It's probably best to ditch the script approach and use the settings file designed for this purpose: sysctl.conf

This applies up to macOS 10.12 Sierra.
as @klanomath pointed out in comments: " *.deadtimer are all "sysctl: unknown oid *.deadtimer" in my High Sierra environment. IE they don't exist!"
So it looks like that part of the sysctl interface is completely gone now.

sudo nano  /private/etc/sysctl.conf

add the following variables:

net.smb.fs.kern_deadtimer=0
net.smb.fs.kern_hard_deadtimer=0
net.smb.fs.kern_soft_deadtimer=0

If you afterwards boot in verbose mode (cmd+v on startup or sudo nvram boot-args="-v" before a reboot), you should see the custom settings being applied.

You should then see on boot messages like these:

net.smb.fs.kern_deadtimer: 60 -> 0
net.smb.fs.kern_hard_deadtimer: 600 -> 0
net.smb.fs.kern_soft_deadtimer: 30 -> 0

Otherwise check with

sysctl -a | grep smb

This approach should work for most settings that are accessible via sysctl and thus be as generalised as the question title implies.


What extension exist for Safari to watch Youtube videos using a foreign IP?

this is a common problem, due to possible copyright infringement issues.
you can add the following proxy-url to your bookmarks and use it in combination with copy/paste. sure that is not exactly what you have asked for, but it works and the amount of time is the same!

01 and here is a list of other possible proxy-hosts


Where is the App Store wishlist in iOS 11?

The wish list has been completely removed from iOS 11 and iTunes 12.7.

This article confirms my statement:

  With iOS 11, you get a truckload of new features but you also lose some pretty useful things. Having already killed 32-bit apps on iOS, Apple has now removed wish lists from the App Store. Since Apple removed iOS apps from iTunes as well, there’s now no way to add apps to your wish list or to see which apps were there in your wish list on iOS 10.

You can share apps into Notes as a workaround.


Has anyone else been able to find out why Back to my Mac isn't working in Yosemite?

Ok, just found this…. Hope this works.
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18990?viewlocale=en_US


How long do I have to tap "Don't send" when sending a text message from Apple Watch?

There isn't a fixed amount of time to send on Watch OS 2.0. It really depends on what you do next with the watch.

If you don't go on to other tasks, it appears to exist in a state where the "don't send" is active for over 2 minutes - well past the point where the watch screen goes dim.

I believe it's about 20 seconds once you leave the watch alone to when the message posts, but I don't get feedback and the time stamps on other devices round to the nearest minute, so getting a precise measure eluded me when testing this morning.

I just place my hand over the entire screen to blank it when I want the send to be final and leave the watch alone for a bit.


Why does setting CLICOLOR=1 not turn on colors for "ls"?

A few issues.

Homebrew coreutils ls is not the OSX/freebsd ls. Coreutils is GNU, and that ls uses --colors instead of -G. -G in gnu ls means do not show groups. It does not use CLICOLOR either. There is no environmental variable to set colors for gnu ls.

OSX's ls uses -G as a command line option, in the same way that exporting CLICOLOR would as an environmental variable.

So you are using the wrong variable for the wrong command.


Which files are involved in Mac App Store update checking?

I'm not sure exactly, but /Library/Receipts/ & especially the file in there called InstallHistory.plist would be a good place to start


I don't know about the pip error and cannot check it because I've no OS X boxes available.

Regarding the conda error it is almost sure the well known conflict between pyqt5 pip package and pyqt5 conda package. A workaround is simply remove the PyQt5 dependency from the file Anaconda3\pkgs\vitables-3.0.0-0\Lib\site-packages\ViTables-3.0.0.egg-info\requires.txt (I don't know if the path is the same on Mac OS X).

You can found it explained with some more detail in the ViTables FAQ.


Set position of icon in dock without pinning

No...   I am pretty sure you cannot do this.

Icons that are not "pinned" to the dock for easy access are populated from left to right in the order that you launch the corresponding application.

What is in the dock is specified by the dock preferences file, and by managed settings (MCX) if the machine is connected to an Open Directory server.

If an application is listed in one of these settings locations, its icon will appear in the dock, whether the application is running or not.  If it is not in one of these settings locations, the application icon _will_not_ appear in the dock until it is launched.

It is possible i suppose that there is a third party utility that is capable of what you are asking, but it is not something that the stock Dock in OS X can do.

Sorry...  It sure would be cool.

Have you thought about using auto-hide on the dock...???

Set up your icons where you want them, and then set the dock to auto-hide.  Then you don't see it at all, until you mouse over the edge of the screen...   It's not quite the same...  you would still have to deal with the clutter of icons while trying to switch programs...


Notification Center stuck over ¾ of the screen, so can't power off

You can try this method:

Hold the power button and the home button simulatenously.
Keep them pressed until the display turns off. Release both buttons immediately.

It may be tricky to pull this off as the iPod touch will reboot if you hold the buttons too long.


"Could not locate device support files" with Xcode version 11.3.1 and iOS 13.5.1

This Stack Overflow question answers this. You need to copy and paste over the SDK for the iOS version that your phone runs on into this file location: <where ever xcode is located on your machine>/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/DeviceSupport.
After downloading the appropriate file, you can go to Terminal and paste this:
unzip /Users/yourname/Downloads/13.5.zip
cp ~/Users/yourname/Downloads/13.5 ~/Users/yourname/location/of/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.plaform/DeviceSupport

Here's the link to the SDK for iOS version 13.5 (includes 13.5.1) that you need to paste over.
You can also update to Catalina to get a later version of Xcode, but I don't recommend it if this is the only thing you're doing it for.
Apple no longer allows you to downgrade your iOS version, so that option is now, sadly, null.
Edit: I just wanted to make it clear that this approach works for all versions of iOS, not just 13.5. Just download the your system version's corresponding file and paste it into the location mentioned before. Make sure to unzip the file before pasting it though.


How to find errors in Excel for Mac 2011 in a large sheet?

Depending on what your workbook's displaying,

Edit > Find [#] (i.e. enter the hash sign # as your target text)
Within: [Workbook]
Search: [By Rows]
Look in: [Values]

may be less of a pain. In most of my workbooks, the only cells displaying the hash sign are error messages, and as far as I know, all Excel error values (#DIV/0, #NAME?, #REF! etc.) display text starting with #. Even if you have dozens of hash signs in non-error cells, this will be a lot faster than having to wade through the Edit > Go To… dialog on every sheet.

If you want to search for errors without recalculating, you may have cells which display a calculated value that's destined to turn into an error. For example, enter =2+C4, then delete column C. If recalculation is set to manual, the cell will continue to show an unchanged value, but the formula will become =2+#REF! You can find cells in this state by changing the search parameter to Within: Formulas. This can stop recalculation from propagating a cascade of #REF! errors that takes a long while to unravel.

Hope this helps.


rMBP 2015 doesn't recognise Dell P2715Q over DisplayPort

So oddly enough, 10.10.3 didn't seem to make any difference, but the supplemental update that came up yesterday (14D130a) on Software Update (http://9to5mac.com/2015/04/16/apple-releases-os-x-10-10-3-supplemental-update-to-fix-startup-issue/) fixed it right up. Now when I connect the display via Thunderbolt, it comes up at the native 4K resolution at 60hz running in SST mode. Thanks everybody for your help!


El Capitan and old Photoshop to bootable partition

Macs very rarely support booting versions of macOS older than the one they shipped with—exceptions are few and far between, and never more than a year's release. This means that, at least on a new machine, partitioning and installing an older version on bare metal is out of the question.

Though CS3 does support Intel Macs without Rosetta, and in theory, the binaries should launch on modern versions of macOS, compatibility with newer versions is... mediocre... at best. There's some info floating around about it, but nothing is really guarenteed to work.

As it stands, your options are basically as follows:

Try to get CS3 (or if you want to up your odds, CS6) to work on a modern version of macOS
Continue using your old MacBook Pro (or another Mac) exclusively for CS3
Run an older version of macOS in a VM and deal with the potential slowdowns/issues associated with it (macOS isn't usually the happiest about running in a VM compared to other OSs.)
Use a Photoshop alternative (e.g. Affinity Photo, Pixelmator, etc.)
Bite the bullet and pay for CC

I understand that none of these options are really that great; it's something I've struggled with too, personally. However, Adobe gives no other option really.


Which version of OS X should install on a 2006 MacBook?

Depending on what MacBook version you have, you may be able to install different OSes.
However, what I do recommend is the best, and most stable OS that Apple has yet to ship: Snow Leopard, which is 10.6.X as you say.
You should do a fresh install – not from a iMac CD, but from an retail Snow Leopard disc!
All apps but few still support Snow Leopard.


Time Capsule doesn't show all time machine backups

See this answer: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/75892/27953

You need to use the associatedisk subcommand of tmutil, so Time Machine associates the backups with your new disk.


If you want to use a command without typing the path to the executable, you need to put it (or a symbolic link to it) in one of the the directories where the system looks for executable whenever no path to the command is provided, for example /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin.

So in your case I would put a symbolic link to virtualenv in /usr/local/bin:

ln -s /path/to/virtualenv /usr/local/bin/virtualenv


Does the iPhone support the camera connection kit in 4.2?

You can use the CCK to export photos off an iPhone and import them to the iPad (which isn't new), but no one has yet been able to get the CCK to hook an iPhone up to anything else.


How can I stream video stored on one MacBook Pro to another?

If the video is already recorded, you could just share the video folder with the other Mac. If you connect to the 17-inch MBP from your 13-inch and log in as the 17-inch MBP user, you can have access to all the users files. You can open the videos on the 13-inch MBP and play them in e.g. VLC player. Or you could share one folder only and set it to read only.


hdiutil: compact failed – Function not implemented

The error message is pretty unclear, but one reason might be that you are not connected to the power outlet. Compacting a disk image might be a long and intensive task, and sometimes the OS denies it when you are running on battery to avoid any risk of data loss.

