AirPlay goes through your local network, whether that's over Wi-Fi or wired ethernet or both.

To resolve your problems, you should probably clarify what you mean by "laggy".

Latency (Delay)

There is some latency (delay between when your Mac sends a signal and when it's displayed) inherent in the AirPlay technology, which can be compounded by latency in Wi-Fi. For something like playing a movie, a few hundred milliseconds of latency isn't a big deal, but it can be if you're trying to use it for something more interactive (e.g. a presentation, gaming, etc.).

The best way to reduce latency is to use wired instead of wireless networking, however given the limitations of AirPlay, it may not be sufficient for some intended uses (like gaming).

Other Issues

If you're experiencing poor quality or videos having to buffer, that's likely a problem with bandwidth, rather than latency. In this case, the issue could be your router — some simply have higher throughput than others, but it could also be an issue with the environment around you. The more Wi-Fi networks and other EM interference, the worse your signal will be. The construction of your house can also be a problem.

A better router can help in some, but not all situations — if the environment isn't conducive to good Wi-Fi (long range, lots of other networks, or thick walls), then a better router may not help. A wired network can help, and will certainly be more reliable.

There's no surefire way to know what your issue is without a bit of trial and error. If a wired network is possible, that will guarantee the best speed and reliability, but if you're looking for low latency over AirPlay, it may not be enough.


How can you switch users at the login screen, without administrator access, with only one local account (the administrator) and many network accounts?

As long as it is ok to forcibly log-out the user, you just need to to logon as the local admin using Apple Remote Desktop (available in the App Store) or ssh (through a terminal), and kill that user's loginwindow process.  You must login to the computer and not simply "Share screen" from Finder.  Then you will be able to login.

Here's a really easy-to-read article about this.

Of course, for either of those options to work, you have to enable Remote Login and Remote Management in "Sharing" under the System Preferences.  The Sharing menu is shown below:

If you would rather use fast-user-switching, which I personally don't like because it can often really slow down your computer, then you can set up an "logout user after x minutes of activity" option in the System Preferences -> Security & Privacy, which will return you to a login screen.  There may also be nice hacks if you search around, that allow you to get the user-switching icon or a keyboard shortcut setup to do a fast-switch, or trigger a switch or logout by tweaking a call to CGSession, although that may have been possible only in older OSX versions.  There is a huge discussion of many other ideas in that last link as well.


What is the default folder structure for an iTunes library?

Indeed, the only folder that iTunes uses to look for media by default is iTunes Media.

However, that doesn't mean that you can simply delete those other folders. You might be referencing files from those folders in your iTunes library. Check those folders for music, and only if there's no files you need in there, then delete them.


Folder created in Photoshop not showing up in finder

chflags nohidden path/to/the/file will unhide your file in Finder.


Why do iOS devices take such a long time to turn back on?

Like you said in a comment, it's more a software limitation. Even though there's probably some hardware safeguard.

If you plug your iPhone a millisecond before it reaches the shutdown limit, then, no harm done, it doesn't need to shut down, power is there to keep the phone running and recharge the battery.

If you plug you phone after the shutdown limit, then the limitation is in place to ensure things will go well the next time you power it up. If it allowed to power up the phone any time, then what if it is unplugged while booting. There wouldn't be enough juice for the phone to be fully back on and it would shutdown while booting.

That's something that could damage the phone or the OS.

So to ensure that this wouldn't happen, Apple probably put the arbitrary 5% limit.


iOS: auto-repair unreliable/malfunctioning Wi-Fi connection?

Unfortunately, there is no way to configure your wifi settings without jailbreaking and installing a non-approved third-party application. By default applications on iOS devices are not granted access to configure wifi settings. Sorry.


How to delete a folder that has 65535 links on it?

Wow.  I suggest  trying the following:

cd ~
sudo find ./.Trash/X -delete

If that stalls out, then try:

cd ~
sudo rm -rf ./.Trash/X/*
sudo rm -f ./.Trash/X/*
sudo rm -rf ./.Trash/X

If that triptych also fails, then I would like to see the output of

sudo stat -x ./.Trash/X

Hope that this helps,

F.


iPhone GMail Push Setup (Exchange) Delete > Bin rather than Delete > Archive?

You need to enable the "Delete Email As Trash" setting through Google Sync. Google added this feature in 2012:

On your iOS device, visit http://m.google.com/sync/settings and log in.
Select your device from the list on the "Manage devices" page.
Click the "Enable "Delete Email As Trash" for this device" checkbox.
Tap "Save" to accept the new setting.

Now when you delete an email on your iOS device, it will be sent to the "Trash" folder instead of the "All Mail" folder in Gmail.

Note: This feature is only relevant if you’ve setup your Gmail account in iOS mail as a Microsoft Exchange account.


Login to the Guest Account.
Disable Little Snitch Network Filter
Open Library > Preferences,  copy at.obdev.LittleSnitch... to a shared folder
Logout and Login to Main Account
Open Terminal and run sudo su
Open Library/username/Library/Preferences and overwrite file with copied file.
Logout and Login to Guest Account.  LS is Disabled.


Fix accepted invitation with "floating" timezone?

The answer is yes. I've written an AppleScript that will convert the incorrect Exchange produced TZID to a properly formatted one. This means the fix is only on Mac OS.

I've a post on this, https://thefragens.com/ical-exchange-time-zone-fix-chapter-3/

Let's start at the beginning. Sometimes integration of a Mac in the corporate environment is a bit difficult and takes a bit of ingenuity. This is especially true when dealing with Exchange. The current versions of iCal and iCal Server are CalDAV and iCalendar compliant. Only Outlook 2007 is said to be CalDAV and iCalendar compliant. Previous versions of Outlook are not compliant and don’t play well with other calendar applications. Here’s the actual time zone (TZID) spec and the spec for how it should be formatted. You can see by looking at it that the TZID that Outlook produces is non-compliant.

A quick Google search shows an article or two that explain this very well.

I've found that there are at least 3 different types of invites that can be sent by Exchange/Outlook.

METHOD:REQUEST - This is the usual email requesting that you attend a meeting.
METHOD:PUBLISH - This is essentially a publication notice for an event. It doesn't ask you to reply.
METHOD:CANCEL - This is a cancellation notice for an event.

Additionally, I've found that the emails that contain these invites are formated in at least 3 different ways. Sometimes the calendar event is within the body of the message and is encoded with Content-Transfer-Encoding in either 8bit or quoted-printable. Always the .ics file is attached.

My script does the following:

It parses the message to either extract the calendar data from the body of the message or from the .ics attachment.
It then figures out if the invite is of type METHOD:REQUEST, METHOD:PUBLISH or METHOD:CANCEL.
If the invite is one of the first 2 types. The time zone is fixed and the event is imported into iCal. You might have to select into which calendar the event will be imported.
If the invite is of type METHOD:CANCEL then the script will locate the corresponding event and set it's status to cancelled.

You will have to manually delete the event. It will appear in iCal to have a white strike-through font style.
Repeating events all seem to have the same UID (Unique IDentifier).

I don't know why. Every repeating event will be thusly marked as cancelled. You will then manually delete the specific event and manually run the script again while the cancellation message is selected. This will reset the remaining repeating events back to confirmed. Yes, I know this is a bit of a kludge but I don't have a better method.

It will parse the message to allow for invites from multiple Exchange servers.

My script, now re-named iCal-Invite-Fix.scpt, will need to be customized for each Exchange server from which you receive invites. There are 3 properties at the beginning of the script. They are exchange_fragment, ical_tzid and myCalendar. These first two properties are lists and the order of the items is crucial. The specific item (position in list) of each list must correspond to each other.

exchange_fragment is a unique fragment of the TZID that your Exchange server sends.
ical_tzid is the time zone of the Exchange server in proper format.
This means no spaces, though spaces are replaced automatically with the underscore '_'.
For instance, I'm in Southern California and the correct time zone should be written as US/Pacific or America/Los_Angeles. You can find this information by selecting the time zone drop down menu in the upper right corner of your iCal window and select Other.... If you look in iCal's upper right corner for the time zone menu bar the last example will appear as America/Los Angeles.
myCalendar is the name of the calendar that normally receives the events. It is needed for the cancellation to function.

As the image above shows there are now only 2 properties, both of which are lists. These lists work together as an array; which means the order of the list items is crucial.

exchange_fragment contains unique fragments of the TZID that the Exchange server sends.
ical_tzid contains the tzid info that iCal expects to see.

Save the script and either set it up to run from a mail rule or as I do call it from the System AppleScript menu. You will need to save the script in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail/ folder. Create this folder if it doesn’t exist.

To set the script up to run automatically you will need to create a new Mail rule as follows.

Mail -> Preferences -> Rules -> Add Rule
Description "iCal Invite Fix"
If "any" of the following conditions are met:

"Any Attachment Name" "ends with" ".ics"

Perform the following actions:

Run AppleScript "~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail/iCal-Invite-Fix.scpt"

Click "OK" and then "Apply"

You can also run the script manually from the system-wide script menu. To install this menu. Open up the /Applications/AppleScript/AppleScript Utility.app and check the Show Script menu in menu bar box. If you put the script in the folder location indicated above it will now be visible when Mail.app is the current application.

Download the iCal-Invite-Fix script.

Please let me know if there are any problems or you need help setting this up. The script was not entirely my creation and credit also goes to others. I’m quite certain any errors are likely mine. ;-)

Updated 12/28/2008: Added ability to use single script with multiple Exchange servers. The trade-off is a slightly more complex set up.


iTunes 10.3 thinks it's a version below? No ping, locked out from iphone sync

You're in troubles. :(

How you updated your iphone to IOS5-beta without iTunes 10.5? Asking because iTunes 10.5 is only for developers now.

from the: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/06/06/apple_says_devices_updated_to_ios_5_beta_cant_be_restored_to_earlier_versions.html

In releasing several pieces of pre-release software -- iTunes 10.5, Apple TV 2 beta, Xcode 4.2 Preview and Lion Preview 4 -- to its developer community, Apple on Monday warned testers of its new iOS 5.0 software that any devices updated to the beta cannot be reverted or downgraded to previous versions.

