You can use HoudahGeo to write location information back into the original image files.

Using the media browser in HoudahGeo, add the photos to a new project
HoudahGeo will ask about camera clock settings. Click OK, you don’t need accurate timestamps for this procedure
Select EXIF/XMP export from the Output menu
Use the following settings:

Uncheck “Selected images only”
Check “Geotagged images only”
Tag: “Original images”
Uncheck “Create copies”. Be sure to have a backup
XMP Sidecars: “Write to sidecar if present”
Uncheck “Notify media library”
Select Coordinates and other properties you want to export
Be sure NOT to export timestamp. You did not give HoudahGeo accurate information on the camera clock setup

Full disclosure: I am the developer of HoudahGeo.


How can I enable Safari 13.1 (Catalina) to render specific unicode characters?

Display of unicode characters in any app normally requires that a font with that character be installed on the machine.  Black Truck (U+26df) is not in any MacOS font for 10.13, 10.14, or 10.15 as far as I can tell, so you would need to install one of those mentioned on this page to see it.

MS Word comes with one of them,  Segoe UI, so if that app is present and that font is available to other apps, then you should be able to see 26df (⛟).


Is it possible to use Windows PE Bootable drive on OS X

Though it may be possible to create and boot a WinPE thumb drive on a Mac, the purpose of WinPE (or WinRE) is custom-tailored to the needs of admins/users of Windows systems/software/file systems.

Apple (and your Mac) provides its own measures to diagnose your hard- and software, so there is no need to create a Windows PE Bootable USB-thumb drive.

Depending on your Mac and your installed system you may:

boot to your Recovery HD (hit cmdR immediately after the start-up chime)
boot to Internet Recovery Mode (hit altcmdR immediately after the start-up chime). You need a decent internet connection though.
use Apple Hardware Test
use Apple Hardware Test .dmg
use Apple Diagnostics


How to stop iOS 13 Personal Hotspot dropping out after 3 minutes even when plugged into power?

The hotspot on iOS 13 is stable and solid for me to connect windows 10 and iOS and macOS from 10.13 and higher for more than an hour, so the presumption that iOS is the culprit might be worth investigating.

At worst, your device needs an erase and install if its struggling to share out the network. Do you suspect your iOS device needs repair or are you in an enviromnemt where WiFi interference is high?


How to save the contact from who I received an SMS?

Scroll to the top of the thread in Messages
Tap on "Contact" (button at top right)
Create new contact


Can I turn the display off without putting the computer to sleep?

You can use Hot Corners to put your display to sleep instantly. This article on OSXDaily walks through the steps, Quickly Sleep the Display in Mac OS X with a Hot Corner.

Launch System Preferences and click on “Mission Control”
Click on “Hot Corners…” in the lower left corner
Set the screen corners you want to use to “Put Display to Sleep”
Close out of System Preferences and test the Hot Corner by sliding your cursor into that screens corner


No - not only can't you toggle this from your session once logged in, but you actually have to log out of all other graphical based user-sessions before the >console shortcut will work.

>console does not work


MacBook Pro repeatedly freezes, often with odd display glitches

The symptoms you describe could all be explained by a failing GPU system but before seeking a hardware repair (or quote), I would try reinstalling a clean version of OS X - perhaps the original version that shipped with that Mac to ensure that the hotness and slowness isn't because of added load the new OS has provided and actually something relating to hardware cooling or heat generation.

Your picture is very telling as well.

The three things that hardware could fail are:

LCD panel and cabling
GPU itself
VRAM

The patterns you show in single user mode could either be software or hardware. If it's hardware, they will get worse over time (perhaps dramatically worse) and we've already covered the software angle. Usually when the hardware is faulty, you can get poor graphics in single user mode or the boot selection screen - so you might be right it's overheating / the hardware starting to fail.


How to automate find and replace in numbers with a predefined list?

I'm not exactly sure how you have the Numbers document formatted or how exactly you want to store the Master List of Find & Replace items or where, however, the following example AppleScript code is set up to show the use of the Master List of Find & Replace items as a single table in a sheet in the Numbers document and is comprised of two columns and however many rows you need.
The images below show the sheets, the Master List of Find & Replace items and the before and after of sheet 1. The data is simplistic but the bottom line is it works to quickly find and replace the pairs of Find & Replace items in the Master List.
This will be so much faster than any manual process to accomplish the same goal.
Note that as coded, it assumes there are no formulas in the cells and they are formatted as text.

Example AppleScript code:

As coded this works with just the active sheet  in the front document.

tell application "Numbers"
    tell front document

        --  # Get the Find & Replace list.

        set theFindReplaceList to ¬
            the formatted value of ¬
                the cells of the rows 2 thru -1 of ¬
                    table "Find & Replace" of ¬
                    sheet "Master List" whose ¬
            value is not missing value

        --  # Clean up the List removing empty cells and rows
        --  # so there are only pairs of find/replace items.

        set theFindReplaceListItems to {}
        repeat with aListItem in theFindReplaceList
            if the length of aListItem is 2 then ¬
                copy aListItem to the end of theFindReplaceListItems
        end repeat
        copy theFindReplaceListItems to theFindReplaceList

        --  ### Find & Replace ###

        if the name of active sheet is not "Master List" then

            --  # For each table of the active sheet.

            repeat with i from 1 to the count of the tables of the active sheet

                --  # For each Find & Replace pair.

                repeat with thisListItem in theFindReplaceList

                    --  # For every cell containing the FIND text.

                    set theReplaceCellsList to the (cells of table i of sheet 1 ¬
                        whose formatted value contains item 1 of thisListItem)

                    --  # Replace it with the REPLACE text.

                    --  # Uncomment 'considering case' and 'end considering'
                    --  # for case senstive find/replace operations.

                    --considering case
                    repeat with aCell in theReplaceCellsList
                        set the value of aCell to my findAndReplaceInCellValue(formatted value of aCell, ¬
                            item 1 of thisListItem, item 2 of thisListItem)
                    end repeat
                    --end considering

                end repeat
            end repeat
            tell table 1 of active sheet to set selection range to range "A1"
        end if
    end tell
end tell

--  ## Handler ##

on findAndReplaceInCellValue(theFormatedCellValue, theFindValue, theReplaceValue)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theFindValue
    set theTextItems to every text item of theFormatedCellValue
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theReplaceValue
    set theFormatedCellValue to theTextItems as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    return theFormatedCellValue
end findAndReplaceInCellValue

Notes:
While the example AppleScript code as coded is using a sheet within the target document for its Find & Replace items, nonetheless, it can be coded to use and external source, e.g., another Numbers document.
In either code examples, the Master List sheet is not touched by the find/replace operations.
The find/replace operations are case insensitive. If you need case sensitive find/replace then uncomment the considering case and end considering statements in the example AppleScript code.
As coded the find/replace operations act on cells containing the value of FIND text and anything else in the cell. If you want to limit to cells that have only the FIND text and nothing else, then:
Change:
set theReplaceCellsList to the (cells of table i of aSheet ¬
    whose formatted value contains item 1 of thisListItem)

To:
set theReplaceCellsList to the (cells of table i of aSheet ¬
    whose formatted value is item 1 of thisListItem)

The example AppleScript code can be used in an Automator Service/Quick Action using a Run AppleScript action and assigned a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services or used with any third-party application that can run AppleScript scripts, etc

Example AppleScript code:

As coded this works with all sheets in the front document.

tell application "Numbers"
    tell front document

        --  # Get the Find & Replace list.

        set theFindReplaceList to ¬
            the formatted value of ¬
                the cells of the rows 2 thru -1 of ¬
                    table "Find & Replace" of ¬
                    sheet "Master List" whose ¬
            value is not missing value

        --  # Clean up the List removing empty cells and rows
        --  # so there are only pairs of find/replace items.

        set theFindReplaceListItems to {}
        repeat with aListItem in theFindReplaceList
            if the length of aListItem is 2 then ¬
                copy aListItem to the end of theFindReplaceListItems
        end repeat
        copy theFindReplaceListItems to theFindReplaceList

        --  ### Find & Replace ###

        --  # For each sheet in the document.

        repeat with aSheet in (sheets whose name is not "Master List")

            --  # For each table of the sheet.

            repeat with i from 1 to the count of the tables of aSheet

                --  # For each Find & Replace pair.

                repeat with thisListItem in theFindReplaceList

                    --  # For every cell containing the FIND text.

                    set theReplaceCellsList to the (cells of table i of aSheet ¬
                        whose formatted value contains item 1 of thisListItem)

                    --  # Replace it with the REPLACE text.

                    --  # Uncomment 'considering case' and 'end considering'
                    --  # for case senstive find/replace operations.

                    --considering case
                    repeat with aCell in theReplaceCellsList
                        set the value of aCell to my findAndReplaceInCellValue(formatted value of aCell, ¬
                            item 1 of thisListItem, item 2 of thisListItem)
                    end repeat
                    --end considering
                end repeat
            end repeat
            tell table 1 of active sheet to set selection range to range "A1"
        end repeat
    end tell
end tell

--  ## Handler ##

on findAndReplaceInCellValue(theFormatedCellValue, theFindValue, theReplaceValue)
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theFindValue
    set theTextItems to every text item of theFormatedCellValue
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to theReplaceValue
    set theFormatedCellValue to theTextItems as string
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
    return theFormatedCellValue
end findAndReplaceInCellValue

Master List

The Find & Replace table must always be two columns, however, the script is coded to only process rows containing both a find and replace item.

Before:

After:

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and sans any included error handling does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors. Additionally, the use of the delay command may be necessary between events where appropriate, e.g. delay 0.5, with the value of the delay set appropriately.


Can you distribute an iOS app outside App Store using a single bundle identifier?

You should not be using an Enterprise Program membership in this way. The Enterprise Program should only be used to distribute apps to devices owned by the enterprise member company I.e. your company's devices.

You can use a regular organisational Apple a Developer membership to distribute a B2B to your client organisations.

You use App Store Connect as for a normal App Store app, but in the pricing and availability section you make it a private app and list the Apple Business Manager organisation IDs that are permitted to access the app.

As well as being "the right way", B2B apps are lifetime signed like any other App Store app; you don't need to worry about refreshing distribution profiles and signing certificates periodically.

