How to debug macOS firewall? My application layer firewall (ALF) is not logging or blocking

Check ALF launch daemon is running

$ sudo launchctl list | grep alf
275 0   com.apple.alf

$ ps -ax | grep socketfilterfw
0   529   0:00.01 /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw

have restarted a few times and reloaded launchdaeamons with launchctl unload and load with:

unload firewall for editing

$ sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.alf.useragent.plist
$ sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.alf.agent.plist
$ sudo pkill -HUP socketfilterfw

load firewall

$ sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.alf.agent.plist
$ sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.alf.useragent.plist

console.log

socketfilterfw  setting fw.verbose fails
socketfilterfw  cannot open file at line 43353 of [378230ae7f]
socketfilterfw  os_unix.c:43353: (2) open(/var/db/DetachedSignatures) - No such file or directory

system.log

com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.domain.pid.socketfilterfw.467): - -Failed to bootstrap path: path = /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw, error = 108: Invalid path

socketfilterfw config

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --getglobalstate
Firewall is enabled. (State = 2)

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --getloggingopt
Log Option is brief

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --getblockall
Firewall is set to block all non-essential incoming connections

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --getallowsigned
Automatically allow built-in signed software DISABLED

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --getstealthmode
Stealth mode enabled

viewing alf.log and appfirewall.log -- empty

$ cat "/private/var/log/appfirewall.log" | wc -l
0
$ cat "/private/var/log/alf.log" | wc -l
0

running /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw  manually

sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw -l (-l for "Do logging and run in daemon mode." )
The value of the token is 15675822025110658885

kill running FW

Changetrustmode sw_msg_hdr len: 8 type: changetrustmode (13)

BLOCKALLSYSTEMWISE

WriteRules sw_msg_hdr len: 88 type: proc_rules (1)  proc_name:  proc_id: 0 rule_type: 7 rules: tc: 0x1010 tl: 0x100 tb: 0x100 uc: 0x1010 ub: 0x100
TRUSTEDAPPS httpd

WriteRules sw_msg_hdr len: 88 type: proc_rules (1)
 proc_name: httpd proc_id: 0 rule_type: 2 rules: tc: 0x11 tl: 0x100 tb: 0x100 uc: 0x11 ub: 0x100

.
.
.

ALF: total number of exceptions = 9
ALF app_paths = 0x53600650 app_bundleid = 0x0
ALF: insert bundleid 0x0 alias 0x0 path /usr/libexec/configd to list
ALF app_paths = 0x536007c0 app_bundleid = 0x0
ALF: insert bundleid 0x0 alias 0x0 path /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder to list
ALF app_paths = 0x53600830 app_bundleid = 0x0
ALF: insert bundleid 0x0 alias 0x0 path /usr/sbin/racoon to list
ALF app_paths = 0x536008a0 app_bundleid = 0x0
.
.
.
ALF: total number of explicits = 7
Changelogmode sw_msg_hdr len: 8 type: changelogmode (12)  flag: 0x1
Changelogopt sw_msg_hdr len: 8 type: changelogopt (15)
Adding SCDynamicStoreCreateRunLoopSource to runloop
alfCallback name = com.apple.alf object = FirewallDaemonstarted
zsh: killed     sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw -l


How do I debug Mac freezes caused by VMware Fusion

I never figured out how to debug this properly, but the following seems to have fixed it:

Run fsck (xfs_repair) on the VM filesystems. (I'm not sure whether this was really necessary; the crashing still kept happening until I did step 2. I'm just reporting it for completeness.)
In VMware Fusion, go to Virtual Machine -> Settings -> Advanced, and set "Hard disk buffering" to Disabled.


XDM software starting up on login but not present in Login items

We have to change the settings below in the XDM application (Tools -> Options-> Advanced settings -> View settings.)

I used homebrew to install XDM and this option is selected by default.

If you look at the source code you'll find that the automatic start is controlled by a LaunchAgent called org.sdg.xdman.plist stored in ~/Library/LaunchAgents.

public static void addToStartup() {
  File dir = new File(System.getProperty("user.home"), "Library/LaunchAgents");
  dir.mkdirs();
  File f = new File(dir, "org.sdg.xdman.plist");
  FileOutputStream fs = null;
  ...


Will "set up new iPhone" in iTunes wipe my swapped iPhone?

No, it won't erase anything.

Allow me to translate that dialog  to idiomatic English:

"I don't know anything about that iPhone you just plugged in.   You have two choices:

Erase it, and then restore it from the back up (of some previous iOS device)?
 Or
Treat it as a new iPhone that iTunes will now keep track of?"

Does that help?


The * in convert *.jpg output.pdf expands to the list of inputs. This means the command you were actually running looked like:

convert one.jpg two.jpg three.jpg output.pdf

As you can see from this, that's not what you want, since all the images will be compiled into the output PDF. Also, as the command contains ‘jpg’, it looks for ‘jpg’ files, not ‘tiff’, so you need to change this too.

Therefore, you need to run that command for each of the inputs.

find /path/to/folder -iname "*.tiff" -exec convert {} {}.pdf \;


My MacBook Pro is not sleeping when I close the lid on battery

Have a look at this answer which indicates the commands to help you analyse if any process is blocking the sleep of your MacBook.
If nothing is blocking it, then look at :

egrep -i 'sleep|wake' /var/log/kernel.log

and look if you see a sleep line at the time you close the lid. If you don't, look at any information message in:

/var/log/kernel.log

around the instant this event should have happened.
Create a test account, close your session, and open one with this test account. Is your MacBook entering sleep when you close the lid?


How to prevent iPhone from vibrating during calls?

I believe you need to look in Settings > Sounds & Haptics.

In there you have various settings for Sound and Vibrate. Under the section "Sounds and Vibration Patterns" there's a "Text Tone" option. If you touch that, you have options for what happens when you receive a Text, both Sound and Haptics. One of the options for Haptics is "None"


How to filter both from and to address with a single test?

Rules are unfortunately quite limited, but you can sometimes use Smart Mailboxes to help you work around the problem.

For example, if you need a Rule that performs an action when the conditions (A OR B) AND C are met, you can set up a Smart Mailbox called 'X' that contains all emails where (A OR B) is true, then a second Smart Mailbox called Y that contains all emails where (C is true AND Mailbox Is X).

If necessary, you could then set up a rule that does whatever processing you need to do on the contents of mailbox Y, and run it manually as required (select all messages in mailbox Y, then Message->Apply Rules).


OS X Application for Scraping HTML of a Set of Tweets

Storify.com is a pretty cool way to curate something like the Tweetup you mention.  It lets you search for tweets (or other social media) and stream it into a list of points to make up your story.

I first noticed Jason Kottke using it a couple of days ago to make a story out of the tweets from Gavin Purcell about production of that night's Jimmy Fallon show.   I have been fascinated by it ever since.


Open the App Store and on the main page, sign out of the currently logged in Apple ID. Sign in with your Apple ID and then try to click upgrade/install on the Yosemite page.


Unable to install app on new phone because "App is no longer available in the App Store"

If the app is 32-bit it will not work on iOS 11.

If it is 64-bit but not in the AppStore you can:

Find an .ipa file of the app and sideload it with Cydia Impactor
Jailbreak both your iPhone 8 and 4. Then you can dump the .ipa file from your iPhone 4 (using something like iFunbox) and install it on your iPhone 8 (also using something like iFunbox or Cydia Impactor).

Note: Jailbreaking voids your warranty.


Upgrade HDD to SSD in High Sierra and import a Time Machine backup

There's 2 ways to do this, I prefer the first since it ensures you start with a macOS install.

Install the blank SSD in your Mac.
Boot while holding ⌥⌘R for Internet Recovery.
Follow the steps to download and install macOS on your SSD.
During Setup Assistant, when prompted if you'd like to transfer your files, choose to transfer from a Time Machine backup.
Follow the steps to important your content and settings from your Time Machine disk.

Alternatively you can use the Time Machine backup for the initial macOS install.

Install the blank SSD in your Mac.
Connect your Time Machine backup disk.
Boot while holding ⌥ and choose your Time Machine disk from Startup Manager.
Follow the steps to install macOS on your SSD using the Time Machine disk.


"This item is temporarily unavailable" When Installing Yosemite

Let me preface this: it's possible that this solution doesn't work entirely, and that you'll need a version of the installer that has a full copy of OS X (instead of downloading it from the internet on the fly.)

With that said, here's the issue. Your Apple ID (and therefore purchases) are not associated with the computer you're trying to install to since it's a clean install. Therefore, it doesn't know you've "purchased" Yosemite previously, and since it's no longer on the app store, isn't giving you access. What you need to do is reassociate your Apple ID with that computer. The recommended solution is to log into icloud.com.

Alternatively (or if that doesn't work), you can download it from another computer with a working version of OS X and then execute the installer from there (or create a bootable installer from there.)

Small side question: why not install El Cap?


Have you tried sudo dscl . -delete /Users/www-data ? You might also want to delete /Users/www-data with rm -rf /Users/www-data.


iOUSBFamily or USB Prober.app equivalent for macOS High Sierra?

It is directly integrated within System Profiler:

/System/Library/SystemProfiler/SPUSBReporter.spreporter/Contents/MacOS/SPUSBreporter

Which /Applications/Utilities/System Information.app will use to display under the branch:

Hardware > USB


How to make an AppleScript to automatically translate emails from a foreign language and redirect them to yourself?

I've created an automator workflow that uses AppleScript and Bash to do what you want.

There are two steps to implementation:

install translate-shell
create an automator workflow (very easy)
create a shortcut [optional]

You could probably use steps 1-2 to make a more specifically tailored applescript to copy the entire email and translate it, but I made a sample workflow that you could use just in case.

1: installation

translate-shell uses a number of different engines to translate using terminal. You don't have to understand most of this, just that you'll be using terminal to install it.

Go to the github page and install it: There are many ways to do this, but here is one

install homebrew: in terminal, type the following line: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)" and hit enter
install gawk: in terminal, type brew install gawk and hit enter
install trans-shell by typing in the following lines (see the website for troubleshooting):

git clone https://github.com/soimort/translate-shell
cd translate-shell/
make
make install (if this line doesn't work, try sudo make install and then type in your password.

