iCloud and OS X Server: Limits for Contacts, Calendars, Reminders?

The data repository for Calendar service is located at /Library/Server. Inside that directory is a folder containing data specific to the Calendar service at /Library/Server/Calendar and Contacts.  Within that folder is a Config folder that has the main configuration file for the caldav daemon called caldavd-system.plist.

The limits are based on your configuration and physical capacity.  Outside of that users can have as big a Calendar and Contacts as they want/you want them to have.  Apples limits are arbitrary for use of their service.

EDIT There is a difference between limits and compatibilities.

BONUS If you want to learn how to set up your own limits try here.


I placed Neovim in usr/local/bin but getting permission denied

The location of an executable is much less important for it to be run from Terminal than its permissions.

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/183994/understanding-unix-permissions-and-file-types/

Check them by running
ls -la /usr/local/bin/nvim

I'm not sure where to place the Neovim folder

You can place it anywhere you want as long as the shell can find it. Shell finds items using a variable named PATH.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(variable)#Unix_and_Unix-like
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11530090/adding-a-new-entry-to-the-path-variable-in-zsh

Is the location [/]usr/local/bin correct?

It is correct only if this location is in PATH. Check it by running echo $PATH in your terminal. I personally like ~/Applications. If it is not in PATH: Open ~/.bash_profile/ ~/.zshenv in your text editor and add the following line to it
 PATH="/usr/local/bin":"$PATH"

ZSH: .zprofile, .zshrc, .zlogin - What goes where?

zsh: permission denied: nvim

You have two choices here:

Use Homebrew to install it and no longer worry about putting files in lib or share or bin folder.

Run
chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/nvim


Wireless transfer speeds between macs in a home network

If working to transfer between two Apple machines, you should know that other connections can be used: you can simply use a Ethernet LAN cable, and plug directly into the network port on both machines (using dongle if necessary). You do not need to use a 'patch' cable, as the network ports will self-configure properly. You can also use USB-C, Firewire or Thunderbolt as network connections. All of these options are far faster than using pretty much any WiFi.

For using other cables, its best to use Apple's Migration Assistant. You can also use Target Disk Mode, which allows you to simply mount the other Mac hard drive on your new Mac.


How can I turn off “iTunes incoming connection” warning?

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Firewall > Firewall Options

Make sure iTunes is on the list and set to "Allow Incoming Connections" and that you check "Automatically allow signed software to receive incoming connections". If iTunes is not on that list, click the + at the bottom left of the list of programs.


This has been a long "want" of iPhone users. The closest thing you can do to this is:

Go to Settings > General > Restrictions

Enable restrictions.

You can then enter a password, (can be different from your regular pass code), and you are able to restrict certain apps and features, but not everything. It has a small list of apps (all 1st party) and a slightly larger list of features / settings.

Source: Just did it on my iPhone 7.


Restore files from Time Machine to a different Mac

Open "Migration Assistant" on the new Mac. Select the restore from Time Machine backup option. Select the time machine back up you want to restore from and restore.


Safari stopped remembering what is usually stored in cookies. What might have happened?

Saved forms and cookies are not the same thing. Cookies (for example) keep you logged in to a website, instead of having to re-log-in every time you visit. Saved forms are Safari's way of keeping text in a login form, so when you are logged out you don't need to enter your credentials again.

It sounds like you're talking about saved forms. To make sure this is working, go to Safari > Preferences > AutoFill and make sure "User names and passwords" is checked.


Terminal "ls" command sorting flagged files

You can grep for ‘restricted’ to restrict the results to just restricted files.

$ ls -lO | grep restricted
drwxr-xr-x@   5 root  wheel  restricted         160 21 Sep 05:05 System
drwxr-xr-x@  37 root  wheel  restricted,hidden 1184 21 Sep 05:17 bin
⋮

To sort by file flags, pipe to sort -k 5

$ ls -lO | sort -k 5
total 20
drwxr-xr-x    2 root  wheel  -                   64  1 Sep 15:47 AppleInternal
⋮
dr-xr-xr-x    2 root  wheel  hidden               1 14 Dec 22:10 home
⋮
-rw-r--r--    1 root  wheel  hidden,compressed  313 18 Aug 01:55 installer.failurerequests
⋮
drwxr-xr-x@   5 root  wheel  restricted         160 21 Sep 05:05 System


Can't install the software because it is not currently available from the software update server - iPad

Just solved this issue. I was using a thunderbolt hub, and connected to that was:

My iPhone
Power Supply

I removed the power supply and connected it to another thunderbolt port and it worked. In my case, I think it had something to do with the power and the iPhone being in the same hub - maybe the power adapter was pushing too much power into the hub.. god knows, but it's fixed!


How can I restrict Mac sharing services to a specific network/adapter?

You can do this using the builtin ipfw firewall (it is not the default firewall in Snow Leopard, but it is still included). You can configure from the command line, the exact rule set you need depends on your other requirements, but the specific rule in question would be something like:

# allow AFP (port 548) traffic from 10net
/sbin/ipfw add allow tcp from 10.0.0/24 to any 548

# deny all other AFP traffic
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 548

Obviously you will need to adjust that for your specific network. Also, these rules are not persistent, which means you will need to add a script to run them commands every reboot. On the other hand, that means that if you wedge your networking while trying to come up with appropriate rules you can always just reboot to reset the stack. There are plenty of ipfw tutorials on the web (most of them are aimed at FreeBSD users, but it is the same interface).


Time Machine - "tmutil" syntax to inherit backup set for new drive

I am extremely confused as to what names are what disks and partitions and such in your particular scenario. Therefore I will attempt to provide some guidance on the ‘associatedisk’ verb and how to use it, but I can't say for sure the exact commands to run with the names of your existing disks as I don't know what's what.

The associatedisk verb takes a mount point and a snapshot volume, as you found from the man page. This means if you are backing up a disk named "Macintosh HD" on a computer named "George's MacBook" to a Time Machine backup disk named "Time Machine HD", to reassociate this disk to the backup you would run:

sudo tmutil associatedisk -a "/Volumes/Macintosh HD" \
  "/Volumes/Time Machine HD/Backups.backupdb/George's MacBook/Latest/Macintosh HD"

The -a flag associates all other snapshots of the same volume to the disk. This might be useful as you mention something about ‘Latest’ link being broken — point at a specific date/time and use the flag so that the other snapshot dates are associated too.

Feel free to add to your question with a list of disks, partition names and what their purpose is in your setup and I might be able to provide some specific commands to run.


Reset Uniform Type Identifiers on Mac OS X

Not sure, but try /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -seed


You can manually use the Terminal command cp (copy) or mv (move) with the -v (for verbose) qualifier to keep a log of what is being copied. Verbose only shows file names, no dates.

You should look at man cp and man mv for more details.

Ex:

If you're looking for capturing log data for Finder drags, or disk activity from within apps, I'm not sure how that would be done.


Can I suggest you look into using LaunchD. Cron is officially deprecated on OSX. LaunchD has a lot of really nice features too.

The plist files can be a pain at first, but you get used to them.

Something like this can help:

http://blog.mattbrock.co.uk/2010/02/25/moving-from-cron-to-launchd-on-mac-os-x-server/

It can be as simple as this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>BatchFF</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/sri/files/BatchFF.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <dict>
        <key>Hour</key>
        <integer>15</integer>
        <key>Minute</key>
        <integer>10</integer>
    </dict>
</dict>

Save the file as batchFF.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents


How do I get the Calendar app to stop asking me for my gmail password?

It turns out the issue for me is that OSX has created 2 entries in the Calendar app for my Gmail account (even though I only have the account entered once under the Internet Accounts system pref).

The Calendar app won't let me delete the duplicate since it thinks the duplicate is managed under the Internet Accounts pref. Deleting and re-adding the gmail account in Internet Accounts didn't help either.  After deleting the Internet Account, the duplicate still sticks around in the Calendar app is not deletable since the Calendar app can't delete it, and there is no corresponding Internet Account for that calendar.

I got around the issue by un-checking the "Enable this account" checkbox for the duplicate in the Calendar app (since it won't let me delete it).  That at least makes it stop checking for calendar updates so I don't get pestered for passwords.


I found a fix.  I had the same problem after installing OS X Server.

Simply put, I did the following:

Go to ~/Library/Preferences and find the file com.apple.sidebarlists.plist
Copy the file for backup purposes and open original with Xcode
Leave the following items and delete the rest:

finderprojects
favoriteitems
systemitems
savedsearches

Go to the Apple Menu > Force Quit... and relaunch Finder (which really did nothing but I did it)
Shutdown/Restart your Mac so the changes to take full effect.

Now I can see my network devices under Shared in the sidebar.


Help Keeping Audio Lesson Playlists separate from Music

Sure, you can make those audio lessons appear as podcasts. In iTunes, right click your song(s) and select Get info (or ⌘ cmd+I). On the Options tab, change the Media Kind to  Podcast.

The appearance is slightly different when selecting multiple songs, but is very straight forward


Can't install Apple app updates on a new Mac mini

From this Apple Discussion:

  This message is basically directly related to the payment method that is linked to your Apple ID. This message will appear if you have an unpaid balance on your account or the payment method itself is invalid (for any reason).

To fix this you need to provide a payment method or chose “none”. If there is a payment due or if family sharing is enabled you won’t be able to choose “none”.

How to change your payment:

From this Support article:

  Go to Settings > [your name] > iTunes
  & App Store.

  Tap your Apple ID, then tap View
  Apple ID. You might be asked to sign
  in.

  Tap Payment Information, then
  change or remove your information.
  To remove the payment method,
  select None. Get help if you don't see
  None or can't select it. Learn more
  about what payment methods
  are available in your country or region.

  Make sure that your name and billing address exactly match the information on file with your financial institution, then tap Done.

If you can't choose None when you edit your Apple ID payment information - Apple Support


How can I hide notifications for a short period?

