Phone lock app for ios other than assistive touch

A solution could be to use triple-click on home button to activate Assistive Touch :

  Turn on AssistiveTouch

  When you turn on AssistiveTouch, you’ll see the AssistiveTouch menu. You can drag it to any edge of the screen, then tap the menu to open it.

  There are a few ways to turn on AssistiveTouch:
      Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > AssistiveTouch, then turn on AssistiveTouch.
      Tell Siri “Turn on AssistiveTouch.”
      Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut and turn on AssistiveTouch.

  When Accessibility Shortcut is on, you can turn AssistiveTouch on or off from any screen using Triple-click Home. Just press the Home button three times. To adjust the Triple-click speed, go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Home-click Speed.

https://support.apple.com/bg-bg/HT202658

This would turn a triple click on home button to a lock screen button click !

Another alternative which is not as good as the first one, I think, is to move all app icon which are in the bottom right of each of your screens so you could place assistive touch here and it won't be hovering an app icon as there is no more app icon here.

Finally, I don't think there is any app which could lock your screen without jailbreaking your iPhone.


How can I make iTerm2 hotkey window fill out the whole screen?

Yes, go to preferences under the iTerm menu item. When the panel opens, select the Profiles option at the top of the panel. Once that opens, click on the Hotkey Window option, and then click the window tab near the top right. In that window you can define the window size or on the right select instead of Normal, Full Screen. See the image below.


How to have apple iBooks or Kindle synced between devices?

Put all you PDF in iCloud and they will sync everywhere.
Kindle doesn't play with iCloud or AppleID or iBooks in iOS 14 or earlier - nor on Mac.
Your best bet is to have kindle sync the content you got from them only and have Apple sync the content you choose to purchase and store in Books and iCloud. (Like PDF libraries and such)
There’s no technical reason Amazon doesn’t use Apple API. It’s just platform, business, privacy, control issues from what I can tell as a developer with access to the API and design docs on Apple side. As a consumer, I am steering more an more of my purchases away from Amazon since their walled garden doesn’t work for me as well as Apple’s walled garden. I love O’Reilly subscription as well so I’m mostly content to let Amazon be Amazon and use a physical kindle when I can’t get what I need elsewhere. I rarely use the kindle apps on Mac since they just make me sad and frustrated, tbh. I don’t blame them (Apple or Amazon), I just use the paper white kindle for what it’s great at and the iPad for what it’s great at.
All my PDF are in iCloud now and those I need a proper reader, I open in books or another third party app if I need to mark them up or organize them more rigorously than iBooks allows. Most I read out of the files app in practice. I never could get Kindle to work with my stuff. Perhaps someone else with years of trying has a better approach. Maybe I can learn a better way like you are asking.


How to set a refresh rate in a Subscribed Calendar

In "Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars->Fetch New Data" you can setup what to do. Depending on the account you can Fetch or Push updates to your iPhone - or choose to do it manually.


Create a new folder, put the PKG you want to install into this new folder, CD to that directory then run these commands:

xar -x -f Install.pkg && rm Install.pkg && xar -cf Install.pkg * && open Install.pkg

(replace Install.pkg with the file name of the PKG file you want to install.)

These commands decompress the PKG, delete the original PKG, then create a new PKG, which should install without complaining about unidentified developers.


What is the best way to deal with a large iPhoto library?

The weight of data (in gigs) doesn't really matter with iPhoto. That's just file storage. If you have a large HD with plenty of free space (30%+ and never less than 10%), it really doesn't matter.

iPhoto used to be rated for 250,000 items in the library, but in the most recent update it has the same format as Aperture, and that is effectively unlimited.

As to how well iPhoto scales: pretty well. I have a 40k plus library that opens in a couple of seconds. I've worked on Libraries in excess of 100k items and while longer to launch (one was almost a minute) it worked fine once open.

You can easily have multiple libraries:

Hold down Option while launching iPhoto, and from the resulting menu select Create Library. Bear in mind that only one can be opened/ searched/ accessed at a time. Again, unless you're getting very large indeed, I would avoid them.

Upgrading to Aperture is simple. Install it. Open the Library. Done.


"Recent Items" count is not saved in System Preferences-OS X 10.11 "El Capitan"

Sounds like the .plist file is corrupted. Go to Library/Preferences and drag the file named com.apple.recentitems.plist into the Trash and empty it. When you open System Preferences again a new com.apple.recentitems.plist file will be created and you should be able to change the number of Recent Items without issue.


File with removed tag showing up in Finder

I have not found a stable way in the finder to apply tags. Usually any new method I try works for the first 5 files, and then the problems arise. Even the Get Info window will not reliably work (the tags appear to be fixed, but if you close the Get Info window and open it again, none of the changes have been kept).

However, recently I have been applying tags through an application's Save dialog box. Often this works to add or remove tags when the Finder doesn't. Maybe that will work for this problem file.


It's not a super common process name (in my experience at least), so in case no one has a laser-guided answer, some ways to narrow it down:

ps auxww | grep -i collision
sudo fs_usage -w collision
sudo lsof | grep -i collision

This will show details about where the binary is located on the filesystem, show you in real time the files that process is accessing, and lastly list all open files that the program has.

Hopefully there are some bread crumbs you can follow and you don't have to use locate collision or mdfind collision to trawl the filesystem to locate the executable file.


How to bind specific window to a hotkey?

Try out Witch - among many other features:

Choose any of the first ten windows with a single keypress.


Can you use a single thunderbolt port to power two extended displays in clamshell mode?

I think you've confused Thunderbolt and USB-C.
The problems with these "display splitters" that work as "ABC" in Windows and "ABB" in Mac is that they're USB-C cables. They require demux functionality in software that macOS doesn't have currently.
However if you have an actual Thunderbolt cable then it is fully possible to do "ABC" with a single cable.
The MacBook Pro's lid being open or closed makes no difference at all in this.


How can I modify a package from the Mac App Store?

It depends upon the app. For example, I've been able to replace the icon of djay (bought it in the MAS) with the one from Cyberduck, and djay launches just fine (except it's got a rubber duck as its icon now :-))

If the developer does an integrity check at start time, you're out of luck.


Risk vs benefit of using LastPass on Chrome in OS X?

I don't have enough experience and knowledge of the LastPass folks to answer your questions. The dropbox issue is a non-issue if the data stored on the site was encrypted well before it ever was sent off your computer.

In general, I have different criteria for selecting software that is critical for me. Some random plug in, pictures, a cool app that doesn't store say, banking information. I'm all about giving people the benefit of the doubt.

My core operating system and my password generator/manager isn't time for that sort of experimentation. I am very happy using 1Password and understand their business model. Yes, for a time it was free, but it was obvious that they had a sustainable and reasonable pricing model. Now that they have (I hope) millions of users, they can charge a modest cost to ensure they have great response, great support and most importantly, great engineering. I will make more allowances for initial downsides when I believe more in the long term decisions of the company making my core tech and less likely to dabble in newcomer efforts (no matter how worthy they seem).

I would evaluate whatever software you choose by trying LastPass, 1Password and several others with fake data, but not trust your critical information to software until you are comfortable knowing who made it, how they secure data, and that they won't likely sell out to a low bidder at the first wave of $25k.  The value of millions of people to add to a corporate mailing list is attractive to owners that don't have an otherwise viable business model. I try hard not to be part of their short sell-off strategy by giving them my most valuable information for free.

I hope this helps you frame your decision and someone else that has gotten comfortable with LastPass weighs in with their take on your questions. It's a good one and high time more users start holding their authentication credentials a little closer and more securely between sites.


Restore Mac from Time Machine while in Safe Mode. Password protected, not seen

Unlocking the WD My Passport External Drive probably neither works in Safe Mode nor in Recovery Mode because a custom 256-bit AES hardware encryption is used. The decryption/unlocking only works with WD Security for Mac or WD Drive Utilities for Mac installed.

You have to boot to Recovery Mode (hold cmdR while booting) erase your main OS X volume and reinstall OS X.

Now you can either migrate the data with the Migration Asssistant:

Make a temporary admin user (different short user name than your backup) and then install the WD Security software. Then you can run Migration Assistant to read the files from the now-unlocked drive.

Once your migration is complete, you can leave things as they are or decrypt the WD drive and instead use Apple's encryption. That is supported at boot time so you don't have to do a dance when you erase and reinstall.

If you do that, the steps will be simply reboot to Recovery Mode and restore the Time Machine backup.
or use Time Machine to completely restore the Time Machine backup:

Install the WD Security software and completely remove encryption of the WD My Passport. Then reboot to Recovery Mode and use Time Machine to restore the backup.


Someone has used my iTunes gift card balance to buy

Contact apple support immediately. This happened to me (fairly recently) and they took care of it for me. I got all the money credited back to my account.

Also (this should be a given) make sure to change all passwords. Maybe consider two factor authentication as well (if not already enabled).


Can I receive calls only from a set of approved phone numbers?

One way you could do this is to use the iPhone's Do Not Disturb feature.

More specifically:

Launch Settings
Tap on Do Not Disturb
Enable the Manual option at the top
Tap on the Allow Calls From field
Select the group1of people you want to receive calls from
Go back to the previous screen
Tap on the Always option near the bottom of the screen
Exit Settings

1 You may need to create a particular group for the people you want to allow calls from. To do this you will need to use your computer or a 3rd party app. Another option would be to ensure you don't have anyone in your contacts who you don't want to receive calls from. In this case you would then select All Contacts as the Group at Step 5.


Does activating auto-login compromise secure password storage?