There is a great WWDC 2019 session that covers this.


This will erase the partition to make it visible in Disk Utility(change PartitionName to whatever you want and see below to get DiskIdentifier):

sudo diskutil eraseVolume JHFS+ PartitionName DiskIdentifier

To get DiskIdentifier, Run diskutil list and find the partition you want to remove. DiskIdentifier is in the IDENTIFIER column.

Now you should be able to remove the partition in Disk Utility like normal.


Is there any way to ignore a heat sensor on a macbook pro?

I have the same problem.  I used this program.  You can set which sensor (only one as far as I can tell) to tip the fan to higher speeds.  Best solution I could find, but if one of your other chips overheats, you might be out of luck.

http://www.crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control?ref=fancontrol_mac


000 is smaller and has thinner blades.
00 is larger and has thicker blades.

Using a tool that doesn't exactly match the screw means you can't get proper surface contact. This increases the chance of stripping the head of the screw on removal - especially if the screw threads have locking adhesive.  For assembly, the wrong tool makes it harder to torque the screw properly.

With a high quality tool and a screw that isn't too tight, you can sometimes mix 000/00 for screw and tool, but it's not ideal as the difference is significant for the tolerances in a MacBook Pro. If you're looking for an entire kit, this driver set is quite nice as well. You do get "a little play" any time there is a socket/bit connection; but for home use, iFixit sells great value and good quality tools.


Is it possible to remove Emergency call feature on the lock screen?

Unfortunately there is no way to do this in native iOS (without a jailbreak).

The emergency call option is available with both the simple and complex passcode.

I assume the goal is that it would allow anyone to make an emergency call even if they don't know or forgot the passcode, and as a result could be an important safety feature.

The only way to disable it is to turn off the passcode - something with obvious undesirable effects.


Purchasing rMBP now - will come loaded with Mountain Lion?

Order now. You'll get Mountain Lion free no matter what, and it's a pretty painless process to install, particularly on a clean computer.

It's probably a toss-up whether you'll get Moutain Lion or not. It seems likely that it will be released before the end of the month, but when that image gets pushed to machines is anyone's guess. And even if you do end up with Lion, that may be a blessing in that you can wait out any 1.0 bugs if they pop up.

Ordering now gets you in the queue, and there's virtually no downside to not having a copy pre-installed.


Keyboard shortcut to take me directly to Mission Control system preference pane

Assuming you have an Apple keyboard there’s no need to create a custom keyboard shortcut. The keyboard shortcut to take you immediately to the Mission Control system preference pane is OptionMission Control.

Note: The Mission Control key on an Apple keyboard is the same key as the F3 key.


Is AirDrop possible between iPad, iPhone and MacBook?

You cannot use AirDrop with iOS devices. It is a feature that is exclusive to supported Macs (and unsupported Macs through a hack, as you've pointed out).

If you are interested in sharing files with your iOS devices, I recommend a solution such as SugarSync or DropBox, or a Wi-Fi tool such as Instashare.

Apple intends for you and developers to use iCloud to get documents from PC to iOS, but it's not widespread yet and perhaps ever.


Keep getting a "java" command-line tool notification on macOS Sierra 10

The problem was in my case that I installed the JRE, which was installed only as Safari Plugin, but not as usable commandline tool. Therefore /usr/libexec/java_home -v * would not find any installed Java.

The solution is to install the JDK, not the JRE.

Recommending to install Java 6 is not a good idea, this is an outdated version that does not have current security fixes and TLS ciphers.

Oracle should fix this - should not be difficult to make a correct OSX installation.


Why my application icons wiggle when I press ALT key in Launchpad?

Wiggle is the edit mode. (so you can delete or uninstall the apps that came from the app store)

Holding alt is the quickest way to enter edit mode.


SSH into iPhone without "OpenSSH"-like IPA?

Does any part of the touch screen respond (doesn't matter where)? If so, you could have VoiceOver help you enter the passcode, as described in this blog post I wrote: https://deciphertools.com/blog/iphone-passcode-broken-screen/

If not, there's a comment on there about using a USB keyboard via a USB lightning connector. I haven't vetted this idea myself yet, but maybe could help?


Is moving without shutting down good for MBP

That's perfectly safe to do, it's best to wait until the hard drive spins down and the sleep light activates before moving it. On a MacBook with an SSD (like the Retina or Air), you don't even need to wait for that, since there's no spinning hard drive.


You can't. Fullscreen Mode in Lion moves the given window to its own Space to be presented full-screen. Any other window created by the same application defaults to the Primary ("Desktop") Space.

An obvious workaround while browsing in Safari is to open new pages in tabs rather than windows, but that doesn't apply to the Preferences (or any other app-) window.


Cannot force quit an application, which is not listed in processes but wont let computer shut down

sudo reboot worked, I am not sure if this causes any background issues but everything seems okay now.


"USB device drawing too much power" error on startup with no devices connected

It could be a corrupt USB kernel extension.  I'd try booting to Safe Mode:

Turn off your Mac.
Turn it back on and before you see the Apple logo on your screen, press and hold the Shift key until the Apple logo appears.
A progress bar should appear below the Apple logo - during this time your Mac is performing a directory check and loads only necessary Apple kernel extensions (among other small things).

A feature of Safe Mode is that it reloads the kernel extensions from scratch, instead of from a cache file.  It could be that during the Lion upgrade a kernel extension was damaged and has been cached afterwards.

Try the Safe Mode boot and see how it goes.

Good Luck!


At the command line, how can I 'arrow along' faster using words instead of chr's

In Terminal, you can use opt-[left/right] arrow to navigate word by word. Additionally, you can use opt+click to reposition the cursor.


How to get an application executable path from Terminal

I would like to know if there is a command that returns the executable within the application bundle

There is no such command, but I've written a shell script that does exactly that for any application bundle in the file system of your startup disk.

It uses several command line tools included in macOS and leverages Apple's documentation on Launch Services, Application Bundles and Core Foundation Keys. The script does the following:

Searches /Applications for the application bundle.
If it can not be found in /Applications, queries the Launch Services database, only considering application bundles on the startup disk.
If an application bundle was found, inspects the bundle's Info.plist and looks for a key namedCFBundleExecutable that stores the executable (see below in the background information section for more on that). Otherwise, print an error message an exit.
Prints the path to the executable to standard output.

The script understands both an application name with or without its extension, checks arguments, displays a usage message and a short description if run without arguments and returns an exit status with an error message if necessay.

Since the script searches /Applications and may do a time-consuming query to Launch Services, it isn't super fast (from ~ 1 sec to several seconds), but it was 100% accurate in my tests.

This is the script, with explanations on what is done in every step:

#!/bin/bash

# https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/334635
# Variables
app_name="";
app_path_and_name="";
path_to_lsregister="/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/";

# If run without arguments, issue a usage summary and exit
if [[ "$1" == "" ]]; then
    echo "$(basename $0): returns name of bundle applications’s executable file";
    echo "usage: $(basename $0) [application name]";
    exit 0;
fi;

# If argument doesn't end with '.app', append it
if [[ "$1" =~ \.app$ ]]; then
    app_name="$1"
else
    app_name="$1.app";
fi;

# Look for the path of the application bundle
# Search /Applicatinos first
app_path_and_name="$(find /Applications -type d -name "$app_name" -maxdepth 5 | grep -m 1 "$app_name")";
# If not found, search the the LaunchServices database (this is the time-consuming task)
test "$app_path_and_name" || app_path_and_name="$($path_to_lsregister/lsregister -dump | grep -v /Volumes | egrep --max-count 1 "/$app_name$" | sed 's:.* \(/.*\):\1:')"
# Check if Info.plist exists and is readable
if [[ -r "$app_path_and_name/Contents/Info.plist" ]]; then
    # Extract the CFBundleExecutable key that contains the name of the executable and print it to standard output
    echo "$app_path_and_name/MacOS/$(defaults read "$app_path_and_name/Contents/Info.plist" CFBundleExecutable)";
    exit 0;
else
    echo "Application '$1' not found";
    exit 1
fi

You can save the file (for example as pbex for "print bundle executable") and make it executable as follows:

chmod a+x pbex

If you prefer a function, use this instead:

function pbex ()
{
    # https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/334635
    # Variables
    local app_name="";
    local app_path_and_name="";
    local path_to_lsregister="/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/";

    # If run without arguments, issue a usage summary and exit
    if [[ "$1" == "" ]]; then
        echo "$FUNCNAME: returns name of bundle applications’s executable file";
        echo "usage: $FUNCNAME [application name]";
        return 0;
    fi;

    # If argument doesn't end with '.app', append it
    if [[ "$1" =~ \.app$ ]]; then
        app_name="$1"
    else
        app_name="$1.app";
    fi;

    # Look for the path of the application bundle
    # Search /Applicatinos first
    app_path_and_name="$(find /Applications -type d -name "$app_name" -maxdepth 5 | grep -m 1 "$app_name")";
    # If not found, search the LaunchServices database (this is the time-consuming step)
    test "$app_path_and_name" || app_path_and_name="$($path_to_lsregister/lsregister -dump | grep -v /Volumes | egrep --max-count 1 "/$app_name$" | sed 's:.* \(/.*\):\1:')"
    # Check if Info.plist exists and is readable
    if [[ -r "$app_path_and_name/Contents/Info.plist" ]]; then
        # Extract the CFBundleExecutable key that contains the name of the executable and print it to standard output
        echo "$app_path_and_name/MacOS/$(defaults read "$app_path_and_name/Contents/Info.plist" CFBundleExecutable)";
        return 0;
    else
        echo "Application '$1' not found";
        return 1
    fi
}

Just add it to .bashrc, source it:

. .bashrc

to use the function.

