date recorded on iPhone 4 from camera or phone?

The data will be that which was written to the original metadata taken on your Nikon camera. Unless of course you're doing some kind of image conversion or editing on your phone, then something could change.


iMessage is connected with your iCloud E-Mail-Address as well. So if somebody unlocks your iPhone, this person will see all of your messages.

This Apple Support document describes the ways necessary to stop iMessage on your lost phone:

  If you didn't turn off or deactivate iMessage before switching to a
  non-Apple phone, other iOS devices will still try to use iMessage to
  send text messages to your phone number.

  If you still have your iPhone, follow these steps to turn off iMessage
  and deregister your phone number:

  If you transferred your SIM card from the iPhone to a non-Apple
  phone, put it back in the iPhone.
  Make sure that you're connected to the cellular data network.
  Tap Settings > Messages and turn iMessage off.

  If you don't have access to your iPhone, or if you can't deactivate
  iMessage from your iPhone, please contact Apple Support. Support for
  this issue is free.


Does software compilation continue even if I close the lid of my MacBook Pro (7,1)?

As mentioned before, closing the lid of a portable Mac causes it to sleep, and not to dream of compilations as-yet unfinished.

  What happens when I close the lid on my MacBook Pro running OS X?

If (and only if, apparently) your Mac is connected to:

an external display,
an external keyboard or mouse or trackpad
a power adapter,

your laptop will operate in "clamshell mode", as outlined here:

  http://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201834

and your compilation will continue.


How to debug an AppleScript intended to be run by a Mail rule?

I created a mailbox on the same imap server and moved some junk mail into it (5 or 6 messages).  I then created my rule that called the script.  I disabled the other rules just to make sure that they were not doing anything weird.

Then select one or more messages in the sample mailbox and do Mail => Message => Apply Rules which will send the selected messages through the rules which ends up calling the script.  This is tied to CMD-OPT-L so its possible to cycle from compile and save in the script editor, switch to Mail to run the rules and back to the Script Editor all from the keyboard.


Short answer:

mir:~ itorres$ ndp -an
Neighbor                        Linklayer Address  Netif Expire    St Flgs Prbs
::1                             (incomplete)         lo0 permanent R
2001:470:95e5:1:3583:ead0:514d:d459 e8:6:88:ca:fd:7c en0 permanent R
2001:470:95e5:1:ea06:88ff:feca:fd7c e8:6:88:ca:fd:7c en0 permanent R
...

Longer answer:

You're in UNIX and you have two great commands: man (system manual) and apropos (lookup concepts on manual)

Hence:

mir:~ itorres$ apropos ipv6
Net::CIDR::Lite(3pm)     - Perl extension for merging IPv4 or IPv6 CIDR addresses
Net::IP(3pm)             - Perl extension for manipulating IPv4/IPv6 addresses
NetAddr::IP(3pm)         - Manages IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and subnets
NetAddr::IP::Lite(3pm)   - Manages IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and subnets
faith(4)                 - IPv6-to-IPv4 TCP relay capturing interface
icmp6(4)                 - Internet Control Message Protocol for IPv6
inet6_opt_init(3), inet6_opt_append(3), inet6_opt_finish(3), inet6_opt_set_val(3),     inet6_opt_next(3), inet6_opt_find(3), inet6_opt_get_val(3) - IPv6 Hop-by-Hop and     Destination Options manipulation
inet6_option_space(3), inet6_option_init(3), inet6_option_append(3), inet6_option_alloc(3    ), inet6_option_next(3), inet6_option_find(3) - IPv6 Hop-by-Hop and Destination Options     manipulation
inet6_rth_space(3), inet6_rth_init(3), inet6_rth_add(3), inet6_rth_reverse(3),     inet6_rth_segments(3), inet6_rth_getaddr(3) - IPv6 Routing Header Options manipulation
inet6_rthdr_space(3), inet6_rthdr_init(3), inet6_rthdr_add(3), inet6_rthdr_lasthop(3),     inet6_rthdr_reverse(3), inet6_rthdr_segments(3), inet6_rthdr_getaddr(3),     inet6_rthdr_getflags(3) - IPv6 Routing Header Options manipulation
ip6(4)                   - Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) network layer
ip6(8)                   - Enable or disable IPv6 on active interfaces
ip6config(8)             - Configure IPv6 and 6to4 IPv6 tunnelling
ip6fw(8)                 - controlling utility for IPv6 firewall (DEPRECATED)
ndp(8)                   - control/diagnose IPv6 neighbor discovery protocol
tcllib_ip(n)             - IPv4 and IPv6 address manipulation
traceroute6(8)           - print the route IPv6 packets will take to a network node

To get more detail about ndp:

mir:~ itorres$ man ndp


Dragging a window to a space doesn't work the first time

Confirmed: the mountain lion 10.8.2 update resolves this problem.


Identify why I get a connection to ransomware server

You receive this message when switching to only this network because it is likely your IT dept have a monitoring tool set upon it, which is using an API with this IP blacklisted for ransomware activity

The problem is this IP is shared across thousands of URLs and only a select few may be associated with ransomware


How to set relative directory to PATH variable, and run scripts in relative directory globally

If you have added the path of the file to run to your PATH variable you can run your command directly with

 echoHelloWorld.sh

independent of the directory you are in. Running it as ./echoHelloWorld.sh actually explicitly tells the shell to ignore PATH and run the script from the current directory (where it is not available).


Mysterious WindowServer process calling every 3 seconds

Finally, I found the culprit!! It was an app called Witch developed by ManyTricks so nothing like a virus or a malware. I'm contacting the devs right now to see if they can fix it.


Add an extra line to addresses in Contacts in iOS?

As you need to do a shift+enter (also called 'soft return') to do it (because 'enter' acts like 'tab'), you can't on iOS. According to this recent post Zoagli points it in his answer you can't do it on iOS.

Alternatively you can try to add the soft return on a computer via Contact.app (on a mac), or via the web interface of your contact manager (Google contacts…)

PS iCloud on the web doesn't support soft return.


macOS filesystem corrupted after spliting disk in Windows. How to fix?

There is a way I fix this. This is the simplest solution you may use in case you have backup of Windows files and macOS files using via Time Machine or external drive.

Create a backup image of restored Windows partition. If Windows didn't restore yet use TestDisk util. Example of restoring.
Boot your Mac in recovery mode and there you'll have option to reinstall macOS or to restore from Time Machine. You're lucky if you have backup. However on my 2011 late MacBook I've got Sierra macOS option to install, instead of default MacOS Lion. This saved me a hour of time to update from Lion to Sierra.
NOTE: that installing macOS again will erase your Windows disk. Therefore we made a bit-to-bit backup on step 1.
After installing Sierra you have an ability to reinstall Windows via Bootcamp.  If your Mac newer than 2012 that supports Windows 10 installation you can skip this step. My late MacBook Pro 2011 doesn't support Windows 10 by Bootcamp, so I need to do a trick by installing Windows 7 first. Then convert MBR record from Hybrid to Protective (Win10 doesn't support Hybrid). And only then install Windows 10. Read this perfect post for details.
Restore Windows 10 from backup we've created on step 1. You have to boot in the recovery mode of Windows and go to Restore from backup step.

Not sure this is the fastest way to restore, but I didn't find another one. This took over 4-5 hours to get back to normal state of booting macOS or Windows 10 on my old MacBook. And get a lesson that to DO NOT SPLIT disk when you have more than one OS installed.


Single-purpose app to prevent .DS_Store creation under Mavericks

Asepsis updates have been officially released for Mavericks compatibility - http://asepsis.binaryage.com/

I've personally tested it, working like a charm!


kernel_task and mdworker use all available RAM memory

First of all, kernel_task gets higher (if I not wrong) because of the mdworker.

Talking now about the mdworker. Maybe the problem is not on your SSD at all. In this article recommends you to turn off Spotlight all devices. I recommend you to test instead with some folders of the SSD you might think Spotlight could get stuck in (large number of files, symlinks, ...). Also, you could try avoiding Spotlight accessing your external disks. Test until you get rid of the problem. Maybe you could find where the problem comes.

Also, you could try mdworker process always at 100%, even when not indexing this answer. Here founds that the problem resides in a Spotlight plugin. That could also be.


Favorite list of servers of "Connect to Server" window disappears

I had this problem too. Here's how I fixed it: delete the folder ~Library/Application Support/com.apple.sharedfilelist/ and then use Activity Monitor to kill the sharedfilelistd process belonging to your user. Then I relaunched Finder for good measure. Works now!


How do I remove many system roots from Apple System Keychain?

Backup keychain before trying anything.

Listing root certificates:

sudo security dump-keychain /System/Library/Keychains/SystemRootCertificates.keychain

Just look in a dump for a names or SHA-1 hash values of certificates that you want to get rid of and write them down.

Now you can delete that root certificates using security delete-certificate command.

  Usage: delete-certificate [-c name] [-Z hash] [-t] [keychain...]

-c  Specify certificate to delete by its common name
-Z  Specify certificate to delete by its SHA-1 hash value
-t  Also delete user trust settings for this certificate The certificate to be deleted must be uniquely specified either by a

  string found in its common name, or by its SHA-1 hash. If no keychains
  are specified to search, the default search list is used.

For example you can delete chinese root certificates using this command:

sudo security delete-certificate -Z 8BAF4C9B1DF02A92F7DA128EB91BACF498604B6F /System/Library/Keychains/SystemRootCertificates.keychain


How to find out which photos were made by my iPhone and which were sent via WhatsApp?

This makes use of the Exif info stored within the JPEG image file, some of which is indexed by Spotlight, however see the Notes: section below.

Here is a simple sample bash script to preform an action on any JPEG image files found in the working directory that was taken on a iPhone.

Copy and paste the code below into a plan text file, without an extension, and from a Terminal, make it executable using chmod +x filename where "filename" is the name you gave to the script file.  Then place it in a directory that's in your $PATH, e.g /usr/local/bin, otherwise you'll have to provide the fully qualified pathname to the script file on the command line to execute it.

Now in a Terminal use the cd command to change to the target directory containing the JPEG image files you want to act upon, this becomes the target working directory, and type the name you gave to the script, then press Enter.  It will echo the name of each JPEG image file that was taken on an iPhone.

