Time Machine backup strategy to avoid ransomware/other malware

For the mounting unmounting part you can simply use the commands

  diskutil mount HDD UUID

for mounting the USB disk and

  diskutil unmount HDD UUID

You can get the UUID selecting the drive or partition in Disk Utility and clicking on "Info".

For the Time Machine part, you could use TimeMachineScheduler it let you change the interval of backups and also set time where no backups are to be done.

Let us know if that worked for you, or if not let us know more info about what version of OS X you are running etc!


Use launchd to start VMware's VM on VNC connection

Your problem here is that if launchd is going to listen on the VNC port, well, then it's going to get the traffic on the VNC port.  The approved ways for a daemon program to deal with this are either to expect the network traffic on StdIn and StdOut or to collect a list of file descriptors from launchd and use one of those for the network communication.  Otherwise the client is going to create a connection and then see the connection closed by launchd while it starts up the daemon.

I suggest you have launchd listen on another port and spawn a simple program that just pipes input to /dev/null while also launching the VM.  So then to start the VM you telnet to this special port.

Or, you know, the easy thing to do is just always have the VM running. :-)


I recommend to download the Command Line Tools 11.2 from More Downloads for Apple Developers. An Apple ID is required.

Install it manually and afterwards the pending (and obviously not installing) updates in Software Update will vanish.

As an alternative a direct d/l link: Command Line Tools 11.2


Is it safe to delete ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.iLifeSlideshow/Pictures?

By design intent, files stored in ~/Library/Caches should always be safe to delete, at least as long as the application isn't running. You can mitigate any poor programming bugs by moving them to trash and then rebooting the mac before you empty the trash as this ensures whatever programs are running can still write files to that old cache directory but will be forced to make a new Cache folder the next time it starts.

In your specific instance, the folder/files in question are created by iPhoto when you start a slide show. It seems that they do not get removed when you exit iPhoto later on so you have to remove them manually if you want to recover the disk space.


How to install rpm tool on Mac OS X 10.8?

I ended-up installing macports and using it to install rpm (port install rpm)

It took about an hour to compile all the dependencies, even if I do have 4 cores and a SSD.


Needed: easy program for inserting symbols and Unicode characters

UnicodeChecker

UnicodeChecker is an excellent app showing each of the possible Unicode characters. Search the more than 110,000 characters by name with a press of Command+F. Frequently updated to keep up with changes in the Unicode standard.

Use the Favorites menu to quickly access your frequently-used characters.


Help with iBooks not being able to send a PDF using the share icon?

iBooks will only share PDF via email, so be sure you can send your friend an email before trying to share it.


iPhone 4 would not turn on unless it is plugged in

Your battery is mostly likely dead and needs replacing. You have three options:

Take to an AppleStore (expensive - and probably not cost effective as you have bought the phone second hand);
Purchase a replacement battery and replace it yourself
(Luckily, replacing the battery on the iPhone 4 requires minimal
disassembly), or;
Send it to a battery replacement service (easily found online, or
offered through eBay, and not too pricey)

This has happened to me many times (5 or 6 times) and I always go for option three, because I am lazy.


The said formula is no longer available to install via Homebrew. You'd need to download and install it from the project homepage here:

Enhanced CTorrent


After restoring all of my files are sitting under my documents. How can i clean up?

You need to go to Finder's preferences, then to the sidebar tab to re-enable folders on the sidebar.

The correct place to put

Pictures: Pictures folder
iTunes: Music folder
Videos: Movies folder
Documents: Documents


Why does my monitor changes colors when the graphics adapter changes?

It's not normal, but a known issue. The problem appears each time your MacBook Pro switches to a Discrete Graphics Card.

There are a couple of things you could try, as a temporarily fix:

Turn Off the Automatic Graphics Switching in System Preferences / Energy Saver, Reboot, and then turn it On again. This will make the Discrete Card to be initialized correctly. This fix will work, though, until your next reboot.
Use gfxCardStatus to force the use of the Integrated Card only.

Some users got rid of it just by Rebooting, Repairing Permissions, Upgrading to the newest version or Reinstalling, though.


Does "reset network settings" on iPhone enable me to change mobile carriers?

To change carriers you would need to talk to your carrier, if your phone is not locked all you need to do is change the sim card and then activate it.

I've just changed to AT&T in the US from an Australian carrier and the process was very simple.


Regain access to Apple ID traded away and 'returned'

If you do not know your security questions to reset your Apple ID, try the following.

If you have 3 different security questions and a rescue email address set up with your Apple ID

Sign in to My Apple ID and select the "Password and Security" tab to send an email to your rescue email that you set up.

If you have only 1 security question that you set up, but don't know your password

Contact apple support and hopefully someone can assist you farther.

Knowledge base related article: http://support.apple.com/HT201363


Is there a way to change 3 finger drag to 4 finger drag

In Better Touch Tool, I find these four-finger gestures... No four-finger drag, I guess.

But to be sure you could try asking at http://blog.boastr.net/what-is-bettertouchtool/


How to perform a "Clean Install" these days?

The functionality you're looking for that is closest to the Clean Installation option in the old Mac OS 'System' days is the Reinstall macOS option available from Recovery mode.

See my A bit of history info at end on what the old Clean Installation option was and how it differs slightly from the Reinstall macOS option today.

Reinstalling macOS without deleting applications, data, etc

Prior to following this process, you need to ensure:

you have a known good backup of all your data (be it via Time Machine or another process) just in case something goes wrong
your iMac is able to connect to the internet during the installation process

Assuming you have the above sorted, follow these steps to reinstall macOS without deleting your apps, data, etc.

Shutdown your iMac
Power up your iMac and immediately press and hold the commandR keys
Let go of the keys when it's clear you're booting into Recovery mode
Soon the macOS Utilities window will appear
Make sure your iMac is connected to the internet
Now choose the Reinstall macOS option
Click the Continue button
Follow the prompts (to select your disk, etc)
Click the Install button

Once completed, your iMac will restart as normal. This process does not erase your drive and therefore all your apps and data should still be in place. In other words, this process does nothing but reinstall macOS over the previous version on your drive.

A bit of history

In the old Mac OS System days users were presented with three options when installing system software:

normal (“easy”) installation - this automatically installed all the Mac OS system software appropriate for that particular model of Mac
“clean” installation - (see more details below)
custom installation - this allowed users to select a specific combination of system software files or to install/update specific files

The old clean installation option was actually designed as a troubleshooting option. This allowed users to discover which item(s) in their original System Folder was causing problems. A clean installation created a brand new System Folder and saved everything in the original System Folder to a different location. It also left user data (and user installed apps) alone. Users could then reinstall system extensions, control panels, etc one at a time from the old System Folder to the new System Folder. This procedure allowed users to determine which item in the old System Folder was the source of a problem.

In Apple's own words:

  Perform a clean installation if you can’t determine what is damaged in
  your System Folder (especially if you think any special software, such
  as control panels, system extensions, or custom utilities, may be
  causing the problems you’re experiencing). You should also perform a
  clean installation if you’re still having problems with your computer
  after you’ve reinstalled system software by performing a normal
  installation.

Source: Mac OS 7.1 Installation manual

Today a clean installation has a totally different meaning (even to Apple) to what it did back then. Today a clean installation involves erasing the Mac's startup drive and starting afresh with a totally new installation of macOS, meaning users have to rely on a backup and/or installers to transfer any data or software over. Today's Reinstall macOS option accessible via Recovery Mode is the closest option to replicating the old clean installation option.

Where this differs is that the old option actually kept everything in the original System Folder by copying it to another location so users could move system items (e.g. control panels, system extensions, etc) back one by one to try and determine what was causing problems. This was a troubleshooting process of elimination option.

Today's Reinstall macOS option is not designed so much for troubleshooting as it is simply to reinstall macOS over an existing installation without having to install/migrate apps, data etc.

However, if you're installing a new drive or migrating to a new Mac, then users will need to use Time Machine / Migration Assistant instead (or another backup option) in order to migrate apps and data.


What's happening is iCloud is syncing your message settings across devices. You'll need separate accounts to accomplish this.

You will need to first remove this email from your AppleID (presuming it's an alternative email on your AppleID).

Create an iCloud account for your Mac using just your email and log into that on iMessage on your Mac. This way you have a totally disconnected account and changing the settings won't effect all of your iCloud-connected devices on your first account.


editing a sqllite database from the command line within an iPad

I would like to bring up that you do not need to jailbreak your iPad in order to pull this off.  You may still want it jailbroken for other reasons, but that is up to you.

First download iSSH from the Apple store.  It is $10, but it is worth every penny.  That will allow you to securely log into the server that already stores the SQLite database.  You said that you are currently using SCP to access the database, so SSH is already set up for you on the server side.  Just log into the server with the same credentials you use to SCP to/from it.

If you are SSHing in, you aren't going to have access to a GUI program to alter the SQLite database.  You will have to do it using the SQLite command line tool "sqlite3".  This really is easier than you think it is, and I personally feel that using the command line interface for SQL databases really help you understand them much better.


Will apps fail to download if I'm still on iOS6?

It turned out to be a network issue.
Even though I had reset my home router, it came down to how far away from the router I was. I guess the iPad couldn't get a stable enough connection to meet the needs of the download (even though the wifi icon on the ipad showed full strength). Moving closer to my wireless router resolved the problem.


Visual studio Code maxs out my CPUs even when its just open

High CPU is caused most probably by some VS Code extensions. Try running VS Code with all extensions disabled and check if You still experience such CPU.
From my experience the Import Cost extension can cause quite high CPU load..

If the CPU is allright with extensions disabled try enabling it one-by-one (work a little bit between enabling every next one) and try to locate which extension is a real CPU eater.

Here is a very good article about troubleshooting performance issues with VS Code:
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/wiki/Performance-Issues

Good luck!


