Macbook a1181 stopped working and commands doesnt work after installing windows

This message is not from Microsoft software that should have been installed in the MBR. Most likely you did not correctly install Windows 10. Apple does not support Windows 10 on your Mac. This does not mean Windows 10 can not be installed. However, adding more information on how you installed Windows 10 would be helpful. For example, the I would at least have the following questions.
Which version of Windows 10 are you using?

Currently, an updated Windows 10 is released twice a year.
Most users install the Windows Home or Windows Pro. Many others exist.
There are 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

Where did you acquire the installation media?

There are ISO files that can be downloaded.
There are ISO files and flash drives that can be created after downloading the create installation media on a machine running Windows.
You can burn a bootable DVD from an Windows ISO file.
You can create a bootable flash drive from a mounted Windows ISO file.
Some Macs can create the Windows 10 installation flash drive using the Boot Camp Assistant.

Where did you acquire the Windows Support Software (Boot Camp Support Software)?

Did you download the Software using Boot Camp Assistant.
You can download Windows 7 versions from an Apple website.
You can use Brigadier or manually directly from Apple servers.
You could not not used any Windows Support Software.

Did your installation involve the use of refit, rEFInd or GRUB?
Did you BIOS or EFI boot the Windows 10 installation media?
Did you install Windows 10 to BIOS or EFI boot?
Did you use the GUI or CLI (or both) to install Windows 10?
How did you install Windows 10?

One method is to modify the Boot Camp Assistant.
You can use the DVD drive.
Some Macs can use a USB flash drive.
There are many methods where a virtual machine is employed.
There are methods where you first boot from the Windows 10 installation files stored on the internal drive.

How did you bless the Mac?

This is done automatically when using the Boot Camp Assistant.
In some cases, this can be done from OS X by using the bless command.
This can be done from OS X Recover by using the bless command.
On some Macs, you can do this from Windows after installing the Windows Support Software.
On some Macs, this can be done from the Mac Startup Manager.

Note: In some cases, knowing the version of OS X would be helpful.


If you're running iOS 6: Double-tap the home button. Swipe to the right (as if scrolling left). There's a button with a rotating arrow with a lock that toggles rotation lock.

If you're running iOS 7 or 8: Swipe up from the bottom of your screen to open Control Center; you may need to unlock your phone first. The rightmost button on the top of Control Center is a similar rotating arrow with a lock.


Saving iMessage audio messages sent/received with iPhone

Go to Settings app > Messages and scroll down to AUDIO MESSAGES and VIDEO MESSAGES Under each one, there is an option labeled Expire. Tap on it and then tap Never to prevent them from being deleted automatically.

Never or two minutes are your only options, though.


How to update jailbroken iPhone 3GS iOS 4.1 to 5.1?

Put your device in DFU mode. (http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1034 and http://www.ihackintosh.com/2009/06/recovery-mode-and-dfu-mode/).
Connect to iTunes and it should prompt you with a box saying that your iPhone is in DFU mode and needs to be restored.

Sometimes it's possible to backup your phone and restore from that one once updated. Will not recommend it though; did that with my iPod and it didn't work perfectly afterwards.


Once you've bought it [whether paid or free] it's yours forever.
You can delete purchases from all devices, but you still retain the right to download it again in future.

The cloud icon signifies that you can redownload it at any time.


You have to choose New Movie Recording (⌥ ALT+⌘ CMD+N) instead of New Screen Recording.


Why does my Logitech C920 camera turn off and on again during recording with Photo Booth?

I'd first connect the camera directly, not via any hub. I have the same C920 & it can be sensitive to that. (Hmm, of course that may not be possible on USB-C… which would make eliminating the hub itself as a cause much tougher.)
Secondly, I would watch Activity Monitor whilst the recording is running, see if you can spot any jump in activity even on an unrelated process.
Thirdly, ensure as much as possible that any other user-controlled process isn't going to need resources at the same time. Video recording is resource-intensive, so try not to share the task with anything else that may be greedy.
Lastly, check you have lots of disk space so that you're not choking the process at write. As the issue increases with recording duration, this may be high on the list. Potentially video write & virtual memory may start to compete for the same space.


Is there an app that will show me total word count across all applications over a period of time?

Mac Word Counter should help you.

From the above-linked splash page:

  The Word Counter …

  gives immediate feedback on your productivity as a writer.

  encourages you by showing you your daily output.

  gives you clarity about your daily goals.

  keeps a complete history of your daily achievements.

  assists with finding your perfect writing environment.

  counts what counts: words – the ultimate metric for writing.


User account no longer in ‘admin’, how to recover?

After starting to Single User Mode enter:

/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /

Launch opendirectoryd:

launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.opendirectoryd.plist

Then enter (replacing username with the real user name):

dscl . -append /Groups/admin GroupMembership username

You will get an error "...com.apple.DirectoryServicesLocal.plist doesn't exit anymore ..." - ignore it! Your user should still get promoted to an admin user.

Enter exit to boot to the GUI.


The three short tones with a 5 second interval between sets is indicative of a RAM failure

From Apple's support document:  About Mac startup tones

  Three successive tones, then a five-second pause (repeating): RAM
  doesn't pass a data integrity check.

The MacBook Air doesn't have any user serviceable memory, so it's a logic board issue.  Since you cannot boot, there's really no other option but to take it in for service.

It's likely that Apple will want to replace the logic board for a large sum of money.  I suggest looking at a reputable 3rd party repair shop.  I have used Rossmann Repair Group in the past with great success (not affiliated, just a client)

He even has a YouTube video with your exact problem and how he fixes it; it's technical, but full of good info.  Caution:  he's from NYC so his language is typically colorful.


Can I daisy chain a Thunderbolt display to a non thunderbolt display

The short and simple answer is:

Directly?  No.  You cannot daisy chain a mDP display directly off a Thunderbolt
display.
Indirectly? Yes.  You can add a single mDP display off another Thunderbolt peripheral (like storage or a dock)

This is coming off of Apple's Support page as of the time of this answer:

  Can I connect my Mini DisplayPort monitor or monitor using a Mini DisplayPort adapter to my Apple Thunderbolt Display?
  Mini DisplayPort Monitors or Monitors connecting with Mini DisplayPort adapters will not function when connected through a Thunderbolt Display. They must be connected directly to the Thunderbolt port on the computer or to a non-display device as indicated above.

(Emphasis mine)


Importing photos without using the OS X Photos app

Use Image Capture, in the Applications folder - which is the importer 'behind' Photos.app anyway.

You can set it to auto-launch any capable app, including itself [or do nothing] & set exactly where your imports should be saved. You can also dictate whether it should auto-delete from the camera afterwards, or alternatively you can manually delete any selected pictures.


Note: On OS X, you don't need /Application apps to be in the PATH to launch them.

open -a gedit

Check man open


Is Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 (type C) possible?

Let's break your question into two questions.

Can I use the ASUS MB169B+ with a Thunderbolt 1/2 Mac?
Is there a generic way to connect any arbitrary Thunderbolt 3 or USB Type C peripheral to a Thunderbolt 1/2 Mac?

First let me address your specific example. The ASUS MB169B+ is actually just a regular USB 3.0 device. It uses a technology called DisplayLink which basically is a video card connected over USB (instead of the typical PCIe connection.)
Because MB169B+ is a regular USB device, you can simply connect it to one of your MacBook's regular USB ports and it will work just as well as it would connected to a USB Type C port.
Now for the second question, can you use a Thunderbolt 3 (or USB Type C) peripheral with a Thunderbolt 2 computer? Theoretically, yes it is possible to create a dongle that accomplishes this. You would have to put a Falcon Ridge controller and an Alpine Ridge controller in to the same dongle and connect them together like so:
            +--------Thunderbolt 2 to 3 Adapter Box--------+
            |                +--> PCIe --+                 |
MacBook --> | Falcon Ridge --|           |--> Alpine Ridge | --> Thunderbolt 3/Type C
            |                +--> DP ----+                 |
            +----------------------------------------------+

While a dongle exactly as above does not exist, there is an interesting workaround. The Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter you mention has some limited ability here. While the Apple adapter does work as a generic 3 to 2 adapter, it can only go from 2 to 3 if the peripheral on the other side is a native Thunderbolt 3 device. For example, this adapter works for connecting a LG UltraFine 5K Display to a Thunderbolt 2 Mac. However, it won't work with the 2016 21.5" LG UltraFine 4K Display since that monitor is USB-C only and not a Thunderbolt 3 device. It will work with the 2019 23.5" LG UltraFine 4K Display since that monitor has Thunderbolt 3.
Now, here is where things start to get weird. If you buy a Thunderbolt 3 dock, for example the CalDigit TS3 Plus Dock you can use the Apple adapter to connect a Thunderbolt 2 Mac to it. Most Thunderbolt docks have two Thunderbolt ports on them, one upstream port to connect the computer to the dock and one downstream port for daisy chaining more Thunderbolt devices. That downstream port is actually a full featured USB-C port as well, with support for Thunderbolt 3, Display Port Alternate mode, and USB 3.1. So you can actually plug the 2016 21.5" LG UltraFine 4K Display in to that downstream port and it will work!
It's pretty crazy but the following connection sequence actually works:
Thunderbolt 2 Mac --> Thunderbolt 3 to 2 Adapter --> Thunderbolt 3 Dock --> 2016 21.5" LG 4K
But this sequence (un-intuitively) does NOT work:
Thunderbolt 2 Mac --> Thunderbolt 3 to 2 Adapter --> 2016 21.5" LG 4K
So in summary, the combination of the Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter with a Thunderbolt 3 dock creates a fully featured (and expensive) Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter.


Time Machine starts backup but stop and never starts again

This is a known bug. I'm aware it's been around for quite a while, since Sierra, and don't think it's been fixed as yet.

Try The Time Machine Mechanic (T2M2) which should give more information about the error. It also includes a help file with advice and resolutions.


Powerline patched font not working on Terminal.app

Let me suggest you to install Input Mono font, comes with full support to powerline.

