Moving hard drives from one Mac to another

To save any potential issues with firmware changes over the years, make sure the new Mac is running the same or newer macOS as the old one was.

Mojave, for instance installed a firmware update to many machines at the time. I'm not certain this would cause any real issues if it wasn't present, but it would save any uncertainty.

Once you've done that, then yes - as the Mini Server is pre-T2 security - you should be able to simply swap out the drives with no ill-effects whatsoever.

if you have an external UDB dock that would take your system HD & the new machine's 750GB SSD, I'd consider using something like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the HD to SSD, for the added speed.


Reformatted Windows HDD shows up twice in Disk Utility

They aren’t two separate drives, they are two different partitions on the same drive.  You need to repartition the drive so that there’s only one partition.
If you issue the command:
% diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskX 1 GPT JHFS+ “New Name” 100%

Will wipe the entire drive with a single partition using a GPT partition scheme and format it with the Journaled HSF+ (macOS) format.
If you issue the command diskutil partitionDisk without any arguments, you will get the following help info:
diskutil partitionDisk MountPoint|DiskIdentifier|DeviceNode
        [numberOfPartitions] [APM[Format]|MBR[Format]|GPT[Format]]
        [part1Format part1Name part1Size part2Format part2Name part2Size
         part3Format part3Name part3Size ...]


Any way to stop creating 'TV' folder in ~/Movies on macOS Catalina

Short answer? Yes and no.

You can tell TV.app to change where it will store its library by opening the app, going into preferences and then under Advanced choosing a new location. This may not move the current folder, but will create a new one in a location that you prefer, so you can freely get rid of the one under ~/Movies/TV.

However, if you don't have a TV.app library, and never open the app, then once you delete the folder it should stay gone. Of course if you do open the app, it will be recreated, this may also occur if you enable home-sharing for that account, even if you're only sharing music.


How can I get Safari to open in desktop instead of its own space?

I assume you are having problems with the full-screen feature which was introduced in lion.


How do I revert the default mail client back to Mail from GMail?

This can be disabled in Google Chrome. Go to Settings, then select "Show Advanced Settings..." at the bottom of the page. Click "Content Settings", and click "Manage Handlers" under the "Handlers" heading. Under "Active protocol handlers", change mailto to "None".

Then go into Mail.app and into Preferences -> General, and make sure "Default E-mail Reader" to "Mail"


How do I recover a HFS+ journaled drive?

DiskWarrior 4. It will run you $99. I've used DiskWarrior for several years and I'm very pleased with the results.

Data Rescue 3. $99. Similar to DiskWarrior, just an alternative program. Never used it before, but I've heard some good things about it. It's also sold in the Apple Store which gives it a lot of credibility.


How can I map keyboard keys to mouse axes in Terminal?

You could also use KeyRemap4MacBook.

You can assign other keys to the mouse key actions by creating a private.xml. The test folder has an XML file with all the predefined remappings.


Is there a way to throttle nsurlsessiond/cloudd?

This is not a throttling solution, but can alleviate some problems.

Use Activity monitor, Network tab to find out the PID of nsurlsessiond with User _nsurlsessiond.

In Terminal, run

sudo kill -STOP 1234

where 1234 is the PID you found above.

When you want to run it,

sudo kill -CONT 1234

Make sure you got the correct PID and not stop other crucial processes.


Does Little Little Snitch 4 block connections during login?

From Little Snitch itself…

Login Connections
While no user is logged in or a login is in progress, Little Snitch
cannot display Connection Alerts. It therefore creates suggestions for
all connection attempts that occur during that time.
See the Little Snitch Help, chapter Rule suggestions for more
information.

& detail from just the first entry in that table…

On 27 10 2019, ARDAgent tried to establish a connection to
100.102.5.131. The request was denied automatically during login.

So, yes, it will block attempts by default until you edit the suggestions into actual approved rules.


How can I get telnet on my macbook pro with High Sierra

I searched through Apple support forums and found an answer that I believe will help others reinstall ftp and telnet on Mac High Sierra.

Navigate to www.gnu.org/software/inetutils/
Click on the HTTP download link for "Inetutils"
Download "inetutils-1.9.4.tar.gz"
tar zxvf inetutils-1.9.4.tar.gz

Direct ftp site -> http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/inetutils/

cd inetutils-1.9.4
./configure
make
sudo make install

telnet x.x.x.x port

I found the answer at this forum
https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/79056


You probably now have two versions of git installed. If you type

which git

in the Terminal, it should tell you which one is in your PATH. For me, the above command returns

/usr/local/bin/git

The instructions you mention apparently install another copy of git here: /usr/local/git/bin/git

You need to add this new location to your PATH variable. To do so, navigate to your home directory and edit your .bash_profile by typing

cd
edit .bash_profile

and add the following line to it:

export PATH="/usr/local/git/bin:$PATH"

Save the file, open a new Terminal window and try typing git --version again. Hopefully, it should now run the newest version.


Created a second OS X partition, erased the first, now can't delete old partition

If the machine still boots, go to the App store and "purchase" Yosemite (its free).  Now boot the machine holding COMMAND R and boot to internet recovery.  If you see a poorly animated spinning globe instead of an Apple logo then you are on the right track.  Now you have can reformat the whole drive and do a clean install of Yosemite.


It's not natively supported in the iBook app to zoom or change text size of .ibooks files

However I found a way to zoom in. It's maybe not the most elegant solution. But it can be very useful. I also suggest you play with the Zoom settings to get the mode that's best for you.

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Accessibility, and then click Zoom.
Select “Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom.”

To zoom in use alt + cmd + =
To zoom out use alt + cmd + -


Early 2013 MBP Retina 15 won't boot unless Thunderbolt -> Ethernet dongle plugged in

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and often requires patience. This means trying things one by one until you get to the bottom of the problem.

The next two things I would try are running an Apple Diagnostics Test and also booting into Safe Mode. See below.

1. Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your MBP
Disconnect the Thunderbolt > Ethernet dongle
Restart your MBP
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

Note: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete. If that still doesn't work, connect the Thunderbolt > Ethernet dongle and try following the above steps again (but skip Step 2).

Regardless, take a note of what happens.

2. Boot into Safe Mode

Follow the steps boot your MBP into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your MBP
Disconnect the Thunderbolt > Ethernet dongle
Restart your MBP
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. could you boot your MBP or not)
To exitSafe Mode just restart your Mac as normal

Once you've run the diagnostics and tested a boot into Safe Mode, let me know how you went and we'll go from there.


Can I change the button "m" with space bar?

To make this work you have to use a third party tool: Karabiner.

I propose to use one of the option keys though: usually one of both is rarely used and you can use M as normal key.

Download, install and open Karabiner
Open in the menulet Karabiner -> Preferences
Enter "Space"

Enable the chosen keycode and close the window.


There is an exact guide offered by copytrans (mentioned in the previous answer) which shows how to transfer iphone contacts to Outlook on a PC: http://www.copytrans.net/support/how-to-transfer-iphone-contacts-to-outlook/


⇧ shift ⌥ alt ↓ selects to the end of the paragraph. This works in your first example because the document contains a single paragraph.

The correct combination for selecting to the end of the document is either ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd ↓ or ⇧ shift end, depending on that particular application’s shortcut for scrolling to the end of the document.

Correspondingly, selecting to the beginning of the document is ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd ↑ or ⇧ shift ↖ home.

And finally selecting to the start of the line is ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd ←, and to the end of the line ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd →. Using ⌥ alt instead of ⌘ cmd selects the previous/next word, respectively.


macOS Sierra comes with SIP (System Integrity Protection) which protects all important files from getting removed. So an additional tagging is not really necessary.

In finding disk space hogs some of the answers to How can I figure out what's slowly eating my HD space? might be helpful.


4G signal on phone, but showing LTE on my MacBook

Reading about 4G vs LTE, I found LTE includes 4G. So, technically it's correct.

And sometimes, even it shows 4G on my MacBook, it's still slow. It seems to be just the naming.


There is nothing to fix

What you measure are hardware and software differences.

The 2 iPhones you compare have a different internal density of components
and different radio hardware.
With higher density of components a lot of internal reflections
occurs very near from the emitting source of radio frequency. Then the
interferences caused by these reflections have a heavy impact on the
signal / noise ratio of the radio signal.

  To give you an image of what happens with short distance reflections
  just stick a large plane of plastic in front of a speaker and compare
  the sound quality with the speaker you left free.

Recommandations to make correct measures

If you would like to improve your comparison of hardware and software
performance in the WI-Fi field, I would suggest to remove any internal source
of load:

Stop all automatic update:

Settings > General > Software Update > Automatic Updates: Off
Stop AirDrop:

Settings > General > AirDrop: Receiving Off
Stop Handoff:

Settings > General > Handoff: Off
Stop Wi-Fi calling:

Settings > Phone > Wi-Fi Calling: Off
Stop iTunes Wi-Fi Sync:

On your Mac, iTunes disable the automatic syncing of your iPhones
  and the backup on Wi-Fi.


My OS closes down after 5 seconds of inactivity (with the alert pop-up)

That window appears if you hit the power button, maybe your power button is faulty and thinks you are hitting it. This also would explain why this problem "auto-solved" itself without you doing anything (i.e. there was some dirt "triggering" the click, and it went away).


Starting VLC from command line always puts the window behind other windows

If you wish to use command-line to:

open a media file with VLC player

or

simply launch VLC player

simply execute the following in the terminal emulator of your choice, respectively for above cases:

open file.mp4 -a VLC
open -a VLC

where file.mp4 is the media file that you wish to open.

This will always cause the VLC media player window to show on top.


Mid-2010s Kernel Panic GPU - best options?

Suggested problem tracing /and repair) steps (after each test the performances).

Vacuum clean the inside of your Mac to improve cooling.
Google and Install gfxCardStatus, Leave on Dynamic Switching. From there it will Monitor and Alert you to what apps switch you to the Nvidia Graphic Card.
Also open the Activity monitor - Energy tab, where you can see when the Nvida card kicks in, and does it switch on/off irregularly.
Monitor your Console log for irregular (fast)GPU switching.
Do some hardware testing:

  GpuTest is a cross-platform (Windows, Linux and Max OS X) GPU stress
  test and OpenGL benchmark. GpuTest comes with several GPU tests
  including some popular ones from Windows'world (FurMark or TessMark).