Everything should now be installed in step 1

2: create an automator workflow – this is where the applescript is

Open automator (all macs have it pre-installed)
Select "Quick Action"
click the button that says "Workflow receives current 'Automatic (text)'" at the top and change it to 'text'
in the search bar "Name" search for "run applescript" and then double click the action that appears.
paste in the following script exactly as shown:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 8 using command down
    end tell
    set theText to the clipboard
    set theTranslation to (do shell script "export PATH=\"/usr/local/bin:$PATH\";/usr/local/bin/trans -b :en " & quoted form of theText)
    display dialog theTranslation
end run
the applescript copies whatever text you have highlighted and uses a bash command to have translate-shell translate the text to English and display it.
save the workflow wherever and now you should be able to highlight any text in any app, right click > services > "your workflow name" to have a dialogue pop up with the translated text

3: Create a shortcut

If you'd rather highlight and use a shortcut, just create a shortcut to activate the workflow and translate any highlighted text. It's well documented in many places, but here's one stack exchange post where you can find the information.

Notes:

please let me know if you have any issues. Automator sometimes fights with apple's permissions, so you may have to grant it approval etc. I imagine, however, that if you know what applescripts are, you have run into this before.
I had a decent bit of trouble installing translate-shell and also tried using this command: brew install --HEAD translate-shell which is worth a shot
I often just use Keyboard Maestro for things like this. It works very well.
don't forget to mark the answer if this works :)
credit:

https://github.com/soimort/translate-shell/wiki/AppleScript
https://forum.keyboardmaestro.com/t/gui-for-translate-shell/8868


Mac os x ipfw forward from ip:port to ip:port

I found the solution:

sudo ifconfig lo0 192.168.64.88 alias
sudo ipfw add fwd 127.0.0.1,9790 tcp from me to 192.168.64.88 dst-port 80

After a restart you have to run this commands again.


GarageBand iOS on iPad Air, MIDI cable, Roland/Wurlitzer: How do I make something out of this combo?

The two objectives you have are not possible to achieve as such using a MIDI adapter cable.

The MIDI adapter cables carries a digital protocol with information such as note on/off with notes, velocity, etc., pitch bends, patch changes, etc. No analog waveforms or other representations of actual sounds are sent over MIDI.

Therefore transferring actual sounds from Garageband to the keyboard's speakers is not possible - and similarly recording the sounds made by your keyboard into a Garageband audio track is also not possible.

If you want to achieve those objectives, you'll need instead to purchase analog audio cables and a audio recording interface for the iPad - or use the 3.5" input (not that well suited).

What you can achieve with the MIDI adapter is to use a MIDI-compatible app to send out MIDI notes to the keyboard which can then play its own sounds through its speakers.

Similarly you can record MIDI notes from the keyboard into an instrument track in a MIDI-compatible app. However, when playing it back, the audio will come out through the keyboard's speakers - and the keyboard will need to be connected to playback the track.

Alternatively you can use GarageBand with a virtual instrument, which will create the instrument sound from the MIDI notes and play it back through your iPad's speakers.


Change background colour for PDF when Viewing

So Preview does not have this feature, but more on that in a moment.

f.lux

I would strongly recommend you take a look at f.lux.

  f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you're in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.

f.lux will adjust (you can modify the strength) the colour of the whole screen to make it easier on your eyes. You can set it to be on all the time, or automatically come on at night time. People love it.

Now, back to your question...

Adobe Reader for Mac does support this. Once you install the 400MB app, you can change the background colour in Preferences (⌘ cmd + ,) > * Accessibility** . Check Replace Document Colours, and set the right colours you want.


Does the reception indicator show voice or data signal strength, or are they the same?

The bars on the phone are representation for Voice signals. A full bar will mean you will have the clear calls, on the other hand, the data can be seen by the type of Data service you are getting, LTE,3G(WCDMA),H or 3.5G(HSPA) and E(EDGE). Despite having the full connection bars you may have an E(For EDGE) which may give a slower network connection. It's the same thing the other way round as well, Despite getting a LTE network you may not be getting full bars, It depends on the Network tower you are connected to, the data it supports. Generally near the areas with people using less Internet over the network the companies put up towers which are good for voice signals.


View and edit/delete photos with Mac Photos App without importing

As long as the SD card can support the size, create the Photos Library in the location of the SD card (formatted as Mac OS extended (Journaled). You may also have to drag the photos from the SD card into the newly created library from the Finder rather than use the normal import interface sidebar from within the Photos application.


iPad 2 battery is not draining completely

So as it turned out, it's a case of a mis-calibrated battery indicator. Here's what I did to re-calibrate it:

Use iPad until it switches off by itself
Charge it back up
After a couple of minutes, it should turn itself back on. Check the battery indicator to see if it's around 2% (as would be expected). If it is, then allow the iPad to be fully charged back up to 100%. If it is not (i.e. it is around 14% as in my experience), proceed to the next step.
Disconnect the iPad from the charger and let it discharge completely again
Repeat from (2).

It took my iPad one cycle of the steps above to get its battery indicator re-calibrated and it has been working fine since. If this doesn't fix your iPad it's probably worth getting AppleCare involved.


Web pages won't load but network is working

Deleting the wifi icon and shutting down fixed the same issue for me as well


What to do before you sell, give away or trade in your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch?

Apple has documented the steps required in a support article.

If you have Find My Phone enabled, disable this otherwise the buyer will be contacting you to get your account to activate the phone. This can be achieved by switching the Find My iPhone option in Settings > iCloud.

Then en Settings > General > Reset and choose Erase All Content and Settings.

This will wipe all personal data off the device (including all apps) and when it restarts it will be at the beginning of the wizard to set up a new device.

This will not effect any other devices linked to the same iCloud account, it purely clears the current device.

This process is necessary as Apple added an Activation Lock in iOS 7. Details can be found here and the support article is located here.


My keyboard on MacBook got stuck - do Apple Stores fix it without Apple Care?

It doesn't matter where you live. Apple Care covers your computer no matter what. If you just recently bought the computer in-between July 8th of this year and last year then you can get the key repaired for free.

If not, then try to find a repair service near you via this link. Apple has licensed resellers all over the world and most of them also do repairs. If your computer is badly damaged, they are going to send it in to get it repaired and you may end up paying a whole lot of money and you won't have your laptop for several weeks.

Alternatively, you could try to fix it yourself. This is highly risky if you don't know what your doing and you could end up permanently damaging the computer. I don't know what model your laptop is, but if it is 2016 or newer, it has the butterfly 2 mechanism in the keyboard. I know from personal experience that this style of keyboard tends to get stuck really easily when dust and grit get underneath the keys. I just blow it out and that has worked every time.

If your laptop is 2015 or older, you have the butterfly 1 mechanism. If your key is stuck it could be legitimately damaged. I would recommend at least trying to blow it out with some high-powered air. If that doesn't work you will need to take it to someone to get repaired.


Keyboard shortcut using 'Mac Driver' in WINE

I was looking to solve the same issue in order to use the same hotkeys inside Wine as for regular OS X applications. No information on that is available from what I can tell so the easiest solution turned out finding the source code of winemac.drv. The important function is macdrv_compute_keyboard_layout() which does lots of various computations but for the modifier keys it all essentially boils down to taking values from default_map (all modifier keys are marked as "fixed"). Unfortunately, as of Wine 1.7.10 there is no configurability here so the map values have to be changed by modifying the compiled file.

For me the compiled file was located under /Applications/Wine.app/Contents/Resources/lib/wine/winemac.drv.so. It's generally a good idea to create a copy of the original file before changing it. You need a hex editor to open it. First let's have a look at the following two lines:

{ VK_RMENU,                 0x38 | 0x100,   TRUE },     /* kVK_RightCommand */
{ VK_LMENU,                 0x38,           TRUE },     /* kVK_Command */

According to the virtual key table VK_RMENU has the value 0xA5 and VK_LMENU the value 0xA4. In other words, the binary representation of these two lines looks like this:

A5 00 38 01 01 00 00 00
A4 00 38 00 01 00 00 00

I found this byte sequence at the offset 0x62770, for your Wine build things might be slightly different. We want to map the Command key to VK_LCONTROL and VK_RCONTROL meaning that these two entries have to be changed into:

A3 00 1d 01 01 00 00 00
A2 00 1d 00 01 00 00 00

Now I would also like to map the Option key to Alt because I need a working Alt key. By default both Option keys are unmapped, meaning that they are represented by a sequence of eight zeroes in the table and need to be found by position. The left Option key is the third entry after left Command, the right Option key is the sixth entry after left Command (for me offset 0x62790 and 0x627A8 respectively). The first entry can be changed into:

A4 00 38 00 01 00 00 00

And the second into:

A5 00 38 01 01 00 00 00

Yes, these are the values originally assigned to the Command key. I actually only changed the entry for the left Option key, this way the right Option key can still be used to produce special characters.

This isn't a great solution, more of a hack that will have to be repeated each time Wine is updated. Also, remapping the Option key only works for keyboard shortcuts like Alt-F4 but not for Alt-F. Still, it does the job for now and in future Wine developers will hopefully add some configuration here. I filed the corresponding change request as bug 35351.


You mention that you use iStat Menus for temperature and a separate app for controlling the fan speed. iStat Menus has functionality to control fan speed by itself—make sure that you do not have the fan speed set to maximum in iStat Menus as this will override OS X unless another app then overrides iStat Menus.


A simple way is to use a Automator workflow.

The Contacts Actions provide the option for you to do what you want.

Example:

Just be aware that card will not export if the Name fields have for example a forwardd slash "/".  ( as I just discovered)


With iOS 9.3, iPhone 6s and 6s Plus can utilize Offline Dictation. Check Settings > General > Keyboard and try toggling "Enable Dictation" off then back on.


Handoff of completed Reminder items not working?

To clarify - Syncing reminders between apple devices is not part of handoff. It is based on iCloud sync only. Handoff is something that happens when your devices are on same WIFI and also use same apple id as primary iCloud account (Concept of primary iCloud account applies to macOS only as it supports multiple iCloud accounts). Calls and messages use Handoff.

Solution 1

Now to your problem, you might have multiple apple ids (accounts) on your devices and reminders might be using different apple ids in different devices.