Yes. If you enable automatic login, the keychain password is stored in /etc/kcpassword using XOR cipher, which can be decoded easily. You need root privileges to read it though.

sudo ruby -e 'key = [125, 137, 82, 35, 210, 188, 221, 234, 163, 185, 31]; IO.read("/etc/kcpassword").bytes.each_with_index { |b, i| break if key.include?(b); print [b ^ key[i % key.size]].pack("U*") }'

Even if automatic login was disabled, the login password can be reset in single user mode. It doesn't change the password of the login keychain though. If someone logged in to your account after resetting the login password, they could access most of your files normally, but they couldn't log in on your account in Mail or use auto-fill in Safari. If automatic login was enabled, they could see your passwords with something like security find-internet-password -s accounts.google.com -w and use Mail and auto-fill.

There was a vulnerability when automatic login was enabled:

  According to a leading password recovery software developer Passware, your password could be easily accessed via the direct memory access associated with the Mac’s FireWire port.

  It seems that by enabling the “automatic login” feature the FireWire port on your Mac opens the door to unauthorized password recovery. It seems that this is an issue that has plagued Snow Leopard as well, but as it stands it does not look like there is any fix for it, apart from disabling “automatic login” and spending that extra second or two typing in your password.

The hash of the login password (which is usually also the password of the login keychain) is stored in /private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/username.plist in 10.7 and 10.8. In 10.7 even relatively complex passwords could be cracked with DaveGrohl, but 10.8 switched to PBKDF2, which limits it to about 10 guesses per second per core.


How can I uninstall the FTDIUSBSerialDriver?

First, find out if the package is installed, and it's name:

pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i ftdi

It should output:

com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver

Then get a list of files:

pkgutil --files com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver

In my case, this was the result:

Library
Library/Extensions
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/Info.plist
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/MacOS
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/MacOS/FTDIUSBSerialDriver
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/Resources
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/Resources/English.lproj
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/_CodeSignature
Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources

Then simply delete the files in question:

sudo rm -r /Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext

And follow it up with "forgetting" the package:

sudo pkgutil --forget com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver


After rebuilding LaunchServices com.apple.launchservices.secure.plist remains unchanged. Why?

That file contains the bindings for some extensions to particular applications. But it is not the LaunchServices Database itself.

Its modification date will change if you change the default app for a given file type.


How to use Maildrop on original iPad mini?

First, make sure MailDrop is enabled. I don't own an iPad mini but this may help.

Choose Mail > Preferences, click Accounts, select the account, click Advanced, then select or deselect “Send large attachments with Mail Drop.” (Steps may vary based on the iOS version.)

This link points out that only IMAP email accounts had a checkbox to activate the MailDrop/iCloud option.

One thing I noticed is it may not prompt MailDrop but it may still use MailDrop on the background if you made sure you enabled MailDrop for that account.

You can check that by sending a test email with large attachment and check the inbox of the recipient . If it shows a preview similar to the one below, it already used MailDrop.

Let me know if you have further questions, or if this doesn't solve your problem.


Moving files (manually in Finder, via terminal MV, or via script) appears to leave a 'ghost' file in search results that cannot be deleted

So, the solution is that the EXTERNAL drives, for whatever reason, were not re-indexing Spotlight.
I ran this command directly pointed to the DRIVE itself, and this cleared the results.
sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/DRIVE_1
So, the takeaway is: Spotlight re-indexing (sudo mdutil -i on /) is only for the main HDD. Which, is weird, but that's what did it.


Does it make sense to buy a compatible Mac external disk?

Actually you can format any hard disk to macos journaled if you like. So buy the hdd you want, partition it and format it as you like.

If you format it as FAT you can use it on both win and mac for read/write, but you cannot use it for time machine backups (time machine requires macos filesystem).


How can I debug a series of piped commands in zsh?

One way to debug command-line pipes is to insert | tee debug.txt between two steps and look at the file debug.txt to check whether the previous steps are correct.


Update: According to developers/macrumors local sync is back in the latest beta of iTunes, and will hopefully be back in the next release as well.

Like you already said - being worried about security issues when you run the server locally is reasonable. You probably will never get your local server as safe as apple has made their iCloud Server.
I honestly don't think your calender is so interesting that anybody would want to hack it, bur that's your decision after all.

I currently don't know of any app that syncs via usb. Sync mate doesn't work under mavericks, but they said an update would come in "winter" this year.

If you want to go local, I'd recommend using OS X server.


How to permently delete images from Photos?

Figured it out, seems recent versions of OSX put deleted photos into a Deleted Photos Album.

You need to click into this album and select Delete All in the top right hand corner.

Once I did this all the images were removed, I doubled checked in the terminal and confirmed they were deleted.


Today, after the update 10.9.2, wake on demand suddenly started working again.

It appears this problem has been solved for the questioner by upgrading to OS X 10.9.2.

This appears to be a widely reported problem but no obvious cause or answers are documented.


Every second in my log: "md5: BUG in libdispatch ..."

What's interesting is that the md5 process is getting spawned quite rapidly. You can tell that by the incrementing process id (pid) - 2257, 2258, 2259, 2260

Can you run top -u -s15 and see if you can determine the parent process of the md5?

From there, we can know what process is launching the chatty md5. Also, run a md5 process by hand md5 /dev/null to see if any error conditions are spit out other than the expected hash shown below:

Mac:~ me$ md5 /dev/null
MD5 (/dev/null) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e

Also, list any file synchronization tools you might have running - rsync, carbon copy cloner, dropbox, box.net, or similar... They often use md5 to tell if a file has really changed and needs to be synchronized.


Dual boot (old model) MacBookPro9,2 running new macOS (APFS) without rEFInd

If macOS does not appear as an option from the Mac Startup Manager (i.e. holding down the alt key at startup), then you have something wrong with the macOS installation. This problem would be independent the installation of Grub and Debian.
You have not specified which version of macOS is installed. With the latest versions of macOS, the bless command can not set a default startup unless SIP is disabled. So, most users execute the bless command from macOS Recovery. You have not indicated if the internal macOS Recovery is bootable on your Mac. If not, then your model Mac can access macOS Recovery over the internet.
It would be helpful if you could boot to macOS Recovery and post the output from the command diskutil list. Of course, you should choose a version of macOS Recovery that can support APFS.
Most versions of Linux can be booted from the Mac Startup Manager by default or by copying certain Grub files to the EFI/BOOT folder in an EFI partition. Here the boot file needs to be renamed to BOOTX64.EFI. The problem with copying files is when Grub is updated, then most likely the copied files will not be updated. This is why many users prefer to install rEFInd to the EFI/BOOT folder instead.


How could i use an iMac as secondary monitor for a Windows 7 laptop

Thunderbolt-equipped iMacs prior to iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) (see this document), like your iMac (Mid 2011), support Target Display mode:

  Target Display Mode lets you use your iMac as the external display for
  another, “primary” computer.

Thunderbolt-only solution

NOTE: This won't work for iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) and later iMac models as they don't support Target Display Mode.

If you happen to own a laptop with a Thunderbolt port follow these simple steps to extend your display (Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable required) (from KB PH4469):

Connect the Thunderbolt cable to the Thunderbolt ports on each computer.
Make sure the iMac and the primary computer are turned on and awake.
Press ⌘F2 on the keyboard of the iMac.

(As a side note: Older iMacs with Mini DisplayPort also support Target Display Mode. The steps to configure and enable Target Display mode are very similar.).

A comment on DVI to Thunderbolt adaptors

You can't use Mini DisplayPort to DVI or VGA adaptors:

to connect a computer with a DVI/VGA port to a Thunderbolt display (from this thread):

  I can confirm that Mini DisplayPort to DVI converter works ONLY from a
  Mini DisplayPort computer port to a DVI display. The reverse direction
  is not supported by those converters,

There is some hope, though, as the post goes on to say:

  but there are other much more
  expensive ones that will convert DVI computer ports to Mini
  DisplayPort display.

The poster is probably refering to a product mentioned earlier in the thread: the Kanex C247D Single-Link DVI to Mini DisplayPort Converter, advertised like this:

  Connect a (...) LED Cinema Display to your DVI-equipped
  MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, or PC with this (...) Kanex solution.

However, opinions diverge on whether it will work with a Thunderbolt display at all:

  I am sure that Kanex don't do anything that will help you no matter
  how expensive it may be.

  As far as I am aware, and I have done a lot of reading about this, you
  can connect an older display to the new Thunderbolt port of a new MAC
  but you CANNOT connect the Thunderbolt display to anything other than
  a MAC with a Thunderbolt port.  The Kanex thing works from a
  Thunderbolt port into an older display, DVI or whatever but you cannot
  convert MAC DVI into Thunderbolt......I think

I've noticed that the LED Cinema Display is listed as a Mini DisplayPort display (from http://support.apple.com/kb/SP502):

so the adaptor may indeed only work with Mini DisplayPort displays, not with Thunderbolt displays, and as far as I can tell, your iMac will act like a Thunderbolt display.

It's up to you to try it, although $129.90 (as of this writing) is a steep price to pay for the Kanex adaptor just to test it.

Software-based solution

If the solutions described above aren't feasible or cost-effective, you can use several software solutions. One is Air Display:

  Use your iPad, iPhone, Android, Mac or Windows PC as a second (or
  third) monitor with no messy cables or wires

There is a free trial version here.

Note: Windows 7 Starter edition is not supported.


Find My iPhone "Erase Pending" & No Passcode

First, be sure to go to this Apple Support page and follow the instruction for what to do if your iOS device is lost or stolen.  Your options will be limited, as will your ability to control the 'damage' the person with the iPhone can do, because it wasn't protected.

  What if your device is off or offline?

  If your missing device is off or offline, you can still put it in Lost Mode, lock it, or remotely erase it. The next time your device is online, these actions will take effect. If you remove the device from your account while it's offline, any pending actions for the device will be cancelled.

The thief can simply not allow the iPhone to access the internet and then do whatever they want with the data on it.  They will have access to any app that's not password/passcode/fingerprint protected.

I would recommend you change the password, ASAP, for any app/site that is accessible on the iPhone.


Terminal: List only and specifically, the 5th file in a directory

In addition to head, use the tail command:

ls | head -5 | tail -n 1

where the -n 1 argument displays the last line of the input.