That happened to me with my iPad Air. I solved it by backing my iPad up to iTunes and then deleting the app from my iPad through iTunes, then I clicked Apply. I then downloaded the app from the App Store again. This will delete any data the app has on your iPad.

YMMV, as a few months later this app (Pages) was doing the same thing again, so I put it off and put it off and I never fixed it again, but when I updated to the iOS 9 Public Beta on my iPad the app was fixed! So you might just wait a couple of months until iOS 9 comes out and the update should hopefully fix the app for you.


Function keystrokes 'ate' by host when running Win7 in a VirtualBox

With 10.6 and a USB keyboard, the Fn keys pass through to the app; OS-X only intercepts the media functions.

In your OS-X's Keyboard SysPrefs pane, is:

  Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard
  function keys

selected?

With this selection, my (unshifted) F-keys pass straight through to my VBox VM.  With it unselected, I need to use the Fn key to generate type them (even within OS-X).


The current Apple Watch does all that you've asked about.

However, I would recommend waiting until WWDC this June to see what new Watches will be made and what the new costs will be.


Apple Magic Mouse is discoverable, but not pairing

My issue was that my Magic Mouse was discoverable through the Bluetooth Preferences pane, but when I clicked 'Pair', it couldn't connect. After an hour, I found a solution that worked:

Turn off the Magic Mouse
Open the Bluetooth Preferences
Delete your mouse's profile
Be sure the Bluetooth Prefs pane is searching (indicated by the spinner)
Hold the mouse button down, then flip the switch to turn it on (it should blink green during this time
While still holding down the mouse button, click 'Pair' in the Bluetooth Prefs pane


The option to disable the encryption was removed in recent versions of dynamic_pager.


I use iStat Menus.  This is the best paid app for showing, via the menubar, how your Mac is performing.  In addition it also can send notifications for a number of performance related events - and that includes high CPU.
Here is the preference screen for setting alerts:

You can download iStat Menus for free and use it for 14 days before deciding whether to pay.


The straightforward way is to wait until the current version of iOS is jailbroken, and then upgrade and rejailbreak - there are applications you can use (a handy range is described at http://www.cultofmac.com/169467/how-to-backup-your-jailbreak-apps-and-tweaks-from-cydia-ultimate-roundup/) to back up the 'jailbroken bits' of the device, but I personally prefer just upgrading and then putting back on those cydia apps that I really want on my own - they way I also have had the chance for a bit of a clear out.


How do I get audio CD to open in iTunes for ripping?

Can you use Expose to show all of the windows running? Have you tried with different CDs, to make sure it isn't one of those CDs that has an application on that just plays the music.

I've just tested with the same settings as you (System preferences - Music CD, open iTunes and iTunes, Ask to import) and all it did was open iTunes.

Another possibility, have you got any other media player applications running?


I'd recommend turning off fade-in animation under Appearance where you'll see "Fade in Alfred window".

The only reasons Alfred would be slow are either RAM swapping and you're out of memory or, unlikely but possible, could be due to a network drive that is still being looked for after being disconnected.


How can I get my microphone to work on Windows 7 and Boot Camp 2.0?

Are you sure you have all the bootcamp drivers installed on the PC side of things?

Also, what type of microphone is it? Are there updated drivers for it?

Is Windows even recognizing a device is attached? Can you choose it and tell it to find the newest drivers?

EDIT:

Go to ControlPanel > SoundAndAudioDevices and click the 'Voice' tab. Make sure the 'Voice recording' device is correctly selected and click the 'Test hardware' button. You should be able to adjust the record volume. (One possible extra step: have to go to "advanced" and check-mark a box for "boost mic.")

  I then determined to try the microphone with headphones on. Sound comes through crystal clear to other people with them on. I don't understand why, but just know that it works fine now. So try some headphones for a temporary fix.

If none of this works for you, it seems that there is no fix for this issue yet and it will have to take another update to the Windows Bootcamp drivers for this issue to be resolved.


Command to find out the version number of a .pkg file

The best I could come up with was this:

pkgutil --expand package.pkg /tmp/pkg; cat /tmp/pkg/PackageInfo | grep ./Applications | grep -m 1 .app\" | awk '{ print $3, $2 }'; rm -rf /tmp/pkg

Not the most elegant solution, so I'm still searching for a way to do this without having to extract the .pkg first.


How to fix iCloud Outlook calendar pasting?

Drag the appointment into the My Calendars folder, then edit it and add notes, etc.  Then drag it back to the icloud folder.  Additions will be there.


My Group FaceTime calls don’t ring on the receiving end

In the end, no matter how motivated you are to solve someone else’s problem, you can’t. Due to privacy designs, you do not get to know if someone else has blocked you or has do not disturb engaged or their device is just messed up.
In my experience, having a couple people one very slow rural cable Internet with buffering and lag means I have to call them one at a time (sometimes via landline) and have them start the “group call”.

Have you tried having someone else initiate the group calls?

And the next time I’m physically visiting anyone where the group call struggled, I might ask ‘How is your tech doing?” Only if they want help do we go intotheir iCloud and notification settings if they feel they are having problems. Most of the time they like it how it is and either intentionally or unintentionally don’t want all their devices ringing every time a group call starts. Only one time did my relative say “yeah, this is really bugging me let’s get to the bottom of it.”
My group FaceTime calls are super reliable with people interested in keeping their contact list clean and understand push notifications and have got their devices all set up to be notified by FaceTime when a call starts. If they want a group call, listen if they prefer zoom or let them drive the timing / orchestration of it would be my advice. Stick to 1-1 calls (or smaller groups) if those are the ones they tend to answer.


I would highly recommend getting a natural ergonomic keyboard. Here is a link that Microsoft has explaining the difference.
Ergonomic Keyboards

There are numerous keyboards that are ergonomic. Microsoft and Logitech have a few that work with Mac's.


It's read-only because it's formatted with NTFS (the Windows filesystem), which OS X can only read without the help of third party software. If reformatting isn't a problem, then that's likely the easiest way to go. If you need to transfer between OS X and Windows with the stick, use the FAT filesystem. If you're just using it with Macs, the defaults will work fine.


Close all open applications;
Open Boot Camp Assistant (click Continue);
Select Remove Windows 10 or later version;
Click Restore if your Mac has one internal disk, otherwise select the Windows disk and select Restore disk to a single macOS partition, and then press Continue.

It is recommanded to do a backup before doing so.


On lid open Macbook Pro 2016 boots automatically - after turning off I need to juggle 10 seconds with the touch id power button to boot

This is a side-effect of the implementation. Setting the AutoBoot NVRAM variable doesn't actually prevent the machine from booting.

The machine will still boot automatically when the lid is opened, or on the first power button press, but will only boot to a page with a battery icon.
Until the machine shuts down again (by itself after a little while, or by the power button again), the power button won't work to turn the machine on.
Once the machine is off, you can use the power button again, at which point the machine boots normally.


How to view saved passwords on Chrome iOS?

You can't review your stored Passwords in the Chrome App at all.

On the App and in the Support Documents Apple mentions  to use the url passwords.google.com see

On that Page when you open it on your Moblie it says that you can access your Passwords From all your Divices but not fron this Site see

So i think there is currently no way you can have a Look at your saved Passwords at the Moment.

If you realy need it you should Fill a Bug request and send it to Google so they maybe will fix it in the App.


Putting iPhone passcode into Xcode, so I wouldn't need to unlock my iPhone for every build?

Could everyone please report this as a bug?

As it stands, you either put up with it, or much worse, turn off locking. Neither option is good.

If the iOS device is in developer mode, and connected to an active Xcode instance, Xcode should be able to keep the phone unlocked.

That way you not only can leave locking on, but it will re-lock the instant you disconnect.


Cannot reach webpage for certificate generation on my developer account

Your AppleID appears to not be registered as a Developer.  You must enroll in the Developer program to operate on certificates.


I found that Safari 9.0 for Yosemite is indeed available, but first you have to upgrade to the most recent Yosemite version 10.10.5

In my case, I had 10.10.4 and the update for Safari was not showing up in the App Store. I wanted to update all at once but first you have to do the system update.


You can delay the execution of the diskutil command in your ramdisk.sh script by prepending the line sleep 10.

Sleep suspend the execution for an interval of time, in seconds.

Your new ramdisk.sh becomes:

sleep 10
diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "RamDisk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://800000`

Update#1: launching the ramdisk.sh every 10 seconds and only creating the RAM disk when it is not there, is a workaround. See this example script for such a conditional check:

sleep 10
RD=RamDisk
if [ ! -e "/Volumes/$RD" ];  then
    diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "$RD" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://800000`
fi

Your error might be caused because /Volumes is not already created in the boot process at the moment your launchd job is executed. Thefore you could first check for the existence of /Volumes before even further executing the script, like:

if [ -e "/Volumes" ];  then
    RD=RamDisk
    if [ ! -e "/Volumes/$RD" ];  then
        diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "$RD" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://800000`
    fi
fi

And when the creation succeeds you might want to unload your com.aram.ramdisk.plist from launchctl until the next boot.


Using MAMP 3.4, how do I upgrade to Apache 2.4 and OpenSSL 1.0.2 to meet the ATS iOS 9 requirements?

