When you wipe an iPhone via the Find My.. app or website it will only erase the iPhone itself. Any data you've synched to the cloud will still remain on the cloud.
Regarding photos and saved voicemails, as long as your iCloud backups were going ok on the phone you should be able to restore everything as-is back to the new phone.
Photos would also already be on your MacBook Pro if you had iCloud Photo Library enabled.
If you go to iCloud.com, sign in, then click on the Find iPhone option near the bottom right, you can put the phone into "Lost Mode", which would still allow someone to track the phone down. If you haven't done that yet you may want to enable that feature first. Then if you're sure you won't get the phone back you can click Erase iPhone as you had been planning.


The processor is hardwired to talk to the memory so it will throttle memory down to the speed it can talk at.

Installing 1600MHz RAM will just run at 1333MHz in that model MacBook Pro. There is no impact on battery life, performance, reliability etc.

I know there was an issue on some models where it would not boot with 2 modules of higher speed but I believe it is fine with the new models. There are utilities you can get to change the memory speed (on some modules) to get around this issue. I am not sure if this is the case with newer models.

The last time, I looked the price difference between these speeds of RAM was so small, I would just get the 1333 models for safety.

(MHz = clock speed)


How to forward traffic from one machine to another with `pfctl`?

This is how I got it to work.

My example uses three hosts on my network (10.10.0.0/16):

10.10.10.10 = Linux client
10.10.6.237 = Mac "real server" providing a service on port 3000
10.10.1.200 = Mac "server" performing pf redirection, listening on port 2004, interface vlan0

natrdr.pf

rdr on vlan0 inet proto tcp from 10.10.0.0/16 to 10.10.1.200 port 2004 -> 10.10.6.237 port 3000
nat on vlan0 inet proto tcp from 10.10.0.0/16 to 10.10.6.237 port 3000 -> 10.10.1.200

The specificity ensures your server isn't NATting traffic that it shouldn't.

For those doing this from scratch, after creating your natrdr.pf file above, run the following commands from the command line or a shell script, sudo or as root.  Integrating the pf rules with Apple's pf.conf files is an exercise left to the reader.

# Enable packet forwarding

sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1

# Unless you have any rules you want to keep, let's flush existing NAT rules
pfctl -F nat

# Enable packet filtering
pfctl -e

# Load rules from our file
pfctl -f natrdr.pf

# Confirm rules are loaded
pfctl -s nat

# Check to see connections
pfctl -s states

I then used telnet 10.10.1.200 2004 and was immediately forwarded to the Node/express server running on port 3000 on 10.10.6.237.

Example output of pfctl -s states to verify it's working:

ALL tcp 10.10.6.237:3000 <- 10.10.1.200:2004 <- 10.10.10.10:40744       ESTABLISHED:ESTABLISHED
ALL tcp 10.10.10.10:40744 -> 10.10.1.200:35947 -> 10.10.6.237:3000       ESTABLISHED:ESTABLISHED

So, to make it match your setup:

rdr on en0 inet proto tcp from 192.168.1.0/24 to 192.168.1.186 port 1234 -> 192.168.1.198 port 80
nat on en0 inet proto tcp from 192.168.1.0/24 to 192.168.1.198 port 80 -> 192.168.1.186

The order of rules is important.

The redirect rule does what's expected: it forwards all traffic coming into the server to the real server.

The NAT rule changes the (now redirected) packets to have a source IP address of the redirecting server instead of the original client.

The combination of these rules ensures that a reverse path for the return packets to follow is automatically created.


An Intel CPU typically gets as hot as boiling water before 'overheating'.
Is it normal for a 15 inch rMBP to get extremely hot during use?
There are third-party utilities that can provide you with
accurate temperature data from the Mac's heat sensors.
https://www.google.com/search?q=mac+temperature+utility
Overheating usually involves high fan speeds and poor performance. (The Mac will ultimately shut off if the heat increases to levels that might damage the hardware.)
You can get utilities that will allow you to manage the fans, though bear in mind that Apple spends a lot of time on optimizing this. Higher fan speeds will reduce battery life and increase noise.
https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control/download
Note the warning on the webpage: "This program is for advanced users who know how to use it without doing harm to their macs. The authors are not liable for data loss, damages, profit loss or any other types of losses connected with the use or misuse of the program."
If it was uncomfortable to place your hands on the area in front of the keyboard, either side of the trackpad, then I would be worried. Otherwise, it's entirely normal for some parts of the Mac to get 'quite hot'.


"No device connected" for Wacom One tablet

Well well.   I plugged in my iPhone and the Wacome One woke up!

What does the first action have to do with the second?  Apparently the "tremendous weight" of the usb-c cable for the iPhone - which was a bit entangled with the mini-USB cable to the Wacom -  was just enough to put the Wacom connector out of sorts. Jiggling the cable to the iPhone apparently undid that "flakey cable" issue.
So the only potential value now to this question is to confirm YES the Wacom One is  working (surprisingly I might add) with macOS Catalina.
Update Apparently there is a specific power cord for Wacom that has a few parts including hdmi, power cable, mini-usb.  I must have tossed it / lost it some time ago.  So this device is a small-ish brick now.


What can I use to get dust off of my rMBP display?

I recommend this $13 iKlear Screen Cleaning Bundle.

It cleans dust and grime off of any modern screen (including iPhones and Macbooks) really well and I've been using it happily for the past few years. It comes with a chamois cloth and some special spray that cleans off dust very well without harming the screen (or you—it doesn't irritate skin in my experience).

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with iKlear in any way.


Music App: order by album release date in iOS 9?

Sadly there seems to be no way to do this natively, but Picky handles it nicely.


Appending the Parent folder Names to the Image File Names in Automator

Given your example, and assuming the example holds true, then the example bash code, shown further below, should work.

The following Automator workflow uses the Find Finder Items action, as you have it, but then uses a Run Shell Script action directly after, as there doesn't seem to be a need for a Set Value of Variable action as shown in your OP.

On the Run Shell Script action, set Pass input: to as arguments, as shown in the image below.

Note that the echo command is just there to show what mv command would have been executed to rename the files had it not been there. So, after testing and seeing that the output if formed as wanted, remove the echo command and run the workflow again to actually rename the image files.

Replace the default code in the Run Shell Script action with the following example bash code:

for f in "$@"; do

    dn="$(dirname "$f")"
    fn="$(basename "$f")"
    city="$(awk -F'/' '{print $(NF-2)}'<<<"$f")"
    state="$(awk -F'/' '{print $(NF-3)}'<<<"$f")"

    echo mv "$f" "${dn}/${fn%.*}-${city}-${state}.${fn##*.}"

done

Note: The example bash code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted.


How to tell the keyboard layout from the box?

It is a British layout. I found this out by googling 'MB110' while restricting the results to different countries and looking for model numbers that pop up.

Examples:

MB110B/A and MB110B/B are British layouts

MB110D/B is German

MB110RS/B is Russian

etc.


How can I mount an encrypted disk image so that it is read-write?

When the Disk Image is created is the time to decide if the image will be compressed (default) read/write or other options. The option you should have now is to Disk Utility:Images:Convert and choose the image you want to be read/write and choose Convert


Does the Airport Extreme log MAC addresses of devices that attempt to connect?

I was able to pull up the logs on the router, but unfortunately they were only for current day. I would have needed to export the logs to have a chance to catch the guy. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

To do this, I needed to install the airport utility v5.6 (in addition to the v6.x that was already installed).  The newer versions don't have an advanced tab which contains the ability to view "logs and statistics."


Unfortunately, the Apple USB SuperDrive will not work with a Mac Pro. Check the System Requirements here.

There are hacks you can try - but it may be better in this case to get a different (3rd party) drive.


How to get last active tab in Safari using AppleScript?

Answer: this is not possible since the list of active previous tabs isn’t stored in a way AppleScript can know how to go back and undo a window close operation.


it no handler for given file type `flac'

I do not have a specific answer for the error as I do not use Homebrew however as a workaround I've downloaded SoX - Sound exchange from SourceForge.net unzipped the download file and cd sox-14.4.2 and then ./play <pathname_to.flac> and it played the .flac file just fine.

As requested in the comments I tested trimming a .flac file and this too worked as expected and the trimmed file played fine, (sans the trimmed 30 seconds of course).

To ensure the downloaded SoX worked independently of other installed audio software I tested it on a clean build of OS X 10.10 and SoX worked as expected.  (BTW I originally tested under OS X 10.8.5)

Since Homebrew does the installing and just downloading directly from SourceForge.net does not, I copied the play, rec, soxi (aliases) and the sox binary to /usr/local/bin as it's an appropriate location for third-party binaries and makes the commands directly available in a Terminal as its location is in the $PATH.


Is there any possibility to auto login to sites via Facebook?

This is a design decision by Facebook, and the best you can do is go into Settings → Safari → Passwords, where you can copy/paste your passwords into the Facebook browser to log into individual websites.

You can also specify a text replacement string for your email address under Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacements, so you can enter it more quickly into the Facebook app.


Boot straight into an application without showing the desktop

If you want to open new windows in full screen by default, I don't know any way to do it in general, but there are options for it in some applications like iTerm 2, VLC, and WriteRoom.

You could also assign a keyboard shortcut to a script like this:

tell application "Terminal"
    reopen -- open a new default window if there are open default windows
    set w to number of windows
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal"
    if number of windows is w then -- if there are no full screen windows
        perform action "AXPress" of (button 1 where subrole is "AXFullScreenButton") of window 1
    end if
end tell
activate application "Terminal" -- make Terminal frontmost

To automate opening a window in full screen at login, you might use a script like this:

set old to window 1
tell application "Terminal"
    reopen
end tell
tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal"
    perform action "AXPress" of (button 1 where subrole is "AXFullScreenButton") of window 1
end tell
delay 1.5
activate old


Downloaded an app from App Store but it never appeared on my iPod touch

Power off your device and try opening the game first after the device starts from a clean boot.

If that doesn't work, you'll have to find the app on the home screen and delete it.