For more info on the command, type man tail in Terminal.


Yosemite Calendar 24 hour clock New Event

I do not have Yosemite but on Mavericks you can set it up as follows:

Open system preferences Languages and Regions

Click on the 24 Hour time format.

That should change the time format in Calender.

I can enter any time (as 2 digits)

Let me know if it works in Yosemite.


Can I use 4G LTE (Cellular Data) and Airplay using Wifi w/ No Internet connection at the same time?

See my response to this question on the Apple discussions.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5770041?tstart=0

Basically, use a static configuration for your WiFi Network, but leave the Router IP address blank.  The LTE icon will be displayed, and the mobile network used for all non-local traffic (ie, Internet) but you will still be connected to the WiFi network can can use all local LAN resources.

Edit:  I also notice you said use it as your primary Internet connection.  I originally assumed that you meant only for the iPhone.  If so, then my response above should work for you.  If you meant use it as your primary Internet connection for all other devices (laptops, etc) in your home, then of course the only way to do that IS to use your iPhone as a hot spot.  That's kind of the definition of a hotspot.


Your image looks more like qt than X11, so you could reinstall gnu plot to call the qt graphics library:

brew reinstall gnuplot --with-qt5

That's much simpler than getting XQuartz and X11 running since homebrew installs everything you need.

If you wanted to go X11 for reasons, then here is a nice tutorial and links to the visualization tools that should work on recent OS X versions.

https://github.com/rdp/ruby_gnuplot

It uses X11 for the visualization and should help you get your graph on.

http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/ Install the package that gets downloaded, then
brew rm gnuplot && brew install gnuplot --with-x11

Then start XQuartz, make a new xterm and run a script like this in the xterm window running gnuplot:

set terminal x11
set title "Some Math Functions"
set xrange [-10:10]
set yrange [-2:2]
set zeroaxis
plot (x/4)**2, sin(x), 1/x

Skip the "set terminal" line if you are using qt as it gets set for you when gnuplot starts. If you need monochrome, you can also set terminal xterm.


I get errors when trying to install GTK+3 on my Mac OSX 10.9 system

Forgive me if this is a silly question but do you have Xcode installed?

The OSX SDK should be installed on your system within the Xcode application bundle. You should be able to find it at /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.9.sdk/.

If Xcode isn't installed you can install it for free from here.


MIcrosoft Outlook stopped working on Yosemite

After to Alistair's comment, I did some more general googling. I found some suggestions that the best solution was to rebuild the identity, so that's what I did:

go to ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data
make a "backup folder"
drag the contents of ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011
Identities into the backup folder
relaunch Outlook and configure
as if it's a fresh install.

This has things working again.


Can I track my stolen iPhone 5 if the SIM is removed and the thief tries to hook it up to iTunes to restore it?

If you had it set up with Find My Device via iCloud, you can log into iCloud.com and find it, erase it, and even see the last place it had network access at.


How to set the default command, with options, to open a file on MacOS?

Create an Apple/Shell script or Automator action. The Shell script can be put in a Wrapper like Platypus, the Automator action can be clickable or even a service.


Command line program to show contents of memory location?

Contrary to your assumption you cannot actually just browse through /dev/mem on a default Linux. A few years ago, the device was made restricted by default on Linux so that only very limited areas of memory are available this way. You can remove the restriction only by recompiling the kernel.

On macOS the device is completely restricted by default for similar security reasons. You can however enable it using a boot time parameter.

Explicitly enable this by rebooting your Mac, holding the Command and R keys to start up in Recovery Mode. Then open the Utilities menu and select Terminal. From the Terminal you need to run the following command:

sudo nvram boot-args="kmem=1"

After rebooting you'll find that you have new /dev/mem and /dev/kmem (kernel memory) device files.

You'll need to use sudo or be root to access the devices. The /dev/mem device is addressed by physical memory address, and /dev/kmem by virtual memory address.


Is there a free command line program for converting PDF files to SVG?

Turns out Inkscape has a command line mode. I added this to .bash_profile:

alias inkscape="/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/bin/inkscape"

and now this command converts from PDF to SVG:

inkscape Logo.pdf --export-plain-svg=Logo.svg

Unfortunately, the current version of Sketch has very rudimentary SVG import capabilities and can't correctly read any of the files I've made even though they display fine in Opera and OmniWeb. The company says future versions will do better.


The Insert key without 3rd party apps on MacBook Air in VirtualBox running Linux

It is not what I am looking for but it is a fine solution for the time being. If someone suggests a way to simulate the Insert key on MacBook Air I'll be happy to accept their answer.

A workaround in the Debian Linux itself

If you run xev to see what keycodes are actually being sent when you press keys you'll probably notice that fnEnter produces keycode 104 KP_Enter instead of keycode 36 Return.

I decided to remap keycode 104 to Insert with xmodmap -e "keycode 104 = Insert".

As a result I am able to paste with fnShiftRight AltEnter.

References

Missing Apple MacBook Keys: How to map the INSERT key in Linux/VirtualBox
xmodmap on ArchWiki
Remap the insert key


Can't delete iCloud account from Mail, Contacts, Calendars

I had the same problem. Fixed it by turning off all sharing (the checkbox options on the right of the panel), THEN trying to delete again.


External keyboard modifiers with Sierra stopped working (when typing non-modifier key on MacBook Pro Retina)

[SOLUTION!] Ha!!! Now it started working. Replying to my own question (related to Skeleton Bow's answer/suggestion - thanks) : Looks like Karabiner Elements kicked it the right way somehow. Even though I did not exactly change anything relevant, just installed it and opened it. Maybe the fact of installing /using karabiner forces sierra to use the old ways of handling modifier keys? Big thanks to @Skeleton Bow for the help in troubleshooting and for suggesting Karabiner Elements!


You seemingly have a bad download in the cache. Do this:

rm /Users/Billy/Library/Caches/Homebrew/cmake-2.8.7.bottle.tar.gz

And then try again. Make sure you're up-to-date first: brew update.


accidentally set my main folder as shared in public place

I don't think that there is a method to do that. Anyhow, I bet that the chances of that happening are very small. First, the person would have to have no morals, and second, the person would have had to specifically look for a shared folder, and that is also relatively unlikely. Also, just to be safe, monitor what can be monitored to discover whether your information was taken for a few days/weeks.


Lion upgrade on early 2009 MacBook (2GB RAM, 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo)

I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro 5,1 2GbRam 2.4GHz When I updated to Lion, I had no major problems. I had always planned to upgrade my Ram so after one month I did 8GB When Apple said my MBP can only take 4GB. 8Gb of RAM cost $40 on Amazon, best investment I made this year.


External hard drive no longer appearing on my desktop or in Disk Utility

Sometimes this happens on my Macbook as well. Shut down your computer, unplug the drive, turn on your computer, plug the drive back in.

Good news is your drive is not toast as your TV can read it, so hopefully that'll do the trick.


"Macintosh HD" no longer shows up in Finder on Lion

Disks have been removed from the Finder sidebar by default, however you can easily reenable these.  In Finder go to File > Preferences and then to the Sidebar tab.  There you can choose what gets displayed in your sidebar.


Quicktime (and other related apple software) not reproducing some avi files

Unfortunately this has a simple answer. Quicktime will not play any type of video file, some types it just fails on.

You used to be able to buy the MPEG-2 Codec from Apple as an add-on for Quicktime to allow you to play more kinds of video files but I don't believe they sell it any more.

You have already found the solution to playback though: VLC.

Flip4Mac used to be a Microsoft solution for playback of WMV video files but they don't support it anymore. Instead Telestream has the software, which you can purchase on their website.

And any video that Quicktime chokes on will likely also fail on any Apple apps like Keynote. You will have to convert it to another format before inserting it into a keynote presentation.

And if your wallet is feeling a little skinny these days FFMPEG is an open source video converter and iFFmpeg is a Mac front end for it.


Preventing 13-year-old from downloading apps previously downloaded

You have to go into restrictions and take away their ability to install all apps and blocking the App Store. It’s a pain, but it is the only thing I’ve found that works. My son got ahold of his phone when the restrictions were off and got an app I didn’t like. Even when it was back on to where he had to have me “approve” new apps, it didn’t stop him from reloading the offensive one. Only restricting access to the App Store and all installations worked. Now if he finds out about an app, he has to hand me his phone.


Monitor connection status of VPN and reconnect if disconnected

here's how i did it:

save the following to /usr/local/bin/vpn

if [[ "{$(/opt/cisco/anyconnect/bin/vpn status)[0]}" == *"Disconnected"* ]]; then
    /opt/cisco/anyconnect/bin/vpn connect SERVER
fi

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/vpn

save the following to /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.example.utilities.vpn.plist

<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.example.whatever.vpn</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/vpn</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>30</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

load it into launchd:

launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.example.whatever.vpn.plist

check that it's there:

launchctl list | grep whatever


Will renaming my Windows partition from BOOTCAMP break anything?

It won't break anything. Only issue is that if you're using a FAT partition, the name will be all capitals. Rename from either Windows or OS X if you have an appropriate driver installed.


Can't install El Capitan over beta version

GM is a Master update (the last one before the real thing).
Your literature when participating in the beta testing has a paragraf how to go from beta to the final release.


How do I change GNU Screen's meta-key to Cmd-a?

I generally think the command idea is a bad one, because it is intended to be the system key for app manipulation. Cmd-l appears to be unbound in the application menus, but I couldn't use any tricks to view what it's keycode may be. Thus, I would suggest Shift-Ctrl-a.

Having said that, if I understand the man page, and a resource on the Ubuntu Forums on the topic, I believe you can change it to Shift-Ctrl-a either by using the -e flag (which I suggest you use to test with before putting it in your ~/.screenrc).

You should be able to run screen -e ^AA. ^ is a common identifier for "Ctrl", and A means capital-a (shift + a), as opposed to a lowercase a, meaning the character by itself.