In order the following to work, Input Mono font must be version 1.1. You can check the font version by going to Font Book → View → Show Font Info, and look at the version number.

With Terminal.app works out of the box. Just select the font and you are ready.

With iTerm2, you have to modify a couple of things:

Go to Preferences → Profiles → Text and uncheck `Use a different font for non-ASCII text.
Just above, click on Change Font and select Input Mono. Additionally you have to change Character Spacing → Vertical to 110%. Seems that Terminal and iTerm2 render character spacing in a different way.


Can I edit iOS Shortcuts in a text editor (or something) on my Mac?

Currently this is not possible, unless you want to edit it in a plist format as states by @grg, but you could use an application called ScPL to write your shortcuts, then convert it to a .shortcut file and import it. There is also Shortcutor, however it is a paid app.


looks like this answer related to a similar problem might do the trick:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/20692071/620141

in short:

Edit ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist (you can use Xcode).
Find the code for kCGHotKeyLookUpWordInDictionary (70), and set 'enabled' to OFF (if it's not there just create an entry '70' with 'enabled' = OFF).
Restart your system

EDIT:
In your case, it should be:

Key Down
    Characters: ,
    Unicode:        44 / 0x2c
    Keys:       ⌘,
    Key Code:   43 / 0x2b
    Modifiers:  1048848 / 0x100110

so you should be using key code 43 with modifier 1048848

Extra help:

answer's source & extra guidance
Tool to find the key code (older macs only)
Alternative tool that works on Yosemite (Apple Store, free)


You have to let Finder know that you want a Boolean value (true or false):

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool TRUE


Can't this be related to your MacBooks high screen resolution. Try with zooming your display in Windows. Zooming will make everything on the screen larger and will hopefully make everything less small for you.

The setting is in the control panel and display/resolution settings.

Also, check out this answer from the Apple support forum that gives a more step by step instruction: Link

  Right click on the desk and choose "Display settings"
  Click on the "Advanced display settings" link
  Click on the "Advanced sizing of text and other items" link
  Click on the "set a custom scaling level" link in the "Change size of items" paragraph
  Change to option in the drop down to 100%
  Log out and log back in


What's the trivial difference between the 15" and 17" versions of the MacBook Pro?

In the left corner of the top menu, pick the apple menu and select About This Mac.

In the About This Mac panel, click the More Info  button. if you hover your mouse on Hardware you can see the general info about your macbook pro such 15" or 17".

As Dori said in comment above solution for before 2007 now choose Graphics/Displays from the left column, it does display the screen resolution.


How to change PATH environment variable to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion that will be visible to GUI applications?

With Mountain Lion /etc/launchd.conf is where you should set the GUI applications Path. Remember it's not a script file; it only supports launchctl commands so you should write something like:

setenv PATH /new/path:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

Note also that it doesn't support shell environment variable substitutions (like $PATH) so you'll have to set every path that you want to include. It's a good idea to keep the original paths that you've mentioned (/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin).

You'll have to reboot after changing (or creating) the file for the changes to take effect.


Is there a way to make terminal commands require sudo in macOS Big Sur?

Changing the permissions on the binary is not going to be an effective way of blocking such commands. The user can simply download or copy the osascript binary from a web site or another computer onto your Mac and run it - without sudo.
There's probably some resource that you do not want your users to access - and they have been doing that through the osascript command. But instead of blocking osascript, look at changing the permissions for that resource. That would in turn make it so that osascript cannot access it without sudo.


MacbookPro Won't Boot without Live USB-Key. Screwed up bootloader?

You can mount the EFI partition with diskutil mount /dev/disk0s1
It should be empty, save for some firmware files etc in the APPLE dir - it's not normally used for the bootloader, but does make use of applicable files there if it can find any - so it is indeed a good guess that there is something in there throwing it off. The reason it works when you start by booting externally is likely the clean ESP on your external USB.

You can have a look around, and if you wish, just nuke the entire contents - again it's not used for booting OS X and anything in there will be recreated as needed, on the Apple side anyways.


You will have to restore your iPad to factory settings if you can't remember the password for it. If you didn't make a backup earlier, your data will be gone. Forever. You can find the instructions in this article: If you forgot the passcode for your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, or your device is disabled


How to restore OS X after installing Windows in a single boot configuration

You can restore OS X in Internet Recovery Mode if you have a newer Mac:

Boot to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing altcmdR. The prerequisites for an Internet Recovery are listed here: Recovery/Internet Recovery.
In a few words you need the latest firmware update installed, either ethernet or WLAN (WPA/WPA2) and a router with DHCP activated for a successful internet recovery.
On a 50 Mbps-line it takes about 4 min (presenting a small animated globe) to boot to the Recovery Netboot image which is loaded from an Apple/Akamai server.

Open Disk Utility and partition your internal disk: GUID partition scheme (use the "Options..." button at the bottom of the main pane for this), one partition, journaled HFS+.
Sometimes Disk Utility won't allow you to erase the internal disk: open Terminal and enter diskutil umountDisk /dev/disk0 and dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0 bs=512 count=1. Then retry to erase the disk with Disk Utility.

Close Disk Utility

Open Restore OS X and restore the original OS X. This will restore the OS X version your Mac came with.

After rebooting and configuring your Mac open App Store, download and install Mac OS X Mavericks (if an older OS X version was installed previously).


Preview disables clickable links in PDF files

The problem was in the encoding of the URL. Apparently Preview is more picky about that compared to other pdf viewers such as Adobe.
Also, it turns out to work better if we put the image inside the link
<a ...>
  <img ...>xx</img>
</a>


App to view my iOS photos with their filenames

Document 5

Edit :

Document 5 AppStore link


ScriptEditor application signed but not accepted by Gatekeeper

Consider distributing your application within a code signed disk image, dmg, file. The contents of a code signed disk image are not subject to “Gatekeeper Path Randomization” (GPR).

See How do I create a nice-looking DMG for Mac OS X using command-line tools? for a guide to creating a disk image.


First thing - don't try to fix anything.
Check when your last back up was done. If you don't have a backup - stop and back up this Mac to a blank external drive (ideally) using time machine and be sure you have a good backup before proceeding.
Now write down some details:

When did you start the update.
What was the previous version ( softwareupdate --history should tell you all the recent updates on the Mac)
What is the state of your storage ( diskutil list is a good indicator to share with someone technical )

Decide if you want to use Apple, someone local to work with, or trust us randos on the internet to know what your setup is and hopefully give good advice. The problem with us, is no matter how smart, honest and well intentioned we are - we only see your word and if you are mistaken, we may give you bad advice. Also, we could just be evil but hopefully if you are patient - votes will help see if we're all evil together or someone has good advice.


How to disable frequently visited items and favorites under the address bar in Safari 8?

Go to Safari Preferences → Search and disable Show Favourites.


Determine storage requirement for VirtualBox snapshot merge

What I have found is that you need at least the size of the snapshot in free space.

So, if you have a 20GB vdi and a 5GB snapshot that will make a 25GB vdi in the end, you need at least the 5GB.

What I suggest you do is move the snapshots to a different volume (like a USB drive), make symlinks to them, then do the merge.

For example...

Move the snapshot file to a mounted volume:

mv /VBM-Folder/Snapshots/{abcd12a3-de1a-9876-ab89-abcd1abvc5abc12a1}.vdi /Volumes/Some/Mounted/Folder

Then create the symlinks back to the original folder:

ln -s /Volumes/Some/Mounted/Folder/{abcd12a3-de1a-9876-ab89-abcd1abvc5abc12a1}.vdi /VBM-Folder/Snapshots

This, right off the bat should free up a bunch of space.  Once you do this, you can then "merge" the snapshots (in VBox, you have to delete them - it's not intuitive)


Here are the guidelines (as of this writing) for uploading app screenshots for App Store as per Apple document, Submitting iOS Apps to the App Store:

  Upload screenshots to App Store Connect. Upload screenshots for the new iPhone XS Max or the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd generation). Screenshots will be automatically resized for iPhone X and later, or for the 11-inch iPad Pro. Starting March 27, 2019, all app submissions for iPhone or iPad, including universal apps, will require screenshots for iPhone XS Max or the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd generation).

  Upload screenshots as they are, with no modifications. The rounded corners will be automatically applied after upload.
  If you add text descriptions to your screenshots, keep text away from the corners to avoid cropping.
  Leave the home indicator in the screenshot, if it’s visible.

There are no specific instructions about items shown in the status bar. You can leave whatever icons are visible as is. Also, some apps may choose to hide the status bar, so naturally it won't be visible in the screenshots.

There are no specific instructions on value and format of the time displayed (and whether or not it should be displayed) in the status bar.


How to remove incompatible software flagged during 10.10.3 upgrade?

Qmaster is the Apple Qmaster.

  Apple Qmaster is a system made by Apple Inc. that provides automated
  work distribution and processing for high-volume projects....

It is a 32 bit version and the 10.10 does not like it.

I use AppCleaner app to remove apps from my system since it will also find all associated parts of that app.


No - iChat has no provision for blocking or filtering what you do.

It does rely on DNS and thus is easily blocked by any network operator that chooses to do so. It is vulnerable to blocking of the major chat servers that let people know who else is online.


Trying to reinstall OS X on a linux drive

Assuming your internal drive is not a Fusion drive, the following Terminal application command should setup your internal drive for an installation of macOS. You will need to run this command from macOS Internet Recovery. Or, if you are booted from an external drive.

diskutil  partitionDisk  disk0  1  GPT  JHFS+  "Macintosh HD"  R


Until recently the latest version of iOS available for the iPhone 5 was iOS 10.3.3.

iOS 10.3.4 and 9.3.6 were updates for older devices (released at the same time as iOS 12.4) to fix a problem that may cause problems with GPS location performance and/or lead to the system date and time being incorrect. It's only because of the nature of the bug they were fixing that Apple released these updates years after the last update for these older versions of iOS.

So, the reason for my explaining all this is that it'd be best to just update the iPhone 5 you gave your grandmother and then the likelihood of another system notification is extremely unlikely (iOS 10.3.3 was release about two years before this one).