If you need to execute it as a (rather long) "one-liner", use (replace <app name> with the name of the application without the .app extension):

bash -c "app_name=\"<app name>\.app"; app_path_and_name=\"\"; if [[ \"\$app_name\" == \"\" ]]; then exit 2; fi; app_path_and_name=\"\$(find /Applications -type d -name \"\$app_name\" -maxdepth 5 | grep -m 1 \"\$app_name\")\"; test \"\$app_path_and_name\" || app_path_and_name=\"\$(/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -dump | grep -v /Volumes | egrep --max-count 1 \"/\$app_name\$\" | sed \"s:.* \(/.*\):\1:\")\"; if [[ -r \"\$app_path_and_name/Contents/Info.plist\" ]]; then echo \"\$app_path_and_name/MacOS/\$(defaults read \"\$app_path_and_name/Contents/Info.plist\" CFBundleExecutable)\"; exit 0; else echo \"Application \"\$app_name\" not found\"; exit 1; fi"

(You write in a comment that the "command has to be launched from within a QProcess"). You could do the following:

process.start("bash", QStringList() << "-c" << "app_name=\"<app name>\.app"; ...");

See https://stackoverflow.com/a/20901985 for more information.)

Examples:

$ pbex
pbex: returns name of bundle applications’s executable file
usage: pbex [application name]
$ pbex "Microsoft Edge"
Application 'Microsoft Edge' not found
$ pbex Finder
/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/MacOS/Finder
$ pbex "Quick Look Simulator.app"
/System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QuickLookUI.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Quick Look Simulator.app/MacOS/Quick Look Simulator
$ pbex "BalTax 2016"
/Applications/BalTax 2016/BalTax 2016.app/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
$ pbex ColorSync\ Utility
/Applications/Utilities/ColorSync Utility.app/MacOS/ColorSync Utility

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The structure of a macOS bundle app bundle is well-known and documented by Apple.

According to The Structure of a macOS Application Bundle, the basic structure of a Mac app is:

MyApp.app/
   Contents/
      Info.plist
      MacOS/
      Resources/

where the MacOS folder "contains the application’s standalone executable code. Typically, this directory contains only one binary file with your application’s main entry point and statically linked code. However, you may put other standalone executables (such as command-line tools) in this directory as well."

The Info.plist file is required for the Finder to recognize an application bundle as such. This information property list filecontains XML property-list data that identifies the configuration of your bundle. The key that is of interest for us is CFBundleExecutable, which stores "the name of the main executable file. This is the code that is executed when the user launches your application."


How do I ping6 a link local address on OSX?

On OSX the wifi device has another name, usually "en1", so this works on OSX:

ping6 ff02::1%en1 | head

you find out the name with

ifconfig

and look for a device that has an IP in a line precieding "inet" with an IP that is within your network


MacBook: woke up to an empty battery, how to get battery history?

Open activity monitor and select energy. It might take a while to crunch the logs, but that should show you some recent history for 12 hours of activity.

I think it offered more time in the past if you were sleeping, but now it seems to only show you a 12 hour clock window.

The command line tool pmset -g log should dump a much more detailed and verbose log of history going back further than 12 hours. You will probably want to process that - perhaps printing only the lines that match the string Charge and then paging the results.

pmset -g log | grep -w Charge | more
pmset -g log | grep -w Summary- | more

Once you see if it slept and how the charge went down, I wouldn't worry about it running hot while closed. I run Mac at high CPU/GPU while closed clamshell all the time (most of the day) and have never had any issues with longevity in practice or overheating - the CPU throttles down when the blowers or heat can't escape due to a blockage or insulation to stay within safe temperature ranges.


It's the kernel extension for the Silicon Labs USB to Serial driver.

It is not a part of OS X Yosemite as it's not included in the Install OS X Yosemite.app bundle.


How to get iTunes to skip over 1 star songs?

The simplest way to do this is to make a Smart Playlist with the rule of "Rating is not 1 star". The playlist will auto-update as you add and rate new music. You would just want to make sure you always play your songs from this smart playlist or make other playlists include the "white list" or exclude a "black list" that consists of all one star items.


Install Windows10 on older mac with boot camp does not provide install option

The problem was the file system. (Thanks to @MatthewBarclay for the hint) It seems that one need to use APFS. I installed a fresh copy of OSX and then everything worked fine


The third-party battery was too powerful, despite being the same model number (A1466).

According to the Mac Resource Inspector at the Apple Genius Bar, the logic board was overcharged. This made the fan run at a minimum of 6200 rpm and subsequently forced kernel_task to go insane.


MBP occasionally doesn't wake up until after forced reboot showing a message of an unknown problem

[This answer not complete until this sentence removed]

Troubleshooting is a process of elimination and can take a while to identify the root cause of a problem.

Here are some steps to get you started.

Resetting the SMC

The steps for resetting the SMC on your particular MacBook are:

Shut down your computer.
Keep the MagSafe adapter (power cable) plugged in.
Press at the same time shiftoptioncontrol (on the left side of the keyboard) and the power button.
Let go.
Turn your computer back on with the power button.

Since this problem seems to be intermittent, it may take a while to know whether the reset has resolved it or not.

Test your hardware

Another thing you can also do is test your hardware. Depending on the year of your Retina 13" MacBook, this can be done by using either Apple Diagnostics or Apple Hardware Test.

One you've checked out the links, follow the steps for the one suited to your model and share your results.


127.1.2.3 should be 127.0.0.1 that corresponds to your localhost.


This all happens inside the "Sharing" pane of "System Preferences":

Select "Internet Sharing" from the list
Select "Ethernet" from the popup menu
Click the checkbox next to "Wi-Fi"
If you wish to secure the wireless network a password, click the "Wi-Fi Options..." button
When you've got it all set up how you like, click the checkbox next to "Internet Sharing"
There is no step 6


What scale or measure does Mavericks' and Yosemite's "memory pressure" adhere to?

Memory pressure isn't a simple gauge of percentage of memory free and seems to be a 0 to 100% graph. The sysctl value of vm.memory_pressure is calculated in relation to a computed target that tracks the ratio between free and inactive memory pages to the wired and active pages. The absolute counters are viewed using the vm_stat command line tool to inspect detailed allocation of virtual memory. Jonathan Levin has excellent documentation at http://newosxbook.com/articles/MemoryPressure.html covering both macOS and iOS virtual memory and how they calculate memory pressure as well as the actions taken when the pressure index is high.

The relevant virtual memory (vm) that feed the calculation of vm.memory_pressure are:

vm.page_free_count - an absolute count of free pages
vm.vm_page_free_target - a calculated target or goal for a "pressure free" situation
vm.page_free_wanted - what the vm system would like to free to alleviate the current calculated pressure index

So - if you are tracking your memory pressure with Activity monitor (or my checking the sysctl values programmatically or at the command line shell) you would do well to look at these four values:

sysctl -a vm | egrep "page_free|pressure"

There is a new command memory_pressure introduced with Mavericks and when I run it to drive the memory subsystem into a warning state - you can see the memory pressure increase into a yellow range.

The tool allocated about 4 GB of memory to the tool as the pressure graph increased steadily to this state where apparently the "warning" level is graphed: sudo memory_pressure -l warn. As you can see, the system before the pressure had 5.9 GB used and after was up to 7.99 GB used which doesn't even need to add up due to swapping and compression.

After watching how vm_stat 15 showed the warning result in no measurable paging, I quit the tool (Control-C) and then re-ran the tool to make memory pressure critical: sudo memory_pressure -l critical

I didn't let this run for more than a few minutes as paging was starting and once the tool said I had 5 GB of RAM paged to disk, I didn't want to fill my drive and quit the tool.

You can observe how rapidly the system freed RAM after the warning was ended and also how it ramped into "red" territory to show that the virtual memory system couldn't compress enough pages to avoid swapping to disk. My educated guess is red on the pressure indicates swapping and dramatic over-allocation and/or a time where the free pages are below the amount the system prefers and it's actively purging inactive pages and/or swapping pages expected to be used to swap. Similarly, the system rapidly recovers once the allocations are released and pressure is taken off the virtual memory system.


Need to force close suspicious tab/dialogue box jamming everything

That box is clearly trying to install some funny trojan on your computer. (side advice: never download Flash from anywhere that's not Adobe's website, but I'm sure you already know that if you're 'sailing the high seas'.)

Unfortunately, there's no way to avoid closing everything. The only way out of this is to force-quit Safari through Force Quit - the keystroke 'Option-Command-Escape (⌥⌘⎋)'. This would bring the Force Quit menu into focus, allowing you to close Safari and ultimately the problematic tab. The good thing about Force Quit is that it always stays on top and in focus, so the tab shouldn't be able to steal focus from the menu.

The Force Quit menu. As you can see, the current open application is highlighted automatically.

If Safari tries to reopen the closed tabs, ⌥⌘⎋ it again. The next time it starts, it shouldn't try to reopen the closed tabs.

It's probably a good idea to track down which site/tab caused this dialog to show up and either inform the webmaster or avoid visiting the site for a few weeks for your safety. Additionally, you may want to disable auto-opening of "safe" files by Safari.


Mismapped keyboard keys? How to correct them by software means

Your mac for some reason thinks you are using a Japanese JIS hardware keyboard instead of the US ANSI or European ISO. Notice the Yen key at top right. What kind of keyboard do you actually have?  This note may help:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2009/12/fixing-keyboard-type-problems.html


What is Apple's policy for supporting security updates on older versions of iOS?

Unlike for Mac OS X, Apple does not release "Security Updates" for previous versions of iOS after the next major version has been released, unless it is an extremely major vulnerability. Simply put, you are required to upgrade to the newest version if you want all security fixes.

As an example, once iOS 10 is presumably released later in 2016, there should be no expectation of security fixes for iOS 9 (whatever the last version will be).

For iOS 6 specifically, the last general release was iOS 6.1.3. iOS 6.1.4 and 6.1.5 were specific bug fixes for certain devices. iOS 6.1.6 was released in February 2014, to provide a security fix (goto fail) for iPhone 3GS and iPod touch (4th generation) devices. That was well into the support period of iOS 7, and was only released due to the severity of the issue.

Other than iOS 6.1.6, there have been no security updates issued for old versions of iOS after a newer major version has been released.

References: Apple Security Updates, iOS Version History


How to invoke a UEFI Shell (v2.2) on a Fusion Player virtual machine with Big Sur installed?

I tested the following UEFI Shell v2.2 binaries. Many of these were suggested on Arch Linux wiki website "Unified Extensible Firmware Interface" under the section "Obtaining UEFI Shell". Some binaries required extra effort to extract from the downloaded file.

Arch Linux: The shellx64.efi file in the root directory of the mounted archlinux-2021.03.01-x86_64.iso file. See here for a list of websites where the ISO file can be downloaded.

