5-tips-speed-iphone-4-or-iphone-4s-running-ios-7

Background app refresh
Transparency and motion/Parallax

Have you tried disabling these?


Safari extension for adding arbitrary Javascript to a page?

The dotjs Safari extension sounds like it will do what you want. It injects the JavaScript (from your ~/.js directory) that is served up by a small, local Ruby web server from the original dotjs Chrome extension.


How to login to message app with different Apple IDs

Sorry, it appears that you cannot be logged into multiple accounts at once. You can use more than one with iMessage, but you will have to switch between them manually every time you want to use a different Apple ID. Here are a couple of questions that may help:

Multiple Apple ID in Messages.app

How to chat with multiple Apple ID's?


You can actually convert your WebM video directly in VLC:

Open the conversion screen with Shift-Cmd-S
Drag the WebM video into the screen
Select a target format your video editor supports
Click on "Save as file"

Afterwards open the generated file in the video editor of your choice.


The following official Apple article may be of help here: Find My iPhone Activation Lock

In short, try to reset the password using the appropriate links inside that article.  In the event that someone highjacked your iCloud account you used to enable Find My iPhone with and you cannot reset the password, you need to contact Apple to get this feature unlocked.

Before you do, please have the proof of purchase available, because that is what they most-likely ask you to send in.  As sad as it sounds, but this procedure (calling Apple to unlock the device) typically takes about 2+ business days to complete.


In Finder paste following in the Go To Folder

 ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/

Right click on the  Webpage Previews Folder and select- Get Info

In Get info window select Locked.

From now on Safari will not save Top pages in that folder any more.


MacBookPro crashed with pixel disturbed screen and 3beeps

There is most probably a problem with your RAM.
You can run a full test on the RAM with something like Memtest booted off a CD. See here for Mac instructions.

You may find just one RAM module is corrupt and you just need to replace or remove it. It might also be that the RAM has become unseated, try taking it out and putting it back in again to see if that is the case.


Why is my ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist "damaged"?

Mine bookmarks preview looks the same as yours; in finder or from terminal you do not have the rights to do something with. However, with Safari | Bookmarks | Edit Bookmarks you can do anything you need with it - deleting an item, renaming, modifying the address. If you need to export it, you can do it from File | Export Bookmarks... - and will be exported as .html (while you are in Edit page).


Something prevents me from reaching no space left on iPod

I don't know if this was available on iOS 9.5 but on iOS 11 there is an option to conserve space on ios devices. What this does is remove apps that you haven't used to make rooom for new apps or files. I suppose it only removes Apple Store apps since you can easily restore those. this sure sounds like what your iPod may be doing. On my iphone this is turned on by going to Settings/General/iPhone Storge. There is an option there to turn it on. To turn it off go to 'iTunes and App Store' and scroll down to Offload Unused Apps and turn it off there.


I think the best advice can be given by Apple:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

In a nutshell, don't store it at extreme temperatures, store it at 50% charge if it'll be off for a long time, use it occasionally (don't leave it plugged into the wall 24/7/365), or at the very least do a complete discharge every month or two, is my understanding of how best to treat it.

As to expected life, I'm seeing about 6 hours realistically on my MBPr (2.6GHz), with the screen brightness at something I can actually see.


Accidentally removed /usr/bin - is my Mac permanently damaged?

You cannot permanently damage your computer just by deleting files. At worst, you will render the OS non-functional.

Just run the macos installer of your choice that is the same version (or newer) as your current os. This will fix everything needed to boot your Mac and not overwrite any user settings or programs or files.

If you have deleted only /usr/bin, (NB: not /user, which does not exist) then you should be able to restore this from your backup. It's normally hidden in the Finder, so press Command Shift dot to show hidden files in the Time Machine window.

If you think you may have deleted other files and folders, you would be well advised to re-install the OS. You should be able to download it from the Mac App Store (depending on what version you're on), and then just launch the app. Your user files and preferences will be maintained.

Deleting system files is never a good idea: normally, you would have had to have bypassed a number of safety features and warnings to do this. If you want to ask another question about what you were trying to do, you may get an answer that provides a safer method.


Finder Plugins (was Launchd Configuration Puzzle)

You could try running EtreCheck on your Mac. It's a diagnostic tool that, amongst other things, will list all the kernel extensions, launch agents, launch daemons, user login items, internet plugins, Safari extensions, etc.

This might find something that you've missed.

Just as an example of the type of output you'll get, here is a partial entry from a scan of my MacBook Pro. It shows that I've removed applications but forgotten to remove the plist files that are still attempting to launch them.


