Firstly, DropBox, Resilio sync and other such systems do have limitations about the types of files that they can sync. They may not sync certain file types, metadata, files with particular character sequences, and so on. You should read up on these, as this may affect syncing apps.

Some apps can have components in /Library, and/or the User's Library. These components may get updated by an installer package.
If an app gets updated through syncing, but all these other components are not updated (which would have happened in an updater), then you might run into trouble if a newly synced app tries to read support files from an older version. (It's also unwise to sync severl areas in the Library folders, as these can be machine specific.)

My gut reaction is that it might cause unforeseen problems, and given that most apps either update themselves or use the Mac App Store to do so, (and are otherwise static) there's not really any compelling need to sync them.


get a notification when my machine is pinged

Little Snitch may have the feature you want. It allows you to set up rules on network traffic, both inbound and outbound, mostly for blocking unwanted traffic, but I believe it can perform arbitrary actions such as notification for specific rules and types of traffic like ICMP pings.

There's a trial version that you can use to test.

I have no affiliation with Little Snitch or the company behind it.


How To Permanently Remove Movies Directory

How can I prevent MacOS from recreating this directory?

If you do not mind having a hidden file, not folder, named Movies in the Home folder, then the compound command below, In Terminal, will do the following:

Delete the Movies folder, including anything in it.
Create a file named: Movies
Sets an ACL of everyone deny delete on it.
Remove all permissions for everyone to it.
Hides the Movies file.

rm -R Movies; touch Movies; chmod +a 'everyone deny delete' Movies; chmod 0000 Movies; chflags hidden Movies

This effectively stops anyone, including the system, from creating a folder name Movies in the Home folder until the ACL is removed from the file Movies and the file is deleted.
For example, after running the above compound command, opening the TV application will not automatically recreate the a folder name Movies in the Home folder.

Notes:
Assumes the pwd in Terminal is your Home directory when running the compound command in Terminal.
The compound command used above was tested in Terminal under macOS Catalina and macOS Big Sur with Language & Region settings in System Preferences set to English (US) — Primary, from an Admin account, and worked for me without issue1.

1  Assumes necessary and appropriate setting in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy have been set/addressed as needed.

To remove the Movies file from Terminal afterwards:
chmod -N Movies
rm Movies
override ---------  $USER/staff hidden for Movies?

Type Y when prompted and press enter.


How to format cases properly in MS Word? I am desperate

On the Equation Tools tab ,chose liner format and use & to align.
e.g.

\eqarray(2V_A-5V_C&=-&20@ V_A-6V_B&=-&40@5V_B+6V_C&=&40)

After you finish edit,change it to pro format,just get what you want.


Calendar broken after upgrade to High Sierra

Try this:
Quit calendar (cmd + q), delete the calendar directory on your Mac’s HD/SSD, empty trash, reboot (with the option to open previous apps/Windows off), launch calendar, wait 5 minutes, quit calendar (cmd + q). Find the .ics files in the backup, import them with the calendar app, wait, see if your calendar works.

Another soloution may be:
Quit calendar
Find the old calendar app in your backup, and copy it to your desktop.
Copy the calendar directory from your backup, replace the current directory on your Mac. Reboot (with the option to open previous apps/Windows off).
Launch calendar from your desktop, and see if it works...


How do 2 phones share ITunes and Calendar entries?

My fiancé and I do this quite regularly simply using the iCal app that is part of the phone. We logged in under the same Apple ID and shared only the calendar & contacts (on her phone b/c she doesn't need/want my email). Doing this, we're able to sync calendar and contacts, which is really useful if one of our batteries die.

But you want to use Outlook, it is possible with Outlook, but I think it requires an Exchange service to sync. I'm not 100% sure on that, but I am pretty sure that's what it takes (without manually syncing).

I believe this post will be very useful for you :)


TestFlight download link returning HTTP error 404?

That link is working for me so either your network is not routing enough traffic correctly to the server or the farm of servers Apple operates to run the store has one endpoint that's failing or down.

If you try again in 30 minutes or try from a different network (LTE / different carrier / different WiFi network) that might help you isolate if the network error is close to your device.

You also would want to do the usual things to rule out software or run time corruption on your iOS device. Restart the device - test other store links - sign out and back in to your App Store on a known good network.

In the end - you'd contact Apple online store support after you're sure it's not your device.


Sort items in folder by date...only for that folder!

You can only specify the sort order for the top-most folder in any given view.
If you want to sort a folder in a folder to a different view, you would need to open it in a new window…

Main folder sorted by Name, sub folder by Date…


You can download the installer on any other Mac.
You may or may not be able to run the installer from your modified OS
You can always run a second OS on your Mac unless there is a firmware password too

Most management tools that can block the OTA install have also blocked he installer from running. The installer is trivial to block, the download much harder.

Worst case, boot to Internet recovery and just install Yosemite on to a SD card or USB drive and migrate the data you need.

That way, you still have the OS that is officially supported, but also an OS to run the tools you've decided you need. Don't write off IT - they may have a group for people that insist on the newest OS and use them for testing.


Can I export my id_rsa cert from Keychain Access?

There was a similar question on SuperUser here on SE.

If you have still have access to your old Mac and you can successfully login into whatever services require your id_rsa cert with your passphrase saved in Keychain, you should be able to get the passphrase with no problem.

Basically, you should be able to see the passwords by selecting Show Password in Keychain.

Have a look at this answer for details


Since the Apple App Store has standardized price points ($0.99, $1.99, etc), you won't find an app that is $0.80 unfortunately.

There isn't any way to search by price in the app store, but services such as AppAdvice.com and others can help a bit.

My recommendation is that you choose an app that you want, figure out the price, including tax. Ask a friend in the US to purchase an App Store gift card via the App Store app, in the amount that is the difference between your app of choice, inlcuding tax, less your $0.80. This friend will email you the gift code, which will load into your gift card balance. Purchase your app, and you have zero balance.

Perhaps even easier: purchase an $0.80 gift certificate for a friend in the US, and email it to them.


How do I script Powerpoint to save a directory of PPTX files as PDFs?

Assuming you have PowerPoint installed, this is quite simple using Automator.

(I have Office 2011, so I'm unsure if this would work with 2008)

Start Automator, and create a new Folder Action, and choose the input folder (i.e.: the one containing the PPTX files)

From the Actions list, choose "Convert Format of PowerPoint Presentations".  For the "New Format" option, choose "Portable Document Format".

Save it & close Automator, and you're done!

Any PPTX files saved in the chosen folder (either pre-existing, or any new ones you save from now on) will automatically be converted to PDF as an additional copy.

Hope this helps!

-U


Connecting two macbook pros and a windows laptop device to external monitor

Many modern Logitech keyboards, indeed many modern Bluetooth keyboards and mice include support for multiple pairings, you should check if yours do and use this, otherwise you will be limited in what swapping you can do because you'll need to disconnect and reconnect on each device and that will require trackpad/mouse input on both other devices.
The hardware solution to this is a KVM but that won't work with a Bluetooth keyboard, the software solution might work but will depend on one machine being consistently there is using something like Synergy Desktop app.


"Other" is not a user. It just allows you to enter a username and password into textboxes instead of clicking on an icon.

It can be used to connect to a network domain user. It can also be used for special users, such as "Root" (which gives you unlimited control over all hidden and restricted files) and ">console" (which logs into your Mac in command-line-only mode.)


Guide to the output of the builtin airport command line utility

There’s not much documentation available, but these are the basics:

agrCtlRSSI - Signal strength. The higher, the better.
agrCtlNoise - Noise level.  The lower the better.
state - operating state (running or not)
op mode - station or repeater
lastTxRate - last rate of transmission speed
maxRate 867 - maximum transmission rate
802.11 auth - authentication type (open, shared, EAP, etc.)
link auth: - encryption (WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc)
BSSID - Basic Service Set Identifier (usually the MAC address of the WAP)
SSID - Service Set Identifier (name of your WiFi network)

  I am trying to figure out if there is any way to programmatically get the "Link Speed"

The item that you’d be looking for is “lastTxRate”.  So, to get that, you can issue the command

$ airport -I | grep lastTxRate


Is it possible to customize multi-touch gestures on an iPad?

Not out of the box - the closest you could get some gestures is to jailbreak and install Activator which allows you to e.g. customize pinch and spread actions, slide from left/right/bottom/top of screen and then assign and action e.g. launch an app, lock the screen etc.


Palua

Palua lets you set the 'standard function keys' setting for individual apps only.

  With Palua, you just need one click - or one hotkey - to toggle the mode your Fx keys are.

KeyRemap4Macbook

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <appdef>
    <appname>TERMINAL</appname>
    <equal>com.apple.Terminal</equal>
  </appdef>
  <item>
    <name>FunctionforF4</name>
    <identifier>FunctionforF4</identifier>
    <only>TERMINAL</only>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::LAUNCHPAD, KeyCode::F4</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::F4, KeyCode::LAUNCHPAD</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

For other keys have a look at the key list.


I deleted an important contact on my iPhone

If you look at your restore options in iTunes, there are usually a couple of previous backup versions. You could make a new backup, try restoring an older one, save the contact you want on another system then restore your new backup.


iTunes Store: "Your payment method was declined."

I actually had this issue before too. I am not sure what caused it, but after waiting a couple of days, it worked again. Here are people discussing it on the Apple Support Forums, but there doesn't appear to be a resolution. I think mine may have been a transient service issue or something. It never happened again after this.


Does my computer get securely erased if I do it through Find my iPhone?

The erase is very secure - I've not heard of a single success in recovering any data from a one pass zero with modern hard drives. As to what really happened, it depends on what setup your computer has.

In the case of FileVault 2, the erase process is very rapid. Everything on the drive is scrambled - even blank space looks no different than a file like a spreadsheet or a picture. The erase command simply destroys the cryptographic keys and effectively destroys everything in a short amount of time.

In the case where you don't have Filevauly, I believe a normal one pass zero is performed based on how long it takes. I don't see any official documentation from Apple and also haven't seen someone forensically analyze an erase (or trap the filesystem using a remote debugger or a SATA drive that logs commands) to be sure.

Either way, at the end of the erase process, you get an email, so when you send an erase, you'll know when it started and when it finished and can conclude which erase actually happened.