This test might help you decide to replace the card.


Cydia apps gone after install and respring

Go into Safe Mode using a tweak or by rebooting whilst holding volume up. Once booted, open Cydia and uninstall Overboard, then respring. If the icons still don't show, ssh into your device as mobile and run uicache then respring.


Screen recording not working on iPadOS 13?

Check how much free storage space do you have available on your iPad. If your iPad is low on storage space, screen recording and video capture via the camera app is disabled by iOS.
You can check for the amount of free storage space available on your device by going to Settings app → General → iPad Storage.
You can re-enable screen recording by freeing up space on your iPad which could be done via the iPad Storage section.


If I update a podcast episode on my server, when does it get updated on Apple Podcasts?

Apple hosts a directory, Apple does not host the files of podcasts.
If you update the file of a podcast on your server, but do not indicate that you've updated it in your RSS feed, then only new downloaders will get the new file (obviously).  If you update your RSS feed to indicate that there is a new file, then many podcast catchers will figure out they need to re-download the file.  Others will simply list it as a new file again.


How to cancel iCloud Storage Subscription without IOS, OSX or Windows device?

If you can borrow a computer or iOS device, you can use that to sign into iCloud and then change to settings that way. This is probably the only way to do it yourself without calling Apple directly and seeing if they will do it for you.

Apple devices will have iCloud software already installed, but for Windows machines, you would need to download the iCloud software and install it - https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204283

Other than installing a VM running Windows, there is no iCloud software for Linux.


Terminal command to change screenshot save location:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location "/path/to/new/location"

Put your desired screenshot path between the double quotes as it is required if any spaces exist in the location path! Locations without a space will still be executed properly.

Example path with a space in new path:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location "/Users/YourUserHomeFolder/Pictures/Screen Shots"

So no one is confused, the ~ character is a shortcut character symbol for your user's home folder. Other answers/sites might use this symbol.

Example:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location "~/Pictures/Screen Shots"

The above defaults command will change the location screenshots are saved. The only problem is the path location must always be available or else it'll default back to the Desktop.

Example scenario: If you set the path to a removable volume such as a flash drive at /Volume/USBFlashDrive and remove it, or the location for some reason becomes unavailable from perhaps deleting, it'll revert back to its default location.

The only thing you'll need to change is the /path/to/new/location. This can be found from Finder by right clicking on your chosen folder. Then, after the context menu appears, hold the option key to change Copy "..." to Copy "..." as Pathname, so you can paste it into Terminal as the replacement for the example path provided above.


Exchange contacts not syncing with iPhone 5

This did the trick for me:

Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Exchange
Turn Contacts on
Go into the App called Contacts and select Groups
Select All Exchange, Contacts and Suggested Contacts

After doing that, all the and the names of my contacts came back for recent calls and messages.


Does using a transparent screen protector for the face and the back of the iPhone 4 have drawbacks?

In the end, the worth of a case/screen protector is entirely up to you.

The iPhone 4/4S screen is incredibly durable, and without a protector, I've had mine since the release of the 4S and it's only got the smallest micro-buffs in the screen (you really have to be looking at them to see it).

I'd say the only real good reason for protection of any kind is to protect your device from drops. Being that they're a specially treated glass, if you drop it from a sizeable distance, they'll more than likely shatter.


How do I disable Bonjour visibility after Yosemite install?

There is no more com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist in OS X 10.10.  The service that controls mDNSResponder is now discoverd. The plist file you are looking for is actually:

/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.discoveryd.plist

You want to add --no-multicast to the ProgramArguments in that file.

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
            <string>/usr/libexec/discoveryd</string>
            <string>--udsocket</string>
            <string>standard</string>
            <string>--loglevel</string>
            <string>Basic</string>
            <string>--logclass</string>
            <string>Everything</string>
            <string>--logto</string>
            <string>asl</string>
    </array>

Becomes

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
            <string>/usr/libexec/discoveryd</string>
            <string>--udsocket</string>
            <string>standard</string>
            <string>--loglevel</string>
            <string>Basic</string>
            <string>--logclass</string>
            <string>Everything</string>
            <string>--logto</string>
            <string>asl</string>
            <string>--no-multicast</string>
    </array>

You'll want to be very careful when editing that file. You can also use this script to do it for you - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MacMiniVault/Mac-Scripts/master/disablebonjour/disablebonjour.sh


Can I use a jailbroken iPhone on Virgin Mobile?

No. Virgin Mobile is a part of Sprint (they used to be a Sprint MVNO). Sprint uses CDMA, not GSM, so they do not have SIM cards.

So, no iPhone on Sprint at least until Apple makes a CDMA iPhone and sells them for Sprint.


Text deselecting when using Logitech mouse scroll wheel in Sierra

TL;DR
Not really a final answer, but as a workaround, to select long texts, you can

make the initial selection
release the mouse button
scroll to the destination
press Shift + mouse click/hold again, to finish the selection.

Just sharing my findings, since I'm also annoyed with this issue: as Dolan Antenucci commented, uninstalling LCC will normalize the behavior of hold-mouse-left-button combined with scrolling, but at the cost of losing mouse customization. Not an option for me.
Curiously, I've been searching and searching for hours, and seems no one else here is complaining about this. The closest I could find was a report of a bug in a UI framework written in Python, but so close in behavior that for a second (or a couple, or more ;-)) I had to question myself if it's really a coincidence (I now, I now..).
See https://github.com/kivy/kivy/issues/5058
There they describe (almost?) exactly what I believe is happening here: Scrolling generates a mouse up event for previously pressed button.
To verify, you can try this: on a browser, press and hold the right button. Then move the mouse over an option of the pop-up menu (say, "back"), then scroll the wheel. The option is selected, as if you had released the button.
The same is occurring with text selection. Do this: with mouse left-click-and-hold, select some text, "freeze any mouse movements" (explain later), then scroll down (but not too much, keep the already selected text visible). The text that remains selected is only the one who was selected just before the scroll movement (as if you had released the button just before start scrolling). Then stop scrolling, hold shift, and do some mouse movement. In response to the smallest move, the text between is automatically added to the selection, and after this you can even release the shift, no matter anymore, go keep moving the mouse (provided that you don't move the scroll) to continue tuning selection. This is exactly what should have happened if you had released the button just before start scrolling (aka mouse up event), do some scroll, then pressed/hold shift, and next clicked/hold again the mouse button, to do the final mouse selection movements.
The only catch is that, if while holding the button and after some scrolling (who "wrongly" generated a mouse button up event), you do any mouse movement, in response to this move, (maybe in an attempt) to honor the fact that the you are still holding the button, the system immediately generates a mouse button down event.
That's why you think the scroll de-selects the text: normally, when someone do some scroll to add selection, do without moving the mouse, but tends to make some final mouse movements after the scroll, tu adjust the end of the selection. Try holding the button, make some selection thru moving, freeze mouse movement, scroll (keep freezing), release button, move mouse (note, the selection don't go away), then shift + click/hold, when the mouse reach the destination point. Since you released the button just before restarting mouse movements, when you do the new moves, the system will not generate a mouse button down event, once there is no need to "honor" this state (after all, the button is already up).
It's not the scroll who de-selects the text: it's the mouse movement, after scrolling, while keeping the mouse button down.
I think it's an attempt to maintain/regain system consistency, since the last info passed thru was, essentially, wrong: the mouse button up event, as a consequence of a scroll movement, should never been occurred.
I'm going to report this to logitech, maybe if presented with some more tech explanation they will fix the problem. (God, is so painful to use they site send a simple message, anyone knows a easier way?)


How to export and read .txt files using iPhone?

One solution would be to use Dropbox or iCloud to hold/sync your notes and read them with a simple text editing or note taking app. I use Byword.


How can I create bash_profile and bashrc

Open Terminal and enter:

touch ~/.bash_profile
touch ~/.bashrc

To edit the file(s) use:

nano ~/.bash_profile
nano ~/.bashrc

Instead of nano you can use any decent text editor (e.g. BBEdit, TextWrangler).

To immediately enable any changes in the file .bash_profile use source:

source ~/.bash_profile


Port Forwarding From a Shared Connection

valid until 10.7, natd is deprecated in 10.8 and above but should still work

A solution found here:

First use "ifconfig" to see how the wireless and ethernet interfaces are called.
Probably the wireless interface is "en1" and the (shared) ethernet interface is "bridge0".

IP-settings of the "other device":

  IP address: 192.168.1.x (x ≠ 0,1,2,other used last octets in the 192.168.1- network),255)
  IP netmask: 255.255.255.0
  IP gateway: 192.168.1.2
  IP DNS server: 192.168.1.2

Mac OS X has no direct GUI option to configure port forwarding. However, you can create a shell script as follows (open terminal and create a script called osx_fw.sh):

#!/bin/bash
# http port forwarding with mac os x
killall -9 natd
sleep 5
# The following will forward 80 port to desktop computer located at 192.168.1.x
# 192.168.0.2 => airport IP
# 192.168.1.x => Desktop client ip
#  natd provides a Network Address Translation facility for use with divert(4) sockets under FreeBSD.
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/usr/sbin/natd -alias_address 192.168.0.2 -interface en1 -use_sockets -same_ports -unregistered_only -dynamic -clamp_mss -enable_natportmap -natportmap_interface bridge0 -redirect_port tcp 192.168.1.x:80 80 -l

Make the script executable:

chmod +x osx_fw.sh

Simply run this script whenever you need to forward ports:

sudo ./osx_fw.sh

Depending on your system you probably have to setup or modify some firewall rules.

since 10.8

check this answer


How do you "select-all" in Apple Calendar (iCal)?

I cannot use command + a in the "day" section. But, if you want to select specific events, hold down command and click on the events you want to copy or do whatever.


What OS X app can I use for wireframing?

If money isn't an issue, or one that you can wrestle with, then I don't think there is really any better tool for this than OmniGraffle by the Omni Group. It doesn't come with interface elements by default, but there is a freely-available extensive library of options on their site Graffletopia.