To verify on your macOS -

Goto System Preferences -> Internet Accounts
Check the iCloud accounts and make sure the correct iCloud account has reminders enabled.
If you are using more than one iCloud accounts, then open Reminders app on macOS and check on lists on the left menu for the
iCloud account being used. It would of the format iCloud (<account name>). You could also migrate the reminders to correct iCloud
account by drag/drop and then uncheck the unwanted iCloud account
for reminders in settings as stated in (1) & (2) above.

To verify on your iPhone -

Goto settings -> iCloud
Make sure reminders is turned on and the account is correct and same as on macOS

Solution 2

Toggle reminders in iCloud settings on your devices one by one and see if the sync starts again. The steps to access the settings is same as above.

Hope this helps.

Update: Added second solution of toggling reminders


How can I see contact photos together with contacts?

So far, on iOS 6.1.3, it is not possible to see your conacts’ photos while browsing them using only Apple’s iOS built-in features.

However, using jailbreak it is possible to change this behavior.

Going the easy way you could just download an application from the App Store. Just search for “photo contacs” or “photo pictures”. Here are some results:

Simple functionality, iOS integrated adress book only:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contact-pics/id305056548
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/visual-contacts/id303155355

Social media features, includes adress book of Facebook (and others):

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/address-it-contact-manager/id475394924
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brewster-address-book/id440979190
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contactsxl-+-facebook-sync/id364481787
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/richcontacts-facebook-linkedin/id435839864

(Apps sorted alphabetically, I have tested none of them.)


possible to "push to talk" using iphone's headset?

Unfortunately the answer is no this isn’t possible however you could look at whether you could find a push to talk set of headphones and microphone. Basically with a physical switch to mute.

And there’s always the mute buttons in call.


how to make Terminal (unix) use Microsoft Outlook instead of Apple Mail

To activate Outlook from Bash (assuming normal install):

open /Applications/Microsoft\ Office\ 2011/Microsoft\ Outlook.app

What did you want to do with it beyond that?


Apple has a support document explaining this, see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201191#27inch2017 for your model:


Command-Control-Arrow beeps (plays alert sound) in Lion

I've found a nice workaround.
Create the file ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict with the following content:
<=10.10 Yosemite (Found on GitHub/Atom)
{
    "^@\UF701" = "noop:";
    "^@\UF702" = "noop:";
    "^@\UF703" = "noop:";
}

10.11 El Capitan through 10.15 Catalina (from Adobe/Brackets)
You'll need to create the ~/Library/KeyBindings directory first, and the @ and ^ characters are switched.
{
    "@^\UF701" = "noop:";
    "@^\UF702" = "noop:";
    "@^\UF703" = "noop:";
}


Problem with my applescript to export keynote files to powerpoint

I cannot believe how simple the answer was. Instead of three periods, i needed to use an ellipsis character in my string.

As I use the azerty keyboard (I'm french) you have to press alt;! to generate an ellipsis.


Time Machine Backup: New Partitioning and a Restore

Time Machine is a file-level backup so the size of your partition will not be taken in to account.

In fact a block-level backup also would not be an issue, only taking a disk image would be problematic as a disk image includes the file system whereas backups do not.


Hard Disk problems, unsure of how to proceed

Further to @Allan's advice and @klanomath's help, the fix for the issue was to replace the Hard Disk cable.


Are mini DVI port and DVI port the same thing?

Monoprice sells a Mini-DVI to HDMI adapter (as well as other Mini-DVI adapters).
http://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=4852

Mini-DVI and DVI are the same electronically, but the mini connector is much smaller and a regular cable will not fit.


Select the save format in the Save As dialog by using AppleScript

Assuming Mail has focus and the Save As sheet is showing, then the following example AppleScript code would click the Format: pop up menu and select e.g.: Plain Text

tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "Mail"
        tell sheet 1 of window 1
            tell pop up button 2
                click
                click menu item "Plain Text" of menu 1
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

You can also use the menu item number, e.g. click menu item 3 of menu 1

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


Mac Mini won't start, shuts down on startup chord

Have you added/changed any of the internal hardware at some point?

If your Mac Mini has more than one RAM-block, you could try booting it up with only one block inserted (if it doesn't work with the first block, try with only the second block). That could eliminate faulty RAM as the cause.

The problem is most likely hardware related, and could be for example a defective power supply.


How can I iPhone restore in iTunes without upgrading iOS?

You can't.

Restoring from another device's backup will update to the latest iOS the restored device can use.

The only way would be to restore from a backup initially made from that same device, using that iOS.


How to install CPAN modules from the command line on OS X?

Open the /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app and you have a unix prompt.

Both perl and cpan ship with OS X so you have nothing to install unless you want a different version of them than ships with your particular version and build of OS X.

Air:~ me$ cpan Perl6::Say
Sorry, we have to rerun the configuration dialog for CPAN.pm due to
some missing parameters...  Will write to
 <</Users/me/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm>>


FFmpeg might be what you're looking for. It is free and supports Theora and VP8.


How can I quickly adjust “Do Not Disturb” - “Allow Calls From” in iOS?

Long hold on the “Do Not Disturb” icon in control center, and select “Schedule”.
This will take you directly to the “Do Not Disturb” settings, where you can make any desired adjustments.


My first thought on seeing that was that it looks like a 9 pin DIN connector. So I did a quick Google and it looks like there are such things as 9 pin DIN to iPod leads. This lead for example looks to match (though the picture quality is rubbish so it's hard to tell).


how to view iPhoto 11 photos on Apple TV (3rd gen)?

On your Mac, enable photo sharing in iTunes.  Don't know why you have to use iTunes - I guess ATV doesn't know how to read the iPhoto library directly.  I'm not in front of my Mac, but you can Google the photo sharing menu command if it's not obvious.

On the ATV3, go to the Computer menu/icon, click on your computer name if needed, then go to Photos.  Your shared albums should be in there.

From the main Settings menu/icon, you should be able to select one of your albums to use as the slide show.

That said, it's easier to use Photo Stream!  Let me know if you need help with that.


"activate application" for Hidden Application

tell application "Numbers"
    activate
end tell


If you wish to attempt to use rEFInd from a MS-DOS partition, then follow the instructions below. I have made the following assumptions.

You will be reusing disk0s3.
System Integrity Protection is enabled.
You have booted to macOS. Do not boot to macOS Recovery.
Secure Boot is is set to "No Security".

Below are the steps.

Enter the following command to change disk0s3 to a FAT formatted partition.
sudo diskutil eraseVolume MS-DOS BOOTMGR disk0s3

You could also change the partition by using the Disk Utility application. Highlight the partition then select Erase. Use BOOTMGR for the name and MS-DOS (FAT) for the format.

I assume you have downloaded the current version of rEFInd (refind-bin-0.11.3) to your Downloads folder. Enter the following command to change to the root directory of the rEFInd download.
cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.11.3

Enter the following command to install rEFInd. I omitted --alldrivers since both macOS and Kali Linux do not needed any rEFInd supplied drivers to boot on a Mac. Also, adding --alldrivers caused rEFInd to hang on my 2011 iMac.
sudo ./refind-install --root /volumes/BOOTMGR

You should get the following alert followed by some additional error messages.
**** ALERT: SIP ENABLED! ****

You can ignore this alert. At the prompt shown below, enter y.
Do you want to attempt installation (Y/N)?

The follow error message was expected and can be ignored.
Could not set boot device property: 0xe00002bc

Rename the refind folder to BOOT and the refind_x64.efi file to bootx64.efi so that the Startup Manager will include it as a startup option. This can be done with the Finder application or by entering the commands given below.
cd /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI
mv refind BOOT
mv BOOT/refind_x64.efi BOOT/bootx64.efi

Add a label for this new startup option. Without a label the Startup Manager will show EFI Boot which may be confusing if you have other partitions with an /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi file.
cd /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI
bless --folder BOOT --label rEFInd

(Optional) Goto my Mac icons website and download the mac-icons.dmg file. Use the Finder application to mount this file. Enter the command given below to copy the rEFInd icon to BOOTMGR volume.
cp /Volumes/mac-icns/OSX10.11.6/os_refind.icns /Volumes/BOOTMGR/.VolumeIcon.icns

The icon shown below will now appear in the Startup Manager above the rEFInd label.

Restart the Mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Startup Manager icons appear. Next, select the icon labeled rEFInd. Finally, hold down the control key and select the circular arrow below the rEFInd label. This effectively blesses rEFInd.

Changing which drivers are used
The drivers used to access file systems by rEFInd are stored in the /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT/drivers_x64 folder. You can create a new folder named drivers_x64_not_used in the /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT folder. You can then move any drivers you do not wish to be used by rEFInd from the /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT/drivers_x64 folder to the /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT/drivers_x64_not_used folder.
If you are still getting a grey screen or a no entry sign, this link shows that you will have to copy the apfs driver in order to boot. To do so, run the following command.
cp /usr/standalone/i386/apfs.efi /Volumes/BOOTMGR/EFI/BOOT/drivers_x64.

You may still have one boot option that shows the 'no entry' sign but the other option should now boot you into macOS instead of showing you a grey screen.


Open multiple instances of an app (spark e-mail app)

Even if you get two copies running, they're both going to be sharing the same set of prefs & repositories... & both trying to write to them at the same time.

This is a very bad idea.

If you want two mail apps handling two different mail accounts simultaneously, use two different mail apps.


Putting your computer to sleep

Above is how to sleep your computer when it's on and logged in.
The keyboard shortcut is: ALT/OPT + CMD + Eject(i.e., ⌥ + ⌘ + ⏏).

Putting your display to sleep

Above is the keyboard shortcut for putting your display to sleep. The computer itself will not go to sleep, only the display will power off.
The keyboard shortcut is: Shift + Ctrl + Eject (i.e. ⇧ + ⌃ + ⏏).

Note: Computers that lack the Eject key
For computers that lack the ⏏ key – e.g. MacBooks – the Power key (⌽) can be used instead.
Also, it's possible to hold down the Power key for 1.5 seconds and then select from a menu if you want to Sleep, Restart or Power off. You can also access the menu immediately by Ctrl + ⌽.