If you are positive that you have enough battery power to complete the task, you may overrun the limitation by adding the -batteryallowed flag:

hdiutil compact my.sparseimage -batteryallowed


Not exactly the answer to what you asked but Incompatible software programs will be moved to /Incompatible Software. So just look and see what is in that directory


AppleScript to Choose Files from Folder Automatically

The way you handle dropping files onto an AppleScript application is like this:

on open theFolders
    -- do your stuff here
end open

You're dropping a folder, or maybe more than one folder. So there needs to be a repeat in there to handle the dropped items, and then another repeat to handle the items inside each of the dropped items. Like this:

on open theFolders
    tell application "Finder"
        repeat with aFolder in theFolders
            set theFolderName to name of aFolder
            set theFiles to every file of aFolder
            --
            repeat with aFile in theFiles
                set theName to name of aFile
                set theNameLength to length of theName
                set theExtension to name extension of aFile
                set theExtensionLength to length of theExtension
                set thePureNameLength to theNameLength - theExtensionLength
                set theName to (characters 1 through thePureNameLength) of theName as string
                set the name of aFile to the last word of theFolderName & "_" & theName & "." & theExtension
            end repeat
            --
        end repeat
    end tell
end open

I think this does what you want. I don't know what your original file names look like, nor what your folder names look like, but for a case where your folder names look like this:

Folder A, Folder B, Folder C

and where the contents of each folder look like this:

file 1.jpg, file 2.jpg, file 3.jpg

The above droplet would give the following results:

For Folder A

A_file 1.jpg, A_file 2.jpg, A_file 3.jpg

For Folder B

B_file 1.jpg, B_file 2.jpg, B_file 3.jpg

For Folder C

C_file 1.jpg, C_file 2.jpg, C_file 3.jpg


How can I un-erase my iphone from iCloud

This is the link to the find feature in iCloud https://www.icloud.com/#find

Check out this forum https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4370979 (a user declared that it helped).

  Sorry, there is no way for you to reverse the Erase command. AppleCare
  "may" be able to, you can try calling them, but there is nothing you
  can do.


iPhone calendar app is stuck on Add Event page

This problem likely can be remedied by restarting the app (Double Tap the home button, tap and hold the calendar app icon until an X icon appears, tap the X icon). If that doesn't work, I would reboot the phone (hold the power and home button down until you see the Apple logo).

If this doesn't help, I would recommend posting screen shots.


Unexpected Colour differences (MacBook Pro, OSX 10.11.6)

While I don't know the exact details, the Digital Color Meter that comes with macOS is affected by the color profile settings in System Preferences > Displays > Color. Changing the display's color profile from Color LCD to P3 to Adobe RGB to whatever causes a solid color to read differently under the same Digital Color Meter profile selection.

A photo editor with a dropper tool, specifically Photoshop, always selects the same color values, regardless of the display's color profile.


Paragon NTFS for Mac 14 doesn't see NTFS disk (OS X 10.11 El Capitan)

Make sure you have version 14.0.382, previous 14 versions had that problem.
I had this problem with the version I downloaded from the Paragon free upgrade link.
I solved that problem by downloading the 14.0.382 from their website. Strangely the new version didn't show up clicking the "check for update" button on Paragon NTFS preference pane.


How can I keep a macbook running when the display is closed?

If you have an external display, then just closing the lid generally works.

Apple calls this "closed clamshell" mode or closed display mode.

But if you only have the macbook, and you want to be able to close the lid without sleep, for instance to move it from one class to another at school without having to use sleep etc, then it's more tricky.

One option it to enable internet sharing in Preferences, this requires the OS to stay running in case anyone wants to connect, but it does potentially leave you open to unwanted connections.

Another way is to run an app like NoSleep to do the hard work for you, it's free - check the link.

But there is no simple setting for doing this built into the OS.


MacBook Pro 2011 logging itself out after a period of inactivity

System Preferences -> Security and Privacy -> Unlock the settings -> click the Advanced button -> Disable the logout option


How to move files from FileVault to NTFS?

Have you tried moving them to a FAT32 USB disk, then using Windows to move them to your NTFS drive?

You could also try MacFUSE and NTFS-3G.


AppleScript: how to open the terminal fullscreen and execute commands

You need to be talking to Terminal, not window 1. This script worked fine for me.

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "f" using {control down, command down}
    end tell
    do script "cd ~/Downloads" in window 1
    do script "brew list" in window 1
end tell


How to launch an application after a specific Disc was mounted using Automator

Elaborating on ShooTerKo's answer on Stack Overflow (the one Volodymyr Kulyk links to) I've written the following script that continues the Workflow if the triggeringVolumeName is found. That way the actual launch (or any other Workflow action) can be moved outside the Applescript:

Create a new Automator action of type Folder Action
Choose the Volumes folder of your system as input by clicking Other... in the Choose folder dropdown, pressing Cmd+Shift+G and typing /Volumes
As first action choose Execute Applescript
Use the following script and change YOUR_VOLUME_NAME to match your needs:

on run {input, parameters}

    -- define the volume name and the application to start
    set triggeringVolumeName to "YOUR_VOLUME_NAME"

    -- walk through all newly mounted volumes
    repeat with aMountedVolumeAlias in input

        -- get the volume name from the given alias
        tell application "System Events" to set mountedVolumeName to name of aMountedVolumeAlias

        -- compare the volume name with the defined trigger name
        if mountedVolumeName is triggeringVolumeName then

            -- continue workflow
            return input

        end if

    end repeat

    -- if repeat finished without match, cancel workflow
    error number -128

end run

Add other actions to the Workflow, e.g. Ask for Confirmation, Copy Finder Items or Launch Application


My Time Machine is backing up in /private/var/folders/

This is an attempt at a (partial) answer. It is too long for a comment.
Apple makes changes (mostly minor) to Time Machine without notification or  documentation. I believe that the question and answers here are too old to be reliable for recent versions of macOS.
The StdExclusions.plist does not exist inside the backupd.bundle on macOS 11, so that is no longer a mechanism for exclusion.  I don't know if it exists in macOS 10.15.7. And even if it does exist, whether it is used.
Mike Bombich of Carbon Copy Cloner specifies what is excluded by CCC and says that it excludes only part of /private/var/folders.  He lists these as being excluded:

/private/var/folders/*/*/C
/private/var/folders/*/*/T

Of course, that doesn't directly imply that Time Machine is doing the same, but it is a pointer.
On my Mac some files are from /private/var/folders are included in Time Machine.  My Time Machine snapshots include just these:

/private/var/folders/*/*/0/...

This is all largely circumstantial regarding Time Machine, but does suggest that the exclusion mechanism is more complex (or should I say hidden) than most of us expect.
Just to muddy the waters, I have to admit that the exclusions.plist file included in the root of every Time Machine (macOS 11.2) snapshot does list /private/var/folders as being excluded!
Finally, my advice is never to attempt a cleanup of system exclusions if there is any likelihood of wanting to do a full restore.


Belkin Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock dual Dell U2515H setup

Unless one of the displays is a Thunderbolt display, you cannot connect two displays to a Belkin Thunderbolt Dock (see this question).

As neither of your displays is using Thunderbolt, you have two options:

Connect one display to the dock and one to the MacBook Pro. One end of the cable (going into the dock or MacBook Pro) could be HDMI or Mini DisplayPort and the other end would need to be one of the monitor's connections (see below).
Connect both displays to the MacBook Pro. One end of the cable (going into the MacBook Pro) could be HDMI or Mini DisplayPort and the other end would need to be one of the monitor's connections (see below)

The Dell U2515s have a full selection of connectors - Display Port, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, etc. so you really can choose which suits you best. It's probably easiest to buy a pair of Mini DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cables (which will support both scenarios I described above).

See Apple document HT204154 for a general discussion of Thunderbolt ports and displays.


It would appear that the brew link process didn't successfully link from the Cellar to /usr/local/bin.

First, let's check that it installed. Try brew list and you will get a list of installed formulae. If gnu-sed is in there then it installed okay. If it's not, then run brew install gnu-sed again and you should be okay.

If it is in the list then try linking it and see what output you get. brew link gnu-sed will do this. It should link okay and you will be off and running.


"Create Diagnostics Report" not generating (or not generating in right location)?

I just ran this on my older iMac running High Sierra. It ran to completion in about 10 minutes. It wrote the output to the tmp directory but probably not the tmp directory you checked. On my machine, it wrote the output to /private/var/tmp. The folder 'private' won't show up using Finder unless you 'show hidden items'. This requires hitting the command-shift-dot keys at the same time. Then the Finder will display the 'private' folder. So from / you can see the private folder. Other folders on that level are Applications, Library, and Users among others.


Try using an application called Mac Fan Control , its very helpful.
The site is https://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control.

Max out Fans and test performance.

Have a nice day.


How do i cancel a pending purchase in the App Store?

My experience is that the transaction doesn't take place at the moment you authenticate it.

The download of an app commences, sure, but they don't necessarily take any money out of your account. I saw a week pass until I was invoiced and I'm wondering the same thing the person asking the question is, as I "bought" multiple apps when I had money in my account, then went out the next day and spent what I thought I had left.

I am now constantly being asked to verify my payment information a week later as they never took the money out in the first place, and have restricted my use of the App Store to merely browsing the apps, I can't download or update any of them and they won't allow me to cancel it, it's ridiculous and their customer service is appalling.


Is Spotlight index on an external USB drive reused when connected to a different Mac?

Every time you connect your drive to a different computer it gets indexed on the computer. Since your drive is 10TB indexing can take quite a while regarding how much data stored on it. I would suggest to deactivate indexation in the Spotlight options (indexing slows the computer down) but I noticed that un mounting/mounting the device to your/a computer erases the parameter in Spotlight so indexation is back on for the drive!  (on my system)
I hope this answers your question.

==> I forgot to mention that I have to delete all the 'fancy' dirs that macOS creates on my external drives to avoid issues when I connect these external drives to my DJ equipment.
I learned the hard way that if I don't remove those dirs, that it possibly will brake my ext. drive! (lost 2x 3 TB hard drives with tons and tons of music on it. The issue is known by the producer of the equipment but they aren't going to change a thing about it. For Denon, it's a macOS issue and not a Denon issue. :-( )


Why won't my macbook pro wake up when docked?

According to Apple's kbase article HT3131, your machine must be plugged into power for clamshell mode to work.