For more information on this update, refer to: Update your iPhone or iPad software to avoid issues with location, date, and time on Apple's website.


Remove Passbook's "Add credit or debit card" without adding one

Just tap on the pass, and the "Pay with Touch ID using Apple Pay" message will go away temporarily to give way to fully displaying the pass, card, coupon, or ticket.


Don't know if you resolved, but seems strange to me you want to plot in the xterm terminal...
Perhaps you want to display in the x11 terminal, you'll then find this discussion useful: Can't plot with gnuplot on my Mac


Mavericks 10.9.5 RAM problem and performance problems

I had exactly this same problem upon upgrading to Mavericks. Unfortunately, you're going to find that 4GB is on the knife's edge of barely being able to run the system at all - note how you already have compressed memory despite not running anything.

Apple needs to be smacked around for this, but unfortunately, it is what it is.

The first thing you need to do is put more memory in - I would go for 16 unless you absolutely can't afford it.

An SSD would help as well - I find that the IO performance on spinning drives has been getting worse and worse with every OS release.

If you can only pick one of these, get the SSD first. You'll benefit a lot more from the IO boost than the memory boost, at least in the short term.


Using an iMac as external monitor for my mid 2009 13'' MacBook Pro

As far as I'm aware, you can't run Target Display Mode from Mini DisplayPort to Thunderbolt; only like to like or Thunderbolt to Mini-DP.

See http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14264


I think the fonts are fine - I've just checked them in Font Book.

I tried Text Edit, Pixelmator and Pages and they all do as you state. But, if you load Font Book and find the fonts they are visible and populated with "dings". Could it be that the codes are different due to using Unicode?

To get to Wingdings characters in the other apps:

In Keyboard Preferences check "Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar".
In the menu bar these is now a new icon.
Click on the icon and select "Show Character Viewer".
Characters can then be cut and paste from the Character Viewer.


Is there a safe temperature definition for the Macbook Pro Retina?

According to the intel, spec-sheet, Page 20, the maximum allowed temperature of all the new i3,i5,i7 cpus is 105 Celsius degrees so you are approaching the limit. However all cpus are designed in a way that they will send a signal to the motherboard in case the cpu is overheating to either shut-down the pc completely or dramatically reduce the performance (by lowering the clock-speed).

Studying Anandtech's review of the latest MacBook Retina it's clearly visible that the Macbook pro retina automatically reduces the performance in case of really high temperature over a longer period of time. According to them while running various benchmarks in Half-Life 2 the performance of the retina model dropped by about 5% compared to the old model which dropped by about 20%).

I think you don't need to worry to much about the temperature. If the cpu is reaching its thermal limit it will automatically try to do something about it. You may even think about investing in a cooling pad as the enclosure of the mac is made out of aluminium, it acts a a massive heat-sink and theoretically you could lower the temperature by  using a cool-pad for laptops and fit it underneath.


Why does the message icon show only for one number

Just change the phone number label Work to mobile or iPhone.

Apple makes the assumption here that only mobile phones can get text messages which is sometimes wrong.


On the surface it sounds as if you're doing everything right; I have however found this process to not always be quite as straight forward as one might think.  For starters, I've found that newly added contact data is not immediately available to Siri.  I have had to wait as long as 5 to 10 minutes before she recognizes the new entry.  Once the data parses through iCloud though, she usually gets it without missing a beat.  Another tip that I've picked up is using nicknames for locations to make speaking them a little easier.  For example, I travel regularly for business, so as soon as I arrive, I add the hotel address to my contact list and provide it a nickname of "The Hotel"; That way I can simply ask to be reminded when I leave the hotel instead of when I leave "Omni Hotel and Spa Downtown LA".  I of course have to change this nickname every time I check into a new hotel but if you frequent the same coffee shop or supermarket, it should work quite well for you.

On another note, in order to use your example of "Remind me to check the mail when I arrive at Mom's House", you must first assign the relationship of "Mother" to a specific person in your contact list (unless of course you have your mother listed in your contacts as simply "Mom" as opposed to a full name).  You can do this either in the contact edit screen of your own contact by adding the field "Related People" or you can simply tell Siri "Sally Smith is my Mother".  You can also get Siri to recognize the relationship by giving a command using the relationship, such as "Call my Mom"  if the relationship is not set, Siri will ask you who your mother is.

If you're still having trouble after trying some of this let me know in the comments, we can work through exactly what you're doing step by step and drill down the problem.


If you go to Settings/Phone/Call Forwarding/ Turn on Call Forwarding then enter the number you want to forward your call to. Note this occurs as soon as the call is received, and you cannot answer first.

Call conferencing would work too. You should look up your specific carriers method to accomplish this. Conference in the third-party, then hang up.


Does the Catalina XNU kernel still recognize 32-bit binaries? Does 10.15's dyld?

Does 10.15's XNU still recognize 32-bit binaries?

They are still recognized as executables, but attempting to execute one results in a "bad CPU type in executable" error, just as if you were trying to run an PowerPC or ARM binary (and different from an incomprehensible file, which will result in an "exec format error" error).

  Does 10.15's dyld still recognize them?

Recognize them as what? It'll recognize that an .dylib with a 32-bit slice is a library, if that's what you mean, but it'll refuse to load it into a 64-bit process.


Major difference between High Sierra and Mojave

Some of the major news in Mojave are:

Dark mode
Home app
News app
Stocks app
Voice Memo app
New screenshot utility
Group FaceTime
Desktop stacks
Finder Quick Actions
Continuity Camera
Privacy enhancements
Warnings when running 32-bit apps

It is not my impression that macOS Mojave brings along major bugs that haunt most of its users.


How do I get the name of the wifi network I'm connected to?

/Sy*/L*/Priv*/Apple8*/V*/C*/R*/airport -I | awk '/ SSID:/ {print $2}'

This uses the airport CLI, with the -I flag to show information and filter using awk for just the SSID shows the name of the network.


Check out The Safe Mac's website (http://www.thesafemac.com/arg-identification/) on how to remove adware from OS X and Safari. It sounds like you've got Conduit or some similar adware/malware that has attached itself to Chrome.


Microsoft Surface Ergonomic Keyboard pairing issues

The issue was with the version of Bluetooth. The built-in version (2.0, I believe) wouldn't configure with the keyboard.

I've since bought a Bluetooth 4.0 Dongle (cost about £12) and I can now use the keyboard. It's a bit of a faff, had to download a Bluetooth developer tool from Apple and I now have to manually switch from the internal Bluetooth to the dongle before I can use the keyboard.

Thanks for all your suggestions, though, and hopefully anyone facing the same issue now has a solution.

Kieron


Any way to reboot a iDevice that is connected to a USB port via terminal (Mac terminal)?

idevicediagnostics is a Linux tool which can help here. It is also available for macOS according to these instructions.

Once installed you can use

idevicediagnostics restart

to restart your device.

To Restart the iOS devices connected more than one devices by

idevicediagnostics -u udidnumber restart


Keyboard shortcut to prevent login items from loading but still allow extensions

Disable automatic login in system preferences - users and groups - login options.

Reboot

At the login window type your password and then immediately hold down shift.

This will disable login items on a per login basis.

With proper timing this can be accomplished even with automatic login enabled. You must hold shift as soon as the spinning gear stops.

If you are talking about Lion Resume, that's another story.


No, not as a general issue across all apps.

Some apps such as for example Safari may be "slow to scroll" (for example web pages that have Javascript scroll handlers that do not declare themselves as never calling preventDefault() can be slow to scroll).

However, if you see this as a general problem across all apps, and you have to powercycle the phone - it sounds that a hardware problem is likely.

If the phone is still under warranty - take the issue to Apple Support. If it is not, you could still try Apple Support.


Can I upgrade from 10.8 to 10.9 with a bootable usb installer?

Yes, simply run the installer from inside your existing OSX install.


My Spotify app won't open, can't be deleted and won't force quit on macOS

Make sure Spotify isn't in your login items (System Preferences → Users & Groups) so it won't automatically start. Log out, making sure to uncheck ‘Reopen windows when logging back in’, then log back in. Try to delete the app now.


I've found the solution. Two commands are needed in sequence:

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.smbd.plist
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.smb.server.plist EnabledServices -array disk


iPhone app that records audio during specific time

try this free app

Some of the features:Compare These Features:

One Touch Recording
One Touch Stop & File Saved
Super Small MP4 Recording File Sizes
Send Voice Emails Up to 5MB
Records for Seconds or Hours
Pause Record and Resume
Adjustable Recording Qualities
Flip Mode For Mic on Top Recording
Record Timer and Playback Counter
Double Tap for Quick Playbacks
Auto File Naming w/Optional Renaming
Finger Scroll Through Messages
Pause Play and Resume Modes
Drag Slider for Seek/RWND/FFWD
Audio Level VU Meter
Displays File Sizes and Time Stamps
Plays Thru Earpiece, Speaker, Ear Buds
Use Devices' Built-In or Add-On Mics
Ringtone Recording Feature
EZ Sync Recordings to Computer
Great Visual Voicemail Like Interface
Voice Reminder Notes
Send Voice Notes Through Apple's iMessages


Can I use any hardware on MBP retina late 2012 on a MBP mid 2012 (non retina)?

Displays
As far as your displays go, you aren't going to be able to swap them.  The late 2012 Retina display model uses a 40 pin LVDS connector, while the non-Retina mid 2012 model uses the older 30 pin connector.  I answered a very similar question to this:
Replace MacBook Pro screen with Screen from old MacBook
If you really must have the Retina display, then you'll need to get a new display.
DVD Drive
If your CD/DVD drive doesn't work, is it really necessary to have?  You can remove the DVD and install a SATA caddy that can contain a hard drive for data storage and/or backups or another SSD to create a larger (CoreStorage) volume or a RAID volume; mirrored (for redundancy) or striped (for performance)


Unable to connect to Snapchat outside of Home Wi-Fi

You may have disabled cellular data for Snapchat, meaning that it will only work when it has a Wi-Fi connection and will not ever use your cellular data. Here is a guide from Apple on how to enable cellular data for your apps.

