Programs that install system components can't be uninstalled by simply throwing them in the Trash.

Usually an Uninstaller is provided in the original .dmg file, or can sometimes done from within the app itself.

If you delete the app, you may be too late to use that method.

Most companies that make apps which must be correctly uninstalled will have instructions on their own site as to how to achieve this, either by re-downloading the original .dmg, or they may provide a dedicated uninstaller app.

Koingo has such an app listed on its MacCleanse Manual page

Direct link -
http://www.koingosw.com/products/maccleanse/download/maccleanse4_uninstaller.zip


Macbook Pro won't boot into OSX (circle with line through it), but Windows works fine

I brought it to the Apple store where they replaced the hard disk cable for free (possible thanks to Applecare). OSX works again.  This solution defies logic to me; I didn't think it could possibly be a hardware problem because Windows worked fine.

I am including the relevant parts of their problem writeup below:

Issue: Mac OS partition boots to a prohibitory symbol.
Windows partition can run fine
Occurred after waking from sleep, computer froze completely
Steps to Reproduce: Observed at bar
MRI passes, third party memory
Booted to 10.8 installer and internal drive did not mount
Booted to storage diagnostics and no hard drive detected
Proposed Resolution: Replace hard drive bracket, has third party drive, run storage diags after bracket and see if drive is recognized


iCloud save support in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Apparently this is how it GTA operates. Both Vice City and San Andreas iOS version of it. I've always wondered whether the game keeps some of the game save data in Game Center, iCloud or to a app-native cloud system.


Modern Answer (2016):
This is a feature of iCloud Photo Library, that launched in 2015 (and was in beta in 2014). With the updates to Photo Stream/iCloud Photo Library, your photo library is now viewable on iCloud.com.

Original Answer (2012):

This feature is called Photo Stream, and at this point, there is no web version of it.

The previous iteration of iCloud, which was called Mobile Me, did have a gallery option, but did not have the direct upload integration like Photo Stream (you had to manually post images).


How do I enter "ř" (small R with caron) and other unusual special characters on the iPhone?

That character is not accessible from the English iPhone keyboard. You can, however, enable other keyboards on your iPhone.

Under the Settings app, go to General then Keyboards and select the Keyboards control. You can then touch Add New Keyboard… and add the Czech keyboard as an option.

When typing, if you want to access theř key, hold down the globe key on the bottom row of the keyboard, select the Czech layout, and then when you press and hold r, you get the menu wherein you can select the ř.

If you frequently need Czech accents, keep the Czech keyboard installed. If this is a rare occurrence, you can then uninstall the Czech keyboard from Settings » General » Keyboards » Keyboards.

The easier way to access the ř character on a one-time basis would be to visit this page with your iPhone, copy the ř character, and then paste it into your friend's Contact information.


What is "xART Remote Storage Daemon" in macOS?

In the MacBook's with Touch Bar there is a new processor, Apple’s T1 processor.
The deamon xartstorageremoted talks with the T1 processor.
Secure Enclave is part of it meaning it’s tied explicitly to the Touch Bar and Touch ID. It’s also in charge of your webcam, a small but important difference.


This happens with the user does not have permission to write to the share. You can verify this by connecting to the share in the normal way and trying to copy a file to it. The copy will not be allowed, conveyed by the mouse pointer changing to a no-entry sign. To fix, run the Server app and go to the File Sharing section and select your backups share. Then click edit (the pencil) and change "Everyone Else" to Read & Write (see screenshot). Now you will be able to successfully copy a file to the share and also the Time Machine setup problem will be fixed.

You would think that the Permissions for Backup Service ACL (also shown in screenshot) would take into account the users selected in the Time Machine section but it didn't in my case. Perhaps after adding a new user you need to restart File Sharing or reboot the server then maybe it would work without requiring this extra setting but I haven't tried it.


How can I delete saved configuration passwords from AirPort Utility for iOS?

Since iOS doesn't have a keychain utility to go in and surgically remove the stored password, you would have to either:

change the password on the base station to effectively lock out all clients with the old password.
erase the iOS device and refrain from restoring a backup that contained saved passwords onto the device. (Encrypted backups of the device typically store keychain items, non-encrypted backups don't save those passwords, so you might try an unencrypted backup, restore the backup and then test if the password was saved in the application bundle as opposed to a keychain).
As a long shot, try enabling iCloud keychain syncing and see if you can clean things on a Mac that has iCloud keychain syncing enabled as well by opening the iCloud keychain in Keychain Utility.


2FA for multiple Apple IDs on same device?

Both iOS and Mac devices can sign in to multiple Apple ID accounts:

One main "iCloud" Apple ID account for the device. This is the account used for iCloud Photos and other system features. It is very disruptive to change this Apple ID.
Multiple other lesser Apple ID accounts. These can be used to sync Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, and Notes. They can also generate 2FA codes.

Your single device is able to generate 2FA codes for all of the signed-in Apple ID accounts, not just the main iCloud account.

The key is:

You must first enable 2FA for an Apple ID by using it to sign in as the main iCloud account on a device.

If you have access to a Mac, you do NOT need to sign out of your iCloud account on your iOS device or personal Mac user account (a disruptive change that should be avoided if possible).

Instead, use the workflow:

Create a temporary new local user account on a Mac.
On that user account, sign in to iCloud with your secondary Apple ID.
Signing in as the iCloud Apple ID allows you to enable 2FA for that Apple ID.
On your iOS device, add the secondary Apple ID:

Settings > Passwords & Accounts > Add Account

Or on the main user account on your Mac, add the secondary Apple ID:

System Preferences > Internet Accounts > +

Because 2FA is now enabled, signing in will require a 2FA code. Use your new local Mac user account to Allow this sign-in and see the code.

Once permission has been granted, the secondary Apple ID will be signed in on your iOS or Mac device as a lesser Apple ID used for syncing Mail, Calendars, etc. You can turn off all of those syncing services, in which case the Apple ID will be labeled inactive.

Your iOS device and/or main Mac user account is now a Trusted Device, and can be used to generate 2FA codes for both your personal Apple ID as well as the newly added secondary/company Apple ID.

Once this device is Trusted, you can delete the temporary Mac user account.


If you have version 0.9.3997 or greater of MobileSubstrate…

Turn off your phone.
Turn it back on, then while the Apple logo is shown, hold the Volume Up button.

This enables Safe Mode, disabling all MobileSubstrate tweaks temporarily, allowing you to uninstall the tweak that's causing problems. If you still want the tweak, you can reinstall it, deleting the preference file for the tweak in question to reset it.

To exit Safe Mode, you can respring/reboot your device, or press Exit Safe Mode in the status bar, then press Restart.

If you have a tethered jailbreak, you'll need to hold volume up whilst pressing 'Just Boot' and continue holding even after the Apple logo since Substrate won't load immediately.


It depends on the setup you already have, but I think this should work.

In your mail client (Entourage/ Outlook) setup the IMAP access to your Gmail account.
Setup the folders for sent and trash.
Move all mails from your other inboxes to your Gmail inbox:
Select all folders by clicking the top one under the account to be moved, and then Shift-click the bottom one. After all the folders are selected, drag and then drop them onto your Gmail account in the sidebar. (If there are many folders you may want to consider testing a couple first, before moving all of them).

If the account is large, it will take awhile to upload all the email.


Same group, multiple group chats - How to fix?

Make sure "group messaging" is turned on in settings.  For some reason (maybe b/c i have hard and soft rebooted my phone a bunch) that option switched off.


You can use Karabiner-Elements [1, 2] to map escape key to some other functions with visual feedback (e.g. mute). The feedback helps to remind you that the key is not longer mapped to escape.

You can then map a less useful key to escape. For e.g. on a US keyboard, the section (§/±) key is on the top-left corner where escape key could have been.

Install and run Karabiner-Elements.
In Simple Modifications, choose No product name (No manufacturer name) as Target. That's the touchbar. Then add item, from escape to mute.

To map section (§/±) key to escape, choose Apple Internal Keyboard. Add item, from non_us_backslash to escape.

Source


Is there any metadata stored in Contacts.app contacts that would store when a contact was created or last edited?

You can use AppleScript to get the creation date and modification date of any contact in the Contacts app. Here is an example script that works on the entire Contacts file. At the end, you have a tab-delimited result called "the_text" which you can copy and paste into Numbers or Excel or whatever.

set the_text to ""
--
tell application "Contacts"
    set the_contacts to every person
    repeat with a_contact in the_contacts
        tell a_contact
            set the_name to name
            set long_creation_date to creation date
            set creation_date to short date string of long_creation_date
            set long_modification_date to modification date
            set modification_date to short date string of long_modification_date
            set the_text to the_text & return & the_name & tab & creation_date & tab & modification_date
        end tell
    end repeat
end tell

return the_text

The creation date of a contact is the full date, with time. So is the modification date. They look like this:

"Thursday, July 6, 2017 at 2:11:34 PM"

By asking for the "short date string" of those dates we get dates that look like this:

"7/6/17"

That format may be more useful for you for sorting purposes than the full long date with time.


TL;DR
I found out that my problem was caused by the no longer maintained MagicPrefs software. Uninstalled it, problem gone!
How I found the culprit
Today the problem occurred again, and I think I managed to find the culprit! Once the problem occurred, I opened Activity Monitor to see if I could spot some process doing weird. The first thing I noticed, was that the CPU load was low overall. No processes were taking up more than 20% CPU.
Then I right clicked on the column headers to add some more columns, hoping I would find a clue. I added the column showing if a process was unexpectedly stopped. (My MacOS is set to Dutch, the column is called Plots. beëind. in Dutch, I don't know the exact column name in English.) I immediately noticed that the hidd process had a "Yes" in that column.
So I went Googling and found this explanation of what the hidd process is. It's the Human Interface Device Daemon. The article states:

If high resource usage persists, the likely culprit is third party software. If you’ve recently installed drivers for a third party input device, or software that lets you do things like customize your key bindings, this could hypothetically be the issue. Try uninstalling this software, then see if that solves the issue.

