How to fix "Webmail is turned off. You can turn it on by using the Server app on the server." on Lion Server?

According to Macgasm...

  There are still the same options, excluding the option for webmail, which has been removed. With the increase in use of iOS based devices, like the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad, all of which have the built-in Mail.app client, it’s possible that the use of web-based mail clients is rapidly decreasing. For me at least, the use of the web interfaces for my myriad of mail accounts is almost entirely non-existent. I cannot remember the last time that I logged into a web-based mail client to check my email. It only seems like a natural progression of the OS to remove a little-used feature. So, it’s not too surprising that Apple has removed any web-based mail client in OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Server, likely preferring that users access mail services either via Mail.app on their iOS device or via Mail.app on their Mac.

Screenshot from Lion Server:

Screenshot from Mountain Lion Server:


My keyboard shortcut System Preference panel doesn't allow me to create application shortcuts

After you have selected the shortcut you want to change, press the tab key on your keyboard and you will be able to type in the new shortcut.

Anyway, that is how I solved the problem :-)


How do I get my LaunchAgent to run as root?

To get a user LaunchAgent executing a script to run as root you have to do the following:

Modify the permissions of the script. Add the script (or command) to the sudoers file in the context of the user and finally add and load a proper launch agent plist.

This approach might create severe security holes!

In the example below I use the startup.sh of eXit-db 2.2:

Create a plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <false/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.eXist_DB</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/sudo</string>
        <string>/Applications/eXist-db.app/Contents/Resources/eXist-db/bin/startup.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/eXist_DB.err</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/eXist_DB.out</string>
    <key>ThrottleInterval</key>
    <integer>10</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

and save it as org.eXist_DB.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents

The last key:

    <key>ThrottleInterval</key>
    <integer>10</integer>

might not be necessary. In my VM it was - for unknown reasons.
Modify the permissions of startup.sh:

sudo chown root /Applications/eXist-db.app/Contents/Resources/eXist-db/bin/startup.sh
sudo chmod 4755 /Applications/eXist-db.app/Contents/Resources/eXist-db/bin/startup.sh

Modify the sudoers file:

sudo visudo

add a line to enable executing a command without the need to enter the sudo  password

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL

->

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL
your_user_name ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /Applications/eXist-db.app/Contents/Resources/eXist-db/bin/startup.sh

Finally enter:

launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.eXist_DB.plist

to load and start the launch agent


How to set up my iMessage account on my MacBook Pro?

This support page from Apple should help you out greatly:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349

This page should help you set it up on OS X (it's using OS X Mavericks to explain the instructions, but it's the same steps if you have OS X Yosemite), and will give you troubleshooting tips for if your phone number is missing on OS X.

Hope this helps.


How to remove all pictures from the Photos app and put them in a folder?

By default, imported original photos are located at:

  ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters/

So putting them into a folder is as simple as copying the 'Masters" folder elsewhere.

Alternatively you can select the photos you wish to retrieve and then go to File > Export > Export Unmodified Original.


Rule of thumb, use Time Capsule = Problem Solved.

I ended up migrated to Fastmail.fm => Away from Google.


After booting correctly, why at some point would function keys get remapped in Macbook Air?

Without knowing what programs you have installed that could be doing that:
Like some keyboard remapper...

Log in as different user to make sure there is not something in you profile preferences

or

Start in Safe mode to exclude other applications.

Then start applications one by one to find out who is doing it.

Also check this setting in System preference keyboard:


To fix this issue there are two ways:

Rebuild

To rebuild a Mailbox in Mail, select the mailbox you want to rebuild and click on the Mailbox menu; at the bottom there is the Rebuild option. Repeat this step for each one of your Mailboxes.

It can take few hours to reindex a large mailbox and if it's an IMAP or Exchange mailbox, the rebuild will have to download again everything from the server.

Reindex

It is also often necessary to manually reindex Mail messages after a major OS upgrade. This is also necessary if Mail becomes unresponsive and/or if search is not functioning correctly or the app doesn't run.

Quit Mail if it’s open.
From the terminal run

mkdir ~/Desktop/backup
mv ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope\ Index*  ~/Desktop/backup`

(replace V2 with V4 for Sierra).
Launch Mail and it will build new Envelope Index files; that can take a long time if there are many messages to reindex and if it's an IMAP or Exchange mailbox, the rebuild will have to download again everything from the server.

If everything seems to be working correctly, you can now delete the backup from from your desktop (rm ~/Desktop/backup).


Is it possible to have different font sizes for editing and message actually sent?

The size you set in Mail > Preferences for viewing and composing does not actually have any effect on what is seen at the other end.  To do that you have to select the font for each outgoing individually in the New Message pane (and I think also have it different than the font in Preferences).

Mail's inability to set a default outgoing font annoys many users, who sometimes then switch to Thunderbird or Entourage/Outlook instead.  Also someone did an app here:

http://messagefont.com/


If I disable Location Services, will Find My iPhone continue to work?

No, Find My iPhone will not continue to work if Location Services is disabled. However, if you enable lost mode, it will automatically enable Location Services.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201357

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


Entering hibernate mode after delay upon going to sleep mode doesn't work when using power supply

Oh maybe you should also set autopoweroffdelay to 60.

According to Apple's KB (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201635), it said: "OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.2 supplemental update 2.0 introduced a feature that lets your Mac enter safe sleep after four hours of being connected to AC power."

So it's clear now:

"standby" only takes effect when the computer using BATTERY.

"autopoweroff" only takes effect when the computer is CONNECTED TO AC POWER.

So you should also use this command:

sudo pmset -a autopoweroffdelay 60

It should work now, hope this helps you.


Remotely disable Macbook Air through network access

If you had logged in iCloud in your computer you can trace it with that by logging on iCloud.com and then in the find my iPhone tab there you can Do any of the three options,

Show a message on the screen,
Remotely lock the computer
Clear the data from the computer.

P.S. In any case there is rare chance you may get it back so at the end you have to "forget it"


Unfortunately, Apple does not officially provide any software or methods for this, so if you do take a step not advised from Apple, you are taking a risk that could affect your device or lose your warranty. That being said, I would just assume that you went to an Apple Authorised Service Provider. Having said that, you could speak to Apple Support or write an email to them on how individual stores and service providers handle devices and what information is required. I would only imagine that they would be allowed to take the Model number (for device identification) and your Serial number (for warranty status).


How do I download Mac OS Sierra or High Sierra without an Apple ID?

You can't, the Mac App Store naturally requires an AppleID and entering it is just part of the process to verify the user.

I can really only think on one way and that is to get a friend who has downloaded the installer to give it to you as a file or a portable USB installer, more on that here.
I am sure you have a valid AppleID, else just create another one, as it is much less complicated to just go the "standard" way and enter one if it prompts for one, than to have to worry about the legitimacy of other sources.

So to sum up, there is an option in the System Preferences' App Store tab to decide when to prompt for a password. This may be what you are looking for. Else the answer is no, as Apple likes to know who it's software goes to.
I hope that helps, please let me know if you require clarification.


How to Change Scroll Speed Programmatically with Applescript or Shell Script

Terminal:

defaults write -g com.apple.scrollwheel.scaling -float 1.0

And log-out/log-in. 1.0 is just a guess. Maybe also try 1.5. This is a hidden preference so default value is not known. Fiddle around a bit to find the speed to like. If it doesn't work, or you wish to restore to back to how it used to be:

defaults delete -g com.apple.scrollwheel.scaling


IPhone: too much disk space is used for unknown reason

Looks like that iOS is taking some space since it says the capacity is 12GB even though (I'm guessing) your device is 16GB.


How can multiple people do the same workout?

I've not seen a way to do this so I've thought it may be possible to start the exercise simultaneously on a iPhone/iPad and do the workout using the TV with another family member but still get your activity updated because you were paired on the phone.


Create custom shortcuts and assign them to F keys

First of all, You don't need Karabinier to change F* keys behaviour. It can be done in Preferences -> Keyboard -> Use all F1, F2 etc. as standard function keys.

Then to assign keyboard shortcut to Terminal You have to switch to Shortcuts tab, select Application Shortcuts then click + sign. There You can choose application in which this shortcut will be working. There's also text input to enter Menu Item name (for example: Close, Minimize etc. check how it's named in Your Terminal app).

NOTE: There's no Maximize Menu item, I can find only Close and Minimize.
If You want to install 3rd party app for this, I'd recommend Better Touch Tool where You can set a lot more actions to keyboard shortcuts and mouse/trackpad gestures. Here's an example for BTT:

Picture 1 taken from osxdaily.com


Apple TV play media stored on Airport Extreme hard drive?

VLC should do the trick. I confirmed I can access the drive inside my Time Capsule using VLC on my Apple TV.

I imagine it will also access the files on a USB-connected drive. Not tested the latter though.


When you start up your new Mac for the first time, it will ask you if you want to copy files, settings and apps over from another Mac, or from a TM backup.
If you do this, everything should be fine. However, if you want to exclude Applications, you can do this as part of the process.


What is the performance penalty of using RansomWhere.app?

I have used it for the past few weeks on my 12" Retina MacBook and noticed no impact on performance.


I'm in pretty much the same boat as you. The exception being I'm using mamp 4.5.

I'm yet to find a solution however I can help you to see the mail log.

in terminal you can use:
  log stream --predicate '(process == "smtpd") || (process == "smtp") || (process == "master")' -info

Using smarthost with the default mamp /etc/postfix/main.cf I keep getting:
  master: warning: process /usr/libexec/postfix/qmgr pid 9687 exit status 1
  master: master exit time has arrived

I also get the same message if I turn mamp postfix off and activate it via terminal. For this I have followed https://benjaminrojas.net/configuring-postfix-to-send-mail-from-mac-os-x-mountain-lion/

with postconf -n I get the message
  postconf: warning: /etc/postfix/main.cf: unused parameter: mydomain_fallback=localhost

I hope this helps in some way.


