duplicate a folder/file structure using a placeholder file

Here is what I would do (there may be more efficient ways to automate this, but this is a quick hack that should achieve what you need). I hope I've understood your question correctly.

To get a list of all the directories (and their subdirectories) within an existing directory:

Open Terminal, and navigate to the existing folder containing the structure you would like to duplicate (if you are not familiar with Terminal, I am happy to give more specific guidance on how to do this. Basically, if you think of Terminal like Finder, the default folder that you are "viewing" when you open Terminal is your user folder. From there, you can type pwd to see where you are, ls to see a list of everything in the current directory, cd [folder name] to move into a folder in the directory, and then cd .. to move back up a level to the parent directory).

Type the following command:

find . -type d

This will list all of the directories contained in the current directory, as well as each of their subdirectories (i.e. it will not stop searching until there are no more subdirectories to enter).

The list will have entries that look something like this:

./directory1
./directory1/subdirectory1
./directory2
./directory2/sub2/sub3/sub4

We need to clean the formatting up just a bit before we can use this text.

To clean up the text so it can be used to recreate that folder structure:

Copy this list into any plain text editor (not Microsoft Word); I use TextWrangler but TextEdit comes with your computer. Using the find and replace feature, remove every instance of ./ (leave the "replace with" box empty and press replace all). This will delete all the initial periods and slashes, but retain subsequent slashes which indicate subdirectories.

Also, delete all new lines (i.e. the text may wrap onto multiple lines, but there should be no explicit new paragraphs in there). The above example will now look like:

directory1 directory1/subdirectory1 directory2 directory2/sub2/sub3/sub4

To create an arbitrary number of new folders with one command:

Note: You could also do this step using folder names from a different source, I was slightly confused by what the source of the folder names was in your question

You should now have a list of folder/subfolders that is all on one line (though it may wrap to multiple lines when it is rendered in your text editor), and has no punctuation*. Copy all of this text to your clipboard. Go back to Terminal, and use cd [folder], cd .., ls and pwd to navigate to the destination folder where you want to recreate the folder structure, as described above.

Once you are in the right folder, type:

mkdir -p and then commandv, and hit enter. Make sure there is a space (and nothing else) between mkdir -p and the first directory name, and one space between each subsequent directory name.

I know people have varying levels of familiarity with UNIX and the Terminal environment, so if this is confusing feel free to comment which steps need more clarification.

*Note that if any of the directory names you paste into Terminal have spaces or non alphanumeric characters such as (./'!?:_) etc., you need to escape them or it will not work. That is, for every space or other weird character, you must put a \ directly before it (note the difference between \ and /). So music/the beatles becomes music/the\ beatles. You can use find and replace for this as well.


Yes, the numbers 49884 and 49886 you see are indeed port numbers. However, they're not port numbers for the ssh service itself, but are the port numbers these specific clients have used for connecting. The numbers are essentially meaningless for you.

The usual problem that home users have with connecting remotely over SSH to their own computer is that their network is behind a NAT (Network Address Translation) router. Essentially this means that your router has a single public IP address, but allows multiple devices behind it to connect to the internet even though they have private IP addresses that are not "visible" on the internet.

The most common way to enable remote access over SSH is to add a port forward in the router. You'll need to port forward your remote IP port 22 to port 22 on the local IP of your iMac. How that is done depends on the exact router you have, but is usually explained in the manual or web interface help.


I've found that I can do this by editing the .bash_profile file.

Just added:

alias my_alias='cd /my/really/long/long/path

to .bash_profile, and after reopening bash my alias command worked just fine.


Get battery health via Apple Configurator

Based on this article and others on JAMF Nation:
https://www.jamf.com/jamf-nation/feature-requests/6836/info-on-battery-quality

It doesn't appear possible to do this through Mobile Device Management (MDM) which is how you would need to do this if it were possible as you would need a server somewhere that the device could report back to.

As Apple Configurator only creates provisioning profile for managing device settings, but doesn't actually have a server side element I don't see how it would be possible to get this information back, so I would suggest the answer is no not with Apple Configurator, and also no not with the currently provided APIs for MDM.


select all the text in a iPad Pages document

Touch your finger anywhere on the document and hold for a second. Then remove your finger and a pop-up menu should enable you to "Select all".


Have you accidentally turned on the “silent mode” switch at the top-left, above the volume buttons? If it’s on, it will show a sliver of red. Do your alarms make a noise? The mute switch doesn’t affect those.


"bash" command runs scripts in version 3.2, not 4.4

The error here is that the first path in PATH was to the bash executable, instead of to the directory that contains the bash executable. For readers with similar problems: double check to make sure any path you're adding to your PATH variable resolves to a directory, not to a file.
Problem:
I had added the following to my .bash_profile:
PATH=/usr/local/bin/bash:$PATH
/usr/local/bin/bash is not a directory. It's a file (well, a symbolic link to a file). So, regardless of placing it at the very beginning of PATH, the command bash will not find an executable file named bash inside any directory in PATH until it gets to /bin.
Solution:
In .bash_profile, setting
PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Solves the problem. Now the command bash finds the executable inside /usr/local/bin before it gets to /bin.


How to set up Document Root as "Sites" folder in Apache on macOS Sierra?

You have to set the DocumentRoot directive in your httpd.conf.  First, using your favorite editor, search for the DocumentRoot directive and add the following:

 DocumentRoot "/Users/igor/Sites/MySite/MyLink"

Restart Apache so that it reads the updated directive from httpd.conf


Where are the AirDrop files after transferring to Mac?

AirDrop defaults to the Downloads folder. When transferring from a device not associated with your iCloud account, i.e. someone else's iPhone or Mac, you may have the option to download to the Photos app for photos and videos. Check either of those and you should find the files.

As noted by Phong in the comments, clicking on the notification will take you to the file in Finder.


Is /usr/local/bin/npm a broken symlink? That would make sudo npm print an error like command not found and npm print an error like No such file or directory.

You could try creating a new symlink for node:

$ rm /usr/local/bin/npm; brew unlink node; brew link node
Unlinking /usr/local/Cellar/node/0.10.5... 4 links removed
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/node/0.10.5... 5 symlinks created
$ sudo /usr/local/bin/npm uninstall npm -g

Or use /usr/local/opt/node/bin/npm:

$ ls -l `brew --prefix node`
lrwxr-xr-x  1 lauri  admin  21 Jun 14 18:27 /usr/local/opt/node -> ../Cellar/node/0.10.5
$ sudo /usr/local/opt/node/bin/npm uninstall npm -g


The TrueCrypt installer is an mpkg file that contains multiple pkg files within it. You can right click the installer in Finder, open package contents and see the pkg files. Essentially, it installs MacFUSE and the TrueCrypt application. If you examine the TrueCrypt mpkg file with a tool like Pacifist, you'd see the list of files it installs and the locations.

TrueCrypt does not come with an uninstaller on OS X. But there are at least two ways to attempt to uninstall it completely:

According to help on the TrueCrypt forum, uninstalling it is a matter of removing MacFuse and the TrueCrypt app (you need to have an account on that forum to see this post):

  sudo /Library/Filesystems/fusefs.fs/Support/uninstall-macfuse-core.sh
  sudo rm -rf /Applications/TrueCrypt.app

OR
Try UninstallPKG to uninstall any application installed with a package (requires OS X 10.8 or later). I haven't used this, and do not know if it will be able to remove MacFUSE and TrueCrypt.

Once you've done this, check the list of files/locations reported by Pacifist, see if any of those are still around and remove them.


How to access other users' files via Terminal in OS X?

As stated by patrix: the personal files of other user's on the same machine are generally stored in the /Users/<username> folder for each user. The permissions on these folders are usually set such that they are private to the individual who owns the files.

This means you need to use sudo to elevate your own access levels in order to see their files. If you are truly an admin, using sudo is something that's ok, but do so with caution. If you are not an admin then you shouldn't have the proper sudo privileges to do any of this and your repeated attempts to use sudo are logged in the system access log.

To simply list files in another user's home directory (let's call them bob) you do:

sudo ls ~bob

The ~ prefix is POSIX shorthand for "home directory of...". To browse freely, you can become that user with sudo like so:

sudo su - bob

This makes you bob, logged in as bob and in bob's home directory. You can now move around, cat files, open files, etc. as bob.


Philips TV: Connect MacBook shared folder to TV

try plex ;)
it creates a media server on the network and you reach the shared contents from your smart TV like a flash drive. it works on my LG smart TV


Homescreen changes via iOS Enterprise Remote Device Management

Bingo! you've already got it there in your question.
Your last item "Web clips Credentials and keys" should actually be two - "Web Clips" and "Credentials and Keys" in which case, "Web Clips" is the one you're looking for. A "Web Clip" is a home screen bookmark for a website.
From the Enterprise Deployment Guidelines:

Web Clip Settings
Use this payload to add web clips to the Home screen of the user’s device. Web clips
provide fast access to favorite web pages.
Make sure the URL you enter includes the prefix http:// or https://—this is required
for the web clip to function correctly. For example, to add the online version of
the iPhone User Guide to the Home screen, specify the web clip URL:
http://help.apple.com/iphone/
To add a custom icon, select a graphic file in gif, jpeg, or png format, 59 x 60 pixels in
size. The image is automatically scaled and cropped to fit, and converted to png format
if necessary.


Enable sudoing for the logged-in user for one specific prefpane only?

You have to script a task to run from the command line for sudo to grant password-less admin rights. It only works on shell scripts and not the GUI password prompt.
The first way to help you is to clarify you have two problems.

Make a terminal command into an app that can be clicked so you don’t have to train people in terminal app. (A very valid and worthwhile exercise to solve a general class of problems)
Make a command line tool that does what you need - which solves your specific vmware control issue or blockage.

Once you have solved both of these sub tasks, you may or may not need a third question on how to combine two working parts together.


You only see the grid because you don't have an Internet connection, which is why you can't report a problem either. The map information is downloaded from the Internet.


Try to retrace your steps. What have you installed on you Mac since the freezes started? Some suspicious software/freeware from the internet, maybe some illegal software... If you can think of something like this, try to uninstall/delete the software.

Try to detect which process is running (Activity monitor) when the freezes happened. If you detect the mall function service or software, try to figure out if the software is installed correctly.

