Is there any built-in behavior for Command + Delete (delete line right of cursor) in macOS?

Apparently, macOS Supports Emacs style shortcuts...

What you are looking for is this: Control + K

Technically by holding the fn button with the backspace you get the actual Delete key, but on my mac at least it doesn't allow forward delete to the end of the line, but the above shortcut does.

This should work but doesn't:
fn + Command + Backspace

However you've got an answer now...

Source: Apple Questions


The Alarm sound is independent from the hardware mute switch.  Essentially there are 2 volume states for iOS.  One is for system notifications (Alarms, calendar events, emails, SMS, other notifications etc) and one is for playback of music etc in Games, playing music, videos etc etc.

Apps have a choice what to do what the hardware switch is set to mute.  The intention is that even with the switch set, you can still hear sounds, the thinking being you have specifically chosen to hear those sounds at that moment in time by playing the video (for example).  Therefore, many such sounds "play through" the hardware mute.  However, some apps decide to take things another way, and look for the switch state, and match the App actions accordingly.

Both of these volume levels can be set to different levels.  In fact, there are sub-levels of the App volume level, in that you can retain different levels depending on whether you are using the speaker, headphones, or a headset (It will switch to the last set level for each type as and when you plug/unplug the relevant accessory)

Either way, the Alarm will ring using the normal notifications volume level (the one you can set at the home screen without any apps running, labeled "Ringer") regardless of your mute switch setting, so just turn it up, flip the mute switch, and unless you fire up a game whilst sleep-gaming, the only sound that will ever disturb you is the Alarm, and/or someone using Find my Phone, which also plays (actually at Max volume) regardless of the setting.


Software to horizonally flip (not rotate) OSX's monitor output?

I realize how old this is, but the answer is VLC player. I have an El Capitan Macbook 13". Open VLC, then Window - Video Effects - Geometry - Transform. From there you can rotate 90/180/270, flip horizontally or vertically, magnify, clone etc. Perfect if you have a p/w locked no remote garage sale projector like mine.


I have an older macbook air and it keeps restarting and wont load pass the apple sign, whats wrong with it?

When powering up your MacBook Air, hold down the Command key and the R key. This will start the OS X Recovery system. From there you'll be able to reinstall the system (you can keep your installed programs and your data files) - which could fix the problem.

If the recovery system does not come up, it could be because your computer is too old to have it (i.e. it is older than the 2008 model). In that case, let us know which model of the MacBook Air you've got.

Another thing to try is to use another computer to create a OS X Recovery USB drive. You can find the download and instructions for that here:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433

If neither works, you either have a hardware defect of some sort or need someone a little more trained on reloading the OS and triaging whether your boot issue is hardware or software. Lastly, the computer people will likely just systematically go through the following article and there's no reason you can't start that process as well and ask here when you end up with a failed step.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570 - Troubleshooting a Mac that starts to a grey screen


macOS Catalina - Spotlight Search Problem with External Hard Drive Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

For the record, the problem seems to have been with the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. I spoke to two Apple Geniuses (head supervisors). No one could explain why this was happening. But I decided to wipe the drive, reformat the disk, and put everything back on it.


Key combination not working when using the touch bar?

Try hitting fnshiftEsc, that triggers the Shift+Esc for me. If you press the left shift key with your left thumb, it is a very similar gesture.


What is the radio frequency of Airdrop transmission?

The protocol is called AWDL, trying googling that.  Here's a starter

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19587701/what-is-awdl-apple-wireless-direct-link-and-how-does-it-work


Is it possible to freely move the Picture in Picture window around the screen?

It is possible. Just hold down the Command ⌘ button and drag the Picture in Picture window anywhere you desire.


Audacity Says "Error Locking Temporary Folder" and Won't Open

There was not enough space on my computer, the hard drive was full. I had to delete some stuff in order to open Audacity again.


MacBook Pro (5,5) restarts when powering microcontrollers

A USB port can only typically source 2.5 watts (5 volts at .5 amps).  If you are only programming the microcontroller, you should be OK, but if there are any other things the port would be powering (MOSFETs, LEDs, Servos, motors, ... ), and it exceeded the 2.5 watts, you would typically get the "USB Low Power" alert, and not a catastrophic shutdown.

My guess as to what is happening is one of a couple things.

1) The USB port on the MBP is damaged, which can be check by seeing if the problem exists on all other USB ports, or just this one.

2) Verify that all your wiring is correct on the Arduino board.  When a microprocessor is reset, it's typical for a pin to be pulled low to initiate the reset.  If the board is improperly wired or setup, when the reset happens, one of the USB data lines could be getting 5v applied to it, or the 5v line could be pulled to ground.

3) Electrostatic Discharge could also be causing these problems.  I've had microprocessors (connected via USB programmer) reset when touching the metal on my MBP after walking around the office.  You may want to consider some ESD mats and bracelets.


iPhone 7 can't hear caller and caller can't hear me

Hello everyone that has IPhones7 and you can’t hear people calling you just went to T-Mobile got fixed it’s your SIM card needs be replaced and you keep you same phone number


Fading of the URL in Safari 6's Unified Search and URL Field

As mentioned above by dan8394, you can click the omnibar, reactivating the full URI. Unfortunately, there is not an option for changing this in Safari, nor does a hook exist in AppleScript. To the best of my knowledge, the only way this can be changed would be through a Safari extension. However, from what I have found, this is hard-coded into Safari itself and there isn't an option or a flag to change that will affect it. Sorry.

Good luck and happy browsing!


We drop an Alias in the same place as windows shortcuts if you can’t make a symbolic link. That lets all clients have a native way to cross navigate folders.
Connect to the share from any Mac and drop the alias using Finder.
That’s a one time process if we protect that file from deletion or just train people to recreate a proper alias it whenever it goes missing.


Dashboard massively consume CPU and memory

I seem to be getting the same issue. Even more interestingly, when I remove that digital clock widget, Dashboard seems to always freeze. It would seem likely that Big Digital Clock is the culprit here. It must be running in some sort of loop that not only makes its RAM usage balloon, but prevents Dashboard from closing it, and causes it to freeze.

This is after only a few minutes. Then I tried to remove Big Digital Clock, and Dashboard has been "Not Responding" ever since, although its RAM usage keeps climbing. Although this doesn't happen immediately. It would seem that the clock needs to be running for a few minutes before it exhibits this bug.

EDIT: It would seem the steps to trigger this bug are as follows (there may be a step or two in here not necessary, but this does it). Do this after removing all widgets to start fresh:

Add Big Digital Clock
Add calculator
Do 2 + 2 (or some arbitrary calculation that you can hold down the enter key for awhile with) and hold down Enter for like 20 seconds
Delete Calculator
Add Calculator

After these steps are completed, Dashboard should start to bloat in a few minutes. You'll know you've done it right if you start seeing small CPU usage spikes with Dashboard every 15 seconds (this may be related to the 20 seconds or so of holding down return in calculator). After Dashboard bloats to about 1 GB of RAM, trying to get rid of Big Digital Clock, results in Dashboard going unresponsive.

The solution seems to be to remove Big Digital Clock, as it seems to be the source of this systematic bloat. Let me know if this experiment works for anyone else.


Applescript : text delimitation in a loop

An XML file can’t have identical keys at the same level, so I’m going to guess that it is just a plain text file with those entries.
Text item delimiters can be used for everything, but it would tend to add a bit more code, since you would need to get a list of items using the first delimiters, then use additional delimiters on those items, and so on.  In this case, you can use them to just break the text apart at the desired key, then get the text from between the first set of tags by getting their offsets, for example:

property keyValue : "<key>myValueTime</key>"
property startTag : "<string>"
property stopTag : "</string>"

set theSource to "<key>myValueTime</key>        <string>2019-03-28T08:48:18+0000</string>
<key>serviceToken</key>
<key>myValueTime</key>
  <string>2019-03-29T09:48:18+0000</string>
<key>serviceToken</key>
  <string>whatever</string>"

set saveTID to text item delimiters
set text item delimiters to keyValue
set classValues to text items of theSource
set text item delimiters to saveTID

set myCaseNotes to {}
repeat with anItem in classValues
  set here to (offset of startTag in anItem)
  set there to (offset of stopTag in anItem)
  if here is not 0 and there is not 0 then
    set the end of myCaseNotes to text (here + (count startTag)) thru (there - 1) of anItem
  end if
end repeat

return myCaseNotes


Can I print envelopes/address labels from Address Book?

Address Book has this functionality built in. First, create a group and drag the contacts you want to send mail to into that group:

Select the group, then go File -> Print. Under the Style menu, you will see that you have the option to print either envelopers or address labels. The Layout tab will let you configure what specific kind of labels or envelopes you have:


When using Volatility with a memory image, what is the Kernel version?

That string is the macOS build number. If you click on "10.11.6" in the About-box in your screenshot, it will be revealed right next to the version number.

You can also run sw_vers to get easy build / version / marketing information from the command line.


What causes eDSPermissionError when running dscl?

Its a good question. I honestly have no idea. Does Apple still support using NFS home directories?

The only thing I can think of is to mention that using sudo is not the same as executing a command with uid=0, gid=0. Necessarily. Anymore.

And this is particularly applicable within the context of Directory Services, I think (?),  because that's where you Enable Root User these days. So I might try enabling root in Directory Utility, and trying with a proper su root?


Link formatting in Automator's New Mail Message

This is not possible.

Mail's AppleScript API also does not allow for proper RTF mail. The following fails to create a proper mail body with links and everything, something clearly there in /Developer/Applications/Utilities/Clipboard Viewer (part of Xcode 4):

tell application "Mail"
    set theRTF to the clipboard rule «class rtf »
    set msg to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:"Test", content:theRTF}
    make new recipient at end of to recipients of msg with properties {address:"danielbeck@example.org"}
    send msg
end tell

You can try to use GUI scripting to copy&paste rich text using the clip board and the actual Copy/Paste menu items.


How to move videos from iPhone to Windows PC by cable?