If this doesn't work, try going to the App Store and verify that your Snapchat app is up-to-date.


Is possible auto-refresh the Shared Links sidebar in Safari 7?

This has been fixed in Safari 7.0.1 (which is included in OS X 10.9.1):

About the update
The OS X Mavericks v10.9.1 Update is recommended for all OS X Mavericks users. It improves the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac. This update includes:
…

Includes Safari 7.0.1

…

Updates Shared Links periodically when open in the Safari Sidebar

Source: About the OS X Mavericks v10.9.1 Update


The frequency rating on RAM is analogous to the top speed of a car, if it's max speed is (for example) 250 km/h, it can drive up to 250 km/h, but it won't break if u drive at 25 km/h.

Same for RAM. As long as it's the same DDR3 Standard, it will run, regardless of how high the max clock speed is.


You most probably still have the disk partitioned in the GPT, but there are no partitions on the disk any more. This has happened to me twice when trying to remove the Boot Camp partition.

You have to compare the output of diskutil list disk0 and sudo gpt show disk0 to see which partitions are still in the GPT, but are marked as unused. Then you'll have to create a temporary partition which you can then delete from Disk Utility.

For example,

[onik@Oniks-MacBook-Air ~]$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            204.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:         Microsoft Reserved                         16.8 MB    disk0s3
   4:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.1 MB   disk0s4
onik@Oniks-MacBook-Air ~]$ sudo gpt show disk0
      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  398437504      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  398847144        856
  398848000      32768      3  GPT part - E3C9E316-0B5C-4DB8-817D-F92DF00215AE
  398880768     228520
  399109288    1269760      4  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  400379048   89855676
  490234719         32         Sec GPT table
  490234751          1         Sec GPT header

shows that there is unused but reserved space at the end of the disk (the line after index 4). You can solve this by creating a partition in the space manually.

Boot into recovery and open a terminal. Unmount the disk with diskutil unmountDisk disk0 (use your own disk number) and calculate the available space for the partition. OSX needs 262144 sectors of empty space after each partition, so subtract that from the size of the space available. After this, create the partition with sudo gpt add -b 400379048 -s 89829462 -t hfs disk0.

After this, if you run diskutil list disk0 again, you'll see the partition, but you'll need to format it. sudo newfs_hfs -v "Temporary volume" -J /dev/rdisk0s5 will do the trick (but use your own disk and partition number). Now you can close the terminal, open up Disk Utility and delete the temporary partition, and Disk Utility will take care of the rest.

Now just reboot and run Boot Camp Assistant again!


Making Right Command and Right Option both work as Right Option without Karabiner or SEIL

After watching the response in Karabiner Event Viewer I reset a couple times the defaults for the external keyboard in the modifier keys. Resetting command and alt a couple times seemed to make it work properly again. I guess because I had switched them before and maybe the keyboard wasn't recognized properly. All is fine now.


Chicken

If you are looking for a VNC client, the open source Chicken client supports connecting to specific ports.

Tiger VNC

You can install Tiger VNC via the brew project with:

brew install tiger-vnc

macOS Built-in Screen Sharing

Alternatively, you can use macOS's built in Screen Sharing application to connect to specific ports via a well formed URL, such as vnc://192.168.1.34:5901.

VNC Servers

For VNC servers, other than the built-in macOS VNC server, take a look at OSXvnc.

Tunneling

You could take a different approach and tunnel the existing VNC service through ssh or another tool. This would expose the VNC service through any port you desire without needing a special VNC server.


Auto switch input source to English when entering Spotlight, typing URL in Safari, etc

Using KeyRemap4MacBook, you could save something like this as private.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
<item>
<name>test1</name>
<identifier>test1</identifier>
<only>SAFARI</only>
<autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::L, VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::L, VK_COMMAND, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTMODE_ENGLISH</autogen>
</item>
<item>
<name>test2</name>
<identifier>test2</identifier>
<autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::SPACE, VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::SPACE, VK_COMMAND, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTMODE_ENGLISH</autogen>
</item>
</root>

It only works with those two shortcuts and it doesn't change the input source back later though. See the source for the key code values and predefined settings.

Alfred has an option to always switch to a specific input source:


iOS 12.2 Control Center Remote Control Finds no TVs

I can’t say for certain which of these mattered but here is what led to this bing fixed for me.

Update to iOS 12.3
Update AppleTV to tvOS 12.3
Reset Network Settings on iPhone
Add AppleTV to a room in Home.app
Delete all paired “extra” remotes on AppleTV (apps and other devices)
Give iPhone new, not-previously used name
Re-pair iPhone Remote app (which, remember had worked this whole time) to Apple TV

I suspect it was steps 5-7 that were all I needed, and I’m bummed that I nuked my Network Settings, but the Control Cemter widget works for me now.


Closed laptop lid last night, today it can't boot up

Apparently it must have been something space related. I went into recovery and cleared up 20gb of space (had 6gb previously) and rebooted. Everything was well upon reboot.


Can man pages be converted to html and/or pdf format?

Yes, there are numerous tools to convert manual pages to HTML and PDF.

UNIX Approach

Converting a man page to HTML, PDF, and text provides detailed instructions for macOS:

cat /usr/share/man/man1/osascript.1 | groff -mandoc -Thtml >man_osascript.html

If the file ends in .gz, then substitute the following.

gunzip --to-stdout /usr/share/man/man8/cupsfilter.8.gz | groff -mandoc -Thtml >man_cupsfilter.html

For converting from HTML to PDF:

cupsfilter man_osascript.html > man_osascript.pdf

For other tool chains, see these related questions:

How do I convert Linux man pages to HTML without using groff?
What's the easy way to convert all man pages to html?
Convert all Linux man pages to text / html or markdown

pandoc

Another approach is to use the popular pandoc tool. This tool can convert manual pages to a wide range of formats.

Link x-man-page

macOS's Terminal.app offers a x-man-page URL scheme for pretty printing manual pages. Try opening the link below to see the ls man page:

x-man-page://ls


Does play count data update on iTunes music is played on the iPhone?

Simply said: yes it does, as soon as you sync it.

Also see this question/answer on SuperUser.


iPhone 7 black Current/vibrations when charging

This is so commonly misunderstood that I shall attempt to provide a short précis, then link to a good explanation which is not overly-technical.

Common misconception - earthing/grounding

Most small household appliances are not, in fact, earthed at all - even if there is a valid earth pin on the mains plug.
They are what is known as 'double insulated' & carry this logo

The 'transformers' on this type of equipment are not the same as in high-power equipment & don't use a step-down coil transformer, linear supply. Instead they use a switch-mode supply.
All PSUs, whether linear or switch-mode leak a small amount of current due to capacitance. In double-insulated devices there is no true ground/earth so the design is optimised to try to prevent this leakage.
Unfortunately, switch-mode supplies run at very high frequencies, so the smaller capacitance in the smaller transformer ends up leaking just as much as the larger capacitance in a larger transformer running at 50 or at 60Hz for example.

The leakage current is usually less than 1mA and is often as low as 10uA, but even at such low current, it can still be present and still can cause problems.

So - the tingle or buzz that you feel is in fact you becoming the temporary ground/earth for this circuit.
It is usually safe, & any reputable manufacturer will ensure their PSUs are well within tolerance.

Cheap copies are cheap because they don't bother with most of the safety circuitry… you know, the stuff that makes the expensive one expensive in the first place ;-)

Have look at http://www.unitechelectronics.com/sparks.htm for a much more detailed explanation. Though it is aimed at hi-fi users & deals in 240v mains, the basic principles are identical.

[copied from my own answer on Super User]


Automatically Mount a Network Drive and Copy a File to a Network Folder (AppleScript)

Copying of files in Applescript is best done either through System Events or Finder, using the duplicate … to command, i.e.

tell application "System Events" to duplicate sourceFile to targetFolder

where both sourceFile and targetFolder need to be the correct object type for the application used – meaning disk item or finder item (both objects can be created from AppleScript alias objects, or textual path values with a bit of type coercion – I’d add the details, but you have not stated how the paths to both are stored / acquired in your script).

A few notes on your code:

There is no need to use globals when you have defined them as properties already. AppleScript properties are script scoped and persist across execution – they are only reset when the script is recompiled. If you assign those that need user setting missing value when declaring, you can even check if they are already set and skip re-prompting the user (there would be an even more comfortable and secure solution if Apple hadn’t deprecated Keychain Access Scripting).
There is no need for the repeated assignments and recursive call in your connectToServer() handler. The following code

set timeOutCounter to 0
repeat while (list disks) does not contain serverName and timeOutCounter is less than timeOutInterval
    -- mount drive
    delay someInterval -- recommended, so you don’t hectically loop
    set timeOutCounter to timeOutCounter + someInterval -- time out loop
end repeat

will try to connect in the interval defined by someInterval, until the mount is available or timeOutIntervalis reached (assuming these values are declared. As properties, best – see above).
You might also want to offer your user a more comfortable way of selecting the target folder than typing a folder name from memory. Check out Standard Additions’s AppleScript dictionary for the choose folder command.
Finally, but that is mainly a matter of taste and coding style, I’d rather move the display dialog command into its own handler and call that, if needed repeatedly, from the script body, than use a C style mainLoop handler. I’ve found that, generally speaking, AppleScript runs out of Stack space easily when recursing and can get very confused about variable assignments, so it is a good idea to avoid recursive constructs where they are not necessary.


Get rid of those get/set variable actions, and it'll stop doing that. Keep in mind that if two actions appear "linked" in Automator, it means the output of one is being fed to the input of the other. You don't need variables in this case. Basically, the folder from "Ask for Finder Items" is being passed down the chain to your shell script, along the way setting it to a variable, and then getting the same folder, and adding it to the stream. This stream now contains two folders.

The purpose of the get/set variable actions are for when you have a situation where you want to use a piece of data with two actions which terminate the stream. You can't get the data once it's been consumed by said action, so you have to store it somewhere so that you can retrieve it again.