Here is Apple's KB on troubleshooting apps that don't open:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1702

Feel free to ask a second question if you can't use that document to solve your Clash of Clans issue.


Ping all the ip range of a local network

On a network with 192.168.0.* IPs and a mask of 255.255.255.0, you can use

ping 192.168.0.255

Similarly, on the 128.0.* network, net mask 255.255.0.0

ping 128.0.255.255


Format SD card with FAT and custom file allocation unit size

Open up a terminal and check out the following command:

NAME
     newfs_msdos -- construct a new MS-DOS (FAT) file system

SYNOPSIS
     newfs_msdos [-N] [-B boot] [-F FAT-type] [-I volid] [-O OEM]
                 [-S sector-size] [-a FAT-size] [-b block-size]
                 [-c cluster-size] [-e dirents] [-f format] [-h heads]
                 [-i info] [-k backup] [-m media] [-n FATs] [-o hidden]
                 [-r reserved] [-s total] [-u track-size] [-v volume-name]
                 special [disktype]

In particular these parameters:

 -S sector-size
         Number of bytes per sector.  Acceptable values are powers of 2 in
         the range 128 through 32768.

 -a FAT-size
         Number of sectors per FAT.

 -b block-size
         File system block size (bytes per cluster).  This should resolve
         to an acceptable number of sectors per cluster (see below).

 -c cluster-size
         Sectors per cluster.  Acceptable values are powers of 2 in the
         range 1 through 128.

You should be able to perform a custom format with the options you need, obviously make sure you test this out thoroughly.


You can create custom key bindings that will apply in most OS X text editors (specifically, those that use the Cocoa framework).

Check out KeyBindingsEditor, which provides a front end to the key bindings system.

Alternatively, you can create a DefaultKeyBinding.dict plist file in ~/Library/KeyBindings/ that allows you to specify custom keybinding actions. You should read Apple's documentation for the precise actions available.

In your case, you'll probably want the moveWordForward: and moveWordBackward: methods, if I'm parsing your question correctly.


How do I fix the iOS 11 update not appearing on an iPad Air 2?

Try restarting it one more time using a force restart. After that it should appear in Settings.


In MacBook Terminal login history, does console mean that someone physically logged into my MacBook?

These login sessions can also appear during a short wakeup from sleep from certain programs that initiate a new session. Or was your computer supposed to be completely off?


It looks like uninstalling Windows via bootcamp did not merge the space reclaimed by removing the old windows partition into your Macintosh HD one. In order to do that you can use the Disk Utility.

You can simply drag your Macintosh HD partition bigger and apply it. Here is a tutorial on how to resize partitions with Disk Utility


As @benwiggy pointed out correctly, storage always tends to run short.
Of course, such a topic is a matter of personal opinion. Trying to keep objective, please consider the following:

The 32 GB option is the "entry-level" option—in fact, no other iPad even offers such a low option anymore! (iPad Air and iPad mini start at 64 GB; iPad Pro at 128 GB.) It is safe to assume that it's on the market solely as a cheap entry model to the Apple universe.
Getting the model with more storage will, even if you have no use for it now, increase the device's value down the line. I, for one, tend to sell my old Apple devices (usually after upgrading to a newer model): the resale value of a 32 GB devices will be considerably less than the same device with 128 GB.


It's possible to put passwords on archives as a protection measure.
The password here would be a user-chosen password when compressing the original content to the zipped archive that you're trying to open.

Go back to the source where you downloaded the file and see if there's a password listed somewhere.


Inconsistent disk capacity reports in OS X - I'm missing 365GB of my 2 TB

Unformatted space.

eg, I have a 500Gb disk with just a 27Gb partition:

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                       0xBF                         26.8 GB    disk0s1

You can confirm this in Disk Utility or a tool like iPartition.

In Disk Utility click on the drive itself, not a partition of it. Then, under the partitions tab you should see each partition, and then the greyed out freespace available on the drive. You can select it and it'll show you how much you have.


Does the DNS service need to be on in order for the caching service to work on OS X Server?

It depends:

If you plan to provide the Caching Service to clients with public IP addresses (in other words, not behind a NAT) that are not on the server’s same subnet, you need to create a TXT DNS record in your zone file for the server with the IP address ranges the server is responsible for. Source

If you plan to provide Caching Service in all or any combinations or portions of subnets of the local network that share a common public IP address you don't need a DNS-Server.

Please check the limitations of the Caching Service here.


Remove ext2fuse with brew uninstall ext2fuse.
Download fuse-ext2 available at the git homepage and unzip it in your Downloads folder
Follow these instructions:

brew install m4
brew install e2fsprogs automake autoconf libtool
cd ~/Downloads/fuse-ext2-master
./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-idirafter/$(brew --prefix e2fsprogs)/include -idirafter/usr/local/include/osxfuse" LDFLAGS="-L$(brew --prefix e2fsprogs)/lib" ./configure
make
sudo make install

Mount the partition(s) e.g. disk2s7:

sudo fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s7 /sd -o allow_other,force,rw+

Tested & verified in a virtual 10.11.6 El Capitan machine!


I came here due to an issue on my MacBook Pro (2018 15") running on macOS Catalina 10.15.7.
In fact, the deleted process was showing up in my process list and consuming around 50% CPU - more or less. After following some hints which I found here and there (deinstalling iStats, resetting SMC and so on) I realized that this process kept on being open as long as my About this Mac window was open. The deleted process disappears shortly after closing the About this Mac window.


Offline and account-less notes and calendar apps for iOS

The 'Notes' app should work fine in a stand-alone mode. Its included with your iPhone. And I think the iPhone Calendar should not have any requirements either but I assume you've tried it.


Is it possible to disable iPhone sounds and vibrations when the phone is unlocked?

When it's unlocked, you could simply mute it, and remember to unmute it when you remove it from your eyesight - Turn off "Vibrate on Silent" in Settings > Sounds.  Only a workaround, but perhaps useful.


Is it safe to give my MacBook to a service center with my data on it?

Often a service center need access to the Mac to verify if the problems are solved. You can do a few things.

The most important thing first. Make a backup from all your data before you give your Mac to the service center.
Turn on FileVault. It encrypts the harddisk.
Make a second user and provide these details to the service center so they can test.


How to use the "instant alpha" in Preview

The way Instant Alpha works is that it selects color that are similar to it.  It's not as nice as Photoshop where you can select multiple areas and get really granular with the selection criteria so you'll have to do multiple steps.

Select the Instant Alpha tool
Using your mouse, select an area you'd like to remove
Slowly drag your mouse down and select an area you'd like to remove.  If you select too much, back off until you've selected as much as you can
Hit the ⌫ Delete key
Repeat until you're removed the background completely.

(I may have gone too far on the first background selection, but you'll get the idea)


Yes, it is possible to drive a 4k Display with an early 2013 and even 2012 Retina Macbook.
1. Download SwitchResX
here
2. Create a new custom profile for your monitor
Simplified Settings: CVT-RB
Active: 3840x2160
Scan Rate vertical: 30

Hit ok and press cmd-S to save.
3. Reboot and select custom profile

Based on this thread


How do you edit someone's iCloud contacts with a different iCloud account/e-mail address?

Note be careful here, while this answer works it can add a level of confusion and might have side effects that I didn't consider.  I did try it tho, and it works.

Create a new Apple ID. Most easily done by going to http://appleid.apple.com from a computer browser.

On your bosses phone go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tap Add Account.  Add the new Apple ID you just created. Once authenticated, turn off the switches for Mail, Calendars, Reminders and Notes-- leaving only Contacts turned on.

Now the phone has two sets of contacts, her old set and a new empty empty set.  Only the original set is displayed tho.  To change that open the Contacts app and click "groups" in the top left corner.  Note that on this screen you can check one or both sets of contacts at the same time.

Now go to the computer and export all her contacts from the original Apple ID and import them to the new.

Once the new set is ready for her to use, make sure to turn off the old set using Contacts > Groups on her phone.  Also go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and in the Contacts section change the "default account" to the new group, so that any new contacts she creates on the fly will go to the new group.

To save confusion you could also remove all the contacts from the old Apple ID. Also open Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and edit the original Apple ID turning the contacts switch off.

Now the contacts are stored under a separate Apple ID and you can log into that Apple ID on iCloud.com to edit them.


How can I wirelessly get videos off of a new iPad?

You could use iTunes Wi-Fi syncing.

Prior to iOS 5, you would have to plug in your device to sync with iTunes.

As of iOS 5, 2 new features were introduced:

iCloud
Wi-Fi syncing with iTunes

For people like me that mainly used iTunes for backup purposes, iCloud eliminated the need for syncing with iTunes altogether. However, there are people that still sync with iTunes and thus Wi-Fi syncing could help.

It does the exact same thing as syncing with the cable but you don't need to have anything attached. Both computers just need to be on the same Wi-Fi network. Apple has all the steps necessary in order to get this working.

One of the things lacking on Apple's page is how to force a sync from your device. On an iPhone, you would do the following:

Launch Settings.
Navigate to General > iTunes Wi-Fi Sync
Press Sync Now. (Note: This will only appear if you have set up Wi-Fi syncing according to Apple's directions and that computer is on and connected to the same network.)


Sierra / Mail.app workaround for missing "Display in Place / Display as Icon" choices?

A successful workaround is displaying the visa on your computer, taking a screenshot (command + shift + 4) of the image, and attaching the screenshot to the email. In this case, the screenshot displays fully, showing the image within the email.


Switch off... Edit > Substitutions > Smart Links.


Those are rebuilt automatically if they are missing:

Desktop DB
Desktop DF
Trash

To test it, just use an external disk, copy those files on a HFS partitioned volume, press option on reboot to select the start volume.


You have several possibilities.

The easiest for you would be probably be using Screenflow. It allows you to record what happens on the screen (the presentation) AND the camera input. It also allows you to do some simple post-production, like focusing on the screen or on the camera.


How to reset OS X volume after sleep using launchd?

The second launchd job ticket format is almost correct. Only a set of quotes need removing.