Movies should come up in the same folder. If you cannot see the video then there are a few things to check:

Was the video taken with a different app, and not the native camera app? If so, that data could be accessible through app data in iTunes
Are there other folders inside the DCIM folder? After you take several photos and videos, they get spread into multiple folders.
If you enable photo syncing in iTunes can you then see the files you want, even if this is just a temporary measure to test it's there?

The "device" type icon you see can be ignored. You won't be able to copy or delete it, and usually after you disconnect and reconnect your phone they will disappear, particularly if you've deleted the rest of the photos.

Cutting/pasting doesn't always seem to delete them on the device, but if you are sure you've backed up all the photos you can just highlight them and delete them all.


No sound when iOS screen off and using Google Maps navigation?

There is a setting in it somewhere to allows notifications when in standby.


Can I charge an iPad from a 14 volt cigarette lighter socket?

Yes, but you have to check the input range of the adapter.

DC voltages in a car can vary between 10V (at rest) and 16V (charging).   Most USB chargers you buy can handle this variance.

However, there are some applications where the voltage can be (much) higher like aviation, trucking, and marine where the voltages can reach up to 24 volts.

This is where paying attention to the specifications and buying high quality is very important. Here are two high quality ones that I personally use

Scosche Dual ReVolt - Up to 16V
Anker PowerDrive Speed 2 Ports - Up to 24V

I use the Scoshe mostly because it's low profile and I can close the ash tray door with it still plugged in (though it always gets "appropriated" by someone else).


NTFS write not working any more after update

I'd go with the first rule of computer troubleshooting, which basically says that if you installed something (application, driver, etc...) and then that functionality stops working after an O/S upgrade then reinstall the app's latest version.

Also good to double check that it is compatible with your version of the O/S ;-)


Deleting a hard drive protected by password with Mac OS X Yosemite

If a partition was encrypted with FileVault, and you have forgotten your password, you need to boot into the Recovery Partition to format the partition / drive. (Hold down Command+R during startup to get there.)  From there, you can use Disk Utility to erase the encrypted partition.


I've managed to break my terminal, (iTerm2(b17), ZSH, OSX10.6.6)

It turns out that xterm-256color does not work correctly unless you have xcode installed.


Given that Apple was offering free replacements, my recommendation is to go to a physical Apple store location and ask for a replacement. Apple still services these machines, and will be willing to quote you a price for replacement. There's a good chance that they'll offer to replace it for free given the circumstances, though the fee is up to their discretion.

Failing that, you could replace the GPU yourself. The GPU is an MXM board slotted into the logic board; while it's not the easiest thing to repair, it is serviceable.

Unusually, iFixit doesn't have a full repair guide for this model, but the limited guide should be enough to get you most of the way there. A 6970M or 6770M should work.


On iPad, is there a way to go to "end of list" or "end of page" -- besides going to "top of page"?

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to scroll to the end of a document other than by swiping repeatedly. It would be nice if Apple could add a specific gesture for this common action. If enough people request this feature at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html maybe they will add it into a future version of iOS.


how to quickly reboot from OSX to Windows and back

Note: This does not work on systems with System Integrity Protection enabled

Write a shell script that does this

#!/bin/sh
# tell OSX to change the boot disk
# nextonly just for the next time - without the default would be Windows
/usr/sbin/bless -mount /Volumes/BOOTCAMP --setBoot  --nextonly
# reboot
/sbin/shutdown -r now

This can be called from a terminal window

sudo bootcamp

The use Automator to call this via an apple script and save as an application

on run {input, parameters}

    do shell script "/Users/mark/bin/bootcamp" with administrator privileges

    return input
end run


First get another antivirus & see if it agrees.

Google 'Mac free antivirus'. Pick one you've already heard of.

If it agrees you just saved yourself some money.

If it disagrees, then there are 3 possibilities.

The first antivirus was more accurate.
The first antivirus was less accurate & is showing false positives.
The first antivirus just wanted to scare you into buying it.

We may never know which.

If you can find the files referenced, you can upload them to Virustotal for further evaluation.


How do I hit Scroll Lock on my keyboard in Windows?

Use Fn + Shift + F12 to emulate Scroll Lock.

Alternatively, Windows 7's On-Screen Keyboard program (search in Start Menu, or find it under Programs, Accessories, then Ease of Access) has a ScrLk key which you can click to toggle.


Migrating from Linux (Ubuntu, CentOS) to OS X (dev environment)

There’s a third-party package manager called Homebrew, which is in fairly common use in the Mac development community. It’s very similar to apt or yum on Linux systems, and will have a lot of the same packages.

The easiest way to find out if a package is available is to Google for “brew <package name>” (as brew install is the installation command, not homebrew install), or to look through a list of Homebrew formulas like http://brewformulas.org.


Control or right clicking the dock icon should allow you to pin the app to a specific desktop.


You can either...

nuke the Launchpad data and start clean or
refresh the Launchpad database to get all apps loaded and movable.

Let me know which one works.


Is iphone purchased from Canadian online Apple Store factory unlocked?

Yes, they are unlocked,  The price is going to be substantially higher since its not the subsidized price. They will work with any compatible GSM carriers including prepaid providers.

Some carriers (for instance T-Mobile USA) currently operate at a different radio frequency for their 3G data than the iPhone supports, so although being able to access data over the EDGE network (slower network that is used on virtually all GSM networks), it will not be able to take advantage of those 3G data services.

Purchases from the apple store online can only be shipped to the country of that specific apple store. So if you live in an area where they don't offer the unlocked versions of the phone, for instance in USA, the only way you would be able to get the unlocked version would be through someone who can have it shipped to their country. I am assuming that the factory unlocked versions being sold on eBay are from people who have realized this. Hope this makes sense.
Check out the FAQ section of the iPhone product page at the Canada Apple Online store which can probably answer any other similar questions.
http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone


What is this fancy L with a curl on top, and how could I type it?

That character is SCRIPT CAPITAL L (Unicode U+2112), usually seen in by documents typeset with LaTeX for Laplace transforms or Lagrangian mechanics.

\mathcal{L} results in: .

In macOS, the closest you'd get is searching for the character L in the Character Viewer (option+command+space) and looking under Related Characters for SCRIPT CAPITAL L.

It's included in the STIX set of fonts, which comes with MacOS since OS X Lion.

Copying the character results in: ℒ


Phone is off / black when I plug it into charger, only the Apple logo is displayed

Give TinyUmbrella a try. It's a powerful tool to exit the recovery state of the iPhone without the data loss.

Make sure that your iPhone is on (showing the Apple logo in your case)
Connect your iPhone to your computer via USB
Download and install TinyUmbrella
Launch TinyUmbrella and wait until it recognises your iPhone
As iPhone gets recognised press exit recovery shown in the main menu


No, there's no way to do so.

If you could empty the compressed memory used by an app, the app would stop functioning and crash. Therefore it doesn't make sense to empty the compressed memory of running apps.


Can it hurt to upgrade Windows 7 drivers?

To answer your question - No, it won't hurt.  But it may not work.  As with any driver upgrade there is no guarantees.  But there is no harm in trying.  You can always revert back if it doesn't work.

If you find it doesn't work, hold F8 whilst booting into Windows to prompt you to boot into safe-mode.  When in safe mode you can revert your video driver.

Let us know how it works out.  I doubt you're the only person playing SC2 on Windows on a Mac ;)


What happened to iTunes File Sharing in macOS Catalina?

It’s in Files as of today. Just tested exporting a zip file from lumafusion for iTunes file sharing and when I go to Finder on my Mac, click on iPad, then files option, then lumafusion app...I can see the zip file. But I was only able to delete it. I could not copy it to my machine, might be a bug in the current beta. I have iPadOS and Mac OS Catalina most up to date public betas on these devices as of today.

EDIT: If you want to copy files from your iPhone to your mac, simply drag the files to a folder in your mac.

Photo below of this process on my Mac:


Would it violate the TOS to install a third party hard drive?

Done all the time. Apple does not make drives, so really all drives are non-Apple hardware.

The TOS restriction is targeted at complete clones - main board, case etc.

Various Apple models over the years have considered the drives to be user-replaceable - they just slide out without any tools. The pre-cylinder Mac Pro and XServes are good examples. Various laptop models made the drive very easy to change - one screw and it pops right out.


Update to Firefox requires administrator privilege

I ran into this today updating to Firefox 61.0.2 and on restart up came a dialog saying "Firefox is trying to install a new helper tool" prompting me to enter my admin username & password.  I'm generally not a fan of typing admin credentials into a dialog box for an application update for a plethora of reasons.

Solution for me was simply to download the latest release of Firefox, mount the disk image and drag it into my Applications folder.  This probably requires the logged in user to have administrative privileges, but at least does not require them to know any password - which was your stipulation.


Unable to save hosts file after adding websites to block.

This specific request "I want to block sites and need to edit /private/etc/hosts" requires you to know how to edit a normally hidden system configuration file. Your information on an older processor and OS are excellent, but in this case all OS X work the same for modifying the unix host file.

This error is intentional and by design, since making this file easy to modify means that you could easily break the computer from working (and also this file is very desirable for malware or trojan/virus software to attack - imagine if your banking website was directed to another site to harvest your user and password before sending that information to your real bank as part of a "man in the middle" attack.)

Most people use a terminal based editor since it's easily to use the sudo command to temporarily edit the file with root permissions - taking care not to undo the protections that make this not writable by any users directly.

Mac OS X Server: How to edit configuration files

As always, be sure you know how to correct a change like this - the normal Time Machine backup should preserve this file if you know how to to navigate to the /private/etc folder using Finder Go -> Go to Folder... keyboard shortcut before entering Time Machine.


Airport Extreme - USB Disk as network disk for Windows and Mac, what format?

From https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202807

  Supported formats: Mac OS Extended (HFS-plus), FAT16, FAT32

  If HFS+ formatting is used, AFP and Microsoft SMB/CIFS protocols are
  used to share the device on the network. If a FAT16/32 format is used,
  only SMB/CIFS protocols are used and AFP won't be available.

