So... After hours research, I finally found the encryption process.

The password contained in the keychain is NOT the encryption key!
The password has to be derived to obtain the key. The process is as follow: PBKDF2_SHA1(password: passwordFromKeychain, salt: someSalt, iterations: 1000, outputLen: 128)

Then the cipher can be easily decrypted. It is simply AES-CBC-128 with PKCS5Padding and no IV (or IV = [0, ...])

The output will be a binary PLIST which can be read by any program having such capability. Thus, you can know if the decryption process is successful by verifying the first 6 byte are equals to: "bplist".

I wrote a code (JAVA) to do the decryption: https://github.com/Flo354/SafariFormValuesDecryptor


How to install command line tools without error that is not currently available on Software Update server?

Make sure you have an Apple Developer Account, then visit this Site.
 If you don't have an account, you can register one with the link I provided too.
After that you can download the package from the before mentioned link.


Cannot find Python.frameworks in OS Sierra

Open the Terminal.app.

Start the python interpreter by typing:

python

type the following:

import sys
print(sys.path)

to quit the interpreter type:

quit()


Split Screen with certain applications: Does it only work on the primary display?

It works fine in both my displays.
What happens if you try to move a split screen from your primary display to your secondary display?


How can I quickly play the selected song in iTunes, without playing the rest of the album?

One option would be to save this script to ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/iTunes/ in AppleScript Editor and give it a shortcut with FastScripts.

try
    tell application "iTunes"
        play item 1 of selection with once
    end tell
end try

Without the try block there would be an error dialog if for example the selection was empty.


Is the phone locked to iCloud? If it is then I refer you to this answer.

Assuming no, then you will just need to wipe the phone. Assuming that you have backed up your data (music, photos etc) then open the Settings app.

Go to General -> Reset (scroll to the bottom) -> Erase All Content and Settings -> Erase iPhone

Wait a while (it can take some time) and then the phone will be as new. It will welcome you with a "Welcome" message.

That's it!


DVI (DVI = Digital Visual Interface) does never carry sound, it's visual only. Buying a Mini Displayport to HDMI does not help you out either because it's not supported for your Macbook Air.

Here's the list of laptop models that support audio pass-through via MDP

MacBook Air 11" Model 3,1
MacBook Air 11" Model 4,1
MacBook Air 11" Model 5,1

MacBook Air 13" Model 3,2
MacBook Air 13" Model 4,2
MacBook Air 13" Model 5,2

MacBook 13" Model 7,1

MacBook Pro 13" Model 7,1
MacBook Pro 13" Model 8,1
MacBook Pro 13" Model 9,2

MacBook Pro 15" Model 6,2
MacBook Pro 15" Model 8,2
MacBook Pro 15" Model 9,1
MacBook Pro 15" Model 10,1

MacBook Pro 17" Model 6,1
MacBook Pro 17" Model 8,3

and any version later

You can use the Apple MiniDisplayPort to DVI adapter with a cable like this:
and a separate jack audio cable.


How about PocketCam?  It's only 5 dollars, and it does the job-even optimized for iPad.  Never used it before, but it sounds useful.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocketcam/id316512204?mt=8


How to see all windows of an application within a space?

Apple doesn’t design finder and expose to do this. It’s a design decision, so they might add a switch if enough people convince them it’s worth coding, but in the mean time, programmers have utilities to help.

Front and Center app on the Mac App Store

Here’s a very in-depth write up of how this used to be the default and now is not, if you’re into the history of user interface choices or just want to know a little more about the author(s) of the tool.

https://daringfireball.net/2020/01/front_and_center

Also, this tool doesn’t show you fake proxy windows on the space, it surfaces the actual windows. If you need something to re-arrange the windows, look to Moom or Divvy - they are long time, super excellent and powerful window management applications to super charge your control and automate window placement in a way that Mission Control (exposé) does.

https://manytricks.com/moom/
https://mizage.com/divvy/


OPEN RECENT FILE command vanished in Word for Mac Office 2008

That sounds like your Office Preference file got damaged.

Look in Office Preference setting to make sure the show recent files is checked.

If it is and you still don't see them, the Reset your Office preferences:

There are few procedures available online describing how to, and where the files are stored.


Move data from parent account to child account

Purchases, activity, and app/game progress are tied to an Apple ID.  In this case, they're tied to your Apple ID and there's no way to transfer this to a different Apple ID (your child's ID).

Some apps allow family sharing and some don't.  Because you've enabled that feature, your child will be able to access for free any apps you've already purchased.  In-app purchases will not be accessible by your child.

The activity/progress made on those apps under your ID will not be transferred to your child.  As of today, there's no way to transfer that that info.

Your child's account will be setup as a brand new account.  See Apple's Family Sharing site for more info.


Password controlled iphone erase application?

Currently there is no feature for this in iOS. For an improvement over the erase after 10 incorrect passcodes, you can use Apple Configurator to set this to a number between 2 and 10.

I haven't been able to find a way to do this with jailbreaking either, since there doesn't seem to be any actions or such to use the Erase Content and Settings option, however you could set up an Activator action to run a variety of ‘rm’ commands such as rm -rf /private/var/mobile which may be suitable depending on what you are going for.


iMac 27 (Late 2013) with two Thunderbolt displays

Yes its is possible. You can daisy chain (connect) two thunderbolt displays.
See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5219#18


How long does a contact show as "Recent"?

I think "recents" stay in the "recents" menu until it gets pushed out by more "recents".


(10.15.7) From where can the Quartz image filters be accessed?

Firstly, I think you mean Quartz Filters, not XQuartz. Quartz is the graphics subsystem in macOS, XQuartz is an X11 (unix GUI) environment for macOS ('X11 on quartz').
There are two types of Quartz Filters: 'Quartz Filters' and 'Quartz Composition Filters'.
Quartz Filters are normally found in /System/Library/Filters. They should be accessible in ColorSync Utility, under the Filters pane of the toolbar.
The following are the system installed filters in that folder:
Black & White.qfilter
Blue Tone.qfilter
Create Generic PDFX-3 Document.qfilter
Gray Tone.qfilter
Lightness Decrease.qfilter
Lightness Increase.qfilter
Reduce File Size.qfilter
Sepia Tone.qfilter

You may have other filters installed in either /Library/Filters or <user>/Library/Filters.
However, it's likely that you're talking about Quartz Composition Filters, which provide a range of manipulations to images. The Automator action to apply Quartz Composition Filters states:

This
action can use any Quartz Composition of type Image Filter installed
in the Quartz Composer Composition Repository (“/Library/Compositions”
or “~/Library/Compositions”) as long as it does not depend on time.

The system-bundled filters are in /System/Library/Compositions. They include things like Blur, Mask, Mirror, and other effects.
As for where they can be accessed: the answer is 'not many places'. (Yet again Preview fails to be a flagship/showcase for the impressive features of the underlying architecture.)
You can of course create a droplet Application with Automator that will show the Action at runtime, allowing you to select and define the filter each time. (You may want to duplicate the image beforehand.)
These things are called Quartz Composition Filters because they were created in Quartz Composer, a developer tool for processing graphical data. However, this has been deprecated in Catalina, so it will not be developed further and may be removed from the OS at some later point.


Can I use a Walmart iPhone 5c charger instead of the original one

When buying an iPhone charger what you want to look for is the lightning cable (the one for your 5C) having a MFI-Certification, this means that it is certified by Apple to work (most likely). These may be more expensive but are better than the .99 gas station chargers. It may still work for a while buy there is a fairly high chance it won't or it will die after just a few weeks. Your best bet is a more expensive one from a place like Amazon or one sold at an actual Apple store.

To answer your question, cheap chargers are not nearly as good and could not end up working.


Can I view or export or clear Siri's interaction history?

No there is no way to access Siri history. If any of it is stored, it will be stored anonymously as chunks of different words and phrases on Apple’s servers for better voice recognition.


Upgrade OS X Lion (10.7.4) to OS X Mountain Lion

Actually this is pretty simple.

Though you can install Mountain Lion right over (upgrade) Lion without doing any backups at all a more prudent method would be to backup first.

To back up your computer you will need an external hard drive (USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt. USB would likely be cheaper but a bit slower) that is a little bigger than the HD that you are upgrading.

If you plug the USB drive into your Mac, Time Machine will automatically ask you if you want to use it as a backup drive (not sure about the actual wording...) You can allow Time Machine to proceed and back up your whole computer. Once it is done, un plug it and proceed with the upgrade.

Alternatively you could use a commercial backup program to do the same thing. I have used both Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper to make backups of my drives. Bot work really well and are not expensive. The advantage with these is that they make a BOOTABLE backup image of your hard drive, where Time Machine will need you to install the O/S to then do a restore of your data.

Once you have made your backup (and tested it by checking a number of files or booting from the backup and verifying it all works) just go to the App Store (in your Apple Menu) and purchase Mountain Lion. It's a BIG download (4+ GB) and will take a while, when done it will automatically prompt you to start the installation. Just follow the prompts. Your Mac will reboot and proceed with the upgrade. It is likely that you will not need your backup as these upgrades usually go quite well.

There are some caveats. If you have modified your O/S or used applications that make changes to the O/S you might want to remove them before upgrading. You may also want to check that the versions of any applications you installed are compatible with Mountain Lion. That info will be on the manufacturers website. Basically you need to be aware that it is possible that something that worked fine under Lion will NOT work under Mountain Lion. Only you can make that determination.

Some people take the pre-install procedure a bit farther than just a backup. It is not uncommon to boot your Mac from the original install media and run disk utility and run a "repair disk" and "repair permissions" on it before installing. You could also use a maintenance tool like Onyx to do some basic repairs and maintenance on your system before upgrading as well. Some people won't upgrade before doing either or both of this things, some people just download and install the new O/S with no special prep or backup.

Really it's your choice.


How do I reinstall an app that was deleted but is still showing as installing?

I had the same issue with google maps however i think its just an issue with the iPhone because once i deleted the app and restarted the phone and then installed the app everything was working fine.