Deleted symlink to /etc and now missing sudoers

Boot to Recovery Mode (cmd-R)
Open Terminal from the menubar Utilities > Terminal
Soft-link /private/etc to /etc on your main Volume:

ln -s private/etc /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/etc

Replace Macintosh\ HD with the name of your main volume (if your forgot it, just enter df or ls /Volumes/ and check for its name! Don't forget to escape blanks with a backslash.)


man -k and apropos cannot find pages in section 3 in Catalina

Saw a handy shell trick posted in Apple Discussions to get rid of the hundreds of error messages whenever doing a man -k or apropos type inquiry:

apo() { apropos "$@" 2> /dev/null; }

myman() { man "$@" 2> /dev/null; }

See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250812698 for the discussion.


How can I neglect a update in App Store?

Right-click on the update and choose Hide Update.

You have to right-click on the white background, not on the text, for the option to appear.

To unhide updates, choose Store → Show All Software Updates (only visible if you have a hidden update).


How is Screen Time calculated? Why is the calculated time seemingly longer than time spent on iPhone?

This is a bug on ios 14.
From an article on Medium.com:

...Turns out I’m not the only one seeing weird issues with screentime.
There doesn’t seem to be a correlation in regards to the iPhone model.
It also doesn’t seem to be a very common problem. However, others have
been reporting other odd screentime glitches. Some have reported their
screentime being inaccurately high with no app to blame. And others
are also reporting that their phone claims they’ve spent hours on
websites they’ve never visited.

My Screen Time claims that I was using my iPhone for 24Hours! (let's hope I wasn't...).

I have visited stackoverflow for about 1 minute, however, it's calculated as 24 hours.

Also, all apps were fully closed, no apps were running in the background.


The work E-mail address you entered is already associated with a different Apple ID. Please, try a different Work E-mail

You have two options if your company has no prior VPP set up.

Choose a different email string to register.
Log in to the email you wish to use at http://appleid.apple.com and change the ID/email to get off the one you wish to use for VPP.

The VPP portal does things to the AppleID you enroll that isn't handled/allowed for pre-existing accounts. Unless you can substitute a new email for the one you want, you're really bound to choose a new account.

Now, if you are trying to register a second VPP you will run into many different problems. First exhaust internal measures to recover that account or work with the holder of that AppleID.

In your case, the responsible person has left the company, have you contacted them to see if they turned it over to someone or left the password written down with their other papers?

If not, you have options:

Contact IT and explain you need to get access to the former employees email account. Offer to handle the password reset or provide them the Apple links and assist them if it's faster. I've brought a pie or brownies to ensure the IT staff are properly motivated to help me out. :-)
Have HR contact the employee and ask if they turned over the password to this account and arrange to have that information returned to the company. If that fails, contact legal and request return of the company property (the company VPP account).
If that fails, have these people write up their efforts and take that to your Apple Representative. If you don't have one, contact the local Apple Retail store and ask to speak with a business representative.

I've never seen a case where someone couldn't get control of an Apple ID, but you might need to do some work to prove you are now the rightful company contact to get traction. Working with people you can see in person or face time with is far easier than 1-800-APL-CARE in my experience, but even over the phone with the right data and patience, you can often get what you need or have your problem escalated appropriately to a person that can help you.


Upgrade iPhone 5 from iOS 7.0.4 to iOS 7.1.2

Apple have stopped signing any iOS 7 for any device that can run iOS 8.

As far as I am aware, you have no other choices than to stay on 7.0.4 or go to 8.0.2


Failed to Change Carrier-Logo on a jailbreaked iPhone 4 with iOS 5

The best suggestion I can give you is downloading Fake Carrier from Cydia. You can change the text, and use emoticons from Emoji as your carrier logo.

This is the best and probably the easiest way I've found so far.


How to avoid iTunes' "Do you want the application iTunes.app to accept incoming network connections?"?

El Capitan

Uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes is the only way I could solve this issue.

As this (battery-draining, maldesigned) page warns you, you can't just drag iTunes to the Trash. El Capitan will warn you that it's part of the OS. Get Info, clicking on the padlock, and giving everyone read+write permission will get over that.

The next step is to download it. Surprise: iTunes is not available on the App Store. But you can download a dmg just fine here.

After 5 minutes of use I can confirm the message no longer appears.

I can also confirm that the music collection appears unharmed.

Pre El Capitan

Thanks to owlswipe's hint, the solution follows.