So if you are using FAT32 and connecting to it from Mac and Windows using SMB it should work fine.


Finder reverts to SMB for shares set up as AFP

Apple is switching to SMB, as multiple sources reported. And you can see this from the Apple Support article:

  When you connect from a Mac using OS X Mavericks or OS X Yosemite to another computer using file sharing, your Mac automatically tries to use the Service Message Block (SMB) protocol to communicate. If SMB is not available, it tries to connect using Apple File Protocol (AFP).  (How to connect with File Sharing on your Mac - Apple Support)

In fact, I have to disable SMB protocol on my NAS to use AFP. I think I will continue to do this till SMB supports case sensitive device names.


Macbook randomly shutdown 4k external monitor

Turn out the problem is the the monitor. I've bought a new one and it's ok now.
Still don't know why it only happened to Macbooks not windows


Inactive menu bar in Yosemite blinks annoyingly

After checking the option "Reduce tranparency" in "System Preferences" -> "Accessibility" -> "Display", the blinking finally ended. Now the menubar also looks more like in Mavericks, no blurred tranparency effects anymore: neither in the title bar of my windows nor in the menubar.


Are you logging out of your Apple account?

One possibility is that you are being logged out of your Apple account for some reason, either automatically or manually. If you are logging out of your account manually, then that's probably disabling iTunes Match because the service is attached with your account.

There are several situations in which you will be logged out of your Apple account automatically. For instance, when I first started using iTunes Match, I noticed that for some reason iTunes Match kept turning off. I later realized that it was because I had apps from different accounts installed (such as two accounts from different countries), so when I logged in to a different Apple account from the one that I use for iTunes Match so that I could update some of my apps, iTunes Match would disable itself.

Try clearing the cache

The cache could also be causing problems. I know that it this happens on the desktop version of iTunes; I'm not so sure if the iOS version also has cache problems, or at least I don't know if it's possible to clear any part of the cache on iOS.

To clear iTunes's cache, here are some helpful instructions.


Is bookmark sync biderectional in iCloud for Windows?

As Apple explains it here it seems to be a 2-way sync. This article on http://freakyworld.net/ confirms that.


remove all songs from iPhone that aren't in any playlists via iTunes

How about only syncing the playlists you want instead of the entire library in iTunes (or Finder if your computer is macOS based)?
If you are someone that learned to drive a car without an automatic transmission, your method is akin to manual shifting. You could also enable Apple Music or iTunes Match and then you no longer have to micro-manage which I played songs get removed as your device keeps track and cleans automatically when you run low on free space on device.


How to debug Detect Displays? Having trouble using an external monitor

A few steps to try:

Try a different cable
Try a different screen
Try a different laptop/macbook

If you get success with one of these then the problem probably lies with whatever you left out, after that you'll have to try combinations of the above.


Is it possible to consolidate music bought from iTunes Stores in different countries in a single device?

Yes, it is possible, but it may not be entirely convenient (only you can judge how convenient it is for you).

In summary, the process involves:

Changing the iTunes Store in your Windows iTunes app to the Japanese store
Registering for a Japanese iTunes Store account (you cannot use the same one you use in Canada)
Purchasing the music you want from the Japanese iTunes Store
Syncing this music to your iPad

Notes:

1 You will need to repeat the above process for the UK iTunes Store.

2 The process of creating accounts in the other stores is not too hard, but you will need to follow specific steps if you don't have credit cards issued in Japan and the UK.

3 Assuming you want to purchase music that isn't free, you will need a way to do so in the correct currency (either with credit cards issued in Japan or the UK, or by redeeming iTunes gift cards that are sold in their respective countries).

In summary

You cannot use a credit card and/or iTunes gift card you obtained in Canada for the Japanese or UK iTunes Stores. Also, you will need to switch between stores to browse/purchase content. Finally, when syncing the music to a device you will be prompted to enter the ID and password of the account used to purchase the items you're syncing.

So, as stated above, it is possible, but only you can personally decide whether it is too inconvenient for you.


Go to Settings -> General -> Bluetooth and switch bluetooth off.


Paradox in understanding the "order of booting" of programs given by $PATH

The tutorial is badly worded, one should never include a binary (like /usr/bin/git) into PATH, only directories. A better alternative would be to write

  To run the latest version you need to adjust your shell path so that /usr/local/bin is searched before /usr/bin

So if you set PATH to /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin the manually installed version of git will be picked from /usr/local/bin.

PS: Handling of PATH works the same for all Unix-based systems, the various directories are searched for the command from left to right.


Can I use a mSATA drive to create a Fusion Drive in my iMac?

Apparently with this iFixit upgrade kit you can add a second SATA drive:

You'll have two drives as well as a functioning optical drive. All you need is an extra 2.5" SATA drive (not included).


I've found that ios devices tend to drop connection when they are locked if your 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz networks share same name.

Try changing one of your network's name.


Calendar not sending acceptance notifications to meeting organisers (ICS invites)

Open the Contacts app, select your own email address in the list of contacts. In the menu on top of the screen, go to "Card" -> "Make this my card". Reload calendar. Then it should work, you will get a notification popup with accept/decline buttons. (I just had the same problem, on a Mac running Yosemite)
Source


In a similar issue I had an actual ".VolumeIcon.icns" file on the system volume of a Catalina installation, instead of only on the data volume, just linked to from the system volume.  Only the generic icon showed on the Desktop, no matter what.
Removing this icon file and replacing it with a link to the data volume (as intended) solved the issue for me and I could subsequently paste an icon that did show on the Desktop again.
Also, when pasting a new icon, use the Data volume, not the icon on the Desktop.  If you cannot find it in Finder, use Disk Utility, select "APFS - Data" in the sidebar, right-click and choose "Show in Finder".
You could try this, before carrying on removing the icon file on the system volume.
Since you are running Big Sur on the external drive, which seems to have an actual icon file in the system volume's root directory, I've tried an exercise and removed the link there on a Big Sur volume and again replaced it with the same link:
.VolumeIcon.icns -> System/Volumes/Data/.VolumeIcon.icns
Setting the external drive (in your case named "APFS") as startup disk in System Preferences, I rebooted into its Recovery, holding cmdR at reboot.
There - launching Terminal from the "Utilities" menu - I disabled authenticated root with...
csrutil authenticated-root disable

(Note: csrutil disable was used earlier, but I don't think this should make a difference)
Without restart I checked the volumes and their mount path with...
mount
...which shows the system and data volumes of the drive in question (named "APFS" and "APFS - Data" respectively).  The system volume clearly shows "read-only":
/dev/disk6s5 on /Volumes/APFS (apfs, sealed, local, read-only, journaled)
So I went ahead and mounted it writeable:
mount -uw /Volumes/APFS

...and checked that "read-only" had gone with another mount command, which showed:
/dev/disk6s5 on /Volumes/APFS (apfs, sealed, local, journaled)
Going ahead, I removed the link (which would be a file in your case):
rm /Volumes/APFS/.VolumeIcon.icns

...changed to the root directory of the drive's system volume...
cd /Volumes/APFS

...and created the link again:
ln -s System/Volumes/Data/.VolumeIcon.icns .VolumeIcon.icns

Checking again with...
ls -al
...showed the correct link:
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel    36  3 May 14:10 .VolumeIcon.icns -> System/Volumes/Data/.VolumeIcon.icns

Now I deviated from the instructions on this site and did not bless a new snapshot
bless --folder /Volumes/APFS/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot

...but just rebooted twice into the APFS volume, which I was allowed to do (maybe deleting the link and just recreating it was not considered change enough).
PS.  The question is though, if this is worth doing for the sake of an icon on the Desktop.


Good application for detecting state (health) of SSD disk?

Command Line

Use built in diskutil to get the SMART status of your drive.  Anything other than "Verified" and you have issues

diskutil info disk0 | grep -i SMART

Smartmontools

A good open source command line utility is smartmontools.  This provides more detail reporting of the SMART attributes.

$ /usr/local/sbin/smartctl --attributes disk0
smartctl 6.6 2017-10-29 r4579 [Darwin 15.6.0 x86_64] (daily-20171029)
Copyright (C) 2002-17, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   099   099   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       5
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   095   095   000    Old_age   Always       -       21858
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       48
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     0x0013   096   096   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       66
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   0x0013   099   099   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       5
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  0x0032   100   100   010    Old_age   Always       -       0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  0x0032   099   099   010    Old_age   Always       -       5
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       0x0013   099   099   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       5
187 Uncorrectable_Error_Cnt 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0032   065   044   000    Old_age   Always       -       35
195 ECC_Error_Rate          0x001a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
199 CRC_Error_Count         0x003e   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
235 POR_Recovery_Count      0x0012   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       21
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       50124018873

Use smartctl -h or man smartctl for more complete descriptions of command line arguments and examples.

Disk Utility

Using the built in app Disk Utility (Applications>>Utilities), it will tell you give you the SMART status.  Again, "Verified" means it has passed with no errors.

DiskDrill (Free)

The free version of DiskDrill recovery software will provide you with detailed SMART reporting and by clicking on any of the status links ("Healthy" in the image), you get detailed SMART info


How can I create a new macOS user using a pre-existing home directory?

Well, I backed up my home directory and just went for it, and it turns out all you have to do is go through the normal flow to add a new user in Users & Groups, and then when it comes time to select a home directory, choose the one you already have. It'll ask you this:

Just select "Use Existing Folder" and everything ~just worked~. Didn't lose any data and all my settings and sessions and everything were back when I logged in as that user.

Note - I wasn't sure if permissions were going to line up, but they did. However, I might have gotten lucky. Before creating this user, when I did a directory listing in my old home directory, instead of the user name it showed the owner as just the ID, 501. After I created the user, the new user had ID 501 and so permissions all lined up. I'm not sure if the wizard was smart enough to select an ID for the new user based on the existing home directory, or if 501 is the default ID for the first non-root user. YMMV - if your existing home directory has a different ID or if you already have a non-root account on that machine, and it's not being clever about choosing the ID, you might have to chown everything, or create the user manually with with dscl tool and give it the ID you want.