For Mac OS X Yosemite

Update openssl by brew to version >= 1.0.2d
TLS 1.2 works only with apache 2.4 and actually MAMP is still given with apache 2.2. SOLUTION: download and install the latest version of AMPPS which runs a version of apache 2.4.x
create a self signed certificate with sha256 (as requested by iOS 9) with

openssl req -x509 -nodes -sha256 -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout server.key -out server.crt

       and save server.key and server.crt into /Applications/AMPPS/apache/conf

Be sure that ssl modules are loaded inside httpd.conf file of AMPPS
Edit file /Applications/AMPPS/apache/conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf adding:

<VirtualHost localhost:443>
   DocumentRoot "/Applications/AMPPS/www"
   ServerName localhost
   SSLEngine on
   SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
   SSLHonorCipherOrder on
   SSLCertificateFile "/Applications/AMPPS/apache/conf/server.crt"
   SSLCertificateKeyFile "/Applications/AMPPS/apache/conf/server.key"
</VirtualHost>

inside

<IfModule ssl_module> ... </IfModule>

iOS 9 simulator will annoy you each time you use NSURLSession raising an error 9813 saying that the certificate is not valid (because is self signed). So in each class where you are going to use NSURLSession do, for example, the following:

class LoginService: NSObject, NSURLSessionDelegate {

func URLSession(session: NSURLSession,
    task: NSURLSessionTask,
    didReceiveChallenge challenge: NSURLAuthenticationChallenge,
    completionHandler: (NSURLSessionAuthChallengeDisposition, NSURLCredential?)
    -> Void) {

    completionHandler(NSURLSessionAuthChallengeDisposition.UseCredential, NSURLCredential(forTrust: challenge.protectionSpace.serverTrust!))
}

...

func requestLoginWithURL (requestURL: NSURL, completionHandler: (success: Bool?) -> Void) {
    let configuration =
    NSURLSessionConfiguration.defaultSessionConfiguration()

    let urlRequest: NSURLRequest = NSURLRequest(URL: requestURL)

    let session = NSURLSession(configuration: configuration, delegate: self, delegateQueue:NSOperationQueue.mainQueue())

    /*
    dataTaskWithRequest: creates an HTTP request for the specified URL request object, and calls a handler upon completion.
    */
    let task = session.dataTaskWithRequest(urlRequest, completionHandler: { (data: NSData?, response: NSURLResponse?, error: NSError?) -> Void in

...
}

where the function URLSession is a delegate which will prevent the app from crashing because of the self signed certificate and it will accept anyway.


Is there a fix for Mac OS Preview, file opening window not showing on opening the application?

If you have un-checked Preview in System Preferences > AppleID > iCloud Drive Options, then it won't show the file dialog by default.
Weird, I know, but there you have it.


Changing character encoding from Unicode to Ascii

With BBEdit this is easy. First open the file in BBEdit. If you let BBEdit install its command line tool you can even do this from Terminal with bbedit /path/to/filename. If the file has opened as the wrong encoding, select File > Reopen Using Encoding > correct encoding. I think it would be worth trying reopening using UTF-16 Little-Endian & UTF-16 Little-Endian, no BOM to see if either of those has the file open as desired. When you have the file correctly opened, select File > Save As.... In the Save As dialog box you can choose the desired encoding, & also the line ending type if that matters.
For dealing with inverted red question marks, probably null (ASCII 0), select Text > Zap Gremlins... for the dialog below...

Using the options shown there should give a state like what you see in TextEdit. Try different options on copies of a couple of your files.
Because BBEdit has a command line tool, you should be able script it once you have the correct options. BBEdit also works with AppleScript & Automator.
You can download BBEdit for free from the link I've given. It will start in demo mode, & when the demo mode expires it will continue to run in free mode where the features you need are still available.


Automator: Open the current PDF file in Preview with another app

Here is an Automator Service/Quick Action that will open in Skim the front opened PDF document in Preview from the Preview > Services menu, or a keyboard shortcut if assigned in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services.
This Automator Service was tested and works for me under macOS High Sierra assigning it a keyboard shortcut of ⌥⌘S, but should work as a Quick Action in macOS Mojave and later.
Example AppleScript code:
on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Preview" to ¬
        set pdfDoc to (path of front document)
    tell application "Skim" to open pdfDoc
end run

Here is an Automator Service/Quick Action that will open the same PDF document(s) in both Preview and Skim from Finder.
In Finder, select one or more PDF documents, or a folder full of PDF documents and then right-click and select, e.g., Open PDF in Preview and Skim from the Services context menu.
This Automator Service was tested and works for me under macOS High Sierra, but should work as a Quick Action in macOS Mojave and later.
Example AppleScript code:
on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Preview" to open input
    tell application "Skim" to open input
end run

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


Have you tried to display Internet-to-Ethernet address using the arp utility ? arp -a will display the connected devices to your network via ethernet.

It will show something like this :
(192.168.100.104) at xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx on en0 ifscope [ethernet]


Basically, you need to establish a permanent wired Ethernet connection from one of the LAN ports on the FritzBox to the WAN port on the AirPort Extreme.

Then, configure the AirPort Extreme to create a wireless network using the same wireless network name, same wireless security settings and same password as the Fritzbox router.

The last step to check would be to make sure that the AirPort Extreme is configured to operate in Bridge Mode, so it will function correctly on the network.

From https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5152388?tstart=0

If you've already done all this, make sure that your cables are good and everything.  If all else fails, try turning it off and on again


How I can set a dot to center of MacBook monitor?

You need a ruler and a Marker.

Measure diagonally and place a Dot with marker in the center, that you can wash off later.


web sharing doesn't make my website live on internet?

It's likely that your router is engaging in Network Address Translation.  In order to see the web page inside your LAN from outside of it...

You'll have to turn on port forwarding on the HTTP port that you're serving (80 is the default) to direct any traffic to the internal address.  This process varies from router to router, so you'll have to look at the manual that came with that device.
It's best to also set up a static IP address for the computer serving the website so that if it reboots, the port forwarding still works.  This is unnecessary if you can port forward using the hostname (not typically supported).  This also varies from router to router.
Direct your clients to your externally-facing IP address.  If you don't have a reserved IP through your ISP, this might change from time-to-time, especially if you restart your modem, so I recommend...
(optional) Get an account at a dynamic dns host such as DynDNS to allow external users to see a persistent address.  You'll have to install some software on the server to periodically make sure that the IP address is correct.


Why does secondary screen turns black when selecting "Mirror Display"

I solved the problem by resetting NVRAM / PRAM:

Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the gray screen
appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.


How do get the text in Messages to display while I’m typing?

Try to reset to the defaults the colors in System Preferences -> General -> Color Scheme, also the highlight color above. I had troubles myself with this settings before.


Is there any tool that will make it dead-easy to quarter the size of an image (i.e., de-Retina it)?

Automator

You can use OS X's Automator.app to quickly resize images to 1/4 of their original size. The Actions you want are:

Get Selected Finder Items
Scale Images

You can create droplet like applications using Automator to make the whole process a single drag-and-drop. Alternatively you can set up a folder action to resize any image dropped into a folder.

To learn more about using Automator, see Apple's Mac Basics: Automator.


How to set my iPhone was always seen in iTunes via wi-fi?

I used to run into this problem all the time, and it was very frustrating.  The only thing that made any difference was to edit the settings of my wifi router to assign both my computer and the iPhone permanent, static IP addresses on my home network.  My iPad still occasionally disappears from iTunes, but this has cut down the frequency of the problem by about 85%.

I assume that this happens because iTunes caches the mobile devices location on the network, but doesn't update it very frequently.  Then if the device shows up with a new IP, it chokes.


Automator "Quit Application" Action stops

You can try these three potential solutions to see if either fare any better than the built-in Automator action.

The first is a plain AppleScript handler that takes a list of exceptions (apps that are exempt from being quit), and then proceeds to send a quit command to all the others (they being any application process not belonging to a file in the /System directory--therefore, Finder and System Events will be spared, but Automator will not unless it is specified in the list of exceptions, X):

to quitAll(X as list)
    local X

    tell application id "com.apple.SystemEvents" to script Apps
        property list : the bundle identifier of processes ¬
            where the POSIX path of its application file ¬
            does not start with "/System"
        property locked : X
    end script

    tell Apps to repeat with id in its list
        ignoring application responses
            set A to the application id id
            if A's name is not in locked ¬
                then try
                quit A
            end try
        end ignoring
    end repeat
end quitAll

The second uses the same method as above to retrieve a list of running applications but it grabs their pid numbers.  These are passed en masse to a do shell script call to kill the applications (some people get nervous about this, possibly because the name of the command sounds like it's a bad action to perform, but it's perfectly safe, and very standard.  Applications typically also save their window and document states, so the kill command can allow them to retrieve the .savedState data when re-opened later.

to kill(X as list)
    local X

    tell application id "com.apple.SystemEvents" to script Apps
        property parent : a reference to every process where the ¬
            POSIX path of its application file doesn't start with ¬
            "/System"
        property id : my unix id
        property name : my short name
        property locked : X
    end script

    tell Apps to repeat with i from 1 to length of id
        if name's item i is in locked ¬
            then set id's item i to []
    end repeat

    set my text item delimiters to space
    "kill " & integers in the id of Apps
    do shell script result
end kill

The last solution is an AppleScript-ObjectiveC handler that, once again, obtains a list of the running applications that aren't located anywhere in the /System folder, and don't appear (by name) in the list that's passed to the handler:

to terminate(X as list)
    set pred to "!bundleURL.path LIKE '/System/*'" & ¬
        "&&!localizedName IN[c] %@"

    script
        use framework "Foundation"

        set [A, P] to a reference to my [¬
            NSWorkspace's sharedWorkspace's runningApplications, ¬
            NSPredicate's predicateWithFormat_(pred, X)]
        (A's filteredArrayUsingPredicate:P)'s terminate
    end script

    run result
end terminate

I haven't tested this handler to see what permissions need granting, as I didn't want all of my programs to terminate.  But let me know if there are any hiccups and I'll direct you accordingly.  The word terminate inside the handler can be replaced by forceTerminate (case sensitive) to do a force quit on each application instead.  This, if it were me, would actually be my preference, as I have set my system to save the state of applications on forced terminations, and it avoids the "Do you want to save the current document?" banality.


Why is iPhone adding a '1' to my phone numbers when sending a text?

The US telephone system use a #1 in front of USA area codes.

If you with in the same area then you do not need to dial it.

Even if you dial '1 in local calls it will be just ignored.

You phone automatically adds a #1 anyway so you do not forget it.

However if you are outside the area then #1 is needed in front of the number.

In modern days devices the #1 is hidden but it is dialed automatically.