Compress files with the output name same as Parent Folder with Automator

In Automator:

Add Get Selected Finder Items
Add Run Applescript

Inssert this code for the Applescript:

on run {input, parameters}
 set pathList to {}
 repeat with itemNum from 1 to count of input
 tell application "System Events"
 copy POSIX path of (container of (item itemNum of input)) to end of pathList
 end tell
 end repeat
 return pathList
end run

Output/Results:

2013-05-11 00:06:02 +0000: Get Selected Finder Items completed
2013-05-11 00:06:02 +0000: Conversion from Files/Folders to Files/Folders completed
2013-05-11 00:06:02 +0000: Run AppleScript completed
2013-05-11 00:06:02 +0000: Workflow completed

{"/Users/Desktop", "/Users/Desktop", "/Users/Desktop"}


Numbers: how do I create a column with a sequence of times?

The formula syntax in Numbers is actually less intuitive and more stubborn than Excel IMO. Nevertheless, to create time intervals:

In the first cell, say B2, type 8:00 AM
In the following cell, type =B2+"30m"

Now, drag down:

Voilà:


Is it possible to disconnect a bluetooth connection using Applescript?

Here is what I use for disconnecting my Samsung Soundbar. Also remember that you need to give permission to application to use SystemUIServer steps for that.

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibility > [name_of_your_application]

One little remark: you need to have bluetooth icon on your menu bar.

tell application "System Events" to tell process "SystemUIServer"
    set bt to (first menu bar item whose description is "bluetooth") of menu bar 1
    click bt
    tell (first menu item whose title is "[Samsung] Soundbar") of menu of bt
        click
        tell menu 1
            if exists menu item "Disconnect" then
                click menu item "Disconnect"
            else
                click bt -- close main dropdown to clean up after ourselves
            end if
        end tell
    end tell
end tell


How do I find path for Messages and WhatsApp messages backup data in iCloud?

iMessage data is not currently accessible via iCloud. This will be coming in macOS 10.13/iOS 11. You can currently only restore files from iCloud Drive, contacts, calendars/reminders and bookmarks, all from the Advanced section in iCloud.

WhatsApp messages can be restored from Google Drive if you turned this feature on.

Alternatively, if you turned on the device backup for iOS, either to you local Mac/PC or to iCloud, you could do a full restore to get your data back.


Stop iPhone from ringing on my Mac in Mojave

Open FaceTime.

Go to the Preferences menu

Disable the phone numbers that you don't want to ring through to your Mac.

Turn off "Calls from iPhone"


Thunderbolt display firmware update 1.2 keeps reappearing, but is not compatible

I had a similar problem: The "Thunderbolt display firmware update 1.2" kept reappearing in AppStore, even though the uppdate seemed successful.

According to Apple the update was successful when the the Firmware Version is 26.2 and the Port Micro Firmware Version is 2.0.7 (visible in About this Mac -> SystemReport).

Above versions were correct in my case, but the update still kept appering in AppStore... (probably I did download and install the update manually after the first failure, but I don't remember ...)

To get rid of the annoying update in AppStore I used the softwareupdate command on the commandline:

softwareupdate --ignore TBdisplayFWUpdate1.2

The update package name may vary. For example:

softwareupdate --ignore ThunderboltFirmwareUpdate1.2

To find the correct name of the update for your machine, use the following command and copy the update package name up until the "-"

softwareupdate -l


Websharing and Remote Login not working over local network

OK i figured out the problem.  It seems my mac mini is losing internet connection/network every so often.  I don't know why it is, so going to post a separate question about this.


I've done a bit of searching, and found these two articles:

How to Create a Bootable Mac OS X USB Disk
Make a Bootable Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Installer from a USB Flash Drive

The first article was written with Leopard in mind and does advocate the use of SuperDuper, much as you've done.

With that said, one of the comments notes that you need to partition your USB thumbstick with a GUID partition table, and, while not stated, I would certainly use the HFS+ filesystem for your partition.  Did you do it that way?  It also appears that you need a flash drive that is at least 8 GB in size.

One more thing to try:

Shut down your mac.
Hold down the option key at bootup.
Do you see your USB flash disk an something to boot off of?

If so, you can select it to boot off of it.  (You can also hold down Command-V while doing so to boot in verbose mode; it should give you white text on a black background, logging details of what the computer is doing.  If you can get that far and it gets stuck, can you share some of what it says, especially anything near the end or anything that looks suspicious like it may have gotten stuck there?)
If not, it means that your computer doesn't recognize the drive as something it can boot off of.

Here are a couple of more thoughts:

if you have another Mac, buy yourself a firewire cable, boot the second Mac into target disk mode (hold down 'T' at bootup), insert the DVD into it, and you should be able to boot off of the DVD through the other computer.
borrow a USB DVD drive, and boot off of it.
just a wild thought that I'll throw out, but would be more trouble than it is worth for one computer, and it well beyond the scope of what you really want to do.  You could set up NetBooting to send an image file for the computer to boot up from over the network.  Buy Mac OS X Server from the App Store if you are using Lion (and download Apple's server admin tools so you can run Server Admin), or try out JAMF software's NetBoot Appliance (that will run as a virtual machine, under OS X, Windows, or Linux), and (hand waving here; you might be able to use "System Imaging Utility" in the server tools) set up a NetBoot image of your installer DVD to install the software.


Sounds like it's just stalling on a corrupt file.

Try typing

GetFileInfo /.vol/16777218/695996

into the Terminal to find out what the file is.

If you're right about Spotlight stalling on a calendar event, try going into preferences and disabling the indexing of Events and Reminders. And then resetting spotlight.


http://www.macworld.com/article/54668/2007/01/mergecalendars.html

This seems to be doing exactly what you ask.


Change bitrate from the default 128kbps for syncing songs to iPhone

As far as I know iTunes does not offer any other options for bit-rate conversion. This conversion does indeed happen on-the-fly, as you sync your iPhone with iTunes, which makes the syncing take longer but saves space, so you have not to worry for duplicates on your mac.

If space is an issue and you have some spare $25 I also recommend you give a look to iTunes Match: it will allow you to store your music on the Cloud, so you can download the songs as you listen to them thus you have not your huge iTunes library sitting on your iPhone but it still is available when you need it.


Remove the -f option, it's works for me.

<?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>EnableTransactions</key>
               <true/>
               <key>Label</key>
               <string>org.isc.named</string>
               <key>KeepAlive</key>
               <true/>
               <key>ProcessType</key>
               <string>Standard</string>
               <key>Program</key>
               <string>/usr/local/sbin/named</string>
               <key>ProgramArguments</key>
               <array>
               <string>/usr/local/sbin/named</string>
               <string>-c</string>
               <string>/Library/Server/named/named.conf</string>
               </array>
            </dict>
       </plist>


I have some email accounts that use S/MIME and some that use GPG. When I select to use the email address configured for GPG, GPG email signing is enabled by default. When I select to use the email address configured for S/MIME, the S/MIME email signing is enabled by default.

I had to enable some settings in the GPG preference section of Mail.app, but nothing else.


Any iOS apps for me to talk to people just nearby?

Have you tried Bluetooth Chat?

  With this little app you can chat via Bluetooth with other iPhone and iPod Touch (2nd Gen) users nearby.

Customer reviews are good, so it seems to be the solution you seek.


What kind of Barcode Reader USB can work on El Capitan / iMac

A USB bar code reader should just work out of the box.

I am personally using a Symbol (aka Motorola, aka Zebra) bar code reader.  Upon plugging it into my iMac running OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), it just shows up; no drivers were needed for the install.

This is the exact model bar code reader I am using for this example:  Symbol USB Bar Code Scanner PN# LS2208

I have been using this (and another Symbol scanner, but I no longer have it) since I got this iMac with Mavericks (10.9.x) and I never need to install drivers for either of the scanners.

Doing a scan of a simple UPC bar code sends the characters to whatever application I am using (in this case, Notes)


How can I use wired ethernet + external monitor together on my Macbook Air (Late 2013)?

Apple sells an USB Ethernet adapter. But since it's USB 2 it's likely to speed down the network capabilities.

There are other adapters with USB3 which seems to be faster (and compatible with OSX) .


How can I add a UTC world clock to my OSX dashboard?

There is already a UTC clock available.

Assuming you're on Yosemite:

Go to your notification center
Click Edit at the bottom
Add the World Clock and click Done.
Hover over the World Clock you just added, and click on the (i) icon.
Enter UTC when it asks for City.
That's it. You're done.


In the Window -> Dockable Dialogs menu you should see a list of all of the possible windows you can show, such as Colors, Layers and so on. You can turn them on one by one and then re-arrange them into docks as before.

I remember that at some point there was an option to display the default docks but it seems to have disappeared.


Is it possible to load single directories into iCloud? Triggered from the Mac Finder?

iCloud Drive on your Mac will upload the contents of your iCloud folder, including all subdirectories, to iCloud.

It is not possible to cherry-pick folders to exclude within your iCloud folder, or folders to include outside of it. Everything inside the iCloud folder gets synced with iCloud every time it changes, and that’s all.

Starting with macOS 10.12 Sierra, you may also specify the Desktop and Documents folders to be synced to iCloud. But those are the only exceptions. I believe the way this works is the original folders are replaced with symbolic links, and the actual folders moved into your iCloud Drive (I don’t use this feature, so I haven’t verified this myself).


Mac Mini powerful enough to play any 1080p movie?

You won't do that with a Mac Mini. The latest Mac Mini uses a Haswell cpu (core gen4) which provides acceleration for H.264/AVC 8-bit, VC-1, MPEG2 and JPEG.

Additionally:

H.265 = HEVC = MPEG-H Part 2 = standard

x265 = encoder (and not the only one which exist).


Can a Terminal window be resized with a Terminal command?

Yes. Terminal supports escape sequences for manipulating windows, including the size and position, layering, and minimizing. Dimensions can be expressed in pixels or characters. See Xterm Control Sequences for details (search for “Window manipulation”; if you’re not familiar with the notation, “CSI” stands for “Control Sequence Introducer”, which is ESC [).