Like it's stated in the linked question, this isn't possible... As a matter of fact, a lot of users are suffering from this issue and some of them even have contacted Apple about it and here is what Apple said:

  ... they told me to reset my password so that both userids have the same
  password. When you get notification that an app is to be upgraded, you
  will get a prompt to enter your password. The prompt will indicate
  which userid you bought the app under. I have not had to logon to
  either id's to see which apps are updated. But you do have to log off
  and logon in iTunes to see the apps you purchased under that specific
  userid.

I have multiple accounts myself (one for the US App Store and one for my own country) and I switch accounts in the Settings < Store menu in order to get to donwload/update apps from the different stores.
In my opinion, that's the only way to get/update apps bought with different accounts.


iOS 6 displaying update badge, no update available

Update: The apps now appear to be available to download. Anyone else seeing this now too?

I am seeing this behaviour too and am 98% sure the updates are for for apps on your phone which require iOS7 or later.

I am not aware of a fix at this stage.


Proper backup procedure for upgrading to iOS 5?

Well, your backups store all of your data, excluding media and apps.  But, if you have been syncing with iTunes, all of your media should be already there.  And, the upgrade process does not wipe data so you should be good to go.


How can I remotely control my iMac user desktop from a Windows computer?

You can use VNC to remotely control your Mac. There's instructions around here to turn on the built-in OS X VNC server (it's pretty straightforward), and a Windows VNC viewer (I linked to a Google search because I don't know a particular good viewer for Windows because I don't use VNC on Windows).


Restore Photos library from Time Machine

Are you trying to open the photo library directly from the Time Machine volume?  You won't have edit access to anything on that volume.  You should copy the entire library file over to ~/Pictures, hold down Option when launching Photos.app and select the library file in ~/Pictures.


AppleScript for Excel to select/copy all cells?

found this on Macscripter.net I think it is what you are looking for:

tell application "Microsoft Excel"
   tell active sheet
       select used range
   end tell
end tell


Is there an iOS4 app that when clicked will perform the same function as Settings->Airplaine Mode on/off?

Not without a jailbreak.  If you get a jailbreak there are various ways to do things such as switch airplane mode on/off, adjust screen brightness, turn wifi/3G on or off.  The app SBSettings is one such example.  You'd be better off diagnosing your AP problem than jailbreaking your phone for just this feature though in my opinion.


How do I add the chapters title in Pages (Mac)?

Sorry for the bad news but there is no way to automater this in Pages. The best you can do is to edit the header or footer and to copy and paste the chapter title.  But if you change the chapter title you will have to redo the process.


Why TexStudio for MacOS is not being installed?

Do you wish to get a notarized / signed copy of the code - you can reach out to the people that package it and ask they sign the code.
If not, you would need to do the checking yourself and perhaps relax the gatekeeper settings. Since you don’t specify anything about which version of the OS / which version of the program, hopefully this general guidance helps you research what step to take next.
Here is my advice - if you’re not sure how to figure out a security error or just don’t want to be bothered, it’s best to not relax security / GateKeeper. It is a significant bit of responsibility to add and you lose that protection for all software - not just for this, so be sure to re-protect with GateKeeper as soon as you run software that can’t be bothered to protect you from malware.
Also - you could have legitimate malware and be one step away from unleashing it. Be sure you have a backup before relaxing Apple security in case you have a tampered product you downloaded. Just because it came from the proper web site, doesn’t mean that web site or your network wasn’t compromised.


Numbers: conditonal highlight based on a date in a different column

This currently isn't possible. Conditional highlighting will only run the condition on the cell that the rule has been applied to.

  To change the appearance of a cell based on its cell value, create a conditional highlighting rule.

Source: Add conditional highlighting to cells — Numbers Help for Mac; emphasis mine.

The only exception to this is for conditions where a comparison is required — a second value can be referenced in the rule.

  Click  to use a cell reference. A cell reference lets you compare the cell’s value to another cell—so, for example, you can highlight a cell when its value is greater than another cell’s. Click a cell to select it, or enter its table address (for example, F1).

Source: Add conditional highlighting to cells — Numbers Help for Mac.

As a workaround, you could duplicate (or reference) the column A and place it next to column D, applying the conditional highlighting to that column instead. It won't be highlighting the cell with the data, but it'll give you something to glance at next to the data.


How to save files to Google Drive in Finder?

The Google Drive is located at the root level on your mac. You could just use Spotlight to open the Google Drive folder and move or copy files directly to it. Or just go up levels in the Finder until you get to the root directory.

In my Finder sidebar window, under Devices, I have Macintosh HD as one of the devices. Clicking on this takes tou directly to the root directory. There you should see Google Drive.

Or you can use "Save As" and go up several levels until you see your Google Drive folder and save your file there.


Are you sure you aren't using ssh-add from another source?  On my Mavs, ssh-add—which is /usr/bin/ssh-add—does have the -K flag.  It's in the manpage, shows in the usage message, and is accepted.

Check which ssh-add to see if you're pulling in ssh-add from elsewhere due to your PATH.


As it happens, the problem was very similar to another problem with preview I had previously, only that the error message was not claiming a permission issue.

The solution was, consequently, equally similar to that of the problem with preview:

I removed the sub-directory ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iWorks.Pages/Data/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.iWork.Pages.savedState
I quit Pages and re-started it.


Authorise my iPhone SE 2020 to see it among devices in iTunes for Windows

Logging-in to the same Apple account / using the same Apple ID on both iPhone and PC isn't enough to enable sync between these two devices.
In addition, it is also needed to physically connect iPhone to a PC (in this case) for the first time.
Only then iTunes for Windows 10 will:

recognise device and ask to add it to iTunes library for given Apple ID,
configure both device and iTunes on PC and
perform initial data and files sync.

Only after then given mobile device will appear in File > Device menu with its unique name next to Sync in a corresponding menu item.
Some details may be found at Apple Support site in this article.


In the Terminal preferences, what does the "Use Style for "Copy" Command" option do?

It's for the visualization purposes. For example here are two different paste styles form my Terminal:

As You see, they look differently when pasted into for example TextEdit app.


Can I use a single macOS Mojave installer app on both iMac and MacBook

Yes.  You can copy the installer to the other machine as it's "universal" to the Mac platform.

However, my suggestion would be to create a USB Installer instead.  This way you can download it, "move" it to the USB and then remove it from your installation.

You will need an 8GB USB flash, formatted with a GUID partition and HFS+.  Then execute the following command:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave\ Beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USB\ Installer --nointeraction --downloadassets

Where /Volumes/USB\ Installer is the name of the USB flash drive you've inserted.


As a work around, try the alternative Japanese IM which some prefer:

https://www.google.co.jp/intl/ja/ime/


Am I allowed to install Snow Leopard on my MBP using someone elses install disc?

Yes, if it's an install disc that was either a boxed copy, or an up-to-date CD, no if it was just the disc that came with the machine unless the model number of the machine is the exact same one.

There are no license keys or otherwise.

You may not be able to install bundled versions of iLife as they are often locked to the machine it was bought from (but even this is get-roundable by showing package contents and using the individual packages rather than the wrapper installer), but the OS is usually fine.

I think the only install media that isn't usable across a number of systems are the Lion USB installers which I believe are tied down at serial number granularity.

Frankly, if you are worried about licensing, just upgrade to Lion for $30.


How to figure out what app is beeping at me?

I don't believe there's an easy, general way to determine exactly what process is making a sound, but if I had to track it down, I'd use an "audio router" (E.G., http://jackosx.com/about.html) and reroute each process/application one at a time until I figured out which was causing the sound.


Is there a way to bring this disk to life?

Try to use ddrescue, which should do a block-to-block copy of your hard drive. Then mount the copy with hdiutil and you might be able to find your files.

Basically:

ddrescue /dev/rdisk12 /path/to/save/the/copy ddrescue.log

Note: you can interrupt the process whenever you want. The progress will be saved to the map file, ddrescue.log.

And then

hdiutil attach -nomount -noverify /path/to/save/the/copy

And you should see a new disk in 'diskutil list'

You can then try to mount the partitions or do data recovery on that image. One tool you can try for data recovery is testdisk.


Pages: Fit two A5 page on on a single A4 page in landscape mode

There is a way using Pages and Preview

Print your page from Pages into a PDF (Open in Preview works as well)
Open PDF in Preview
Select "Print"

Switch "Copies per Page" to 2


The Notes App is now gone from my Macbook Air. How do I get it back?

The easiest thing to do might be to check in Lauchpad (the silver rocket in the dock or in /Applications ) to search for notes.

If it's still there, it just got moved, so you can search in Spotlight to find it.

If it's really gone, you can restore it using Time Machine or another backup. Worst case, you would have to re-install the OS but that might need some details about how you purchased Mountain Lion (whether it was an upgrade or came with the Mac for instance).


Where can I find drivers for Windows 7 on an iMac without Boot Camp Assistant?

They are on one of the installation disks that comes with your iMac. Also, I'm pretty sure the drivers get installed if you download and run a "Bootcamp Software Update for Windows"  from Apple's support site. They are usually 200MB or up downloads that come packed with drivers for windows, so give it a try in case you can't find your cds.


My old link for this dried up, but delete account is really "delete this account from my device".    The text of this article confirms that, but unfortunately I can't find an apple.com link currently.

Reading this thread will also confirm it for you, although indirectly.


How to add image to file format .mp3 on a Mac?

There are several places you can do this:

within iTunes. Simply right click, select Get Info, then select the artwork tab and select “Add Artwork”

from Get Info (Finder). Right (Option) click the file and select Get Info. Choose Artwork, then select Add Artwork. Select the art work you would like to embed.

in VLC. Go to Media Information screen CommandI  which will bring up a window of all the tags including artwork. Simply drag your artwork to add it.

via a tag editor like Music Brainz Picard. You can easily add the Artwork by dragging it to the artwork “field” in the editor and save it.

command line via ffmpeg
ffmpeg -i musicfile.mp3 -i coverart.png -c copy -metadata:s:v title="Album Cover"-metadata:s:v comment="Album Art " musicfile.mp3


Have you checked your PATH?

I just installed sudo-1.8.31.mac1015.pkg and found out that the package installs sudo to /usr/local instead of the default /usr.