For making an assistive device, does iOS 13 enable control of a cursor using code?

You can use a Bluetooth mouse with iOS 13 by opening Settings > Accessibility > Switch Control > Switches, and then from there add the Bluetooth device. This allows you to control a cursor on screen.

You can also do on-screen navigation using other third party hardware in form of "ordinary" Switch Control equipment. In addition it is possible to use the camera to control navigation - moving your head to the left or to the right choosing diretion.

You can use Python on seperate hardware to emulate a Bluetooth mouse - this would make it possible to control the cursor from Python.

All the above have to do with system wide cursor control. There's also the option of developing your own app. If you do this, you can control the cursor within the app any way you like - this could for example be over the network controlled by Python. This is essentially the way that for example Citrix managed to have a controllable cursor on pre-iOS 13.


Some locales use semicolon as a separator for parameters in formulae, such as Turkey. You can check this by using a comma after the first parameter, then clicking a cell. If you see a semicolon being inserted alongside the comma you should use a semicolon as a delimiter.

This feels like a bug. Copy-pasting the cell shows the syntax error, but copy-pasting the contents of the cell (the formula itself) works fine, alongside me retyping the formula. You can provide feedback to Apple here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/numbers.html


MAMP nginx.conf - invalid number of arguments in "user"

Your host is part of the domain COMPANYWORKDOMAIN and user rob is a domain user (probably admin, network, managed) but no local admin user.

nginx.conf line 7 is determined by the "Run server as:" settings in MAMP Pro and mustn't be edited manually:

Since your user is no local admin account using rob will fail.

So either use the standard Unix users (www/www) or a local admin account (which requires to log out as rob and log in as another local admin user) to run MAMP Pro:


Automatically migrate to Family Sharing?

Unless I'm misreading your question, doing the following will make the process easier for you:

Launch the App Store app on your iPhone
Tap on your account at the top right corner
Tap on Purchased
Now you should see a listing for all accounts in your family group
Tap on your wife's listing
At the top, below your wife's name, you'll see two buttons All and Not on this iPhone
Make sure that the All button is selected
Now you'll see a listing of all apps* ever purchased under her account
The ones that have the OPEN option at the right are the ones installed on your iPhone
Now make a list of the apps in question so you can delete them from your iPhone and install them under your account

* Accept for any apps she's actively hidden.


Cannot share my internet connection via Wi-Fi from my Mac

I was desperate to get internet sharing going on my mac as, at the moment, it is my only router. It was going fine and suddenly stopped, and I hadn't updated recently. I ran the WirelessDiagnostic tool after doing a bit of searching, and that made the internet shareable again. It's an app--not a setting; I mention this because I wasted a lot of time trying to find it in System Preferences.


CMD+Left Arrow, CMD+Right Arrow -- Jump Word

I know that you are trying to do this via KeyBindings, but here is an alternative method using Keyboard Maestro:


Changing the Logic Board on the Macbook, does it changes the serial number?

Yes. Serial numbers are hard coded / written to Apple main board / logic boards. Unless you use a service tool, you would end up with a new serial after the swap.


What are some of your best iTunes add-ins?

Doug's Scripts is a fantastic collection of AppleScripts for iTunes that perform a whole array of functions. I've often made us of them to help detect duplicate songs and just generally keep my music library neat and tidy.


Bash - moved /Users/me to /usr/local/me - how to move it back and not break anything?

First: nothing in the commands you listed should have moved your home directory (unless there's something even weirder than carriage returns in catalina.sh?), so I'd run some additional checks to makes sure that's what actually happened before trying to fix it based on that assumption. First, run ls -lae /usr/local/tori and verify its output. You should see your regular home directory contents (including Desktop, Documents, etc, and probably a bunch of dotfiles). Make sure they're all owned by your account. Make sure the "." entry (the directory itself) is also owned by you. (The parent directory, "..", might be owned by root or something; that's ok.) Some of the standard subfolders should have an ACL like "0: group:everyone deny delete" on them. (So should the directory itself, but if it had you wouldn't have been able to do this, so it must not be there.)

If things aren't all there, aren't owned by you, or anything else looks weird, stop and investigate further before proceeding.

If that looks ok, and /Users/tori doesn't exist, then you should be able to fix it with:

sudo mv /usr/local/tori /Users/tori

Note: in your question, you used a number of absolute-looking paths without the leading "/" (e.g. usr/local/tori instead of /usr/local/tori). The difference matters; if you use a path that doesn't start with "/" (or "~"), it'll be resolved relative to your current location, which might not be what you expect.

Also, since we don't know what caused this, I'd take a really close look at the catalina.sh script, to make sure this doesn't happen again. And make sure you have a good backup of your system, in case things do go sideways again.


macOS Sierra Dock open app indicator missing

I've seen that happen when a system isn't logged out for months, so the first thing I would do is save work and then log out.

When you log back in, consider holding the shift key (or not having all the apps re-start) as well if a quick log out and log in don't clean things.

On rare occasion the saved application state gets messed up and a cleaner log in can help.
On other rare occasions it’s genie effect and software bugs - Visual bug in Dock after macOS Mojave installation
Be sure it’s not just a display failure as well. I would rule that in or out with some tests below:

Start with logging out and then restarting with no accounts logged in. Should you have something you can reproduce right after a restart, would be when I would get a sysdiagnose of the dock process and get a support ticket in to Apple.

Lastly, since you were removing preference files from under the preference database engine, consider trying a new user account to be sure things are good. In that case, you can consider moving files and settings over to a new account or know that it's just a user library preference corruption issue.

If you reproduce this on a new account, a backup and reinstall of the OS would be my next step. Hopefully you don't need to do an erase install, so start with an in-place reinstall where your user data isn't erased.


Where did the command-backtick keyboard shortcut go in 10.7 Lion?

This feature is still present (I'm using 10.7.3 and it works for me).

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard and check the keyboard shortcuts. In the list of 'Keyboard & Text Input' shortcuts you should see 'Move focus to next window'
⌘+`.

Make sure it is checked, and it should work.


Does right clicking always select the text below the cursor on a mac?

So I am using the Firefox.

When I right click on link in a browser it shows this menu

When I click on text (not link) in browser or any other document it shows the same menu as yours.

When I click on the web address in the address bar it shows the menu with Copy, that I use to cop the link.


In iOS 6:

Double-tap the home button.
Swipe left-to-right twice and a volume slider appears there.

In iOS 7 and iOS 8:

Drag up from the bottom of the screen until Control Center appears.
The volume slider appears under the media controls.


Officially Apple does not support iOS 10 on any iPhone model prior to the iPhone 5. In addition, the iPhone 4s hardware is just not capable of utilising many of the features of iOS 10.

This is not to say it wouldn't theoretically be possible to do so using non-standard means of installation, but the difficulties in doing so far outweigh any benefits of doing so.

Also, iOS 9.3.5 (13G36) is the last version of iOS that is officially supported on the iPhone 4s and many users complain that the phone struggles with this version of iOS. In fact, there was even a class action lawsuit against Apple claiming that iOS 9 should not have been installable on the iPhone 4s because the hardware struggles with it. One can only imagine how much more the hardware would struggle with iOS 10.

[EDIT - A final note]

In my opinion the risk of an attempted installation of iOS 10 on an iPhone 4s is too great. While it works for some, it doesn't work for most - and for a small percentage it even makes the phone totally unusable (with reports of the phone no longer switching on or, if it does, messaging no longer working and/or it's incapable of being charged afterwards).

Unfortunately, it isn't clear (at least to me) why it works for some and not others, and why it totally bricks the phone in some cases (although I suspect it may have something to do with what version of iPhone 4s is being used).


That is not possible.

The USB can not carry the Voltage (14 V) and Current (> 1 Amp) required to charge MBP.

If it is for the car, you can try this product http://www.amazon.com/Spal-Magsafe-Adapter-Charger-Notebook/dp/B009G1B22O


Thats true. SSDs work a little different than the usual HDDs. A program that overwrites the memory multiple times does more harm than good on SSDs. You kinda have to trust apple that their ERASE function actually securely removes any information. There are also certain SSD erasing tools, but it comes to trusting them once again. If you don't want to trust them I suggest you to encrypt your SSD and then erase it. You can use FileVault (or third party encryption software) and after setting it up simply use erase. This method is very safe and as long as you don't try to hide secrets from the government you should be fine thehe.

In SSDs you first have to erase the target area before you can write to it compared to HDDs. The Flash memory is divided into blocks, those are again devided into pages. You can directly write into an empty page. However if you want to delete, it can only be a whole block. SSDs tend to wear out after extensive use, so it's generally a bad idea to write unnecessary ammount of times. When writing a sentence the SSD's controller will read the page, then write a new page (with the sentence mentioned earlier) to another location. Old page will be marked as empty. The old page number will be assigned to the new page. If you overwrite the SSD multiple times, the reserve space is not gonna be touched, hence leftover information could be investigated by an attacker. Once again this comes down to trusting the vendor that provides the erasing functionality. Encrypting the whole disk eliminates this problem.


Disabling all non-essential system resources

You can disable user defined non-essential system resources by:

Opening the Activity Monitor
Selecting the My Processes view:.
Sort by Most Memory and look at all memory-consuming processes.
Or Sort by CPU usage.

See the sample picture below:


There is a recently announced service Corellium that offers virtualised cloud instances of iOS.  It's not publicly available yet though and no word of how much it will cost.  I'm not aware of any way of running them on your desktop though other than the Xcode simulator.

It is the kind of thing I imagine Apple would have been quick to clamp down on in the past although there is lots of talk about the two app stores converging in the near future so who knows what will happen.

See these links for more info on that:

https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/21/apple-cross-platform-apps-opinion/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-20/apple-is-said-to-have-plan-to-combine-iphone-ipad-and-mac-apps

UPDATE:

Apparently a number of researchers have had varying degrees of success booting iOS in QEMU.  Here is an article providing a guide on getting iOS 12 to the point of launchd and recoveryd running:

https://worthdoingbadly.com/xnuqemu2/

In it's current state it will not allow you to run apps but very interesting none the less and worth keeping an eye as Corellium still appears to be invite only.