Worst case scenario, you can back up your data (not software!!) via TimeMachine or just an external hard drive, and completely reïnstall you OS. It quite radical (and unnecessary if you ask me if you can figure out the bad software/process described in the above paragraphs). In this way, you have a completely new OS and you can restore your documents and reïnstall your software (be aware on what you install).

My advice, figure out your bad piece of software/process and fix it. So you can keep your documents without reïnstalling the whole Mac...


Recover Apple Music Playlist Deleted by Mistake

See if this helps you at all. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251373506?answerId=252694873022#252694873022


How to remove xattr com.apple.quarantine from all .webarchive files with that extended attribute?

find . -iname '*.webarchive' -print0 | xargs -0 xattr -d com.apple.quarantine

will remove (xattr -d) the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute
from all files with an extension of .webarchive (-iname '*.webarchive')
located in the current directory and its subdirectories (. -depth, where the -depth is implied)
going through xargs (-print0 | xargs -0) to avoid problems with filenames containing spaces and other special characters (a similiar goal can be accomplished with slightly reduced efficiency by using find . -iname '*.webarchive' -exec xattr -d '{}' \;).

Explanation of the efficiency difference:

Whenever the syntax allows for it such as in this case, xargs assembles one or more command lines such as xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/file1.webarchive /path/to/fileN.webarchive

while the in-my-opinion easier to remember find-only version repeats the command every time: xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/file1.webarchive ; xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/fileN.webarchive


As near as I can tell, this might be a Hidden Purchase. Choose Store > View My Account, where you can see hidden purchases. You may be able to cancel or unhide the download from there.


Symbolic linking to Photos from another user

The iPhoto library is a package container not really a single file.  There are .plist, .db and other files in the package that might get altered differentially when you open via the different accounts.  This might contribute to the problems people mentioned.  Crazy idea, and I haven't tried it, but it might be better to recreate the package content on the new account using symbolic links to the folders that contain the actual photos on the old account.  This way all the .plist, .db and related files in the package can remain local to the new account, but you accomplish your goal of not copying the actual photos.  I definitely would back up the library before giving this a try.


Keyboard and Mouse freeze after deep sleep (Mountain Lion)

I had the same issue on my Macbook Air and Mountain Lion.

The quickest way to solve this is to disable the login screen or the "ask for password" setting.

If you're worried about privacy, do the following:

Reset PRAM
Reset SMC

If it still doesn't work, disable deep sleep mode (hibernate) by doing this:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

Note that doing the above will only put your computer on battery sleep and this will affect battery life when you're not using your mac.


Weird name in iMessage when I copy messages

There are two possible reasons for this – Both which are caused by a friends most likely playing a prank on you – : Your name is incorrect on your contact, or your nickname is incorrect on your contact. I will be assuming your on an iPhone and not a Mac. If I have assumed incorrectly just comment and I'll change my answer although the steps are basically identical.

Change Your Name

Open Contacts and select the first contact labeled with "My Card"

Select Edit in the upper right hand corner

Delete the name listed in First Name and Last Name (Pumpkin Squealer De Luz Do You See) and replace it with your real name

Change Your Nickname (If available)

Method 1:

Steps 1 & 2 from "Change Your Name"
Change the Nickname (Most likely 3rd option) or remove it completely

Method 2: (How your friend probably did it)

Ask Siri "Call Me [Insert Nickname Here]"

This will change your nickname.

Prevent this in the Future

I know your probably asking Wait...? I have a password on my phone how did my friend get in?. Great question! Although you have a password, Siri, by default, is enabled on the lock screen giving the lots of power including changing your nickname, sending texts, reading emails (from third party apps), etc. Assuming that this was the way they did it you can turn off Siri from lock screen by going to Settings>Touch ID & PasscodeSiri.


How can I check which SMC version I am using?

Yes. To check which SMC you're using just:

From the Apple () menu, choose About This Mac.
Click More Info.
Click System Report.
Open the Hardware section to reveal Model Identifier, Boot ROM version, and SMC version numbers.

Just so that you know, if you are unsure whether your computer needs a particular update, simply download and open the update installer. The installer will alert you if the firmware update is already installed or not needed.


How to turn Mac OS X Lion into a web server?

You first need to enable Apache in the Sharing prefpane. Check "Web sharing" and your web server is running.

Note that since Mountain Lion, Web Sharing was removed from the Sharing preference pane, but Apache is still included. Check this answer for controlling Apache in Mountain Lion.

To activate PHP you'll need to edit /etc/apache2/httpd.conf in Terminal.app. This requires root credentials. nano is a very accessible command-line editor if you are uncomfortable with vim.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Find the line (you can press ctrl + W to start searching in nano):

#LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

and uncomment it. Next find the line

#Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

and uncomment that as well to enable virtual hosts support.

Save the file and exit nano by pressing ctrl + X, then confirming the changes by pressing Y(es), then enter.

You can now edit your virtual hosts in the file /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

sudo nano /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

Important to note is that the first defined host will be the default host for unqualified host names. For resolving additional hostnames apart from localhost I recommend hardcoding them in /etc/hosts.

To install MySQL, download the installer from the MySQL website (64bit installer should be ok). Follow the instructions to install it.

Finally, to configure PHP for MySQL, copy the default php.ini:

sudo cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini

Now you can edit /etc/php.ini (again root access required) and replace any reference to /var/mysql/mysql.sock with /tmp/mysql.sock (the default location of the MySQL socket after running the installer). There probably are about 3 references to that path.

Finally, restart Apache for the new configuration to take effect:

sudo apachectl restart

Alternatively you can restart Apache by toggling it off and on again in the Sharing prefpane.

Done.


How to search multiple spotlight sources / drives simultaneously?

You can use HoudahSpot to search multiple locations.

HoudahSpot is an advanced front-end to Spotlight. It lets you build complex queries to search metadata stored in the Spotlight index.

In the HoudahSpot "Query Pane" you will find a "Where…" section. Here you can specify which locations / drives / folders to search. There is also an "Exclude…" section where you can specify folders to ignore. E.g. you could search your Home folder, but ignore results from the ~/Library folder.

Full disclosure: I am the developer of HoudahSpot


Your iCloud storage is how much data you can keep online, in the cloud.
This is variable, depending on how much you pay, for what you need. Your first 5GB is free.

The iPhone itself has a fixed hardware memory, or space, which can only be chosen when you buy it, in 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, or 256 GB configurations.
The total you see in Settings > General > Storage will never be quite this figure, as some of that is needed for the formatting of the memory & the data structure itself.
This memory is where it stores all apps, music, documents etc that your phone can use.


Open a terminal window in another screen on login

You can write an AppleScript with the following statements:

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
    set position of first window of application process "Terminal" to {X_VALUE, Y_VALUE}
end tell

The first one launch the Terminal while the second one moves its window to the defined coordinates. Export the AppleScript as application and make it run automatically at startup.


You will need to use Apple MDM software to accomplish this.

Under macOS Supervised Restrictions, you can prevent users from creating accounts:


Window being maximized while holding title bar

Is it possible you're double-clicking as you hold the window, whether through click input or your mouse having a hardware issue? Double-clicking a window title bar will zoom the window.

You can disable this behaviour in in System Preferences → Dock → Double-click a window's title bar to zoom.


With hardlinks, does it matter which is which?

No - hard links work like individual files. As long as you make the next link/copy in the correct folder/directory - you are good to go. When you cross a filesystem boundary - the link breaks automagically and it becomes a distinct file.


Having issues reinstalling El Capitan xo

What was your version of macOS prior to wiping everything. You can't reinstall OS X El Capitan if you had macOS Catalina installed. You can try wiping the SSD/HDD to have a GPT partition map if it doesn't already and then you should format Macintosh HD to be HFS (macOS Extended). Then you should boot into macOS Recovery and reinstall macOS. Make sure you are connected to the internet. If that doesn't work, then try installing the original version of macOS that came with your computer then upgrade to El Capitan. Check out this link: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/reinstall-macos-mchlp1599/mac.


Command line tools to replace bytes in a file

You can achieve it with dd command. Here's an example:

$ hexdump StringComparison  | head -1
0000000 cf fa ed fe 07 00 00 01 03 00 00 80 02 00 00 00

$ printf '\x11\x11\x11' | dd of=StringComparison bs=1 seek=4 count=3 conv=notrunc
3+0 records in
3+0 records out
3 bytes transferred in 0.000293 secs (10238 bytes/sec)

$ hexdump StringComparison  | head -1
0000000 cf fa ed fe 11 11 11 01 03 00 00 80 02 00 00 00

Explanation:

of = input file
bs = block size
seek = position (offset)
notrunc = do not truncate the output.


How do I confirm extence/non-existence of hard drive on an old iMac?

If this iMac of yours is, as i believe, a revision C iMac (revision A and B were all Bondy Blue), then there you can find a guide on iFixit.com about how to reach and replace its hard drive.


Strange output at end of terminal session in OS X El Capitan

Terminal saves a bunch of history so that when you open it again, it all looks like it did when you quit it.  The messages you are seeing reflect that saving of data.  You can see exactly what it is doing by taking a peek inside /etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal:

grep "truncating history files" /etc/* 2> /dev/null
/etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal:     echo -n 'truncating history files...'


Outlook to iPhone contact synchronisation

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I have seen a lot of weird sync issues between iOS devices and Outlook/Exchange. As an FYI I am the admin for our 2013 MS Exchange server, so I see a fair amount of these.

Very little of what makes sense to do works reliably. I gather there is some kind of issue with Activesync on iOS devices and I have seen where some people claim it is an Apple bug and some, Microsoft's problem. The end result being it never gets fixed (so far...)

You can try the standard things with this, removing and then re-adding the account on the problematic phone, resetting network settings, doing a backup - reset - restore on that iOS device too; all are as likely to work as anything else.

The only permanent solution to the problem that I have found, and this may not be an option for some people, is to use Microsoft's free iOS Outlook email client rather than the email, contacts, calendar apps that come with iOS. I switched over a couple of years ago and completely stopped having sync and account issues with my Exchange-based (work email) email. And actually Outlook is a pretty good iOS email client.