MacBook Pro 2016: Keyboard key stuck – how to remove key?

Yes, it is possible to remove the keys safely and clean them.

But first, it is important to know how it looks below the keycap in order to not damage anything:

The key cap is attached to the mechanism by two claws and two hooks. the hooks (left side of the image) are at the bottom of the cap and they would break if you lever up the cap from there. The top side is held by claws (right side of the image) which can be unclipped.

The butterfly mechanism has a round surface on both sides that touch the whole button cap. That is where the problem comes from: since there is a big contact area it can stick together easily (fluids) or become clogged. I actually spilled whine into my keyboard and many keys were affected, but I did not break a single one doing it as follows. You will have to lever the top side of this mechanism up, gently, to unattach the keycap.

So, just be careful and do exactly as described below!

First, take a thin tool (a needle works fine, but I guess a thin plastic tool is better), squeeze it into the gap above the key and gently lever it up, until you can reach below the rim of the cap with a second tool or your fingernail.
The first tool will likely be under the butterfly hinge which is why you have to release that one and make sure you are only just under the cap with the second one (short fingernail is the safest option). Now lever up (with the second one/your fingernail!) until it pops of with a slight clicking sound.
Now you have to untangle the hooks at the bottom side. Hold up the top side just a bit and very gently wiggle the key around, left right up down, until it is loose. Do this really gently! It should not make a clicking sound or anything since it isn't really attached to the hinge!
I mostly just cleaned the top side of the hinges with my finger or a soft cloth, but you can reach underneath the hinges, if necessary, with a fine brush.
To reattach the keycap, slide the hooks underneath the cap back into place from bottom to top. Then press the key (slightly upwards, that is in the direction of the screen, so that the hooks stay in place) until the top clips back in again.

There you go.


Retina displays
To user Philip Schiller's own words from the WWDC2012:

...which means: The pixels of this display are so small that from a
normal working distance your retina cannot discern those individual
pixels. (watch at youtube)

There is no industry standard for "retina display". The term retina display is relative, as the definition follows the human eyes's perception of a display's sharpness.
When the iPhone 4 was introduced, Steve Jobs made the following definition:

At a distance of 10" to the human eye (or retina), a pixel density of 300PPI is the maximum that an eye can distinguish.

Because this definition is relative, calling a display a retina display depends on two factors:

pixel density
distance between the human eye an the display

Both the iPhone 4S and the new iPad have "retina displays" when you apply Steve Job's definition. A mathematical explanation can be found in this answer.


Mail sent on iPhone via Safari or Twitter or other apps is never received, but email sent from within Mail is fine

I thought I had tried this before, but powering off and restarting the phone has fixed everything.


difference between disk size in console vs disk utility

You should be comparing Disk Utility with df -H. Mac OS X has been reporting disk space in base 10 since Snow Leopard.


Macbook resetting itself when playing a game

I figured it out, just do an SMC reset on your MacBook Air.


Macbook late-2008 and Samsung SSD 830: what happened

Since I cannot directly comment on your question (too little reputation) I'll do it this way by answering it (I know that this is not a real answer, so please forgive me). I'll just cover the supplement of your question.

I'm using a Samsung SSD 840 PRO in my MacBook Pro (Late 2011 model) without any problems. When installing the SSD I had the same problems as you described, namely "Can't download the additional components to install Mac OS X" during the installation process. For me it helped to download the Mountain Lion installer (or use a copy on another mac) and build the USB disk with the DMG file that is contained in the Mountain Lion installer (this should also work with the Lion installer I guess). Here it is described how it works.

The reason why this is working is that the USB stick  contains all of the necessary data to install (Mountain) Lion whereas the solution given by Apple misses a lot of files that have to be downloaded from the web at the time of installation and the the download failed for me somehow. I'm not sure how you build your USB stick but if you used the way suggested by Apple you should give the other way of doing it a try.


How to mirror an application window in a second display?

You can use an application like tmux within which you can run your first terminal session (on first display), and then open a different terminal window on the second display and use tmux attach-session to mirror the session that is already running on the first display. This should allow you to run and view commands from both the displays.

Note that this technique is only useful for mirroring the terminal and no other GUI program.


Removing news headlines from Spotlight Search in iOS 9

I think it's a matter of turning off "Spotlight Suggestions" in the General > Spotlight Search preference pane, but leaving "Siri Suggestions" on? It's buried in the list!


Mac App mysteriously remembers deleted settings

The app is pefectly innocent, this is an issue with preference caching on Mavericks.

What finally worked was running defaults delete $app_id, so in my case:

defaults delete net.conceited.Linkinus

Source: Deleting plist file does not reset app on Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks on StackOverflow


How do I set the static library path in OS X Lion?

The normal command line is to use the -L option to add the path to the library search

g++ functions.cpp -L/opt/local/lib -lhdf5 -lsiloh5 -lz


Display arrangement gets reset after connecting to a different external display

macOS fails to preserve my monitor layouts too. I wrote a tool called displayplacer that lets describe your monitor layout as a terminal command. I then use BetterTouchTool to execute these profiles via hotkeys. Create a profile for your layout with the docking station and then execute the profile after you plug in.

For example, on my 4 monitor setup at home I have this profile: displayplacer "id:A46D2F5E-487B-CC69-C588-ECFD519016E5 res:3840x2160 hz:60 color_depth:8 scaling:off origin:(0,0) degree:0" "id:F466F621-B5FA-04A0-0800-CFA6C258DECD res:1440x900 color_depth:4 scaling:on origin:(-1440,1437) degree:0" "id:4C405A05-8798-553B-3550-F93E7A7722BB res:1440x2560 color_depth:8 scaling:off origin:(3840,-363) degree:270" "id:18173D22-3EC6-E735-EEB4-B003BF681F30 res:1920x1200 color_depth:8 scaling:off origin:(960,-1200) degree:0"

Also available via Homebrew brew tap jakehilborn/jakehilborn && brew install displayplacer


"Unknown error" when unlocking AppleID account

This looks like a problem only Apple can solve. You can contact Apple Support through https://getsupport.apple.com/, it may need some patience to navigate through the structure there til you get to a phone/email contact.


There are various options to mass rename files on MacOS:

Automator, Apple Script
Third-party Applications (Metamorphose2, Name Changer, Inviska Rename, A Better Finder Rename, Renamer, File Renamer, ...)
Terminal

I'll go with the terminal option here.

Install HomeBrew if you don't have it already.
From your Terminal, enter: brew install rename
From your Terminal, go to the folder where all your files to be renamed are
Enter the two commands below. The first one is for your Example1 case. The second one for your Example 2 case.

Note: Those two commands will not affect your file names. Their only purpose is to check.

rename -n 's/^([^""]+)( )(\d{2})-(\d{2})-(\d{4})(.*)$/$5-$4-$3 $1$6/' *

rename -n 's/^(\d{2})-(\d{2})-(\d{4})(.*)$/$3-$2-$1$4/' *

You should get results similar to:

'Statement 01-07-2019' would be renamed to '2019-07-01 Statement'

'01-07-2019 Statement' would be renamed to '2019-07-01 Statement'

After you checked everything is ok, remove the -n option to effectively rename your files:

rename 's/^([^""]+)( )(\d{2})-(\d{2})-(\d{4})(.*)$/$5-$4-$3 $1$6/' *

rename 's/^(\d{2})-(\d{2})-(\d{4})(.*)$/$3-$2-$1$4/' *


MacBook Pro 15 (early 2011) display panel joint is broken, can I get a replacement?

Yes - Apple runs a repair service through AppleCare although the DIY parts are few to none on that model. You can also buy parts from Apple Authorized Service Providers and they are more willing to hand out parts (usually for a price). I'd start with Apple and go from there to AASP and then perhaps third party providers.

That piece is nearly all cosmetic and as long as wiring isn't exposed or loose to catch / snag / snap, you might be able to fix it with tape or other adhesive by following the take apart manuals posted at http://www.ifixit.com


Why would a Wi-Fi network not support Wi-Fi Calling?

What's now often called Wi-fi calling is actually GAN (Generic Access Networking), so you can prioritize the UMA packets; according to Apple's link you shared above, that is port 500, using IKEv2 over UDP.

"Some types of network traffic (like DNS and IPsec-encrypted) need to be permitted by the network," to get UMA to work, according to a Wikipedia user.

Also, there are conflicts with Apple's Continuity and Wi-fi calling, so it is possible some settings on a Mac or other device at your work are blocking it.

To go deeper, you could find troubleshooting documentation directly into the GAN/UMA protocols.  The site I wanted to reference quickly, Umatoday.com, was down as I tried to access it now.


What character is this possessive apostrophe: ’

Section 6.2 of the Unicode Standard 7.0.0 states:

  U+2019 […] is preferred where the character is to represent a punctuation mark, as for contractions: “We’ve been here before.”

The character does not appear directly on any keyboard I own.

On an British or US English keyboard you can use Option+Shift+] to type the character: ’ == U+2019; thanks to @tom-gewecke for this key combination.

Emoji & Symbols Palette

In OS X 10.10, you can access this character from the menu item: Edit > Emoji & Symbols:

Control-Click on the character to copy additional information.

In earlier versions of OS X, this palette was called the Character Palette.

Smart Quotes

The character ’ is can be automatically substituted by OS X through the Smart Quotes feature of the default text system:

Unicode is Complex

Copying and pasting a few of the candidate character information to a text file results in:

' - APOSTROPHE, Unicode: U+0027, UTF-8: 27
ʼ - MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE, Unicode: U+02BC, UTF-8: CA BC
՚ - ARMENIAN APOSTROPHE, Unicode: U+055A, UTF-8: D5 9A
＇ - FULLWIDTH APOSTROPHE, Unicode: U+FF07, UTF-8: EF BC 87

Ted Clancy's article Which Unicode character should represent the English apostrophe? (And why the Unicode committee is very wrong.) reveals just how involved the unicode character set can become.


How do I make a custom ringtone for my iPhone using iTunes 10 only?