Apps won't download or update on iOS 9.3.2

First I'd suggest you to try  perhaps thru an alternate internet connection.
If that doesn't resolve the issue I'd suggest you the following since you're stating that this happens every time you try to download an app or an update then I assume that this happens by every app and resetting your iPhone doesn't either work then I'd suggest you to try signing out of the App Store then restart your iPhone and sign into the App Store and try again to download.


Does resetting network setting wipe your mvno?

No - resetting network settings just causes your baseband radio to reach out. Unless you have jail broken, this is a very safe and in fact, good thing to do as it forces a proper hand shake and registration with the cellular carriers to the extent you can do that.
Also, it lets you call your carrier and let them know that your issues are not resovled after a reset and reconnection. They can trace your communications from the date/time you reset and then get the issue to their engineering team to help you promptly (we hope).


OSXFUSE, BindFS and HFS+ extended file attributes

These issues have reportedly been fixed in the latest version of BindFS. Try installing BindFS with head option and see if the problems persist:

brew install bindfs --HEAD


You can indeed increase the amount of VRAM in certain Apple models.  In fact, you have already done that for 1 or 2 times.

2012 Mac Mini 4GB allocated 768MB to VRAM in it's original release state.
Upgrading the RAM back in 2012 to 8GB would have given you 1024MB.
Keeping the RAM at 4GB but upgrading to OSX 10.9 would also resulted in 1024MB.
Following your claim that you have 1536MB available this might be the result of either OSX 10.9.3 or because of the 2nd 8GB.  I don't know.
I probably still have a 2012 Mac Mini somewhere in the cupboard and will test this soon.
2013/2014 MBA and MBPr models came with 1024MB out of the box.
This was also increased to 1536MB after installing OSX 10.9.3

There might be more models that have received a free VRAM upgrade in the past but I have no direct records of these.


How can I see the list of recent opened files in Numbers?

Many native macOS apps do support "Open Recent". It is under Files menu, often clubbed with "Open" item.

You can also use Help menu to search items in other menus.


Yosemite and El Capitan USB crash kills keyboard and trackpad

The start up sequence is kind of hard to emulate other than actually power cycling the computer.

I don't have a good answer since his failure is extremely low level, but here are the things I would do to troubleshoot and isolate things before considering a total reinstallation of the OS:

run sysdiagnose script each time a failure happens to capture the logs and also gain a sense of how often this happens.
verify that plugging in the USB keyboard does not kick start the system properly for internal or external keyboard function
log out the user using kill -9 -1 or via remote screen sharing

My guess is the logs will show USB errors indicating a hardware fault, but that would need a look at your specific logs. It's not clear why you are manually loading the kext so perhaps I'm missing some information?


Can I make FaceTime the default audio- and video-call app when other call apps are installed?

Yes, you can make Facetime Default audio video call app on your iPhone by following below mentioned steps:

Tap Apps & Notifications.
Tap Advanced.
Tap Default Apps.
Under Default Apps, you will find 'Phone App' which you can tap to change the default.


iOS 10 isn't the problem - the "old" gmail app still opened links in chrome well after updating to iOS 10. This didn't become an issue until updating to Gmail's version 5 that this became an issue.


Unfortunately the range of extensions available for Safari is pretty limited, and no one has written such an extension at this point.

Also having written an extension or two for myself in the past, there is no way to access the tabs and colour them in any way, so it would not be possible.

It may be worth looking at another browser such as Google Chrome, or Firefox.


You can use Xcode for standard C++ programs. You can also use it with OpenGL.

You can also use Eclipse for C++. Here's how to setup OpenGL in Eclipse CDT for Mac.


How can I retrieve photos from an iPhone 4 without using wifi(probably) or cell data?

As a sidenote, the phones WiFi chip seems to be defective, WiFi will work no matter how old the iOS-version is. Maybe try resetting network settings in Settings - General.

Anyhow - I believe your only option will be to use a cable to get the pictures off the phone. Have you tried all the computers you have at home? Some devices give out more juice than others. Another way would of course be some cloud service, then again, not the best option without WiFi..


1. SSH key bit length

Is your SSH key bit length > 2048? You can use this command to confirm.

$ ssh-keygen -lf ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
4096 SHA256:0f7e9153ec1edf81c224fec24c76d3ab1be7010e joeuser@dom.com (RSA)

If it's less macOS will refuse to allow it.

2. Cipher Suite Support

Also you should investigate from the client where you're running SSH which cipher suites are being presented to your laptop's SSH server. You can do this using ssh -vvvv .... to see what ciphers are available on your client like so:

$ ssh -Q cipher
3des-cbc
aes128-cbc
aes192-cbc
aes256-cbc
rijndael-cbc@lysator.liu.se
aes128-ctr
aes192-ctr
aes256-ctr
aes128-gcm@openssh.com
aes256-gcm@openssh.com
chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com

You'll also want to investigate several other components of the cipher suite.

Ciphers: ssh -Q cipher
MACs: ssh -Q mac
KexAlgorithms: ssh -Q kex
PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes: $ ssh -Q key

The man page's details on -Q as well:

 -Q query_option
         Queries ssh for the algorithms supported for the specified version 2.  The available features
         are: cipher (supported symmetric ciphers), cipher-auth (supported symmetric ciphers that sup-
         port authenticated encryption), mac (supported message integrity codes), kex (key exchange
         algorithms), key (key types), key-cert (certificate key types), key-plain (non-certificate
         key types), and protocol-version (supported SSH protocol versions).

3. IPQoS

There have been reports from newer versions of OpenSSH pertaining to connectivity issues. I've found these as examples:

SSH fails on macOS Mojave 10.14.1

OpenSSH 7.8 causes VMware Workstation and Player networking SSH bug on Linux VMs #287
SSH connections dropped due to QoS flags

The workaround requires adding the following to your ~/.ssh/config:

$ cat ~/.ssh/config
...
...
Host *
  IPQoS throughput

I've seen variations of this so you may need to try low instead of throughput. You can consults the man ssh_config for more details, here's the excerpt for that option:

 IPQoS   Specifies the IPv4 type-of-service or DSCP class for connections.  Accepted values are af11,
         af12, af13, af21, af22, af23, af31, af32, af33, af41, af42, af43, cs0, cs1, cs2, cs3, cs4,
         cs5, cs6, cs7, ef, lowdelay, throughput, reliability, a numeric value, or none to use the
         operating system default.  This option may take one or two arguments, separated by white-
         space.  If one argument is specified, it is used as the packet class unconditionally.  If two
         values are specified, the first is automatically selected for interactive sessions and the
         second for non-interactive sessions.  The default is af21 (Low-Latency Data) for interactive
         sessions and cs1 (Lower Effort) for non-interactive sessions.

You can of course pass it via CLI like so as well:

$ ssh -o IPQoS=throughput joeuser@192.168.1.1

If find you're not having any luck with the above you may want to try this form instead:

Host *
     IPQoS lowdelay throughput

Several threads mention this form working as well.

References

ssh man page


Number pad does not work in vim and less

If you are using Terminal (not iTerm or others), there is a setting that might help. Turn off this setting (sorry, it's in german. But the location should be the same):

If you are using iTerm, there is at least a fix for vim: You can remap the keys to get this to work. Just add the following lines to your ~/.vimrc (Create it, if it doesn't exist.)

inoremap <Esc>Oq 1
inoremap <Esc>Or 2
inoremap <Esc>Os 3
inoremap <Esc>Ot 4
inoremap <Esc>Ou 5
inoremap <Esc>Ov 6
inoremap <Esc>Ow 7
inoremap <Esc>Ox 8
inoremap <Esc>Oy 9
inoremap <Esc>Op 0
inoremap <Esc>On .
inoremap <Esc>OQ /
inoremap <Esc>OR *
inoremap <Esc>Ol +
inoremap <Esc>OS -
inoremap <Esc>OM <Enter>

Source: a comment in the vim wiki.


iPhone 4 iOS 7 with no iCloud backup. Is there way to access data?

Without any kind of backup there is no way to get the data unless you find the iPhone.

If you remember your Apple ID and password, you can login to appleid.apple.com and set the device as lost.  This should keep a thief or anyone who finds the phone from accessing your personal data.  Hopefully you have the iPhone set with a passcode to unlock.

From Apple Support using Lost Mode:

  If you can’t find your iOS device, Apple Watch, or Mac, use Lost Mode right away to lock it and keep track of its location. For more information, or if you can’t use Lost Mode because Find My iPhone wasn’t set up on your lost device, see the Apple Support article If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is lost or stolen.


I have this same issue.  I'm on a Macbook Pro and changed the settings for the trackpad.  This changed the mouse behavior.  Not a true solution, but works for me.


MacOS mdfind/mdutil issue and updatedb command : how to index all the files on my /Volume (root /)

The updatedb program on macOS is a very different program than the updatedb program on Linux. In contrast to the Linux program, the macOS program does not attempt to reuse existing database data about directories that haven't changed.

There's no option for the macOS program that will make it behave like the Linux program.


Try using something like mysite.dev in the hosts file.

Further details in stackoverflow.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to move the position of a tab in Safari?

There does not appear to be a built-in keyboard shortcut to change the position of a given tab amongst other tabs in Safari.  At least none listed in the Apple Support Documents listed below.

Safari 6/7 (Mavericks): Safari shortcuts
Safari 8 (Yosemite): Safari keyboard and other shortcuts
Safari 9 (El Capitan): Safari keyboard and other shortcuts

One might be able to create an Automator Service with a Run Apple Script Action to manipulate tabs in a Safari windows and then assign it a keyboard shortcut in Keyboard System Preferences, however I'd imagine it might not be to easy to code.

Update:

I looked through the Safari AppleScript Dictionary and played around with the coding of an AppleScript script to manipulated tab ordering, or I should say the appearance of tab ordering, as even a simple command such as move last tab to before first tab required a refresh of the URL. In other words whether or not I coded it via move or switching the URL of the current and next tab, etc, all methods I tried forces/requires a refresh of the URL, where dragging and dropping a tab only changes the tab order and does not refresh any tab when done in a DnD manner.