In your case, your Mac probably received the erase command nearly instantly, so you can now perform a single pass zero (assuming you aren't going to send in the drive for data recovery) and time that to compare with Apple's erase. A seven pass erase is basically seven times as long as a one pass erase so the timings should be easily observable to deduce the type and number of passes.


Found the answer in a related question.

Change it temporarily until next reboot

sudo sysctl kern.securelevel=1

Change it for future startup

sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf

Once in vi editor, press i to enter insert mode, then type kern.securelevel=1. Next press enter, then :, then type wq and press enter one last time.


iTunes Wi-Fi Sync, copy photos from iPad to PC?

iTunes can't download pictures from iOS devices to your computer, not even when connected via USB. The sync option allows you to upload pictures from a selected folder from your computer to the device.

On Windows, you can use the system camera import option –some methods on how to enable it if it's not working are described here–, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Photos app on windows 8 and 10, and a long list of apps; all of them require you to plug your device to your computer.

There appear to exist pure wireless alternatives, one called "Wifi Photo Transfer" - link to CNET review; and "Wifi Transfer App" - link to the App Store; look at the "Customers Also Bought" section as there appear to be a lot of apps that do what you want. I haven't tried any of them.

If you'd rather never worry about manually syncing, and don't want to use iCloud Photo Library marvelous service, that even takes care of reducing the space used by your pictures, I suggest you try Dropbox that does what you want –via internet though, and if you either have bad passwords, reuse them, or, god forbid, Dropbox passwords are leaked or stolen and you don't react quickly you may be in trouble. Google has another alternative, closer to iCloud Photo Library in functionality, but you'll have to install Google Drive on your PC and activate the Photos folder inside Drive in order to have a hard copy on your computer. Also, depending on your settings and how many pictures you have, you may have to pay with Google or Dropbox (and iCloud as well).

Lastly, you may enable My Photo Stream, which in my opinion is very complicated but it automatically copies your pictures (via iCloud) to your computer; if iCloud Photo library is off there is no way to view your pictures online thus your fear of your pictures leaking is at least minimized because a third person looking to steal your pictures will have to set up a device with your iCloud credentials in order to retrieve said pictures, and it will alert you of that event on all signed in machines.

You can also add Two-factor or two-step authentication to your device if you are worried about your privacy.


I could fix it with some luck now.
I didn't restart by holding power+home for 7 seconds.

I pressed them for about 5 seconds, until the screen turned off.
Then I held the home button, and connected it to a pc withouth iTunes installed. (This didn't work with a pc with iTunes!)
Now it asked me to connect to iTunes, so I connected it to another pc having iTunes installed.
After iTunes finished restoring, the phone worked perfect again.


How can one invoke a keyboard shortcut from within an AppleScript?

I get the impression that what you're trying to do is a copy command (i.e., ⌘C)—am I right?

Here's an example from one of my scripts:

tell application "System Events"
    tell application "Microsoft Entourage" to activate
    tell menu "Edit" of menu bar item "Edit" of menu bar 1 of process "Microsoft Entourage"
        click menu item "Select All"
        click menu item "Copy"
    end tell
    key code 123
end tell

That is, I script the menu command instead of scripting shortcuts.

You might also take a look and see if you have /Library/Scripts/UI Element Scripts/Key Down-Up.applescript, which should give you alternate ideas of how to emulate keyboard actions.

And of course, there are a lot of examples in /Library/Scripts/ and ~/Library/Scripts/, many of which are worth a look in general.


How to change Text-related keyboard shortcuts

According to this blog post, you can create a file called ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.Dict (you might have to create the KeyBindings folder in your Library folder).

In that file, you need the following content:

{
   "@\UF702"  = "moveWordBackward:";
   "@\UF703"  = "moveWordForward:";
}

(see the linked blog post for other Windows features you might want to recreate)

Not all programs that use text fields will use the default keybindings, but this will help with many programs.


Programmatically catch app opening / closing

You can obtain notifications of applications being launched and quit. Apple's TN2050: Observing Process Lifetimes Without Polling provides the detail.

The best method for general purpose tracking is with NSWorkspace and its NSWorkspaceDidLaunchApplicationNotification and NSWorkspaceDidTerminateApplicationNotification notifications.

I do not believe there is a trivial means to implement these TN2050's methods in AppleScript. You will likely need to write a small Objective-C/Cocoa application or use a third party tool.


My WD drive is not showing in finder but I can see it in disk utility with a grey color

As the message said your drive is connected but it's not mounted. I recommend the 3rd party app Mountain which gives you better access to all your volumes. You can mount, unmount, and eject volumes by just clicking. The app is not free but there may be a free trail period. Using Mountain you can mount your volume.

I am in no way affiliated with this software. I'm just a happy customer.


MacBook Pro hard drive problems: Can it be hard drive cable?

The most overlooked part is the cable. i've worked in an Apple tech dept for the last 8-9 years and in the 13" MBP's i've seen Data cables/SATA cables go bad more often then the hard drive. could be from the thin factor of the drive or the drive itself causing the cable to short.

Best bet try the cable first before you mess with any data.


Does apple have a volume purchasing program (vpp) that includes Macs?

There is a business-specific Apple Store located here: http://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/browse/campaigns/business/introduction

Apple also maintains a fleet of direct-to-business sales personnel that you can talk to for volume purchases and after-purchase care for your staff. To contact them, call 1-800-854-3680.


Final Cut Pro video downloaded to flash drive

Without all the details of your hardware (both the Mac and flash drive), the most likely cause is the transfer speed available from the flash drive to your Mac.

In this scenario you typically wouldn't opt to play the video from a flash drive, but rather just use the flash drive to transfer the video onto another device (such as your cousin's computer).

You should find that playing the video directly from a computer's internal drive, or from any modern external drive, should be fine. Note that by external drive I'm not referring to flash drives, but external HDDs or SSDs.

By way of a similar example, I recently had to produce an 8 minute video in FCP that needed to be viewable on a MS Surface device. It played fine on my Mac and fine on the Surface, but trying to play it from their 32GB flash drive resulted in a bad experience!


Fresh install of OS X with AppStore version

Burn Mountain Lion to a disk or USB.

Restart computer, hold down the option key when you hear the ring tone sound.

Select the disk/USB, after it loads open Applications->Disk Utilities from the top.

Select your HDD.

Go to partition and select 1 from the drop Volume Scheme, or however many you'd like.

Select Mac OS Extended (Journal).

Click Options and make sure it's selected for GUID.

When it finishes continue the Mountain Lion installer.

Since you already had OSX installed on your hard drive you may be able to just erase it and install as well. Either way the above method will definitely work.


Can dual boot Mac access files between two OS installs

What I found by installing Catalina in a new partition on the High Sierra disk is that:

When logged in to Catalina, the High Sierra disk appears as a drive in Finder.

When logged in to High Sierra, the Catalina disk can be available but Finder will ask for a Catalina User Name and Password to access it.


Is it normal for a 27" iMac to have CPU core temperatures around 95C under 100% CPU load?

Reaching a temp of 95°C is not surprising if the CPU is under heavy load for a prolonged period.

Prime95 can be useful for determining stability, but I'm not particularly a fan of it as a troubleshooting/diagnostic tool. The reason it's popular  for stability testing is because users will overclock their CPUs and then need a way to test how stable they are afterwards. So, for me, prime95 is the wrong tool for the job you're trying to perform (but that's a personal opinion). However, if you're wanting to use it, then you need to run it for at least 3hrs. If your iMac continues to run it without error, then it's passed the test.

If you're particularly concerned about your hardware, I'd start with using Apple Diagnostics to test your machine.

Run Apple Diagnostics

Follow the steps below to run Apple Diagnostics:

Fully shut down your iMac
Restart your iMac
Immediately press the D key and keep it down until you see the Diagnostics screen appear
Wait for Diagnostics to finish (this typically only takes a few minutes)
Once complete, one of two things will appear on the screen:

a No issues found message
a brief description of any errors found plus further instructions

If the diagnostics test does find errors, take a note of what they are

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

Assuming the iMac passes this without error, I'd be more inclined to test your hardware in Safe Mode to see if you can recreate the issues you're having. If you can't, then you know it's most likely a software issue relating to a login item, corrupted font, or kernel extension.

For more info on Safe Mode, refer to: Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac.


Storing and working off iphoto and itunes library on NAS?

To keep this general, here are some things to think about:

DAS: Direct Attached Storage - Thunderbolt, eSata, USB 3.0, FW800, FW400, USB are the rough pecking order. FW400 is better than 100 MB ethernet, and FW800/USB 3.0 are equivalent to Gigabit Ethernet.

NAS: The network matters - latency over WiFi can be a big bottleneck as can the controller chip / lack of cache in less expensive NAS.

Think in terms of the bottlenecks - For streaming a song, AirPlay shows you what to expect - a slight delay, but the system can buffer the music to overcome little lags and delays due to network burps. DAS is much more responsive - especially for little file input/output as opposed to streaming a large file or song.

NAS does offer some nice features like cross platform sharing and with a good network can be shared effortlessly with several clients that don't mind sharing the speed of the device. DAS is designed for one user and optimized for speed - especially for database workloads like iPhoto.

NAS can be harder to back up, where DAS works easier with whatever backup program you use on your mac.

Your iPhoto database will be the last thing you want to move. It has no provision for splitting the large files from the database files and the latency of reading / writing to the NAS might make you feel the program is too slow. Try it out, but don't be surprised if it's the least responsive by it's design.

You want programs that can use local database and thumbnails on the fast SSD and store large original files on NAS or slower storage.

Aperture works amazingly well if you find iPhoto too laggy when stored on the NAS.

I would start with the iTunes media folder - move that to the NAS and see how you like the performance.

Then get a tool like WhatSize or DaisyDisk so you can quickly measure what folders on the SSD are largest as you prune things down.

You might find you don't need all the audio loops from Garage Band or other surprising folders that make a difference in what you want to bring along on the SSD.

Have fun with the tweaking - you'll learn how things work. Also, it won't be long until ThunderBolt storage is more available - your NAS might even have a DAS connection for when you really need some speed to access / move files to the NAS.

Don't forget to back up your NAS. CrashPlan might be a great thing to try for that.