That made me think about software I have installed that has to do with Human Interface Devices. There wasn't anything installed recently, but I was using MagicPrefs for some years. I went to their website to see if there were any updates and saw this notice:

MagicPrefs is more than 5 years old now and is no longer mantained, the functionality it provided was made possible by Api's that are now deprecated and reverse engineered private Apple frameworks. Apple is not likely to replace the deprecated Api's nor provide access to the underlying multitouch technology so that's the end of the line for MagicPrefs and similar software.
TLDR if it doesn't work anymore thats it, if it still works then its just a matter of time until it won't.

When I uninstalled MagicPrefs, the freezing problem immediately disappeared! I think that proofs that MagicPrefs was the culprit. A pity I can't middle click any more, but I'm relieved that this weird problem is gone now!


Can I undo the upgrade to iOS 7 by restoring to iOS 6.1.3?

It is likely the baseband was updated along with the OS, but if you have a good backup of the phone, I might try restoring it in recovery mode.

Power off the iPhone
Plug in the iPhone to your computer via USB.
Press and hold the "power" button with one hand for 3 seconds
Hold down the "home" button as well for ten more seconds
Release "power" button but continue to hold "home" button until device enters recovery mode.

I don't have a device to test this and it might not work. You might have to get a jailbreak tool to modify the OS and/or firmware of the device and then restore 6.1.3 on it.


When I try to reinstall Mac OS (after wiping the partition with ubuntu) all i get is a blinking folder

The Ubuntu installer probably reformatted the whole drive using ext2 or ext3, whereas current versions of Mac OS X will only install on HFS+. To fix this, boot up with the Mac OS X install CD, then run Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Disk Utility will let you check to make sure the drive has at least one HFS+ volume on it, and if it doesn't, create one.


App Store Broken Download Xcode (Mac Os X Mountain Lion) Debug, Reset doesnt help!

Now Xcode shows directly as "Xcode.app" in /Applications.
Is there anything there ?

I deleted the (full) app from my /Applications folder, relaunched App Store and it was possible to click on "Install" again.


How to add space between each last body paragraph and heading in Pages '09?

Based on your question and comments to @nathang answer, you will need to create two paragraph styles. One will be the standard paragraph, and the second is a duplicate of the standard but with a value set in "After Paragraph" in the Inspector to use for paragraphs that come right before a header.

Using two paragraph styles is kludgy, but writing a script to automate this would be just as kludgy and unreliable.


The simplest [yet not only] way to prevent Spotlight indexing a drive is...

Connect the volume or drive you want excluded to your Mac.
Open the System Preferences application.
Click on Spotlight, then click on the Privacy tab.
Drag your volume or drive into the Privacy menu to exclude it.


how do I switch option + f to [next word] instead of ƒ

All those shortcuts you mention work with control+_. So either you can remap your option key to behave as control, or make yourself habitual of using control.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

Swap CMD and Alt only on external keyboard
How do I remap a key in macOS Sierra, e.g., Right Alt to Right Control?


Newly Installed App (gem) Via Terminal, Path?

Ruby "Gems" are not generally applications, most often they are libraries. From the Ruby Gems website

  1.1 Really Quick Start Question: I’ve installed RubyGems and I want to
  install Rails (for example). How do I
  do that?

  Answer:

gem install rails

  1.2 What is a Gem?

  A gem is a packaged Ruby application or library. It has a
  name (e.g. rake) and a version (e.g.
  0.4.16).

(emphasis mine)

Also, see this information on how to inspect a gem:

  2.5 Looking at an installed gem When you run

gem specification  progressbar
# shortcut: gem spec progressbar

  you will see all the details of the
  ’’progressbar’’ gem.

You should consult the documentation which came with the gem, or, post more details so we can assist you more.


Add .gsheets to Spotlight under spreadsheets

The reason that Google spreadsheets aren't classified by Spotlight as spreadsheets is that information is missing from the Info.plist file within the Google Drive application.

For example, in the Info.plist file within the Numbers application bundle Apple define their "numbers" document with the Document Content Type UTIs of com.apple.iwork.numbers.numbers. Then further down in the same plist that UTI is then further defined as "Conforms to" amongst other things public.spreadsheet. And this is why Spotlight classifies Numbers document as "Spreadsheets".

However in the Info.plist for Google Drive there is no Document Content Type UTIs for gsheet files at all, and therefore no "Conforms to" either. So Spotlight just treats it as "Other".

This is something that Google should really fix, and it should be relatively simple for them to do so.

In the meantime there is a possible (albeit slightly hacky) potential fix outlined towards the end of this answer to a question on superuser.com: OSX: assign extension to content kind


While moving files in Finder, how to prevent the files from hiding the target folder?

After selecting the group of files. Position your cursor (not the item in column) inside the column area where your target folder is located. Wait for a few seconds for the list of selected items to fade away right to the mouse cursor.

Instead of using column view, I recommend DragonDrop to make moving files between folders easier.


Is there a way to write rules for incoming calls?

Without jail breaking iOS - you can't get a phone call on any app but the Apple phone app (which doesn't support call screening as you asked).

Some carriers will let you set this up - but it's nothing to do with the iPhone.

Lastly, there are tons of services that require another phone number. Google Voice is one where you can program quiet hours, white list or black list and have exactly such control.

The downside to these other apps is that you'll need to have people call your alternate number, so it's not as easy - even with the ability to port an existing number to GV and then get a new number from your carrier.

Several iOS apps work with Google Voice like the official app and GV Mobile + and there are probably a hundred other VOIP solutions on the app store, but Google and Skype are the big players today.


Why do these podcast episodes say they are temporarily unavailable even though they look like they have been downloaded?

I am using an iPhone 5S with the most up to date iOS software (9.2.1 currently) and having the same error.

I called Apple Care to get an answer on this - as I'm having the same issue. Downloading podcasts then when trying to play them I get the error message "Episode temporarily unavailable", even ones I have downloaded and played previously. I also didn't think the approach of having to download a podcast twice is an appropriate solution - even this doesn't always work.

The main Apple Support person I spoke with contacted the Apple iTunes Support department. They provided the following comments:

It isn't the player that is causing the issue its the third party providing the podcast file. The issue is that with new software updates to the iPhone or iPod the podcast files must also be updated.

Apparently part of the podcast download file needs to be re-written in order to be compatible with the newest Apple software update.

This doesn't really make sense as music files don't need to be updated everytime there is a software update (that I'm aware of anyway).

I called them back in order to try and delve a bit deeper into this issue.

I got a Senior Advisor on the phone - they checked my IMEI number and software version which seemed to be fine.

I got them to download the same specific podcast that I was having the issue with and they were able to play the one that for me was "unavailable" even though it is downloaded locally.

We ended up resolving it by deleting all the podcasts from Storage (Settings>General>Storage & iCloud Usage>Storage>Manage Storage>Podcasts)
and also Reset>Reset All settings (this will mean you lose all your settings - this didn't really affect me - just meant I had to put in my wifi password back in, reset my wallpaper and my alarm clock).

Hopefully this works for you - I asked that the Apple Advisor I spoke to pass this information onto the team at Apple that works on the Podcast app - hopefully they will be able to push an update to the app that makes this resolution process obsolete.


Why is my iTunes library in iCloud grayed out?

This is likely because iTunes Match is enabled on your MacBook Air under the same Apple ID your purchased it on and configured it for on your iMac. When you configure iTunes Match on a second machine, it puts the entire iCloud library in iTunes grayed out with the option to download. There should be a small download button in line with your songs that will allow you to download the matched songs:

Good luck.


A better usage of apropos for searching the man directory

apropos just looks in the command description, not the full man page. There are no specific commands to "intelligently" search within all man pages, but in a bind you can always run
cd /usr/share/man
zgrep -i smartcard man*/*

PS: This won't help for system_profiler though because the data types supported aren't listed in the man page at all.


With Launchbar you can run scripts in the background by pressing Option+Return, rather than just Return. This works for me, whereas Return by itself did not.


Check out Parental Control. This allows to restrict applications to run as well as web sites to visit.

Alternatively you can use ipfw to restrict IP/Internet access:

 sudo ipfw -f flush
 sudo ipfw add allow tcp from me to xx.xx.xx.xx
 sudo ipfw add allow ip from me to xx.xx.xx.xx
 sudo ipfw add deny tcp from me to any
 sudo ipfw add deny ip from me to any

To disable just run sudo ipfw flush again


Why is my MacBook sending out data, even when idle?

It could just be bonjour or some other background network process or daemon communicating. You don't have to be explicitly browsing the web to be using network traffic

Bonjour - Is a set of networking protocols to allow different machines to see each other with zero configuration.

Daemon - Is just a process that runs unattended in the background.

Several hundred bytes is a tiny amount of traffic, it's nothing significant.  If you would like to monitor which ports are open, use "netstat" at the terminal


How do I recover deleted browser history on iPhone?

Not endorsing this practice, but yes, there is a way that sometimes works...

Go to Settings, then Safari, then scroll to bottom and select 'Advanced' and then 'Website Data'. Selecting from there should show you history.


Are copies using rsync faster than using Finder?

You didn't do wrong, but the point with rsync is that after the initial backup/copy, subsequent rsync runs are clever enough to only copy/backup stuff that's changed. So say you do your 300GB backup, then a week later want to backup again, if you've only made 5GB of changes on your disk, then rsync will only try to edit/backup this 5GB, rather than you having to copy over the full 300GB again. This is the time saving you benefit from when using rsync, and you only get it when you're running regular backups of the same disk.

So the answer to your question is no, for a one off copy operation, rsync and finder are likely to be exactly the same - indeed, it may be the case that finder is slightly faster. Rsync is for keeping/maintaining an up-to-date backup of a working disk, and the time savings are in the long-run, not taking the initial backup.

To get the benefits from rsync, you should take a copy of your rsync command, and store it in a way you can run it again at some time in the future (for example, you might embed it in a batch/script file that you can run periodically in the future). The next time you run the same backup, it might take 5 minutes, since it's unlikely that you will have changed that much on your disk.

So for example, here's the content of the script file I use to keep an up-to-date backup of my music folder on my mac - this is set to run every 24 hours:

#!/bin/bash
rsync -ariv /Users/myuser/Music /Volumes/data/media/myuser

The first time I ran this it took ages too, but now, when I run it again, it just backs up what's changed in my Music folder, and might take a minute or two. Meanwhile, I know that I've got a 100% up-to-date copy of my music folder in my backup drive that I can go to should my primary drive fail.