OS X El Capitan: Change the direction of text

Go the System Prefs/Keyboard/Input Sources/Arabic  (or whatever script you are using) and make sure the box for Enable Keyboard Shortcuts is checked.


How can I show the remaining time for a caffeinate command?

pmset -g assertions will show the caffeinate-generated assertion (among others) along with how many seconds remain:

   pid 23694(caffeinate): [0x0013076c0005a0ed] 00:37:55 PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep named: "caffeinate command-line tool"
    Details: caffeinate asserting for 7200 secs
    Localized=THE CAFFEINATE TOOL IS PREVENTING SLEEP.
    Timeout will fire in 4924 secs Action=TimeoutActionRelease


Is this a potential symptom of a hardware issue? Button visual data is behaving buggy?

If that doesn't happen in any other app, it's likely a bug in the Gmail app. You should raise this issue with Google's support.


Deeper sleep on MacBook so it will stop connecting to bluetooth and draining battery

You could install blueutil and SleepWatcher via homebrew and set a .sleep code to do "/usr/local/bin/blueutil -p 0" in order to disable bluetooth when going to sleep mode. I had the same issue and this did the trick !

To use SleepWatcher: make a shell script in your home directory named .sleep and give it permission with the command chmod +x ~/.sleep.

You also can do a .wake code to turn bluetooth back on with blueutil -p 1 when waking up.
You can find out how to use SleepWatcher here

You can do all of this with Keyboard Maestro too, if you prefer a GUI tool. You can have Keyboard Maestro call blueutil to control your Bluetooth. However, the first thing to do is make sure that “Enable Power Nap” is OFF in System Preferences under Energy Saver.


Disabling "Exchange Password Required" Temporarily

Outlook is (for comparison purposes) a glorified IMAP client. EG it keeps everything on the server and Outlook is just viewing and changing data on the server.
So what you need to do is to tell Outlook to stop looking on the server for changes, which it does every few seconds.
Fortunately there has been an option in Outlook for a long time to allow you to do this.

With Outlook active click on the Outlook menu
Select "Work Offline"
Enjoy your notification free existence

When you reconnect to your VPN you just have to go back to that same menu and select Work Online. With no dipping into network or notification settings, easy peasy.


Severe Bluetooth Connectivity Issues - OS X Yosemite+El Capitan

There is a lot of pain, but you have all the tools you need to isolate the issue:

Install 10.9 on an external drive.
Install 10.10 on an external drive.
Install 10.11 on an external drive.

It is important to get a totally clean install of the three items above. You can then use a notebook to write down the exact times and OS when Bluetooth if flakey. If it's really the software drivers, you will have statistical evidence of that after 10 to 20 data points. The down side of this, troubleshooting like this is expensive time-wise and we don't ever get that time back.

I hate to throw hardware at an issue, but wired devices or upgrading to Apple's newer hardware have helped in areas where I had clients with noisy 2.4 Ghz environments. The new hardware is Bluetooth low energy and superior to the old devices in terms of resilience and the amount of time to link back up when they inevitably disconnect. As a bonus, they work over USB in the case of the new "magic" keyboard and trackpad devices. Other third party options also exist with transmitters that don't depend on the Bluetooth stack.

Make a "budget" for your troubleshooting effort and buy a solution that you could return if it doesn't solve our issue. Since it happens so often, you should be able to know with Apple’s 14 day return window if the new hardware will solve your pain. (And if it's cheaper once you put a $ value on your time to troubleshoot the issue further.)

Reset Mac OS X Bluetooth service?

Also, this answer to the above question has some critical information on using the debug menu to factory reset things. You might try each of these (writing down what you do and when - leaving a little time between each option) to see if a reset helps. The logging and diagnostic report will also help if you need to engage Apple support to troubleshoot the issue. Sometimes looking at the logs has helped me identify a failure.

Best of luck - I'm curious what you find out.


Does anyone know a Socks5 server I can run in OsX which allows chaining to an HTTP proxy?

A lot of searching around, and I finally found cntlm which works quite well.  There is a slight build problem with v0.92.3 when compiling with Lion and XCode 4.5.1 - there is a make error that it does not recognize "-Wno-unused-but-set-variable".  Just comment out that warning from the Makefile, and it compiles and runs well.


Time machine can't find backup on Synology through Finder, but present when viewed through Synology disk station

Turns out you need to connect using afp://[your synology IP] then select the share point manually, and likewise in the Time Machine preferences pane. This seems to be a known issue with macOS Sierra.


.xls file attachments in Gmail opens, by default, with Numbers

Right click on an Excel file.
Click: "Get Info"
Set the "Open with:" selector dialogue to whichever app you choose.
In the "Open with:" section, there is "Change All..." button to change all files with the same extension.


One option is:

select the folder
press Command-i,
expand Sharing & Permissions
click the lock to authenticate
then click the plus button
add your active user account to the list
Optional: then click the gear menu and choose "apply to enclosed items". (this action is recursive and could take a while as it touches every file...)


How to make an existing AppleScript file to work as a service?

Yes, Automator is the best option here. To create the service follow these steps:

Open Automator and select Service:

Search 'applescript' and drag the action to the right pane:

Change Service receives selected text to Service receives no input so that it always appears in the Services menu:

Replace (* Your script goes here *) with:

do shell script "/usr/bin/osascript /path/to/your/script.scpt"

if you wish to execute your existing .scpt file. Note that osascript can't handle user interaction like displaying a dialog window:

To overcome this limitation either use this workaround or simply replace (* Your script goes here *) with the contents of your script.
Save it:

If you wish, you can assign a shortcut to your new service. Select Services>Services Preferences in Finder (or any open application):

Assign a not so common shorcut:

Now your service is accessible from any application through the shortcut you assigned in the previous step:

If you ever want to get rid of the service open ~/Library/Services, delete the service and empty the trash:


What methods exist for reading out content to hear correct pronunciation?

Several built in tools exist to assist with this sort of thing, but many of them are intended to help people with limited vision etc, whereas I understand that you want to hear particular words etc possibly as a learning tool.  You can still configure certain settings to help you do this.

In Settings > General > Accessibility you can use Voiceover to read out all screen interaction, allowing you to also perform a quick 3 finger down swipe across text to have it narrated to you.  There are various options for altering the lnaguages and dialects, the voice pitch and quality etc, but it does all tend to compromise using your device for anything else unless you are of limited vision etc.

In the same area, there is also Speak Selection; this is far more subtle, allowing you to select any text via the usual cut/copy/paste techniques, to which the option to Speak the selection is added, and you can configure various options as per the screenshot below.

This latter method is ideal for speaking snippets of text because it is a system tool, and will allow for the technique to work in any app in which you can select text.  The downside is that it is intended to be an accessibility tool for visually impaired people, and the pronunciation of the text is still very much "computer speak", resulting in some words being pronounced oddly or even incorrectly as all the narration is being synthesized  rather than using a base of real natural language to form words.

In the same text menu, you also have the Define, allowing you to pull up a dictionary definition of the word.  I've never been able to make any sense of the pronunciation hints in dictionaries that appear next to names, but if you can, then here it is to see (You can also change dictionaries if appropriate, you should be prompted to download one if you don't already have one)

As for 3rd party apps, I don't know of any that are available which have the specific purpose of reading aloud content with a primary purpose of pronunciation, this sort of tihng often requires large and complex databases containing snippets of genuine voice recordings which can be cut together to read aloud text with a far more natural sound that many of the simpler synthesized techniques as per above.


pfctl to add rules at runtime WITHOUT editing /etc/pf.conf?

I solved this myself.

cat /etc/pf.conf my_rules.conf | sudo /sbin/pfctl -Ef -

Where my_rules.conf contains our own rules, these get concatenated to the pf.conf rules but take precedence due to them being appended after pf.conf in the cat command.

Also note we use pfctl -Ef -  the - forces pfctl to read from stdin

We can take this solution a step further and load our own rules from stdin by using this:

echo "block out all" | cat /etc/pf.conf - | sudo /sbin/pfctl -Ef -


Mac OS Sierra 10.12.1 Dock behaviour and command tab issue

Yes. I have a mid 2015 MBP which I have upgraded to Sierra from Mavericks and before that all the way back to Lion.

I find that Cmd-Tab frequently (more often than not) fails to tab to the correct window, stopping 'one short' which suggests that the list of icons displayed when Cmd Tabbing is different from the internal list of programs that it cycles through for some reason.

I also recently had a problem (for the first time) where Terminal windows failed to show in the task switcher at all until I restarted the OS.


Mac OS internet Recovery mode stuck on progress option with globe animated screen

I was solved it, I just plug/unplug my internet cable from Wifi Router.


Best/neutral sound quality out of a Mac(Book)? And out of a iOS device? (Current models.)

I am not an audiophile so I can't answer your subjective quality question (which is better-sounding).  But I can tell you that the headphone jack on your MacBook does include optical audio in a format called mini-TOSLINK, which you will need an adapter to get in a standard TOSLINK.

I have never had an audio quality issue with the standard copper-line devices I've plugged into my MacBook or iPhone or iPod.  My experience with outputting to TOSLINK extends only to sound systems which are a bit more dependant on the quality of the speakers, so I doubt the optical connector would be to blame with that.

If you are working with video, you may want to avoid TOSLINK as it apparently adds a bit of delay, but if you follow your "reduce impedance" rule, TOSLINK is probably the way to go.  Everything here is going to go through some digital stage of encoding, but TOSLINK avoids the wire, reducing radio interference and providing enough bandwidth that you can probably live with whatever or lossless (or near lossless) encoding is done.


Problem in defaults command when adding app with blanks in name to dock

I recommend using dockutil for this. You can either download and install this directly from github, or you can install it using Homebrew with the command

brew install dockutil

Once installed, you can use a command like this to add an app with spaces in the path

dockutil --add '/Users/mac/Downloads/Yahoo News, Send & Weather2/YahooWeather.app'


Mac Terminal view is Screen Sharing is Enabled

You can do so by checking for the existence of the launchd files in /etc:

[[ -f /etc/RemoteManagement.launchd ]] && echo 'enabled' || echo 'disabled'

or for screen sharing:

[[ -f /etc/com.apple.screensharing.agent.launchd ]] && echo 'enabled' || echo 'disabled'


Permanently Disabling System Integrity Protection

There should be no extra step required - in fact, reading through the excellent article linked from that question, I found this…

  Because SIP’s configuration is stored in NVRAM, SIP’s protection settings will apply to the entire machine and will persist even if the OS is reinstalled.