If you are not sure, run which -a sudo, the one at the top will be used. To override, just add

PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

to your ~/.zshrc


Can I make automatic log-out when Mac is asleep?

Yes, a sleeping Mac will prevent your account being logged out.

From a running process or application's perspective, time stops while the computer is asleep. Developers of applications need to actively monitor sleep wake cycles and adjust their timers accordingly. Many applications do not.

Third Party Tools

You can use third party software to log out before sleep or after a period of inactivity.

Power Manager, which is a product I work on, is able to trigger a log out on sleep, after inactivity, or immediately upon wake. Given you are running macOS 10.11, be sure to try the appropriate legacy version.

Be aware that performing actions on sleep is generally not advisable.


How to make spotlight index specific files immediately?

Something is messed up. Other than when your system has no index, spotlight indexes as the file is written - literally its part of the process writing the data.

The only exception I’m aware of is you can purge spotlight or have a new install and the system queues an index of all files. My recollection is that index only lags for files that were on the drive and new files are indexed immediately.

I don’t thing there’s a setting to change this so instead of wondering how to speed it up, run mddiagnose and work with support to see why your system isn’t caught up. (Or dig in to the diagnostics to see if you can spot the issue(s))


Major problem creating more problems, spiraling out of control endlessly: cannot install OS

Having a bunch of kernel panics is not normal. While it can be a software problem, it often is a hardware problem.

First, run Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test. If no errors are reported, start from Internet Recovery, create a new partition on your SSD, and reinstall the OS.


Why can Finder perfom shutdown, when it is a privileged command?

Please clarify how Finder lets you do a shutdown. On my 10.7.3 system "shut down" is part of the Apple menu and always present, it is not part of the Finder menu.

/sbin/shutdown is indeed a restricted command, the Menu "Shut Down" feature may use a different mechanism (or it may not). I'd imagine the exact mechanism exploits the Unix suid bit feature in some way. Suid allows a command to be run as though the file owner were running it, e.g. the command is owned by root but can be executed by non-root users. This is a common (and risky) method to enable non-privileged users to run privileged commands.


Configure MBP back to factory but with most recent OS

Download OS X from the App Store and create a USB Installer.
Boot the Mac from the OS X USB Installer and use Disk Utility to create a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) partition and then install OS X.
After the installation and the setup of the first user were finished boot to Recovery Mode
Disable System Integrity Protection with csrutil disable entered in Terminal.app
Reboot to Single User Mode and enter /sbin/fsck -fy and /sbin/mount -uw /
Remove the first user ($user) from the local directory db with dscl and its user folder /Users/$user with rm (hint)
Remove the file .AppleSetupDone with rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
Reboot to Recovery Mode and reenable System Integrity Protection with csrutil enable
Finally shut down the Mac


calendar sync between iPhone and Microsoft exchange

You likely have multiple calendars on your iPhone and the exchange calendar is not the default calendar (the default calendar is where new appts are created).  The iPhone calendar app seamlessly accesses all the enabled calendars on the phone and presents them in one single calendar view.  (Think of these calendars like transparencies stacked on top of each other, you can see all events on all calenders at once.)

Open "Calendar" on the iPhone home screen and click the word "Calendars" just above the home button.   Find which color the dot next to your exchange calendar is (they aren't labeled as nicely in the next step, it may not be necessary but I need it because I have a lot of calendars).  While you're here if you only need one calendar you can "uncheck" others, so help avoid calendar confusion.  Unchecked calendars will not be displayed tho, be careful you are not hiding appts by unchecking a calendar that has appointments on it).

Next open Settings app and go to Mail Contacts, Calendars, once that's open scroll way down to the bottom, the last item is where you set your default calendar.  Change this to your Exchange calendar, so that when you create a new appt, this calendar will be used.


Have you tried resetting settings?
Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings

If that doesn't fix your problem, try signing in to the App Store. I believe you can do this from the Settings > Store menu.


How I can export analytic data from iTunes Connect

Navigate to Analytics for the appropriate app, then select the Metrics tab, then select a metric. There is a download icon (the box with the down arrow in the screenshot below) which you can click on for a CSV file. You can also select an option from the View By dropdown. As far as I know, there is no download all stats functionality sadly. Also, the analytics functionality is available for the iTunes Connect Admin, Finance, and Sales roles.


Yes, Mac OS X will often index the spotlight at startup. Depending on how many files are on your computer, this process will range from a few seconds to a few minutes (if your computer is terribly slow). I hope this helps!


Restore from iCloud Backup lost ALL my photos — Ideas?

I recommend restoring those backups.
iCloud Backups are compressed to save memory. Just because they show lesser GB than the full amount of your photos and videos may have, doesnt mean that they arent there. Also backups are done over time, so the photos and videos are also saved over time, never all at once.

I would restore from a backup and see what you have. Also when the latest backup was installed, did you have iCloud library turned on in iCloud settings? If so did you have optimize storage turned on? You'll want that off if your iPhone has enough storage for your photos.

And lastly make sure you go to www.iCloud.com since all photos that iCloud can send to your iPhone will come directly from there as well as your backup. See if you can verify that before giving up on the backups.


Opening a specific page on Mac Preview from Terminal

Unfortunately the open command does not have an option to pass to Preview to tell it to go to a given page.  Additionally, Preview does not have an AppleScript Dictionary to make scripting a solution easier, however it's not impossible.  The bash script below takes two arguments, the filename of the document to open and the page number to go to. Note that if the target file to open is not in the working directory in Terminal then the fully qualified pathname must be used.

You'll need to create a file to place this code into and make it executable. It should be in a directory that is in the $PATH, otherwise, to use it, you'll have to provide the fully qualified pathname to the executable or use ./executable if at the working directory of the executable in Terminal.

For this example, using the default Terminal, which opens to one's Home Directory:

touch OpenToPage
open OpenToPage

Now copy and paste the code, from the Code: section below, into the opened document and save it, then close it.

While still in Terminal, make the file executable:

chmod u+x OpenToPage

To use OpenToPage:

./opentopage /path/name/to/filename.pdf 3

Or:

./opentopage '/path/name/to/file name.pdf' 3

./opentopage /path/name/to/file\ name.pdf 3

Code:

#!/bin/bash

if [[ -z $2 ]]; then
    [[ -z $1 ]] && printf "\n Missing Filename..."
    printf "\n Missing Page Number...\n\n"
    printf "   Syntax: OpenToPage Filename Page_Number\n"
    printf "   Example: OpenToPage Filename.pdf 3\n\n"
    exit 1
else
    open -a Preview "$1"
    sleep .5
    osascript -e 'tell application "Preview" to activate' \
              -e 'delay 0.25' \
              -e 'tell application "System Events" to tell process "Preview" to click menu item "Go to Page…" of menu "Go" of menu bar 1' \
              -e 'delay 0.25' \
              -e "tell application \"System Events\" to keystroke \"$2\"" \
              -e 'delay 0.25' \
              -e 'tell application "System Events" to key code 36'
fi
exit 0

Notes: If the target filename and or pathname has spaces, the spaces must be escaped with a \ (backslash) or the target filename and or pathname must be quoted, but not both.

The sleep and delay times can be adjusted if/as necessary.  As the script is presently written the timings adds 1.25 seconds total to the whole process and should probably be fine as is. If I had to adjust anything I'd change the value of sleep, to .75 or 1, before modifying the values of delay.

The naming of the bash script file in this answer is arbitrary, name it whatever you like, e.g. otp or o2p for open to page, etc.


App stuck while downloading at stage of 2%

Tap the Ninjump app icon once so as to pause the download. Turn on Airplane Mode in the settings. Immediately hard reset the iPhone (Sleep/Wake (Power) + Home button held simultaneously until the Apple logo is seen). Once the iPhone restarts, disable Airplane mode, allow it to connect to Wi-Fi. Usually this will have removed the app by now.

If unsuccessful, the next step will be to sign out of your Apple ID in Settings or the bottom of 'Featured' in the App Store, and repeat the process above.

Failing those two, the process can be repeated while incorporating signing into a different Apple ID to get it unstuck...and lastly a restore in rare cases.


Shared data partition for Bootcamp no longer accessible

After a lot of trial and error and research I came across this post that solved my issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/19084645#19084645

Long story short, running fsck_exfat on the Data partition (disk0s5) indicated that the main boot region needed to be updated and it provided an option to update it.  Sure enough, this fixed it.

Prior to running fsck_exfat I tried the Verify Disk option on the partition in Disk Utility and it almost immediately failed saying "Invalid sector size: 0".  Clicking the Repair Disk option failed and said the disk needed to be reformatted.

After running fsck_exfat and updating the main boot region Disk Utility still showed the partition as "disk0s5" rather than "Data".  Clicking the Verify Disk option still gave there error saying the sector size was invalid, but the the partition name suddenly changed to "Data".  Then, clicking Verify Disk again said everything was fine.

Hopefully this will help someone else out there.  Or me, the next time I run into this...


Start the process WindowServer per Terminal

Found it by:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3466991?tstart=0

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.WindowServer.plist


Where are photos stored in the new Photos app after importing from Aperture?

Photos does not actually move the files or duplicate them when importing from an existing iPhoto or Aperture library. It simply creates hard links to the files in their original location from the new Photos library.

See how Photos saves disk space on Apple's site.

More on hard links from Ars Technica:

  A hard link is simply a reference to some data on disk. Think of a file as a combination of a name and a pointer to some data. Deleting a file really means deleting the name portion of that duo. When there are no more names pointing to a particular piece of data disk, then that disk space can be reused."

You can delete your Aperture library without any problems, however you will no longer be able to use Aperture (unless you set up a new library). Any changes made in your existing Aperture library will not appear in Photos, and vice-versa.

Basically the actual image exists somewhere on the disk, and there are two pointers to the image (one from the old library and one from the new library). So long as at least one of those pointers exists, the data is kept. But when the last pointer is removed (i.e. the old iPhoto library itself is removed, then the image is removed from the Photos library), the data is also removed.