I was never able to find a way to get direct access to the raw device, however, VirtualBox has a "raw disk access" feature that allowed me to get around this problem.

The way this works is a VMDK drive is created that is actually mapped to a physical volume.  This acts as a passthrough so that VB can access a physical device.

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "</path/to/file>.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/disk#

For example, if I had a physical USB device with an OS installer I could create a VMDK which I could attach to a VM.

Example:

Assume a USB installer with macOS/FreeBSD/Linux/Windows.  To attach that physical USB to a VM (assuming /dev/disk3 is the USB device),

Insert and unmount (not eject) the device.

diskutil unmount /dev/disk3

Create the VMDK

sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "USB_OS_Installer.vmdk" -rawdisk /dev/disk3

Take ownership of the VMDK (it was created as root via sudo; replace "user" with your username and leave the group "staff" as is)

sudo chown user:staff USB_OS_Installer.vmdk

Attach the VMDK to the VM in VirtualBox's GUI.

You now have access to a physical boot media device through your VM.


Mid-2012 Retina Pro - shouldn't I have Mountain Lion?

Depending on when you purchased it, it's possible that your machine came with OS X Lion preinstalled and you got the free upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion in July 2012. Apple's press release on the Mid-2012 MacBook Pro Retina dated June 11, 2012 states:

  The all new MacBook Pro ships with OS X Lion. Starting today, customers who purchase a Mac are eligible for a free copy of OS X Mountain Lion when it becomes available.

You can just visit the Mac App Store, sign in and install OS X Mountain Lion from there.


Yosemite: Disabling inertia scrolling using scroll wheel for the mouse

In Terminal, run the following command to disable mouse scaling.

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

Similarly, the following disables scroll wheel scaling.

defaults write -g com.apple.scrollwheel.scaling -1


Can I use a Mac Mini as an Airplay audio receiver?

Proprietary:

AirServer - audio and streaming, Mac/Windows, $15
Reflector - audio and streaming, Mac/Windows/Android, $15
AirFoil - audio only, Mac/Windows/Linux, $30 for Mac/Win, $40 for both, free for linux

Open Source:

casualShare audio and streaming, Java + NodeJS, open source
AirStream (Ruby) - audio and streaming, source only
Kodi - formerly XBMC, audio and streaming, Mac/Windows/Linux+, open source
Shairport Sync - audio only (multi-room), source only (C/make); this is the not-dead version of Shairport

Dead:

AirPlay for Totem - audio and streaming
AirMac, on GitHub - audio and streaming, source only (Objective-C)
AirStream (C#) - audio and streaming, source only
Shairport - audio only, source only (C/make + perl)
Banana TV audio and streaming, Mac, free, but only supports iOS 4.2 through 4.3.5


Cannot connect iPhone 4 to iMac after Lion upgrade

I manually downloaded and re-installed iTunes 10.4 from the Apple website, and this has appeared to have fixed the problem. iTunes is recognizing my iPhone, and I can once again use the USB port on my iMac's keyboard.


Can a friend see how many times I have looked them up using Find My Friends

As per @ Nimesh Neema answer https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/339887/46541

Your location is sent from your device only when someone requests to see it.

It means, if you request your friends location, your phone knows his number (you shared it) and will send a "Ping signal" to find it.

Once your friends phone receives the Ping request it will reply to you with the location data.

So theoretically YES, your friend could know you looked him up (Ping), if he has the tools and knowhow.

Some more technical stuff about it..
Officially, in an IP network, a ping is a network took that allows you to determine if a host is available on the network or not. It uses ICMP echo packets (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc792) to do the deed.
When somebody says ping a mobile on the network, what he really implies is to determine if where (what cell it is connected to) that mobile is in the network. So, this can mean the mobile is trigger to do a forced location update (LU). The mobile then reports itself into the network with its latest information.


Internet traffic moves through a firewall based on service-identification numbers that are referred to as ports. Certain ports must be open for FaceTime and iMessage to work.
Here is a link where you can find the ports to open.


Your friend was able to receive both the messages.

The former message was not lost in transit.


Why is downloaded online recovery data deleted after reboot?

Booting to Internet Recovery Mode boots directly to a netboot image provided by Apple/Akamai servers. The netboot image is a stripped down OS X version which only provides some diagnostic tools and a tool to either restore OS X or a Time Machine backup. The downloaded OS is completely loaded to RAM and nothing is written to hard disks.

After shutting down/rebooting the Mac the RAM is wiped and everything has to be downloaded again if you want to start to Recovery Mode a second time.

To create a Recovery HD on your Mac you have to install OS X (Restore OS X). While downloading and installing OS X a recovery partition will be built also.

Another option is to set up a Mac running Server.app and enable caching services. That will keep a copy of the recovery image locally in cache and speed up the download - perhaps 100x as fast if you have a gigabit speed network locally.


Does Apple Pay require an internet connection?

No, Apple Pay does not require an internet connection.  Apple Pay uses NFC technology; it does not use Wi-Fi or cellular technology.

According to CNet, Apple Pay will work even if you put your iPhone 6 into Airplane Mode.  Airplane Mode disables both the Wi-Fi and cellular internet.


Could not create a Preboot Volume for APFS install

If somebody face the same issue please consider to visit this link.  https://www.belightsoft.com/products/resources/apfs-bootable-clone-with-command-line

I faced this issue when i converted HPS+ to APFS manually via DiskUtil. My MacBook was completely dead.

Bless utility is looking for APFS Preboot volume and because it is missing it fails to configure APFS container.

What i've done is:

Boot to Recovery
go to Terminal
check partitions/disk numbers with diskutil list (preboot volume was missing for my APFS container )
create Preboot volume manually with diskutil apfs addVolume disk"Disk Number here" apfs Preboot -role B
and then bless the APFS container again with bless --folder /Volumes/MACINTOSH HD/System/Library/CoreServices --bootefi --verbose
bless again via Startup Disk ( just to be sure)
reboot


Is it possible to disable or remove the iTunes Artwork screensaver?

I really dislike the iTunes artwork screensaver too. Not so much for the artwork layout, but for the audio playback. ...and sure, if I am locking my computer with a screensaver - why would I want to advertise the music I listen to? FWIW, I am using Sierra 10.12.3

You'd think it would be as simple as removing iTunes Artwork.saver from /System/Library/Screen Savers/... but this is easier said than done.

I am not sure why

$  ls -al /System/Library/Screen\ Savers
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    102 Oct 24 00:17 iTunes Artwork.saver

...cannot be removed from the directory with:

$  sudo mv /System/Library/Screen\ Savers/iTunes\ Artwork.saver/ ~/Desktop/
Password:
mv: rename /System/Library/Screen Savers/iTunes Artwork.saver/ to /Users/mixelpix/Desktop/iTunes Artwork.saver/: Operation not permitted

I don't see anything special in the information window:

...and attempting to change the permission by unlocking the file results in an error message:

...and the same holds true for the parent directory Screen Savers. Since the same holds for the parent directory, true I am reticent to try sudo rm -rf as I would not be able to write a safety copy back to the directory. Call me cautious...

Though I can find no reference to the connection, apparently the screen savers are included in the "System Integrity Protection" which has been a part of macOS since "El Capitan".

  System Integrity Protection includes protection for these parts of the system:

  /System
  /usr
  /bin
  /sbin
  Apps that are pre-installed with OS X

If some brave soul want to try sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Screen\ Savers/iTunes\ Artwork.saver/ please mention your results in the comments.

That said, disabling S.I.P. just to remove the artwork is an option. You could enable S.I.P. after removing the iTunes Artwork.saver file.

From "How to modify System Integrity Protection in El Capitan"

  For the following to work, you must have a proper and up to date Recovery partition on your boot drive. While that should be a given, it’s possible to clone a startup volume without Recovery installed.

  Follow these steps to disable SIP:

  Restart your Mac.
  Before OS X starts up, hold down Command-R and keep it held down
  until you see an Apple icon and a progress bar. Release. This boots
  you into Recovery.
  From the Utilities menu, select Terminal.
  At the prompt type exactly the following and then press Return:
  csrutil disable
  Terminal should display a message that SIP was disabled.
  From the  menu, select Restart.
  You can re-enable SIP by following the above steps, but using
  csrutil enable instead.

You can also use csrutil status to display whether S.I.P. is enabled or disabled. There is no man csrutil.

Between steps 6 and 7 you should be able to remove the iTunes Artwork.saver file. I'd suggest making a copy in case you ever want to put it back. Also, I have no idea if it will get re-written if you add albums to your iTunes library.


Can I remote desktop to another user on the same machine?

ARD into your "work account" and then do the following on the remote computer to open a Screen Sharing window to your "personal account" on the same remote computer.

Create an SSH tunnel.  It works for me using 10.9.

Enable Remote Login (SSH) in System Preferences > Sharing, and in Terminal run:

ssh -NL 5901:localhost:5900 localhost

Finally, use Screen Sharing to connect to localhost:5901 (instead of the default port 5900).   Instead of port 5901 you can use a much higher port that isn't in use by anything else.

The Screen Sharing application is located here: /System/Library/CoreServices/Screen Sharing.app


In the new Photos OSX app, where is the machine-readable photo information stored?

The "list of photos" is in the RKMaster table.

cd ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Database/apdb
sqlite3 Library.apdb
select modelId,fileName,imagePath from RKMaster;

Do .schema RKMaster to see the other fields of the table.


While it is reasonably possible to use a classic Mac without a keyboard, using one without a mouse requires a System software disk with the Easy Access control panel installed.

With Easy Access installed, you can press Command-Shift-Clear to toggle Mouse Keys at which point your numeric keypad can be used to control the mouse cursor and the computer will be frustrating, but functional.

A limited number of shortcuts are still documented on Apple's site in Archived Technical Note 28141. Also, you can select icons in open windows by typing the first letters of the icon's name (for example, 'sys' will select "System Folder"), followed by Command-O to open.


What integration does Apple TV offer with other Apple hardware?

Basically you have to decide what is most important to you. Do you want to have the widest range of content offerings(Roku), or the best compatibility between other Apple devices and software(Apple TV)?

The Roku box for example can play Hulu and Hulu Plus. The Hulu service is in very high demand and a very good content stream for the Roku. The Apple TV at this time will not play it out of the box, although it can be hacked to do so.