Does the new iPod Touch (iOS 4.1 / 4 gen) require that you jail break it to use a Blue Tooth keyboard?

A 4th generation iPod Touch (or an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4) running iOS 4.1 supports third-party bluetooth keyboards.


Adding a new hard drive to RAID1 software RAID fails

I did not know, that it's not ok to cross post over multiple platforms – sorry for that.

However on superuser I got an answer to my problem, so here is the link once again:
https://superuser.com/questions/1476652/adding-a-new-hard-drive-to-raid1-software-raid-fails


How can I detect if my computer has been remotely accessed and monitored by an employer?

Assuming they're monitoring or remotely logging in to your machine, the computer itself would have to be configured to accept these connections. Open System Preferences>Sharing and go to the Screen Sharing tab, check whether it is on, if so whether it is set to allow access for all users or only specified ones. Do the same for the Remote Login tab, Remote Management tab, and Remote Apple Events tab.

If all of these are disabled, or access to these functions is restricted to users you know for a fact they do not have access to, try going to the Users & Groups preference pane, and check to see whether there are any Network-Sharing enabled users besides the administrator account, and if the Guest user is enabled, whether or not it has Remote Login access.

If none of the above are the case you may try checking the machine's SSH logs, assuming SSH has been enabled, to see if there have been any recent remote logins via the Terminal. Finally, of course, if there are any Remote Desktop applications installed, check their logs as well. I am not familiar with Adobe Enterprise, perhaps check the application settings to see if anything regarding remote monitoring or connections is mentioned.

If none of the above are relevant, or do not yield any results, you can always try going to the System Preferences>Security & Privacy pane, then the Firewall tab, turning on the Firewall, opening the Firewall Options... window, checking Automatically allow built in software to receive incoming connections, unchecking Automatically allow downloaded signed software to receive incoming connections, and checking Enable stealth mode. This will effectively block all incoming connections from whatever software is used for monitoring/remote login, and may even reveal what software is being used when it prompts for Firewall access during the next remote login attempt.


Google Chrome won't open URL files by double click

This is a known issue with Google Chrome. See:Chrome doesn't recognise .url files properly

The workaround it to use an Extension such as .URL Handler

Once installed you need to go to Chrome > Preferences... > Extensions (chrome://extensions/) and check the [✔] Allow access to file URLs check box.


There isn't a keyboard shortcut to switch between two splitscreen apps, but since they're both Terminal, if they're the only two Terminal windows you have open, you can use the Cycle Through Windows shortcut - ⌘`(the key that becomes ~ if you hold Shift).


organising apps by multiple levels of folders possible?

Not at this time. You cannot make a folder within a folder in iOS.


Adding email from gmail iPhone app as calendar entry in google calendar on iPhone


How can I change the encoding of a subtitle file?

I often use this online converter to get my .srt in UTF-8, give it a try !


Why does my Photos library differ in size looking in Finder vs in the "Get Info" of Photos?

I assume Photos is reporting the total size of all the pictures (and just the pictures). This is sort of confirmed by selecting all the photos in the library and then using Get Info: this shows the same size as selecting the library.

Finder is showing the actual size of the library file on disk. This file contains all the photos but also a lot of other "meta" information about the photos, albums, places, faces, etc. that allows Photos to manage and display the pictures.


The music player on iOS 10 is a little different - for me it doesn't reorder the tracks and you just get to press either of the shuffle all buttons on the iPad. (on iPhone, there's only one shuffle all control)

If no track is playing - it starts playing one of the tracks and for me that's pretty random (i.e. a second press almost always queues up a different track than the last press of shuffle all)

In the shown track - the items are playing from iCloud - so there is a delay to start playback, but if the track is downloaded or cached it's quite responsive to tap shuffle all several times.

I do also greatly prefer the Cesium music app on my iPhone for queuing up playlists. It has the traditional - repeat one song, repeat the playlist, or end playing controls visible below:

It has very nice queuing and gestures to control playback as well as filters to only show music that's downloaded or also include iCloud music. I tend to use this app for road trips or playlists at a party when I know I have a copy of the songs I want downloaded to the device.


Remove beta profile without wiping phone?

You can also connect your iPhone to a Mac and use Apple Configurator 2 to remove the profile:


How to show/hide invisible files and folders from Service menu?

Apologies if this is a little off-topic from your question, but, in macOS Sierra you can toggle showing hidden files right in the Finder with Shift+cmd+.


Stop Devices Deleting Songs On iCloud; iTunes Match

When you delete a song from an iDevice connected to iTunes Match, only the local copy gets deleted. The song remains in the index and gets displayed with the iCloud icon.

The option to delete the cloud version as well is only given when deleting a song in iTunes on Mac or PC.


Desktop wallpapers disappear when switch from dual displays to single

I also observed the problem after upgrading my MacBook Air (2011) to Mountain Lion.  Not only unplugging the external display triggers the gray background, but also connecting to a display.

For the gray background problem, I use a quick-and-dirty fix: restart the Dock.
Invoke the following command in the terminal:
$ killall Dock

The Dock will be restarted after it is killed, and the wallpaper will appear again.


OS X Lion, Moutain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite: deep sleep on low battery leads to crash

Does you SSD use a SandForce controller?  SandForce controllers seem to have some serious issues related to battery and sleep/hibernate activities, and you might (I repeat might) be seeing some of these problems coming up:

SandForce controller problems

If you have a SandForce controller you might want to change SSD altogether, based on the info provided by the link above.


Questions about how Internet Sharing works

As @bmike said, Internet Sharing hides a lot of complexity behind a very simple interface, and some of your questions can't be answered authoritatively without interviewing some of the Apple engineers behind it.  But that won't stop me from taking a stab at it...

1) AirPort is different from the other interface types because in order to share over AirPort, your Mac has to actually create the wireless network (as opposed to just providing service over an existing ethernet, FireWire, etc connection).  This means that InternetSharing needs to have a bunch of info about how to create the wireless network: network name (SSID), channel, security, etc.

2) Resharing over the same ethernet interface is useful under some circumstances.  For example, on my home network my ISP provides limited number of static IP addresses for my use.  I run a Mac doing the equivalent of Internet Sharing (actually, I set up the daemons manually as @Spiff recommended) to reshare over the same ethernet.  Result: if I put a computer on my home ethernet and config it via DHCP, I get a private (behind-the-firewall) IP address from my virtually unlimited internal pool.  If I manually config the computer with one of the public IPs, I get full unfitered internet access, but use up one of my limited public IP pool.  Because they're both on the same network, "moving" a computer behind or in front of the firewall is just a simple configuration switch.

On the other hand, if you did this same trick on an ethernet network that already had a DHCP server, computers attaching to the network would randomly get configuration from one server or the other, leading to unpredictability, confusion, and hair-pulling.  It's definitely a use-only-if-you-know-what-you're-doing feature.  Fortunately, Internet Sharing is smart: if it detects another DHCP server on "its" private network, it shuts itself off to avoid trouble.

3) I don't know of a way to change the private IP range on an IS-created wireless network.  On the other hand, it shouldn't really matter, since the network is being created by Internet Sharing, and therefore it doesn't have to worry about conflicts with any existing network numbering.

4) You can add interfaces with Apple's USB Ethernet Adapter. Get some USB hubs, and pile them on!


I replaced my Superdrive with a second hard drive, and now I've got spin-up/down issues

Run sudo pmset disksleep 0, with an optional -a, -b, -cor -u between the pmset and the disksleep.

See man pmset for details:

  The -a, -b, -c, -u flags determine whether the settings apply to battery ( -b ), charger (wall power) ( -c ), UPS ( -u ) or all ( -a ).


Can't Find MacPorts (installed on OS 10.8.5

For run MacPort you have to write sudo /opt/local/bin/port in your Terminal window.

Alias in .zshrc :

alias port='sudo /opt/local/bin/port'

However, a .torrent file can be open with uTorrent or Transmission without using MacPorts.

.torrent files explained : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrent_file


How to increase size of mouse pointer for presentations?

System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Cursor Size


How can I incorporate LaTeX into an iBook created with iBooks Author?

LaTeXiT
...is the solution I'll go with now. You can export your Latex as a picture which can be very easily copied into iBooks Author.


To disable strict host checking on OS X for the current user, create or edit ~/.ssh/config and add the following lines:

Host [IP Address]
   StrictHostKeyChecking no
   UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null

A typical example for the hosts in your local network could be:

Host 10.1.1.*
   StrictHostKeyChecking no
   UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null

Depending on your usage of ssh I don't recommend to disable strict host key checking for all hosts.

If you just want to remove the entry for 10.1.1.20 open ~/.ssh/known_hosts with an editor of your choice and remove the respective line "10.1.1.20 ssh-rsa public-key$"


If we format and re-install OSX through recovery, will it install the latest version?

Have a look at the following links:

About macOS Recovery

How to reinstall macOS

From the latter link:

  Start up from macOS Recovery

  macOS Recovery installs
  different versions of macOS depending on the key combination you press
  while starting up. Hold down one of these combinations immediately
  after pressing the power button to turn on your Mac. Release when you
  see the Apple logo or a spinning globe.

  Command-R - Reinstall the latest macOS that was installed on your Mac, without upgrading to a later version.1
  Option-Command-R - Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.2
  Shift-Option-Command-R - Reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available.
  Requires macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or later.

  If you're selling or giving away a Mac that is using OS X El Capitan or earlier, use Option-Command-R to make sure that the
  installation isn't associated with your Apple ID.
  If you haven't already installed macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or later, Option-Command-R reinstalls the macOS that came with your Mac, or the
  version closest to it that is still available.


How create a smart playlist that shows only full albums in my library?

There is no way to automate this functionality in iTunes today.  To do so, the system would need to know how many songs were in each album and that isn't immediately available.  Plus, what if you have an album with twelve songs and you only have eleven, but you still want it in the list.  Or what about singles that have only one or two songs.  Are these "complete" albums?