You need iTunes 10.5 - developer release yet - whats mean register yourself as developer for 99USD/year.


What does "FileVault: No (Encrypted at rest)" mean?

It means that the SSD is encrypted by the built-in T2 chip. On newer Macs encryption is always enabled and handled by the T2 chip.
This means that the disk is encrypted when at rest, essentially meaning when the computer is powered off and/or the disk drive is removed from the computer. However as soon as someone turns on the computer, the T2 will supply the necessary key and make the drive contents available.
You will most probably want to enable FileVault. This ensures that your drive cannot be decrypted simply by powering on the computer, but will require your secret password.


Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and often requires some patience. In your case the best option may be to just reinstall macOS, but before doing that there's a few things we can try.

The first thing I'd probably do is start your Mac in Safe Mode and test to see if you can use your system

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. can you launch Terminal, view About this Mac, etc)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Again, take a note of what happens (i.e. can you launch Terminal, view About this Mac, etc)

Once you've booted into Safe Mode, let me know how you went and we'll go from there. Primarily we need to establish if everything works okay in Safe Mode or not, and whether things get back to normal afterwards.


How can I tell if someone logged in to my macOS Sierra?

Yes, ever since macOS Sierra, it is possible that Console isn't displaying your past activity. You may want to refer to this question: Sierra Console.app show earlier data

With regard to your question title, it's not clear exactly what details you're after, but one option open to you is using the last command in Terminal.

More specifically:

Launch Terminal (usually found in the Utilities folder)
Once the square cursor appears, type last
Press the enter key

This will produce a list of sessions in reverse time order.


How to set a consistent location for drives mounted on boot?

Is there a way to set how the drives mount on boot so they are always at the same mounting location/path?

You don't need to specify the order in which they boot; you use the UUID.   To get the UUID of a drive in macOS use the command:
% diskutil info diskXsY | grep -i UUID

where X is the disk number (i.e. /dev/disk5) and Y is the slice or partition number (i.e. disk5s1)
For example, I inserted a random USB flash disk that identified as /dev/disk7.  Issuing the command as detailed above
% diskutil info disk7s1 | grep -i UUID
Volume UUID:               0E239BC6-F960-3107-89CF-1C97F78BB46B
Disk / Partition UUID:     DF8CB142-B426-4F62-841C-5D26904CF54C

The Disk UUID is the second entry.
So, to identify this disk anytime it's been attached to the Mac, you can use the UUID.  For example:
% diskutil list DF8CB142-B426-4F62-841C-5D26904CF54C
/dev/disk8 (external, physical):
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *16.0 GB    disk8
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk8s1
2:          Apple_CoreStorage MyTest                  15.7 GB    disk8s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk8s3

If you notice, it now has an identifier of disk8.  I had inserted another USB flash forcing the drive identifier to change proving that this is a valid method.
If you must use the drive identifier, create a function that determines the identifier via the UUID. For example, the following command will get your the disk identifier of the attached drive with the UUID:
% diskutil list DF8CB142-B426-4F62-841C-5D26904CF54C | awk '/dev/ { print $1 } '

/dev/disk8

You could create a Bash/Zsh function to return this info for you on demand.
Regarding non-removable media...

Each time I reboot my computer, when I run diskutil list the order of the mounted drives changes: /dev/disk0 becomes /dev/disk1 and vice versa

I can't see this happening.  Non-removable media does not change.  Your boot device is specified in NVRAM meaning /disk0 will be what you boot from and since it's defined in the preboot environment disk0 and disk1 will not swap places.  The only time this can happen is during Recovery (you're booting from a different volume) but then, when booting from Recovery, you're not loading anything there, especially your VB app.
Now, if you're referring to removable devices, yes, it is possible for the identifier to change (I did it in my example).  This is why you use the disk UUID to ensure you're always access the same drive regardless of when it gets attached.


How to identify iPad model based solely on Serial Number?

This Apple page checks support, warranty, and AppleCare availability for Apple products.

Entering an Apple device serial number, however, will also display that device's model and type. I just tried it with the iMac on which I'm typing this answer, and it returned the correct information. Should work as well on your mystery iPad.

EDIT: `This more specific Apple page identifies the iPad model from its serial number. I don't have an iPad so I can't check if it provides the detail you want.


How to uninstall "Munki Managed Software Center.app"?

From: Removing Munki

Removing the client tools:

sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.googlecode.munki.*

sudo rm -rf "/Applications/Utilities/Managed Software Update.app"
#Munki 2 only:
sudo rm -rf "/Applications/Managed Software Center.app"

sudo rm -f /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.googlecode.munki.*
sudo rm -f /Library/LaunchAgents/com.googlecode.munki.*
sudo rm -rf "/Library/Managed Installs"
sudo rm -rf /usr/local/munki
sudo rm /etc/paths.d/munki

sudo pkgutil --forget com.googlecode.munki.admin
sudo pkgutil --forget com.googlecode.munki.app
sudo pkgutil --forget com.googlecode.munki.core
sudo pkgutil --forget com.googlecode.munki.launchd

# reset App Store to pull updates from default Apple servers
sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL

BTW This gets done in a Terminal.


Key to boot from USB on Ubuntu Macbook 2007

First step is to discover if the OS on the USB stick is properly formatted and built for a boot device.

For this you will need a Mac running OS X. Insert the stick and go to System Preferences → Startup Disk. If your stick is ready to boot a Mac it will appear in the selection pane :-

If it is there then your USB stick is bootable. Just insert it into your MacBook and hold down the Option key when it starts up and it will let you choose the boot device. Use the arrow keys to select your stick and then hit return.

If it doesn't show up the most likely reason is a badly formatted stick. Your stick must use a GUID partition table and the boot partition must be formatted Mac OS X Extended (Journalled).


Word for Mac: how to increase/decrease font size with (laptop) keyboard?

Microsoft Word for Mac 2019 now has built-in shortcuts for this:

⌘ Command+] increases the font size by one step

⌘ Command+[ decreases the font size by one step


How do I change the clip length with the iMovie 2011 trailer presets?

Yes, you can do this.  I'd recommend using the storyboard shot list to get as much of the trailer done as you want following the recommended settings/lengths.

Then, when you are ready to take more control, use the File->Convert to Project menu option.  This will transition the Project settings to the normal iMovie project version and you can change clip durations using the "Clip Adjustments" popup.  You can also drag more event footage into the project/change or add transitions, etc. just as you would a normal project.


Is it possible to disable the game center completely and permanently in iOS 6?

I'm concluding the answer is no until someone proves otherwise.


I've run into this before. IOS hangs on to some files even though it should purge them. Often times it will also show up as the "other" part of usage in the space used graph being much bigger than it should. It's easy enough to fix though.

Back up your phone with iTunes. I would encrypt the backup so it saves your passwords.
Now we wipe the phone: settings > general > reset and erase all contents and settings.
Once that is done restore the IOS device. Plug it back into your computer and use iTunes to restore from the backup you just made.

Nine times out of ten that will get rid of all the cruft sitting around on your iPad (or iPhone).

Why this is necessary... well ask Apple.


The CLI for keychains is security.

It lets you do many things such as setting passwords:

security add-generic-password [-a account] [-s service] [-w password] [options...] [-A|-T appPath] [keychain]

Read the man page for more info or do security help.


Prioritise Wi-Fi over GPS Location on iOS

On the Meraki Dashboard go to Wireless -> Configure -> SSIDs and click "rename" under that specific SSID and make sure that it's set exactly as your other one from your downstairs and hit the Save Changes button. Then click on the "edit settings" button and mimic the same authentication settings as that one and that should cause your phone to roam from one to the other on the same band but what you do want to make sure is to go into your Radio settings menu on the dashboard and assign the upstairs AP a different channel as your downstairs so that it would roam seamlessly


You could easily make a custom layout that does what you want with Ukelele. Here is one you can try.


Why do pages load quickly on Safari on macOS, but not on Chrome?

There is no specific solution or answer for such a thing. First, Chrome is a memory hungry application. However, here are the basic reasons. For others, we have to know the details.

Reason 1: Your Cache is Beyond Overworked
Reason 2: Chrome is Outdated
Reason 3: Flash is Always Enabled
Reason 4: Overzealous Plugins/Extensions

Clear the cache, revmoe extensions and disable flash if needed.

But as I mentioned earlier, these are the primary workaround. Else, you can try to reinstall your Chrome.


Is it safer to use a guest account when streaming from projectfreetv?

In this Top 10 list (for Mac Internet security), one recommendation is:

  Special bonus item (for advanced users):

  Consider running your Mac as a non-administrative user most of the time. This is an advanced technique that provides few immediate
  benefits, but, similar to anti-virus applications, acts as "insurance"
  by limiting any damage that could result from a security breach.
  Someone gaining access to your machine would still have access to many
  of your files, but not to most of the underlying machine and OS
  itself. The easiest way to run as a non-admin user is to create a new,
  administrative account and then change your normally used account to a
  non-administrative one.

This step would be part of a layered security approach, and probably could be applied to any OS - one wouldn't normally use an admin/root account in Linux, for example. Other sources endorse this approach as a security best practice (see this forum post and this page from the Stanford Secure Computing site).


How to install homebrew to /usr rather than /usr/local

One way is to modify the install.sh script in homebrew git source and change HOMEBREW_PREFIX to point to whereever you want homebrew to install.
In my case, I've decided to use /usr/local2, because of some restrictions on /usr/local in OSX Catalina, so modify install.sh with HOMEBREW_PREFIX=/usr/local2 and HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY=/usr/local2/Homebrew before running ./install.sh.
Two problems you have to watch:

Some packages insist on installing in /usr/local unless you manually hunt down and modify the source (not trivial)
Installing in a directory that already has similar/equal files can overwrite them and render your system unstable. Especially /usr, where a lot of system commands exist there, which you never want to replace at all.


Using an expired SIM card in Airplane Mode

The reason it says "Sprint Wi-Fi" at the top of the display is that you currently have "Wi-Fi Calling" enabled. This means that your calls and text messages are sent via Wi-Fi over the public internet to Sprint instead of being transferred via a cell signal. This is a helpful feature when you haven't got a cell signal, but have an internet connection over Wi-Fi.

