Best lightweight browser for OS X 10.4.11 iBook G4

TenFourFox

A rewritten version of Firefox compiled to run great on older hardware.

  We take the industry standard Mozilla Firefox browser and rewrite it to be compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5, then compile it specially optimized for your G3, G4 or G5, add AltiVecTM JPEG, HTML and WebM decoding acceleration for G4 and G5 Macintoshes, and soup up JavaScript performance with our best-in-class just-in-time PowerPC script compiler. One of our four versions is just right for your particular Power Mac. And we keep it current, secure, and ready to rock.


How to install apps which require a newer version of iOS on a 1st gen. iPad?

iTunes 12.7 or later makes this answer into a no - you can’t do it.
Now that iTunes can not manage Apps, you’re not able to side load them over USB.

The only workaround for now is to install a precedent version of iTunes (see this answer) and follow the rest of this answer.
Here's the easiest way to download apps onto an old iPhone/iPad that doesn't support downloading apps through the App Store (if you're getting an error that you need a greater software version to download):

On your old iPhone/iPad, go to Settings -> Store -> set Apps to Off.

Go onto your computer (it doesn't matter if it's a PC or a Mac) and open the iTunes app. Then go to the iTunes store and download all the apps you want to be on your iPad/iPhone.

If the iTunes on the computer and your iPad are both signed into the same Apple ID, and the iPad is connected to the internet, then go on your iPad/iPhone to App Store -> Purchased -> tap on an individual app you want to install.

You'll get a message that says "The current version requires iOS 6.1 or later, but you can download the last compatible version," just hit Download.

This method should at least allow you to have most apps on your outdated device. Most of them will work, but sometimes even once you have the app installed on your it still won't run correctly. That's just tough luck. But in my experience that's not too common; apps usually work just fine.


iCloud in iOS and mac os require my phone password to log into icloud on my mac? Since when?

This is likely due to iCloud's end-to-end encryption. According to Apple's iCloud security overview:

End-to-end encryption provides the highest level of data security.
Your data is protected with a key derived from information unique to
your device, combined with your device passcode, which only you know.
To access your data on a new device, you might have to enter the
passcode for an existing or former device.


Use a Lower Case s.

keystroke "s" using {command down}


Why does iPhone Activity not recognize Apple Watch Activity has been set up?

I have since solved the problem. Something was seemingly corrupted in the iPhone's Health database. Nothing could read or write data to the Health database, including step data (which should be automatically added from the Mwhatever chip) and manually entered data such as weight.

To solve the issue, I unpaired the phone and watch, then set up both the phone and watch as new. Setting up the phone from a backup did not solve the problem because the (hypothesized) corrupt database was (seemingly) included in the backup.

Since setting up the phone as new and re-pairing the watch, Health data works fine.


How to force MacOS to regenerate /etc/resolv.conf file?

I found a solution today. Actually the file is not /etc/resolv.conf in mac OS. It is /var/run/resolv.conf

So do this:

sudo rm /etc/resolv.conf
sudo ln -s /var/run/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf


Sleep button broken. How do I find out which part is affected?

You will most likely need to open the device to tell this. I used to work at an Apple Store and am familiar with the design of the iPhone 4 internals. Good luck. iPhones are not fun to repair.

Also an iPhone with a broken power button will still turn on after the battery dies. Simply plug into a wall charger and allow the battery to charge enough, and it will power back on.


Assigning global keyboard shotcuts for cross-application behaviour?

macOS should get you up to speed a lot quicker.

See macOS Sierra: Create keyboard shortcuts for apps for creating custom keyboard short cuts:

  You can create keyboard shortcuts only for existing menu commands. You can’t create keyboard shortcuts for general purpose tasks, such as opening an app.

  Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Keyboard, then click Shortcuts.
  Select App Shortcuts on the left, click the Add button , click the Application pop-up menu, then choose a specific app or All Applications.
  If you want to set a shortcut for a menu command that appears in many apps, choose All Applications.
  In the Menu Title field, type the menu command for which you want to create a shortcut, exactly as the command appears in the app, including the > character (type ->), ellipses (type three periods without spaces or press Option-;), or other punctuation.
  Click in the Keyboard Shortcut field, press the key combination that you want to use as the keyboard shortcut, then click Add.


Can I get rid of the Mickey Mouse glove?

Mousecape may be the answer for you. It has not been updated since last July (though notes from February 2014 claim compatibility with Yosemite...not sure how that's possible) so YMMV, but it may be worth a shot.

On the page linked above, make sure you click on 0.0.5 and NOT "cursor flip". Clicking on cursor flip will download a related program that is not what you want.


Run script on login *as root* on Catalina

I recommend using crontab.

Open the root user crontab (this will create a new crontab file if you don't have it):

sudo crontab -e

Add you command, with the time you want it to run in front (if you want to do it at a specific time, you can use this handy tool):

@reboot /Users/Shared/Test.sh

Exit and save the file.

That's it! Your command should now run whenever your computer starts up. While this isn't technically the same as on login, it should be enough for almost all intents and purposes.


What websites can I use to get games in my schools IPad?

Short answer you can’t download games outside of the AppStore, but, you can search on google for html games

NOT RECOMMENDED, doing this is on your own responsibilities

And the long answer, you can download games from the Internet through Safari, but it’s (almost) only games that are breaking the law or for other reason isn’t allowed in the AppStore, they may contain malware/viruses, content kids shouldn’t watch or they may even steal your data.


safari IOS menu bar conflicts with buttons in lower 10% of the screen

I think I may have found an answer. Setting your content to have the following styles:

height: 100% (allows content to fill the viewport and go beyond the bottom)
overflow-y: scroll (allows you to scroll below the viewport; the default value is visible)
-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch (to smooth any scroll behavior)

appears to force the iOS menu in Safari to always appear. That way, button clicks will actually work instead of opening up the Safari menu. Hope this helps!


Yes, the iPhone 5 (and I believe all iOS devices since the 3GS) have had an oleophobic coating. You can check this on Apple's Tech Specs page:

  Retina display
  4-inch (diagonal) widescreen Multi-Touch display
  1136-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 ppi
  800:1 contrast ratio (typical)
  500 cd/m2 max brightness (typical)
  Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating on front
  Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously

I find I don't have to clean my iPhone 4S that often to make the display clear when it's on, but the smudges are definitely noticeable when the display is off. However everyone secretes different amounts of natural oils, so you may just have the bad luck of having smudgy fingers I'm afraid.

You may want to be careful about how you clean it however. Using cleaners may actually degrade the oleophobic coating. I find that a microfiber cloth does a good job on its own. Have a look at Apple's cleaning instructions for things to avoid.


There's a few people think it's an RSA SecurID tag:

http://osx.tribe.net/thread/1ba4a52c-807c-4c6f-bf73-5561bcc208ed

http://www.mactalk.com.au/11/58913-what-does-vpn-menubar-icon-mean.html

Don't know if I buy it though.


How can I enable pinch to zoom in Finder on OS X Lion?

The preference for this used to be located in Finder>Preferences. It's no longer available and after some research online, it looks like no one has discovered a way to turn this on using a plist edit.

You might consider telling Apple about how much you miss this:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html


Do not use mv or drag&drop for moving data between volumes.

If anything bad happens during the operation, you will end up with half the data here and half the data there, and it will be hard to figure out where to restart. If this is done over the network, you may not even still have all the data on either volume.

Do a copy (command line or drag&drop), and after that succeeded, delete the source.


I want to disable iphone screen activation when plugging in a charger

There is no native way to achieve this. Here are some alternatives:

1. Low-light mode. Go to Settings - General - Accessibility - Zoom - Zoom Filter - Low Light. Enable zoom, double-tap the screen with three fingers, and you now have extra low light mode.

2. Buy a solar charger with a built-in battery

3. Jailbreak. There are many tweaks on this, but I will not list them here as I advise against jailbreaking.


Flash higher CPU usage under OS X than Ubuntu?

Since you can't make any assumptions about how Flash for Mac or either Flash for Linux are implemented or how they utilize efficient APIs of their host OS you can't make any statements about why performance behaves so differently.

As long as graphics acceleration for video playback is available on both OS's it should be Flash's task to correctly use it.
You might want to check if Hardware Acceleration is enabled in Flash on Mac OS. To do this, right-click into a Flash-Applet and select "Settings...". Then, in the first tab (Display), you should be offered a Check-Button labeled "Enable Hardware Acceleration".

Performance is also dependent on the video codec of the media file. HD content from youtube for example only takes 10% CPU-time for me, whereas Flash content from other websites may also get my fans started.


Apps in iOS App Store, download old version of the app to support old iOS

When trying to download the App from search results, the download fails.  However when browsing the "Purchased" section, I am able to download the older version.


Why is my "Encrypt backups" option greyed out for local (USB) time machine disc?

Make sure that your partition scheme is GUID, not Master Boot Record (MBR) or Apple Partition Map.

To enable encryption, the partition map must be changed to GUID. Note that this will make your drive invisible to older PCs and will wipe all of the data on the drive.


How can I delete odd photos on my iPad without deleting them on daughters phone which is linked by applie Id using iOS 12

You may be reluctant to set up an account for your daughter, for various legitimate reasons, but Apple's recommendation is to do just that, and to link the two accounts via "family sharing"

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT201084


Will setting a cron job to delete ._ shadow files on a linux share work?

Before Mac OS X, the Mac OS used ‘forked’ files, which have two components: a data fork and a resource fork. The Mac OS Standard (HFS) and Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) disk formats support forked files. When you move these types of files to other disk formats, the resource fork can be lost.

With Mac OS X, there is a mechanism called “AppleDouble” that allows the system to work with file systems that do not have a forked file feature, such as remote NFS, SMB, WebDAV directories, or local UFS volumes. AppleDouble does this by converting the file into two separate files. The first new file keeps the original name and contains the data fork of the original file. The second new file has the name of the original file prefixed by a “._ ” and contains the resource fork of the original file. If you see both files, the ._ file can be safely ignored. Sometimes when deleting a file, the ._ component will not be deleted. If this occurs you can safely delete the ._ file.

Essentially, when you’re working on files located on a network share you end up with duplicates of the file with a “._” prefix.