One can use "Turn on Do Not Disturb" setting for needed time (From: to:), but this will come and bite you on following days if you forget to untick it.
I am not heavy notifications user but I simply ⌥ + click on Notifications Center icon to turn on / off notifications. Icon is dimmed when it's off and this visual clue is good enough for me (and I usually start worry when I have nothing to do for hours ;-)). Alternatively one can set own keyboard shortcut in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Mission Control -> Turn Do Not Disturb On/Off


First, just clearing my doubt, did he try checking the mail in a popular browser or any device? , just a guess, may be due to the browser agent, he might not be able to view the image or link.

Now if this is not working he has another option to use the secret question option. If he doesn't remember that , just ask him to mail apple support with his mail id and username ,and they can help you , they really do too..


security dump-trust-settings causes an error

This is an open issue in the Package Control issue tracker now: https://github.com/wbond/package_control/issues/1002


 Watch's America’s Veterans badge doesn't work

Thanks to this discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/7c9g3b/did_you_get_yours/?st=j9vre0ac&sh=5dd7c06a I solved.

Just reboot the iPhone, then the Watch and you'll get the badge!


In your settings, check General -> Accessibility -> VoiceOver, and see if this feature is on. I suspect that it is. Turn it off, and it should stop speaking all of the commands.


Airport Express is not seen by Macbook, is seen by iOS devices

The Airpoat Express seems to respond best if its settings are completely cleared first.

To do this, on both the older and newer model, you have to insert something in the one of the two tiny dots which is a hole, and press down in there WITH the unit unpowered, continuing to press while sliding the AE into its little base and for a few moments after.

This is most easily accomplished by having the AE in the base ready to move into place - then perform the pressing and connecting. I don't need to add, this is a total PITA, but it gives you an AE looking for settings--which you promptly input into AU.

There is a supposed Reset done by pressing while in place and powered, but it tends to accomplish nothing.


Suggestions for a Comprehensive Network Monitoring Solution

Rubbernet
You can do this with Rubbernet. Install the daemon on all the Macs you want to monitor, then remotely monitor the apps (and the servers) that are using bandwidth.

Note that this screenshot is from an older version of the software and doesn't show the reverse IP lookup — it is possible to show the domain rather than the IP.

Real-time network dashboard
Rubbernet provides real-time monitoring so you can keep an eye on the exact state of your live network connections.

Remote monitoring
Monitor all computers on your network from one Rubbernet instance on your Mac. No need to get up and open Rubbernet on a remote Mac to see its network statistics.

Multi-user support
Have multiple user accounts on your Macs? Rubbernet automatically assigns every incoming and outgoing connections to the users they belong to.

App bandwidth usage
Rubbernet provide a breakdown of per-app network usage, so you can quickly detect apps that phone home, connect to certain servers without your knowledge, or blame the app that's slowing down your network.

Live graphs
Real-time charting displays download and upload transfer rates for all active apps on all monitored Macs

One-click enable/disable
Unlike other network monitoring tools, there is no complicated setup. It takes just a second to install or uninstall the necessary tools for Rubbernet to work. After that, they sit quietly in the background and provide the app with live data with minimal resource consumption.


Upgrading from Yosemite to El Capitan, but not Sierra

You don't have to upgrade to macOS Sierra if you don't want to.
Already "Own" El Capitan
If you have already "purchased" El Capitan, then it will show up under the "Purchased" tab of the App Store.  By "purchased" I mean the "free download" that Apple provided.

Download from the AppStore
Per Apple Support, you can download El Capitan directly from the AppStore

Go to an Apple Store
If you still can't download, you can take a visit to an Apple Store near you, or you could have a friend download it (if they already purchased it) and make a USB installer.


Finding MacBook power status from command line (AC plugged in, or not)?

The pmset command has much shorter output than system_profiler:

pmset -g batt

The first line on my MacBook says "Now drawing from ..." either "AC Power"  or "Battery Power" when it runs.


How do I find the path of a file on another computer on my network?

It would depend on how you want to access the file. Here's what I do:

Initiate the connection to the remote computer (I do it via Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server [or Command+K]) but you can also do via terminal using the mount command
Connect to the shared folder/volume available to your user
When connecting to those in Terminal, you would now use the path /Volumes/[name of folder]/[rest_of_path_here] to access them.

For example, if you connected to a folder called Stuff with a subfolder called Things, and ultimately file jackpot.txt on ip 10.10.1.5, first connect via smb to the server (10.10.1.5), choose the folder Stuff, and then reference that path in Terminal as /Volumes/Stuff/Things/jackpot.txt

EDIT: You can also run a Find command (Command + F) inside of Finder while you are connected to the share if you still don't know where the file is. Do the following:

Open Finder, connect to the server/volume (Steps 1+2 above)
Run Command+F to Find, enter your search term
Above the Finder section where files display, switch the search to "Shared" - this will run the search against connected volumes
Locate the file you want, and then drag+drop it into an open Terminal window
The path will be shown in Terminal


iCal Calendar - Using AppleScript how do I get the calendar's server address

When setting up the calendars enter information into the description field of the calendar that can be retrieved to differentiate servers.


Contacts on my iPhone 6S not appearing on iCloud on my Windows 10 PC

If your contacts are stored on Google then you will not be able to see your contacts in iCloud because that is not where they are stored.  Unfortunately syncing groups between Google and your iPhone is not possible without an app to do so.  Here is one such app that you can use that will allow you to sync your Google groups with iPhone.

Google Contact Sync

Otherwise you will have to organize the groups on your phone directly.


Replaced iPhone 4S batteries, won't boot, won't recover (even in DFU), iTunes says "Waiting for iPhone"

Well, shave my whiskers, crumble my biscuit, and oil my gears, I'll be darned!

I let it sit there in that state for a literal hour (72 minutes) with no progress bar or evidence of activity [even over USB 3.0!] and it eventually restored and booted. I still had to go through some prompts to get it to connect, but it worked.


How can I use the Pages Full Screen in the old way?

First, click on "Setup" to toggle the Setup pane off (if it is on).  Then two finger click on the toolbar, and select "Hide Toolbar".


How do I attach more than one photo to a single email sent on my iPhone?

OS 3.0 and above allows you to email out up to 5 photos.

Go to your Camera roll. Select the roll you want.
Tap Share icon (bottom left)
Tap each photo you want to send via e-mail ( you should get a red check mark in each photo > Share count will increase to the number of photos selected).
Tap "Share Icon" again
A pop up "e-mail" message will appear
All the photos you selected will appear in your e-mail message to send.


UI Guidelines : Left Navigation button should be a previous button

In an official Apple HIG there's the statement:

When the user goes to a new level in a navigation hierarchy, two things should happen:

The navigation bar title should change to the new level’s title, if appropriate.
A back button should appear in the left end of the bar; it can be labeled with the previous level’s title if it adds value.

I do not recall any information about this in WWDC videos.


I've had bad RAM that still allowed the machine to boot - a stick of memory in my Mac Pro apparently failed gracefully overnight.

The first step would be to check system profiler to see if the memory is being recognized. If indeed it is, there's a version of MemTest for OS X: http://osxdaily.com/2011/05/03/memtest-mac-ram-test/


How to pause music while playing video in Keynote?

If you know how to use Automator:

Automator -> create Service -> add applescript block

tell application "iTunes"
    if player state is playing then
        pause
    else
        play
    end if
end tell

System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services -> check the new workflow and bind it to a keyboard shortcut.


Server App Version 5.3.1 won't take password

Make sure you are using the latest version of Server that can run on your OS. You can try to repromote Server, by closing the app, moving it (the Server.app in /Applications) to the trash and waiting for the "Server Removal Detected" dialog to come up. After that you move it back to /Applications and launch it. It should ask you if you want to update Server on this machine. Update and see if that solves your problem.


EDIT: While the Messages app is active...

In the top left corner of your screen, click the bold Messages, then "Preferences", then the "Accounts" tab.

On the iMessage account, hit the "Sign Out" button. Then it will allow you to enter in your password as well as Apple ID again.


USB Drive Will Not Mount, Not Listed in Disk Utilities, but Found In System Profiler

I just started having this exact same problem with my FreeAgent Go drive which has always been working perfectly.  Like the original poster I cannot see the drive in Disk Utility but it does show up in System Information.  After a little more digging I found that the OS is trying to repair the volume BEFORE letting Disk Utility see it via an process named "fsck_hfs".  When I force quit that process in Activity Monitor (it's owned by Root so you'll need to give it permission), the volume immediately appeared in Disk Utility.  I'm running a repair on it now - fingers crossed.  My guess is that since this is formatted HFS+ Journaled something about the journal consistency got flagged and the OS is attempting to repair it from the journal.  I'm shocked that they hide it from Disk Utility while it's happening though - much better would have been to display the drive there without mounting the partition, and display a message that this is being done.  Oh well at least I can see why Windows would mount it but OSX won't now (any OSX machine would start performing the same repair process).


MacBook Pro dead screen with update to High Sierra

Do you get the normal startup screen with the Apple logo? Or is it always black from the instant you turn it on?

You could try an external monitor if you have access to one, you could also try holding Shift at startup to see if booting into safe mode changes things.

And if those don't work it may be time to make an appointment with an Apple genius or other local repair shop.


In OSX, Veritical Sync is called Beam Sync

Running the command sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Compositor -dict deferredUpdates 0 should do it for you, but you may need to reboot. Replace the 0 with 1 to re-enable.

You should also be able to do this by downloading this prefpane and looking under "System". Another way is to use Quartz Debug to disable it, but it seems like that has become harder to run on Lion & ML.


Apple Remote still works on Mac Mini even after pairing another remote, then disabling

Try navigating to the system library folder and deleting /library/preferences/com.apple.driver.AppleIRController.plist then reboot and disable the remote once more in Preferences, Advanced, Disable remote control infrared receiver.


How to remove, but not delete, podcast episodes?

Podcasts are not stored on iTunes Match. So basically you can remove them from your iPad by deleting them in your podcast app and re-download them as long as the producer of the podcast keeps this episode online.


How to find Google Calendar app on my MacBook after downloading with iTunes?

App Store in iTunes is for iOS apps, i.e. iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

For Mac apps, you can download these from the Mac App Store: the App Store.app in the Applications folder. Mac apps can also be downloaded from anywhere else on the internet.