Quotes

The quotes are no longer needed in the second launchd job ticket, so change:

<string>"set volume output volume 0"</string>

…to…

<string>set volume output volume 0</string>

Grouping Arguments

In this case, the quotes grouped the set of arguments for osascript to see as one item. Thus osascript gets two arguments, the flag -e and the script. This meets the requirements from the osascript manual.

When called through Terminal.app and thus through the shell, the quotes are needed to perform the grouping. When osascript gets the arguments, the shell has removed the quotes.

Without quotes, spaces subdivide each item passed via the shell.

When called through a launchd job ticket, the grouping is intrinsic within the array passed as ProgramArguments. In your first ticket, the array contained nine items and in the second ticket, the array contained three.

LaunchAgent

Be sure to add this launchd job as a ~/Library/LaunchAgents as osascript requires an active user with a graphical session.

This approach approximates what I do with Power Manager in How to Set the Volume When Logging In.


How can I process/read checkmarks on a paper form?

If you want to avoid OCR, you can use ImageMagick (a CLI image-manipulation super toolset). But you need to be shure all pages are aligned exactly the same.
I hacked together this workflow, you need to alter it for your needs and create some loops, but it can help you in the right direction.

Make shure the position of each round is the same on each sheet

Extract each round and save it with the row_circle-nr (like 04_1.png, 04_2.png, etc)

x=$position_of_circle_on_x
y=$position_of_circle_on_y
w=$width_of_circle_area
h=$hight_of_circle_area
input=$input_image
output=$output_row_cirleNr
convert +repage $input -crop $wx$h+$x+$y $output

Calculate the area of red using histograms
(I prefer red, but you can also do this for blacks)

RGBO=$( convert $FILE -colorspace HSL -verbose info: | grep mean | awk '{print $2}' )
REDVALUE=$( echo $RGBO | awk '{print $1}'  | cut -d. -f1 )

The largest REDVALUE wins for each row

Well, this is about it.

How to install imagemagick?

The use and installation of ImageMagick can intimidating, but this image manipulation package is the most powerfull I have encountered so far. As the installation from source can be a hassle for native OS X users I advise you to use Homebrew.

To install ImageMagick using Homebrew run this oneliner in your terminal:

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

Homebrew is now installed, it is wise to follow the installer's suggestions after installation. Now we install ImageMagick using brew.

brew install imagemagick

Now we can use imagemagick and its convert tool as in the examples above.


Does anybody use an external battery for iPhone?

Yes - and most people I know fit into strongly preferring a rechargeable solution when they use the device regularly to extend power on the go.

Those that use the device occasionally or on long trips seem to gravitate to an inexpensive sled for AA batteries and carry a mix of expensive lithium cells and typical non-rechargeable cells.


Can I force password protection of specific apps on the iPad?

That's not a general feature of iOS. You can lock the entire device, but not certain applications.

The iPad mail app does not have this as a specific feature either - when adding an account you must store the password so it can check for new mail in the background.

There are some third party apps for iPad that require a password to access them but I'm not aware of an email app with this feature. But it might be worth a search.


AirDrop between Mid-2013 MacBook Air and iPhone 6S not working

I also suffered from the same problem, although wifi + bluetooth are in the on state in both devices, finder window was empty.

But when I tried to send a photo from my iphone to macbook, suddenly my iphone identified & shown in finder.

My devices

MacBook Pro 2012 Mid -El Capitan (10.11)
iPhone 5 - iOS 9.3.1


Podcast App not downloading episodes to IPhone

I had the same problem. I restarted the phone, cancelled the pending downloads and then started the downloads again and it seems to be working. Feel like I'm working with a Microsoft product :(


It was custom installed by MongoDB, this the default folder for writing database. So it has nothing to do with OSX.


How to programmatically find the latest version number of Homebrew?

I personally do not use Homebrew, so if there is a way using brew itself to get the latest version number available online, I don't know it.

Note that since Jun 27, 2012 and version 0.9.1 of Homebrew, the version numbering has maintained a set typical pattern of major.minor.maintenance, using only numbers separated by a period. So this is relatively easy to test that values returned from the command substitutions used to assign them to both the installed version and the latest release version variables follow this pattern.

Once tested, the version strings are converted to numbers so that a binary comparison can determine if the installed version is less than the latest release version, at which point one can take appropriate action.

The following bash script is an example of how one might code it:

#!/bin/bash

    # Get installed version number and latest release version number.

localHomebrewVersion="$(brew --version | awk '/Homebrew [0-9]/{print $2}')"
latestHomebrewRelease="$(curl -sL https://api.github.com/repos/Homebrew/brew/releases/latest | ruby -rjson -e 'puts JSON.parse($<.read)["name"]')"

    # Test that both variables hold the expected pattern.

if [[ $localHomebrewVersion =~ [0-9]\.[0-9]{1,2}\.[0-9]{1,2} ]] && [[ $latestHomebrewRelease =~ [0-9]\.[0-9]{1,2}\.[0-9]{1,2} ]]; then

        # Function used to convert string version numbers to numeric values for testing.

    function version { echo "$@" | awk -F. '{ printf("%d%03d%03d%03d", $1,$2,$3,$4); }'; }

        # Test to see if the installed version number is less than the latest release version.

    if [[ $(version $localHomebrewVersion) -lt $(version $latestHomebrewRelease) ]]; then
        brew update
    else
        echo "Homebrew is already up-to-date."
    fi

else
        # One or both of the command substitutions '$(...)' returned unexpected output for the version variables.

    echo "At least one of the version variables contains an unexpected value."
fi

Note: I've incorporated the command suggested in Synoli's comment to assign to the latestHomebrewRelease variable, as it certainly appears to be a more stable method to get the latest release version information.

Update: Added a test to see the version variables contain the expected pattern before testing if the installed version is less than the latest release version.


9GB com.apple.coresymbolicationd file in Caches

No. Rebooting doesn't clear cache files in system. You would need to dig into exactly which subsystem creates here caches and determine of there is a way to manually flush them or move them to trash and then reboot to see when/how/what size they get recreated.

I would boot to single user mode and use rm to clear that file since nothing is using it then. You could also use sudo mv /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.coresymbolicationd/data /tmp and then reboot. After the reboot you can delete the file from /tmp with sudo rm /tmp/data.

My hunch is you have Xcode installed and have introduced a large number of symbols into your database from one or more iOS versions so that Xcode can symbolicate crash dumps to assist in debugging apps using Xcode. However, it could also be a bug and whenever that subsystem starts recycling the cache, it will clear itself. If you can limit the number of SDK you use in Xcode, that might help as well. My feeling is the people with 60m files don't use Xcode, those with 1MB developer for one version of iOS at a time and those with larger size databases have multiple OS X and iOS SDK activated from within Xcode.


Home folder has two Desktops within it - can one be deleted?

The ~/Desktop folder is the one you should keep since it contains your actual desktop. It should be the one with Apple's Desktop folder icon on it.

The ~/Desktop (original) (I presume the original is in brackets) is from Migration Assistant (and/or Time Machine) unless you manually created it yourself. You can take out files that you need and place them elsewhere, then delete the folder.


You didn't describe what kind of Mac it is, but I'll assume an iMac or MacBook of some flavor. If you had a Mac Mini or a Pro with a third party monitor then you probably wouldn't be asking this question.

You can't do exactly what you want with an iMac, but if you use "Apple Remote Desktop" (App Store, $80) you can lock the screen so anybody sitting at your computer can't see what you are doing. This doesn't seem to be possible with the built in screen sharing.

The Apple Remote Desktop option is more secure, since you can't be sure that nobody turned your PC monitor on after you leave work.


What are the differences between Apple Thunderbolt Displays during their production years from 2011 to 2016?

Only two "models" have been produced:

MC914LL/A (July 2011 - ~July 2012)
MC914LL/B (July 2012 - June 2016)

The only difference between the two models is an additional MagSafe to MagSafe 2 converter which was shipped with the latter model. It allows to charge MagSafe 2-equipped Mac computer. The actual displays are the same.


"Pending purchase and activation.." how much time will it take to activate iOS developer program?

According to Apple the activation should be emailed to you in no more than 24 hours after purchase.

"If it has been more than 24 hours and you have not received your email, please contact us."

https://developer.apple.com/support/ios/purchase-and-next-steps.html


What sub-format of Word document does Pages use for export?

I just tried this out – The following happened.

WRONGE way:
Open a new document in Pages, File -> Export To (Word..) -> Advanced Options -> Choose .docx format.
LibreOffice crashes everytime I try to open the file.

RIGHT way:
Open a new document in Pages, File -> Export To (Word..) -> Advanced Options -> Choose .doc format.
Then it opens fine in LibreOffice.

NOTE: This was tested in Pages version 5.0

PS: Didnt see the post before me. Sorry about that.

PPS: It seems you are trying to open a specific format, but the problem is really the way you export it in the first place. Please write if you can't export in .doc format.


Is it possible to disable CPU throttling on a MacBook Pro with a completely dead (not recognized) battery?

Not practically. You're better off selling the computer for parts or getting a replacement battery / having the Mac serviced by a professional.

Non user replaceable batteries are very vulnerable to damage and lithium battery fires are no joke. Even global companies have struggled with making safe products from brand new parts (galaxy 7) so please don't cut corners on safety when Apple batteries are involved - especially with repair parts or unauthorized / uninsured repair shops.


Prevent Adium logout when locking screen on OSX 10.8.2

That behavior is determined by the settings in the Status pane of Adium preferences.  Specifically, it's determined by the "When Screen Saver is activated, set:" preference.  Check to make sure that's not set to "Offline".


I'd recommend not allocating any GUI elements until after the command line input is finished.

If you run your app from a non-fullscreen Terminal, you'll probably notice that the app launches in the Dock (even if no windows appear) before you finish entering your command line stuff. This is probably what's causing the Space-switch.


iMac 10.6.8 pointing fail with Bluetooth enabled

Problem solved!

First, the underlying cause MAY have been an unusual circumstance: a smartphone (Galaxy Android) was placed next to the iMac, turned on and with Bluetooth enabled, and left for hours to charge.  Could this proximity have resulted in the Mac getting some strange Bluetooth input?

