Macbook Air intermittently can't find startup disk

Hard disk drive failure

A few weeks ago I found similar symptoms with a colleague's iMac:

sometimes it behaved as if no drive was installed
sometimes during normal use, the Mac stopped working (not a total freeze; the reported symptoms were as if there was an I/O issue) – this was less likely to occur if the Mac was cool
in FireWire target disk mode, every time I tried to fully optimise its disk, the Mac behaved as if the drive had disappeared.

A replacement hard disk solved the problems for the user.

Testing your own hard disk drive

If you have an external optical drive, you could perform a thorough backup then try the most powerful test of HDAT2.

Caution

A routine that is intended to reallocate bad blocks may lead to dataloss.

In response to commentary

A clean installation might complete without error – and you might precede that with a single write of zeros throughout a volume – but still (I could/should have mentioned this in my first edition): I'd be wary.

If an entire drive has failed to present itself to software, at any time in the past, then to me that sounds a quiet but unforgettable alarm … expect the unexpected, and so on.

I should either:

a. no longer trust that hardware; or

b. perform extraordinarily time-consuming stress tests, which might reveal the nature of the failure and/or partially rebuild trust in the hardware.

In a geeky way I'm sometimes happy to spend/waste that time, but option (b) is not for everyone.

Related, in Ask Different

For bad and/or marginal blocks on hard disks, can anything be more effective than a single pass of zeros?

– all three answers were good. The accepted answer there links to a Tom Nelson article that includes:

use of Drive Genius (page 3) – in my experience not extending the scan significantly reduces the likelihood of detection of bad blocks
a Disk Utility approach to stress testing (page 4) – and for that stress test to be most effective, you should aim to repeatedly write over as much as possible of the disk before your clean installation of the OS.

(I wonder … can a Disk Utility approach be thorough enough to repeatedly write over the areas of disk that would be used for the GPT, and so on?)

Personally: if presented with a disk that might benefit from a multi-pass stress test, I would prefer HDAT2 to Disk Utility. Set aside the machine for a few days, allow HDAT2 to write repeatedly to the entire device …


pause download from appstore and shutdown then resume after restarting computer

I've had mixed results with pausing app store download.
There is a decent chance it would start over from the beginning of downloading.


Saving Photos in iPhoto to a flashdrive or other device

Use the "Export" function in iPhoto.

Located under File in iPhoto menu.

Select your Flash Drive as destination.

You might want to check your 8000 photos and videos total size before doing it.

To see the total size click on the (i) at bottom right or in View menu.


Whether or not you have access to your email does not affect your Apple ID, except that you cannot receive marketing emails. To answer your question, you must go to Settings>iTunes and App Store, sign out and then sign back in. You can also reset your password or change your email at:
https://appleid.apple.com

Once you have access to your account, you can log into iCloud and remove that device from Find My iPhone if it shows as offline or just remove Find My iPhone from the Settings app.


Your computer is disabled. Try again in 60 minutes

Efter dyas of works I found the solution here.

Here are the steps to fix the problem:

Go here and download the A USB flash drive image file
Unzip the file
Insert a USB stick into your Mac or Linux
On a terminal run diskutil list and find your USB key (for me was /dev/disk2)
Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2
Run dd if=refind-flashdrive-0.11.4.img of=/dev/disk2 and in 1 minute you will have the rEFInd Boot Manager on your USB stick
On another USB stick put MacOS Mojave following this guide.
Now insert both USB Sticks on your Mac, fire it up and keep the button Option pressed down
Now you will see 3 things: Your Mac HD (in my case was formatted), Mac Mojave USB installer and the rEFInd Boot Manager. Click on the rEFInd Boot Manager.

Choose the Gparted button and follow this guide step by step in order to create a GPT Partition Table with gdisk in EFI Mode

Now if you are back in the rEFInd Boot Manager is time to move the cursor to the Mac Mojave installation, press Tab or F2 and choose the option "Boot macOS in single user mode"
A terminal will open and you need to enter these commands in succession:

nvram -c

nvram -xp

nvram -c

nvram -c

nvram -c

nvram -c

nvram -xp

Yes you need to clear the nvram several times in a row! (nvram -xp just lists what is in nvram) Then type in exit and wait.

The laptop should continue booting in that command window until it switches over to the GUI window and you end up at the general OS Installer window.


I attempted to run Diagnostics, but it did not work and I found I had lost the “.diagnostics” folder when I wiped the hard drive.

When you reinstall, Apple Diagnostics will get reinstalled as well.  If it’s missing, it calls into question how you did said reinstall.  Booting from Recovery, wiping the drive and installing macOS will leave a pristine, fully functional version of macOS on your drive.  If you’re missing things, this was an “out of band” re-install (meaning non-standard).  When that happens, you’ll have the devil’s own time trying to pinpoint the cause of your troubles.

I followed the instructions in this post (Replacing "apple hardware test" with "apple diagnostics") but the problem

No!  Don’t do this!  First off, Apple has diagnostic procedures specific to their machines.  You can’t “willy-nilly” change them because you feel one is better than the other.  Even when you upgrade, Apple doesn’t change your diagnostics.  For example, a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro which is capable of running Catalina still uses AHT.  Catalina doesn’t upgrade it to Apple Diagnostics.
How do we know this?
Apple tells us in their support document How to use Apple Diagnostics on your Mac:

If your Mac was introduced before June 2013, it uses Apple Hardware Test instead.

Secondly, it’s well known that Apple’s diagnostics lose usability with each subsequent version, so “upgrading” to a later version will actually give you less useful diagnostic data.
Use Internet Diagnostics
Your Mac has the ability to boot from Internet Recovery; it should also have the ability to boot Internet Diagnostics.  Boot your computer while holding OptionD (obviously you need an Internet connection). This will ensure that you download and use the correct diagnostic utility for your Mac.
Do a clean, proper install of macOS
Based on what you described, it sounds like your install is a bit of a bodge.  My advice is to clean things up so you’re  working on a solid footing.

Back up your data. Verify that it’s good
Wipe your drive clean
Install the latest version of macOS (Mojave if you need 32-bit app support; Catalina if not necessary)
Make sure Recovery (hold CommandR) and Diagnostics(hold D) works
Here, step 5, is where we’re going to figure out what’s causing your crashes.
Once you have a stable system, use Migration Assistant to move your data over.
Verify that everything is working as it should.  If so, immediately make a backup and verify.


What is the difference between 'Capacity' and '%iused' when running the 'df' command in the terminal

The first Used/Available/Capacity is the obvious "How much of my 1 TB drive is full?" measure. The second tracks internal storage structure called an inode or index node.

On traditional UNIX filesystems, there were a fixed number of inodes which are used to track files and directory entries (metadata and filesystem implementation data). When you ran out of inodes, you couldn't use the filesystem whether it was full or not. The df tool needed to report both resources that could fill so you could plan and maintain the filesystems.

OS X uses HFS+ which will make more inodes from any free space and can't run out of them, but they are still reported since as inode use grows, the storage is slightly less efficient and can be slower than if the filesystem were still in the original allocation of inodes.

Basically, you can just focus on Capacity/Used/Available and ignore inodes unless you are deep in filesystem implementation details.


Can't access 2560 x 1080 display resolution settings on MBP

I got this working by using a mini display port (MBP end) to display port (monitor end).

Not sure why it worked on the 15” with the hdmi lead but not on the 13” as it was the same 4K compatible hdmi lead.


Transfer music from iPod touch to computer

Use DeTune :)

The only FREE iOS to macOS file transfer utility left, that still works in 2019, as far as I can tell...

https://mac.softpedia.com/get/Utilities/DeTune.shtml

After install, set Preferences as such:

This way you can transfer any of your files:

music,
pictures,
videos,
etc...

from your:

iPod,
iPad,
iPhone

to your Mac.