For example, this shell command will set the window to 100x50 characters:

printf '\e[8;50;100t'

Minimize the window for a few seconds, then restore it:

printf '\e[2t' && sleep 3 && printf '\e[1t'

Move the window to the top/left corner of the display:

printf '\e[3;0;0t'

Zoom the window:

printf '\e[9;1t'

Bring the window to the front (without changing keyboard focus):

printf '\e[5t'

Enabling the Control Sequences in Terminal Emulators

Some terminal emulators ignore these control sequences by default and require configuration to enable them.

To enable these in XTerm, set the following resource to true:

  allowWindowOps

To enable these in iTerm2, deselect the following preference:

  Preferences > Profiles > [profile] > Terminal > Disable session-initiated window resizing


How to install Windows XP on mid-2012 MacBook Air Mountain Lion?

As far as I know there is no way to dual-boot any Mac with Bootcamp and Windows XP. It is simply not supported. Bootcamp under Lion and Mountain Lion should be able to support Windows 7 or Windows 8; can't you use one of them to run your Windows software instead of Windows XP?

If you cannot use Bootcamp, then you should evaluate the commercial virtualization products VMware Fusion for Mac and Parallels Desktop. Either of those can run Windows XP. Perhaps they can give you enough system speed for your gaming needs.


I was able to fix this annoying behavior with flushing local DNS cache:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder


FileVault (CoreStorage) + Linux partition

I would take a look at this StackExchange thread and the linked articles contained: Is File Vault 2 whole disk encryption or whole partition encryption?

Assuming what you are aiming for is an encrypted Lion partition and an unencrypted Linux partition, the decrypt, partition, encrypt process described will accomplish what you are looking for.

As always, back up first.


Missing songs don't add from iCloud Music

Today I suddenly understand... I cannot add these missing files because I have already them in other albums. Maybe it's a big problem for someone, but I just delete albums that are "no so good" and keep "that really rock". So problem solved! Thanks for watching!


iCloud drive taking 58 GB on my internal SSD. Why is that?

Depending on settings, for both Dropbox and iCloud the files may continue to take up space on the originating computer, and on any computer that has been "synced" to allow offline usage of the files.

For iCloud you control this behavior by the storage preferences:

Open "About This Mac" from the Apple () menu, then click Storage. There is an overview of your free space, space used by different types of files, and options for optimizing usage.


Work computer shows "This connection is not private" warning on almost all sites

This is not a purely Apple-related question, but it's worth to reply.

TL;DR: You should go to your company's IT Security Department immediately because the certificates that encrypt your web traffic can be compromised.

Long story, your company uses a kind of proxy called "Transparent proxy" for SSL traffic. This consists of a proxy that the user doesn't have to authenticate or configure him/herself, with the addition of a SSL certificate issued by your company that replaces all the HTTPS certificates of the servers you are trying to connect to.

This is, effectively, considered as a Self-Signed certificate by your browser, and is actually making your company able to decrypt and inspect all your web traffic (TIP: stop facebooking at work =) ) . As "out-of-the-box" web browsers do not distinguish between these IT configurations from proper, evil man in the middle attacks, they present you such a warning.

In order to get rid of the warning, the companies' IT Departments install their Certification Authority Certificate, or "certificate issuer's" Certificate, in the computers' KeyChain. Secondly, they mark the CA certificates as ultimately trusted system-wide, so that the browsers recongise that situation as expected when they validate the SSL proxy certificate.

So, if you got back that warning it is because that trust chain of certificate validation initially set up by your company is, somehow, broken. From best to worst scenario, it can be because:

Your company's proxy certificate has expired and they have to replace it
Your computer has lost the CA certificate of your company, or it has expired, and they have to install a new one. Or a maintenance task just lost the trust settings for the certificate.

For these two above, better to check with IT for them to review all the settings. Do not take the risk of changing that trust yourself, as it would make you accountable if something further breaks... and you don't want to be accountable for a security breach.

Worse scenarios:

Your company proxy has been hacked and the certificate has been replaced by an adversary's certificate.
Your company traffic is proxied through another (an adversary's) proxy, that is to say, you are suffering a (very clumsy) Man in The Middle Attack

Normally, in these kind of attacks, the computers have to be malware-infected for that malware to install the adversary CA into the KeyChain; otherwise all the computers would issue such a warning.


Tasks needing admin password (Finder, Installer) hang with beachball for minutes

In order to eliminate the User profile problem, log in as different user and check.

I would also repair the System permissions (in disk Utility) and the User permissions (the ACLs)


Can Numbers ’09 import an Excel XML file?

Numbers ’09 supports Excel native format (.xls) but it can’t convert from an Excel XML Spreadsheet. In fact, if you rename it as “xls” and try to open it (trying to fool Numbers), you’ll probably see all the XML but not the actual spreadsheet. Which is more scary than Psychosis II back in the 80s.

Your only bet is some CVS or TEXT format, which excel can even export with Macintosh format for line endings and carrier return (if I’m not mistaken).

The big drawback is that all format and binary stuff is automagically lost in translation (certain pun intended). ;)

You’ll get the data, but not the format.

Another alternative is trying to automate the Excel XML to Excel Native format, even if your webapp outputs a XML, you could try to “transform them” before anything else.

For that, I haven’t investigated but you can start with a google query like this. There seem to be some Windows solutions, maybe something you can use/try.


Can one app read data from clipboard copied in another app

This is not a vulnerability per se.

The clipboard is accessible system wide which is why you can copy something from application A and paste it to application B.

It's not meant nor does it function as a secure holing area.

If an application has sensitive data fields, it is up to the developers to block clipboard access to the data.   For all intents and purposes, once info is in the clipboard, it's accessible.

As a test and demo, copy your password from your password manager.  Open terminal and type the command pbpaste.  It will output the password that's residing in your clipboard.


flashplayer.dmg is in use and can't empty Trash

open Terminal.app
type rm .Trash/flash_player.dmg and press Enter. This removes the file.
reboot
check whether the file is gone from the Trashcan

It might be helpful to run a malware cleaner afterwards as well to make sure nothing else got infected.


Programatically modify tag visibility, order

Here's a partial solution that might serve until I can see something more effective. Instead of trying to track down the correct place to modify the Finder settings under the hood — which is surprisingly difficult — this GUI-scripts the Finder to turn on only those tags you want to use at a given moment. The script presents you with a token field, where you enter the names of the tags you want activated (commas and returns are the separation characters), then it opens the Finder preferences window, loops through all the items in the table view, and clicks them on or off as needed so you'll only see the ones you want. It's slow and occasionally throws an error (typical of GUI scripting) but it gets the job done.

Script updated 11/29/20 with trap some GUI synchronization issues..

global click_error_depth, seek_error_depth

set {click_error_depth, seek_error_depth} to {0, 0}

set tag_string to text returned of (display dialog "Enter a list of tags" default answer "")
set tid to my text item delimiters
set my text item delimiters to {",  ", ", ", ","}
set tag_list to text items of tag_string
set my text item delimiters to tid

tell application "Finder"
    open window of Finder preferences
    tell Finder preferences
        tell its window
            set (current panel) to Label Preferences panel
        end tell
    end tell
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Finder"
        tell window "Finder Preferences"
            tell first scroll area's first table
                with timeout of 3600 seconds
                    set curretly_tagged to first checkbox of first UI element of (every row whose first UI element's first checkbox's value is 1)
                end timeout
                repeat with this_checkbox in curretly_tagged
                    my clickErrorTrap(this_checkbox)
                end repeat
                repeat with a_tag in tag_list
                    set target_checkbox to my seekErrorTrap(a_tag)
                    if class of target_checkbox is checkbox then
                        my clickErrorTrap(target_checkbox)
                    end if
                end repeat
            end tell
        end tell
    end tell
end tell
tell application "Finder"
    tell Finder preferences
        tell its window
            close
        end tell
    end tell
end tell

on clickErrorTrap(a_checkbox)
    try
        tell application "System Events"
            tell a_checkbox
                click
            end tell
        end tell
        return true
    on error
        if click_error_depth < 10 then
            set click_error_depth to click_error_depth + 1
            delay 0.1
            set flag to clickErrorTrap(a_checkbox)
        else
            return false
        end if
        set click_error_depth to click_error_depth - 1
        return flag
    end try
end clickErrorTrap

on seekErrorTrap(a_tag)
    try
        tell application "System Events"
            tell process "Finder"
                tell window "Finder Preferences"
                    tell first scroll area's first table
                        set target_checkbox to first checkbox of first UI element of (first row whose first UI element's name is a_tag)
                        return target_checkbox
                    end tell
                end tell
            end tell
        end tell
    on error
        if seek_error_depth < 5 then
            set seek_error_depth to seek_error_depth + 1
            delay 0.1
            set target_checkbox to seekErrorTrap(a_tag)
            set seek_error_depth to seek_error_depth - 1
            return target_checkbox
        else
            return false
        end if
    end try
end seekErrorTrap


Why do I get a plain blue screen when I connect my Mac Mini to an external monitor?

Finally figured this out.  The issue had to do with the fact that I am using multiple users and Fast User Switching.

You can read more details about it in this thread:  http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2177922&start=15&tstart=0

The gist is that each user has it's own loginwindow process running.  These multiple loginwindow process' reek havoc with any method of remote controlling the mac -VNC, Apple Remote Desktop, LogMeIn even unplugging/plugging in a monitor is affected.

So you need to kill all loginwindow processes before connecting.

To do this:

Connect via ssh
issue a ps auxwww|grep loginwindow to find the current loginwindow processes that are running - there will be one for each user + one for console
for each process call sudo kill -9 pid where pid is the process id

* note:  you do not need to kill the loginwindow for console

Much thanks to Martin Marconcini who led me down the path of investigating the running processes via SSH.


I believe that you have the key to the answer in your question. It is a permissions issue and there are at least two ways that you could fix it. Ultimately, though, it is likely that Google Drive owns the file and then when the web server in XAMPP tries to execute it, it is denied. Likely, the web server isn't even in the same group as GD and therefore the Unix permissions should end in at least 5. I suspect that setting the files to the infamous (and absolutely rightly so) 777 would correct the problem. A permissions number ending with 7 indicates that you are giving the public full access to read, write, and execute the script.