TianoCore EDK2 package: The Shell.efi file.

EDK2 package from Arch Linux: The Shell_Full.efi and Shell.efi files in the usr/share/edk2-shell folder of the expanded edk2-shell-202011-1-any.pkg.tar.zst file, which can be downloaded from this website.

rEFInd CD-R image: The shellx64.efi file in the EFI/tools folder of the mounted refind-cd-0.12.0.iso file. This ISO can be created by expanding the refind-cd-0.12.0.zip file, which can be downloaded from this website.

OpenCore package: The OpenShell.efi file in the X64/EFI/OC/Tools folder of the expanded OpenCore-0.6.7-RELEASE.zip file, which can be downloaded from this website.

All of the above shell binaries, except for OpenCore, either had an faulty edit command or failed to display output when boot directly from the client firmware Boot Manager.

The shell binary from the OpenCore 0.6.7 release was chosen for use in this answer.

The steps to install the new UEFI shell are given below.

Download an OpenCore package: Open the webpage containing this answer on the client. From this GitHub website, download the current release of the OpenCore package. Currently this is OpenCore-0.6.7-RELEASE.zip, which by default will become the OpenCore-0 folder in your Downloads folder on the client.

Mount the EFI volume: On the client, open a Terminal application window and enter the command given below.
sudo diskutil mount disk0s1

Put the shell in the EFI volume: On the client, copy the ~/Downloads/OpenCore-0/X64/EFI/OC/Tools/OpenShell.efi file to the root folder on the EFI volume. Rename this file to shellx64.efi.

Put the startup script in the EFI volume: This step is optional, however the script does create useful aliases and environment variables. Also, the display mode is set so the shell uses the entire console window.
Open this webpage on the client, then save the script given below as an ASCII text file named startup.nsh in the root folder on the EFI volume.
@echo -off
mode 128 40
set -v AppleEnv 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82
if x%uefishellversion% == x then
    # Startup commands for EFI 1.0 shells
    alias -v cv "ver -s"
    alias -v ush "shellx64.efi -nomap -noversion -delay 0"
    if "x%StartupDelay%" == x then
        set StartupDelay 0
    endif
    cls
else
    # Startup commands for UEFI 2.2 shells
    set -v ShellAlias 0053D9D6-2659-4599-A26B-EF4536E631A9
    set -v SEnv 158DEF5A-F656-419C-B027-7A3192C079D2
    alias -v csrutil "setvar csr-active-config -nv -rt -bs -guid %AppleEnv%"
    alias -v cv ver
    if "x%ShellOpt%" == x then
        setvar ShellOpt -nv -bs -guid %SEnv% =L"-nomap -noversion -delay 0" =0000
    endif
endif
cv

Restart to firmware: Shutdown the client. On the host, open the Startup Disk pane of Settings for the client. Hold down the option key and select the Restart to firmware… button.

Add boot option: From the client firmware menus, select Enter setup>Configure boot options>Add boot option, then select the EFI volume, as shown in the example below.

Next, select the shellx64.efi file. For a description enter UEFI Shell. and for options data enter -nomap -delay 0. The results should appear as shown below.

Next, select Commit changes and exit>Exit the Boot Maintenance Manager. The window should appear as shown below.

Test the shell: Select UEFI Shell to boot to the UEFI shell. When finished, enter exit to return to the Boot Manager. If desired, select Shut down the system.


Should I install Opera 12 or OmniWeb browser for my (dated) iMac OSX 10.5.8?

You should try TenFourFox as it is a clone of the latest firefox.

The PPC version will work on an Intel machine via emulation. Pick the g3 version.

https://code.google.com/p/tenfourfox/wiki/WhichVersion


How to resolve: files which are visible in Terminal, but invisible in the Finder?

Be sure you aren't looking in the root library, but your user library. Skype in Application Support and com.skype.plist are not invisible by default. Try changing the ~/Library/Application Support with /Users/<username>/Library/ Application Support, with  being your Username without the <>.

I find it easy to "Go to" with Shift+Command+G while there is Finder selected, and in the path type /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/ and click Go. Then look for Skype. To find the plist, do the same, but with Preferences.

Also note that in terminal, the path to Application support would have a backslash (/Application\ Support), instead of only a Space


Note taking apps on macos that allow drawing (using the iPad pro as another monitor w/ duet (or similar))

The best solution that came to my mind was Notability. I personally use Notability for taking notes using my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro. Notability supports drawings and typing and has nearly instant speed of showing changes across all the connected devices through iCloud.

Also they support Apple Pencil on iPad and will support duet as well. But I'm not sure about that.

If you definitely want something like that just give a try to notability.


Is there a 64-bit app for working with image sequences to replace Quicktime 7?

ffmpeg
The command line tool ffmpeg can be used to create videos from images:

How to create a video from images with FFmpeg?
How to create a video from images using FFmpeg?


How to use AppleScript to launch three scripts, each in new Terminal tab?

"System Events" doesn't understand what you want to do with do script, use the do script command outside of the tell application "System Events" block.

You must specify a window or tab when using the do script command, otherwise a new window will open.

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    do script "ping google.com" in front window
    my makeTab()
    do script "ping yahoo.com" in front window
    my makeTab()
    do script "ping msn.com" in front window
end tell

on makeTab()
    tell application "System Events" to keystroke "t" using {command down}
    delay 0.2
end makeTab


How to disable Tab key in Gmail (Chrome or Safari)

My solution would be to use ControllerMate to intercept the Tab and do nothing with it.

ControllerMate has the ability to have workflows specific to different applications but triggered by the same key presses. (see Application Specific Programming)

While most of the examples on the site show how you can do something with a key press, you can also choose to turn off the key (disable) or reprogram it to insert 4 spaces (make it a functional tab).

ControllerMate is free for up to 10 "building blocks" so if you are trying to reprogram just your Tab, it should be completely free for this solution.


In my case opening MacBook and cleaning it from dust helped reduce throttling from 800Mhz to 1600MHz which is still not advertised speed , but at least twice as better :) Also I've noticed that in my case such throttling occured only with external monitor and external GPU. You can use gfxCardStatus to monitor which GPU and which processes require external GPU.


Is there an equivalent of Linux's kernel memmap on OS X?

You can achieve what you want with the system call mmap(2) passing as argument for the protection value PROT_NONE which means pages can't be accessed.

But I would suggest to buy a new memory chip, because the error you detected is the signature of bad quality and your erroneous bit won't stay alone for too long (within the same chip).


Keep R running while screen is off in Big Sur (11.0.1)

The fastest way to always stop sleep is the built-in Terminal command caffeinate which will let you set various options on preventing sleep.
Another way is to disable sleep when plugged into battery under Settings, which is likely the easiest method as it has a visual indicator by way of the charger.
The Amphetamine app is yet another method, and it has a friendlier UI compared to Terminal as well as extra options.
By default all apps sleep when the display is off unless the app specifically requests otherwise.


Spotlight Cmd+Enter to open containing folder does not work

There is a bug in 10.8.2 that intermittently makes revealing files in Finder stop working. When that happens, Archive Utility also stops responding whenever you try to extract archives.

As a workaround, you can terminate the appleeventsd process from Activity Monitor or with sudo killall -kill appleeventsd (without -kill the process is sent a TERM signal and other processes stop responding). The issue will probably return in a few days or hours though.


Encrypted image duplicates backup in time machine

Time Machine backups files as seen in Finder, it can't look inside your encrypted image. So every time you modify the image (even just the access date of some of the files in it) TM will register the image as a changed file and backup the whole image again.

You can exclude folders in TM preferences, so you could move your image into a dedicated folder and exclude it. And then use other means, e.g. a USB drive, to backup the image manually.

You could also use DiskUtil to create a new encrypted image as a "sparse bundle" and move the confidential content into this newly created image. Using the "sparse bundle" format should, in theory, allow for a more granular update record so TM doesn't need to backup the whole image each time. I had some mixed experience with this in the past though.


Pre-installed movies and photos on new MBA

I just made the following test :

 sudo find /system -name "*.png" | wc -l

returns 4553 on my mac : There are over 4000 images in my /System/ directory. It's probably your case too.

Using

sudo find /system -name "*.png" -print0 | xargs -0 du | awk '{total+=$1} END{print total}'

I get 248352K, that 250MB. Not your 450MB but we are getting close. You can assume the files you see are system files (yes your system uses images and video !)

I would definitely not suggest to delete theses files since they are used by the system.


If I uploaded a file to a website, is it saved somewhere in the Safari application? Or elsewhere in the computer?

In general, once a Unix file is deleted, it's deleted. That said, there are certain 3rd party utilities that may be able to scour your HD for file signatures that match the file format you used (PDF?) and recover the file. Here is a review of the 3 biggest titles for you to choose from:  http://www.techrepublic.com/article/3-data-recovery-applications-for-os-x/

One issue that is critical: Stop using the Mac.  The more you use it and save/alter files, the more likely the disk sectors that contained your scan will get overwritten.


Is it possible to install macOS onto external SSD on a Mac running Ubuntu?

It is quite simple to install macOS on an external drive using macOS Internet Recovery.

Plug in the external drive.
Turn on or restart your Mac, then immediately hold down ⌘ + R keys.
Release the keys when you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe.
macOS Utilities window similar to the one below will be displayed.

Proceed to erasing the external disk by selecting Disk Utility and clicking continue.
Select your device or volume in the sidebar of Disk Utility.
Click the Erase button or tab.
Complete these fields:

Name: Enter a name for your disk, such as "Macintosh HD".
Format: Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS.
Scheme (if available): Choose GUID Partition Map.

Click Erase to begin erasing your disk.
When done, quit Disk Utility to return to the utilities window. You're now ready to install macOS.
Choose Reinstall macOS (or Reinstall OS X) from the utilities window.
Click Continue, then follow the onscreen instructions. You'll be asked to select your disk. Select the external disk (identify it with the value supplied for Name in step # 8).
Click Install. Your MacBook Air will restart after the installation is complete.

Voila! Your bootable external disk is now ready.

Yes, if you are unable to boot into Ubuntu for whatever reason, you can simply plug in the external SSD with the macOS installed and then press and hold Option (Alt) to boot from the external SSD?