You can run the following command to clean the files up.

find . -name '._*' -exec rm '{}' ';'

You could also make this into a launchctl or cron task.


Installation of OS X Snow Leopard on a new hard drive using a disk

This answer assumes you have access to another Mac and a way to connect your hard drive to it.

Take out the drive of your Mac using this iFixit guide.

Connect to the drive and boot into Recovery (CMD + R) on the other Mac. Then, follow these instructions from an Apple help article:

  Install from OS X Recovery

  To install OS X on an external drive using OS X Recovery, follow these steps.

  Start up your Mac. Immediately after you hear the startup sound,
  press and hold the Command+R on your keyboard.
  After you see an Apple logo or globe appear, you can release the
  keys. If you're prompted to select a Wi-Fi network, select a network
  that has a working Internet connection.
  When the Recovery screen appears, make sure you're connected to the
  Internet. If not, select a Wi-Fi network with a working Internet
  connection from the Wi-Fi menu.
  Select the option to Install OS X from the Recovery window.
  Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the installation. When
  you're asked to select a drive for installation, click the button
  "Show All Drives". Be sure you select the external storage device
  you've connected for this purpose, not your computer's built-in
  startup drive.

  Your Mac might restart one or more times during installation. After installation is finished, your Mac automatically starts up from the external drive.

  When you're done using your external disk, select a startup disk from System Preferences to have your Mac to start up from its built-in startup disk or another drive.

  Your computer's serial number is sent to Apple as part of this process to help authenticate your request to download and install OS X.

Once the installation of OS X on the Mac mini's disk is complete, insert it back into the Mac mini and follow the iFixit article's instructions in reverse order.


MacBook Pro and air logic boards interchange?

This is not possible.

Not only are the logic board shapes and sizes entirely different, the display connectors are in a different location, the CPU and GPUs are in different locations necessitating different cooling pipes; even the I/O connectors are different (meaning the holes in the top case wouldn't match with the connectors).

MacBook Air Logic Board

MacBook Pro Logic Board


Brand new 10.10 Yosemite mail.app can not work with Yahoo Mail?

I am sure you did all these things, but just in case...

Turn POP access in Yahoo mail through browser:
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/mail-for-desktop/SLN15404.html?impressions=true
Check you IMAP settings in Mail app:
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/imap-server-settings-yahoo-mail-sln4075.html
Check that you actually do have messages in your Inbox (through browser) :)
Check that you do not have Forwarding ON:
https://help.yahoo.com/kb/automatically-forward-emails-yahoo-mail-sln22028.html

If this didn't help, let's search further...


Installing Older Version of MacOS/OSX alongside current

Yes, you can certainly install two versions alongside.

The answer from benwiggy is incorrect in assuming that you cannot have APFS and HFS+ coexisting on the same physical drive. It is indeed possible, and very easily achievable using Disk Utility to create two partitions on the drive. One for the APFS container (which holds your APFS file systems), and one for the HFS+ file system.

Instead of running 10.11, I would recommended having 10.14 and 10.15 coexisting. The reason being that support for 10.11 ended a year ago - this means that if you want to connect it to a network, you'll probably end up with security related issues.


What is the difference between the different font smoothing levels on macOS?

I think I've found the most reasonable explanation for how Font Smoothing works in macOS here.

Noting some of the good observations from that thread.

Sub-pixel rendering in Mojave (M) doesn't work the same way it does in High Sierra (HS). Specifically, in HS, gray base text most stays dark gray, with colored pixels get added around it when you enable sub-pixel rendering. In Mojave, much of the base text is changed from gray to other, lighter colors, thus reducing contrast. As much of Apple's menu text is gray rather than black, this effect reduces contrast throughout the OS.

In Mojave, font smoothing doesn't actually make the letters thicker (i.e., it doesn't darken more pixels). Rather, it makes the darkened pixels darker, thus giving the appearance of added thickness.

These observations should apply to macOS Catalina as well.


By templates I think you mean canned messages. Here's a workaround (source):

Create a "Templates" folder.
Create and save a new draft message (including title).
Move the draft to "Templates" folder.
Whenever you need to use that template select a message and then choose Send Again from the Messages menu.
Make necessary modification and send.


Okay this is what I would recommend.Follow the steps:

Clear Out your iTunes Library completely
Copy the contents from your hard disk to a place on your Computer
Add the folder from your computer to your iTunes Library and you will get back your old  arrangement of songs.

Hope this helps!


What name, format, and scheme should be chosen in order to "factory reset" a MacBook Pro?

If you're intending to reinstall macOS on the disk at some point (which 99% of people would be), then use these:
Name

Enter a name for the disk: 'Macintosh HD' is the default on a new Mac

Format

use APFS for formatting, and

Scheme

GUID Partition Map for scheme

Notes
This source recommends using 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' format. BUT if you want to be able to reinstall macOS (who doesn't?), then you must reformat to APFS, otherwise you'll get a message like

This Mac can only install macOS on APFS-formatted drives. Please use Disk Utility to reformat as APFS


Enter /sbin/mount -uw / and copy 'libxml2.2.dylib' from '/usr/local/opt/libxml/lib/' to '/usr/lib/'

Restart your Mac and restore the original file:

Download Pacifist (i think it's a 14-day trial) and the Yosemite System Installer

Right-click the 'Install OS X Yosemite.app' -> 'Show Package Contents'

Mount ./Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

Open the mounted 'OS X Install ESD'

Open ./Packages/BaseSystemBinaries.pkg with Pacifist

In the new Pacifist-window navigate to 'Content of BaseSystemBinaries/usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib'

Right-click libxml2.2.dylib and install it

Restart your Mac


Can OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard be installed on a 2007 MacBook Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB

I am running SNL 10.6.8 on a similar 2007 MBP, a little faster than yours (2.6 GHZ).  Original OS was Tiger.  I had initially upgraded to Lion but found it wouldn't run Final Cut Express 4.0 reliably.

Good luck!


Messages.app asks for iChat every time I open it

(I haven't upgraded to Mountain Lion myself, but my understanding is that Messages has subsumed iChat.) That looks like the AppleScript find-the-application-named-in-the-script dialog. Do you perhaps have something that somehow runs a script when you launch Messages? If so, find that script and edit it to refer to application "Messages" instead of application "iChat" if that works, or remove it entirely.


Local reverse/duplicate image search for Mac?

dupeguru picture ed is free and does exactly that. http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/22724/dupeguru-picture-edition


No. Most workloads, the processor is what governs performance and the CPU itself remains measurably stable over time in terms of clock rate.

The OS and memory and storage are largely stable. Storage would be the first thing to slow with age, so benchmark that if you can.

Our expectations of what make for a fast computer however do not slow down. Camera resolution grows, image fidelity grows, more logic is stuffed into a web page, etc...

Software can become corrupt over time, but the computer itself can be returned to factory conditions with an easy erase and install to confirm that the hardware is still speedy even if we don't feel it's so fast compared to all the new young gun computers that are now shipping.

Now from a purely analytical standpoint, here are the items that could conceivably be measured in benchmark or manufacturer tests:

Heat Dissipation failures (thermal grease drying out or dust/worse accumulation) could cause CPU temps to rise when airflow can't remove enough heat from the chipsets. Older CPU didn't throttle as much and had larger metal traces to get the heat out. Newer CPU like the MacBook Air actively reduce cores and clock cycles to thermally control the CPU. This makes for a very noticeable performance dip when the CPU cannot be kept cool. I have seen tower and iMac cases packed with dust or worse / nicotine tar laden dust. So much so, that the computer had no business even running by the looks of it - but other than hot sensors, most still ran full speed (to my great astonishment).
Hard Drive imminent failures - the expected bad block relocation behavior when a drive has to take more time to land data can be noticeable, but I categorize that as your computer has a bad drive - not that it's old and slow. This can happen to a brand new computer with a bad drive until it triggers the SMART status or just fails outright.


What are the legal implications of Jailbreaking an iOS device?

You can use a provisioning profile as long as he gets a new provisioning profile before the current one expires.

Apple also has a business store (basically a corporate App Store) but I think that is way over the top for what you are trying to do.

The most legitimate/safe option is to deploy a provisioning file and update it each year…


I needed something similar too!

So look up: CustomSearch. It's highly adaptable by using the integrated CustomSearch Entry Editor.

"CustomSearch allows you to easily send the selected text to one of up to eight search engines — right from the toolbar or a contextual menu. CustomSearch includes search entries for Wikipedia, Google, Bing, and Amazon."


Configure the DHCP settings of WIFI Tethering (Personal Hotspot)

The only settings that are user definable are the SSID, which is set at Settings > General > About > Name, and password, which is set at Settings > Personal Hotspot > Wi-Fi Password.
Address range is not modifiable.

Just checked my hotspot, and it matches what other users describe:

  The iPhone has a small DHCP address pool that can give out 16 addresses (172.20.10.0-172.20.10.15). Of these 16 addresses are 3 taken by the network, broadcast (172.20.10.0 and 172.20.10.15) and iPhone itself (172.20.10.1). Leaving 13 addresses for other devices.

Your defined range seems unusual.
Maybe it conflicts with your carrier address scope?

Some results from searching on the net: 1, 2 (too lousy to be called "References". It appears you cannot set the range on Android either).


This was long ago but nowadays I would say that the problem is that you need to generate application specific passwords to access your iCloud email from third party applications.

It currently works fine with the Gmail app on Android.


OS X has never included Computer Modern as standard, only as part of the X11 system. The font was originally created by Donald Knuth using metafont so that he had a good font for his typesetting system, Tex, that he wrote to typeset his books on programming.

The modern versions were created to provide a good quality font for the X11/Tex project.

The Computer Modern home page is here: http://canopus.iacp.dvo.ru/~panov/cm-unicode/ Note that these are the version with the "Blue Sky" font hinting that almost everyone uses these days rather than the Knuth originals.

You will want the "otf" (Open Type Font) file which at the time of writing is ftp://canopus.iacp.dvo.ru/pub/Font/cm_unicode/cm-unicode-0.6.3a-otf.tar.gz

If you open the application Font Book you can have a look at the fonts installed on the System and install new ones using drag and drop.