Hint: To more easily navigate to the target working directory from within the Terminal, type cd followed by a space then drag and drop from Finder the target folder onto the Terminal window.  This populates the fully qualified pathname for you and then you can just press Enter.  You're now in the target working directory containing the JPEG image files.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

for f in *.jpg *.JPG; do
    x="$(mdls "$f" | grep -o 'iPhone')"
    if [[ ! -z "$x" ]]; then
        echo "$f was taken on an iPhone."
    fi
done

Now obviously you'll want it to do something other then just echo the name of a JPEG image file that was taken on an iPhone, so you'll have to add additional command(s) within the for ... done loop.

In this example I want all JPEG image files that were taken on an iPhone to be moved into a directory name "iPhone" within the working directory.  So I modified the script accordingly.

Edited Code:

#!/bin/bash

if [[ ! -d "iPhone" ]]; then
    mkdir "iPhone"
fi

for f in *.jpg *.JPG; do
    x="$(mdls "$f" | grep -o 'iPhone')"
    if [[ ! -z "$x" ]]; then
        echo "$f was taken on an iPhone."
        mv -v "$f" "./iPhone/"
    fi
done

In Summary:

In the first if ... fi block [[ ! -d "iPhone" ]] tests for the existence of the "iPhone" directory within the current working directory and if it doesn't already exist, it's created by the mkdir command.

In the for ... done loop it only looks at files with extensions .jpg and .JPG. (I have both on my system.)

The $x variable will either be empty containing nothing "" or "iPhone" upon completion of the commands within the "$(...)" command substitution.

The output of the mdls command for the JPEG image file gets piped | to the grep command looking for iPhone and because of the -o option it's either going to be an empty string or the word "iPhone" that's returned, which becomes the content of the $x variable.

Therefore in the second if ... fi block [[ ! -z "$x" ]] tests to see that the "$x" variable is not an empty string and when it holds something, in this case being "iPhone", it's going to act upon that .jpg or .JPG file.  In the case of $x not being an empty string, as it can only contain nothing or "iPhone", it moves that file into the "iPhone" directory within the working directory.

Notes:

Having tested this in several locations on both internal and external storage medium I noticed that in some places the files were stored and that while they did actually contain the model of the camera that created them nonetheless it was not reflected in the output of the mdls command as those locations were excluded from indexing by Spotlight. So using the, third-party supplied, exiftool command insured reading the information directly from the file itself and not relying on indexed information (or lack of indexed information) that the mdls command accesses.

So if you want to download and install ExifTool and use it, then change mdls to exiftool in the x="$(mdls "$f" | grep -o 'iPhone')" line of the script so it would look like x="$(exiftool "$f" | grep -o 'iPhone')".

In comparison on the same JPEG image file the exiftool command showed the values of 23 additional Tags that were not displayed by the mdls command.  This may provide additional info to programmatically make the decision how to absolutely differentiate the source of the files by adding additional code to the script that would use info in the additional Tags, if necessary.


Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and often requires quite a bit of patience. Let's proceed as follows.

Have you followed Allan's advice?

I'm assuming you've already booted into Safe Mode and used Apple Hardware Test (as suggested by Allan in his comment on May 11)?

If you haven't, then please follow the steps below for booting into Safe Mode and Running Apple Hardware Test.
If you have, can you please edit your question to provide the results of performing both actions. Then skip the steps below for performing these actions and try the Terminal commands I suggest.

Run Apple Hardware Test

Shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Press and hold the D key before the gray startup screen appears.
After a while, Apple Hardware Test (AHT) will start.
When prompted, select your language and click the right arrow.
When the AHT console appears, you can choose to run Basic tests by clicking the Test button. However, I suggest you select the "Perform extended testing" checkbox before you click the Test button.
Your test results will appear in the window in the bottom-right of the console.

Take a note of the result and report back.

Note 1: The extended test will take some time. Take a note of the results and report back.

Note 2: If pressing and holding the D key at Step 3 doesn't work, start again at Step 1 and, at Step 3 press and hold both the OptionD keys instead. This will try and run diagnostics from the internet instead, so you will need to allow more time for it to complete.

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. do you see the Wi-Fi option in System Preferences > Network?)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Check System Preferences > Network again

Once you've booted into Safe Mode, let us know how you went.

Now, assuming you still have the problem after already booting into Safe Mode and running Apple Hardware Test, let's proceed with the following course of action.

Run these Terminal commands

Let's confirm what macOS believes the status of your Wi-Fi service is. To do this:

Launch Terminal
Enter the following command:

sudo networksetup -listallnetworkservices
Press Enter
Enter your password (note you will not see the cursor move, nor the characters appear on the screen)

Now, in the list that appears I assume you will see an asterisk (*) next to the Wi-Fi service. This denotes that it is currently disabled. Assuming this is what happens, let's try enabling it as follows:

Make sure you're still in Terminal
Enter the following command:

networksetup -setnetworkserviceenabled Wi-Fi on
A popup will prompt you for your password - enter it and click on the Modify Configuration button
Now enter this command:

networksetup -setairportpower en0 on
Restart your Mac
Now check System Preferences > Network again

Let me know how you go.


Is there a way to extract contents from AppleScript file without using AppleScript editor?

You cannot open a .scpt file with any editor! It is a compiled version of the script, not text, and it will not open with any editor.

Case in point, here is what happens when I try to view the file in Terminal...

OSX comes with osadecompile that will extract the source code of a compiled script .scpt file.

Here is an example...

$ osadecompile args2.scpt
on run argv
    set argc to 0
    try
        set argc to (count of argv)
    end try
    display dialog ("Argument Count: " & argc as string)
end run


Mac terminal can't be used after set up of ~/.bash_profile

You've got a recursive inclusion in your .bash_profile.

You can always edit the file in TextEdit.app (or another graphical text editor of your liking) if you get in to deep trouble like this.

Open up TextEdit using Spotlight or via Finder and then type ⌘ CMD+o to get the Open File... dialog. Press ⌘ CMD+⇧ SHIFT+. to reveal hidden files in the dialog box and then find your ~/.bash_profile file. Remove the:

. .bash_profile

from the file and save it and you'll have a working bash shell again.


Based on this post, the following worked for me.

Check if the pboard daemon is running:

launchctl list | grep com.apple.pboard

If the pboard daemon is running, then stop and start it.  If it's not running, start it:

launchctl stop com.apple.pboard
launchctl start com.apple.pboard

Then, you may need to restart the application(s) where cut-and-paste is not working.


Shocking? - MacBook stubby earthed charger UK

This is so commonly misunderstood that I shall attempt to provide a short précis, then link to a good explanation which is not overly-technical.
Common misconception - earthing/grounding
Most small household appliances are not, in fact, earthed at all - even if there is a valid earth pin on the mains plug.
They are what is known as 'double insulated' & carry this logo

The 'transformers' on this type of equipment are not the same as in high-power equipment & don't use a step-down coil transformer, linear supply. Instead they use a switch-mode supply.
All PSUs, whether linear or switch-mode leak a small amount of current due to capacitance. In double-insulated devices there is no true ground/earth so the design is optimised to try to prevent this leakage.
Unfortunately, switch-mode supplies run at very high frequencies, so the smaller capacitance in the smaller transformer ends up leaking just as much as the larger capacitance in a larger transformer running at 50 or at 60Hz for example.
The leakage current is usually less than 1mA and is often as low as 10uA, but even at such low current, it can still be present and still can cause problems.
So - the tingle or buzz that you feel is in fact you becoming the temporary ground/earth for this circuit.
It is usually safe, & any reputable manufacturer will ensure their PSUs are well within tolerance.
Cheap copies are cheap because they don't bother with most of the safety circuitry… you know, the stuff that makes the expensive one expensive in the first place ;-)
Have look at http://www.unitechelectronics.com/sparks.htm for a much more detailed explanation. Though it is aimed at hi-fi users & deals in 240v mains, the basic principles are identical.


Will Migration assistant erase my Lion setup

No, you'll be fine. Migration assistant migrates user accounts, applications, setting and/or files (depending on what options you choose), but it won't overwrite your Lion operating system. See Apple's guide to using Migration Assistant here.


Fixing iMessage/Message to not use email address (OSX and iOS)

Your email address, which is your Apple ID, is what ties everything together. That has not changed since iMessage was introduced.

You can change where the message is coming "from" by going (on iPhone) to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > and at the bottom under "Start new conversations from", adjust the checkbox to change what shows up as the "from" to your recipients. Most people would use their phone number here.

You should ensure the same setting is selected on your Mac. Go to Messages menu > Preferences > Accounts > select the account which says "iMessage" in small type below your email address on the left side, then on the right side, click the Settings tab and at the bottom, adjust the "Start new conversations from" setting.

The new feature you are referring to is SMS Forwarding, and is mostly unrelated to the above. It allows you to set your phone to forward messages, received on the phone as SMS, to your Mac as if they were iMessages. Replies made on your Mac are sent back to the original sender as SMS, again through your phone.


Recursive set creation date of pictures and videos based on filename

I am not directly answering your question, but you may want to consider another approach. Most cameras record creation date within the file in Exif data.

There are many ways of accessing this, but there is a command line tool jhead http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/ This works on many platforms, and has the option to extract Exif times and perform modifications based on these.

I have an Automator Workflow (using jhead) to do this for selected items
(I would have pasted the workflow, but can't seem to do so.)


Can I find out who is tracking my iPhone?

Well it's someone who has you mail & password. You won't be able to know more.

If you don't know who did it, change immediately your password !


There are various custom firmware available for Jailbreaking iPhone 5 running iOS 10.3.3.

I'd direct you to releases section of the iOS Jailbreaking Wikipedia page to see the available firmware for yourself.

A few supported ones for your device (from the aforementioned Wikipedia page) are:

h3lix Jailbreak
EtasonJB
Poenix Jailbreak

Note: I personally do not Jailbreak my iOS devices. Please proceed at your own caution. A Jailbreak can be reverted any time by restoring the original firmware.