To boot from the external disk:

Turn on or restart your MacBook Air with the external disk connected.
Press and hold the Option key immediately.
Release the Option key when you see the Startup Manager window.
Select your startup disk, then click the arrow under its icon, or press Return.


After using `networksetup -setdnsservers Wi-Fi "8.8.8.8" "8.8.4.4"` how do I clear them?

If you're concerned only about cleaning DNS entries, the  command help gives you instructions what to do:

Usage: networksetup -setdnsservers <networkservice> <dns1> [dns2] [...]
       Set the <networkservice> DNS servers to <dns1> [dns2] [...]. Any
       number of dns servers can be specified. Specify "Empty" for <dns1>
       to clear all DNS entries.

In my case

sudo networksetup -setdnsservers Wi-Fi "Empty"


A couple of things you need to be aware of.

First - the AFP URL needs to contain the name of the share - not it's location on the server. Second, the mount point must be an empty directory that you have write permission to. So your commands might be :-

sudo mkdir /Volumes/mount
sudo mount -t afp afp://user:pass@ipaddress/SharedDrive /Volumes/mount


How do I force TextEdit to not add .txt extension (Sierra)

Don't use the name in the title bar to change or set the file name. Use the file menu option save, or hold the option key and select save as.  This lets you chose your extension name. I encountered a similar problem using title bar to name the file.


Some videos from YouTube can neither be played on my iPhone nor on the Apple TV

When videos are recorded/saved, or in this case, uploaded to a video playback provider (youtube, vimeo, etc) the video is compressed into a code format for the computer. That compressed video is then decompressed on playback.

There are many different video compression formats out there, which is where the issue arises. Most mobile phones support less VCFs than a computer/computer browser does, so compatibility is the problem.

Every mobile phone supports H.264 (MPEG-4) which is saved as a .M4A extension, so that's typically what you'd want to save a video edit as. There are other VCFs that will work, but MPEG-4 is the most reliable

Unfortunately, videos that aren't compressed into a format readable by a mobile OS will not be viewable. The only solution is if the video is recompressed into a new format and re-uploaded.


What can I do to check the integrity of the hard drive and all its files, to see if they are corrupt or not?

Disk Utility does a very cursory scan of your disk, and should be your first software to consult should you suspect any problems with your disk. Select the option to Verify Disk from the main window. If all tests pass and the drive is marked "OK", but you still suspect a problem (or would like to do a more thorough scan, I suggest picking up SMARTReporter (non-free utility, costs money) and doing a much more in-depth scan.

To run the test, you will have to right click on the disk icon that will be placed in your system tray. Then right click the drive you wish to test and you will see a list of options:

SMARTReporter can perform deeper and more meaningful scans, and can also print specific attributes and thresholds. Below are the results of my OCZ Vertex2 SSD:

Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   110   107   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0/31869480
  5 Retired_Block_Count     0x0033   100   100   003    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours_and_Msec 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       7333h+33m+30.980s
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       89
171 Program_Fail_Count      0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
172 Erase_Fail_Count        0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
174 Unexpect_Power_Loss_Ct  0x0030   000   000   000    Old_age   Offline      -       10
177 Wear_Range_Delta        0x0000   000   000   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
181 Program_Fail_Count      0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
182 Erase_Fail_Count        0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
187 Reported_Uncorrect      0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   030   030   000    Old_age   Always       -       30 (Min/Max 30/30)
195 ECC_Uncorr_Error_Count  0x001c   110   107   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0/31869480
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0033   100   100   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
231 SSD_Life_Left           0x0013   100   100   010    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
233 SandForce_Internal      0x0000   000   000   000    Old_age   Offline      -       2432
234 SandForce_Internal      0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       2880
241 Lifetime_Writes_GiB     0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       2880
242 Lifetime_Reads_GiB      0x0032   000   000   000    Old_age   Always       -       5440

Pay special attention to the Reallocated_Event_Count value, as that is the number of blocks that have been found to be "bad." If you see a high count, that could likely indicate problems with the drive and thus problems with the integrity of your filesystem.

This will give you a better idea as to the health of your current drive.

Should Disk Utility find any problems, repairing the primary partition (that houses your OS) will require a reboot. When you hear the boot chime, hold down the OPTION key and select Recovery HD from the list. Then launch Disk Utility from the menu bar. From there, you can repair your main partition.


Yes you can, go to:

Settings > General > Auto-Lock > Never


How do I fix Notification Centre? It is blank in "Recents" mode

A workaround: change the sort order to "Recents by App" in the Notifications section of System Preferences.


Time Capsule user account password change

This seems to be a recurring problem with TC devices. I have managed to setup users on a TC in the past, but never had others attempted to change the password. That may be a limitation to the user who created the accounts/setup the TC. Are they able to create their own accounts from their machines? If so, that may help you with the issue.

In closing, I know most people get the TC with the hope of being able to backup and use it as a NAS, but there are a lot of limitations with it. Right now, there are a lot of other solutions that can accomplish Time Machine backups, and act as a full-fledged NAS. I am currently running such setup on a Netgear Nighthawk, and I love being able to backup my Mac AND Windows machines.

Further efforts: Start by digging Through this post. My second suggestion is to post directly in the Time Capsule Apple forums. You may want to follow this thread as well (unless it was posted by you :P)


Is Airport Express compatible with AirPlay?

With iOS 4.2 you can send music directly from your iPhone/iPad to your Airport Express from any application supporting it.
You can also stream both audio and video from your iDevices from Apples applications.
Starting with iOS 4.3 you can also stream video from any application, not just applications developed by Apple.


You're best bet is probably to just boot into macOS Recovery mode and then use the resetpassword command in Terminal to reset your password.

More specifically:

Power off your Mac
Boot into Recovery Mode by holding down the CommandR keys while powering up your Mac
If prompted, select your language and press enter
Go to Utilities > Terminal.
Enter resetpassword (all one word, lowercase letters)
Press Return
Select the drive with your account (typically the main drive)
Choose your account using Select the User Account.
Enter a new password
Re-enter the same password
Enter a password hint
Click Save
Ignore the warning about the password changing
Click OK.
Shutdown your Mac by going to Apple > Shut Down
Restart your Mac normally and use the new password to log into your account
Once logged in, test to see whether you can unlock the Users & Groups preferences pane

Next steps

If you still can't unlock the Users & Groups preferences pane after the above steps, it may well be that you have no Admin account on your Mac. If so, refer to the following for further info:

I don't have administrator account on my mac
From Standard to Administrator


Is it possible to duplicate images in LittleSnapper?

LittleSnapper keeps it's images in special library file, so the only way to copy images is to do the long way that you described.

I'd recommend you get on the LittleSnapper discussion board over at RealMac to add your voice to the group of users who'd also like to get at their images in a more flexible way.

http://support.realmacsoftware.com/discussions/littlesnapper/


No - since the IPA file only contains the compiled project, the source code can't be obtained from this.

Certain iOS apps are open source - you can obtain the source code for those apps separately.


Unable to backup/upload to iCloud on iPad due to full storage

So I left the iPad overnight and it successfully uploaded everything to iCloud despite having very little available space. I believe this may have something to do with the fact that I manually started a backup via Settings->Name->iCloud->iCloud Backup->Back Up Now rather than using iCloud Photo Library/Sharing function. The backup did complain about not having sufficient space but at some stage it seems to have kicked in, perhaps the device re-evaluated what it was reserving in system storage and made sufficient space.


Mac or PC? It makes a difference.

Recently on the PC my wife was having a similar problem. The phone will sync everything in the pictures folder. So I created a sub folder called iPhone and set the sync in iTunes to only sync with that folder and not the whole pictures folder. Now she just has to move the pics she wants on the phone to that folder.

On the Mac (going from memory here, so...) you can actually select which iPhoto albums you sync with the iPad. So instead of all photos/videos select only the albums you want/need on the iPad itself.

Make sense?


Bluetooth Not Available - Mid 2010 Macbook Pro

I reviewed a similar problem with the same model on the MacRumors forum and the original poster responded that it was definitely a hardware issue. In researching parts to see if you could fix this yourself -- in case you are out of warranty -- I found that the Bluetooth hardware is part of the display assembly. This means you'll need to replace your display. The part itself is about $500 at iFixIt and the fix is consider "difficult."

The only other suggestion I saw mentioned was to re-install OS X, but I would lean toward a hardware issue.

Good luck!


Is it safe to leave the iMac turned off for months at a time?

Is it safe to leave your iMac turned off for months at a time?

Yes, it is perfectly safe to leave your iMac turned off for months, as long you follow the proper storage guidelines, i.e. keep it in a cool and dry place and away from exposure to dust. Specifically, follow the storage guidelines laid out by Apple, as discussed here:

Important handling information for your Mac

  Storage temperature: -40° to 116° F (-40° to 47° C)
  Relative humidity: 5% to 95% (noncondensing)

  Storing your iMac. If you are going to store your iMac for an extended period of time, keep it in a cool location (ideally, 71° F or 22° C).

Storing an iMac unused for an extended period of time won't have any affect on its performance.


How to remove deleted app from OS X update list?

Right click the item description in the App Store Updates panel & Hide Update


Change Folder Icon for Shared Dropbox Folder

Dropbox likes to reset the images. You can prevent this by locking the new folder icon. After setting the folder icon to your desired icon, run the following command:

chflags uchg /path/to/folder/Icon$'\r'

To unlock, replace uchg with nouchg.


Remove all paired Bluetooth devices from iPhone in one go

I guess the only soluction is to erase all contents and settings


Crash logs are automatically reported to developers. So there is no need to do it manually.

To prevent crashing you could try any of Crash Recovery options from iOS system settings:

Another problem may be due to you using old iOS version. See Brian's answer for another question here.

Pulled from this post


How can I use Terminal to copy all files of a certain type from a failing hard drive?

I use rsync to do this sort of copy

for example

rsync -aE source_dir/*.jpg target_dir

The option E copies the ACLs and a does the unix permissions and times ad recurses down the directoty tree

rsync can also be setup to copy to remote machines without mounting drives.

There are some GUI front ends for rsync e.g. aRsync.