If that works, you should be able to add a line into your ~/.screenrc that says: escape ^AA for it to automatically take place on any standard execution of screen just by itself.


Stop any syncing with other apple devices with same Apple ID and MacBook

Syncing happens in the system settings, iCloud. If you sign out there, you stop syncing.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208242

You can stay signed in to the App Store and not sign in to iCloud as well, just skip the full setup when you set up your account - choose set up later if you are asked if you want to sync iCloud.


How can I see which application is using Bin, so that it cannot be emptied?

According to answers on the Ask Different question Cannot empty trash, you can use either

ps -eal | grep $(fuser ~/.Trash)

or

lsof | grep Trash

in the Terminal to find out which process is using the Trash.


What is the purpose of the PhotoStreamsData folder?

In general, deleting files that an application stores internally is a bad idea. This goes double for iOS since the presumption that users won't be idly deleting things is more realistic across the user-population of an app. The reasons for not deleting things are:

the app (or the system) has a database for tracking what's placed where. Deleting the file without cleaning up the reference at best means you end up with another file. At worst, you have crashes and slowdowns caused by the app/system having to sanity check all the files it has placed on the storage.
the files will appear again as the app re-does the work you've undone.

The reasons to place files in different spaces allows the system to reclaim storage space in the even that a cached file can be cleared to make way for other content. It also is baked in to how Photos works - when you run low on storage space, the app can be more aggressive about compressing the local cached copy of the photo. One setting won't be appropriate for people with 128 GB of storage and 16 GB of storage not to mention as you fill up your storage with other items over time. Also, I bet Apple is only backing up the files that are "authoritative" and not thumbnail or resampled versions of the iCloud originals. That saves bandwidth if backing up to the cloud and storage space on the backup and time to complete a backup.

So, I'd recommend making other changes like deleting large apps, large video files and let Photos be photos with storing multiple copies of images and multiple resolutions in different places.

Your DCIM folder is where the photos taken on that device live - so use care not to delete the authoritative copy of a file until it's backed up elsewhere.


Move python modules from one installation to another

Just use easy_install or pip from macports ie sudo port install py32-pip This will put pip in /opt/local/bin I think and use this pip not the Apple supplied one.


Migrating applications without using Migration Assistant?

It really depends on the application. With the advent of the Mac App Store a lot of applications have become more self-contained (everything lives within the app bundle). But, you're talking about an older systems so again, it just depends on the application.

The easiest thing to try is just copying them over from the old /Applications folder. If that doesn't work then your best bet is to re-run the installer (assuming it's still compatible with 10.8). If your old Mac has a disc drive you might be able to use the Remote Disc feature to complete your installation.

I know some app developers have started to make digital copies available for people who find themselves without a DVD drive anymore- but you might have to reach out to them for help.


Prefer iPhone when synchronizing playlists between iTunes and iPhone

I'm unaware of any settings that this will work with iTunes/iPhone out of the box. But you could give iGadget X a try:

  ** iPad, iPod touch and iPhone Support **

  iGadget (Windows and Mac) now supports
  the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone.
  However, due to the limitation of the
  Notes feature on these devices, only
  the Music Transfer, Playlist Transfer
  and Music Listing functions are
  available when used with the iPad,
  iPod touch or iPhone.

PS: It's shareware ($19.99)


Try restoring the system fonts using the Font Book.app

Open and click Restore Standard fonts.


Will my time machine back up go crazy if I changed my password for file vault?

No, this doesn’t change things. If Time Machine goes crazy, it’s for other reasons than this.
Now, if you are going to change the encryption keys, the pass phrase to unlock the actual encryption key can be changed trivially but the underlying encryption can be a very lengthy process of decrypting and then encrypting and that can be tedious or worse if you mess up.
You would want to get a thorough dump of your exact hardware, diskutil list and possibly more. There are many flavors of filesystem and “file vault” around.


Cinch doesn't work | How do I enable access to assistive devices in OS X 10.9 Mavericks?

Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility > "Click the lock to make changes" > Select "Cinch"


How can I back up 2 internal drives to a single Time capsule?

Time Machine's thinking is backup everything except what you tell it not to and the time machine hard drive itself. It should not matter how many drives you have connected, they should all be backed up to the time capsule just fine. In other words, you can backup multiple sources but only on one destination, as long as this destination shows up as a single logical drive in the Finder.

Just check in Sys Prefs > Time Machine > Options if the other HD isn't just simply added to the list of exceptions, don't see how it would end up there by itself, but just in case.

And I don't think you can keep working with the same backup, since you divided the data in to 2 separate logical drives. Time Machine just does not think like that. Better start from scratch, perhaps backing up the current backup set to another drive if you need to preserve all the previous backups... Some people need to be able to go back in time to a specific point. I care only to have one up-to-date copy, don't care much about having 30 different ones.


How to merge two partitions on external hard drive when the "partition" option is greyed out?

To elaborate the answer by @klanomath this is what you must do step-by-step:

get the disk identifier for both disks you want to merge by "diskutil list [disk name]". Choose any of the two disk names, like:

 diskutil list MacBackup

This returns something like

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *320.1 GB   disk3
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32 MULTIMEDIA              160.0 GB   disk3s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS TIMEMACHINE             160.0 GB   disk3s2

In the IDENTIFIER column, get the disk identifiers for both disks, here: disk3s1 and disk3s2

merge the two disk partitions by "mergePartitions  [format] [new disk name][disk identifier 1]  [disk identifier 2]". If you want to use the "MacBackup3", you would then enter:

diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ MyMedia disk3s1 disk3s2

The first disk [disk identifier 1] is the only one that diskutil tries to preserve the data for. If it can't because the disk has no resizable data format, it will give a warning message:

The chosen disk does not support resizing.
Do you wish to format instead? (y/N)

Caution! If you enter "y", your data on [disk identifier 1] will be deleted. This is the last chance to abort by "N". If you have backed up the data, you can go on with "y" - your disk partitions will be merged.


caffeinate your scripts

Use the OS X built-in caffeinate command to prevent your Mac going to sleep. caffeinate is the recommended way of lodging a temporary restriction against your Mac entering a low power state.

  caffeinate creates assertions to alter system sleep behavior. If no
  assertion flags are specified, caffeinate creates an assertion to
  prevent idle sleep. If a utility is specified, caffeinate creates the
  assertions on the utility’s behalf, and those assertions will persist
  for the duration of the utility’s execution. Otherwise, caffeinate
  creates the assertions directly, and those assertions will persist
  until caffeinate exits.


How can I disallow all network operations except for browser, mail?

You'll want a tool that lets you script the changes so you can roll them in and out or perhaps get fancy and script it based on the detected network connection interface.

I would start by evaluating Little Snitch to see if it fits your needs or at least can give you a leg up on the processes that are connecting in case you care to just control them. I wouldn't be surprised if Little Snitch were controllable from the command line - but haven't used it lately to know for sure.


Windows 10 and High Sierra upgrade problems

Windows 10 doesn't store the activation key in any useable form, it also changes with each major Win10 update.
It's hashed from your machine's hardware, unless you have an actual 'paper' license with an installation serial number on it.

See MS KB - Find your Windows product key & Activation in Windows 10


Have emojis from MS Outlook render properly in iOS

Outlook uses a non-unicode wingdings font to represent the smiley, instead of the Unicode standard smiley which everyone agreed to use 5 years ago.

Until MS changes its app to conform to the standard, the only fix is to ask the sender of such emails to delete the autocorrect entries in Outlook which replace things like :-) with a single wingdings character.


Block Internet but not the local network using an Airport Express

Give them a different subnet; if using 192.168.1.1 on your Internetwork, use any other RFC1918 range. 192.168.2.0/24 for example. If you only have the DHCP service on your airport express, consider running one on an always-on IoT device (there are plug and play options for the $2, 0.4W ESP8266  for example), or just assign static IPs to each. No need to set a meaningful default gateway.

Running a DHCP service on a system you can configure with more granularity will make this easier. No need to run BIND, dnsmasq and many others are smaller and easier. You will want to only offer DHCP leases from this service to your IoT devices, so you need to enter their MAC addresses in the configuration file and ignore all other devices. Argh?

If you have multiple DHCP services on your network, it’s random which one answers a request for address, DNS and route first — ensure that you only run one DHCP service by disabling the one on your airport express. Not possible? Shed no tears, since DHCP is not useful in your scenario, instead use static IPs for this.

Use hosts files, it’s no hassle if you only have a few dozen devices:
https://www.tecmint.com/setup-local-dns-using-etc-hosts-file-in-linux/

https://gist.github.com/zenorocha/18b10a14b2deb214dc4ce43a2d2e2992

https://m.imore.com/how-edit-your-macs-hosts-file-and-why-you-would-want

A more correct solution is either a VLAN ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_LAN ) or a PVLAN ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_VLAN ). But the latter is going too far if you just need to keep a few local things online in your home but nowhere else.

Most network equipment can do this stuff, but Apple’s probably can’t, because it’s a hot-air trend company, and not a consumerfriendly company. No ssh access, and locked firmware:/ If you cannot work it out, just get a nice Ubiquity edgerouter lite.


Tracing the forward use of values in formulas in Numbers

I presume you are referring to the formula relationship tool available in Excel:

I don't believe this feature is available in Numbers. You can notify Apple that you would like this feature implemented using their Numbers feedback page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/numbers.html


Cannot activate iMessage/Facetime after change of phone number

According to Apple (https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201349) you should follow these steps:

"If the phone number that you want to remove belongs to an iPhone that you can't access, change your Apple ID password. This removes all phone numbers from your iPad, iPod touch, and Mac. Calls or messages for the removed numbers won't appear on those devices anymore.?

I would sign out of everything associated with your Apple ID on all of your devices before changing your password (including iTunes Store, App Store, iCloud, Facetime, iMessage, etc).  It saves quite the headache with password prompts popping up and things just not working properly due to things like 'Find My iPhone' being so stubborn. Having a backup of your iPhone probably wouldn't hurt either.