Testing out the adaptor on a Mac might be your best shot, or you could post a question asking if the sellers can attempt to connect it to a Mac and see if it works. Generally, Game Cube controllers aren't straightforward to use on modern computers, and if the drivers aren't compatible with Macs, they simply have no way of working. I do however encourage you to try, it must be quite cool to use the old GameCube controller with your Mac.

Now, I don't know what you need to do this for, but if it's just for regular gaming, I suggest you buy a cheap USB-controller for this purpose, or use a PS3-controller via Bluetooth.


How to convert AppleScript URL type to string?

If set theURL to the clipboard as URL returns:
«data url 68747470733A2F2F74656D6F63686B612E636F6D»

Then if you are set on working with that class, you need to first write it to a temporary file and then read it back, as in the following example AppleScript code:
set tmpFilename to "/tmp/theURL.txt"

set theURL to the clipboard as URL

writeToFile(theURL, tmpFilename, true)

set theURL to read tmpFilename

on writeToFile(theData, theFile, overwriteExistingContent)
    try
        set theFile to theFile as string
        if theFile contains "/" then
            set theOpenedFile to open for access theFile with write permission
        else
            set theOpenedFile to open for access file theFile with write permission
        end if
        if overwriteExistingContent is true then set eof of theOpenedFile to 0
        write theData to theOpenedFile starting at eof
        close access theOpenedFile
        return true
    on error
        try
            close access file theFile
        end try
        return false
    end try
end writeToFile

Notes:
The writeToFile(theText, theFile, overwriteExistingContent) handler is a slightly modified handler from Reading and Writing Files
The handler from the linked Apple support document was modified to handle both POSIX and HFS+ file paths.
When the clipboard returns what's show herein, it also can return https://temochka.com directly by using, e.g.:
set theURL to the clipboard as text


How secure is it to allow Safari to remember passwords on my iPhone?

Not a direct answer but I too had similar concerns. With IOS 4.2, they have enabled the remote wipe ability for all iphone4 users via MobileME. So at least, if you lose your phone, you can have it wiped out remotely.


Does anyone have a Thunderbolt Display connected to a desktop PC?

Yes, it is possible.

Source video
Source Article


What's a calendar + to do list app that will work on both my MacBook Air and iPhone

Busycal is a wonderful calendar app that is a more fully featured version of iCal (predecessor to the even-less-imaginatively-named Calendar).   BusyCal does include ToDo List capability with multiple lists, which can be associated with specific calendars.  Can include tags, alarms, priority, notes, etc.
One of my favourite things about BusyCal is that it is not a slave to month boundaries, so the "month" view can include 2-12 weeks and can start whenever you want.  I find it much more useful to see the next six weeks from today, than to see the rest of this arbitrary calendar month!  Also the text color (rather than the silly dot) indicates which calendar an entry is associated with.  Weather forecasts for the next ten days are also added (optionally), which is great for planning outings! This screenshot shows those big -- they can also be just tiny.
http://www.busymac.com/busycal/

(source: dreamcss.com)


New to Apple TV - struggling with AirPlay and Home Sharing

The design of iOS isn't helping you troubleshoot this issue since it suppresses the AirPlay icon until a device detects a receiver on the local subnet.

Just being on the same network isn't enough, the devices need to see broadcast traffic that works best with IPv6 support and can also work when you only are routing IPv4 traffic.

The simplest thing to do is power off the extender and see if you can confirm that the two devices see each other.

Sadly, I don't see this documented well by Apple, but here is one article that explains you might not see the AirPlay icon due to network issues:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4215


Can I upgrade my MacBook Pro Mid 2010 to 8 or 16 GB RAM?

You probably mean upgrading the RAM to 8 GB or 16 GB.

According to the following Apple support website, your MacBook Pro has a maximum RAM capacity of 8 GB:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201165

You would need to get two 4 GB modules with the correct specifications (PC3-8500 DDR3 1066 MHz type RAM) and replace them according to the steps described by Apple for your specific device.


Apple's typical device refresh optimal for new college students?

There's a comprehensive Buyers' Guide at MacRumors, which provides the average product cycle lengths (and date of latest product update).


Install the OS on to each of the components of the "DIY Fusion Drive" if the system can install and boot from each, you have ruled out a hardware problem with either of the components.


GPS not working properly on iPhone: it knows where it is but app can't recognize it

It can’t hurt to open 1 GB of free space, but your GPS is more likely an issue with location services.

Get a good backup
Disable location services entirely and power down the phone
Power on and enable location, verify cellular data and WiFi, bluetooth, data and cellular radios are on.
Try maps to locate and walk to be sure GPS is tracking
Take some photos

If you still are not getting gps in other apps, consider deleting the app (reminder about backup) and reinstalling. Also, check location for that specific app. Toggle off and then on. Restart. Then consider erasing the device and testing then erase and restore your backup.

Only other item is reset network settings ( know WiFi passwords are deleted from f you do this and second reminder to back up just in case ).


Two-factor authentication when your device is not present

Is there a way to still get into iCloud to activate Find my iPhone?

Yes, you can login to iCloud to activate Find My iPhone. You can get a verification code via SMS or voice call on your trusted phone number.
Refer to this Apple Support document:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204915

What if I can't access a trusted device or didn't receive a verification code?
If you're signing in and don’t have a trusted device handy that can display verification codes, you can have a code sent to your trusted phone number via text message or an automated phone call instead. Click Didn't Get a Code on the sign in screen and choose to send a code to your trusted phone number.


You can have separate accounts for iMessage and iTunes purchases. Having a different iMessage account will not affect your purchased apps.

To change the iMessage account, go to Settings -> Messages -> Send & Receive. Tap on your current account name to change it.

For iTunes purchases, your account is specified at Settings -> iTunes & App Store.

You can even have a separate iCloud account.

The only caveat with doing this is that when setting up a new device, you need to be sure to enter these accounts separately. If you follow the default setup flow, both Messages and iTunes will use the same account (but you can change it as outlined above.)


Use Automator to copy multiple folders with different amounts of folders while removing parent folder

To make sure The problem statement is clear, let’s assume:

You have a number of folders named using the format 123x456, e.g. 300x250, 728x90, etc.  These are all contained in a single, top-level folder with some arbitrary name, e.g. 01_FILE_NUMBER (unimportant);
Each folder named like 123x456 contained a single folder called folderA, and nothing else;
Each folder called folderA contains a single folder called folderB, and nothing else;
Each folder called folderB contains a single folder named identically to the 123x456 second-tier folder that contains this branch of the directory sub-tree, e.g. 728x90;
Finally, these bottom-tier folders contain a .PNG image file whose filename is identical to the parent folder, e.g. 728x90.png;
Summarising all of this: all .PNG image files have a path of the form 01_FILE_NUMBER/728x90/folderA/folderB/728x90/728x90.png.  Importantly, folderA has no siblings, and folderB has no siblings, i.e. they reside in their parent directory by themselves.

Assuming this is accurate...
I would do the bulk of the file and folder processing with a Run Shell Script action (use the following options: Shell: /bin/bash, Pass input: as arguments):

Breakdown:
① This workflow asks the user to locate the top-level directory that contains the folders to be archived.  Using the example name from above, the user would navigate to the folder 01_FILE_NUMBER; double-click on it; then click "Open" to beginning processing of its contents.
② A shell script processes the folder's contents as follows:

The entire top-level folder and its contents are copied to the desktop, which is where you stated you want the final archive to reside.
Processing is done using this desktop copy, leaving the original untouched.
All folders three-tiers deep are moved up a level.  To illustrate this, consider the example path 01_FILE_NUMBER/728x90/folderA/folderB/728x90/728x90.png: the tier 1 folder is 728x90; the tier 2 folder is folderA; the tier 3 folder is folderB.  All folders called folderB reside at this third-tier level.  They are then moved up one level, and will now reside in the same folder as folderA, at tier 2.
All folders two-tiers deep that are not named folderB are deleted.  This will delete the now-empty folderA folders.
The final folder structure now looks like this: 01_FILE_NUMBER/728x90/folderB/728x90/728x90.png.

③ A .zip archive is created on the desktop using the same name as the original top-level folder, i.e. 01_FILE_NUMBER.zip.
Here is the bash source code to copy-n-paste:
    cp -R "$1" ~/Desktop
    cd ~/Desktop/"$(basename "$1")"
    find . -type d -depth 3 -execdir mv {} ../ \;
    find . -type d -depth 2 ! -iname "folderB" -exec rm -R {} +
    pwd

Optionally...
The desktop will have both the copied top-level folder and its archived form.  You can now safely delete the uncompressed folder from the desktop (the original is still safe in its original location) and keep only the archive.  To do this, append a final Run Shell Action at the end of the workflow, using the same Shell and Pass input options as before, and enter this source code:
    f="$1"
    rm -R "${f%.*}"
    open -R "$f"  # Reveals the archive in Finder

Warning: Test this workflow with a sample set of files and folders until you're satisfied it does what you want.  The workflow permanently deletes folders, and these are not recoverable.


SSD reporting incorrect amount of free space, not due to local snapshots

Ok, so after posting this question I had some major breakthroughs, most of which are posted in the update to my question. By then remembering that du still reports in units of 1024 whilst OS X now uses 1000, the final 7 GB was accounted for (well, there's still a potential 500 MB missing judging by Disk Utility, but that's probably just an artefact of du counting in blocks). Now the only question left is why System Information is reporting a substantially lower value for Backups than it should be, and whether or not it will remember to eventually clean up the other 18 GB of local snapshots.


Once you have revealed it, it stays.  To remove it, you can go into the app switcher (double tap on HOME), and swipe the app away to force it to restart back in the default mode with a hidden search bar.