Note Applke supplies an old version newr versions can be got from packae managers and see the current rsync man page Note the command line -aE seems to be -AX now.


Is tree view available in Finder in Lion?

The way items are shown in Finder can be configured through the folder's Toolbar, which gives four default options:

Icon View - Which is the regular layout of icons.
List View - The items are shown in a list-like and can be navigated as a tree.

Columns View - Items are displayed through columns which show the file's path.

CoverFlow - Items are shown with the regular coverflow efect.

Note: While in a folder, you can switch through these options by doing Command + the option's number (1 is the icon's view, 2 is the list view, etc).


How to create playlist from Up next songs in iTunes?

I haven't found any "one click" method, but these steps do the trick:

Create a new playlist and give it a title. This playlist should now be open in the right sidebar in iTunes 11.
Open the Up Next list via the blue icon to the right of the current song's title.
Click on the first song you want to add to select it.
Shift-click on the last song you want to add.  All songs between and including the first and last should now be highlighted in the Up Next pane.
Click and drag the list into the open playlist.

You'll need to switch to the History view in the Up Next pane and repeat the process of selecting tracks and adding them to your new playlist.  Click "Done" in the playlist sidebar once you've finished adding tracks and putting them in the desired order.


Why am I not able to run my startup script upon login?

You made some mistakes in your plist:

/Applications/eXist-db/bin/startup.sh probably doesn't exist if you have installed eXist-db 2.2
A valid path is /Applications/eXist-db.app/Contents/Resources/eXist-db/bin/startup.sh

StandardErorPath and StandardOutputPath are no valid keys
Valid keys are StandardErrorPath and StandardOutPath

probably the root <-> launchd problem already addressed by patrix

the plist doesn't have to be executable

To start the app after logging in with your user simply add it to System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Your user -> Login Items

To start eXist-db 2.0 at boot time and jetty after logging in your user you have to do the following:
If you haven't done this already, first enter:
sudo /Applications/eXist-db/tools/wrapper/bin/exist.sh install

to install a LaunchDaemon org.tanukisoftware.wrapper.eXist-db.plist in /Library/LaunchDaemons/. If you want to add a StandardErrorPath and StandardOutPath modify the file with sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.tanukisoftware.wrapper.eXist-db.plist.
It should look like this finally:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Disabled</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.tanukisoftware.wrapper.eXist-db</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Applications/eXist-db/tools/wrapper/bin/exist.sh</string>
        <string>launchdinternal</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.tanukisoftware.wrapper.eXist-db.stderr</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.tanukisoftware.wrapper.eXist-db.stdout</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Load the daemon permanently with:
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.tanukisoftware.wrapper.eXist-db.plist

Now create a second file in ~/Library/LaunchDaemons/ named com.eXist.plist with nano. It should look like this finally:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.eXist</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/Applications/eXist-db/bin/startup.sh</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/com.eXist.stderr</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/com.eXist.stdout</string>
</dict>
</plist>

A StandardErrorPath and StandardOutPath was added.
Load the agent permanently with:
launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.eXist.plist

Done.

Don't forget to set your (or the) JAVA_HOME variable properly. If you use a newer eXist-db release (e.g. 2.2) you have to add at least /Contents/Resources/ to the paths of exist.sh and startup.sh in the plist (please check the proper paths by opening the app bundle.

Hint: Don't use TextEdit to modify the plists: otherwise the plist files might be malformed.


How to open multiple windows of Foxit Reader on mac?

According to this Foxit for Mac help page, you can open multiple instances.

Read PDF Files in Multiple Instances

By default, Foxit Reader displays multiple PDF files in different tabs in a single instance. However, you can enable multiple
instances mode to view PDF files in multiple instances when
double-click to open PDF files, which is ideal for reading PDF side by
side.
To enable multiple instances mode, go to Foxit Reader > Preferences > Documents, check the Allow multiple instances option in Open
Setting group, and click OK to apply the setting.
While in multiple instances mode, you can revert to single instance
mode by redoing the steps and unchecking the Allow multiple instances
option.


Keyboard shortcut to change tabs in terminal not working anymore in yosemite

The menu option Select Previous Tab is changed to Show Previous Tab and there is by default key shortcut for it

⌘ + ⇧ + }  Show Next Tab

⌘ + ⇧ + {  Show Previous Tab


Remove Starbucks badge from iPhone Lock Screen

Open your Starbucks Card by opening the Wallet app. Tap the ⓘ in the bottom-right corner:

Now disable Suggest on Lock Screen:

Alternatively, you can also remove your Favorite Stores from within the Starbucks app. Those are the ones that cause the Starbucks Card to show up on the Lock Screen when nearby.


Try quitting the app. Double-click the home button, then swipe up on the Calendar app. Return to the home screen and open Calendar again.


Duplicate calendar events in Outlook 2011

If your Outlook client is not crashing when you select calendars, there is a method in the UI to remove blocks of duplicate or outdated events. I can't find the link to give credit, but here is the process:

create a new calendar categorization, call it 'delete' or something.
go to calendars view, in list view not grid.
Cmd-Shift-F 'Advanced Find'
Select 'All Events' button
Select search option 'Date Created' = 'Any Date', or use the criteria to identify your targeted events. Select contiguous blocks by clicking one, and Shift-Click another.
Apply your 'delete' categorization via drag/drop or right-click select 'delete'
Select File/Export...

Outlook for Mac Data File
Items in the category: 'delete'
Next
'Yes, delete items after they are exported'
uncheck the box because you definitely want to delete all items in this category.

Finish

The genius of this method is it avoids the disastrous 'prompt for delete for each event' cycle.

Sorry its not a script, I would prefer that as well but I could not find one.


USB tethering gone after upgrading to iOS 9 and iTunes 12.3

Update:
Per @SeeMeCode's answer, you can re-install iTunes to solve the problem.

Solved.
I found the solution here. It's caused by a damaged kernel extension /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext.
When I check /var/log/system.log, sure enough there is:
Sep 17 08:00:58 wagner.local com.apple.kextd[45]: Kext id com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties not found; removing personalities from kernel.
Sep 17 08:00:58 wagner.local com.apple.kextd[45]: ERROR: invalid signature for com.apple.macos.driver.AppleUSBEthernetHost, will not load

This extension is installed with iTunes, so the cause was update to iTunes 12.3, not iOS 9. I tried to download iTunes and reinstall it, but it just installed the same damaged version of the kernel extension. So instead, I replaced it from a Time Machine backup as both the currently installed and the backed up version had the same version number 7.0.
After a restart, USB tethering works again.
To distinguish between the two, here's what the working one looks like:

$ ls -lR /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  6 root  wheel  204 Jan 10  2015 Contents

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext/Contents:
total 16
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  3202 Jan 10  2015 Info.plist
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel   102 Jan 10  2015 MacOS
drwxr-xr-x  3 root  wheel   102 Jan 10  2015 _CodeSignature
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   474 Jan 10  2015 version.plist

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext/Contents/MacOS:
total 128
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  63024 Jan 10  2015 AppleUSBEthernetHost

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext/Contents/_CodeSignature:
total 8
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  3668 Jan 10  2015 CodeResources

And the damaged one:

$ ls -lR AppleUSBEthernetHost.kext
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  5 ischeini  staff  170 Aug  5 00:30 Contents

Contents:
total 16
-rw-r--r--@ 1 ischeini  staff  3202 Aug  5 00:30 Info.plist
drwxr-xr-x  3 ischeini  staff   102 Aug  5 00:30 MacOS
-rw-r--r--@ 1 ischeini  staff   473 Aug  5 00:30 version.plist

Contents/MacOS:
total 144
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 ischeini  staff  71792 Aug  5 00:30 AppleUSBEthernetHost


Boot Camp Assistant partitions the HDD so that Windows can be installed. Windows does not support Core Storage, hence the partition is solely on the HDD.

  Do Macs that have a Fusion Drive support Boot Camp?
  Yes. Boot Camp Assistant creates the Windows partition on the disk drive instead of the flash drive (SSD).

Source: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201456

Speaking of Core Storage, this is what is used to make your two disks appear as one logical volume. You can't see the individual drives' content separately. For more information, see Core Storage Wikipedia or search "Core Storage".


How to play alarm through headphones on iPhone?

By default the alarm goes through the headphones and the speakers if headphones are plugged in.


Mac Mini won't boot. Is it the monitor or the Mac?

The Mac will boot with or without a mouse and keyboard, and you should see something on the monitor either way.
You do not need to use Apple mice and keyboards.

So, the problem has to be either the monitor or the Mac Mini.

You can look at the power light to see if the Mini is running. If it is steady white, the computer is on. If it is pulsing, the computer is sleeping. If it is off, the computer is off.

If the computer is on but nothing is coming up on the monitor:
Check all connections. Try with a different monitor, if possible. Make sure the correct input is selected on the monitor.

If the computer won't turn on:
Check all connections. Make sure it's plugged in. Make sure you've pressed the power button all the way, without holding it down too long.
If you can't get it to turn on at all, take it back to the people who sold it to you and get your money back; they sold you a broken machine.


Should I create APFS encrypted disk image on hard disk drives?

It's more like the benefits/features of APFS won't mean anything. A lot of it takes advantage of the fact that random (arbitrary) locations can be read from a SSD with no "seek time" penalties you might get in an HDD

Creating a small disk image on a HDD might help disguise how much APFS slows down on a HDD if it's kept in one continuous piece, and the drive has a big cache, but 200GB image on a 1TB drive is only ever going to perform as well as the drive it's on minus overhead.


How do I hide contact name from whatsapp notification on iphone5

On your iPhone go to Settings > Notifications > WhatsApp > scroll down and you'll see "Show Previews" > And change that.

Also in WhatsApp settings. Click on Notifications. The toggle "Show Preview" off.

That should only show the senders name and not the context of the message.

You can also turn of show on lock screen for WhatsApp in iPhone notification settings for added privacy.


DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE & sudoers Exploit: What are the markers in the sudoers file?

This is the infecting command:

echo 'echo "$(whoami) ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" >&3' | DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE=/etc/sudoers newgrp; sudo -s

This means, that you'll have line like:

USERNAME ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

at the end of your sudoers file.