UPDATE 2:

Apple is attempting to slowly destroy Corellium. The user daeken on Twitter has been developing an emulator for iOS simulator on macOS that they have stated they are close to releasing (May 2020) though, but will be a commercial product.  They appear to have put in a huge amount of work and have demonstrated a number of apps working on it.


How to permanently stop "A new iPhone software version..." notifications

As referenced in this forum, you can use Mikoto from cydia.angelxwind.net to disable iOS updates, which should stop giving you update notifications.


Rent movie on iPad, watch on Laptop or Apple TV

No, it is not possible.

See this Apple Support Document for more information:

  Movies rented on iPad cannot be transferred to other devices and can only be viewed on iPad.

You'll have to expand the section on "Movie rentals on iPad" to see the above quote.

Your only option is to free up enough space to watch it on your iPad.


Why does my super sad face emoji change when I send it?

Apparently it's a bug a while ago. The text version will only show up if you're using that emoji via the "frequently used" category. If you choose the one from the standard lists, it works. Suggest you update to iOS 9.3.


"Show Keyboard & Character Viewers in menu bar" setting not remembered

I think you are looking for this option:


Books automatically deletes my books when offline, and when there is enough space on device

I feel you. I've never been able to figure this out, and it is so frustrating. This might not be the answer you're looking for, however, I've migrated away from using iBooks and using iCloud for syncing anything besides things like the keychain and settings.

Since you mentioned you were reading a pdf ebook, I recommend an app called Bluefire Reader. It does ePub, PDF, and Adobe DRM. Of course, if you have a bunch of ebooks you've bought from Apple, well, that's another thing; DeDRM does exist, but that's really all I can say on that.


What free or open source software can I use with Mac hardware to verify integrity of every block of a disk where Core Storage is used?

Install badblocks on Mac OS X (Leopard or less)

Mac OS X Ext2 Filesystem includes a badblocks that can be used with Mac OS X.

Credit: doctormac: How to check for bad blocks on a mac with Mac OS X? (2011) reference to Bad blocks? badblocks! | Terminal (2007)


I suspect that this is the topcase module malfunctioning.

However, a good troubleshooting step would be to connect a USB keyboard & mouse and see if the issue continues with those external devices once the problem manifests.
This will allow you to ascertain if the topcase is at fault and/or if the issue is software based (although it seems to be hardware as you're seeing similar/related issues in OSX and Windows).

Past that I would take the machine to an Apple store or AASP where they can test the machine with a known good topcase/keyboard module to fully confirm that the topcase needs replacing (or anything else if the problem is deeper (read:logic board)). If that's what needs replacing then it's a relatively cheap repair.


Can't get OS X installed on this ancient, formatted eMac

You are in a bit of a pickle, but not one you can't escape. :)

If you have another ancient Mac, you could use probably use target disk mode (hold T when booting) to install a version of Mac OS X on it.
If you don't have another Mac, take the 10.3 Restore disc to a local video store and pay a few dollars for it to be resurfaced. You'd be surprised how bad a CD can look before and still work after. I recommend this over the other approaches, because the Restore CD probably contains software you won't be able to get any other way. (Of course, don't read this as a guarantee that the 10.3 CD will work when resurfaced, but I think it's a good bet.)
Failing that, you should try to get a Retail 10.3 or 10.4 (Tiger) CD. I think you'd want to upgrade to Tiger anyway on this system.

A few more notes, assuming your eMac is really 1GHz (it's definitely a G4, they all are):

Your eMac requires a special build of 10.2. You should be able to use a 10.3 or 10.4 retail CD, but you're not going to be able to use a 10.2 retail CD. That 10.0 CD? I don't think any eMac will boot off a 10.0 CD.
If the eMac is faster than 1GHz, it may require a special build of 10.3 and you won't be able to use a retail 10.3 CD.

Personally, I found 10.4 the best version of Mac OS X for running Classic Mac apps. So if you can't get the restore CD to work (or even if you can), it's worth keeping an eye open for a 10.4 Retail CD.

See also:

Wikipedia: eMac Specifications


Enabling/disabling applications based on a "profile" in Mac OS X?

That's a good question - gave me a bit of head scratch. My initial answer (I will come with something else once I contemplate on that a bit)  would be onefor myself. I personally prefer terminal/bash to solve most of my OS X problems and belive me, most of them can be done very efficiently from the terminal ;)

That being said, I would write very short, very basic, bash scripts (re)starting / starting the software running in background you mentioned depending on the need.

You could play around with launchctl and make some jobs for that that will shut down/re-enable jobs for you but after you hit man launchctl you will probably realise that there is nothing wrong about killall -HUP in the end ;) There are very good tools to tame launchctl – one being lingon, which I also use for more resilient (read annoying) software like adobe's updates etc. to turnoff and disable.

Profiles, similar to ehh... Windows profile does not exist in the user space, there is no registry or anything like that - os x user resides in its userspace (and for that i'm eternally thankful) so you can (like I do) have for exampel, 2 different local user accounts, but they share their respective ~/Library (user settings/prefs) together - that is quite a nice thing to have and gives you a clean user without the need to synchronize settings between the two. I have a lot of my ~/Library/Preferences files and most of the ~/. so that might be an option for you, takes time but pays of double after you reinstall and have your old home in seconds after launching an re-link script.

Well, as for now I recommend the #!/bin/bash solution which is maybe not the most elegant but it surely is the fastest one to achieve, and writing a killall script for start/restarting/shutting down processes is a 20 min learn curve procedure.


You can just install a command-line utility for clicking and then call it via a Dragon dictate command. the utility can be found here:

https://github.com/BlueM/cliclick

then just make a Dragon shell command like this:

name: "click"
Shell script: /usr/local/bin/cliclick c:+0,+0

you can do the same for double-click, but for right-click, and option-click you need to use some AppleScript. Also, check out this project I'm working on: http://voicecode.io which solves all of these problems plus tons more


Support for playing .mid files in Safari was removed in 10.8. The QuickTime plugin from 10.7 or 10.6 still works in 10.9 though. See https://discussions.apple.com/message/23948316#23948316.

Copy /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/QuickTime Plugin.plugin from a 10.7 or 10.6 installation to ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ on your 10.9 or 10.8 installation.
Run these commands:

f=~/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/QuickTime\ Plugin.plugin/Contents/Info.plist
defaults write "$f" CFBundleName 'QuickTime Plugin.plugin2'
defaults write "$f" CFBundleIdentifier 'com.apple.QuickTime Plugin.plugin2'
defaults write "$f" WebPluginMIMETypesFilename com.apple.quicktime.plugin2.preferences.plist

Save this file as ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.quicktime.plugin2.preferences.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>WebPluginLocalizationName</key>
    <string>en_US</string>
    <key>WebPluginMIMETypeFilteringVersion</key>
    <integer>1</integer>
    <key>WebPluginMIMETypes</key>
    <dict>
     <key>audio/mid</key>
     <dict>
         <key>WebPluginExtensions</key>
         <array>
          <string>mid</string>
          <string>midi</string>
          <string>smf</string>
          <string>kar</string>
         </array>
         <key>WebPluginTypeDescription</key>
         <string>MIDI</string>
         <key>WebPluginTypeEnabled</key>
         <true/>
     </dict>
     <key>audio/midi</key>
     <dict>
         <key>WebPluginExtensions</key>
         <array>
          <string>mid</string>
          <string>midi</string>
          <string>smf</string>
          <string>kar</string>
         </array>
         <key>WebPluginTypeDescription</key>
         <string>MIDI</string>
         <key>WebPluginTypeEnabled</key>
         <true/>
     </dict>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

Quit and reopen Safari.

After that you should be able to play .mid files in Safari, but you have to allow websites to use the plugin manually:

You can also play .mid files with VLC or QuickTime Player 7.


I have 2 pc servers in My network that I can't find a way to get rid of

You need to disable Bonjour.  Disabling Bonjour client services is not supported through the OS GUI.

See http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050707222434355

Searching for "osx disable Bonjour client services" might turn up some helpful answers.


How do I maximize the Safari window all the way?

The green button is in fact the Zoom button, and does not serve the same purpose as a Maximize button in for example Windows would. You can read more about the differences between Mac OS X window controls and Windows window controls here: http://www.davidalison.com/2010/11/window-controls-mac-os-vs-windows.html

In short, whereas a Maximize button's purpose is enlarging the window to take up the entire screen estate, the purpose of a Zoom button is to enlarge the Window based on the resolution and the user interface inside the window.

Some applications might implement an Option-click for a maximizing behavior, instead of zooming, but this is application specific and Safari does not have such a functionality. Instead, Safari will "zoom" the window based on the content of the window, which usually just means enlarging it vertically. If there are horizontal scrollbars, Safari might also enlarge the window horizontally to try and eliminate the scrolling.

As an alternative, you can use fullscreen mode in Safari which will always take up all available desktop space.

If that doesn't suffice, there are some additional window management tools you can install which facilitate window placement and scaling. I can recommend Moom, which is available in the App Store.


My short answer is any mail provider that supports IMAP except for Google or Apple is your solution.

Apple's mail app works best with standard IMAP services, so iCloud is out since you can't bring any email except @icloud.com / @me.com / @mac.com to that service.

Gmail is out due to the non-standard breakage that many are experiencing due to Apple/Google's combined inability to play well together.

So, you are left with pretty much any other implementation of IMAP mail that exists as a good technical option for you. I've had good luck with http://gandi.net IMAP email for years and have heard nothing but raves from people that use http://fastmail.fm but you could pretty much pick any company that meets your desire for price, support and features and find that IMAP is really IMAP on Apple's Mail.app for iOS and Mac and the only pain point is between gmail's IMAP/Exchange history assuming that you don't ever want to go back to larger pain that was POP3 access for mail.