MacBook Air's Safari browser keeps opening new tabs

A new Update for Safari was released on September 22nd 2019. As that introduced a totally new safari version. This problem should no longer occur. Make sure the Mac is updated.
   Also if it still continues make sure the keys cmd and N are functioning properly. As due to faulty butterfly keys if these two are simultaneously pressed it should result in tabs being opened.


iPhone 7 Sim Switching, Account Switching or just Normal Domain Traffic?

This looks like normal advertisement and certificate network traffic to me.

A SIM card swap, device restart, or Apple ID login wouldn't/shouldn't produce traffic to ad servers. A device restart might ping OCSPs (Online Certificate Status Protocol), but it makes more sense for that to be checked by a browser when visiting a website.


MacBook Pro Mid 2012 briefly displays static after waking from sleep

I've had this issue many times over the years. It's kind of like the video ram gets clogged in a way. I've solved it with a PRAM reset. Restart and before the computer actually starts up hold down Option, Command (⌘), P, and R till you hear the second startup chime. Then release the keys. This should take care of that for a while. If you get it again you can look into a SMC Reset which is a bit more complicated


How to resume OS X apps that have been suspended by the system

More googling revealed that the process management window I am looking for is the "Force Quit Applications" dialog, and that it can be easily accessed from the Apple () menu or with the keyboard shortcut Command Option Escape.  In normal use, this only has a Force Quit button, but it should also have a Resume button if the system suspends any of my processes again (although I can't directly test this at the moment).


How do I add keywords to iPhoto images using Automator

If you are using the “Import to iPhoto” Automator action, that returns a list of iPhoto photos you can process. Just add an “Applescript” action after your import action with the following script:

tell application "iPhoto"
    repeat with importedPhoto in (input as list)
        select importedPhoto
        assign keyword string "your keyword"
    end repeat
end tell

– that should do the trick.


Time Machine backup to Airport Extreme AirDisk

Question: Is the [AEBS + USB/AirDisk + Time Machine] combo finally,
  officially supported? On Mountain Lion or something? I couldn't find
  documentation along those lines but since we're talking about backups,
  I just want to make sure I'm not following an unsupported mechanism.

It was not supported as of Mountain Lion (see OS X Mountain Lion: Disks you can use with Time Machine) but according to the newest KB article (Use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac) it is now officially supported:

  Time Machine is the built-in backup feature of your Mac. To use it, you
  need an external storage solution, sold separately:

  External hard drive connected to a USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt port on your Mac
  Time Capsule or macOS Server on your network
  External hard drive connected to the USB port of an AirPort Extreme base station on your network

I couldn't find any information about whether this functionality was added as an Airport Express firmware update or was introduced with a specific OS version (or both), and thus I can't provide a firmware/OS version support matrix, but from
Backup disks you can use with Time Machine the minimum requirements seem to be:

AirPort Extreme 802.11ac model
Yosemite (OS X 10.10) (the earliest OS that references the article above, see OS X Yosemite: Back up your files with Time Machine)


Keep iTunes library in sync on OS X and Boot Camp (Windows 8)?

Later edit
See iTunes: Moving iTunes Files (Self Managed) for a better explanation of how to achieve dual, almost-in-sync libraries across different machines

[This is not a hugely technical explanation, more one of the frustration I've had doing the same thing... if you want more details, ask...]

You can share the file location, but both machines will 'see' it differently. iTunes uses absolute references [truly irritatingly] so the only way to keep the Library in sync is to either add the same files to both [not good if it's supposed to be self-organising] or to manually copy the iTunes Library.xml file & use BBEdit to change the path structure for every entry - which can be done but then may take the Windows version of iTunes up to 10 hours to process it.


All you need to do to copy any items path name directly to the clipboard from anywhere in the file system:

Navigate to the file or folder you wish to copy the path for Right-click (or Control+Click, or a Two-Finger click on trackpads) on the file or folder in the Mac Finder
While in the right-click menu, hold down the OPTION key to reveal the “Copy (item name) as Pathname” option, it replaces the standard Copy option Once selected, the file or folders path is now in the clipboard, ready to be pasted anywhere

The copied pathname is always the complete path, it’s not relative.
You can get the same result with a keyboard shortcut of Command+Option+C.
Source http://osxdaily.com/2015/11/05/copy-file-path-name-text-mac-os-x-finder/


Adding Bounce Message back to Mail in Yosemite

Apple removed "bounce" from the Mail dictionary.
So "bounce eachMessage" does nothing and the only effect is the message being deleted ("delete eachMessage")


I don't know how you used to shuffle your music before, but apparently there is a way to restore the 'shuffle all songs' functionality present on earlier versions, if that is what you mean:

http://ios.wonderhowto.com/how-to/shuffle-all-songs-apples-new-music-app-ios-8-4-0162796/

(EDIT: The two methods in that page are:

While a song is playing, use Siri and say "shuffle songs".
Create a 'smart playlist' containing all your stuff, because you can still shuffle within a playlist.

)


My MacBook Pro won’t turn on, shows me only the installer log

It has the wrong date. There might be an issue with your battery - that you allowed it to discharge completely. If the issue was only temporary, you can try to set time and date in Recovery (Command R). From there, you also have other options like checking your system partition. Then you restart and hopefully all works again.

Also, there might be menu options where you get the error where you can choose the start up disk. The same you can do by starting with the ALT/Option key.

PRAM reset and SMC reset may also help - and then maybe setting the date again in Recovery.

Additionally, it looks like something was uninstalled which the computer looks for at startup. If you start into safe boot (Shift), the computer may start and you can try to undo what you did, or cleanup the remains of something you deleted. Check the forums for launchagents, cache and such to see what you need to delete. Also check the time and date on your computer while at it.

If the issue is caused by a full hard disk (the reinstall error points to that), delete some unneeded files - cache, downloads and so on, to get enough space. Easiest done by starting from an external disk. If you don't have such a backup-OS, get yourself an empty disk, connect it, start in recovery, and install OS X on it. Then you can start from there and use Finder to make more room on your main disk. That might already resolve the issue.

If that fails, you can now also reinstall the operating system, as you can free enough space on the disk. Before you do that, if you don't have a backup, save the content of your hard disk by copying all the needed data from the system disk. I suggest installing the same version you already have on the system disk, or a newer version. This is easiest from the Recovery mentioned earlier. However, this will not fix all such issues - you might still get the error.

If you do, you have to delete your system disk (never without at least two backups on different disks you are sure to be fine), install the system anew, and restore the last functioning backup or just your data and reinstall your apps.

Edit: There might also be a hardware issue - for instance if you can't access your disk even in Internet Recovery. In that case, you will need a repair before you can use the computer...


Why does the USB-C Ethernet adapter get hot, even when unplugged from ethernet?

It heats up because it's consuming/manipulating current.
Even though the adapter isn't in use, it's technically powered up.
Without going too deep into electronics engineering, it's important to remember that the USB port is supplying a minimum of 5V.  Most USB-to-Ethernet controller chips operate at 3.3V (i.e. Microchip LAN9500A controller)
The factors that would create heat are basically twofold:

Reduction of  the voltage to 3.3 volts
Powering the chip

Voltage Reduction
To reduce the voltage, manufacturers use one of two components - linear regulators or buck converters.  Linear regulators, which are quite cheap compared to buck converters reduce power through the dissipation of heat.  Buck converters on the other hand, are extremely efficient (meaning the run cooler) but more costly. In low voltage scenarios, it's not uncommon to find linear regulators since the tolerances are so generous.
Powering the chip
Looking at the specifications page, the chip  referenced above uses 395mW (.4W) in "low power" or "Suspend0" mode.  Keep in mind, the device manufacturer may not implement these low power features for cost savings.
When it's transmitting (sending data) it uses 692mW (.7W) of power.
In terms of heat transfer, 1W = 1 Joule per second.  Where a Joule = "The heat required to raise the temperature of 1g of water by 0.24 °C"
TL;DR
Between the chip transmitting/receiving ethernet packets as well as converting ethernet to USB as well as the heat generated by reduction of the voltage it's supplied, it's not surprising the adapter can appear "hot" especially if the manufacturer uses less efficient components for cost savings.


How do I send a calendar event from the iphone calendar via an email or imessage?

The simplest method would be to use a contact in your address-book and add them as an invitee to the calendar event.

You will be prompted to send an invite to them.

EDIT: Previous link sucked.

Here are the steps circa iOS 9:

Launch the Calendar app on your iPhone or iPad
Either create a new event or tap an existing event that you'd like to share
Tap on the Edit button in the upper right hand corner
Tap Invitees. Add all the email addresses of the people you'd like to share the event with

EDIT 2: Added iOS 11 details.

Here are the steps circa iOS 11:

Launch the Calendar app on your iPhone or iPad
Either create a new event or tap and existing event that you'd like to share
Tap "Invitees"
Tap "Add invitees"
Either enter an email address, or tap the (+) at the right to select from your address book


iCloud Drive - sync Documents without syncing Desktop?

Put your large video files into Downloads.
This is what I do for instructional videos from Lynda
Don't sync or use iCloud Drive for Downloads


How to lock the mouse to one monitor in a multi-display setup. (On a Mac)

do this in your preference the chance you get your mouse out of the current screen is low


Share iPhone developer account for multiple devices

You are allowed to register up to 100 iOS devices for testing and Ad Hoc distribution per membership year. Please Note: Although you may remove a device from your account, it will continue to count against your 100 device limit.

Source

-> Yes. Yes it is possible.


Fresh Lion install on a MacBook Air (Late 2010) without Recovery Key

Using ISO

If you restore the ISO to a flash drive or other drive partition, you could ⌥ alt-boot from it and erase & install OS X.

In my example I selected a random DMG, however in your case you would use the ISO image as the Source.

Internet Recovery

Yes, but only if you install the Internet Recovery firmware update for your MacBook Air.

Once you have, hold ⌘ cmd + ⌥ alt + R on boot to begin.

An image of OS X will be downloaded from the internet, and can be installed normally.


Mac Pro 3.1 with Yosemite won't boot after GenericUSBXHCI USB 3.0 .kext added

The problem was graphic card! GeForce 8800 GTS was making all that problems.
I have replaced it with Radeon 5770, and everything is fine!