For a resolution, move to git. I'm not aware of anyone using Google Drive as a deployment strategy, although I'm sure someone has. I believe the most popular version control is Git, which would be good to learn anyway as you will need those skills if you work for a development shop.

A second option would be to write a little bash or Apple script to change the file permissions.


Which 'system' apps can be safely removed

I’m not sure why you would want to remove any of the apps that you mentioned — it’s not like they take up a lot of space or introduce security vulnerabilities or anything.

On the other hand, it would make sense to remove e.g. Java, for the reasons I mentioned before. If you don’t need Java, you can remove it by following these steps.

First of all you need to check which JVM (Java Virtual Machine) you have in your system. To do so, open Terminal.app, and enter:

sudo /usr/libexec/java_home –xml

If you you have JVM installed, you’ll get the JVMHomePath returned:

/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

Then, remove JVM from your system:

# Wipe out the JVM installation location
sudo rm -rfv /System/Library/Java

After this, restart your Mac, and confirm JVM was successfully removed by running the first command again:

sudo /usr/libexec/java_home –xml

It should say something like:

Unable to find any JVMs matching version "(null)".
No Java runtime present, try –request to install.

This means that it worked, and that your OS X Lion is Java-free again.

(This is an improved version of the instructions on http://stikine.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/howto-remove-java/.)


If you change the extension to .mov then drag it over, it’ll ask you to optimize for iOS, at which point it will treat the GIF as a movie.


iPhone won't stop connecting to bluetooth, interferes with mouse

Never mind. Deleting the com.apple.bluetooth files in /Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Preferences seems to have taken care of it.


You can remove your phone number from Messages on your Mac and iPad. On your Mac, go to Messages > Settings > Accounts. Select your account. Uncheck the box corresponding to your phone number. On your iPad, go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive. Uncheck your phone number.

You cannot remove your phone number from receiving messages on your iPhone, because this is also where your text messages come in. However, you can set your email address as the default. This will guarantee that all new messages sent from you will show your email, and all responses will come back that way. Go to Settings > Messages. Select to "Start new conversations from" your email. I hope this helps.


VM software that can boot to Windows partition created by Boot Camp

Both VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop support running VMs directly from Bootcamp partitions. They also offer migration from a partition to a VM image if you ever want to go that route.

It appears that it's also possible with Virtualbox, but not a supported feature. I found this blog post detailing how to configure it (the post also lists several other sources that may be helpful).

Relevant support articles:

Launching your Boot Camp partition in VMware Fusion
Parallels: Using Boot Camp Partition in Virtual Machine


Using video recorded by iPad how can I calculate the exact time duration between 2 frames?

iOS' native camera app (iPhone/iPad) does not have a fixed frame rate.

I attached the details for a short clip I recorded. It varies between 28.571 fps and 30.000 fps

VLC displays a frame rate of 29.973708 fps for the same clip.


The problem is caused by Apple's home-made implementation of the smb protocol.  Using smb3 won't make a difference.

Server-Side Fix

If you have control of the smb server (Samba?) then you can fix this issue by enabling the vfs_fruit module.  If you are not using Samba then you'll need to find another way to enable "Alternate Data Streams" (ADS) and intercept OSX's "special" streams: AFP_AfpInfo and AFP_Resource.  I made notes of all the details at the plazko.io blog.
On Samba server you can fix the issue by enabling vfs_fruit in smb.conf like this:

vfs objects = fruit streams_xattr

From the vfs_fruit manpage:

  The module enables alternate data streams (ADS) support for a share,
   intercepts the OS X special streams "AFP_AfpInfo" and "AFP_Resource"
   and handles them in a special way. All other named streams are deferred
   to vfs_streams_xattr which must be loaded together with vfs_fruit.

  Having shares with ADS support enabled for OS X client is worthwhile
   because it resembles the behaviour of Apple's own SMB server
   implementation and it avoids certain severe performance degradations
   caused by Samba's case sensitivity semantics.

Important note for novices: This fix needs to be done on the server side.  If you do not have control of the smb server (presumably Samba) then you will not be able to use this fix.

Client-Side Fix

If you do not have control of the smb server, then your only option is to change the way the OSX client is handling smb.  The only way to do that is to replace Apple's implementation of the smb stack with Samba.  I have never done this, but there is a tutorial here.


Fixing Netbeans 7.3 freezes (on startup) on OSX Mountain Lion Macbook Air

Here was the problem:

Netbeans is slow because the antivirus program I have installed was scanning the application as it tried to open. If you turn off your Antivirus software, it will boot at a "normal" speed.


MacBook Air attempting to shutdown after a couple of seconds of inactivity

I have the same issue with my Macbook Air after a very small amount of coffee hit the keyboard. Apple store wanted to gut for $800+. It was less then a year old and I was dropping another $800 into it. What has worked for me for the last 6 months, I pressed the eject button down and wedged a toothpick to hold it down, than cut off the excess. Everything works perfectly and since I don't use a external drive that key was unused. I also found it was the only key that didn't interfere with other functions. I would love to find a programmer who could write a script that when the key is pressed once it's on and pressed again it's off. That would be the perfect fix without spending hundreds of dollars. Any script writers??? :)


What are the implications of "Select Your Country or Region"?

You can change this setting later at any time.

It doesn't affect the AppStore. The region setting will affect the availability of certain features which aren't available in all regions yet such as Apple Pay and Apple News.

Apple News is only available if you set your region to Australia, UK or US.
Apple Pay is additionally available in Canada.


Is there a way to close all ports using iOS

There should be a "Parental control" option in your router, from where you can set up rules for access.

You don't mention any specific router brand, so I can't give you a specific how-to.


Software recommendation for FAST entry of equations

On Windows, there is the Math-o-mir software. It should be able to provide all you asked for (rapid math typing, keyboard and mouse entry, basic CAS), but it requires some learning time to achieve speeds comparable to pencil-and-paper.


How to enable iCloud music or link Apple music to my account on macOS Catalina?

It is a feature of Apple Music and you need a subscription to it to use it.


Restore main APFS container to full disk

You need to first remove the 196.7 GB partition. Try the commands given below.

diskutil eraseVolume free none disk0s3
diskutil apfs resizeContainer disk0s2 0


iOS - how to get mail app to recognize and trust custom or self-signed SSL certificates from a profile?

In addition to the root certificate you will in some instances also need to add the intermediate certificate in case the mail server you're connecting to does not present the full certificate chain.

You can download the intermediate certificate here:

http://www.cacert.org/?id=3


Play count and ratings in iTunes transferred to Music in 10.15?

I have gotten confirmation that yes ratings and play counts both transfer to OS 10.15. I was asked for the source of my information: I checked with Joe Kissell the publisher of the Mac Take Control books and he check and confirmed with Kirk McElhearn the author of Take Control of Mac OS Media Apps. Both said in emails that both the play count and rating stars were preserved when up grading to OS 10.15


Finder copies files in two steps and does it as a transaction

From many years of experience* with transferring sets of many hundreds of thousands of files (with tens of thousands of nested folders,) the safest and quickest methods avoid the Finder completely and uses the console commands.

Don't beat your head against the wall - Finder just won't do it satisfactorily. Investigate rsync as a possible method for transfer.

*manual backups of FirstClass PostOffice directories.


Recommended settings for IMAP with mail.app

In

  Mail.app

  Preferences

  Accounts

  Select the account in question

  set Mailbox Behavior

see sample


iPod Nano 2G audio started skipping during music playback - what causes this?

I have encountered an issue similar to this on my iPhone, both on the 4S and 3GS. It took an embarrassingly long time to diagnose my headphones as the issue. I have a set of Sennheiser earphones with an inline remote, and if the jack becomes damaged, internal wires can get crossed and can start sending commands to the iPod application. I found that the play button would get hammered repeatedly as a result, and caused playback to stutter.

So, if your earphones have an inline remote and a damaged jack, try changing them. You might find a fix is cheaper than expected.


Are there any limits of re-downloading applications from appstore?

As long as its the same app, then you should be able to do this as many times as needed. Also, once you have that app, you have it even if the price changes, goes from free to paid or vice versa.

One thing that I have seen happen in the app store, is developers releasing a whole new version of their app, and naming it differently,  launching it differently. A perfect example of it is Tweetie. When they went to version 2, he re-released it as a new app (Tweetie 2), therefore making anyone who wanted to get the new one to have to pay (even if they paid for the first). Then, that app was converted to free and changed to Twitter for iPhone, but if you bought Tweetie 2, you just got an update that changed it.


Does a factory reset also format device, or just delete and remove indexes?

Actually it is both more complicated as well as simpler!
When you choose to erase all contents from the device, the only thing overwritten and deleted is the encryption key for the device. Without the key, the contents of the disk drive is no longer accessible to anyone, and is thus treated as being equivalent with it being deleted.
In your example, neither 120 GB nor 20 GB of data is written to the disk. It is only a very small amount (less than 1 MB) that is written. Namely the encryption key(s) are overwritten, and the drive is formatted a new (which only writes certain data structures to the drive - it does not as such overwrite the old data contents of the drive, neither used or non-used).


Web Sharing Apache Localhost - Access permissions

As has been pointed out already, unless you are specifically forwarding http traffic from your router to your machine, your locally hosted stuff will only be available to you and the other computers on your local network.

To answer your question on restricting access to your webserver to just your machine. You can do this a couple of ways.

Remember, anytime you change apache configurations, you need to restart apache for those changes to take effect.