Something is odd with the display - I expect you to have the traditional larger text / more space controls rather than a list of resolutions.

The resolutions are poor for controlling text size as you correctly have diagnosed.

Your OS is totally up to date and your hardware is well capable of driving that display. Does the vendor have an update to the display / firmware you might load to assist in working more like most display port monitors? Your Mac can use an iPad to run display, but since you already have this hardware - I hope my start to an answer either helps or someone can provide the clue / missing step to get back to the controls above.

One hint - when you are in the displays preference pane and your DUEX is connected - hold the option key and down by the help question mark - bottom right, you should get a button to "Detect Displauys" - press that once and exit out of displays / re-enter it to see if that helps get you different choices.

I would also check "Show mirroring options..." so you can see if the menu item for the second display helps you mirror / change the resolution.


Reset the settings on your iPad and then set up everything from scratch. Use the instructions from Apple Support article below. There's no need to change a password to use gmail account on iPad.

Add an email account to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch


How to stop Gmail app checking emails in background?

As the GMail app is a third party app not built by Apple, it is not allowed to run in the background to check for mails. So closing the app stops it from checking for mails.
However, it probably will still get notifications about new mails pushed from Google's server. But this notification is not initiated from your phone.

You can switch off notifications for the gmail app in the iPhones settings.app under notifications.


Is there an alternative dictionary for OS X?

Cocoaspell is an open source dictionary. Cocoaspell is a MacOSX interface to Aspell.

  Aspell is an Open Source spell checker designed to eventually replace Ispell. Its main feature is that it does a much better job of coming up with possible suggestions than Ispell does. In fact recent tests shows that it even does better than Microsoft Word 97's spell checker or just about any other spell checker I have seen. It also has support for checking (La)TeX and HTML files, and run time support for other non English language.


Run Xcode `git pull` and `git Push` commands in terminal

After some researches, I've just found an alternative solution for my problem, though it does not exactly answer what I asked.

Reference

Action:

Create a file, name it something like: git02
Open and add write this:

#!/bin/bash

echo $1;
ssh-agent bash -c "ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa2; $1"

open terminal in the same folder, type $ chmod +x git02
Copy this file to /usr/local/bin
Execute desired command using something like this: $ git02 'git pull'

Work perfect for me now.


Wouldn't trust it as far as I could spit it.
But don't ignore it - that just lets them keep doing it to other people for longer.

Forward the email to reportphishing@apple.com
as per this Apple KB article - Phishing & Other Suspicious Emails

I recently learned that many of the spelling & grammatical mistakes in such phishing attempts as this are specifically designed to keep 'smart people' away & prey only on the less savvy.
A cruel way to think.


21.5" Late 2012 iMac | Display or GPU issue

Without putting hands on, it's impossible to know for sure if it's a GPU or an LCD issue. However, a screen that has a delineated bright area and a dead area will most likely be the display panel and not the GPU.
It's not clear what you mean by  a "display pin issue," but if you're referencing an issue with the display LVDS cable, then no, it won't be related to a faulty cable.
If you have another Mac available, you can put this one into Target Disk Mode and use that Mac to boot off the iMac's internal drive.  You can then configure display mirroring and remote control (VNC) so that the next time you boot the iMac (normally), you'll be able to better diagnose it


Use the find command (and save the output listing. This may take a while)

find / -group messagebus -print

to ensure that ownership for files can be corrected later with a chgrp command.

The following be used

dscl . -change /Groups/messagebus PrimaryGroupID 20 10000


My parents office 356 is from 2010, and is installed through a DVD
newer versions are installed via online.
do you have a product key or account with Microsoft 365 license?
if so, go to office.com and sign in with the account with Microsoft 365 license. then, click get office, or download office, or some button like that. when finished installing, sign in with same account


Automator Service: Parent of input from files or folders

The curly-brace portion of on run {input, parameters} creates a list and as such you need to address input as a list.

The following example assumes only one file or folder gets passed to the Service:

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "System Events"
        set thePath to POSIX path of (container of (item 1 of input))
    end tell
    return thePath
end run

Can your Service receive more then one file or folder at a time? ... If yes, then you'll need to incorporate the code below.

The following example assumes multiple files or folders gets passed to the Service:

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

Reference: Getting the path of the parent folder of a file?


Facetime call history & Facebook message history

FaceTime calls do not show-up as 'FaceTime' on your phone bill.  It's simply a data transfer so it will be lumped-in with all other data transfers on your bill, you don't know what type of data it was, either.

FaceTime calls (audio and video) all go thru Apple's servers so they have a record of the calls.   Also, the iPhone stores the FaceTime history in a local database.  You can search this site for examples of software and techniques to get access to that database and look at it.  They all require you to jailbreak the iPhone so you'd need access to it for an extended period of time.

For Facebook, I believe you can search the history as long as it hasn't been deleted.  Here's an article on how to so that.  It's a few years old but I believe it's still technically correct.


How can I set a different scrolling direction for mouse and trackpad in Lion?

Scrollreverser (free app) actually supports configuring the scrolling direction for each kind of device separately.


The term Software Update does appear in the  menu, but clicking it opens the Updates tab in the App Store app.


Do new iPhones (iOS 13) support NFC in peer-to-peer mode?

No.

Peer-to-Peer mode (like sharing contacts, URLs or pictures) is currently not on the road map.

A quick look at the Apple developer site and we can confirm this.  The only function Core NFC supports (at the time of this writing), is tag reading and writing.

  Detect NFC tags, read messages that contain NDEF data, and save data
  to writable tags.

A Computerworld article, WWDC: Apple’s NFC plan is a big developer opportunity, seems to confirm this.  The focus appears to be reading/writing tags that enhance "guest experience" like that of payments, security, loyalty cards, and even drivers licenses and passports.  There's no mention of "convenience" like that of sharing digital assets between users.


Will reinstalling OS from recovery mode preserve iTunes library?

Reinstalling OS X or macOS from Recovery mode or an Installer will not delete any files.


Encryption of the whole Time Capsule drive

Your backups are being encrypted, as you can see in the second screenshot (2,57 TB of 3 TB available, encrypted).

Time Capsule doesn't encrypt the whole drive, instead it creates an encrypted .sparsebundle file, which contains the computer's Time Machine backups. One of these files is created for each computer you back up.

If the whole drive was encrypted, then all backups would have to be made with the same key, which would not be very secure.


"Automatically install new apps" not working

Apple is not doing very good programming lately, they have shifted their resources to making iOS look pretty. They are not enterprise ready yet and this is just one example, I have ran into this issue about 20 times and its such a time consuming task to manually click update or install on each iPad, because you can hold the command key and clicking one app will automatically highlight all, but yes the automatically install new apps checkmark should do all this for you, applause for Apple's software team on their historic buggy software releases.
I am not 100% on this but make sure your restrictions allow apps to be deleted and install apps is allowed, and delete all caches in the users library, reboot, try again.. sorry if that doesnt help..


Possible to send an image from Preview app to Adobe Photoshop?

My recommendation isn't a keyboard shortcut, but an easy way to send files between applications. Simply grab your file's icon at the title bar (proxy icon) and drop it on the app's dock icon (doesn't matter if the application is closed or open):

Subsequently your app will open (launch if the app is closed) and open the given image.

It works on all sorts of apps with all sorts of files. If you have several versions of Photoshop, simply drag it to the one you please. Hope it's useful!


Prompted to enter system lock PIN code to unlock Mac

You have only two options:

Convince your former terminated employee to provide the 6 digit PIN. If you have a legal department or legal consult, they may be able to provide additional convincing with threat of a civil suit.
Schedule an in-person service appointment with an Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider. Bring your Mac to the appointment, and bring your original receipt or invoice as proof of purchase. (apple.com - How to set a firmware password on your Mac) If you choose this option, then you better hurry because Apple says "You can look up your passcode for a limited time".