Fix:  Using the temporarily-installed mouse and keyboard, I removed the existing Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad entries. (I just removed every Bluetooth device.)  Then I used the standard procedure to re-pair the wireless keyboard and trackpad.

After removing all Bluetooth devices, I could not get the Mac to detect any Bluetooth devices until I restarted the Mac, at which point device detection and pairing worked flawlessly.

My best --and admittedly ignorant, sketchy-- theory:   Some mal-formed event got stuck in the Bluetooth input stream, causing the trackpad up and/or down states to be hyper-sticky.  That event couldn't be cleared without removing the originating device and re-pairing.

HTH


Can I create a shortcut to type a short sequence of characters?

You can do it from the substitutions list in System Prefs > Keyboard > Text, as in the example below.

The brackets are there in the example purely to make it file to the top [otherwise it gets mixed in with all my personal ones & I'd have to blur them all out]

Just hit the + button at the bottom, type to enter your trigger, then double click in the result field & type your desired output string. If you copy/paste into the output string, you can include carriage returns, for a full postal address etc, but you can't insert them manually.

Once setup, as soon as you hit the spacebar after a trigger keyword, it will auto-replace. Toggling 'correct spelling automatically' will change whether it suggests it to you before you've finished typing or not - as soon as it's recognised the correct replacement, space will trigger it, if 'auto' is on.

To avoid triggers which would otherwise be possibly confusing I always use ncsomething, historically because my originals used to be stored on NoteCards, but also now because I know of no word in English that starts with nc. So ncemail generates my email address, ncmobile for my phone number etc etc...

I've found over the years that using a distinct word is easier to remember than a very short abbreviation, unless it's one you use a lot.

As a bonus, you can also use it for spelling mistakes that aren't usually picked up by the normal spell-checker…
For example I frequently type pice instead of piece; for some reason spellcheck never picks that up so now it's in my substitutions list.
iCould is also one that gets past the checker, so I have one to fix that too, back to iCloud

Any changes you make to the substitutions list are 'live' immediately, you don't even need to close the window.


OS X El Capitan installation error: AMD-Action:authenticate:SP

The problem was that the old Mac did not have its date set correctly.

Hold Option (ALT) + Command + R at Mac startup to start internet recovery
Going into Utilities > Terminal starts the recovery terminal
Run date mmddHHMMyy - this solves the problem (date must be in PST!)
Run csrutil enable
Run csrutil clear
Exit the recovery terminal and continue OS X installation normally.

Here is the full step-by-step solution to solve the problem.


Safari on iOS crashes whenever I try to type anything into the search field

Deleting my history fixed it for me.

Safari > Bookmarks icon > History tab > Clear

Something in my history was poisoning the search results, and causing Safari to choke whenever you trying to type something into the search field. Since Safari tries to suggest pages that you’ve visited before, if a bad site shows up there, it can (presumably) cause things to go wrong.

In my case, the problem site was particularly bizarre. I dumped a copy of my Safari History using iExplorer before I wiped it, and started looking for unusual entries. These two stood out to me:

Title                 URL                      Visits  Last Visited
Cannot Open Page      <long Facebook url>      -7      14 Aug 2015, 17:16
Cannot Open Page      <long Facebook url>      1       14 Aug 2015, 17:12

The Facebook URL is an authentication page that was apparently launched by an iOS game. I don’t understand how it can be last visited in the future (that date is nearly two months after the problem started) or have negative visits.

I’m genuinely mystified as to how that item entered my history – I barely play the game in question, and I’ve never messed about with the date/time settings on my phone. And I have no idea how you get negative visits – possibly some sort of overflow somewhere?

I think it’s likely that this item was the culprit, but how and why are total mysteries.


As stated on a different answer, and I am not quite sure why it was downvoted, the first thing to look for is "bluetooth and 2.4 GHz interference". Make a simple test to switch to a 5GHz Wifi network, and try your Sony Bluetooth speaker once again.


Just to add to the first answer, yes you can use it as a shared drive (I do) It will also work with PC's not just Macs, so for example if someone came round your house with a Dell laptop you could give them access to it.

This is a great way to share photos with friends, and also a good way to back up a PC as you will not be able to use Time Machine.

To answer the hardware issue, you will not need any additional hardware providing your computers have WiFi cards if not then you will need a WiFi adapter, or you could connect via ETHERNET.


How to remotely access a Mac from my iOS app?

I'm assuming that you're an application developer since you said "my iPad app".

SSH works over standard TCP, it does not require jailbreaking, so you could use that (Here's a library to use SSH with: https://github.com/Lejdborg/NMSSH). You'll just need to enable SSH (Remote Login) in the Sharing settings of the OS X computer. I'm not aware of any other non-proprietary services you can use that is built into a Mac to execute commands on it remotely. You could alternatively run your own service running on the Mac to remotely control it.

If all you need is file access, you can use AFP (Apple File Protocol) or SMB (Server Message Block) through File Sharing in Sharing settings in OS X. Or SFTP through Remote Login. You can find example client implementations of those online.


Will iRig connect my electronic guitar to my MacBook Pro?

If your Macbook Pro has the single 3.5mm jack that can take input and output then iRig should work just fine for you.
Someone asked a similar question here. If you're looking for something ultra cheap you could always get a 1/4" to 3.5mm adaptor to plug your guitar into your Mac. I did this for a very long time until I could afford higher quality hardware. These things run as low as $2 at some places, here is one for example. Hope this helps!


How to nuke OSX birthday notifications once and for all?

The notifications are separate to the visibility of the calendar.

Open Calendar Preferences → Alerts, then for each account, set Birthdays to None.


How to disable mouse acceleration in Yosemite?

It turns out Yosemite enables mouse acceleration by default. it can be disabled by typing this in terminal:

defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling -1

After changing this setting in Terminal, you'll need to logout and log back in to your Mac.  Relaunching Finder will work too (option + right-click on Finder icon in dock -> Relaunch)


Has anyone turned off FileVault after it has completed?

Just go to System Preferences, click on Security, then FileVault then click the button that says turn off FileVault. But if you have it on, I would recommend leaving it on. It increases your security, and may take a while to turn off (decrypt) your files, but it's your choice.


Why would the "Enable LTE" option be missing in an iPhone 5?

The LTE toggle shows up when your carrier settings indicate LTE is available for your device.

If you have data, you can update OTA by going to Settings > General > About and waiting (or tapping on your current carrier settings to see the details).

A tethered check is also available by connecting your iPhone to iTunes and checking for an updated carrier profile for your provider. If there isn't, the most likely explanation is that your provider has not enabled LTE in their carrier settings. If so, contact your provider on whether any LTE (even if not theirs) will work on your iPhone.


How do I show Apple Maps turn-by-turn navigation for public transport on my lock screen and Apple Watch?

Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone.

Tap My Watch, then tap Maps.

Turn on the alerts you want to receive—Driving, Driving with CarPlay, and Walking.

Turn on Transport option under Show Navigation. If it is ON already, then turn OFF and turn ON again.
It should resolve your issue.


What is the best way to make a conference call/broadcast video from an iPhone?

For broadcasting the video, you can use Qik. It will allow for live interaction during the broadcast over chat. Here's the iOS app.


Activity Monitor
If you just want a live view of system activity, keep Activity Monitor open and change its Dock icon to CPU to see if cores are busy. You may of course open it and see what is hogging the memory/ disk/ CPU.
You can either enable memory column in CPU tab, or CPU column in memory tab to keep a tab :) on processes.

Last time I had such a slowdown, it was spotlight processes consuming massive memory. I killed it.
Instruments.app
It is bundled with Xcode app which you say you have. It has an instrument called Activity Monitor which will store the information of all processes, network, disk speed for as long as it is run. Activity Monitor app will not store anything.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200620073428/https://help.apple.com/instruments/mac/current/#/devc63117d3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruments_(software)#References

Safe Mode or new user account
Not a logging method, but can help isolate issues with kernel extensions, buggy apps or anything else.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262#issue


Save as PDF from Word makes pixelated PDF in Acrobat but not Preview

Well, OS X has built in font-rendering that Preview uses, which tends to look pretty great.

Adobe Acrobat must be using their own custom software to render fonts that isn't as good.  Unfortunately, it is up to Adobe to fix their font rendering.  You might want to look for an Acrobat setting that enables anti-aliasing which might help.


The delay is most likely to be within the notification centre; the notifyd service is not time critical.

Consider using a process observing IOKit level notifications. At the IOKit layer notifications are immediately dispatched and designed for processes reacting to hardware changes.

Trying using Growl and the HardwareGrowler addition to trigger your script.


Sync iTunes U between 2 Macs via an iPod

Actually, there is a way you can sync your device to more than one iTunes library in different computers. The trick is making the device believe that it is the same library.

Each library has an associated identifier. By modifying one of the libraries and putting the id of the other, you will accomplish that.

In order to do so, select one of the computers, the one that you are currently syncing with, and find out its identifier. Look for a file called iTunes Music Library.xml. In a Mac, this file is in the ~/Music/iTunes directory (though I think it can vary depending on what version of iTunes it was created with). In a PC, I guess it must be somewhere under the My Documents folder.

Open it with a text editor and find out a line which reads like

<key>Library Persistent ID</key><string>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</string>

where the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX will be the identifier for that library.

Now, on the second computer, find out the same file, and, after making a backup (just in case), and making sure iTunes is not running, copy the identifier to a new document, because we'll need it shortly, and then replace it with the identifier from the first computer. Now, we're halfway done. The following step is the difficult one.

With a hex editor (which is an editor that allows editing the bytes of a binary file; my PC using mates recommend Ultraedit, while I on the Mac like HexFiend), open a file called iTunes Library in the same directory (remember, make a backup first), and do a search for the same string (or rather, byte string) that you copied and replace it with the new one from the first computer.

After performing these steps, you should be able to sync both computers with the same device without problems.