Method 1

If you want to limit everything on your local webserver to just your local machine, edit the file "/etc/apache2/httpd.conf". At approx line 195 you'll find a configuration block that looks similar to:

<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride None

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

</Directory>

You are going to want to comment out the bottom two lines of that block and add in new rules

Deny from all

and

Allow from 127.0.0.1

that block should now look like:

<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">
    #
    # Possible values for the Options directive are "None", "All",
    # or any combination of:
    #   Indexes Includes FollowSymLinks SymLinksifOwnerMatch ExecCGI MultiViews
    #
    # Note that "MultiViews" must be named *explicitly* --- "Options All"
    # doesn't give it to you.
    #
    # The Options directive is both complicated and important.  Please see
    # http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#options
    # for more information.
    #
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

    #
    # AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
    # It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
    #   Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
    #
    AllowOverride None

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
    #Order allow,deny
    #Allow from all
    Deny from all
    Allow from 127.0.0.1

</Directory>

Method 2

You can also use .htaccess files to limit who has access to a directory. In order for .htaccess files to work you first need to enable them. Open the same file I referenced in method 1 (/etc/apache2/httpd.conf) and go to the same configuration block I mentioned before (at approx line 195). You'll need to change (at approx line 215):

AllowOverride None

to

AllowOverride All

Once you have done that you can create a file called .htaccess in any folder on your web server with the following information:

Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1

That will prevent anyone besides your local machine from accessing the contents of that folder or any of it's subfolders.

Conclusion

Method 1 has the benefit of not having to worry about accidentally deleting .htaccess files or worrying about multiple configurations. Method 2 makes it very simple to only restrict access to certain directories of your webserver.

Also note that the .htaccess file must include that period at the beginning of the file name (it's .htaccess not htaccess) and that when you want to view your local webserver you have to do so by going to http://localhost (you can't use [your computer name].local).


Download a free 30-day trial and find out.  The site goes into detail on all of the features listed below but these are the main features.

Ability to Search and Replace in a Project
Auto-Indent for Common Actions Like Pasting Text
Auto-Pairing of Brackets and Other Characters
Clipboard History
Column Selections and Column Typing
Completion of Words from Current Document
CSS-like Selectors to Pinpoint the Scope of Actions and Settings
Declarative Language Grammars for Graceful Mixing and Hacking
Dynamic Outline for Working With Multiple Files
Expand Trigger Words to Code Blocks With Tab-able Placeholders
File Tabs when Working With Projects
Foldable Code Blocks
Function Pop-up for Quick Overview and Navigation
Plug-able Through Your Favorite Scripting Language
Recordable Macros With No Programming Required
Regular Expression Search and Replace (grep)
Run Shell Commands from Within a Document
Support for Darcs, Perforce, SVK, and Subversion
Support for More Than 50 Languages
Switch Between Files in Projects With a Minimum of Key Strokes
Themable Syntax Highlight Colors
Visual Bookmarks to Jump Between Places in a File
Works As External Editor for (s)ftp Programs
Works Together With Xcode and Can Build Xcode Projects


Are there ways to have Mac OS recognize my password "better"?

If you press the modifier keys (Command, Option, Control, Shift), it will wake the computer but not type anything, so you can press them as many times as you like without messing up your password.

I usually just drum on the modifier keys until I see the password cursor, after having exactly the problem you describe.


Do you run firewall software?  If you do, check if you're blocking calls from
the nsurlsessiond to the amazonaws.com domain.


How to permanently delete text substitutions?

I have experienced this myself since OS X 10.10.1 and since iOS 8.1.x. I think it is an iCloud syncing bug. Old deleted entries return. Duplicates get created. I haven't attempted to, but I believe the only solution is to contact Apple support. Or wait for it to hopefully resolve itself.


how to turn off my keyboard on my macbook?

I would recommend Karabiner Elements. It's the successor to Karabiner, and works on macOS Sierra. There's an option under the devices menu to disable the build-in keyboard while another keyboard is selected, which should do exactly what you want.


OS X tool to convert MPEG-TS into MPEG-PS

You can probably compile your own ffmpeg then use:

ffmpeg -i input.ts -vcodec copy -acodec copy output.mpg

http://jungels.net/articles/ffmpeg-howto.html


How do I boot from DVD to do clean install of Snow Leopard on iMac4,1?

You need to press and hold the key(s) immediately after you turn on your Mac and hear the startup sound. Keep holding until the described behavior occurs. To Start up from a bootable CD, DVD, or USB thumb drive (such as OS X install media), press and hold the C key.  Or try using the Startup Manager to see if the DVD is available as a boot device, press and hold the Option key.  See: Startup key combinations for Mac

Also have a look at: How to choose a startup disk on your Mac


Can I use Shift, Alt and Control Modifier Keys Together With the Function Keys on the Touch Bar?

As @Patrick mentions in his answer, one cause of this problem is Karabiner-Elements not enabling the Touch Bar "keyboard" by default. The solution is to enable that keyboard in Karabiner-Elements Preferences (Vendor ID 1452, Product ID 34304) as shown in following screenshot:

I filed Touch Bar keyboard should be enabled by default · Issue #1700 · tekezo/Karabiner-Elements to request it be enabled by default in Karabiner-Elements.

More information in the following comments:

https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements/issues/535#issuecomment-350522019
https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements/issues/535#issuecomment-350597725


"opensnoop" utility doesn't work with spaces between filenames, how to fix?

-n is only meant to be used with process names like sudo opensnoop -n System\ Preferences. To see what processes access a file, use sudo opensnoop -f /tmp/a\ b.txt.

The change mentioned in the blog post fixes -n but not -f. To fix both of them, edit /usr/bin/opensnoop and replace these lines:

inline string PATHNAME = "'$pathname'";
inline string NAME = "'$pname'";

With this:

inline string PATHNAME = "'"$pathname"'";
inline string NAME = "'"$pname"'";


No.  You can’t do this.

In fact the Mac, if needed, runs off both battery and AC (mains) to extract the most amount of performance from the machine.

This is all handled by the SMC and there’s nothing in the OS that gives you access to any of it.  In fact, not only is there no software access, you can’t even get the technical specifications of the chip itself from Texas Instruments (TI) nor can you purchase it from electronic suppliers - it’s “locked down” by Apple.

As for the battery issue, it’s been asked/answered several times already:

Battery Full Alert
Should I disconnect my MacBook Pro's power cord when the battery is fully charged?
Battery - Shut down or sleep an MBP
How to preserve MacbookPro battery from degradation?

The link you supplied from Battery University is about storing batteries not using them.  It’s not realistic or practical to keep batteries charged at that 40% level because you’d be tethered to a power outlet all the time.

So, as I’ve said many times before, since the main factors that govern the lifespan of your battery are cycles and age, use your MacBook for what you bought it for and stop worrying about micromanaging the charging process.


How to know where file is going to be saved?

Click on position indicated by the red arrow in the figure below:

This will allow you to choose which folder/path you need. You can also use the Command - Shift - G to open the dialog to explicitly paste / type in a path.

Enter a filename in the File Open dialog
Save file to hidden directory with standard OS X save dialog


Open Settings and go to Notifications > FaceTime. Change the alert style from "Alerts" to "Banners".


Accidentally deleted private/var/folders on macOS Big Sur

You can reinstall “macOS” in the recovery partition, which will install all system-relevant files that are important for the system.  This should solve your problem.


Dock is stopping me from unmounting a hard drive

[This answer cropped up earlier in the week for a totally different question, but it seems appropriate again here…]
I would be more inclined to prevent the volume from mounting in the first place, then it won't need to be ejected.
You can prevent it from mounting using fstab.
I wrote an earlier answer on using this, so I'll link to that rather than covering the same ground again. The question itself is entirely unrelated, but the answer contains step by step for fstab
Time Machine restore to new partition, different computer


How to disable Skype click to call in Safari?

Go to FaceTime -> preferences. There, change "default calling method" to FaceTime. (it might be called a little different, I use a different language)


Will iTunes Match let me "upgrade" existing tracks to higher quality or bitrate?

Yes, this is possible. Once the cloud has matched your lower bitrate song, make a final backup and delete that song from your iTunes library. You can then re-download the "standard" version from Apple's servers.

Jason Snell has a great writeup on an easy way to keep track of the songs by using the power of smart playlists:

Make a Smart Playlist Create a Smart Playlist with the following attributes:

Bit Rate is less than 256kbps
Media Kind is Music
Any of the following are true: (to create this conditional, option-click on the plus button in the Smart Playlist window) iCloud status is Matched, iCloud status is Purchased

Delete all those files Select all the tracks in your playlist, and then hold down the option key while pressing Delete. Be sure to not select the box that would delete them from iCloud!
Bring ’em back All those tracks should still be [in the playlist]—but now they’re marked as being available only in iTunes Match. Select all of them again, then control-click on the selection and choose Download.


iCloud: How can I create a calendar event for next 3 days for a specific time?

Create an Event, and then select "Repeat => Every Day" and click "Done" - you'll now see a new option below "Repeat" called "End Repeat" where you then choose e.g. a date 3 days from today.


Why does shared WiFi connection from iPhone to laptop (personal hotspot) not go through phone VPN?

This is not possible on iOS as it ships from the factory.
When you create the hotspot, you turn your iPhone into a router with NAT clients on one side (usually WiFi) and your public IP on the other (Cellular).  As such, whatever config you had before (WiFi Internet with VPN) gets disabled.
If you want to use VPN while on your hotspot, the best approach is to use the VPN client on the end devices themselves (i.e. the Windows or macOS laptops connecting to your phone).
However, if you're willing to Jailbreak, an app called TetherMe that supposedly allows it.  I haven't tested so YMMV.  Personally, I would go with a VPN on the end devices instead.


Is it normal for a 2011 MBP to display "Not Charging" while using Skype?

When you have Skype running, and you see either slow charging or fast battery draining (depending on whether or not it's plugged in), launch an application called Activity Monitor. You can launch it from Spotlight, or from the Finder when you go to the /Applications/Utilities folder, or from Launchpad if you go into the Utilities folder.

With Activity Monitor open, click on the column header that says "% CPU", and click it again if needed to make the little triangle point down. This will show your running applications, with the ones using the most CPU at the top. Also, you can select "CPU" from the tab bar near the bottom of the window. There you'll see a graph of the load (or demand) on the CPU.

This will give you indications of whether the CPU is working excessively, and which applications are causing the issue. It's a fair assumption that Skype is using a lot of CPU for some reason. Do some observations, then go to the Skype support webpage (for US English, go here: https://support.skype.com/en-us/).

If you find that some other process or application is causing the high CPU usage, leave a comment here or update your original question with your findings.


How to connect to a NAS share using a different user name?