Although first-party Apple Stores are closed right now because of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic, some Authorized Apple Service Providers are still open. You can find one here: https://getsupport.apple.com/

This happened because your former employee attached an iCloud account to the Mac, enabled the Find my Mac feature, and then initiated a remote lock sequence from iCloud. The lock status is stored in the system firmware, and cannot be bypassed even by replacing the boot disk.

Apple has a great page showing all the possible boot screens for a modern Mac.


OSX Prohibited symbol on Boot (High Sierra Update Caused)

I had a similar issue with my MBP 2012 (SSD installed for the past 3 years or so), never had any problems until after a flight the other day.
Thought the X-Ray may have damaged the SSD so reinstalled etc. and nothing worked.

Turned out my data cable for the HDD is damaged and needs to be replaced.
Currently got my SSD in a disk caddy and working fine.

I also used an amazing tool called Stellar Data Recovery on my iMac to recover data on the SSD before formatting which really saved my bacon.


iPhone Contact List Default Country Wrong

This works perfectly if you have Verizon. My default was set to the Netherlands instead of the United States.   Turn off "International Assist" in Settings > Phone, then (because this appears to be a Verizon issue) dial *228 to update the phone service choosing option 1. Follow this by calling a second time to *228 and select option 2. Once those updates are finished, power off the phone and start it up again. For me, that fixed the problem and I was able to turn the "International Assist" option back on and it was fine (turning it off may have been an be an extra step, but who knows). This also fixed how the telephone numbers appeared without hyphens.  Now all looks perfect.


Why would you choose Alfred over Spotlight?

One thing is speed. I believe Alfred is currently faster than Spotlight. And, this is specifically for Lion I believe, Alfred learns where Spotlight doesn't.

If I want to launch Adobe Photoshop and start to type 'Ph' Alfred will offer Photoshop as an option and move it to the top with the more I select it.

With Spotlight, Photo Booth with be the first choice, and it will not learn what I want with repeated use. I believe at one point it did, but lost the ability in Lion.


How to disable iPhone notifications from Facebook Places?

Turns out I was wrong; you can configure this on iPhone.

As the guide on this page taught me:

Open Settings
Scroll down to the application list and select Facebook
Choose Push Notifications

Now, in my case it was probably Nearby Friends that I mostly wanted to disable. I ended up turning off some others too:


OSX slow netwerk setup after sleep when wired (wireless is fast)?

Wel, guess I found it.

I used a cross-cable (UTP), instead of a normal cable. Although it works fine, it seems the link negotiation takes a bit longer.


How do I disable command-control-up/down from doing anything with spaces?

You should be able to disable them through Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Mission Control, and then uncheck "Move left a space" and "Move right a space".

Those aren't actually the default shortcuts to switch spaces though, and there shouldn't be any "message" when using the shortcuts, so it sounds like it might be another app doing the hijacking, not OS X itself. Are you using any window managers or similar that might be implementing this? BetterTouchTool, Keyboard Maestro, SizeUp or whatever. Have a look through your login items and see if it still occurs with no background apps running.


Some SMB shares unavailable from Mountain Lion?

We faced the same issue. At the office you can't see the shares, but connect through smb. Through a VPN this ain't possible. The answer is in the length of the share-name. Mountain lion can only see them if the length of the sharename is 12 characters or less. Seems like a bug to me. Changing the sharenames is what we did to resolve this issue.


On the about:config page search for the following key

full-screen-api.allow-trusted-requests-only

and set it to false

Then you can create a bookmark 'link' with the following 'location':

javascript:document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].mozRequestFullScreen();void(0)


You can do this with My Contacts Backup. This will allow you to export all your local contacts as vCard which can be imported into Gmail.

Remove your Gmail account from your device (so that only the local contacts are backed up), then backup your contacts. You can then import the .vcf into your Gmail.


How to upgrade SVN on OSX 10.11 El Capitan With SIP enabled

Instead of changing a protected file, why not change your path so that the newer SVN is called by your scripts and users?

That's best practice since you don't control the OS but you control the environment. Second best would be disable SIP and overwrite the file you intend to, then re-enable SIP. The reason it's second best is it takes longer, needs you to learn SIP disable, and the next time Apple patches the tool, your work is undone.

Changing path doesn't get undone when Apple updates the OS. This is the same even before SIP:

How do I upgrade git on Mac OS X?
Use downloaded Git instead of preinstalled Git

Just replace git for svn in the examples above.


Okay, it's a bit hard to try and troubleshoot this via lots of comments to and fro, so I will use this to try and get you sorted.

I'm assuming that since you've already tried formatting the disk and reinstalling OS X that you already have a recent backup. If not, do one now.

Try an external keyboard

As I mentioned in the comments, have you tried using an external keyboard? Any USB keyboard will suffice - give it a go and report back your findings. Basically, troubleshooting is a process of elimination. This simple test will greatly reduce the number of possibilities and help troubleshoot your issue.

Reset your PRAM/NVRAM

Older Macs had what's called Parameter RAM (PRAM), newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). Here’s how to reset your PRAM/NVRAM:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the command-option-p-r keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. mouse speed, time and date/timezone, etc).

Reset the SMC

Your computer's System Management Controller (SMC) can also be reset. The instructions for resetting your SMC depend on three things:

Does your device run from a built-in battery? (In your case, yes)
Does your device run from a removable battery?
Does your device just run off power from the wall?

Now, for the sake of others who may come here looking for answers to the same issue, I will provide the process for all three.

For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own (i.e. it's a built-in battery), here’s what you do:

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

For MacBook Pros, MacBooks etc that you can remove the battery from, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Disconnect the MagSafe plug (power cable) from the computer
Remove the battery
Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
Put the battery back in
Reconnect the MagSafe cord (or power cable)
Turn your computer back on with the power button

For iMacs, Mac Pros, Mac Minis, etc that only run from a power point in the wall

Shut down your computer
Unplug it from the power
Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds
Plug it back in and turn it on.

Hope this helps. Please report back and let us know.


VPP app for business worldwide distribution

After explaining a couple of times the situation, the App is now distributed on iTunes.

VPP is very country-specific, so if your client is a multi-national which has business in various countries (and some countries don't even have VPP so far, see Russia) you can still have your app published on the "public" iTunes.

Pay attention that this approval process will last at least 1 month.


How to use Defaults to set an element of an array of an array in a preference file?

WARNING: Although this will do what you're asking, it has shown to make the system speech synthesizer incredibly unstable and crash constantly, to the point of making it unusable. I'm posting this here for future reference in regard to setting nested arrays, but I do not recommend anyone actually tries what's shown here.

I've tried changing this setting manually, but it would seem that the speech synthesizer will not speak faster than 360. Here's how you can see this for yourself:

First, we have to get the "VoiceRateDataArray" key, in order to set the things that shouldn't change, back to their original values, when we make our modifications

defaults read com.apple.speech.voice.prefs VoiceRateDataArray

The output should look something like this:

Then, we can make our edits. First, we must construct the defaults command, containing the entry we don't wish to change, and the modified version of the entry we do. For this example, I will change the second entry. The basic syntax is -array '(item1, item2, item3)' '(item1, item2, item3)'. This creates an array, with two nested arrays inside it, based on my example:

defaults write com.apple.speech.voice.prefs VoiceRateDataArray -array '(
    1835364215,
    200,
    205
)' '(
    1886745202,
    184844493,
    400
)'

As you can see, the last element of the second second array has changed from 271 to 400.
Now you have to restart the speech synthesizer:

killall com.apple.speech.speechsynthesisd


Thunderbird needs to login google every time (CalDAV)

I also had this problem, and just fixed it. For me, the problem was that I recently changed my Google password, and I think Lightning was still using the old one. In the pop-up window that ask you to click Accept, in the top right, you can see the name of the Google account, click there and there is an option to log out. Then try again.