From your description, it sounds like you have an external hard drive (Seagate brand), which you have been using for your Time Machine backup. You're also saying that the capacity of the external hard drive is the same as your Mac.

As a general guideline, you want the Time Machine's hard drive to be about 1.5x the capacity of the Mac's hard drive. The reason being is that Time Machine stores progressive changes to files, such that you could literally restore one version of a file from a week ago, even though the file had been backed up several times over the week.

With respect to setting up Time Machine again, it sounds like you have a Time Machine backup on the external hard drive, and you're being prompted to restore. If this is confusing to you, then you could simply format the external hard drive, and then designate it for your Time Machine backup.

For all things related to Time Machine backups, and troubleshooting issues related to that, take a look at Pondini's Guides and Tips for Time Machine.


How do I disable volume/brightness popup?

Like many things interface-y, there's a Terminal command for that. Excellent explanation already exists.


It seems like you have already completed a base setup of your new iPhone (meaning, you have used the Setup Assistant to set it up and have reached the home screen). In that case, follow these steps to restore the old phone's iCloud backup into the new iPhone:

Go to Settings > General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings and erase it (enter passcode if prompted). The phone will then restart.
Ensure you have a WiFi connection, and when the Setup Assistant shows up

Proceed to Set up your device
Tap Restore from a Backup
Then sign in to iCloud
Proceed to Choose backup, then choose from a list of available backups in iCloud.

See:
Restoring from a previous iCloud backup
Restore from iCloud


By giving an extra -n parameter to the netstat command, reveals the port number.
This reveals that blackjack correspond to the port 1025.
PROMPT> netstat -anv
Active Internet connections (including servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q  Local Address          Foreign Address        (state)     rhiwat shiwat    pid   epid  state    options
tcp6       0      0  fe80::c999:dc6f:.1025  fe80::c55b:ddf6:.13569 ESTABLISHED 131072 131072    476      0 0x0102 0x00000204
tcp6       0      0  fe80::c999:dc6f:.1024  fe80::c55b:ddf6:.1024  ESTABLISHED 131072 131072    476      0 0x0102 0x00000204

In the past, port 1025 seems to have been used for something named network blackjack. Nowadays I doubt that it's still being used for this purpose.
My conclusion is that identityservicesd running on port 1024+1025 is harmless.


Need to restore applications folder from an old time machine backup

Run Migration Assistant and tell it to move Applications and settings from the Time Machine backup of choice.

If your SSD is clean or only has a junk account, you should be able to move back your real user account and settings as well as all applications in one clean migration.

It will check for problems like you already having a user account and let you know if you will have collisions and how it will handle them.


Can Find My Mac still persist after erasing the hard drive?

There is a simple way to find out who is the owner of the computer as reported to Find my Mac.

In terminal use

nvram -p | grep fmm

If it is your name there then you are fine.


Frequently get "The backup disk image “/Volumes/TimeMachine/MyMBPro.sparsebundle” is already in use" message

Do you have access to you Western Digital MyBookLive via ssh ?
Can you change some config files from it?

I believe Western Digital MyBookLive use netatalk for allow connect to it via afp protocol from mac os x.
If it is true, when you abnormally disconnect from you MyBookLive netatalk wait by default 24 hours before dropping you connection see disconnect time parameter.

If you have access via ssh to you MyBookLive you can add "disconnect time = 1" parameter (one hour before dropping you connection) to the afp.conf file

And you can set "sleep time = 1" (Keep sleeping AFP sessions for number hours before disconnecting clients in sleep mode. Default is 10 hours.)

If you don't have access via ssh. I don't now. Maybe need check new firmware for you device, contact WD technical support on this issue.


I cannot add a Web page into my Dashboard

Apparently Dashboard is turned off in your system. Go to System Preferences → Mission Control and enable Dashboard by selecting either As Space or As Overlay corresponding to Dashboard.

The Open in Dashboard... option is unavailable in File menu in Safari if the Dashboard is turned off.


How to manually control processes launched on start?

~200 processes seems a tad high, but not out of range for *nix systems depending on the hardware and services being invoked. Managing the things that you've installed through the LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons is the best plan that won't kill your system. Digging into services invoked by launchd is not something I'd recommend unless you understand what the process is there for and what it does - some launchd processes are inter-related and killing one can cause another to fail, and you're heading to a broken system.

For the "freezing" problem, find the service(s) that are suddenly spiking their CPU usage and do some Google searching, note what apps you have open at that time, read the Console logs and see if you can narrow down the cause. Fixing problems like that takes a scalpel, not a shotgun.


Launchd will not execute plist. Where am I going wrong?

It turns out that the cause of the error was a poorly written plist - <string>start</string> was instructing the exec file to run a start command when initiating the daemon, which was causing it to crash. I erased that line from the plist and now it behaves as I had intended.


Why won't video from ffmpeg show in QuickTime, iMovie or quick preview?

In short, you (often) need to include the argument -pix_fmt yuv420p when using ffmpeg to generate H.264 content for Apple software/devices, and a bunch of other decoders that don't handle yuv444p.

# ffmpeg -i input.avi -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mp4

This is not mentioned in the output when using the defaults, but can be found in their Encode/H.264 guide.

It turns out that ffmpeg have chosen a default pixel format of yuv444p for libx264 encoding (under some circumstances), which is not compatible with Apple's software/hardware H.264 decoders (and perhaps not very widely compatible in general?). Unfortunately this seems unlikely to change, and there's no warning about it, so just something you have to know if using ffmpeg to make H.264 files.

As far as I can tell, if converting a video that's already using yuv420p it'll maintain that, but if converting from something a bit more exotic (e.g. images or a GIF or whatever) the pixel format must be specified for general Apple compatibility.


How can I send emails with Mail.app as text/markdown explicitly?

Would Brett Terpstra’s Markdown Service Tools provide what you need? Here's a nice blog-post explaining how to it up and running, also en Mail.


Strange files named "/xEy4O" keep appearing

Open terminal.app (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal or via Spotlight) and issue this command: sudo fs_usage | grep [path_to_file]. Path_to_file may be to any of your found 'xEy40' files. See, if it'll show anything.


Details of the proxy address which is being used by Mac

Either get ProxyConf, which does exactly this.

Or retrieve the web proxy with networksetup -getwebproxy Ethernet (replace Ethernet with the one you're using from networksetup -listallnetworkservices), then format the output into HTTP_PROXY format:

$ networksetup -getwebproxy Ethernet | awk '/Server:/ {host=$2} /Port: / {port=$2} END { printf "http://%s:%s", host, port}'
http://127.0.0.1:8228

If your network services (Ethernet, Wifi, etc.) vary or you use multiple at the same time, you may need to get a little more elaborate to figure out which one is being used. man networksetup and man ifconfig should have everything you need if you want to go there.

Formerly there was also scselect, but networksetup incorporates all of it's functionality.


Apple Music downgrade from family plan keeping music

I believe she can make a smart playlist of all the music she has in Apple Music and then export those playlist to files listing the songs.

When you terminate the subscription, she may or may not have a grace period before the music disappears from her library and playlists (which could end up empty playlists). When she signs back up, she would then either not lose anything if there is a grace period or she would import the playlists back and then re-download local copies if she uses that feature.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205928

The dual membership option with no presumed down time or need to make any changes is documented above. Once your student membership bills, you can cancel the other plan - perhaps timing the billing cycles to have a day or three overlap only.

A call or web chat to Apple support might be prudent to have them check if you have a grace period or she can sign up herself now and have a more seamless transition.


I cannot install the Tiled Map Editor on Mac OS X 10.6.8

Check to see if the application you are using is Intel supported. I don't know why a PPC application wouldn't run on an Intel, but try clicking on the application, go to File>Get Info, and under General>Kind, check to see what the application kind is.


How to Highlight a Symbolic Link in Finder of El Capitan?

Set your highlight on the original, the symlink will follow - even across different drives on the same machine, even across different machines, so long as they are able to see each other.

Note: Sometimes the changes are not visible immediately to the Finder. Any change to the folder is usually enough to 'remind' it.


How to use a kext that has just the info.plist changed without codesign or SIP disabled?

If you have no problem in keeping SIP half-enabled like you mentioned, then you can proceed, but with caution. Unless you are really sure that this Info.plist change will work as expected, do the following:

Copy the modified kext into System/Library/Extensions after authenticating
Execute sudo chown -R root:wheel /sample_path_to_kext
Execute sudo chmod 644 /sample_path_to_kext
Execute sudo kextcache -i /
Restart

Alternatively you may use an app like Kext Wizard or Kext Drop and just perform sudo kextcache -i / at the end of their operation.

Lastly, I cannot stress enough how dangerous this is to your Mac. Please proceed only if you really know (or don't care) if something unexpected happens.


The properties for any Finder window are stored in the .DS_Store file located at the root of the directory. It should have nothing to do with the permissions of the file, unless the active user account is not a member of the wheel group (very unlikely).

You should be able to change the view configuration of the Macintosh HD window and have those settings stick. If not, there is the chance that the .DS_Store file has become corrupt somehow; deleting the file and letting it rebuild should solve the problem. In Terminal:

sudo rm /.DS_Store

Re-open the window and set the view to your liking.


Macbook pro 16inches 2019 fails to reinstall catalina on recovery mode after erasing hard drive, and T2 chip dissallows to boot from external drive

This is how I solved the issue.
You need another Apple computer running Catalina.

Make a time machine backup of the working computer.
Boot the non-working computer in recovery mode.
Recover from that backup.
Continue from there...

Hope this helps other people.


using rEFInd to get around lack of boot screen when using unsupported GPU in Mac Pro

Removing rEFInd from the EFI partition.

If you use refind-install without any options and/or the --usedefault option to install rEFInd into the EFI partition (disk0s1), then use the following steps to remove rEFInd from this partition.

Make sure the EFI partition (disk0s1) is unmounted. Use the command given below.

diskutil unmount disk0s1

Mount the EFI partition (disk0s1). The command is given below.

sudo diskutil mount disk0s1

Use the Finder to open the EFI folder on the EFI volume.
If any of the following folders exist in the EFI folder, then move each folder to the trash: BOOT, refind and tools

In other words, if the any of the following folders exist, then the folder should be removed.