The answer was to remove the stored value in KeyChain (there were multiple for the user; had to find the one specific to the IP of my NAS).


EU volume limit on Apple Watch / AirPods combo

No, you're not missing something obvious. At present there is no way to do this within watchOS (as of v4.3).

While Apple hasn't officially commented on whether it's a feature that may be added, it's probably something that will eventually come since the Apple Watch will continue to develop as a standalone device.

In the meantime, Apple states:

  Hearing loss  Listening to sound at high volumes may damage your hearing. Background noise, as well as continued exposure to high volume levels, can make sounds seem quieter than they actually are. Turn on audio playback and check the volume before inserting a Bluetooth connected headset in your ear. For more information about hearing loss, see www.apple.com/sound.

  WARNING: To prevent possible hearing damage, do not listen at high volume levels for long periods.”

Source: Apple Watch User Guide


Time machine backed up size keeps increasing

There are some details missing from your question, but here's my guess based on what you've said:
The "factory reset" probably looks like a first-time backup to Time Machine, and so it is backing up your entire HD/SSD. If you back up tomorrow, the amount of data will probably be much less.
In other words - this may not be an issue at all - simply Time Machine doing what it was programmed to do.


If iPhones/iPads don't support Flash, how do they play YouTube?

They use a format called H.264. YouTube and other video sites deliver content in this format also (so that their videos are viewable on iPad/iPod touch).

One advantage of H.264 is that hardware based encoding/decoding can be used.

See also Steve Jobs's Thoughts on Flash

H.264 is one of the formats for video support in the latest version of HTML, HTML 5. Apple supports this in Safari and Google in Chrome*.

*Google recently announced that it will no longer support H.264 in the future versions of Chrome.

Because of this H.264 is kind of hot of late. See these articles.


No music formatted CD can hold 1.5 GB. I suspect most virtual CD software will deliberately limit the maximum contents size to 800 MB to mimic real CD limits.

Have you considered using a script to extract the information from the filename and set the results as metadata?

Manage MP3 ID3 tag information from the command line discusses a suitable command line tool available.

iTunes supports AppleScript and the Doug Scripts web site appears to have a good selection of example scripts.


How do I update my MacBook Pro to the latest version of BootCamp?

Open BootCamp Assistant and open the about window. You should be similar to Version 5.1.4 (500) if you are on 10.10.5

BootCamp gets updated when you update OS X so it's really not dependent upon any version of Windows whatsoever so you would be up date on BootCamp even if you deleted your windows partition and started over.


Can I direct audio from a single app to a particular output?

If the software you're using doesn't support specifying an an audio output, you'll have to rely on a third-party utility. Someone else already mentioned Ambrosia's WireTap products, but there is one other I'm aware of: Audio Hijack by Rogue Amoeba. At $32, it beats the pants off WireTap for price.
Update for 2020  …
Audio Hijack is current, but now $70.
A simpler yet still effective solution targeted towards this very use-case by the same company is now SoundSource & is about half the price.
[Prices [& tax] vary by territory]
There's also a piece of software called SoundSiphon by Static Z Software that provides the same functionality as Soundflower, plus single-application audio capture. Priced at $29.
*Update for 2020 …
Soundflower no longer includes Soundflowerbed, which was the component allowing this type of routing.
Unfortunately, there are no free utilities for this. Not even Soundflower can capture audio from individual pieces of software. I think Rogue Amoeba's relies on the same underlying magic that allows them to hijack audio from individual pieces of software for their AirPlay utility AirFoil (which allows you to route any application's audio to any AirPlay device, as well as any device running their AirFoil Speakers app).


How to select keyboard input file for Add Input Source

The underlying confusion here is that an existing keyboard layout file may not be modified in place.  You need to delete it or rename it then add it back.

The Input Sources program actually reads the xml's of the files uner

~/Library/Keyboard\ Layouts/

It will not allow you to re-select a layout with the same name of one it already knows about.  Unfortunately that prevents updating an existing one using the existing name.

You have to update the layout name in the xml:

<keyboard group="0" id="5000" name="Dollar Layout" maxout="1">
    <layouts>


Here's the content of DefaultStyle.css file which I put in Contents subdirectory for each dictionary I have at ~/Library/Dictionaries and at /System/Library/Assets/com_apple_MobileAsset_DictionaryServices_dictionaryOSX/:

@charset "UTF-8";
@namespace d url(http://www.apple.com/DTDs/DictionaryService-1.0.rng);

@media (prefers-dark-interface)
{

    html {
        -apple-color-filter: apple-invert-lightness();
    }
    a {
        -apple-color-filter: none;
        color: -webkit-link;
    }
    img {
        filter: invert(100%);
    }
}

It fixed the problem of background color for me, which appeared in Apple Dictionary somewhat after I migrated to Mojave.

I think you can edit background-color in this CSS as you want to achieve the result.


Interstitial screen/marketing layer on Airport guest wifi

What you're looking for is a Captive Portal.

You can't create captive portals solely with an AirPort Extreme—you need at least a computer behind the network set up as DCHP/DNS/etc. You're going to need to configure a Mac to provide DNS to redirect the first visit from a device to a hosted site.

For more information about creating a captive portal yourself, see:

http://brewstersoft.com/blog/setting-up-a-captive-portal.html

Commercial software is available which can set this up for you:

http://patronsoft.com/firstspot/


13" Macbook Pro running Lion loses battery fast?

Battery life depends greatly on use. 238 charge cycles in 5 months by most standards is pretty high. More importantly if your following the guidelines Apple has published for their battery use are you getting usage times that are in line with their estimates? Coconut battery isn't always accurate, its best to trust the built-in tools for diagnostic information.

You can also check System Information (Lion) or System Profiler (10.6) under power to get an idea of the stats on the battery. Double check to see what your Full Charge Capacity and the Charge Cycles are.

Any Apple Store or Authorized Service Provider can run diagnostics on the battery as stated by Wheat Williams. If it is faulty it's covered by your one year limited warranty.

Also check for run away processes you can check Activity Monitor, these could be draining the battery faster and driving up charge cycles.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1473


I type Dvorak myself.

While I am interested in your idea, I do not believe that it is possible.

Matias makes a keyboard that is dedicated to Dvorak in hardware, for US $100. In other words it types in Dvorak when the Mac's software keyboard layout is set to U. S. You could purchase one of those.

From the company's description:

  Hardwired Dvorak layout. The Matias Dvorak Keyboard gives you the
  Dvorak layout, hardwired right into the keyboard. This approach has
  advantages that software-based solutions can’t offer.

  Software Dvorak layouts may not take effect until after you log in, so
  if you need to type a password, you’re stuck typing it in QWERTY. With
  the Matias Dvorak Keyboard, you’ll never have this problem.

  Switchable to QWERTY on the fly. A layout selection key lets you
  instantly & easily switch the layout to standard QWERTY and back, for
  those times when non-Dvorak typists want to use the computer.

  The keyboard is labelled with both Dvorak and QWERTY key legends, so
  you can easily see which key is which.

I have not tried this model of keyboard, but I have used other Matias products.

I type in Dvorak using a standard QWERTY keyboard, setting the Mac OS and Windows to use a software Dvorak keyboard layout. The whole point of using Dvorak is to learn to type faster, and that should also include training yourself to type without looking at the keys on the keyboard. Therefore it makes no difference to me what is printed on the keycaps, as I never look at them. So any standard keyboard will work fine for me and I can do Dvorak mapping in software on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux for that matter.

Should it be necessary to toggle between Dvorak and the standard US QWERTY layout, that can easily be done in Mac OS X by assigning a keyboard shortcut in the Language & Text pane in System Preferences.


Will Keynote Remote work with a MacBook in closed clamshell mode?

Yes it will. Since the MacBook is essentially still on with just the display deactivated, Keynote Remote will be fully-functional.


How can I control where photos end up when I sync them to my iPhone?

To add pictures to the Camera Roll, you have to snap them with the built-in camera (or with a screenshot) on the iPhone.

The Photo Library contains all the pictures, they may be additionally organised in user-specific folders (like your iPhone Photos folder for instance).


Yep, it’s Location Services. The location is updated on a regular interval, or when an app requests it.

I worked it out while using Little Snitch, just like you. As there was a loc in the domain name, I figured it would be Location Services.

To confirm, I turned off Location Services, and sure enough, locationd shut down and no connections to gs-loc were made. To confirm again, I blocked gs-loc, and Location Services stopped working.

From: discussions.apple.com

  Locationd is a daemon that provides location services for OS X's "Core Location". This uses skyhook technology to figure out your mac's location (using WiFi). It's the same system used by the iPod Touch, and is also used by the iPhone (The iPhone also uses cell tower triangulation and GPS)


Trademark and other characters not working since Mojave update

Go to system prefs/keyboard/input sources and make sure that ONLY US or ABC or British is on the list.  Remove any others, especially Unicode Hex if present.


How can I fix my iPad Magic Keyboard when everything works except the trackpad?

Apparently you are not alone. It appears to be a widely experienced issue. Here's an extended discussion on the MacRumors forums:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/magic-keyboard-trackpad-stopped-working.2233242/

Going through the discussion you'd see that there's no uniform approach that has resolved the issue. A variety of things have worked from cleaning the connectors, hard and soft restarting the iPad, reinstalling the iPadOS etc. People appear to have experienced the issue with iPadOS 13.4.1 as well, so it could very well not just be a software issue.
It's not clear from the discussions if it's a hardware bug or a software bug. Also, the folks at Apple Support are apparently unprepared too with responses like "never heard before".
I guess contacting Apple support may still be a good idea, hoping they have heard enough to call for an investigation and come up with an appropriate.


It seems there was an inconsistent database attached to the account.

Removing the entire account from “Password & Accounts” removed the ghost emails.


You can't. Just use Adobe Reader if you have to view it.

You might be able to view it in Safari if you don't want to have to use Adobe Reader. Just right click on the .pdf file and select "Open With"


Setting Default Send-From Address on iPhone

For setting your default email account on an iOS device do the following:

Go to:

Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendar -> and scroll down to Default account.
(Hope I translated it correctly, but I guess it is clear what I mean)

Set the default account to your likings.