Can't update to Windows 10 on MacBook Pro due to Apple Broadcom Built-in Bluetooth

Try updating the bluetooth driver using the one found here: http://support.lenovo.com/au/en/downloads/ds031759

It should have the supported Windows 10 driver for the Bluetooth chipset found in that model (BCM20702).

Once completed, try the upgrade again.


Disabling SIP on a mid 2012 Mac Running Sierra 10.12.16

Instead of just writing "csrutil", replace that with:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/bin/csrutil

so the whole thing becomes:

/Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/usr/bin/csrutil disable

Note that "Macintosh HD" should be replaced with the name of your startup disk. If you do not know the name, then run the following command:

ls /Volumes

It will list the available volumes for you.

If the above gives the error message: "Operation not supported" it means that your recovery system is a version so old that it hasn't got support for the functionality necessary to run csrutil.

In that case try starting up in Internet Recovery mode by holding down Cmd-Opt-R while booting the Mac, which means that the files for the recovery system are downloaded adhoc from Apple's servers. This should give you a version new enough to run csrutil.

In case that is not possible then you could instead upgrade your own recovery partition to a newer version or alternatively create a recovery partition on a USB pen-drive and boot on that. How to do both is described here:

https://superuser.com/questions/1024493/updating-recovery-partition-in-os-x-el-capitan


MacBook Pro 13 Mid 2010 Internet Recovery stuck

In the meantime problem is solved. I don't know what solved it. But I let it continue the 2nd time. After 30 min it ended up with an installation error, mentioning something about memory access problems. I restarted the whole thing again. Everything was the same, but this time it worked :). Now the next part, where it all started. Install Windows 7 on Boot Camp :).


/etc/fstab file no longer working when writing on a NTFS disk

The NTFS driver (ntfs.kext) Apple supplies with OS X provides read-only access. You need to get a r/w driver, and your best bet is to get on by installing OSX FUSE (File Systems in User mode), from http://osxfuse.github.io/ and then the Tuxera NTFS driver (www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/), or the freeware NTFS-3G. Get the freeware version, and it works just fine. That should solve your problem.


How to send two keystrokes that repeat in AppleScript?

You didn't specify how many times the loop will run.
You can try something like this:

tell application "System Events"
    set x to "x"
    repeat 3 times
        keystroke x
        delay 3
    end repeat
    set y to "y"
    repeat 5 times
        keystroke y
        delay 5
    end repeat
end tell


Connect iPhone Lightning Headphones to Mac 2014 (standard headphone jack)

I'd say one does not exist.
The reasoning behind you being able to find an adaptor from USB-C to lightning is that both are digital connections. I'm not sure what, if any, data translation would need to be done, but if it was necessary USB-C can carry the power to do it. (Similarly for the lightning to audio cable supplied with the iPhones).
To do the same from a regular headphone socket would need the adaptor to carry two-way DACs (digital analogues converters) to & from the earphones & mic, & would also have to be battery-powered, as it can't take power from the headphone socket on the Mac.
It's not impossible to do that, but it would be costly. It seems so far, no-one is willing to see if the consumer would be prepared to pay the price.


Set the default order and width of colums in the list view for all the folders in Finder

If you don't want to use third-party Finder tweaking applications, the Finder has a display settings panel for windows that you get with Cmd-J. The settings you make in the panel are for the currently active  folder window, but there is a Use as Defaults button which does just that for new folder windows. This includes the column order and column width in the active window.

However, this doesn't override the display settings of folders that have been opened before. So in order to make your new display setting the default for all folders, you need to delete all folder display settings, then relaunch the Finder. Resetting is done by deleting the invisible .DS_Store files within each folder, in which the Finder stores the display settings. To do that, you can copy&paste the following Unix command into the Terminal application. The command execution requires you to put in an admin password and will take two minutes or so:

sudo find / -name ".DS_Store"  -exec rm {} \;

When it has finished, relaunch the Finder: Press Cmd-Alt-esc to open the 'Force Quit' window where you select 'Finder' and click 'Relaunch'. You will notice that icons on the Desktop are realigned to a standard grid. Now open a Finder window and create the new default display setting.

(This has been tested on OS X 10.7.5 Lion)


Is there an application for sharing wi-fi passwords?

I've searched in the iOS AppStore. I didn't find such an application. I also looked in Cydia, but no such application exists. Android's Market also said no.

Here are my thoughts on why such an application does not exist:

Sharing someone else's wifi password is an issue. He/she gave it to you so you can have internet. He/she hasn't agreed that you share it with the world. In the case of internet cafes, they have passwords so that only clients can use their wi-fi.
I spoke with an company that develops iOS applications. They said no public API exists that allows the application to get saved wi-fi passwords or to make the phone connect to a new wi-fi network.
Such an application most probably will not be accepted in the iOS AppStore (I have been told from the same company)
There are issues with implementation. How without an internet would one get the password that is needed for a concrete wi-fi network? Preload all passwords in the application? Use 3g to get that specific password?

Even though I think such an application would make people's lives a bit easier, I think there are too many problems for it to be implemented.


Why first (and only first) iMacs were colored with red, blue, etc?

The original iMac was announced in May 1998 (shipping in August of the same year) and was positioned as a low-end, consumer-grade, internet-oriented model. The colour was Bondi Blue. Apple marketed the model as being the most original new computer since the original Mac of 1984.

The graphic in your question was from the so-called '5 Flavors' models announced in January 1999. These models featured a 333 MHz CPU speed, with all other specs being the same as the original iMac.

The colours changed, but the styling remained the same until the flat-panel models were introduced in January 2002. The flat-panel iMac was intended to be a more sophisticated product and that air of sophistication has stayed with the iMac image to this day.


What's the purpose of directory /private/var/db/receipts?

Files in /private/var/db/receipts are...well...receipts for packages/apps you have installed on your Mac. They list what was installed and when. The Plists also include version information. For example heres an example of my plist for Xcode (com.apple.pkg.Xcode.plist):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>InstallDate</key>
    <date>2018-06-05T18:36:40Z</date>
    <key>InstallPrefixPath</key>
    <string>/</string>
    <key>InstallProcessName</key>
    <string>storedownloadd</string>
    <key>PackageFileName</key>
    <string>Xcode.pkg</string>
    <key>PackageIdentifier</key>
    <string>com.apple.pkg.Xcode</string>
    <key>PackageVersion</key>
    <string>9.4.0.0.1.1526532315</string>
</dict>
</plist>

I don't think it has anything to do with MySQL.


Add to Existing Contact from Mail.app to Contacts.app

This is a quick look at this,. which means it can either be refined or there is a better answer.

I will assume you know how to create an automator service. So here is an image showing the setup.

Applescript 1:

on run {input, parameters}
    set bigList to {}
    tell application "Contacts"

        repeat with i from 1 to number of items in input
            set this_item to item i of input
            copy name of this_item to end of bigList
        end repeat
    end tell
    return bigList
end run

Applescript 2:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "Mail"
        set eachMessage to item 1 of (get selection)
        set theExtractAddress to extract address from (sender of eachMessage)
    end tell
    tell application "Contacts"
        set thisPerson to first person whose name is item 1 of input

        make new email at end of emails of thisPerson with properties {label:"home", value:theExtractAddress}
        save
    end tell

end run

It will ask for permission to access the Addressbook the first time you run it.
And is a bit slow to return the search results. but worked in my test.


If you've lost the password/passcode to a locked iPhone, you have very few options:

If you have access to iCloud, remote wipe it from there
Put the device in recovery or DFU mode and reinstall your preferred version of the iOS.

Obviously you'll lose all the data on the device -- without access to the device you can't authorise iTunes to access the contents to bake a backup, for example - and you're limited to the version of iOS that Apple is still currently signing (they typically stop signing older versions a few weeks after a new version is deployed)

Sadly, you're quite stuck, and apart from the above, or a visit to your local Apple distributor, there isn't much you can do.

If, however, your phone is stuck in a boot loop, you can try one of the few "hail Mary" options which have saved my bacon more than once. There's a tool called Recboot which will try to put your phone into recovery mode (or you can try to octopus-like method yourself), or (and this is the life-saving bit) get you out of recover mode.

I don't personally own the software, but have used it to get out of a few jams in the past. You can find instructions on using the (free) software, plus download links here


I had the same problem, what you will need to do is re-calibrate the compass multiple times and it will get closer and closer with each calibration.

Make sure you are calibrating in the correct way, most people I have seen do it wrong, and it is not very clear from the diagram on the phone. There is a YouTube video which will show you how


How to enable "tap to click" using keyboard only?

You can do it via Terminal.app with those commands:

defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -bool true
defaults write com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad Clicking -bool true

You may need to restart the System after that.


Opening Mobile Documents folder in Finder on Sierra

I found a really nice type of workaround for this from here. Essentially you need to run the following command in Terminal:

ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/ ~/Desktop/Real\ iCloud\ Drive

This will create an alias on your desktop that shows all the folders in the Mobile Documents folder when you open it. You are free to browse it to your liking—albeit with one caveat: you can't directly open any folders. You'll have to use the list view's ability to expand folders and then view files from there.


Update from Mac OS Sierra to High Sierra causes App to crash

An app terminating with signal 11 (SIGSEGV, segmentation fault) is usually an indication of bad memory access in the application code. It's very likely a bug. Your best bet is to file a bug with Apple via their online bug reporter:
https://bugreport.apple.com/

Alternatively, if you can find a reproducer that points to a bug outside of macOS, you could try filing a bug report directly against libressl: http://www.libressl.org


The following list might help you to disable some program at startup :

Those in System Preferences » Accounts » Login Items (actually, these include the ones from 1.)
The login hook for loginwindow described here, read current value with defaults read com.apple.loginwindow LoginHook
Some of those specified as part of a launchd script (or otherwise managed by launchd). List all with sudo launchctl list. See man launchctl for details.