As far as I'm concerned (this has worked for my iPhone, and is covered in this guide as well), it works like this:

In Import Settings, choose the AAC Encoder.
Go to the library and right-click the song you want to use. Select Info, and then the Options tab.
Here, set a time period using the Start and Stop markers. This period shouldn't exceed 40 seconds.

Now, let's convert it to the appropriate format.

Click OK, and right-click the song again. Select "Create AAC Version".
Locate the newly created AAC file ("Show in Finder" works on a Mac). It should reside in the same folder as the original, or in your iTunes library. Its extension will be .m4a.
Rename the extension from m4a to m4r.

Clean up and re-import:

Remove the AAC file from your iTunes library (do not move it to the Recycling Bin/Trash though)
Re-import the m4r file by dragging it into iTunes
Drag the newly imported file to your iPhone


Swift Playgrounds on MacOS performs badly, spinning up the fans and working the CPU

Every time you change source code within the game (every time you add a new line of code), Swift Playgrounds is writing files to locations like /Users//Library/Containers/com.apple.PlaygroundsMap

These are synchronised with iCloud. It's this that's causing the performance problem. Processes like "bird", related to the iCloud sync, show up in Activity Monitor and can be seen interacting with files using terminal utility fs_usage.

Apple's site says:

https://developer.apple.com/swift-playgrounds/
"iCloud Drive seamlessly shares your playgrounds, and changes you make on either iPad or Mac immediately appear on your other devices."

Switching this feature off solves the problem. Go to System Preferences and search for iCloud (or go directly into the Apple ID screen and select iCloud). Then go into iCloud "Options..." and remove the check next to  Swift Playgrounds.

You will need to re-download the playgrounds.


How can I change the playlists/songs on my phone?

You say you have iTunes Match? What I understand from your question is that you want to edit your playlists adding/deleting or you just want to pick specific playlists to have on your iPhone, I'll explain both.

If you deleted a song from your playlist simply scroll up or down till you see edit/clear/delete. Hit edit then the + icon to add songs, or readd them if you deleted them. Clear will delete all the songs in that playlist without deleting the playlist itself. Delete will delete all the songs and the playlist itself.

If you're hoping to be able to add a couple of playlists for example a" work out" playlist and a "commute" playlist on your phone but leave the "dance" playlist on your computer, you can't. The whole idea of iTunes Match is that you have ALL of your music, playlist and whatnot. The idea is that when you make any change even if it's just moving a song from the bottom to the top of your playlist, it will show up on all your devices.

I hope that helps let me know if it doesn't and I'll try and help out if I can!

Danny


Prevent OS X from changing Spaces after quitting an App?

As far as I know, there's no way to do exactly what you want, but you can come pretty close.  It's true that if you uncheck the "When switching..." checkbox, you don't go to the app when you click on the icon in the dock, but you do go to the app when you double click it (or just generally click it a second time when the application is active but nothing is visible).

I've been using it this way for years - I'd almost forgotten there was any other behavior.


Two methods:

Enter "" in the search box, and all the events will be shown in the search results.
Go to Day view and scroll the list.


Cannot add free space into macOS partition because "the disk for one of the specified operations could not be found"

Michael's command may solve the question of how to delete free partion.

Can't resize partition on VMWare Mac


MacBook Air doesn't connect to known WiFi network automatically

You can rule out your laptop for being the problem by resetting wifi configurations. Do Step 1, it's relatively safe.

http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/25/fix-wi-fi-problems-os-x-yosemite/


Is it possible to use iOS7's AirDrop with the Mac AirDrop?

Not Yet, I have tested it and TechHive confirms. Though Mavericks may bring this functionality (complete speculation obviously).


iTerm: How to make options (e.g. -r) after filenames work?

It's not up to iTerm, it's up to each individual command program (like rm, ls, etc) how to parse its arguments. The traditional convention in unix commands is to require options to come first (before positional parameters), but the GNU project has adopted a convention where they can come in any order (except that -- indicates the end of options). macOS avoids GNU software as much as possible (for licensing reasons), and uses mostly bsd versions of commands... which (mostly) follow the traditional options-first convention.

You can install GNU versions of commands if you want (e.g. with homebrew). But there's a problem: because the GNU versions are different, you risk breaking scripts that assume the macOS-standard commands. To avoid this conflict, GNU versions are usually prefixed with "g" (e.g. gawk instead of awk), so you'd have to get used to that instead.

So, my advice is to get used to putting options first. It's the way most of the commands on macOS work, and if you try to change it you're just going to create other problems.


Is there a way to view/edit Outlook for Mac's SQLite database to edit the signature file?

You can access it using the built-in SQLite program. In Terminal run the command “sqlite3” with the your Outlook.sqlite file as the parameter.

From there you can use SELECT commands to view data and UPDATE to change them. Check the SQLite home page for documentation, if you do not already know SQL.


Automatically stop a terminal script when locking MacBook Pro

You could modify your script with a while loop, that tests if you have locked the screen or not.

Here is a python approach, that checks for an active session.

And here is a way on implementing this python part into a bash script.

The answer in the first link also provides a Shell implementation, that could work for you too, but I was unsure, so I gave you another link.

Update :
Because I wanted to solve the problem, here is what I came up with:

#!/bin/bash
loop=$(python -c 'import sys,Quartz; d=Quartz.CGSessionCopyCurrentDictionary(); print d' | grep "CGSSessionScreenIsLocked = 1")
while [ "$loop" = "" ]; do
    echo "not locked"
    loop=$(python -c 'import sys,Quartz; d=Quartz.CGSessionCopyCurrentDictionary(); print d' | grep "CGSSessionScreenIsLocked = 1")
done
echo "locked"

However, If your script is one giant task, then the while loop won't help you.

In general, I think, it is rather difficult to trigger something on system lock. You probably need some helper application that watches the process and stops it when you lock the screen.

Taking this a step further : You could write a small programm/script that can check if your script is running and pause it, and when you are back at your desk and unlock the screen, it continues.


In iTunes on your MacBook Pro go to Preferences, then Devices, and then select the checkbox that says "Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatically"; that should solve your problem.


How do I get the old blue sms alert box for notification of new text messages?

It sounds like you're describing the style of text-message notifications pre- and post-iOS 5 (when Notification Center was introduced).

If I'm not mistaken, the first case looks something like this:

And the current case looks like this:

Unfortunately, there's no built-in way to revert this change: while the style of the iOS modal popup that appears to inform you of an alert while you're using the phone still looks the same (bluish background with acknowledgement buttons), the style of lock-screen notifications (whether the phone is locked or not) have changed to a black background with an app-specific icon that can be swiped to activate the alerting app.

Short of some sort of Jailbreak tweak, or somehow downgrading your iOS version, there's no way to undo this change.


First, you want to check and see if you are syncing playlists through iTunes.  You can verify that here:

If you have that, your playlists may be in iTunes Cloud library, which you have to enable here:


How to force passcode unlock on iPhone SE lock screen?

Old post. I know. I was bothered with this problem for a loooong long time. Hence, I was looking for solution, while reading this topic here (thanks for that) i !accidently! found the solution:
SOLUTION on iPhone SE (iOS 14.2:

press either the home or on/off button ONCE
wait a short while (approx. 0,63468 seconds) ;-)
press the home button

TOUCH ID or Enter Passcode shows up
OMG, it is so simple. I was so frustrated. Hitting my home button so often, angry about Apple,... Now its all gone. Simple and easy solution.


Is it possible to erase sensitive data from a dead Retina MBP SSD?

Fire. Unfortunately that would seem to be at odds with Amazon's return policy.

If Disk Utility can't see the drive, it's unlikely you'll be able to access it to overwrite anything (and overwriting on SSDs can be tricky in any event). Additionally, because the drive in the rMBP is a proprietary form factor, it's difficult to take it out and try to access it from another computer (which might not help any way). There may be adapters made in the future, but I'm not aware of any for sale at the moment.

The best preventative measure for this would be to employ some form of whole drive encryption, like Apple's FileVault. That way even if someone is able to read the data off the drive, it won't be useable unless they have your encryption password.


Cherry picking applications for a backup

There is no straight-forward answer to your question without a full list of applications you're looking to migrate.

Some applications that don't use installers, can easily be simply copied to an external drive and back again, and will continue to work just fine.

Some applications that don't have installers, may ask for the license keys when you restore them because it for some reason has detected a change.

However, you mention things like Photoshop and Office. Without a doubt there is no practical way of copying these to an external drive, "factory resetting" the laptop and put them back. These applications use complex installation processes that involve much more than just placing a .app in /Applications.

There might be ways to clean up the Mac though. Removing all other applications, removing configuration files you don't need with one of the many "app cleaners" on the App Store, removing unused user accounts, etc.


Mail App keeps popping up in the background in Mac OS Mojave

I have the same issue:
The google calendar stuff is nonsense. The notification settings suggestion doesn't work.

I've narrowed it down to the following:

I normally hit the red cross button on the viewer window once I have finished looking at my mail, this closes open viewer windows but leaves the mail app active in the dock:

So if I have mail running, but no viewer windows open, then I get a viewer window randomly popping up to the foreground a few times an hour.

If instead of hitting the red cross button, I minimise mail using the minus button, then I don't get any viewer windows randomly opening. In this scenario, the mail viewer window is minimised either on the right hand side of the dock or into the application icon itself, depending on your settings (System Preferences > Dock > "Minimize windows into application icon").

So I have changed my habits to work around this annoying bug...


How can I customize the background of the FileVault login screen in 10.8?

There is a workaround to get your custom background image copied onto the FileVault login screen without having to mount the encrypted partition and copy it manually, the workaround is detailed in this guide.


How do you set the iPhone to play music/audio while asleep?

EDIT:
In this case it sounds like we want to disable auto-lock. This can be done by opening Settings.app, going to General, then scrolling down to "Auto-Lock". Set this to "Never".

It is possible use the speakers on iPhone to play even when the device is locked. This is possible by:

Opening Music.app
Select song/album/playlist
Lock the device. The music will continue to play.

You can also double tap the home button when the device is locked to show play/pause controls for the last-played music.

Also, other apps continue to play when the device is locked such as Voice Memos.

Note: all audio will shut off when the phone is powered off.


does Macbook Pro continue refreshing screen when brightness is set to zero?