How can I be notified when my boyfriend tracks my iPhone?

Unfortunately no,

Find My Friend is a one way communication style app. It allows you to notify people of your location and see their location. Also, you have the ability to notify someone when you arrive, leave a place, or you can send your current location. You can also be notified if someone lease or arrives at a place (and they can do the same), however it does not have the ability to notify you if someone requested your location.


Menu item screen capture results in monochrome image

The screenshot isn't monochrome, but rather the highlight of the menu isn't ‘composited’ correctly in the screenshot. If you screenshot a menu with other colour in it (for example, System Preferences View menu), you'll notice those colours remain and just the highlight changes from blue to grey.

This bug has been around in macOS for as long as I can remember, and has been fixed in the developer preview of macOS 10.14 Mojave to be released later this year.


Which one consumes more bandwidth: YouTube app or web browser?

You will want to confirm with your carrier, but it won’t matter if you connect via browser or via the app.
Remember, the owner of any network knows what IP address, thus what customer, connects to which server and how much data is transferred to/from that connection.  This is just looking at it from the most basic perspective and not taking into account that there are tools that can detect the type of content being transferred.
They know that your IP is connected to a YouTube server regardless if you use the app or browser and won’t throttle/count the data from those servers against your monthly allotment.
The reason I recommend contacting your carrier is because they may have an agreement with YouTube that stipulates using the app for the unlimited data (i.e. you can’t block adds or better tracking, etc.). So technically, it doesn’t matter; they know how much YouTube data you consume; it may be a contractual (business) issue that requires you to use the app.


Mac OS Big Sur | kernal_task usage is 500% when connected to external monitor

This may officially seem like the strangest answer ever, but have you tried using the ThunderBolt ports on the right hand side of the MacBook Pro?
As per this blog post, the thermal sensor in the MacBook Pro is located unhealthily close to the left hand side ThunderBolt ports, which will heat up and trip thermal throttling (the kernel_task spike you see), thus seriously hurting your user experience.


Which is more future proof for external HD, USB-C or Thunderbolt 3?

USB-C it's the physical interface. A USB-C connector can hold either USB (up to 3.1) or Thunderbolt interface.

USB 3.1 has a data signaling rate of up to 10 gigabits per second, whilst Thunderbolt has a data signaling rate of up to 40 gigabits per second.

The faster Thunderbolt connection will ensure a more future proof hard drive.


After restoring my iPhone from an iCloud backup, all my photos are greyed out. How can I get them back?

Turns out I solved the issue by just wiping my phone and restoring it from that same Sept 27 iCloud backup again. It had the photos in the backup after all. As to why it didn't download them to my phone when I restored from that backup a month ago, I'll probably never know.

Before I actually wiped/restored, I wanted to make sure that the backup actually had the photos in it. Of course Apple doesn't let you see the data in your backups, so I had to download a 3rd party backup viewer on my mac to look at the pictures in the backup file. Once I saw the photos were really there in iCloud, I decided to just restore from that backup and see what happens. It ended up working. Weird.


You could try SpotifyIrRemote which works on Lion.


Maybe not the best solution but substituting the key with empty files seems to work:

cd /etc/ssh/
sudo rm ssh_host_ecdsa_key
sudo touch ssh_host_ecdsa_key
sudo rm ssh_host_ecdsa_key.pub
sudo touch ssh_host_ecdsa_key.pub

The key is invalid and not used, but is not corrected/regenerate when starting up


Huge inconsistency in disk space measurement, missing 50% of the disk

You may be seeing the difference between used bytes versus used blocks on the disk.

If a tool iterates over the files on your disk and totals the file sizes in bytes, the total value will not match the used disk space.

Try using other disk tools to determine the remaining disk space. The df tool should provide some insight df -h.

Consider using a tool like GrandPerspective to view the contents of your drive; it appears better maintained than Disk Inventory X. Be aware that these tools show file size and not blocks used.


How do I switch between corresponding .h or .c/.m files in Xcode 4?

See this Stack Overflow answer.

"Ctrl+Cmd+Up or Down, but the shortcut seems a bit finicky and sometimes stops working, not yet sure when and why."


Difference between ~/Library/Application Scripts/ and ~/Library/Scripts

The "Scripts" folder I believe is a relic from the past.

Scripts should now be placed in the "Application Scripts" folder. Make a folder within named after the bundle identifier (eg. com.apple.mail), and place scripts that you want to be used for that specific application.


Turning on FileVault with a symlinked directory

FileVault only encrypts one volume so hard links and firm links are encrypted (but firm links are portals to another volume which isn’t necessarily encrypted). Symbolic links exist on the volume and are encrypted, but their destination files are not encrypted - just the link to the other file is encrypted.

Your plan to move some folders off is just fine, solid technically and you can encrypt both volumes using FileVault and keep everything encrypted at rest - just that there are two different volumes with different keys and you choose if you use the same or different pass phrases for both.


It's just a disk image containing Adware. Unmount it and delete the disk image, if you didn't open the app.


messages are being sent which I am not aware from my I phone leading to deduction of balance

It's best to contact your carrier for information about charges. They will know the specifics of your contract and options as well as help you by asking some questions like

What version of iOS are you running?
Are you using iMessage?

Your first step might be disabling SMS on the iPhone and then contacting the carrier to get further instructions. It really depends upon what number is sending the SMS and if you opted in to any subscriptions or got crammed or signed in to SMS on a web service of some sort.


Select all the Songs:
Then  crtl click to get the contextual menu.
Select Check Selection

This is assuming that the PC version of iTunes has the same menu system.


When setting up a new laptop, Setup Assistant doesn't see all the data

While preparing for one last Time Machine backup, I found myself restarting both my old and my new laptop – and some combination of these things fixed the problem.  I was able to restore from my old laptop overnight, and this answer is being posted from my new machine.  If anybody has any further insight, I'd welcome it, but my problem is solved!


Entering Unicode Characters with `ssh ... tmux -CC a -t mySession` on iTerm2

Confirmed fixed w/ Iterm2 3.0.15 and tmux 2.5+ https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/issues/4664


iTunes unable to backup data before iOS upgrade

I had a similar error on my iPhone 4 iOS 5 upgrade.  But mine specifically said if I proceed despite the error, all content would be lost.  Did you proceed past this error?

Check your iTunes Edit > Preferences > Devices and see if you have more than 1 backup listed.  Mine has 2, my current backup and my last iOS 4 backup.


How to correct the exclusion list for Time Machine backup? Music is not listed for exclusion, but is excluded

These are not the files from the exclusion list but files that have been directly marked as excluded in their extended attributes.

For example:

$ xattr "/Users/foo/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork/Cache"
com.apple.metadata:com_apple_backup_excludeItem

Most of these seem to be logs, caches or indexes that can be rebuilt.


This isn't a permanent solution, BUT it will let you recover your files.

Login to your Admin account
Open Terminal
Type chmod -R 777 /Users/username/
Go to the directory that your user folders are stored in (/Users/)
Retrieve any files needed just using Finder.
Delete user account.

Or

Login to your Admin Account
Open System Preferences
Click Users & Groups
Click reset password on the user.
Change password.


Use mdfind to identify all encrypted dmg?

Spotlight just doesn't have sufficient metadata to differentiate the filesystem choices stored inside a DMG. Put another way, it's like asking what Pages documents have French words in them just using mdls. The data to make that search isn't contained in metadata.

The proper command to check if a specific image file is encrypted is hdiutil isencrypted /path/to/dmg

Example:

host:~ user$ hdiutil isencrypted /Users/user/Downloads/test.dmg

Output:

encrypted: YES
blocksize: 512
uuid: DE78A7BE-2B64-4556-8EC9-93DFAC15A839
private-key-count: 0
passphrase-count: 1
max-key-count: 1
version: 2


You can continue to use your MacBook Pro by always having it plugged into mains power. This approach will work and work well.

I use an older MacBook showing "Service Battery" at home. It is always plugged into mains power. The computer works well and does everything my family need of it.

Ask Apple for a Quote

Before buying a new laptop, ask Apple how much a new battery would cost. The cost will be significantly lower than a brand new computer.

Replace the Battery Yourself

Alternatively, iFix provide instructions for replacing the battery yourself but Apple do not recommend this. Apple do not recommend this because incorrectly fitted batteries can be dangerous and they can be a fire hazard.


No, you can't see this on an iOS device. If you create a smart playlist like this, you can look in iTunes, after syncing your iPhone, to see what you've listened to.


Re-upgrade to macOS Mojave (esp. parts relating to iCloud) without loosing data, etc

In response to the original question:
You can't just select parts of the system software to reinstall; you have to reinstall all of it but that shouldn't affect your mac.

To clarify about reinstalls/clean installs:
As far as I know/can remember there isn't an "option" to just reinstall/repair install mac os.
Apple actually make it simple - if you boot to recovery mode (hold command and r while restarting on mojave (especially with an apfs formatted drive- holding alt down to select the recovery drive doesn't display the recovery drive to select it anymore)). When the screen loads up and you select install mac os, if you select your drive with an existing install of mac os on then it will just reinstall the system files (including ONLY the apple software (terminal, textedit, iTunes, etc) BUT won't touch your data files, user accounts or the applications that you installed yourself and they should work as before).

IF you want to do a clean install (removing all of your own data and applications) you must first select disk utility, select your drive and erase it/format it. THEN it will install just the mac os and everything will be like factory default settings.


Which process is periodically writing to the disk?

You can get a better idea what's causing the activity with some of OS X's command-line tools:

sudo iotop -- display of what processes are doing the most I/O, updated every 5 secs.

sudo iosnoop -- shows I/O as it happens, including the process ID and process name doing the I/O, as well as data size, file path, etc

In both cases, you'll need to authenticate as an admin to run them, and use Control-C to exit.  They may not tell you precisely why the activity's happening, but they'll at least tell you what processes and files are involved, which usually narrows it down considerably.


Is there any way to auto-close Safari's download window upon download completion?