Funny thing is, the USB 3.0 really has something to do with wireless magic mouse! USB 3.0 somehow interferes with bluetooth 2.4GHz waves!
It can be repaired with... aluminium foil!
I've covered bt module with aluminium foil, and mouse is working fine again!

Everything solved


Reducing the size of a black-and-white scanned pdf

A great PDF compressor is Ghostscript (gs), which is native in most Linux distributions and easily installable for Mac OS X and Windows.

Daniel summarizes summarizes it best here, with the key quote being his preferred options:

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH \
    -sOutputFile=foo-compressed.pdf foo.pdf


Is it possible to repartition hard drive from which Mac OS X boots?

You should be able to repartition uour HDD using Disk Utility (see this related question). You should also be able to remove the BootCamp partition using the Boot Camp Assistant.


tmutil - Failed to delete local snapshot

I encountered this issue when trying to delete the local snapshot from the Terminal offered by my Mac. The thing is that it booted in "installer" mode and I had to chroot /Volumes/Macintosh HD to be able to run the tmutil commands. The delete however didn't work in this installer mode.

So I had to restart the computer holding Shift to start in safe mode. From there, I could start a Terminal and run the above commands to delete the empty snapshot.


Having Automator send downloaded files to DEVONThink

This Folder Action will automatically import any files that are downloaded into your Downloads folder into your DT database.

Create a Folder Action in Automator and after pointing it to your 'Downloads' folder add the following Actions to it:

Get Folder Contents

Set Current Group (and then select the desired folder within your DT database)

Add Items to Current Group

If you wish to take a more manual approach, you could create a 'service' in Automator with the following actions:

Get Specified Finder Items (and then 'Add…' your Downloads folder)

Get Folder Contents

Set Current Group (and then select the desired folder within your DT database)

Add Items to Current Group (and then select 'import')

You can then right-click the Downloads folder and run this from the Services sub-menu. You could also add a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services.

NB For the ‘get specified’ action, you may need to check the ‘ignore this action’s input’ or get duplicates. Set as follows: 'Service receives selected ‘folders’ in ‘Finder’’.

As an alternative, you could substitute ‘get selected finder items’ for the ‘get specified…’ above. Then select all the items in the Downloads folder when you run the service. This would allow you to ignore some files if you don’t actually want to import them to DT.
You have a few options depending upon how you would prefer it to work. For example, you could add a ‘Move Finder Items to Trash’ action which would presumably trash the files after importing them into DT.


macOS 10.15.5 screwed up Sound Output device

This has been a feature of Mac OS X as far back as I can remember.

You can set the system alert sound device separately from the device the main audio output (for "regular audio", such as music, audio track of movies, non-system-alert-api application sound) uses.

It might be you only noticed this now because maybe your internal speakers weren't functional before the update, and you didn't notice because you didn't use them too often? But that's just a wild guess.

Might be relevant: the release notes for macOS Catalina 10.15.5 mentions:

  Addresses an issue for Mac computers with the Apple T2 Security Chip
  where internal speakers may not appear as a sound output device in
  Sound preferences

I think you might have been having the above mentioned issue, and the internal speakers weren't available as an output device,


Terminal > Window shows all tabs (High Sierra)

While this is not a final solution, I have found an interesting behaviour that may lead to a real solution if someone can figure out how terminal is doing this.

Using macOS 10.14.6, Terminal 2.9.5 (421.2), I get much the same results as all of the above except, if I am in mc [midnight-commander: stable 4.8.22 (bottled)] the window list shows entries like this: mc[user@mymachine]:/~path — mc ► zsh ► — 89x20

This is of course the tab tile showing the active process name and directory.  And as we have all noticed, the tab title does not show the current path of the base shell…

It seems that Terminal is reading the mc processes' state including a path statement. Unfortunately, the shell, bash, zsh, etc, does not seem to pass on its current path, or at least Terminal is not acting on it.  A solution might be found either within Terminal, or the shell one is using.

I hope someone may be able to dissect this behaviour and find a solution.


Enter user/pass dialog for acrobat app install: no text visible, can't type into text boxes / press buttons (pic)

We've experienced one of these empty dialog / password request buttons. It appears when installing any types of software it seems (such as Vectorworks for example),

If you type in your normal password (the text won't show up), it will go away.


I've found an icloud locked iPhone, how can I return it to the owner?

If the SIM card is deactivated, replace the SIM card with one that is functional and will provide the device with a data connection. This will allow the phone to communicate its location to Find My iPhone which the original owner can use to locate the device.

You can't restore a device with an active Activation Lock (except DFU and that just puts it back in Activation Lock), so “wiping the phone” isn't a possible avenue.


Is there a cost for submitting an application to the AppStore?

So long as your USD99 annual membership fee for Mac Developer Program is current (and you don't break the Agreement or any NDA), that paid membership already covers the following typical software distribution costs:

set up your App ID for distributing your app
set up and download credentials needed to sign the app for distribution via the App Store.
keeping your tax information and deducting the appropriate withholding on apps sold for selected countries' App Store.
review of your app
hosting of your app (at App Store)

etc.


Renaming the volume or folder in which the Aperture library resides

Aperture will continue to look in the old location until you tell it differently. To do this:

Quit Aperture before changing the volume/folder names.
Make your changes in Finder.
Reopen Aperture and go to Aperture > Preferences.
Click General, if necessary.
Under the Library Location option, click Choose.
Locate your library and click Select.
Quit Aperture and restart it.


Image annotations that remain changeable

Skitch

Skitch is a very useful app for making annotations on images, and whilst by default it saves the files using the format that they are imported as, it can save it as a Skitch PNG which keeps the ability to modify the annotations, or the files can be kept inside its own library.


QuickLook generator for markdown only recognises *.markdown

The installation instructions say to run qlmanage -r in Terminal if it doesn't automatically start working. I just installed and didn't have to.


Install Homebrew, run brew install ffmpeg, and then run something like

cd ~/containing/folder;for f in *.aif;do /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg -i "$f" -ss 0:12:34 -t 0:0:5 -c copy "${f%.aif}-clip.aif";done

where -ss 0:12:34 is the starting position and -t 0:0:5 is the duration.


iOS QR code scanner that can open URLs in the default browser

If the native QR code scanner in control center and the camera app aren’t sufficient, I use https://qrafter.com for this on iOS. The pro version is inexpensive and very useful.

It's possible to hand off URL - just that it's up to the developer to implement that.


External monitor displaying only noise after Yosemite upgrade

UPDATE

I almost forgot I had this issue, recently I changed cables. I am now using MDP to HDMI without adapters. Before I am using DVI to DVI Cable + DVI to MDP Adapter.

I think you need to avoid 2 conversions and use only 1 cable.

OLD ANSWER

It is also happening to me, and I can't find the solutions either. But I figured out how to avoid it.

When booting up mac

turn off monitor first and then power on the mac.
turn on the monitor after the mac finished boot or in the login screen

Settings

Open system Preferences > Energy Saver
Click Power Adapter tab(assuming your mac is plugged in) and slide the 'Turn display off after' to at least 1 hr.

It also occurs when mac goes to sleep and to avoid it, the steps above should be followed. Only do the settings step if you don't mind the power consumption.

Please let me know if you have better suggestions but this works for me as of now.


is there an app on Iphone that merges sms, email in 1 conversation stream?

Such an app does not exist, because Apps can not have access to the SMSs on the device, they can only display a user interface from which the user can send an SMS.
At least this is the case for unjailbroken devices, such an app may exist for jailbroken devices, but if you do this you have to trust the app won't send/steal all your conversations to some server somewhere.

However you can search through all your SMSs, and email in spotlight search on the homescreen.


OS X 10.10 File Vault - Restore from Time Machine Backup

No. Given the scenario you describe (re-install, restore from Time machine backup) the previous Filevault2 password will be gone.

Just make sure you did not exclude important files in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options...


Use git config credential.https://example.com.username myusername to update your credentials in Git and see if that helps. This is Git's documented way to avoid repeatedly being asked for your username and password.

Git's documentation for this: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitcredentials


How do I get shutdown codes using terminal in macOS

You can just enter the following command into Terminal:

log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 168h

The 168h refers to 168 hours, which I've used so that the command goes back a week (since you want to capture the weekend).

However, you can change the 168 to another value if you like.


What is the fastest iOS version for the iPhone 3GS?

Ok, so after some quick googling and reading some Apple forums, it looks like iCloud (in iOS 5.x) isn't ready for prime time. I've done the following and now iOS 5.x seems a lot snappier.

Disabled iCloud everywhere (Settings -> iCloud)

Disable all apps then Scroll down and hit "Storage and Backup" and disable iCloud backups. If you really want to go strong, just delete your iCloud account setting (on your phone, Settings -> iCloud -> scroll to bottom)
Disabled sending data to Apple (Settings -> General -> About -> Diagnostic & Usage -> "Don't send")
Minimized Location Services (Settings -> Location services)

I kept it ON globally, but disabled it for certain Apps
Most importantly, disabled it for "Diagnostic & Usage" as well as "Location based iAds" (Settings -> Location services -> Scroll to bottom -> System Services)
Disabled notifications for the calendar (Settings -> Notification)

I also removed notifications for many other apps that had added themselves ...
However, I suspect this is fixed in iOS 5.0.1 under their "Battery issue fixed" patch. Earlier, Calendar notifications would hang causing CPU to be stuck 100%, draining the battery and leaving little CPU for other items.

Also, there are two apps, SysStatsMon and System Status. Both are good tools to see CPU usage on your iOS device. About 5+ seconds after launching them under normal circumstances, your CPU should be in the 5-15% range.


Why have my apps from the store suddenly started exiting with code 173?

Yesterday (February 14, 2016), one of the Mac App Store certificates expired and it also was the deadline for developers to include a new intermediate certificate in their app signing chain. The former causes the receipt validation code used by many apps to fail and the latter is the longer term "cure"

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=02092016a

Developers were emailed at least two times about this change but didn't have a lot of time to submit apps for review - based on the time it typically takes a review for a Mac App Store update to get processed even if it's approved on the first submission.

Users need to launch each one of their MAS apps while connected to the internet to renew intermediate certificates or deal with apps that need to be re-downloaded.