In any case, the only way I know to do this is to mark complete albums manually.

For example, you could put a note in "Comments" like "CompleteAlbum" and build a playlist for all files with Comments that contain "CompleteAlbum".  If you want to stay out of the comments, you could use the Disc X of Y, clearing the Disc # for non-album tracks and setting it to 1 (or 2 or whatever) for albums.  Then, you build a playlist that looks for songs with Disc # >= 1.  It's up to you.

You just have to remember to do that for each album you add, but your playlist would contain all your 'complete albums'.


Is there any way to show the hidden files at the end of Finder's file list?

One possibility is to arrange by Kind in Finder.

That would put the hidden files at the end marked as Others and in Alphabetical order. The folders are also organized, see example.


How do I test significant location change events?

Just write something to a log file you can keep within the app's data folder. If you add a timestamp, you'll be able to monitor when the app has been woken up.

This will enable you to test using the simulator. The simulator will also allow you to simulate location changes from the top menu.


AppleScript: Is it possible to have an unselected "default answer" in an input dialog?

I figured it out.

If one presses the right arrow key just milliseconds before the dialog is displayed, then the default answer will not be selected and the blinking cursor will be placed after the default text.

You can perform this action in AppleScript like so:

-- Unselect the “default answer” in an input dialog:
tell application "System Events"
        key code 124 -- right arrow key
end tell

display dialog "Enter a keyword:" default answer "I do not want this text to be highlighted. "

In theory, the above solution should not work. In theory, the key press should commence and complete before the display dialog command initiates. But, this method does work, for whatever reason.

Note: This method will not work if you insert key code 124 before the very first dialog of your AppleScript file. In this case, my above code will fail to behave as desired and the default answer text will remain selected. (It may misleadingly appear to work correctly if you are simply running the AppleScript code from within Script Editor.app or Automator.app, but it will not work correctly if you run the .scpt file via Fast Scripts, osascript in Terminal.app, or any other method.)

However, if the display dialog in question is the second, third, or fiftieth dialog in an AppleScript file, my solution works correctly. Don't ask me why it won't work on the first dialog (because I don't know).

So, you have no choice but to rearrange the dialogs of the AppleScript file so that the first dialog does not need to have a default answer.

One workaround, if your initial dialog must have a default answer that is unselected, is to insert a dialog that automatically proceeds after a brief amount of time has elapsed. This dialog should be inserted immediately before the above tell block. It's not an elegant solution, but here is some code that will work:

display alert "Please wait..." message "..." buttons ("") giving up after 1
-- I think that "1" is the minimum for "giving up after." I tried "0.5" and the dialog completely stalled.

As long as it does not precede the initial dialog of a script, I have personally found my method to be reliable; it works 100% of the time on my computer.


How to fix internet sharing that doesn't route packets except DNS?

Matt's answer is actually not a solution but just a workaround.
NAT in 10.8.2 is not working because of a bug in pf configuration files. You can find the solution here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4418?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


Pages for iOS won't let me insert or replace pictures (images)

Either Pages can't read the type of image file you are trying to use, or there will be a bug fix in later update. Try holding your'e finger over the screen and moving it about, the image might be there just pulling a little trick on you.


Disk space lost after shrinking partition

Try this:

Reboot Into recoverymode
Select disk utility
First try to use first aid on your drive
And then use first aid on each partition.


I feel that this is absolutely third-party app territory. One that fills your needs well would be OPlayer HD (not a Universal Binary, iPad specific), chiefly due to it's capability to password protect content, with a few very notable caveats:

Put the 'safe for everyone' videos in iTunes, sync it and use the Videos player for those.
Use OPlayer's sync mechanisms (iTunes Document Sync, WiFi Transfer, etc.) for getting the restricted videos into the app, and then password protect it.

First, note that OPlayer does not support a simple pin/passcode, instead you have a full keyboard to type out a password. (You can always make your password a simple pin, I'm just stating that the input interface uses the full keyboard and not a "ten key" digit mode.)

Second, note that OPlayer's password protects the WHOLE app. Not just specific videos. This is why I suggest you split up the videos between the built-in player/iTunes housed videos, and OPlayer specifically.

Lastly, and perhaps most annoyingly, if you are done using OPlayer you should absolutely double-tap the home button and manually close OPlayer when you're done with it. If the app is running at all, even "suspended", you will NOT be re-prompted for the password when you return to the app.


How do I get a Windows ISO to set up Boot Camp?

You can do this using macs built in DiskUtility.app.

Insert the Windows installation DVD into the external Superdrive.

Open Disk Utility, Select the USB optical drive in the left DiskUtility window.

Click new image in the top bar.

Select DVD/CD master from the "Image Format" submenu.  Choose "None" for encryption.

After the image is done, locate it in Finder and highlight the file.  Press enter/return and rename the disk image file extension to .iso

Eject the Window installation DVD and insert your USB that is FAT32 formatted and use Master Boot Record for the partitioning scheme.

Open up Boot Camp Assistant and make sure "Create a Window 7 or later version install disk" is checked.  When you click continue it will prompt you to select the location of your .iso file you created.

Link to Apples Guide for creating a Windows .iso for BootCamp


When you restart a Mac holding command R or just option to choose a different os, that indicates a firmware password lock is present.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204455
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203409

After reading the above, you might need a repair to regain control to wipe and reinstall or just boot to a working OS. Since your Mac is outside normal support by Apple, you might need to change the hardware yourself - perhaps removing one RAM stick per these threads:

How do Apple engineers reset EFI password on new MacBooks?
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/121801/5472

Once that's done, you can boot to Recovery HD and reinstall the OS or erase the drive as needed.


keyboard cover for iPad Mini 2019 (gen 5)

Clearly, no one is making the cover you want in June 2019. You might need to get a cover and a keyboard if you don't want to wait.

Here are the keyboards I'd get if you need that first or can't wait:

Apple's actual keyboard nails your requirements for exact keyboard layout, bluetooth support, lightning charging, major brand known for quality keyboards (setting aside people’s love hate MacBook Butterfly keyboard issues)

https://www.apple.com/be-fr/shop/product/MLA22F/A/magic-keyboard-fran%C3%A7ais

Apple’s bluetooth magic keyboard comes with and without numeric keyboards and also in space grey if you want to spend a bit more. They are not the same size as the mini (feature and/or bug) and you’ll get the best support since Apple made both software, firmware and hardware. If that doesn’t work, Apple has no excuse they didn’t expect you to use these together.

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/ultrathin-keyboard-folio-for-ipad-mini

Logitech would by my next iPad mini specific recommendation. Solid, great warranty, sized right, support for iOS explicitly and you might even score a European model key layout.

I haven’t seen this yet in person, but am tempted to buy it sight-unseen knowing it’s featured at Apple Retail and from a trusted vendor.

Logitech Keys-to-Go Ultra Slim Keyboard with iPhone Stand


Here’s a Shortcut to save the current photo from the clipboard to your Camera Roll:

 Save Clipboard Photo

With a photo on your clipboard, call this shortcut from the Shortcuts app, or Notifications widget, or with Siri, and the clipboard photo will be added to your Camera Roll.


Okay, this proved far easier than I expected. All I had to do was temporarily disable System Integrity Protection.


iOS 5.0.1 (iPhone 4s) unable to synchronize with Internet Calendar File (ics)

Same issue for me.

A workaround is to copy paste the http:....\file.ics to your Safari, then the process works. But it's not user-friendly; I also want to tap on the link in my email, and then have it automatically update my calendar.


Same user multiple times - Sharing & Permissions

Sounds like there are multiple entries with your user account in the access control list of the share.

Unless you're experiencing performance/functionality issues, I recommend contacting the person who administers that share, letting them know about what you found, then ignore it. :)

If you're experiencing performance/functionality issues, find out if anyone else who uses the share experiences the same symptoms, compile your findings, then submit them to the share administrator.


You can't do this automatically, that I'm aware of, but you can make it simpler:

Setup each ethernet as it's own location in the Network preferences pane, then use the Apple Menu -> Locations menu to chose the location when you switch.

Turns it into changing the network cable, and a single click.

http://osxdaily.com/2013/07/01/change-network-location-quickly-mac-os-x/

OR:

If the internal dev ethernet is only internal (no external access), just have it bypass the proxy for those hosts and domains, and leave the proxy settings in all the time. That way they'll only use the proxy when on the open network going externally, or vice versa.

OR:

Get another ethernet interface, keep both open all the time, and configure each appropriately. USB->Ethernet converters are available cheaply.


Can I interact with Apple Notes app from the command line?

There is an application called Note2txt which will convert your notes from the Notes app to text files. One file for each note. It creates a file for all your notes and writes them into a directory of your choice.  It runs pretty quickly taking about 30 seconds for my 700+ Notes.


MacOS Mojave - load unsigned kernel extension

There are two avenues to get the extension whitelisted:

Manage the mac using MDM and follow the steps to have your MDM pre-clear this specific extension.
Open the Security System Preferences and click to white list this extension once you have attempted to load it one time.

https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2459/_index.html

The above article has the two buttons you need to click in the GUI to white list each extension on each machine.


How can I have spell check for one language *but NOT* for another in El Capitain?

The following script will set the spelling language to ONLY Korean and open a TextEdit window.