The word "Sprint" comes from the packet gateway that the phone connects to over Wi-Fi. It is not read off the SIM-card as such. Your provider Ting has a cooperation with Sprint to use the packet gateways of Sprint to enable this feature.
If you cancel your subscription with your provider, Wi-Fi Calling will also stop working. It doesn't matter if you're in AirPlane mode or not - when you try to place a call using Wi-Fi Calling it will be rejected by Ting/Sprint if you have cancelled your subscription.
These answers are not specific to Ting/Sprint, but are true for any cell provider that supports Wi-Fi Calling.


Dell U2410 HDMI + OS X Lion very poor quality

The problem was caused by OS X outputting in YPbPr not RGB. YPbPr sends approximate colours and is used primarily for TVs. Unlike Windows, OS X didn't recognise the Dell as a Monitor because of the HDMI connection. Shifting to a DVI connector fixed this and forced RGB colour data, and thus, correct colours.

So no, it was not a problem with callibrating the monitor or its colour profile


Automatically Converting PDF Beamer Slides into Keynote Slides

Launch Keynote

As mac Keynote cannot open PDF directly, you will need to launch Keynote by opening an existing Keynote file. Just click on the    file,    and Keynote will automatically open the file.

Drag and drop the PDF you want to convert to Keynote to left side where all the Keynote pages are listed in thumbnails. You can    move up    and down while dragging the PDF to the Keynote. On the    right panel,    you can choose style, image and arrange icons to    tweak the setting of    imported PDF.

Go to File > Save to save the Keynote file. Your PDF is now converted to Keynote on mac.


This video recommends resetting the SMC:

Turn off your computer.
Plug in the MagSafe adapter.
Press Shift-Option-Control, on the left side of the keyboard, and the power button, at the same time and hold it for 5 seconds.
Let go of all the buttons.
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

For more information on the SMC reset see this Apple support article


How to render only first page in PDF as image and then resize?

Since there is no way to extract a single page from a PDF in Automator, you can try with this Python script. It will extract the first page of each passed pdf in a temporary pdf file:

#! /usr/bin/python
#
import sys
import os
import tempfile
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import *
from os.path import splitext
from os.path import basename
from os.path import join

def createPDFDocumentWithPath(path):
    return CGPDFDocumentCreateWithURL(CFURLCreateFromFileSystemRepresentation(kCFAllocatorDefault, path, len(path), False))

def main(argv):

    for input_pdf_filename in argv:
        doc = createPDFDocumentWithPath(input_pdf_filename)
        page_one = CGPDFDocumentGetPage(doc, 1)
        mediaBox = CGPDFPageGetBoxRect(page_one, kCGPDFMediaBox)
        if CGRectIsEmpty(mediaBox):
            mediaBox = None

        file_name, extension = splitext(basename(input_pdf_filename))
        output_path = join(tempfile.gettempdir(), file_name + "_page1" + extension)
        writeContext = CGPDFContextCreateWithURL(CFURLCreateFromFileSystemRepresentation(kCFAllocatorDefault, output_path, len(output_path), False), None, None)
        CGContextBeginPage(writeContext, mediaBox)
        CGContextDrawPDFPage(writeContext, page_one)
        CGContextEndPage(writeContext)
        CGPDFContextClose(writeContext)
        del writeContext

        print output_path

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main(sys.argv[1:])

You can put it as a Run Shell Script step in an Automator workflow, similar to what @Graham Miln suggested:

Be sure to set Pass Input to as arguments, not to to stdin in the Run Shell Script step.


bash not finding executables on Catalina: why & how to fix?

This is due to use of the special variable PATH (in while read PATH). PATH is used by they system as a list of directories to find command executables; if it doesn't point to the usual binaries directories, the OS won't be able to find commands any more.

Solution: use a different (preferably lower- or mixed-case) name for the variable.

There are quite a few all-caps variable names with some sort of special meaning to the shell, operating system, or various commands themselves. To avoid stumbling into conflicts and unintended consequences like this, it's generally best to avoid all-caps variable names in shell scripts (unless you want the special meaning). In fact, according to the POSIX standard for environment variables:

  The name space of environment variable names containing lowercase
  letters is reserved for applications. Applications can define any
  environment variables with names from this name space without
  modifying the behavior of the standard utilities.


Will Catalina users be able to stubbornly cling to iTunes?

The page you've linked specially states that 12.8 is available for "previous versions of macOS". I think it is clear that iTunes on Catalina is not an intended configuration, nor is it probably officially supported by Apple.

Indeed if you try to install iTunes 12 on the Catalina GM, you'll be informed that it is incompatible software - and won't install.

If you really, really want to run iTunes on Catalina, you can use this script to allow installation.


Apple calendar 'wireless' icon next to secondary Gmail account calendars


AppleScript checking if folder exists causes “AppleEvent handler failed” error -10000

I think I found the answer: removed the word 'folder' from the if statements and now it works!

If anyone could confirm this is the proper syntax that would be great.

tell application "Finder"

    set targetFolder to POSIX file "/Users/Billy/TESTING/FOLDER1" -- Existing folder

    if exists targetFolder then
        say "TRUE" -- result!!
    else
        say "FALSE"
    end if

    set targetFolder to POSIX file "/Users/Billy/TESTING/FOLDER2" -- Non-existing folder

    if exists targetFolder then
        say "TRUE"
    else
        say "FALSE" -- result!!
    end if

end tell


Safari reuses already existing tabs instead of opening new ones

In Safari Preferences -> Tabs -> Check the box for "⌘-click opens a link in a new tab".  Then use ⌘-click to force it to open a new tab in Safari when clicking the same URL domain.


Which font extension is used on both PC and Mac?

Mac OS X recognizes TrueType and OpenType fonts (.ttf and .otf) but not the PC bitmap fonts (.fon).

So depending on the copyrights of the fonts you may transfer the .ttf and .otf font files.

To install the fonts:

Under Mac OS X 10.3 or above (including the FontBook)
Double-click the font file > "Install font" button at the bottom of the preview.
Under any version of Mac OS X:
Put the files into /Library/Fonts (for all users),
or into /Users/Your_username/Library/Fonts (for you only).


Securely remove personal information, without reinstall on Yosemite?

You are on the right track. With modern storage, the value of secure wipe is so little, I prefer to just write files over the free space.

Make a new account - do this before deleting yours.
Download Rick Astley movies to the new user until space fills.
Delete your user account - choose to delete the files
Perform "paranoid" log cleaning and purging of system keychain items you feel are personal
Use Disk Utility to securely wipe free space. (Optional)
Continue to download videos and then hand in the Mac as ordered.

If you need help with http://brew.sh to download Rick Astley, please (pretty please) ask that and I'm sure someone can provide a nice script to get some youtube-dl going and then copy the files again and again to fill up space nicely.

Spotlight won't contain anything at that point you care about. If you are paranoid:

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
sudo rm /var/vm/*

Inspect the /var/log folder and srm or truncate / delete everything you find.

An alternate method would be to use Time Machine to only back up the files you choose to restore and not mess with filling space. For every file you wish to check:

tmutil isexcluded /path/to/SystemKeychain.key

You can build up exclusions to your satisfaction and then make one backup once you've normal deleted all private files that are not excluded by rule. They you're free to wipe everything / fill up everything and then install a totally clean OS and use the migration assistant to migrate back just the company files that you've backed up.

Unless you're going to do this multiple times, it's probably not a big difference in the amount of effort it would require you to implement either of these choices. Pick the strategy that makes more sense to you.


This might help:

Apple discussions

It says that you can't compress certain folders like smart folders that are created in the 'All My Files' and 'Recents' box.


Protecting a user home folder using chmod and umask

macOS by default sets the permission on the standard directories (Documents, Pictures, Music, Library etc) to 0700. If this somehow got changed you can easily run

chmod 0700 ~/{Documents,Pictures,Music,Library,Downloads,Movies}

to fix it. And of course you can use the same command to change the access rights for other directories as needed.

To also protect any dot files etc you can also run

 chmod 0700 ~.

In any case you don't need to specially treat subfolders if the parent folder is already protected.


I can't update from Lion 10.7.5 to El Capitan

Please activate (click on the desktop) your Finder and press the Keys CMD + Shift + G copy and paste the following path in the Box and hit Enter.

/private/var/folders

Went into the folder RZ (if is not present look for the folder 35). You will see a new folder witch was replaced xxxxxxx-xxxxxxx. In this folder you find the subfolder C and into it com.apple.appstore.
Remove this to your desktop (please don't delete unless you are sure that you have not additional problems).  Restart your mac and try to download EL Capitan from the Appstore again.

Additional Information:

If you not able to locate the folder on my steps above open the Terminal copy and paste the following command:

sudo find / -name "com.apple.appstore"

You need to Enter you Password for search. Remember that you not see any input if you type you password. But the Terminal recognize your input.
You get a list in the Output window of the Terminal with location path in /private/var/folder .

Note: If you not use bash as standard Shell you need to type

exec bash

first before you use the command above.


How to use environment variables in applescript

Try this:

log "Glassfish Home: " & (system attribute "AS_HOME")


There could be any number of issues here; not enough room on the device, corrupt image(s), adding photos in the wrong place... Since I can't know what your exact issue is without more details, I will offer up a suggestion for a "flow" that works for me.

I sync photos from various cameras (including iPhones) to iPhoto
In iPhoto, I have setup a Smart Folder that has at least a Date filter of Last X Months where X is something you can specify depending on how far back in time you want to sync over to your iPhone

Once it is setup, iPhoto will show you the photos that match that filter

Finally, in iTunes, you will connect your iPhone, select it in the iTunes window and using the tab bar at the top, select Photos. Turn on Sync Photos from iPhoto, select Selected albums, events and faces, and automatically include no events (note: include whatever events you want there, I include none). Then scroll down in the Albums list until you see the Smart Folder that you created in iPhoto and put a checkmark next to it.

Then the next time you sync your iPhone with iTunes, it should sync over all the photos in that Smart Folder. If it is too many, you can reduce the time frame that you pull photos from or use tags in iPhoto to mark some pictures to exclude and then include that information in your Smart Folder setup (telling that folder to exclude those tags).