In conclusion, if you don't mind the tab URL being refreshed then the appearance of drag and drop can be accomplished however to physically move a tab without it refreshing would probably require the use of third-party utilities and much more complex coding then coding using move or swapping the URLs of adjacent tabs, etc.


Is it recommended to use Mac wifi sharing for long periods of time?

The Internet Sharing "hotspot" feature does work well for this. However, it is WEP only and you are stuck with the default IP address range unless you do some hacking. I use an Airport Express and I find it's very convenient, supports "more" secure connections(WPA), and is configurable. It's also always available, never goes to sleep and never drains a battery. It can become a pain always having to have your MBP available for your iOS devices.

Being in an University environment, I would want to use something a little more secure then WEP.

Also, you can adjusts the signal strength on the AE. Turn it down if you'd like it to just cover your room. Turn it up if there is a lot of other WIFI going on. I'm not sure what kind of range you'll get on the MBP and how many connections it will handle well.

The MBP will work in a pinch. I'd get a dedicated device to save yourself time, and hassle.


Internet Sharing stuck on after 10.7.3 update

I found a relatively simple solution not involving a system restart - just bring the WiFi interface down and then back up:

$ sudo ifconfig en0 down
$ sudo ifconfig en0 up

In my case en0 is the AirPort interface of my MacBook Air.

Note that turning the AirPort off and on again doesn't work, but bringing the interface down does the job.


What's the difference between the different "generations" of iPod touches?

The short answer is processing speed, screen resolution and memory. The newer ones are obviously faster, and the lastest generation (4g) includes both front and back cameras for shooting video and video calling.

For a full list of the differences check out this wikipedia page.


Can I cancel this neverending message move in Mail.app?

Two things which come to mind that you could try are:

pressing the Command + . keys
pressing the  ESC key

Either way you may need to do this a few times and wait for the task to register what you're doing.


Safari: save webpage with CSS / images folders

The free tool WebArchive Extractor by Rob Rohan can extract the individual files from a .webarchive. Hope this helps!


I can no longer edit my iPhone's playlists

I just answered my own question.  I didn't realize that the list I was trying to edit was a Smart Playlist, which of course assembles lists based on the criteria you set up.  The only way to edit these lists is to change the criteria by which songs are included or modify the songs' information.  My regular playlists have the proper Edit buttons.


Accessibility: How could I kill menu transparency improving legibility


Connecting an iPad to a printer on another (LAN) network

For many years, I have been using Readdle's Printer Pro application for iOS. The app costs a few dollars, but seems to do the trick for me. It also works with all other Readdle apps, such as Scanner Pro, and Documents 5.

Printer Pro - print documents, photos, web pages and email attachments by Readdle
https://appsto.re/ca/hVxCx.i


Mouse hover doesn't work when Microsoft mouse is connected

I know it's an old thread but since there are no solution mentioned for the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Mouse... I had the same problem and fixed it just now.

It is a hardware issue where the little button below the Windows blue button gets stuck. I had two of these and the one where it was clickable, it worked fine and the second one had the button stuck and the hover over wasn't working.
I stuck a push pin into it and tried to pry it out through the rubber layer on it and it now works fine.

So it was down to poor quality buttons on this nice mouse.


What should I look for when buying a used Macbook Pro?

Beyond visual inspection, you should be able to run Apple Hardware Test in order to check the system hardware's working condition.


Before you toss the disk I suggest you connect it to you Mac and try running Disk Utility app. It's usually located in the Application/Utilities folder. Start this app and see if your disk shows up, Disk Utility has an option to erase the disk. You can erase the disk and then create a partition formatted to whatever format you want. After that, I'd run First Aid on the disk to see if there are any problems. Disk Utility will fix most problems it encounters. Then disk should be ready to use on your mac.


How to install QuickTime 7 without overwriting the currently installed version

The QuickTime Player 7 and QuickTime 10 apps coexist on all my Macs without causing any problems.

If you're worried about overwriting QuickTime Player 10, right-click on the app, and choose Compress "QuickTime Player.app" and zip it up. If the QuickTime Player 7 installation wipes out v.10, (and I don't think it will,) then you can simply uncompress it.

You can also retrieve it from a Time Machine backup. You do use Time Machine, don't you?


How to safely dismiss the apple pay screen

Press the home button with a finger not registered with TouchID or press the On/Off button on the right side of the phone. Either will dismiss the Apple Pay window.


Macbook Air - battery drains while sleeping (but not when shut down)

I have had the same problem occur to me after a completely new battery was installed in a MacBook Air from late 2011. From 100% I woke up the next day to find the battery at 28%.

So I dug up some research I had done and it comes to this command:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25

From examining your setting I see yours is not 25 but 3, if you have not found a solution for your problem, this could be it.

Here is some additional read on this from the Apple Discussion Forums: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4729695?start=0&tstart=0

You can see some pros and cons of doing this. I quote the documented differences:

hibernatemode = 3 by default on supported portables. The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.

hibernatemode = 25 The system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery life, you should use this setting.

If I notice better results I shall do well to post them here as backing evidence. Good luck!


Mac keeps searching for networks even when it's already connected to a network

It is not a problem and it does not search for network unless you prompt it to.

Only if you click the AirPort menu bar item to look at the list of networks will it start searching to show you what is out there, since it rightly so assumes you wanted to search for networks.


How to restore jailbroken iPhone stuck in recovery mode without iTunes?

It’s not possible to do that without iTunes.

If you have a PC or Mac with iTunes installed, you can bring the device in DFU mode by performing the following steps:

Connect the iPhone to your computer
Press and hold the Home button and the Sleep button at the same time
After 10 seconds, release the Sleep button
Continue holding the Home button until this iTunes message shows up: "iTunes has detected an iPhone in recovery mode. You must restore this iPhone before it can be used with iTunes"

You can then restore it to the latest iOS version. Please be aware that this will erase all the data on your device and will restore it to the latest iOS version (iOS 8.1.1 as of Dec 1st, 2014).

Please note: In DFU mode, the iPhone’s screen will remain black until you invoke the firmware restore. If it shows a "Connect to iTunes" screen, you are not in DFU mode but in recovery mode.


Move folders from 'on my mac' to gmail imap

If your local message show up in Mail you can just drag and drop them into the IMAP folders using the Mail sidebar I believe. Is that what you are asking about?


Is there a way to stop the optimization process behind "Optimizing Your Mac"?

What you describe is far worse than the normal optimization phase.

If your Mac is so sluggish that the cursor movement and launching of apps is unworkable (delays more than 60 seconds per action) and persists past a reboot, you'll need to get the hardware checked as the storage system is likely failing due to software or hardware failure.

To troubleshoot this:

back up all files you care to ever see again
disconnect the backup drive (and test restore to another Mac if that costs less in time and $ than you'd spend to recreate the files or compensate you for the loss - i.e. wedding and/or baby pictures, etc...)
Reinstall a clean OS - import no data, set up no network, no Apple ID, no iCloud. Run that system until it's idle in activity monitor and there's no delay launching apps from spotlight.
Test opening any three apps you care from Launchpad

If this OS is slow, troubleshoot the hardware further.

If this OS is fast:

connect to the internet
update all the software
install any critical software you need to work/test (this rules out a software conflict with the software you were running when the machine was stuck)
open Activity Monitor and be sure the system is idle and performs properly
now decide to import your user files, connect to iCloud and Dropbox and any other tools that can cause slowness and external dependancies. If you don't want to set things up by hand, you can wipe this test OS and reinstall and choose to restore your backup in one shot.

Good luck - troubleshooting hardware/software isn't a hard concept, but being organized, limiting change, and testing after each step is what makes it sometimes tedious and worth outsourcing.


How to prevent cursor from getting stuck in corner in Mac OS Catalina?

I figured it out. Its the most dumb thing.

You go to System Preferences -> Display -> Arrangement. Make sure both monitors are "in line" with each other".

XD


Just to set a base line, I can say that my Catalina installation does not exhibit any such delay for updating Finder windows. Doing mv/copy/remove operations from the Terminal updates the Finder windows immediately.
This is on Catalina 10.15.5 on an encrypted APFS SSD, and works with any file size and file type (as far as I can tell).


If I have AT&T, will the iPhone 4S work in areas of CDMA coverage only?

No. CDMA will only work of you buy and activate your 4S device onto a CDMA carrier.

The FAQ shows that when you activate the phone it will choose one technology for coverage in country. GSM Registered phones will roam on GSM as will CDMA phones. Sprint should work in 35 unnamed countries and Verizon in 40 at launch.


MacBook Pro "clicking" while muted when showing a message dialog in Windows on Parallels - what's happening?

The pops you hear are due to the sound card turning on then turning off.  It is more obvious if you connect your laptop to an external sound system.  Unfortunately it isn't something you can control/change on your system.
I'm guessing that Apple does this so that the sound card doesn't play interference sounds (hums, whines, etc) from power sources, cell phones, etc.

Although it might be more obvious with the Windows dialog and alert sound, it is not just Parallels.  I have the same problem in Parallels, VMware Fusion, in every Mac application, and even the Finder.

For example, try pressing the volume up and down buttons on your keyboard and listen very carefully.  Just before the volume change sound plays, you will hear the pop as it turns on.  About 3 seconds later, you will hear another pop as it turns off.  (If the volume sound doesn't play when you press the volume buttons, hold down shift).

Another example is to play a movie in Quicktime Player where it is completely silent at the start.  When you press Play, you will get the pop.  The "off" pop will happen about 3 seconds after you close the movie window or quit Quicktime Player.

If it bothers you a lot, a total hack workaround I've found is to get Audio Hijack Pro.  Install and run it then from the Audio Hijack Pro menu, select Install Extras and install the Instant On option.  In the main window, select the System Audio entry and click the Hijack button.  You will hear the pop as AHP turns on the sound card.  Since the sound card is already on, other apps like Parallels won't cause the pops to happen. Simply hide or minimize the AHP application and it will keep the sound card active.