In System Preferences, under Security & Privacy

Click "Firewall Options"

and allow incoming connections for iTunes.

It's not clear why "incoming connections" is an option for iTunes.


How to use rsync via ssh with IPv6 LLA (link local address) addresses on OSX?

The problem was with the OSX version of rsync. I don't know exactly what is the problem. It should be some of capabilities of rsync binary/version.

OSX version:

/usr/bin/rsync --version
rsync  version 2.6.9  protocol version 29
...
Capabilities: 64-bit files, socketpairs, hard links, symlinks, batchfiles,
              inplace, IPv6, 64-bit system inums, 64-bit internal inums

Installing a version from macports:

/opt/local/bin/rsync --version
rsync  version 3.1.2  protocol version 31
...
Capabilities:
    64-bit files, 64-bit inums, 64-bit timestamps, 64-bit long ints,
    socketpairs, hardlinks, symlinks, IPv6, batchfiles, inplace,
    append, ACLs, xattrs, iconv, symtimes, no prealloc, file-flags,
    HFS-compression

Although both have the IPv6 support, this 2.6.9 distributed with OSX doesn't work as expected.

With 3.1.2 I can use:

rsync -e ssh /src/dir/* user@[fe80::a:b:c:d%eth0]:/dst/dir

Thanks for helping.


How to rm /Volumes/Free when it is really free?

You tried the command given below.

/usr/bin/sudo rm -rf /Volumes/Free

Try entering the following.

sudo sh
/System/Library/Extensions/TMSafetyNet.kext/Contents/Helpers/bypass rm -rf /Volumes/Free
exit


You can make a find command :

sudo find /Volumes/YOUR_DD_NAME/* -name ".bashrc" -print; say finish

It's working for me with my .zshrc

Note that the command take a while, say finish is just more convenient ;)


How to use TeX Gyre fonts installed by TeX Live

In my installation (MacTeX 2012) the fonts seem to be located into /usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf-dist/fonts/, especially into the "opentype" and "truetype" folders.
If you can't find them, you can try running:

locate tex-gyre

Once you have located the fonts, to install them just copy them into ~/Library/Fonts (user-specific) or /Library/Fonts (system-wide).


What is the purpose of these Unix groups?

com.apple.sharepoint.group.1
com.apple.sharepoint.group.2

Directory Services.  These groups for for the permissions of sharepoints (not to be confused with Microsoft SharePoint); shared folders, volumes, drives, etc.

com.apple.access_ftp

FTP file sharing.  This defines the access rights/permissions for FTP (File Transfer Protocol).  It a long since deprecated protocol/service and you should be using scp instead.

com.apple.access_screensharing

Remote Screen Sharing.  This defines the access rights/permissions for screen sharing (or "remote control")


In order to change a user's expiration, in the Server.app you need to go to "Users", then make sure that "Local Network Users" are chosen (using "All Users" keeps that option greyed out).  Then highlight that user in question and from the cogwheel button below the list choose "Edit Password Policy".

There you will find all the "missing options" like password complexity as well as expiration for various reasons.


Macbook pro 2018 with Mojave overheating when connected to external monitor

The higher power GPU in some MacBooks Pro puts out a lot more wattage than the low power GPU.

The reason it gets so hot when hooked up to a monitor, even when you’re just running Word or Safari, is because the display outputs are hardwired to the dedicated GPU - if you’re using an external monitor, the dedicated GPU (graphic card) is in use regardless of how demanding the workload is. This puts more stress on the cooling system, resulting in higher-than-average temperatures ;)
Thats the reason. I tried all my 6 Macbook Pro's and all does the same behavior. Switching to the dedicated graphic card and you can't just use the integrated iris.


Wipe iphone, switch carriers, get new carrier-locked iphone, restore?

You will be able to restore the backup, especially if your old device wasn't jailbroken (if it is, some space might end up wasted due to the unofficial apps' preferences & files).

Even if you look to already expect this, remember the unlock won't carry over.


How to disable Bluetooth Sharing via terminal?