Wifi drops intermittently on Macbook Air

You've done a good amount of troubleshooting and at this point, you can probably assume the Mac hardware is probably fine make two conclusions:

your home router being different than the service router
your other devices re-connecting or reacting to your wifi differently

When the internet breaks on your Mac - you'll want to run the wireless diagnostics tool to determine what part of the chain is broken between the Mac and the internet.

Also - log in to the router and see if it still sees the Mac as connected (if your router can do that).

Look for the following:

Is the radio connected between mac and router
Does the Mac have a proper DHCP address from the router
Can the Mac ping the router
Can the router ping the Mac (or another device on the network ping the Mac)

If all of those are up - it's not your network and just a configuration issue on the Mac.

You'll probably need about three times of data collection and then a follow on question for someone to assist with diagnosis.


JXA JavaScript for automation How to make JXA click something

Application("System Events")
  .applicationProcesses.whose({frontmost: true}).at(0)
  .click({ at: [x, y] })

click is performed on a UIElement, so we get one, then call click with that.


No proper solution
Up today (2021-03-13), there is no immediate way to download a specified folder from iCloud.
The download button is grayed/disable for folders in iCloud.com.
Below there are only hacks.
The evident (and painfully) approach
You can select all the files inside the desired folder and click the download button, but since it does not include subfolders, you must patiently repeat the process for each folder in the tree.
Request Apple a copy of your data
Go to https://privacy.apple.com/ and request to Apple a copy of your iCloud files.
Unfortunately, you cannot select which folder you want to include; you will receive a link to download the whole drive.
They say it could take a few days to receive the link. However, in my experience, it only takes a day.
You can also use this trick to download other data that Apple makes it difficult to obtain in a standard format, such as the Health App data.
The iPhone solution (the best approach)
So, the original question request a solution "without having to sync the entire content of my iCloud Drive with my computer".
I had the same problem. I was not using iCloud Drive in my Mac, but it was active (probably by default) on my iPhone.
Then, I could use the File app (the built-in App) to copy the whole folder to the internal storage of my iPhone or to other cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.).

Ensure your other cloud is active within the File App.
Select (...) > Edit in the upper right corner of the File application initial view to activate the available cloud accounts.

Browse to the folder you want to copy from iCloud.

Long press on the folder name to activate further option, then select Compress to create a zip file of the folder.
(You can skip this step, but I recommend it if you are planning to copy to another cloud and not for the internal iPhone storage)

Long press on the zipped folder, then select Copy or Share.

Select a destination for your zipped folder.

Wait. It could take longer to copy from one cloud to the other.

Use the other cloud to download your files.

Complaint to Apple!

Complaint to Apple
Meanwhile, complain to Apple about this unbelievable omission
https://www.apple.com/feedback/icloud.html


How to convert file format of massive image

netpbm

Netpbm is a package of graphics programs and a programming library.

Try using the open source netpbm tools to perform the conversion. The conversion will likely look like:
 pnmtopng input.ppm > output.png

Where input.ppm is the name of the existing large file and output.png is the name of the desired png formatted file.
The project talks about trying to keep memory use low:

Memory Usage
An important characteristic that varies among graphics software is how much memory it uses, and how. Does it read an entire image into memory, work on it there, then write it out all at once? Does it read one and write one pixel at a time? In Netpbm, it differs from one program to the next, but there are some generalizations we can make.
Most Netpbm programs keep one row of pixels at a time in memory. Such a program reads a row from an input file, processes it, then writes a row to an output file. Some programs execute algorithms that can't work like that, so they keep a small window of rows in memory. Others must keep the entire image in memory. If you think of what job the program does, you can probably guess which one it does.

Installing
You can install netpbm on your Mac using the Homebrew project, see Install Homebrew. Once brew is on your Mac, use the following command to install netpbm:
brew install netpbm

If you need help using the command line or tools mentioned, please ask questions.


Apple Mid 2012 VGA vs Apple retina late 2013 VGA onboard

I found out here that the difference is very minor in gaming performances.

Not to mention that the NVIDIA is a add on device while the Intel is integrated,resulting in more power consumption and graphics mode switching--that you might not want.


Is Automator suitable for complex folder based workflows?

There is a similar workflow kit at http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=805573 that takes disc images (dvd, bluray, etc.) and converts them to various formats.  There are a number of actions you could copy for file movement, etc., and attach them as folder actions to A, B, and C.

It should also be a simple matter to pick and choose which actions and workflows you would require for this.

Even better, the underlying technology for these actions are just shell scripts.  If you can write a shell, ruby, python, etc. script, you can create your own Automator action.  You could easily store state regarding files in A, B, and C that have already been copied to D and only copy them again if certain criteria are met, such as a change in file size, modify date, or md5 hash.


Can iCloud notes be synced with different accounts?

No, iCloud was not meant to work that way.

Some third party Apps, though, will do exactly what you're looking for. AppCrawlr has got an interesting list, which might be worth looking at.


How do I forget neighbours' (never-joined) Wi-Fi networks?

Network > Wi-Fi > Advanced allows you to remove preferred networks. Preferred means that they are recognized (i.e. previously-connected-to) networks and you can set a priority order should multiple networks be available simultaneously. These networks will still appear in the list of available networks when they are nearby after removal from Preferred.

There is no way to remove network SSIDs from the list of currently-available networks.


Achieve 60Hz on my AOC U3477PQU 34" Ultrawide Monitor with Macbook Pro 15" (Late 2013)

Just bought an Mini Displayport to Displayport cable (4K) and now I am on 3440x1400 with 60Hz.


Numbers V3: If cell contains a value, convert cell value to X

Here are a few hints:

use an auxiliary column;
use functions ISBLANK and IF;
replicate the auxiliary column within the original one;
remove the auxiliary column.


"Permission denied" when running macOS installer from command line

What worked for me is:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall --volume /Volumes/macOS --converttoapfs NO

As it will then show you the license to review.


How to get client Mac to use caching facility from Mac OS X Server on Yosemite

The Caching service is no web-proxy. It just provides software updates, purchased apps from the Mac App Store, iBooks and iTunes U content.

When you first enable the caching server, it registers its public IP and private IP with Apple.  If a client tries to download a software update or an app from the same public IP as the server, Apple “introduces” the client to the server automatically. Therefore client configuration is not required.

If you want a proxy server install Squid/Squidman


Macbook pro13 (2015) Battery dropping significantly during sleep

Check with pmset -g log what is causing your Macbook to wake up.
Most likely it's due to network activity.

Install PleaseSleep from https://github.com/xinstein/PleaseSleep to workaround the problem.


Shuffle is a global setting. You can't turn it on for playlists but not for albums.


Can viruses travel through pictures I took with my smartphone?

Sure they could, but it's unlikely.

Speaking generally - it's statistically almost impossible your iOS device was compromised on the OS level. The most likely price for a vulnerability on iOS 10 or iOS 11 would be 5 to 15 million dollars. That means run of the mill viruses can't afford them and would profit far more selling to governments and spy agencies which generally design and deploy them to never spread so they don't get discovered.

Unless you work for atomic power / weapons research or intelligence or some very powerful company / people, the odds you have a virus on iOS is low.

That being said, if you have sketchy apps, downloaded files or jailbroken devices it's quite possible your files could be compromised with run of the mill PC viruses and much less likely Mac malware and least likely Mac virus.

The steps you take to protect your computer could be as simple as enabling GateKeeper, only running signed apps, updating your Mac. If you want windows protection advice - you might ask that on https://superuser.com or from Microsoft.


Restoring User from Compressed Disk Image

Yes if the compressed disk image looks like a whole mac with enough of /System and /Applications as well as /Users/foo then Migration Assistant will treat that mounted image as a viable source and you can pull just the  user account and data even if the rest of the information is incomplete.

You can also finder copy the folder into /Users once the image is mounted. D on't overwrite an existing short name, just drop the files in a new folder and don't worry about ownership as long as you can copy all the files from the image. Once the files are copied, create a new account to match the short name of the user folder and the OS will correct the permissions/ACL on the folder and enable that user as specified.

You may have issues if ACL are deeply embedded or you have non-standard permissions set, but generally I have not had any issues doing this for some time over many releases of Mac OS. Finder seems to drop the files as readable enough or warn you that some files on the image are unreadable so you can take further action if needed.


Here is a simple solution.

tell application "System Events"
    tell current location of network preferences
        set VPNService to service "UJF"
        if exists VPNService then
            connect VPNService
        end if
    end tell
    delay 1
    keystroke "yourpassword"
end tell

If 1 second delay isn't enough for the popop to open feel free to increase it !

But don't forget, a password *should* NEVER be stored like that.


How do I enable Handwrite on the Google Search app for iOS?

I'm not completely sure, but I think that's just a feature of Google's mobile site. I don't know that there's a way to enable it in the Google Search App. Perhaps they will add this feature down the road. I'll edit my answer if I find it is possible.


Guest login got enabled even though FileVault 2 is enabled and Guest login is disabled

How to disable that “Guest User” from appearing at the OS X 10.7.2 login screen

Open System Preferences
Click on “Security & Privacy”
Click the lock in the lower corner and type in your administrative
password to unlock the control panel
Check the box next to “Disable restarting to Safari when screen is
locked”

This prevents the Guest User account from being visible at the login screen both during reboot and at the login screen. Again, it’s highly recommended to keep this enabled for security purposes, but if your Mac is locked down with a security cable or you don’t have any use for Find My Mac, you could disable this and not feel too bad about it.

If you haven’t tried it yet, clicking on the Guest User account gives you this message:

This computer will restart to a secure, Safari-only system for the Guest user.

The reboot process is quick and opens directly to Safari, there is no access to anything else. No Finder, no preferences, nothing.

Source: osxdaily


How do you change the size of the images sent from an iPhone using MMS?