I have also read on a different thread that the problem can also be caused if you try to login with the Google account - again, use the link in the top right corner to check that Lightning is using the correct Google account.

Hope this helps


This is an intended feature of macOS and has been noted since as early as 2016 for Siri and dictation.

Even with third-party utilities like Temp Monitor that control fan speed, Siri and dictation will slow down fan speeds to an acceptable level while in use.


No, there's no way to tell...unless, of course, they have their volume cranked and you can hear the camera shutter sound.


Accidentally entered the login window while working; is there another way to return to the regular desktop without typing in the password?

If you've accidentally switched to a different user, press ESC or click on Cancel to return to your desktop.

If instead you've landed in the login window, you need to select a user and type the password.


Sidecar only shows a black screen on iPad until reboot

I found that if you go to display preferences -> arrangement -> tick and then untick mirror display option it will work but I would have to repeat this step every time I use sidecar :)


Hard Drive not working with VirtualBox on Mac OS X 10.10.2

Windows 7 does not natively support USB 3.0, which is what the Seagate® Expansion Desktop 1TB USB Drive - Specs interface is.  To work around this Windows 7 native limitation, if no USB 3.0 3rd party driver for this device is available, you should be able to get it work by either plugging it into a USB 2.0 Port or into a USB 2.0 Hub before attaching it to the virtual machine.


Touch nothing. Bigger problems come from files and software from 3rd party developers who have no (or limited) uninstallation mechanisms, which then leave cruft all over the HD, and which may have installed files in locations other than what Apple recommends. System files and apps are updated, modified and erased with successive macOS updates.

When you use Migration Assistant, which has gotten more competent at its job over the years, outdated macOS System files are not transferred over. I've used MA with Time Machine backup disks for moving my user accounts to four new iMacs starting from the days of macOS Leopard.

At my job, we use MA exclusively to move our users to new laptops when the replacement cycle comes up. Users are given an eternal Time Machine drive which a laptop and are instructed in its use. IT staff have no time, and our users don't have the expertise, to move data and apps manually when replacement time arrives. We also require our users to use the cloud-based file storage (Google Drive in our case) for their work-related files.


Mail is one of the easiest to clean up in most cases.

Verify your mail providers have all of your mail stored in the cloud.
If you are cloud based, remove each mail account one by one, then repeat the measurement of the databases.

Usually it’s attachments and indexing that take that much space, but when you delete the mail account from settings, that should clean up all the local storage.

If you have local copies of mail, you’ll have to export / back that up to be sure you don’t lose those mails before removing the account.

How much space is used once you delete all accounts or get a good backup and then delete accounts?

If you show a screen shot of how you're measuring, we might have some extra advice, like not using the system information if there are time machine local snapshots (or how to purge them) or if you just need to remove some library files or ask for a database "vacuum" process.


Danger in not maintaining known_hosts file?

Is there were any risks in keeping hosts addresses or if it doesn't make any difference?

Yes, it is. This file creates your database of trusted host keys. If you do not maintain it in any way, there might be a lot of them that are expired or possibly leaked from the original host. In that case, you are exposing yourself to MitM attack, where potential attacker can spoof your DNS, redirect your SSH connection to his server (presenting previously valid host keys) and ask you for your password.

This is a big disadvantage of not using any public key infrastructure (PKI) with central certificate authority, which would take care of the expired certificates by distributing certificate revocation lists (CRL) to all its users.


How can I see what permissions an enterprise app certificate has?

The short answer is a certificate has no entitlements, it simply turns off the App Store as the exclusive way to load apps. It doesn't change the code, install a VPN, add a passcode or anything, but what it does is disable one of the best privacy protections you have - Apple review of apps in the App Store.

The only worse thing than loading an enterprise app for security would be allowing MDM control so that someone could push changes / track your location / remote wipe your device and lock you out of the device or push apps to it.

You are correct to be worried about all those apps.

That certificate and entitlement are letting you know you are entering the Wild West, so to speak. (or in your case, would it be the Wild East or Wild Middle East?)

The warning indicates that nothing in that app was looked at by Apple. Apple didn't do a code review, didn't check that an app that says it's for putting a caption on a photo isn't instead uploading every photo including the date/time/GPS location to their servers to track / market / sell / collect information on every place you have a picture. They could even run facial recognition on the photos once they upload them.

Apple typically doesn't make developers not take the data they take, but they do make the developer let you know what the app does so at least we can all agree which apps will track what taps you make on screen and which don't. (for instance)

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/07/apple-glassbox-apps/

The recent press on this shows that VPN apps didn't disclose to the end users so if your apps enable VPN (look in the iOS settings for VPN) then you pretty much can't trust that anything wasn't sent to a server and then decrypted - stored and then re-encrypted to send to the final destination.

Basically, this allows a "man in the middle" attack so you can't trust that some difficulty is needed to decrypt your traffic. Already, we know we can't trust any telecom company not to record / tap / data mine every bit of data we send, but most of us expect that SSL encryption means that it will cost someone time and money to crack our traffic.

Now, it might be that the entire country of Iran is on some government's watch list and your traffic is already being decrypted, but this certificate allows that telecom to also see and monitor you in ways Apple tries to prevent by apps they put in their App Store.

https://www.recode.net/2019/1/30/18203231/apple-banning-facebook-research-app
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/31/18205795/apple-google-blocked-internal-ios-apps-developer-certificate

For me, I don't ever install these on my personal devices. If I need a work device to have work apps, I let work provide me that device and I do work things on my work device and assume they get everything on that device. It's too hard for me to do app review so I simplify my privacy by not letting a third party install root certificates / SSL / unreviewed apps.


Limiting different users on a single machine to different connectivity

Well, I cracked it, it wasn't loginHooks I needed, but launchctl.

Basically, create two scripts (executable of course, you can make em root only too):

User1.sh

  !/bin/bash   ifconfig en0 up; ifconfig en1
  down;

User2.sh

  !/bin/bash   ifconfig en1 up; ifconfig en0
  down;

These of course make the assumption you're using an imac, en0 is the enthernet, en1 is the WiFi.

Then create a plist file (with root ownership, 644), mine was this:

User1's went in /Users/user1/Library/LaunchAgents/org.user1.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>Label</key>
    <string>org.user1.plist</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Users/user1/bin/User1.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

User2's in /Users/user2/Library/LaunchAgents/org.user2.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>Label</key>
        <string>org.user2.plist</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
            <string>/Users/user2/bin/User2.sh</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
    </dict>
    </plist>

After that run

  sudo launchctl load -w
  /Users/user1/Library/LaunchAgents/org.user1.plist

and

  sudo launchctl load -w
  /Users/user2/Library/LaunchAgents/org.user2.plist

as each user.

That's it, it's quick, simple, and if you set the owner of the scripts as someone else (and on another path), it's fairly secure (not bulletproof, but that's not in my scope at the moment).


iPhone vibrates on every Viber text message received

It looks like the feedback has been acted upon, and it is now possible to turn off vibrations and sounds while you are using the app already. A very welcome change indeed! (Not sure which version it was implemented in) You can do it by going to "More" tab on Viber, and opening Settings -> Notifications, and turn off "In-App vibrations". See the official Viber documentation here. Excerpt:

  In-App Vibrate

  When this option is enabled, you will receive a vibration for every incoming notification.


Prefer cable over wifi in Mac on Mac for a specific IP

There are two things you can do here.