This would perhaps imply your NVRAM is not correctly holding data -
perhaps try a reset,  Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   P   R  at the chimes & keep holding until you hear the chimes a second time.

Source : System Integrity Protection – Adding another layer to Apple’s security model

If after resetting NVRAM one time, you can’t make SIP status stick the next steps are to repair and wipe your drive and then seek hardware service is a freshly erased and reinstalled OS won’t allow you to disable SIP.


It's all about syntax sometimes :-)

git config --global core.editor 'xed -w'

Not sure whether you really want to wait for Xcode to launch each time you git commit something. Maybe vi or nano are the better options here.


No, there is no default firewall on iOS so you don't need to configure anything to access port 993. If connectivity is working fine via wifi but not a cellular connection, everything points to your cellular provider blocking port 993.

Are you able to access your email from your phone via a 3G/4G connection? Or is it only a computer tethered to your phone that's not working?


Time Machine started to backup files, it is still working and data is larger than actual disk data

This procedure helped to resolve the issue:

Turn off Time Machine and wait to completely stop
Erase Time Machine folder with all data (in my case a folder on NAS server but can be an USB disk).
Erase Time Machine configuration file on Mac: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist
Setup Time Machine options. E.g. set exclude folders
Turn On Time Machine

I'm not sure about the conclusion, but suspect that .plist file was somehow corrupted.


It's part of the default theme package in current beta versions (running b64).

In Mojave, it switches to the dark theme automatically if you change the OS to dark. However, whereas the dark theme in Firefox is pretty much complete, the theme in Thunderbird is haphazardly applied. I'm not running dark mode Mojave specifically because Thunderbird theme is off. See bugzilla entry here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1486205


iPhone 7 - problems with pop-up websites

Most ad blocker extensions for iOS allow you to add custom rules, which should allow you to block whole domains as well. I use 1Blocker, there are probably others with similar features.


How to Check if a Number is Divisible by Another Number

Numbers don't work like that. Sorry.  There is a function that does exactly what you want but I don't know if it's available in Apple Script. The function is called mod. I know it's available in python. The function works like so. enter 2 numbers into the mod function. An example is mod(12,2). what you are asking is 12 divisible by 2. so you could have mod(14,2) mod(6894381,2). if the number is divisible by 2 the function is zero. Else its the remainder of the division as if you did it yourself. This also works for any number. mod(12,3) tells you if 12 is divisible by 3. mod(27,3) = 0, mod(26,3) = 2. so mod(300,50) is zero because 300 is divisible by 50.


Try App Shopper. You need to register an account to utilize their price drop notification.


Generating Safari developer certificate from Windows? The old instructions that have since been removed

This how-to might contain all necessary information provided by Apple in the past or help otherwise:

The Apple Safari extension development guide describes how to generate CSR(Certificate Signing Request) file for Mac. But, if we want to develop the Safari extensions on windows 7, we don’t have any resource to guide us. Here, I am providing steps to create  developer certificate for windows.

Register on Apple Safari developer program here
Download and install X Certificate and key management (XCA)
Generate a new private key in XCA. - After installing the XCA, go to File ->New Database. Give database name and password. Now, the new key option will be enabled.
Choose new key and give the name for private key and give size as 2048 Bytes.
From the XCA, choose “certificate signing requests” tab. Click on “New Request”  and fill the necessary details.
Export the Certificate Signing Request(CSR).
Request a certificate at apple here using the Certificate Signing Request(CSR).
Download the certificate from Apple account.
Click on “Certificates” tab on XCA and import the certificate which is downloaded from Apple into  XCA.
Export the certificate as p12 file.
Double click on *.p12 file. The certificate will import into the windows Certiciate-Manager.
Now, open the safari browser and click on Develop -> Show Extension builder. You are able to see that the certificate got detected.


To get Graphical Info reader in El Capitan?

The obvious one is emacs itself as info is its documentation format

The Apple supplied emacs does do this in the terminal as do more up to date ones

There are graphical versions Emacs.app for pure emacs and Aquamacs trying to be more like a standard OSX app.

If you need this from the command line other make .info files opened by the emacs app and use the command open or use emacsclient


As far as I could see it is not possible to download public beta's from iOS to your Mac. The only option Apple gives are OTA updates.

You could register as a developer, but the beta's are only available for paying developers.

If you are a developer, you can download beta's from developer.apple.com/download.

Login
Go to the iOS section
Choose the right device
Download
Open iTunes
Connect iOS device
Click on the update button with alt (option) button pushed.
Select the downloaded beta


I want to upgrade the hard drive in my Mac Pro 1,1 2006 2x2.66GHz Xeon

Acquiring Snow Leopard 10.6

Should you need the physical disk, you can order the Snow Leopard 10.6 installation disk directly from Apple, from this page: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

Acquiring Lion 10.7

Likewise, you can order Lion 10.7 from Apple, from this page: http://www.apple.com/shop/product/D6106Z/A/os-x-lion.  Note that you will not receive physical disks, but an email with a content code for the Mac App Store that you can use to download the Lion 10.7 upgrade.

If you had not already purchased Lion 10.7 through the App Store (before July 2012), you will no longer be able to locate it there; Apple has removed it and Lion 10.7 can no longer be purchased for download through the App Store.  As you're using 2006-era hardware, you will not be able to upgrade to a newer OS version than Lion 10.7.  See this MacWorld article for additional information.

Upgrading the Hard Drive

This fantastic article shows how to replace the hard drive on a Mac Pro machine.  Follow the steps, and you will have the new hard drive functional in just a few minutes.

The basic steps are:

Make sure that you have a compatible SSD (check the compatibility chart for the SSD vendor)
Get your small Phillips head screwdriver ready in advance
Follow proper anti-static procedures (static kills computer equipment)
Open and remove the side access door, using the latch on the rear of the machine
Choose an empty hard drive bay, make sure that it's unlocked, and pull it out
Connect the SSD to the tray using the 4 Phillips head screws
Slide the tray (with SSD) back into place in the machine and make sure that it is properly seated
Replace and close the side access door

At this point, you will have the original hard drive and the new SSD installed and ready for use.

Transfer Content to New Hard Drive

You can use the Disk Utility program to transfer the content from your previous Snow Leopard hard disk to the new SSD.  Detailed instructions can be found in this article.

The essential steps are:

Boot into Recovery Mode (hold ⌘ R during boot)
Launch Disk Utility from Recovery Mode
Select the disk partition
Choose the Restore pane on the right side of the window
Select the target partition (the new SSD)
Click the Restore button to start the cloning process

Be prepared for the process to take a considerable amount of time, especially if the original hard disk has a lot of content; all of that content needs to be moved.

Upgrading to Lion 10.7

This is a great point to do the upgrade to Lion 10.7, because you now have a backup copy of the original hard drive and can safely restore if any problems occur.

LifeHacker has a great article that covers the upgrade process.

These steps can be summarized as such:

Check your machine's compatibility against the specs
Update your OS X system and apps before you start
Open the App Store, go to Purchases, and enter your Lion 10.7 content code
If you cannot see the Lion download at this point, hold the ⌘ key and click the Purchases tab again and click Download
After the download is complete, click the Continue button on the installation window
Agree to the license terms, choose your SSD volume, and provide your Administrator password when prompted
The installation process will begin, and may take some time as your system is upgraded
Once installation has completed, restart your machine
Update your OS X system and apps to the current compatible versions

At this point, you should have a fully functional Lion 10.7 installation, ready for use.

Cleaning Up

Once the SSD has all of the content from the original hard drive, the hard drive may either be removed or used as a secondary storage location.  Remember that this is a 12-year-old hard drive, and operational lifetimes for hard drives are typically in the 5-8 year range.  If there are any issues at all with the hard drive, you're better off removing and disposing of it (many electronics stores will properly dispose of it for you).

If you decide to keep the original hard disk, this can give you quite a lot of available disk space, but you should erase or repartition it for 2 main reasons:

to prevent boot-time confusion about which volume (disk) is primary
to reclaim the storage used by the content that is now cloned to the SSD


Change application and select text with a single click

Looks like it's always been this broken, maybe I just never hit it because I haven't used multi-monitor macs before and so rarely had windows side-by-side:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2436615

Enable click-through, preferrably for all applications

:-(


What setting causes OS X to let you resize windows behind the dock?

No application will ever slide “on top” of the Dock. You can resize applications that might cover part of the dock and they will remain below the dock. If you move or hit the “zoom” button, the OS X window manager will automatically resize the window to remove the part that is covered by the dock.

A different behavior can be observed if the dock is set to “Auto-Hide” (cmd+alt+d). Since the Dock is now a “temporary visible” object, windows will cover and use that part, regardless of the Dock’s visibility at the time of the resize.

UPDATE: If the Dock is always visible, are you telling me that you can’t grab any window (in this example a Finder window) and drag it like in the picture? (The red arrow is the mouse pointer that the SSHOT didn’t capture). I was clicking and dragging below the dock.

UPDATE II: As we started investigating, turns out that the following is true:

If OS X has a secondary display attached and this display’s vertical resolution is higher than the primary display (where the menubar and dock are), then the Dock will let you resize “behind” it. I don’t have enough screen combinations to test exactly when this happens, but it’s clear to me that it only happens when there’s an external display.

Next is a shot of my arrangement. As you can see in the picture, the “gap” between the big wide screen and the vertical one on the right is what I think causes the Dock to behave like this. It appears as if the window manager takes the highest vertical size when determining the bounds. I don’t know if this is a feature or a bug.

UPDATE III*: Ok, for the sake of testing, I went ahead and modified my Screen’s arrangement (see picture). I exaggerated the placement because I wanted to make sure that there’s no weird offset acting. With the screens arranged like in the picture, my dock will not let me resize below it.

This possibly solves the “mystery” of why does this happen. I hope you can replicate it and/or find a way to work around the issue. For the record, I rarely run into this because I usually either auto hide the dock or use SizeUp to move/arrange my windows, and it doesn’t let me put windows behind the dock.