/Volumes/EFI/EFI/BOOT
/Volumes/EFI/EFI/refind
/Volumes/EFI/EFI/tools

Empty the trash.
Use the command given below to unmount the EFI partition.

diskutil unmount disk0s1

Installing rEFInd to appear in the Mac Startup Manager

  Note: If rEFInd already exists in the EFI partition (disk0s1), then the instructions given in this section may fail. You should make sure rEFInd is removed from the EFI partition (disk0s1) before proceeding.

The commands to install the current version of rEFInd is given below. You should enter these commands from macOS.

sudo $HOME/Downloads/refind-bin-0.12.0/refind-install --usedefault /dev/disk0s1
diskutil unmount disk0s1

Below is the output when the above commands were entered using the current version of Catalina (macOS 10.13.6).

  Note: When testing, I received the error message sed: -i may not be used with stdin. This error did not effect the installation of rEFInd other than not unmounting disk0s1

The rEFInd Boot Manager should now appear in the Mac Startup Manager with the label EFI Boot. Both the icon and label can be customized.


I want to play one podcast only on iPod Touch, but they play in series one after the other

With iOS 4, you can make a playlist directly on your device. Go to the Music app, then Playlists, then "Add Playlist...". Type in the name for the playlist, hit Save, and you're presented with a screen to add items to the playlist. Select "Podcasts" (by default, it's found under "More") and select the item you want to play. Tap "Done".

You're all set - just select the item from the playlist and only that item will play.


Finder doesn't starts on Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

You can try to reset this apps preferences.

Got to ~/Library/Preferences
Search this folder for files that contain finder in its' names.
Delete them
logout and login back


First: Install the font:

Open application Font Book
Copy your .TFF font and paste it into the application (or drag and drop)

Second: Change font in iMovie:

If you're in iMovie and you have a textbox, select the text you want its font to change and hit Command + T. The font selection popup opens and you should be able to select your installed font.


Try searching for and adding a Get Specified Finder Items action before your Get Folder Contents actions. This allows you to select the folder of which you would like to get and sort the contents.

Hope this helps!


How to install Windows 8.1 on MacBook Pro from USB?

Non-retina display MacBooks cannot boot anything other than OS X from a USB flash drive.  It's a limitation in the firmware.  Apple fixed this with the retina models because they have no optical drive, meaning USB is the ONLY way to install Windows.  On a retina display MacBook, the Boot Camp assistant even makes a USB flash drive for you the same as Rufus does.  However, they never backported this fix to non-retina models (and the Boot Camp assistant on non-retina models does not have the USB option).

The only way to boot a USB stick for the purpose of installing Windows is to use rEFInd and bless the rEFInd directory as your startup folder (which itself must be done from the command line as the Startup Disk control panel won't even show it as an option).

rEFInd will then take over the boot process and will allow you to boot to USB media.  If you don't like rEFInd you can remove it after Windows is installed.  You will then see Windows and OS X as options in the Startup Disk control panel.

Here is a link to the rEFInd home page, and here's how to install and bless the rEFInd directory.

NOTE:  Use Disk Utility to create yourself a FAT-formatted partition on the disk BEFORE you attempt to install Windows.  This will create the hybrid MBR that Windows needs to boot.  You can reformat it NTFS during the Windows install.  I you already have an NTFS partition (as your screenshot above shows), you can skip this step as you already have the hybrid MBR created.


In the current version of iTunes, it works when you uncheck "Search entire iTunes library" in the search bar. (To get there you click the spotlight-type icon in the iTunes search bar.) I had the same problem, and that worked for me!


How can I download iCloud photos from previous/older devices?

Yes. If on OS X, use Apple's Photos app and save the pictures locally. If on Windows, download iCloud for Windows.


Having keystroke issues with macOS Sierra on two different Macs

A friend of mine, who works at an Apple Premium Reseller, told me that:

It's a known problem that has to do with MacOS Sierra;
Results in all different sorts of weird behaviour until reboot;
Only happens on factory installed Macs (running MacOS Sierra);
Is not harmful for your computer (hardware); and,
Advised to wait for a software update from Apple.


"Wi-Fi" process in OSX El Capitan uses a lot of CPU

Reinstallation of OSX El Capitan helped. Don't know why it was happening.


Mail.app keeps trying to connecting to old mail server

This sounds like a DNS caching issue still. I know that most web browsers do cache their own DNS as well, and I am sure Mail does, but I think that cache empties after exiting.

I always try to telnet into port 25 on a remote mail server to test the connection when something is weird. Port 25 is for SMTP traffic, or what sends the mail. If you get a valid connection, you can actually interact with this interface. With your comments though, this probably did not work.

DNS is a very strange beast, because so many different services do many things, not to mention the different hardware on your network. In this case you have:

router
Mac, but DNS cache and hosts file

In the end, it sounds like you discovered this in your hosts file. I can't count the number of times (I do a bit of web dev) that I set something up in the hosts file and then got confused why something was acting wrong.


MBP system reports 2 disks while About this Mac->Storage shows one HD?

You clearly have two separate devices: one a 5400rpm rotational hard drive, and the other an 'after-market' Intel SSD of 160 Gb.

There's limited space in an MBP, so is it possible that your optical (DVD) drive has been replaced with a housing for an SSD?

If you set Finder preferences to show hard disks on the Desktop, does the SSD show up?

Crashes could be caused by a defective SATA connector, either to the SSD or to your hard drive. These parts are known to fail: you can buy replacements very cheaply. If the connector to the SSD is failing, that might also explain why it's missing.

With a 10-year-old mechanical drive and a possibly failing connector to a third-party SSD installed in the optical drive bay, you might want to open it up, replace the hard drive with a new, large-capacity SSD, and investigate any physical problems with the existing SSD and housing.


"newgrp: too many groups" - why is it complaining?

From the source code of newgrp

if (ngrps == NGROUPS_MAX)
    warnx("too many groups");

and I think  NGROUPS_MAX is defined as 16.

That is given in syslimits.h


Ping can be suppressed by a firewall, so I like to take a more overall view.

I would choose one thing that Macs can share like Screen Sharing and File Sharing and turn them on on both Macs.
I would check if the time of day is correct on both (since some deviation past a few hundred seconds can cause visibility errors in some sharing tasks). This also ensures that the network connection to internet time servers is working if you set the time automatically.
Now that you know the network itself is functional for each Mac - open Finder in both and search for the other Mac.

If you have hidden the "shared" sidebar in finder, you might have to un-hide it. Alternatively, you could make a new test user account on both Macs and use it for troubleshooting. The default Finder settings will show shared Macs on the local network.

At that point, you'll know a bit more about the network and possibly want to power off both Macs and power off the router and then start them all up again.


Honestly I'd suggest running it in a virtual machine (VM). I used to dual boot, however, at every update it would wipe the Kali install.


You can add a right click item via Automator. Open Automator and copy this workflow:

When you save it, it will appear in your right click menu under Services:

I'm not completely sure what you mean by changing the URL protocol, but I should be able to modify this to accomplish what you want


Airports, Wifi Roaming, and Ethernet Backhaul

The diagram at the top of the article you linked to in the question seems to show exactly what you are trying to achieve; the extended base stations are connected via Ethernet, from their WAN ports, to a network port on the primary base station. Have you tried this configuration?


How to connect unlocked iPhone 5s to Verizon

Unless you have a 6 or later, Verizon voice is CDMA-only for the 5s.

If your iPhone 5S is not CDMA capable, data might work on LTE portions of Verizon's network. It would still need to support all of Verizon's LTE bands (see iPhone LTE support). But, as mentioned above, voice would not work.  VoLTE is only supported on the 6 and later.

Verizon has a database of iPhone IMEIs that are legitimately sold as Verizon "branded" or as world-unlocked phones, and that are CDMA capable. If they can't add it, there's a 99% chance it wouldn't work to your satisfaction.

You can test whether it would work at all by loading a Verizon SIM from a friend's iPhone 5S or later.  (A SIM from any non-Apple device won't generally work because there is a difference in back end programming, especially for voice + LTE.)

In the off chance that it does work on your friend's SIM, the trick is to get customer service or a store rep to load up a dummy IMEI, or the IMEI of a known compatible phone, just to activate the SIM. I've asked them to do this on occasion where I'm setting up an employee's account and don't have the phone present, but need it activated so it will work as soon as the employee reports to my office.

(For what it's worth, I find that AT&T's lower frequencies in the 800-900MHz range tend to penetrate buildings better than Verizon or T-Mobile's 1900/2100MHz bands, at least in our neck of the woods in Utah. Your 5S isn't going to support the enhanced coverage offered by the 700MHz bands.)


If the Genius said that the problem is in the cable, you should try swapping the cable.

With that said, TEST YOUR GPU NOW. If there's indeed a problem, you really want to get it fixed now.

Run Apple Hardware Test (if you computer was released before June 2013) or Apple Diagnostics. Make sure that you run the relevant tests. Run some sort of GPU stress test like Unigine Heaven. If anything seems to be triggering errors, bring it to the Apple Store and try to get them to replace it. GPU replacement is expensive and you'd be much better off having Apple pay for it than you.


Adobe Photoshop CS5 PC version running via boot camp

Parallels is fantastic. You can either install Windows to a Bootcamp partition (so you have the option of booting straight into Windows), or just as a virtual machine. Either way, Parallels can then run in "Coherence Mode", which will allow Photoshop to appear on your Mac desktop as though it were a native application. I use Parallels for developing Windows software and for games, and the performance is brilliant.

Of course, you could talk to Adobe about a crossgrade to the Mac version - if you don't already own Windows the cost may be comparable.


Generally speaking you need a Keyboard driver from the manufacturer. However a developer has made a "Universal" USB device driver for the Mac which might do what you need to do. Check out USB Overdrive

NOTE: might, I have no specific experience with this software, but have heard people using and recommending it for years and years, so I am guessing it will work for you.


How do I play sounds from my iPad to my Stereo wirelessly?