One option is to add your wife's MMS e-mail address to her contact card and use that e-mail address to e-mail the picture to her phone.  When you send an image via e-mail, the iPhone will ask you what size you want to send (how much compression you want to do to the image). Choosing SMALL may allow it to go through.
Here are a list of some SMS/MMS gateways that allow you to send a SMS/MMS via e-mail address:  List of SMS Gateways

You could also try using the free Adobe Photoshop Express app in the iTunes App Store to crop the image and save as a new image then try sending the smaller sized (both in dimensions and in bytes) image. A bit of a hassle, but the Messaging app does not have any built-in selectors for specifying the size.


How to kill the voicemail facility on an iPhone XR?

Step 1: Go to your home screen and tap on the keypad icon at the bottom.

Step 2: Once the keypad is launched, type ##002# and then click on the Call button. There is no cause for worry since the iPhone will not actually make the call, but will display the settings of your voicemail.

Step 3: You will be presented with three different messages

Voice Call Forwarding
Data Call Forwarding
Fax Call forwarding.

Do not do anything, but simply tap on the “Dismiss” tab at the bottom of the screen. You will have successfully disabled your voicemail for all types of calls.


It has a pretty explicit README...

Wine Mono is a package containing Mono and other projects, intended as
a replacement for the .NET Framework (4.x and earlier) in Wine. It
works in conjunction with Wine's builtin mscoree.dll, and it is not
intended to be useful for any other purpose.

And a pretty explicit list of dependencies including...

Wine, for the winemsibuilder and cabarc commands. A 32-bit Wine is
not necessary, despite the warnings when running 64-bit Wine.

If you are expecting this to be Wine itself, you are mistaken.


How to set Finder to show all files in search including hidden and Library files?

You can add the System files and File visibility attributes to the filter bar:

Files that start with a period are still excluded though.

This makes Finder show hidden files:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true

mdfind includes system files by default, but it doesn't include hidden files unless you specify kMDItemFSInvisible=1.

mdfind 'kMDItemFSName=.bash_profile&&(kMDItemFSInvisible=1||kMDItemFSInvisible=0)'


I use the THX tune up app on iOS to calibrate my AppleTV over airplay. I've not found a way to get OS X to calibrate things further, but to my eyes, this workaround has been good enough with default settings on OS X.


Is "suspend-to-disk" memory dump encrypted when using FileVault2?

Everything written to the volume under Filevault 2 is encrypted live and in-stream by the kernel / device drivers.

As long as there isn't a bug where data leaks to outside the core storage wrapper, you don't need to worry about someone analyzing the contents of your RAM by snooping the locked drive.


Is there a way to show the speed of copying files on a Mac?

If you're comfortable in the Terminal, you can use rsync to copy some files from one place to another and it'll give you summary stats on the speed:

rsync -a --progress --stats --human-readable path_to_source path_to_dest

E.g. rsync --stats --human-readable ~/Desktop/Large-File /Volumes/OtherDisk/Dir

You can also type into the terminal just the command:

rsync -a --progress --stats --human-readable

(note there needs to be one or more spaces after --human-readable to end that command and break before the source and destination file names are provided)

Then drag the file / folder you wish to copy and drop it onto the terminal window, followed by dragging and dropping the destination directory. Dragging and dropping a file / folder onto a terminal window will place that file/folder's path into the terminal window. Dragging a file is preferred in most cases since it will handle a space in any folder or file name. In this case the space needs an \ to indicate not to end the file name exactly opposite of needing the space earlier.

The output of the above command will be similar to:

[jnet@Kyle ~]$ rsync -a --progress --stats --human-readable /Users/jnet/Pictures/Screen\ Caps /Volumes/Scratch
building file list ...
644 files to consider
Screen Caps/
Screen Caps/.DS_Store
      21.51K 100%    0.00kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#1, to-check=642/644)
Screen Caps/Can someone downvote me please.pdf
      78.19K 100%    8.29MB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#2, to-check=641/644)
Screen Caps/Can someone downvote me please.png
     399.61K 100%   14.66MB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#3, to-check=640/644)
Screen Caps/ChefVMMemtest.png
       8.29K 100%  207.68kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#4, to-check=639/644)
[...]
Number of files: 644
Number of files transferred: 638
Total file size: 176.85M bytes
Total transferred file size: 176.85M bytes
Literal data: 176.85M bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 12574
File list generation time: 0.002 seconds
File list transfer time: 0.000 seconds
Total bytes sent: 176.92M
Total bytes received: 14.09K

sent 176.92M bytes  received 14.09K bytes  14.15M bytes/sec
total size is 176.85M  speedup is 1.00


How do I post a screenshot from Mac OS X Lion on askdifferent?

To take a screenshot of the full screen hit cmdshift3.
To take a screenshot of a part of the screen hit cmdshift4. You'll get a crosshair, click the mouse button to define the first corner, hold the button, move the cursor and then release it to define the transverse corner. The grey overlay spanning between the two corners will be the screenshot.
To take a screenshot of a special window hit cmdshift4 then the spacebar and choose the window with a symbolic camera.

The default location for saved screenshots taken this way is on the Desktop.

To change the default location enter:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /path/;killall SystemUIServer

Example:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/

Hit the return key to set ~/Pictures as the location. You’ll need to follow it up with a SystemUIServer relaunch too:

killall SystemUIServer

If you want to save them in a new folder create a new folder first with

mkdir ~/Screenshots

To upload it hit the symbol pic (with the red circle in my screenshot) and choose your screenshot:


I had the same problem; wrote the following bash script and run it once daily with cron. Problem solved. When I first noticed this, I had over 50GB in the fsCacheData folder!

#!/bin/bash
DIR=/private/var/folders/6m/36p_j3ss0zjbfjh3r72qjtw40000gn/C/com.apple.WebKit.Plugin.64/fsCachedData/
LIMIT=1
SIZE=$(du -h $DIR | cut -f 1)

if [[ "${SIZE%?}" -ge $LIMIT ]];
    rm -r $DIR
fi


Macbook Air 2011 only wakes from sleep if plugged in

It's hard to know if this is a hardware failure or a software issue, but the first step is opening terminal and running some power management tools to see what is really happening.

 pmset -g log

The above command will dump a very long log you can save to a file by copying it or redirecting the output like pmset -g log >> ~/Desktop/sleep.log and looking over the times when it slept and woke properly. Perhaps it's going to have a hint what is happening when the wakes do not work.

Secondly, you could run pmset -g pslog in a second window and let it run. When you sleep and wake, it should log those power events in real time. The next time it needs a power adapter to wake you can review the events that led up to that failure. It also lets you see what's happening when you test sleep and wake.


Can I change the label of an entry in the Finder sidebar?

This was possible in Tiger (As far as I can remember or Leopard) but on Snow Leopard, the “alias” is automatically resolved.

If you create an Alias on your desktop for a folder XYZ and then drag the Alias onto your sidebar, it’s automatically resolved. So it doesn’t seem to be possible to override this.


Dedicate 1 ethernet port on Mac Pro to internal backup volume?

Sure, assign a static IP to the 2nd port, create a DNS record pointing to that IP, then configure the remote Macs to use the DNS name.


Is there any way to quick pair my bluetooth headphone?

Try:

Toggle on Bluetooth on your phone
Switch the headphones on
Press the play/pause button on your headphones
They should connect without having to do anything else. They should connect without step three but it doesn't hurt to force the headphone to go looking for the phone.


Does a force restart in iOS do anything different from a normal restart?

A force restart is at the hardware level, not the software level. This means that even if iOS is completely frozen or in a different mode altogether (such as DFU Mode, Recovery Mode, or Restore Mode), you can still perform a force restart. It does nothing more than cut the power and turn the device back on again. This means that it doesn't clear any caches or reset anything. A regular restart actually does more than a force restart.


How can I speed up rate at which dock appears on second screen?

Try something like this in your terminal.

 defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.3; killall Dock;

Where the number 0.3 is, you can insert the number of seconds you want the animation to take. I found 0.3 to be quick enough, but still provide a nice effect.

P.S. grabbing this from Col1107's answer. Just wanted it saved.


How to leave apple developer program on developer.apple.com?

It's possible.

Goto:

Scroll down opened page and hit 'Leave':


to seperate school account or keep together her itunes account

Even using the same Apple ID there is no requirement to load the same apps onto different devices.

I have an iPad and iPhone with my AppleID and completely separate sets of apps on them.

Assuming you're using iCloud, it might help to have the same email address accessible on both.

You can download apps with a different account to the one setup on the device for iCloud as well, which is another consideration.

You could create different iTunes accounts to distinguish between school and home purchases, and still use the same iCloud account for email, calendars, etc.

It depends on your ultimate requirements as to which media you want accessible on which machine - sharing music, photos, email, calendars, apps, books, etc.

Generally, it's easiest to share the same iCloud account, and App store accounts, but you can split them out as required.


Is there a way to spellcheck the word under the cursor with a keyboard shortcut?

If you're on Lion, you can turn on iOS-style spelling corrections in System Preferences under Language and Text. I don't always have luck noticing or reacting to these corrections while typing, but moving back over the misspelled word with your cursor will bring up the iOS-style popup and you can select the correct spelling with the down arrow and Return.

A similar question was asked on superuser, see Keyboard Shortcut to Right Click. To paraphrase that answer here:

Use Cmd : to activate spellcheck
Focus the floating window with Ctrl F6. (You need "Full Keyboard Access" shortcuts enabled in System Preferences. And unfortunately for me while typing this, Ctrl F6 is already used by the Stack Exchange editor.)
Use Tab and Arrows to navigate and select the right spelling
Use Escape to dismiss the floating window

You can also "Activate Mouse Keys", but I find that solution unsatisfying.


Source:

In a window menu, go to Windows -> Exposé All Tabs.  This will show you all open iTerm windows on one screen.

  All iTerm2 tabs will be shown tiled on the main screen. You can mouse over a tab to see it larger, and clicking on it will restore the windows and select that tab and bring its window to the front. You can search the contents of all tabs by typing in the search field that appears on the left. Making a selection from the results below it will highlight the tab that contains that text. This is useful when you have many tabs open and can't find the one you're looking for.


Holding down the option key isn't allowing me to select Windows/OS X on startup

I had a similar issue and the below trick solved it.