Using DisplayPort hubs, splitting the massive meta-screen

The Matrox TripleHead2Go includes their Powerdesk driver that can apparently send windows and the dock to specific displays. I'm not sure how far the illusion goes that they are indeed separate displays instead of the one logical display they represent.

Have you actually tried USB monitors? If used for coding and/or docs, I don't think their theoretical lack in bandwidth creates much of a practical problem. If you plan on gaming or watching videos on them, that's another matter. I wouldn't rule them out for ordinary work-type jobs without checking them out myself first.


How to install Windows 8 on an early 2006 MacBook?

Windows 8 needs Boot Camp 5.1

Your Macbook can only run Boot Camp from DVD, not from USB [same for any Superdrive-euipped Macbook] & also can, as far as I can tell, only run Boot Camp 4.
That means your only choices are Windows XP or Vista, 32-bit.

See Boot Camp: System requirements for Microsoft Windows operating systems


Why does DNS resolution fail for one user account every 10 minutes on Yosemite?

apparently a bug with yosemite... I had the same problem on my son's account... no ping while dig or nslookup were working fine...
I have updated my mac with 10.10.1  (beta version available for developer) and everything is now back to normal..http://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/10/yosemite-10-10-1-build-14b23/


Will jailbreaking my iPhone 4s allow me to copy songs manually in iTunes (or other software)?

I'm not an expert on jail breaking, but AFAIK, that limitation is baked into iTunes - it doesn't really care if your phone is jailbroken, at least for the purposes of your question - it just talks with the music app (or more specifically, the database behind it).

That said, there is software out there that can restore your iTunes library from an iPod or iPhone. iRip works on OS X, there's also DeTune. SharePod seems to be the goto option for Windows. You'll have to use one of those programs to get your library back on your new computer, then re-sync your iPhone from your new library.


Create bootable Snow Leopard USB drive/stick from Ubuntu

If you have the install DVD or an .ISO rip, you can use the dd command to write it to your USB drive.

sudo dd if=~/osx-snowleopard.iso of=/dev/sdb

Just replace "~/osx-snowleopard.iso" with the path and name of the ISO file and "/dev/sdb" with the device node name of your USB stick.

Use the lsblk command to figure out which device name is your USB stick.  It's probably going to be sdb or sdc.  If your geek stick automounts when you plug it into Ubuntu, make sure you unmount it first; just right click the USB stick's partition and click "Eject".


How can I launch an Automator workflow upon import in iPhoto?

As you don't seem to use the iPhoto library at all, you should use Image Capture instead. It allows you to put your picture directly in a given folder.

You can also create a "transfer module" with automator which can be set to run after an import using Image Capture with imported pictures as input. Thanks to this, you can create an automator process to arrange them in folder as you want.

Image Capture is also scriptable with AppleScript, you might want to take a look at its dictionary if the GUI or Automator don't provide enough flexibility for you.

If you want your pictures both in iPhoto and in your folder, you can configure the automator process to add them in iPhoto once imported in your folder with Image Capture. Lots of workflow are possible, it depends and what you exactly want to achieve.


iPad app where possible draw, save for reuse and drop 'objects' on canvas for prototyping and to make mockup

The best app that comes to mind is Sketchbook Pro for the iPad. It's like a simplified version of Photoshop where it has brushes and a lot of features that are at the mercy of your fingertips. I have it, and it's great for prototyping / making concept art real quick.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sketchbook-pro-for-ipad/id364253478?mt=8

I don't know what you mean by saving and dropping templates onto a canvas, but hopefully this link will steer you in the right direction.


Can I use one 8GB RAM module in place of two 4GB modules?

For the MacBook Pro 13-inch, Mid 2012, Apple only officially supports 8 GB RAM, 2 - 204-pin PC3-12800 (1600 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM; however, it can actually support 16 GB. So in theory you should be able to use a single 8 GB PC3-12800 (1600 MHz) DDR3 SO-DIMM.

You can purchase a single Crucial 8GB Single DDR3/DDR3L 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) SODIMM 204-Pin Memory For Mac - CT8G3S160BM  from Amazon, currently $48.17 USD.

Or:

OWC Memory 8.0GB PC12800 DDR3L Module, currently $45.99 USD.

Crucial 8GB DDR3L-1600 SODIMM Memory for Mac from Crucial, currently $49.99 USD.

Have a look at the iFixit MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2012 RAM Replacement Guide.


Can I make my apple store app free with ads and give previous buyers ad free add-on?

Yes and there's a few different ways to do it.  The path I followed was to release a small update that use NSUserDefaults to write a bool property when the app was installed.  Then, when I distributed the app update with the ads, I'd read if the user had that bool value.  If they did, they were a previous owner and I wouldn't show the ads.  If not, they were a new owner and got the ads.

You can do the same thing by having the app set a value on your own server (the app would call your server upon installation with a user-specific string).  This would do the same as using NSUserDefaults except the value is stored on your server and not the user's device.

There's a few examples online including how to store the bool value that will stay with the user even if they delete and reinstall the app.


How do I rotate an iPhone photo on my iPhone without losing EXIF data?

Photogene2 is a handy iOS photo editor and has an EXIF viewer in app. Currently $0.99


What is the equivalent of netsh wlan hostednetwork on MacOSX?

I think this is not possible. What do you try to archive? If you have the login credentials for the network your first mac uses, you could use those on any other device to connect to the wlan. The only thing I could think of is using a mac as a repeater. Questions regarding this were answered at: MacBook as WiFi extender and Macbook Pro as a wireless bridge? (Private hotspot from external wifi connection)

tl;dr: It is not possible. one solution is to use another external wifi card via usb.


Philips #00 screwdriver for MacBook Pro 2013 NZ does not fit

I've seen occasional mismatches in sets for $20 in the US and certainly some really bad $10 sets in the US. Not knowing the relative prices I don't know if that's expensive for New Zealand. My gold standard is a wiha tool.

https://www.kctoolco.com/wiha-26100-00-x-40mm-precision-phillips-screwdriver/ for $5 US

I would get a good tool for the ones you'll use a lot like #00 and if you can afford it - a nice set. Another gold standard seller for me in the US is DigiKey Electronics: Here's their #00 Phillips selection

Hopefully this lets you evaluate if you got a dud blade or just a low quality set in general. If it's really not able to fit - contact your seller to get advice if you can.


How do I restore default terminal command for Notifications on Yosemite?

What you've done here is delete the entire Notification Center database, not simply disable Notification Center. You will need to restore this container, preferably from a backup. Alternatively, you can reinstall OS X.


Expanding compressed file on macOS places expanded files on top of compressed file

It will drop the expanded file about a 'quarter icon' to the lower right unless you have some kind of 'Sort by' set in Finder; then it will move everything to a new position to make room, as appropriate.

The Archive Utility itself does have settable prefs, but none of them includes what the Finder will do with the positions afterwards...

Personally, I just have it set to always Trash the archive after expansion, which at least moves them out of each other's way.
Archive Utility is in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/
If you launch it from there it will stay open so you can set prefs.


Clean install of macOS Sierra not working

Title: THREE OPTIONS TO HELP IN YOUR CONCERN
+
*FIRST OPTION****......
If you continue to have concerns, noting the previous Stated Advise above, is of good quality....May one suggest going to Recovery Mode ...**First: Shut down the computer NEXT: restart holding the Key Stroke: (Option-Command-R)  You will see a box to select you preferred Language (click continue)(FYI: Mandatory: must be connected to the inter-Net via wifi>>> visible in upper top of bar) Next select Disk Utility> Erase the HD Continue by quitting Disk Utility NEXT Select  Reinstall OS X  (MUST HAVE APPLE ID AND PASSWORD for the Install) Finally When Exiting RECOVERY MODE you will be asked to select a start up Disk (there should be only one selection) Click and continue.  Your Computer will shut down then start up in El Capitain.  Finally, Please install updates  go to Apple.com and install Sierra..... .
+
SECOND OPTION.......
OTHER Possible AVENUES TO RESOLVE CONCERNS:  You may also go the Apple Support: https://support.apple.com and talk via phone call or Online Chat for clear concise steps with clarifications as needed......
+
THIRD OPTION......
If you feel the above may be TO DIFFICULT OR UNCLEAR, consider going to the Nearest Apple Store, make an appointment for the Genius Bar to help with this concern....
+
Good Luck...
Authored statements: ysureican Fogarty


Include external drive in Time Machine backup: compatible formats?

According to this article, the external drive has to be either an HFS+ drive or (since Big Sur) an APFS drive!
I tested it with an external "APFS encrypted" drive and it worked. I was able to disable the exclusion in the settings and thereby back up the external drive to Time Machine!


The file that houses your reading list (and bookmarks) is called Bookmarks.plist and it is located in ~/Library/Safari/.
You could restore it via TimeMachine or any other backup you are (hopefully) running.


Why does the iPhone 4S weigh more than the iPhone 4?

Just because internal hardware has been upgraded, this does not mean that the phone will not weigh more.

After all, upgraded hardware is different hardware.

Still, if that is not sufficient to you take a look at the teardown of the two phones. You will see that the internal design differs, which can cause weight difference.

teardown iPhone 4
teardown iPhone 4s


Accidentally deleted everything from a directory on my Macbook using terminal

Restoring from backup is the way to go here, there is no magic „undo rm -rf“ command.


MacBook Pro High Sierra changing Standard user to Admin not working

I stumbled upon what I think is the answer.

I recently purchased this MacBook as a refurbished unit. The administrator user was sold to me without a password for access purposes.

Once I set up a password, all of the admin operations began to function normally.

I don't have confirmation that this is a particular security feature for Admin users without a password set up, but it seems to have solved the problem.


Hidden Python- and R-files: Safe to delete?