If this is not the kind of information that helps you, then post some more info about the issues you are having so we can try to answer those specific issues directly.

Good luck!


Mouse not Working, need to operate Mouse through Keyboard

You need to enable Mouse Keys under the Mouse & Keyboard section in the Accessibility pane in System Preferences.

This allows you to move the mouse using the keyboard number pad (hold the Option key + number pad key)


Unable to send email with Mac Mail via Mailgun

Go to: Connection Doctor in the Windows menu item...

Then enable the log, or select show details to see if anything in the log helps you to see what the issue is...


How do I type the power icon on an Apple Keyboard?

Go to Edit > Emoji & Symbols, click on the gear wheel at top left, select Customize, check the box for Unicode, then find 23FB.  If blank, download and install the font Symbola.

https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/23fb/index.htm

(From the keyboard, you need to activate the Unicode Hex input source in System Preferences/Keyboard/Input Sources and then type 23fg while holding down the Option key).


Change OSX encryption filevault password to match login pass

Just bumped into this issue too, if you change password via

  Settings > Users & Groups > Change Password ...

you will be prompted twice, once for the File Vault original password and again for the new account password.  However if you change the password via

  Settings > Security & Privacy > Change Password ...

both will be updated, noting that you will be required to enter the account password not the File Vault original password, so you can reset the File Vault password by entering your new password three times.


To repartition your hard drive (under macOS Sierra)

Open Disk Utility.
Select physical drive (most top level), not any of the partitions you have.
Click Partition button in the top row of buttons.
Select first of your two other partitions and press - button. This shall remove selected partition.
Repeat for the second of your other two partitions.
Select your first partition (where macOS is installed).
Drag resize control (press ⌘ for it to appear) or enter size manually to use all available space and press Apply.

Then follow these steps to prepare your Mac for sale.

What to do before selling or giving away your Mac

When preparing to sell or give away your Mac, you may want to erase some or all files from its hard drive. But first determine whether you should back up your computer and disable certain features and services. These steps show the recommended sequence of actions:

Deauthorize your computer from iTunes, if applicable.
Back up your data using Time Machine or other backup methods.
If you use Find My Mac or other iCloud features on this Mac, complete these steps:

Back up your iCloud content.
Choose Apple Menu () > System Preferences, then click iCloud.
Deselect the Find My Mac checkbox.
Sign out of iCloud. When you sign out of iCloud, you're asked whether you want to remove iCloud data from your Mac. Removing iCloud data in this way makes sure that the data isn't also removed from any of your other devices that are using the same iCloud account.

Sign out of iMessage:

In the Messages app, choose Preferences > Accounts.
Select your iMessage account, then click Sign Out.

Reformat your hard drive and reinstall macOS.
After you reformat your hard drive and reinstall OS X, the computer restarts to a Welcome screen and asks you to choose a country or region. If you want to leave the Mac in an out-of-box state, don't continue with the setup of your system. Instead, press Command-Q to shut down the Mac. When the new owner turns on the Mac, the Setup Assistant will guide them through the setup process.


Just to add to the above answers, you can check the available languages on the tech specs page of the product.

Language support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malay, Romanian, Slovak, Croatian, Catalan, and Vietnamese
Keyboard support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), French (Canadian), French (Switzerland), German, Traditional Chinese (Handwriting, Pinyin, Zhuyin, Cangjie, Wubihua), Simplified Chinese (Handwriting, Pinyin, Wubihua), Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese (Romaji, Ten Key), Japanese (Kana), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Estonian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Latvian, Flemish, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malay, Romanian, Slovak, Croatian, Bulgarian, Serbian (Cyrillic/Latin), Catalan, Vietnamese, Tibetan, Macedonian, and Cherokee
Dictionary support (enables predictive text and autocorrect) for English (U.S.), English (UK), French, German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Japanese (Romaji), Japanese (Kana), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Flemish, Arabic, Thai, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Malaysian, Romanian, Slovak, Croatian, Catalan, Vietnamese, and Cherokee

I'm sure you'll find the one you want :)


How to add export formats to Preview.app?

The simple answer here is No.

You cannot add formats because the libraries and support for those libraries must be compiled into the Preview application.  Since Preview is not an Open Source project, there is no access to the source code to add this support and subsequently compile it.

I investigated creating a plugin, however that also hit a dead end as there is no way to access the Plugin API (if it exists)

https://discussions.apple.com/message/16054059#16054059

The best way to address this is to let Apple know about it by submitting feedback:  http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


Macbook Pro can't connect to internal hard drive even after changing the cable to the main circuit board

First step would be try the Apple Hardware Test or Apple Diagnostics, depending on whether your machine is pre or post 2013

Plug the machine into the mains power, boot then hold the  D  key until the test screen appears.


Lion to El Capitan upgrade stuck on restart

I had the same issue with a MacBook Pro 15'' 2011 (A1286) that I tried updating from Lion 10.7.5 to El Capitan 10.11 (Specs. 4 GB, 500 GB HDD).

The answer is: you must be very patient: the upgrade took me one full day (~ 11 hours!).

Even if the progress bar is not updated, the update is being done in the background.

After a first attempt that I interrupted because I thought that the update was frozen, I made a second Internet recovery of Lion.
The previously downloaded installer of OS X El Capitan was kept in the Application folder after OS X Lion 10.7.5 was restored, so that I was not required to download it again.
(The Internet recovery of Lion lasted about 4 hours).

As a comment to your picture, if you wait about half an hour, to one hour, the progress bar should move to ~20%.

The estimated times will then be completely wrong and you simply MUST WAIT and be very patient, without shutting down your computer. For instance, when under the progress bar, a remaining duration of 31 minutes is displayed, it can last about 9 hours using a wired connection! For me, things went a little quicker at the end (12 minutes meant 1 hours, 7 minutes meant half an hour).

Sometimes, the screen will show greyed / disabled, like if the computer was frozen in some manner and there might be some kind of screen flashing / flickering. Simply wait until the installation ends and the background image of El Capitan displays.

Hope this will help others.


Creating a Windows 8 bootable usb on Mac 10.6.8 without BootCamp?

None of the answers got it right.
This is how you do it — without BootCamp:

Get/download a Windows ISO image file.
Your USB flash drive should have at least 8GB.
Plug it in and format/erase it using Disk Utility (under Applications/Utilities)

CAUTION: Make sure you select the correct drive! Then click erase.
Select MS-DOS (FAT) for the Format.
(If your drive is above 32GB, you might need to select ExFAT instead.)
Select Master Boot Record for the Scheme.
(This is the one used for Windows partitions.)
Click erase.

Open Terminal and run command: diskutil list
From the output, find out the name of the USB drive. It should be something like /dev/diskX. X is the number of the drive. For me, it's /dev/disk2. It might be different on your Mac.
Then type command: diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
It should print something like this: Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful.
Then type:
sudo dd if=/path/to/win-iso-file of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m
(This will ask for your Mac password. Enter it and hit return.)

/path/to/win-iso-file is the full path of the ISO image. Just drag/drop it on terminal after if= and it will print the full path.

The process will start but there will be no output for a while. It might take 10 to 45 minutes. Be patient! (You can press Ctrl+T to see the bytes transferred so far.)
Once it's complete, it will output records in/out and bytes transferred.
Type: diskutil eject /dev/disk2
Now, re-plug the USB drive and check its contents. It should have files and folders but especially a setup.exe and an autorun.inf file.

Done.


Are there advanced performance profiling tools (ideally, with a graphical interface) aside from DTrace?

XCode 4's Instruments is certainly a viable choice that looks as if it'll get the job done. -- you can profile specific processes/agents/daemons and change the active target during the session.  However, developer tools are not a common install on most computers (and it's a large download).


I ended up creating my own "keyboard combiner". It lets me use the Kinesis Savant Elite Triple Foot Pedals for shift, alt, and command modifiers on a Mac.

https://github.com/davidbkemp/KeyboardCombinerArduinoSketch/wiki

It is quite easy to assemble, but I cannot guarantee that it will work for you. It certainly does not work with some pedals and some keyboards. For the Kinesis pedals, you will initially need to configure them to act as shift, alt, and command keys, and that means using a PC to do the initial configuration.


Weird behaviour of mysql-connector-c++ in OSX

I also got this problem. I guess the reason is the mismatch between macos and mysqlconn. The latest mysqlconn binary release only supports up to macos 10.10 and the latest macos is 10.11. I compiled the driver myself and the issue has gone. So you can try to compile that yourself and it should work. Here are the commands I used:

cmake -DMYSQL_CONFIG_EXECUTABLE=/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.7.15/bin/mysql_config -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/
make;make install

Then you can just include ~/include and ~/lib for your header and libs. Hope this works for you. If this still does not work, try to check whether you used the same gcc for both mysqlconn and your program. brew now installs gcc 6.2 but mac only carries 4.2.


Messages.app / iMessage hijacking text messages

I think it is s matter of having wifi on at your Mac. Once it goes to sleep, wifi is off and you receive iMessages on your phone. Right now, the only thing I found that worked is either have your data on at all times on your phone or make sure your Mac is turned of when you leave.


Error configuring mcrypt after upgrading to El Capitan

After reading @user980575's response (which is a bit redundant with directories) and a comment on Coolest Guide's On The Planet's post regarding this subject (which requires manually editing your ./configure script) I came up with an alternative solution. Overriding the EXTENSION_DIR on the fly.

It took a little trial and error but when you're ready to actually perform the install after phpizing (is that a word?) simply make the directory:

mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/php/extensions

And then run:

./configure

make

sudo make EXTENSION_DIR='/usr/local/lib/php/extensions' install

Now that the extension is placed in a non-protected directory you just have to update your php.ini to point to the extension with the full path.

extension=/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/mcrypt.so


Permanently disable Spotlight on disk that is used with rsync

Things to try...

Set the .metadata_never_index file to stationery or locked
Put the entire backup structure inside a folder called myBackup.noindex
Add it to the Privacy pane in Spotlight settings. [I don't know where that data is stored - if it's on the boot drive, then it will work, if it's on the relevant external drive, back to 1 & 2]


So how can I know which commands are available at the time of installation?