  Resetting NVRAM

  Shut down your Mac.
  Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R.
  Turn on your Mac.
  Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys immediately after you hear the startup sound.
  Hold these keys until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for a second time.
  Release the keys.

Source: https://support.apple.com/kb/ht204063


I guess since fn+return equals enter, the fn+enter-combination would equal fn+fn+return which does not make much sense, so my vote is: no, there is no app that can receive this combo.

To prove, you'll need to read the key codes sent from keyboard to the system when it´s pressed (ie. Full Key Codes could do this for you)  - since I don´t have a keyboard with a physical enter I unfortunately can´t do that.


Sounds like the system files are corrupted, still try to boot into Recovery Mode by holding the Option key at startup until you see graphics of hard drives. Select Recovery with the arrow keys, then press Enter. Recovery mode will allow you to reinstall the OS.


My iMac began shutting down at random in sleep mode. As it was 6 years old I assumed that the power supply was packing up causing overheating and shut down.

Was about to rush out and buy a new one but had a specialist look at it first. It turned out to be software,  freebie malware and avast. Once removed machine runs fast,like new, and doe not shut down. Object lesson look before you leap!


How can I stream all audio from my imac into a PC on the same network?

Should be possible with AirFoil, but I've only personally used it to send audio between two Macs. They have a Windows version as well, though.


iTerm opens instead of default web browser when links clicked in Apple Mail

Rebooting solved this one. After the reboot, the list of browsers under Apple > System Preferences > General > Default web browser was restored, and clicking web links in Mail.app resumed opening in my default browser.

Interestingly, ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist, which was empty before the reboot, remained empty afterwards, so I'm guessing the list of browsers isn't stored there. (Thought it might be stored there because of this post). (The file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.plist doesn't exist, either)


itunes commercial podcast piracy security

The security must be provided by the content provider, though iTunes can access password-protected podcasts. The content provider sets up password protection via HTTP authorization and/or SSL encryption. It's then as secure as SSL, which is the standard for encryption on the Web, used by Websites for secure transactions, such as stores, credit cards, etc.

See this link for more on setting it up.

Once you've set it up, you can access the podcast via iTunes by clicking a link on the content provider's site. iTunes gives you an authorization dialog to access the podcast:

Apple says it does not list password-protected podcasts on the iTunes Store.


How can I find out which iOS apps I've purchased were free?

Not something I've actually tried, but how about sign out on iTunes [store menu], then use the store as an anonymous customer? That might let you see the pricing.


How can I enable WiFi calling on an iPhone 4S?

You need a 5c or later to use WiFi Calling.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203032


No. OS X doesn't have a CPU or even GPU throttling lever that users can toggle.

There is a nice app, gfxCardStatus to know which of the two GPU is engaged on Macs that have two options. It also allows pinning to the higher or lower power consumption which might be of use. It's not clear if there is no way to get past the OS to exercise control of the CPU or just that no-one has programmed it yet.


Merge audio and video in a monitored folder

Creating target files in the watched folder is asking for trouble, so I would create them "outside" instead:

#!/bin/bash
now=$(date +"%d_%m_%Y_%Hu%M")
cd "/Users/tomvanwinkel/Documents/Convert/Merge"
mkdir -p ../Target
for filename in *.mp4; do
    stub="${filename%.*}"
    target="../Target/${stub}_ok_$(date +%Y-m%-%d_%H)"

    /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "${stub}.mp4" -i "${stub}.wav" -c:v copy -c:a aac -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 "${target}.mp4"

    rm -f "${stub}.mp4" "${stub}.wav"
done


How to create automatic launchd job that sets the Ruby version to use

This is untested (as I don’t use rvm), but there should be two simple ways to fix this.

Source rvm in your script (which you likely do anyway in your .profile, or .bashrc, or equivalent):

#!/bin/bash
[[ -s "${HOME}/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "${HOME}/.rvm/scripts/rvm"
rvm use system
/Users/jonathan/Library/Scripts/slogger/slogger

That new line is a shorter way of saying

if [[ -s "${HOME}/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]]; then
  source "${HOME}/.rvm/scripts/rvm"
fi

-s is used to return “True if FILE exists and has a size greater than zero”.
And you’ll probably laugh as to how easy it was to fix, simply do what the message says and use /bin/bash --login, like so:

#!/bin/bash --login
rvm use system
/Users/jonathan/Library/Scripts/slogger/slogger


You're probably in the Silent mode. Try to put side switch in the initial state. Here is the picture of the side switch location:


iCloud Sync with Outlook works only one way

I think that there is a better way for you to configure this to work smoothly for you.

The pre-smartphone method of getting calendar data onto a phone (or the Palm Pilot's of the past) was to "sync" the device with a computer using a physical cable.  In this setup, the computer was the central repository of information.  The reason for this was simply that old Palm devices simply didn't have an Internet connection of their own like modern smartphones do.  Put simply, modern smartphones should rarely be "synched" with a computer any more to exchange data.

Instead, your iPhone is as capable as your computer to connect directly to your work server to exchange calendar data.  You iPhone is also capable of having multiple email/server accounts (i.e a connection to iCloud, another to your work server, and possibly another to a Gmail or Yahoo mail account).

Therefore, the solution to your configuration problem is simple.  Set up your iPhone in Mail/Calendar/Contacts settings to connect to your iCloud account, and then set up a second account to connect with your work's server (Exchange)?  Your iPhone will then get calendar data right from the two source servers over the Internet (no more sync cables needed).  The iPhone will then overlay the calendar data from both accounts.  It will also allow you to show or hide each calendar separately, or simply see them both in the same calendar.  When you create a calendar event from the iPhone, you can even choose which calendar it belongs to.

On your computer, you should do the same.  Set up Outlook to get email/calendars/contacts directly from the iCloud server, and also from your work server.

Once you have your computer and your iPhone connecting directly with the servers then calendars, email, and contacts will always be current and "in sync" thereafter.


Can I send encrypted e-mail using Mail and self-signed certificates?

I can only answer the Mac Mail part of this question as I do not want to test the Thunderbird part.

I am just writing this part for the people who are not familiar with asymmetric encryption:

In this form of encryption you need two keys, a private one and a public one. A certificate in that sense is nothing more than the public key but it has some more information than just a key, it tells who you are, your organisation, etc.
The private must never ever be lost and given to others. If it is you have to start over and the person who stole it can decrypt everything, so keep it save and password protected. Usually certificates are signed by so called Certificate Authorities and they most often take money for their service. This is why some people create their own CA and self-signed certificates, which is cheaper.

The way e-mail encryption works is that you send someone your public key (certificate) by signing your e-mail with it. You can sign any e-mail, because no harm is done by giving away your public key. Then this other person has your public key and encrypts an e-mail to you with this key. From this point on nobody, other than the NSA with a possible Quantum computer, can decrypt this message in a reasonable amount of time given proper key length. Or some people infiltrate the actual encryption libraries like the HEARTBLEED (heartbeat) bug, which might have been intentional and who knows how many more of these backdoors are there.
Certificates usually have a limited lifetime and need to be renewed every now and then.

So things to take away: You need public and private key and you only give away the public one.

Here is what I have done:

Created a Root CA and a Signing CA (you do not need that, but it is what I did) and I used this very good tutorial for it: Multi-level CAs in http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~zmiller/ca-howto/
Then I changed my openssl.conf in such a way that Mac Mail allows me to use the certificated for e-mail encryption as well.

The important bit is to have the keyUsage and extKeyUsage

[ v3_req ]

# Extensions to add to a certificate request

basicConstraints = CA:FALSE
keyUsage = nonRepudiation, digitalSignature, keyEncipherment,       dataEncipherment
extKeyUsage = emailProtection, Apple .Mac email signing, Apple .mac email encryption

For the people who like specs, read this https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2459, but you will not find the MacOS specific parts in it.
Created the private key and the certificate:

openssl req -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout <e-mail>.key -config openssl.cnf -out <e-mail>.req -days 3650

openssl ca -config openssl.cnf -out <e-mail>.crt -infiles <e-mail>.req

You might argue that ten years is too long as a certificate life time, but I wanted to have something that is working now and in 10 years time or even less this way of encryption will not work anyways. I did not want to renew the certs all the time as I created them for all my family.

If somehting goes wrong in this process, you can revoke the cert by:

openssl ca -config openssl.cnf -revoke <e-mail>.crt

One should also create crls, but I did not do that either.
Converted keys to a p12 format

openssl pkcs12 -export -in <e-mail>.crt -inkey <e-mail>.key -out <e-mail>.p12

Imported p12 to the KeyChain on OS X 10.9.4 (13E28)
Marked it as trusted
Associated Certificate with mail account in the MacOS Mail preferences under Account Information in the field TLS Certificate. Send mail to other mail address that also has a cert and key and signed the message with my public key, well MacOS Mail did this for me.
Received the mail and send back my first encrypted mail.

What happened to me when I tried the procedure with my wife was that the lock symbol in my reply mail to the first signed mail was greyed out and I was puzzled. This meant I could not encrypt mails. The reason was that I received the signed mail that my wife had sent to me, but I did not mark here signature as trusted in the MacOS keychain, as all signatures that one receives also end up there. After marking it trusted and restarting Mail everything worked fine.

Maybe someone or even the person asking can add the Thunderbird part to this answer.


Macbook pro stuck on boot - "AppleUSBHostPort::interruptOccurred: overcurrent detected"

You have a hardware problem with your USB ports and it's physical. It try to disable de USB ports but they can't so they throw this error.

It's hardware related, you can do nothing about.


Why is my mac replacing my name on all my email as "Holiday In The United States"?

The good thing is that you haven't got a virus, or been hacked. The bad thing is this has been a bug (for want of a better word) that seems to appear from time to time and it's been around for way too long!

There is no single catch-all solution that works in all cases, so it's not so easy to provide a quick answer here. However, you may find the following online discussions useful:

My gmail name comes up as Holidays in the United States
Why does my name say Holidays In United States
Mail changes my name to some odd contact or calendar group


Transfer a large amount of PDF files from PC to Adobe Reader (on iPad)

The latest version of iTunes removed much of the abilities to upload directly to an app.