Many cross-platform software packages adopt a convention of keeping configuration and data in dot-files/directories inside your home folder. Most of the time this behavior is not configurable and if you remove these then you’re likely to lose some or all of your configuration and/or data for these programs.
As @nohillside mentions, these are already hidden both in the Finder and at the shell prompt by default. The only reason to be concerned about tidiness is if you’re worried about other users on your system being able to read and/or write these files. The default umask on macOS is 022 which means that new files and folders are, by default, world-readable. If this is a concern, you should manually set the permissions of all dot-items in your home directory (e.g., chmod go-rwx ~/.*). (You can also set your default umask to something more restrictive, like 077, by adding such a command to your .zprofile.)


iTerm2 does not show username, machine name, time

Everything you're asking has more to do with the shell than with iTerm. There are numerous tutorials on how to set up your PROMPT variable (I use a modified version of this one). Since you're using Oh-my-zsh, try looking through the themes page. There are a variety of styles available (I began with the af-magic prompt). Once you find a prompt you like, feel free to copy the source from the .oh-my-zsh/themes folder to .oh-my-zsh/custom/themes and modify the custom version. Details on custom plugins and themes are available here.


Mac Terminal and Vim syntax coloring on CentOS server

Display ANSI colors needs to be enabled in the Terminal Settings.


To safely alter the file just make a copy or backup of the file and then work with the original:

To modify the file log-in as a sudoer (usually an admin account) and open Terminal.
Enter the following to backup the file:

sudo cp /Applications/Calendar/Contents/Info.plist /Applications/Calendar/Contents/Info.plist.backup

you have to enter your password then.
Open nano to modify the plist content:

sudo nano /Applications/Calendar/Contents/Info.plist

now add

<key>LSUIElement</key>
<true/>

after the line containing <dict> (usually the 5th line).
Hit ctrlo to write the changes to file. Then hit Hit ctrlx to quit nano.
Open Calendar and check if it works. (It doesn't work, Calendar crashes immediately)
to revert the changes enter:

sudo rm /Applications/Calendar/Contents/Info.plist
sudo mv /Applications/Calendar/Contents/Info.plist.backup /Applications/Calendar/Contents/Info.plist

to remove the modified file and rename the backup file.
Enter exit and quit Terminal
Change the icon of Calendar to a more pleasurable one.


Are both scenarios possible? Yes, the local node doesn't go away after domain binding. The order in which the Mac looks at bound directory nodes for user accounts is shown graphically in Directory Utility, which can be found in /System/Library/CoreServices as of 10.6+.  You'll also notice that even if you set OD to be searched before the default/local node, if the directory is not available(or not cached) you'll login to the local spandex instead of OD's.


How can I know whether MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, etc. are installed on Mac OS X 10.7?

Try the Terminal command mdfind (string) | grep include

For example:

$ mdfind postgres | grep include
/usr/include/postgresql/server/postgres_fe.h
/usr/include/postgresql/server/postgres_ext.h
/usr/include/postgresql/server/postgres.h
/usr/include/postgresql/internal/postgres_fe.h
/usr/include/postgres_ext.h
...

$ mdfind sqlite | grep include
/usr/include/sqlite3ext.h
/usr/include/sqlite3.h
/usr/include/php/ext/sqlite3/libsqlite/sqlite3.h
/usr/include/php/ext/sqlite/libsqlite/src/sqlite.h
...

This is a good way to determine if there are header files installed for the respective database libraries you ask about.


I just bought a second Dell U2515H and tried daisy chaining them to my Macbook Pro '15 High Sierra. No luck, second monitor mirrors the first.


Powerbook g4 not fully booting to login screen FireWire problems

From what you're seeing I'd guess that the startup drive on your Mac has some sort of file system or directory problem.

If this were my computer, I'd reformat the hard drive and (assuming that went without a hitch) restore from my backup.

If a backup wasn't available, I'd run DiskWarrior (be certain it's a version compatible with the OS on the "borked" drive.) If that failed, I'd try the repair disk function in Disk Utility as a last resort.

Note that it's quite possibile that Disk Utility will repair this disk. Given that Disk Utility is free, one might wonder why I'd opt for the utility that costs money. My reasoning is that DiskWarrior is non-destructive and allows you to preview the "repaired" drive before committing to changes. If you absolutely can't or won't use DiskWarrior, at least use Disk Utilities "verify" mode before attempting the repair.

Unix Gurus might advocate using fsck instead of Disk Utility but I prefer the GUI approach.

I would also advocate casting a suspicious eye on any disk that you've had to use drastic methods to recover. Given the age of the computer in question, and assuming an original disk drive, my tendency would be to immediately transfer recovered information to a new disk and install that into the computer. In the old days I might put the old disk to work as a "shuttle" drive but in this era of keychain jump drives and DropBox I'd just strip it for bits or send it to the ewaste recycler.


Can I charge my Samsung Omnia W with MacBook Pro USB port?

Apple computers and displays without USB-C ports will strictly adhere to USB standards for all non-Apple hardware, so you will be limited to 5 V at 500 mA for charging your Samsung phone.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4049

Third party chargers or wall adapters will be needed if your device is requesting or using more than 500 mA since Apple will shut USB ports that exceed the spec and are not Apple to Apple.

Also, this USB over-current condition is safe, expected and like a modern circuit breaker, you unplug the device and reset the circuit except for USB on Mac, the reset happens immediately when you unplug the offending device. Unless your device has a sync only setting, you'll need a special USB cable to sync and have to charge it elsewhere than from your Mac.


iphone 6 water damage, screen black, responds to iTunes

Here is the group I would have train you on how to repair micro electronics:

http://www.mendonipadrehab.com

Their youtube channel is quite amazing in terms of the details and parts list and education/advice they offer for free. What their class offers is supervised training and not simply education.


How do I install applications from a .dmg file?

A .dmg file is kind of like an USB stick in a file and can be handled more or less the same way. To install from a .dmg file you usually do the following:

double click the .dmg to make its content available (name will show up in the Finder sidebar), usually a window opens showing the content as well
drag the application from the .dmg window into /Applications to install (may need an administrator password)
wait for the copy process to finish
eject the .dmg (by clicking the eject button in the Sidebar)
delete the .dmg from Downloads


Not sure if this is too late of an answer. I know you've already attempted to disable the password, but try these steps exactly:

You can remove the firmware password by changing the RAM configuration, booting up to the startup menu, shutting down and changing it back. Basically, if you have two 1GB chips of RAM in there now, you can remove one of the chips, start up holding alt/option, shut down and put the other chip back in. This will remove the firmware password.

Now, you can follow these instructions for doing the erase and install.

Good luck!


why can i add files to my ipod but not my iphone?

In order to be able to drag/drop media tracks freely from your iTunes library to your iPhone, you need to set your iTunes sync settings for your iPhone to manual mode.

Connect your iPhone to your computer and run iTunes.
Select your iPhone, iPad, or iPod. If your device is not visible in the upper right corner of the screen, choose Library first.
Click the Summary tab and select "Manually manage music and videos".
Make sure that contacts and calendar sync is not enabled from the Info tab
Click Apply.

You can now drag/drop songs from your iTunes library to your iPhone


Listing all the groups to which a user belongs in macOS

Try the command given below.

id -Gn [user]

On my Mac, the output from id -Gn davidanderson is given below.

staff everyone localaccounts _appserverusr admin _appserveradm _lpadmin _appstore _lpoperator _developer _analyticsusers com.apple.access_ftp com.apple.access_screensharing com.apple.access_ssh 2 1

The delimiter could be changed from a space to a comma by entering the following.

groups="$(id -Gn davidanderson)"
groups="${groups// /,}"
echo "$groups"

Here, the output would be as follows.

staff,everyone,localaccounts,_appserverusr,admin,_appserveradm,_lpadmin,_appstore,_lpoperator,_developer,_analyticsusers,com.apple.access_ftp,com.apple.access_screensharing,com.apple.access_ssh,2,1

I am using High Sierra, macOs 10.13.4 and a bash shell.


I have the same problem. Max life is 12 hours and very very little use.  It goes down by 5% per hour!!!

Apple said battery fine and I should only expect 10 to 12 hrs.  Back several iOS ago I could get well over 24 hours.

Sounds like the want to force us to get new iPhones 6.


Can one mount a FileVault 2 encrypted drive from Windows?

As of writing there is no software that natively supports working with FileVault 2 encrypted drives within Windows.

There are ways to access the content of a FileVault 2 encrypted volume on other platforms including Windows (for example libfvde), assuming you have the passkey and sufficient patience, but none that allow an encrypted volume to be used as a regular drive on Windows.

At the moment, to the best of my knowledge, there isn't even any software that allows Windows to natively understand drives that use unencrypted CoreStorage volumes.


Recover photos from the iTunes backup of a dead iPhone

If you have backed up to your computer previously, you can use iExplorer to do that sort of thing.

http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer/


what will happen if I will renew developer account 6 months later?

See the Choosing a Membership page. Scroll down to Benefits and Resources.

I believe iCloud and Push Notification fall under the 'Advanced App Capabilities' section on that list.

With a free developer account you only have access to:

Xcode Developer Tools
Xcode Beta Releases
Developer Forums
Bug Reporter
Test on Device


I believe what you would want to do in this case, is to click on the Sent box on your Mac, then go to the Mailbox menu and select 'Use This Mailbox For >' and select Sent.


How do I troubleshoot WiFi networking issues with my iOS 12.2 iPhone 8? Can't load apple.com

There are chances where your Wifi router doesn't support the Apple or in the wifi network there can be chances where you need to do make some changes.

But before that try to go to Settings -> General -> Reset and choose Reset Network Settings.

You’ll have to reconnect to all your Wi-Fi networks and enter their passwords again, so make sure you know the important ones before you begin. Try reconnecting to your wireless router after your iPhone reboots. If it still won’t connect, it’s time to take a look at your wireless router.


iPad DEP asking for credentials - Cisco Meraki MDM

After ringing Apple support (1.5 hours on hold...) they were able to help me find a configuration error in Cisco Meraki.

Under Systems manager --> Configuration --> General --> User authentication settings.  I had it set to Active Directory authentication.

This is an extra level of security you can add to the DEP process where users must enter their credentials against an AD or OD server.  However for me the link to my AD server was not valid.

After fixing it was all good.


How do I prevent autocorrection to change part of my email address

Add "fredsmith" to the OS X dictionary by right-clicking or Ctrl-clicking on it when underlined in red and selecting "Add to Dictionary".


Do I need to format Macbook Pro md101hn/a?

Nuke & Pave.

This should really have been done by the previous owner. Basic security precaution. If a bad actor had hold of this machine, half his life would now be in their hands.