On a final note, if you arrive at this answer and are going to be doing serious typesetting with Computer Modern you may wish to install the entire American Mathematical Society AMSFonts package available here - it's even packed as a TEXMF directory structure if that is of use to you. Otherwise it contains Postscript fonts well down in the folder hierarchy that can be easily installed on a Mac. It includes other useful fonts and extensions to the basic Computer Modern set. All are free under the SIL Font License.


Glass panel compability for iMac 21.5'' late-2012 (A1418 - EMC 2544)

After several readings on the web, it seems that the late-2012 and 2013 model share the same panel. Mine was a LM215WF3 (SD)(D1) from LG.

The 2011 model uses another display.

The 2012/2013 model use kind of monolithic display where you cannot replace only the glass independantly from the LCD.


Where is X11's error log located in OSX Lion?

Fire up Terminal
cat /private/var/log/system.log

This will get up the System Log and let you see what is going on. You should be able to find the results you need in there.

If need be, pass that onto the grep command get it to find the strings you want.

cat /private/var/log/system.log | grep [string]

This will output the strings you requrie to the screen specifically.


How does the iPhone Upgrade Program work?

Option 2 in your question is the correct one. In the "Getting the latest iPhone has never been easier" section of the upgrade program site you posted it says you have to pay 11 monthly payments (you might as well think of it as 12 months because the upfront payment is in essence your first month). So when you have paid the monthly installment 11 times, you have 2 options:

Turn in the phone for an upgrade while restarting both timers (the 11 monthly payments + 1st down payment and the 20 month full contract).
Continue paying for the phone until the 20 month contract is done and the phone is 100% yours.

The important thing here is that you are never paying for your old phone once you upgrade it.


Is the 3rd generation iPad Carrier Locked in the US?

Effectively yes - you should not expect to be able to use a Verizon iPad on an AT&T account or the other way around. The next two paragraphs only apply to the US iPads.

Internationally (outside the US), the micro SIM slot is unlocked, so you will be able to insert a non-AT&T/non-VZW card in either and have service without needing to jailbreak the device.

See: http://www.apple.com/ipad/4g/ - the section on selecting a carrier and ready to take on the world.


Xcode tools getting working without the Xcode CD or external drive?

Xcode hasn't come on physical media for a long time now. These days, you can download it directly from the Mac App Store:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12


Distribute iOS app to customers without enterprise account

This would definitely work as a (free or paid) app on the App Store. Just make sure you have a demo account which Apple can use during the review process (there's a section in iTunes Connect where you can specify credentials for them). You might let the app connect to a different (test) server if somebody logs in with username info@apple.com.


All open applications placed on main display after sleep

Stay works on Lion. You may be experiencing an upgrade issue. From their FAQ:

  Why won’t Stay restore my windows since I upgraded to Lion?

  A number of the interface changes in Lion have affected Stay’s ability
  to match windows stored on Snow Leopard to windows on Lion. If you’re
  experiencing difficulty with a small number of windows, the simplest
  solution is to use Stay’s window linking feature to manually link the
  troublesome windows to their stored counterparts.

  If you’re having trouble with a large number of windows you may find
  it easier to recreate your stored windows on Lion.


Importing a shared photo stream into iPhoto creates duplicate photos

to provide an answer to this old question, as it's still good info to have...

1) The best way at the time to delete the photos would have been to view the Last Imported photos and delete them from there.   Not just deleting the duplicates, but deleting all of the photos (basically to reverse the import that was done).

2) What should have been done to import the photos from your wife's phone in to your library is to connect her phone to your computer, and import them from the phone itself, rather than the stream.   This way, you are getting the original photos, not the compressed / lower quality versions from the photo stream.


Delete iMessage chat history from work MacBook

You can simply disable the iMessage account on your Mac.

Open Messages app preferences (by using keyboard shortcut Command + ,), go to iMessage tab. Under Settings just below your Apple ID, uncheck Enable this account.


The first column reflects the address/position of the data within the file (on the first line of your output it should start with 0000000 unless you have used xxd -s), the last column contains the textual representation of the file content (for bytes which have a printable ASCII value).


I finally found a solution!

After some more search I found this command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow SHOWOTHERUSERS_MANAGED -bool FALSE

..and it did the trick!


HFS+ vs APFS: What are the pros/cons of converting HDDs to APFS?

APFS (Apple File System) compared to HFS+

Almost all differences apply to Solid State Drives (SSD) and Hard Disk Drives (HDD) as well, while users of HDDs may not see an improvement in speed.

APFS disadvantages/drawbacks

Incompatible with macOS 10.12 Sierra and earlier (including OS X)
Windows drivers/tools to read/write APFS disks are not available (as of today)
Currently not supported by Fusion Drives/HDDs (coming soon)
Boot Camp doesn't read from or write to APFS-formatted volumes
No AFP support: Volumes formatted as APFS can't offer share points over the network using AFP.
Any Time Machine share points must be shared over SMB instead of AFP.
Directory Hard links are not supported
File names cannot contain unassigned codepoints in the Unicode 9.0 standard

APFS advantages

Faster disk speed in general on SSDs
Almost instant file and directory duplication
Increased maximum number of files
Space sharing
Better crash protection
Better date resolution: nanosecond timestamps
Support for dates beyond February 6, 2040
Sparse file support
Larger max. number of files (2^63 vs 2^32)
Supports Copy-on-Write (replaces journaling)

See also Apple's APFS Developer Guide and the Wikipedia's Apple_File_System.


Deleting all songs in a given iTunes playlist using Applescript

I've had the exact same problem. There's more and more AppleScript bugs in each version of OS X.

If you just want to delete all tracks on a playlist, single expressions like this don't seem to skip any tracks and they're also faster:

tell application "iTunes"
    delete tracks of playlist "untitled playlist"
end tell

If you only need to delete some tracks, something like this might work:

tell application "iTunes"
    repeat
        set tr to tracks of playlist "untitled playlist"
        if tr is {} then exit repeat
        repeat with t in tr
            delete t
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell


How to link notes in macOS Notes application?

If you click on the “Add People” button in the top right corner, it will take you to a version of the iOS Share Sheet. Choose “Copy Link” and then select “Copy Link” again in the top right corner.

It will upload the note to your iCloud and give you a URL. Still trying to figure out how to get the “ID” from the link to use mobilenotes:// (since that would be easier).


Personal hotspot problem: "Set Up Personal Hotspot"

Apparently back when I had a flip phone I had asked that data usage be turned off. (So that I wouldn’t accidentally get charged when I pressed the “internet” button.)

One of those switches they turned off was the use of hotspot.

I called Verizon and they simply enabled the use of hotspots again.


How do I get Safari to stop launching an app automatically?

In iOS 9, I've had success doing a long tap on the link and selecting "Open" from the pop-up menu. That opens a link and keeps it in Safari rather than jumping into an app (recently tested with an IMDB link from Google search results).


If you have ever signed up for an Apple ID, which is the user name you use for everything at Apple including iCloud, you can recover/reset your password at this page:

https://iforgot.apple.com

This is not the same as the password you used to lock down a user account on a computer running OSX.


Cycle application windows changed in recent update (2019)

I use PhpStorm 2019.2 on macOS 10.14.6 Mojave. The behavior/logic for CMD + ` is not any different from how it has been in any relatively recent version of macOS or PhpStorm.

Pressing CMD + ` switches to the most recently used window, unless you haven't done anything in the currently active window, in which case it switches to the next most recently opened window (and this pattern continues for however many windows you have open).

For example, let's say you have a file open in PhpStorm in window A, then open another file in window B, and finally a third file in window C. If you're working in window C and then press CMD + `, you'll be switched to window B. If you press CMD + ` again before doing anything else, you'll be switched to window A. However, if, instead, you work on the file in window B first, then when you press CMD + `, you'll be switched back to window C (the most recently open window). In order to reach window A, you must press CMD + ` twice without doing anything in the window that comes up after the first window switch.


Should I care too much about battery cycles?

It may have been through a handful of cycles in the factory for testing (unless you checked that it was at zero cycles when you unboxed it?). I'd just keep an eye on it over the next couple of weeks and make sure the number doesn't keep increasing too fast.


How to revert to iOS 4.2 from iOS 4.3 beta?

It seems you missed the "Read Me Before Downloading" section at the top of the 4.3 beta page:

  Devices updated to iOS 4.3 beta can not be restored to earlier versions of iOS. Devices will be able to upgrade to future beta releases and the final iOS 4.3 software.

According to Apple, anyway, no, you can't revert to 4.2.


Setting your screensaver to use your iPhoto library will have it display different images on each display.

If My Photo Stream and Photo Library… are not choices listed in the Source list box, you may need to rebuild your thumbnails and/or cache in iPhoto first (start iPhoto while pressing option+cmd).


Get script/language for fonts via terminal

fc-scan

You can use the command line tool fc-scan to list the properties of a font, including supported languages. The languages are reported under lang: as ISO two-letter country codes:

fc-scan /Library/Fonts/Arial\ Unicode.ttf

fc-scan is part of fontconfig, which is available through the brew project using:

brew install fontconfig

See also Mac Terminal: Get list of Chinese fonts from a given folder


How are the sound effects in Final Cut Pro licensed?

There is language saying you can't resell the sounds, but you are granted license to use them royalty free for some very specific uses and not at all in broad general terms.

I am not a lawyer

See the section below from the license for the last version / now discontinued Final Cut Studio

  c) Soundtrack Pro. You may use the Apple and third party audio file
  content (including, but not limited to, the built-in sound files,
  samples and impulse responses) (collectively the “Audio Content”),
  contained in or otherwise included with the Apple Software, on a
  royalty-free basis, to create your own original soundtracks for your
  film, video and audio projects. You may broadcast and/or distribute
  your own soundtracks that were created using the Audio Content,
  however, individual audio files may not be commercially or otherwise
  distributed on a standalone basis, nor may they be repackaged in whole
  or in part as audio samples, sound files or music beds.

Pretty much anything license related from Apple gets placed here fairly quickly after launch (FCP X cough, cough)

A lawyer would be needed to tell you if embedding them in a flash game would fall under "film, video and audio projects". One would hope if your flash game embedded a movie sequence or soundtrack as part of the narrative,  everyone here might call that as "in bounds" or "in the spirit".