An app with an invalid receipt should exit with a special code (173), which informs OS X to present a Sign in to use this application on this computer dialog.

However, a separate bug in OS X can prevent this dialog from appearing. In this case, users will see an app which simply exits on launch. (Console.app reports that the app is exiting with code 173, but OS X forgets to show the dialog).

Two scenarios that you should be aware of:

If you usually use an app from a location without Internet access, make sure that you launch the app to revalidate it before you head out.
If a app is crashing at launch and not showing you the dialog, you've hit an OS X bug. Deleting the app and re-downloading the app from the store should fix the issue.

Horrible situation that Apple is very aware of.


10.10 updated and my internal camera not working

Hi I had the exact same problem. Played around with terminal and figured out a way to reset the camera. Just open terminal, paste this in to it, and then press Return:

sudo killall VDCAssistant


Need help with importing Camera Roll images from iPhone to Mac

If I understand your question correctly, it sounds like your Mac is simply asking you to unlock your iPhone. With an iPhone 6s you would do that by entering your Passcode or using Touch ID.

In summary, to use Image Capture the typical process would be:

On your Mac launch the Image Capture app
Connect a USB/Lightning cable to your Mac
Plug the other end of the cable into your iPhone 6s
At this point you should be asked to unlock your iPhone and/or to Trust this Computer - enter your Passcode or use Touch ID and, if prompted, tap on the Trust button
Within Image Capture select your iPhone 6s from the Devices list
You should now see a list or thumbnails of the photos on your iPhone 6s
Select the images you want to import (or select nothing to import all photos not previously imported - this could be a large number)
Click on the Import to drop-down menu to select where you want the photos saved to

You can also set up Image Capture to automatically import photos from your iPhone 6s. For more information, refer to Image Capture Help: Transfer images.

As for iPhoto (or the Photos app), your Mac would still be asking you for the same thing - So the broad process described above will also work for those apps.

UPDATE due to additional info provided in comments

An iPhone 6s with iOS 11.x installed requires the following specs for syncing:

Mac: OS X 10.9.5 or later
PC: Windows 7 or later
iTunes 12.5 or later

Based on this, your 2011 MacBook Pro isn't capable of syncing in general with iTunes while it still has Snow Leopard installed and a version of iTunes earlier than v12.5.

However, you should still be able to import photos using Image Capture v6.0.1 (the version you'd have installed with OS X 10.6.8).

As a next step, I would try creating a new user and testing with that.

Create another user

In Snow Leopard (i.e. OS X 10.6.8) you can create a new user in Apple > System Preferences > Accounts and then log into that user to see if the problem persists.

You can also try testing to see if you can import photos via booted into Safe Mode.

As a troubleshooting step I would boot your Mac into Safe Mode.

Boot into Safe Mode

Follow these steps to boot your Mac into Safe Mode:

Fully shut down your Mac
Restart your Mac
Immediately press the Shift key and keep it down
Let go of the Shift key when you see the login window (NOTE: If you have FileVault enabled you may need to log in twice).
Take a note of what happens (i.e. try using Image Capture)
Exit Safe Mode by restarting your Mac as normal
Log in and test Image Capture again

Let me know how you go.


Left Side Option key not working on Macbook Pro

I answered a similar question several months ago, the answer is somewhat applicable here as well.

Try this...

Power on your Mac while holding the option key on your keyboard.  If done correctly, and assuming a firmware password is not set, you should see your internal hard drive show up on the display.  If you DO have a firmware password set then you will be prompted to enter the password before moving on.  This is just to verify what you should see.

If you don't see these screens then your key is likely failed at the hardware level. If this is the case then you have to replace the entire top case since the keyboard is built into this component.  If the key had popped off you could replace just the key but any sort of functional (non cosmetic) repair requires the keyboard be replaced. The repair for this isn't terribly difficult although it is somewhat involved since the top case is basically the chassis that everything bolts to, meaning you have to tear the MacBook Pro down completely in the process.  iFixit has a great guide (and possibly a replacement part) that shows the process.

If you see what I describe above then your key is functioning properly at the hardware level and the issue instead rests somewhere in your operating system. To narrow down the issue I would create a test user account (or just enable and login to the Guest user) to see if the issue persisted when logged in as the test user.  If the issue persists for the test user then it's a system wide issue, if it doesn't then it's something in your ~/Library folder. If that didn't do the trick I would use Disk Utility to repair permissions, verify and repair the disk.  If need be I would reinstall the operating system, without first erasing the disk assuming you have data you'd like to preserve.

Hopefully that puts you in the right direction, good luck!


How to I restore my old default keychain?

Ok I can answer by myself. Doing the above, keychain will in fact store a copy of the old 'defaults' (all the previous... Don't why they're called 'defaults'). The copy (at least in Sierra) is located in

~/Library/Keychains/login_renamed_1.keychain-db

You can have back all your data by opening Keychain and drag/drop that file on the left column, on the top area. Once done, you'll be able to find all your old data below (Password, keys, etc...)

The apps will find them again, eventually asking you the password (the login one) to open the backed-up ones.


Are deletions in Google contacts synchronized to and from the Address Book?

Yes, that is what sync is all about :)

You can try export your Mac Address Book as a backup, and then try the setup and see it for your self.

You can however also do it the other way, by exporting your Google contacts if this is your main contacts, and then try a sync setup.


Keyboard shortcut to correct spelling mistakes

I couldn't come up with anything better than this:

--delay 0.3
--activate application "TextEdit"
tell application "System Events" to tell (process 1 where frontmost is true)
    set wasshown to title of windows contains "Spelling and Grammar"
    keystroke "w" using option down
    if not wasshown then keystroke ":" using command down
    tell (window 1 where title is "Spelling and Grammar")
        delay 0.05
        try
            select row 1 of table 1 of scroll area 1
        end try
        click button "Change"
        if not wasshown then click button 1
    end tell
end tell

For the keystroke command to work, create ~/Library/Keybindings/ and save this as DefaultKeyBinding.dict:

{
    "~w" = selectWord:;
}

Other methods weren't really usable when for example the word under the caret was not underlined.

Many words don't have any suggestions. I think it's easier to just press ⌘: and retype words manually, or to press ⌘; and double-click the suggested words.

Adding changeSpelling: to DefaultKeyBinding.dict didn't seem to work.


How to always show "Library" in the Finder its "Go"-Menu without holding a modifier key?

There is no system-tweak-able setting (for now) that will change the "Go" menu behaviour.

Basically, whether you have a shortcut defined to open Library or not, you'll have to hold "Option" to make Library visible in the menu.

Alternatives from the comments for quick access to Library (as a workaround to it appearing) are to

add ~/Library to your Finder toolbar
add ~/Library to your Finder sidebar
define a Finder keyboard shortcut
unhide the folder with chflags nohidden ~/Library
automate typing ~/Library and use Go To… Command-Shift-G
place the folder in the Dock or an alias to it on the Desktop (or elsewhere)


you might try Subs Factory or re-saving the SRT in Text Wrangler as UTF-8. Or re-encoding the file with the SRT as soft subs in Handbrake. I've also used MPEGStreamclip and Avidemux for other file formats. Good luck!


How would I preserve only a certain user account while doing a secure wipe of my MacBook Pro?

I would do the following: from your other admin account, delete that corporate user account in SysPrefs/Accounts.  I believe when you delete an account you have the option to leave the home folder where it is, which I would choose.

Then I would delete that account's home folder via the Terminal.app command rm -R -P /Users/TheAccountToDelete.

from man rm:

-P          Overwrite regular files before deleting them.  Files are overwritten
             three times, first with the byte pattern 0xff, then 0x00, and then
             0xff again, before they are deleted.

I am not sure if leaving FileVault on or off is the best way to accomplish this - test it out on a dummy user account first!


How can I use the half-qwerty keyboard layout in OSX?

I'm the developer of the one-handed typing Mac apps below. Should be just what you're looking for.

One-Hand Keyboard
One-Hand Keyboard: FREE demo
Mirror-QWERTY

One-Hand Keyboard is the best option, as it has predictive text. Just type the one-hand keys and it will automatically figure out which word you meant. Type "tges" and it will change it to "this". Your muscle memory makes it very easy to do this.

Mirror-QWERTY is the non-predictive-text version. You hold spacebar to "mirror" the keys. So to type "this" you type [T] [G+Space] [E+Space] [S]. I find this a lot harder to do.

I hope one of these solutions works for you! Would love to hear your feedback.


Internet dosn't work when connecting hdmi / usb hub

Try this, go to system preferences then network preferences. Select Thunderbolt Ethernet and "make service inactive" (click sprocket icon at the bottom)

This improved my WiFi connection speed.  My thought being that Thunderbolt is a multipurpose port also used for ethernet and may be taking priority when it is plugged into any device.  If you are using WiFi Thunderbolt ethernet is obviously not needed.


In the T-Mobile app:

Open “Account” tab
Click “Profile settings” link
Select “Block calls and messages”
Select “Block Other”
Turn on “T-Mobile Voicemail to Text Block”


Actually, I do not believe you need to enter what you refer to as Recovery Mode. If you the format either the 2nd, 3rd or 4th partition as MS-DOS(FAT), the partition method should change to hybrid.

You probably will not be able to install Windows 10 using a EFI boot method. You should use the legacy BIOS boot method. This means you want to use a hybrid partitioning scheme.

You should be able to download the "Boot Camp Support Software" (BCSS) using the Boot Camp Assistant. Although, for some Macs this download is the same as for a Windows 7 installation.

When running the Windows installer, you will need to reformat the MS-DOS(FAT) volume as NTFS.


How does the Apple Watch get the temperature?

The temperature shown does come from the Weather App. Small bits of data on the watch face are known as complications.

Tapping the temperature on the watch face will open the Weather app thus revealing the source of the data. The watch gets the data from your iPhone which, in turn, uses location and data from the Internet.
You may find more useful information in the Apple Watch User Guide.


You should be able to open the preferences by just pressing ⌘,.

If that doesn't work, try running defaults write net.elasticthreads.nv ShowDockIcon -bool true or deleting ~/Library/Preferences/net.elasticthreads.nv.plist.