You don't want anything inherited from the previous owner - good or bad.
The possibility you inherited a virus etc are very very small, but at the moment, all the Apps on there & even the OS itself still belong to the previous owner & you would need their Apple ID log & pass to update anything at all.

So, go for a clean start.
Wire up to your ethernet if at all possible; WiFi if you really can't, but avoid any WiFi that uses a Portal structure, that will not work.

  Start up from Internet Recovery by holding down   Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   R  immediately after turning on or
  restarting your Mac. Release the keys when you see the Apple logo.
  Startup is complete when you see the utilities window.
  Open Disk Utility from the utilities window, then use Disk Utility to erase your built-in hard disk using the Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
  format. Quit Disk Utility when done.
  Choose Reinstall macOS (or Reinstall OS X) from the utilities window, then follow the onscreen instructions. This installs the
  system that came with your Mac when it was new. It isn't associated
  with your Apple ID, so the new owner can use the App Store to upgrade
  to a later version using their Apple ID.

Source: Apple KB - How to reinstall macOS - If you're selling or giving away your Mac

Don't do Step 4 from that page, proceed as the new owner & set it up using your own credentials.


Have 2 iCloud accounts in my mac and don't know how

I have two iCloud accounts on my Mac (and in fact, most of my selected iOS devices) because of the way Apple IDs work.

One of them iCloud accounts is used for iCloud syncing, etc and the email address attached to it is not of an Apple-owned domain (e.g. @icloud.com, @me.com).

The second iCloud account is most likely your iCloud email account.


Is there a reason to not use VPN all the time on iOS?

When you use a VPN to send all your traffic to another network, you are reducing the ability of the internet to route your packets directly from your phone to the servers and instead are forcing the network to put the packets the VPN embeds to travel first to another network and then to the destination.

In the case where you need to hide / encrypt traffic, this downside is clearly worth bearing. For general purpose use, you will almost always add latency and perhaps bandwidth constraints that make the network response slower - even assuming all the encryption is done in hardware and has no effect on battery life on the device nor on performance due to delays in the encryption / decryption.

Also, your network is far less resilient and you have introduced a single point of failure (the VPN termination) into your path to the internet.

These downsides can be mitigated when you apply VPN to some traffic as opposed to all traffic and ensure your VPN is well connected to the internet.

In some cases VPN speeds the network if the traffic you send elsewhere is throttled and the traffic to the VPN is not throttled, but this is an edge case and worth considering, but rarely a reason to use VPN exclusively.


Stop mouse interfering with Cmd + Tab menu

Keyboard Maestro provides an Activate Application Switcher action that you can map to cmd + tab in a macro to replace the OS X application switcher.

Within the Activate Application Switcher action there is an option Enable mouse rollover selection that is on by default but can be disabled. This won't be a seamless replacement to the OS X application switcher but it's something to try and see if you like it.


Microsoft Remote Desktop sessions closed when Macbook Pro display turns off

Does it do it when the screen sleeps, or when the computer sleeps?

If only when the computer does, then set System Prefs > Energy Saver - Computer Sleep to never & Display Sleep to whatever you like.

You can then test using System Prefs > Desktop & Screensaver > Hot Corners & assign one corner to put the display to sleep.


Is it bad to stop the Mountain Lion installer halfway through an install?

Hmm it appears from a screenshot I received Mountain Lion was only downloading and not actually installing:

The solution is to:

Check for unfinished downloads
It will reload everything telling you it's all installed already
The download will reset

Done!


iPhone 5 won't turn on after screen repair

I know this is a dead thread, but you may have possibly bricked the device. Try to make sure all screws inside are intact and screwed in properly and all cables are plugged in properly. You could have also damaged the battery. If you have another iPhone of the same model you can try swapping out the battery and see if it works in the other phone. If it does not, try replacing the battery. If it does work, try to turn it on and then call it or use find my iPhone or plug it in (just do something that would make noise and make sure the ringer switch is on so it will make noise). If it does not work you may have a damaged logic board and you will probably be better off buying a new phone.


This is the Notifications button.

  The Notifications button shows how many invitations you have. If you don’t have any invitations, it isn’t available.

Source: Calendar: Reply to an event or calendar invitation

The notification button also shows when changes are made to a subscribed calendar. In this case, the standard Accept/Decline/Maybe buttons are replaced by a single OK option to dismiss.


Redial Last Incoming Call without Unlocking Phone

Yes.

Under Settings > Notifications, if you have "Show Previews" > Always along with  Phone > Alerts > Show on Lock Screen, then all you have to do is tap on the missed call from the lock screen to call it back.


How to write fstab rules for an NTFS volume if the volume has no LABEL or UUID?

On my "MY Passport" Western Digital I needed to use \040 at the space
LABEL=My\040Passport none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse


brew search generates mail notification "You recently used a password to access an endpoint through the GitHub API using Homebrew/2.2.2"

I don't like that brew uses my GitHub credentials.

Brew is not using your GitHub credentials, you are.

Brew is just an exceptionally advanced scripting engine that allows you to download and build from source software that’s found on GitHub, Sourceforge, et al.  It’s important to note that you’re not downloading from Brew, but a Brew is automating your download of the software.

What steps did you take to save git keys in your shell environment?

You would reverse that to have brew not be granted access to your keys when it calls git or makes web / API calls.

https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/connecting-to-github-with-ssh


I need to reset my old iPad, but forgot restrictions passcode and don't have an iTunes backup

Within iTunes make a manual backup of the old iPad.  Once that is in place you can follow the steps outlined at this blog post...at least if you are working with iOS 6.

For iOS 7 or 8, follow the steps outlined at my blog post on how to actually retrieve or recover your passcode without resetting to factory defaults.


How & why do "0.0.0.0" connections get a response?

As I said in a comment, host is misleading because it bypasses the system resolver  (and /etc/hosts) and queries DNS directly. The 0.0.0.0 entries are probably working normally.

From my tests it appears connections to 0.0.0.0 actually connect to localhost (specifically 127.0.0.1), so that
Blocked!!
 message must be coming from a web server running on your own Mac.

You can confirm this by running sudo tcpdump -Aqns0 -ilo0 port 80 to watch the raw connection. Note that it'll ask for your admin password, but will not echo anything as you type. Also, you'll have to use Control-C to exit it. In the output, you'll see traffic back & forth between two different ports on 127.0.0.1 (ports 80 and whatever your browser is using), but in the request you'll see a "Host:" header indicating the site name the browser is trying to reach.

So... why is a web server running on your Mac, and why is it serving a "Blocked!" message? I have no idea, do you?


A typical APFS volume under Catalina will have 5 partitions.

Macintosh HD: the read-only volume that stores the OS
Macintosh HD - Data: the 'normal' everyday volume where you save stuff to.
Preboot: a small amount of data used ... before booting.
Recovery: the Recovery volume that you boot to when holding Command R
VM: caches for virtual memory.

These are all essential, and you should not need to access them or do anything else with them.


Apps gone missing after rebooting on jailbroken iPad 4

Your apps haven't been deleted — it's a Springboard glitch where the apps aren't shown. Try…

Install (or reinstall) a tweak in Cydia, then respring.
Delete /var/mobile/Library/Caches/com.apple.mobile.installation.plist then respring.


Why does macOS estimate battery percentage higher?

My guess is that with AppleSmartBattery, you are calculating the percentage based on the batteries brand new, fully charged state. Whereas the OS is basing the percentage on what the battery is currently capable of at full charge, which will slowly degrade over time.


It looks like Maps n Trax could help:

  With [it] you can view your own maps on your own iPhone instead of
  just generic online maps or a limited selection of maps chosen by
  somebody else. […] for specialist maps with details that are not
  available on other mapping applications, such as highly detailed
  topographic maps […].

From the description, this looks like something you could use. An user guide can be found here. NB: im am not affiliated with them.


Right click the VLC icon in the Dock, select Options & select something other than All Desktops


How to read and manipulate ~/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.finder.savedState/data.data

These savedState resources are used by macOS to support "resuming" applications:

  One of the new features in OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion is the “Resume” ability for all applications to save their last state, meaning when you relaunch the app or reboot your Mac, the application will “resume” and reopen again showing all of the windows and data that was last in use.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/17/delete-specific-application-saved-states-from-mac-os-x-10-7-lion-resume/

I've used these savedState resources to recover command line activity of hackers while responding to computer security incidents.

Within a savedState directory, there are at least two files:

windows.plist, and
data.data

windows.plist contains window layout information and other metadata. data.data is a file containing encrypted records whose plaintext includes a serialized NSKeyedArchiver blob with application-specific state. You can use the fields NSDataKey from windows.plist as AES keys to decrypt records in data.data using CBC mode with IV | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |.

The layout of an (encrypted) record within data.data is:

typedef struct SavedStateRecord {
    char     magic[4];          // "NSCR"
    char     version[4];        // "1000"
    uint32_t window_id;         // little endian
    uint32_t cipher_text_size;  // little endian
    uint8_t  cipher_text[cipher_text_size];
} SavedStateRecord;

Once the record is decrypted, the layout looks something like:

// little endian
typedef struct SavedStateRecordPlaintext {
    uint32_t unk1;             // often 0x0
    uint32_t class_name_size;
    char     class_name[class_name_size];
    char     magic[4];         // "rchv"
    uint32_t size;

    // This is an NSKeyedArchiver serialized data structure.
    // In practice, a bplist with specific interpretation.
    uint8_t  buf[size];
} SavedStateRecordPlaintext;

From there, you can extract the bplist from the NSKeyedArchiver structure and manipulate it. The interpretation of the bplist state is application-specific.

I've written a parser to support computer forensics that is available here: https://gist.github.com/williballenthin/994db929b1448fdf73baf91207129dec

CrowdStrike also has a parser and resources that are describe here: https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/reconstructing-command-line-activity-on-macos/


What is "Software Update"  doing when it says "Checking for new software"?

Todays Date - Tue May 15 2018
By Philscbx Mpls Mn

This Question ( Software Update ) was stated incorrect ~
Activity Monitor lists only one term - Titled ( Softwareupdated ).
It's not a CPU concern of near Zero -
It's the Memory it holds at 460MB.
This memory load is needed just to run a normal moment at average web site, when only 4GB is available.