NOTE: USERNAME is your username in the system. It won't have hash tag # in front.


iPhone 7 iOS 10.3.3 Contact missing after logging into iMessage on Mac

I accidentially figured this out myself poking around with the same issue. My contacts are stored on my company's servers. So I changed the default contacts to my iPad and this fixed the issue. I then put my contact default back to my company's server and it still works.

Go to Settings > Contacts
Look at the Default Account value and note what it is. You will need this for the last steo.
Change the Default Account (hopefully you have more than one) to iPad
- Or, just switch it to someting other than what it is.
Check your messages and see if the names show up instead of phone numbers
Go back to Contacts and put the default back to whatever it was orginally.

This worked for me, hope it works for others.
Good Luck


Which background processes can I disable to speed up my Mac

I suspect there is not much you can do here. This is because most background processes only run when they are needed (see "On Demand")

Best to look at Activity Monitor to see if there is anything taking up CPU.

My guess is for text editing and multitasking you will have no speed issues.

For web browsing the browser and especially add ins will take up CPU and memory thus requiring swapping.


Will Mavericks Server cache Yosemite updates?

Yes, the Caching service will cache updates for all possible versions of OS X on all possible Macs. You are unable to view the contents of the cache in a meaningful way though.


Is there a way to access a Mac's geolocation from terminal?

vilmoskörte's answer appears to be a good one, but I took it upon myself to make a tool that does this for my own education. I put it on GitHub.

WhereAmI

A simple command line tool. No options, just runs and outputs Lat/Long, accuracy in meters, and a timestamp. It will need OS X Location Services to be turned on (System Preferences > Security & Privacy), and permission to gather your location (OS X will prompt you on first run).

Direct Download Link (.zip)


How do I sort/recover deleted items on Mac?

If you are not afraid of the Terminal.app try starting the Terminal.app and enter the following commands:

cd ~/.Trash
ls -lu

This may result in something like:

-rwxr-xr-x  1 otto  staff  700416 Jan 26 23:33 MyRemovedFile.txt

where 23:33 is the value which should show up in the 'Date Added' column in Finder.
Could not test this with iTunes, but hope it may give some clues for trying to solve your issue.


Your screen may be a physical size unrelated to the numbers above.
Your screenshot size is easily checked in Preview app - open the saved file and get info.

How can I stop my retina display from taking 2x sized screenshots?

Your on screen pixel approximation is controlled by the displays system preferences. What you choose there affects the retina size vs rendered size vs reported size.

Scaling all UI elements when using an external monitor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_independence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_display
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471

Based on how much reading and programming you do these links may be more or less technical than desired. Hopefully it helps set the stage for more leaning if needed.


How to "not reject" an incoming call during do not disturb?

No jailbreak needed, just set the option found in Preferences/Notifications/Do Not Disturb/Allow calls from to Everyone.


Automatically mounting an external Firewire drive after reboot, without login

I just upgraded one of my servers from Snow Leopard to Mavericks and I ran into a similar problem. I knew that I had fixed it before and the method still seems to work in Mavericks.

In /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ you need to add the file autodiskmount.plist with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

It should go without saying, but you will need admin privileges to do this. I believe you will also need to reboot. Then, without logging in on your server, check if the other computers on your network can see the external drive.


10.8.3 update will not run - keeps asking for restart

Assuming you have checked and the system isn't actually running 10.8.3 (Open About this Mac and look under OS X for the current version), you might find it easier to download the combo updater and try that to update your iMac.

It writes to /var/log/install.log (as well does the Mac App store) and you will have a clear indication after running the Combo Updater as to the cause of failure as well as whether the Mac App Store failure was similar or different.


AppleScript: How to open a link in Google Chrome in a new, adjacent tab?

It's possible, like this :

set myLink to "https://www.google.com/"
tell application "Google Chrome"
     activate
    tell front window to make new tab at after (get active tab) with properties {URL:myLink} -- open a new tab after the current tab
end tell


Copying dropbox files on MacOS (shared folder icons)

Sounds like the folder has a custom icon.

To remove the custom icon:

Open the Get Info window for the folder (⌘-I).
Click on the folder icon in the top-left corner.
Press the Delete key on your keyboard.


How do I resume the iTunes queue from when I last quit?

This seems to work for me and is much quicker if you're like me and prefer keyboard shortcuts:

Open iTunes and…

Press ►► (F9).
Press ►II (F8).


Where do I start with re-installing OSX on my 2008 MacBook?

I have a copy of Leopard that came with the MacBook. However it fails
checksums.

You can try to repair the disc using this method. Never done it but the author claims he has, and it worked for him. Your mileage may vary.

I have an upgrade copy of Snow Leopard on DVD. (Unsurprisingly?) the
MacBook won't install from it.

You seem to have bad luck with physical media. From this source (and Diago below), the Snow Leopard upgrade disc contains a full installer, allowing the installation even over a system without any OS whatsoever. If it fails to boot, it could likely be damaged.

I have a full copy of Snow Leopard for Mac Mini - I tried to install
and it says it doesn't work on MacBooks.

That is also correct. Minis (like many of the machines Apple manufacturers) come with their own specific versions of OS X. The Mac minis, like the MacBook Airs ship with special versions that differ from the ones you purchase through other channels. Therefore, you cannot use an installation disc from a MacBook Pro on a MacBook or iMac.

I have a new MacBook Air with Lion preinstalled.

Apple machines that ship with Lion cannot be transferred to other devices. If you purchases Lion through the Mac App Store, you could install it on any Mac (except those that ship with them of course).

In all honesty, the best advice I could give you is to book an appointment at one of your local Apple Stores and speak to a Genius. Tell them your situation (bring in the machine and the Tiger installation disc). They'll either give you a Snow Leopard installation for free or boost you up to Lion. I'm not sure if they will give you a free USB Stick, but they'll do something for you. I guarantee that.


Search ﬁ (one character) as fi (two characters) in mdfind

Although the fi characters are displayed as a single ligature glyph, they are understood within the PDF as distinct letters. (And within every other text app such as TextEdit, Pages, Safari, etc, which will also display ligatures and understand them as separate characters.)

I can search in Safari or Preview within the PDF for the letters fi, and get the ligature in the results:

I can also copy and paste the text, or export it from the PDF, and the text has separate characters for that ligature.

However, results using Spotlight do seem to be more variable. If I create a PDF from TextEdit with the word 'office' using ligature glyphs, that word is not be found in a Spotlight search. If I do the same from Affinity Publisher, the word is found.

I have other PDFs with ligature glyphs that Spotlight can search.

It is of course also possible to produce a PDF where the underlying chars are not preserved.

TL;DR: it seems that Spotlight is choosy about font encoding when indexing PDF text content. Text encoded with a Type 1 Roman encoding does not produce the correct result.

So your options are to write a shell script that offers up the ligated Unicode glyphs whenever the relevant combination of characters occur (fi, fl, ffi, ffl, ct, st), and search PDFs using both forms; or use a non-Spotlight method of querying the text in the PDF.


How to set Inspector in Numbers for macOS hidden by default?

Numbers for macOS remembers the Inspector visibility setting for every spreadsheet when you close it. So, once you have hidden the Inspector for a spreadsheet and closed it, opening it subsequently will keep it hidden.


What would happen if I changed my startup disk to a flash drive, then tried to turn on the computer without said flash drive plugged in?

The main reason for selecting a startup disk in System Preferences > Startup Disk is to let macOS know where it should boot from by default. This does not prevent macOS from booting off another drive in the event there is a problem with the default drive.

So, in the event that the default drive is not present or functioning correctly, and there is another bootable disk connected to the Mac (either internally or externally), it should eventually find it and boot off that.

When I say eventually I don't mean hours, it's usually no more than a couple of minutes.

If there is no other bootable drive, your Mac will display an error, usually in the form of a folder image with a question mark on it.

Firmware password

Note, if you have set a firmware password on your Mac, the behaviour will be different to what I've described above.

If you have a firmware password enabled and you try to start up from another drive (incl. from Recovery), your Mac will pause the startup sequence and present the user with a password field instead. In this case, before the Mac boots up from the other bootable drive it has located, the user will need to enter the firmware password.


On Yosemite, those kernel messages should be logged to System.log according to /etc/asl.conf, which replaced the older syslog.conf. Apple System Logger and Syslog both use /etc/asl.conf

 # Rules for /var/log/system.log
 > system.log mode=0640 format=bsd rotate=seq compress file_max=5M all_max=50M
 ? [= Sender kernel] file system.log

Kernel.log is not used by any logger since 10.8 I believe, but confirmed in 10.10.x

Note, El Capitan and SIP removed support for kext-dev-mode, so keep that in mind if you need to debug in newer OS X versions.


Below are answers to the questions in your post.

I did a quick check with the internet and it would appears 64 bit Windows 7 is the last version of Windows that Apple officially supports on your model Mac. Therefore, installing a Windows 8, 8.1 or 10 usually requires more than the Boot Camp Assistant.

I have a 2011 iMac with a working optical and High Sierra, so I doubt High Sierra is the reason the optical drive fails to work.

The Boot Camp Assistant does require installing Windows from a DVD on your model Mac. Although, many users here at Ask Different have modified the Boot Camp Assistant in a attempt to install Windows using a flash drive.

Officially, installing from an ISO file did not start with Macs until the 2015 model year. Apple does not support installing from an ISO with any 2009 model year Macs.

Using an external DVD drive may or may not work. There is no actual way to tell other than trying.

Personally, I would try installing the current version of Windows 10. It has been reported that a Windows 7 or 8.1 product key will work with the current Windows 10 download. I tested this earlier this year and was successful using a 2018 Mac mini.

When I installed High Sierra on my 2011 iMac, firmware upgrades were installed that allowed the Mac to EFI boot the Windows 10 installer from an ExFAT formatted internal or USB drive. Originally, I was required to use an optical drive to install Windows, but now I can also use a flash drive or install directly from the ISO file. I do not know if the same would be true for your 2009 iMac.

The answer that closest matches your question can be found at Any solution to bootcamp windows 8.1 with macbook pro 15" 2010?. This is closely related to the two questions given below.

No bootable device USB 2.0 MacBook Pro mid 2014

Boot camp install of Windows 7 issue, no bootable devices

After High Sierra was released, the use of a virtual optical drive could be eliminated on certain model Macs. This led to the following.