If this does not work I would strongly advise to call Apple. It's been a few years since I've had to troubleshoot this issue but if memory serves me well I believe there is something they actually have to do from their end if a phone number is 'stuck' to an Apple ID.


iPhone 6S very slow after upgrading to iOS 11

The next best thing is to restore the iPhone software. Meaning erase the software and then using iTunes on a computer to restore the software with a refreshed iOS 11.0.2.

Backup iPhone via iCloud (optional but highly recommended)
Plug in iPhone to iTunes and click restore iPhone. iTunes should also automatically backup the iPhone also. - https://support.apple.com/en-ph/HT201252
**Make sure iTunes is up to date and then restore.
Once restore is done you are going to get the hello screen on the iPhone. Set up the iPhone properly then when you get the Apps & Data screen, restore from iCloud backup (unless you chose not to back it up). - https://support.apple.com/en-ph/HT204184
Then your phone should be back up and working with your stuff back on it and the software cleaned up.

Let me know if you have any concerns/questions/issues.


How do I delete photos from Apple Photos retaining only those marked as favorite?

You can do this using smart albums.
Unfortunately the gif I made to show this is to big so pictures will have to do.

go to all your photos and select all of them (cmd+a).
Create a new smart album for your selection

In the popup select photo is not favorite as filter, you should see the number of matches.

In the smart album are all your photos not marked as favorite, select them all (cmd+a) and delete them (cmd+backspace).

Go to all your photos, only the favorites remain.

Empty the trash in the photos app to remove all deleted non favorites.


The latest version of Mac OS X, Lion (10.7) has this feature bult-in. It's called Resume.

From Apple:

  Now apps you close will reopen right where you left off, so you never have to start from scratch again. And when you install software updates, you no longer need to save your work, close your apps, and spend valuable time setting everything up again. With Resume, you can restart your Mac and return to what you were doing — with all your apps in the places where you left them.

This happens automatically. Not all apps support it yet, but those that don't should be updated soon for full support.

Mac OS X Lion costs $29, and is available on the Mac App Store.


How to resize (grow) APFS partition that is at the end of the drive?

The command you are using adds any significant amount of free space immediately after the APFS container partition. By adding the values posted in your Update 2, you can see the APFS partition container is already at the end of the drive. There is no significant amount of free space to add.

  158,130,806,784 B
 + 81,926,582,272 B
 ------------------
  240,057,389,056 B = 240.1 GB

Below, I computed that there is 81.7 GB of free space somewhere above the APFS container partition. The macOS operation system offers no command or application that would add any of this free space to the APFS container partition.

  240.1 GB
    -.2 GB
    -.1 GB
 -158.1 GB
 ---------
   81.7 GB

The easiest solution would be to backup you files, erase the drive, reinstall macOS and reload your files.

Another more complex solution would be to create a new APFS container partition above the existing APFS container partition. You could then either:

Install macOS in the new APFS container partition, then use the Migration Assistant to copy all your files and applications. I have used this solution before.

OR

Attempt to clone the old APFS container partition to the new APFS container partition. I have never tried this solution. Maybe some else could comment or post an answer.

Afterwards, you could erase the old APFS container partition to create free space immediately after the new APFS container partition. You could then use the diskutil apfs resizeContainer command to add this new free space to the new APFS container partition

Creating new APFS container partition would involve several steps. Some of these steps would have to be preformed while booted to macOS Recovery. You should backup your files before attempting these steps. However, once you have a backup, you might as well just erase the entire drive and reinstall macOS. If want me to include the steps to create a new APFS container partition, then post a comment.


Your 'get out of jail free' card would be if all you have left to transfer are some simple stand-alone documents, rather than user-specific data, email accounts, browser logins & passwords etc. You could then just network the two together & file-share, rather than migrate.

Each migration will set up a new user account on your new Mac.
Your current stumbling block is you would have to keep generating new names. As soon as you do, it will let you proceed - but don't do that.
Picking this apart manually afterwards is going to be an absolute nightmare.*

Set aside sufficient time to be able to do this in one go & start over. Wipe the Mac & install a fresh new OS. Do the full migration as soon as it asks you, when you're initialising for first use.
You will be considerably better off in the long run.

*Been there, done that, don't ever want to do it again.

The procedure to do a full reset is at Apple KB - What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac In essence, you want to handle this as though you are going to be the 'next user'.


In macOS Photos, How can I sort images in "All Photos" album?

The Photos Timeline view is sorted by the date embedded in the photo, not by date added. All other views are also sorted by the date of the photo except the All Photos album, which is date added. You can't change the sort view of any of the application created albums.

The last import view shows only the last import, and does not include photos from PhotoStream.

Work around: you can create a smart album and it gives a variety of ways to sort the photos in the new smart album (date range, title, keyword, etc)


To download the last compatible version of an app, the app must be in your purchase history for that Apple ID already. Use iTunes 12.6.3 to download the app, signing in with your new Apple ID. Once the app is in your purchase history, attempting to download it again on your device should prompt you to accept an older version of the app.


How can I disable the iCloud login prior to the local user login in El Capitan?

It turns out the main issue is that I'm using FaultVault encryption. On restart, the login screen showing user photos is part of FileVault, and happens before booting OS X, so it doesn't utilize the login screen preferences.

When you simply logout, you're shown the actual OS X login screen, as the machine is already booted. That screen does utilize the preferences and appears as I expected.


Two external monitors using macOS and Windows on a MacBook Pro 13”

You have to check with the manufacturer to ensure it works with the OS on the Bootcamp partition.

There is no Bootcamp “compatible” hardware because Bootcamp isn’t an operating system, it’s  functionality built into your Mac.

So, you have to check to see if the dock, displays, and any other ancillary devices are compatible with macOS and Windows 10 (for example).

That said, docks and displays rarely have specific OS drivers.  Get quality ones of each and you should be fine.


Why does memory appear near full even after upgrade?

The old days keeping as much RAM free as possible are gone.

The new RAM management from OS X, use all available memory, but also manages it so that you get maximum performances.

If you look in the Activity Monitor- memory, you will see things like Memory Pressure, Compressed among other information.


Does Inkscape work properly with large files on Mac OS?

Now that I have a Mac to test this with, working with Inkscape it seems to be ok. (I am a web designer and my files are usually several layouts inside the same workspace.)

I have been working on my MacBook Pro for 4 months now without any problems related to Inkscape.


Open PDF in full screen from the command line

I've found a way. Does anyone know a simpler way?
tell application "Preview"
        activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
        key down {command}
        key down {shift}
        keystroke "f"
        key up {shift}
        key up {command}
end tell

I wish I could do simply "osascript -e 'application "Preview" to fullscreen'.


Homebrew issues error while calling 'brew update'

The index.lock file which is located in a directory which might need root permission to modify it or its files. You can change the permission of a directory using the chmod command.

This is what you can do:
sudo chmod -R +w /path/to/directory

A good choice for directory in this case might be '/usr/local/Library/Taps/'

The -R option will recursively execute the command on sub directories and files.

The +w option will add write permission to the mentioned directory or file for everyone.

Good Luck. ;)


Macbook pro 2009 2.66 samsung SSD 830 won't boot internally

I afraid you might be in for a struggle having done this upgrade on a mid-2009 15" MacBook Pro and I'm not alone in having the problem. I ended up having to replace the drive cable and switch to using an SATA2 rather than SATA3 drive to get an replacement drive (SSD or magnetic) to work. The problem is documented on the OWC web site.

As I recall, I got a larger replacement magnetic drive to work by downgrading the firmware but getting an SSD to work required upgrading to firmware, replacing the cable, and getting an SATA2 drive. If you already have the drive, start with the cable and maybe that will be good enough.

I've cloned lots of drives to external drives and then swapped in the external drive for the internal without a problem so I think it's far more likely you have the hardware compatibility problem than a software issue.

BTW, even with a SATA2 drive, the upgraded system flies.


Unable to type the shortcut Command-Shift-B on Yosemite

If you have ClipMenu installed, the default key bind for the snippets menu is CMD+Shift+B.

To get this shortcut working in other programs, you'll need to either disable the shortcut or change it to another combination in ClipMenu Preferences:


Unable to turn of screen while making WhatsApp or skype call on loudspeaker ios 10 update

welcome to Stack Exchange.

This doesn't happen to me on my phone, so it must be a bug or something ...
I wonder if this is similar to this issue: Unable to turn of screen while making WhatsApp call on loudspeaker io10 update
have you tried closing the apps and restarting the phone?  You can quit the apps by double-tapping the home button, swiping the app UP (I would do this with WhatsApp and Skype), and then holding the power button until the option to turn the phone off comes up - swiping on that, and then starting the phone back up?
try a forced restart of the phone.  Hold the home and power buttons until the phone just seems to shut off; continue holding until the Apple comes up.
I would backup the phone, wipe it, and restore from the backup.


Can I easily delete apps I don't use from OS Yosemite without damaging other apps?

The short answer is: Yes, you can delete apps without "damaging" other apps.

I assume by "Yosemite download" you mean your original full download of the Yosemite operating system and not the "Download folder" only.

The slightly longer answer is: Just go into the applications folder and delete the apps you don't think you need. First, make sure you go into the Mac App Store and credit any possible apps to your account, though. This way, you can delete iMovie for example and later just re-download it from the Mac App Store if you need to.

Deleting an application from the Applications folder will not damage any other app, but I wouldn't recommend deleting anything from the "Utilities" folder.

The bigger problem is that for example Garage Band (if its installed) also has templates and other things installed in Library folders, which also take up quite a bit of space. I wish Apple would allow a bit more flexibility during installation.


automatically convert low-quality tracks when added to iTunes library

If you are using Windows, you should be able to go through these steps:

Choose Edit > Preferences, click General, and click Import Settings.
Choose AAC format from the Import Using pop-up menu.