There is no Google Calendar app made by Google for macOS. You can use the built-in Calendar.app to access your Google Calendar. Is there a Google Calendar Mac Desktop App?


Horipad Ultimate Local Multiplayer on tvOS

Did you try clearing pairing and re-pairing?

"To clear all pairings, hold the Bluetooth button and the MENU button together for at least 5 seconds"

See also all the apple TV requirements here and the troubleshooting section at the end.


Keyboard doesn't work on selecting boot disk macOS

This issue is a common issue experienced by almost everybody that uses bootcamp on a Mac. There are a few ways that you can try to fix/do.

Method 1

Have you checked the installed drivers on the bootcamp side. Launch the bootcamp application on the Mac and deselect disinstall windows 10 or lower versions. Then select the "Get latest drivers from Apple" and insert a USB driver inside the computer.

Make sure that the USB is working well and formatted on FAT32.
If you're experiencing issues try to format using SDFormatter that is free. Press the continue button and let it download the latest drivers.

Keep the USB inserted and boot on Windows10. In normal conditions, Windows should recognize the driver data and launch it automatically but if it doesn't recognize, just launch it like another program on your computer via the USB drive.

After doing this process reboot your computer and the latest Mac drivers including the CD reader, keyboard, SD reader and many more hardware will work.

Method 2

Make sure that your keyboard is recognized by Windows10. Check your hardwares inserted/paired with the computer you're using through the control panel. If the keyboard is not seen here contact Apple Support.

Note: First Method should work and in normal conditions drivers are not working on almost every user out there.

Take care and let me know if you need more help.

Arda


I just fixed the error by changing the battery. Before a week I replaced my battery, but it was a Chinese battery from ebay. This was the reason for the error. Today I just changed the battery - inserted the original battery and BOOM. The iOS 9.1 was installed on my iPhone. You should try this will work 100%.

Source: http://www.unlockboot.com/2015/10/how-to-fix-itunes-error-29-iphone-4s-5.html


How do I make iTunes 'forget' a device in Mavericks?

It is not possible in Mavericks
At least 10.9.3 and down. Recently Apple brought back Sync Services in 10.9.3 however the resetsync.pl script is not in the Sync Services framework folder. Seeing how Apple brought back Sync Services without the script it seems unlikely that the script and reset functionality will return.


Is there a way to code sign ad-hoc iOS apps for longer than 7 days in Xcode?

Free developer membership apps require resigning to be functional after 7 days.

Paid developer membership apps expire after 1 year. You can also submit an app for testing to TestFlight which signs apps for 90 days. You can purchase a developer membership at https://developer.apple.com

If your device is jailbroken, you can resign your apps with a free developer account for as long as you wish, on device with Extender: Reloaded, available from the repo http://repo.incendo.ws.


How different amperage could affect a rechargeable device?

The iPad and other iOS devices are very good about only charging from appropriate voltages and currents. In fact, the iPad even is programmed to detect and show a not charging message in the status bar when it is connected to a power source with current too low. This is most commonly seen when the iPad is plugged into a computer that only supplies the normal USB current of 500 mA.

In your specific case, one amp at 5.1 V will charge the iPad slower than normal but still provide a useful charge even when the iPad is in operation. Should you be consuming a lot of data, a lot of graphics, and using GPS location you could possibly use more current than the one amp charger supplies, so just watch your battery level while it's charging and you should be fine.


Can you sync an iPhone to the new MacBooks wirelessly?

Are you talking about the MacBook that has exactly one port that handles everything, including power? That actually is a USB port, it just uses a USB type-C connector, which is not what your iPhone cord has.

You will need to buy the USB to USB-C adapter. Virtually 100% of USB devices sold today use the connector before type-C, the one that has been standard for nearly two decades (like the one on your iPhone cord), and so buying the adapter will likely become necessary at some point regardless of your iPhone's need for it.

Once you plug the iPhone into the MacBook for the first time, you can modify the settings so you can sync wirelessly with iTunes in the future - see Tetsujin's answer for instructions.


iOS 10 speed dial - too fast for systems to recognize!

I noticed this also and appreciate speed but I haven't had a problem with it being too fast. Have you tried adding commas in between each digit in the conference code? That may work for your particular use case.

For example

1(555)123-4567,,,1,2,3,4,5,6,#


Wow! It was somewhat obvious... in Preferences -> Accounts there is a setting for "Outgoing Mail Server" and that is where I needed to make some changes. Thanks everyone that tried to help!


Have a look at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18136567/applescript-keystroke-not-behaving-as-expected  & the list of ANSI codes at
How do I automate a key press in AppleScript?

It appears you're not the only one with the issue. One solution on there was to use the key code instead...

tell application "System Events"
    key code {18} using {command down}

It may depend on what app you're trying to send the keystrokes to - I just tested with an already-open blank document in Text Edit using

tell application "TextEdit" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "abc 123"
end tell

& it worked as expected.

A keystroke is the scripted equivalent of actually pressing that/those keys[s]

How about...

tell application "TextEdit" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    keystroke "abc"
    keystroke space
    keystroke "123"
end tell


The answer is that it is not possible, when the  13" MacBook Air's higest native resolution is 1440x900. It simply does not support 1280x800 or 1440x900 HiDPI modes, since it does not have a retina display or a display with enough pixels to do HiDPI. For the MacBook Air in its current form, it would need to have a LCD display with at least 2880 X 1800 pixels to enable HiDPI modes.

To do HiDPI 1280 x 800 you would need a display with resolution of at least 2560 x 1600, again, not possible on the 13" MacBook Air's display.

As noted in Signs in Mountain Lion point to "retina" display MacBooks sooner than later retina displays and graphics require 2x the resolution of normal graphics and displays.


When I log into App Store on my iMac I get a notification on my iPhone saying someone's trying to log in. But the location is wrong

As your question states, you received the notification on your iPhone instantly after logging into your account via your iMac. Since you know you just logged in, and then instantly got the notification, the chances this was just a coincidence and someone bypassed your login at the same time, is extremely unlikely.

Much more likely is that the location data was off. There are many factors that can be used to determine someone's location and the accuracy of location data can be affected by all of these.

For example, if your iMac is connecting through a VPN then the location it displays may be totally different to where it actually is, even to the extent it appears to be in another country/continent/hemisphere. This is only one example, as I'm sure you would know if you are connecting via a VPN.

Other factors affecting location include WiFi networks (SSIDs in particular), the method of your internet connection, IP addresses, core location constants, and the list goes on.

Sometimes, depending on the configuration of your router, the DNS servers being used can change and this too can affect accuracy.

So, in a nutshell, you need not worry. However, it is good practice to regularly change your account password, so perhaps this is a good reminder to do just that! :)


Should I put macbook pro to sleep or it goes alone?

Yes, this is the Mac doing what your preferences state in your Energy Preferences.

Usually on battery macs will powernap within 5 minutes, put hard disks to sleep, app nap, and check for updates for certain things, but you can change these preferences in the Energy Preferences to determine what to do on battery and charging.


Command line "open DIRNAME" fails (but "open FILENAME" is OK)

from man open:

 -R  Reveals the file(s) in the Finder instead of opening them.

So try open -R '/home/fred'

(Technically you don't need the single-quotes around /home/fred unless there are spaces or special characters, but it doesn't hurt to use them anyway.)


What is the format for logging into a domain account in OS X?

You need to set up Network Account Server settings in Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options.

In the company I work for I can either use DOMAIN\username or username@DOMAIN when logging in to the AD on from a Windows Machine, but on the Mac this is not required. I just type in username and my AD password, and it logs me in.


How to make my Mac sleep when I close the lid while connected to an external display?

You can simply click on the Apple in your menu bar then click Sleep while leaving it open. This will make both monitors go black. You can close the lid afterwards if you like. Opening the lid or pressing keys on keyboard will awake the device from sleep.

It's just made to go to another monitor when closing the lid as most people only use the external monitor instead of 2 monitors.


Incoming call on 2nd iPhone without SIM Card

iOS 8 has this new feature called Continuity. Which basically means you can make and receive phone calls on your iOS devices as long as your iPhone is on the same Wi-Fi network.

Source: Apple

Go to the phone with the active cellular SIM and you can disable this in settings app:

Phone
Calls on Other Devices
Allow Calls (turn them all off or disable some but not all other devices if you prefer)


How to force Mail.app to ask for Gmail password?

Go to Mail -> Preferences -> Accounts -> Accounts Information Tab and click Outgoing Mail Server drop-down menu. Select 'Edit SMTP Server List'

Click Advanced tab and in the Authentication field select 'Password'. Enter your new password in the according field.

Hope this help.


That's what it looks like and that's the behavior when you zoom in on the laptop screen.  You can zoom in (even under Snow Leopard) via the trackpad or scroll wheel or keyboard.  In Snow Leopard there settings for screen zoom in System Preferences under "Universal Access" (both "Zoom" and "Zoom Options..."), "Mouse", and "Trackpad".  See what you have configured and use that to unzoom the screen.

I think the default zoom is ⌘+scroll wheel.

You have been able to zoom in on the screen as part of Universal Access for as long as I can remember.  You still can in Lion.


Font caching is an operation done by the font rendering library, called by the application program.
In theory, it would allow for faster rendering, since list of available fonts on the system is already created, the system could even temporary save commonly used fonts for faster access.
On OS X, the position of directory for font cache within the library can be misconfigured, so the application program can not write the font cache. So font cache is created on the fly, every time you run the program. This is slow.
You can solve this problem by running your application as administrator (root) by typing "su gimp" once. Do not work in administrator mode, just run it once. In this way, font cache will be created (as administrator has root permission on font cache position), and the next time you start the program (as normal user), it will be faster.


Error: It seems the App source is not there: '/usr/local/Caskroom/multibit/0.5.19/MultiBit.app'

I had this with two apps. It happened because I removed them via the Applications folder, using the finder.

Error: Problems with multiple casks:
darktable: It seems the App source '/Applications/darktable.app' is not there.