Yes the screen keeps refreshing regardless of the brightness.
If you still have a mac with a glowing apple logo you can even see this,just dim the screen all the way and shine a light through the back of the apple logo, you can see the screen is still active in the light leaking through from the back.
Edit: since I can sense the follow-up question allready:
You can achieve what you want using one of the ways described in this article:
Stop screen rendering on macbook


Plug the device onto a PC and try restoring it with iTunes. If that doesn't work I suggest taking it to an offical Apple(the damaged back and the battery coming off most probably is causing issues).


Removed first partition, how to resize second partition into the free space?

I assume, to added Sierra, you shrunk the Mavericks volume and created the "Macintosh HD" volume for Sierra. Installing Sierra created the "Recovery HD" volume. When you deleted Maverick you created free space above the Sierra volume. You can not add this free space back to the Sierra volume. You can only add free space if the space is directly below an existing HFS, Core Storage or APFS volume.

If you want to confirm where the free space is, then here are a few ways:

The sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0 command will show the logical sector blocks used by each partition. The command will also show the free space between each partition in logical sector block units. In the days of OS X, you could run this command on the boot drives. Starting with macOS, System Integrity Protection (SIP) has to be disabled to do this.
Use the diskutil info -plist disk0s# command to retrieve partition number # start and size byte values. You need to repeat the command for each partition on a drive. Next, you can compile a table similar to the output from the gpt -r show /dev/disk0 command. Basically, free space is any space not allocated to a partition, the Protected Master Boot Record (PMBR) and the GUID Partition Tables (GPT).
Write a BASH script that would automate way number 2.  A free script can be downloaded from this site. Assuming your downloads goto to the default Downloads folder, you can get the free space by entering the command shown below. Note: You do not need to enter sudo or disable SIP.

~/Downloads/driveinfo-1.0.1/driveinfo -cbestin disk0

  Frankly, I do not know if driveinfo is compatible with Sierra. If driveinfo is not compatible you will just get an error message saying so.

To reclaim the space, you have a few options:

Backup the Sierra volume using Time Machine or some other method. Erase you internal drive, create a new volume spanning the entire drive, then reload everything.
Use the gpt and newfs_hfs to create and format a new volume above the existing Sierra volume. You could then clone the Sierra volume to this new volume. I could post the steps for this, but I would first need the output from gpt -r show /dev/disk0 or ~/Downloads/driveinfo-1.0.1/driveinfo -cbestin disk0.


I found the solution. Just type the attribute V lowercase and restart the Finder!:)


Cubase not remembering window position when switching apps and coming back to it

Check System Prefs > Mission Control & see what you have for 'Displays have separate Spaces'.
My guess is you have that enabled.

Cubase doesn't really use the Mac's Saved State because the state is really in the project file, or in your window sets, so I don't think it's the issue. I'm guessing it's because if each display is a different Space, you're moving one app to multiple Spaces… which isn't good.

Toggling that setting can really muck up your workflow & you have to re-allocate everything back to its correct Space, so I'm not going to do it just to test ;)


How can I run multiple Skype accounts in one computer?

Run your first instance as usual, by clicking the icon.

Run the second one from terminal;

sudo /Applications/Skype.app/Contents/MacOS/Skype /secondary


The best thing to do is to first try a backup and restore as new as detailed in

  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4137

A lot of the time a device restarting multiple times can be caused by a software issue, and frankly getting all your data on the computer is always a  a good idea.

This will also make sure you are updated to the most recent version in case you are working with old software.
If it doesn't work it is probably time to get a new one or go for a repair.


How long does it take for MacPorts to catch up with new macOSes?

Unclear exactly. You could try searching their GitHub repo for exactly when support was added, but because of the way it's laid out, good luck.

Here's the best info I could get using The Wayback Machine as to when the release first crops up (not necessarily the actual release date):

10.12: 3 days after release
10.11: 9 days after release
10.10: 4 days after release
10.9: 20 days after release
10.8: 1 day after release
10.7: 4 days after release

Prior to this the capture points are too scattered to be useful. Based on how short these numbers are, I suspect that development was done on beta versions. Hopefully it's coming soon.


Migrating local accounts to locally stored network account

My suggestion was going to be Migration Assistant, however you'll need to make a backup ISO or time machine to import from, or another machine as you've mentioned.

There is unlikely to be a clean way of doing this honestly...


How many Apple IDs should one household have?

There is no limit and having more is not necessarily better. Having all your devices registered under one Apple ID has the benefit of having all your purchases pushed to them without having to manage multiple accounts. So your wife can enjoy an app on her iPhone 4 just the same as you can enjoy the same app on your iPad 2, without needing to purchase the app a second time (once for each device), or constantly logging in and out of various Apple IDs to install and update.

I find it is always better to pool your purchases to one account and register your devices under that single account. Having multiple Apple IDs requires that one micro-manage each account (iTunes will only check for updates for the current Apple ID), which can be bothersome at the best of times and a nightmare at the worst of times.

One advantage of having separate Apple IDs, however, is that each account belongs to its respective owner and can be registered to their own payment methods. But if you share your finances, that is of little value to you.

iCloud is bound to its respective Apple ID, so if you have just the one, all the features of iCloud would permeate through any device registered to that account. That means if you downloaded an app on your iPad 2, it would appear on your wife's iPhone 4. You would also share documents, pictures, music, etc. (anything supported by iCloud and expressly enabled by you) across all your devices as well—email as well. iCloud would essentially unify them and their content.

Multiple Apple IDs are not required. You may also find this article on managing multiple devices (although somewhat dated when iCloud launches).


"This version of OSX is not supported on this platform." when booting 2012 Mac Mini with SSD drive from previous system

Each Mac has a minimum build number that has the necessary drivers to run that Mac. Sometimes a build will run tens of Macs and some builds are very narrowly scoped to handle all the existing models and that one new release until those drivers can be incorporated into the next numbered release of the OS.

Mac OS X versions (builds) for computers

What this means for you, is you'll need to try booting to the recovery HD on that SSD and hope the version of recovery is new enough to work to download he proper installer and let you proceed with the build for that Mac. If not, you'll need to place the drive that came with that Mini back in (or into an external USB enclosure that costs about $5 to $10 and hold the option key) to select that external drive.

At that point, you can re-run the installer or migrate the data from the SSD to the external drive. Then you can wipe the SSD clean using recovery and migrate back without having to reinstall or lose any data or settings.

There are many paths to getting back in business - but knowing the minimum builds will let you check things next time to run the updates before you move the drive.


Quickest way to save new text file to a folder

You can run the following AppleScript through a service with keyboard shortcut or context menu item.

tell application "Finder"
  set selection to make new file at (get insertion location)
end tell

Alternatively, drag the current directory to Terminal and type touch filename. You can alias the command to something like n for easier activation, and also add closing the Terminal window to the aliased command.


Connecting USB-C iPad Pro to Xcode and USB Peripheral

Does anyone have any experience with other USB-C hubs that can do this or is this a limitation of the hardware of the iPad Pro?

It's a limitation of the hardware in the iPad Pro because all USB-C ports act this way.  USB is a host/device (or master/slave) protocol and so there needs to be some means to enforce this.  This used to be done with the use of cables that had an "A" connector for the host and a "B" connector for the device.  USB-C is a dual-role connector and this makes defining the operation of a USB-C hub difficult.  USB-C also allows for "power only" ports which complicates this further.
The way host/device is enforced with USB-C is by having no hubs.  Connecting a hub to a host is easy since it's going to have only USB-A and a power only USB-C.  Once in a while I will see a hub with two USB-C ports, one for data only and the other for power only, and these tend to confuse or frustrate people should something be plugged into the wrong port.  No damage is done if the two ports are confused, things just won't work.  Without designating which USB-C port serves which role, and labeling them as such, the operation of the hub cannot be defined in a predictable manner.
If you do see a hub or dock with more than two USB-C ports then this is violating the USB spec or it is a Thunderbolt dock.  Thunderbolt defines the function of a USB-C hub, but the iPad Pro doesn't support Thunderbolt.  Yet.


Dangerous? No. But it could wind up being wasted time when you at some point you update your OS and the settings you made get reverted back to the system default; that depends on what icon you changed.

Of course, we're not talking about a lot of time spent on changing an icon here, so I'd say go for it! I actually changed my Documents directory icon 8+ years ago, and it was still the same when I retired that MacBook earlier this year, after several OS upgrades. Some changes will stick longer than others!


Reply emails automatically with Mail & AppleScript & Automator

You can do it like this:

property the_numbers : {10000, 20000, 30000}
using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule theRule
        repeat with i from 1 to count of theMessages
            tell application "Mail"
                set the_sender to sender of item i of theMessages
                set the_subject to subject of item i of theMessages
                set the_counter to item 1 of the_numbers
                -- make the outgoing message (the reply)
                set the_reply to make new outgoing message with properties ¬
                    {subject:"Re: " & the_subject, content:"Use this number-- " & the_counter}
                tell the_reply
                    make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:the_sender}
                end tell
                send the_reply
            end tell
            -- this is the step that deletes item 1 from the list
            set the_numbers to items 2 thru -1 of the_numbers
        end repeat
    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

This works, but you'll have to do a little work to get your list of numbers into an AppleScript list. You'll put them up at the top, separated by commas, replacing my 10000, 20000, 30000.

I call the list of numbers "the_numbers". By calling it a property, we save the value of the_numbers from run to run. If you were to use my script as-is in place of your "Untitled 3" in the rule you've set up, the first time the script is called it will be working with {10000, 20000, 30000}. The next time it runs, the list will be {20000, 30000}. The next time it runs, it will be {30000}. It will also be {30000} for all subsequent runs. I am assuming/hoping that you have a very long list of numbers and you aren't going to run out.

A better script would let you know that the list of numbers was down to the last one.


There is no general „best backup method“, it always depends on your setup and on the assets you want to protect (whole disk or only user data, snapshot or history etc). This also means that issues with a specific method may or may not be an issue in your context. The problem described in the article does occur, but I‘ve seen this both with NAS and with USB drives.