In that same window, you can also choose other import settings that may be of interest to you.


Alec,

You're running up against built-in functionality:  once the "unlock" screen appears and you don't enter your password, macOS falls back on the screen saver, or (without a screen saver) goes off.  Or, as you've noticed, when you use cmd+ctrl+q, it just goes to sleep, screen saver or no.  There's no control to change that behavior in the OS.

However, there are some free utilities on the Internet and the App store (Caffeine and Anti Sleep come to mind, but there are others) which disable the display sleep and/or the system sleep.  I gave Anti Sleep a try with the keyboard shortcut, and it did just what you're looking to accomplish: it kept the screen "awake" after it was locked.

Edit:  It looks like cmd+ctrl+q and Anti-Sleep's first option, "Prevent System Sleep when lid is closed" don't play together too well.  Uncheck that option to make this work.

All that said, be aware that the sleep feature is built-in to reduce power consumption and extend the life of your display.  By leaving the screen powered on all the time, you negate these protections.


Keychain management command-line utility

I haven't tried recovering data with it yet but I think the following works:

security create-filevaultmaster-keychain ~/Desktop/FileVaultMaster.keychain

security export -k ~/Desktop/FileVaultMaster.keychain -t certs -o ~/Desktop/FileVaultMasterPublic.cer

sudo fdesetup changerecovery -institutional -certificate ~/Desktop/FileVaultMasterPublic.cer

In my case FileVault was already enabled so I just added it after the fact.


Assuming I understand your question correctly, you want to use a device such as an iPhone as an extra display for your desktop computer. If so, you will need to use 3rd party software to do this, such as Duet Display.

I have used this app to set an iPad up as an external monitor for an iMac and it works well for some workflows. How well it works for you will depend on what you're trying to do and the hardware you're using.

In any case, I know that Duet Display works with both iPads and iPhones and works with both Mac and Windows. However, I can not share any personal experience in using with an iPhone or Windows.

Hope this helps.


Apparently, the file is in UTF-16 format, but most of the text-manipulation tools in macOS don't know how to work with that and will garble files if they try. UTF-16 uses two bytes per character; for plain-ASCII characters like ", it's the single-byte ASCII code followed by a null byte. Something like tr -d \" will delete the first byte, leaving a stray null byte and throwing the entire rest of the file off by one byte.

I think you can get perl to work in UTF-16 (see here), but I'm not sure of the ins and outs. This might work (based on this):

perl -pe 'BEGIN { binmode $_, ":raw:encoding(UTF-16LE)" for *STDIN, *STDOUT }; s/"//g;' infile >outfile

You could also convert it to UTF-8 and back with

iconv -f UTF-16LE -t UTF-8 infile | tr -d \" | iconv -f UTF-8 -t UTF-16LE >outfile

If the output doesn't need to be in UTF-16, you can leave the last iconv out.


NUMBERS: Lookup hourly rental rate based on date of transaction

Ok, so now had chance to test, use this formula :

=IF(C2<=A4,B4,IF(C2<=A3,B3,IF(C2<=A2,B2)))

The date tested is in cell C2 and the three dates are in A2, A3 and A4, while the three rates are in B2, B3 and B4.

The logic has been reversed ie test for the oldest date first.

You could also use names for the 3 rates, but it will work the same.


Upgrade to Mavericks wipes out Python site-packages directory?

Apple tends to wipe out supporting files for scripting languages such as python, perl, and ruby with each major upgrade.

To avoid this in the future, look for a package manager that maintains and works with a local copy of python outside of the Apple managed folders of /Library and /System. A good starting point is homebrew:

Install homebrew with:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/go/install)"

Then install a local copy of python with:

brew install python

For perl, the perlbrew project is ideal and explicitly calls out Apple for his behaviour.


Since you don't have a Mac, I suggest you start looking into third party music players like VLC, "Cloud Music Player - Listener" by Jhon Belle, "Boom: Music Player and Equalizer" by Global Delight Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Google Play music, "Vox- MP3 & FLAC music player" by Coppertino Inc. etc.

What's a good iPhone app for playing MP3 music?

If a Mac can be used:

How to add podcasts manually to the new Podcasts.app on macOS Catalina

On your Mac, you can download audiobooks from Audible.com, then drag and drop them into Apple Books.

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT208929#booklets


Make an XML iTunes Library working in a NAS server

Link the library from the NAS to the local machine. I wrote a hint about this on Mac OS X Hints many years ago and I still use it (but in my case, I use a dmg to store my library on).

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2003041911193115

(Should be available on Wayback Machine as well)


What's the proper way to pronounce "Mac OS X"?

Try typing

say Mac OS X

in Terminal. You'll hear what Apple thinks about it.

Hint: It's "mac oh es ten"


Is the hard disk of a late 2015 27" iMac 5k still replaceable?

Yes - Apple provides an internal SATA drive with standard connectors but custom firmware.

According to iFixit if you take the screen off carefully you can replace it, you may have to buy a bracket to secure it SSD that don't match the existing 2.5 inch drive mounting screws.

Looking at the steps it doesn't seem to be to complicated to do but with the 5k iMac you need to be extremely careful since you have to remove the speakers.

I would paste in the step by step images however there a load of them and you would be better off going to the site and taking a look at the images.

Also make sure you have the right screw drivers since its a t20 screw you would need a T20 * 100m screw driver.


Try the Keka program. It's free and on the website says it can extract EXEs
Keka


Spotlight/Finder will not index after Yosemite update

Old school way of trying to solve it but can you get a second HD? Format that using Yosemite with Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and copy the files over to the new drive. The new format might make it be recognized and indexed by Finder at that point.


How to make a custom keybind that runs an applescript file?

First, (Automator -> New -> Service) to paste the code, and then (System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services) to bind the Service to a keyboard shortcut.
BetterTouchTool
Karabiner


It's a bit of a drastic move, but why not delete the preference files for FaceTime? This should put FaceTime in an uninitialized state (at least for preferences, perhaps not for configured accounts).

Close FaceTime, click on the Finder, then hit the Go menu and choose Go to Folder….

Enter ~/Library/Preferences into the box and press enter. Look for any files that start with "com.apple.facetime" and move them to another folder (for backup purposes).

Open FaceTime back up, check your preferences, and see if the Auto-Accept continues to occur.


Exporting DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES for libgmalloc not working on Big Sur?

On my (M1) machine:
~$ export DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=foo
~$ env | grep DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
~$ /opt/homebrew/bin/bash
dyld: could not load inserted library 'foo' because image not found

Abort trap: 6

So (as you saw), the variable is being set - but since env is a system binary, it is silently removed. Testing with my homebrew installed version of bash, you can see the value is actually set.
See also this StackOverflow answer.
TL;DR works fine for non-system binaries, silently removed from the environment for system binaries.


Somebody heard you, because this is now baked in. Your iCloud account will sync bookmarks, browser history, and even tabs in Yosemite and iOS 8.


In a Terminal type echo $PATH and press Enter.  It will display your PATH Environment Variable.

Example:

 $ echo $PATH
 $ /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin
 $

While you could place it in any of the locations listed nonetheless it's a good suggestion that you place it in /usr/local/bin as the other locations are used by the OS.  In a Terminal see man hier for an explanation of the layout of the filesystem in this respect.

On my system I have hundreds of scripts I've written, over the years, and use many on an ongoing basis so I created a directory in the root "/" directory called scripts and place everything there and added /scripts to my PATH by adding export PATH=$PATH:/scripts to my ~/.profile file.

So my PATH is as follows:

 $ echo $PATH
 $ /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/scrips
 $


Finder has a relatively short app menu, so activating Finder is a quick way to see more menu bar icons.  (And the built-in Maps app has an even shorter app menu.)
Bartender collapses the menu bar items into a submenu, which will let you see more of them (without being hidden by app menus).


Mac Pro custom graphic black screen during boot

"Custom graphics card" is the problem… or more precisely, PC graphics card, not Mac.

Unless you bought one that was already Mac-flashed you will get nothing until the OS starts up.

The only two options are

keep your old card around & swap it in if you need to see the boot process, or
get that one flashed.

More info/opinion that I can reasonably précis in here - http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-golden-guide-to-flashing-graphic-cards.877441/

Actually, from that I notice that the Zeus flashing tool is by Oskar Groth, aka Cindori - which ought to make it at least a trustable method
See - https://www.cindori.org/software/


Can I control the sensitivity of the back gesture on the Magic Mouse?

Have you tried using MagicPrefs? You can use it to adjust the tracking speed, per their documentation.

Fine tuning tracking speed
MagicPrefs does not have available in the interface the fine tune tracking speed settings from the apple control panel, however they can be set manually by entering the next command in Terminal.app (change 0.3125 to your desired speed)
defaults write com.vladalexa.MagicPrefs TrackingMouse -float 0.3125
defaults write com.vladalexa.MagicPrefs TrackingTrackpad -float 0.3125
The Apple Tracking speed slider for the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad has 10 speed settings : 0.0, 0.125, 0.3125, 0.5, 0.6875, 0.875, 1.0, 1.7, 2.0, 3.0
The MagicPrefs Magic Mouse tracking speed slider has 10 speed settings : 0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0
The MagicPrefs Magic Trackpad tracking speed slider has 10 speed settings : 0.0, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0


How to delete an administrator account on mac?

Go to System Preferences > Users & Grops > unlock padlock > click in + > Create a new Administrator Account.

Now, you can delete the other Administrator account.

Close actual Session > Open session with the new Admin account > Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > unlock padlock >select old Admin Account > click in -


Reproducing execution launchd execution environment

Launchd jobs run with a default shell that does not import any of the typical environment variables you'll see in an interactive shell; in particular the PATH variable lacks any directories that your interactive shell might have added, which can cause headaches. You can work around that two ways:

By making your script as thoroughly generic as possible: using full path specifications to every command and utility, and explicitly setting variables as you need them rather than relying on the environment.
By adding an EnvironmentVariables dictionary to your launchd plist file and specifying the environment there.