This is what I'm using for Yosemite:

First, grab $hardwareUUID:

hardwareUUID=$(/usr/sbin/system_profiler SPHardwareDataType | grep "Hardware UUID" | awk -F ": " '{print $2}')

Then loop through existing users and set to "Disabled"

for USER_HOME in /Users/*
  do
    USER_UID=`basename "${USER_HOME}"`
    if [ ! "${USER_UID}" = "Shared" ]
     then
      if [ ! -d "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences ]
       then
        mkdir -p "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences
        chown "${USER_UID}" "${USER_HOME}"/Library
        chown "${USER_UID}" "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences
      fi
      if [ ! -d "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences/ByHost ]
       then
        mkdir -p "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences/ByHost
        chown "${USER_UID}" "${USER_HOME}"/Library
        chown "${USER_UID}" "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences
        chown "${USER_UID}" "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences/ByHost
      fi
      if [ -d "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences/ByHost ]
       then
        /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :PrefKeyServicesEnabled"  "$USER_HOME"/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.$hardwareUUID.plist
        /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :PrefKeyServicesEnabled bool false"  "$USER_HOME"/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.$hardwareUUID.plist
        chown "${USER_UID}" "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.$hardwareUUID.plist
      fi
    fi
  done

If you just want the chunk that actually disables the value, see below:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Delete :PrefKeyServicesEnabled"  "$USER_HOME"/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.$hardwareUUID.plist
/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Add :PrefKeyServicesEnabled bool false"  "$USER_HOME"/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.$hardwareUUID.plist
chown "${USER_UID}" "${USER_HOME}"/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.Bluetooth.$hardwareUUID.plist


Where are you swiping?

Control Centre used to be a swipe up from the bottom, like on an iPhone, now it's a swipe down from top right, near the battery icon.


A forum post on Apple Support Communities points out that on iOS 10 it is possible to reduce the Podcasts app’s “Documents & Data” by temporarily removing the app:

  Good news for everyone that has been dealing with this issue - iOS 10 has a new feature that help resolve the Podcasts storage problem.

  One thing you can now do in iOS 10 is 'delete' stock apps from your device. It doesn't really delete the app, but it deletes the icon link from the apps and it also removes associated data and configuration files!  This means that deleting the Podcasts app will also delete the huge data file.

  Once removed, the Podcasts app can just be readded from the App Store, and the settings are instantly restored from your iCloud account.

( I realize this is an old question, but I stumbled upon it while trying to find out why the Podcasts app is using a few hundred megabytes worth of “Documents & Data” on my iPhone in addition to the storage it uses for downloaded podcast episodes, and I thought it was still worth providing an updated answer pointing out that on iOS 10 this can be more easily fixed. I haven’t been able to try this myself yet, as I am still on iOS 9. )

ONE THING TO NOTE:
Any podcasts you have downloaded, but are not subscribed to will be lost.


Where is this "other calendar" coming from on my iPhone

I believe this comes from the address book. If you add a vcard with birthday information, it gets synced to iCal in this calendar. And then it might be getting synced to your phone.


You should be able to list all user home folders on the backup by running

ls -l /Volumes/Time\ Machine/Backups.backupdb/*/Latest/*/Users/

in Terminal. This assumes your TM backup drive is called Time Machine, replace the name if it is called differently.


Slow login (Active Directory User + Filevault2) - Mountain Lion

Think I found an answer: https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=6025

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DSBindTimeout -int 8

Changes the bind timeout to 8 seconds. Our bind happens within 3-4 seconds over ethernet, so we figure double it and add an extra second should be enough for an absolutely unscientific unengineering-like guess.


For cmake the easiest way is to install the GUI from the .dmg - which you already have done.

For other users. To install the GUI mount the .dmg and then copy Cmake.app to /Applications (a link to that  is in the disk)

You can run the build from the GUI which asks for the source and target paths and the type of build system to be generated.

Or you can install the command line tools. Choose from the menu in the GUI  Tools->How to install for command line use. This provides instructions on what to do. These are basically telling you where the cmake executable is so that you can add that directory to your PATH

I do use the GUI as it allows easier control of where things are and which build system to generate.


Password field in cleartext inside VPN Apple Mobile profiles

Apparently, from the mobile configuration file, it is enough to go the user definition:

<key>XAuthName</key>
<string><<LOGIN>></string>
<key>XAuthPassword</key>
<string><<PASSWORD>></string>

And from there, delete the XAuthPassword key and string/attribute.

As XAuthName is there during the deployment, the password will be asked, as thus wont be in cleartext format inside the provisioning file.


Macbook pro late 2011 can support 16GB 1600Mhz RAM

Apple MacBook Pro "Core i7" 2.4 15" Late 2011

Standard RAM:   4 GB    Maximum RAM:    16 GB*

Details:    4 GB of RAM is installed as two 2 GB modules, no slots free.