While I don't know a shortcy, you could upload the files in one of two ways (making sure your device is connected via USB for the quickest upload).

A Personal favourite is WALTR, but it's a paid option. You just drag your media into the Waltr screen and it uploads it. It will go to iBooks, however (I'm not sure about your specific requirement about Adobe Reader).
Something more apt could be to copy the files into the files section that's created when you have the iCloud Windows app from Apple and upload the files into a folder there. I'm certain (but do not actually know) that you can then open the files using the file browser within Adobe reader, or the sharing function from the Files app on your device.

I really hope this helps give some guidance.


For least power usage, should I turn off or put my Mac to sleep?

I have a fairly generic (mathematical) answer, but can only find some of the actual numbers.

After finding the 2010 Mac Mini Environmental Report from Apple, there are four important numbers:

Tbooting = The time taken to boot up and shut down (s)
Pbooting = The power consumption while booting or shutting down (W)
Psleep = The power consumption while sleeping (W)
Poff = The power consumption while off (W)

The last is actually stated in the Mac Mini's environmental report, and for very low sleep power usage can't just be ignored!

The total energy used during a period of sleep is:

Esleep = time * Psleep

The total energy used from shutting down, being off for a time and booting up is:

Eshutdown = (time * Poff) + (Tbooting * Pbooting)

Requiring that Eshutdown < Esleep, we can rearrange the inequality to give:

time > Tbooting * ( Pbooting / (Psleep - Poff) )

The Mac Mini's environmental report provides Psleep and Poff, and if we assume say 90 seconds total booting/shutting-down time and about 35W during said times, this would give an answer of 45 minutes.

I've yet to find similar values for the laptops (they make a big deal about the Mac Mini being so energy efficient), and the booting power/times would really need to be measured to provide accurate figures. But it surprised me that it was only 1 hour (I was expecting somewhat longer based on claims I've read in the past, that went along the lines of this discussion).

As @mankoff points out, there's another option which is to hibernate using something like DeepSleep. In my experience this is usually faster than a full shutdown, and of course it uses the same (incredibly low) power while off/hibernating. So to compare mathematically, you can consider it a "shutdown" of sorts and use the same equations (with the time taken to enter and recover from hibernate as Tbooting and the power usage while it swaps between RAM and disk as Pbooting). More than likely, this will reduce the the time answer since Tbooting should have been reduced somewhat.

A final thought is that laptop batteries seem to lose voltage over time, even when off, at a higher rate than the Mac Mini's advertised Poff. So the Poff value might actually be quite a bit higher for a computer with a battery, which may significantly lengthen the threshold between standby and shut-down/hibernate (however the battery and charging circuitry will complicate measurements of Poff). And to further complicate things (and possibly ruin the whole argument!), more recent Mac laptops will write the contents of RAM to the disk even when they go to sleep, in case your battery runs flat while sleeping (effectively preparing for a hibernate in case it's forced).


What happens if you run dd without any argument?

dd is a "stream duplicator".

Using dd with no operands means it will be reading and writing to the standard input/output (keyboard and screen).

From the man page (man dd)

  The dd utility copies the standard input to the standard output.

So, issuing the command dd and then sending a break ControlC results in nothing being input, and nothing being written. Until you sent the break, dd was waiting for input.

Here are some examples (press ControlD to tell dd you are done entering text)

$ dd
Hello, World

results in

$ dd
Hello, World
Hello, World
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
13 bytes transferred in 6.140313 secs (2 bytes/sec)

To convert from regular to upper/lowercase:

$ dd conv=ucase
Hello, World
HELLO, WORLD

dd conv=lcase
Hello World
hello world


Inspect the content of Time Machine single backup

TimeTracker - this allows you to see the individual files backed up to Time Machine.
(It's a little down on the website.)


Is there a way to specify artist artwork for Music in iOS 7?

I know this is extremely late but I was just wondering the same thing. In settings under music I unchecked "group by album artist" and well it worked, I'm assuming from that option.


Bundling Java applications for Mac OS X Catalina

Disclaimer
This is a provisional answer to my own question, which I will not accept until I have finally tested it. However, as people are encountering various problems with Java apps on the Mac I thought it useful to post to help others and allow suggestions for improvements.

Reason for the Behaviour Explained
It turned out that:

The reason that my application failed to run was because the Catalina update had removed the Java SE 6 Runtime from the JavaVirtualMachine directory where it resided on a machine running an earlier version of  Mac OS X: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines
My application ran as a ‘naked’ jar file because there was a copy of Java 1.8 from Oracle in that directory which Jar Launcher (the app that handles jar files) must have employed.
When I copied the 1.6.0.jdk directory from another machine into the JavaVirtualMachine directory (just dragged and dropped it all over — needed an admin password) it ran from the packaged app as shown below.

General Point: Apple’s legacy Java SE 6 Runtime does run under Catalina
There is an article on  Ars Technica that states:

  And a few longstanding components of macOS haven’t made the jump to 64-bit. These include… the old Apple-maintained Java 6 Runtime…

This had suggested to me (as also the kind comment by @greg-449) that the Java SE 6 Runtime was 32-bit. However I found a thread on the MacRumors forum about the different problem of Catalina preventing installation of Java SE 6 Runtime for a commercial app that requires it. When that was eventually overcome, the app worked. This was what caused me to check things out, confirming that Apple’s legacy Java SE 6 does run under Catalina.

A solution for the developer — replacing the JavaApplicationStub?
To re-emphasize, I am concerned with delivering a Mac app that just works after the user has performed an easy Java install. I can’t expect him to fiddle around trying to install the legacy Java 6 runtime to get my app to work.

It would seem that it is the JavaApplicationStub (in the application bundle) that ‘informs’ the system where the Java runtime is to run the application. Originally this could be handled for the developer by a little Apple utility, jarbundler, which never worked with Oracle Java runtime. (Thanks @abc for reminding me of this.) However it turns out that there have been ways round this problem, as described on this Stack Overflow post, and there is a replacement for JavaApplicationStub: universalJavaApplicationStub — on GitHub.

This latter seems to be the way to go, and I will update this answer when I have tested it.


Can I play Assasin's Creed II on my Macbook Pro?

You should check your graphics card... The minimum AC2 requires is

  Nvidia geforce GT 8800 or ATI radeon 4850 or better

I wouldn't buy it if I were you, chances are you will have the play the game with a huge lack or not at all as some users seems to complain about...

Some people share my opinion in not buying the game...

  If Assassins Creed 1 runs anything like 2, I wouldn't recommend anyone
  buy it for the 2010 13" MBP.

  It runs ok (its playable), not anything like the ps3 or xbox 360 which
  pretty much ruins the experience.

But if you lower the graphic performance on the game, maybe your 13" will play the game just fine.


Using iPhone while charging and when charged

None whatsoever unless you somehow drop the phone since it's attached to a cord.

The charging system on iOS devices is adaptive and only engages when the battery needs charging current. It's smart and slows down the charge appropriately whether you are using the device or not.

Put another way, the device only asks for enough power to run itself and charge if needed from the wall. The wall doesn't send too much power so there's no risk of overcharging.


You'll have to manually edit VMware's network preferences and add static hosts to get this working. The file necessary can be found at /Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/vmnet8/dhcpd.conf. The file is read-only so chmod it writeable first.

For each static host you'll have to add the following and change the hostname, MAC address and IP to your VMs:

host yourhosthere {
    hardware ethernet 11:22:33:44:55:66;
    fixed-address 192.168.87.100;
}

I'd recommend selecting the IP from outside the DHCP range, which is defined in the same file on the row starting with range.

After this you have to restart VMware services with sudo "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/boot.sh" --restart

As for the DNS name, after you have a static IP you can add it to your /etc/hosts file using the following syntax:

192.168.87.100 yourhosthere


Can deleted device be reallocated in the Developer Portal?

Each year when you renew your program membership you can remove devices added in previous years.  So if you had 100 devices allocated, you could delete 5 and add 5 new devices.

As soon as you add a new device, you can no longer remove devices for the remainder of that year.

So what they are telling you is each year, after renewal, delete any devices you need to remove first. Once you add your first new device, you are only permitted to add devices until your next renewal up to a maximum of 100 devices.


Reboot directly from MacOS to Startup Manager? (Init command)

A few days ago, I had a problem to reboot on the recovery-mode (CMD+R) and to also to have access to the startup manager (Option/Alt). None of those key combinaisons would work for me. So after some research, I found out how to boot in any drive without the startup manager.

(Solution 1) Reboot directly onto a USB drive or another partition without the startup manager:
You just need the macOS application Boot Manager. Once installed, it appears in the menu bar, just like the image below. You can  then select the drive that you want to reboot onto.

Here is a tutorial on how to install it: Boot Manager installation tutorial

Note: At some point, you will need to reboot into the recovery-mode. So you can use the following trick

Open a terminal
Type in:

  sudo nvram recovery-boot-mode=unused

Enter the admin password
Restart the computer. It will automatically reboot into the recovery-mode

(Solution 2) Replace the startup manager: You can replace the startup manager with an application (just like rEFIND) that will ask you to select the drive to boot onto without having to press the "Option/Alt" key when booting up your computer. The app is Next Loader and is from the same dev. The installation tutorial is here.


If I shut down my MacBook and don't wait 60 seconds have I stopped it saving to iCloud?

There's no need to wait 60 seconds before using the "Shut Down" feature in the top menu.

When you save documents and close programs, the data is saved to disk. When you use "Shut Down" the system ensures that everything is written to the disk and properly saved before turning off.

For iCloud stored data, everything is stored locally on your own disk first - and only synced to iCloud later (although "later" could be a split second later).

In total: If you have experienced data loss, it wasn't because you shut down the Mac. It is either a case of (a) you have actually saved the data, but can't find it, or (b) a mal-functioning program.

If you have Time Machine backups set up, you might be able to find a recent copy of your project in the backup.


Not exactly a solution, but I got this answer from IRC:

sudo port destroot coreutils

After that, the binary is found in folder /opt/local/var/macports/build/ (because this is before the installation phase). This is good enough for me.


Can I prevent websites from disabling the context menu in Safari on macOS?