Having said that I just want to point out that TimeMachine works well in combination with a Synology NAS, and also handles disconnects during a backup gracefully (you just need to make sure that the backup can run through from time to time). It gives you a backup of the whole directory tree so it also covers any applications installed etc.


*nix packages such as bash_completion can be installed with 3rd party package managers. I suggest Homebrew, but Fink and MacPorts also provide the bash_completion package. If it doesn't auto-handle the Java situation you describe, post back or read the man page.


Does anybody know what app this icon in the menu bar belongs to?

The menulet belongs to VMware Fusion. It's a start menu similar to the Windows start menu and usually shows apps installed in a/the Windows VM.

You can turn it on temporarily/on/off in: VMware -> Preferences -> General


Is there official documentation about upgrading your iOS app's minimum requirements?

Nope, not yet at least. Whenever my apps need an upgrade to their minimum requirements due to a new version of iOS, I always have gotten an email explaining everything.


Bluetooth between iPad Mini and Mac Pro keeps dropping

There is no need to pair your iPad to your Mac. This feature is part of Handoff, which is part of the Continuity family of features.

In order for this to work, you need to turn the feature on, on all your devices:
from Apple:

Each device is signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID.
Each device has Bluetooth turned on.
Each Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch has Wi-Fi turned on.
Each device has Handoff turned on:
Mac: Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click General. Select “Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices.”
Each device has Handoff turned on:
Mac: Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click General. Select “Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices.”
iPhone, iPad, iPod touch: Go to Settings > General > Handoff, then turn on Handoff.

Finally, you need to ensure your device supports the feature. For Universal Clipboard, your Mac should be: MacBook (Early 2015 or newer); MacBook Pro (2012 or newer); MacBook Air (2012 or newer;  Mac mini (2012 or newer); iMac (2012 or newer); iMac Pro; Mac Pro (Late 2013).

For iDevices: iPhone 5 or newer; iPad Pro; iPad (4th generation) or newer; iPad Air or newer; iPad mini 2 or newer; iPod touch (6th generation) or newer.

If you don't have one of these devices the features won't work.

For more see Apple support: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204689


Why is Time Machine backing up to .sparsebundle file?

I'm pretty sure you can't, and you wouldn't want to. The OS only bypasses the bundle for locally attached backup destinations.

Direct attached storage (DAS) uses the HFS+ filesystem and /Backups.backupsdb folder structure
Network attached storage (NAS) uses the sparse bundle format to embed a HFS+ filesystem on whatever filesystem that the NAS uses natively.

Time Machine's backup format plays some very interesting tricks with the Mac OS Extended filesystem that aren't really possible over a generic network storage volume. It's also optimized to minimize network traffic when files change. This speeds both backup, browsing and restore operations and minimizes the volume of data file changes on the NAS for small changes on the source disk.

In order to get TM to work over a network connection, it stores a disk image (in sparse bundle format) on the network server, and mounts that locally on the client. Since it's mounted locally, the client has full access to the filesystem and can play all of the necessary tricks.

So, without the .sparsebundle, you wouldn't be able to back up over the network since it optimizes the amount of data sent to the Time Capsule when a file changes as well as reduces the load on the Time Capsule to handle easier IO to the disk.

You can still mount the sparse bundle image on any OS X machine and navigate to files. The only drawback might be if you are using an OS that doesn't have a filesystem plug in for sparse bundle storage format.


How do I get a CD version of El Capitan suitable for a Macbook Pro?

Apple does not sell an optical media version of El Capitan. You need to use OS X Recovery or a USB drive to re-install El Capitan, which is relatively simple to create. All you need is an 8 GB USB drive and a computer running OS X. Instructions on how to create such an installer are here: How to make a bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer drive

  Making the installer drive

  Connect to your Mac a properly formatted 8GB (or larger) drive, and rename the drive Untitled. (The Terminal commands I provide here
  assume that the drive is named Untitled. If the drive isn’t named
  Untitled, the procedure won’t work.)
  Make sure the El Capitan installer (or at least a copy of it), called Install OS X El Capitan.app, is in its default location in your
  main Applications folder (/Applications).
  Select the text of the following Terminal command and copy it.

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume

  /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\
  Capitan.app --nointeraction
  Launch Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities).
  Warning: This step will erase the destination drive or partition, so make sure that it doesn’t contain any valuable data. Paste the
  copied command into Terminal and press Return.
  Type your admin-level account password when prompted, and then press Return.
  You may see the message “To continue we need to erase the disk at /Volumes/Untitled. If you wish to continue type (Y) then press
  return:” If so, type the letter Y and then press Return. If you don't
  see this message, you're already set.

  The Terminal window displays createinstallmedia’s progress as a
  textual representation of a progress bar: Erasing Disk: 0%... 10
  percent...20 percent... and so on. You also see a list of the
  program’s tasks as they occur: Copying installer files to disk... Copy
  complete. Making disk bootable... Copying boot files... Copy complete.
  The procedure can take as little as a couple minutes, or as long as 20
  to 30 minutes, depending on how fast your Mac can copy data to the
  destination drive. Once you see Copy Complete. Done., as shown in the
  screenshot above, the process has finished.

  Createinstallmedia will have renamed your drive from Untitled to
  Install OS X El Capitan. You can rename the drive (in the Finder) if
  you like—renaming it won’t prevent it from working properly.


No, this is impossible using official iOS builds. This has never been possible in the past, and probably never will be a user-editable option on iOS. If your iPhone is jail-broken (which is implied by mentioning iFile) there might be a way to do this, but I'm not familiar with that.


You're pretty close. A "stackshot" is a recording of the call stack trace of processes on the system (including kernel threads), which is useful for debugging purposes as it provides insight into what the application is doing at the time that the stackshot was taken. macOS captures these automatically when the system detects certain types of hangs using a utility called spindump(8) (recently, it seems the original data source is tailspin(8)). Depending on your privacy settings, these get uploaded periodically for Apple to aggregate and analyze hangs across the system.


Chrome Bookmarks disappear after being used

Press ⇧⌘B to always show the bookmarks bar.

That's not the bookmarks bar—that's just bookmarks from your bookmarks bar being shown on the New Tab page.


Disable Wi-Fi and LAN if user is not logged in

There isn't a great way to script this, but I would consider implementing this on the network side if you really had a great reason to not allow this. It will break many things that run, but let's assume you have some compelling reasons.

Simplest is firewall rules on your router to isolate that machine. Only allow outbound connections to a VPN and log in to that VPN when you log in to an account that should be able to connect out.

The reason to do this on the network side is that the system is designed to take the WiFi credentials and expose them even before the OS boots in case of FileVault and T2 security chip. Same with Ethernet - the system wants to enable all of the interfaces so that a net boot or internet recovery is possible so rather than fighting the design, I would implement this entirely on the network end.

If you can't do DMZ / FireWall / VPN, the first thing I would try is making the network settings intentionally wrong. Choose a non-existent gateway on a non-routable address. For example if your actual router is 192.168.1.1 - set your Mac to be on the 172.16.0.1 or 10.3.2.1 networks. Yes they are connected, but the default route will be wrong and you can make sure the network drops those packets. Any software that has hard coded network addresses or can discover DNS / mDNS will still work, so that's why I recommended a proper network setup to disable the network for your Mac instead of scripting or hobbling things in the settings.


Custom keyboard layout problem High Sierra

Some things to try based on others who have had this kind of problem with other keyboards

Make sure you do not have Siri turned on and that its keyboard shortcut is set to none.
If your layout is in Home/Library, try Library instead.  And vice versa, and try it in both at same time.
Disable any antivirus apps
Safe Boot
Set up new user account and see if it works when logged into that


Obviously this wasn't a solution at the time you asked the question, but if you're looking for more basic, it's now built into the latest version of the operating system.

Safari in Lion does seem to remember the history for each tab when it restores on re-launch. If you were using 10.5.8 because you use PPC hardware, or don't want to buy the upgrade, this doesn't help, but it if Lion is a viable choice, it does seem to work very smoothly.


After unlocking apple id and sign in to iTunes I cannot unlock my iPhone

This is what it looks like when your iOS device is activation locked.

Bypassing it is practically impossible unless you are the original purchaser.

How can I bypass Activation Lock?

See that thread for how to get a hold of Apple's support, but basically you either need to re-enter the locking user account and password or you need the person that controls that account to log in themselves to http://icloud.apple.com and remove the lock against this hardware.

Regain control of the account that was used before to lock the iPhone
Unlock that device with that previous account
Activate the iPhone with your account to lock it to yours


How do I set the cover photo of a "shared" Photos album?

You can't.

With shared iCloud photo albums the key photo will always be the photo that was uploaded last.

Update: This is still valid for iOS 12.1.2.


How to make the "Pictures" folder a folder again

Using answer space to provide pictures...

Get Info on both your Pictures & Photos Library directories, make sure they are named as below, Pictures & Photos Library.photoslibrary
Also check whether the extension is hidden for only the Library & whether something managed to rename it with a double extension .photoslibrary.photoslibrary - which has been known to happen.

The Pictures directory ought to be protected by SIP & not allow you to change it. Post a comment below if the Pictures naming is wrong & you need to change it.
Photos Library can be renamed at will [though Photos.app may lose it until you tell it where to look]

To look inside the package, you can just right click it & Show Package Contents, however, the .photoslibrary structure can be toggled between a regular folder & package by adding/removing the .photoslibrary extension then rebooting.

Post a comment if I missed anything & I'll tweak my answer.


What is the vibration when I picked up an iPhone 7 Plus that feels like a gyroscope?

i think it's Taptic Engine. This engine can turned off.

If you like to disable go to Settings -> Sounds & Haptics - > System Haptics -> turn off.

Taptic Engine is different from 3D Touch. So disabling haptics won’t turn off 3D touch.


A combination of the answers in here + killing all QuickLook-related processes fixed it for me. I have been experiencing this ever since the Mojave update. No reboot required.

qlmanage -r commands always got stuck for me, too.

Fix TL;DR version:

Delete DropboxQL.qlgenerator from ~/Library/QuickLook (Credit to suntrop)
Restart Finder
sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force (Credit to Dishoperator)
Kill all QuickLook-related processes
Restart Finder

Fix detailed how-to version follows

For those not very familiar with what the above means.