Commands available after a fresh install of Mavericks (OS X 10.9) belong to one of these four packages:

com.apple.pkg.BSD
com.apple.pkg.BaseSystemBinaries
com.apple.pkg.BaseSystemResources
com.apple.pkg.Essentials

(Note that, as of High Sierra (macOS 10.13), commands have moved to this package com.apple.pkg.Core.)

You can list the commands included in every package with this command:

pkgutil --files <package name> | egrep '^usr/s*bin|^s*bin/'

Are netcat, nc available by default on Mac OS X or is that installed along with command line tools?

I found nc with:

pkgutil --files com.apple.pkg.BaseSystemBinaries | egrep '^usr/bin/nc'

(On High Sierra, run pkgutil --files com.apple.pkg.Core | egrep '^usr/bin/nc' instead.)

so yes, nc belongs to the base OS installation.

I couldn't find netcat, so if you have it on your system it was installed later.

To list all commands provided by all packages, run in Terminal:

for p in $(pkgutil --packages); do
  list_of_cmds=$(pkgutil --files $p | egrep '^usr/s*bin|^s*bin/')
  if [ ! -z "$list_of_cmds" ]; then
    echo ">>>> $p <<<<"
    echo "$list_of_cmds"
  fi
done

You can also pipe the command to a file on your Desktop for later reference:

for p in $(pkgutil --packages); do
  list_of_cmds=$(pkgutil --files $p | egrep '^usr/s*bin|^s*bin/')
  if [ ! -z "$list_of_cmds" ]; then
    echo ">>>> $p <<<<"
    echo "$list_of_cmds"
  fi
done > ~/Desktop/cmds_from_pkgs.txt


No

For the moment Apple has been extremely quiet about how to access the protocol, and there has been no confirmed plans for iMessage to for the Mac. However, they will most likely release a version for every Apple platform.

I don't think however, they will create a web interface, since no one else has really come up with one that works well.


How do I change the text size of result displayed via Siri Shortcuts?

I have one small idea - change font size in system (shortcuts/apps/settings/accessibility) then make popup and resize font to normal state.


What terminal command or program can list an SSD's Power On Hours?

The command that works for me in 2019 is:

smartctl -a disk0 | grep -i hours

Homebrew install is probably easiest and here are some details on installing and usage of the tool.

smartmontools is an open source package that provides most of the values you are interested in.

If you use Homebrew, install it with:

brew install smartmontools

(In the standard Homebrew installation, commands install to /usr/local/bin.)

Otherwise, download it from https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/Download and compile it as usual:

$ cd smartmontools-6.0
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

(Unless otherwise specified as an option to ./configure, smartmontools commands install to /usr/local/sbin, so update the $PATH variable if necessary.)

The tool we are interested in is called smartctl.

First activate S.M.A.R.T.:

$ smartctl /dev/disk0 -s on

Then run it:

$ smartctl /dev/disk0 -x

This is an excerpt of the output, which provides a wealth of information. The values for Power_On_Hours and Power_Cycle_Count below match (once converted from decimal to hex) the ones Disk Utility reports.

smartctl 6.0 2012-10-10 r3643 [x86_64-apple-darwin12.2.0] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     JMicron based SSDs
Device Model:     APPLE SSD TS128C
Serial Number:    37AR11AGLTMZ
Firmware Version: CJAA0201
User Capacity:    121,332,826,112 bytes [121 GB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    Solid State Device
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s (current: 3.0 Gb/s)

(...)

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     -O-R--   099   099   000    -    0
  2 Throughput_Performance  P-S---   100   100   050    -    0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--C-   100   100   050    -    0
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--C-   100   100   000    -    3237
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--C-   100   100   000    -    1485
168 SATA_Phy_Error_Count    -O--C-   100   100   000    -    0
170 Bad_Block_Count         PO--C-   100   100   010    -    8 252 82
173 Erase_Count             PO--C-   196   196   100    -    1 136 64
175 Bad_Cluster_Table_Count PO--C-   100   100   010    -    0
192 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct  -O--C-   100   100   000    -    14
194 Temperature_Celsius     PO---K   072   053   030    -    28 (Min/Max 14/47)
197 Current_Pending_Sector  -O--C-   100   100   000    -    0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -O--C-   100   100   000    -    0
                            ||||||_ K auto-keep
                            |||||__ C event count
                            ||||___ R error rate
                            |||____ S speed/performance
                            ||_____ O updated online
                            |______ P prefailure warning

ATA_READ_LOG_EXT (addr=0x00:0x00, page=0, n=1) failed: 48-bit ATA commands not supported
Read GP Log Directory failed

SMART Log Directory Version 1 [multi-sector log support]
SMART Log at address 0x00 has    1 sectors [Log Directory]
SMART Log at address 0x01 has    1 sectors [Summary SMART error log]
SMART Log at address 0x02 has   51 sectors [Comprehensive SMART error log]
SMART Log at address 0x06 has    1 sectors [SMART self-test log]
SMART Log at address 0x09 has    1 sectors [Selective self-test log]
SMART Log at address 0x80 has   16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
(...)
SMART Log at address 0x9f has   16 sectors [Host vendor specific log]
SMART Log at address 0xe0 has    1 sectors [SCT Command/Status]
SMART Log at address 0xe1 has    1 sectors [SCT Data Transfer]

SMART Extended Comprehensive Error Log (GP Log 0x03) not supported

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Extended Self-test Log (GP Log 0x07) not supported

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

SCT Status Version:                  3
SCT Version (vendor specific):       1 (0x0001)
SCT Support Level:                   0
Device State:                        Active (0)
Current Temperature:                    28 Celsius
Power Cycle Min/Max Temperature:     22/30 Celsius
Lifetime    Min/Max Temperature:     14/47 Celsius
Under/Over Temperature Limit Count:   0/0
SCT Temperature History Version:     2
Temperature Sampling Period:         1 minute
Temperature Logging Interval:        1 minute
Min/Max recommended Temperature:      5/40 Celsius
Min/Max Temperature Limit:            0/70 Celsius
Temperature History Size (Index):    128 (77)

Index    Estimated Time   Temperature Celsius
  78    2012-11-29 19:48    25  ******
 ...    ..(  7 skipped).    ..  ******
  86    2012-11-29 19:56    25  ******
  87    2012-11-29 19:57    26  *******
 ...    ..( 19 skipped).    ..  *******
 107    2012-11-29 20:17    26  *******
 108    2012-11-29 20:18    27  ********
 ...    ..( 16 skipped).    ..  ********
 125    2012-11-29 20:35    27  ********
 126    2012-11-29 20:36    28  *********
 ...    ..(  7 skipped).    ..  *********
   6    2012-11-29 20:44    28  *********
   7    2012-11-29 20:45    29  **********
   8    2012-11-29 20:46    29  **********
   9    2012-11-29 20:47    28  *********
 ...    ..( 67 skipped).    ..  *********
  77    2012-11-29 21:55    28  *********

SMART WRITE LOG does not return COUNT and LBA_LOW register
SCT (Get) Error Recovery Control command failed

Device Statistics (GP Log 0x04) not supported

ATA_READ_LOG_EXT (addr=0x11:0x00, page=0, n=1) failed: 48-bit ATA commands not supported
Read SATA Phy Event Counters failed

To end, deactivate S.M.A.R.T.:

$ smartctl /dev/disk0 -s off


Open resource from inside the bundle using c++ / qt

Being that the app structure in OSX is flat it should not matter where you put anything, other than for your own organization purposes.


"sudo crontab -e" not updating /etc/hosts

When you issue a command via cron, you need to specify the whole path, so instead, you should use /usr/bin/sed.
There are a couple other issues you should consider:

cron is deprecated and this should be done using launchd instead

Why edit the file in place?  Simply save the original version of the hosts file  (i.e. /etc/hosts.orig) and create a new hosts file for when you want to block YouTube (i.e. /etc/hosts.nodistractions).  Just copy the appropriate file to /etc/hosts at the specified time interval.
For example, to unblock everything:
  cp /etc/hosts.orig /etc/hosts

To go into "no distraction mode":
  cp /etc/hosts.nodistractions /etc/hosts

The benefit of using this method is you can easily edit the file to add more hosts as your distractions evolve and you won't have to modify the code. Running this as a LaunchDameon executes this as root so there's no permission issues to really worry about.  You won't have to contend with sudo or su or ensuring you're using the right user.
That said, there's an app called Focus ($20) that has a very rich feature set that will allow you to block not just websites, but apps as well.  There's a "take a break" function that will allow you to release the restrictions for a configurable amount of time allowing you to take a break or as you described, get something when needed.  The price point (IMO) is quite reasonable for what it provides.
Please note, I'm not affiliated with this app/company in any way nor do I personally use it. I just know of this product as a result of having to find a tool for parents of students - who were not focused on the task at hand - that gave them the ability to manage their distractions automatically; mainly due to location (parents at work, kids at home not doing homework).


You can redirect all logs to a file so that you can see it when needed. So you can resolve any issues come in future.

From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18756592/how-to-get-old-console-log


I have ReSound made-for-iPhone HAs. ReSound sell a device called a "multi mic" and also a "mini mic" which is a remote microphone which will transmit direct to the HAs. It also has a 3.5mm jack so can be plugged into a computer (or TV) and the computer sound is sent straight to my HAs. Speaker is cut off. I keep a dedicated multi mic permanently connected to my computer. To hear computer sound streamed to my HAs I just have to change to the correct streaming source on my phone. Works brilliantly and has had a lot of extra use with Zoom meetings.
I would be amazed if Starkey don't make a similar device.
I would add that the multi mic is extremely useful in many other situations.


I hope you have made a Backup of your Files. When it restart press cmd+R and install again the Mac OS X, after that you restore your files with the Backup.


Unable to change volume size on WD My Passport Wireless

Using the Disk Utility you should see something like this

Select the external disk (called Hitachi in this example)

Click on the partition you want to work on, and resize it


Why is my "Synchronize with Google" option grayed out in Mountain Lion Contacts?