How can I send a multi part mime email from my mac

Mail.app sends a multipart mime email with hrml and plain text alternatives if you select Format->make Rich text


Mountain Lion 10.8 cmd+shif+arrow key bindings not working

Found the answer here http://heisencoder.net/2008/04/fixing-up-mac-key-bindings-for-windows.html

it seems Cocoa doesn't like the $ to be infront of the @


What is the difference between a Mac mini and a Mac mini server (late-2012)?

You have to decide what you want in terms of storage, performance and OS since there is no option to have 2x1TB drives in the $799 model and there's no option to have a 1TB Fusion Drive in the $999 model.

Essentially, you're paying $200 more to get OS X Server and for the ability to have a second hard drive (doing it yourself is an option if you can follow guides on iFixit and have the tools and accessories required).

Choose the $799 model with:

A 1TB Fusion Drive - $250
OS X Server - $19.99

Total: $1068.99 (but you'll have a faster drive but half the storage space of the default $999 model).

Choose the $799 model with the default 1TB drive:

add another 1TB 2.5" 5400 rpm drive - about $80+ (approximate cost from newegg)
OS X Server - $19.99
The Mac mini Dual Hard Drive kit from iFixit - $49.95

Total: $948.94
Hassle of doing it yourself: Priceless


How do I permanently delete fontbook from mac (Sierra OS)?

There are instructions for removing font book on this page

http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html#fontfolderlocations

If you just want it hidden, there's always a chflags command to hide it. You need to bypass SIP restrictions on that folder before you can delete or change the flags to hide it, so it's not going to be quicker than removing it - just easier to undo if you find you or another program needs it at a later date.

ls -laO / && ls -laO /Applications | grep Font

The first listing shows the variety of flags (hidden, sunlink, restricted, uchg) and the second shows Font Book is restricted from change even by root.

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/system-integrity-protection-adding-another-layer-to-apples-security-model/


Finder Enhancement - Customize Icon for filetype

This works for PDFs, and many other types of documents because the OS X Quick Look Framework can natively read those filetypes. All other filetypes get just an icon rather than a preview. Best guess is that that framework doesn't support .mobi files.

Without native support from Apple, your best bet for .mobi (and any other unsupported file format), is to look for a plugin. A quick Google search turned up this. I don't have any .mobi files to test it on, but it's worth a shot.

Generic QuickLook Plugin installation guide here. Good luck!


Lost Apple ID password and security questions and answers

Regain access to the account by following the steps at iforgot.apple.com.


As for macOS Notifications in System Preferences, can I restore the app which I deleted?

This works for me!!
But I think that there is no Not In Notification Center is a bug, so I will post in the Apple's bug tracker system.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/51784565/7824640


Does Notational Velocity/nvALT securely sync with Simplenote?

The Notational Velocity FAQ appears contradictory:

How does encryption work in conjunction with Simplenote?
If database encryption is enabled under Preferences > Notes > Security, then your notes will be encrypted on disk. However, they will still be sent to Simplenote without encryption. (And obviously Notational Velocity will always use SSL regardless.)

It seems to say that the encrypted DB will be decrypted and then re-encrypted with SSL. So Simplenote will be able to see your notes after they receive and decrypt, but an eavesdropper would not.


MacBook Air with small SSD, BootCamp, Windows 7. Can I use an external hard disk for dual boot?

Since you must boot Windows 7 from the internal SSD, and since you also want to run Mac OS X from the same volume, I recommend that you concentrate on cleaning out your existing Mac OS X system and freeing up as much disk space as possible.

You should research on how to make the smallest Windows installation possible, so you can create the smallest BootCamp partition possible. From what I can see, you could do with as little as 12GB if you are meticulous.

For instance, once Windows is installed, you can permanently disable hyberfil.sys and reduce or limit the size of pagefile.sys, and this will save you many GB.

I would also look into the differences between the size of the installation in Windows 7 32-bit versus 64-bit, and see if Windows 7 Ultimate takes up a great deal more space than Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Home Premium (I suspect it does). You will want to refrain from installing any features of Windows that you decide you don't need, and you will want to make sure that you don't install any Windows applications that you don't absolutely need.

Here are some links to discussions I found. I cannot vouch for any of these methods.

Reference One at Tom's Hardware

Reference Two at Microsoft TechNet

There is a utility for reducing the size of a Windows installation before you actually install it. It is called vLite. It is not exactly kosher and has its detractors. I have no personal experience with it. To use it, you need a working Windows system to configure a special custom installer DVD that vLite helps you create.

Reference Three, a discussion of the benefits of vLite and how many GB you can save.

Regardless, you are going to have to wipe the internal drive on your MacBook Air and try different partitioning schemes, so you must have yet another a large external hard drive for making backups of the system you already have. Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!.

On the Mac side, there is a lot you can do to reduce the size of your Mac OS X partition by removing components of Lion that you do not need.

Make a complete backup disk image first before you start deleting things!

Similarly, it is possible to permanently delete the Mac OS X sleepimage file, which will save you the same amount of disk space as the amount of RAM that you have.

Information about sleepimage file

SmartSleep utility for controlling the sleepimage file

Delete the contents of /Library/Printers, which could be several GB, and when you restart your Mac, Lion will prompt you to download only the drivers for the printers you actually use.

You should completely remove any applications in iLife that you don't use, including all their support files in the /Library/ folder. iDVD, GarageBand and iPhoto have many GB of support files, themes, templates, and audio files, and if you don't use any one of those programs, you can clean out that disk space.

Utilities such as MonoLingual can remove more than 1GB from your Mac OS X installation by removing all the files for languages (Spanish, French, German, etc.) that you will not use.

Use OmniDiskSweeper or WhatSize to examine your Mac OS X installation and look for user documents that you feel safe in archiving and removing, or deleting.

There is an analogous freeware tool for Windows called WinDirStat.


How to get macOS Wi-Fi device name programmatically in Bash script?

In your question I know you used networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder however I'd use networksetup -listallhardwareports instead as it's easier to parse the output using awk, by itself, with a minimum of coding so as to avoid multiple pipes using several other commands as offered in the other answer and should be robust enough to produce consistent output until Apple changes the output format of networksetup -listallhardwareports, if they ever do.

As an example on my system, networksetup -listallhardwareports shows the following:

$ networksetup -listallhardwareports

Hardware Port: Bluetooth DUN
Device: Bluetooth-Modem
Ethernet Address: N/A

Hardware Port: Display Ethernet
Device: en3
Ethernet Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Hardware Port: Display FireWire
Device: fw0
Ethernet Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Hardware Port: Wi-Fi
Device: en0
Ethernet Address: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

Hardware Port: Bluetooth PAN
Device: en2
Ethernet Address: N/A

VLAN Configurations
===================
$

Looking at the relevant lines of output:

Hardware Port: Wi-Fi
Device: en0

The easiest way to get en0, in this example is:

networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}'

It can be assigned to a variable:

wifiDevice="$(networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}')"

You can then use $wifiDevice later in the script to represent en0, in this example.

Obviously on your system, based on the output in your question, $wifiDevice would be: en1

If you want to use networksetup -listnetworkserviceorderthen you can use awk, by itself, in this manner:

networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder | awk '{gsub(/\)/, "")}/Wi-Fi, Device/{print $5}'

However, I'd use my first example over this.

I'd also stay away from using system_profiler in this case, as it takes considerably longer for the output to be generated then when using networksetup.


How many times can I submit my app to iTunes Connect?

I'm not aware of any documented maximum number of times you can submit an app for review (source: App Store Review Guidelines).

The Review team will take the most-recent review request and start their review process, based on my experience over a few years.  When you submit a new version for review, the previous version is no longer eligible for review.

The only time you need to be concerned is when the review has already started (you've been notified that it's started) and then you want to do an update.  To avoid this situation, just be sure you really want them to do the review and your app is ready before you tap the 'submit' button.


My iPhone 3G won't receive data (using WiFi)

This means that the device was unable to get an IP address via DHCP. The router may need to be rebooted itself, or it may not be set up to hand out IP information via DHCP and your iPhone will have to be set up statically. Check with the administrator of that wifi network for exact details. If it's your own, double check DHCP is enabled for your router, and if so, perform a hard reboot of the device.

Additionally, it never hurts to reboot your iPhone as well.

Should the problems persist, there may be a problem with the phone software or hardware. Restore the operating system on the phone, and try again. Should it still fail, my suggestion would be to take it to some Apple authorized repair depot for diagnostics.


Prevent EarPod play/pause button from activating Siri on macOS Sierra

It may be related to the fact that although you "disable" Siri, the process is still running. You can easily see that in the Activity Monitor, by searching for Siri.

If you try to kill it, it will be restarted by launchd. To stop the automatic restart, disable it by editing /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Siri.plist and setting Disabled to false.

To do that, you first need to disable SIP (system integrity protection), edit /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Siri.plist, then enable SIP.


Network sharing using AFP command line: mount_afp: AFPMountURL returned error 2, errno is 2

Turns out /home/me wasn't the share name on my-server - just the local path.   It is actually "me's home".  I went in to the server and changed that behavior in /etc/afp.conf


Which terminal window app allows for multiple panes and click to open new window

Acme in Plan9.

There's a macOS version available.

If you want this video Ori actually talks through and explains how to change and edit how the editor behaves: Plan 9: Not dead, Just Resting, by Ori Bernstein


Minimum required specs of a Mac for iOS App development

Xcode 10 is available in the Mac App Store and includes SDKs for iOS 12, watchOS 5, macOS 10.14, and tvOS 12. Xcode 10 supports on-device debugging for iOS 8 and later, tvOS 9 and later, and watchOS 2 and later. Xcode 10 requires a Mac running macOS 10.13.6 or later.

Any 64-bit Mac with 8 GB of RAM and at least 200GB of disk space should do, if you don't care much about your time (compiles can be slow).

If I were scraping rock bottom, I would head over to https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac and wait for an 8 GB Mac Mini to show up. Check every morning around 8 AM PDT and again at 5 PM PDT. Be patient...which will prepare you for compiles that take 10 minutes each turn, but it'll work.