The biggest advantage that the Apple TV has is if you own or plan to use an iOS device in conjunction with it. For example, you can use AirPlay to stream music, photos, video, and apps to your Apple TV. This can be very handy in many situations. If you don't already have an iPhone, iPad, or the like - and don't plan on getting one anytime soon, then this shouldn't be a big draw.

The Apple TV also works flawlessly with iTunes. For example you can use iTunes Match then stream the audio to your Apple TV very easily. Roku can do some similar things with iTunes, but is does not have the same level of integration.

Overall, both devices have benefits and downsides, it just depends what you think your primary use will be and what hardware ecosystem you have.  For more detailed information I would take a look at this review that compares the two.


How do I restore an account that was not deleted?

Log-in as admin user and open Terminal. Then enter

sudo dscl . read /Users/lost_username

Replace lost_username by the short name of the "hidden" or "lost" user.

If the user is still there check if the account is hidden:

sudo dscl . read /Users/lost_username IsHidden

If you get the following response: No such key: IsHidden you have a real problem. If it yields: dsAttrTypeNative:IsHidden: 1 your user is just hidden.

Unhide your user with:

sudo dscl . create /Users/lost_username IsHidden 0

or delete the key with

sudo dscl . delete /Users/lost_username IsHidden

You have to reboot after entering either of the last two commands to unhide the account.

If you get  DS Error: -14136 (eDSRecordNotFound) after entering the first command your user was deleted in the directory nodes.

Quick and dirty fix:

List the users' UniqueIDs with:

dscl . -list /Users UniqueID

Usually the first account created after installing OS X gets the 501, the second 502 and so on. Check for gaps (e.g. 502 is missing).

Rename (shorten) the abandoned user folder. Create a new user with the old user name (lost_username) and the old password. Check the UniqueID of the new user:

sudo dscl . -read /Users/lost_username UniqueID

Compare this UniqueID with the missing one. If they aren't the same, change the UniqueID of the newly created user to the missing one:

sudo dscl . -create /Users/lost_username UniqueID 502 #choose the missing ID here

Remove the newly created user folder (with the name lost_username). Rename the previously renamed (old and full with data) user folder to lost_username.

Log-in as lost_username.


Pasteboard is handled by pbs process on OS X. Things which are copied are stored inside pbs address space. More about that is on Apple Pasteboard Server article.

Whether the data is transferred between objects in the same application or two different applications, in a Cocoa application the interface is the same—an NSPasteboard object accesses a shared repository where writers and readers meet to exchange data. The writer, referred to as the pasteboard owner, deposits data on a pasteboard instance and moves on. The reader then accesses the pasteboard asynchronously, at some unspecified point in the future. By that time, the writer object may not even exist anymore. For example, a user may have closed the source document or quit the application.
Consequently, when moving data between two different applications, and therefore two different address spaces, a third memory space gets involved so the data persists even in the absence of the source. NSPasteboard provides access to a third address space—a pasteboard server process (pbs)—that is always running in the background. The pasteboard server maintains an arbitrary number of individual pasteboards to distinguish among several concurrent data transfers.


Pause iTunes with the spacebar while the Mac is locked

You can use the Play/Pause key (F8) on the keyboard to start/stop the playback. You can also play the previous track (F7) and the next track (F9), as well as adjust the Volume: mute (F10) decrease (F11) and increase (F12).


How to transfer songs from iPhone to iPhone

Backup your old iPhone to iTunes using a USB cable
Connect your new iPhone using a usb cable
Select "restore from backup" in iTunes.

Assuming the songs you are from your iTunes library, they will be transferred to the new iPhone.

Enjoy your music!

Please let me know if this solves your issue.


YOU might have a problem with permissions..

One is to restore system level permissions using the Disk Utility.
and use  this for Home Folder to restore them do following.:

  Restart OS X and hold down the Command and R keys.
  You will boot into the Repair Utilities screen. On top, in the Menu Bar click the Utilities item then select Terminal.
  In the Terminal window, type “resetpassword” (without the quotes) and hit Return.
  The Password reset utility launches, but you’re not going to reset the password. Instead, click on the icon for your Mac’s hard drive
  at the top. From the drop-down below it, select the user account where
  you are having issues.
  At the bottom of the window, you’ll see an area labeled ‘Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs’. Click the Reset button there.

  The reset process takes a couple of minutes.


MacBookPro8,2 late 2011 GPU fix with EFI: how to do it on Catalina macOS 10.15 (dosdude1 patch)?

I'm having the same issue trying to load the AMDRadeonX3000.kext after boot.

I was able to create the force-iGPU-boot script though, by mounting the Catalina system disk as R/W in terminal:

sudo mount -uw /


Why does Users & Groups System Preference not display a user?

Most likely, the user was deleted, but the user's home folder was retained (See the option Don't change the home folder below).

It can be deleted if you don't need it. An offline backup of the computer or /users folder can also free you to delete the files knowing you could go back if needed.


I just fixed my Spotlight index issue a couple days ago with the following commands. Was driving me nuts too.
cd /
sudo mdutil -E /
sudo mdutil -a -i off
sudo rm -fr .Spotlight-V100/
sudo mdutil -i on /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

For MacOS 10.15 Catalina and beyond, the last two lines should be:
sudo rm -fr /System/Volumes/Data/.Spotlight-V100/
sudo mdutil -i on /System/Volumes/Data

I know you tried something similar with Monomeeth guidance but maybe the subtle difference will work for you.
I added the actual Volume directory and Name to the last command since I had some USB drives plugged in that would get indexed otherwise.
I used Alfred for a while too but was happier with Quicksilver so I switched back.
Noticed you are running macOS 10.13.6 beta. Any chance that could be causing an issue? I would have put this as a comment but I don't have the rep yet. :-(


Preview 10.1 in macOS Mojave does not capture signature with camera

When you select the camera on the Preview.app, It should open the camera up. You need keep some distance between the FaceTime camera and the white paper only then Preview.app will pick it up. If it's kept too close, the signature will not be picked up.


Under 10.8 which file stores the environment variables?

The system-wide default path is in /etc/paths. The default on a 10.8 system contains the following:

/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/local/bin

To add additional system-wide PATH entries, you could change that file, but a better option would be to add a file with the additional path entries to directory /etc/paths.d. That user-created file will be protected during any upgrades/patches, which may replace a customised /etc/paths with an Apple-distributed version.
Alternatively, you could put the appropriate PATH modifying statements in /etc/profile or /etc/bashrc (in the case of bash, it will only use the latter if the former doesn't exist). Any other system-wide environment changes can be done using those files as well.
User-specific configuration can be put in $HOME/.bashrc or $HOME/.bash_profile.
Note: In the above, I've assumed you're using bash - if you're using csh or zsh, you'll need to adjust their configuration files (the information about /etc/paths and /etc/paths.d remains valid, however).


I sort by date by selecting Albums at the top of Photos window.

Then use the View menu to check Keep Sorted By Date

There isn't any way to reverse that currently and I don't see any indication that they'll do anything other than tell you to scroll to the bottom to see the other ordering.


Is there a way to move all windows back to the iMac (from HDTV)?

You could try going into System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement and check Mirror Displays. From here, unchecking it should bring all your windows back to your main screen.


Run Disk Utility from Recovery Mode
On Reboot, press Cmd-R
Open Disk Utility.
Select your partition one by one and hit repair a couple of times.

If you have another Mac, you can mount your MacBook partition using Target Disk Mode. Connect both Macs with Thunderbolt/USB-C cable. Reboot your MacBook, then immediately press and hold T while it starts up. Hopefully your APFS partition will show up. Note: Both Macs should be using APFS volume.


In general, Lithium-Ion batteries don't like being discharged frequently, and decent computers will cut off the charging circuit once the battery is fully charged.

  If I am using it, do I let it discharge, or leave it plugged in?

Leave it plugged in, if your battery is at 100% the circuit is shut off, and you're essentially not using your battery at all, helping its life expectancy.

  If I am discharging it / allowing it to be unplugged, should I plug it
  in again when it reaches a certain %?

You shouldn't be doing it generally. Batteries only need about one full cycle (full discharge-charge) per month to stay healthy.

  Is there a particular battery level I should wait for before shutting
  down / recharging?

As stated before, it's recommended to stay at 100% and only run one charge cycle about once a month. This charge cycle can be one-time where you fully discharge/charge it, or it can be several partial cycles (for instance 5 cycles where you discharge to 80% and then charge back to 100%)

  When is it okay to close the lid vs. shutting down completely?

It depends. As per question 1, if your computer is plugged in it won't be using the battery at all, so no harm there; but if your computer isn't plugged in, it will consume battery charge (though not much). So if you're going to leave your computer unattended for a considerable time, you want to either leave the computer plugged in, or shut it down, or take advantage of the charge usage as part of your "monthly charge cycle". I'd say its ok to put it in sleep mode unplugged only for short periods of time, such as driving to work/home, but it might even be ok to do so for the night, to force your monthly charge cycle.

Bottom line: battery life expectancy is measured in cycles, so the worst you can do is to constantly discharge and recharge it. Leaving it plugged in helps your battery life by not using it at all.


I solved this by going to Preferences (⌘+,) -> Accounts -> Google Account -> Delegation (tab) -> Click on My Meetups.

I can now see the meetups in the calendar :)

Warning: This is a viable solution only, of course, if you don't use the delegation feature -> If you do, you will give (unneccesary?) access to your Meet ups to your delegates, which may not be what you want.


How do I move all my account settings from an old Apple TV to a new one?

I'm not aware of any way to migrate account information from one Apple TV to another.

You'll have to set it up as new: sign into iCloud, download + sign into apps, etc. It is a bit of a hassle but it doesn't take too long.

I suggest using the iPhone app "Apple TV Remote" which enables you to type passwords via the iPhone keyboard. Also, Apple now offers single sign on for certain cable providers, you'll find this in "Settings" under "Accounts" I believe.


Why does iPods need password when installing an app

It always needs a Password for all Installs to protect you, or in case of App Store to identify you and your account.

You could change that settings but I would not advice that.

If it is your Apple ID then you can recover the password using the

https://iforgot.apple.com/password/verify/appleid

It will send you a email to the account you used allowing you to reset the password or you can answer the questions to which you provided the answer when registering.