Just taking the whole sounds (or even samples of those sounds in isolation and not mixed down) and using it for actions or events in a flash game seems to be more like repackaging as audio samples which seems clearly "out of bounds".

I would purchase a set of sounds that are expressly marketed as for use in software rather than something intended for original soundtracks unless my lawyer gave me the explicit go-ahead.


For me, turns out IT at our company has disabled Siri as a corporate policy, at least according to our tech support.

Why it works on a corporate laptop and not a corporate desktop, both running High Sierra, I'm not sure!


Is there a possibility to run a custom Notes server for iOS?

So it looks like this is impossible.

Yes, Notes does support IMAP and this can be set up by adding an Email account to iOS (or macOS) and checking "Notes" there.

However those kind of Notes are handicapped: you can't draw there with Apple Pencil, can't use any markdown like tables/bullets. Basically it is just Text and (image) attachments, making this app nearly useless (most of the notes I am making are made with Apple Pencil).

What I like about internal Notes.app is that it is automatically launched upon an apple pencil tap on the locked screen - this is why I prefer it over 3rd party apps. But, when I tap on an IMAP-connected note, I am getting an Alert "Apple Pencil is supported only on iCloud notes". Damn.


How to stop multiple httpd instance in macOS Catalina

In the default config httpd starts a parent process usually owned by root which binds to port 80 (a port < 1024), opens log files and spawns child processes. The child process(es) serve http requests. Depending on the number of requests and the level of concurrency they are dynamically added and released. It's completely normal to have several httpd processes in the process list.

You can tweak this by modifying several aspects of httpd.

Further reading with an explanation and pros & cons:

Apache docs: Apache MPM Common Directives & Apache MPM prefork
Liquidweb: Apache Performance Tuning: MPM Modules

The number of possible child processes in the apache installed by brew (currently Apache/2.4.43; Server MPM: prefork) can be managed in the Supplemental configuration chapter of the config file. The relevant item is the Server-pool management (MPM specific) part. The number of child processes can be determined in its config file in the Prefork MPM section:

Modify Server-pool management (MPM specific) (~line 488 of /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf) from

# Server-pool management (MPM specific)
#Include /usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-mpm.conf

to

# Server-pool management (MPM specific)
Include /usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-mpm.conf

Modify the prefork MPM config (starting at line 21 of /usr/local/etc/httpd/extra/httpd-mpm.conf)

from the default

# prefork MPM
# StartServers: number of server processes to start
# MinSpareServers: minimum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxSpareServers: maximum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxRequestWorkers: maximum number of server processes allowed to start
# MaxConnectionsPerChild: maximum number of connections a server process serves
#                         before terminating
<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
    StartServers             5
    MinSpareServers          5
    MaxSpareServers         10
    MaxRequestWorkers      250
    MaxConnectionsPerChild   0
</IfModule>

Process list:

to e.g.

# prefork MPM
# StartServers: number of server processes to start
# MinSpareServers: minimum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxSpareServers: maximum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxRequestWorkers: maximum number of server processes allowed to start
# MaxConnectionsPerChild: maximum number of connections a server process serves
#                         before terminating
<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
    StartServers             1
    MinSpareServers          1
    MaxSpareServers          1
    MaxRequestWorkers      250
    MaxConnectionsPerChild   0
</IfModule>

Process list:

Restart apache:

sudo apachectl -k restart

Speedtest (with ab -c 100 -n 1000 http://localhost:8080/index.html):

default prefork MPM config (StartServers/MinSpareServers/MaxSpareServers 5/5/10):

    Server Software:        Apache/2.4.43
    Server Hostname:        localhost
    Server Port:            8080

    Document Path:          /index.html
    Document Length:        45 bytes

    Concurrency Level:      100
    Time taken for tests:   1.075 seconds
    Complete requests:      1000
    Failed requests:        0
    Total transferred:      289000 bytes
    HTML transferred:       45000 bytes
    Requests per second:    929.81 [#/sec] (mean)
    Time per request:       107.549 [ms] (mean)
    Time per request:       1.075 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
    Transfer rate:          262.42 [Kbytes/sec] received

    Connection Times (ms)
                  min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
    Connect:        0    3   5.7      1      50
    Processing:     3  103  68.3     82     310
    Waiting:        2  101  67.1     81     309
    Total:         10  106  69.4     83     317

    Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
      50%     83
      66%    116
      75%    150
      80%    180
      90%    216
      95%    225
      98%    260
      99%    307
     100%    317 (longest request)

modified prefork MPM config (StartServers/MinSpareServers/MaxSpareServers 1/1/1):

    Server Software:        Apache/2.4.43
    Server Hostname:        localhost
    Server Port:            8080

    Document Path:          /index.html
    Document Length:        45 bytes

    Concurrency Level:      100
    Time taken for tests:   1.325 seconds
    Complete requests:      1000
    Failed requests:        0
    Total transferred:      289000 bytes
    HTML transferred:       45000 bytes
    Requests per second:    754.55 [#/sec] (mean)
    Time per request:       132.529 [ms] (mean)
    Time per request:       1.325 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
    Transfer rate:          212.96 [Kbytes/sec] received

    Connection Times (ms)
                  min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
    Connect:        0    4   8.9      1      55
    Processing:    10  125  56.4    116     231
    Waiting:        1  124  56.2    116     231
    Total:         20  129  53.1    119     232

    Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
      50%    119
      66%    136
      75%    170
      80%    186
      90%    214
      95%    221
      98%    229
      99%    231
     100%    232 (longest request)

This won't work for all apaches. I didn't get this to work with for example MAMP/MAMP Pro's apache!


iCloud settings on Mac book shows that Dropbox is storing its file inside iCloud when that isn't actually happening

Definitely it's not the data you put on dropbox cloud. I think this old answer hints about your question. I know what time machine back up is but I think this service might later be included in iCloud backups too.

As for iOS, ios backup
details explain what it stores.


Application to launch specific applications, windows, and tabs

Mac OS X has been trying to achieve something like this on a per-app basis using Saved Application State, however, that will only retrieve the last known state of an app, not some arbitrary one from the past.

I'm not sure of any app which can do that.

The closest that I am aware of would be a macro which could, for example:

launch a specific set of applications
open a specific set of URLs in a web browser
open a specific set of files in a specific app (or apps)

You could also add optional features such as

quit all of your currently-open applications before beginning (or quit specific apps, like your email and twitter client) when you know you are going to work

This is very simple to do in Keyboard Maestro, which has a free, 30-day demo on the site.

For example, in the image attached I have created a macro like this as an example. I will use numbers to correspond with the numbers on the image to show what each step is doing:

This macro (read simply as: "series of actions") will take place either if I choose the menu from the menu bar…
…or if I use the keyboard shortcut I have specified. (Other actions are also available
Quit all applications
Hide the Dock, if it is visible
Launch BBEdit
Launch Terminal.app
Launch Safari
Open the URL https://apple.stackexchange.com/?tab=featured in Safari.
Open the URL http://gmail.com in Chrome
Open a folder in Finder

this is just an example for illustration. I could have told Keyboard Maestro to run any sort of command, or open specific files in other applications.

The only thing which is not possible, as far as I am aware in any app, is the ability to say: "Ok, save everything that is on my screen right now and remember it for later."


How to type in backtick and tilde in Safar in macOS?

Go to 'System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard' and check option 'Show viewers for keyboard, emoji, and symbols in menu bar' (see picture).
Then click on flag in the menu bar and select 'Show keyboard viewer'. Keyboard with your current layout shall appear. Check that you have there 'back tick' and 'tilda' symbols. Try to print them in the text field pressing buttons of this on-screen keyboard with your mouse.


Advancing to Next Slide when current slide has multiple videos

Try pressing Shift - ▼ (Shift - Down Arrow) to advance through slides without triggering slide elements (animations, video playback etc.).


-bash process suddenly taking 75% CPU in htop

Most run-away processes can be killed with kill -9 PID. Any unsaved data kept by the process will be lost.


Detach active Chrome tab using AppleScript

This works for me using the latest version of Mac OS High Sierra.

tell application "Google Chrome"
    tell its window 1
        set theURL to URL of active tab
        close active tab
    end tell
    set the URL of active tab of (make new window) to theURL
end tell

If you would like to see the two windows now side-by-side, Try this...

tell application "Finder"
    set currentDesktopBounds to bounds of window of desktop
end tell

copy currentDesktopBounds to leftBounds
set l to item 3 of leftBounds
set l to l / 2 as integer
set item 3 of leftBounds to l

copy leftBounds to rightBounds
set r to item 3 of rightBounds as integer
set r to r + 1 as integer
set item 1 of rightBounds to r
set item 2 of rightBounds to 22
set item 3 of rightBounds to item 3 of currentDesktopBounds
set item 4 of rightBounds to item 4 of currentDesktopBounds

tell application "Google Chrome"
    tell its window 1
        set theURL to URL of active tab
        close active tab
    end tell
    set the URL of active tab of (make new window) to theURL
    delay 0.2
    tell its window 1
        set bounds to leftBounds
    end tell
    delay 0.2
    tell its window 2
        set bounds to rightBounds
    end tell
end tell


Your command is adding a BOOL true or false.

So you needed to declare it as such by adding -bool. Otherwise you are changing to a string.

But also with this change you need to relaunch the dock for it to pick up the changes. You can do this by adding a second command.

killAll Dock

In one command:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide  -bool no;killAll Dock

This will run your command and kill any process named Dock. The Dock will then auto relaunch picking up the changes.


Do i need a seperate dedicated machine to run osx server or can i use some features running it from my MBP

You don't need a dedicated machine, as server can be installed on any machine providing it meets system requirements without much change to the actual system, unlike the older osx-server, but it's probably a good idea.

I have installed Server.app before on my MBP to test some features and its worked fine for this. The only problem with installing it on a MacBook is that when the machine is off, the services on the other devices start throwing errors as they are unable to connect to services which they consider should always be available. For instance, Profile Manager can set up MDM on iOS devices, which works great until the server becomes unavailable unexpectedly (the device can connect to the network) — errors ensue.