Most likely because you have Contact syncing via iCloud turned on. You can turn this off using the check-box in Preferences > iCloud.

I don't have iCloud syncing for Contacts and can sync via Google, but when I turn iCloud syncing on it warns me that Google syncing will be turned off...


Why does iCal often say "The server responded: 403 to operation CalDAVSetPropertyQueueableOperation."

This problem appears to be caused by corrupted Calendar caches and it occurs in macOS 10.12.2 Sierra as well.

The easiest way to get rid of this problem is to:

Quit Calendar
Open Activity Viewer and Quit "CalendarAgent"

  note, using QuickLook on any calendar item in the Finder will
  relaunch CalendarAgent which needs to be not running at step 3

Delete ~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache
Delete ~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache-shm
Delete ~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache-wal
Launch Calendar

Calendar will read the information from the surrounding data folders and files in ~/Library/Calendars/ and recreate the caches cleanly.

If for some reason the files listed to delete re-appear before you launch Calendar, it means something is triggering the system calendar operations.  Try quitting all of your applications and starting at step 2 or logging out with the "Reopen windows when logging back in" unchecked, then logging back in.


Backup/sync Mac photo to external hard drive

Have you tried a sync/backup tool like ChronoSync (which I highly recommend)? It can be scheduled to sync to when your external drive is mounted. It also does a great job of handling package files (which is what your iPhoto library is). It's from Econ Technologies and can be trialed for 30 days.


How to eject a drive automatically after pen drive is plugged in?

You just have change the UNIX executable file.Modify it like  rsync -aH source destination && diskutil eject /Volumes/BACKUP >> desktop/log.txt


Should there be a hardlink from `/Users/Users` pointing to `/Users`?

There should not be a link like that. If you truly have a hard link, that's something that's a bit self-referential, snake eating it's own tail recursion, so I'd make sure you have a backup if you're not sure you're deleting the correct link.

From your listing - the link count is 1 so it's probably a sym link and not even a hard link - which means it's safer to delete in reality than in theory above.

I would expect a 2 between the permissions lrwxr-x-ry-x and root owner if you had a hard link there.


How can I install a 64-bit OS on a 2006 Mac Pro with 32-bit EFI?

There are instructions online that tell you how to replace the 32-bit EFI with a 64-bit version. Obviously this comes with certain risks and certain issues. Worth pointing out that I haven't tried this myself.

http://lowendmac.com/2014/modernizing-the-mac-pro-11-and-21/

If you want to install 64-bit versions of Linux there are a number of resources online that explain how to accomplish this. For example the following page has links to Linux install images that have been specifically modified to allow installation on 64-bit Macs with 32-bit EFI.

https://mattgadient.com/2016/07/11/linux-dvd-images-and-how-to-for-32-bit-efi-macs-late-2006-models/


Change iPhone backup location permanently?

The usual solution to this is to use a symbolic link to redirect your iTunes backup folder to the external drive. There's a discussion of it here: Is it possible to backup iOS devices to an external drive?


How can I see which filetypes a given application can open?

I think the go-to app is still RCDefaultApp (freeware). Hasn't been updated since 2009... still works in Mojave.

It can list & optionally reassign any app, UTI, extension etc.


Files encrypted in a folder - how to reverse it?

It may be due to ACLs. You can clear the ACLs on the folder recursively with:

chmod -R -N /path/to/folder


Is there a way to make Safari open a dark blank page?

There may be other ways to do this, but a simple way would be to create your own homepage, which could look anyway you like. Then, just set the Homepage in Safari to point at that file.

Make a file called "home.html" with these contents:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html style="background:#333;">
<head>
    <title>New Tab</title>
</head>
</html>

Open that file with Safari, and use the preferences dialog to set the homepage to the current page. Also set new tabs and windows to start on your homepage.


To remove duplicate contacts:

  Make a copy of your contacts.
  Open Contacts.
  From the Card menu, select Card > Look for Duplicates.
  When asked, click Merge.
  Repeat steps 2 and 3 until no duplicates are found.
  Make another copy of your iCloud Contacts.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203565

Then sync those contacts to iCloud.

Afterwards, turn off contacts on the iPhone in iCloud settings,
remove all remaining contacts and turn it on again.


iCloud Drive says it's syncing Desktop & Documents but it's not ... why?

Ta Da: Followed Andrew Swift's advice found on another forum. First I confirmed that all other devices had iCloud Drive syncing disabled. Then I checked the CloudDocs folder mentioned below and noticed that it held a couple similar entries but looking through them gave me no insights other than some were dated prior to migration and some were current ... hmm! So, I went to Terminal and typed:

killall bird
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
rm -rf CloudDocs

and then immediately hit restart. I then double checked my mission critical software was running fine (home automation and weather station reading/posting), checked iCloud Drive in the finder and, lo and behold, I saw the desktop file list updating before my vary eyes. And the status bar at the bottom said it was copying a crapload of files & GB to iCloud. I don't know how long it took but I went to bed after 8 hrs of uploading. Today I verified that iCloud.com and iDevices are all on the same wavelength. Alles ist Gut!


How do I remove/delete a (possibly corrupt) partition from macOS High Sierra?

I solved this by using the command:

diskutil eraseVolume "Free Space" %noformat% disk0s2


Is there a way to get Smart Playlists to work with iOS and iTunes Match?

There are a couple of potential solutions to this problem. I say potential because everyone's listening habits and needs are different, so your mileage may vary. Here goes:

The Smart Playlist problem is not new, and certainly not unique in your case.  There seems to be an overall problem with Smart Playlist syncing through iTunes Match (1) across different devices, (2) with any expediency (usually takes >= 48 hours), and (3) with respect to honoring certain rules (e.g., number of songs allowed).  Another common theme seems to be that "nested" playlists cause even more of a problem than standard Smart Playlists. Nested lists are those that are created when you use your option key to turn the + into an ellipsis (...), which creates a sub-rule for your master rule.

Solution 1: Dumb it down

  Create a standard playlist (Dumb) and give it the same name as your Smart playlist. Copy the content from Smart to Dumb. Sync your device, computer, whatever. Rinse, wash, repeat for each Smart Playlist you want to have properly represented on your other devices. This works.

Solution 2: Really Dumb it Down

  Do your best to avoid the aforementioned nested playlists. This may require you to build several smaller smart playlists with limited criteria. Not the easiest workaround, but we're going for functionality here, right?

Solution 3: Really make your "Recently Added" folder songs that are "Recently Added"

  For your "Recently Added" folder, tack on just one more rule to force songs added after a date, rather than only within the last two weeks (see pic below)

So, I hope this gets you at least a little closer to your goal. I tried to add as much info as I could here since, one more time: everyone's listening and categorizing habits are different :-)
You may find other variations on these, but do realize that, at least for now, this is a server-side problem and workarounds like these represent the best available solutions.


iCloud Photo Library fills entire phone with remaining storage in 'System'

In Settings > Photos > Turn on Optimize iPhone Storage. This should prevent full resolution photos from being stored on your device and should remove content from local storage when your device fills up.


How to backup an iPhone when the screen is broken, the home button is broken, and it says "Unlock iPhone to use accessories?"

There is no way to back an iPhone up to a Mac or PC with iTunes, or to initiate an iCloud backup, without a working screen to input the lock code, unless you have used the iPhone with the same computer and iTunes before so it is already trusted.
Your best bet might be to take your phone and computer to a 3rd party Apple device service shop and ask if they can please attach a used screen with working touch for a bit so you can do the backup. They might be willing to do that for a few pieces of cheddar cheese...


How to make sure album art shows up everywhere (Mac & iPhone) while using iTunes Match?

You don't need to download a song on your iOS devise via iTunes Match to get its artwork updated on that device. All you need to do is go into Settings -> Music -> turn off iTunes Match, and then turn it back on. All artwork will update over a few minutes. (I turned device off and back on again before turning Match back on just to be safe, but not sure it's necessary.)

You can go into your Music and see the little spinning wheel constantly working a half second at a time (for each album cover being updated from A to Z). with iTunes recent update to artwork, this is how I got the new artwork over to my iOS device.


Copying and pasting between tmux panes containing vim instances over SSH in Terminal.app

A better way to do it is save the selection in a temporary file and use tmux load-buffer command to load it into the paste buffer, and then C-b ] to paste.

Otherwise you may have problems with long text lines that don't fit into the screen.
Also, tabs might not be preserved and long lines may be broken down.

I have to mention another (easier) way to do it without any additional files.

There's a mod for tmux adding more flexible scripting capabilities: http://ershov.github.io/tmux/ (I'm the author)

It allows you to copy and paste without using any temporary files:

Copy selection in vim
In vim, type :!tmux tcl pbcopy "^R%" this will put the vim's paste buffer into tmux's one
In tmux, in another pane use ^B ] to paste.

You probably want to use :set paste in vim.

And if you do it frequently, you can automate the step 2 and bind it to a keypress in vim.


USB flash drive in ExFat doesn't unmount

Force-quit Disk Utility and yank the drive. OS X will probably fuss at you; ignore it.

Stick the drive into the Windows computer and format it there, using Disk Management. (I've had much better success with ExFAT drives formatted under Windows than under OS X.)


Vulnerability and patch management on macOS - what works?

For large scale Mac usage in enterprises, you can use Patch Manager Plus

All the latest security/non-security applications of the OS, as well as third-party applications such as browser updates, Adobe, Java updates, can be patched. Moreover, you can also upgrade from High Sierra to Mojave, apply all the latest supplemental updates with ease. Click here to learn more about Mac patch management offered by Patch Manager Plus.


Why does my iPhone 4S think I'm in Chicago?

The iPhone (like pretty much all cell phones that support this feature) gets its timezone information from the carrier. Unfortunately many carriers send out the wrong timezone information and there's very little you can do about it other than switch off the Set Automatically option in the Date & Time settings.


If it was easy to find all of the system items associated with an application, Migration Assistant would've done it for you; generally, if it can't figure it out, the easiest solution is to reinstall the software that didn't come over cleanly.