I got rid of this message by removing the application from cask:
brew cask remove darktable
==> Uninstalling Cask darktable
==> Purging files for version 3.0.2 of Cask darktable


A hard link is a reference in a directory file that is the same inode ( reference in the file system) to another file in the same directory or a different directory). If one hard link is removed from the file system then the other(s) will not be removed. In any case, repairing a file system may cause loss of data. Attempt to backup before repairing the file system.


Reveal each bullet by opacity in Keynote 6.6?

This is what I tried and it worked in Keynote 6.6.1 (2560):

Create Bullet points text.
Select all bullet points and Copy
Select all
but the first bullet point and set color to 10% white (or whatever you like) leaving the first line at 100%.
Paste the saved bullet points over the existing and align precisely.
Apply the following setting to the newly pasted bullet points:

Using the Animate tool and the settings in the Build In automator Appear, the first bullet point will present in full 100% luminance with the succeeding points dim. As you click, the bullet points will appear as you have shown in your example.


(How) Can a web site determine if Safari Private Browsing is turned on?

On iOS, HTML5's local storage is not available in private browsing mode, which means you can detect it by attempting to save something to local storage and catching the exception with the following JavaScript:

try { localStorage.test = 2; } catch (e) {
  alert('You are in Private Browsing mode');
}

Modified from https://stackoverflow.com/a/17741714/

On OS X, there's not really a canonical method, but this should provide some useful information:

Can web sites detect whether you are using private browsing mode? –Security.SE

If you're looking for implementation guidance, you should probably try Stack Overflow instead


Google Voice messenger notification problem

It would be probably a bug with the app. Can you check that you have notifications on for this app, by going into the following setting:

Home Screen > Settings > Notifications > GV Messenger.

Additionally the GV Messenger is not the official Google voice app. You may want to use the official Google Voice app.


Can I see which iPad apps I use most frequently?

In a pinch, you could look through the multitasking bar that appears when you double-click the home button. The apps are arranged in order of most recently used. It is not a measure of how frequently an app is used, but it could at least tell you if it was used recently, or if other apps have been of more interest lately.


Remove Linux partition on Mac. CoreStorage problems

By accident the OP took one command in the answer Remove Ubuntu and grow Mac partition literally and entered:

gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 118430560 -t 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk0

to add a partition table entry, though his original macOS volume was much larger. The command above creates a ~60 GB CoreStorage partition right after the EFI partition.
No output of the previous partition table was available (sudo) gpt -r show diskX.

To recreate the partition table an external volume with a full macOS install, wxHexEditor and some knowledge about the typical sizes and internal structures of macOS recovery volumes is necessary.

Install macOS to a thumb drive and configure it.
Download and install wxHexEditor
Search for the typical start blocks of the Recovery HD like in this answer.
Recreate the Recovery HD with gpt add -i 3 ...
Recreate the main macOS volume between EFI and Recovery HD partition gpt add -i 2 ...
Verify the disk and the volumes with diskutil verify[Disk|Volume] diskYsX
Expand the recovered main volume


Mac OS Finder - Read File Folder Order/Positions (Arrange By) thru Command Line

You can obtain this information using AppleScript, which is, of course, something you can execute from the command line using osascript.

Each Finder item has an AppleScript property called position that stores the {x, y}position of the item within its parent window (there’s another property called bounds that stores the coordinates that define the bounding rectangle of the item).

    tell application "Finder" to get the position of every file in folder "My Folder"
        --> {{40, 199}, {230, 43}, {40, 43}, {40, 121}, {40, 277}, {230, 121}, {267, 184}, {230, 277}, {420, 43}}

(Can you spot the item I moved off its grid-aligned position ?)

From the command line, you might implement it like this:

    osascript -e "tell app \"finder\" to get position of items in folder posix file \"$PWD\""

which, for the same folder as above, returns

    40, 199, 230, 43, 40, 43, 40, 121, 40, 277, 230, 121, 267, 184, 230, 277, 420, 43

For a specific file:

    osascript -e "tell app \"finder\" to get position of file \"Self Portrait I.jpg\" in folder posix file \"$PWD\""
        --> 230, 43


How to make a command line executable an application?

Use Automator.

Open Automator and double-click on Application.
In the "Name" search box, type Apple and you should see "Run AppleScript".
Drag "Run AppleScript" into the right-hand window.
Where it says (* Your script goes here *), replace that text with the following code:

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    do script with command "JMeter"
end tell

File > Save and enter a name, and choose where to save the application.
Double-click on the newly created application.


Typing inverted question / exclamation marks in Swiftkey on iPhone

As @bassplayer7 suggested, I need to hold the ! in the symbols page. I was expecting to have this in the !@#,.? key, like in Android.


Outlook for Mac 2016: How to write a rule to categorize based on body content

My problem ended up being a general failure to Read The Screen.  However, since this is not the first time I have tried to solve a problem like this, and because I did not find any answers that warned about the ambiguity, I am posting what I learned.

What I wanted was a rule that will classify incoming messages with "[External Source]" in them as "Red."  My expectation was that I would create the rule, then select all messages in a box and then Right-Click->Rules->Apply->Apply All Rules to test.

The test never triggered the rule.  It was the wrong test, or the wrong rule type.  The test that would have worked would be to have sent an external email to myself.

With that insight, I decided to write a Client-based rule to do the same thing because I more frequently want a rule that I can apply after-the-fact.

However, it turns out that the syntax for a "Body contains X" condition is very different between the two kinds of rules.  For Server Rules, there is a UI for adding various strings and you can specify multiple strings to search for in one condition and you must specify exceptions in a separate section.

For a Client Rule, you need to provide one unquoted string.  However, there is no Exception Section, you must specify your exceptions as negative conditions--which complicates your rules if you want to search for multiple strings with a set of exceptions that apply whenever any of the strings is found.  I will leave that as an exercise for the user, but I will show how to create a basic rule here.

For the TLDR folks, here are images of the two kinds of rules, followed by a sample rule that does the categorizing on the Client Side.  First, the default Server-Rules modal:

And this is what the Server Rule condition to search for strings looks like (note the Except if: heading peeking from behind the modal):

Now, the Client-Rules modal:

And, a sample of how the condition setting is different for the Client:

Note, it has if all conditions are met set.  Also, notice that if I wanted to do the same action for a different string, I must create a duplicate rule with that different string.  This looks like a constraint on the UI for Outlook Client Rules.

Thanks to @seamus for his second set of eyes and test case for this.


Why does Adobe Reader require an installer?

The Acrobat Reader installer not only installs the application itself into /Applications but contains a bunch of other packages which need to get installed into other places (e.g. browser plugins). These things can't get installed by just using a simple application bundle (at least not as easily).


What is the difference between the variant language dictionaries in OS X?

Many people have tried to find the files for Apple's spell check dictionaries but I don't recall any successes.

As for the Language tab in Language & Text, it really doesn't have anything to do with spelling as such, although the top item on the list can set the default spell check dictionary in some circumstances.  The top item on the list also sets the OS and app language (for the 22 that are available), the default collation order, and the preferred language requested by Safari.  The order of the list can determine the app language used if a localization for the top item is not available.  The order can also determine whether a Japanese or Chinese font is used for text which is ambiguous in that regard. I think adding an item to the list can sometimes provide additional encodings in Mail app.


Why does my iMac have one name under sharing, but then say 'new-host3.home' as well?

Unfortunately the computer name and host name can get out of sync.  Open a terminal window and use

sudo hostname <new hostname>

to change the hostname.  Once executed, it changes the system configuration, so the new hostname will be there when you reboot.

Also, be aware that some DHCP servers will assign a hostname.  Depending on the network you attach to and the DHCP server configuration you may have to work with the network administrator if you need to use a different hostname.  You don't have to worry about this for most consumer grade routers.


How to disable iCloud storage of photos?

IMHO, you can't accomplish this.

You're describing iCloud Photo Library, except you don't want to use iCloud Photo Library or iCloud storage.

Consider requirement #1: in order for all iOS devices to have access to the complete library, it has to be somewhere that's permanently available. The MacBook Pro can't be the answer to that requirement, because if you're away, the MBP will either be on a different network and/or be asleep. Or rebooting. Or updating. The only resource that's always available is online. This is why iCloud Photo Library stores the complete library in iCloud storage.

Consider requirement #2: in order to sync, each picture must be uploaded to a readily available resource and then each device needs to be alerted to that fact and download it. Again, this is exactly what iCloud Photo Library and/or PhotoStream do.

Here's what I do, which might help. I also have multiple Macs and iOS devices. All of them use my Apple ID and I have turned off iCloud Photo Library, but turned on PhotoStream. I have personally designated one of my Macs as the Master Photo Library (MPL). Any pictures I take with any device automatically show up in my MPL. Those pictures are also available on other iOS devices within the limits of PhotoStream (PhotoStream only keeps the last 30 days and a max of 1000 photos). Once a picture is no longer in the PhotoStream (31 days later, or 1001 photos later), the picture is still available on the device that took the picture, but, it's also permanently saved in my MPL.

Videos are of course another thing. It's called PhotoStream, after all. So, every time I take videos I care about, I connect the iOS device with a cable to the MPL and offload them.

This does not accomplish exactly what you want, but it gets very close. It's the best answer I can come up with. The only thing "better" is using iCloud Photo Library, which I don't use only because of the monthly cost, not because of security.


Web Sharing (Apache) won't turn on in Lion

Check the Apache logs with Applications > Utilities > Console. Inside Console, expand /var/log to see the Apache2 log files. You might see a message in error_log.

Without any messages, it is a wild goose chase. Here, last time Apache did not log any messages it was the port 80 being occupied by another process.


Is there an open-source iOS screen viewer/ recorder for macOS?

You could take a look at videosnap. It is an free and open source utility that allows you to record the screen of your iOS device from a Mac.
Note that it is a command line utility you can use from the Terminal - it does not have a graphical user interface.


iPhone requesting password for different Apple ID when updating apps after updating iOS

The computer you used to upgrade iOS was apparently signed into a different Apple ID when you upgraded your device. The thing that doesn't make any sense is that the Apple ID signed in on the computer shouldn't matter - you should have to sign-in on the device with a a different Apple ID for it to matter.