AHP is free but any recordings over 10 minutes will have noise added.  Since we are just hijacking and not actually recording anything, you shouldn't have any problems with the free version.


Why has .localdomain been introduced in Postfix

There is no email client in your example (besides possibly the echo); sendmail is part of the Mail Transport Agent which on current versions of macOS is by default Postfix. Postfix will set the domain either from the configuration file or failing that some internal value or system call lookup:

$ postconf | grep localdomain
mydomain = localdomain
$ postconf -n | grep "^mydomain"
$

This shows that (at least on my system) the mydomain value is localdomain and that that value is not set in /etc/postfix/main.cf. It thus must instead come from an internal value or via some system call. (You could set it to something appropriate in main.cf; many Mail Transport Agents will reject mail from such local domains because spammers, or otherwise score the message as more likely to be spam. This may not be a problem if the email will never reach the Internet.)

$ strings /usr/sbin/postfix | grep localdomain
localdomain
$ cfu 'char buf[254]; gethostname(buf,254); printf("%s\n",buf)'
glide.local
$

Shows that postfix could be using localdomain as an internal value, as that string appears in the binary. This is likely given that gethostbyname(3) returns something that is not localdomain on my system (you probably don't have cfu but there are many ways to execute arbitrary system calls). If one downloads the source code for Postfix, there are indeed various references to localdomain:

$ find . -name "*.c" -exec fgrep localdomain {} +
./src/global/mail_addr_find.c:    UPDATE(var_mydomain, "localdomain");
./src/global/mail_addr_find.c:    UPDATE(var_myorigin, "localdomain");
./src/global/mail_addr_find.c:    UPDATE(var_mydest, "localhost.localdomain");
./src/smtp/smtp_map11.c:    UPDATE(var_myhostname, "localhost.localdomain");
./src/smtp/smtp_map11.c:    UPDATE(var_mydomain, "localdomain");
...

So this value is very likely to be set internally by Postfix, and if necessary should be adjusted by editing the configuration.


Macbook Pro weight increased after battery replacement

You can check what the weight of the MacBook Pro should be from Apple's specifications and compare with the current weight of your machine. If it turns out that your machine is heavier, you can then do something about it.


Sharing large library of Photos and Videos (currently in iPhoto) in different macs at home

Have you tried to use something like AeroFS to sync the folder with the iphoto library across the two computers? You will probably still want to avoid making edits at the same time but at least you will have access to the library on two computers.


There should be, but almost all I found were people complaining that there wasn't one.

Given that, one or more of these might help:

Apple TV Junkie has a feed of at least some new movies.
Apple has an iTunes RSS Generator
While it doesn't do new movies, it will give you top movies and top movie rentals.
If you felt like getting into the code, here's the  iTunes search API.
This URL launches iTunes and goes directly to the "New Movies to Rent or Own" section of the iTunes store.


To clear it, just delete the ~/.bash_history file. If you want to just remove the offending lines you can open ~/.bash_history in the editor of your choice. For me, this would be

emacs ~/.bash_history

and then going to the beginning of each bad line and pressing control ^+K.

Or your can just fill your .bash_history with empty.
Run this: (including the >)

 > ~/.bash_history


App Store Optimization: Individual localization for English (U.S.), Australia, Canada and U.K.?

After almost a year of observation, it appears that it does not have a negative impact on ASO.

This is because my primary language English (U.S.) is used for Australia, Canada and U.K. as well.

So the other localizations were redundant, given that they were a copy of English (U.S.) anyway.


Confusion in understanding data fork, resource fork and the MachO file format when viewed all together

The ._filename file does not only contain the resource fork, it also contains Finder metadata, in AppleDouble format.

The resource fork itself can be viewed on an HFS volume by opening filename/..namedfork/rsrc. Forks and other extended attributes can be listed by using ls -l@.

Resource forks are not specific to the Mach-O format (and I do not know if they are used at all for it), they're a feature from classic Mac OS which was extensively used for classic application files, and could store things like string tables, bitmap images, etc.

Malicious code can be hidden anywhere, a virus scanner should be able to detect it even if it is hidden in a resource fork.


Yes. You need to partition the drive into two volumes, and install Yosemite on the second partition.

You can, in theory, multi-boot your machine with any compatible OS until you run out of storage space. I have in the past had one machine boot with OS9, 10.3 and 10.5. You can also run two copies of the same version.

However, you will run into fairly serious synchronization issues if you want to run cloud services. You will not be able to revert to Mavericks after using any service with Yosemite.


How can I construct my grep command on zsh to return a specific value?

grep isn't well suited for data scrapping, you are better of with sed in such cases.

curl -sG 'https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=HCLTechnologies.hclappscancodesweep' \
    | sed -Ene 's/.*\"install\",\"value\":([0-9\.]+).*/\1/p'

The first part of the substition matches only once in the HTML file so there isn't even a need to select the correct line first.

To get the number without the decimal point use

curl -sG 'https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=HCLTechnologies.hclappscancodesweep' \
    | sed -Ene 's/.*\"install\",\"value\":([0-9]+).*/\1/p'


Preview refuses to open pdf file, incorrectly claiming a permission issue

quitting preview was enough to fix it for me.


Synchronise or share .zshrc between accounts

Use a symlink. It uses the ln command in the terminal

ln -s ~/.zshrc /var/root/.zshrc

You can replace /var/root with whatever you need to. This will create a file named .zsrhc in /var/root that is linked to the original copy in your home directory. Please note that you may need sudo before this if you do not have file permissions.


Correct Sierra 10.12.5 file paths to Spotlight and SpotlightNetHelper files to be blocked with Little Snitch?

In macOS Sierra, SpotlightNetHelper was removed and the standard WebKit networking is used instead, located at /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/com.apple.WebKit.Networking.xpc/Contents/MacOS/com.apple.WebKit.Networking.

There are various apps and processes which use this for networking, so you can't simply block it entirely without affecting those too. However you can set up a specific rule to prevent it connecting to Apple's services for Spotlight, which would prevent Spotlight using it to talk out, as shown in the first screenshot where the rule is ‘Spotlight via com.apple.WebKit.Networking’.


You can use the fade tool for this and use the automation curve tool to adjust to your requirements.
By default the fade tool is set for volume fade in/fade out, but you can change this to speed to get the same effect. It's not like a DJ spin back, but a stop/start.
Hope that helps.


How about WikiPedia? Article is pretty good.

The help many has documentation, which also is published on the web by Apple. Lastly, you can search http://apple.com/support for keychain and get several articles that document the basics and troubleshooting for Keychain Access.


Is it allowed to be an Apple trusted developer with pure Java

Basically if I understand your question - yes, it’s allowed, but might not be required.

When you pay to be a developer, Apple generates a secure certificate you can use for many functions - one of which is to code sign a folder of files. Applications on macOS are just bundles of files with some conventions which files make something a package or an app. You can sign a script, package,  interpreted code bundle or a compiled app.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution

Apple is offering additional items like notarizing an app but you should be able to sign your example app with a self-generated certificate before you pay for Apple to sign / provide your identity that all of their devices and OS will trust as valid.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizing_your_app_before_distribution

To recap, you pay for an identity that Apple validates. Of course if you abuse this, your certificate can and should be revoked but as long as you are signing legitimate apps you should expect to only have to pay annually for a renewal of your certificate. This is pretty much analogous to getting an SSL cert. You pay for those periodically, and then the signer generally doesn’t care why / where you install that cert - as long as you don’t break their rules and get caught, they don’t revoke your certificate.

Now - if the java executable gets notarized and signed by someone else, you might not need this at all and you’re not embedding executable bits and just resources and text or source code. For example, it doesn’t make sense to pay if you write swift scripts or python scripts or bash (or other shell) scripts. That would be like code signing a word doc and not word the program itself.


Error while changing the default application with which we open a file

I had the same problem, with a set of files that do have an extension (testfile.py). It turned out that there was an (invisible to me) space at the end of the filename "testfile.py ", which was causing the headache. i removed that, and all was fine again.


How Can I Search A Specific Type of File in Mac?

Search by Kind One of the most useful ways to narrow down a search is by using the kind: keyword. This allows you to restrict your list of results to a certain file format. For instance, if you type time machine kind:pdf, Spotlight will pull up only PDF files containing the words "time" and "machine". You can also limit your search to e-mail messages, music files, System Preferences, applications, and more.

While the original Spotlight recognized only a limited number of file types, the Leopard version can look for files created by specific applications, as well as certain file formats. Searching for kind:mp3 or kind:tiff will find files in one of those formats, and searching for kind:pages or kind:powerpoint will show only documents created in one of those programs. For a list of useful keywords, see “My Kind of Keyword.” But remember, for the keywords to work, you must have the appropriate categories enabled in Spotlight’s preferences.

you can get more info here or here.


Vox | Cog

Both do gapless, Vox being the one I use.


How does file's More Info attribute work, and how to access it from a terminal?

If you're looking for the metadata this blog post has a helpful description of what you can pull from terminal and which utilities to use to access it.

Edit:

Just to future-proof this answer, the gist of that article is:

  To see these details in-depth, you will need to use the Terminal’s
  mdls command, which will list all the metadata tags and values bound
  to a specific file:

  Open the Terminal.
  Type mdls followed by a single space.
  Drag the desired file from the Finder to the Terminal window, or otherwise target the file using Unix file path syntax.
  Press Enter to run the command on the file.


google calendar in today view in ipad (iOS 14) is displaying "unable to load"

I just updated to 14.2 and it magically started working again.