Sorry I can't post comment but this post is for the previous answer!

Cloning Stisti's fork does work with no error as mentioned in the question but Termkit doesn's seem to work.

Termkit.app just opens up with a blank dark window

And node.js reports something like this:

info  - socket.io started
debug - client authorized
info  - handshake authorized
info  - handshaken 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087
debug - setting request GET /socket.io/1/websocket/77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087
debug - publishing that 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087 connected
debug - initializing client store for 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087
debug - set heartbeat interval for client 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087
debug - subscribing 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087
debug - websocket writing 1::
debug - websocket writing 4:::{"termkit":"1","timestamp":1310821016919}
debug - websocket received data packet 3:::[object Object]
debug - got packet
debug - websocket received data packet 3:::[object Object]
debug - got packet
debug - emitting heartbeat for client 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087
debug - websocket writing 2::
debug - set heartbeat timeout for client 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087
debug - websocket received data packet 2::
debug - got heartbeat packet
debug - cleared heartbeat timeout for client 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087
debug - set heartbeat interval for client 77af5778e12f2ea2aff9e2b10a26f087


Outlook--Preferences--Reading

You can change the time to 0 seconds


USB not recognized after installing OS X Snow Leopard on it

"Cannot write to last block of device" is usually a connectivity error - it often crops up on HDs & SSDs with a bad cable.

For it to happen on a USB stick, then I'd say either the contacts are dirty or the device is dead [or dying].

You could try cleaning up the contacts with a bit of contact cleaner, then push/pulling the stick a dozen times in & out of a [non-powered] USB socket.

If that gains nothing, then I'm reasonably certain that if it's failing on three different machines, then it's had it.


Dual Monitor support without external video card

I believe so.

See this MacRumors forum post for a user with a similar need.

Sadly, I don't have a 13" Retina MacBook to test with.


command line: unmount a smb network drive

umount is the opposite of mount. You'll need to know the name of the mount point - that is, the name in /Volumes that corresponds to that network drive.

umount /Volumes/VolumeName

Per man umount, umount may fail for any number of reasons, and the recommend command is instead diskutil:

diskutil unmount /Volumes/VolumeName


Is it possible to assign a ringtone to a group of contacts?

This is a feature that I want Apple to support, but hasn't yet. The "Group" mechanism in Contacts is a distribution list and only allows you to group contacts but has no editable meta information for you to change (for example, to change the default ringtone).

On an un-hacked iPhone, your only option is to edit individual contacts, and assign the new ringtone for each of them.

I have never hacked my iPhone, so there might be alternative methods available that I am not aware of. I will let someone else with a hacked iPhone answer that part.


Saving screenshots with name of title bar

Here is the appleScript that would achieve what you are looking for:

do shell script "screencapture -W ~/tmp"
delay 3
tell application "System Events"
    set frontApp to name of first application process whose frontmost is true
end tell
tell application frontApp
    if the (count of windows) is not 0 then
        set window_name to name of front window
    end if
end tell
set screenShotName to do shell script "date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S_"
set screenShotName to screenShotName & window_name
do shell script "mv ~/tmp ~/\"" & screenShotName & "\".png"

Copy and paste the above into appleScript editor then save it as an app, you can name it whatever you want.

Double click the app icon select the window you want screenshoted and then make sure that you click that window to ensure it is the front one.


iPhone XS Max stuck in bootloop, cannot get into recovery

this honestly sounds like your device's drive got corrupted entirely. you'd be better to send it to Apple for repair, i don't think there's anything an end-user can do without voiding any warranties or whatnot at best, destroying the device accidentally at worst.


Are there any disadvantages to using the brew version of bash for /bin/sh?

I would advise against making the Homebrew installation of bash your system-wide bash or sh command. However it should be fine to use as your personal shell.

Homebrew provides a vanilla installation of Gnu Bash. You will be missing any Apple additions to the shell that are provided if you use the Apple-supplied bash or sh binaries or source code from Apple's opensource.apple.com site. Any OS-level shell script provided by Apple may be relying on those Apple extension and changes to function.

Homebrew also installs, by default, a 4.3.x version of bash:

> brew info bash
bash: stable 4.3.24 (bottled), HEAD
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/
Not installed
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/bash.rb
==> Dependencies
Required: readline ✘
==> Caveats
In order to use this build of bash as your login shell,
it must be added to /etc/shells.

This is a significantly different version than the 3.2.x version that ships with OS X 10.9.x. It is not 100% backwards compatible with pre 4 versions. For example substring extraction on positional parameters indexing changed from 3 to 4. It could break system-level scripts.

Both of those reasons can lead to inoperable system scripts on your Mac if you switch to Homebrew's versions of bash and sh for anything other than your personal shell. You can make your personal shell the Homebrew bash shell by running:

chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash

and then logging out and logging back in. This should be relatively safe for the stable operation of your machine.

If the above chsh command fails saying /usr/local/bin/bash is not an acceptable shell you'll need to add it to the list in /etc/shells by running:

sudo vim /etc/shells

It should be added on a new line in the file like so:

> cat /etc/shells
# List of acceptable shells for chpass(1).
# Ftpd will not allow users to connect who are not using
# one of these shells.

/bin/bash
/bin/csh
/bin/ksh
/bin/sh
/bin/tcsh
/bin/zsh
/usr/local/bin/zsh
/usr/local/bin/bash


Is it legal and "workable" to use a Mac Pro as a thin server for Mac OS?

Can you use VNC (or ARD or some other remote desktop software) to remote into a server to do development work?

Short answer is "yes."

However, it is a royal PITA. I use VNC to administer my OS X machines on my gigabit LAN and I can tell you that the lag is infuriating.  Trying to do development work, I can only imagine it being a nightmare.

What worked for my developers was that we had several MBPs that would float around the department depending on the project.  For "quick" tasks VNC worked, but when they needed to be heads down on a project, they would check out a MBP and use it for the duration of their task.

The main thing to keep in mind is that people like what they like - Mac/Linux/Win.  The "hotelling" concept is a nice goal, but not feasible for devs who spend their lives in front of a monitor.  Ensuring work is accessible anywhere is the reason we have a cloud and GitHub.  These are areas you should investigate thoroughly before you spend time trying to re-architect your infrastructure.


If you are using the X11 environment, you may achieve what you want
with the following commands:

xmodmap -e 'clear lock'

which means: from now on, Caps_Lock key isn't anymore a keyboard modifier
and fall back to a normal key

xmodmap -e 'keysym Caps_Lock = Escape'

which means: get the keycode of Caps_Lock and from now on assign it the
keysym of Escape.

Note: this receipe works on any Unix.


How do I fix iTunes' error 3194 when upgrading iOS?

That specific error is clearly spelled out on the general iOS error charts - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3694
Saying that it didn't get a useful response is a bit vague.
iTunes requires a specific, signed, affirmative response from the apple servers before it will proceed. This is clearly by design. Additionally it checks the version of your iTunes and is asking you to get a newer version.
You may not want to upgrade iTunes as some people dislike some of the changes, but it looks like that's the cause here assuming you really removed all the umbrella changes properly. It also might ask for a newer iTunes but the problem isn't actually that.
There is a whole set of things to check at the top of the main article: security software, iTunes store tests, using old or modified .ipsw files.
It might be good to set up a new user on the windows os and see if you can download 4.3.3 cleanly (or find a pristine copy on the intertubes) and try the restore and debugging of the hosts file from a cleaner start.


"Segmentation fault: 11" when trying to vacuum Apple Mail index

‘Segmentation fault: 11’ almost always means the process ran out of RAM whilst trying to perform some operation/calculation. This would corroborate with your slow Mail due to the size of the database you're trying to process (or it's just corrupted in such a way).

It may also be worth checking your free disk space, since the VACUUM command specifically requires plenty of space:

  The VACUUM command works by copying the contents of the database into a temporary database file and then overwriting the original with the contents of the temporary file. […] as much as twice the size of the original database file is required in free disk space.

https://sqlite.org/lang_vacuum.html


Sharing only one window or part of a screen in Zoom

Don’t click the arrow next to the share button — just click the green Share button itself.
‘Advanced’ doesn’t refer to the advanced options dialog, just the tab at the top of the normal window accessed by clicking Share.


Copy Crucial SSD Firmware Update ISO to Bootable USB

I downloaded the Crucial_m4_040H-04-00.zip and followed this tutorial and everything seemed to work for me. I hope this helps.


Trying to remove Chess.app using terminal

There seem to be several questions hidden in your post:

You can‘t remove Chess.app (or any other of the applications installed as part of macOS) without disabling SIP.
if you are short on disk space look for things which use a lot of space, not for small applications
rm -f is used to remove several files and ignore any errors which might occur
rm -r is used to remove folders and their content (recursively)


Transfer media files from an Android device to an iOS device

While there's no native way to transfer media files from Android device to iOS, you can install and use a 3rd party app called Xender to do so.

Since iOS doesn't provide direct access to file(s) and filesystem (unlike Android), the media will be transferred via the app and the same needs to be installed on both the devices.


Apple Mail keeps crashing after Sierra update

Have you guys tried Rebuilding the Mailbox?

Mail App -> Mailbox -> Rebuild


Can I use my Mac keyboard as input to another Apple device?

1Keyboard is an OS X app that allows a Macintosh keyboard to type on another Mac, iOS devices like iPhone and iPad, Apple TV, PS3 and Android.
I followed the pairing instructions, and while it didn't work the first few tries, it does now. Once I got it up and running, it has worked just fine. Copying, Pasting, keyboard shortcuts and Media keys (Volume, Playback) are supported.
You can set keyboard commands to connect to different devices. I use Shift + ⌘ + > to connect to my iMac, Shift + Ctrl + > to connect to my iPhone, Shift + Alt + > to connect to my iPad.


How to remove an iPhone from the device list in Console.app

You have to "untrust" the Mac from the iPhone.

On the iPhone go to Settings > General > Reset > Reset Location & Privacy
On the Mac, restart the Console


Other IOS devices ring when my iPhone is called and I cannot turn that off

On the iPhone - go to Settings and turn off each device you wish to opt out of cals on other devices.