I think, I screwed up the color profiles on my macbook

This is probably caused by bad color calibration profile. You could load the default profile for your hardware, or try to calibrate your monitor.

Try loading the default profile of your display. This is done by opening Preferences -> Displays, Choose the Color tab and select the Color LCD (I'm asuming MacBook PRO, on other machine or external monitor this will be different).

If this doesn't help - try calibrating your monitor by pressing the Calibrate.. button and following the onscreen instructions..


RoaringApps has an incredibly thorough chart of apps and the various OS versions (OS X, iOS, and Windows!) that they're compatible with.
For reference, a green circle means an app works fine, a yellow circle means it works with some problems, a red circle means it doesn't work, a gray circle means there's conflicting data, and a blue circle means there's no data.
Re your complaint about searching many apps: They're working on a Mac app that'll scan your computer and give you compatibility reports for every app you've got.


AirPort Time Capsule wifi is suddenly very slow: Boom network load

Changing network parameters like channel assignments might cause more harm than good, especially on the long turm. You may end up in having to analyse strange issues...

Use a professionnal tool to analyse your wireless environment first:
iStumbler.

If you want a professionnal help, please put a copy of a screen capture with this tool. Make this environmental measure at a point which is as near as possible from the point you want to communicate with your Time Capsule usually.
Take care to make this measure at the hour you witness your slow network throughput.
Sort the output along decreasing signal level (Level column).

Take care to hide private information from this screen capture.

If you have a real environmental problem (which a real and highly frequent situation), fix it.

Else, bring back your Time Capsule to your Apple reseller. Most probably an antenna cable was not correctly fixed inside, and a move made it unplug.


To enable cd'ing into an Folder Alias I've found the following at Mac OS X Hints. Don't know if it still works.

  Here is the bash function I include in .bashrc. Note that the second elif       requires double brackets for the test, because it include the logical operator     or (||):

function cd {
  if [ ${#1} == 0 ]; then
    builtin cd
  elif [ -d "${1}" ]; then
    builtin cd "${1}"
  elif [[ -f "${1}" || -L "${1}" ]]; then
    path=$(getTrueName "$1")
    builtin cd "$path"
  else
    builtin cd "${1}"
  fi
}

  And here's the C source code for getTrueName.

A similar approach is available at superuser.com


How to manually set the language for Auto Correct?

You can try selecting the text and then setting the correct dictionary in Edit > Spelling and Grammar > Show Spelling and Grammar.

It's not possible to actually tag text as being in a certain language in such apps.  You are at the mercy of whatever algorithm Apple is using to implement its concept of "automatic by language", which I think few users find very useful.


Backing up Adobe CS6, Microsoft office, Camtasia on Time Machine - will they completely restore?

Microsoft Office 2011 will work fine after restoring from Time Machine, but Outlook will generate a new Database.


Prevent mounted volumes/folders from clogging the desktop on log in

Check this answer for two ways to hide Finder windows for windows opened with login items.


User input in Automator's "Run Shell Script"

Using display notification will be of no use since its result is none, use a display dialog instead.

The follow is an example of how I'd do it:

result="$(osascript -e '(display dialog "Do you want to Rsync now?" buttons {"No", "Yes"} default button 2 with title "ssh")')"
if [ "$result" == "button returned:Yes" ]; then
    rsync -czvaEP --delete --log-file=$log "$source" -e "ssh -p$port" $user@$host:$path;
fi

Shown within the relevant code posted in the OP:

source="/Volumes/MyDisk/FolderToSync"

user="username"
host="myhost"
port="22"
path="/RemoteFolder/"

log="$HOME/RSync_$(date +%Y.%m.%d_%H-%M-%S).log"
rm $HOME/RSync_$(date -v-1m +%Y.%m.)*.log

if [ -d "$source" ]; then

    nc -z $host $port > /dev/null

    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
        touch $log;
        result="$(osascript -e '(display dialog "Do you want to Rsync now?" buttons {"No", "Yes"} default button 2 with title "ssh")')"
        if [ "$result" == "button returned:Yes" ]; then
            rsync -czvaEP --delete --log-file=$log "$source" -e "ssh -p$port" $user@$host:$path;
        fi
    fi
fi


How to move bookmarks *with icons* from Firefox to Safari

Safari doesn't show icons for bookmarks in the toolbar itself, only in the bookmark menus.

The icons aren't stored with the bookmarks, Safari has a separate cache for all the favicons of sites that have been visited (I believe this is the case for Firefox and Chrome as well, but I'm not 100% sure). If you look in the bookmarks viewer or menu, open a site that doesn't have an icon, then check back in the bookmarks viewer, you'll see that Safari has added the icon to that bookmark entry (assuming the site has a favicon set in the first place). So while you may not see icons at first for bookmarks you import, they'll fill in eventually as you visit the sites.


Resizing Macintosh HD partition to use free space

This Ask Different post has what you're looking for. Don't go looking for an "answer," the author for some reason decided to write his own answer in the "question" post. The method worked perfectly (and non-destructively, but you should always take a backup anyway, just in case) for me!

Paraphrased:

  Reboot in Recovery Mode by holding down Command-R as your Mac starts up.
  Open Terminal (from the Utilities section of the Menu Bar).
  Run the command, diskutil cs list
  Take the Logical Volume ID (a long string of letters and numbers) 10 lines up from the bottom of that command's output, and use it in the command:

  diskutil cs revert [Logical Volume ID]
  This should convert the CoreStorage Logical Volume to a normal disk partition.
  Run diskutil cs list again, and you should receive a "No CoreStorage logical volume groups found" message.
  Now you should be able to resize your partition normally through Disk Utility.

Good luck!


Importing Notes from one mac to another?

The ‘Import to Notes’ function imports text files. Notes itself stores its files in a SQLite database, which is contained within the group.com.apple.notes group container.

~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes/

To use this as your Notes database, quit Notes and copy the contents to the group container on your current system.


When playing a TV in iTunes via AirPlay to Apple TV, it doesn't play the next episode

This is the default (and only) behavior.  Whether you play the TV show from the special TV Show section of iTunes or create a playlist, iTunes will only play on TV show and then stop.  Try the playlist approach - iTunes won't even play the playlist, but forces you to select one show and then start playing.


Managing stolen iPad via Profile Manager

In profile manager you could set/force a passcode option under settings that could wipe the device after so many failed attempts which does not require internet access.


Terminal: Is there a way to be notified of activity when tailing an error log

Terminal's Dock icon starts bouncing if a tab that isn't active prints \a:

tail -f /var/log/system.log | sed $'s/$/\a/'

Or run sudo gem install terminal-notifier and do something like this:

tail -f /var/log/system.log | while IFS= read -r l; do echo "$l"; terminal-notifier -message "$l" > /dev/null; done


What did 3rd Party Accessories sell for on Black Friday last year (2011) at the Apple Store?

Go now and buy what you want would be my advice. If it subsequently goes on sale, go and ask for a price adjustment on Friday. (Don't wait till Saturday to ask, though)

Apple's return policy is quite consumer friendly, so you could always not open things if you are on the fence and exchange or even return it until after the New Year due to the extended holiday season return policy.

Even if I had a list of things on sale - each store has different stock, different models so guessing which items will be in stock at your store will be hit or miss.

Also - Apple's announcement states that you can start shopping online at Midnight, so you can make your go/no-go decision well before the stores open on Friday. I would get the Apple Store app installed on your iOS device so you can shop, pay and not wait in line for items that they don't have stashed at the "rapid sales" line where many popular items are stocked in large quantities to minimize the delay of getting your item from the stockroom or finding someone free to sell you your new loot.


I noticed a .myPassword file in my home folder root. Is this supposed to be there?

This is not where your password is stored.  At least by the system, no way.  I don't have one there, which tells me you have a 3rd-party app that's doing this.  Take a close look.


What is the Mac equivalent of Windows "start" command?

FYI, generally speaking, the equivalent of Windows's start is open (man). In their simplest usage, they're each the command-line equivalent of double-clicking something in the graphical shell. open may not be involved in the most efficient means of doing what you're trying to do in this case, however.


Screenshot tool that uses current state of web browser?

SnagIt for Mac

seems to do exactly what you want. I own the product. I just tested it on a web page in Safari with ad-blocking and with some text I typed into a field. It did a scrolling capture faithfully with all the ads blocked and the text still in the field.


Mac Pro 2,1 updates and firmware question:will the firmware from the older work with the newer and vice versa?

boot.efi–the thing we're taling about here–is installation specific and is loaded after the hardware boot to handoff to the operating system. You should be fine having two separate installations.


How do I make an AppleScript use a Folder in the Contents of a Bundle for an alias on the Desktop?

You don't need to tell Terminal to run the script (unless you just want to lay eyes on it). But also you'll want to use a posix path escaped to prevent errors.

You could do it like ...

set myRes to alias (path to me as text) & "Contents:Resources:"

tell application "Finder"
     make new alias to folder (myRes & "Pass-Through Drive") at desktop
end tell

set posixRes to (POSIX path of myRes)

do shell script quoted form of posixRes & "BasilliskII --config " & quoted form of posixRes & "basilisk_ii_prefs"

tell application "Finder"
    delete file "Pass-Through Drive" of desktop
end tell


Devanagari text not shown in 2007 ipod Classic 160 gb

There’s no way to do what you want as far as I know.  The iPod classic never supported Hindi or any other complex script, and there is no way to add anything. See the tech specs
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp572?locale=en_US


I'm not exactly sure about your specific scenario yet, so here's some information about a few possibilities:

If your photos are stored in iCloud Photo Library, then they're not also stored in your iCloud backup.
If your photos are just in your camera roll and you don't use iCloud Photo Library, the photos/videos would be contained in the iCloud backup (also true for an iTunes backup). In this case I'm not sure that deleting your iCloud backup will help, since the new backup would just want to back up all of the photos again :)
If you use iCloud Photo Library, deleting the photos will delete them permanently and from all devices, so doing something like this is likely not what you want to do!
If the photos aren't on your device now, and they're only in that backup, then you definitely don't want to delete that backup. (I don't think that's the case here, but I want to make sure I say it!)