That said, you can try signing out of the App Store on the device (App Store app > bottom of the Featured tab > tap on the button that says "Apple ID: xxxx@xxxx" > Sign Out), then sign back in with original Apple ID.


How can I determine the current brew package count?

On June 23, 2019 the soon to be incorrect count of packages is 4804.

Since many people add and remove packages, this count shifts by dozens a day and sometimes hundreds at a time when larger changes move packages out of the mainstream repository into a sub repository that can be "tapped" to increase the count.

Homebrew uses a concept called tap, which is simply a repository containing a list of formulae that it tracks, updates, and installs from. The default installation of Homebrew comes with a tap called homebrew/core but there's no limit to how many or how large a tap you could source packages since they can be self hosted pretty much anywhere.

Running brew [command] [options] runs the command on homebrew/core tap. There are various other official and unofficial taps from which packages can be installed.

The total count of packages in any tap keeps changing as new packages (called formula) are added, deleted or updated. To get the current count, first update the local homebrew/core tap repository by running:

brew update.

Now execute your command-line:

brew search | wc -l

to get the current count of packages in the homebrew/core tap. Running brew search without any arguments lists all the packages (formula).


How do I disable "rich links" in Messages in Sierra?

That can't be disabled, it's part of iMessages.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206894


Is there a keyboard shortcut to pin a tab?

I'm not on El Capitan yet. But if there is a menu bar entry in Safari to create a pinned tab, you can assign a custom keyboard shortcut.

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard
Select the Shortcuts Tab
Select App Shortcuts at the bottom of the list
Create a new shortcut:

Application Safari
The title is the exact name of the menu bar entry
Choose a shortcut that you like


How to tell which files are entirely or partly within a band of a sparse bundle disk image?

Assuming you can attach the sparsebundle, you should be able to do this using fileXray, which is $79 for a personal use license and found at http://filexray.com

fileXray is able to "reverse map volume storage" meaning it can "determine which file a given block or byte offset on a volume belongs to." The relevant option is --who_owns_byte, explained on page 172 of the documentation, which can be found at http:// filexray.com / fileXray.pdf  (link broken because it won't let me post more than two links).

Now according to page 54 of the documentation, "It is important to note that a device dump must be 'raw'—that is, it must not require any additional transformations such as decompression or decryption. In other words, for a disk image file to be used directly by fileXray, the image must not be compressed, encrypted, or sparse. fileXray will reject such an image." However, it goes on to say, "If you do have such an image that is compressed, encrypted, or sparse, either convert it using the Mac OS X hdiutil command-line program, or simply attach it (optionally without mounting it) using hdiutil and use fileXray on the resultant block device instead of the image file."

So once you have the sparsebundle attached or mounted, the question is what byte offset to provide to the --who_owns_byte option.

Apple provides "routines to manipulate a sparse bundle" at http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/hfs/hfs-191/CopyHFSMeta/SparseBundle.c

Based on that code, we can see in the routine doSparseRead that the bandName of the first band for a given offset is the bandNum as a hexadecimal number. In particular, asprintf(&bandName, "%s/bands/%x", ctx->pathname, bandNum).

The bandNum is the offset / blockSize, since off_t bandNum = (offset + nread) / blockSize and nread starts at 0, which will truncate the result of the division, so the offset should be bandNum * blockSize or bandNum * blockSize + blockSize. Note that the blockSize is the bandSize, since off_t blockSize = ctx->bandSize;

Looking at doSparseWrite seems to give the same answer, since off_t bandNum = (offset + written) / blockSize; with written initialized at 0 and asprintf(&bandName, "%s/bands/%x", ctx->pathname, bandNum);

It would be great if someone with access to fileXray could try this.


How to sync Iphone on laptop with music collection on desktop?

I dont know about mounting the folder but You can add all the music to the laptop and iTunes, Sync the phone, and once it has fully synced, you can then delete the files from their location, do not delete them in or from iTunes, just the iTunes folder.

Now when you sync again, the iPhone will not try to sync songs as they are already synced and you do not have any music files on the laptop.


Your set up is probably faulty. A static route on the second router (connected to the ISP) isn't required.

The proper set up looks like this:

Open Murus and hit the wrench > Static NAT

Choose the proper LAN and WAN interfaces. In your environment the WAN interface probably is en0 or en1 and your LAN interface is en3.
Then move the mouse pointer to your NAT group and hit the looking glass:

Remove the current IP/network address (in your case 10.0.0.25/32) and add the "NAT-client's" IP address (in your case 10.0.0.234/32) or a network address (e.g. 10.0.0.0/24).

You added the gateway's address (instead of the NATed network/host) by accident.

Add "ALL SERVICES" to the Allowed Internet Services.
Close the NAT window.
In the menubar > Firewall > Interface Forwarding choose "Enable".
In the upper right corner of Murus hit the start button (►) - just to be sure.
Test the NAT with the client.


Windows boot camp option missing in Startup Disk selection

You can set the default boot partition from the option-boot screen.  Press the Control key while clicking the arrow beneath the drive, and that should do the trick.


I'm sure it was possible ! Cormiertyshawn895 dit it ! Thanks to him ! https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive/issues/1


How to disable built-in keyboard and trackpad?

Since you already know the software way, how about permanent removal (the hardware way).

Open it and unplug the cable.

Find the instructions for your model on the ifixit web site.


Thanks @Tetsujin. The listing looked a little screwy so I was a little hesitant to go mucking around with the command-line diskutil. But I ended up doing a diskutil corestorage list and then

diskutil corestorage delete [UUID of 50GB Logical Volume Group]

GUI Disk Utility correctly saw the 50 GB of empty space as part of the other Logical Volume Group and I was able to delete it and merge it back in fine.


Apache config resetting after every OS update

Yes, this is a general PITA. Why Apple feels it needs to blow away your httpd.conf settings (not to mention any others) is beyond me. Especially since they stopped supporting Apache "out of the box".
The good news is they don't actually "blow them away" and there is an EASY way to see what files are changed on update AND GET THEM BACK:
/Users/Shared/Relocated Items/[All your files Apple deems worthy of fight you over] <= It retains the Native structure, so you can immediately spot what you need to change. No guesswork.
If you miss an update there is ALSO /Users/Shared/Previously Relocated Items xxx/
xxx in the above is a number which represents every update. Mine is up to 13
In my case it's not just httpd.conf, but also ../extra/httpd-userdir.conf, etc.
I'm sure you can script a fix, but it would require a bit of logic. I just eyeball them after an update take a minute to rename (or mv, etc.)


Getting files off old Mac clone without keyboard, mouse, or monitor

The best course of action is to pull the data off the drive via USB with a USB to SCSI adapter like the Adaptec USBXchange.

You can do this without spending a lot of money (definitely less than having a shop or a tech do this).  Though the hardware is obsolete, you are in luck because macOS (OS X) supports USB Attached SCSI meaning your drive will show up as a mounted volume.

To do this, you will need the following

Adaptec USBXchange USB to SCSI Adapter.  This will give you the USB attached SCSI functionality.
HD50 to IDC 50 (External/Internal) SCSI Adapter (removed from bracket if possible).  This will convert the IDC 50 pin connector on the HDD to the HD50 pin connector (for external SCSI drives) on the USB adapter.

Probably the most daunting task is getting access to the drive, but in actuality, it isn't all that difficult.  The PowerCenter 150 is a Mac clone and is put together more like a PC than a Mac in that respect.  Opening the case and accessing the drive is no different than the procedure for opening a PC case.  Basically, a few phillips screws on the back hold the side panels on and after removing them, the panels will slide off giving you access to the internals.

Procedure

Remove the hard disk mounting screws (yellow circle; both sides) so you can access the drive
Remove the grey cable from the main board; leave the power cable (red circle) attached
Connect the grey cable to the 50 pin IDC port (square) and the USB Adapter to the HD50 port (port in the shape of an elongated "D")
Connect USB adapter to MacBook Air, and power on the PowerCenter computer

The drive should appear on your MBA and you should be able to pull of your data.


How do I enable the interactive iPhoto screen saver in OSX Lion?

The screen saver can be controlled with select keyboard buttons. The mouse will wake it up and exit screen saver.

Press space to pause and play. Use the arrow keys (left and right) to move between photos.


Permission of ~/.Trash is always gone after Time machine backup

I solve the problem by checking which process use .Trash path by lsof | grep ~/.Trash

I found that the background service of VyprVPN app use /.Trash (still I don't know why). So I clean up VyprVPN app. Problem solved.


What does com.apple.timemachine.supported denote?

It means that the folder it is in is supported as a target for Time Machine backups. They are very tiny files and wouldn’t be a space hog. But if you are seeing them, you are probably seeing other hidden files as well. But if you are using Time Machine for backup, don’t delete these files or the folder/disk wouldn't be able to be used as a Time Machine backup target.


Connecting 4 DVI (or VGA) monitors to the Macbook Pro Retina

You could run 2 DVI/VGA montiors via the thunderbolt ports with adapters, and 1 via HDMI. I believe the 4th would need to be connected with a USB-to-vdeo adapter.

Check out this question for some more information:
How many external displays can I power with the 15" retina MacBook Pro?


What is the location of background image set from Safari?

Open ~/Library/Safari/.
It is there, called Safari Desktop Picture.jpg (or whatever the extension is).

If you're on Lion, to get to Library folder you may open Finder, select Go from the top menu and  hold ⌥ Option. The normally hidden Library menu will reveal itself in the folder list. Open it, and proceed to Safari subfolder.

If you're not on Lion or just prefer the quick way, open Finder, press ⇧ Shift + ⌘ Cmd + G to open directory prompt and paste ~/Library/Safari/:


How can I limit the amount of memory available to a process?

There are two approaches to constraining your memory usage: Ex post facto, and preemptive. That is to say, you can try to kill your program after it has gotten too large, or you can program it not to get too large in the first place.

If you insist on the ex post facto approach, you can use the following Bash script. This script first finds the amount of memory (as defined by "resident set size") the process with processid pid is using, filters out all non numerical data using grep, and saves the amount as variable n. The script then checks if n is greater than your specified x. If it is, the process with processid pid is killed.