There is an alternative, however: clone the entire volume with something like Carbon Copy Cloner.  This'll get all of the add-on software fine (except things like hardware-tied license keys and such), but may run into compatibility problems with the new computer.  For example, if you clone from an older system to a new one that requires a special build of the latest OS version (with new drivers & such for the new hardware config), you may have to reinstall the OS (from the disc that came with the new computer) to get that to work.  Pick your poison...


Cannot access iPhone files using my macbook via Bluetooth

iPhone does not support browsing files over Bluetooth.

Edit: Apple lists three methods for transferring data between a Mac and an iPhone.

AirDrop
Handoff
iCloud Drive

On that same page, Apple lists the built-in Mac browser for Bluetooth as an option for "other Bluetooth devices" and I think it is appropriate to infer that they thereby exclude the iPhone from that capability.


On OS X 10.7 (Lion):

smbutil lookup <hostname>

Example:

$ smbutil lookup NAS1
Got response from 10.21.0.133
IP address of NAS1: 10.21.0.133


How do you wrap the title text of a sheet in Numbers?

By going into cursor edit mode (eg, clicking into the title cell's text editing area), and then by typing the combination of 'Shift-Enter', you can insert a line break to shorten the line lengths of the title cell.


mail app not sending appropriate Reply To addresses from different email accounts

I've found the answer. I had forgotten that a long time ago I had set 'Reply To' for all email accounts, using a command line in the Terminal.

I reset the defults, by using 'defaults delete com.apple.mail UserHeaders'

All three accounts now work as expected.


Its pretty easy, here's how you do it:

First of all select your folder/file in Finder, then right click on it and select Get Info.
In the info panel, click on folder/file preview in the top left corner.
Now, when the preview is highlighted, hit backspace ( ← ) on your keyboard.
Done!

If you cant select that .js than do the same thing to a different .js


How to transfer large videos from iPad 2 camera roll to Windows XP?

There's an iOS app called Photo Transfer App that should do exactly as you want. Transferring from iPad to Windows.

Not sure I know the answer to why YouTube isn't taking it.


Program is opening for a quarter of a second and then closing instantly

Open the Console app and leave it running. With the verbosity of recent versions of macOS, I'd be very surprised if the application doesn't leave log entries. Or at the very least the operating system doesn't leave log entries about it.

You could also leave a Terminal window open with the command sudo fs_usage | grep open running. This command will give you a list of every single file that is opened on your Mac. Which will be a surprising amount, but if you stop it (hold down CTRL and hit C) and check it immediately after seeing the application appear and disappear you should see what it is and where it is being loaded from.


The trouble goes away if I uncomment the -F switch (which I commented while I was trying to get some other part of the set up to work). The -F switch runs Dovecot in the foreground and does not daemonize.

From this answer on SuperUser:

  Launchd expects the programs it launches not to daemonize themselves; if they do, launchd detects it as the program exiting, and cleans up all subprocesses (i.e. kills the now-daemonized program).

In this case it didn't kill the program (as I wouldn't expected if the switch was the wrong one), it just relinquished control so it wouldn't/couldn't shut it down.

Note to self, try the obvious thing, your assumptions may be wrong.


Upgrading to High Sierra or newer on 2013 MacBook Air with external SSD and missing OEM internal SSD

There are reports of other computers with a similar problem, and a damaged or missing internal drive seems to be a factor.

From MacRumors:

"The EFI Firmware can only update using the EFI System Partition on the internal storage media. So even if you don't want to boot from it, you're still going to need a working drive in there to support firmware upgrades."

From Ask Different (this site):

"I have spoken with OWC customer service, and they say I will need to reinstall the OEM SSD. Then upgrade to High Sierra, which will update the Mac's firmware. Then re-install the OWC drive, and upgrade that to High Sierra."

So any system update that includes an EFI Firmware update will throw this error if you do not have an internal drive.

It looks like you will need to get a replacement SSD module for this Mac, which ultimately, is a better solution than running from an external.


I've developed a fairly decent Macintosh tool to extract all the separate CD quality audio (WAV, AIFF, or MP3 formats), printable PDF files of all the scores and tabs, animated video synced to the music.

There is also  a player/mixer that lets you play along to the scrolling music, mute or adjust volume of individual tracks, slow to half speed, and loop sections.  It even supports Airplay so you can beam it your big screen tv and sound system.

We have a growing database of free downloadable content that members have shared.  If you have Jammit tracks and want to be able to use them in any Mac or Windows DAW, and hopefully share some of your files, you are invited to check out our page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/125340751305319/?ref=bookmarks

Or visit Crammit for Mac:  www.jammit.ca


It turns out that there is SATA 3 on board, it just wasn't enabled until 4 May 2011. The Other World Computing blog has the details:

  While iMac EFI Update 1.6 is described
  as including “fixes that improve
  performance and stability for
  Thunderbolt,” it would also seem that
  an unadvertised benefit is that it
  also unlocks the full 6Gb/s, SATA 3.0
  capabilities of two of the internal
  drive bays.

  Unfortunately, the optical bay remains
  at 3Gb/s.


Which applications on Mac AppStore build HTML5 (drag and drop)?

Depending on what you are looking for with HTML5, one app that helps with creation is Hype, which is available in the Mac App Store. This looks mostly like it would help with animations (like you may have previously with Flash), but other HTML features are there too.


Terminal Command to display a single line from a text file in OS X

You can use sed command:

sed -n '4p' YOUR_FILE

Or head/tail combination:

head -n 4 YOUR_FILE | tail -n 1


You can't.  Finder's Sidebar is a location for shortcuts to be easily accessible by the user.

From Apple's Human Interface Design Guidelines:

  the sidebar in a Finder window includes a list of frequently accessed locations and tag-based search shortcuts. The user can select one to access its contents or results in the main portion of the window.

Additionally, having a folder list is not practical in this element. Anything more than 2 levels of hierarchy (which is highly plausible in a folder listing) is discouraged.  In this instance, Apple states that a column view be used.

  In general, refrain from exposing more than two levels of hierarchy within a sidebar. In some cases, a second sidebar may be warranted
  when a data hierarchy is deeper than two levels. If your app requires
  the navigation of deeply nested objects, consider implementing a
  column view.

Bottom line; Apple discourages 3rd party developers from doing this, meaning Apple's Finder is definitely not going to show files like this.

You can put a shortcut to a folder, but you won't get a list of folders.


Single Keyboard Maestro keyboard macro, but different action depending on active application?

A fairly simple solution: if-then-else actions. See this one for Finder:

If you nest each application-specific action within an If statement that checks whether the relevant app is at the front, it should work.


I just needed to restart my iMac (after a power failure) and found Pictures was similarly affected.

Finder Get Info says I have Read & Write access, but it was blocked

I used Finder to give everyone Read only access, immediately restored No Access and now I can open it.


The reason is because the applications are slightly different for each version of the OS so they are in effect 2 applications. Until you upgrade your mac mini I would recommend turning off syncing of just the dock.


Is there an iOS timelapse app that saves frames to camera roll?

The pro version of Joby's camera app "GorillaCam Pro" will do this.


How to remove the spacing next to the last icon at the right of the menu bar that appeared after upgrading to Bartender 2

Bartender 2 2.0.1 fixes this, adding a preference in Preferences → Appearance:

  Right most menu bar gap
  Bartender 2 added a gap to the right of the menu bar when Notification Center was hidden, this is to maintain the default gap at the screen edge, a lot of users liked not having this gap, so this is now a preference under Appearance.


iOS App Store will not update apps unless the Update button is pressed many times

Not sure what caused the issue, but it was finally resolved by using "Reset Network Settings", which seems to do some kind of deep purge that requires rebooting the device (with a progress bar for some type of process that runs).


Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard
Select the Tab "Shortcuts"

At the bottom there is the option "Full Keyboard Access". Switch that from "Text boxes and lists only" to "All controls".

Then you can use tab + space to select the Delete option in the dialog.


terminal create file(file_name as bash arguments) then write text into it, relate to .bash_profile

After modifying .bash_profile you have to either source the modified bash profile with source ~/.bash_profile or close the current and reopen a new Terminal window to have the changes take effect.
UPDATE: I had done some testing, now the solution is definitely restart Terminal.app. source ~/.bash_profile to reload is not enough.


How to know if (and when) a shutdown occurred due to power outage

If you can get to Terminal on your remote machine, just type uptime
This won't, of course, tell you why it was last restarted, but when.


How do I remotely control my iPhone from my MacBook with no wifi or AC power available (so no router)?

Summary of solution

"Create Network..." on MacBook to create a "computer-to-computer" network (via a right-click on the wifi icon in the main menu).
Go to wifi settings on iPhone & join network created.
Either wait for IP address to show up on iPhone's network details page or statically assign one in the range 169.254.x.y, as long as it's not the same as the other computer's IP address.
Go to Finder (or Path Finder), click Main Menu\Go\Connect to Server... (or just type ⌘K) to connect, then type vnc://169.254.x.y, where x.y are the last two network octets you assigned statically to the iPhone or that the MacBook assigned to the iPhone.

You should then be connected.  Remember to be patient when connecting -- I experienced not exactly quick response times when connecting, and that was with no security...


How can I filter http requests by type in Safari 6 Developer Tools?

In the Instruments panel (the icon of the stopwatch), click Network Requests on the left. You should then see the timeline on the left, and a list of requests underneath. Click the Type column heading to sort the requests by type and then all the XHR requests will be grouped together.

Alternatively, in Safari's Develop menu, you can select "Use WebKit Web Inspector" to switch back to the old inspector.


How to rebind Go Back and Go Forward in Preview on Lion?

If the System Preferences way of doing that doesn't work, the only other way I can think of remapping the command would be to use something such as Keyboard Maestro or TextExpander. Barring that, though (as they're both paid, third-party apps), there are still two ways to do navigate pages easily:

Trackpad gestures

This only works with multi-touch trackpads, such as the Apple-sold Bluetooth ones or the built-in-to-MacBook ones. Go to System Preferences > Trackpad > More Gestures and tick the "Swipe between pages" option. Set it to taste, and use that setting in Preview to switch pages.
Page up/down keys

If you have a full-size keyboard, you have page up/page down keys. If not, something that will probably work is using Fn + ↑/↓. This will scroll down and up by approximately one screen's worth. (Tip: Fn + left/right arrows act as Home/End keys.) If all else fails, space and shift-space do the same thing.