To get QuickLook working when previewing files with spacebar:

Delete DropboxQL.qlgenerator in ~/Library/QuickLook, as per suntrop's suggestion.

Open Finder
Press ⌘+G
~/Library/QuickLook
Look for a file named DropboxQL.qlgenerator, it will probably be the only one
Delete it, and then delete it from Trash

Restart Finder:

Press ⌘ ⌥ ␛ (Command + Option + Escape)
Find Finder
Click Relaunch

To get thumbnails to work:

Run the Terminal command Dishoperator suggested:
sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force

It doesn't do any harm, it just updates the kernel caches
Open Terminal
Paste sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force
Type in your password (it will not appear as you're typing)
Press Return
It will take ~30s to a couple minutes depending on your machine

Open up Activity Monitor (⌘+Spacebar, type in Activity Monitor)
Order by Process Name
Force quit quicklookd

Click on quicklookd
Press the X stop-like button in the top left
Press Force quit

Force quit all instances of QuickLookSatellite
Keep force-quitting until none of them are left

Make sure you order processes by name to see them all at once

Restart Finder (see point 2. Restart Finder: again if you forgot how)

Keep having problems?

Since this is now working for me, but in case it still doesn't for you, here are some apps that would normally be suspects but are NOT the cause. This should narrow-down your search:

Dropbox (was a problem)
Sketch 52.2
Principle
CraftManager
Photoshop CS6
Illustrator CS6
Bear
Highland 2
Kindle
Atom, PhpStorm, Sublime Text, Caret
p4merge
Slack
Screenhero (don't know why I still keep it)
SourceTree
Chrome, Safari, FireFox
Franz
1Password
Spotify
Shazam
TeamViewer
Steam
Flux (don't know why I still keep this one either)
Microsoft OneNote
Bartender 3
PSequel
Postico
GoToMeeting
Kaleidoscope
MindNode 5
Podio
Fluid UI
Gliffy Diagrams
Conceptboard
Moqups
Wireframe.cc
Graph.tk
SketchUp, Layout, StyleBuilder
Google Keep
VLC
Trello
Asana
LiveMinutes
Zoom
Amphetamine

And remember to clean up useless apps from your laptop. Which I clearly don't.


Macbook Pro audio stops working too often

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac

If your Mac has issues related to settings stored in NVRAM or PRAM, resetting it might help. Sound also comes under this section, so I strongly suggest you to try this as after reboot your MacBook is getting normal.

How to reset NVRAM

Shut down your Mac, then turn it on and immediately press and hold these four keys together: Option, Command, P, and R. You can release the keys after about 20 seconds, during which your Mac might appear to restart.

On Mac computers that play a startup sound, you can release the keys after the second startup sound.
On Mac computers that have the Apple T2 Security Chip, you can release the keys after the Apple logo appears and disappears for the second time

When your Mac finishes starting up, you might want to open System Preferences and adjust any settings that were reset, such as sound volume, display resolution, startup disk selection, or time zone.


Newly installed Debian stuck on loading on MacBook Pro "Core 2 Duo" 2.16

I also have 2007 MacbookPro2,1 and have found that the Linux Radeon driver does not work.
Without recompiling your kernel your options are extremely limited - you could try an extremely old kernel (before 2009 KMS introduction) which would be hard to find and insecure  or try passing nomodeset kernel parameter (which will mean no graphics at all).
To get graphics to work need to do the following:

Extract the vbios as described in comments in this 2010 bug report Radeon KMS fails with inaccessible AtomBIOS on systems with (U)EFI boot:

boot from latest ubuntu live CD (hold alt, or c, at boot)
dump the bios
dd if=/dev/mem of=vbios.bin bs=65536 skip=12 count=1
move it to your partition's /lib/firmware/radeon/vbios.bin

Based on this Archlinux forums thread Load custom Radeon firmware for Macbook Pro thread I saved vbios.bin to /usr/lib/firmware/radeon/vbios.bin.

Check it as described in link above:

b) You can verify the correctness with:
hexdump -C vbios.bin | head -n 1
00000000  55 aa 7d e9 7f 02 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |U.}.............|
the first two bytes must be 55 aa, also later in the dump you see some copyright
notices. :-)

Patch radeon_bios.c source to read this file and recompile kernel.

This method has worked for me for the last several years.  Occasionally radeon_bios.c changes and the patch in the links above is outdated.
As of last month (October 2020) the following patch will work with kernel.org kernel.  For others you may need to manually adjust it.
--- archlinux-linux/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_bios.c.orig   2020-04-08 13:12:37.572725381 +0200
+++ archlinux-linux/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_bios.c    2020-04-08 13:26:48.700908967 +0200
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@
 #include <drm/drm_device.h>

 #include "atom.h"
+#include <linux/firmware.h>
 #include "radeon.h"
 #include "radeon_reg.h"

@@ -60,15 +61,18 @@ static bool igp_read_bios_from_vram(stru
    vram_base = pci_resource_start(rdev->pdev, 0);
    bios = ioremap(vram_base, size);
    if (!bios) {
+       DRM_ERROR("No bios\n");
        return false;
    }

    if (size == 0 || bios[0] != 0x55 || bios[1] != 0xaa) {
+       DRM_ERROR("Invalid bios\n");
        iounmap(bios);
        return false;
    }
    rdev->bios = kmalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL);
    if (rdev->bios == NULL) {
+       DRM_ERROR("alloc fail\n");
        iounmap(bios);
        return false;
    }
@@ -77,6 +81,41 @@ static bool igp_read_bios_from_vram(stru
    return true;
 }

+static bool radeon_read_bios_from_firmware(struct radeon_device *rdev)
+{
+   const uint8_t __iomem *bios;
+   resource_size_t size;
+   const struct firmware *fw = NULL;
+
+   request_firmware(&fw, "radeon/vbios.bin", rdev->dev);
+   if (!fw) {
+           DRM_ERROR("No bios\n");
+           return false;
+   }
+   size = fw->size;
+   bios = fw->data;
+
+   if (!bios) {
+           DRM_ERROR("No bios\n");
+           return false;
+   }
+
+   if (size == 0 || bios[0] != 0x55 || bios[1] != 0xaa) {
+           DRM_ERROR("wrong sig\n");
+           release_firmware(fw);
+           return false;
+   }
+   rdev->bios = kmalloc(size, GFP_KERNEL);
+   if (rdev->bios == NULL) {
+           DRM_ERROR("alloc fail\n");
+           release_firmware(fw);
+           return false;
+   }
+   memcpy(rdev->bios, bios, size);
+   release_firmware(fw);
+   return true;
+}
+
 static bool radeon_read_bios(struct radeon_device *rdev)
 {
    uint8_t __iomem *bios, val1, val2;
@@ -663,7 +702,9 @@ bool radeon_get_bios(struct radeon_devic
    bool r;
    uint16_t tmp;

-   r = radeon_atrm_get_bios(rdev);
+   r = radeon_read_bios_from_firmware(rdev);
+   if (!r)
+       r = radeon_atrm_get_bios(rdev);
    if (!r)
        r = radeon_acpi_vfct_bios(rdev);
    if (!r)


(How) Can I push notifications from my Mac notification center to my iPhone?

You can install Growl in your Mac, and install Prowl in your iPhone. Then setup the Prowl to connect to your Growl instance with the API. Finally you need to forward all OS X notifications to the Growl.


Try Google Chrome and curl:

Open Terminal
Open Google Chrome and go to Developer Apple downloads.
Scroll down to Xcode 7.3.1 and click the + sign.

open Google Chrome's Developer Tools (altcmdI) > Network panel
Click on Xcode 7.3.1.dmg to start the Xcode download
Right-click Xcode 7.3.1.dmg in the network panel > Copy as cURL

Stop the Xcode 7.3.1.dmg download on Google Chrome's Downloads page or in the status bar
Paste the content of the pasteboard to the Terminal window with cmdV and add -o Xcode7.3.1.dmg. Then hit the enter key.

Example:

curl 'http://adcdownload.apple.com/Developer_Tools/Xcode_7.3.1/Xcode_7.3.1.dmg' -H 'Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, ... <redacted> ...; as_dc=nwk; ADCDownloadAuth=<redacted>' -H 'Connection: keep-alive' --compressed -o Xcode7.3.1.dmg

If you add additionally -L -C - at the end (after the suggested -o Xcode7.3.1.dmg), you can resume previous downloads (i.e. download interrupted server-side).

I hope this works for you.


How do I tell if a disk image (.sparseimage) is encrypted?

from the command line you can use 'hdiutil isencrypted {image-name}'.

bash-3.2$ hdiutil isencrypted unencrypted.sparseimage
encrypted: NO
bash-3.2$ hdiutil isencrypted encrypted.sparseimage
encrypted: YES
blocksize: 512
uuid: FC3C26ED-3056-4F98-8248-DD2F16B39357
private-key-count: 0
passphrase-count: 1
max-key-count: 1
version: 2
bash-3.2$


Sharing a provisioning profile among team members under a non-company subscription

Provisioning Profiles can be shared without problems between developers. For them to be valid and usable, though, having both Public and Private keys is needed.

The Public key is stored in the Certificate whilst the Private has to be exported from the certificate's creator Keychain App.


Download and install RCDefault and change all URLs associated to iTerm2 to their proper apps, especially https.

To unset iTerm2 handling particular URLs open the Apps tab, navigate to iTerm2 and untick those URLs.


Where is the 'Where from' meta data stored when downloaded via Chrome?

It's stored in an extended attribute on the file. Specifically the com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms attribute. It may stay with the file when you move it to different computers, but it depends on the filesystem or file sharing protocol you use. If you move it to another Mac on an HFS+ disk, it will likely keep it, but not necessarily if you transfer over the network, and most likely not with an external disk with a non-HFS+ filesystem.

You can check a file by running xattr -lp com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms myfile in the Terminal, or remove it with xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms my file. ls -l@ flag is also useful; it will list the names of xattrs along with the usual ls information.

If you want to remove it from multiple files, have a look at this question: How to remove xattr com.apple.quarantine from all .webarchive files with that extended attribute?