*Apple officially supports a maximum of 8 GB of RAM, but third-parties have determined that this model actually is capable of using up to 16 GB of RAM with two 8 GB memory modules.

Speed:  1333 MHz

Details:    Supports 1333 MHz PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM.

So buying 1600Mhz wont do much, just waist of money.

Shop here: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_1333MHz_SDRAM

Learn how to here (video): http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/macbook-pro-unibody-faq/macbook-pro-13-15-17-mid-2009-how-to-upgrade-ram-memory.html


I was having audio issues with soundflower causing digital noise once I got it working.  This work around may help your issue too.

A friend suggested an idea that he had been shown. Setup soundflower as a midi simultaneously with your regular output. Therefore instead of routing through soundflower for your output (which seems to cause the issue), it routes each as their own output. So far seems to be working on my recording meters without the overdrive static. Here is the how to on this.

Also, if you are looking for more control I found software from Prosoft that allows for audio adjustment using hear or individual app volume control through hear or soundbunny.


How to seamlessly switch between spelling languages in Mail?

I have just spent some time with Mountain Lion after I added a custom dictionary (Afrikaans) to the ~/Library/Spelling folder (.dic and .aff).

Findings:
- If I set the "Spelling" in "System Preferences -> Language and text -> Text" to Afrikaans, the Afrikaans spell check works great.
- If I set the "Spelling" to "Automatic by language" detection between English and Afrikaans it does not work correctly. It never recognises Afrikaans, checks everything as English.

So in mail.app the only workable option seems to be to set it up to check email upon sending, and to select the language at the bottom of the pop-up box.

Alternatively buy Postbox, where you can install a Thunderbird dictionary and select the language manually. But Postbox is not doing retina displays (yet) - it looks awful at the moment on retina.


Unable to completely uninstall Zoom meeting app

Apple will remove this for you if you have enabled keep system files updated.

https://eclecticlight.co/2019/07/10/apple-has-pushed-an-update-to-mrt-to-remove-zooms-hidden-web-server/

sudo softwareupdate --background-critical

https://tidbits.com/2016/03/30/make-sure-youre-getting-os-x-security-data/

To check your MRT Configuration Data updates, you can do that as well. Version 1.54 is the version that wrangles ~/.zoomus

system_profiler SPInstallHistoryDataType | grep -A 5 MRTConfigData

The remainder of this article applies to double check Apple and/or force removal and understand a bit more on what is running under the hood.

An installer that clears out this program that used to be installed is available - so you can clean manually as before below if you don't want to have zoom (or uninstalled it already).

If you want to use the software, just update or install the version from 9 July 2019 - https://zoom.us/download#client_4meeting

Before 9 July, the zoom installer was indistinguishable from malware in that it installs files and folders not part of a system manifest before the installer is approved to run. Then this “hidden” process opens a network port for a command and control server to receive requests and not ask the user before installing software or start up the camera and microphone. This listener can also re-install the main zoom program. I know the company says it's goal is to help users, but why not document this and get opt in from the computer admin account before taking these actions?

Until the vendor has a proper uninstaller, you should also delete and put a file in place to prevent the Zoom app from re-installing this persistent agent.

rm -r ~/.zoomus
touch ~/.zoomus

The first command recursively removes the process that listens on port 19421 and the second prevents the current installer from re-installing this "agent" if you choose to not uninstall the app. Once the above steps are done, you should restart your Mac if you're not comfortable finding and killing the web server that listens on the port 19421.

We have tested this fairly rigorously, and removing this process - killing it and blocking it has no effect on the desirable function of the app, so if you need zoom or want to use it - cleaning this up to prevent A privacy breach or unintended reinstall is encouraged.


Can't move items to Trash – resistant to usual fixes

Filesystem errors that bedevil daily use... grrr... I had something similar to that and nothing I did: repairing the disk, using DiskWarrior and some of the tricks you tried, did a thing.

Finally I got fed up and backed up the drive, deleted the partition and recreated it and reformatted it. Problem went away. If you asked me what caused it I couldn't tell you, but backing up a drive that was basically an internal backup drive so I could re-partiton was almost as annoying as living with the problem.


How to prepend a character to start of each line in 250,000+ line file using a script?

Prepend each line of a file with a capital A and write a new file-

awk '{print "A"$0}' < FILE > NEWFILE


If you can find an old copy of Billings (pre Pro), that still works without the subscription, I would grab that. I've been using my copy for the last 5 years with no need to switch to the subscription model. A quick google and I found this: http://billings.en.softonic.com/mac but I don't personally know this site.