Is my RAM compatible with my Macbook Pro

Yes, there's a problem:

PC3L ≠ PC3.

PC3L is PC3 Low Voltage memory that operates at 1.35V and PC3 operates at 1.5V.  The 2012 MacBook Pro calls for PC3-12800.  See Everymac.com.  For best results you want to use the exact memory, or higher quality memory that operates at both voltage levels.

Also, that Mac is capable of 16GB of RAM, and the price point is low enough that you could max it out for only a marginal amount more.  Nobody ever said "Gee I have too much memory!" It's better to have and not need than need and not have!


What is the best torrent client for OSX?

Transmission is light and captures the OS X essence. I have been using it for years with no issues. Plus, it's free and open source.


How can I add signatures to Preview.app in Lion without using the web cam?

It appears that at present, that isn't an option. When I created a signature file using the FaceTime camera, I see that first of all, there is no unencrypted graphic file created by Preview. Preview did a new key in Keychain titled "Preview signature privacy", suggesting that the signature files go directly from Preview's camera interface to an encrypted file. There isn't a supported way to add a graphic as a signature, and the encryption makes it difficult to bypass the approved new signature process.


Trackpad unable to press click after Security Update

There are a couple of things that you can do to fix this. Here are the basic steps that I would take on needed cases:

Ditching Input plist Files:

From the Mac OS Finder, hit Command+Shift+G to bring up “Go To Folder”
Enter the following path: ~/Library/Preferences/ and choose Go
Locate the following files manually, or use the Search box in the upper right corner and narrow down for ‘driver’ to find them – remove the ones that are relevant to your issue:

com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist - Magic Trackpad
com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist - Magic Mouse
com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist - wired USB mouse
com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad.plist
com.apple.preference.trackpad.plist

Drag the appropriate files* to the desktop to make a backup of them, or just delete the files* if you’re comfortable with that
Leave the User Preferences folder and reboot the Mac

*Note: You can get more specific if you want like only deleting the AppleHIDMouse.plist file if you are only using a USB mouse, or only removing BlueToothMultitouch.mouse if you only use a Magic Mouse, or you can ditch all of the plist files if you’re using all of them.

If the above-listed solution didn’t help, then

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac

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

If this doesn't help then at last try to:

Reset the SMC on Mac

First, shut down your Mac and Press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the built-in keyboard, then press the power button at the same time. Hold these keys and the power button for 10 seconds. Release all keys. And, Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

Start up in safe mode

Start or restart your Mac, then immediately press and hold the Shift key. The Apple logo appears on your display.

Release the Shift  key when you see the login window. If your startup disk is encrypted with FileVault, you might be asked to log in twice: once to unlock the startup disk, and again to log in to the Finder.

To leave safe mode, restart your Mac without pressing any keys during startup.


Is it possible for an AppleScript application's "Quit" button to override (i.e., cancel) an open dialog?

The short answer is, no.

The longer answer is: By design, an AppleScript's display dialog creates an application modal object, meaning that until the User responds to the controls of the object, the application waits until is receives appropriate input to that object in order for it to continue.

If a Cancel button exists and not the default button, it can be dismissed by pressing the Esc key or a Command-period key press to activate the Cancel button. If you use a Cancel button, you can trap the error and execute a return that will halt execution of the remaining code of the app.

If if doesn't have a Cancel button then it can't be dismissed without direct interaction or forced quit by any one of several methods.

To force quit:

You can option-right-click the app's Dock tile and select Force Quit from App's Dock tile context-menu.
Press Option-Command-Esc to bring up the Force Quit Applications dialog box.
Force quit it from Activity Monitor.
Its process can also be killed from Terminal in a few different ways, but beyond the scope of this answer as it's not a GUI method.

Also, ⌘Q doesn't work because it's grayed out in the App's Menu bar menu.

All this is also true within the Script Editor itself, not just with an AppleScript app. Once a display dialog is present it must be interacted with appropriately or the app forced quit by one method or another.


Do non-retina graphics looks worse on a retina display than they did before?

Not to me - it probably looks worse because you are seeing the difference now more readily. Subjectively things look worse because you now expect a new-iPad level display. I had this effect when iPhone 4 came out, everything looked fine until I saw one.

It's not just the increased resolution that has improved - the maximum brightness of the new iPad display is brighter and the minimum brightness is dimmer. Dan Frakes noted this in MacWorld on March 30 2012 and it is important - the screen does look better if you can adjust the brightness to the right level, bright in the sunlight and dim when you're reading in the dark. Given that I say that non-retina graphics should in fact look better on the new iPad display when greater ability to adjust brightness matters.

I don't know if you ever played Marathon for Mac, late 90's game. State of the art graphics in its day, but now it's hard to tolerate when you play it on a modern machine. Not because it looks worse on a modern LCD but because you expect so much more.

(if you're interested - get the Marathon trilogy for Mac OS X - a GPL'ed release by Bungie)

With computers, you truly never can go back.


On Catalina, how can a cronjob get permission to touch files on a USB disk?

You need to grant cron full disk access. Drag /usr/sbin/cron into the Full Disk Access area in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy tab.
Source: https://twitter.com/DaveWoodX/status/1184235412509941761


How to Downgrade from MacOS Catalina to Mojave- Creating a bootable hard drive in APFS format

The Apple documentation How to create a bootable installer for macOS says to use Mac OS Extended not APFS.

Mac OS Extended is the new name for HFS+

  Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal

  Connect the USB flash drive or other volume you're using for the
  bootable installer. Make sure that it has at least 12GB of available
  storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended.
  Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
  Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. These assume that the installer is still in your Applications folder, and
  MyVolume is the name of the USB flash drive or other volume you're
  using. If it has a different name, replace MyVolume in these
  commands with the name of your volume.

  Catalina:*

  sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

  Mojave:*

  sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

From the link in the above quote

  Are you preparing a Time Machine backup disk or bootable installer?

  Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for any disk that you plan to use with Time Machine or as a bootable installer.

As you can see the documentation is somewhat inconsistent regarding journaling (it probably doesn't matter) however I used Mac OS Extended (Journaled) to install Mojave and it worked fine.


Will FileVault reduce the power of my hybrid SSD+HDD?

FileVault 2 encrypts the filesystem at a block level.   Despite the data being encrypted the cache in your disk should still be able to work out that particular blocks are being accessed more often and cache them in the SSD.


iPhone 4 movies won't play in Quicktime, no sound in VLC

I had the same (or at least similar) issue: A video taken with my iPhone 4S (running the most up-to-date iOS 6) would not play in Quicktime player, but it DID play in the Finder preview, surprisingly. I finally figured out what I did wrong: I first downloaded all of my "Camera Roll" to my Mac in iPhoto, then exported the files from there to a Finder folder. However, I didn't pay attention that the default export file type is .jpg - which is obviously not the right one for a video. So I went into iPhoto again, selected the movie file, chose "Export" and then selected "Original" instead of "JPEG" from the "Kind:" pull-down menu. (Stupidly, iPhoto reverts back to "JPEG" the next time you open it - why? Also, why is there no easier way to download picture and movie files from the iPhone to the Mac than the route I just described? But this is besides the point of this discussion...)

Anyway, now the video plays in all the right ways as intended. - might be something to try?


Terminal command to record audio through macbook microphone?

Use FFMPEG.

(This has become one of my favorite command line utilities for video/audio conversion and streaming).  It's an open source framework for audio/video encoding, decoding, streaming, converting, and muxing.  It's included with many (paid) AV utilities.

You can capture the audio as a stream through Apple's AVFoundation.

Get the device ID

$ ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""

[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] AVFoundation video devices:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [0] FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [1] Capture screen 0
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] AVFoundation audio devices:
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [0] USB Audio CODEC
[AVFoundation input device @ 0x7fda1bc152c0] [1] Built-in Microphone

The device you're going to need is ":1"  AVFoundation uses the convention "V:A" for "Video:Audio"  so, if you want to capture video from your FaceTime camera the the audio from your Microphone, you would use "0:1".  If you wanted just the audio only, you would use ":1" and leave the video out.

Record the Audio:

$ ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i ":1" -t 10 audiocapture.mp3

The above command will record 10 seconds of audio from the built in microphone and save it as audiocapture.mp3.  You can set how long you want FFMPEG to record by changing the value for -t.  If you want to record a full hour, set it to "3600".

$ ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i ":1" -t 3600 audiocapture.mp3

What the flags mean

-f = "force format".  In this case we're forcing the use of AVFoundation
-i = input source.  Typically it's a file, but you can use devices.

"0:1" = Record both audio and video from FaceTime camera and built-in mic
"0" = Record just video from FaceTime camera
":1" = Record just audio from built-in mic

-t = time in seconds.  If you want it to run indefinitely until you stop it (ControlC) omit this value (not recommended)

Input Volume

Keep in mind that you're using the built-in microphone which isn't great to begin with.  Ensure that you set the gain high enough (System Preferences, Sounds) so that the Mic can hear you.  It would probably be best to get a quality USB microphone instead.


Is it taxing on the mac computers' performance to have multiple user accounts and not log out of them?

macOS is a multi-user system so any application opened by any user stays open til it gets closed. You can have a look at Activity Monitory to see that even with just one user logged in there is a lot of additional stuff going on in the background. A lot of these processes usually sleep/wait for any input, the same is valid for user applications which often are sleeping (with their memory swapped to disk) if they aren't actively used.
If you have a set of applications (i.e. M, N, O, X, Y, Z) you regularly use it doesn't make a significant difference on memory or CPU needs whether you use all of them within the same account or use Fast User Switching to switch between account A (running applications X,Y, Z) and account B (running M, N, O).


If you installed over the main partition, then I would assume you will not be able to go back and boot macOS. You will need to reinstall macOS. Windows should be installed to BIOS boot. If you did this, then you probably will have to erase the entire drive before reinstalling macOS. If you installed Windows to EFI boot, then you will not have to, but you should since the Window Support Software was designed for BIOS booting Windows.