"Select CD-ROM Boot Type:" error during Windows install

The problem you encountered occured before the Boot Camp drivers are installed. So, the drivers are not the problem. The correct drivers for Macs can be found at Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems. In your case, the drivers can be downloaded from Boot Camp Support Software 4.0.4033. Also, the drivers can be downloaded using the Boot Camp Assistant. By the way, I used the same drivers to do a clean install Windows 8 (64 bit) on my iMac7,1 (20-inch, Mid 2007).
Your actual problem is with the DVD itself. As you might guess, it came with two ways to boot. You need to remove one of them. You are using a Windows 7 DVD. I was having the same problem with a Windows 8.1 (64 bit) DVD. The procedure to repair should be the same.
I used a windows 8.1 machine and a copy of the program oscdimg.exe from Microsoft. The procedure should work just as well using a Windows 7 or 10 machine.
To begin, you will need to copy oscdimg.exe to your desktop. There are many web sites where a copy of this file can be found. I used oscdimg.exe Version 2.55 (x86). If you want to be sure you are using the same one I used, follow the steps below.

Go to the web site The Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK)
for Windows® 7 and download the iso. This iso file is 1.7 GB in
length.

Open the file Neutral.cab. If you are using a Windows 7 machine, you
will need to burn the iso on to a DVD. The instructions can be found
here. Open the new DVD to find the Neutral.cab file. It is
faster to copy the Neutral.cab file to the desktop before opening
it. If you are using a Windows 8.1 or 10 machine, right click on the iso
icon and select Mount. Neutral.cab will be one of the files in the
opened folder. (Note: Opening the file can take a while.)
One way to avoid burning a DVD would be to copy (or download) the iso file to a machine running OS X. The iso file can then be mounted by double clicking on its icon. Neutral.cab will be one of the files in the opened folder. You will need to copy Neutral.cab back to a Window machine. I tested this using OS X 10.6.8. I assume this procedure would work using any newer version of OS X.
Another way to avoid burning a DVD would be to copy (or download) the iso file to the ~/Downloads folder of a machine running Kubuntu (or perhaps some other Linux). The following commands can be used to extract the Neutral.cab to the ~/Downloads folder. You will need to copy Neutral.cab back to a Window machine. I tested this using Kubuntu 18.04.5 LTS.
cd ~/Downloads
mkdir windowsiso
sudo mount -o loop,ro KB#AIK_EN.iso windowsiso
cp windowsiso/Neutral.cab .
sudo umount windowsiso
rmdir windowsiso

Using a Windows 7, 8.1, or 10 machine, extract oscdimg.exe from the
Neutral.cab cabinet file. The x86 (32 bit) version is named
F1_oscdimg. The x64 (64 bit) version is named F3_oscdimg. Right
click on the file of your choice and select Extract. Place the
extracted file on your desktop. Rename the extracted file to
oscdimg.exe. (I did verify the correctness of this procedure by
installing the entire package and binary file comparing the
installed x86 and x64 oscdimg files with F1_oscdimg and F3_oscdimg,
respectively.)

Next, make a new Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 installation DVD, follow these steps. The procedure was tested using a Windows 8.1 installation DVD.

Make sure a copy of oscdimg.exe is on your desktop.

Place the original Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 installation DVD in the optical drive. If using a Windows 8.1 or 10 machine, then a Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 installation iso file  could be mounted instead.

If you are using a Windows 7 machine, open a Command Prompt window
by clicking the Start button , clicking All
Programs, clicking Accessories, and then clicking Command Prompt. On
a Windows 8.1 machine, look for the Command Prompt icon on the Apps
page.  On a Windows 10 machine, look for Command Prompt under Windows System on the Start menu.

Change your working directory to the desktop by entering the
following command in the Command Prompt Window.
cd  %homepath%\desktop

Assuming D: is your DVD drive or drive letter assign to the mounted Windows installation iso file, enter the following command. Be sure
to replace the letter before each : with the drive letter of your
DVD drive or mounted file. The file new.iso will be created on your desktop.
oscdimg  -n  -m  -bD:\boot\etfsboot.com  D:\  new.iso

Note: For more information, see the Microsoft website Oscdimg Command-Line Options.

Using this command, on a Windows 8.1 (64 bit) DVD, produced the following output.
C:\Users\David\Desktop>oscdimg -n -m -bD:\boot\etfsboot.com D:\ new.iso

OSCDIMG 2.55 CD-ROM and DVD-ROM Premastering Utility
Copyright (C) Microsoft, 1993-2007. All rights reserved.
Licensed only for producing Microsoft authorized content.

Scanning source tree (2000 files in 803 directories)
Scanning source tree complete (2094 files in 867 directories)

Computing directory information complete

Image file is 3277371392 bytes

Writing 2094 files in 867 directories to new.iso

100% complete

Final image file is 3277371392 bytes

WARNING: This image contains filenames and/or directory names that are
 NOT COMPATIBLE with Windows NT 3.51. If compatibility with
 Windows NT 3.51 is required, use the -nt switch rather than
 the -n switch.

Done.

C:\Users\David\Desktop>

Burn new.iso on to a DVD. The instructions for a Window 7 machine
can be found here. The same instructions can be used for a
Windows 8.1 machine. For a Windows 10 machine, find the new.iso file in the File Explorer, then right click on the new.iso file and select Burn disc image.

Note: The current 32 bit Windows 10 (20H2) release can be burned to a DVD or a rewritable (RW) DVD. However do to the larger size, the current 64 bit Windows 10 (20H2) release can only be burned to a dual layer (DL) DVD.

You can also transfer the new.iso file to a OS X machine and burn to a DVD using the Disk Utility.

Finally, install Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 using the new DVD.


Can two apps be tied so that when one opens or closes, the other does so?

Save a plist like this as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/test.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>test</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>bash</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>while sleep 5; do
  if pgrep -x Preview; then
    pgrep -x TextEdit || open -jga TextEdit
  else
    pgrep -x TextEdit &amp;&amp; osascript -e 'quit app "TextEdit"'
  fi
done</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Then load the plist with launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/test.plist or by logging out and back in.

open -jg is supposed to open an application hidden and without raising any windows. For some document-based applications like TextEdit, it opens a new visible window if the application is open but has no visible windows.

pgrep and the -j option for open were added in 10.8. The -j option is only shown in the help message and not on the man page.


Using apps on one device with different Apple ID's

iCloud Family Sharing is perfect for this situation.

https://www.apple.com/icloud/family-sharing/

It allows you to share each others apps, pictures and purchased media without any issues.  It works pretty well in our experience.


Found mail message in Outlook for Mac, but want to find the source folder

The internal search for Outlook:Mac 2011 is Spotlight search.

When you search from Spotlight outside of Outlook:Mac, and you select a result, that email is opened in a new window.  The title of that window is "subject - folder".  This isn't perfect, since it only tells you the name of the parent folder.  If you have a deep folder structure, or if you reuse folder names, you'll have to figure out where that particular folder lives.


Where does MacBook save Sierra OS update files for Mac, not iPhone?


Parallels 9 network establish 2 different network connections

I solved the issue.

Soln:

Open System Preferences, select "Network".
Click "Assist Me".
In drop down menu, select "Diagnostics".
Chose preferred network port configuration.
Click "Continue" to finish.


Is there a way to browse the OS X App Store from iPad?

As @jaume has mentioned, you can use the Mac App Store Preview on Apple's Website to browser apps from the Mac App Store. The same exists for iOS apps and is labeled as iTunes Preview.

As you will have already noticed, the search box on Apple's website is not very helpful when searching for Apps. The best alternative I can think of uses a google query. In the Google search box type:

site:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ "Mac App Store" MyKeyword

...which uses the URL:

http://www.google.com/search?&q=site:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/%20%22Mac%20App%20Store%22%20

Copy and paste the URL
Add your keyword to the end (separate multiple keywords by %20)


Is it necessary to eject an external drive before sleeping?

It's neither necessary nor recommended (at least from what I've read).

When you put the Mac to sleep, it will try and also put the external drive to sleep, thus parking its heads and turning off the drives. It won't eject it, however, so you can use it as soon as you wake your Mac again without having to mount it.

The benefit is that you don't have to worry about mounting it, as in most cases this would involve turning the drive off and on again, reconnecting the plug, or using diskutil from a Terminal—quite time consuming. Since I use my drive for Time Machine, I don't want to have to think about connecting it every time I wake my Mac.

The only downside I see is that you could accidentally plug the drive out. In that case, the Mac will wake up, and show you the error about a drive being disconnected without properly ejecting it. Since all data is written to the drive before going to sleep, this shouldn't cause any data loss though.

All in all, it's much more comfortable to just keep the drive mounted.


Is there an alternative to apple's standard wireless bluetooth trackpad? I.e., an aftermarket version of the same basic thing?

All I can find is the "Logitech Wireless Touchpad", but it seems to be for Windows only. Maybe you've just had bad luck with the trackpads? Or did you first one also have it's rubber feet wear down?


Best way to share iCloud storage across regions

It would appear that (at least with iOS 12), it is possible to use the main family share AppStore to receive updates for apps originally from another store. Not sure if intended, but it takes some of the pain out of multi country family shares


Switch internal monitor off by software (script/terminal/shortcut/…)

To disable the internal screen for OS X Lion based laptops, launch the Terminal and enter the following command:

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

You’ll need to reboot for changes to take effect, and the internal display will then be completely disabled regardless of whether the Mac is open or closed.

To undo this, you can go back to the Terminal and enter:

sudo nvram -d boot-args

Then reboot again, or you can just zap PRAM by holding down Command+Option+P+R during reboot, which clears out the boot-args as well. If you were to disconnect the MacBook Pro from an external video source, zapping the PRAM would be how you’d want to reenable the internal display.

This is the opposite of “clamshell mode” – where the Mac laptop is closed and the screen is still turned on. Clamshell can look nice, but without adequate air flow the Mac may overheat, thus running the computer with the display open is recommended. If you’re going to do this, be sure to set the primary display so that the menubar, Dock, and alert windows go to the proper screen.

Source: OSXDaily


Problem with moving photos to new album on iPhone

Albums on Photos are not like folders or "real world" albums, where you would put a copy of your picture and empty the "box" where they came all together.
They work like tags, where you would mark a picture with the themes it pertains to and when looking the album you're just organizing by tags ("family trip to Chile", but also "In laws", "Summer"); if you erase your pictures from the camera roll (the "box"), they get erased from every album because you're deleting the original which is "tagged" to appear on your albums.