Regarding the launchd lists, you can see their definition files in the LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons subdirectories of your system's Library directories:

/System/Library (you probably shouldn't touch these)
/Library/ (usually for all users)
/Users/yourname/Library (your own programs)

In the latter two libraries, check for anything suspicious. It's usually XML, so you can open and read them.


I filed a radar (rdar://13700673) with Apple and after a few mails back and forth they figured out how to solve the problem:

chmod -a 'everyone deny write,delete,append,writeattr,writeextattr,chown' ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~mail/Data/MailData/* ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~mail/Data/MailData/Signatures/*

Looks like I had some permission issues on that files.


There are multiple causes of this - it could for example be a server error, overloaded server, no route/path to the OCSP server, etc.
When the check fails, Firefox displays an error code that will tell you the reason. The text looks like this:

An error occurred during a connection to www.facebook.com. The OCSP
server experienced an internal error. (Error code: XXXXXXXXX)

The XXXXXXX part will tell you what the problem was.
The problem you're experiencing is actually on of the main drawbacks of OCSP. By default, failing to check the status of the certificate online will just show you the page anyways - effectively bypassing the whole point of OCSP. On the other hand, setting it required as you did, makes it likely that you will experience web sites that won't display - even though you know they're up and running and "should" have been working.
The newer OCSP stapling standard attempts to remove the drawback while keeping the benefits by essentially letting the server do the OCSP check periodically, and keeping a timestamped, signed receipt of that check around for sending to clients.


Can a Keyboard Shortcut be Set to Connect to VPN?

You could create an AppleScript which would run a shell script to racoonctl - the specific commands will depend upon your VPN connection.  Then use Script Utility to enable the global Script Menu, then add a new keyboard shortcut in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts, and assign it to the script (or use a launcher utility such as Quicksilver).


MacBook Pro 9,2 can't read an SSD with a macOS High Sierra OS

Okay, if you have a macbook pro that works on an older OS (pre High Sierra), and you want it to boot from an SSD (SSD1) that has a High Sierra, you have to make it read an SSD (SSD2) that has Sierra at the most, and then upgrade that to High Sierra.

Once the upgrade is done, you can slap on SSD1 and your laptop should now boot on that drive.

I'm not all too sure what happens here. We just jumped the gun and updated to High Sierra and it fixed the problem. We aren't so sure if installing the firmware updates would have helped.


Domestic plugged iMac 2012 into multiple socket gives a little shock

The short answer here is that the outlet isn't grounded/earthed.  It could be that socket or it could be the entire structure (at a minimum).  Also I would get an electrical socket tester and verify your wiring.  If anything is at fault, you run the risk of damaging your equipment to injury or death.

Your best bet is to get an electrician to come in and properly ground your electrical system.

Short of that, I would get a UPS (battery backup) and isolate your iMac from the outlet - this will at least give you a little bit of protection, though it won't do a single thing to protect your iMac in the event of a fault (and this is where it will get expensive).


Shortcut to the top in Terminal on macOS

On a MacBook or an Apple keyboard, press fn + ← to scroll to the top and fn + → to scroll to the bottom.


How? Steps to Fix SpringBoard Layout: IconState.plist Open, Edit, Replace, Insert from Backups & Respring

http://forums.imore.com/iphone-apps-games/308394-how-save-ios-icon-folder-layout-information-home-screen-ios-8-a.html

The rough answer from this link is what has helped me. I will post more detailed to the answer as I progress through it. Hopefully, this helps someone in the meantime.

You need to be jailbroken for this to work.

Transfer all your apps to iTunes so you can get them back.

Backup the following file using iFile in the following directory: private/var/mobile/Library/SpringBoard
IconState.plist

Backup this file to dropbox using iFile.

Restore iPhone as new. Sync apps back using iTunes. Re-jailbreak phone. Install iFile.

To restore springboard organization, rename the backed up file IconState.plist to DesiredIconState.plist and then copy to private/var/mobile/Library/SpringBoard.

Overwrite the existing file if necessary. Respring and springboard layout should be restored.

Additional Reverse Engineering Reference used for the answer but forgot to link:
https://zhangkn.github.io/2018/03/com.apple.Preferences/


codesign reports invalid Info.plist on an app dl'ed from the internet. Has the app been possibly compromised?

It’s quite likely a developer uploaded something incorrectly codesigned. As a developer myself, I know it takes time to get it right, and many don’t bother.


Forgot the password of a keychain (non the login one)

You can reset your login keychain by opening Keychain Access from /Applications/Utilities and in Preferences selecting Reset My Default Keychain. Be aware of the statement shown beside the reset button.


Unable to enter directories in Finder after moving directories to NAS

From the symptoms you describe I suspect a damaged .DS_Store file in the parent folder.

Try deleting it while the folder is closed in the Finder. Close all open windows in the Finder, then in Terminal rm .DS_Store while in the directory. This should be the same directory you were in when you ran the command in your question. Now open . will open the directory in the Finder and all should be OK. If that doesn't work you could also try deleting the .DS_Store in the directory above.

If neither of those work then I would try copying the entire folder tree in Terminal using the cp command.


When you disable iCloud Photo Library, it will not delete any full resolution photos that are already on your computer. The issue is that your entire photo library has not yet been downloaded. You need to disable Optimization to force iCloud Photo Library to download the rest of the library.

What it will delete are thumbnails that have no corresponding image yet. For example, if it hasn't downloaded an image, it will discard the thumbnail (because there is no corresponding image). If you are receiving the message than that means that something hasn't yet had a chance to download. If your library is small enough, the simplest thing to do is simply look at each photo at full resolution, with Optimization of Storage off. This will force each one to download.


Can I find out through find my phone where my phone last was when the battery died?

You should be able to locate the phone unless it is more than 24 hours since it was last "spotted" by Find my iPhone. Find my iPhone deletes the locations after 24 hours.


Can you upload photos directly to iCloud website from a PC (w/o iCloud for Windows SW)?

Log into iCloud.com, open the Photos web app, and you should see an Upload to iCloud icon in the upper right corner.


Select the availability date for the first release of an iOS app

If you set a date for release it will be release on that day, otherwise it will be in pending release until you push the release button...


What baud rate should I set for bluetooth TTY to Xbox controllers?

What baud rate should I set when using screen tty for Bluetooth?

Baud rate isn't dependent on how you connect to a serial console whether it be via bluetooth or hardwire.  It has to do with how fast the host (in this case the XBox controller) is sending bits through the UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Trasmitter)

What matters here is that you match the two UART settings with the XBox controller.  Those settings are:

Baud (bit rate)
Serial Port Parameters

Data bits
Parity bits
Stop bits

Baud is the speed at which you're going to transfer data.  Common values are 9,600, 28.8K, 56K, or 115.2K (or more commonly as known 115,200).  Your XBox console will likely be either 9600 or 115200.

The Serial Port Parameters (or "Configuration") defines how each block of data is to be send/received.  This must match or you will get garbled info.  Common values are:

8-N-1 or "eight-none-and-one" for 8 data bits, no parity bits, and 1 stop bit
7-E-1 or "seven-even-and-one" for 7 data bits, an even number of logical ones, and 1 stop bit

TL;DR

To launch screen and set your communication parameters, use the following syntax:

$ screen <device> [speed],[config]

(You can get the device name by listing the contents of /dev/cu.* after you plug in the Bluetooth serial adapter)

So, in your case, assuming 9600 baud and 8N1 configuration, use the command:

$ screen /dev/cu.usbserialdevice 9600,cs8


MacBook goes to sleep when I keep a bluetooth speaker on top of it

The MacBook detects your lid being closed with a magnet. Speakers also have a magnet, thats how they work.
When you put your speaker on your Mac, it "thinks" the lid was being closed and goes to sleep.


Corrupted WD hard disk? Macbook Air says "hard disk not readable"

I FIXED IT!. I didn't change the hardware parts or anything!. All I done was that I went on my Windows laptoo and when I clicked initialised in Disk Management, I clicked the second bullet point not the first!. After that, I just created a new volume and ran a recovery software on it. Done and dusted!


How can I use common information across multiple masters in a keynote presentation?

I ran into this same problem and spent two days searching for it.

My eventual answer:  Install VirtualBox.  In a virtual machine install windows XP, then install office and power point.  This also gave me Access, an applicationf or which there is no good mac equivalent.


I asume you want to show an onscreen keyboard when changing your keyboard layout. One obvious approach is to use AppleScript, and that is what I've done here. I think this approach is not error prone, but it works.

At first, in the Systems preferences select the keyboards you want to use, and make sure you tick 'Show Input in menu bar'

Then check if your languages are available in the 'Input menu' in the top right corner of your menu-bar.

So, now the keyboards are available from the menubar. We can use applescript to invoke with the menubar and start your onscreen keyboard.

(* A function to change the language and activate the keyboard app *)
on changeKeyboardLayout(layoutName)
    (* Close the current language keyboard app *)
    tell application "KeyboardViewer"
        quit
    end tell
    (* Change the keyboard layout *)
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "SystemUIServer"
        tell (menu bar item 1 of menu bar 1 where description is "text input")
            click
            click menu item layoutName of menu 1
        end tell
    end tell
    (* Open the new language keyboard app *)
    tell application "KeyboardViewer"
        activate
    end tell
end changeKeyboardLayout

(* Call the function with the keyboard name as variable *)
changeKeyboardLayout("U.S. Extended")
(* changeKeyboardLayout("Canadian English") *)
(* changeKeyboardLayout("U.S.") *)

You can use Automator to make an Application or a Service of this AppleScript and and even attach a keystroke to it.


How to change all dates on file and preserve them during file move?

You cannot controlctime.ctime is set with the creation of the inode. ctime changes to the mtime when you modify a file. ctime is set to the current date and time when you modify the inode metadata, such as changing mtime, file permissions, or renaming a file.