You can connect the iPad directly to your stereo using bluetooth. Or you can use AirPlay to stream audo to your iMac. However you cannot record anything while doing this:

  While the "AirPlay - Bluetooth - HDMI" switch is on, an alert appears if you try to record an Audio Recorder or Guitar Amp Touch Instrument, or if you try to record a sound with the Sampler. You can turn the switch off from the alert.

From: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4622


iPhone 4S message to enter password for CalDAV

From what I've seen, often when it asks for a password, the original one was entered incorrectly - something very easy to do on an iPhone. First, try entering the password to see if it goes away. Chances are, it is probably not syncing with your Yahoo calendar and won't unless the password problem is corrected.

You can also go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and select the account named "Yahoo", and turn off the calendar for that account if you do not wish to have it in the Calendar app.

If you currently are receiving mail to that Yahoo account (if there is one associated with it) on your phone, then it may be a different problem.


Turns out if you leave it about 20 minutes and exit out of Music and go back in it sorts itself.


Lost one AirPod Pro — but “find my“ thinks it is together with the other one!

If your AirPods or AirPods Pro are separated from each other, you see
only one location at a time on the map. Find the AirPod or AirPod Pro
that you see on the map and put it in its case. Then refresh the map
and find the other one.

If your AirPods, AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max are out of range or need
to charge, you might see their last known location, "No location
found," or "Offline." You also won't see the location for your AirPods
or AirPods Pro if they're inside their Charging Case.

If you see "No location found" or "Offline" under your AirPods,
AirPods Pro, or AirPods Max, you can't play a sound to find them but
you might be able to get directions to the location where they were
last connected. If they do come back online, you'll get a notification
on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch you use them with.

(from Apple Support)


MacBook is displaying the message "no hardware installed" when I click on Wi-Fi

If you are getting the message "No hardware Installed" it means that macOS is not detecting your WiFi adapter for one of two reasons:

It's not installed (it physically doesn't exist)
It has failed

Chances are it's the second option.

You can confirm this by running Apple Hardware Test (AHT).  Hold the D key while booting from a powered off state with the AC adapter connected.

Regardless if the first or the second, you will probably have to replace it with another Airport card

ifixit.com has an excellent tutorial and step-by-step guide on how to replace the board.  It's a time consuming repair - I wouldn't say difficult, but more detail oriented.  If this is not your cup of tea, I recommend taking it in for service.


It seems that the only thing that was missing from my rsync run was to copy extended attributes. I ran the command again, but this time adding the option -E (which I think is specific to Macs) and the job ran with no error reported.


Why screenshot of same content appears more saturated on iPad 3 retina vs. Macbook Air LCD?

You could, but how would you know which is correct?

You would need accurate profiles for both screens. This could be done with colorimeter hardware/software, something like ColorMunki (No affiliation, it's just what I use myself), which can calibrate both your Mac & iPad screens [also PCs, if you have them]

An app like Photoshop [& possibly Gimp, though I've never used it] could then do the translation between the two, though once your screens are correctly calibrated, you may not need to.


The only way I found so far is to map the share manually to /Volumes/.hiddensharename.


The unix command to search for files is find.

You can use the command man find to get more information. The usual form is the following.

find  <starting folder>  -name  <file name>  -print

For example, if you are looking for all mp3 files in the current folder and all nested folders, use the following command.

find  .  -name  "*.mp3"  -print

Sometimes you can get a lot of "permission denied" or other meaningless error messages. If so, then you can remove all error messages by appending a 2>/dev/null to the end of the command. See the example below.

find  .  -name  "*.mp3"  -print  2>/dev/null


How to prioritize what access point my wifi connects to?

With your setup of multiple access points sharing the same SSID (network name), your wifi client will use its built-in roaming algorithm to switch. But even if you have a marginal signal (i.e. one bar) on the one that's farther away, most times, the wifi client will stick to that access point, simply because it was the first one configured. To get around this you have two options...

Use different SSID's, and in the Advanced section in Network Preferences/Wi-Fi, drag/drop them in the preferred order. The good thing about this is the ability to quickly see which one you're connected to at any time and explicitly switch over whenever you want.
If you must have the same SSID... Change the SSID for the closer (desired) access point to a new name (e.g. "NewName"), re-associate your computer to that access point with the new name, then change SSID for the older access point to the same new name.


How do I open up my Mac to remote sharing anywhere?

I would recommend the screens app and screens connect. The software is not only fast and works excellently, but it helps diagnose if your network conditions are not correct to accept incoming traffic past any firewalls or NAT borders.

https://edovia.com/en/

For ssh, I use prompt and recommend that as well.

https://www.panic.com/prompt/

Together they solve all issues like not knowing your IP address of your router or having to set up dynamic DNS.


90˚c is typical for that system under high load; anything > than 95˚c is when you might want to be concerned. If the CPU gets too hot, or starts to overheat, the system (typically) will clock down the CPU to prevent overheating. The fans shouldn't wear out, so I don't really see any point in trying to replace what's not broken. Intel Mac's run hot, and the fact that the only fan is an output fan doesn't help with heat dissipation.

Something you could do to help alleviate some of the heat is to download smcFanControl (free) and adjust your fans RPM. Instead of the standard 1800 RPM set it at 3500-3600 RPM, which should help cool down the temp possibly 2-10˚c. You might notice more noise from the higher RPM, although you shouldn't worry about it — MacBooks fans generally max out at around 6,000 RPM, and I've cranked one up to 8,700 RPM before.


PDF from pdfLaTeX doesn't print correctly

Indeed, the whole problem was rooted in the generated PDF file having letter paper format.

After configuring MacTeX to use default a4 paper

texconfig paper a4

Everything is printed as expected.


Skype texting on iPhone no longer makes any sounds at all

Please check if you are in do not disturb mode as it affects it. Look for the moon symbol in the notification area.


How to change the current directory in a file/open requester [file-picker] by clicking an open Finder window below?

I can imagine this to be the UX solution you've seen:

Favorite folders in the Finder sidebar

Show the sidebar. Choose View > Show Sidebar. (If Show Sidebar is dimmed, choose View > Show Toolbar.)
Add a folder: Hold down the Command (⌘) key, then drag the item to the Favorites section.

If you don’t see the Favorites section, go to Finder > Preferences > Sidebar, then select at least one item in the section.

Is this the solution you were looking for?

Original answer

To navigate to a folder in the "file/open dialog" that is already open in Finder.app do this:

(I assume that both the Finder window and the "file/open dialog" are visible on the same screen/space)

Click and hold the folder icon of the folder you want to go to and…
Drag the icon into the "file/open dialog" and release the mouse.
Done.


Rubberized stylus, not moving smooth on iPad glass, any tricks?

I think most of these answers are pure speculation and the long term effects on your iPad's screen are at question.

I would suggest that you simply look to replace the stylus as it has evidently worn out. It may be that they are not very durable products, but I certainly wouldn't recommend trying to hack a solution over just buying a new stylus.


Advantages of installing a program with Homebrew-Cask?

Two other main points are that it makes a) updating and b) transfering your setup to another machine extremely easy.

The uninstall capabilities depend on the "quality" of the cask for the program you uninstall. There is no "general" complete cleanup afaik.


Launching Terminal Freezes the System for 5 Minutes in Mavericks

After Googling and trying a few things, I have got this resolved. As described here http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100623054627388 and elsewhere, there are a lot of log files accumulated in the the /private/var/log/asl directory. I downloaded Onyx http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/11582/onyx and used it to delete the system logs and cache files. After restarting the computer, Terminal launches quickly. There are no delays when logging in from SSH or from the log-in screen either.

The error message from ssh-add seems to be a different problem.


How to check which process took a desktop screenshot on macOS?

Using the log utility in Terminal you should be able to identify what exactly happened.

If you don't know the exact second that this happened go into Language and Region System Prefences settings and click the "Advanced Settings" button then go to "Times" tab and drag the blue box next to "Second:" in the "Time Elements" section up into the first line labeled "Short" so you can see seconds now along with dates in Finder's Date Created column.

In the Terminal app enter the following, substituting the correct time in 24h format and correct date (YYYY-MM-DD) for a couple seconds prior to the timestamp of the file and however many seconds after:

  sudo log show --start "2018-10-23 23:45:17" --end "2018-10-23 23:45:47" --info --debug --signpost | grep -i screencapture

This will likely detail what prompted the screencapture process to take a screenshot. If it's all labeled < private > you will have do another additional step to get this info but it's very simple.

Very appropriate joke(?) about the NSA too. It actually really demonstrates the notion that malware or any sort of compromise is so far fetched that only someone like the NSA would understand it. The reality is that it's extremely unlikely that your computer hasn't been compromised. Considering most users think they have a magical stealth firewall and are protected by top secret Apple security features only makes the problem worse. Apple is at the end of the day just another for-profit company and admitting they've been perpetuating this lie for a long time past its expiration date would be very bad for its bottom line and stock price.

Considering you have an AV product installed and are suspicous enough to ask this question it's very likely there's some sort of keylogger/remote access/spyware installed. Confirming this is possible but typically made more difficult thanks to Apple's own security features being altered to actually protect and hide the malware ensuring persistence.

To date there are 6,275 enteries for Apple products in the National Vunerability Database. Many are critical flaws that are only patched by Apple after being documented and reported via this official process which also to some extent broadcasts the flaw to the world. Even more concerning is that Apple only addresses vunerabilites that are properly flagged via this official process and only for the version of macOS, iOS, etc. that is required. So new and old version often can be vunerable to an issue that was at one time addressed. It is, after all, easier to say you've built a magical computer than to actually make one.

Thanks to dedicated malware developers most people would never notice these little additions. Maybe you can learn to live with it..maybe imagine its a little fairy who watches over you and remembers all your passwords or checks to see you're getting to bed on time. Best of luck..


I just installed Lion, and now I'm hanging on startup. What went wrong?

What went wrong was your hard drive is failing. The system cannot find a valid bootable system. You can test this by booting to an external drive (which looks like might have to wait for getting home or to the shop)

If the failure is happening fast - you just had bad luck and it would have failed within days no matter what. Get your stuff off and be glad you got things out before the "house burns to the ground".