#!/bin/sh
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin export PATH

CommandD()
{
osascript <<EndOfMyScript
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "d" using [command down, option down]
end tell
EndOfMyScript
}

currentDockHiddenState=$(defaults read com.apple.Dock autohide)
if [[ "$currentDockHiddenState" != "1" ]]; then
    CommandD
fi

# Disable text auto-replacement
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSAutomaticCapitalizationEnabled -bool false
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSAutomaticDashSubstitutionEnabled -bool false
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSAutomaticPeriodSubstitutionEnabled -bool false
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSAutomaticQuoteSubstitutionEnabled -bool false
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool false
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSAutomaticTextCompletionEnabled -bool false
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSSpellCheckerAutomaticallyIdentifiesLanguages -bool false
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist WebAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool false
defaults delete ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems -array
defaults delete ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist AppleLanguages
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist AppleLanguages -array-add "en" "ko"
defaults delete ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSLinguisticDataAssetsRequested
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSLinguisticDataAssetsRequested -array-add "en" "en_US" "ko"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSPreferredSpellServerLanguage "ko"
defaults delete ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSPreferredSpellServerVendors
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSPreferredSpellServerVendors -dict "ko" -string "Apple"
defaults delete ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSPreferredSpellServers
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSPreferredSpellServers -array-add "ko" "Apple"

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder"' -e 'set rrr to get bounds of window of desktop' -e 'end tell' -e 'tell application "TextEdit"' -e 'activate' -e 'set bounds of window 1 to rrr' -e 'end tell'


StartupItems apply to all users, therefore the folder needs to be owned by root. You can set this by running the following, then rebooting.

sudo chown -R root:wheel /Library/StartupItems/


For some reason I can't update my Mac OS X 10.7.4 to the latest software?

You're not doing anything wrong, what's happening is your download is corrupted so when OS X does its integrity check, its' failing it. This is the message you are seeing.

It would be very helpful if you could post exactly which computer you are using, specifically the Model Identifier:, e.g MacBookPro10,1 and or MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013). If your computer can run the newest software (El Capitan), then you just need to open the mac app store, hit 'Get' and follow the steps on the screen. El Capitan is a free upgrade!

If your computer is too old to upgrade past 10.7 (Lion), you have some options as well:

Download the standalone updater: OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 (Client Combo)
Reboot, and try again a few times. Sometimes it gets through
Try from a friend's house who uses a different ISP. I've seen this happen when an ISP's CDN caches a corrupted copy.

Hopefully you can just upgrade to El Capitan and skip this whole thing.


trying to restore contacts in yosemite with time machine

To add to what @n1000 said above, some more details:

connect your time machine backup drive
you may need to login as root to get access to that Library folder
choose Finder->Go To folder-> <path-to-library>, where <path-to-libary> is something like "/Volumes/MyTimeMachineDrive/.../Users/keith/Library"
in there you can then browse to Application Support->AddressBook (I forget the details of where exactly it is)
copy the AddressBook back to your MBP and change ownership on it (if you are root) so that it can be read/written to by "keith"
re-login as "keith" and move the AddressBook to same location on your MBP "/Users/keith/Library/Application Support" (I think)
you will be asked to overwrite - go ahead if you want to turf the old AddressBook
open your contacts and voila! all should be well after that...

Please note that I had to do the the above because I had to restore contacts from a time machine backup drive of an old MBP to a new one (and the old MBP was dead, so I could not simply export contacts from it...).


Change a printer driver of an already configured printer

This feature was removed in OS X 10.8. You have to use the CUPS interface by running cupsctl WebInterface=yes from Terminal and then pointing a Web browser to http://localhost:631. From there:

Open the Printers tab.
Select your printer and select Modify Printer from the second drop-down menu. (You’ll have to provide your OS credentials.)
Select your printer and click Continue twice.
Select a different driver or choose an appropriate PPD file.
Click Modify Printer.


I'd guess a new battery would be a better long-term fix.


2010 Macbook Pro gets prohibitory sign after update

It was a bad sata cable according to the genius bar. They switched it out and it now works!


Use Family Sharing for just an iTunes account?

There are many people [including me] in this situation. Usually because the original iTunes account was set up before iCloud existed, so the email address is not an Apple address.

This, in itself, doesn't make it any different to any other iCloud account & you can treat them in the same way.

Set up Family Sharing on your current @me account & set that as family organiser. Send an invite to the other @dot.com account as another adult, & the same for the rest of your family [adult/child as appropriate]
Purchases will then be available to all members.

I have a recollection of, when trying to send the invite to my own @dot.com from @me, that the rescue/recovery address couldn't be the same, or the invite would never arrive. I remember having to temporarily juggle the addresses until I'd got it working, then change them back.


It's the PTR record (reverse DNS) corresponding to the IP address which your computer was assigned via DHCP. It changes each time your computer gets a new address from DHCP and you can't make it static.

The problem here is not in the settings on your computer, but on all the other computers connected to the campus network (i.e. computers try to connect to your computer). These machines ask the DNS server (which they also know from the campus DHCP) for the IP address of wireless1x-blah-blah-blah@university.edu and the DNS server returns the corresponding IP address.

You'd need to make a DHCP reservation to get the same IP address always, but this only administrators can do.

You can check it with command-line:

dig +short -x <your_ip_address>

or if you know your interface name (en0 in the below example) automatically:

dig +short -x `ipconfig getifaddr en0`


If you're comfortable using the command line this can be done using ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i movie.mov -y -f image2 -c:v mjpeg %03d.jpg

This will write out every frame of the input movie movie.mov as a JPEG named 001.jpg, 002.jpg, ...

If you expect there to be more than 1000 frames you might change the format string of the output filename (%03d.jpg) to include more zeros. For example to have it use a 5 digit filename you would use %05d.jpg.


Double tap on shift to enable caps lock.

The shift button will turn fully blue to indicate caps lock is enabled:

A glow on the shift arrow after a single tap denotes a normal shift press that is removed after the next keystroke:


Can the 2011 Mac-Mini (not the Server Edition) Support an Additional Hardisk, SSD?

You can install any drive, provided it's of the 2.5" variety (notebook disk).

iFixit has a kit you can purchase (see image below), or you can readily just buy the flex cable (PART# 922-9560). I purchased mine from PowerbookMedic for $29.95 and a few dollars shipping/handling. The iFixit kit includes the logic board puller, but I used two small screw drivers, which work just the same. If you have no qualms about spending the extra dough for what is likely a one-time affair, then by all means.

Do note that you can pick the grommets from Home Depot (they are 1/4" grommets) on the cheap. I had to shave a bit off to make them thinner, but they work beautifully. The screws are standard  "headless screws". 8mm M3 with a 0.5mm thread. The ones provided in the iFixit kit are not OEM, but just aftermarket screws that meet the dimensions. In any case, the grommets and screws are not entirely necessary as the limited room stops the drive from thrashing around. And since the unit is likely to stay stationary, not a large concern. It depends entirely on the level of craftsmanship you possess.

Macrumors has a thread outlining the process, and that can be supplemented with iFixit's own guide.

One thing to note, after you've installed the drive, reset the PRAM/NVRAM to ensure a problem free experience. I had data on my secondary drive and saw my boot sequence lengthened to minutes as a result. Resetting the unit's PRAM did the trick.

The entire process took me about 1 hour, but it all depends on your level of proficiency.

While adding the second drive is possible without removing the logic board, you will not be able to align the screws with the chassis (and will crush the grommets in doing so). You'll also wrestle 3x as long trying to get the SATA cable connected. There is literally not a mm to spare inside the unit. If you want to do the job right, you will need to take the mini apart and systematically install the drives one at a time so the holding screws line up with the grommets, the rest is a cakewalk.


Restore directory under ~/Library from TimeMachine

I found a kludge, which enabled me to restore the file, although I am not entirely comfortable with this.

I added ~/Library to the Sidebar, it then showed in TimeMachine.


I have the music logo stuck when I click music,

I perform a restore with iTunes from a previous backup and I was able to get past the screen.
After the restore I hit the music App and now I am able to use it .


When launching java app as Mac app there default java process name and About description instead of mine

If you use a shell script you must run it from a shell and so to ghet a shell macOS opens Terminal. You are also not running an app so not getting the correct setup for icons, menus etc.

To be seen as an app the executable needs to be packaged as per Apple's Bundle documentation

This Platypus seems to say it should do this. So in this case you need to read its documentation and see what you have not done. If this is the problem then this would need to be a question on StackOverflow but you would need to show how you set your app up.


Can the clock speed of my 2011 MBAir i7 be slowed to conserve power?

The Intel i5 and i7 processors have a number of features that will definitely conserve power or optimize it for those peak moments. You can't slow it down programmatically but you can be sure that the OS is doing all it can.

It's a good question, though, because an i7 processor running at 1.8Ghz doing nothing could be running at 1.2 and save power. In any case, I'm sure that one of the worst battery hungry things is the display. Make sure you dim it often when not using, use a lower brightness setting, turn off bluetooth if/when you don't use it, if you don't need network connectivity, turn wireless off, etc. Basic obvious ideas.

I have a free handy tool, similar to App Tamer mentioned by @ioi, that I occasionally use, Freeze Frame. You can simply stop certain processes from using any CPU at all, therefore letting the CPU to slow down. (Remember that with Turbo Boost it can go up!).

But I am not aware of a specific way to slow DOWN the processor. I'm sure Intel did its job there and the processor is clever enough to save as much as it can.


Chances are your OS X installation is broken.

First run Apple Hardware Test, restart and hold D.

Still not showing in System Hardware profile ? Slim chance but it wont hurt, reset your SMC and PRAM.

Still not working ...

Make backup to Time machine (external drive)

Restore your OSX , restart and hold Command-R that will get you in to Restore screen. Follow the instructions.

Still not working...add new MacBook Air to your Christmas wish list.

Buy a cheep USB video camera so you can survive till then.


Spanish to German dictionary on English OS

I have added other dictionaries to the list, but they have to be in the right format.  At the moment, I am not able to look up documentation for the format.


My SMC keeps corrupting, even after I reset it

SMC problems could be related to the battery itself.  That age of laptop doesn't have a separate battery - as in the average non-Apple motherboard which has a CMOS battery on the motherboard, so SMC would be using battery power to store settings.

If the battery's shot, SMC loses it's settings at whatever point the battery drains itself.

See if you can borrow another of the same model with a healthy-ish battery to test with for a bit...


This is not possible with the built in Voicemail functionality. You could submit feedback to Apple to suggest they add such a feature to a future iOS update at feedbackassistant.apple.com.