Obviously other features such as Websites won't work if the machine is down, but this should be fine as you mentioned you won't be using such services.


A guess

See whether the problem is reproducible with compressed memory disabled.

If that's not a workaround, please vote down this answer and leave a comment.

Related

vm_compressor_mode (vm.compressor_mode) values for enabled compressed memory in OS X

– there's a link to an answer about disabling compressed memory.


The best I've come up with is to hit the Volume Down button on the side of the phone during a situation like this. That causes the phone to stop ringing/vibrating, but doesn't decline the call right then and there (maybe this is what you referred to as "mute a call"?). The incoming call will last the normal amount of time before being sent over to voicemail. However, this leaves the incoming call screen active and blocking whatever you were previously looking at.


iPhone 6s iCloud defaults to old Apple ID. Can't delete iCloud account because it says Apple ID is wrong

The ID still exists, & in fact cannot be deleted - Apple apparently keep them 'forever'.

What you can do is change the primary email address attached to the ID - the ID itself doesn't need to be a valid email address, it's merely a sensible starting point.

  Change your Apple ID

  Learn how to change the email address that you use as your Apple ID.

  In most cases, your Apple ID is also the primary email address of your Apple ID account. You can change your Apple ID to any other email address you control, as long as it's not already in use as an Apple ID. If your email address ends with @icloud.com, @me.com, or @mac.com, it's already an Apple ID.

  Use these steps to reset your Apple ID:

  Sign out of iCloud, the iTunes Store, App Store, FaceTime, Find My Friends, Find My iPhone, and iMessage on each device that uses your current Apple ID for these services.
  1.Go to My Apple ID.
  Select Manage your Apple ID and sign in. Forgot your password?
  Select Edit next to Apple ID and Primary Email Address.
  Enter the email address that you want to use as your Apple ID, then select Save Changes. Apple will send a verification email to that address.
  Open the email from Apple, then click Verify Now. Didn't receive the email?
  When the My Apple ID page opens, sign in with your new Apple ID email address and password. When you see a message that verification is complete, you can start using your updated Apple ID.
  Update the features and services that you use with Apple ID, so that each one is using your updated Apple ID.

  If you need to change the Apple ID that's signed in to your iOS device, use these steps to sign out, then back in with a different Apple ID.

Ref: Apple KB - Change your Apple ID


Extracting multiple photos from a single quickly

You could use ImageMagick or NetPbm tools to crop the photos from a script, but it isn't going to automatically detect the rectangle edges.

Lay out your photos in roughly the same place every time you scan them. Leaving a small gap between the photos would give you a safety buffer; the resulting scanned/cropped photos will just have a white border around them.


Why does iPhone Safari not save login credentials for a certain Wi-Fi hotspot?

check out this link http://www.ausbt.com.au/how-to-save-passwords-in-safari-on-the-ipad-iphone to setup autofill name and passwords for safari on IOS.

And it totally is a matter of safari not remembering username/password.

It's a little hidden, but it's there, and thanks for asking a good question. The other answerers here must never have logged into a captive portal before or something.


Why do all other windows minimize when I open a window from the dock?

Try this in Terminal/commandline:

defaults write com.apple.dock single-app -bool false; killall Dock

My hunch is that you accidentially changed this setting in TinkerTool.


Which IRC client stays online when in background?

An app called Colloquy can run in the background for up to 10 minutes on iOS 5.  No IRC app can run for more than 10 minutes in the background on iOS 5 due to how iOS is designed.  The Colloquy web site has an FAQ that explains:

Can I run Mobile Colloquy in the background?
Yes, starting with Mobile Colloquy 1.3 & iOS 4.0 if you have an iPhone 4, 3GS, or a third-generation iPod touch (32GB and 64GB models from late 2009) you can, though it's important to understand how it works.
Due to the way multitasking is implemented in iOS, Mobile Colloquy can't stay connected constantly. When you press the Home button or switch applications, Mobile Colloquy asks iOS to allow it to continue to run to complete a task in the background, that task being to keep you connected for as long as possible. Any highlight word mentions, or private messages you receive will trigger a notification while Colloquy is running in the background.
Tasks can only last a maximum of 10 minutes, so 9 minutes after you've switched away from Colloquy it'll warn you that you'll be disconnected in a minute. To continue to stay connected, just tap Open on the alert. Switching back to Colloquy before 10 minutes have elapsed, then switching away again will reset the countdown.
For more details on how multitasking works in iOS 4.0, see this excellent blog post from Craig Hockenberry.


How to install command line tools offline?

You have to obtain the tools somehow. Officially you need to have access to the developer download pages at Apple. For the lowest point of entry a valid AppleID seems to suffice for that.

Then you go to the relevant download section on Apple's developer site and choose the appropriate version and download the DMG you need. That file can then be copied to your liking and for example transferred via flash drive.


Is it possible to give a custom name to a browser window on OS X?

It is possible with this extension for Firefox:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firetitle/


iOS/macOS - Determine Emoji name while choosing

In macOS Messages.app, hovering the mouse pointer over an emoji shows its name:


How can I change the URL of a networked Time Machine backup

Just add the destination as a new disk in the Time Machine System Preferences GUI. It is smart enough to figure it out since there are identity tokens stored on the Mac and on the Time Machine destination.

It might warn you that the "identity" of the new location has changes and you have to approve before continuing to back up.

Time Machine can handle many destinations from one Mac and just picks up from where it left off for the last backup at that specific destination.

Worst case, you have to manually inherit the backup after associating with the new share. See the tmutil manual page for details if needed.


How can you manage permissions about which users can Add/Modify other users?

This isn't possible on OS X.

An admin user is root. All admin users are root, if they know how to do something or get into terminal, they can do anything.

You might need to set up Server or pick a tool to do this. My favorite tool for situations where you need to give users the ability to do admin things and have them be non-admin users is to deploy JAMF's Casper suite.

If your time isn't valued high and you don't mind re-inventing the wheel, you could use a tool like munki to re-implement a set of tools that allow limited sudo items and wrap it in your own authentication layer to reduce the chance of allowing true Admin access, but I've never seen a case where it's cheaper to really set this up than to purchase a tool designed for exactly this use case.

You can still avail yourself of the sudo commands, but if you let a user be an admin privilege - they can and will have full run of the GUI versions of the tools that can create, destroy users (as well as modify the sudo files).


When switching to a different space, OS X sometimes just switches back to the previous space. Is there a fix for this?

I have the same issue on High Sierra and only just figured out what's causing the issue for me. It happens when I:

have the same application open in both desktops/spaces, Chrome windows in this example
switch from Chrome to another application
change desktops

It will revert to the previous desktop and make Chrome the active application. Now when I change desktops it will not switch back. I have not yet found a solution to this issue, other than making the application that is on both desktops, the active application before switching.


How does the iPhone know it's not using an Apple cable?

Apple has a program called MFi and detects if the cable has a certified chip inside. The chip just says that it's been officially 'Made For iOS.'


How can I open or export a abcddb file in Windows 7 Excel?

The file is actually an SQLite 3 datafile.

The closest match would be Access, but it will not open the file as such. You will have to install an ODBC connector, set up a connection and open each table. Not trivial, I am afraid, but doable.

Check http://www.ch-werner.de/sqliteodbc/ for an SQLite ODBC connector. Note: some antivirus show a heuristics alert for the executable, it is probably safe.

Command line:
If you have access to the sqlite3 command line tool (comes standard in OS X), you can list the tables (there are 24) with

echo .tables | sqlite3 file.abcddb

and you can export each table to CSV with

sqlite3 -csv -header file.abcddb "SELECT * FROM TABLE;" > TABLE.csv

and open it with Excel or Access.

Of course, you can "play" with SQL SELECTs. A CSV list of Name, Surname, Phone (with a line for each phone number, hence possibly more than a line for each person) can be got with:

sqlite3 -csv -header file.abcddb "SELECT ZABCDRECORD.ZFIRSTNAME AS 'First Name', ZABCDRECORD.ZLASTNAME AS 'Last Name', ZABCDPHONENUMBER.ZFULLNUMBER AS 'Phone' FROM ZABCDRECORD INNER JOIN ZABCDPHONENUMBER ON ZABCDPHONENUMBER.ZOWNER = ZABCDRECORD.Z_PK;" > telephones.csv

ZABCDRECORD is the "main" table with a row for each contact. But data that cn be multiple for each contact (phone numbers as above, email addresses, physical address, URLs...) is in separate tables, each containing a ZOWNER column that "points" to column Z_PK (autonumeric) in ZABCDRECORD (technically, they have it as a foreign key).

Alternative GUI software: you may download DB Browser for SQLite for OS X or Windows (PortableApps package available too for the later). Just open the file then use File->Export->Table(s) as CSV file.


Lack of network access after disconnecting from a VPN can be a symptom of a routing issue. If your VPN client doesn't disconnect cleanly, the gateway that directs your traffic to the virtual network can sometimes be left in place, effectively routing your traffic to a dead end.

I'd suggest bringing your interfaces down, flushing the routing table of gateway entries, and bringing them up again:

Bring your network interfaces down:

for i in $(ifconfig | egrep -o "^[a-z].+\d{1}:" | sed 's/://'); do sudo ifconfig "$i" down; done

Flush the routing table: sudo route -n flush.
Bring your interfaces back up again: (repeat step 1 with up instead of down).

If you want a reusable Bash function for this that you can drop into your .bashrc (or wherever), you could save the following:

resetroute () {
    echo "Flushing routes...";
    for i in $(ifconfig | egrep -o "^[a-z].+\d{1}:" | sed 's/://');
    do
        sudo ifconfig "$i" down;
    done;
    sudo route -n flush;
    for i in $(ifconfig | egrep -o "^[a-z].+\d{1}:" | sed 's/://');
    do
        sudo ifconfig "$i" up;
    done
}


Any way to temporarily allow insecure SSL on Safari in High Sierra?

Although there is no longer a button, you can still call CertificateWarningController.visitInsecureWebsiteWithTemporaryBypass() in the Safari Web Developer console to bypass the warning and visit the insecure site.

If not enabled, go to Safari > Preferences > Advanced and select the "Show Develop menu in menu bar" option at the bottom.