If you want all your traffic to go via built-in Ethernet if both Ethernet and Wifi are up, you can make it more preferred in System Preferences:

System Preferences -> Network will show you the window with all Network connections defined. At the bottom of the left hand side panel (with the list of interfaces) you'll see three buttons: +, - and a cogwheel. Click the last one (the cogwheel) and you'll see the fourth option from the top - "Set Service Order". If you drag Ethernet above Wifi after you click that option, then if both are active, the Ethernet will be preferred.

If, however, you want to have selected traffic go via Ethernet while the default traffic to go via Wifi then it's a bit more complicated and would generally involve the use of Command Line and specifically the route
command.

There's a few scenarios here, so I'll ask a few questions now that might point you in the right direction, or could let me help with a better answer:

Are both the WIFI and the Ethernet interfaces on the same LAN? i.e. will they have an IP address from the same range? will they use the same default gateway?
Is the destination IP address in the same LAN that either the WIFI or the Ethernet are on? or is the destination IP address "somewhere on the Internet"?

For now I'll give you the answer for the easiest scenario, which is that the WIFI and Ethernet are on different LANs and that the destination IP is on the Internet.

Let's say the WIFI gets an IP address 192.168.0.10/24 and the default gateway to use to get to the Internet is 192.168.0.1. Let's also say that the Ethernet gets an IP address 192.168.1.10/24 and that the default gateway to use to get to the Internet out via the Ethernet is 192.168.1.1.

Let's also assume that you want to route all traffic via WIFI by default, but at the same time you want all traffic to a host with the IP 192.0.2.5 to go via Ethernet.

In that case, you need to go through the procedure I described at the start and make sure that the WIFI is ABOVE the Ethernet (therefore is more preferred).

Then open the Terminal and issue the following command:

sudo route add -host 192.0.2.5 192.168.1.1

You will need to enter your own password when asked by sudo command.

If you have more than one IP address to which you'd like to add routes via Ethernet, you can run more route commands.

Now, you need to be aware that each time you disconnect the Ethernet link, the routes will disappear and you'll have to manually enter them again in Terminal. If you'd like it automated, you can look at launchd - have a look through the manuals for route and launchd.plist - in Terminal just type man route and man launchd.plist. One of the variables you're interested in for launchd is NetworkState. Please note, I didn't have the need to do something like that automatically (however I did use it manually at times) and so don't have a ready solution. Some scripting, etc would be required, but at least this should get you going.


Applescript for automating MS Word for Mac feature: add quote mark wrapper to unformatted text paste

Take the first script and add a line to it to integrate it, like so:

try
    set theClip to Unicode text of (the clipboard as record)
    --add this line to the original script
    set theClip to "\"" & theClip & "\""
    tell application "Microsoft Word" to tell selection to type text text theClip
end try

That should do it.


How to comprehensively benchmark SSDs on OS X?

For the OP, look up fio, I think someone mentioned it somewhere on this. It's the best way to explore the limits of the SSD on your Mac. Just be sure to use the 'direct=0' argument, or you may bork your filesystem.

That said...

Some of the answers here are just absurd! I know the replies are years old at this point, but you absolutely can, and SHOULD, measure IO Latency of an SSD.

tl;dr: SSDs have IO latency like any other storage system, you can measure it.

There's a distinct difference between 'Seek Time', a mechanically-bound metric associated with spinning disk, and 'IO Service Time' which is an aggregate of the latency associated with each step of the I/O process. In environments with spinning disks (including home PCs and Macs), Seek Time is one such step, and can be quite significant in poorly designed/cached/maintained systems (which is probably the vast majority of business systems, and nearly every home system not run by someone skilled in the realm of storage performance tuning).

Generally, folks are referring to this IO Service Time when they say 'latency', and not 'Seek Time', as that metric has become increasingly irrelevant as:

Flash-based storage devices become the norm
Spinning disks inside and outside of the enterprise IT shop bump up against mechanical limitations which simply cannot be exceeded due to physics
Systems needing real performance rely on software optimizations (caching implementations, IO coalescing, maintenance of stripe sets and other tricks to ease the grip Newtonian physics has on the storage system's disks) or expectation management ("If you want faster, don't be cheap, buy flash, otherwise hush.") as most of the ultra-high-performance storage consumers have moved to Flash long ago, taking the pressure off of spinning disk manufacturers to push for that last quarter of a millisecond of seek time performance

When we are evaluating a storage system, we are talking in terms of microseconds most of the time. These days, if a storage system cannot provide consistently sub-5ms performance under any load (for general workloads), it can't hang. For the high performance consumers, we expect consistent sub-1ms response times for the critical workload profiles.

The fastest spinning disks you can get have seek times of over 2ms alone, and that's the best case scenario. Add in the fact that if you're in a RAID array scenario, every disk needs to seek to the desired stripe and they may be all over the place as far as head position, so it can get pretty ugly. (In a pure hardware RAID scenario without caching strategies to lessen this, see above.) Add in to that the time it actually takes to move the desired data, compute parity if necessary, update stripes where applicable... You can see, the benefits of SSDs become obvious immediately, in terms that aren't very hard to articulate, once you know what's up. Hope this rant helps googlers out there in their quest for the knowledges.


No, Front Row is not included with OS X Lion. Apple dropped support for it when Lion came out. However, you can get it back by following this 9 to 5 Mac article. You can download the Front Row application here.


Can I assign a custom alert time to a calendar entry?

If you go into the Calendar app you can setup a custom alert per entry. Here I've added an item to my Calendar and then double clicked on it to open up a dialog to customize. Under that menu is an alert section under the time/date area of the calendar entry, in that menu select customize.

Calendar entry dialog

Alert menu

Customize menu

You can setup either an email or an audible sound for your specific time

CLI access to Calendar

You could use icalBuddy which was recommended in this other AD Q&A titled: Displaying calendar events as text, in the terminal.

References

Set event alerts and receive notifications in Calendar on Mac


This is a super old question, but I can admit to giving up looking for a source for a rather long time. It turns out (in my case) that the magic "4th conductor" within the headphone port that is used for the microphone also is used for the remote control. ie: Vol up/down, Play/Pause, Next/Prev, etc. This works by shorting that 4th conductor in various ways. When the cord for my headphones, with only 3 conductors, wiggled in it's loose fit, my laptop thought that I had pressed the play button, which triggered iTunes to open up.

(I have also seen a similar thing happen with bluetooth headphones, as mentioned above.)


Restore backup from iPhone SE (iOS 13.4.1) to iPhone 6 (iOS 12.4.6)

You can’t get Apple to restore a newer OS to an older one. This is by design. Short of a jailbreak you will need a device that runs iOS 13.4.1 or newer to restore the data and then examine / export / sync or write by hand or manually any data for RE-entry in the 12.4.6 device.

iCloud sync is a very good way to go if you can borrow or rent a device assuming you don’t have both in hand and working.


Automator Service to insert text only available when text is selected

I found the answer here:

https://superuser.com/questions/589184/finder-not-enabling-use-of-services-when-changing-service-receives-selected-in

  OS X sometimes ignores changes to services after they've been saved in Automator, possibly due to caching. So if the service started out as a text service, chances are your changes aren't getting picked up. To circumvent this problem, select File » Duplicate in Automator and save the service under a new name, and try again. Then delete the original service from ~/Library/Services.

(Answer is by Daniel Beck)

I duplicated my Service script (in Automator) as suggested above and now it shows up in the Services menu without needing to select text.  I suspect when I first created the script that I had "Service receives text input" selected, and then I changed it later.  Note that also checking "Output replaces selected text" should not be changed after first saving the Service.


You probably are just imagining things, unless dirt has been obstructing your ambient light sensor and beside resetting your settings, you cleaned it too.


Is there a notepad that lets me change the background image?