If you had a slow failure, then the upgrade could have made things worse. This slow failure can often be made better by zeroing out the whole drive. Bad blocks get marked and for a while, it is reliable. You might buy some months or a year, but it's starting to fail.

Did the technician let you know if she or he felt you had a crisis or a slow issue with the HD?

As an analogy, Imagine a large "house" made of four decks of cards and lots of levels. If the far left hand side is shakey but you only are adding cards to the right, it might stand for a long time. As soon as you touch the left, down it comes.

A system upgrade touches everything - and re-writes the core software needed to boot. Your mac just wasn't up to having critical files written reliably and the upgrade brought those errors to stark light.

Put another way, Lion is running on millions of macs.

Sadly for you, something about your mac was different than most and the results quite painful to your productivity. The good news is many are going through the same pain - discovering how fragile HDD/SSD storage can be when a critical file fails to get written correctly.

I hope you get everything fixed, lose no data and can start enjoying Lion.


It is currently not possible to disable control of Keynote, iPhoto, Aperture, or with these keys. These keys are bound to control whichever app is frontmost in the OS.


creating a resident workflow with automator

I recommend designing such a process in AppleScript. AppleScript is not capable of just sitting and detecting a clipboard change, but you can set a regular interval for it to check your clipboard. Using variables, you can deduce if the clipboard data changes over time and set an IF THEN statement to run the text file process each time a change is detected. As far as having this run in the background, you can make the AppleScript a login item through System Preferences.

Here is a good template for polling the clipboard for changes. And here is a good starting point for the AppleScript code to copy into a text file.


What is the ATC service advertised in Bonjour?

The _atc._tcp. service is/was the Shared iTunes Library service.

I'm out and about at the moment, but when I get a chance I will update this answer with some sort of link/source to back this up.

[EDIT]

I haven't yet had a chance to have a thorough look for a source, although I did do a quick Google search and found a reference to the _atc._tcp. service at this MacRumors discussion. In it you'll see the 10th comment (by priitv8) states:

  For comparison, I've included a screenshot from my Shared iTunes Library service (_atc._tcp.).

Also, it occurred to me that you may want to download Bonjour Browser and see if that sheds any more light on this for you. It's an old app but works well (although I haven't used it in macOS Sierra - not sure what you're using).

As an aside, the list of Bonjour service types used in Mac OS X you linked to is not an exhaustive list. It was only a list of common Bonjour service types used in Mac OS X and hasn't been updated since July 2004.


Photos app on macOS, via iCloud syncing maintains album structure. If the photos are in albums in photos app on iPad, turning on selectively iCloud for photos app only and turning off backup on iCloud can do what you want to achieve.

Though some offline method would be great too!


It can happen one forgets the password.

Apple knows that and has made every effort to help you with recovering it.

The quickest way is to go to Apple website and request password reset.

It is a Automated process, and you will receive a email from Apple, so look for it.

There is more help here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201487


How do I assign a keyboard shortcut to a service in OS X?

In System Preferences, go to Keyboard » Keyboard Shortcuts » Services

Find the service on the list.

To the right of the service name, double-click.

Enter the desired shortcut.


Adding public key of iOS Prompt app to authorized_keys

For starters, just to clarify the terminology, when you create a key pair, the private key (typically named id_rsa) goes on the client (in this case the Prompt app), and the public key (typically id_rsa.pub) goes in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the server you're logging in to (in this case your Mac).

You should be able to just drag the private key into Prompt via the iTunes documents interface. If you're getting a connection error, try doing it with your device attached via USB, not Wi-Fi (I've found Wi-Fi syncing can be a bit flaky at times). If that still doesn't work, open up your private key in a text editor, copy the text and send it to yourself in an email (or any other means that gets the text to your device). You can then copy that text, and when you click the key button in Prompt, it should give you the option to Import Clipboard Key.


Your question is a bit ambiguous because you don't explicitly state what vim is or is not doing. A .nfo file is just a text file. Vim should be able to correctly handle Unicode encoded text files. If it is a codepage issue then this question on Stack Overflow should explain things:  How can I detect the encoding/codepage of a text file.


What causes OS X to mark a folder as Quarantined?

The com.apple.quarantine extended attributes probably have nothing to do with the issues you are having with Apache. They are part of the file quarantine feature that was added in 10.5:

File Quarantine is a new feature in Leopard designed to protect users from trojan horse attacks. It allows applications which download file content from the Internet to place files in “quarantine” to indicate that the file could be from an untrustworthy source. An application quarantines a file simply by assigning values to one or more quarantine properties which preserve information about when and where the file come from.
When the Launch Services API is used to open a quarantined file and the file appears to be an application, script, or other executable file type, Launch Services will display an alert to confirm the user understands the file is some kind of application.

The com.apple.quarantine extended attributes can be added when:

You download a file with a quarantine-aware application, like Safari, Chrome, or Transmission. For a few applications like Firefox, quarantine is forced to be enabled in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/Exceptions.plist.
You extract an archive with an application like Archive Utility or OS X's tar or zip.
You create a file with an application that has LSFileQuarantineEnabled set to true in the Info.plist.

The extended attributes have fields for quarantine status, a timestamp, the agent that originated the quarantine event, and sometimes a UUID:
$ xattr -p com.apple.quarantine Worksheet_v10.4.pdf
0042;51ea420b;Safari.app;5E2F48EA-1356-4D57-BFEA-571EE8ADC08C
$ date -r 0x51ea420b
Sat Jul 20 10:53:47 EEST 2013
$ sqlite3 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEventsV2 .dump|grep 5E2F48EA-1356-4D57-BFEA-571EE8ADC08C
INSERT INTO "LSQuarantineEvent" VALUES('5E2F48EA-1356-4D57-BFEA-571EE8ADC08C',395999627.472166,'com.apple.Safari','Safari','http://images.apple.com/server/docs/Worksheet_v10.4.pdf',NULL,NULL,0,NULL,'http://images.apple.com/',NULL);

The first field is a hexadecimal bitfield, where for example the seventh bit (2^6 or 0x40) usually gets set after you open a file for the first time.
You can delete the extended attributes with xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ~/Sites, but it won't probably have any effect on Apache. It will however disable the "is a file downloaded from the Internet" dialogs.


the max number of icloud accounts you can set up on iphone 5

I'd have tried a bit harder to get my original IDs back - as everything you bought with them is currently in the hands of someone else.

Contact Apple.

The answer to your question is 3, but that's not the point. Apple can override that if you can persuade them.


Continuity not supported to / from my iPad?

Quoted from Apple.com

  Continuity features are available on iPhone 5 or later, iPad (4th generation), iPad Air, iPad mini, iPad mini with Retina display, and iPod touch (5th generation).


Brew issue #22025 discusses problems installing grouce and a work around.

Do the instructions in this issue help you? If not, please follow the brew troubleshooting guide to report the problem.


How to invoke a method at particular time asynchronously every day in Mac application?

Note: I'm assuming that by "asynchronous" you mean "do this whether or not the user is logged in and running the application at 9:30 am".

The right way to do this is to register a call with launchd that handles the appropriate work for your application. When and how you do this is somewhat flexible. If you're using a .pkg-type installation script you can register the helper on installation. Or you can register on first run of your application, perhaps after the user has provided sufficient configuration information for the helper app to do it's job.

The Daemons and Services guide delves in to how to do this in great detail. I recommend reading that. And for a description of plist properties that launchd looks at see this manual page.

As a very high-level example,  let's assume your helper application can be found in your package under MyPackage.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/myhelper. Here's a plist file that would launch it every day at 9:30 am and 9:30 pm on the machine:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <!-- This label needs to be unique to the system -->
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.mycompany.mypackage.myhelper</string>

    <!-- Toggle to true to prevent it from running -->
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <false/>

    <!-- This is the full path to the helper application -->
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/Applications/MyPackage.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/myhelper</string>

    <!-- This is an array of string arguments to pass in to the app when it's called -->
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>--daemon</string>
    </array>

    <!-- This works much like cron to state when the job should be run -->
    <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
    <array>
        <!-- Run at 9:30 am -->
        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>30></integer>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>9</integer>
        </dict>
        <!-- Run at 9:30 pm -->
        <dict>
            <key>Minute</key>
            <integer>30></integer>
            <key>Hour</key>
            <integer>21</integer>
        </dict>
    <array>
</dict>
</plist>

Save that in /Library/LaunchAgents/com.mycompany.mypackage.myhelper.plist on your machine and then type:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/com.mycompany.mypackage.myhelper.plist

To register it right away with launchd. On reboot it should register automatically. See the launchctl man page for more information on using it to interface with launchd.


Creating folders in the Applications folder

It's not really considered "bad" to put folders there, but (as you've seen) it can cause problems with some apps.

The reason the updates are failing: The installer/updater looks for an app in the /Applications folder and doesn't find it. So, it assumes the app is not yet installed and that you are trying to install the whole app from the update, so it fails.

Alternatively, the app could be duplicated because the updater doesn't find the app and decides to install a new copy.

To avoid this problem, here's what I recommend:

Create another "organized apps" folder somewhere.
Make folders in it as you have in your /Applications folder.
Open one Finder window to /Applications and one to your new one.

Select ten apps from your Applications folder. Right-click and choose Make Alias. Give it a second. Then, drag the aliases you've made into the new folder. Repeat this (ten apps at a time) with the rest of your /Applications folder.

Now, you've got 'links' to all your apps in your new folder. Organize them how you want. You can now double-click the aliases in that folder to launch the apps they correspond to. Feel free to re-name and reorganize these aliases as you want.

Note that, with this method, updates should work. You will, however, have to manually add each app you install to the other folder.


Possible solution: changing first preferred language in browser.

It might fix the problem if you choose English as you first preferred language in browser settings. When requesting a page, browsers sends list of preferred languages for content. (For example, based on these settings Google redirects you to your local Google site.)

Changing preferred language:

Firefox 5: Tools->Options->Content->Languages.
Chrome: wrench-icon->Options->Under the Hood->Web Content->Languages and spell-checker settings  (instructions)

It might be working on your virtual machine if default Windows (in VM) language was set to English. Then browsers would also choose English as your default content language.