I use the Glims plugin for this, which has a host of other useful features, too.


Mac OS X 10.6.8 won't start up after kernel panic

When your Mac consistently hangs at the loading screen you described (Apple logo with spinning gear) the best advice I can think of is to reboot using verbose mode.

To boot into verbose mode:

Power the Mac on and hold ⌘+V until you see a black screen with lines of text.

Verbose mode displays what is happening while the Mac boots, the stuff that is normally hidden behind that gray screen with the Apple logo and spinning gear.

Try powering it off (hold the power button for 5-10 seconds) then powering back on and entering verbose mode using the method described above.  Give it a minute and check to see where it's hanging.  It might not give you a clear cut answer but it can surely provide some clues.

In my experience this often comes back to a failing/failed hard drive.  This is often reinforced when I see entries for "Disk I/O read/write error" or similar in verbose mode.

Assuming you don't see Disk I/O errors you might also try resetting the PRAM and/or SMC.

To reset the PRAM:

Power on your Mac while holding ⌘+option+P+R until you hear the Mac chime twice, then release the keys and let it boot normally.

The SMC reset is somewhat model dependent.

For Macs with a removable battery: Remove the battery and disconnect the power cord, hold the power button for 5 seconds, reinstall the battery, reconnect the power cord and power on.

For Macs without a removable battery:

Connect your Mac to it's MagSafe adapter, on the left side of the Mac press and hold Shift+control+option and the power button for 1 second then release all at the same time.  Without holding any keys press the power button again to power on the Mac.

Hopefully that helps!


Can't connect from macOS High Sierra to Windows 10 share on home network

For me the solution was to check if SMB server was active on windows pc (and it was not!!, just SMB client is active by default):

go in search field at the right of WINDOWS icon and type: WINDOWS FEATURES
scroll the list and find SMB support
make sure that SMB server is checked, if not check it and restart pc.


Messages shows "Message sent with Balloons" instead of balloons effect

It's likely because you didn't like those zoom effects in iOS 7...

You'll need to turn off "Reduce Motion" in Settings app > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion. Then your incoming Messages effects should go off as planned.

Heads up: This will re-enable the parallax icon effect on the home screen (where the background moves behind the icons). But don't worry about that old effect where the screen would zoom into app icons—that's long gone.


macos external USB keyboard command key not working

Solution: Switch Modifier Key Assignment
For some reason the new macbook is detecting the Command ⌘ key as Alt and vice-versa.
Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys... and switch the ⌘ and Alt keys.
Now it works. This was a painful experience so I'm sharing what I wish I had found online. I didn't discover that the command key was actually working until troubleshooting on https://keyboardchecker.com.
The Menu list shortcuts are still greyed out. I don't have a solution for this, but its cosmetic as the shortcuts still work, even ones I assign in keyboard prefs.


Confusion about creating a bootable flashdrive

You may want to delete your answer to your own question.

In fact:

Insert bootable flash drive
Open said drive and launch the Install Mac OS High Sierra app
Follow the prompts

You could also reboot the system with the flash drive inserted and holding the Option key. When the drive selector comes up choose your flash drive and installation will commence.

If you run the OS install app from the Applications folder it will install it onto your boot drive. You could do that to install the OS on a thumb drive (just select that drive during OS install) as that makes a good emergency boot drive but it won't make an installer drive.


You could use a keyboard protector to make the laptop slightly more resistant to spills.

For example a product like the Moshi ClearGuard Keyboard Protector.


How to change Google Chrome's address-bar-text font size (the 'https://...')?

Use TinkerTool to change the System font.

Problem is, making larger System fonts can do wonky things not only in Chrome but other apps/windows. Other than trying diff font sizes, how can I adjust for this in Chrome? Maybe I can increase the address-bar height somehow - possibly by making larger extension icon sizes, or some other customization settings I've not yet found? Suggestions welcome.

The following shows an example of problems with System = 24:

(I'm the question author. Default System font size for my MacBook = 13.)


How do I make different email accounts use the default sounds again?

It's not a direct answer, but by deleting an App, you remove the local cached copy of the emails and don't lose any messages on the Mail server.

This has a side effect of clearing the preference for sounds, so when you add the account back - it now follows the default sounds as set in the UI.


Is there an app or another way to make an iPod Touch or iPhone emulate an older iPod Device?

I'm thinking the solution here would take some major development. The app would have to stop the driver for the current iPod from being installed and instead present a driver for the older device you want to emulate. Most likely your current device running the app would probably have to be jailbroke. It would also take some testing and playing around to make sure the driver worked with the current device.

Before going as far as creating an app or something you could try playing around with different drivers on your own system while having your current device connected. Just go into Device Manager, find your device, right click and update driver. Then try to manually add the driver of a shuffle or something. See what works. Then decide if it is worthwhile to pursue.


How to set default Window position and/or size?

In Terminal you can change the default window size from Preferences > Settings > Window:

You can also use window groups to set a default position and size for the window opened when you launch Terminal (but not for new windows opened later).

I use Sequential and Skim as alternatives to Preview and iTerm 2 as an alternative to Terminal. All of them have an option to open windows in full screen by default, and all of them have their own (pre-Lion and actually usable) implementations for full screen windows.

The sizes of Finder windows are saved in .DS_Store files and there are no default window size settings in com.apple.Finder.plist or anything. I use a script like this to reset the properties of windows:

tell application "Finder"
    if number of Finder windows is 0 then return
    tell Finder window 1
        set toolbar visible to false
        set sidebar width to 0
        set statusbar visible to false
        set current view to column view
        set bounds to {960, 44, 1920, 1076}
        tell its column view options
            set shows icon to false
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


There is no official way to access the data. However, there are some websites that offer similar functionality.

One website I found is Sensor Tower. It lets you see 3 day history for free, and up to a year if you pay. The feed appears as it would on an iOS device.

Alternatively, for some stories, you can tap on the Share Story button shown at bottom, copy the link and send it to yourself. However, this approach is highly manual, would have required following it since the day App Store redesign was publicly launched. Also, it is not possible to do so if you want to start out today as the older feed entries can no longer be accessed.


El Capitan's Disk Utility won't format new 3 TB drives higher than 800 GB

Your problem is probably related to the 2.2 TB (or 2 TiB) limit. Your disks either have an MBR (instead of a PMBR) or it's a limitation of the firmware of the kdLinks HDD disk station.

Check the disks after getting their disk identifiers with disktuil list with sudo gpt -r show diskX with diskX the disk identifiers of the external disks (e.g. disk1 and disk2).

If you get an output like this:

gpt show: /dev/disk1: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         MBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     .....

destroy the MBRs and add a proper GUID partition table.

To destroy the MBR and restore a proper GUID pt use:

diskutil umountDisk diskX
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/diskX bs=512 count=1

Destroy the GUID partition table and create a new one:

diskutil umountDisk diskX
sudo gpt destroy diskX
sudo gpt create -f diskX

with diskX: once more the disk identifiers of your external disks.

Be sure to use the proper diskX or you may accidentally delete valid disks!

After removing the MBR you often/sometimes have to completely eject the drive (or reboot your Mac) for the changes to take effect.

Update:

With your partition data posted one can definitely say it's a 2 TiB problem:

The default size of the disk is 5,860,533,168 blocks. Your gpt output shows a size of 1,565,565,872 blocks. The difference is exactly 4,294,967,296 blocks which are 232 blocks or 2 TiB.


Ctrl + Cmd + Return doesn't maximize active pane in iTerm2

D'oh; the problem was that I was confusing the Shift key (depicted as ⇧) with the Ctrl key (depicted as ⌃).

So, the correct combination is Shift + Cmd + Return.


Mapping does not work with some characters in KeyRemap4Macbook

I found the cause of the problem. I have Turkish keyboard layout installed. The place of character comma corresponds to the place of character B in Turkish keyboard layout. The KeyCode definitions requires the character in the US keyboard layout.


Technically that person owns those apps.  You can remove the app, which removes the MAS receipt, and re download it while your signed into the app store.  Then it will be associated to your apple ID and owned by you.


Removing Spotlight index for a no-more-existent Time Machine drive

Spotlight index for an external drive is stored on that drive, so you wiped it along with the data.


How do I get Wi-Fi info from within Terminal?

There's an airport utility buried that you'll want to use. Create a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin to the utility for quick access with this command:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport /usr/local/bin/airport

Now, you should be able to run airport -s and get a list of available networks with BSSIDs.

If you hold the option key while opening the WiFi networks in the Menu Bar, you can also see the BSSIDs one at a time, although it seems like you wanted the CLI-like version from OpenBSD.

UPDATE:

"rootless" AKA System Integrity Protection (SIP) has been added to OSX since I wrote this answer originally, which makes /usr/bin and /usr/sbin read-only. It is proper to use /usr/local/bin, so I have updated the answer so that the symbolic link is created there.


I use ClickToPlugin, which converts some Flash videos to HTML5 (this has the added benefit of letting you download them by right-clicking and choosing Download Video). It works for YouTube, at least, and for the videos on the second and third webpages you linked (though not the first).


Install Windows 10 or 8.1 on MacBook 4,1

I don't have personal experience with this but here's my best guess at the process

Get a 32-bit Windows 10 .iso. You can download straight from MS.
Use unetbootin or similar to create a bootable installer. Format for FAT32 under MBR (Master Boot Record)
You should now be able to boot to the Windows installer and install from there.

It should be mentioned that while macOS and Ubuntu are free software, Windows is not and you'll have to figure out a license.


Is there a way to get Finder to remember all my tabs and reopen them after restarting?

From comments - The method in the linked question requires Finder to be killed. This will prevent its remembering currently-open windows.
It appears in the particular circumstance that Relaunching Finder is sufficient - Opt/right click in Dock - which also preserves its current structure.


Stops snippets syncing between iPhone and Mac

The snippets sync through iCloud. The simplest solution is to just log out of iCloud, or disable iCloud's Documents & Data service in System Preferences, but it might not be ideal if you want to sync other iCloud data.