Are there any consumer style websites that offer WebDav support?

The Omni Group Forum thread, List of free webDAV sync providers, has links to a number of  possibilities.


Can running `yes > /dev/null` harm a Mac?

The instructions for yes have this little gem from the man page :

  Using yes results in 100% processor usage, for this reason it is
  rarely used other than for testing e.g. to max out a computer's CPU.

Which means, no, you will not have damaged your hardware. Using the yes command is a way of using all (i.e. 100%) of your CPU. The symptoms you experienced (i.e. a rise in temperature and the resulting increase in fan RPM) are to be expected under these circumstances.  Additionally, your CPU will "throttle back" and ultimately shut down if its thermal threshold is exceeded to prevent damage.


Bootcamp/Win 7: No device drivers were found

I would recommend you trying to follow this kb (TS4599) by Apple and update the results in your question using an Edit: at the start of the edit.

I've posted the steps in the image below just to be certain you're reading the same as I've seen:


Does setting a perspective wallpaper rather than still in iOS drain battery (significantly) faster?

Whilst it would reduce battery as its constantly using sensor data and updating the display it doesn't (in my experience) reduce the battery noticeably, however on older devices it does cause some FPS issue, in which case reduce motion is recommended as well as a still background image.


Error code 80070022 and 80070057 when trying to backup music from iPod Classic

The only thing I can currently think of would be swapping out the cable at this point and seeing if performance improves. You've tried on different computers, so that kind of rules out fault with the PC/Mac. It has to be something with the iPod, and the cable is the first thing I'd check.


python2.7 cannot be opened because of a problem

Was fighting with this issue today, after I upgraded python using brew, the annoying pop up wouldn't let me work on my Mac! The only difference is that it was shouting for python3.4. After couple hours of digging I just decided to:

remove all python3 whatsoever, the one installed by brew and the one installed manually from dmg.
search for all remaining symlinks to python I've had on my development projects folder. After deactivating all the venv's and removing the symlinks the pop up was gone.

Then I found this post of jeremycade which explains the less aggressive approach.


How can I stop my screen from dimming while it's plugged in?

Under displays in system preferences there is a checkbox (along with a brightness slider) to enable/disable automatic brightness.


There is Cisco AnyConnect, which replaces the native VPN client. There is also a standalone Cisco VPN client for Mac.

Link


The easiest way is to use a wifi repeater.  Many routers can be put into repeater mode.  Put the repeater on your porch.

Initially you have to attach the router to your laptop with an ethernet cable to configure it.  Directions vary between manufacturers, but in a nutshell, you want it to listen on whatever channel is the available one, then rebroadcast that on an un0ccupied channel at least 3 channel numbers away.  So if the current access point was on channel 2, you would want it to rebroadcast on 5 or above.

Google wi-fi repeater.  Try amazon.  Should be under 50 bucks.

A second solution that will work better, but is less convenient, is to put a wifi router on the porch, and put it in bridge mode, then connect to it with an ethernet cable.  This will give you full speed (repeaters cut your speed in half) and is less likely to cause/be subject to interference from other wifi points.


iPad case for toddlers that hides the home button?

Can you put the iPad in the case upside-down?

I don't mean with the screen facing in the other direction, but with the device rotated 180 degrees. on the plane of the screen.

This should make the home button inaccessible, though it may also obscure the volume, rotation lock, and power buttons (which may be desirable as well).


You might need the carrier to unlock the device.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201328

Activation Lock in iCloud is to protect the owner of the device from theft.

SIM Lock protects the carrier revenue stream as far as I can tell. Maybe there's another legitimate use for it that I haven't considered.


Automatically forward "Starred in Gmail" messages to OmniFocus

Try:

function TJ() {
  var threads = GmailApp.search('label:inbox is:starred');
  for (var h = 0; h < threads.length; h++) {
    var messages = threads[h].getMessages();
    for (var i = 0; i < messages.length; i++) {
      if (messages[i].isStarred())
      {
        Logger.log(messages[i].getSubject());
        messages[i].unstar();
        messages[i].forward("recipient1@example.com", {
          // Advanced parameters: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/gmail/gmail-message#forward%28String,Object%29
          cc: "myboss@example.com",
          bcc: "mybosses-boss@example.com,vp@example.com"
          });
      }
  }
}
}

For more information regarding Google Apps Script, see this post:
http://www.johneday.com/422/time-based-gmail-filters-with-google-apps-script


I have a 2007 iMac. A while back, I replaced the internal drive with a 1 TB hard disk. The Mac still has a working optical drive. Currently, the mac has 64 bit Windows 10 Pro, Ubuntu Linux, Yosemite and El Capitan installed. I am fortunate, in that I have a 2011 iMac running High Sierra and a Snow Leopard DVD.

One path to reinstall would be to install Snow Leopard from a DVD. Apple still sells the DVD for 20 USD. If necessary, you should upgrade to OS X 10.6.8. One way to accomplish this would be to download the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1. Finally, the current instructions for upgrading to El Capitan can be found here. This site has a this link to the Apps Store where El Capitan can be downloaded.

Another path would be find someone who has purchased (for free) El Capitan. If this person has access to a Mac running High Sierra or earlier, then they can download El Capitan to this Mac. El Capitan can be transferred to a bootable USB flash drive installer. The instruction are given here. Basically, the command below needs to be executed on a flash drive formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with the label (Name) MyVolume.

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

  Note: I also have a 2013 iMac running Mojave. When accessing the Apps Store, the Yosemite and El Capitan operating systems do not appear. So accessing previous purchases now depend on the version of macOS your are using.

Update: How to Get and Verify a Snow Leopard ISO File from the Internet

Mac User posted in an answer which states a Snow Leopard ISO file can be download from this website. This site shows an image of a DVD. I happen to have that very DVD. This is OS X version 10.6. So I decided to conduct some research using an iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2011) running macOS High Sierra Version 10.13.6. Here is the work and results.

First, I downloaded the ISO file from the website. This was named snow leopard install.iso.

Next, I used the Disk Utility to create a DVD/CD master image of the Snow Leopard DVD named SnowLeopardDVD.cdr. I used the command shasum -a 256 snow\ leopard\ install.iso to get a SHA256 checksum, as shown below.

cbeeb2378c40b20a9b06236f567de593e9030a0a865515b50cf6d35833e25cd5  snow leopard install.iso

The command ls -l SnowLeopardDVD.cdr snow\ leopard\ install.iso produced the following output.

-rw-r--r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff  7771496448 Mar 19 01:11 SnowLeopardDVD.cdr
-rw-r--r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff  7771521024 Mar 18 18:34 snow leopard install.iso

This shows the download to be 24576 bytes larger. I used the hexdump -C -s 7771496448 snow\ leopard\ install.iso to display these extra bytes. The output shown below. This output shows all these extra bytes are zero.

1cf37a000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
1cf380000

Next, I used the Finder application to mount both files. The snow leopard install.iso file mounted as disk1 and the SnowLeopardDVD.cdr file mounted as disk3. Neither of the next two commands produced any output. This means the disk1 and disk3 are identical to the files that were mounted.

  Note: In some instances, I needed to unmount one or more volumes before using certain commands.

cmp /dev/disk1 snow\ leopard\ install.iso
cmp /dev/disk3 SnowLeopardDVD.cdr

The output from diskutil list disk1 and diskutil list disk3 is shown below. The output shows the partitions are the same type and size.

/dev/disk1 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        +7.8 GB     disk1
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk1s1
   2:         Apple_Driver_ATAPI                         1.0 GB     disk1s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install DVD    6.7 GB     disk1s3

/dev/disk3 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        +7.8 GB     disk3
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk3s1
   2:         Apple_Driver_ATAPI                         1.0 GB     disk3s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install DVD    6.7 GB     disk3s3

None of the commands shown below produced any output. This means the partitions are identical.

cmp /dev/disk1s1 /dev/disk3s1
cmp /dev/disk1s2 /dev/disk3s2
cmp /dev/disk1s3 /dev/disk3s3

Next, I execute the command cmp -l SnowLeopardDVD.cdr snow\ leopard\ install.iso. Only the first and last 2 lines of the output is shown below.

1034487809 343   0
1034489856  65   0
cmp: EOF on SnowLeopardDVD.cdr

Since I now know both files are using the Apple_partition_scheme, I can post the output from the commands pdisk -lr /dev/disk1 and pdisk -lr /dev/disk3, as shown below. Again the partitions appear to be the same type and size.

Partition map (with 2048 byte blocks) on '/dev/disk1'
 #:                type name       length   base    ( size )
 1: Apple_partition_map Apple          15 @ 1
 2:  Apple_Driver_ATAPI Macintosh  505105 @ 16      (986.5M)
 3:           Apple_HFS Mac_OS_X  3289554 @ 505122  (  6.3G)
 4:          Apple_Free                 3 @ 3794676

Device block size=2048, Number of Blocks=3794679 (7.2G)
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0

Partition map (with 2048 byte blocks) on '/dev/disk3'
 #:                type name       length   base    ( size )
 1: Apple_partition_map Apple          15 @ 1
 2:  Apple_Driver_ATAPI Macintosh  505105 @ 16      (986.5M)
 3:           Apple_HFS Mac_OS_X  3289554 @ 505122  (  6.3G)
 4:          Apple_Free                 3 @ 3794676

Device block size=2048, Number of Blocks=3794679 (7.2G)
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0

Since I now know the block size is 2048 bytes, I can convert the byte counts given as output from the last cmp command to blocks, as shown below.

1034487809 bytes = 505,121 blocks * 2048 bytes/block + 1 byte
1034489856 bytes = 505,122 blocks * 2048 bytes/block + 0 bytes

The above conversion shows all the differences occur in the one unused 2048 byte block between the Apple_Driver_ATAPI and Apple_HFS partitions.

The next commands extend the SnowLeopardDVD.cdr file by 24576 bytes of zeros. The following command zeros the 2048 byte block between the Apple_Driver_ATAPI and Apple_HFS partitions in then SnowLeopardDVD.cdr file.