On the other hand, you can put the same image on as many albums as you like, without duplicating the picture, thus saving space.


Can Finder and the "open" command treat files with .sh or other typical extensions just like .command files?

If a file is opened with Terminal, and has the execute bit set, then Terminal will execute it.

Get Info on a .sh file and set it to be opened with Terminal, and click the Change All button.


How do I stop daghesh from moving when typing in Hebrew

I found that installing the following font fixed this issue – so I presume it is an issue with some of the Hebrew fonts that come installed with macOS?

Here is the font: SBL HEBREW FONT


As one of the commenters alluded to, "get first message of inbox" probably won't return what you expect.

When retrieving messages using AppleScript, Mail sorts your mailbox accounts alphabetically.  Within each account's inbox, messages are sorted newest first.  What you have selected in Mail doesn't change the order in which they're returned to AppleScript.

So if you have the following accounts and inbox messages appearing in Mail in this order:

My iCloud

Message dated 1/5/16
Message dated 1/10/16

My Gmail

Message dated 1/10/16
Message dated 1/5/16

"get first message of inbox" will return the Message dated 1/5/16 from the "My Gmail" account (G comes before i, 1/5/16 comes before 1/10/16).

My guess is that you have more than one account in Mail.

Name the specific mailbox.  This will always set theMessage to the newest message in "My Gmail".  (The account name is the same name you see in Mail in the list under Inbox).

set theMessage to first message in mailbox "INBOX" of account "My Gmail"

This is an unusual approach, however, as mail moves, so the first message in your mailbox could become your second message unexpectedly.

Here are a couple of reliable ways to extract data from messages:

Use selected messages (messages you've selected by clicking on them in Mail):

tell application "Mail"
    set theMessages to selection

    -- This block extracts the topics from the messages
    repeat with theMessage in theMessages
        set theMessageText to content of theMessage
        try
            -- Set topic to the string starting just after the hash
            set topic to rich text ((offset of "#" in theMessageText) + 1) thru end of theMessageText
            -- Truncate the topic at the first space
            set topic to rich text 1 thru ((offset of " " in topic) - 1) of topic
        on error
            -- No topic found in message
            set topic to ""
        end try
        log topic

    end repeat
end tell

Mail Rules (run a script on messages that match certain criteria).  In Mail, open Preferences > Rules.  Create a new rule with "Run AppleScript" as the action.  Select "Open in Finder" from the menu that lets you select which script to run.  Open Script Editor, and save the code below as a script in the folder Mail opened.  Back in Mail, select your saved script as the script to run:

using terms from application "Mail"
    on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule thisRule
        -- This block extracts the topics from the messages
        repeat with theMessage in theMessages
            set theMessageText to content of theMessage
            try
                -- Set topic to the string starting just after the hash
                set topic to rich text ((offset of "#" in theMessageText) + 1) thru end of theMessageText
                -- Truncate the topic at the first space
                set topic to rich text 1 thru ((offset of " " in topic) - 1) of topic
            on error
                -- No topic found in message
                set topic to ""
            end try
            log topic
        end repeat

    end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from


How to disable logging to system.log in OS X?

Logging to system.log is controlled by the /etc/asl.conf file.  The default is to send all kernel messages to system.log.  If you add a priority level restriction, the trivial system complaints won't be logged.

Edit the file /etc/asl.conf and find a line that looks like this

? [= Sender kernel] file system.log

and change it to

? [= Sender kernel] [<= Level error] file system.log

Send a HUP signal to the syslogd process (or just restart your system) and the logging behavior will be changed.  Use pgrep from Terminal to find the process ID for syslogd.  E.g.

$ pgrep syslogd
21
$

Then send a HUP signal to that process ID with the kill program.

$ sudo kill -HUP 21
$


The visibility of the Documents folder for any given App since iOS 9 requires the developer to enable iTunes Sharing to make the contents of the Documents folder visible to iTunes (and presumably any 3rd party software that knows how to communicate with the device).  By default, file sharing is not enabled.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201301

What you need for File Sharing

The latest version of iTunes.
The latest version of macOS or an
up-to-date version of Windows 7 or later.
An iPhone, iPad, or iPod
touch with the latest version of iOS.
An iOS app that works with File
Sharing.

Since iOS 11, Apple has introduced a new Files App that gives the user file visibility on the device.  Again, the developer needs to use an API to enable what is visible to the user.


I have bought a ipad 2 32gb wifi and 3g it came with ios 4.3.5. how would i jailbreak it?

If you are running iOS 5.0.1 (or if you update to iOS 5.0.1 through iTunes), you can use Absinthe to JailBreak your iPad 2. Go to http://greenpois0n.com/ and look for the "JailBreak iOS 5.0.1" table on the right of the page. Choose your download, and enjoy! It's really easy and intuitive to JailBreak with Absinthe. For further reference, you can always check out http://www.jailbrea.kr/ for the latest updates and info. Note that Absinthe is only for the iPhone 4S and iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1.


Your best option is to use any recovery tools possible to mount the Volumes and get the files off the disk. If macOS Recovery can access it, then go to Disk Utility and simply make a disk image or something so that you have all your files. Then, remove the APFS Container Disk, and erase Apple SSD AP0512J... making sure that there is nothing left. Then, reinstall macOS from the reinstall macOS option in Recovery. This will allow your Mac to boot normally and you can later restore the files that you were able to previously recover.


Well, if your Time Machine or iCloud backup was done before some ransomeware encrypted your hard drive, and assuming that the ransomeware didn't also encrypt your backup, then yes, you can restore from backup once you got rid of the ransomeware (probably by restoring your Mac from scratch).


Apple has an official iTunes Connect app that can show your stats: iTunes Connect Mobile


iPhone 3G running 4.2.1 but doesn't have all the features?

This is by design, although the basic internal features and functions of iOS4 are present (this is mainly the stuff that apps will use, so you can be sure that if your app says it needs OS4, then you can run it) not all the OS functions are present, and this includes the background switching functionality as well as a few other things.  I can't remember them all right now, but the 3G only got some of the functionality that the iPhone 4 and 3GS got.

Likewise, when OS6 comes out later this year, there are bits and pieces that will not run on an iPhone 4, which will run fine on an iPhone 4S - I think the turn by turn navigation will not be available on the iPhone 4, for example.

This sort of thing has always happened with iOS upgrades, and the hardware at the bottom of the compatibility tree often has to forgo some of the features.  Often it's down the memory constraints etc.  The key is that none of the missing bits are essential for the running of other apps, so an app that needs OS4 will run fine whether or not you are running it with all the new bits, or only some of them.  Apps will only care about the APIs available to them, and you should have the very same ones regardless of the extra stuff on top that is missing.


Why did my desktop background changed and why pictures were opened, if I did nothing to do so?

Do you have the same image selected for all Spaces? that would be the simplest explanation, that you don't.

Test by pressing F4 [or FnF4 depending on how your machine prefs are set]. This should zoom all the windows out so you can see them all, but also present a set of you current Spaces at the top of the screen.

If you mouse over those, they will expand to small pictures & unless an app is covering the entire Space, you will be able to see the desktop background for that Space too…

For example…

All my Spaces are set to the same image, but it's not compulsory.


Apple Script - send (insert screenshot from clipboard?) & theTime to imessagebuddy

Here is a way to take the screenshot from the clipboard and send it in Messages.

Example AppleScript code:

if ((clipboard info) as string) contains JPEG picture then

    set jpgData to the clipboard as JPEG picture
    set fileName to "/tmp/IMG_" & (random number from 1000 to 9999) & ".JPG" as string

    try
        set thisFile to open for access POSIX file fileName with write permission
        write jpgData to thisFile
        close access thisFfile
    on error
        close access thisFile
        return
    end try

    set theTime to time string of (current date)
    set thePicture to POSIX file fileName as alias

    tell application "Messages"
        set iMessageService to 1st service whose service type = iMessage
        set imessagebuddy to buddy "imessagebuddy@domain.com" of iMessageService
        send theTime to imessagebuddy
        send thePicture to imessagebuddy
    end tell

    tell application "System Events"
        delete alias fileName
    end tell

end if

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not employ any other error handling then what's shown and is meant only to show one of many ways accomplish a task. The onus is always upon the User to add/use appropriate error handling as needed/wanted.


Can I get my own exposure notification app approved for the App Store?

According to Apple's Exposure Notification API Addendum to the Developer Program License, you need the Exposure Notification Entitlement Profile.
To get that entitelment, it states:

2.  Entitlement Request; License and Restrictions
2.1 In order to use the Exposure Notification APIs, You must be a government entity, such as a government health services organization, or a developer who has been endorsed and approved by a government entity to develop an Application on behalf of a government for COVID-19response efforts.

Unless you are part of an authorized government agency, you will not be able to get this entitlement or submit an app.


Accessing App Store using USB wireless card instead of AirPort

Yes. You can have dozens of network connections and the App Store supports them all. You’ll want to troubleshoot the store process normally without worrying about network adapter.

Maybe:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203421 official troubleshooting MAS
Stuck at login in App Store


Seems like the App Store may be having some problems today.

https://twitter.com/macrumors/status/1091369924847558658

https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/

I experienced the same problem on a Mac mini (2018) running macOS 10.14.2.

Based on the comment from JBis, using softwareupdate --list was useful to confirm that an issue exists.

$ softwareupdate --list
Software Update Tool

Finding available software
The operation couldn’t be completed. (NSURLErrorDomain error -1012.)

On a MacBook Pro running macOS 10.12.6 (Sierra) I was getting similar behavior.  The difference on macOS Sierra was that the App Store Updates tab would generate a popup indicating that "An error has occurred", which also included the last line of text from the softwareupdate output.


Can same application be opened in 2 different desktops in MAC

Desktops in MacOS are not like running a different machine. So yes, you are right, you can think of them as multiple screens.