The second looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    < ... >
    <key>EnvironmentVariables</key>
    <dict>
           <key>VARIABLE_NAME_1</key>
           <string>variable_contents</string>
           <key>VARIABLE_NAME_2</key>
           <string>variable_contents</string>
    </dict>
    < ... >
</dict>
</plist>


How do I sync the Visual Studio Code (vscode) theme to use my OS light/dark color scheme?

This was released in 1.42:

  Auto switch Theme based on OS color scheme

  Windows and macOS now
  support light and dark color schemes. There is a new setting,
  window.autoDetectColorScheme, that instructs VS Code to listen to
  changes to the OS's color scheme and switch to a matching theme
  accordingly.

  To customize the themes that are used when a color scheme changes, you
  can set the preferred light and dark theme with the settings:

  workbench.preferredLightColorTheme
  workbench.preferredDarkColorTheme


Before you can delete your Apple ID or change your Apple ID country or region, you must spend any Apple ID balance. You also might have to wait for any pending refunds to process. If you have less balance than the cost of a single item, contact Apple Support.

View your Apple ID balance

Change your Apple ID country or region


Will I have a degraded roaming experience with the AT&T iPhone 7?

CDMA is primarily used in the US. Nearly everywhere else uses GSM. If you are an AT&T customer, you will not roam onto a CDMA network. AT&T sells GSM phones, so their roaming partners would naturally by-and-large need to be GSM carriers as well.

Wikipedia has a list of carriers around the world with active CDMA networks and it's extremely short. Even Verizon (US) will be shutting down its CDMA network by the end of 2019.


Open PDF in browser or Preview instead of downloading

It is the web site that instructs the browser to download the PDF instead of viewing it:

Web sites usually controls this using the "Content-Disposition: attachment" header which is sent by the web server to the browser.

The web site probably changed from not sending this header to now sending the header, and so Safari will start a download instead of viewing the document.

In this case, I would suggest sending a feature request to the web site owner to let you have both a view and a download button for these PDFs.

Web sites also have the option of controlling this directly from HTML, although it is not as commonly used as the HTTP header. They do this by including am "download" attribute on the link itself (the "a" tag).

If that is the case, you could open the Developer Tools in Safari to manually edit the link and remove the download attribute before clicking. It is going to be quite tedious though.


Can I mount the root (system) filesystem as writable in Big Sur?

DISCLAIMER: have a good backup and plan to erase and reinstall your Mac from the internet before trying this procedure. A mistake can prevent your system from starting without assistance.

Disable FileVault
Reboot into recovery mode and run:
csrutil authenticated-root disable

Reboot back into MacOS
Find your root mount's device - run mount and chop off the last s, e.g. if your root is /dev/disk1s2s3, you'll mount /dev/disk1s2
Create a new directory, for example ~/mount
mkdir -p -m777 ~/mount

Run sudo mount -o nobrowse -t apfs DISK_PATH MOUNT_PATH, using the values from above
sudo mount -o nobrowse -t apfs /dev/disk1s2 ~/mount

Modify the files under the mounted directory
Run sudo bless --folder MOUNT_PATH/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --create-snapshot
Reboot your system, and the changes will take place


ipod touch 4g is unable to play music on docking station

We had the same problem but found it wouldn't work when the iPod had its cover on,  as soon as we removed the cover it worked fine. Hope this helps


Pretty much any MDM can enable / monitor gatekeeper status.

If you want inexpensive, you can use Server.app for $20 and go up from there. Apple Remote Desktop also lets you automate things. Heck, you could set up ssh keys and use that to run spctl by script.

spctl --status

The manual page shows you how to enable and disable gatekeeper with spctl as well as white list certain apps if you want that level of fine grained control.


How to create a user without a password in Catalina?

I'm running macOS Catalina 10.15.2 and guest is a reserved name, so you cannot use it.

I also just created a new standard account without a password. Just didn't put in a password and followed through with the prompts appropriately.

Note: My Mac is not encrypted and does not have the T2 chip. Either or both of these may require a password to be assigned.

One thing you can try is in Terminal use the passwd command to change the password to a blank password. This worked for me on my system, however keep in mind the note above.


How can I disable the 2nd hard drive in my 27" iMac?

I don't know if it'll work, but try going into the Energy Saver section of System Preferences and select "Put hard disk(s) to sleep whenever possible". Then go into Disk Utility and unmount the hard drive. With no way to access the drive, I would assume Mac OS X would put the drive to sleep.

This is a temporary solution though, and it won't persist across reboots (Mac OS X automatically mounts all available drives at boot). If you're really not using the drive and don't have any data on there that you want, my suggestion would be to go into Disk Utility, repartition the drive, and for the format select "Free Space". Once done, Mac OS X will be unable to mount the drive and should put it to sleep.


Login to AppStore over cellular data, jump on public wifi, download/install app is "safe"?

Your scenario won't work I'm afraid, because a TCP connection is created between a source IP address and port, and a destination address and port.

In your scenario, your phone's source IP address would change when switching network interfaces. This would break the connection, so the App store will not recognize that you already connected before, even though you securely connected over TLS (HTTPS)


Mac OS wont open a file if the App is open - Need to quit the app every time to open files

There's a few things to try here to help us narrow down this problem.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window
Now log into your Mac and (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice)
Now test to see if you have the same problem
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Once again, test to see if you have the same problem

Once you've done this let me know how you went and we'll go from there.


iPad stolen, last sync is about 6 month old: can I still restore my purchases?

Yes, you can redownload your purchases at no cost as long as you log the new iPad in to the same iTunes account. The only exception will be apps that have since been withdrawn from the iTunes store.


Service crashes when using AppleScript to click menu bar icon

This works for me on the latest version of macOS Sierra.

I followed your steps exactly.  However, this code you posted needed to be tweaked to work on my system correctly.   Here is the code I used and placed into an Automator run AppleScript action

tell application "System Events"
    click menu bar item 3 of menu bar 1 of application process "SystemUIServer"
end tell

I also did get the same error message you got when i tried to run the service from within Finder (after successfully running the script within Automator and ScriptEditor)

On a hunch, I added Finder app to the list of allowed apps to control my computer.

Then I went back to Finder services menu and attempted to run the service again.  Bingo! It worked.  I did the same thing with several other applications I had open and it did not produce the error message


Which virtualization programs support hardware breakpoints?

Actually, VMware Fusion does support hardware-assisted breakpoints. However, gdb has trouble creating them while the program is not running (which was my issue; you can issue break commands even when the program is off, but you need it to be running for hbreak to work, or something along these lines).


MacBook Air A1465 screen black and full of multi coloured lines how can I fix this?

Run Apple Diagnostics to check if there are any issues, but these seems almost certainly like a hardware issue. Take your computer in and have it looked at by an Apple authorized service provider.


Great picture. I'm not sure I would be able to answer from the words alone.

If you focus on two areas - just above the words Airdrop - the fading/smearing looks quite evident.

the speaker icon for mute/low volume has definite "smearing"
the >> fast forward black triangles also exhibit "smearing"

I don't know the technical term for that bleed, but it's a hardware issue with the voltage controlling the LCD panel. Either the chip that drives the graphics is failing or the connections between the circuits embedded in the LCD and the controlling chip. Basically, reseating the LVDS cable would be the first things I would try if I were a repair technician and needing to fix a phone with that display.

To check your phone against other phones and devices, this web page is fabulous for test patterns:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/all_tests.php

You'll want the detailed pages for how to use them, but the link above is my gold standard for just looking at two screens side by side to get a quick check of the LCD calibration and performance.

Without opening the hardware and inspecting things, here are questions I'd ask before getting a repair:

Has the phone been dropped recently or had a large shock (even in case, a drop can cause internal damage)?
Is there warranty or AppleCare coverage? (If so - seek repair before it expires)
Has the phone been opened by Apple or anyone else recently (or ever?)?


Do not hide number when calling friends?

Possibly.

Your mileage may vary, as this is a carrier dependent function.  I was however able to achieve the following using two AT&T phones in the U.S.

First I opened Settings > Phone > Show my Caller ID and turned the switch off.

Next I placed a test call to the second phone, the other phone correctly displayed "no caller id".   (Note: it does NOT matter who the carrier is for the second phone, all the magic relates to what the first phones carrier offers.)

Next I google "AT&T star codes" and located this list.  *82 looked like the best choice.

I then modified the contact for the second phone, adding *82 before the phone number.

Calling that contact then allowed my caller id info to be displayed on the second phone, while still being blocked for others.

It's my understanding that *82 is reasonably standard for the code itself in the U.S.  I have no idea which carriers support it however (other than AT&T where I did test).  I also have no idea what carriers in other countries might use, or if it's supported with a star code.  Consult Google for "(carrier name) star codes" or check with the carrier.


can't run GlassFish because something is using port 8080; but how to find it?

NMAP will provide a listing of open ports and programs that are currently using them. It is actually a powerful networking tool that can perform a wide variety of network maintenance tasks.

You can read more about it here: http://nmap.org/book/inst-macosx.html

It is a small commandline utility (although GUI front-ends are available) that is quite easy to use and should give you a detailed view of your current network state.


Instead of piping to grep and cut, just use awk.

do shell script "ioreg -r -k AppleClamshellState | awk -F \" = \" '/AppleClamshellState/ {print $2}'"

-F \" = \" makes the separator: = (space = space)
/AppleClamshellState/ Search for: AppleClamshellState
{print $2} Prints Yes or No depending on what's returned for:AppleClamshellState
E.g "AppleClamshellState" = No prints No

You can also use:

do shell script "ioreg -r -k AppleClamshellState | grep 'AppleClamshellState' | cut -d'=' -f2"

However there will be a leading space in front of Yes or No as cut only handles a single character for the deliminator.