Settings > Safari > Accept cookies > Always


"bash -D" command doesn't seem to do anything useful

It's intended to extract all the localizable strings without running the script, but it isn't very useful even for that limited purpose and I believe it has long been deprecated. If you want to see it doing something:

% printf "foo\n\$\"bar\"\n" | bash -D
"bar"


Is there a app or software to do random photo selection on iphone?

The built in slideshow would work to set the order of photos to random if you've already classified the photos into an album. Just set the delay to a while and remember to re-choose the album to re-seed the randomness if you choose to repeat the selection.

If you need to classify photos on the go, you can use the iPhoto app to import / sort / add / remove photos from a group and then set up your random slide show for the ordering of them at random.

As a bonus, you can play music if desired while you set things up. I don't know of an app to provide your slot machine animation but perhaps someone can find just that app on the store for you.


How to fix a frayed cable on a MagSafe Power Adapter?

Sugru - not cheap, but very good.

Goes on like Plasticene/Silly Putty, dries like rubberised plastic. Flexible & waterproof, lots of different colours.


How to install g++ or c++ without paying for xcode?

You can still download Xcode 3.x for free with a free developer account. Xcode 3 comes with the GCC 4.2, LLVM-GCC 1.5 and LLVM 1.5 so everything you need to compile C++, C and ObjC code.

(Remark: LLVM 1.5 can't compile C++ code, so you have to switch back to LLVM-GCC or GCC for this.)


Can I map a character to a different key?

Revisiting this four years later, now with macOS Sierra.
If you have a non-Apple keyboard then you may want to use a more appropriate keyboard mapping. You can select keyboard mappings through the keyboard tab of the System Preferences dialog. Select Input Sources and use the + button to select a mapping appropriate for your keyboard. (You may also need to use the - button to delete the mapping that you do not wish to use before your chosen mapping becomes fully effective.)
If you find the mappings provided by Apple to be unsatisfactory (Apple's British - PC keyboard does not map the pipe to the correct key - adjacent to the left-hand shift key) then you may install third-party layouts or create your own.
Here is a ZIP file containing two alternative layouts files for UK 105 key keyboards. You should unzip the files into /Library/Keyboard Layouts (use sudo).
The new layouts won't be available in the abovementioned Input Sources until you log out and back in. After that, you can select them like any other layout (they may be listed in the others category).
You can edit your chosen layout if it is still unsatisfactory (I chose the British (PC 105 alt) layout but found that Alt+3 emitted cent (¢) instead of the expected Euro (€) symbol). Layout files are simple XML text files. I identified the relevant key code and replaced its unicode output character:
<key code="21" output="&#xA2;" />

with
<key code="21" output="&#x20AC;" />

(The change was applied in two places: keymap index 3, for anyOption key (Alt to PC keyboard users), and keymap index 5 for the same with CapsLock on.)
(Once again, a log out/in cycle is required for the change to take effect).
The key code for the 4 key (which, when used with Alt should produce €) is 21. Should you wish to discover the key code for a physical key then you could use the Key Codes app, available free of charge from the Apple App Store.
Should you desire a more GUI way of customising your keyboard then you could look at Ukelele [sic] or Karabiner, formerly known as KeyRemap4MacBook (although the website states that Karabiner doesn't currently work on macOS Sierra at the moment.)

Still unresolved I wanted to identify keycodes without installing anything (think X-Windows xev) and I could not find Apple's standard key layouts (they aren't in /Library/Keyboard Layouts). I guess they are in /System/Library/Keyboard Layouts in a different format. It would be nice to be able to use a standard layout as a starting point for custom edits made as described above.


Easiest way in this case is to just

create another user using the Preferences panel
log into this user locally
generate the appropriate SSH key pair
transfer the public key to your friend over a secure channel

In addition you may want to tighten up your system a bit by preventing SSH logins without keys. Open /etc/sshd_config in any text editor and set

PasswordAuthentication no
PermitEmptyPasswords no

Afterwards restart SSH by disabling and enabling remote login in Preferences.


"Unable to verify account name or password" in Mail app despite using correct info

Yahoo has added more security and so does not work with a simple IMAP login by default.

Yahoo's information is here

I think to use MacOS Mail you need to follow step 3

  While changing or upgrading your third party applications, you can temporarily give them access.

  Sign in to Yahoo Mail.
  Go to your "Account security" settings.
  Turn on Allow apps that use less secure sign in.

  Caution - Do not use this setting as a permanent access method. It is intended only for temporary access while you switch or upgrade to a secure application. Remember to turn it off afterwards.


How do I access the user Library from a Time Machine backup?

The Library folder is probably just hidden by Finder. You can show hidden files by running this in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true && osascript -e 'quit app "Finder"'

Changing true to false reverts the setting.


Apple's News editorial team chooses the categories under ‘Apple News’ and these are shown to everyone in your region. These are not customisable per person.
The categories you choose to be interested in go under ‘Following’, which is customisable and can be removed with a secondary click and choosing Unfollow Topic or Block Topic.


How do I convert my Photos library to actual files and folders with no quality loss?

At the end, the only solution to this was to download Photos-to-Disk Software I mentioned above. It worked perfectly, creating the Folder Structure I needed. I recommend to do the same guys, if for some reason you have this issue.


easy way to manage VMware ESXi on Mac OS X

If you've got access to vCenter, then you can administer your servers via the vCenter Web Access page. Otherwise, if you have any Windows VMs then you could install the vSphere client in there and remote-desktop into it as a standalone application.


I'd recommend that you use Firewire target disk mode.

From article "How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode" (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661):

  FireWire target disk mode allows a Macintosh computer with a FireWire
  port (the target computer) to be used as an external hard disk
  connected to another computer (the host). Once a target computer is
  started up as a FireWire hard disk and is available to the host
  computer, you can copy files to or from that volume.

You basically need to:

Connect both computers with a Firewire cable.
Start your G4 Mac while pressing the T key until a FireWire icon appears.
Wait until a firewire drive icon appears on your MBP's desktop. Open the drive and copy what you need (probably in /Users/<your username>).
When you're done, eject the drive as usual (⌘E or drag it to the recycle bin) and power your G4 Mac off.


Prompt when sending text message as SMS instead of iMessage?

This is something I wish iOS5 had. Alas, it does not - however if it fails to send as iMessage with send as SMS disabled, it will allow you to tap / hold (I forget which) and specify to send as text.

The main caveat to this, though, is that it doesn't 'alert' you per-se.


Help, I can't search from the App Launcher anymore

Run this in your Terminal to clear the Launcher.

sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db "DELETE from apps; \
DELETE from groups WHERE title<>''; DELETE from items WHERE rowid>2;" \
&& killall Dock

When this is done, you will have a marvelously blank Launchpad interface, so to add your applications again all you have to do is drag them to the Launchpad icon in the Dock (drag the Launchpad program itself from the /Applications folder to the Dock if it is not already there). Any new applications you purchase through the Mac App Store will be automatically added to Launchpad.

Be sure to back up the database file before you alter it by copying it to your Desktop or another safe location. If for some reason you have messed up Launchpad and wish to restore your previous settings then you can restore the backup (or even use Time Machine to restore a previously backed up database file) and then log out and log back in to your system.

Alternatively, if you wish to reset the Launchpad to its default settings and organization, then all you need to do is delete the database file. To do this, press the Option key and choose Library from the Go menu in the Finder, and then navigate to the /Application Support/Dock/ folder and remove the ".db" file (it will have a long string of letters and numbers as its name). Or you can run the following command in the Terminal:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db

Source: http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-reset-and-manage-the-os-x-10-7-launchpad-interface/


Changing from HDD to SSD with my Airport Time Capsule

As long as you're on your Wi-Fi network, you should be able to do that, but if I were you I'd just buy a SATA-to-USB cable ($30 at Best Buy), install the SSD as usual, connect the HDD over USB, make a disk image of it with Disk Utility (in Recovery), and then install the image on the new drive. I did this when I upgraded my MacBook Pro to an SSD and haven't had any problems with it.


Theres a few really good font managers out there that offer you this capability.

Suitcase Fusion's been around for a long time and is really popular, personally I find it a bit bloated though.

Fontcase is probably the most similar interface to fontbook and is also one of the most popular. It used to be my favourite, but i've found it buggy in ML.

Font Explorer X is again popular and has been around a while.

Type DNA is an interesting new contender, it was one of the first apps to get it's plugins working with CS6. They're also offering 6 month free trials to students.


Can I prevent music through an AirPod from pausing when a single pod is removed?

Head into Settings > Bluetooth > AirPods > Turn Off Automatic Ear Detection feature

When the automatic ear detection feature is turned off, audio will continue to play even fi you take the AirPods out of your ears.


How should I handle total freeze upon launching iPhone simulator?

Turned out this was a pretty fundamental hardware issue related to the graphics card with new 16" MBP. Not sure how many machines are affected, but it's easy enough to find threads and forums with owners discussing this issue. I met with a Mac technician at an Apple store and fortunately, she had seen the issue and immediately agreed to replace the machine. The new machine they gave me has also had a handful of kernel panics, but of a different sort, and they seem to have stopped suddenly after a few days of use. Keeping Apple on speed dial though if more issues arise.


Facebook video calling problem in Safari

Facebook video calling is not supported on Safari (and hasn't been for years).

Apple hasn't indicated they will support this nor has Facebook indicated they would change their code to accommodate Safari.

Your options are to provide feedback to Apple or Facebook, telling them you'd like this feature supported.


Can I reduce the time to display the list of running windows when clicking and holding the icon of a running application in the dock?

If your Mac has a trackpad, you can click with two fingers to bring up that menu without delay. If it has a Magic Mouse, you can click on the right side of the mouse. If it has a standard PC mouse, you can right click, and whatever hardware you have, you can also hold Control while clicking to do the same thing. This also brings up other context menus in all sorts of places in the system! Hope this helps.


How to do multiple conditions in one formula; and/or use a string as a condition?

Replace the "0" by the second formula

=IF(BM16=−1,1,if(BK16>0, "", if(BM16 > -1 , "", "O")))

anything after = is a formula and can be used where you want a value