You'll still need a keyboard, mouse and monitor obviously, but you can get those at Best Buy refurbished. Also, consider Craigslist.org and any other site where you can buy used Macs.


Changing autocorrect settings on Macbook Pro, shortcut does not work, cannot access dictionary (easily), can I just reset autocorrect?

The file is ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary
You can open it in TextEdit & add or remove words.

Quick way to get there, if you're not sure…

From Finder, hit  Cmd ⌘   N  for New Window
Hit  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   G  for Go…
Paste ~/Library/Spelling/LocalDictionary [including the tilde ~]

On the other hand - the fastest way to type your email address is how you almost did it… in System Prefs > Keyboard > Text

use myeml as the trigger & your full (correct;) email address as the auto-replace.
Works in iOS too.


Welcome to Ask Different!

I hope I am wrong but I don't think the answer for Numbers has changed ("in general, there is no practical way of doing it outside text boxes") since this question and its answer were posted a few years ago.


How can I display iPad content fullscreen with HDMI on a TV?

There are apps that detect if your iPad is mirrored to an external device via HDMI and adjust to fit accordingly.  For example, the official Netflix app outputs the original aspect ratio to the external screen.  The device displays the message "Now playing on your TV" as noted in the attached screen shot.  The TV displays the show at the proper aspect ratio depending on its settings.

Keynote and other apps work similarly.  It would depend largely on the aspect ratio of the TV show or Movie being played.


How do I use a keyboard shortcut to execute a shell script I wrote, passing the file selected in Finder as an arg?

Use Automator. Generate a .app. A keyboard shortcut can launch the app, and Automator knows how to grab the Finder selections, which it can then pass to the shell script.


I don't want to use iMessage on an iOS 11 phone. How do I turn it off?

Turn off iMessage by going to Settings>Messages and switching off iMessage.

Then make sure "MMS Messagging" is turned on.

For more information check here:

  Deregister iMessage on your iPhone

  If you still have your iPhone, you can deregister iMessage with these steps:

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


My "Date and Time" time is a minute off of the official time

The use of ntpdate is considered deprecated. Most would recommend using ntpd instead, which is what the underlying system uses.

First, check in the "Date & Time" System Preferences pane that you have "Set date and time automatically" checked and have selected a time server. then try sudo ntpd -g in the terminal.

If this doesn't work then I would suspect a firewall issue on your network. You don't say if this is happening at work or home or regardless of location.


How to export all the raw media from iMovie libraries?

Go to your Movie directory
Right-click on iMovie-Mediathek
Left-click on "show package content"
And there you can find the raw data


Trying to transfer photos from iPhone 5S to Windows 8.1 machine; only about 25 of the 1000+ photos show up in file explorer

Try using Photo Gallery [part of Windows Essentials] which can download photos very similarly to how iPhoto does it - rather than trying to hack around the raw file structure, which was never meant to be played in.


How do I set my computer to restart in the last operating system

The answer is it was never worked that way. If you want it to work that way, you have to install a boot manager.  The most common free one is call rEFInd. Most people install this software in the OS X partition, but this can lead to problems when you install updates. I installed rEFInd in its own partition to avoid such problems.

I would go with @ryebread's answer and just use either "Startup Disk" on OS X System Preferences or "Boot Camp" menu on Windows Control Panel. An example of this is shown below. Here, Windows is set as startup.

If I want to switch to OS X, then I need to click on the OS X icon to highlight it. This is shown below.

I am now set to boot to OS X. There is no need to do a Restart. I can just close the window.

(Actually in practice, you will probably end up selecting the Restart button.)

Update 1:

If you want to boot from OS X to Windows while leaving OS X as the default, then you would need to enter the bless command from a Terminal application window. Or, you can create a script launched as a Service via the Automator application. An example script is given here.

Update 2:

After some testing, I found if no system is highlighted in the Startup Disk window, then the computer always boots to OS X. I am not sure what your computer was doing originally. I think what you want is for the computer to always boot to the last operating system  that ran. If this is true, then rEFInd is probably the best way to go. On my computer, rEFInd only occupies 6 MB of space. If you need help installing, let me know.

BTW, I removed the highlighting by blessing a flash drive.


Cannot delete partition (minus greyed out) - non-encrypted, no core storage

Ok, I figured out an alternative method - I was able to combine the partitions using the diskutil mergePartitions command (e.g. diskutil mergePartitions JHFS+ MacHD disk0s2 disk0s4).  Hope that helps anyone else with the same issue!


sudo asks for the admin password only if you haven't used the command in the last 15 minutes or so. For extended root sessions I usually run sudo -s to create a new shell with root privileges.


How to keep an application on top of all windows using AppleScript?

Method 1: SystemUIServer

After hours of searching online and testing out various solutions, I've found one method to keep a running AppleScript on top of all windows. The method is provided in post #2 of this MacScripter.net thread.

Here is the code:

tell application "SystemUIServer"
   activate
end tell

I placed my entire AppleScript code within the above tell statement. This worked perfectly on the first dialog, but, unfortunately, this caused an error soon after progressing through the AppleScript.

What I had to do was manually encapsulate every dialog in its own tell statement. For every instance of:

choose from list
display alert
display dialog

I had to add a statement. I have countless dialogs embedded in the AppleScript in question, so this took me several hours to complete.

So, this is not a great answer, as it is potentially very laborious. Ideally, one could insert the SystemUIServer statement just once in their code and be done with it.

A note on the default timeout:

If you encapsulate a dialog within the above tell block, by default, the script will timeout if the user does not click a button within 2 minutes. When this timeout occurs, the script will be cancelled. The user will be given the following error:

  SystemUIServer got an error: AppleEvent timed out.

(Strangely enough, however, even after the user closes this error dialog, the original dialog will still remain pinned to the top until the user clicks a button on the dialog.)

Here's the relevant description from the AppleScript documentation for with timeout:

  When a command fails to complete in the allotted time (whether the default of two minutes, or a time set by a with timeout statement), AppleScript stops running the script and returns the error "event timed out". AppleScript does not cancel the operation—it merely stops execution of the script. If you want the script to continue, you can wrap the statements in a try statement. However, whether your script can send a command to cancel an offending lengthy operation after a timeout is dependent on the application that is performing the command.

Hence, if you do not want to have a timeout affect your dialogs, then do the following:

tell application "SystemUIServer"
    with timeout of 999999 seconds
       activate
        display dialog "Hello World"
    end timeout
end tell

A note on input dialogs:

Method 1 does not work properly with a display dialog that has a text field (i.e., default answer "").

While the dialog is kept on top of all other windows, if the user clicks anywhere outside of the bounds of the dialog, the user will not be able to type text in the text box. The blinking text cursor will permanently disappear.

The top bar of the dialog box immediately turns white when the user clicks out of the dialog. It is not possible to get the bar to return to the dark grey color (which reflects a foreground/active state), so that text can be typed.

The user will still be able to press any buttons in the dialog, but the primary function of the dialog, i.e., to get a text input from the user, will be seriously hampered.

In short, I do not recommend including input dialogs in a SystemUIServer tell block.

Method 2: FastScripts app

Another way to keep every dialog of an AppleScript file pinned on top of all other windows is to use a third-party application entitled FastScripts to trigger the script files. FastScripts keeps all dialogs pinned on top by default, which is very helpful. I don't even know if this feature can be disabled (if you wanted to turn it off; I don't).

FastScripts can launch a .scpt file via either a custom keyboard shortcut or manually (simply click on the FastScripts icon in the menu bar to be presented with a drop-down list of your scripts).

(I know that when I asked this question originally, I specified that the AppleScript was saved as an .app file. But, an AppleScript .app file can be converted to an AppleScript .scpt file easily and in little time.)

Of course, this method is appealing because one does not need to edit one bit of their AppleScript code for the desired effect to be implemented. FastScripts does all of the hard work.


How to find if a second-hand iPhone is stolen after purchase?

Restoring an iOS device will remove any record of a previous owner on the device.

If the device was purchased from an Apple Store, then Apple may have record of it being set up even if Find My iPhone. This also applies to other retailers, however I am not certain if this is possible.


While setting up the Calendar, when my wifi was disconnected I got the same message. Then I used my 3G modem for fast and continuous connection. It resolved the issue.


Activate the frontmost Safari and run Javascript

Your script is trying to tell s.th. to a Safari application allegedly already "frontmost". Is it?!?
You can only identify or activate an unknown element by property ("whose ... is ...")
This will do: the first application whose ...

If you WANT "Safari" to become "frontmost" you'd  better write:

tell application "Safari"
    activate
    do JavaScript theScript in current tab of first window
end tell


Use a USB sound card with multiple input lines in apps like Skype or Dictation?

In Audio Midi Setup, you may have the choice of which is the primary input in non-ASIO applications…

Alternatively, it might be possible to rearrange the inputs if you use an Aggregate device

I've only used Aggregates for testing, experimentation, so I'm no expert - but it appears you can renumber the channel order by clicking the individual channels in the top section.


How do Apple Enterprise certificates and their expiration dates work?

Edit:  I don’t know about enterprise certs what i said applies to normal developers but my understanding is that it is the same.

Certificate ls always expire in the date they say they will expire.  Your provisioning profile isn’t really important, you can delete and create them at will when ever you want. If you do not renew the $299 you cannot generate a new cert after your renew date.  Which means you won’t be able to create provisioning profiles either.

You can create new certs and provisioning profiles as often as you would like until your membership ends so these dates don’t really mean much. If both expire and you are still a member just create new ones.


I use a USB 3.0 enclosure that has 4 disks in RAID 10 to store my very large iTunes Media library.

However, any external drive will work. Simply point iTunes to use the external drive.


How can I use LaCie USB Key "Private Volumes" with 10.6.8/10.7?

To use La-Private OSX Lion users must download the update from LaCie and also install the latest MacFUSE package.


I was totally bugged out by the lack of Omnikey after upgrading to Safari 13.
This applescript saved my life (it's not mine so I'm just posting the link):
https://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=47107

In order to activate it, open Automator, create a new Quick Action, select "Run Applescript" from the action list on the left side of the window, and copy/paste the script to the editor window. Above the editor window, change "Workflow receives" to "no input" and save.