How to install Windows 10 into a 2011 iMac without using the Boot Camp Assistant, an optical (DVD) drive or third party tools?

However, the above answer involved using the graphical user interface (GUI) which was reported to cause problems. The latest answer is below, but has not been tested on an actual Mac.

When trying to install Windows 10 on 2011 iMac keep getting error 0x8007000D windows cannot open the required file D:\sources\install.wim

The problem, with the newer answers, is that you want Windows 8.1 and the instructions are for Windows 10. The solution may simply require substituting 8.1 or 10 in the instructions. Otherwise, the instructions could be modified where you would EFI boot from Window 10, but install Windows 8.1 to BIOS boot. This would be similar to the question Dual Boot Win 7 on MBR with Win 10 on GPT.


Is it possible to install Windows Vista 64-bit on mid 2010 27" iMac w/ Mavericks?

You can do it without using Boot Camp, just make this few steps:

Install rEFIt.
Resize your disk so you get some free space for vista.
Create a new partition from that free space.
Boot up your Mac with the Vista install disk inserted.
Install Vista onto the new created partition.

If you need a more detailed How-To/Tutorial/Manual/Assist (or what ever you will call it), have a look here http://lifehacker.com/5531037/how-to-triple-boot-your-mac-with-windows-and-linux-no-boot-camp-required


High CPU consumption, 33% battery, suddenly MacBook Pro Retina shuts down saying it needs to be plugged in

I had the same issue; I did an SMC reset.

Connect the power adapter to the Mac. On the MacBook / Pro's keyboard, hold down the Shift Control Option keys and the Power button at the same time. Release all keys and the power button at the same time – the little light on the MagSafe adapter may change colors briefly to indicate the SMC has reset.


On Windows or Linux an app's window usually is the app. However, macOS is different, as traditionally the app windows can be closed with the app still running (with few exceptions). The menu bar at the top of the screen shows you which app is currently active (there can be only one active app), and even if you close all windows of an app it will still be running and you will be able to control it with the menu bar.
The red circle closes the window and not the app, same is true for the ⌘ cmd+W shortcut (or ⌘ cmd+⌥ opt+W for closing all the windows of the active app).
To quit the app you can do one of the following:

pressing ⌘ cmd+Q to quit the active app
clicking on the app name in the top left corner of your screen (on your menu bar) and selecting Quit in the menu to quit the active app
right clicking (or ^ ctrl+click) on the app bar in the dock and selecting Quit
selecting the app in the Activity Monitor (Applications>Utilities>Activity Monitor) and using the Force quit button in its top left corner (useful for unresponsive apps)
pressing ⌘ cmd+⌥ opt+esc to open the Force Quit Applications window (useful for unresponsive apps)

You can read more about Mac window management here and about quitting apps here.


This was solved by logging in and out, for anyone else asking.


Is the source code for xnu-6153.60.66~39 available? (iOS 13.3 Kernel)

Yes, Apple does still open source the XNU kernel. However, there's usually quite a time lag from the time macOS is released for iOS products and until the corresponding XNU kernel source is publicized.

Therefore you cannot find the exact version you're seeking anywhere. iOS 13.3 is very new, and no public source code has been made available for that kernel version yet.

Usually Apple makes new releases of the XNU kernel source 2-6 times per year. The latest was in June 2019, which is was version 4903.241.1.


Can I print lists from the Reminders app?

You can achieve this using AppleScript on your Mac. Press ⌘ cmd space and enter Script Editor. Create a new script with the following code in it:

set _body to ""
tell application "Reminders"
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "\n"
    set _body to (name of reminders in list "Tasks" whose completed is false) as string
end tell

set _output to "Macintosh HD:Users:YourName:Desktop:List.txt"
try
    set _reference to open for access file _output with write permission
    write _body to _reference
    close access _reference
on error
    try
        close access file _output
    end try
end try

Replace Tasks with the name of the list you want to print, Macintosh HD with the name of your startup drive, and YourName with your username.

This will place a file named List.txt on your desktop with all those reminders ready to print.


There is really only one syntax mistake that you made. You put a space before Number in $ApplicationVersionNumber. Most apps don't have a version.plist file, but they always have the version in their Info.plist.

Here is a fixed version of the script with a few improvements:

#!/bin/sh

ApplicationName=/Applications/FakeApp.app
ApplicationVersionNumber=1.0
echo $ApplicationName

#Check if Directory Exist
if [ ! -d $ApplicationName ]; then
    echo "$ApplicationName is not installed"
    exit 123456
fi
echo "$ApplicationName is installed"

# Check Version
VersionCheck=`plutil -p "${ApplicationName}/Contents/Info.plist" | grep "CFBundleShortVersionString.*$ApplicationVersionNumber"`
echo $VersionCheck
if [ ${#VersionCheck} != 0 ]; then
    echo "$ApplicationName $ApplicationVersionNumber is Installed"
    exit 0
fi
echo "$ApplicationName $ApplicationVersionNumber is NOT Installed"
exit 1

It uses plutil -p instead of cat, since plutil can print out a nice, readable version of the plist even if it isn't in XML form.
It greps for the key (CFBundleShortVersionString), .*, and then the value. This is better because you don't want it to trigger on things like LSMinimumSystemVersion.
I also added more quotes because I like quotes and things are (usually) less likely to break that way.

I would have written it like this:

#!/bin/bash
app_path="$1"
desired_version="$2"

#Get the line, regardless of whether it is correct
version_line=$(plutil -p "${app_path}/Contents/Info.plist" | grep "CFBundleShortVersionString")
if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]; then
    version_line=$(plutil -p "${app_path}/Contents/Info.plist" | grep "CFBundleVersion")
    if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]; then #if it failed again, the app is not installed at that path
        echo "$app_path not installed at all"
        exit 123456
    fi
fi
#Some text editing to get the real version number
real_version=$(echo $version_line | grep -o '"[[:digit:].]*"' | sed 's/"//g')
if [ "$real_version" = "$desired_version" ]; then
    echo "$app_path $desired_version is installed"
    exit 0
fi
echo "${app_path}'s version is $real_version, not $desired_version"
exit 1

The advantage of this is it checks the actual version string, so if you put 1.3 and it's 1.3.1, it reports that it is a different version. $1 and $2 are the command-line arguments that are passed like ./script.sh '/Applications/FakeApp.app' '1.3'

Also, the other would count as correct on 1.1 for 121 because grep counts the . as a wildcard.


Apple Watch unlock feature for macOS Sierra requires turning off 2-step-verification

You need to disable two-step verification and enable two-factor authentication.

If you follow the steps in this article, it will show you how you can use your Watch to wake-up your Mac.  One of the key parts is at the bottom of the article:

  For those of you using the original Two-Step Verification instead of the Two-Factor Authentication feature introduced with iOS 10, you will need to disable Two-Step Verification on the Apple ID management site and then enable Two-Factor Authentication on an iOS device. A passcode also needs to be established on the Apple Watch.


How to properly and for once reinstall PHP/Apache

The brew commands look ok. You have all the taps you need.
First of all since you're working with homebrew, I'd suggest the following two commands (let's start clean):

brew update && brew cleanup

So we're sure that we're using the latest homebrew release and we cleanup all old formulas and leftovers.

From your PATH it looks like usr/bin (which is the standard Mac OS X path for binaries and executables) comes before usr/local/bin (the path in which homebrew links the Cellar).
As you might know, Mac OS X when looking for binaries/executables scans the PATH from top to bottom so if both usr/bin and usr/local/bin have the php executables, since usr/bin comes first in PATH, then Mac OS X will use the php version in such folder, ignoring the version in usr/local/bin (which, as instead, is our target).

To make sure regarding which version Mac OS X is using, type in the Terminal

which php

and if the output is usr/bin, then Mac OS X is using its own version.

The core indeed now is to change the PATH order in bash_profile, and make sure that usr/local/bin comes before usr/bin (it is clear now that we're forcing Mac OS X to use the homebrew version).

Once the changes have been done, restart your Mac and type in the Terminal

echo $PATH

This will display the entire PATH list so you can make sure everything's in the right order.
Now, finally, you can check using either

which php

or

php -v

which is the running version.


How do I check an iPad 2's supported carrier?

Correct if wrong but I am sure that only the GSM devices have a micro sim card slot. The CDMA or Verizon ones do not have sim cards.

So as you are on AT&T they would have seen a SIM and got you one with a SIM.


Phantom Email Window Keeps Appearing in Apple Mail

This seems to be caused by incorrect credentials for the SMTP server that had been associated with the from address of the email. The Inbox for that email now has " - dead" appended to it's name (presumably referring to the SMTP server not working, as am receiving emails). It's a gmail.

As a workaround, first, I can stop the annoying window's phantom behaviour by taking all accounts offline ("Mailbox" menu). Then change the SMTP server for the offending account (fix credentials or use one that works), then re-enabling all accounts. At this point, the phantom email is actually sent and everything seems back to normal.


Unable to access phone after update to iOS 12.1.4

Connect your iPhone to iTunes

  If iPhone is locked, iTunes will not recognize that it's connected.

Therefore, you have to put your iPhone to DFU mode. Usually, a key combination is used to do that (requires home button).

Other way is to use third party software, which allows you to enter DFU mode with one click.

Recboot
Tiny Umbrella
Redsn0w

  I have not checked, whether second and third option works with your iOS and iPhone, but there are a few others worth trying.

When your iPhone enters DFU mode, you will be able to manually reinstall iOS using iTunes or recover from backup.


how to block Adobe, Google and others from installing crap on my Mavericks

You can disable the individual launchd job tickets using the launchctl tool:

sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchAgents/com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist

This will immediately disable the job and the -w flag will stop the job from reloading next time you restart.

Given your dislike of these features, please provide feedback to Adobe, Google, and TeamViewer.

See disable screen sharing via the command line in mountain lion for alternative approaches for disabling launchd managed processes.


Is it OK to buy a refurbished MacBook Pro?

They write on the refurb store:

  We test and certify all Apple refurbished products and include a one-year warranty.

They are even eligible to the AppleCare program if you buy it up to 1 year after your purchase.
So I don't see what problem you would face. It's a used device but verified, repackaged and certified by Apple.