WriteRoom is a pretty awesome text editor in general, and will let you do this through its built in custom themes feature.


LibreOffice has frozen with loading symbol

If it's frozen, you will need to Force Quit it. If the app is enabled for Restore, the document should be fine when you relaunch the app.


How To Use '`launchctl print`' as a Replacement for '`launchctl bslist`?'

Short answer
Use:
bash -c "if [ \$(id -u) -eq 0 ]; then domain=system; else domain=\"user/\$(id -u)\"; fi; launchctl print \$domain | sed -e '1,/endpoints = {/d' -e '/}/,\$d' -e 's/.* \([A|D]\)\(  *\)\(.*\)/\1  \3/'"

If you prefer a script, create a file, for example /usr/local/bin/bslist, with these contents:
#!/bin/bash

if [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ]; then
    domain=system
else
    domain="user/$(id -u)"
fi
launchctl print $domain | sed -e '1,/endpoints = {/d' -e '/}/,$d' -e 's/.* \([A|D]\)\(  *\)\(.*\)/\1  \3/';

and make it executable: chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/bslist. (See the end of this post for an explanation of how the script works.)
Note that both the command and script above fully support sudo:

To the get the output equivalent to running sudo launchctl bslist, simply prepend sudo:
sudo bash -c "if [ \$(id -u) -eq 0 ]; then domain=system; else domain=\"user/\$(id -u)\"; fi; launchctl print \$domain | sed -e '1,/endpoints = {/d' -e '/}/,\$d' -e 's/.* \([A|D]\)\(  *\)\(.*\)/\1  \3/'"
sudo /user/local/bin/bslist.

To get the output for a different user <user>, that is, the output sudo -u <user> launchctl bslist would produce, prepend sudo -u <user> instead.

(Tested in macOS 10.15 "Catalina" and OS X 10.10 "Yosemite".)
Long answer
The long gone bslist
bslist was removed with OS X 10.10 "Yosemite". According to OS X 10.9 Mavericks' man page of launchctl, bslist

(...) prints out Mach bootstrap services and their respective states. While the namespace appears flat, it is in fact hierarchical, thus allowing for certain services to be only available to a subset of processes. The three states a service can be in are active ("A"), inactive ("I") and on-demand ("D").

Typical output is:
A  com.apple.finder.ServiceProvider
D  com.apple.udb.system-push
D  com.apple.systemprofiler
A  com.apple.systemuiserver.ServiceProvider
A  com.apple.dock.server
[...]

where:

the first column is the bootstrap service state (A for "Active" and D "On-demand")
the second column is the name of the bootstrap service

print, the new kid in town
Apple replaced bslist with an enhanced subcommand: print.
Why enhanced? As nicely explained here, bootstrap services are arraged in a hierarchical namespace. While bslist hides this complexity from the user by making the following assumptions:

When run as root (whether it is via a root shell or sudo), bslist outputs the system-wide domain.
When run from as a non-privileged user, the target is assumed to be the per-user domain for that current user.

print takes another approach: it gives the user a finer control on the output by accepting the desired domain as an argument (see the man page of launchctl for details).
Making print behave like bslist
Luckily, after running bslist in OS X 10.9 "Mavericks" and print in OS X 10.10 "Yosemite" multiple times and comparing the output, I can confirm that all information provided by bslist is contained in print:

The system-wide domain printed by bslist when run as root can is provided by the system option in the endpoints array.
The per-user domain is provided by print with the user/<UID> option, also in the endpoints array.

The exact commands are provided above in the short answer section of this post, here I revisit the script (with comments) for a better understanding of what it does:
#!/bin/bash

# Compare the user UID (from command "id -u") with 0
if [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ]; then
    # If the user is root (that is, the user UID is 0), request
    # the "system" domain
    domain=system
else
    # Otherwise request the user domain
    domain="user/$(id -u)"
fi
# Run launchctl
launchctl print $domain |\
# Remove the output before "endpoints = {"
 sed -e '1,/endpoints = {/d' \
# Remove the output after "}"
-e '/}/,$d' \
# Remove the port information and format the output as bslist
-e 's/.* \([A|D]\)\(  *\)\(.*\)/\1  \3/';

A few words on bootstrap services
This answer deals with bootstrap services, but, what are they?
macOS uses a hybrid kernel, called XNU, that combines the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University with components from FreeBSD and a C++ API for writing drivers called IOKit.
Interprocess communication (IPC) plays a large role in the Mach component of the kernel. The Mach implementation of IPC relies on the notion of "ports".
In Mach IPC, ports are somewhat similar to TCP and UDP ports: in the same way that a process requires the TCP/UDP port of a resource on the network to be able to communicate with it, processes communicating over Mach IPC need to know the port of the desired service. This information is provided by the bootstrap server, which is one of the functions of the launchd process.
So, in this oversimplified analogy, the bootstrap server plays a role roughly equivalent to /etc/services.
As with the /etc/services file, the bootstrap server maintains a list of ports and names. You can get a list of them with launchctl print, just look for the endpoint array section, for example:

port: 0x3e607
name: com.apple.dock.server

Stretching the analogy, the difference between the services file and Mach IPC is that, while /etc/services is static, the list of ports and names the bootstrap server maintains is dynamic, as services can request to be added to it.
And that brings us back to the original question: Bootstrap services are simply services registered with the bootstrap server.
References
If you are interested in the macOS launch process, Mach IPC, launchd and its internals, you may find these references useful:
See Mach Bootstrap Basics and Mach Messaging and Mach Interprocess Communication (IPC) for more information on bootstrap basics and IPC.
See Kernel Architecture Overview for more information on the architecture of the macOS kernel.
See Mach Overview for an overview of the Mach component of the macOS kernel.
See Mac OS X For Unix Geeks and The Alpha and the Omega - launchd for an overview of the startup process in macOS.
See LAUNCHCTL 2.0 SYNTAX for a discussion about changes in the launchctl syntax.
See Mach Message and Bootstrap Server on OS X for an overview of Mach messaging and the bootstrap server.
See the source code of the bslist subcommand (look for bslist_cmd) for an insight on launchctl. You can download launchd tarballs from here.
See macOS IPC Man in the Middle for a presentation on implementation flaws in Mach IPC.


Why would the iPhone constantly remind for google calendar entries?

By default Google calendar is configured to send notifications for events. Go to http://calendar.google.com/. Select the Calendar Details -> Notifications. There is an option 'By default, remind me via...'. Click on the remove link to get rid of the default notification.


How can I permanently unhide invisible files on mac (not just make invisible files visible!)?

There are two ways that I know of to hide a file on macOS:

Start the file name with a . (period) -- this is carry over from Unix systems and the Finder still to this day honors the tradition.
Assign the hidden attribute to the file. To do this, you would use the chflags command-line program via the Terminal app.

Thus to reveal all hidden items in the Finder, one would have to do two things:

Enable in Finder viewing of items that start with a . (period). This is what you have already done.
Find all files and folders with the hidden attribute and remove the attribute with chflags nohidden. You can script this with various command-line programs or you could use something like Batchmod application do to so for you.


October 2001 - April 2002

(via Mactracker app)


How do I copy user home directories from one system to another while preserving all attributes?

Try to ssh into one machine and use cp -avi -p.  -i = interactive, -p = preserve directory attributes , -v = verbose. I almost always use cp -avi which preservers structures and attributes of files being copied , with the exception of directory attributes.  From man cp

 -p: Cause cp to preserve the following attributes of each source
 file in the copy: modification time, access time, file flags,
 file mode, user ID, and group ID, as allowed by permissions.
 Access Control Lists (ACLs) and Extended Attributes (EAs),
 including resource forks, will also be preserved....