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1 count=24576 seek=7771496448 of=SnowLeopardDVD.cdr
dd if=/dev/zero bs=2048 count=1 seek=505121 conv=notrunc of=SnowLeopardDVD.cdr

The command given below produces no output, thus confirming the SnowLeopardDVD.cdr and snow leopard install.iso files are now the same.

cmp SnowLeopardDVD.cdr snow\ leopard\ install.iso

The result of this research is outlined below.

The ISO I download is authentic. The differences that occur outside the partitions are not used and are zero in the ISO file.
If another website promotes the download of an ISO file of this same DVD, you can use the information in this answer to verify if the download is authentic. This is why I included the SHA256 checksum of the ISO file I downloaded.


How to stop the Apple Music ads every time I launch the Music app?

I hate to say, but I’ve not been able to find any way to accomplish this so I’m going to recommend just using a different music app with your same music library that the native Music app creates and manages.

For me, I love the Cs music player and it does an amazing job at using your existing music library and lets you avoid using the native app any time it disappoints you.

Cs Music Player by Mike Clay

I think this used to be called the cesium player if you search for other reviews or don’t want to try this app. What it does for me is it knows which songs are Apple Music and coached locally, so I don’t incur data charges and just want to shuffle songs I already downloaded. I also prefer this app over Apple for several local library situations (classical music, better for me interface, etc...)


Which Macs support Airplay mirroring on Mountain Lion?

iMac (Mid 2011 or newer)
Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer)

Regular Airplay is still supported on all Macs running Mountain Lion.


The first issue is in what (application processes where visible is true) returns.

As an example, on a clean install of macOS 10.13 with just Finder and Script Editor open:

tell application "System Events" to get application processes where visible is true

Returns:

{application process "Script Editor" of application "System Events", application process "Finder" of application "System Events"}

What you really want is to get a list of names of applications that are visible, e.g.:

tell application "System Events" to get name of every application process where visible is true

Returns:

{"Script Editor", "Finder"}

The following example AppleScript code will try to close all open documents of each application and on error close all windows.

Now I opened some documents in TextEdit and Preview and some windows in Finder then ran the example AppleScript code. It closed all open documents in TextEdit and Preview and all windows in Finder, but not Script Editor.

Note: This will not close and Script Editor documents and silently errors out with:

error "The document can’t be closed while the script is running."

Example AppleScript code:

tell application "System Events"
    set theVisibleApps to (name of application processes where visible is true)
end tell

repeat with thisApp in theVisibleApps
    try
        tell application thisApp
            try
                close every document without saving
            on error
                close every window
            end try
        end tell
    end try
end repeat

Also note that with this example AppleScript code as coded will not close every document or close every window of an application that does not support those commands and should fail silently because of the try command.

This example AppleScript code is being presented to illustrate what's wrong with your present code and an example of how to help achieve your goal.


cfgutil no longer works via ssh after upgrading to Sierra

I've found a very awkward workaround, though input is hidden:

Create a file, e.g. /tmp/cfgutil.sh on the server
Populate that file with the command you wish to run, e.g. cfgutil list
When you ssh in, run open -a Terminal /tmp/cfgutil.sh

Here's a minimal example:
echo "/usr/local/bin/cfgutil list" > /tmp/cfgutil.sh && ssh localhost open -a Terminal "/tmp/cfgutil.sh"

I suspect it only works if the user is logged in via the UI as well.


Automator: Filter Finder Items selecting wrong files

Finder uses the kMagicBusyCreationDate for files currently being downloaded, which is 08:34:56 on 1946-02-14 (+0000).

  Use this date as a file's or folder's creation date to indicate that it is temporarily busy (while it is being downloaded or installed, for example).

What is the significance of 1946-02-14 08:34:56?

As this is well outside your date range, the file is removed immediately. Therefore you can’t use any date based checks whilst files are being downloaded.


iPad and iPhone show one delivered iMessage but not on the other. Is message delivered?

I've experienced this when the sending device was the iPhone, and I knew the recipient was on holiday and not online - the iPhone did not show delivered, but the iPad did. Eventually, when the recipient came back online days later, the iMessage showed delivered on the iPhone too.

This is a likely an iMessage bug/anomaly (which I wish Apple would address!) I would take the true delivery notification to be the device from where the message was originally sent.


According to various reports around the internet, to get to Mojave there are a couple of precautions to take so you don't lock yourself out of the machine.

I would always be certain to have not only an up to date Time Machine backup, but I would also have a full clone of the working system before starting out... you never know when something might go wrong.

I'm assuming the card you have is not specifically Mac-flashed.
My card is flashed, so some of these precautions are learned from others' experience, not my own.

First of all, to be safe - it you have File Vault enabled, disable it & wait for it to finish decrypting before moving on.

Another thing to check is whether your new card is 6-pin or 8-pin. If it's 8-pin you'll need to get adaptors. From memory, the HD5770 takes a single 6-pin, but there should be a second cable already in situ. The new card will need both.

You could then test by just swapping in the card & booting up.  If you can see the boot screen, it's flashed. If you see nothing until you get to login, it's not.
If it's not flashed you cannot use File Vault once it's installed.[1]
Other than that, on El Capitan it should 'just work', no drivers or firmware update is required.

Assuming all went well so far, then you will need to update to High Sierra 10.13.6 before you can go to Mojave. I don't know why this is, & I was already at 10.13.6 anyway before Mojave, but general consensus is that this is a necessary step.
I vaguely remember having to do a firmware update to get to High Sierra, though I don't remember the details. I think it was a simple 'Click OK & wait' type of structure.

The firmware update to load Mojave is different.
It will tell you to hold the power button until the light flashes or you hear a beep. Having done this many times now (all the way through the beta phase you had to do it every time, so once a week for 2 months ;) I can say with certainty that you need to wait until you hear the beep before letting go of the button. The Mac will immediately reboot at that point.

Once that's done, it's just a case of waiting until the install is complete & you can use your new card on Mojave.

[1] Not being able to see the boot screen will limit anything you ever need to do before login; change boot drive, dis/enable SIP, use Recovery etc - so it's best to always keep your old card for just in case.
However, as Mojave may not even boot with the old card in [I haven't tested this] you ought to hang onto the clone you made at the start. Belt & braces. Better safe than sorry.


Time Machine backup: Does it create a disk image? Or replicate data on the backup drive?

Time Machine does not create a disk image, and it instead copies over files to a folder on the target destination. It copies over almost all the files, except for a few system files and trash files. When backing up to remote drives like a Time Capsule, it uses Sparse bundles.

Erasing the hard drive and restoring the backup might free up some storage, but it'll be very, very little and probably not worth the effort.

Source


When buying an in-app you'll be asked to enter your Apple ID and password. Just use that account to unlock the item.


What are “Pickups” in the Screen Time report?

It’s the number of times that you have picked up the device to explicitly interact with it. The following interactions count:

accelerometer
screen unlock
hey Siri


How to install Mac OSX Mountain Lion as virtual OS in Mac OSX Yosemite?

It shouldn't make your system unstable since it runs in its own "box" per se.. I have done it for other operating systems such as Ubuntu, Windows, and older versions of OS X.


Remote Assistance/Screen Sharing from Mac OS X to Windows XP analogous to iChat's Screen Sharing

About the only thing I've found so far that is free and works well is logmein.com.  Another option is to use Skype but you'll never actually have control of the system.


How can I add a service to Finder to add a movie/track to a VLC playlist?

Using the Open With to make sure you open the file with VLC will add it to the current playlist


MacBook Pro 13'' 2017 (A1708) after year of use showing 50% capacity

Shut down the laptop, then turn it on while holding the D key. It will open the Apple Diagnostics Test (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731). After the test is done, the results may show if there's something wrong with your battery. If there are critical errors, I'm afraid that you may have to replace the battery. Is your laptop still on warranty? If it is, you can actually do it for free at an Apple Authorized Service Center, it doesn't have to be an Apple Service Center.


where is the Documents folder shown in iFile (iPad-Air)?

When using a system that doesn't know how to follow POSIX symbolic links (like iFunbox), then you're going to need to know the actual location of the directory. When using iFile, it'll appear to be located at /var/mobile/Documents/, but in reality, /var is a symbolic link to /private/var/. So the answer to your question is: The Documents folder is located at /private/var/mobile/Documents/.


Is there a way in Terminal to highlight the row under the cursor?

Yes - just put the cursor on the line and triple click it - and it will light up the whole line.  It works with apple terminal as well as iTerm.


How to invoke navigation on Google maps using Siri?

Yes you can
Simply append "via transit" to your Siri query.
Ie: Directions to Miami Beach, Florida via Transit.
Siri will determine your target location, and will give you a choice of transit apps. Tap Google Maps and you'll be on your way.
It appears these words also work:

by transit
using transit
via transit


How to fix apple diagnostics error DEC500?

Let's see if we can get Apple Hardware Test working from a bootable USB drive.

The steps to do this are as follows:

Create a bootable USB flash drive by using Disk Utility's Erase function. Make sure you choose OS X Extended for the format and the GUID Partition Map for the scheme. For the purposes of these steps, also give your USB the name AHT when you're erasing it.
Now download the AHT for your particular Mac (i.e. AHT 3A238) from Apple here
Mount the downloaded image (it should mount as AHTCOne)
Now you will need to copy the AHT to your USB flash drive. To start, Launch the Terminal app (usually found within the Utilities folder)
In the Terminal window, enter the following:

cp -r /Volumes/AHTCOne/System /Volumes/AHT/
Now we need to make the USB flash drive bootable, so enter the following line in Terminal:

sudo bless --folder /Volumes/AHT/ --file /Volumes/AHT/System/Library/CoreServices/.diagnostics/diags.efi --label AHT
Enter your Admin password
Leave the USB flash drive plugged in and restart your Mac
Immediately hold down the Option key
Select the AHT option from the list and boot up

Now test to see if your Mac can run Apple Hardware Test or not.

NOTE for other readers:

Different Macs require different versions of Apple's diagnostic software. So this answer will not apply to you unless your Mac also requires AHT 3A238. Note: Macs introduced after June 2013 use Apple Diagnostics instead.
Likewise, the Terminal commands used in this answer are for this specific question.
However, assuming you have downloaded the AHT version for your Mac, then this answer can be adapted for your use by replacing the AHTCOne with whatever name your downloaded disk image mounted as at Step 3. For example, if at step 3 your downloaded disk image mounted as AHTCThree, then at Step 5 you would use AHTCThree instead of AHTCOne within the Terminal command.