I finally found a tool that brings back the context menu for Safari on all those websites that disable it. It’s aptly called StopTheMadness ($8.99).

It also offers solutions for other browsers like Firefox, but I haven’t tested those.

  Many web sites disable user interface features in your browser that you normally expect to work. StopTheMadness ensures that those features continue to work for you in Safari and Firefox:


Is the iPhone SE compatible with iPhone 5 cases?

Yes the cases are compatible and apple has confirmed it.

Source: http://9to5mac.com/2016/03/21/expanded-iphone-case-lineup/


MacBook with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard freezes after Wi-Fi connection

Try turning IPv6 off before connecting to the Wi-Fi.

Turn the AirPort off, go to System Preferences, Network, AirPort, Advanced, TCP/IP, Configure IPv6: Off. Then turn the AirPort on, and everything should work fine.


I deleted my OSX partition, and have no patitions formatted to bootcamp, so I can only access BIOS

Start Recovery Mode (CMD+R) at boot.

Even if your OS X partition is gone, you should have options to recover/reinstall OS X.

Have a look at: OS X: About OS X Recovery


Process completed immediately after opening Terminal and impossible to add commands

Problem fixed after following this:

1. Go to Terminal Preferences > Open Shells with : enter "/bin/bash -x"
2. On the terminal : sudo nano .bash_profile
3. Delete the whole content of the bash_profile, then Ctrl + X (exit) Yes, Enter
4. Go to Terminal Preferences > Open Shells with : enter "/bin/bash"

someone guided me to that. For some reason, my .bash_profile was kind of doing a loop...
Apparently, I also had another bash_profile document somewhere else...
I won't be able to give more details for now as the person left but I will add more info here once I got them. Hope this will help others.

Thanks a lot to @nohillside and @klanomath for your help!! I appreciate a lot.


The middle click to close tab functionality isn't really a common OS X UI pattern. The standard keyboard shortcut for closing a tab is command ⌘W (which will also close non-tabbed windows, or windows with only one open tab).

If you really want a Magic Trackpad gesture for closing tabs, you could use BetterTouchTool to map a gesture to ⌘W, but it would still be a bit limited, in that it would only close the currently active tab. I suppose you could use a combination of programs to make a macro that would perform a click to switch to the tab under your mouse, then close it, but it's still a bit hacky.


I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but the CDMA (Verizon and Sprint) iPhone 4 does not have a SIM card slot, and thus doesn't require one to activate the iPhone on a carrier.


Remove bundleId from Personal Team on AppStore Connect

In the end I solved the issue.
I had to go to Signing & Capabilities -> All
Make sure that on both sub-tabs, Debug and Release I had Personal Team, then type in a random BundleId
After that I switched back to my company Team (payed) and type in the desired bundle Id.
Happy ending story )))


Service which monitors when apps are updated?

I haven't heard of a service with the exact function. However lame this could sound, you could check out the app producer's website/fb/yt and sign-up for news or email newsletters which would inform you when these apps are updated.

Chances are slim, however, if the apps haven't been updated for more than a year.


How to rename volumes from Terminal without name limitations?

The FAT volume name mustn't contain:

* ? / \ | . , ; : + = [ ] < > "

You are limited to 11 characters. Using diskutil rename ... no umlauts etc. & all upper case.


What stickers are available to hide the glowing Apple logo on the back of my MBP?

Any sticker will be obtrusive it's is aim is to just mask the Apple logo.  Without you get something to cover the whole rear panel your sticker be as obvious as the logo it's trying to replace, and will probably look a lot worse as there will be some light bleeding through the vinyl unless it's a serious thick sticker, which will then catch on things and have edge-peel issues etc.

Search on Amazon for Macbook and Gelaskins for an idea for covering the whole rear, this is an example:

If you want something smaller, you can use something to take the edge off it by highlighting it in a way that marginally masks it:


Manually managing songs and deleting from playlist

Speaking for iOS 6 (not necessarily older versions):

Open Music.app
Select "Playlists" tab.
Create a new Playlist and put a few songs in there.
Sync your iPhone to to your computer (Wifi or USB)
Make sure iTunes is configured to sync your music and choose "Selected playlists, artists, albums, and genres
My experience was that the playlist I created was automatically selected under "Playlists" in the Music tab of iTunes. If it isn't, select it.
You can now put any song you would like in there and sync.

While it doesn't automatically sync every time a change is made, any time you sync it will reflect changes made on your device. For example, put 10 songs into your new playlist and sync with your iPhone. Then, go into your iPhone and delete a few of those songs out. Sync with iTunes. They shouldn't be in the playlist on iTunes anymore.

I have personally performed the steps to ensure they work. It's not 100% automatic, but with Wifi sync, it is almost that way.


Rubber band not working on Gmail using Safari

They use a wrapper-div with overflow: scroll and height: 100%, which doesn't use the rubber-band-effect by default.


Chrome icon randomly changing to something else

Here’s how I fixed it on my machine (it was affecting a different app though):

Boot your Mac in Safe Mode by holding the shift key after hearing the startup chime. Sign in and open Chrome. Then restart normally. This should fix the problem.

If that doesn’t work, I’d suggest trying a Chrome reinstall.

If a Chrome reinstall doesn’t do it, I’d try reinstalling macOS.


Are macos Mojave Security Updates Cumulative?

Yes, security updates are cumulative since the most recent point release. So, if you're downloading updates manually (to use with offline machines, or in some sort of automated deployment setup, etc), you'll want to install (1) the most recent "combo update" followed by (2) the most recent "security update".
Frustratingly, I have been unable to find any official confirmation of this from Apple, but I am relatively confident this is how things work based on my own use. If you try to install an OS X 10.9.5 security update (like 2016-004) before updating from 10.9.4 to 10.9.5, the installer will complain and won't run. However, installing security update 2016-001 followed by 2016-004 seems to have the same affect as just installing 2016-004—you end up on the same build version.


Is Mac a computer or an operating system?

Mac is the brand of computers (specifically, the hardware) made by Apple. The Macs on sale today are the MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Pro, and Mac Mini.

Mac computers run on macOS (which was called OS X up until its rebranding in mid-2016). macOS, not Mac, is the equivalent of Windows, but since Apple wouldn't ask "Are you a macOS user" (the equivalent of "Windows user") and wouldn't ask "Are you a Windows computer user" (the equivalent of "Mac user"), they use the fairly reasonable grammar found in your screenshot.

You can also use an anology to sum it up: Mac is to PC, as macOS (previously OS X) is to Windows.

TL;DR: The first line of Wikipedia's entry on macOS pretty much sums it up:

  macOS is a series of graphical user interface–based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Mac line of computer systems.


How do I get Boot Camp back as default startup volume?

I just noticed that it was not only an update of macOS, but I had also NTFS for Mac installed. This prevents the Boot Camp partition to be used as a startup volume. If you deactivate the NTFS driver in NTFS for Mac, it can be used as startup volume again.


After some reading:

JVM in /System is system-wide installation of Java, which is always installed on Snow Leopard, and is updated through standard Software Update mechanism.  I don't think it would be good idea to remove this JVM, but haven't tried it ... maybe nothing bad will happen (if you don't use Java).

My JVMs in /Library are from Java Developer Package, which also contain sources and documentation. It seems that it is OK to simply remove them. After I have removed them, java_tool is no longer showing them.

(After this, I've updated my Java to latest one available from Apple, and also installed latest Java Developer Package, which added new JVM into /Library again. Since I use Java sources and documentation in my IDE, I will let it live).


You can use some File Manager app. You can AirDrop the entire folder to the Mac, or vice-versa.


What you describe as an error, it's not. That is the main queue where the program runs. You will see that queue every time you run a program.


There is an app, WiFi Explorer, which shows all the networks your computer can see. It also shows the relative strengths and channel number of them. You could use this to determine that the problem is indeed 5 GHz. Maybe changing Airport channel will help. The app is not free and is available from the App Store.


how to import all iCloud contacts into Windows 10 People

You can export your contacts as vCards, then import these into Outlook/your mail client. If you can tell me what type of mail client you use, I can give specific instruction.


OpenSSL not getting linked with homebrew on El Capitan 10.11.6

You'll need to make sure you open a new shell after performing the link.
(I updated my medium article you linked for future reference: Openssl with El Capitan).


Mail starts on every boot in macOS Catalina

Which 'Open at Login' option are you referring to specifically?

Things to check:

System Preferences > Users & Groups > [your user account] > Login Items tab

If mail has been added their remove it.

When you log out, restart or shutdown, you should get a "Reopen windows when logging back in" option.  Make sure that is either unchecked, or manually quit Mail before your log out, restart or shutdown.


My macbook battery is fully charged on menu bar but on Coconut Battery says charging

Everything seems normal to me.
Batteries are much more complex than most people think. There are many factors such as heat/temperature, actual charge, power draw, lifecycle/age,... that contribute into "inconsistent" measurements.

Why design capacity is not consistent, sometimes 74%, 75%, 80%?

This is completely normal and every battery experiences this, especially as they get older. This again depends on many factors and the number will decrease over time/cycles.

I'm just wondering, will my MacBook overcharge or over discharge or this is normal behavior?

When at 100% your battery will stop charging. It will start charging again, usually a couple percent below 100% if continually connected to power. macOS tries to smoothen the curve, i.e. it makes you think its constantly at 100%, which it isn't. This behaviour is normal.
There are many excellent articles that can explain the physical details much better than I can, but there isn't really anything you should/shouldn't do with your MacBook in terms of battery, except trying to not (over)heat it. So just use your MacBook, but don't put it in bright sunlight for example.


What to do if anemone themes won’t disable - Electra Jailbreak

To fix it, all I did was disable all the themes on anemone, then restart my device. After then, I just reran the jailbreak, and everything went back to normal!


Does deleting Mac App Store apps in Launchpad delete related files in the Library folders too?

I tried uninstalling some applications, and files in these folders or the corresponding folders in ~/Library/Containers/ were sometimes deleted and sometimes not:

~/Library/Caches/ (deleted for most applications)
~/Library/Application Support/

Files in these folders weren't deleted for any of the applications I tested with:

~/Library/Preferences/
~/Library/Saved Application State/
/var/db/receipts/
~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/
~/Library/Application Support/CrashReporter/
~/Library/Caches/com.plausiblelabs.crashreporter.data/
~/Library/Application Support/Growl/Tickets/

For example Kindle books or the database for notes in JustNotes were not deleted.