Develop > Show Javascript Console.
Paste CertificateWarningController.visitInsecureWebsiteWithTemporaryBypass() in the console.
Press enter to run the code and bypass the warning page without adding the untrusted certificate to your keychain.


Creating an Automator service to add email messages to Reminders.app

I don't have the keyboard shortcut, but I just finished an Actionscript that adds the email Subject as the Reminder Title, the email Body as the Reminder Content and then adds a link to the actual email at the bottom of the Reminder. Hope this helps!
on run {input, parameters}
tell application "Calendar" to activate
tell application "Calendar"
    set miniaturized of window 1 to true
    tell application "Mail"
        set theSelection to selection
        set theMessage to item 1 of theSelection
        set theurl to "message://%3c" & theMessage's message id & "%3e"
        set thedes to theMessage's content & "Show in Mail " & "message://%3c" & theMessage's message id & "%3e"
        set input to theMessage's subject
    end tell
end tell
tell application "Calendar"
    tell application "Reminders"
        make new reminder at end with properties {name:input, body:thedes}
        tell application "Reminders" to activate
    end tell
end tell
return input

end run


Create a USB stick with Windows installer on it

This is based on my own experience of creating a Windows 10 installer on a USB:

Step 1: Download VMWare Fusion and use the 30-day trial. You do not need to do this if you already have a computer with Windows 10

Step 2: Search "windows 10 iso image" and click the first link from Microsoft. Download it.

Step 3: Open the VMWare application and upload the Windows 10 iso image onto it, and run Windows. You do not need to do this if you already have a computer with Windows 10

Step 4: Plug in your USB, it should be around 8 GB. VMWare Fusion should detect the USB and ask to connect it to the virtual windows. Connect them.

Step 5: On the virtual windows, search up windows 10 creation tool and click the first one from Microsoft. Follow the instructions for downloading the tool.

Step 6: Run the tool and follow the instructions on the tool. Choose your connected USB when it asks where to install. (Make sure to click create installation media for another pc)

Step 7: Once it finishes, eject the USB from the virtual windows and your Mac, then plug it into the PC you want to install windows 10 on.

Step 8: Restart the PC, and depending on what type of PC you have, you should want to enter either the boot selection or BIOS. If you can get to the boot selection screen, you should use your arrow keys to select your USB connected. If you get to the BIOS, you will have to change the boot order and get the USB above your hard drive, then save.

Step 9: It should restart automatically and the Windows 10 creation tool should start. Follow the instructions. Once done, you can remove the USB and it will boot up into your hard drive with Windows 10.

I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, reply if there’s any problems. This worked for me on a 2014 MacBook Air, and should for you.


AirPlay via AppleTV stutters on retina MacBook Pro but not iPhone 4

I saw the chatter over on the official Apple forums last week and there has been some success on Retina MBP owners with the workaround here (and listed below)

Go to System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Uncheck 'Automatic Graphics Switching'

This will of course switch 100% to the Nvidia chipset which will be a larger battery drain.

The issue, according to those users, is that the integrated graphics on the Retina MBP is the root cause and more than likely to be as a result of immature drivers from Intel since they also report that there is no issue under Bootcamp.


Will a USB VGA Video Adapter Work on MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012)

Yes, it will work.  There's no reason it shouldn't.  But, You have a Mid 2012 which has a Thunderbolt port which is compatible with mini Display Port (mDP).

Why not use an Apple Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter?

This will be going from a digital video signal to an analog video signal.  It's just my opinion that going from video to video is better than going from USB to video.

As far as "worrying" about whether it will work or not work, if you buy from a reputable seller like Amazon, or even eBay with their "Buyer Protection" you shouldn't have to worry that your item won't work.


How can you get OSX if your hard drive crashed and you don't have the original DVD anymore?

In the past AppleCare has been able to send replacement system discs.  I would assume the same holds true today but my only doubt stems from the age of the Mac, since it may be unsupported by AppleCare.  It's definitely worth a call though...

Call 1-800-APLCARE (Or find your Apple support number HERE if you're outside of the US/Canada)
Give them your serial number (found on your Mac, underneath your battery)
Explain that you have misplaced the gray system discs that came with your Mac and that you need replacement discs in order to reinstall your operating system.

Hopefully they are still able to provide replacements!


Does an iOS app with Sign In with Apple ID work on iOS 12?

Whether an app supporting Sign In with Apple ID will run on iOS 12 or not will depend on how the developers configured it. When building an iOS app, you have to indicate a minimum supported iOS version. Since not everybody will run the latest iOS version, they'll probably specify a lower target, e.g. iOS 10 or 11.

That's not the only thing they need to do; before they call the "Sign In with Apple ID" API, they have to check the current iOS version. If it's older than iOS 13, the API call should be skipped since it's likely to crash the app (the App Store reviewers might even reject it for that reason).

So all in all, it will likely run on iOS 12 as well, but without the feature.


The general answer is that Java's pattern of memory usage differs from other apps as it uses garbage collection in a fixed size memory thus getting all the memory it might use up front rather than getting it when it is needed..

The start is the JVM allocating the memory, then I think its garbage collection tends to access the memory often or else you have allocated the large Java dataset and only accessing part of it. Thus the 11G of memory is accessed but not often enough to be marked as active. A C based program won't have a background thread looking at all the pages of memory so pages can be inactive long enough to be swapped out.

From experience albeit on other OSs Java really slows down if any of its memory is swapped and you adjust the size of its VM so it does not. If you need more memory then get more RAM or alter the algorithm to use less.


I've similar issue on my iPad mini 2 for quite a while. I'm not sure what caused it, but have read that iOS would free spaces when needed. That means, the free space we see in the settings is actually not accurate. There are some disk cleaning apps and should "force" iOS free the spaces. I am using an app called "memory & disk scanner pro", and it can do the job. You may try it or some other similar apps.


macOS Catalina: "file already exists, replace it?" popup, how to select Replace with keyboard?

Is there a different keyboard shortcut or combination of buttons nowadays?

In macOS Catalina, using a keyboard shortcut to Replace instead of Cancel when confronted with a ... Do you want to replace it? sheet, press: ⌘R


Is it possible to make Apple Watch Series 5 measure heart rate (pulse), passively, all the time?

Apple Watch 4 does this for me and has since day one.

Tap show all data at the bottom of health App on your phone to see your samples of data.

I don’t think you can change the default sampling rate, but I’m seeing samples every few minutes all day and all night. At 12 to 13 samples an hour it’s hard to see what you’re going to get by doubling the data.

During a workout session the sample rate is even higher so you can get some very large datasets if you have long workouts.


If you have a Windows PC, you can download iCloud Control Panel from Apple. Once installed, open iCloud Control Panel and enter the same Apple ID and password as you used on your iPhone. Any photos taken within the last 30 days (or up to 1000, whichever limit was hit first) will be downloaded.

If you're on Mac, have OS X v10.7.3 or later, and have iPhoto '11 (v9.2 or later), go to System Preferences > iCloud and again, sign in with the same Apple ID and password as your iPhone. Open iPhoto, click on Photo Stream in the left column, and click Turn On Photo Stream when prompted.


From the Drive Genius 3 User Guide:

To completely remove Drive Genius 3 and its utilities from your hard disk, click on Uninstall from the Drive Genius 3 menu. A prompt will appear to confirm you want to uninstall the application and will require administrator authentication to complete the process:

Uninstall: Drive Genius 3 will remove only its support files from the operating system, but will leave the application and registration in its folders for future references.
Uninstall All: Drive Genius 3 will remove all its files, including the support files, registration files and move the application to the trash can.

In case you've already deleted parts of the installation, you may need to re-download/install the Demo version first (direct download link).


iMovie file export swaps '/' and ':' in the filename

They are reserved characters. You can’t use them you need to think of a different delimiter. IE. Tacho-John.mp4


Are these unix exe files and others 32-bit code, & should I do something about them before moving to Catalina?

The content of /System as well as all files in /sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/lib and /usr/bin is part of a macOS installation and will be replaced/upgraded if/when you upgrade to Catalina.


i cut my iphone 4 jailbroken with evasi0n off and after i powered my phone back on i lost my apps. what can i do to get them back?

It sounds like you had a tethered jailbreak. If this is so you will need to run it by your jailbreaking program again on your PC/Mac and then it should be working again.

This issue does not happen when you do untethered jailbreaks.


Transfer Individual Apple Developer membership to Company on iTunes App Store without repaying

There's now a specific form for this.

https://developer.apple.com/contact/submit/?entityType=individual&requestType=migrateAccount

You can get to it from the Membership section of the Developer portal, and clicking Need to edit this information? in the bottom right corner.


How can I turn on the Intel HD manually?

gfxCardStatus will let you choose which Graphic Card to use. It has three modes:

Dynamic Switching: An alias for the built-in automatic graphics switching feature in OS X.
Integrated Only: Forces the more battery-friendly graphics on and disallows automatic switching.
Discrete Only: Forces the more power-hungry graphics on and disallows automatic switching.


Why won't an fsck-declared-good volume mount?

I had same problem... fix/work-around was in Terminal do something like:

mkdir /tmp/3

sudo /sbin/mount_hfs /dev/disk3s3 /tmp/3

df -h  /tmp/3
Filesystem     Size   Used  Avail Capacity iused      ifree %iused

/dev/disk3s3  464Gi  249Gi  215Gi    54% 3279960 4291687319    0%   /private/tmp/3

BTW, if you have extra ram, you can do faster checks of volumes, esp Time Machine disk, with a command like:

sudo fsck_hfs -f -c 6200m /dev/disk3s3

** /dev/rdisk3s3
   Executing fsck_hfs (version hfs-366.70.1).
** Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
   The volume name is SeaTMimac1012.noindex
** Checking extents overflow file.
** Checking catalog file.
** Checking multi-linked files.
** Checking catalog hierarchy.
** Checking extended attributes file.
** Checking multi-linked directories.
** Checking volume bitmap.
** Checking volume information.
** The volume SeaTMimac1012.noindex appears to be OK.

Tho it was ok, none of these would mount it: DiskUtility (horrible one in 10.12), diskutil mount, etc.