When my default language was set to English or German I had no problems navigating cnet sites. After setting my first preferred language to Lithuanian I was getting same errors as you.

It appears that this is internal cnet bug.

Tested on Windows XP Firefox 5, Chrome.


WD Passport External USB Drive - Really slow on Macbook

That seems very slow. I have a MyPassport, which is a portable, self-powered drive. When I got it, I found the copies to be slow, but I found that WD has drivers for the drive that speed the copy up considerably. I'm not entirely comfortable having a third-party hard disk driver, but I haven't encountered any problems with it.


How can I get all of my Gmail contacts into my Mac Contacts?

On Lion/Mountain Lion, go to the Preferences on your Contact app, choose Accounts and then On My Mac, and there should be a checkbox Synchronize with Google, you will just need to provide your Gmail credentials.
Just as a precaution, make a backup of your contacts first. Just need to go to Gmail, select Contacts, then the More button, Export to download all your contacts to your hard drive.


Why does my Outlook BCC myself on all outgoing emails?

See settings > mail > always bcc myself.


How to prevent people from adding other people in an iMessage group?

In short, no, it cannot be done.

No-one "owns" an iMessage group, it's entirely ad-hoc - so who would be the moderator of who can & cannot be in it?

What you can do is leave the room when you are invited or turn on do not disturb for a noisy room if you keep being added by “helpful” “friends”.


How to change desktop wallpaper for all virtual desktops?

Another option until Apple gives us a better one:

If, like me, you have your additional desktops arranged just how you like them, then the thought of deleting and recreating them just to change the wallpaper would be like recommending that I demolish my house so that I can repaint the walls. I'm not going to do that.

Instead, you can open up your Desktop preferences ( > System Preferences... > Desktop & Screen Saver ), then change the wallpaper on the current desktop.

Then, open Mission Control (on my machine, I launch Mission Control with the "Swipe up with three fingers" gesture) and drag & drop the Desktop & Screen Saver window onto the next desktop. The window will update to reflect the new desktop in focus and I can switch that desktop's image to whatever I want it to be. Repeat for as many desktops as you have. (If you have multiple monitors, then each monitor will have it's own Desktop window, named something like "Secondary Desktop".)

This is a lot easier than closing and reopening the desktop preferences on each desktop, and way easier than deleting and recreating all desktops (for me, at least).


Free video converter where I can choose video/audio codec?

Have you checked out HandBrake? Looks to have what you are looking for...


Connecting 2 iPads with a router without internet

You can do this of course.  Any wifi router that the two iPads both support should connect them.  Just don't bother to connect to the Internet.

I'm curious as to why you need this? Most iOS apps don't do peer to peer, though some obviously do.  Bittorrent Sync for one would possibly be useful here.


Can I use Preview to make this GIF file size smaller?

Yes you can. Open the gif in Preview and you'll get (I got) 48 images. Click on the "View" menu and select "Thumbnails" to display all images as Thumbnails. Give it a second or 2 to display all images. Once that is done go to "Edit" menu and select "display all" or click ⌘-a (command-a) to select all the thumbnails. Next go to "Tools" in the menu bar and select "Adjust Size".  This brings up a pane where you can adjust the image size using standard sizes or by the number of pixels. It will use your settings on all selected thumbnails.


I think I might have found a solution.
I added the following condition to the smart mailbox that the unread count is linked to:

Message is unread

Before I made this change, I noticed a significant lag between marking/unmarking read messages and the unread count on the smart mailbox and the dock badge changing. When I added this condition, the changes were immediate.
I suspect part of the problem may be that some of my folders (including one of my inboxes) have hundreds or thousands of read messages.


There are really no strictly better alternatives.
XQuartz is usually the best option for running an X server on a Mac.
If you're running older OS X versions, you might prefer X11.app from Apple.
If you're using older Mac hardware with PowerPC CPUs, you can also run XFree86 in the Darwin/PowerPC port (note that Xorg.org is originally a forked XFree86).
If you simply looking for alternatives - you could also take a look at WeirdX. It is old, it is slow and doesn't have as many features as Xorg - but it is an alternative:
http://www.jcraft.com/weirdx/
Besides that - there's always the option of running for example Linux in a virtual machine on your Mac, and then run your X server in there (for example Xorg).
Also you could look at alternative ways of connecting to your Linux desktop. For example you could use Xpra:
https://xpra.org
There's a macOS client - but there's also a HTML5 client for accessing the desktop through a browser.
Another alternative would be to use VNC instead of the X protocol.
UPDATE January 2021: An XQuartz 2.8 beta has just been released with support for Apple Silicon!


Does Find My Mac stop working after the system has been wiped?

If the thief just wipes the harddrive, there is a slight chance that your device will still show up in Find My Mac as the association is saved in the NVRAM which persists even after a drive format.

However, if the thief or new owner clears the NVRAM in any way, or reconfigures iCloud with another account and enables Find My Mac for it, the association will be deleted or overwritten, and you will no longer be able to track your device.

See this question for more on the subject.


Renamed external drive still appearing in terminal with both old and new names

My first guess with the elements you give is that something went wrong while renaming. The old drive you see in Volume is the old mounting point of your drive and it still contains the index file for spotlight.
I would just delete this folder using:
sudo rm -rf '/Volumes/Mercury 1TB'/.Spotlight-V100
sudo rmdir '/Volumes/Mercury 1TB'

*Updated after nohillside's comment in the thread down below.


"The app isn't available, Try again." on TestFlight

I solved the issue by removing all Internal Testers. Then I disabled Testflight Beta Testing on the Pre-release page.

Then I enabled Pre-release, navigated to Internal Testers and selected users to invite - and that invite worked fine.


How can I use Availability Panel in Calendar?

On BusyMac there is an article about that. The Availability Panel is supported by e.g.:

Exchange and Office 365
Fruux
OS X Calendar Server
Kerio
Zimbra

and not supported by e.g. iCloud, Google Calendar, Yahoo, Communigate, Beehive.


For what it's worth, I just used homebrew (http://brew.sh/):

brew update
brew install openssl
brew link --force openssl
openssl version -a

If one of the bad versions come up (1.0.1a-f), you can figure out which version of openssl you're using, this way:

which openssl

Often this is from /usr/bin. To make sure you get the updated version, drop a symlink into /usr/local/bin to point to the updated openssl, like this:

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1g/bin/openssl /usr/local/bin/openssl

As an alternative to that final step, some people replace the openssl in /usr/bin with a symlink to /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1g/bin/openssl (or whatever your version is):

mv /usr/bin/openssl /usr/bin/openssl_OLD
ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/openssl/1.0.1g/bin/openssl /usr/bin/openssl

But this is known to cause problems with some more recent versions of OSX.  Better to just insert a new symlink into /usr/local/bin, which should take precedence on your path over /usr/bin.


Solid State Drive for small commercial print shop

I would suggest a Samsung 850 PRO. Great longevity, warranty and performance. Or, if you want a bigger drive, get the 850 EVO. Not so durable, but we're still talking of decades.

The Pro is rated for more writes than the Evo but costs more and has slightly higher benchmark performance. On an older iMac it’s not clear you’d benefit from the faster or more durable option.

Basically: 1000 write cycles per cell for the EVO and 3000 for the PRO. If you write 10GB/day (which is quite a lot) on a 256GB EVO, the disk will die in about 70 years, when you'll have written 256x1000 GB of data.


Missing icon styles for Vanilla LibreOffice after update

I just got the update to this version of LibO:

Version: 5.2.1.4
Build ID: e145cf15d1b452e575867b990095d176cf53383c

At least my preferred icon styles have been restored in an "artwork" fix to this release ("Breeze" and "Sifr"). Still, the only further one this "Vanilla" AppStore version of LibO includes is the "Tango" set, unlike the larger set of options I see on my Ubuntu setup.

It would still be good to know how to add icon sets to the OSX LibO installation, but at least the icons are now bearable again.


What can cause a MacBook Pro mid 2015 sound output to fade rapidly to silence?

The amplifier to make sound is the likely cause of failure. Since that’s on the logic board, a free warranty swap or a flat rate repair for $300 or so are the likely costs to fix this properly.

Have you tested installing a new OS on an external drive or wiping and reinstalling in case it’s software? That’s worth doing so you have a backup or confidence you need a repair as well.


Why is the Page Number menu item greyed out in Pages '09?

It's greyed out because it needs somewhere to insert the page number. You have no insertion point active in the document to insert the page number. Click in the body of the document in a text box or other text entry area, then try selecting Insert → Page Number.


Can I force the Finder's Go Menu to open a new window?

Not sure you can open one directly, but Cmd/n  Cmd/shift/[letter] is pretty quick & will achieve the same result.


Do files copied to an encrypted disk image (dmg) encrypt themselves?

It depends on your viewpoint: a file written to an encrypted disk image is immediately written encrypted to the HDD/SSD where the disk image resides.

Since the file system of the unlocked disk image is still mounted, the file appears as "unencrypted".

So a user, who can access the raw HDD/SSD only, can't read/decode the file content, but a user with the proper permissions/rights to access the whole file system (including the mounted/unlocked  disk image) still can read the file.

You can test this yourself: Create an encrypted, normal writeable image.dmg as user1 in the root of your file system with 777 permissions and owner user1:staff. Now mount the image as user1 and add a file with some known content (e.g. a text file containing "stackexchange"). The file system of the encrypted disk is mounted to /Volumes with 700 permissions (only user1 can read/write).

Switch to user2 with the image file being still mounted and open/read the file image.dmg with a hex editor - though you probably see the mounted image on your desktop, you can't access it due to missing permissions. Searching for "stackexchange" will reveal nothing.


Is there a shortcut to expand all folders in Finder's list view?

Select the folder you want (or command + A to select all) and then press:

Command + right arrow

And the left arrow undoes what the right arrow did, should you want to close things back up again.


How can I transfer large files from Linux to iPad over a cable or wifi?

Simply install VLC app from the app store and use its wifi transfer feature (in the sidebar of vlc app) to transfer videos(in all formats recognizable by vlc) into your vlc library....

UPDATE: This method not only works for audio/video formats but pretty much all file formats. Ofcourse, VLC won't show these files but one could access them using any decent File manager app such as Document.