Be sure to tread carefully before deleting things and make sure you know whether you use iCloud photo library before figuring out what to do! (Also I should note that iCloud Photo Library is different than Photo Stream and photo stream is NOT a permanent backup and shouldn't be used as a backup.)


Connect to Windows File Sharing server using VPN

"connect as" and enter the username and password you use to log into your Windows machine. I expect the reason you don't need a username/pass in Windows is that you're logged into the domain when you log into your machine.

If that doesn't work, try the same approach, but like so:

smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@imbserver

replacing USERNAME with your username, and PASSWORD with your password


Python path added to $PATH -- cannot find origin

zsh reads from up to 4files on start up

  If ZDOTDIR is not set, then the value of HOME is used; this is the usual case.

$ZDOTDIR/.zshenv
$ZDOTDIR/.zprofile
$ZDOTDIR/.zshrc
$ZDOTDIR/.zlogin

You need to look in all of them.

.zshrc is read every time a shell or sub shell is started.
.zprofile is read when you start a login shell - ie the first shell you start through terminal, and this is where I would put the PATH changes


Which is the correct way to obtain administrator access for the installation of Homebrew?

The normal way to do things is as per your third choice ie use an admin account to install things.

However Homebrew's normal setup does not stick to normal Unix conventions of installing excutables as root or a special user which would allow equal access of the installed code to all users, it is designed so that you do installs as one user and so do not need to use sudo/su for anything. However to do this it needs to make /usr/local writeable by the normal user and you need admin rights to that as in the way you did in the end. I think Homebrew really is designed for a computer which only one person uses and has admin rights.

If you do not want to (or cannot) set your user to admin then there are two ways

As per the instructions you quote "If this sucks for you then you can install Homebrew in your home directory" Then the access to ~/usr/local is always for the user
A version of your 3. The Homebrew script leaves /usr/local and all under it owned by the user doing the installation. With the admin user you can change the owner to your normal user by chown -R usr /usr/local

Yes there is only one /usr/local in the file system. Each path is unique. The way to have the "same" directory for different users is to put the directories under your home directory e.g. ~/usr/local


Open up System Preferences. Click Network. After you select Wi-Fi on the left, click Advanced... . Drag your home network to the top under Preferred Networks. Click OK then Apply.


You can’t get older than Apple File System with the first Mac.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_File_System

The Plus ships with HFS so that’s the place to start if you just need that one model.

HFS Wikipedia article as well should cover all the classic Mac OS releases. So those two likely cover all the os from System 1 to System 7 so I would focus on what system you want to run on your Mac Plus (I’d start with System 6 if I were you) as opposed to what the filesystem might be. But maybe that’s all you need so start with MFS/HFS.


Where can I find a list of Apple preferences/plist files & what they're used for?

It's fairly easy to figure out which files in ~/Library/Preferences are used by Apple applications and which app.

All the Apple ones start com.apple and then almost all continue with the name of the application or part of the system that they are a preference for - some examples com.apple.ScreenSharing.plist or com.apple.TextEdit.plist

With the less "specific" ones once you know more about how the back end of the System and Finder hang together you start to realise what they are, for example com.apple.LaunchServices.plist is the one that defines your personal URL and file type handlers as that is done by LaunchServices.

Mac sysadmins tend to slowly get a list of the more important ones as we use them to push preferences out to our managed Macs. If all else fails I use InstallEase, the free utility from Absolute, to snapshot a Mac then change a preference and do another snapshot to see what changed.


What features from Lion will be lost when upgrading to Mountain Lion?

Of course.  In adding features, the behavior of previous features changes, not always for the better.

If you find features that were present in Lion but missing in Mountain Lion, please edit this answer to add your contributions to this list.

Mountain Lion drops support for some models of Macs supported by Lion.
Clicking the top right corner no longer triggers Spotlight (Spotlight's menubar icon is still present, adjacent to the new Notification Center icon).
The battery indicator in the menubar will no longer offer to show the remaining time.
X11.app is included, but that app alone no longer provides X11 functionality. When the user first runs X11.app – or an app that requires X11 – a dialogue guides the user to Apple's article HT5293 about XQuartz, which provides the functionality.
Mail.app and Safari.app drop support for RSS Feeds.


App Rejected 3 Times, clueless how to fix issue

If Apple reject your app due to a technical problem, they usually provide a screenshot. Check the bottom of the message in iTunes Connect to see if there is an attachment.

You could try some severe logging: in the app, log exactly what is happening, all the inputs, all the errors, and have it report to your server. Thus, after they reject the app, you can go through the logs and see what is happening.


Error on transferring photos from iPhone onto Photos on Mac

False error

Yes, my method is correct. The problem isn't coming from WhatsApp and is more general to the process of transfering photos from Photos on iPhone toward Photos on Mac.

Here is the way I was able to get back my photo on My Mac, verify it was correctly transferred, and finally import it manually inside Photos.

On my Mac I made a search for any file with the name produced in the error window,
from Terminal I entered:

cd ~/Pictures/Photos\ Library.photoslibrary
find . -name "6c65168d-*"
./Masters/2018/11/05/20181105-103812/6c65168d-da6c-4df4-8239-28ab4d59c9dd.JPG
./Masters/2018/11/05/20181105-103830/6c65168d-da6c-4df4-8239-28ab4d59c9dd.JPG
./Masters/2018/11/05/20181105-111753/6c65168d-da6c-4df4-8239-28ab4d59c9dd.JPG

The "6c65168d-*" argument to find means find any file which name begins with 6c65168d- and print it.
The 3 result lines I got are correct and due to the fact I tried with smaller set of images 3 times to focus on the image causing the error.

Next, if I try to open any of these files, they do without any error within Preview, and moreover they can be easily imported within Photos without any error.

Conclusion

The error message is inappropriate and seems like an internal error within Photos on Mac or within the transfer process from iPhone to Mac.

I will continue the analysis of this stupid bug and report it to Apple.

Errors are already enough of a problem.

False errors are worse.


What is the best device to test an iOS application on?

That totally depends on the apps you want to do.

Do they need GPS localization? A microphone? Front or back cameras? Hi-res camera?

Besides, you can't test an iPad app on the iPhone, so you'll need an iPad no matter what.

Edit:
According to the comment, an iPod Touch would be enough for you.


After a little guidance from Mark (see comments above). What I did was to create a file in my bin with the name emacs and with the the following contents ...

#!/bin/sh
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/MacOS/Emacs "$@"

then

chmod 755 emacs

and I am up and running from the command line with a new shiny Emacs 24.4 and ignoring the built-in Emacs 22


How does Mac pause upgrade when close the lid?

This is managed by the System Management Controller (SMC).

The SMC is basically a chip in Intel-based Macs that manage many of the physical aspects of your Mac. This includes power buttons, LED indicators, cooling fans, how your Mac works in its various sleep modes, and so on.

Because the SMC is a sub-system of your Mac, it is not dependent on an operating system being installed.

You may be interested in reading Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - although there is no reason for you to reset the SMC as it did what it was supposed to do in your case.


How can I turn off 'Find My iPhone' after selling the phone?

You can remotely remove the phone from your account using the iCloud website. Apple has a page with instructions on how to remove your device from Find My iPhone.


Cropping the page could work for you.

  So, open up whatever PDF you want to crop in Preview. Hit the Select button in the toolbar and crop the first page as you want all the selected pages to be cropped. The cropping tool works just like any crop tool in your average photo editing software. Then, in the sidebar on the right, select a thumbnail of any page (make sure the sidebar is in thumbnail view and not Table of Contents or Annotations view). Now check to be sure that the crop size is what you want to be applied to all the pages you select, then hit Select All, and go to Tools » Crop or hit Command-K.

Here is the link how to crop all pages within a pdf.

Uncrop see here


iChat call forces in-call status bar in iOS simulator

I don't know about the iPhone simulator, but if this was happening on an actual iPhone, I would associate the phone with a different Apple ID.

Can you do that in the simulator?


How to file transfer between android and iPhone via bluetooth

It does not now.  Not one care can say whether or not it ever will since we don't work for Apple.  Speculation is prohibited by the Terms of Use of this forum.

But you can try with Celeste app


Do external DVD drives other than a SuperDrive work with the MacBook Air?

The SuperDrive does only work with the MacBook Air, but the MacBook Air supports a lot of other drives.

For example there is the Asus External-Optical-SDRW ($37,75). Cheap, fairly fast and not very ugly :)

Or the Samsung External-Optical-SE. ($45,80) A bit more expensive, but it support way more formats and speeds:


Remove Bookmark and Reading List Sidebar

Move cursor to the top of you screen to reveal menu. Select View and Hide Reading List Sidebar and/or Hide Bookmarks Sidebar.


ok so after an hour on the phone with Apple this is what worked:  Simply sign out of your iCloud, reboot your machine and then sign into the Mac App Store before signing into iCloud.


Bose QuietComfort 15 inline Microphone and mid-2011 Macbook Air

I have a 2011 MacBook Air 13" and I can confirm that the microphone on the original iPhone 4 headphones works when plugged into my Air. They show up as "External Microphone" in System Preferences.

I think that with a Y cable, one could use normal headsets which come with two plugs. There are overpriced Y cables available for recording apps on the iPhone, but I'm sure there are cheaper alternatives.

Note that the MacBooks (also Pro) all have two jacks, one combined for analog/digital out, one for line in. Later, the analog/digital out jack was replaced with analog/digital out, analog in like on the iPhone, but the microphone jack remained. I'm not sure about the current MacBook Pro, but my 2008 unibody MacBook still had two jacks, even though line in was available on the headphone jack, too.

So, regarding your Q: I'm reasonably sure the Bose headphones will work with your Air.


Alexa App on iPhone 4 / iOS 7.1.2 - Can't find “alexa” button

The app for the iPhone prior to iOS 9 is for practice as per:


In the Parental Control settings for the Guest User, make sure that all time limits are either unchecked or you are logging in outside one of the defined time windows.  If using Bedtime, also make sure your system clock is set to the correct time.


Unplug the Mac, cover up the camera, and avoid using it. I'd also change all my passwords, especially iCloud ASAP. Change them immediately! Next I'd give Apple a call tomorrow or, better yet, take it in to an Apple store. You could try a regular computer repair place, but they typically specialize in Windows, not Mac.