This is totally un-necessary load just sitting there when an updater process can randomly access applications when system is idle,, and report, and only report any needed, then owner can access list before going to sleep, and pick from list their choice.

There was a time one could trust Apple Update, not anymore.
As for security updates,,, thats fine, but forcing OS updates is underhanded world order of destroying high end image apps at several thousand dollars each. Thinking it was safe to upgrade to Yosemite last month,
but was wrong again, as it wiped out some of the finest software made to force merge Pro Devices to clone themselves as iPhones & iPads.

When You recall 10.6.8,, this software OS was perfect.


iCloud Keychain not syincing all iPhone wifi passwords to Mac

I was having the same problem as you. I solved it by turning my phone into a hotspot briefly for my laptop, which allowed it to sync new passwords, and then I just clicked on the network, and it didn't prompt me for a password, just connected.


Can MacBook 2018 output to a 4k external display?

Q1: Can a MacBook Pro 2018 output 4K?
Apple has a technical specifications page for almost every product they sell burried in their knowledge base.
This is the one for your computer, it states:

Video Support
Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display at millions of colors and:

Up to two displays with 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors
Up to four displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at 60Hz at over a billion colors

So yes your computer can output consumer 4K (UHD/Quad HD/2160p) 3840x2160, but also  4096×2160 (DCI 4K) on up to 4 displays at once.
There will be performance limitations when running like this.
Q2: What options are there?
There are a wide range of monitors on the market it would be impossible to really answer this, sites like YouTube provide a broad range of reviews for displays, I have one in mind that I would recommend but don't feel it approriate to do so on this type of website.
Q3: What kind of budget am I looking at?
This is also hard to address as prices in your country will be different from mine, but 4K monitors are very affordable now, however stick to known brands and be careful to ensure you get ones with modern connectivity like USB-C which are going to work well with your laptop, and that possibly having charging integrated.


Transfer software license/registration keys to a new Mac

There are a lot methods used and places where licenses and registration keys are stored:

User specific:

~/
~/Library/Application Support/Application or domain
~/Library/Preferences

This might be plist files, invisible .domain.plist and .random.plist files or files and folders containing files with random names. Also specific 'License'-files exist.
Machine specific:

/Library/Application Support/Application or domain
/Library/Preferences

This might be domain.plist or randomly named files, invisible .domain.plist and .random.plist files or files and folders containing files with random names. Also special 'License'-files exist.
Some licenses are bound to specific properties of the host (e.g. MAC-address) and can't be moved straight to a new Mac (e.g. iPartition)
Disk specific

Some Applications use unused/unvisible parts of partitions to store registrations. Also thumb-drives are used.

Some application even require to deactivate a registration before doing a new or clean install (AFAIR a lot of Adobe apps/suites)


Two Clash of Clans accounts on one device

I just developed this problem this afternoon, too.  I have 4 Clash of Clans accounts and I freely toggle between them on my various i0s devices: two ipads and an iPhone 5s.  That's worked like a charm for two years now.  I just keep logging in and out with different Gamecenter logins to load and play each village.

But as of today, I log into GameCenter, load CoC and it appears to work and says "Welcome Back, so-and-so", but then the popup to CONFIRM and load the village I just logged into never comes up.  My screen is stuck on one village and I can't get off it no matter which account I log into Gamecenter.  All of the devices now show just one of the four account game screens and the Gamecenter logins have no effect beyond the welcome back message.  The problem isn't just on one device, but all of them.  It seems to be tied to one of the 4 accounts.

I sure hope there's a way to fix this (like Gamecenter getting their crap together) considering I've been playing Clash of Clans for over 2 years now and my villages are highly developed.


Multiple Wi-Fi APs: Use same or different SSID?

You can have the same SSID for multiple APs, this is how our campus network is set up, but there is a caveat that's worth knowing. When moving between APs we've noticed OS X has a tendency to "stick" to the first AP it has joined even if it's in the presence of another AP offering a stronger signal. Cycling the wi-fi can help with re-association to an AP with a stronger signal, but the fact is it doesn't always switchover automatically. Unlike Windows which allows you to tune the aggressiveness with which it searches for better APs, OS X offers no easy control over its wireless behaviour.

This may seem like a non-answer but you may find you have as many issues (albeit slightly different) with a single SSID when compared to a network with multiple SSIDs.

My advice would be to try it for yourself and see how it works for you. Be prepared for some experimentation with setting wireless power levels on your APs so you can have some overlap between APs, but not so much that OS X will doggedly stick to the first one it finds.


How do I sign out of Google on my iPhone 7

Go to "Settings -> Passwords & Accounts"
Select the account you want to remove from your iPhone
Tap on "Delete account"

This will just delete the account from your iPhone. It will not delete the account itself.


.app bundle displaying low resolution Tkinter window

Found the answer by carefully reading the docs.

I was missing High Resolution retina settings in the app part of my spec file, as mentioned in the above mentioned docs:

For example, when you use PyQt5, you can set NSHighResolutionCapable to True to let your app also work in retina screen

Once I added the info_plist parameter as provided below the problem was gone:)

app = BUNDLE(exe,
     name='myscript.app',
     icon=None,
     bundle_identifier=None
     info_plist={
        'NSHighResolutionCapable': 'True'
        },
     )


Hot Corners Yosemite don't work any more

I had tried this last year but then it didn't work. I tried it again and now it did work:

Start terminal and execute the following commands:

defaults write com.apple.dock mcx-expose-disabled -bool FALSE (this
enables mission control)
killall Dock (kill and automatically restart the Dock, this is
necessary to get it done)

There is an article about hot corners missing dashboard and mission control.


Unable to allocate the free space to main volume

The command diskutil cs resizeStack ... requires some unallocated disk space at the end of a Logical Volume Group and the Recovery HD (index 2 & 3) to be able to expand it. You only have 1800 blocks à 512 Bytes (~2 MB) of it.

After installing and uninstalling Ubuntu you still have an abandoned BIOS Boot partition (probably GRUB) (index 4), a swap partition (index 5) and a main Linux partition (index 6) at the tail of your disk.

Before resizing the CS stack (which often fails with such an expelled Linux dual-boot environment), you have to delete the three Linux partitions (and change the MBR to the default pMBR).

Backup your internal drive
Detach any external drive
Boot to Internet Recovery Mode
Open Terminal in the menubar Utilities -> Terminal
Get an overview (especially the gpt command is important!). Below I assume the internal disk has the disk identifier disk0 and the Logical Volume residing in disk0s2 has the disk identifier disk2. Please use the disk identifiers you found in your environment:

diskutil list
gpt -r show disk0

Unmount first the Logical VOlume and then the internal disk:

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk2
diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0

Delete the MBR:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0 bs=512 count=1

Destroy the GUID partition table and create a new one (this also creates a fresh pMBR):

gpt destroy disk0
gpt create -f disk0

Rebuild all previous GUID partitions:

gpt add -i 1 -b 40 -s 409600 -t C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B disk0
gpt add -i 3 -b 840002008 -s 1269536 -t 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0
gpt add -i 2 -b 409640 -s 839592368 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC disk0

If you get a resource busy error after one of the steps, just unmount disk0 again with

diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0

Check the disk with diskutil verifyDisk disk0 afterwards.

Enter diskutil cs list and check if all four CoreStorage containers appear: a Logical Volume Group, a Physical Volume and Logical Volume Family and a Logical Volume.

With the UUID of the Logical Volume mount the LV:

Example:

    +-> Logical Volume FCF7976D-78ED-4CE9-8029-C6557CB601C5
        ---------------------------------------------------
        Disk:                  disk17
        Status:                Online

Then use:

diskutil mount FCF7976D-78ED-4CE9-8029-C6557CB601C5

Then after getting the disk identifier of the mounted LV with diskutil list verify the volume:

diskutil verifyVolume disk17 #probably it's disk17, disk16 or disk18

Then try to resize the stack with:

diskutil cs resizeStack FCF7976D-78ED-4CE9-8029-C6557CB601C5 499g

If you get an error (partition is too small) use a slightly smaller value (e.g. 498500m)

The above resizeStack command may fail, due to a CS LVG "corruption". This is no corruption of your data but probably a corruption/misconfiguration of some CS meta data. Then you have to wipe your disk and restore your current (Time Machine) backup.


Open the settings application.
Select Safari from the left bar, from there you can press "Clear Cookies and Data"

It will not clear your history.

But cleaning cookies will make you login again to web sites you use.

You can go to Advanced, Website Data to see which sites store information on your iPad (mostly cookies).


After looking some more I found a workaround here and on superUser

Adding -o IPQoS=throughput to the ssh command line fixed my issue :

ssh -o IPQoS=throughput user@server

It's ugly to have to add this option, even if it could probably be added in ~/.ssh/config. It also probably hides some other issues. Any ideas?


How to stop preview from making smoothed lines?

When you get to the point where you see the squiggly icon, you can draw crooked lines and shapes and a pulldown menu will appear under the squiggly line to let you chose between a new shape or line or your original sketch. See image below.


What hardware does Xcode storyboard performance depend on the most?

I had the same issue. Whenever I opened the storyboard after the inconsistencies message was displayed, Xcode would consume 60%+ CPU and essentially make it unusable.

I (very slowly) found which images were being reported as problems, then deleted them through finder and restarted Xcode. You may also need to remove any references to these images in the storyboard.

Xcode now runs fine - hope it helps!


macOS status bar: Change keyboard layout icon

If you just want to get rid of the flag, you can use the identical ABC input source instead.

If you make a copy of the US layout with Ukelele, you can add any icon you want.  If you do not provide any icon, just the .keylayout file, then you should get exactly the "simpler icon" you show in your question (except the US will come after the icon).


Uninstalled apps still appear in settings

Try this

Back up your iPhone (use a password on the backup)
Wipe your iPhone: settings > General > Reset > Erase All content and Settings
Restore your iPhone from the backup you just created.

The ghost icons should be gone

This whole procedure should take less than an hour. Possibly much less depending on how much needs to be backed up and if your Mac & iPhone support USB3 speeds.


How to disable the No SIM Card Installed warning in iPad when using it without SIM?

Ask Siri to "turn off mobile data".
Worked for me on an iPad 4 with iOS 10.2.
Found in this Apple discussion.