That said, you can have the same application on multiple screens. This requires the application to be able to have multiple parent windows. E.g. this works fine with a browser: Open a second window on desktop 1, enter mission control, and drag the second window to desktop 2. Now you can change desktops and have the same program running on both with different content. Clicking the dock icon will cycle through all open windows of the app, also if they are on different desktops.

This does not work for applications that can have only one parent window, like most email programs or professional editing tools.


know how many watts a USB device is consuming

System Information shows how much current devices tell they require at most:

The voltage for USB (including 2.0 and 3.0) is about 5 V, so 98 mA is about 0.49 W. For some devices the required current is just shown as 500 mA (the USB 2.0 maximum), and I don't know how to see how much energy devices actually consume.


Connect 2 external Monitors with Belkin's Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD

ref: EveryMac

*Although Apple only reports that this model can support a single external display up to 2560x1600, Intel reports that this model can simultaneously support two external displays up to 2560x1600 "daisy chained" via Thunderbolt.

From Belkin's page on the Thunderbolt™ 2 Express Dock HD …

  "Note about dual displays: At least one display has to be Thunderbolt or Thunderbolt 2 technology-ready. For displays that are not Thunderbolt technology-ready, the Thunderbolt port is backwards compatible with Mini DisplayPort. The dock supports either HDMI or Mini DisplayPort, but not both. The dock supports only one display at 4K cinema resolution."


Just drag your files ePub and PDF files in your iBooks and it will be synced through your devices(provided they use the same iCloud ID). ePubs should appear under books and PDF will have a category of their own.


What is standard for OS X filesystem? e.g. /opt/ vs. /usr/

Is there a manual or guide to what all of the built-in directories should be used for? Like what is /home/, or /net/?

Take a look at the File System Programming Guide for the most up-to-date information and at man hier in Terminal, which provides a "historical sketch" of the filesystem hierarchy (it's included at the end of this answer for reference).

A comment to your question mentions the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. You will probably come to the conclusion, after perusing File System Programming Guide and man hier, that macOS doesn't follow the FHS, that's more of a Linux thing. Of course, there are similarities between the FHS and the filesystem layout in macOS because of the common UNIX origin, but the differences are striking. macOS doesn't use any of these:

/boot folder -> macOS uses /System/Library/Kernels instead (in older versions of macOS, the folder containing the kernel was /)
/home folder -> macOS uses /Users instead
/root folder -> macOS uses /var/root instead

and /opt isn't mentioned not one time in any document (more on /opt below.)

A further distiction between macOS and a FHS-compliant OS is the use of /private, for example /etc is a symlink to /private/etc.

About /net: It is an automounter map (listed in /etc/auto_master), see Wikipedia for more information.

What does and should go into /opt/ and what should/does go into /usr/? My understanding is that /usr/ used to be for user home directories, but since that exists in /Users/ - what is the purpose now?

Although /usr was used in the past to place the home directories of the users, that's no longer the case.

Nowadays, /usr contains user commands (in /usr/bin for normal users and /usr/sbin for administrative users, like root), shared libraries (/usr/lib), man pages (/usr/share/man), executables that shouldn't be run directly by users (/usr/libexec) and other stuff.

It also offers a subdirectory, /usr/local, to place programs, libraries and other files that don't come with the base OS.

/opt has a very similar role to /usr/local and they seem interchangeable. However, from my experience working with other Linux/UNIX sysadmins, there seems to be a preference for /usr/local in BSD-based UNIX OSs.

So this is my take on it: macOS is BSD-based and consequently I'd use /usr/local. Note that you can create a program directory and then symlink commands to /usr/local/bin, etc, for example:

/usr/local/mysql
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin
/usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.so
/usr/local/bin/mysqladmin -> ../mysql/bin/mysqladmin
/usr/local/lib/libmysqlclient.so -> ../mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.so

This used to be usual practice in Linux and UNIX too, but the FHS explicitely forbids it: if you wish to install third party packages in their own directory hierarchy you should use/opt/<package> instead. Note that FHS-compliance requires to put configuration files in /etc/opt/<package> and variable files in /var/opt/<package>.

So, in macOS, I'd recommend that you stick to /usr/local as described above.

I'm aware of add-on software like Cisco VPN and XQuartz that install in /opt, so the above distinctions start to blur.

man hier

As mentioned above this is man hier:

 A historical sketch of the filesystem hierarchy.  The modern macOS filesystem is documented in the
 ``File System Programming Guide'' available on Apple Developer.

 /             root directory of the filesystem

 /bin/         user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments

 /dev/         block and character device files

               fd/  file descriptor files; see fd(4)

 /etc/         system configuration files and scripts

 /mach_kernel  kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory at boot time).

 /sbin/        system programs and administration utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-
               user environments

 /tmp/         temporary files

 /usr/         contains the majority of user utilities and applications

               bin/      common utilities, programming tools, and applications
               include/  standard C include files

                         arpa/       C include files for Internet service protocols
                         hfs/        C include files for HFS
                         machine/    machine specific C include files
                         net/        misc network C include files
                         netinet/    C include files for Internet standard protocols; see inet(4)
                         nfs/        C include files for NFS (Network File System)
                         objc/       C include files for Objective-C
                         protocols/  C include files for Berkeley service protocols
                         sys/        system C include files (kernel data structures)
                         ufs/        C include files for UFS

               lib/      archive libraries
               libexec/  system daemons & system utilities (executed by other programs)
               local/    executables, libraries, etc. not included by the basic operating system
               sbin/     system daemons & system utilities (executed by users)
               share/    architecture-independent data files

                         calendar/  a variety of pre-fab calendar files; see calendar(1)
                         dict/      word lists; see look(1)

                                    web2        words from Webster's 2nd International
                                    words       common words

                         man/       manual pages
                         misc/      misc system-wide ascii text files
                         mk/        templates for make; see make(1)
                         skel/      example . (dot) files for new accounts
                         tabset/    tab description files for a variety of terminals; used in the term-
                                    cap file; see termcap(5)
                         zoneinfo/  timezone configuration information; see tzfile(5)

 /var/         multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files

               at/        timed command scheduling files; see at(1)
               backups/   misc. backup files
               db/        misc. automatically generated system-specific database files
               log/       misc. system log files

               mail/      user mailbox files
               run/       system information files describing various info about system since it was
                          booted

                          utmpx       database of current users; see utmpx(5)

               rwho/      rwho data files; see rwhod(8), rwho(1), and ruptime(1)
               spool/     misc. printer and mail system spooling directories

                          mqueue/     undelivered mail queue; see sendmail(8)

               tmp/       temporary files that are kept between system reboots
               folders/   per-user temporary files and caches


Show a finder window sorted by date modified.

Open a File Menu > New Finder window, or  Cmd ⌘   N
If 'All my Files' isn't the default, View menu > All my Files or  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   F
Sort as List  , View menu, or  Cmd ⌘   2
By default this doesn't show, so Right Click the header bar & check Date Modified

Sort by Date Modified, with newest to the top by clicking that column in the header bar  -

Your most recently saved file will now be at the top of the list.


How to enable missing tag search in Spotlight?

I don't know the definitive answer, but we could usually solve these issues by rebuilding the spotlight index. Takes a couple of hours, but most issues are fixed that way:

sudo mdutil -E / #deletes the spotlight index
sudo mdutil -i on / # starts the reindexing process

Additionally, you can use the commands here for an even more lowlevel approach


The app needs to be an interactive CV/Resume that shows off your creative and technical ability, but also talks about your background and projects you've worked on. Submitting an app you've already made that serves another purpose isn't what they're looking for, though you can (and should) submit links to other pieces of software you've made in addition.

More detail is given in the scholarship requirements section 1: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc/scholarships/Scholarship-Guidelines-and-Terms.pdf

Good luck!


Im trying to use xcrun altool to get my app notarised, what is --asc-provider parameter?

altool manual page
The manual for altool can be viewed by running the command man altool. The manual states:

--asc-provider provider_shortname
Required with --notarize-app and --notarization-history when a user account is associated with multiple providers.

Without your knowing, it is unlikely that your account is associated with multiple providers.
asc-provider
If you believe you need a provider, see Apple's Customizing the Notarization Workflow:

You can omit the asc-provider option for the notarization call if your credentials are associated with only a single team. Otherwise, use the option to indicate the provider short name for the appropriate team. Starting in Xcode 11, you can use altool to get a table of providers, provider short names, and team IDs associated with a given username and password using the list-providers option:
xcrun altool --list-providers -u "AC_USERNAME" -p "@keychain:AC_PASSWORD"


MDM iPad - Mass update without downloading update X times

An OS X/macOS server with the caching service enabled will prevent all the iPads from fetching the same update from Apple's.


How do I get a song to repeat in the Music App in IOS8.4.1?

At the bottom of the player, there is a repeat button


Will a deactivated SIM card continue to improve location accuracy?

It doesn't matter because it's a moot point.  The cellular location services improves the performance of your location tracking by augmenting the GPS data, but it cannot improve the accuracy.

Improve GPS accuracy by disabling cellular data

If you were just going off of the location data provided by the carrier, it would be at best "broad stroke" in terms of accuracy.  Existing GPS is already accurate down to the cm (centimeter) range; how well your phone performs depends on the GPS chip that your phone uses.  Roughly speaking, it'll give you accuracy within a couple of meters.


PHP not running after upgrading to Catalina

Found an answer that worked:

# added this to made php render
<IfModule php7_module>
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
    AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

    <IfModule dir_module>
        DirectoryIndex index.html index.php
    </IfModule>
</IfModule>


With the encryption process included in Yosemite there is a duplicate drive created in the space after the drive that was encrypted. If I'm entirely honest I don't know how that works or what its purpose is I just know that every encrypted machine in this situation has it. That being said you can see using diskutil that your ssd does have a recovery drive on it. Disk Utility no longer shows that in its list. So... not a lot of science to back it up but all signs point to a proper install having occurred and the recovery partition being right where it should be.