Then go to System Preferences, keyboard, shortcuts, and assign a keyboard shortcut to it. Now, when in Safari's address bar you can just press the shortcut and the script transforms the search to the right URL, e.g. type "we apple", press the shortcut, services, and the wikipedia article about "Apple" opens in the same Safari tab.

In order to add more searches, just edit the script in the "property shortcuts" section, it looks pretty self-explanatory to me. Now searching from the address bar works almost as before, just have to get used to pressing the shortcut instead of return.


Removing formatting on PDF added with preview

Go to Tools > Show Inspector (or use Command+i)
In this window, click the pencil icon
Select all your highlights (Command+a works here)
Hit delete


How to change the Text Wrap default in Pages

With Pages '09 (version 4.3 ¹):

Select a picture
Configure it completly as you wish
Define it as the default image style:

Format > Advanced > Define Default Image Style

With Pages 5 (version 5.5.1):

This function is missing.
The creation of an Image Style doesn't permit to save the Text Wrap tuning.

¹)  I removed my installation of Pages '11 due to its lack of functions. Its documentation isn't available on the Apple web server: Pages manuals.


This is really a bit tricky on iOS. If you are in Calender view, there are three icons on the right side. The third from the right is the list icon. But there are two types of that list icon: one only shows three lines, the other shows two lines and a square.

The mode you are talking about must be the one with the two lines and the square. So you see the calender view on top ("the square") and a list of events for that ("the two lines").

Press this button so it is not selected any longer. Now you see the calender view without the list. Now press the "Today" button in the lower left corner. The view will switch to show you the timeline of the day, and also the third icon from the right switched to the one with the three lines. Pressing this "three lines" button will show up the event list you are searching for.


This sounds like it could be a failing hardware component.

Swap any connectors, try with a different cable, etc. IF this is a some major brand usb 3.0 external drives have internal usb 3.0 connectors fail frequently. Try it with a usb 2.0 micro cable and it may work fine at a slower speed.  If an external drive, you may be able to put into a drive dock to avoid issues with the factory housing and connectors.

As soon as you get a stable connection, use the dd command, or something like daemon tools or 7 zip or whatever compression tool you prefer to dump the contents of each partition you don't want to lose to an iso to attempt recovery from later.  This is assuming you have another drive with sufficient capacity.  Let this complete before doing anything else so if the drive itself fails you have something to fall back to.

If you don't have any backup media, a clonezilla live cd could let you see the partition table really looks like and whether a filesystem to attempt to repair is still detected.

Consider the exFAT format for drives that need to walk in both worlds, and use a single hardware drive for TimeMachine if possible.  It has not worked well with multi partitioned drives in my experience, although it is a fantastic backup solution.

Hope this helps!


How to install OS X El Capitan onto Mac through a USB when no previous OS is installed

If you have an El Capitan USB installer, the fix is very simple. Make sure the laptop is off. Plug the computer in, then hold the "Option" key while the computer starts up. Keep holding it until you see an image of a drive on the center of the screen. Hit the "Enter" key to boot from the flash drive. Then the computer will walk you through the steps to install El Capitan.

Let me know if these directions did not work for you or if you need more explanation of these directions.


Can I restart macOS Sierra in safe mode remotely?

This is similar to Trying to set boot-args with nvram gets "general error" on Sierra. I have the same situation - you must be in Recovery mode to set nvram variables, so you cannot start in Safe Mode remotely, unless you have disabled SIP.

I've been able to set nvram variables remotely after disabling SIP (csrutil disable), but disabling SIP requires you to boot to Recovery mode.

However, if you have something like DeployStudio in your environment, you can:
1. Create a DeployStudio workflow that runs a simple bash script to disable csrutil
2. Configure your NetBoot set to auto-run that workflow for that machine
3. Configure the machine to reboot to that NetBoot set and reboot to kick things off.


Try restoring the iPhone 7 to factory settings and dont place your backup on there.

See if the issue remains because if it doesnt then the backup is the culprit.

This is how to properly determine if the issue is hardware vs software data.

If the issue remains then send them in for repair.


The system was good, the motherboard over, Apple changed it.


Mac Mini startup sound always plays on internal speaker

Seemingly this is a feature and you can't change it. Other Mac have the same problem. You juste can mute the sound of the internal speaker during the boot.

https://superuser.com/questions/770364/why-does-my-macbook-play-the-startup-sound-through-the-speakers-rather-than-thro


Chances are this is a bad power supply board.

Shutdown error codes can be negative or positive values; negative being hardware and positive being software.

A "0" code is right there in the middle where it usually means a sudden loss of power.  See this post for more info:  Are OS X shutdown cause and sleep cause numbers listed/explained anywhere?

If any part of your logic board was beginning to fail, it would generate kernel panics which would be in the log and likewise, if you had software causing issues, there would be a log of a crash somewhere.

I've see this previously on other platforms whether it was a Mac, or a PC, or even enterprise grade servers.  What is probably happening is that a component in your power supply is getting too hot and consequently shutting down.  If you take it to the Apple store, they probably have the ambient temperature much lower than you home so it never has a chance to over heat. Just when you think everything is good, the symptoms return.

Is your downstairs location warmer or cooler than the upstairs location where it normally resides?

If you need to replace your power supply, rest assured these are fairly easy to come by and fairly inexpensive.  At the time of this post, they were trending around $65.   It's also very easy to replace (see the guide at ifixit.com)

While you are in there, I would swap out your (spinning) HDD with a SSD. I just installed a Samsung 850 EVO SSD in my 27" iMac and it is substantially quieter and cooler than before.

Disclaimer:  There still is a chance it's the logic board, but it's highly unlikely.  Before you do any expensive logic board replacements, try replacing the power supply first.

One more thing....I would definately follow agentroadkill's advice from his comment and put a UPS (battery backup) between the outlet and your Mac.


Automator keeps using numbers in exponential form

A simple and fast way requires to install a scripting edition Satimage.osax (direct d/l) and works with regex. The certificate of the pkg sadly expired!

on run {input, parameters}
    set text1 to change "^0+" into "" in (the clipboard as string) with regexp
    do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971" & text1
    return input
end run

^0+ strips off leading zeros!

A second one with sed but no additional installs:

on run {input, parameters}
    set text1 to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of (the clipboard as string) & " | sed 's/^0*//'"
    do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971" & text1
    return input
end run

quoted form of (the clipboard as string): '0501234567'
do shell script "echo " & '0501234567' & " | sed 's/^0*//'": run shell command echo '0501234567' | sed 's/^0*//' in an Apple script
echo '0501234567' | sed 's/^0*//': send the output of echo to the stream editor sed and do something with it
^0*: regular expression: ^ = start of line * = quantifier- matches between zero and unlimited times, as many times as possible
's/^0*//': 's/reg_ex/replacement/': substitute the replacement string for the first instance of the regular expression in the pattern space. This means: replace as many leading zeros as possible with the replacement string (=NIL/nothing) = strip off leading zeros
set text1 to ...: $text1=501234567
do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971" & text1: open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=971501234567

Both tested in 10.11.6 (El Capitan) only.


AppleScript: Open a new window in current space without switching to active window in another space

Mission Control is not scriptable as far as I am aware. Its actually one of things that Apple needs to correct in hindsight. I've been wanting to make a app that sets up my workspace and gets it ready for work for a week now.


Subscribe to RSS feed in Mail app (iOS 5.1.1)

No, the iOS mail app does not double as an RSS reader. Fortunately, however, there are many great RSS apps in the app store, my personal favorite is Reeder (iPhone, iPad).


How to resume a Mavericks download on OS X 10.6?

It's a usability bug. You have to open the App Store, log-in, and only then will the Resume option work. To resume, you can also click "Download" on the OS X Mavericks line in the Purchases table of the App Store.

Since there's no instant feedback as to whether anything is being downloaded unless your connection is very fast, you can use Activity Monitor to check whether network download seems to be saturated. An alternative is iStat Menus (non-free with 14 day free trial). There, you can not only see that data is downloaded, but you can confirm that it is the storeagent process that does the downloading.


Is it possible to run three versions of Google Chrome?

Google Chrome Canary is a bleeding-edge version of Chrome which uses its own profile, so it can be run in parallel to a regular copy of Chrome. The Canary browser is the least tested version of Chrome in their development pipeline (Canary → dev → beta → stable), but contains the newest features. For this reason it may not always work as expected, or sometimes not at all. It receives updates every single day. This SO post describes it in more detail.


How can I prevent Photos.app from being launched on OS X?

Maybe creating a separate user account for Others and move /Applications/Photos.app/ to /Users/Others/Applications/Photos.app and change the ownership of that helps you.


Install Yosemite ISO on VMWare Workstation 11

Mac OS X EULA/SLA doesn't allow to run Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.

VMware Workstation - usually running on non-Apple hardware - adheres to this restriction and doesn't allow offer the possibility to install Mac OS X (even if run in Bootcamp!).

Check sysprobs to get an impression how the OS X installation in VMware Workstation running in a Bootcamp environment on Apple hardware may work.


How to compile OSS binaries to replace the versions shipped with OS X?

You will need to individually check and build every program, although the process for most programs is fairly similar.

You might be able to take some inspiration from MacPorts/Homebrew in their recipes, but I doubt that you can use them 1:1 as they typically feature versions that differ greatly from the Apple supplied utilities. For example by offering GNU versions of supplied BSD utilities, or by offering something that is a completely different major version.

As an example of this, I saw that you received a comment on your question recommending you to install "openssl" for example. This can be quite tricky, as if you install "openssl", you actually get something substantially different than what Apple actually supplies with macOS today. If you run the command "openssl" on a modern Mac, you'll actually be running something called LibreSSL. You'll have to make an individual choice for each and every software package such as this to determine if you want to go with Apple's choice (LibreSSL), or a new major version of OpenSSL.

I think the most feasible route is to go to Apple's open source web site:

https://opensource.apple.com

Here'll you find the source for the utilities that came with your 10.9 system. Using that list, I would go through the sources for 10.15 and find the same programs.