Can any Apple software create "photo montage" still frame from a video file?

Cool idea! Here's how I'd do it using Final Cut Pro X (or Compressor 4). This won't help if you're looking for something automated. Combination is already been discussed in the comments, so I'll offer more detail on generating stills prior to combining them.

1. How to extract still images from the video using Final Cut Pro X

Here's how to get several stills from a video using Final Cut Pro X. My answer assumes you've imported the video file and added it to a project.

First, add a destination.

Final Cut Pro X doesn't automatically offer you the option of exporting all the frames in a video project. You must "activate" this feature. Open Preferences and select the Destinations panel. Click "Add destination" and choose "Image sequence": Here's what Apple has to say about FCP X destinations.

Second, export or "share" the movie.

Click the "File" menu, select "Share", and click "Export Image Sequence". In the modal export dialogue box, you can adjust file format under the "Settings" tab. I recommend defaulting to TIFF (a lossless format that won't add any compression artifacts).

2. Select the images you want to combine.

Judging from the example above, you're looking for images that are spaced evenly. Perhaps frames 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 will be the ones you need. Pay attention to the quality of each individual shot. If frame 15 is blurry, then try 14 or 16. This could be done using Preview, the Finder, iPhoto, Aperture, or your layer-friendly photo editing software of choice.

3. Combine the images.

As I acknowledged above, I don't have anything to add to the comments already made. Use your layer-competent photo-editing software of choice. Depending on how much the camera moved while filming, you may need to stretch, blend, and rotate each layer.

Considerations

Consideration 1: Interlaced video yields messy stills.

It has been a long time since I've worked with interlaced video, so I don't have much to say. Just know it's an issue with some video cameras, specifically when the resolution is "i" not "p" (e.g., 720i). For example, check out the image on the right:

Consideration 2: Video frames have wayyy lower resolution than still photos.

The bottom line here is that frames extracted from a video will not give you nearly as much detail to work with as still photographs. The resulting "montage"/time lapse will be much lower resolution. (I recognize that the content in question has already been filmed, but for posterity I wanted to point this out.) Unless you're shooting with an incredibly high resolution video camera, like a 4k camera, the number of pixels in one frame of video is much smaller than the number of pixels in a still photograph. 1080p video, the highest resolution on DSLRs, is 1920 x 1080, or 1.98 megapixels. Contrast that to 18 megapixel stills on the same DSLR (e.g. Canon 60D).

Consideration 3: The more the video camera moves, the more difficult it will be to combine your shots.

So use a tripod.


Can I change the brightness on a secondary display?

On Apple displays, if you press Control-F1 or Control-F2 the brightness on a secondary display will adjust. I have tested this on my MacBook Air 2011 13" and 27" Thunderbolt Display.
Important note: You have to plug in the USB cable from the Display to the Macbook Pro in order that the keyboard shortcuts work.
If you're using a MacBook with Touch Bar, this works for the "brighter"/"less bright" Touch Bar buttons but NOT for the Touch Bar brightness slider.


iTunes Store Doesn't Recognize iTunes Library

Logging out of my iTunes account and logging back in did the trick.

Account → Sign Out
iTunes → Quit iTunes
Wait a bit, relaunch iTunes
Account → Sign In
iTunes → Preferences → General → uncheck iCloud Music Library
Click OK, wait a bit
iTunes → Preferences → General → check iCloud Music Library

iTunes should immediately start updating your iCloud Music Library. Once that’s done, everything should be working correctly.


Disabling the iPhoto Photo Stream App badge icon without disabling shared streams?

I got rid of the red circle number (the notification), by going to
system preferences ➔ iCloud ➞ and then unchecking the box to the left of "Photos"   When you re-check the checkbox, the notifications will briefly display in the upper right part of the screen, telling you about photo stream invitations you have received from other people.


You need to install VMware tools inside the Windows virtual machine to be to resize the resolution of the virtual machine from the host. That will enable you to resize the window to fit the width of your display, as well as being able to enable "Resize to Fit" so that when you resize the size of the window, the virtual display resolution within the virtual machine changes as well.

You can install VMware Tools by opening the menu titled "Virtual Machine" and choosing "Install VMware Tools".

Without VMware Tools you'll need to change the resolution of the virtual machine from within the virtual machine itself. On Windows you'll often be able to do so by right-clicking the Desktop and selecting Properties, and then select a display resolution that matches the width of your display. It is not that convenient.

If you want to run the virtual machine in full screen, i.e. not in a window, you can do so by opening the menu titled "View" and choosing "Full Screen". Or as a keyboard shortcut, press Ctrl-Cmd-F.


Display virtual adapters in network settings

Finally, I found the answer in the Parallels knowledge base (https://kb.parallels.com/125286):

Issue
After upgrading macOS to Big Sur, Connect Mac to this network
and Show in System Preferences options disappeared from Parallels
Desktop preferences > Network..
Show in System Preferences option can not be selected so Host-Only
network cannot be found from macOS System Preferences > Network.
Cause
These features are now hidden due to macOS Big Sur restrictions
(KEXT-less network mode): In macOS Big Sur Apple restricted usage of
kernel extensions and Parallels Desktop does not load them by default,
instead it uses macOS own built-in mechanism.
Workaround
Downgrade to Parallels Desktop 16.0.1 or earlier - make
sure the version is compatible with macOS Big Sur.


Saved passwords in Safari keep coming back

Found the solution. I searched for keychain in spotlight and found something called Keychain Access. All the passwords were here under Login. When I deleted them from here, it removed them from Safari as well.

Safari's preference to Remove All just removes the locally stored passwords in Safari and not the ones that are in the user keychain.

Additionally, go to System Preferences and make sure that keychain syncing is disabled if you don't want any data stored in iCloud. You can empty that keychain if desired using Keychain Access before disabling the sync for extra security if you are sure no other devices depend on keychain syncing.


Counting the number of cells which contain a specific character

Figured it out.

A glitch in the COUNTIF functions prevents it from working with numbers.  This could be easily fixed by the Excel function TEXT() but Numbers doesn't have that function. So...

To solve select B9:J9 and change the Data Format, in the Cell submenu, from Automatic to Text. Then use the function =COUNTIF(B9:J9,”*1*”) to count the amount containing the number.

Screenshot showing formula when cells formatted as text:

Setting the cell format to text:


Unintentionally remapped keys on a MacBook Air (2012)

Try resetting the NVRAM and the SMC on your Mac then test those keys and see if they are still remapped.

NVRAM aka PRAM
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

  How to reset NVRAM

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

  On Mac computers that play a startup sound, you can release the keys
  after the second startup sound. On iMac Pro, you can release the keys
  after the Apple logo appears and disappears for the second time.

SMC (System Management Controller)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

  How to reset the SMC on Mac notebooks

  First, determine whether the battery is removable. Most older Mac
  notebooks have removable batteries. Mac notebooks that have
  nonremovable batteries include MacBook Pro (Early 2009 and later), all
  models of MacBook Air, MacBook (Late 2009), and MacBook (Retina,
  12-inch, Early 2015 and later). Learn more about Mac notebook
  batteries.

  If the battery is nonremovable:

  Choose Apple menu > Shut Down.
  After your Mac shuts down, press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the built-in keyboard, then press the power button at the same
  time. Hold these keys and the power button for 10 seconds. If you have
  a MacBook Pro with Touch ID, the Touch ID button is also the power
  button.
  Release all keys.
  Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

  If the battery is removable:

  Shut down your Mac.
  Remove the battery. If you need help removing the battery, contact
  an Apple Authorized Service Provider or Apple Retail Store.
  Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.
  Reinstall the battery.
  Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.


"Plain Text Document" has changed to "text", "Rich Text Document" to "rich text (RTF)", etc

You must have a different text app associated with .txt files.

The "kind" will depend on the app associated (Open with) with that file type.

If you use the TextEdit, those will change back to Plain Text Document.


When you launch python interactively, it prints its version, and the name and version of the compiler that was used to compile it.

In this case, Apple compiled the python executables using clang-500.0.68 (masquerading itself as GCC 4.2.1).


Disable auto-save in Preview (only Preview): Mojave edition

Per Turning Off Auto Saving In TextEdit And Other Mac Apps on the "Mac Tricks and Tips" website:
Open System Preferences
Go to "General"
Enable "Ask to keep changes when closing documents"


It's not a virus. The ".part" files are partially downloaded files seen during a download or seen later if a download has been interrupted.

Once a download completes successfully, the ".part" file will be renamed to the actual name of the downloaded file. Any (older) ".part" file can be deleted and the deletion would not cause any issues.


Restoring an iOS backup to a device running an older version

No. You cannot restore newer iPhone backup to Older iPad. If you want to restore that, you have to upgrade iPad to iOS 10 first. But since iPad mini only supports iOS 9, there isn't a way of doing that.

But you can export contacts to your windows/Mac and then sync data to your iPad. Or simply you can use iCloud to do that. Since you haven't said you need another way of transferring contacts and messages to your iPad, I ain't gonna explain.


Dismissing Big Sur permission dialogs via keyboard

I had no intention of answering my own question, but when I was prompted again this morning on starting another vagrant instance, I just decided to have another go at pumping key combinations in the hope of hitting one I haven't yet tried.
Found it!
Usually in dialogs the Tab key is used to navigate between elements. Obviously tried that, tried the various arrow keys, with and without modifiers. Then I hit on the combination that, for whatever reason, I hadn't tried before.
To move between the two options, as there are only two in this specific type of dialog, the combination is ...
Shift+Tab
I probably hadn't tried that as usually Shift is only used to reverse direction. When there are only two elements, just hitting Tab should be enough to toggle.
Anyway, I assume the extra modifier is required as this is a security permission dialog so you are forced to do just that little bit more work.
In the scheme of things, this only saves maybe seconds per day, but I was just finding it really annoying. Hope this helps anyone else.


"Partition failed with error: Couldn't unmount drive"

Have you tried repartitioning with Boot Camp (just go through the Boot Camp process normally)? You shouldn't have to repartition manually in the first place.


Open as text option for every file, regardless of what OS X thinks of it

You can add an action to the context menu to do this, with OS X's Services feature. Depending on your text editor (I'm pretty sure BBEdit offers this), there may already be pre-installed services available, you may just have to activate them.