MacBook Pro can't boot: shows Apple logo then grey screen

Try to do a file system check via single user mode.

Reboot and immediately press Cmd+S
Wait for the command line and then type /sbin/fsck -fy
Have a tea. And a cookie.
Have a look in the output. If the HDD is failing you might see something like I/O Error. If you see something like ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED ***** then you can try to do it once more. If Volume X appears to be OK then you might be lucky.
Type reboot and let it boot.

More info on apple's website.

Good luck!


Copy Books from Mac to iBooks for iPhone without using iCloud or iCloud Drive

Any file transfer option that simply copies the file directly will suffice, or you can use a third-party ebook manager such as Calibre.

To transfer the files directly, you can use AirDrop or file syncing options such as Dropbox and Google Drive. Of these, I would personally recommend using AirDrop, as since it is transferred with a local ad-hoc Wi-Fi connection, it never needs to leave your local network and allows for fast transfer speeds of even very large files. Note that this will only work if your iOS and Mac devices meet these requirements.

The Apple support website offers these instructions for using AirDrop to send files to an iOS device:

  Choose Go > AirDrop from the menu bar in the Finder. Or select
  AirDrop in the sidebar of a Finder window.
  The AirDrop window shows
  nearby AirDrop users. Drag one or more items to the recipient's
  image in the window, then click Send.

  Or use the Share feature:

  Click the Share button, if available in your app. Or Control-click an item in the Finder, then choose Share from the shortcut menu.
  The Share menu lists several sharing options. Choose AirDrop.
  Select a recipient from the AirDrop sheet, then click Done.

If you'd rather have a library of all your books on your computer, and then sync them semi-automatically, this answer gives some information as to how to use Calibre with an iOS device.


Programmatically/Script-atically changing the default Open-With setting

This is doable, but probably isn't as straightforward as you might think.  You'll need to get very familiar with Uniform Type Identifiers.  Look at Wikipedia's Uniform Type Identifier page.

OS X stores information on preferred file associations in a preference file with the name com.apple.LaunchServices.plist.  Before you go try to find and modify that file, I suggest you familiarize yourself with OS X's domain hierarchy for defaults (a.k.a. "settings").  A decent article on this can be found here. (Disclaimer: they seem to be selling something on that site. I don't know what it is and have no association with them, the explanation is just a good one.)

Now that you know all about defaults and UTIs (er, not the medical kind), now we can talk about setting file associations from a script/command line.

First, you'll need to know the proper way to identify the files for which you want to make an association.

Remember how I said UTIs were important?  There are multiple ways to identify a file.  It depends on if the type has been formally declared on your system or not.  For example, decent text editors like TextMate or TextWrangler will add quite a few type declarations to the type hierarchy when you use them on your system.  If, however, you don't have those applications, you may not have those types declared.

OK, enough talk.  Examples:

Get the UTI for a file:

$ mdls myFile.xml
...
kMDItemContentType             = "public.xml"
kMDItemContentTypeTree         = (
    "public.xml",
    "public.text",
    "public.data",
    "public.item",
    "public.content"
)
...

Ok, cool.  An explicit content type we can use.  Write that down somewhere.

$ mdls myFile.myExtn
...
kMDItemContentType             = "dyn.ah62d4rv4ge8048pftb4g6"
kMDItemContentTypeTree         = (
    "public.data",
    "public.item"
)
...

Oops.  OS X doesn't know about ".myExtn" files.  So, it created a dynamic UTI that we can't use for anything.  And the parent types are too generic to be useful.

Now that we know what our files are, lets look at the LaunchServices.plist file and see what we can do:

$defaults read com.apple.LaunchServices
{
    ...
    LSHandlers =     (
                {
            LSHandlerContentType = "public.html";
            LSHandlerRoleAll = "com.apple.safari";
            LSHandlerRoleViewer = "com.google.chrome";
        },
    ...
                {
            LSHandlerContentTag = myExtn;
            LSHandlerContentTagClass = "public.filename-extension";
            LSHandlerRoleAll = "com.macromates.textmate";
        },
    ...
    );
    ...
}

So, when you have a "good" content type to use, the first construct is better.  Otherwise the other construct.  Note, there are other constructs in that file, but they aren't relevant to what you asked.  Just know they are there when you look through the output.

As you can see, you'll need to find the UTI for the application you want to use.  The UTIs for Safar and TextMate are in my example above, but to generically find the UTI for an application:

$ cd /Applications/MyApp.app/Contents
$ less Info.plist
...
        <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
        <string>com.apple.Safari</string>
...

NOTE: I have no idea what constitutes the difference between LSHandlerRoleAll and LSHandlerRoleViewer.  I can't find documentation on that anywhere.  What I do see is that 99% of the time LSHandlerRoleAll is the only one set (i.e. there is no LSHandlerRoleViewer at all) and that it is set to the UTI for the application that you desire to associate the type with.

Having brought you this far, I'm going to leave HOW to set the values you want as an exercise for the reader.  Messing with these things can be somewhat dangerous.  It is entirely possible for you to screw up a file and not have ANY of your file associations work.  Then you have to throw away the file and start over.

Some hints:

Read up on defaults write and its syntax
Take a look at PlistBuddy.  man PlistBuddy and /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -h
Skip all this nonsense altogether and use RCDefaultApp


How can my Mac still be falling asleep with Caffeinate?

Missing some information, but I'll make some guesses:

caffeinate -s only applies when system is running on ac power

So maybe assume this is an iMac? (from your reference to a "DP-based monitor")

caffeinate -d might be worth trying, but it's hard to say if an iMac can keep a non-Apple monitor from sleeping.

The fact that you're seeing activity lights on your external drive may or may not mean something... I have an external drive that blinks when it goes into idle mode :)

You might also try this: Start an app on your Mac, get its PID (e.g. 123) from Activity Monitor, and then run caffeinate - w 123

A couple of other things to try that would verify the true state of your Mac: initiate a VNC connection to your Mac from another Mac or PC, or alternatively enable the remote login service for your Mac, and make an SSH connection to it. This would allow you to verify whether your Mac is really sleeping, or whether something else is going on. Simply pinging your Mac might also give some indications.


Problem with text messaging on new xs iphone with shared itunes account

You can have separate Apple IDs for Messages and FaceTime while keeping the same Apple ID for iTunes & App Store. Create an Apple ID for each person, then log into this Apple ID in Settings under Messages and FaceTime, leaving the existing Apple ID for iTunes and App Store purchases.


Downloading Notes app notes without iCloud?

I am not so sure that it's possible without an internet connection, but since notes are just a subset of IMAP, you should be able to use any IMAP e-mail account (e.g. Gmail) for that purpose after you add the account in Settings.app and enable Note Syncing. However, I can't think of a way to do it without any internet connection.


Unresponsive Trackpad Click After Battery Depletion

Usually OS X machines will go to sleep when they run low on battery.

The fact that yours didn't suggests a battery fault.

I used to be a technician and I saw clicking affected when the battery swells (as the battery sits directly on top of the trackpad assembly).

Does the click feel normal (still get the normal click noise when you press the trackpad)? If not, I would suggest taking it in to be looked at by a technician.


Is there a way to determine what program is calling a sound randomly on my Mac?

This would show aif files that are being opened:

sudo opensnoop | grep -F .aif

Or see if any application has those files inside its bundle:

find /Applications -name \*.aif


How do I undelete an app without losing data?

You can restore from your last backup that contained the game, however you will lose any new additions you've made on the phone since the backup. iTunes normally makes a backup every few syncs or days, depending on how often you have plugged it in.

I would first try and just re-install the game since she may have removed the game but not the actual data associated to it.

Apart from that there is no way to recover the data, since the iPhone does an immediate delete of all files once instructed to do so.


Tool to sort Activity Monitor: legit or suspicious

At https://objective-see.com/products.html there are (free) tools available to see security related process information (persistent processes, process hierarchy etc.)
There is a suite of security features (like GateKeeper), including malware removal tools (xProtect and – appropriately named – MRT) built into macOS.
These are updated silently and regularly in the background independent of "regular" macOS updates.
If you want to see more information/the current status of all these built-in tools, have a  look at the applications available at: https://eclecticlight.co/downloads/.


The Hard Drive Failed... Went to apple and they told me :(


Fink installs software in /sw/bin which isn't in your PATH by default. According to the manual you need to run
/sw/bin/pathsetup.sh

after installation.

[This] command runs a little script to help set up your Unix paths (and other things) for use with Fink. In most cases, it will run automatically, and prompt you for permission to make changes. If the script fails, you'll have to do things by hand (see below).
(If you need to do things by hand, and you are using csh or tcsh, you need to make sure that the command source /sw/bin/init.csh is executed during startup of your shell, either by .login, .cshrc, .tcshrc, or something else appropriate. If you are using bash or similar shells, the command you need is . /sw/bin/init.sh, and places where it might get executed include .bashrc and .profile.)
Once you have set up the paths, open a new Terminal.app window, and close all other ones. That's it, you now have a base Fink system installed.


Make Safari tab bar display all tabs at once without horizontal scrolling?

Actually there is a plugin (not to be confused with an extension) called Glims which allows the tabs to have a minimum width roughly the size of the close button. It's free - Glims

The screen resolution you are set to will ultimately determine your results, but for me I can normally only fit 13 tabs in a full screen Safari window. With Glims installed and this option turned on, it fits around 50 tabs. After that it resumes the usual behavior of giving you the >> for more tabs.

The drawback is obviously you loose your tab titles, making it difficult to discern one tab from another and this is why Apple chose to impose this arbitrary limitation. However there is another feature in Glims to display the website's favicon in the place where the close tab button usually is. This helps alleviate the aforementioned dilemma to an extent.

FYI - Glims does much more than that as well.


Use sips to pad just the top of an image

I do not believe you can do that with sips. I would recommend ImageMagick which you can easily install using Homebrew. Then the command is:

convert  InputImage.jpg -background blue -splice 0x100 PaddedResult.jpg

If you want to add transparent padding, use:

convert  InputImage.jpg -background transparent -splice 0x100 out.png

If you want to composite two images together, you can do this:

convert -size 1024x768 xc:blue 1024x768.jpg                    # create big blue image
convert -size 100x100 xc:red 100x100.jpg                       # create little red image
composite -gravity northeast 100x100.jpg 1024x768.jpg out.jpg  # superimpose top right

Note that I am creating my images first, you can obviously just use your own.