How to clean up Docker for Mac containers

try:

docker system prune -a

https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/system_prune/

  Remove all unused containers, networks, images (both dangling and
  unreferenced), and optionally, volumes.


You can create and mount a RAM disk with the following Terminal (i.e. shell) command:

diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "diskName" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://2048`

Where 2048 can be any number and represents the number of 512 byte blocks you want to allocate.  So 1,000,000 will get you 512,000,000 bytes.  (Of course, you have to leave out the commas.)

So edit the command to your liking and put it in a shell script, then add that shell script to your login items.  If you really need to run it at boot instead of when you log in, that is a lot more involved.  Either you don't need to do it, because you're not starting Apache etc. before you log in, or you've already done it to get Apache to start before you log in, in which case you can just piggy back on whichever daemon you are starting first.


Turn off autocomplete event name internal to Apple's Calendar app on Mac OS?

I've just done a clean install to Catalina and signed in to iCloud. Without any action on my part, I no longer get the autocomplete suggestions when making new events. But I did not intend to disable them. Maybe that's helpful to someone.


How to split CSV file by Column values into multiple files on a Mac? awk?

Your approach would mostly work, although you'd end up with column A in the output file, which may not be what you want.  Here's another approach that doesn't put column A in the output file:

awk -F, '{outfile=($1 ".csv") ; print substr($0,index($0,$2)) >>outfile ; close(outfile)}' <name_of_input_file

You said "CSV", so use a comma as the field separator.


How to let screenshot show a mouse pointer on Mojave and Catalina?

Screenshot under Catalina does not have this problem, went taking timed full screen captures. If only a selected portion or window is needed, then take a screenshot of a selected portion of the full screen image. This can result in a monotonous and time consuming process. However, the Screenshot application includes a record feature, that can be used when many screen captures are needed. You can then playback, pause and capture whole screens, windows or portions. Below is one example.

Example of the Wrong and Right Way to Capture a Window.

The images below were taken using the Grab application from High Sierra.

Grab was used to capture a Finder window. The image is shown below. The problem here is the window does not have focus.

Next, Grap was used to capture a selection which included the Finder window, as shown below. Still no focus.

Finally, a timed capture was taken of the entire screen. The the delay was used to give focus to the Finder window. Next, a selection was captured from this image. The result was the correct image shown below.

Below is an example where the Screenshot application was is used from Catalina.

First, a two captures of a Finder window were taken, as shown below. The first image was taken without a timer. The second was taken with a 5 second timer, so focus could be given to the window. In both cases, neither window has focus.

Next, a capture of a selected portion was taken, which included the window, as shown below. Here the image is correct. So at least Apple has fixed one problem.

Finally, two captures were taken. The first involved the timed full screen, then a portion of the first image. The second image is shown below. You can see this image is also correct.

Below is an example where the Screenshot application is used from Catalina. This time a screen pointer is included

Below is a selected portion taken with a timer. The screen pointer is not included.

Again, two captures were taken. The first involved the timed full screen, then a portion of the first image. The second image is shown below. You can see the image below includes the screen pointer.

Conclusions

The capture portion of Screenshot works for images which do not require inclusion of the screen pointer. When the screen pointer needs to be included, you may still need to resort to the two image approach that Grab required.


Mac OS X downloads do not begin, other app store downloads normal

We do this all the time. Here is a quick process.

How to download Mojave now that Catalina is available?

When this doesn’t work, it’s almost always the network so take your Mac to a new location (public library, school, different ISP) or have a friend download the installer and make them a pie or meal in thanks.


Mac OS X, install another keyboard layout?

Would the Windows Latin American layout mentioned in this article meet your needs?

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2007/02/more-ways-to-type-spanish.html


How to send a looped video to video feed?

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is a free and open source video suite that is capable of cutting from a live feed to a pre-recorded source video.
In additional to OBS, you will need obs-mac-virtualcam to map the output to a virtual camera:

Creates a virtual webcam device from the output of OBS. Especially useful for streaming smooth, composited video into Zoom, Hangouts, Jitsi etc. Like CatxFish/obs-virtualcam but for macOS.


How do I "Approve my iPhone" for ios 10.2?

From what I have gathered in my own frustrating search tonight is that without any other apple devices you have to select "can't activate this phone" from the bottom and you will lose only your saved passwords in keychain, meaning if you don't remember them you will have a not so fun time resetting those that were forgotten, but if you're not concerned with losing your keychain passwords then don't worry nothing will change.

For those of you who stumble across this issue and have a MacBook which doesn't get a pop-up window, (my situation earlier) go to your settings on your MacBook and find keychain under iCloud preferences, it should say iPhone is waiting for verification. Click this and enter your apple ID and it should activate your phone.


Google Chrome crashes with EXC_BAD_INSTRUCTION on Sierra

This sounds like a bug in the Google Chrome application itself. This probably is related to word predictions feature (e.g. when switching input method and then typing right away).

See the existing bug report No support for Chinese Input Predictive Completions on Mac OS Sierra. People reporting it are having very similar crash reports.

If you think the problem is related to something else, feel free to report a new bug against Chrome.


Why is Cron not running the enable wifi command?

I'm trying to get something similar to work too (using the -setairportnetwork option)
My WiFi access point is misbehaving, and sometimes restarts. When it does that, many of my MacOS systems do not automatically reconnect, and this is very inconvenient for my Mac mini that does not have a keyboard, mouse, or ethernet attached.
From the networksetup "man" page (man networksetup)

The networksetup command requires at least
admin privileges to change network settings. If the "Require an administrator password to access system-wide preferences" option is selected in System Preferences >
Security & Privacy, then root privileges are required to change network settings.

But I expect there's something different about the context in which cron runs a user's job than when it runs whilst logged into the desktop.
In my case, when it fails it outputs the following:
Error: -3930  The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.wifi.apple80211API.error error -3930.)

and the only place I can find error "3930" documented is in Jonathan Levin's "new OS X Book" notes, unfortunately "Operation not permitted" isn't much to go on.
Perhaps Marc is indeed thinking in the right direction, at least that if not running interactively as a "Desktop" user then it needs to run as root. Going to try that, next, and report back...
TBC.


Mac mini FusionDrive - “No CoreStorage Logical Volume Groups Found”

Once you're converted to APFS, CoreStorage is managed differently.
Your result for diskutil list correctly shows both internal physical drives & the synthesised drive the OS constructs from that.
Note that both parts of what used to be called only from diskutil cs list both reference the same Apple_APFS Container disk2, which is correct, & the construction is re-stated in the synthesized drive as Physical Stores disk0s2, disk1s2.
That it shows as Container disk2 rather than 1 means you have at some point re-formatted or reassigned, but that is of no import. Mine is up to Container disk7 on one drive these days.
diskutil cs list is now redundant.
There is a considerably more detailed explanation at The Eclectic Light Company - Fusion Drives in APFS


Is there a way to change font sizes system-wide while preserving UI resolution?

You can use TinkerTool to change the default system fonts and increase their size.


Powerpc apps on a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.9

Well obviously, yes you can. Why would you keep them ?


Removing old mails after switching mail client

Basically, Apple Mail and all other mail programs download caches from your email account. these cache files often work as a backup. removal of accounts doesn't remove them. And that is a good news for you. If someday you lose your emails from the server, you are assured a copy of the emails sits on your system and you can recover all your emails from there.

thanks,
Jason


Options on a Mac for a writable, compressed file system?

I ended up going with MacZFS.

Created a sparse-image disk via Disk Utility for about 100GB.
Formatted it as a ZFS file system by following the instructions in the MacZFS - Getting Started section.
Turned compression 'on' in ZFS via zfs compression=on [mypoolname]

I tried booting a Windows XP VM off the ZFS file system and it worked. ZFS reports that it achieved a compression ratio of about 1.32x (which means my 10GB VM takes up about 6.6GB on disk). Not sure how well VMWare will play with ZFS's compression under high load, but it seems to working well so far.


Touchbar on Macbook pro 16" crashes when it tries to open

As a work-around, under System Preferences -> Keyboard, I found the option that displays Touch Bar shows and gives the following options:

If you select "Expanded control strip" you are greeted with your familiar options


What is "Other" account on OS X Yosemite login screen?

This indicates you either enabled the root user or you connected to a directory service (Open Directory or Active Directory) for the ability to login with network accounts.

Directory Services:
Open System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Options

Look for a Network Account Server in the main pane of Login Options and edit accordingly if one is present.

Root User:
"Open Users & Groups preferences, click Login Options, then click the lock icon to unlock it. If necessary, type your password, then click Unlock.
In the Network Account Server section, click Join or Edit.
Click Open Directory Utility.
Click the lock icon to unlock it, then enter your administrator name and password.
Do one of the following:
Choose Edit > Enable Root User, then enter a root user password in the Password and Verify fields.

Choose Edit > Disable Root User.

Choose Edit > Change Root Password, then enter a new root user password."

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH14281?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


Precautions to prevent iPhone virus from attachment

You are most likely safe, as there are extremely, extremely rare cases of getting a virus this easily, as iOS is extremely secure. There are no incidents of getting a virus from PDF on iOS, so you are definitely secure.


I'm running OS 10.9.x right now, but I don't think it should be too different. When you open the reading list by clicking the little glasses (I think that's what it was- it may be under the same book icon as bookmarks), mouseover the item you want to delete, and you should see a tiny x in a circle appear in the top left of that item. Click to delete it.


Can I tell Terminal that it is allowed to kill processes if asked?

Open Terminal Preferences → Profiles → your profile → Shell and switch ‘Ask before closing’ to ‘Never’.


Is my 13" rMBP capable of running a 4k monitor at 2560x1440 scaled resolution?

Option-clicking the scaled button in System Prefs will bring up many more options.


Anyone knows what this third party input method? And is it safe to use it since it's from an unidentified developer?

When macOS informs you that software etc is from an unidentified developer this doesn't necessarily mean it's unsafe. An unidentified developer simply means that the software has not been registered with Apple. There are many reasons why this may be the case (e.g. the software may date back to before Apple started registering developer IDs).