To manage your services, open the Keyboard pane in System Preferences, and select Services from the left hand pane in the Keyboard Shortcuts section. You'll get a long list of services, each with a checkbox (to enable them), and the option to set a shortcut key. Check this list (probably in the Files and Folders section) for a service from your editor. If you find one, make sure the box is checked to enable it, and you should be able to access it in the context menu when you right-click a file (or a hotkey if you set one).

If you don't find a pre-made service, you can make one easily.

Open Automator, and select Service as the document type.
Change the options at the top to read "Service receives selected files or folders in any application" (change the last part to the Finder if you prefer).
Add the Open Finder Items action into your workflow, and change the Open with: drop down to your text editor.
Save, and it will prompt you for a name (which gets displayed in the menu). The actual service file gets saved in ~/Library/Application Support/ if you need to access it later.


iphone 6 can't login to itunes and appstore?

Reset device and run it again. It is very encouraged to reset any device manually after upgrade to latest iOS.

To reset device kepp off button along with home button at least 10 second unless Apple logo appears.


Connected to wifi successfully, but no internet connection

You've provided great troubleshooting info, we can isolate the problem to being your Mac and not your router, we can isolate the problem to OSX and not your WiFi card, etc.

I want to say it's an IP address problem. Maybe Windows has taken the IP address that your router gave your Mac's MAC address. I'd recommend going to system preferences --> Network. On the left column does WiFi say "connected" or "self-assigned IP" or something else? In the mean time, I'd recommend going to system preferences --> Network--> select WiFi on the left column --> click advanced on the bottom right --> TCP/IP tab --> Renew DHCP lease.

If this doesn't work, you can try on the WiFi tab (instead of TCP/IP), select your WiFi network and then click the minus (-) button to remove it, click OK, and try to reconnect to the WiFi network again.

If that doesn't work, you can hold option and click on the WiFi symbol on your menu bar (top right). Does your IP address look right? If you're not familiar with networking let me know what your IP address and router address are and we can go from there.


No, Console won’t log any of your passwords. It only logs normal process activity like load, errors, warnings, etc.

Certain user activity that can causes a major change in the program’s behaviour will also be logged. Opening and saving documents is one such activity.

Automator logs your password because it doesn’t know you are entering your password; it only knows that keyboard input is being received. Recording actions in Automator is very literal. It records the points being clicked, not the buttons. It records the delay between two actions; it does not detect if a previous action has completed or not. Similarly, it records the buttons being pressed, not what those buttons do or even if the key presses are for a text field or a game.


How to use different versions of paraview python?

I would rename the old paraview.app to  paraview4.app and the new one to  paraview5.app.

Instead of exporting a path, create two aliases in ~/.bash_profile (and/or ~/.bashrc - it depends on if one sources the other)

alias pvpython4='/Applications/paraview4.app/Contents/bin/pvpython'
alias pvpython5='/Applications/paraview5.app/Contents/bin/pvpython'

If pvpython4/5 rely on the paths to /Applications/paraview*.app/Contents/bin/ I would choose a function which sets the path and calls the right binary.


You really need to make up your mind whether you want the latest and shiniest product, or whether you want a good development machine. Once you use Interface Builder, a 15" MBP is the smallest that is usable without an external monitor. And once you use an external monitor, you are connected to a desk, and the portability doesn't help much.

The new MacBook is targeted at certain use cases. Serious software development isn't one of them.


You need the FQDN, fully qualified domain name, for example apps.local instead of apps.


no such process error with launchctl start. Mac OSX 10.9

Try using the launchctl command:

launchctl load /Library/LaunchAgents/com.myfile.hostname.plist

This will load the job ticket rather than start a named job.

I am not sure pipes are permitted within a launchd job ticket list of arguments. Using them requires the argument to be passed to a shell for interpretation and this may not happen. Consider passing the command directly to /bin/sh as a single argument.


accountsKeychainExport inside Keychain - malware?

Have you recently exported your developer profile using Xcode?

I had a similar (non-existent) keychain entry on my computer, and errors about the missing keychain started appearing in my console on September 21st. It just so happens I setup a CI build agent a few hours before that, so I'm thinking that's the source of my random keychain.

For more definite proof, I just had my friend export his developer profile with Xcode. I checked his Keychain Access before and after the export and can confirm that a new (non-existent) keychain named accountsKeychainExport appeared after exporting his accounts in Xcode. I saw the same result on my laptop as well.

As far as removing the keychain, I've found that simply making the directory and creating an empty file at that location will allow you to remove the keychain with Terminal:

$ security list-keychains
    "/Users/rpendleton/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db"
    "/path/to/invalid/keychain/folder/accountsKeychainExport.keychain"
    "/Library/Keychains/System.keychain"

$ mkdir -p /path/to/invalid/keychain/folder
$ touch /path/to/invalid/keychain/folder/accountsKeychainExport.keychain
$ security delete-keychain /path/to/invalid/keychain/folder/accountsKeychainExport.keychain


Erroneous "Installation Alert" upon installing Xcode 3.2.6

OK, I solved it. So I first found this article, which said to killall iTunesHelper. That didn't work. After that I found an Apple discussions thread on this where someone had to killall AlertAll (the process responsible for the Install Alert). I did that and the installation finished succesfully.
Step-by-step

Go through the installation and get this alert
Open Terminal and execute killall iTunesHelper (or kill it with Activity Monitor)
Execute killall AlertAll if the installation still doesn't proceed (Caution: after this the installer assumes iTunes is completely stopped. If it's not, things can of course go wrong. So better look over your processes list twice before doing this.)
Everything should be fine

This was exactly what I did, if it doesn't work for you: I'm sorry, but then your issue is different and you should ask a new question.


Are group messages sent over iMessage when possible?

From what I have seen the minute a non iMessage user is added to a bulk message it sends all the messages via SMS. I suspect however this is dependant on the carrier more then apple.

From testing, the verification of whether a user has iMessage enabled is done before the message is actually sent.

My best advice is for you to try it out and see. I don't think there is really anyway to force it use iMessage.


Resizing a partition to increase into space before itself

You can not do what you have proposed by using the tools provided by macOS. Partitions can grow and shrink, but the start of the partition must remain fixed. There are exceptions to this, but none apply in this case. There are third party tools that can move a partition. For example, Paragon offers a Hard Disk Manager for Mac application which makes the following claim.

  Enables to move the left or right border of the selected partition, thus not only resizing but moving it on the disk

The time required to move all but the smallest partitions is usually quite lengthly. I suppose this might be one reason Apple does not provide this type of tool. An exception would be when resizing a Apple HFS partition. The Disk Utility application and the diskutil command will move any Apple_Boot partition that is the next partition stored on the drive. Usually, this partition and is small in size (under 1 GB) and therefore can be moved fairly quickly. With the introduction of APFS, Apple eliminated the need for partitions of this type.


"iTunes can’t verify the identity of the server ..." after a Security Update in Mavericks or upgrade to El Capitan

The reason:

After installing Security Update 2015-004, multiple users found that they couldn't browse to any website using the root certificate "VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G5" without a security warning ("invalid certificate").
2015-004 updated the list of trusted root CAs, and for a reason I'm still unclear about, many of us have an identical entry in our Login Keychain. The certificate name is the same, but the serial number is wrong. The conflict causes the problem.

The solution:

Open Keychain, and look up your Login Certificates. Export any Verisign certificates (as a backup), and then delete them. Restart your browser.

I had the same issue and asked it in https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/85830/why-is-symantec-verisign-ca-appearing-as-an-invalid-authority .

You can see a full discussion in https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6984765


How insert “+” from MacBook italian keyboard?

If you actually can't find the key "+" by System Preferences > Keyboard > [X] Show keyboard in menu and testing all modifier keys with Apple's keyboard overview app, you might use Terminal.

Open and type xmodmap -pk.
This will give you a list of key names & values. Copy contents to BBEdit/TextEdit, search for "plus".
If it's in a first place the key must be accessible directly.
Second place will be combined with shift, third place with option, fourth with shift & option.

So: look for the line containing "plus", somewhere, and note down the first key's name.
That's your key "+" – to be pressed with or without modifier(s).


Prevent backup of iPhone on macOS Catalina

If you scroll down to the Options section, and uncheck "Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected", does that help?


Why am I being asked for a password anytime I create a folder?

You are prompted for an administrator password when you attempt to create or modify a file or folder for which your user account does not have permission to modify. If this is happening within your home directory, it likely means that permissions are mis-set. You could fix this by running the program Disk Utility, selecting your startup drive, and clicking on the button reading Repair Disk Permissions.

If this is happening in a system folder, this is by design, to make it more difficult to break something. While it can be overridden (the simplest way would be at the terminal to type chmod a+w -R /, but this is highly unadvised) through changing permissions, I would suggest that this is a Bad Idea.


Forget WiFi network without admin credentials

From within macOS, no you can't.

If you don't unlock System Preferences you can't add or delete a Wi-Fi access point.

As you can see you can't select a Preferred Network and the +/- is locked.

Neither can you do it from command line.

You can add a network with sudo networksetup -addpreferredwirelessnetworkatindex  en0 whateverNetwork 0 WPA2 whateverPassword but if you try to delete it without sudo - for example with networksetup -removepreferredwirelessnetwork en0 whateverNetwork then it will prompt you.

The reason is that the files updated are these - they are owned by root and can not be modified by a non-admin user.  :

A1398% ls -la /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/*preferences*
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   9323 Jan 15 15:42 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   6891 Dec 27 13:35 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root  admin   6891 Jan 15 15:42 /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist.old

Also note as an aside that the data that is changed when you add/remove a preferred network is encrypted.

For example com.apple.airport.preferences.plist was updated with wifi.ssid.77686174657665724e6574776f726b when adding and removing access point called whateverNetwork.

This means that if you booted from external OS to edit these files you would have to guess which keys to delete although in my limited testing they do appear to be in the same order as shown in System Preferences.


AppStore looks too slow. Is there any way to download El Capitan without AppStore?

The short answer is no - Apple does not provide any alternative method. A short analysis is something is massively wrong with your network or your computer since 10 hours to download 6 GB of data is something that would bring Apple's iTunes / App Store / software update service to a crashing halt if it affected everyone.