Mac Notebooks: What is the difference between Lock Screen, Turn Display Off, and Sleep mode states

The three distinct operations do exactly as the name suggests. However, the observed behaviour may vary as these operations work in conjunction with other setting configured in System Preferences app → Energy Saver. Let's briefly survey them again, one by one:

Lock Screen: Locks the screen and shows the login prompt with the name of the logged-in user displayed along with the password field. Locking the screen keeps the computer and all the processes running with the display remaining on. Any running processes continue to run, and any audio/video playback remains in progress. Lock screen invokes display sleep after a few seconds as a possible optimization technique by macOS. However, the display sleep is not performed after lock screen if video playback is in progress by a desktop app.
Turn Display Off: Only the display (built-in as well as connected) is turned off. Other hardware components remain on and processes continue to run. If a video playback is currently in progress in a desktop app (QuickTime Player, VLC etc.) the setting is overridden and the display doesn't go to sleep.
Sleep: Puts the computer into low enrgy consumption mode. The computer remains on but consumes less power. The display and hard disk are turned off, running process are halted, and any audio/video playback is paused. The advantage of this mode is that it's quicker to wake from sleep that starting from a shut down. Closing the lid of a portable automatically puts it into sleep mode unless an external display is connected to it. Sleep mode behaviour may slightly vary in case of Macs which support Power Nap. (Power Nap allows your Mac to occasionally wake from sleep to perform tasks such as checking for new email or software updates. Display and other un-needed hardware components remain turned off. Mac goes back to sleep once it's done with the task.)

  What are the differences between these three modes with regards to how often programs are allowed to update in the background?

As stated above, all the processes continue to run in the Lock Screen and Turn Display Off mode. However, depending on the configurations in System Preferences app -> Energy Saver, hard disks may be put to sleep (Hard drive motor is powered down when you aren't reading or writing files from the drive. Solid-state drives (SSDs) don’t have moving parts, so this setting doesn’t affect Mac computers that use only SSDs to store data.). Under both Lock Screen and Turn Display Off mode, all the programs continue to run and update normally.

  However, if I have a chat program running (e.g. Slack), sometimes my messages are not updated upon waking the computer and I need to manually refresh or wait for a while.

This may happen due to disruption in Internet connectivity. Display sleep and lock screen settings doesn't affect the normal operation of network applications.

  Is putting my machine in Lock Screen different from waiting for the display to turn off after set duration?

Yes. Lock Screen only restricts unauthorised access to the system and presents the logged-in users login prompt. Display turning off after a set duration doesn't automatically locks the screen or puts the system in sleep mode. A password authentication may still be required after waking the screen from display off mode if Required Password Immediately setting is enabled in System Preferences app → Security & Privacy → General.

The Apple support document, Use the Energy Saver settings on your Mac discusses the aforementioned items in further details.

The answer is written taking into account the settings and behaviour present in the current release of macOS, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6.


Stereo mic to iPhone 5S (jack) for recording

You need something to work with XLR mic's such as TASCAM’s iXZ. Search for "xlr iPhone microphone" to find other's that might fit your needs better.


You force restart iPhone simply by pressing and holding both the home button and the power button until you see the Apple logo. For this force restart both buttons are held simultaneously.

I have been in at least one situation where the phone would not power off and the only way to get the phone back working was to force restart.

This is similar to holding the power button down on a computer and crashing it entirely, and just like a computer, is typically only needed on rare occasions when nothing else will work. Refer to this KB document for more information: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1430.


How can I get the width or height of the dock in Mac OS X so I can resize a window properly?

The following example AppleScript code will return the size of the Dock:
tell application "System Events" to ¬
    tell application process "Dock" to ¬
        set dockSize to ¬
            the size of list 1

return dockSize

If you want the width and height:
tell application "System Events" to ¬
    tell application process "Dock" to ¬
        set {dockWidth, dockHeight} to ¬
            the size of list 1

return {dockWidth, dockHeight}


How to get back all iMessages into newly installed OS X El Capitan?

Since you formatted your drive, your old messages will no longer exist on your computer. Unfortunately, iCloud does not sync iMessages with OS X as of this time. You also can't sync up using iTunes either. It's possible that you could extract them from your phone, but you wouldn't be able to simply put them back into the app again.

In the future, should you reformat, you should backup your user's library folder as this contains most customizations you have set for your apps, along with the iMessages you had before.

Even if you had made a backup, however, the structure of messages will likely change over time and I know some folks even from Yosemite were unable to simply pass these files from a backup to El Capitan.


In iOS, Go to Settings > Your name > iCloud > List of apps.

You can turn on / off any of the apps using your Apple ID


When Time Machine begins a backup, it first 'prepares' the backup. It's at this point that the space requirements are calculated. If there's not enough space, it will delete old backups, and tell you so, including the date of the last backup that's left on the drive.

However, your error is that it's run out of space unexpectedly. This is much more rare.

Try repairing your drive with Disk Utility

There might be a problem with the disk and/or partition, where directories are smaller than they might first appear. Try repairing it.
Another process is writing to the drive

Make sure that nothing else is being saved to the partition at the same time. If another process writes a big file to the partition, then the space requirements won't match, and you'll get this error.


Unable to connect to iMac via Apple Remote Desktop 3

Try using the "kickstart" command on iMac2:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -configure -users USERNAME -access -on -privs -all -clientopts -setmenuextra -menuextra yes -restart -agent -menu -console

(Obviously change USERNAME to whatever local account you wish to use to control via ARD).

Remote Desktop is still a really finicky, crashy beast (even on 3.6).


Complex recurring event - Is there a way?

No.  You can't create a recurrence for this granular of a rule set.

I'm paid every month;
I'm paid always on the last possible day before the 28th day of the month;
I'm paid always on a working day.

So, to simplify it, you're paid the 27th of every month unless it's a weekend or holiday, then you're paid the previous workday.
Your options are as follows:

Schedule a year or two of a monthly recurrences for the 27th then go through the next 12/24 entries and manually fix the ones that fall on a weekend or holiday.  This is probably the quickest and most effective method because you can quickly scan your calendar for conflicts.
Using the calendar below, you can find only 3 instances where the 27th falls on a weekend in less than 30 seconds.  Easter being a 4th entry is also simple to modify.  It's simply not efficient to code these one-offs.

Create a CSV (Excel) file of your pay periods and convert them to .ics.

You're finding hard coded calendars with no logic because it's far easier to make the single change manually than to write the logic for it.  Your payroll admin also processes these anomalous events manually.  The problem with trying to automate this is...

holiday events vary too much from culture to culture
holiday events in calendars aren't "calculated;"  they're event entries like every other event entry (team meeting, dentist appointment, parent/teacher conference, etc.)
holiday events are not all equal.  Not all banks/companies will observe all holidays (close).

You could create the code using an opensource ics library to generate the .ics files your particular organization, but you're not going to find this recurrence pattern available in the calendar apps.


What could cause Command-Tab task switching to get "stuck"?

Just had the same issue.

Turns out it is because I've got my mouse in my bag and it's still connected to the bluetooth dongle on the machine. So essentially is the mouse.

As soon as I disconnected the mouse the issue went away.


How can I block ssh brute force attempts in OS X 10.11?

I've been researching opening up SSH like this on other *nix based systems, and most suggest two things. I'm sorry but I don't know how to do either on MacOS.

Fail2Ban - Which bans IPs that have too many failed login attempts
key rather than password based SSH logins. I believe you can take your key around with you if you want to use public machines.


For anyone who lands here after some time, a simple factory reset of my monitor fixed it.


Sparsebundle is reported to be 16mb but actually empty

Sparse disk images grow and shrink and your 16 MB is about the size of a totally empty container.

sudo ls -laR /path/to/mount_point

If there are no files, you will need to restore a backup copy of the sparse disk image or see if a commercial data recovery solution is possible on the storage where you stored the image.

By design, that "image" grows and shrinks in a destructive manner - so you can't expect to perform the "undelete" option that exists for moments of time when you delete a file from traditional spinning hard drive storage media or simple flash based USB drives/SD card type storage.

A sparse image is more like an SSD in that data recovery is not an option and backups are far more important.


Can I hope to learn iOS development on my mid 2009 MBP?

Definitely. I have the exact same configuration MacBook Pro, except I added some RAM to it (8 GB total) and installed an SSD. It may not do things at lightning speed, but the configuration is more than enough to work on Xcode. I've been learning it in for the past 2 months, so I know firsthand.


Why can't I have unique sorting options for folders in Finder?

Indeed, unique sort order is possible.

Open a new Finder window for e.g. Documents and
Go to View > Show View Options or hit Command + J.
Define your Sort order. That's it. Close the window
Repeat the step for every window. This way you can define the Sort order for every Finder window.


Pictures are stored but not displayed in Camera Roll

To free space in iPhotos ("Camera Roll"), on your iPhone (or iPad) go to:

Albums > Recently Deleted and then select the photos for permanent deletion.  I'll bet you have tons of photos there gobbing up space.  That should take a lot of pressure off on your available space for photos.  Myself, well I didn't know that was there for ages ... ;-)

Update: After further details from the OP, sounds like he CAN take pictures and they are stored on the device, but these pics are just not appearing in "Camera Roll".  I suspect "Camera Roll" is an alias to the DCIM storage location.  Could be something wrong with how the thumbnails linking to the DCIM storage folder you reference are added.  Thus, the advice you were receiving on removing the SQL-lite db.

Camera Roll itself must be an alias to that DCIM folder.  It would make no logical sense to have pictures stored in BOTH the DCIM folder and also Camera Roll.  How these things interact would appear to be where the problem exists.

I remember with Outlook .pst folders there was a (2) GB limit (I believe) that buggered everything once the file hit 2GB.  I just checked this for you and the max SQL Lite file size is 140 TB, so this can't be the problem.  HOWEVER, the size of the query as to what's retrievable in memory from a huge SQL Lite DB CAN be a limiting factor:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14451624/will-sqlite-performance-degrade-if-the-database-size-is-greater-than-2-gigabytes

The upper limit as to the SQL query to the SQL Lite DB required to display the pics in "Camera Roll" looks a likely candidate if your pictures store is huge and the query size required to display them in Camera Roll is limited in memory