Uninstall/ disable php 5.6.9 osx Yosemite

To switch versions:

brew unlink php56 && brew link php53

There are complete instructions for managing and using a specific version of PHP at the Github repo for homebrew-php:

https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-php

Setup the homebrew/dupes tap which has dependencies we need:

$ brew tap homebrew/dupes

Setup the homebrew/versions tap which has dependencies we need:

$ brew tap homebrew/versions

Then, run the following in your command-line:

$ brew tap homebrew/homebrew-php

Usage

Note: For a list of available configuration options run:

$ brew options php53

Once the tap is installed, you can install php53, php54, php55, php56, or any formulae you might need via:

$ brew install php53

…


What you are experiencing is called a “kernel panic”.

The line Root disk errors: "Could not recover SATA HDD after 5 attempts. Terminating."is a clear indication of your MacBook having an issue with the built-in SSD. Are you sure you had a look at the results of Disk First Aid, preferably run from the Recovery HD? As an alternative, you might want to boot into single-user mode (pressing cmd-S upon start) and use fsck to test the drive:

fsck -f

Use the reboot command once fsck has finished.

Has the MBP ever been opened or dropped? In that case, the SSD may just sit improperly in its slot which would explain the intermittent nature of the symptom. Unlikely but not impossible.


Apple Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt Display

Connecting 2 Thunderbolt displays using daisy chain with the Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 didn't work for me until I upgraded to the latest Sierra build. (10.12.13) now everything is working as it should. If upgrading didn't work for you I suggest that the adapter is faulty.


Disabling VT100 emulation in Mac Terminal

How can I turn off or disable VT100 emulation?

You can't. But you don't want to, either.

The DEC VT100 was an early video terminal for computer systems. It introduced a system of control codes which was widely copied by other terminals, and which has become a de facto standard. Virtually all computer terminal applications implement VT100 control sequences, and disabling them would make your terminal unusable.

That being said, this message is simply misleading. The resize utility is a weird little component of the xterm terminal emulator, which is distributed with XQuartz. XTerm is not the same as the Mac Terminal application, and it will always print this message when run with two arguments, regardless of what terminal you're using. You can skip this message and force it to resize your terminal by adding the -s flag, e.g.

/opt/X11/bin/resize -s 50 120

"s" stands for "Sun", as in Sun Microsystems, which had some terminal emulators which implemented extensions to the VT100 which included a sequence to resize the terminal window. (The VT100 didn't support any such sequence, as it was a hardware terminal and only supported two text resolutions: 80x24 and 132x24.)

Why this is necessary at all is… a good question, really. I suspect it comes down to both XTerm and the resize utility it ships with being very old pieces of software.


Siri's voice on macOS Sierra is not natural

I had the same problem but figured it out. First of all, it does take some time for the high quality voice to silently download in the background, and get enabled. But for me, weeks went by and the low-quality voice remained. Here's why:

It has to do with your App Store System Preferences. I had all the checkboxes under "Automatically Check for updates" disabled, including "Install System Data Files and security updates". (This is to avoid any surprise bills when I'm tethering with my phone). Well, it turns out, when this is disabled, it won't download the voices from Apple's CDN (example URL: http://swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/06/40/031-72924/0p9g9iuul9uaojp42eatzq4 b3zr38r4dgw/CustomVoice_en_GB_martha.pkg)

I haven't narrowed it down to this one checkbox (I enabled all of them) but I'm pretty sure it's the culprit. After enabling these checkboxes, I toggled Siri off and on a couple of times and watched the console - finally it downloaded and installed the voices and placed them in System/Library/Speech/Voices . You can keep an eye on System/Library/System/Library/Receipts to see when it actually installs the voices. Mystery solved (for me anyway).

Apple really needs to add a warning message or an override when you enable Siri if it's not going to be able to provide the high quality voice. It took hours of real digging to figure this out.


How accurate is the iPhone X location data?

How accurate is the GPS information that developers can get when using the iPhone X?

It's a subjective question and the perceived accuracy of location data may differ based on usage, location and signal availability. While the real answer can only be obtained by actually capturing the data, I'll try to share some information which can help you with your query.

iPhone X along with its contemporaries iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, are the first iPhones to include support for not one but four geolocation services:

A brief description of each one of them:

GPS: Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force.
GLONASS: Globalnaya navigatsionnaya sputnikovaya sistema, or Global Navigation Satellite System, is a space-based satellite navigation system operating in the radionavigation-satellite service. It provides an alternative to GPS and is the second navigational system in operation with global coverage and of comparable precision.
Galileo: Galileo is the global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that is being created by the European Union (EU) through the European GNSS Agency (GSA). One of the aims of Galileo is to provide an independent high-precision positioning system so European nations do not have to rely on the Russian GLONASS, Chinese BeiDou or US GPS systems, which could be disabled or degraded by their operators at any time. The use of basic (lower-precision) Galileo services will be free and open to everyone. The higher-precision capabilities will be available for paying commercial users. Galileo is intended to provide horizontal and vertical position measurements within 1-metre precision, and better positioning services at higher latitudes than other positioning systems.
QZSS: The Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) is a project of the Japanese government for the development of a four-satellite regional time transfer system and a satellite-based augmentation system for the United States operated Global Positioning System (GPS) to be receivable in the Asia-Oceania regions, with a focus on Japan. The goal of QZSS is to provide highly precise and stable positioning services in the Asia-Oceania region, compatible with GPS.

While GPS support has been available since iPhone 3G, GLONASS was added starting with iPhone 4S (ref: List of iOS devices).

Some references from the Web which back the claim that availability of multiple service support will lead to more accurate positioning data:

iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X Support the Galileo Satellite System for Better GPS:

  According to the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency, Galileo support in the new iPhones will allow users to benefit from more precise positioning that's able to combine GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo signals. Galileo, says the agency, has a modern signal structure that's able to help users better maintain their position fix when navigating through cities worldwide.

  Multi-satellite support also increases signal availability in urban areas where buildings can obstruct the sky and limit the number of visible satellites. Galileo has 15 operational satellites in orbit and three that are in testing, compared to 31 GPS satellites and 24 GLONASS satellites. By 2020, Galileo is expected to have 30 satellites operational.

The latest iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X are Galileo-enabled:

  Among the new features of the latest Apple offerings is the fact that the newest versions of the iPhone are Galileo-enabled. The resulting ‘multi-constellation’ capability means that users of the new iPhones will be able to benefit from more precise positioning that combines GPS, Glonass and Galileo signals. The use of multi-constellation increases signal availability, especially in urban environments, where buildings obstruct the sky and limit the number of satellites visible. In terms of accuracy, Galileo’s modern signal structure has better resistance to multipath, which helps users maintain their position fix when navigating in cities.

New iPhones better serve you in different parts of the world with support for Galileo and QZSS satellites

  Combining GPS, GLONASS and Galileo signals lets new iPhones increase signal availability in urban environments where buildings obstruct the sky and limit the number of satellites visible.

  In terms of accuracy, Galileo’s signal structure is said to provide better resistance to multipath, which helps iPhone users maintain their position fix when navigating in cities.


Is someone remotely accessing my iPhone?

The number by FaceTime simply means you missed a Facetime call. Just like missing a 'regular' phone call, someone tried to call you using Facetime, and you didn't answer.

There is no security risk here, no one is watching your phone or snooping on you. Someone just tried to call you.

It is likely someone did this by mistake. On iPhone, you can easily Facetime from the Contacts app, and the Messages app, without meaning to. It is convenient, if you intend to Facetime with someone. Otherwise, it is simply and icon you never touch again!


Moving the Caret with OS X Text Substitution

I don't think it's possible. You might add a snippet like this in TextExpander though:

Thank you %|.

Or use DefaultKeyBinding.dict:

{
    "\UF704" = { // F1
        "t" = {
            "h" = {
                "x" = (insertText:, "Thank you .", moveBackward:);
            };
        };
    };
}


Use AirDrop between iPhone and older Macs (need "Don't see who you're looking for?" button on Mac)

There are two versions of AirDrop. The Mac-to-Mac AirDrop that was introduced in Lion works with old Bluetooth modules. The Mac-to-iDevice AirDrop that was introduced in Yosemite only works with newer modules (2012 or later). If you really want to get Mac-to-iDevice AirDrop, you'll need to either upgrade your AirPort card or get a dongle. Continuity Activation Tool is a great app for enabling that feature, and they made a handy chart telling you what hardware you need to put on your computer to make it work with Mac-to-iDevice AirDrop.


Yes. Creating a new partition, installing Yosemite (or whatever Mac OS you care) there and then copying/downloading the installer onto it is a great way to then erase your Primary partition.

Then you can cleanly install OS X on to the first partition and then delete the "staging" partition, finally resizing the first partition to take the whole drive again.

My way is "better" since if you install on to the second partition, deleting the first might leave you with space you can't re-grow the second partition to recover the first. I've never seen a case where I can't delete follow on partitions and then grow the first to take up all space.


If your carrier supports showing Caller ID, it can be configured under Settings → Phone → Show My Caller ID. For more options, contact your carrier.


Shutting down 2009 MacBook Pro with new install of 10.7.5, results in restarting?

Based off the replies in the comments, this is what I suggest doing:
In terminal, type the following command:

cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/
sudo rm com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
sudo rm com.apple.AutoWake.plist

(Do the "rm" commands separately). Note: com.apple.AutoWake.plist might not exist. Then, shut down your mac, if it re-starts, just shut it down again and hopefully everything will be ok.
I hope this works.
Source Details


Using different Apple IDs for device and iTunes Store

If you mean a different Apple ID for iCloud services and iTunes, yes, that is possible. On iOS, your iCloud login is in Settings / iCloud and your iTunes login is under Settings / iTunes Store and Apps. On OS X, your iTunes login is in iTunes under the Store menu, and iCloud is under System Preferences / iCloud.

Note that the iCloud login is tied to your iCloud account, your icloud.com/me.com/mac.com email address, and other services. If you are actively using that email address, you may not be able to switch to the Apple ID you use in iTunes.

Apple does not currently provide a way to merge Apple IDs.