Docker & OSX's guest Windows 10 Pro "doesn't have VT-X/AMD-v enabled. Enabling it in the BIOS is mandatory"

To enable nested virtualization in Parallels, do the following:

1) Shutdown the virtual machine

2) Open the configuration for the virtual machine

3) Click the "General" tab

4) Select either to auto-detect the OS, or explicitly select Windows 10

5) Click the "Hardware" tab and then click "CPU & Memory" in the list on the left

6) Expand "Advanced settings" and tick the "Enable nested virtualization" option


No, there's no way to create shortcuts into the Settings app like that (from a user perspective).


It looks like selecting multiple different folders for images for your Desktop or Screen Saver is not a native function. In other words, if you have a hierarchy of a main folder, Pictures, then underneath you have folders (for example) Family, Vacation, and Wedding, and you only want to display Family, and Vacation, there would be no way to do that. I think the simplest would be to create a folder with all the images you want on your Desktop/Screensaver.


iMac screen shows nothing after replacing hard drive

Press the Option (or Alt) ⌥ key on boot. This will allow you to enter the Startup Manager and boot from the USB device.
I do not know why the screen is gray and doesn't simply default to the Startup Manager automatically. That would be a nicer experience since the gray screen that never does anything is obviously a bit confusing.
Whatever the reason for the gray screen, explicitly pressing the Option key before the boot chime works. The display was fine all along. The issue was just that the mac wasn't doing anything by default, and launching the boot manager explicitly then booting from the USB installer works fine as expected.


What is the maximum supported resolution of the MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) for an external monitor at 60hz

According to Apple's MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2013) - Technical Specifications...

So it looks like 1080p is the 60Hz limit.


Safari stops working when attached to a corporate network

Corporate IT has no idea even though there's hundreds of MacBooks in
  here now.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion because setting a policy like "blocking Safari" wouldn't be something that decided on by rank-and-file employees; IT management knows.

There are security products on the market that go well beyond deep packet inspection where IT can can use analytics and heuristics to determine what software you're using and block it. Since it seems to take Safari a few moments to stop working, this sounds most plausible.

  Any advice?

Yes.  Talk to IT.  Ask them why they allow Chrome and block Safari (there may be a valid reason for it.)


How can I list all my passwords stored in Keychain Access?

This will dump your login passwords:
sudo security dump-keychain -d login.keychain > keychain.txt

And this is a script that can convert it to a human readable format: https://gist.github.com/rwest/1583781
NB: The Ruby script worked for me only after I removed the line containing .gsub!('htps', 'https');.
And, optionally, here is an applescript which will autoclick for you the OS security confirmation dialog: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/137336/66812.


iOS 9.3.5 Apple Music can't play albums any more

Do check that Repeat Song is disabled. Exit out of Up Next and ensure that Repeat is turned off.


How useful is Motion 5 without Final Cut Pro X?

It really all depends on how much patience you have.  Using Motion as a stand alone editor is possible, but it is an incredible hassle.  For example, cutting film into different pieces puts those different pieces into different layers.  Sometimes it detaches the audio, which then means you have to do audio syncing.  Plus, if the project is a long one, your machine might start to choke on it.  I wouldn't recommend Motion as a stand alone editor.

But, that being said, I'd still recommend Motion for what you're talking about.  I think it is stand alone enough to do what you want, all you really need to do is get used to round tripping between iMovie and Motion.  To do that:

Cut your movie in iMovie
Export it and import it into Motion
Find the part that you wanted to put titling on and use "split" to separate it from the rest of your movie.
Delete the part you don't need.
After you done using Motion, export the movie and import it back into iMovie.
Just put it into the place it had been before...

I really like Motion myself (use it all the time), and it certainly can add that extra zing to your movies.

One more piece of advice, go find the Apple Training for Motion 4 by Mark Spencer.  Great book, easy to use and gets you up to speed really fast.  Yeah, I know, it's for the old version, but Motion 5 is literally the same thing as Motion 4 with the addition of rigging.  And if you're not using FCPX you don't need rigging.  So, go get the book :-).


When I open the terminal I get the error /Users/sanjayshreeyansgmail.com/.zshrc:17: command not found: “export

Remove the quotes before the word export and at the very end of the file. This should not be quoted at all, let alone in smart quotes.


Can I add a status icon for thunderbolt ethernet to the menu bar? (Mavericks)

Did you try this from: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5598818

I quote

  Accordingly, I went into /System/Library/CoreServices/MenuExtras/ then double clicked on WWAN.menu for cable broadband. I think for DSL you'll need to click on PPPoE.menu.

Give it a try, otherwise you probably need third party apps like iStatsMenu


Have you verified your password is correct by authenticating through the GUI? An easy way is to go to System Preferences > Accounts and click the lock icon. Also, verify that your user account has not lost administrative privileges (you can do this from the same preference pane). If you've lost administrative privileges the issue may be related to something else.


How to delete all files in Pictures folder after I moved all the pics to external HD

Firstly, yes he has to point to the external HD when trying to import new pictures into his computer.

Then you can easily delete Photos Library (see following pic) (usually located in: /Users/<name of the user>/Pictures) that package contains all the photos in the application Photos. At the end if he will proceed with emptying the Trash all the pics in the Mac will be deleted.

More precisely, you can do the same for iPhoto. The library name depends only to the application you are using. So for instance if instead of using Photos, your friend is using iPhoto the library you want to delete will be iPhoto Library!


My bluetooth headset connects/disconnect on Macbook pro continuously after waking from sleep

This problem was resolved in Bigsur update.


TextMate 2: How to enable/disable Code Folding

Since TextMate 2, I've also not had any icons in the gutter with regard to code folding.

Currently, I am folding/unfolding through the right-click menu…

…or by pressing F1.


Is it possible to find only apps which are compatible for my iOS version?

I've found a great site on that. It shows a list of every app that is compatible with any given iOS version. Don't try to download the app from them, though, just get the name of it and find it on the App Store.


How do I solve performance issues with OmniGraffle on my MBP

There could be quite a few explanations for your delays, and I might start by checking the Activity Monitor and the Console. In the Activity Monitor, are any applications or processes taking up an inordinate percentage of CPU time or RAM? In the Console, are there any errors being reported? These are just basic troubleshooting strategies, and maybe you've already exhausted them.

You may find that you don't have enough RAM to run the program optimally. I have a 4GB machine and have had similar slow-downs with Aperture. The solution which worked for me was to run the program in 32-bit mode. You can do this by selecting the program (in your case Omnigraffle) in the Finder, choosing File > Get Info, and then ticking the checkbox marked "Open in 32-bit mode."

Bear in mind that 32-bit mode will (I believe) limit the program to address a maximum of 4GB of RAM. That isn't a problem for you now, but might limit performance if you added more RAM to your system in the future.


Special Character in Application Shortcut on Danish keyboard?

This doesn't directly answer your question, but if all you're trying to do is trigger a certain menu item with a keyboard shortcut, you can simply remap the shortcut in Keyboard preferences.

Go to  > System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts, click App Shortcuts in the left-hand list, and click the + icon at the bottom left corner. Type the name of the menu item you'd like to trigger and how widely accessible you want the shortcut to be (in one app or the whole system), and assign a shortcut which can be natively typed.


You can change date format, decimal sign, etc. under:

system preferences > language & text > region (tab)

I believe if you set your region to english and then go to

system preferences > language & text > language (tab)

and select German there, you should have "German (English)" back.


First (after installing the new HD) you'll need to install macOS on the new drive. You can use internet recovery (boot with CMD+OPT+R) or make an install USB.

If you have an external hard drive available you can use Time Machine to create a back up and then restore that backup to your new machine.

If you don't have an external hard drive you could upload your files to iCloud or another online service and restore them later.

Another option is to purchase a SATA to USB adapter (such as this) and either use Migration Assistant or simply copy the files you'd like manually.


Wet iPhone 4 doesn't know its IMEI and ICCID and displays connect to iTunes but lacks passcode

I dropped mine into water shortly after buying it and I saw some weird behaviour too.  I figured that it was submerged for such a short time, less than a second, that not much water would have penetrated the case so that maybe the weird behaviour was down to some shorting that was happening in the dock connector and the headphone socket so I made sure these were clean and entirely dry.  I plugged a dock connector in and out lots of times and after a day or so the weird behaviour stopped.  You can also try putting the phone into a bag of rice which will dry out any residual moisture.  You could wrap it lightly in tissue paper to prevent any small pieces of rice from entering the body of the phone.


Better Touch Tool can do what you want, and can even be set up to do so on a per-app basis.


Open MPI broken after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.14.6

Open MPI 4.0.3 is now available from homebrew. brew upgrade openmpi will solve the problem.


Allowing sudo privileges, but not access to sites

By adjusting the sudoers file (/etc/sudoers) with sudo visudo it should be possible to accomplish this. It is a hell of a job and you need a profound knowledge of all commands to fine-tune this while avoiding errors and loopholes though.

You have to add the user to the User privilege specification section

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

Then use a whitelist (or a blacklist) of allowed (or disallowed) commands:

Examples:

whitelist

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL
user    ALL=/usr/bin/nano,/usr/bin/opensnoop

blacklist

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL
user    ALL=!/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy,!/usr/bin/passwd,!/usr/sbin/*

You may mix whitelist and blacklist.

Please check man sudoers how to simplify things or narrow things down by configuring User, Runas, Host and Cmnd alias specifications.

Check the accepted answer to the question How to prevent sudo users from running specific commands? for the pitfalls of configuring a simple command like rnano in the sudoers file.


Unable to figure out required (to be deleted) Documents as information is not consistent

This file size discrepancy most likely occurs due to hidden files in the user/library folder.
To show hidden files, open a Finder window and hit shift cmd .. You will immediately see that these files are shown with grey text in finder.

However, be careful with deleting these, you can harm the system or programs by doing so.


Re-downloading apps purchased in a different country?