Please note:

You must replace <pid> with the process id of your program.
You must replace <x> with the rss = "resident set size" (ie real memory size) you don't want the program to exceed.

n=$(ps -<pid> -o rss | grep '[0-9]')
if [ $n -gt <x> ]; then  kill -9 <pid>; fi

If you want this to run every y seconds just inclose it in a loop, and tell it to wait for y seconds after every iteration. You could also write a similar command using top. Your starting point would be top -l 1|grep "<pid>"|awk '{print $10}'.

@kenorb's answer helped me with my script

While I believe that answers the question, in the long run I believe it is better programming design to take a preemptive approach using manual memory allocation.

Firstly, are you sure the memory usage is really a problem? The Go documentation states:

  The Go memory allocator reserves a large region of virtual memory as an arena for allocations. This virtual memory is local to the specific Go process; the reservation does not deprive other processes of memory.

If you still think you have a problem, then I encourage you to manually manage your memory as is done in the C programming language. Since go is written in C, I suspected there would be ways to get into the C memory management/allocations, and indeed there are. See this github repository which,

  allows you to do manual memory management via the standard C allocator for your system. It is a thin wrapper on top of malloc, calloc and free from . See man malloc for details on these functions for your system. This library uses cgo.

The use case is given as:

  Why would you want this?

  When a program is causing memory pressure or the system is running out of memory it can be helpful to manually control memory allocations and deallocations. Go can help you control allocations but it is not possible to explicitly deallocate unneeded data.

This seems like a better long term solution.

If you want to learn more about C (including memory management),
The C Programming language is the standard reference.


Disable special characters such as Tilde (German keyboard)

You just need to change input source. Probably you have U.S. International, just change it U.S. and this ugly feature will disappear.


Oversight is a product by Objective-See that performs low-level detection of when the camera is used. I posted a screenshot from a talk by Patrick Wardle that discusses this specifically, along with some sample code of how to invoke this via AVFoundation notifications. The portion most relevant to you starts at 43 minutes.

If this application you're describing is for personal use, then I think it's fine, but note that the type of callback you're looking for is that the same one that malicious tools can use to also record your Facetime/Skype video and upload it to a third party. So, please note and understand the full context of what you're proposing if you're not already aware of it.


com.apple.xpc.launchd Report crash process constantly shows up with high CPU

It turned out that »CleanMyMac« hasn’t completely removed all leftovers. We’ve got rid of »CleanMyMac« and manually removed the »secagntd« directory in /usr/local/bin/secagntd. Usually I don’t recommend to do any modification in /usr/local/bin, however in our case it solved the issue. CPU dropped and the constantly Crash Reports disappeared.


MacBook Pro (2018) stopped detecting external monitor

Similar issue with Philips monitor, MacBook Pro 2017 TB, and Digitus USBC-DP dongle. My solution:

Remove the power cable from the external monitor, wait 5-10 seconds, put it back in.


Be sure you do not have any OS updates left: Upgrade OS X operating system

Be sure your Google Chrome is up-to-date and check Settings -> Extensions

Let me know


mac become no sound when after mac sleep

Yes, the same bug I have from time to time, too.
I could fix it without a reboot by reloading the kernel extension for audio with these commands:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext


Why does Yosemite want to throw away all my backups?

When I posted, I suspected that this was specifically related to the Yosemite update, as I'd seen a few hits in Google with similar things (but no fixes), especially since I had already restored the meta-backup meant to address exactly the issue discussed in the older Q's of generic network disk corruption.

After reading the Troubleshooting post referenced by the older Q, I learn that this message is produced by a verification (fsck) that's run once a month.  This means that whatever anomaly it found was not something that occurred in the previous backup, but could have occurred any time in the last month!  Now, I think the correlation with this “happening” right after the Yosemite upgrade may be that the last-check-date gets lost or it intentionally performs a check right away after installing.  So, any problem that occurred in the last few weeks suddenly is brought to your attention.

If this is checked on purpose, I think it would be better to check before installing the update, to give people a chance to get a working backup of their system before the update.

I rolled back the NAS volume another week, and all was well.  Just let it finish “finding” and then checking the disk.


How can I find out what software I've bought in the App Store?

On iPhone

Open the App Store on your device.
Make sure you are signed in  the same Apple ID used for the original purchase.
Tap Updates from the bottom navigation bar.

Tap on Purchased on navigation bar

Tap Purchased on the resulting screen.
Locate the app in your Purchased tab. Tap the download button.

On iTunes 11

Open iTunes on your computer.
Make sure that you have Show iTunes in the Cloud
Purchases enabled in your iTunes preferences by going to iTunes >
Preferences under the Store tab. Then, click OK.
If you're already signed in, choose Store > Sign In, and enter your Apple ID
and password.
After you've signed in, click the Library located in the upper-right of the iTunes Store. Navigate to your iTunes library for the respective content type you wish to using the content selector in the upper-left. Choose Apps to download apps. Locate the item or title you wish to download. Click the download icon to download that item. For instance, you will want yours to say Apps.

Note: The download icon for previously purchased movies is located to the right of the movie title. To download previously purchased apps and books, you'll need to navigate to the Purchased page under the Quick Links section in the iTunes Store.


Reminders no longer separates items by line

I have tested a list just like you specified on iOS 9.0.1 (13A404) and used the notes app to make a note with the three items, one return, no special characters, spaces or line breaks added between the three items.

I then long pressed and selected all the text in the notes app, copied it, went to reminders and pasted it. Use care to paste into the list itself and not to paste into an empty reminder.

The behavior for me isn't a change as I'm getting multiple list items and not a list of three items.

If the above doesn't help your results, you might need to look in to the specific app that your wife is doing the copy operation to see how she is getting the text and double check exactly where it gets pasted. If it's a long enough list, you might try pasting it into notes.app to see if that helps or use notes.app to make the list in the first place.


Can I list files ordered by date added to a folder from a command-line tool like ls?

Simpler (Faster) solution:

mdls -name kMDItemFSName -name kMDItemDateAdded -raw * | \
xargs -0 -I {} echo {} | \
sed 'N;s/\n/ /' | \
sort


A clean install of macOS Sierra 10.12.3 from a USB Flash Drive takes a little less then 10 GB of space. If you do an in-place upgrade the Install macOS Sierra.app bundle takes a little less then 5 GB but can be deleted if after the upgrade it doesn't self-delete. So, you have plenty of space whichever way you choose to go. (The in-place upgrade method is assuming you have adequate free space  to preform the in-place upgrade.)

As always with an OS Upgrade, make sure at the minimum that your user data is backed up, if not the entire system before performing the upgrade. Time Machine is a good way to maintain backups of the system.


Starting and stopping mysql server. Shorten and make automatic

Just create an alias in your ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile file.

Check with ls -la0 ~/ if one of the files already exist, else create one with:

touch ~/.bash_profile

After opening .bash_profile with nano ~/.bash_profile add the lines:

alias iwanttostartmysqlwithareallyshortcommand='sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start'
alias iwanttostopmysqlwithareallyshortcommand='sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop'

write the file to disk with ctrlO and exit nano with ctrlX.

Then enter:

source .bash_profile

In the future you just have to enter

iwanttostartmysqlwithareallyshortcommand

or

iwanttostopmysqlwithareallyshortcommand

to start or stop mysql after entering your password.

A shorter alias like iwanttostartmysqlnow works also. Even really, really short ones are possible like stm (= start mysql) or spm (= stop mysql). They mustn't collide with other aliases or valid commands though. The shortest I have found - and easy to remember - are 1 to start and 0 to stop mysql. ;-)

To answer your second question:

If you have installed the latest MySQL from Oracle a launch daemon should have been installed in /Library/LaunchDaemons already.

If you have installed another mysql package (e.g. homebrew) you may use the example here and adapt it.

Slightly modified example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.mysql.mysqld</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
    <string>/usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start</string>
    </array>
  </dict>
</plist>

Save the XML as a file named /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist

Adjust the file permissions using the Apple recommended owner "root", owning group "wheel", and file permissions "644"

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist
sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist

Enable this new MySQL service with:

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist


Does macOS still use Yarrow as it's cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator?

Yarrow is gone.

The kernel CPRNG is a Fortuna-derived design targeting a 256-bit security level.

https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/security/seca0c73a75b/1/web/1

Ok! So I mailed Craig Federighi recently about this, concerned that macOS wasn’t capable of generating >128bit quality keys.

He responded!

  ‘The source you were referencing is out of date.  You can find more current informations here:   FIPS certification document, section 7: "The NDRNG feeds entropy from the pool into the DRBG on demand.  The NDRNG provides 256-bits of entropy.”’

What a legend.

So yup, macOS and iOS are both capable of generating 256 bit entropy and creating quality CS keys for both ECC and Symmetric Key crypto.

EDIT: Apple confirmed the kernel CPRNG is a Fortuna-derived design targeting a 256-bit security level.


How can I empty the trash from the Terminal?

Another solution would be to create AppleScript containing the folowing code

tell application "Finder"
    empty the trash
end tell

save it as emptytrash for example and execute it via open emptytrash.app

or even better (as suggested by Chris) - execute:

osascript -e 'tell app "Finder" to empty'

Since trash is a Finder thing, this should be more compatible in the long run.


As far as I know, unfortunately it's not possible to do this.

Strangely, I also set the 'Document Container' criteria within Spotlight and it wouldn't show any results at all.

This is extremely poor behaviour, I agree. You can give Apple feedback on OS X (from which you can post feedback on Spotlight) here.


Running Ubuntu under VirtualBox vs natively

Running an OS natively vs running it through a VM both have their strong and weak points.

Running it natively will give you better performance because you aren't running two OS's at the same time. You're native install will have all the RAM and CPU cycles to itself.  If you have extra HD space that you don't mind partitioning to use for the install, its great, just be sure to give yourself enough space in the beginning because expanding partitions can be a pain. There are many guides to installing Ubuntu on your mac all over the web, usually involving rEFIt. This can be a little tricky depending on which mac you have, but if you follow the guides out there carefully, everything should go fine.