Regardless of the quality of the software, if it's not registered than recent versions of macOS will present you with a warning dialog when you try to launch it. Typically this message will identify the app and tell you it's from an unidentified developer, and it may ask you if you're sure you want to open it.

Unfortunately there is no way for anyone here to advise you if the software you're referring to is safe unless we know what the software is or who the developer is.


iPhoto opens automatically by creating files on Desktop

Maybe the service is saved somewhere else? As far as I know, they go into ~/Library/Services/ (you can go there by switching to Finder and press Shift+Control+G or select "go to folder" in the Go-To-Menü).

Maybe you saved your Automator script as "Folder Action"? Have you checked them, too? I think they are visible as a submenu when Control-Clicking on the Desktop.


I ran the following Terminal command defaults find Menu Bar and found this:

Found 1 keys in domain 'Apple Global Domain': {
    "_HIHideMenuBar" = 0;
}

The _HIHideMenuBarproperty can be either 0 for Disabled or 1 for Enabled. And that's the same setting found in System Preferences - General - Automatically hide and show the menu bar.

So I guess it isn't possible as of today.


Unfortunately not, certainly not wirelessly.

What you need to do is wait for iOS5 (on the understanding that your phone will support this), for the implementation of the new "screen mirroring over airplay" functionality.


Simple answer, yes.
If you want SMS to arrive at your phone there must be no other device left active that can possibly pick up the iMessage.

Otherwise Apple considers that if any device received the iMessage, it is considered delivered & will not try again as SMS.

Related question - How to tell Messages "I'm not at home"? which remains unanswered, despite the great efforts of one member; but shows promise for Yosemite, if not Mavericks.


Is there a way to load a LaunchAgent as another user?

It looks to me like the permissions error is just a symptom of a much deeper problem: you're trying to load the item into the wrong mach bootstrap context. Specifically, you're running the launchctl command as xyz, but it's trying to load the item into root's context, which xyz doesn't have permissions to do. What you want is to load the item into xyz's context instead (which xyz should have permissions to do).

Ok, let me back up a bit, and give you a bit of a summary of the launchd hierarchy in OS X. When the OS boots, it starts a master instance of launchd (the "system" launchd), which loads items from the various Library/LaunchDaemons folders.

When a user logs in (or otherwise starts a "session"), a new "bootstrap context" is created, a new instance of launchd (the "user" launchd) is started (in that new context) which loads items from the various Library/LaunchAgents folders (all within that new context).

When you use sudo -u xyz ..., it switches user IDs to xyz, but doesn't switch to xyz's context.

Now, there are a couple of cases here: first, if xyz isn't logged in (i.e. doesn't have an active session), they don't have a bootstrap context or a launchd instance, so you can't load a LaunchAgent as them. Basically, LaunchAgents load into user sessions, so if there's no session there's nothing to load it into. On the other hand, this shouldn't be a problem: next time xyz logs in, your item will be loaded automatically (as long as it's in the right place).

If xyz is logged in, you can get the process ID of some process within their session, and use launchctl bsexec to switch to that process's bootstrap context (and then use sudo -u xyz to switch UIDs to xyz, and then load the item):

loadUser=xyz
loadPID=$(ps -axj | awk "/^$loadUser / {print \$2;exit}")
launchctl bsexec $loadPID sudo -u $loadUser launchctl load /Users/xyz/Library/LaunchAgents/x.y.z.plist


Restore from Time Machine after installing Bootcamp

No, Bootcamp will create a fysical partition on your Macintosh HD. If you restore your Mac  with TimeMachine, the software will only detect your Mac-partition and restore it's data. It will leave your Bootcamp partition in tact.

If you want to get rid of the Bootcamp partition, just run the Bootcamp assistant again and it will allow you to delete the Windows partition with one mouseclick.


What's alt+spacebar character and how to disable it?

optionspace inserts a non-breaking space (NBSP, U+00A0) by default.

What I've done I've set my editor highlight the non-breaking space, so that I see when I accidentally enter it.

You could remap ⌥␣ to a normal space by creating ~/Library/KeyBindings/ and saving a property list like this as DefaultKeyBinding.dict:

{
    "~ " = (insertText:, " ");
}


Parallels Desktop is using my home directory for a VMs home directory

I am assuming you did an Express installation. There is a few places in Parallels where the settings can or need to be changed.

The first place is under Configure -> Options -> Sharing.

This controls where and how Parallels can see the folders, and where and if they get mounted. Shared Profile is most likely enabled which is why you are getting the current result.

Another place to check sharing options would be under Configure -> Options -> Applications.

This controls which applications are shared between the Mac and Windows Virtual Machine and how they interact with each.

Lastly to completely disable sharing between the VM and Mac look under Configure -> Options -> Security

This will completely isolate the Mac from the VM, and nothing can be shared between the two.


Folder Action for hiding files according to type

Here you go. It works just fine on Snow Leopard.


Apple doesn't index every bit of text in every app (that's not their own app, like Notes).  It's up to the app developer to add a search function or to explicitly make their content searchable by Apple.  The latter part is becoming more popular because the iOS Spotlight function is getting better.

For example, if I do a Spotlight search on my iPhone for 'plex', the results include the Plex app that I have in addition to several emails I've received from Plex.  These emails are in the Spark email app, so that means that developer added the code to make their content available to Spotlight searches.

At this point, it's hit-or-miss if your app supports this.  Often, the developer will indicate if this feature is available on their iTunes page.


How to change serial number on a Mac Pro 5,1 (2010)?

I may have misunderstood your question, but it's not clear what you mean by:
 my account works fine on other machines with different serials, yet even on this Mac Pro with a completely fresh install, it absolutely will not work.

I'm not aware of any Apple ID account services that interrogate serial numbers. In fact, Apple instructs software developers the following caveat relating to serial numbers:

  It is possible for a system to lose its serial number so that it will
  no longer appear either in System Profiler or the I/O Registry.
  Repairing a system by swapping hardware components is one reason this
  can happen. Apple does not document the specific details of how a
  machine can lose its serial number. Once the serial number has been
  lost there is no means to restore it to the machine.

Source: Apple Technical Note TN1103

The point I am trying to make is that Mac computers can lose their serial number, or the serial number can change (e.g. through a replacement logic board), and because of this serial numbers are only used by Apple as one way of identifying/tracking computers for Warranty purposes (e.g. relating to Apple Care, recall programs, etc).

This being the case, it's not clear what isn't working on your Mac Pro in terms of your account. If you could clarify, perhaps the community may be able to address what isn't working in a different way? Please don't take this as me being dismissive - I am merely trying to find a way forward for me or someone else to help you.

Missing serial numbers

I have seen a number of cases where users thought that a missing serial number was the cause of problems (such as the Messages app being unable to connect) but the real issue was something else. Evenso, in these cases the scenario was a missing serial number not an invalid one. (I should add that I have personally seen Macs with missing serial numbers function normally in all respects.)

Valid serial numbers

In the previously mentioned Tech note, Apple also states Developers should not make any assumptions about the format of the serial number such as its length or what characters it may contain.

This being the case, I'm not sure how you could generate a valid serial number for your Mac Pro.

If, on the other hand, your serial number was missing altogether, there is a tool that allows you to re-enter a serial number, but this tool only works if no serial number is present - it doesn't allow you to edit an existing record, which you do have.

Proving your hypothesis

By the way, if you are correct about what is going on in your case, the only way you will prove it to Apple is to take these steps:

use your Apple ID on your Mac Pro and demonstrate what isn't working
use your Apple ID on another Mac Pro of the same model/configuration and show that everything is working fine
swap the logic boards between the two
use each computer in turn
if everything works fine on your machine with the other logic board, and no longer works fine on the other machine with your logic board, you've proven your case


Is it possible to play Podcasts through the headphones connected to an Apple Watch?

Yes, it's possible to play music directly from your Apple Watch.  It's limited, as far as I can tell, to the Music app on the Watch.  From reading the Apple page, I can't tell if you can play podcasts directly to the Watch or not.  Source

You can enjoy music on your Apple Watch without your iPhone when you pair with Bluetooth headphones. Open the Music app, scroll up, then tap your Apple Watch to choose it as the source. Then scroll back down and tap any of these options:

Now Playing. Play or pause what's currently playing on your Apple Watch.
My Music. After you sync a playlist to your Apple Watch, you can browse your music by Albums, Artists, and Songs.
Playlists. Use the steps below to sync a playlist to your Apple Watch.

There's more info on how to create a Playlist on the Apple page that I've linked-to above.  You might need to download any music stored in the cloud, such as music from Apple Music or iTunes Match, to your iPhone before you can sync it with your Apple Watch.

This iMore article goes into more detail about the (convoluted) way to add podcasts to your Watch.  There's more detail there than can be added to this answer, unfortunately.


It is quite difficult to convert VGA to HDMI because HDMI is digital, and VGA is analog.  It can be done, but the solution is often overpriced, and not worth it.  In my opinion, you should buy an HD projector, but if you can't then I would try something like AirServer and mirror it to your Mac and then connect your Mac to the projector.  Hope this helps!  In the meantime, I'll look for more solutions.

Update August 5, 2016:

Apple now sells a lightening to VGA adapter.


Bootloader freezes on login screen when booting into Lion from Boot Camp

This suggestion seems to helps a lot with all sorts of things, so I figured I'd suggest it here just in case.

Go to your Disk Utility app and press the following buttons in the numbered order. I would recommend only doing 1, 2, and 3, but if this doesn't help with the problem, you can also try to run 1(b) from Recovery Mode (or while running your computer off an external hard
drive) because it won't work while you're logged on.

Hope this helps :)


I have an Apple ID but it is not associated to App Store. I have tried to associate it, but it wont let me without a credit card. How to proceed?

I believe this is the intended behavior on Mac OS X. On iOS, you can establish App Store use of an Apple ID without requiring payment information so you could borrow a friend's (or a store's) iOS device for a moment and just establish your account as valid for App Store use.

From there, you could of course load a gift card by redeeming it or just log out and then try again. This has worked in the past for many corporate ID where we didn't want to have billing information on individual accounts.

Lastly, the Apple support might be able to guide you if things have changed with them being more protective of accounts to prevent fraud, false reviews in the App Store or whatever else motivates Apple to change policy around the online stores they run.