Tell application next track inside repeat

This format will work:

set apps to {"Spotify", "iTunes"}
repeat with thisApp in apps
    if (thisApp's contents = "Spotify") then
        tell application "Spotify" to next track
    else if (thisApp's contents = "iTunes") then
        tell application "iTunes" to next track
    end if
end repeat


Open System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> click on Home icon (Login Options) -> Show Fast User Switching as icon


My battery died toward the end of Yosemite installation. Now login screen freezes

Access OS X Recovery by holding Cmd ⌘+R from the time you boot your system until you see the Apple logo. Further instructions:

After your computer finishes starting up, you should see a desktop with an OS X menu bar and an OS X Utilities window with the options listed above.
In order to reinstall OS X, you need to be connected to the Internet using Ethernet or Wi-Fi. If you're using a wireless Internet connection, click the Wi-Fi menu in the upper-right corner of the screen to select a nearby Wi-Fi network. Choose your preferred network name and enter a username and password to join the network if needed.


How do I install the mobile version of Google Chrome on my iPod touch 4th generation?

Chrome is currently not available for iOS. Although, Safari itself uses the same Webkit rendering base as Chrome.

There are third party browsers in the App Store, but all of these are still just using a WebView (a la Safari) as their backend. The only one that may not is Opera, but that is because everything is rendered on their servers.


The following procedure seems to have solved the problem:

Sign out from Skype
Quit Skype and wait until all connections listed in nettop are cleared
Open Skype
Choose "Sign in with a different account" from the Microsoft ID login screen.
Try to sign in with Skype Name (but fail, since I can't do that anymore after I linked my Skype account to my MS account).
Go back and sign in with my Microsoft ID.

The "Signing in..." window was displayed for a few seconds, then the home window opened normally. Problem solved. I'm guessing steps 4-6 solved the issue, but I have no idea why.


How to receive iMessages sent to the iPhone on Mountain Lion

Open the messages app in Mountain Lion and choose Preferences from the Messages menu. Select the accounts option and then your iCloud Messages account.

You should see your phone number on the right with a check box to the left of it, make sure that it is checked. When it is, you will get a message on your phone saying that it has been enabled.


Why do I get a 'connection to the outgoing server "smtp.gmail.com" failed' message in iOS Mail?

I occasionally get a call from a client of mine complaining about this.  I don't know of an actual fix (or what the actual problem is) but I usually recommend doing these in order:

Quit Mail fully: double-tap the home button, swipe up on Mail
Normal restart: press and hold power until you get the option to shut off, wait 30s for it to shut off, press and hold power until
the Apple logo shows up again.
Try again and if it fails, forced restart: press and hold power AND the home button until it shuts off - keep holding until the
apple logo shows up again
Remove and re-add the gmail account.


Sync Notes from Mac and iOS devices without iCloud

NOTE: i assume in my answer that you just don't want the Apple iCloud servers
you need an other email account to do this

you add one more email account (any but not iCloud)
and then you activate at this email account the section NOTES
the notes are created in an imap folder named notes
do it on both: iPhone and Mac
then you move all notes on Mac to the other account
then you can switch off the NOTES with the iCloud account

iPhone (iOS10):
Settings -> Notes -> Accounts -> (some account) -> notes -> switch: on/off
OSX 10.11.6
Settings -> Internet Accounts -> (some account) -> notes -> checkbox: on/off


The App Store does perform a lot of caching, so you will probably have to wait up to 24 hours to see your apps back on the store and appearing in search results.  If all is not well by tomorrow night, you should probably contact Apple and have them look into it.


How to only route office traffic over the VPN while having default route for other traffic?

This is how you route specific traffic over an interface sudo route add google.com en1 (en1 is the interface).

In order to find the interface use ifconfigcommand, run the command before and after connecting VPN and determine on which interface the VPN is running.

A similar question has a detailed answer.


diskutil unmountDisk force DISK_PATH (or whatever your disk is)


I restarted and the behavior corrected itself.  Not sure what the cause was.


How can I keep my Mountain Lion MacBook Pro display at maximum brightness?

When you go from mains power to battery, OS X decreases display brightness. (It should go back to normal brightness when you reconnect to mains power.)

To turn this off, go to System Preferences > Energy Saver, choose the Battery tab, and un-check "Slightly dim the display when using this power source".

The display can also change brightness because it senses a change in ambient brightness. To turn this off, go to System Preferences > Displays, find the window on the display you want to change this setting on, go to the Displays tab, and un-check "Automatically adjust brightness".


How to prevent sleep while a Time Machine backup is in progress?

I have solved this with a bash script. It involves caffeinate built-in command and NoSleepCtrl (prevents sleep on lid close).

In my setup, I have TimeMachine disabled and run it using this command. It should not be difficult to create a wrapper, which would execute it periodically and either ask user for confirmation or wake the computer up and do it automatically.

My experience and steps for TM backup corruption on QNAP.


iTunes can only perform one task at a time

First off, maybe you should check in Activity Monitor if it is iTunes that is the cause of the slow performance or if it is some other process that is taking up a lot of memory/CPU.

If it is indeed iTunes that is causing the problem, try this:

Turn off iTunes Match and/or Genius as they are known to take up a lot of memory and downgrade the responsiveness and performance of iTunes.
You could rebuild your library by following the steps here (offical Apple document): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1451. This excerpt was taken from there and is why I am recommending that you rebuild your library:

  Your iTunes Library file may become damaged and cause iTunes to become unresponsive.

I doubt this will make a huge performance difference, but you could try disabling smart playlists and reducing the number of criteria by which your sort the songs (e.g. In the music tab of iTunes, don't sort your songs by name, album, time, bitrate, artist, date-added, date-modified, etc. - only pick a couple criteria).

I hope some of these suggestions helped you!


iPhone 1 gen , slide to unlock is not responding

Your phone has likely hung. Press and hold the power button to try to power it off. If that still fails to happen, the other solution would be to hard reset the iphone:

To reset the iPhone, simply press the POWER/SLEEP button and Home button together. Hold them until you can see the boot screen, which is with black background and Apple logo. One point to note is you have to release both buttons at the same time.

This will not erase your data.

If the iPhone fails to work after that, you might have to restore it using iTunes. But I don’t think that’s the case.


launchd plist with large StartInterval never runs

Can you try placing the following in your launchd file.
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>

See how that works after you start up as well.


New securely erased drive not empty according to Disk Utility

This is likely coming from one or two things (or both).

Partitioning a disk, any disk, takes up drive space. In the megabyte range it is not even noticeable. In the gigabyte range it can be a substantial byte (sorry...) out of the drive.

Also computer makers and Drive/RAM makers often calculate bytes differently. O/S companies (Apple, Microsoft, etc...) call 1K 1024 bytes. Drive/RAM makers call 1K 1000 bytes. If you do the math it looks like you "lost" a lot of space when it is just different conventions.

Also formatting a drive will map out bad blocks. So depending on how many bad blocks there are that can reduce the size of the formatted volume as well.


Setting Terminal tab names in OS X and using vim

Well, I've solved my own problem. I fail programming 101.

By defining vim as a function and then calling vim, I set up an infinite recursive loop. No wonder my terminal crashed. I need to call the "real" vim, the actual executable. This did the trick:

function vim
{
    printf "\e]1;"`basename "$1"`"\a"
    /usr/bin/vim "$1"
}


How can I get my pictures back from when i backed up my iphone?

it sounds like you have a recent backup -- so that's great news.  don't let anything over write that before you can extract your files from it.

in this case, utilities like  will let you parse through the backup files/folders and get to the photos.  these guys have a free one i just did a quick test with, and it is simple once it reads the backups and parses through it:

http://www.easeus.com/data-recovery/iphone-data-recovery/extract-iphone-data-from-itunes-backup.htm

let us know how it goes.


Ubiquity or Ubiquitous Data File is how iCloud shared documents get synced between your various devices and the cloud storage servers Apple runs. It’s a legitimate part of the macOS, but that doesn’t mean that the files you saw were legit as sometimes scam software like malware reuses a “safe” name to “hide in plain sight” so that someone would find my answer here or Apple’s documentation and conclude all is fine.

The most likely situation for you is all good, but we’d need to look at the detailed file to know for sure.


This information is calculated based on the Spotlight index. If your index is incorrect, this information can be incorrect too. Try reindexing your disk:

sudo mdutil -E /

sudo elevates the command to root to allow full control on the system. mdutil is the tool for controlling Spotlight. -E is the reindex option and / specifies the path to reindex. For more information on mdutil, see the man page.


Macbook Pro doesn't recognize password until reset

Start in Safe Mode (holding shift key). When fully started (takes some time), restart normally.
If that is not enough do the old Mac witchcraft, SMC and Pram reset.


What does the "arrow" icon shown in the iPhone status bar indicate?

This icon represents Location Services. The icon isn't generally shown all the time. The appearance of this icon indicates that some iOS app/service has recently accessed your current location.

The appearance of the icon can be configured by going to Settings app → Privacy → Location Services → System Services on your iPhone and toggling the switch shown in front of Status Bar Icon item.

Your iPhone may use not just GPS, but a combination of various technologies such as Bluetooth, crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspots, location determined by cellular towards, and other GPS like technologies such, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS to determine the current location.

Also, as shown above the Status Bar Icon item, the icon itself could be styled in different form to convey different information.


Any harm done in Symlinking ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync to an external drive?

Judging from some quick tests I ran, you should be fine. iTunes finds the symlinked folder without problems (not given, as it has – or maybe had – bugs following symlinks inside its media folder) – the worst that happens is iTunes showing no backups when the link destination (i.e. the external drive) is not available.


How to open a new terminal window when using VIM

You could write a little script like this :

#!/bin/sh
osascript <<END
tell app "Terminal" to do script "vim"
END

Name this script v and make it executable :

chmod +x v

Then when you're in terminal, just execute the v script and it will open a new terminal window and run vim.

Alternatively, if you want to open a text file as part of this:

#!/usr/bin/osascript
on run argv
  tell app "Terminal" to do script "vim " & item 1 of argv
end run

Then just run v text.txt  and it will open a new terminal window, open vim, and open the text file called text.txt.   If text.txt doesn't exist, as usual, vim will create it in the buffer.