Running it in a virtual box can be great though because it is the easiest and most hassle free way to get ubuntu on you mac.  This is what I would recommend.  Having it in a virtual box means that you don't have to partition your drive, it can usually be moved easily between Macs, and it doesn't require you to reboot your machine, you can even delete it if you hate it and no repartitioning to get your space back.  And best of all you can still access the mac side at anytime and switch between both seamlessly.  The downsides of this are usually performance when it comes to heavy things, if you are doing regular things (web surfing, programming, document editing, etc) though then it won't be a problem, if you plan on doing super CPU, RAM, GPU intensive things on your ubuntu side then you might want to consider the native install path.  It is really up to you though. The more RAM the better. Most machines come with 4GB which is good for running OSX Lion and Ubuntu side by side.

Personally, I would recommend trying the virtual box install first, seeing how you like it and how it performs. If everything is great, no need to try the native install.  If not, then those guides all over the internet will lead the way.

I hope that this answer helps you out.


Did `man ls > temp.txt`. Output textfile is corrupted

From man man:

To get a plain text version of a man page, without backspaces and underscores, try
    # man foo | col -b > foo.mantxt

man prints formatted version of man page, underscores and double letters are parsed

Its not so much that they are 'parsed' but rather "if you don't have a terminal, bold format is to be displayed as a repeated character". Once you hook it up to a terminal (vt100, xterm, Terminal, etc...), man recognizes the terminal and sends the appropriate control codes to do color, bold, underline and the like. Its being parsed correctly - just for a null terminal type.

 comment by MichaelT


Your path (as shown) doesn't contain /usr/local/sbin. Add that in the line where you set the path. Also, bash doesn't use setenv; just use PATH=....


What is the name of Network Setup Assistant's window?

These kind of windows are commonly called wizards, or specifically in the context of macOS, a term you already mentioned: setup assistants. That term actually describes the entire sequence, so you might want to call a single screen a wizard screen, wizard step or wizard dialog instead.

The transparent background image is something specific to macOS; most Windows installer screens show images as well but there, they're confined to either a column on the left or a row on top of the screen.


Mac package installer installs the folder "Contents" in /Applications instead of the bundle

Took me a few tries to get this working (the installer managed to do some really strange stuff on my first few attempts). But this seems to work reliably.

I created a temporary folder with just the application I wanted to package (leaving the app sitting elsewhere seemed to result in the aforementioned strange behaviour), then package it from there. So I created a temporary folder called "test" on my desktop and dropped the app in there on its own. The following command then reliably results in a working package on my Desktop.

productbuild --component ~/Desktop/test/myapp.app /Applications ~/Desktop/myapp.pkg --sign "my certificate identity name"

Something that is helpful when testing is to run sudo opensnoop | grep installd in a Terminal at the same time. It generates a lot of output but you should be able to see the application bundle being created in something like /var/folders/zz/GIBBERISH/C/PKInstallSandboxManager/GIBBERISH.activeSandbox/Root/ and then copied to its final destination.

Note: I'm not certain why you are using -s in the second example productbuild command you gave in your question. There are three options arguments to productbuild that start with "s" (synthesis, scripts and sign) and the man page doesn't mention using the shorter "-s" for any of them. Perhaps this is the problem. Of course it could just be a typo. :)


Terminal won't open on non-admin accounts in Sierra

Go to System Preferences —> Parental Controls —> (select your Standard User Account) —> Allowed Apps
In the below list see whether terminal is allowed or not. if not just enable it.


How should I uninstall a static ffmpeg binary?

Yes, since you didn't install either via script, a package manager or an .pkg you can simply delete the file and you're done.


How to gain insight into spotlight index?

This command will list all files indexed by spotlight system:

mdfind "kMDItemDisplayName == '*'"

To store the output in a file:

mdfind "kMDItemDisplayName == '*'" > listOfFiles.txt


Recover in-memory Pages data from failed hibernation wakeup

First try, IF known_string WAS stored in plain text (not the case)
I guess you could try using
grep -Ubo --binary-files=text "known_substring" sleepimage

From that, -U parameter specifies search on binary files, -b specifies that the offset in bytes to the matching part should be displayed and, lastly, -o specifies that only the matching part should be printed.
If that works, you would know the offset in bytes to get to that region, but I would not know exactly how to proceed there. Depending on the filetype, you could probably check for the filetype signature near that informed offset and try to isolate only the bytes that do make part of that file. For this, I guess you could either write a C program to do that, or maybe execute hexdump -s known_offset sleepimage and try getting only the bytes that relate to the file you need.
For instance, suppose I wanted to know something about Chrome:
$ sudo grep -Ubo --binary-files=text -i "chrome" sleepimage
3775011731:chrome

So I know I got an occurrence of chrome at the byte offset 3775011731. Hence I could:
$ sudo hexdump -s 3775011731 sleepimage | head -n 3
e1021b93 09 09 3c 73 74 72 69 6e 67 3e 2e 63 68 72 6f 6d
e1021ba3 65 2e 67 6f 6f 67 6c 65 2e 63 6f 6d 3c 2f 73 74
e1021bb3 72 69 6e 67 3e 0a 09 09 3c 6b 65 79 3e 45 78 70

The tricky part would be to get only the bytes you want. If the filetype has a known header you could maybe subtract the header size in bytes from the hexdump offset, so you get the file "since the beginning". If the filetype has a known "EOF" signature, you could try searching for it too and hence get only the bytes up to that point.
What is your filetype? Do you think that some procedure like this could be used in your case? Note that I have never done this before, and I am basing myself on a lot of "guesses", but I suppose something like this has a little chance of working..
Second try, a slow method for parsing all bytes
The method before does not work because it also searches only for plain text, my bet.
For this second text I created a simple C program containing:
#include <stdio.h>

int main () {
  printf("assim");
  return 0;
}

So I could search for "assim", which would be your known_string, in that text. In order to know what bytes to search for I did:
$ echo -n "assim" | hexdump
0000000 61 73 73 69 6d
0000005

Hence, I must find "61 73 73 69 6d". After compiling that simple C source into the program "tt", I did the following:
hexdump -v -e '/1 "%02X\n"' tt | # format output for hexdump of file tt
    pcregrep -M --color -A 3 -B 3 "61\n73\n73\n69\n6D" # get 3 bytes A-fter and 3 bytes B-fore the occurence

Which returned to me:

If you did something like that, I guess you could get your data.. It would be kind of slow to parse 2~8GBs of bytes though...
Note that in this approach you must find the hexes in capital letter (write 6D instead of 6d on the last grep), not in under-case letters, and use \n instead of white-spaces (so you can use -A and -B for the grep). You could use grep -i so it became case-insensitive, but it would be a little slower. Hence, just use capitals if this is used.
Or, if you want a do-all automated "script":
FILENAME=tt # file to parse looking for string
BEFORE=3 # bytes before occurrence
AFER=3 # bytes after occurrence
KNOWNSTRING="assim" # string to search for

ks_bytes="$(echo -n "$KNOWNSTRING" | hexdump | head -n1 | cut -d " " -f2- | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]' | sed -e 's/ *$//g' -e 's/ /\\n/g')"

hexdump -v -e '/1 "%02X\n"' $FILENAME | pcregrep -M --color -A $AFER -B $BEFORE $ks_bytes


Should PS1 be defined before exported in .bash_profile?

In korn shell and bash, you can do it in one line. The original bourne shell required your second syntax, where you set it on one line and then exported it.


Try removing the iCloud account from your iPhone, and then adding it back. This has solved a number of my own iCloud-related issues in the past.


There is no direct way, that I know of, natively in OS X to edit the volume label/name of an ISO Image as can be done by using, e.g., UltraISO in Windows.  In other words, with the proper preferences set for UltraISO the volume label/name can be changed and saved to the ISO Image without recompiling it. I actually use UltraISO under OS X via Wine for this very reason.

Although this cannot be done natively directly under OS X, nonetheless it can be done using hdiutil by creating a new ISO Image from the mounted ISO Image having the volume label/name wanting to be changed.

You'll need to use the hdiutil imageinfo command, e.g. hdiutil imageinfo $NAME.ISO, to get the necessary information to configure the hdiutil makehybrid command to make the new ISO Image having the volume label/name that your want, instead of what it currently is. Have a look at the man page for hdiutil or just type hdiutil makehybrid -help in Terminal.

As an example, I'm going to use an ISO Image, of a DVD, that does not contain any DRM, as the source has to be DRM free.

The key info I'm looking at is, partition-scheme:, partition-name: and partition-filesystems: showing respectively, ISO9660, $NAME, and both ISO9660: $NAME and UDF: $NAME where $NAME is shown as, e.g., FOO_BAR_WEIRD in all three places.

I just want it to say FOO_BAR, getting rid of the WEIRD part, so my command line will be as follows, after first mounting the FOO_BAR_WEIRD.ISO image by double-clicking it in Finder, in Terminal I used the following command:

hdiutil makehybrid -iso -udf -iso-volume-name FOO_BAR -udf-volume-name FOO_BAR -o FOO_BAR.ISO /Volumes/FOO_BAR_WEIRD

I then used hdiutil imageinfo FOO_BAR.ISO and compared it to the output of hdiutil imageinfo FOO_BAR_WEIRD.ISO and it showed it has the same partition-scheme: and partition-filesystems: but different $NAME, as it should. The file size was ~.5MB larger however the newly created ISO Image had the name I wanted and played just fine as the original did.

So, it's doable but it takes a little time, work and extra disk space, which is why I run UltraISO via Wine under OS X. :)

Note: I tested this using a DRM free ISO Image of a Movie DVD and may require additional command line options and or additional steps depending on the type and contents of the ISO image.


How to keep exchange emails from showing up in contacts? (iOS7)

You can add all the contacts you want to show up in contacts in a group named "visible" and all the others to an "invisible" group. Then in contacts on the upper left there is an option to select which groups you want to be visible. Just select the "visible" one.


You can go to iForgot to reset your Apple ID password by either email verification or by answering the security questions you set when you created the account.


Can I view what app data has not been uploaded to iCloud?

Instead of going to Preferences -> General -> Usage, go to Preferences -> iCloud -> Storage & Backup -> Manage Storage.