I was pretty much in the same situation as you and got the same answers from iTunes support. Like you, I did not want to manage two Apple IDs. So finally I just switched countries.

Here is what I did:

I went to my purchased history before changing the stores and made a screenshot of everything I own (10 pages for iOS and two for OS X).
After switching countries, all the apps that I purchased are gone from the purchased list and if I search for an app that I previously bought, instead of getting the cloud icon I just get the price tag.
However if you click Buy it will ask you for your password, think for a few seconds and you will get a message, something like "you previously bought this app so now it's free" and you won't be charged.

As long as you know what you have purchased in the past, you can get in now for free.


iPhone - Showing the road speed limit while driving

In the latest version of iOS 11, I believe the speed limit does show up on highways (at least when you're going too fast). Another app that does this is Waze.


Application Keyboard Shortcut not overriding

You need to use the exact name of the menu item. It looks like you're using "Einfügen" but Numbers' menu item uses the synonym "Einsetzen". Correcting that should fix it.


Siri repeatedly gives me a wrong response

The issue you have when trying to use Siri to make a call by saying, "Hey Siri, call my mother" is that unless Siri knows who your mother is, how can 'she' call her?

To get around these types of issues you need to populate your Contacts app with the information (metadata) it needs for Siri to action those sorts of requests.

Below are a few examples of what I mean:

If your mum's name is Charlene and that's how it's entered into your contacts, then saying, "Hey Siri, call Charlene" would work. Likewise, if you change her Contact details to Mum instead of Charlene, saying "Hey Siri, call Mum" should work. All of this is because Siri now knows who you're referring to.
If you have your mum's birthday in her Contact details, then saying "Hey Siri, when is Mum's birthday" would work. Of course, if you have no birth date listed, Siri has no way of answering this question.
If you don't have a 'home' address entered in your contact details, then saying "Hey Siri, direct me home" isn't going to work.
If you don't have an 'email' address entered in your Dad's contact details, then saying "Hey Siri, email Dad about dinner" isn't going to work.

In all of the above examples, the only way Siri can action a request accurately is by knowing the necessary information. And the only way Siri can know that information is if you've provided it somewhere to begin with, such as in your Contacts app.

If you specifically want to be able to say the words, "Hey Siri, call my mother" then you'd have to do something like change her contact details so her name was listed as "My Mother".


How to stop mac from default booting in deleted windows via boot camp?

The NVRAM holds the location of the default OS, so resetting that might get you back to the default search order. If you want to set it explicitly, Apple’s article linked below as well can help:
From How to select a different startup disk:

Use Startup Disk preferences
When you use Startup Disk preferences to select a startup disk, your
Mac starts up from that disk until you choose a different one.

Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences, then click Startup Disk.
Click the lock and enter your administrator password.
Select your startup disk, then restart your Mac.

NOTE: Restart the Mac by clicking the Restart... button. This process checks the system has the correct permissions to start, then writes your choice to NVRAM.


10.7: managing SMTP (outgoing) server for multiple POP email accounts on the same mail server

Update: I've now demonstrated this problem is broken navigation in mail.app.  That's sufficiently different to close the above question and start a new thread, which I've done:  10.7 mail.app preferences-->accounts navigation broken; how to fix?


Wifi doesn't work unless I cycle it off then on again coming off of sleep

You could try something like this: (Copy and Paste it into AppleScript Editor)

--
-- Toggle Airport Power On and Off
--
if (offset of "On" in (do shell script "networksetup -getairportpower en1")) > 0 then
    do shell script "networksetup -setairportpower en1 off"
else
    do shell script "networksetup -setairportpower en1 on"
end if

Change the en1 to en0 (zero) for your WiFi.

If it works save the apple script as application. Pull it to your dock for fast access.


Can my Macbook Pro's display receive inputs from other sources?

Is it possible to use my Macbook Pro's display to receive inputs from other sources?

It is generally not economically feasible to build a custom display around Apple panels.


Import multiple-pages from a PDF as separate slides in Keynote

There’s a simple app called PDF to Keynote that does just this. From the developer’s description:

  PDF to Keynote converts PDF-based presentations (e.g., made using LaTeX and Prosper) into Apple's Keynote format.

I use it all the time for handling Beamer presentations, and it’s great. Free to download.

PS: This app does not suport current (November 2014) Keynote 6.5 file format.


Hotkey to switch button in confirmation window

You need to enable Full Keyboard Access in keyboard preferences (Preferences.app). Then You'll be able to switch highlighted buttons by pressing TAB and press this button with Space bar.

Image taken from this thread: https://superuser.com/questions/473143/how-to-tab-between-buttons-on-an-mac-os-x-dialog-box


Are there any apps to diagnose a Macbook battery?

On my MacBook, if I opt-click on the battery in my menu bar, it gives me current the condition of my battery.

You can also use iStat to show the current state of your battery.


Installing pymol using macports on yosemite

In case this ever helps someone, this will make it compile and load.

First Uninstall Pymol

Then:

% sudo port install tcl -corefoundation
% sudo port install tk -quartz
% sudo port install pymol

This is described here:

http://www.ub.edu/cbdd/?q=content/installing-pymol-macports


MacOS - Where is Terminal themes/profiles utilized by Terminal.app on disk?

The properties of themes and profiles are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist in the key Windows Settings/[Name of the Profile]:

Obviously only diffs to a hidden default profile (it's not the Basic profile!) are stored.

In the example above I made a copy Basic 1 of the Basic theme and arbitrarly disabled and enabled settings in the various tabs.

The initial settings for the various default profiles (Basic, Man Page, Ocean etc.) are stored in the app itself:

/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/Resources/Initial Settings/

The *.terminal files are basically XML-files. They are imported into the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist as sub-items on the first launch of Terminal.app.


High Sierra and Bootcamp with Windows 10 not working

These are the basic steps needed to install Windows 10 for an EFI boot.

The Windows specifications are given below.

Edition: Windows 10 Pro
Version: 1709
OS Build: 16299.15

  Note: To get a better view of the images shown below, either click on an image or open an image in a new window.

Use the Boot Camp Assistant to download the Window Support Software. Look for the "Action" pulldown on the Boot Camp Assistant menu bar. On my Mac, these files were downloaded to the ~/WindowsSupport directory.
Remove all external drives and restart the Mac. The output you posted from diskutil list shows a disk4. You should confirm this disk image has been removed.
Insert a 16 GB or larger USB flash drive. Use the Disk Utility application to erase this drive, as shown below.

Your internal disk already has a 85.8 GB "BOOTCAMP" partition. The space occupied by this partition will be used for installing Windows.
Mount the Windows iso file and copy the contents to the "WINSTALL" volume. In my case, the label "ESD-ISO" was used to identify the Windows iso. To perform the copy operation, you will need the enter the cp command from a Terminal application window. Below is the exact command I usually used. If necessary, make the appropriate modifications.

cp  -Rv  /volumes/ESD-ISO/  /volumes/WINSTALL

  Note: This command will take a while to complete. Be patient!

Copy the Windows Support Software to the "WINSTALL" volume. Below is the exact command I usually use. If necessary, make the appropriate modifications.

cp  -Rv  ~/WindowsSupport/  /volumes/WINSTALL

Use the command shown below to rename the AutoUnattend.xml file.

mv  /volumes/WINSTALL/AutoUnattend.xml  /volumes/WINSTALL/NoAutoUnattend.xml

Next, you need to boot from the volume where the Windows installation files reside. Hold down the option key immediately after restarting on your Mac. Release the option when the Startup Manager window appears. Select the icon labeled "EFI boot". Next, select the arrow below the "EFI boot" label.
Open a Windows Command Prompt window, by following the procedure outlined in this step. Below is an image of what is initially displayed by the Windows 10 installer. Select "Next".

In the image shown below, select "Repair your computer".

In the image shown below, select "Troubleshoot".

In the image shown below, select "Command Prompt".

The result should be the image shown below.

Use the command diskpart to finish partitioning disk0. The commands you need to enter are given below.

  Note: Sometimes it can take a while for the diskpart command to produce the first prompt. Be patient.

diskpart
list  volume

From the output of the command list volume, determine the number for the volume with the label "BOOTCAMP". In this example, I will assume the number is 0. Your number could be different. The next command selects this partition.

select  volume  0

The next commands effect the "BOOTCAMP" volume. The format is changed to NTFS. Next, the size is shrunk by 600 MB.

format  fs=ntfs  label=BOOTCAMP  quick
shrink  desired=600

Create a Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) partition. The next commands create and initialize an empty 600 MB WinRE.

create  partition  primary
set  id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
gpt  attributes=0x8000000000000001
format  fs=ntfs  label="Recovery"  quick

The next command lists the current volumes. Take note of the drive letter (Ltr) for the volume with label "WINSTALL". In this example, I will assume the letter is D. Your letter could be different.

list  volume

The command below quits the command diskpart.

exit

Enter the command below to start the Windows installation. If the drive letter, for the "WINSTALL" volume, is not D, then make the appropriate substitute when entering the command below.

setup  /unattend:D:\NoAutoUnattend.xml

When the window shown below appears, select the "BOOTCAMP" partition, then click on the "Next" button.

Continue with the installation of Windows 10. If the computer boots back to macOS, goto System Preferences and select Windows as your startup disk. Restart the computer to continue initializing Windows 10.
When finished, the Windows Support Software installer should automatically launch. If this does not occur, use the Windows File Explorer to open the Windows Support Software application named "Setup". This application can be found in the "BootCamp" folder on the "WINSTALL" drive. After the installer application completes, allow the computer to restart.

If asked, I can clarify any of the above steps.


Get latest Time Machine backup when backup disk is unplugged

Parse the XML you get from settings - defaults read on the command line:

defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist Destinations | tail -4 |head -1

That is a crude way to parse the xml / plist so you could use python or swift to properly read the preference plist / xml and parse out things like the last local snapshot date, last consistency check date, etc...

defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist Destinations