Now - the answer is also yes. Once you or someone you know has downloaded the Application to install El Capitan, you can install it to USB stick and share it, but this is also how many malware get distributed when people find some random site on the internet and download El Capitan from a site and don't verify checksum.

Apple does allow people to operate a caching server so that when the first person on a network segment downloads a specific app or book , it gets cached locally. If you can VPN to a better network - or one with caching server, you might get a far better download speed to your Mac.

Look in /var/log/commerce.log for an entry like:

May 29 07:54:07 mac storedownloadd[37414]: ProgressObserver: Created a placeholder at /Applications/OS X El Capitan.appdownload to represent download progress
May 29 07:54:08 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.000000% (-1.000000)
May 29 07:54:09 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.002089% (-1.000000)
May 29 07:54:11 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.004216% (1505.469385)
May 29 07:54:13 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.006556% (1382.851770)
May 29 07:54:14 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.009006% (1307.710558)

After a while, if you have good network (this is a MacBook using AirPort WiFi in the US):

May 29 08:00:17 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.548568% (814.645701)
May 29 08:00:18 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.550823% (812.247625)
May 29 08:00:20 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.553163% (809.416475)

At nearly the end, an installClient process runs to finish the installation and the time estimates usually are conservative in that you finish before they predict at that point.

May 29 08:03:19 mac storedownloadd[37414]: installClientDidFinish
May 29 08:03:19 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.967742% (3.000000)
May 29 08:03:19 mac storeassetd[37257]: SoftwareMap: No app was found with bundle ID com.apple.InstallAssistant.ElCapitan to upgrade to 1.7.46
May 29 08:03:19 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 0.967742% (3.000000)
May 29 08:03:20 mac storedownloadd[37414]: sending status (OS X El Capitan): 1.000000% (0.000000)

So, for this computer it was 9m 13s to download and install. I suspect the download was already cached on my OS X server.app running on a Mac Mini - so you might watch your log with a terminal command tail -F /var/log/commerce.log and maybe try a different network or see if a friend you trust has already downloaded the file?

Lastly, be sure you are looking at the correct file. Others have mistaken the name or requirements and had not the issue you report. From your details, you really have a bad service on this one file and not something you could fix yourself.


Does Watch Series 5 work with iPhone SE?

Yes, the iPhone SE is supported by Apple Watch Series 5 as it was released after the iPhone 6s in March 2016, as long as the device is running iOS 13 or later.

I can confirm the device functions perfectly.


The settings icon has been replaced with only text below your name. Simply hit account settings and you will be able to sign out.


Sound files in System/Library/Sounds gone with macOS Sierra upgrade?

I have upgraded to macOS Sierra (10.12) from OS X El Capitan (10.11) as well.

macOS 10.12: In my /System/Library/Sounds/ directory there are 14 AIFF sound files with a time stamp of Aug 20 2016.

In OS X El Capitan there are the same 14 AIFF sound files in the same directory. Their timestamp is Aug 26 2015.

I have confirmed the same files for three other Macs that were upgraded from 10.11 to 10.12.

To answer your question:
Yes, you should be able to copy the AIFF files to your /System/Library/Sounds/ directory from another installation.

Please keep in mind that you need to copy them using sudo as this is a system folder.


Applescript insert images into .Pages document

Since I do not have the Dispense Items Incrementally Action what I'm going to present is an alternate way of achieving what I understand your end goal to be, at least in part anyway. The code presented below is not polished or complete in that it simply preforms the insertion of the number of images in the selected folder into the document without regard for placement location in the document.  You'll have to modify the code to meet your wants/needs. However, if it's not acceptable to you, I do not expect a down dote as I did go to the trouble of trying to offer a reasonable solution, so simply let me know in a comment that it's not the direction you want to go and I'll delete the Answer.

In Automator, I created a Workflow using Ask for Finder Items, setting the Type: to Folders while not checking Allow Multiple Selections, > Get Folder Contents > Run Apple Script and a Folder in Finder containing two .png images named as shown in the Results of your Get Folder Contents Action (although I used PNG files it will work with JPG or any type graphic images supported in Pages).

I then modified your AppleScript code to include the item mentioned in my comment and a repeat statement along with a counter.

I was then able to insert the two images into a Pages document, which happened lexicographically as that's apparently the default in a scenario such as this.  So this seems to negate the need for the Dispense Items Incrementally Action, although not having that Action I'm not able to test the difference between the two Workflows.

AppleScript code:

on run {input, parameters}
    set repeatCount to input count
    set n to 1
    tell application "Pages"
        set thisDocument to make new document
        tell thisDocument
            repeat repeatCount times
                set img to item n of input
                make new image with properties {image data:img}
                set n to n + 1
            end repeat
        end tell
    end tell
end run

As previously mentioned, this just inserts the number of images in the selected folder into the document without regard for placement location in the document and you'll need to determine what code is necessary to achieve proper location placement in the document and because this is looping you'll probably need to increment the location position for each image you insert in the document as well.

Even though it's installed I personally do not use Pages, I use LibreOffice, however having searched the Internet a bit I saw example code that dealt with placement location in the document and I would also open the Script Editor app and then open the Pages Dictionary to see what it exposes so you can determine what you have to work with.


Ghost podcasts appearing on smart playlist

I had been using the Podcast app, and then deleted it. I believe this left orphaned podcast episodes in the phone itself. I had to SSH into the phone and delete the orphaned files. I found this out when I switched to manually managing my music, and the "ghost" podcasts appeared on the phone (but not iTunes).

I had earlier attempted re-downloading the Podcast app and re-downloading the "ghost" podcasts, but that didn't solve it.


Can you customize dock icons and labels?

Icons

Icons on the Dock are pulled from the icon of the item. You can change the icon of the item using the Get Info page.

Get the icon/image that you want to use for the icon on the Dock and open it in Preview.
Press ⌘A to select all of the image and ⌘C to copy it.
⌘-click the item in the Dock to open its location in Finder.
Open the Get Info window with ⌘I (or right-click → Get Info).
Select the icon in the top-left of the Get Info window and press ⌘V to paste.
If the icon in the Dock does not update, log out and back in, or restart the Dock with killall -HUP Dock.

Names

The name of the item on the Dock is pulled from the name of the item itself. You can rename the item by ⌘-clicking on the item in the Dock and renaming it from Finder.


From a jailbreaked iPhone 3g 4.1 (foreign sim locked) to 4.2

Mac: http://iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=12947

Windows: http://iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=12949


Will Apple Music work with iPod Classic and iPod Nano?

Apple Music is not available on iPod nano and iPod shuffle.

See footnote 3: http://www.apple.com/uk/music/


So, it seems a year later, nobody had been able to solve this one, (couldn't find any solutions posted any website) so I decided to give it a shot. After some extensive research, I've arrived at the following solution.
macOS Version: This was tested on macOS 11.0 Big Sur and on macOS 10.15 Catalina as well
Customizing the default dimensions of the Finder window

Open the Terminal application, enable the "Quit Finder" menu item
defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool true; killall Finder

In Finder, open a new window and configure its size/dimensions to the exact way you like it

Quit the Finder application (⌘ Q)

Launch the Finder application

When you first open the Finder application, a window is not created, which is a bit unintuitive ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In Finder, create a new window (⌘ N)

The position/dimensions of this window should be exactly the way you like it. Finder determined what the position/dimension ought to be using configurations stored in the ~/.DS_Store file. Every time a Finder window is moved or resized, the ~/.DS_Store file will be written to.

Any future windows should default to opening with this size/position on the screen.
Note: If you try to open a Finder window on a larger screen, don't expect the window to be centered. Finder doesn't store the relative offset of the window to the screen, it stores the X/Y pixel offset from the top-left corner
Note: Don't try and be clever by removing write access to ~/.DS_Store, it didn't work out for me. Finder's reaction to losing write access is to ignore the ~/.DS_Store file completely, causing every new window to open with the factory-default window configurations


Blank Notification Banner Stuck in macOS Sierra

I had stuck notification w/ request to change password. And I killed it:

➜  ~ ps -ef|grep -i notif
    0   121     1   0 27Sep19 ??        38:04.27 /usr/sbin/notifyd
133241192  1067     1   0 27Sep19 ??         2:06.70 /System/Library/CoreServices/NotificationCenter.app/Contents/MacOS/NotificationCenter
➜  ~ kill 1067


Remove OTA installed iOS 8 and reinstall on itunes

There is no difference in space required after the upgrade whether you upgrade iOS over the air or via iTunes. The only known problem is that you need more free space on your iOS device before/during the upgrade if you do it over the air. But as you already seem to have downloaded the upgrade to your phone this doesn't seem to be an issue for you, so just apply the upgrade on the phone and you are done.


Can I change some but not all Apple keyboard function keys (dim vs F1, bright vs F2)?

You can use FunctionFlip to change individual "special" keys back to their function key value.


Incorrect Date and Time in Max OS Lion upon reboot

Yes, Windows and Mac OS calculate time in a different way, and so clash when dual-booting. The bootcamp drivers should include a little file called Appletime.exe which is supposed to fix any time sync issues between Windows and Mac OS.

If this file is not present or not running, you can manually install it from here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Enhancements/Clocks-Time-Management/AppleTimeFix.shtml


Renaming files with a RegEx search, preferably via JXA

The Path object is a very basic structure and doesn't provide any actual filesystem functionality. Instead, use System Events:

theFile = Application("System Events").aliases.byName("~/Desktop/1234-12a-test.png");
theFile.name = "thisDoesWork.png"


Is safe battery replacement for iPhone 5?

Before paying an independent dealer to replace your battery, first check if Apple will do it for free

Enter your serial number on this page - Apple: iPhone 5 Battery Replacement Program


Nano: how to obtain syntax highlighting?

Install the latest version of nano with homebrew:

Install homebrew: https://brew.sh/
Install nano: brew install nano
Add this line to ~/.nanorc. That directory has all the syntax highlighting definition files.

include "/usr/local/share/nano/*.nanorc"


Move iTunes media files to a different location

Step 1: Install iTunes

Step 2: Move any new content

Step 3: Copy the iTunes backup from your old computer

Step 4 (optional): Add back new content