This screen will list your devices and by selecting the current device (like your iPhone if you're looking at it on your iPhone) you can see the list of applications that saves data to the backup. Here you can see the backup size per app and you can also disable/enable them individually.
To modify the settings for your other devices you need to go to the same screen on them.


POP does not sync your "read" information (and various other things)

Yahoo does not allow IMAP access, according to the customer response quoted on this link: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070630193312AAmgjq0


Why is "Add to Wishlist" option not visible in iOS 7 App Store?

I do believe that you are attempting to add Free apps to your wishlist.  When you try this you do not get the open to add to your wishlist, just as you never could gift a free app.  Try again on a paid app and you should see the options Add to Wish List and Gift appear before Copy Link.


How to type backslash in Russian on Macbook pro

Try Russian Phonetic, option/alt + shift on the rightmost key on the bottom row.

I think to have the ё on Russia PC, you need to have an ISO keyboard (one with an extra key between the z and shift).

Some time ago I made a Russian PC layout where that character is more accessible.  If you want to try it (not sure it still works), go to

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/46870715/k/RussianPC2.keylayout


White MacBook hangs at gray Apple screen forever, won't boot to single user, won't mount using Disk Utility. What do I do next?

When this happens to me, I've found that resetting the PRAM/NVRAM often works.  (Sometimes it takes a couple restarts to see any results.)

Also, if you haven't already done so, take a look at Apple's troubleshooting steps for this problem.


Stuck on Connect to iTunes boot logo and can't connect to iTunes

iOS 9.0.2 is no longer being signed, so you are unable to restore to it.

You will need to restore to the latest version of iOS using DFU restore (connect to computer, hold power and home until the screen turns off and back on with the Apple logo, then let go of power but keep holding home).

Also, you should never use Update when a device is jailbroken regardless of iOS version.


Minimize buttons are disabled when I connect an external monitor

This is not expected behaviour, and without more information sounds like you might have a 3rd-part window management tool running that could affect the behaviour of existing windows.

If you run applications in Full-Screen mode, the "Minimise" button does get greyed out, if that helps


How can I stop iPhoto from uploading my videos to Facebook automatically?

When you add a Facebook to your mac, iPhoto can be set it to auto sync new photos.

To disable it change your Facebook password or search the iPhoto settings / Facebook permissions to disable auto sync. Alternately, removing the Facebook account from iPhoto or the OS (in the Mail, Contacts, Calendars preference pane) would do the trick as well.


natd should be runnng ... NAT means Network Address Translation, so it's basically translating (communicating) between the Modem and the Wifi Access Point to share your connection.

You can read more about it here, natd

So in short this needs to run to share your connection,

Hope this helps.

Karl


TextEditor with Overview of Search Tool's Result?

The engineer responded very fast and submitted a change in the Textmate 2 beta 9. It solves the problem. Now, clicking the find-window, the location of the document is also changed correspondingly.


Is it possible to interrupt installation procedure at power on

Yes it is.

If you quit the installer when it starts, it will shut down the computer, and next time it starts up it will run the installer from the start again.


Is allowing port 80 on Little Snitch safe?

No.

If, for all processes.

Pretty much yes.

If, only for web browsing.

As @StuWilson has pointed out, port 80 is for http traffic and port 443 is for https traffic. (http with TLS/SSL encryption).

It's not necessary to allow all traffic of all processes on port 80. But - for the sake of comfortable browsing - I strongly recommend enabling those ports for all traffic of webbrowsers  like Safari or Chrome.

For comparison, this is my setup of Chrome in HandsOff!:

Basic communication

Allow all outgoing network connections on port 443 (https)
Allow all outgoing network connections on port 80 (http)
Allow all domain resolving

Sync

Allow all outgoing network connections to talk.google.com on port 5222

Other (e.g. media)

Allow all outgoing network connections to atracktive.collegehumor.com on port 9090 (websm)
...

Setting up a firewall can be quite a hassle. Generally - when I've expected a certain connection to build up, and know what it's for, I allow it. But you should only interfere network connections when you know what you're doing.

Many system processses regulary build up (local) network connections that are certainly valid. If you don't know how to guard a firewall, you become the first security risk for your own computer. Make sure to educate yourself on network protocols when building your own firewall.


As you are new to Mac and macOS, it is recommended to browse through Apple's official guides. A couple of them are linked below. They cover a lot of advance features and helpful tips for power user:

Welcome to macOS
Meet your Mac

Since you are also a software developer, it is worth mentioning that macOS is based on BSD and offers a robust UNIX platform. You can also find all the major developer tools build natively for macOS. Command-line experience from using Linux can be easily transferred over. macOS comes with all the major shells (bash, zsh, ksh, csh) preinstalled, and they are accessible via Terminal.app. Bash is the default login shell (just like most major Linux distributions).

Homebrew, a community developed package manager is widely popular among software developers. It is recommended to have it installed for managing packages. Homebrew also lets one easily install UNIX tools that Apple either don't provide in the default install, or provide an outdated version of. It is comparable to apt-get in Linux.

Homebrew Cask, an extension of Homebrew project can be used to easily manage installation of GUI applications.

A very popular and detailed guide for software developers setting up a new Mac can be found here: macOS Setup Guide

Ars Technica has had a tradition of doing a long form review of new macOS release every year. You can find it interesting as a potential power user, and can pick up a lot of new tricks. The review for macOS 10.14 Mojave (latest release of macOS as of this writing) can be found here: macOS 10.14 Mojave: The Ars Technica review

Lastly, if you are looking to build software for use with any of the various Apple products, don't forget to check out the comprehensive developer website, which has tons of resources for developing software and hardware accessories for Apple platform.


Catalina ask password to delete user but password is always wrong

I found the solution!

This was a user I created after the factory reset and therefore was created on High Sierra.

macOS High Sierra has a bug around the user 501 which is the very first user you create after login:

https://medium.com/@ambroselittle/cant-delete-original-admin-user-on-macos-high-sierra-1d79fb438246

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8087348

So what we are going to do now is substitute the user you want to keep with the user 501 that you want to delete.
Is a bit hacky but it worked on my Catalina:

System Preferences > Login Options > Join… > Open Directory Utility…
Click to unlock it. (You may need to Enable Root User in Edit menu.)
Go to Directory Editor. Search to find the user you can’t delete — the original user that was logged in when upgrading to High Sierra.
Find the GeneratedUID field on the right and copy it somewhere safe.
Change one digit in it and Save.
Find your new/main user account > GeneratedUID, paste in the one copied above. Save.
Run diskutil apfs updatePreboot / in Terminal.
Reboot.
Login as your main user. You should be able to delete the original user now.

Strange that the upgrade to Catalina is not backward compatible and doesn't fix the issue related to previous users.


I don't know. But I bet you can do both

defaults delete com.apple.loginwindow Finder

or

defaults write com.apple.loginwindow Finder /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app


Batch Video Transcoding for the web OS X (GUI, not command line)

You should have a look on Sorenson Squeeze.

It is a professionnal video encoding software supporting a lot of formats including WebM, mp4(h264).

It has an intuitive GUI like Adobe Media Encoder.


How do I extract the contents of a specified text field within a webpage using applescript?

Although the page you supplied is returning an image of the answers which means you cannot return text from it.

The source of the page holds the answer in text form in a javascript function.

This applescript is using one of my old methods to get the text between pattens.

I would probably now do this using ApplescriptOBJC but thought it better to keep it in Applescript with a dash of shell. As it may be more understandable.

tell application "Safari" to set theString to (source of document 1)

(* Strip the text and only return the last line*)
set input to do shell script "echo " & (quoted form of theString) & "|sed -n \"/stringified/,/mInput/p\" | sed '$!N;$!D'"

global answer

set offSet1 to "\"stringified\": \""
set offSet2 to "\",\"mInput\""

my strip(offSet1, offSet2, input)

return answer
on strip(offSet1, offSet2, thedata)
    (* Use the offsets of the pattens to match the text # thru # *)
    set textNumber1 to (offset of offSet1 in thedata)
    set theData1 to text -1 thru (textNumber1 + (count of offSet1)) of thedata
    set textNumber2 to (offset of offSet2 in theData1)
    set textString2 to text from word 1 to (textNumber2 - 1) of theData1
    set thedata to theData1
    set answer to textString2
end strip

Update.

The OP has pointed out that there is an option to have a popup show the answer in plain text.

This is not obvious to anyone who is not familiar with the site. The popup does not exist in the page source until you click this option, which is the reason I could not find the classes the OP was referring to in the page source.

The first script above does not need you to click any option or get the popup.

But if for some reason you do then you can use this script which will require you to have the popup on display first.:

tell application "Safari"
    set input to do JavaScript "theclass = document.getElementsByClassName('popup ui-draggable')[0]; theclass.getElementsByTagName('PRE')[0].innerHTML;" in document 1
end tell


Messages: Online status or Last seen time

No. Messages (formerly iMessage) doesn't have any of these features.

Since the feature is not available, there is no way to obtain either of the information by any means.

However, delivery time and read receipt with time (if enabled by the recipient) feature is available in Messages and is shown just below the message bubble.


Simple answer: No.

The Integrated GPU in the MBA can allocate up to 1.5 GB of system memory.

There is no way for the user to change this in macOS.

Intel HD Graphics

Apple computers using newer versions of Intel HD Graphics as the primary GPU dynamically allocate up to 1.5 GB of system memory.

Products with Intel HD Graphics 6000:

MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2015)
MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015)
iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2015)

From this Apple Support document.


No - iMessage works over any viable network connection.

Assuming you are on an iPod touch, since WiFi is your only viable network, then it follows you need WiFi, but it's not a limitation of iMessage as much as it is of your hardware. iMessage works fine over ethernet, cellular data equally as well as WiFi.


Why is the Location Services icon always present?

It's a new feature in ios 5 called "region Monitoring"

The reason it's active even if the app is closed is that this feature runs in iOS 5 core and notifies all apps that are registered when they have entered or left a specific geo-fence.

Reminders does that when you use a location based reminder.

Although the location icon appears at all time. This actually has very minimal impact on the battery due to apple really optimizing this feature by using cell and wifi mostly.