You can see what files are accessed by uninstalld with sudo opensnoop -n uninstalld and search for support files with mdfind $(osascript -e 'id of app "AppName"'). If you want to uninstall applications more completely, it's probably safe to just delete the whole sandbox containers in ~/Library/Containers/.


After downloading file installer process runs and uses all memory

I used EasyFind. It located right away all the files and folders matching my research criterias (in that specific case I was looking for "installer")
Deleted it right away.
Worked like a charm!


i've been stuck in this situation -- something went wonky with it.  my solution was to use findmyiphone to remotely wipe the phone.  it will wipe it and then ask you for the appleid and password.  then it finally worked and it was free of all accounts.


(Catalina) Is there a progress status when updating iPhone?

Try to run this command in the terminal to check for the file being downloaded.

ls -lah ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone\ Software\ Updates

My Results show the following while im trying to update my iphone to IOS 13.2.2

drwxr-xr-x@ 3 username  staff    96B Nov 15 20:55 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 4 username  staff   128B Apr 28  2019 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 username  staff   1.2G Nov 15 21:52 iPhone_5.5_P3_13.2.2_17B102_Restore.ipsw.download

The file being downloaded is the one containing the "13.2.2" in its name with a current size of 1.2 GBs, although this will not show you how much is left, but it will show that there is progress.

IOS(13.2.2) size is 4185242982 bytes(3.9 GBs)


Caveats: I don't own an AirPrint device nor do I have one available elsewhere for testing. So I'm not talking from my own experience in the following answer...

First, when publishing a printer (AirPrint or not) from a DNS server ("static, Wide Area Bonjour"), you should include ALL of the TXT record key/value pairs which are listed in the current Bonjour Printing specification.

A tabular overview is listed in chapter 9 of the specification document (for all details please read the complete chapter):

Second, the Bonjour Printing specification requires that for a printer you always have to register the LPD protocol (_printer._tcp), even if the device does not support it (port = 0) !.

The reason for this seemingly braindead requirement is this: LPD is considered the "flagship" protocol for service discovery related to printing. (Meaning: if you own the service instance name for _printer then you also own it for _pdl-datastream, _ipp, _ipps, etc.)

Some older versions of OS X enforced this. They would not work without it. Newer versions (and probably the next macOS version too) are less dogmatic and more pragmatic...

In your case the air (has nothing to do with AirPrint, but means s.th. like authentication information required), TLS, UUID, usb_MFG, usb_CMD and usb_MDL keys are missing (even if you'd use "" as their key values).
Third, please take to heart the general rule about the trailing dot for domain names. Details are outlined here:

dns-sd.org/TrailingDotsInDomainNames.html

Fourth, maybe you also should enclose your key values in quotes. Example:

pdl="application/pdf,image/urf"

not

pdl=application/pdf,image/urf

Fifth, in general, what is quoted above in the OP code block does not look like a valid format for a zone file to me. (I notice that the original question has been edited by other people than the OP, so I won't comment on the details...)


Changing background colors in my folders

If the option isn't under 'Show View Options', make sure your folder view is set to icons. You can't change the colour in list view.


How would I bring View Controller Scene in Xcode to the main working area?


Drag & Drop from email to desktop not landing at designated spot. Finder opening when dragging to desktop

Your "Show View Options" may have been changed recently to sort items by name or date or size or kind or label.

Click anywhere on the desktop (except on any file/folder)
Press Cmd+J (or use the mouse to go to the Finder's View > Show View Options menu)
In the Sort by: dropdown in the dialog, choose either None or Snap to Grid
Now you'll be able to drop files at specific locations on the desktop


What's causing my MacBook to freeze and reset keyboard settings when I bring it back from a long sleep?

I managed to solve my issue by downgrading from Mojave to High Sierra (using this procedure).  It was very difficult to do, and I was very unsure if Apple would let me downgrade, but once I did it the freezing issue went away.

I've had coworkers inform me that they've recently upgraded to Mojave with no problems, so whatever issue I encountered may be fixed.  However, due to all the pain I've gone through with this, I'm sticking with High Sierra.


Launch Messages. Go to Messages > Preferences. Click on Accounts. Then, click on your Apple ID and deselect "Enable this account". It will keep all messages from going from and to your Mac.


What is the highest video resolution achievable with my MacBook?

In your about this Mac - choose your marketing name of your mac and then look it up in the manuals.

https://support.apple.com/manuals

Most integrated cameras are 1080 and not 4k - so you will want to get a Logitech or DSLR camera for your mac if you care about higher resolution or better low light controls.

https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology/laptop-webcam-showdown-macbook-air-dell-xps-theyre-pretty-bad/


Why apps are installed to my iPad and not to my iPhone?

Settings > iTunes & App Store
Enable Automatic downloads for Apps

Also make sure that 'Automatically install new apps' is enabled in iTunes
window in picture artificially shrunk to save space


Songs show up as individual albums in iOS Music app

Have the same issue. I figured out that adding first song of albums and then rest of the songs works. But also looking for better resolution.


How can I change the iOS App Store Country on my iPhone 5?

On your iPhone 5 follow these steps:

Tap on the App Store icon in your Home Screen.
Tap on Featured on the bottom left corner of screen.
Scroll all the way to the bottom where your Apple ID info is.  Tap on it.
Tap View Apple ID, you may have to enter your password.
Once the page loads Change your country/Region to United States.

Must not have any credits in your account
Must have a valid payment method for the desired country - there is no longer a none option.


Export iPhoto library onto Time Machine?

Time Machine automatically copies everything on your user folder, so you don't have to manually drag your iPhoto library to your external drive to back it up. Unless of course you have excluded some files or folders on the Time Machine preference pane, in which case no backups of such resources are being made.

In order to see the library on your Time Machine backup, you would have to mount your .sparsebundle and then look for it, and it does not seem to be the case.


Clarifications for a controlled upgrade of a VirtualBox-ed Catalina

I restarted from scratch, with a new dynamic VDI of 60GB instead of 30GB, as I felt I would be in trouble later with the installation of Xcode.
The upgrade went flawlessly.
There was definitely no obvious sign nor warning that more space was needed previously.


How to stop WiFi "Looking for Networks..."

First off, you are correct that Looking for Networks is not a channel scan.  The difference is, the first is looking for broadcast SSIDs where the latter is looking for a non-crowded channel within the 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequencies that it can use for maximum speed and reliability.  When you enable "Auto Channel Selection" (default on most routers) it will automatically look for the least congested channel - that's what the discussion is referring to when talking about a channel scan.
As for Looking for Networks you're right that it would be a pointless expenditure of resources, however, this is only activated when you open the GUI.  macOS will automatically start looking for networks when you click on the WiFi icon in the menu bar because, it's assuming (technically, the developers assumed) that you'd want to see all the available networks.  Thus it does a scan.   Once you close the GUI, it no longer scans.
How WiFi scanning works
It's important to note that your Mac (or any other computer/OS) isn't doing anything actively to look for your SSID.  It's not sending out any signal that asking for the AP to respond back.  It's actually the opposite.
Beacon Frame
Every AP (by default) sends out management frames that, for a lack of a better descriptor, help manage the functions of a WiFi network.  One of those frames is a Beacon frame and within it, there is key information about the WiFi network, but most importantly, the SSID.  This is being broadcast no matter what and has nothing to do with the client operating system (in this case macOS, but it could be Windows, BSD, or Linux) as it's being transmitted by the WAP (wireless access point).
When you scan for wireless networks, you tell the WiFi chip (Broadcom BCM43xx for example) to listen for these frames.  When you find an AP you'd like to communicate with, it sends a "probe request" to the WAP for it to begin the authentication process.
Is it always scanning?
Well, yes and no.  Those management packets including the beacon frame are in the air and the WiFi chip will receive it.  It obviously doesn't need beacon frames from SSIDs it's not attached to (if already attached) and will discard them.  However, it does need the other management frames and will process them accordingly.
So, is it actually scanning?  No.  It's listening.  It's just that when you open the GUI it's actively listening.  When the GUI isn't open it's passively listening.  In other words, it's a guy watching football as his significant other is trying to have a conversation.


does iPhone4 run 2-time faster than iPhone 3GS since iPhone4's memory is 2-time bigger than iPhone 3GS's one

No. Well.... maybe.
Although the phone may run twice as fast (I don't know, I don't have any iPhones), it is not the addition of memory that makes it run faster. If the phone was running out of memory and had to kill processes, then more memory would make it seem faster.

What really makes phones, (or any computer-like device for that matter) run faster, is a fast processor. The iPhone 4 also has a faster processor than the 3GS.


How do you change the environment variables for VLC on macOS High Sierra?

From the terminal

nano .profile

Then paste the following lines:

export VLC_PATH=/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/lib
export VLC_PLUGIN_PATH=/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/plugins

To save, press Ctrl + X then press Y and finally Enter. Afterwards, restart your terminal.


DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter doesn't play audio on Samsung TV

Without resorting to AirPort or other networked setups, your only option is probably to just use a 3.5mm jack from your headphone port, which would unfortunately only give you stereo audio.


External hard drive frequently ejects itself when using Aperture

A book was just released by SCSC called "Hard Drive Troubleshooting," which mentions disk ejection in numerous places. The book is free and you can get it by going to:

http://www.scsc-online.com

Go to the downloads section and click on the book to download it.

I would think that if the drive is failing over a specific region, the disk will issue I/O errors and MAY timeout causing the system to think the drive is no longer connected. I believe the book mentions something like a 60 second timeout. To me, that would sound either like bad sectors on the drive OR corrupt data on the drive that the system can't make sense of. For example, if your file xyz.dat is either corrupt or unreadable and it just happens to be read by Aperture (and ONLY Aperature) then the problem would occur only when Aperture in use.

If you haven't tried Disk Utility on the drive to verify/repair it, I would do so.

...If you're using Mountain Lion, all bets are off.

Hope this helps.