...continued


There is already VNC-server software builtin to the macOS. Go to System Preferences > Sharing and tick the box for Screen Sharing on the left. Notice the Computer Settings… button on the right. Click that and you will get a drop-down dialogue with an option for "VNC viewers may control screen with password:" Enable that, and you should be able to use whatever VNC-client software you choose. I am not very experienced, but my research led me to choose TigerVNC, which I've used with success on Linux to control my Mac.


Outline of changes to the iOS Developer Program License Agreement

There is a very nice site that publicly calls out changes to Apple's developer terms.

http://www.appstorereviewguidelineshistory.com

Before them, I've not seen anyone that provides these publicly, so I've resorted to saving the PDF to a folder every time I'm prompted that there is a change. I just append the YYYYmmDD of the agreement to the file name so I can see where exactly the agreement with Apple is changing.

From there, a tool like Kaleidoscope can run a graphical diff on the text if you copy it into a TextEdit document or otherwise get the content out of it's PDF container. Preview will allow you to copy all the text and paste it into a Text Edit document, but I also have a Folder Action created in Automator to convert any PDF file dropped into it's folder into a rich text file and dump the result on my Desktop.


Is it possible to upgrade my MacBook Pro RAM and Hard Drive?

Regarding upgrades, as per this answer to a related question, OWC is a reliable resource. Here are their pages on memory - it looks like 16 GB (2 x 8GB modules) will be your max RAM.

Similarly, here's info on hard-drive upgrades. It looks like 1TB is going to be your maximum, though as far as I know that's merely a limitation to what sizes are available in the 2.5-inch form factor that the MacBook Pro (and almost every other laptop in existence) uses. If and when larger 2.5-inch drives are released, an MBP should be able to use one.


Are there ways to set up advanced play count on iTunes, tracking total artist play count, etc?

Doug Adams has an app called MySpins which provides that kind of information.

Oh, sorry, you're on a PC; it's a Mac app. Anyway, I'll leave the answer for any Mac users who are looking for such a solution.


Print PDF as-is, no scaling, no added margins

Print settings, scale 100%

Ok, I read your question, I have read your comment on @user2236575 answer. Still I am going to point you in the same direction.

This is what you need to do for printing without resizing:

Open your PDF in Preview.
Select 'Print...' in the File menu, or press CommandP
Within the 'Print' settings window, set the scale to 100%
and press 'Print' to print at 100% of the original PDF

To check this, I have added a PDF file containing a ruler: download PDF ruler

Print this PDF with the instructions above.

Test your print like this if you do not have got a ruler. An A4 size 29,7cm long and 21,0cm wide. Overlay the wide side of an A4 paper over your ruler, it will measure 21cm exactly.

If not, you did print it correctly, but your printer does something wrong or overwrites these settings.


Transfer photos without backing up the iPhone

Try AirDrop.

It's a very simple way to transfer any kind of files (not just photos) between devices. Just select the pictures, right-click them, select Share > AirDrop, and pick your iPhone. Make sure it's unlocked, or it won't show up.

Important note: To use AirDrop between Mac and iOS, your mac needs to be from 2012 or later (but not the mid-2012 Mac Pro) and running OS X Yosemite (10.10) or later, and your iPhone needs iOS 7 or later.


How do I view PDF attachments to my Google Calendar event synched with my iPhone?

This was, and continues to be, a bug with the way the iPhone calendar app handles Google Calendar attachments. It’s been this way for years.


I wish I could answer the exact question you're asking. If you want a quick recommendation, I'd say do not delete anything in this folder, simply because there's no way to know exactly how it'll effect your devices/syncing either today or in the future.

I'm a programmer with over 15 years of experience and after running into an issue with iCloud that escalated Apple tech support didn't know how to solve I decided to start investigating how iCloud works. I've sifted through the guts of every part of iCloud & its syncing service for a couple weeks now. What I've found may help you and others at least understand why issues like this exist.

Some of what I've found so far...

iCloud Secretly Syncs Data ->
iCloud syncs an enormous amount of information and a lot of it is done silently without your permission or knowledge. This raises security concerns as well as obvious privacy issues.

Some examples of data being synced silently:

Finder preferences and tags
Search histories for Mail, Finder & Spotlight
Recent items including File names opened, folders, server/computer names you've accessed on your network
Wifi connection histories as well as the passwords that go along with them (encrypted)
Data from your Maps app

The list goes on, but you get the idea. I actually discovered a spotlight search I'd done over a year ago on an old Mac I no longer own synced to my brand new Mac with a clean installation. Perhaps Apple plans to do something visible with this synced data in the future, but without an advanced GUI to manage this kind of thing, they're taking a lot of liberties with your data. What I'd recommend is that you enable iCloud on as few computers as possible unless you know for certain no one you don't want will have access and that nothing you do on your synced computers includes activity you wouldn't want exposed.

I'm not suggesting any of this is malicious. It is however, quite irresponsible to pass around data like this storing it on every device that connects to your iCloud account, which of course includes Apple's servers.

iCloud Sync Data is Complex
I created a way to track how iCloud's sync data is stored on each computer. Hundreds of files are being synced, the data is coded (not encrypted) and very difficult to track, and the preferences for what's to be synced and how are mirrored in dozens of locations on your computer. All this makes it nearly impossible to fully understand the changes that occur during a sync. This is not only scary since developers have a hard time keeping things clean, but it also pretty much ensures a lot of issues when a sync goes wrong or there's a conflict in what's being synced. Check boxes just won't help you solve an iCloud issue.

The reason I went into all that is to illustrate the importance of not trying to adjust iCloud files manually. You could really cause a lot of damage and possibly lose data.

The bottom line... The number of iCloud issues like yours are growing and until Apple overhauls the system and/or offer a user interface to allow advanced management of the data being synced, I don't think it's going to get any easier.

Unless you can get some insight on that folder's purpose directly from Apple, I'd leave it alone.

Best of luck!


How can I update iTunes Match from the command line?

iTunes doesn't let you AppleScript this natively, but you can use some UI scripting to 'click' the menu bar item and do it for you:

tell application "iTunes" to activate
tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "iTunes"
        click menu item "Update iTunes Match" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Store" of menu bar 1
    end tell
end tell

You can use that via SSH:

osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to activate' -e 'tell application "System Events"' -e 'tell application process "iTunes"' -e 'click menu item "Update iTunes Match" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Store" of menu bar 1' -e 'end tell' -e 'end tell'


MacOS uninstalled after installing bootcamp during windows partioning

This question if difficult to answer, because of the lack of information. The most likely answer is to boot to macOS Recovery over the internet and install macOS.

Other information that would have been helpful include the following.

The version of macOS that was installed.
The model/year of the Mac.
The version of Windows.
The Windows boot method (BIOS or EFI).
The current entries in partition tables (GUID and MBR).
The method use to install Widnows (DVD, flash drive, Boot Camp Assistant).


iOS 11 Field Test Mode permanent signal reading

Previously you were able to replace the bar signal indicator with the signal numbers instead since the numerical reception indicator is more accurate. But, now all iPhones on the newest version of iOS have only one way to view the numerical reception indicator which does not replace the bar signal indicator permanently.

You have to dial the number *3001#12345#*. This will redirect you to the hidden “Field Test Mode” on the iPhone. Then, LTE > Serving Cell Meas > rsrp0.

The value under the rsrp0 will be the numerical measurement of the iPhone cellular signal strength in dBm. You can also read more about this here.


Go to System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Firewall -> Firewall Options and remove anything in the list box lower section that has to do with screen sharing. You can remove an item by highlighting it then clicking the minus button below the list. Click Ok.

Next go to System Preferences -> Sharing and uncheck Screen Sharing.

Reboot. I don't know why this is needed and I hate that it is, but it didn't work for me to do this without a reboot.