The closest you can come to matching atime,mtime, and ctime would be totouch a file which will set all three to the current date and time. But at anytime ctime may change, even OS X applications can cause changes to the inode metadata without changing the content of a file.

btime or birthtime will not change when moving files on the same filesystem.

Tools that support preserving file metadata are ditto, pax, and cp with the p option. None of these tools support preserving birthtime across filesystems.


iPhone 5 says photo library is 7.1 GB but isn't and Storage Full prompt is shown

Go into Photos > Albums > recently deleted.  Check that isn't full of pictures. You can delete them from there to permanently purge them.


What version of Logic Pro X works on macOS Sierra?


Use Mail on OS X Sierra without downloading the mails

It's not possible to prevent Mail downloading emails.

You can keep Mail from downloading attachments in Preferences → Accounts → select account → Account Information by setting Download Attachments to None. You will then be prompted to download each attachment individually when you request it.

To determine when Mail will delete downloaded attachments, you can go to Preferences → General and set Remove unedited downloads to When Mail Quits. This means when you quit Mail, any attachments you downloaded by clicking on them (if you set the previous setting) will be removed, reclaiming the space. They can still be downloaded again if you choose next time.

To reduce the number of emails available to Mail, you can configure the number on the server. In Gmail settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP, set ‘Limit IMAP folders to contain no more than this many messages’. Only number of messages selected here will be available for Mail to download.

You can also hide emails with certain labels from Mail using Gmail settings → Labels and unchecking Show in IMAP.


Home folder name changed but terminal prompt is still showing last name

What the terminal prompt is showing you is not the home folder name, but the user name.

The folder is displayed after the machine name, in the ~ highlighted below:

name-mbp:~ old-home-folder-name$
Folder   ^ ^ User name

You can type the command pwd ("print working directory") to see which folder it is currently in. Or you can type the command echo $HOME to show you what Terminal thinks your home directory is.


Mac OS X Mavericks DNS name lookup order change?

(Cross-posting my Reddit answer here.) In my experience, it's more of an additional priority issue: IPv6. It hit me in Mavericks, but probably dates back to Lion. I develop on my local machine using /etc/hosts aliases to route requests through nginx, but on slow Wifi with slow DNS, it will often hit a 5-second timeout before bailing out on IPv6 and trying IPv4, realizing that there's a relevant /etc/hosts entry, and resolving that way. Not very convenient to have +5s tacked onto my recode-reload cycle.

Adding a ::1 example.com line to go along with my 127.0.0.1 example.com lines resolved the issue for me.


2008 MacBook (A1181) won't boot from battery

So the fan doesn't even spin up when attempting to boot from battery?

First thing to try is resetting the SMC:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

Any chance you can try with another battery? Although from what you've described it sounds fine. You might be looking at the logic board as the fault.


How to prevent Mail.app to update address book on its own?

I believe the solution to the problem is to prevent Mail.app from tracking Previous Recipients. To permanently disable this feature you have to use this terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.mail SuppressAddressHistory -bool true

Once you've done that, make sure you delete your Previous Recipients history. To do this, in Mail.app, open up Previous Recipients window (Windows > Previous Recipients), select all existing records present there and hit "Remove From List".

From now on, your Address Book will not get updated by Mail.app.

Note, that this will change the way address autocompletion works in Mail.app. From now on only addresses present in your Address Book (and optionally in LDAP if configured) will be auto-completed. Previous Recipients which are not present in your Address Book will not be auto-completed.

The whole problem seems to be quite unusual for Apple standards. A hidden and undocumented sync feature, with no obvious way to disable.


Completely remove a program without uninstall app

There is no guaranteed way or app that will remove all the files used by a program unless the application comes with an uninstall program, even then do you want all documents you created with the program to be removed?

Leaving aside the documents, you would have to assume that the program was well written and wrote configuration and other files only to the places that Apple suggest. These include ~/Library/Application Support for various files but exactly where in that directory? Some use the application name, others the supplier. ~/Library/Preferences, again what is the file name? Also ~/Library/Caches for caches. Add to these possible use of the /Library versions of the folders.

OSX does not provide a registry of files used by an app.

However in iOS and now OSX sandboxes all the files will be under one directory and so can be removed - but note this might include any documents you created. Also, note that not all applications are or can be sandboxed.


How to delete unwanted Sender (me) addresses in OS X Mail

In Mail.app go to Preferences → Accounts → Alias

Then select Edit Aliases in the drop down list:

It should take you to icloud.com mail settings where you can edit them all:


Turns out there was an application called "Spirited Away" installed on my mac that was doing this.  Killed the application and the problem stopped happening.


Unable to find driver for this platform \"ACPI\" MACOSX version: not yet set

Try starting up from the recovery partition (by holding command-R), in single user mode (by holding command-S), in safe mode (by holding shift), or in Internet recovery mode (by holding option-command-R).

If you already have backups and you can start up from the recovery partition or in Internet recovery mode, try choosing the Reinstall OS X option. It downloads an OS X installer and installs it over the current installation, keeping user files and settings in place.

If you can start up from the recovery partition but reinstalling OS X does not work, try to erase and reinstall OS X.

If you don't have backups but you can start up from the recovery partition, you can save a disk image to an external drive with Disk Utility.


MacOS High Sierra 10.13 supplemental update not installing

Received wisdom seems to be that you need to reinstall the legacy Java v6... which until very recently had become unsupported in macOS.

In October, Apple finally made a version which would install on High Sierra - Download Java for OS X 2017-001

You will possibly need to repeat this process after every System update.

There is an in-depth article on the subject, covering all versions back to CS3 far too long to even start to précis - MacStrategy: Adobe Creative Suite CS and Java RE v6: Information about running Adobe Creative Suite CS on macOS with Adobe's Java Runtime Edition (RE) v6 requirements.

BTW, the supplemental update was to address issues with Adobe CC.
CS has been abandoned for years.


App to sync local folder with Amazon S3 service storage?

I believe this is what Jungle Disk does.

https://www.jungledisk.com/personal/


Creating a folder in the root of the filesystem results in "Operation not permitted"

This is because of SIP, but only with the name ‘AppleInternal’. You can create other folders and files in the root, but the name AppleInternal is restricted. You can neither create a folder with the name AppleInternal, nor create a folder with a different name and rename it AppleInternal.


adobe premiere pro only allows capture in HDV

I gave up on Adobe Premiere and am now successfully using Quicktime Player to perform the capture. It's important to note that you need to separately tell QuickTime to capture the Audio and Video streams.


Can I lock my notes with my OS X device?

There's a padlock icon on the toolbar of the Notes.app. You lock your note by clicking on it.


Is there any way to get rid of the gray area in iCal?

I can answer 1. Go to preferences in iCal, and set "day starts at" to midnight, and "day ends at" to midnight. Or... whenever you want the grey area not to go. So 8-6 (default I think) will make 8-6 not grey. Here's a screen scrape of how that looks:


jailbreak gone bad - how to fix? (running ios 7.0.3 and used evasion)

Apple doesn't sign iOS 7 for the iPhone 4s any more which means that you can't install it, regardless of what your current version of iOS is.

However, you may be able to do a semi-restore using semirestore7.


What is the modern equivalent of "ps aux" on macOS Sierra?

To replicate ps aux (BSD style) in the AT&T version of ps, you have to use

ps -Ao user,pid,%cpu,%mem,vsz,rss,tt,stat,start,time,command

This command is compatible with scripts that expect the same output as ps aux.

The only difference is the sort order; ps aux sorts all processes by their start time whereas ps -Ao sorts them by PID.

ps -jef is a shorter command, but it will output different headers.:

USER
PID
PPID
PGID
SESS
JOBC
STAT
TT
TIME
COMMAND
UID
C
STIME
TTY


Avoiding having SIP permanently disabled to permit kernel extension

You can selectively enable parts of System Integrity Protection.
For example, you can enable all of SIP except kernel extension protection with
csrutil enable --without kext

Some other options to try listed in https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/17452, but the kext option sounds the most promising.


How to make Google Chrome launch in incognito mode on an Ipad?

Apple does not allow command line access on iOS. This may be possible with a jailbroken device, but I have never investigated that.

I looked for a setting in Chrome to allow this and I could not find one on the Desktop settings panel, or in the advanced settings. My thought was that the setting would be synced to iOS and the iOS app would honor that request.

The last thing I can think of is to be in an incognito tab when closing the app, that way it will restore that tab when restarting the app. This worked in my testing, although it remembered and reloaded the page it was on.


Airport extreme seems to place a limit on gigabit ethernet

After hours of pulling my hair out I'm going to answer my own.

TL; DR: Airport Extreme (at least the 2013 edition which I own) is crap for gigabit networks.

It's advertised gigabit ports cannot go over, after much testing, 205mb/s because of the WAN to LAN routing which is horrible.

This is a decent wireless router but overpriced for what it offers in terms of range and Ethernet performance. If you buy a gigabit internet do not make the mistake and buy it because it can't go faster than those 200mb/s.

As I said, after much reading and testing, your best bet is with a device that has hardware routing and I strongly recommend you take a look at this page for comparisons of various devices in terms of "WAN to LAN Throughput".

I just ordered a ASUS RT-AC87U which seems to offer a great signal and solve my gigabit issues. I will update this answer once I receive it and manage to do some testing.


Quicktime is a part of the iTunes install, so if you download the 64 bit version of iTunes, you will get it as a package deal.

You should probably try uninstalling all apple components first if you are getting error codes on installing.

Could you also paste those error codes for further troubleshooting?


Does booting a 2015 iMac from an external disk require "touching" the internal disk?

No, corruption like what you described here (i.e. non-hardware failure of the disk drive) does not prevent boot attempts on an external drive.

In fact you do not even need an external drive. You can just start up the iMac in Internet Recovery Mode to reformat your internal disk and reinstall macOS. You do that by holding down Command+Option+R when powering on your iMac (hold it until you see a spinning globe saying Starting Internet Recovery).