This will often give you security patched versions of the same major version or at least very similar programs to the ones that came with your 10.9 system. If you're lucky, they compile without problems. In some cases, you'll run into stuff that is only supported on newer operating systems, and then you'll have to work around it by modifying the program, or going back to an older version.

All in all, it is going to be a lot of work!


Launch homebrew.mxcl.dnsmasq when NIC becomes available?

Not possible....

From https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/Introduction.html

Network Availability

If your daemon depends on the network being available, this cannot be handled with dependencies because network interfaces can come and go at any time in OS X. To solve this problem, you should use the network reachability functionality or the dynamic store functionality in the System Configuration framework. This is documented in System Configuration Programming Guidelines and System Configuration Framework Reference. For more information about network reachability, see Determining Reachability and Getting Connected in System Configuration Programming Guidelines.


It's likely the video was captured using the iOS development emulator rather than the actual iPad itself.


Is their a file system that can read/write mac and win and do time machine?

You can't use Time Machine to back up Windows, if that's what you mean.

The only way you could do that is if you're hosting the Win installation in a virtual machine like Parallels(Paid) or VirtualBox (free), then of course your entire VM would be backed up to TM along with everything else on your mac.

Still, rolling back to a particular state (or recoveing a particular file) that way would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

I'd suggest you'd be better off keeping a clone of your windows installation and a separate clone/or TM backup of your OS X installation (on a separate disk).

Not only is this the only practical solution, more importantly its also the safest. Never keep all your eggs in one basket (hard drive) when it comes to backups, especially with Time Machine, which has a habit of getting itself corrupted just when you least want it.


Do you really need a script for this?

Press ⌘⇧N to create a new folder.

The folder name is already highlighted.
Press ⌘V to paste the current clipboard.
Press ↩.

…or for current folders…

Press ↩ to rename the folder.

The folder name is already highlighted.
Press ⌘V to paste the current clipboard.
Press ↩.


What does "A1278" mean in specifying a MacBook model?

The model number can be found on the bottom side of your MacBook.

I have an app called "Mactracker" and it gives statistics for (allegedly) all of the various Mac hardware options.

Here is some info on model number A1278:

Hopefully that helps.


No clue where they come from, is your macbook refurbished by any chance?

Just remove them if you don't use them.

They have no username, so they kinda don't have any folder related.


How to sort files in reverse alphabetical and maintain that setting for given folders

Your Finder .plist file may be corrupted. Try the following steps:

Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences (press ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd G in Finder).
Drag com.apple.finder.plist to your Desktop.
While holding ⌥ opt, right-click the Finder icon on your dock, then click Relaunch.

See if Finder now remembers your view preferences for the folder in question. If not, you can drag that .plist back where it was and relaunch Finder again.

Do note that in List view, you have to navigate to the actual folder for its view preferences to apply. A folder expanded from a parent folder will use the view preferences of whatever folder you expanded from.


Gatekeeper passing strange arguments on first launch after download?

Okay, found a way to test this on a debug build, and figured it out. My solution was to copy the com.apple.quarantine xattr onto the debug binary which XCode creates, and then test this via 'open'. (Launching via Terminal never showed the issue)

This reveals that when launched with the quarantine flag set, the command line contains a 'NULL' as the second arg; i.e argc=2, argv[0]=, argv[1]=0


How do I replace a value in an plist array using plutil?

I think PlistBuddy is the recommended tool here:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :PARENT:0:KEY_IN_ARRAY valueX" sample.plist

The command modifies the value of KEY_IN_ARRAY in the first dict of PARENT. The one in the second dict would be changed with:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :PARENT:1:KEY_IN_ARRAY valueY" sample.plist

The -c switch executes the command directly. The file mustn't be a binary plist!


It's a smooth click and upward motion on an icon using your mouse or trackpad to rearrange icons in the Dock. Don't click-and-hold, click and move -- if you click and hold you'll get the option menu overlay for the application.

Tried to make a little gyfcat that shows it happening:

http://www.gfycat.com/ClearcutUnluckyAndeancondor

This irregardless of the setting for Keep in Dock on the application. In the above example I'm moving apps that have Keep in Dock set and not set. They're all re-arrangeable.


macOS "USB Accessories Disabled" notification

Try not using your USB devices one after another. One might be broken and causing the issue. If the issue persists with only known good devices you might need to take it in for repair.


Free app for tracking data usage per app

iOS sandboxing prevents apps from getting access to data usage of other apps. That's why iOS has the Data Usage section in Settings to show exactly that.

There might be solutions for jailbroken phones, but given your constraints a jailbreak doesn't seem to be an option.

PS: If you don't trust the numbers in Data Usage, why would you trust those in a 3rd party app?


How can I see music downloaded to my iPhone via Amazon Cloud Player in the Music app?

Only the iTunes app is currently able to add songs to the Music app on an iPhone/iPad. This leaves you with the following options

Play the songs in the Amazon Cloud Player only
Download them on your main computer and sync via iTunes. Maybe remove them from the Amazon Cloud Player to save storage space


Where is iCloud after an upgrade to ios11

The iCloud Drive app has been replaced by the Files app in iOS 11. You'll need to open the Files app to refind your files.


AppleScript choose file dialog box with default location not working

Both scripts don't work for me. The problem is that the default location parameter needs to be of type alias. You can fix it by adding POSIX file in front of your path (the path does need to exist, otherwise you also get an error message):

set strPath to POSIX file "/Users/lowken/Dropbox/"

choose file with prompt "Please choose a file:" of type {"XLSX", "APPL"} ¬
    default location strPath

Or you could use the "old style" HFS format:

set strPath to alias "Macintosh HD:Users:lowken:Dropbox"

choose file with prompt "Please choose a file:" of type {"XLSX", "APPL"} ¬
    default location strPath


Create an automation for WhatsApp's chat app?

Ok, I've figured it out myself. Putting it out here if anyone needed it in the future.
 on run {input, parameters}
        set text1 to the clipboard
        if first character of text1 is "0" then
            set text2 to 1 - text1 as integer
            do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=" & "994" & 1 - text2
            return
        end if
        do shell script "open https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=" & text1
        return input
 end run


Disconnecting disks from Airport Extreme

Consensus is that Apple simply forgot it - or didn't make the UI clear!

Deselecting "Enable file sharing" looks to have replaced it. At the very least that will disconnect users before you pull the plug.


The issue is that you are trying to compile for the ppc architecture thus the error in cross-compiling.

Did you upgrade to Snow Leopard leaving macports on - the only way to upgrade macports across operating systems is to reinstall.

Otherwise did you choose the correct dmg to install from - it is OS dependant.

Otherwise you need to look at /opt/local/etc/macports/macports.conf and see what build_arch is set to. The default (or not set) on a new Snow Leopard macports install is 32 or 64 bit Intel code depending on the CPU you have.


Configure 3rd-party apps using MDM or Apple Configurator on iOS?

Go through the Managed Apps & Updates section in Mobile Device Management Protocol Reference guide.

  an MDM server can provide configuration dictionaries to managed apps and can read response dictionaries from those apps. Apps can take advantage of this functionality to preconfigure themselves in a supervised environment, such as a classroom setting.

Go through the linked web-page. It is apparent that while it is possible to leverage MDM to configure an app but it will require support from the 3rd party app developer. An enterprise app created by the same company managing the device can program their app to be configured this way. Support for 3rd party app like Dropbox and OneDrive depends on how it was programmed by their development team.

It's recommended to get in touch with developer in app specific manner where this feature is required.


Trouble sending emails in Apple's Mail Application

Look in the Account settings in Apple Mail and look at the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) setting and see if it matches the correct mail service. (i.e. is it using the Gmail smtp server if it is a gmail account. Also, you can use the drop down list and select Edit SMTP Server List to select that particular SMTP server's settings. For Gmail it would be smtp.gmail.com and mine is set to use the default ports, has Authentication as password, and has my login credentials.

Hope this helps.


MBP 2015 with Iris Pro Only and External Monitor

Graphics and Video support

Intel Iris Pro Graphics
2.2GHz - 256GB

Intel Iris Pro Graphics
2.5GHz - 512GB

Intel Iris Pro Graphics

AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching
Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native
resolution on the built-in display and up to 3840 by 2160 pixels on up to two
external displays, both at millions of colors

Thunderbolt digital video output

Native Mini DisplayPort output
DVI, VGA, dual-link DVI and HDMI output supported using Mini DisplayPort adapters (sold separately)
Support for up to 5120-by-2880 resolution at 60Hz on a single external display (model with AMD Radeon R9 M370X only)

HDMI video output
    Support for 1080p resolution at up to 60Hz
    Support for 3840-by-2160 resolution at 30Hz
    Support for 4096-by-2160 resolution at 24Hz

retrieved from https://support.apple.com/kb/SP719?locale=en_US


APFS with external hard drives (non SSD)

For HDD, if you are not going to install macOS, then use a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or  Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) format. When using a hard drive just to store files, APFS or APFS (Encrypted) could also be used. The main advantage to APFS is more APFS volumes can be easily added or removed.
In your case, open the Disk Utility. Press the ⌘+2 key combination. Highlight the external drive. Select the Erase button and choose the format and scheme given below. Note: High Sierra (macOS 10.13.6) was using in this example.

The Disk Utility will create a small hidden FAT32 formatted EFI partition followed by a JHFS+ formatted partition. In order to allow encryption, the JHFS+ formatted partition will be converted to a Core Storage partition and a small hidden JHFS+ formatted partition will be added.
The output from the command diskutil list external after erasing a 16 GB flash drive is shown below.
/dev/disk1 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *15.5 GB    disk1
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk1s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage Untitled                15.2 GB    disk1s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Boot OS X               134.2 MB   disk1s3

/dev/disk2 (external, virtual):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS MyExternalVolume       +14.8 GB    disk2
                                 Logical Volume on disk1s2
                                 C9787C76-7FAA-4E41-AFEC-4F3D8F2AC9CE
                                 Unlocked Encrypted