Open the Activity Monitor app (found in the /Applications/Utilities folder) and select the process from the list. Click the stop process button at the top left of the Activity Monitor window. If the process is a background process, you will have to select the memory tab to see the list of background processes.


How to re-order accounts in Mail.app (El Capitan)

If you delete the accounts from Mail.app and then add them back in the order you want them to be in, it will save the order. There is currently no way to manually change the order after the accounts have been created within Mail.


The said functionality is neither built into iOS natively (unlike some Android phones), nor is it available via any 3rd party apps.

However, certain apps which deal with sensitive content give you the ability to restrict access partially or totally via Touch ID/Face ID authentication. Common examples include banking, financial data management, password manager apps etc.

Partial restriction entails requiring successful authentication when accessing sensitive parts of an app (such as when authorizing a purchase on the App Store). Total restriction entail requiring successful authentication every time when accessing the app (accessing a password manager app).

Total restriction is very similar functionally to app locker feature offered in some Android devices either natively or via a 3rd party app.

To learn more about Touch ID and Face ID, refer to these links:

Use Touch ID on iPhone and iPad
Use Face ID on your iPhone or iPad Pro

A good number of built-in and 3rd party app support Touch ID/Face ID authentication. You can also search for apps catering to specific required feature (hiding sensitive photos, videos, notes) with support for Touch ID/Face ID authentication to access content.

Look for Touch ID/Face ID support in an app when going through its description or settings. Apple's Notes app for example lets your lock certain notes with Touch ID. 1Password - Password Manager for iOS offers total restriction and asks for authentication every time you try to access the app (very similar to app locker functionality).


How to prompt user confirmation on Mac from Windows/Linux VNC connections?

System preference => Sharing => Remote Management => Computer Settings
Check the box: VNC viewers may control screen with password:
And allow access for only the users needing access. That should do the trick


See history for a specific tab in Safari with right click

You can do this in Safari by regular click and hold on the back arrow key. A right-click allows you to customize toolbar. I don't know if you can make the same option with a right-click.


I blocked someone from contacting me on iPhone. I then sent an angry message to them that I regret. Did they see the message?

Blocking someone and being able to send them messages are two different things:

  Yes, you have only blocked seeing that they called or texted you. Blocking has nothing to do with outgoing calls or texts.

Your iMessage has most likely been delivered to, and displayed on, one or more of the recipient’s iOS and macOS devices.


Battery is draining with "Power source: Power adapter" in macOS Catalina

I found that I could get a port that was not working to start working by unplugging the cable at the power adapter (leaving it plugged in at the laptop) and then reconnecting it. It's not clear to me what this is doing or if it's placebo, but it's odd.


"mkdir: /Users/me/.bash_sessions: Operation not permitted"

More than likely the error message is produced by the file- /etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal in the last line of this snippet:

# Set up the session directory/file.
SHELL_SESSION_DIR="$HOME/.bash_sessions"
SHELL_SESSION_FILE="$SHELL_SESSION_DIR/$TERM_SESSION_ID.session"
mkdir -m 700 -p "$SHELL_SESSION_DIR"

Operation not permitted would suggest some kind of a file lock. Edit your post with the following command and its output:

 ls -lOed $HOME


Securityd process uses 100% CPU when Mail app is open

Ok, my advice is that u should unlink your email accounts and iCloud accounts from your MacBook Air. These unlink operation are to be done on MBA's side. Here is how I reached this conclusion:

securityd handles cryptographic operations on OS X. All processes communicate with securityd through SecurityAgent. That fact that these two are not throwing error in system log means something talking to them is the culprit.
icbaccountsd has ur email/icloud authorization info stored. To see what I mean, terminal:

/usr/libexec/icbaccountsd raw

and you will see your addresses in the printout.

An error in the icbaccountsd doesn't necessarily mean a wrong password. It could also be a incorrect/corrupted public/private key. Or a formating error in the file (hence, the infinite loop).

So you should uncouple your emails from MBA and recouple them later. These are the measures you can take to do that, from safest to more drastic. You can do only one each time, add back your emails, and wait to see if it works. Or you can undertake all at once and add back. Needless to say, before re-adding, restart your laptop.

Deactivate all accounts under System Preferences -> iCloud and Internet Accounts. (This is probably too puny to work.)
Delete those accounts System Preferences -> iCloud and Internet Accounts.
Open Keychain app and delete any entry related to your email addresses and email servers. These entries can be passwords, keys, certificates, etc.
open ~/Library/ and back up files in ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/ and ~/Library/Mail/. Delete the originals.

These would give you a machine free from any association with your emails. You many wonder if you should simply/also purge /usr/libexec/icbaccountsd. I won't recommend it til all else fails.


2019 iPad 10.2" (128gb) vs iPad mini 5 (64gb) - which one to choose?

You can compare all the model's specs from this page: https://www.apple.com/fr/ipad/compare/

It depends mostly on your budget, but I'd take the 2019 iPad for the wider screen which is better if you play and read a lot. You can connect an Xbox controller on both iPad, and they have the same battery life.


By default, Ctrl-F2 will move focus to the menu bar, placing it initially on the Apple Menu (but not opening it—you'll then have to press Space or down arrow to do that).

You can find/change this shortcut in the Keyboard System Preferences > Shortcuts tab > Keyboard section.


Sounds like your Mail preferences are not saved.

Try this (it is not same as using Disk Utility to repair permissions)

  You can use the ACL tool on the Recovery HD to do this:

  Boot into the Recovery HD using ⌘R.
  Run resetpassword in Terminal (available from Utilities → Terminal).
  Select your account from the drop-down list.
  Click the Reset button for Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs.

Source: grgarside — https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/110346/

If you are not comfortable doing it above way, there is a application called OnyX that will do it for you (and much more).


Can a PowerBook or MacBook be configured to automatically wake when power is connected?

As you indicated, this does depend on the specifics of the hardware - but the pmset acwake command is used to read or change the intended wake on power change status for a Mac.

The man page for pmset goes into some detail how to use this command line tool to change settings.

I couldn't find a reference that calls out which models work with this setting - you may have to experiment or do some more research.


Is it possible to fix the spacing when using "ls" with colored output?

If your using Terminal or iTerm you can go to preferences and look for option to change fonts. For iTerm its shown in the image below.

If you click on the change font button you get the following pane.

As you can see in this image there are sliders to adjust the character spacing. you can spread the characters out on the iTerm windows.


Many times (not every time) this is because of a Keychain certificate/network issue.  You can try turning off Certificates and see if this helps.  After you do this, restart the MacBook, finish the installations, then turn Certificates back on.

Go to Keychain Access --> Preferences --> Certificates.  See the image below.


How to stop Terminal from using special characters?

Go to system prefs/keyboard/input sources and get rid of the layout called US International PC.  Use US or ABC instead.


I can't really get the code of the web page/app, but checking older/similar JavaScript/PHP code of uber.com it seems to be a hick-up of the Text-to-Speech framework which probably stumbles over a snippet similar to ..."common.step-to-main-content":"Skip to $1"... with $1 being a positional or a formal parameter with the "value": main_content or main content.

The above code (without $1 but with main content) can be found in uber.com/drive/new-york/ (Google Cache).

I'm no coder so I might use the wrong terms...


Accessing and controlling iPhone via MacBook

I want to check iPhone's battery charge level from my MacBook Pro. Is it possible to do so?

There's a neat trick that lets you check the battery charge level/percentage on your iPhone even without touching it.

For this to work, you'll need to:

have mobile data enabled on your iPhone.
be logged into both your MacBook Pro and the iPhone with the same Apple ID.

Make sure you have Show Wi-Fi status in menu bar setting enabled under System Preferences app → Network → (active Wi-Fi network).

Now you have the Wi-Fi icon in your Menu bar status area. Press and hold the Option key on your MacBook's keyboard and click on the Wi-Fi icon in the Menu bar. In the context menu that appears, your iPhone will show up under Personal Hotspot. If the Personal Hotspot or your iPhone doesn't show up, just make sure both Wi-Fi and Mobile Data is enabled on your iPhone.

The entry corresponding to your iPhone will show the battery charge status, similar to how it's shown in your iPhone's status bar. The battery level indicator icon is shown in red if the charge level has reached below 20%.

On hovering the cursor over the iPhone name, you can see the exact percentage of battery charge level in a popover view.

Do note that this trick works only when you press and hold the Option key while clicking on the Wi-Fi icon.

  Is there any macOS app that acts as a client for my iPhone on my MacBook Pro?

I'm not sure what exactly you are looking for here. As far as I understand, there's no dedicated iPhone client app in macOS.

  Not only would I like to check iPhone's battery level from my MacBook Pro, but also launch or close other apps, change settings, etc, on the iPhone. Is it possible?

Generally speaking, it is not possible to control your iPhone from your MacBook. It's not possible to run/close installed apps and send multi-touch gestures to iPhone remotely.


facetime issues on the phne purchase from uae

Reason: There's restriction for Facetime in middle eastern countries.
Solution: You need to jail break your phone and install a cydia tweak called  MEFacetimeiOS8


I would highly recommend installing the developer tools. They are free from Apple.

If you really don't want Xcode after the fact, you could just remove the Application itself. You may also be able to not install any documentation, which I think also takes a bit of space.


Difficulties Reinstalling Windows on bootcamp with APFS

Got it working with this info:
High Sierra and Bootcamp with Windows 10 not working

also this was helpful:

https://fgimian.github.io/blog/2016/03/12/installing-windows-10-on-a-mac-without-bootcamp/


How to play music from iPod in Macbook iTunes?

That feature is only available on iOS 5 for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. If you have one of these devices with iOS 5, connect your device via USB, open iTunes. After your device shows up, under the primary device tab (should default to it), towards the bottom, there will be a checkbox to "Sync this i(Phone, Pad, or Pod) over Wi-Fi." Check the box, and you should be set.

You must be on the same Wi-Fi, and have your computer on with iTunes open for it to actually sync in the future.