Note: The command text portion of do shell script, e.g. do shell script "uptime" must be double-quoted. So when the command text string itself is using double-quotes within the string, one should substitute a single-quote ' wherever possible and if double-quotes must be used within the string then escape them with a backslash \.


safari can't reload off-line saved reading list items

Had the same problem. I think it's all about permissions and privacy.
I did this and it's helped:

Pull down the  Apple menu and choose ‘System Preferences’
Choose “Security & Privacy” control panel
Now select the “Privacy” tab, then from the left-side menu select “Full Disk Access”
Click the lock icon in the lower left corner of the preference panel and authenticate with an admin level login
Now click the [+] plus button to add an application with full disk access
Navigate to the /Applications and choose “Safari” to grant it Full Disk Access privileges
Relaunch Safari and try to open saved pages in offline mode


Macbook's Arabic keyboard layout mistakes and missing characters!

If the purpose of your question is to recommend that the printing on Apple's hardware Arabic keyboard be changed, the best place to do that is via their Feedback Channel.


How can I stop by External Display from switching "Spaces"

I don't think exactly what you are asking for is possible, but this may be an acceptable solution: you can tell the application to show up in all spaces, and it will be as if your external display isn't switching spaces.

In order to do this, right click on the dock icon for your application, select "Options," and then "All Desktops"

Hope this helps!


No, that's not likely without jailbreaking the phone.

There are only a limited number of features on the iPhone that an app can interface with.  I very much doubt "shutdown" is one of them.


Console on 10.2.5 not showing history before Console.app started

Ah, as Phong notes, this is a duplicate of Sierra Console.app show earlier data.

The short version is that the Sierra Console.app behaves this way currently by design (although there are a couple of workarounds noted in the other answer, depending on what you want).


Why does Google Chrome Helper spike my CPU?

The problem, in my case, seems to have been one of the tabs I always have open runs some crazy cpu-intensive plugin for ads (I suspect Grooveshark, but am not positive).

The fix was to go into Chrome settings (settings > content settings > plugins) and choose Click To Play.  By default Chrome runs all plugin content as soon as the page is loaded - regardless of what is is, or how much memory it takes.


Does the iPhone compress emailed videos?

You are correct. The video will be compressed to a smaller size before sending out.

EDIT: If you want to try to send uncompressed video, you can try the trick from this guy, http://www.quora.com/How-can-I-share-an-uncompressed-video-from-my-iPhone

In the Camera Roll or Photos app, press and hold on the photo. A menu should pop up with Copy as an option. If you want multiple photos, you can hit the Share button the toolbar and select all the photos you want and then hit Copy. Either way, you'll end up with the full-quality photo in your clipboard, which you can then paste into an email.


Where are the sample books stored in the iBooks for Mac OS X?

Here you can find the iBooks source files:

Go to Library > Containers > com.apple.BKAgentService > Data > Documents > iBooks

Or simply type 'iBooks' in the searcher of Finder and click on the folder named iBooks.


How to reset default sidebar favourites icons in Finder?

How did you restore permissions? Manually, or did you use the "Repair" feature in Disk Utilities?

Restoring from a Time Machine backup from before things went bad should work.

One thing you might try before restoring is to delete the Finder preferences. ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist then relaunch the Finder (Hold Option while selecting the Finder icon in the dock). The preference file will be regenerated with the system defaults.


How can I take everything from the current SSD and then upload it to the new SSD - effectively giving me the same machine without installing OSX all over again?
I upgraded my SSD some time ago in a similar configuration (128 GB->256 GB, MacBook Pro 15-inch early 2011).
Below is the procedure that worked for me, but note that for this to work your Mac must support OS X Internet Recovery. According to KB article "OS X: About OS X Recovery" (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718):

Mac models introduced after public availability of OS X Lion include
the ability to start up directly from an Internet-based version of the
OS X Recovery system.

which means that models manufactured before July 20, 2011 need a firmware update.
In your case you must have MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) EFI Firmware Update 2.5 or later installed, and that's probably the case, because most firmware updates are available as regular updates in Software Update/App Store.
To find out whether it is installed: Go to Apple menu > About This Mac, press System Report...:

and check if Boot ROM/SMC Version Information is MB71.0039.B0E or greater. If that's the case, you're good to go. Otherwise install it.
These are the steps:

Back up old SSD with Time Machine by selecting "Back Up Now" in menu bar:

Shut down Mac and replace SSD.

Start Mac while holding down ⌘-R and choose "Restore From Time Machine Backup":

Choose new SSD drive as target, wait until restore is completed and reboot.

This will let you keep everything.


How do you copy a meeting in Outlook 2016 on Mac

I have Outlook for Mac [16.29]

I am able to [alt/option]+[click]+drag an appointment.
The result is a copy of the appointment in a new location / timeslot...! Yay!

I must admit, I never tried this before - it could work in older versions.


Can I get live wallpapers on iPhone5(iOS6)?

Native iPhone iOS (un-jail broken) does not support Live wallpapers (as in Android). There are numerous apps available for jail broken iPhones in the Cydia app store. An example would be vWallpaper. Obviously you would have to jail break your iPhone to utilize a Live Wallpaper app.


You are SO not alone in this. Apple are a disgrace. Their 'updates' have rendered useful devices almost useless. I can now no longer sync calendar, photos, music or apps. iTunes just crashes at step 6 'copying'. Have reinstalled iTunes (ms7-64bt), have reset iphone5s (and lost a heap of stuff in process). iPad exactly the same but am keeping it well away from iTunes for now. Total b****dy shambles.


Intempestive remote server/connection failed windows

Found the problem, if anyone has it. Bitdefender tries to follow old shortcut that I have pointing toward folders on the remote server. I don't know why suddenly it tries to follow those folders, but if you need to solve this problem :

Open bitdefender
Click on "Antivirus for Mac" in the menue
Preference
Exclusions
Add the problematic folders, it should do the job


I recommend OmniGraffle Pro (http://www.omnigroup.com/omniGraffle) from the Omni Group.  They have a standard and pro version.  You can download trial version of either the standard or pro version.


How to remove people from search in mail app?

I don't think you can remove the people list from search results.
If you search, for instance, for "Service Desk", mail will lookup in any header: From, To, Subject, and other; therefore mail will include previous recipients and contacts.

Solution 1

Be specific about the message header to use in the search.
You can perform the search by adding the keyword "Subject": Subject: Service Desk

Solution 2

Create a smartmailbox like the one in the picture.
In this example the smartmailbox will lookup for all message containing the word "Facebook" excluding this word from sender and recipients.
You will need to double-click the smartmailbox and edit it every time you want to do your custom search.


how many hours has my laptop display been used?

If you're turning the brightness all the way down, the display is still on, but the backlight for the display is off. I do not believe a backlight tracker exists.

I do not believe a display tracker exists either.

However, assuming you rarely or never use your MBP with the screen closed (needs external keyboard/mouse/screen), you can calculate a rough estimate by multiplying the battery's cycle count by the average lifespan of the battery (100%-0%). I'm not sure why this information would be relevant, but for example if I have a cycle count of 460 and my battery generally lasts for about 7 hours, I'd have a display count of (very roughly) about 3200 hours.


Is there any way to use Preview to view files on another server?

You cannot as Preview runs on the Mac and loads all the data into itself before rendering it.

In general this is how all OS X programs work, the data has to be transferred into the app running in the Macs memeory

What can be done is using X11 the normal Linux display mechanism, which was designed to work across a network. You can have X11 programs running on the server that display on another machine. Unfortunately Apple's GUI does not support this (an earlier version did but we suspect for the cost of licensing this was replaced)


I think that is quite simple just make sure you mount your Main drive in disk utility in recovery then make more of your Main drive name then quit Diskutilty and click on Utilties on the upper menu bar and then click terminal and to load your kext simply type kextload -b /Volumes/Maindrivename/Library/Extensions/kextbundle
Just make sure you replace the command I provided accordingly.


Mac connects to network with no problem but browsers can't connect to websites

Turns out my AV had entered a proxy that was blocking my connections.

It might be worthwhile to check:
System Preference > Network > Choose your connection > Advanced > Proxies > remove any active proxies


Somebody with chinese username (hacker?) writes files into folder "users", what's going on?

I finally found the answer by myself and can reproduce the above scenario: The official wallet software of the cryptocurrency Bytecoin is creating this user and these files.

Not sure if this is legit or part of a scam :/


How to wipe my iPhone that's stuck in the update process?

From: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201263

"Press and hold both the Sleep/Wake and Home button for at least 10 seconds, and don't release when you see the Apple logo. Keep holding until you see the recovery mode screen."


Instruments (which is part of Xcode) and dtrace are the heavy hitting analytical tools for most disk measurement jobs. Both are free and both take a little training to use unless you find someone to set up your traces for you to match your above criteria.

Look for errors in system.log or the console app.


How to open .plist files in macOS Sierra without using Xcode?

OBSOLETE (2020)
I have used Pref Setter in the past to edit .plist files graphically.
brew cask install pref-setter

Any text editor (including Text Edit) will work if the file is non-binary.  If you right click on any .plist file and click "Get Info", under "Open With" there should be an option to change the default editor for it, which you would then change to Pref Setter. If you click on "Change All", it will change it for every .plist file on your system.


While we don't know how large your SD card is, it is likely not big enough to support a backup. The information and link below provides details on how much space to plan for.

Answer by sameetandpotatoes just here

You probably want to check out this website for the most information, but here is the answer to your question, quoted from the website above:

1. How big a drive do I need for Time Machine?

  A general "rule of thumb" is, to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups,
  Time Machine needs 2 to 4 times as much space as the data it's
  backing-up (not necessarily the entire size of your internal HD).  Be
  sure to add the size of the data on any other drives/partitions you
  want to back up.


You have a typo in your command. You're typing:

brew link mongod

You should be typing:

brew link mongodb

Missing a d on the end there. The link command takes a keg name, not a file name.