There are so many terms used in the question that indicate a misunderstanding of what a "full factory reset" is.
First off, your MacBook Air (or any computer and not limited to Apple) is not a phone;  there's no "factory reset."  In fact, "full factory reset" is not correct either.  You can "reset to factory defaults" which is a term used for wiping the custom configurations of your device so that it will behave like it was just removed from the box.  It doesn't, however, return it to the OS/firmware that it originally shipped with.  If you applied any firmware updates, you can't roll those back - and it wouldn't be prudent to do so.

I want it to be like it just left the factory, at least in the software side. Like SMC and NVRAM reset etc.

The SMC and NVRAM have absolutely nothing to do with software.  The SMC handles power, battery charging, fan control, etc.  There's nothing in the SMC that has anything to do with how you personally interact with your computer; there's no identifiable information.  The NVRAM sets your pre-boot environment variables and your Find My Mac token.  There's nothing in NVRAM that's personally identifiable and necessary of resetting.
I wrote an a short piece on what Resetting the SMC and NVRAM actually does. (it's part of a broader answer).  It's not necessary to reset either of these.

Or deleting the disk resets the things that I mentioned?

No. I assume you mean erasing your disk.  Your disk contents has nothing to do with the SMC.  As far as your NVRAM goes, pretty much the only entries in NVRAM related to your disk is where the the boot and recovery partitions are located and this info rarely changes from computer to computer.  You could reset it, but it will likely go back to what it was before.

After deleting the disk and before installing the High Sierra (I will downgrade from Mojave to High Sierra) or after installing the High Sierra?

Why downgrade?  Most users would want to know that the Mac runs the latest and greatest operating system, not one from three years ago (2017).  However, if you want to go this route, all you have to do is boot using the keyboard combo ⇧ Shift⌘ Command⌥ OptionR.  This will install the version of macOS that came with your Mac or the closest version still available (this one reason is why "full factory reset" is not applicable to computers).
See:  How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery
TL;DR

And are there any other things that can be reset like SMC and NVRAM? If there are, please mention them.

As mentioned, SMC and NVRAM reset are useless - doing this will accomplish nothing.  It won't hurt anything if you do so, if you feel better doing it, have at it.  I just want to make you aware that these resets, that are way too often cited, aren't very relevant.
What you should do is the following:

Ensure you've backed up your data

Sign out of iTunes/Music (de-authorize your computer), iCloud, Messaging, etc.

Remove any accounts you may have added (like Mail, Exchange, Social networking, etc.)

Unpair any Bluetooth devices you may have connected

Remove any firmware and File Vault encryption passwords you may have enabled

Wipe your drive and reinstall macOS

⌘ CommandR - Install the latest macOS version installed with your Mac
⇧ Shift⌘ Command⌥ OptionR - Install the version that came with or closest to when your Mac was shipped from the factory
Before proceeding with the installation of  macOS, use Disk Utility from the Recovery Boot Menu to wipe your drive

Turn off your computer once you get to the "Welcome" screen.  When the new user gets it and turns it on for the first time, they will get the "new computer experience" like it came from the factory.

The key is to un-link your Mac from you both physically and online.  Removing firmware and File Vault passwords will ensure the new user can use the Mac without going back to you for them.  Wiping the drive ensures your data is gone and not just "hidden" in a different user account.  Removing online links (i.e. iCloud) ensures the new user can link it to their account and keeps you and your data out of the mix.


How to lock a full screen application in in a certain space?

This feature has been asked for by users many times, but unfortunately, Apple hasn’t implemented it yet.

A very ugly workaround is:

Add a new desktop in Mission Control.
Switch the Mail app to windowed mode.
Open Mission Control, and move the window to the newly created Desktop.
Switch to the Mail app. Right click on the icon in the Dock. In options, select “Assign to this Desktop.”

This is a very ugly workaround and you can use Mail only in Window mode this way.


Error: unable to open database in macOS Mojave

I was having this issue and solved it before posting the question. I was also having other quirky permissions issues within Terminal after upgrading to Mojave.

I stumbled upon this and thought I would share here, since I don't normally consult the more casual Mac user pages: Fix Terminal “Operation not permitted” Error in MacOS Mojave

Basically, you need to add Terminal.app to have Full Disk Access within System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy tab.


After add a page to my "read later" list, and go off-line, where's the page for me to read?

Start Safari
Access bookmarks (the Book icon on the toolbar)
Pick 'Reading List' (Top entry in the table with the glasses icon)

Unlike InstaPaper, the Reading List just collects links (not content) so you need to be online to access the articles.


Is it preferable to use the same SSID name when creating multiple WiFi zones?

I have a similar setup: same SSID and same password. My devices (laptop, iPhone, iPad) connect automatically. Roaming from one zone to the other is failing from time to time but generally I have no problems.


On Snow Leopard, the default unzip tool won't ask for password but just report it can't unzip?

I don't think the built-in decompression utility can unzip password protected files.  However, The Unarchiver is the way to go for all things compression related on OS X anyway.


Is the boot time of an iOS device affected by the apps that are running at shutdown?

My experience is no one, ten or even 50 apps can slow down your boot in any measurable manner. Even an old iPhone 3 with 11 pages of apps booted in visually the same time as a freshly restored iPhone 3.

The reason for this is a number of design choices that provide real benefits to the running system and also are good at isolating boot times from application influences. Specifically, nothing auto-launches, there are not multiple user accounts to prepare, and the OS systems that display and interact with apps work from databases that update when apps are deleted or installed - not at boot time.


Adding contacts will send automatic email invitations. The contacts can accept the invitation and the appointment will appear in their own calendar(s).


I'll hazard a guess that the connection to your old iMac is one you set up on your new iMac. Here are some places to look, if this isn't it, please let us know:

Look in Control Panel, the Users & Groups item, the tab labeled Login items. Is there a reference in there to a folder or anything to do with the old iMac?
In Control Panel, the Sharing item. Open this, and look for anything shared with your old iMac.

Hopefully, it will be one of these, but if not, perhaps edit your question to provide a bit more information. It's difficult to say what information exactly, but an example would be if you used the old iMac as a network connection, used VNC to connect to it, etc.


Negotiated link speed considerations for SSD choice?

Think of it as the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Yes, there is. You need to look at the specs on the speed of each of your drives. Check in the About this Mac in your toolbar and go to more info, System report, the the sata section under Hardware.

In terms of the optical and main drive bay's, it doesn't matter which you use if both are capable of the same speeds. In most cases dealing with older models, the traditional hard drive bay provides the better speeds than the optical. I've read before that the optical bay will not always match the traditional bay.

I'd put my SSD in the main bay and your secondary drive in the optical. You can configure which drive to boot from within System Preferences if you choose otherwise.

I'd def put my OS and your applications on the fastest drive and use that to boot from. If you are using a regular hard drive to place in either of the bays then I'd also recommend you put all you media and other large less accessed files on that (especially if storage space is a concern or for some reason you are concerned about read/writes on your SSD).


When actively browsing, that's not unusual.  1% every three minutes is 5 hours, which is expected if you've got the display on and using the wifi for browsing.

If it dropped 1% every three minutes with the display off, then you're likely running a background process that uses wifi and/or the GPS (turn by turn directions, running tracker, online streaming music, etc).


Is there a good app for uploading podcasts to my website?

You could try iPodcaStudio. It allows your to record, edit, then upload to a server using its FTP client. It costs a dollar though.


App to video chat between iPod Touch 4 and Android phone?

Yahoo! Messenger, Skype or Fring should do.


How to reach QHD resolution (external display) on MacBook Pro mid 2012 non-Retina

Tried display port to minidisplay port and it works!


Whenever you close all finder windows, the last window closed seems to determine the default size for new finder windows. By 'new finder windows' I mean those created with the Command + N shortcut. If you happen to Command + double click on a folder to open it in a new window it does not always respect this 'default size'.


Will my Apple MacBook Air run Counter-Strike: Global Offensive?

When you are purchasing software, you need to review the System Requirements before making the purchase to ensure that it works with your hardware.

Per the Steam Store the Mac OS X Requirements are as follows:

However, if you are still not sure, you should direct your question to the Steam folks.


iOS 8.1 Iphone 6 Mail Client can't open links using Chrome

Since you can't choose a default browser other than Safari (without a Jailbreak) it is the normal behaviour.


The easiest option is to move the mails to another account. You can open a certain mail or select multiple mails (hit edit in the mail view and select the mails). Then click the folder icon/move label and select the folder in a different account to move the mails to.


First, you should update your iPad to the latest iOS system and then if it still takes up you much space, I guess maybe there is much junk files or "other" storage on your iPad Air. You should know what is the Other storage clearly firstly. There are just too many things that require physical storage. That's why Apple chose to lump a lot of things into the "Other" category. Also you can refer to this thread who has the similar situation with you. Hope it's helpful to you. https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/3elqfe/iphone_6_says_storage_almost_fullexcept_its_not/


It seems like the two most likely candidates are a mounted (shared) disk overwriting a location with large files, hiding them from your view, or large (or many many small) files that are held open by a process, but have already been deleted. If you haven't rebooted the computer yet, that's worth a shot, but also booting into recovery mode and running first aid on the disk might help. lsof | grep deleted might also reveal interesting information, if lsof is available on OSX (I assume it is, but I've never looked)

I've also noticed in my own use that if I use a tool like DiskInventory or Grand Perspective and there are other users on the system, they won't show the size of other users files if I don't have read access to them (reasonably so). If you have other users on your system, they may have large files in their home directory you're not seeing.


What does the error "iTunes could not restore the iPod 'NAME' because the backup could not be saved on the computer." mean?

I hopefully have a solution to this issue. I also had this problem, and I believe it's because you have insuffient disk space and iTunes being a large program requires so much disk space to be available in order to perform these tasks.

Therefore, iTunes will bring up the error after reaching 2/3 of the way and then the error appears: "iTunes could not restore the iPod/iphone 'NAME' because the backup could not be saved on the computer." The backup you did is there because you're obviously selecting it when "restoring from backup". So free up some disk space and redo the "restore from backup" and it should complete the process without any errors.