Settings.app
Phone
Calls on Other Devices
Turn it all off or just toggle the devices you want and don't want individually.

Messages and FaceTime work the same, and are located in settings under Phone.


How to restore my keyboard to default settings?

The default behaviour in macOS since 2011 is to display a menu of accent characters when holding down keys on the keyboard.

If you don't like this behaviour, you can go into the Terminal and disable it:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

  Once you’ve executed the command, log out and log back in to your user account. When you log back in, the accented characters will be disabled. Pressing and holding down a key on your keyboard will only repeat it.

This tip originated from https://www.addictivetips.com/mac-os/disable-accented-characters-on-macos/


How old are Macs that cannot run 64-bit applications?

EDIT: Based on the comments on the question and this answer, I think the link Mac OS X v10.6: Macs that use the 64-bit kernel is much more relevant.

Basically, only the mid 2010 Mac Pro, the early 2011 MacBook Pro and the mid 2011 iMac were booting by default on 64-bit mode with Snow Leopard. Since Lion (mid 2011) every new Mac is 64-bit only.

So to answer your question:

  In what year were the last Macs that were not capable (without user tweaking) of running 64-bit software sold?

==> 2011

EDIT 2: As Vebjorn Ljosa mentioned in the comments, having the kernel run in 32-bit or 64-bit mode makes little difference for your binary, so you can probably assume that Macs sold after mid 2007 will run a 64-bit app (based on the data just below).

Mac mini:

last 32-bit only processors: late 2006
oldest 64-bit capable processors: mid 2007

iMac:

last 32-bit only processors: early 2006
oldest 64-bit capable processors: late 2006

Mac Pro:

always been 64-bit capable

MacBook:

last 32-bit only processors: early 2006
oldest 64-bit capable processors: late 2006

MacBook Pro:

last 32-bit only processors: early 2006
oldest 64-bit capable processors: late 2006

MacBook Air:

always been 64-bit capable

So it seems the last Mac to sell with a 32 bits only processor was the late 2006 Mac mini.


iOS 7

Hold down the home button and the lock button at the same time.
Keep holding them down until you see the Apple logo then release the
buttons and you should be finished!

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX9VM590pvo

iOS 6

Download the TinyUmbrella application.
Connect your iPhone or iPod in Recovery mode to your Mac or PC using its USB cable.
Open TinyUmbrella and give it a few seconds until it recognizes your device.

Source: http://www.guidingtech.com/16182/get-iphone-out-of-recovery-mode/


Where do I go for help when purchasing an iOS developer program and the payment is refused?

This is a little confusing since you start with Apple's developer page to create a free developer account, which then places the appropriate item in the normal Apple online store. I'm also a bit confused, since you don't get to the activation step until you've paid for your program - so no money changes hands during the activation (or even renewal) on the developer site.

For billing and/or payment support, you should call the phone number for the Apple Store you are using (in the US, it's 1-800-MY-APPLE) to work out whatever payment issues you have. I wouldn'tbother calling Developer Support at this point, since you need to buy the item just as if you were buying an iPod or a Mac from the online store where you live. If you have a web order number, I still would call the main store and have them check the status of the order and refer you to developer only once they've made sure the payment is OK. They are best suited to assist you with the purchase / credit card / security code issues and the developer side only needs to see that you have paid and doesn't care if you paid with Credit Card, a loan, an Apple Store Gift Card or any other means of payment that Apple accepts.

Once you "buy" the program from the normal store, a second redemption code is emailed to you whereby you then have to log back in to developer.apple.com to complete the enrollment process by agreeing again to any documentation requirements they may have once they have reviewed the documents you submitted.

If you applied as a business, there will be a several day delay while you collect the documents you need and submit them. Normally they get sorted within a working day or two. Again, if you need to get a hold of the development team, the main Apple sales contact can know what phone number you should call based on which storefront you are using to purchase your paid developer program.


Mail.app shows empty Gmail labels, but they're not empty in Gmail

I had the same issue, under Mailbox there is a Synchronise option. This worked for me on Sierra.


Terminal window displays odd text after being resized

It's a bug caused by Terminal's automatic text rewrapping combined with your shell's SIGWINCH re-rendering. If you just want to clear the corrupted text, you can use Edit->Clear All (default shortcut  ⌘   +  K ) to clear the window, leaving only the prompt.


Display visual notification of currently-playing song in iTunes?

You can click the Zoom button in iTunes to get a Mini Player version which you can position anywhere on your screen.

In iTunes Preferences - Advanced, you'll additionally find an option to keep the Mini Player on top of all other windows.


What does this blue dot in the Dock in Mojave mean?

I've seen instances in the past when certain app icons appear incredibly small in the Dock, to the point that clicking on them does nothing. The icon in your screenshot looks very similar to the Twitter icon, so if you're a Twitter user it could be that.

Regardless, I would start with restarting the Dock as a first step. To do this:

Now open Terminal (usually located in Applications > Utilities)
Enter this command killall Dock
Press enter

Once you've done that, use your Mac for long enough to know if this has resolved the issue. If it hasn't, then you can do a reset and restart of your Dock as follows.1

To reset and restart the Dock, follow these steps:

Go to Finder
Press and hold the option key down
Now go to the Go menu
Select the Library option to open the User's Library folder. You can let go of the option key now.
Go to the Preferences folder (i.e. within the Library folder)
Find and move the com.apple.dock.plist file to the Trash
Now open Terminal (usually located in Applications > Utilities)
Enter this command killall Dock
Press enter

Once you've done that, use your Mac for long enough to know if this has resolved the issue.

1. IMPORTANT: After doing this you will need to re-add any non-default icons (i.e. apps) that you've added to the Dock. Before proceeding you may want to take some notes (or a screenshot of your Dock) as a reminder of what you had there previously.


How to Map f2 to Ctrl u in Excel (to make cell editing easier)

I just used the "customize keyboard" in the Tools menu and it works fine...

This image shows it being set up:


The Cookies section is what you're looking for in the Developer Tools. Inspect it for this site, Stack Exchange, and you'll see a number of cookies and their values.
Inspect Element > Storage > Cookies


What does this technical specification about GSM iPhone mean?

If you keep reading...
Connectivity

In contrast to Steve Jobs' announcement at WWDC 2010, recent Federal
Communications Commission documentation has shown that the iPhone 4
contains a penta-band 3G UMTS antenna, not a quad-band 3G UMTS radio,
as advertised by Apple.
According to the FCC documentation filed by
Apple, the radio inside the iPhone 4 supports 800, 850, 900, 1,900,
and 2,100 MHz. The 800 MHz frequency, which is most commonly used in
Japanese mobile phones, is not advertised as being supported by
Apple.[51] However, the 800 MHz band is a subset of the 850 MHz band,
which probably explains why the device is advertised as
quad-band.[citation needed] The chip-sets were manufactured by
Skyworks Solutions[52] and Infineon for GSM version.


Can the Apple T2 chip be used as a TPM to enable BitLocker?

No, the T2 cannot in any way be used as a TPM for BitLocker. TPM for BitLocker is not a generic term for any type of trusted platform module, but rather it needs to be specifically the Intel TPM specification (latest version is 2.0). The T2 chip does not work in a way compatible with the TPM specification.


Order of the VPN connections in the VPN menu

Rename them ;).  They are ordered alphabetically.  If you put a white space (edit: or any other name that precedes in the alphanumeric order) in front of the second VPN's name in System Preferences > Network (by selecting the VPN Service and clicking on the cog symbol below the services: click "Rename Service..."), then un-tick and re-tick "Show VPN status in menu bar", the order will change.


In macOS Activity Monitor, why is "Applications in last 12 hours" grayed out / disabled?

It's only available on the Energy tab.

I can just tell from your pic, you're on the Disk tab.


Smart mailbox for senders who are not members of a group

This is maybe a bit counter intuitive but you can do it via the Contacts app.

You can make an intelligent group in your Contacts app with the criteria:

is not member in group

and use this group for your smart mailbox.


How to select multiple tabs in Mac Safari

Having never needed or even thought to do this I see the behavior you are talking about. And I believe the Safari engineers may have been of a similar mind.

I see no combination of keys that will allow you to select multiple tabs, so I am thinking that may not be possible out of the box with Safari.

That does not mean that there is not an extension (Plug-in, in Firefox lingo) that might provide that functionality but I am unaware of any that do this. You may be out of luck.


How to fix JRELoadError on macOS 10.15.4 Catalina?

Solved by installing Java 8u241 from java.com instead of Homebrew.


How to type in the redundant symbols in Simplified Chinese keyboard layout on MacBook?

The two sets of symbols are supposed to reflect how the keyboard behaves differently when the input source is set to Simplified Chinese Pinyin and when it is switched back to US via Caps Lock.

Even without the new keyboard, Pinyin input should work that way in Sierra, where the [ ] keys, for example, now produce 【 】.

The new keyboard is also available in the US online store.


What format does Xcode use to display 'data' types in plist files?

The data is just a hex dump of the decoded base64 encoding. To convert to ASCII, look the hex values up in the ASCII table. For your example:

54657374 56616c75 65

is

TestValue

A convenient way to get the table is man ascii from a terminal prompt.


iPhone connect to internet over WiFi using PPPoE

Do you mean to connect to the wireless router itself and get internet access this way?

According to Apple Support Forums,

  Generally people will have a router establish the PPPoE connection and then share it with the devices on the local network.

Do you have a computer or another device already connected to the local network? If so, you might be able to share the connection off one of these devices as a separate Wi-Fi connection.


Why does the App Store think Xcode 4.2 is installed?

Delete the XCode installer in /Applications, restart App Store. Now you will have an "Install" button for XCode. Download the installer and run it.


How Can I Set XCode to Correctly Highlight Multi-Line Strings for Shell Scripts?

I don't think that there is a way to get Xcode to highlight this the way you would like, so I tried a couple of my favorite text editors. BBEdit did not handle this correctly, but TextMate did.


Here ya go! Use your iPhone as a wireless audio device for your computer.

http://www.senstic.com/iphone/pocketaudio/pocketaudio.aspx