Then go back to System Preferences -> Sharing and recheck Screen Sharing.


Enable remote management remotely on a mac

ssh adminusername@ip_address
sudo
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate


How do I connect my Mid-2010 iMac to my Late 2015 Macbook Pro

If you are using a 27 inch iMac (Mid 2010) then you need a mini DisplayPort to mini DisplayPort cable.

According to Apple's Support Page, Use your iMac as a display with Target Display Mode, you can accomplish this with the cable referenced above, but only with a 27" iMac if you are using the Mid 2010 model.


Why doesn't Time Machine do scheduled backups after my Yosemite -> El Capitan upgrade?

I'm having a very similar problem after upgrading to El Capitan, except that I can not repair the disk, my attempt always gives me a repair failed error.  I don't have an answer, but I think I can verify that the issue probably isn't related to any third-party extensions as I'm operating without.  So at least I may be able to help rule out those as a source of the problem.


How to switch horizontal and vertical scrolling directions

System Preferences > Mouse

Scroll direction check box will be at the top of that window.


Accessing ICloud Drive files from an iPad

Have you made sure that you have also set iCloud Photo Library (Beta) in iCloud settings as well. This is under iCloud > Photos > "iCloud Photo Library (Beta)"


Alternatively, you can do

ln -s ~/x/y ~/Desktop/

(note there's no slash '/' character after ~/x/y/).

I think the error message is not the most informative, but I understand it as that if you're putting a trailing slash, you're referring to the content of your directory (in this case ~/x/y), but if you omit it, you're referring to the directory itself.


macOS BigSur keep booting from external backup disk (made with CCC)

Maybe solved by reformatting the partitions to Mac OS journaled instead of apfs. Even when these programs also connect to apfs. But seems good actually. Will observe that.


Are there any reasons to turn off MacBook Pro instead of just sleeping it?

There's actually some validity to “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”.

Extremely simply put: Over the course of being on, the OS accumulates a lot of “leftovers” from all of the processes that've been running (Automatic garbage collection isn't perfect). When the system is restarted cache is purged and only needed processes are started. Sometimes processes that run for a very long time can use more memory and even — at times — stop working. Also, it's not all apps that clean up properly after themselves which can lead to unused processes taking up memory and/or CPU cycles.

OS X handles this excellently (compared to Windows) but I think it's impossible to create an OS that is entirely immune to the "littering" of a system that is often used over extensive periods of time.

Note: This is just my experience from 10+ years working with computers. I probably can't give a scientifically correct explanation :)


My iPhone's Lockscreen clock wont update without unlocking the phone

It's certainly to do with the modifications of the operating system. Either try uninstalling related mods or restore the device. This is not a problem you'd see with an unjailbroken iPhone.
And get that incontinence seen to :).


Technical details behind Apple's performance throttling of the iPhone

Short answer

To answer your questions:

The battery itself is not what's slowing the iPhone down, but rather iOS is deliberately doing this in the case of batteries that are below a certain level of health.
Inserting a new battery fixes this because iOS then determines that the iPhone has a power source capable of meeting the higher power demands sometimes required by the iPhone when working at peak performance.
It is iOS doing the throttling, although it is doing this based on it's own assessment of the physical limitations of the battery.

Long answer

There are times when a device (such as an iPhone) will need a sudden burst (or peak) of power to perform a certain task.

When this happens the power source has to be able to deliver the amount of current required by the device, but in the case of ageing batteries1, they often cannot meet this demand. If this happens, an iPhone may suddenly shutdown in order to protect itself from damage (this is similar to how the System Management Controller (SMC) of a Mac computer can kick in to protect your Mac from damage under certain scenarios).

What Apple was trying to do was deal with this issue by having iOS determine when a battery was no longer at a stage that it could meet a certain level of peak current. After iOS makes this determination, it slows down the iPhone so that it's running below its actual capacity.

For example, by running the CPU slower it's limiting the power drawn from the battery. This in turn reduces the amount of power required and therefore prevents a situation in which the iPhone randomly shuts down on users.

Apple took this approach in late 2016 after having received numerous reports from users of their iPhones randomly shutting down. Once they determined that the cause in most situations was an ageing battery, they included this 'feature' in iOS when it released the iOS 10.2.1 update.

1 Strictly speaking, a random shutdown could also occur when an iPhone is being used in cold conditions or when a perfectly good battery is quite low on charge. However, in the great majority of cases this issue arose because of ageing batteries.


Bootcamp - Multiple Windows installations, how do delete one?

Copy the folders and files you need from the Windows partition(s) to your Mac partition, the do what @joelseph reccommended.


Safari showing bookmarks from Google Chrome

I just had the same happen to me, and likewise I prefer to keep my work and personal bookmarks separate. I was searching through menus and preferences when I noticed the small pop-up message at the bottom of the Favorites page display that asked something like "Favorites showing bookmarks and recently visited from Google Chrome. [Keep] or [Do Not Keep]" so I clicked on Do Not Keep and it all went away.

I don't like not being able to undo something, so I was looking for where in the settings or preferences this could be toggled, but alas no luck so I guess it's permanent.


How to erase the working blocks on a partially broken drive?

HDAT2 5.0

Version 5.3.0 of Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) includes HDAT2 5.0.

A July 2014 Apple Support Communities topic – Storage problems, Core Storage, Disk Utility, checksums, fsck_cs and cksum mismatches – included photographs of me using the 'most powerful test' of HDAT2 with a 2009 MacBookPro5,2. (That topic no longer exists, only parts of it were saved locally. I'll append this answer with some of that topic content, slightly adapted.)

Amongst the other features of HDAT2, there's the ability to destroy data …

Suggestion

In brief:

download the UBCD image
burn the image to CD
set aside plenty of time for the destruction
boot the Mac from the CD, this is very quick
use the keyboard to select and open the Diagnosis submenu
use the keyboard to select HDAT2
accept a default
at the command prompt, type hdat2 then key Enter or Return
… and from there things should be self-explanatory

– just take care to select the correct drive before proceeding with destruction.

(I'm working from memory, whilst my copy of UBCD is running in my other Mac … the actual routine might differ slightly from what's above but the general idea should be the same.)

Hint: HDAT2 is powerful and versatile, so the documentation may appear daunting, but this should not be an obstacle. If you skip the manual, the on-screen routines are well-designed – alongside technical phrases, in many areas there are plain english hints.

In Super User

How to erase a hard drive with unwritable sectors?

– a few good answers, but the accepted answer there involves ddrescue, which is not integral to OS X.

Originally posted to Apple Support Communities

If ever you see the following phrase in red in Disk Utility –

  ... cksum mismatch ...

– treat it as a red alert that should not be ignored.

Whilst a subsequent run of Disk Utility may complete without error – whilst the utility may state that a volume appears to be OK – you should not assume that the affected storage is completely OK.

Aim to check all affected devices. So if the checksum mismatch affected a Fusion Drive – or any other application of Core Storage that involves multiple devices – aim to check the whole of each physical device within the affected Core Storage logical volume group (LVG).

Precautions

Some approaches to identification of failing drives (failing e.g. bad blocks) may cause dataloss. So, the usual advice:

be thorough with backups.

Example

On Friday 2014-07-11, whilst running running a released version of OS X on a MacBookPro5,2 with an internal solid state hybrid drive (SSHD), ￼some software behaved in ways that made me suspect a failing disk.

Saturday morning, from a Disk Utility log:

2014-07-12 08:01:41 +0100: Checking volume
2014-07-12 08:01:41 +0100: disk0s2: Scan for Volume Headers
2014-07-12 08:01:41 +0100: disk0s2: Scan for Disk Labels
2014-07-12 08:01:41 +0100: Invalid Disk Label @ 132817997824: cksum mismatch

Minutes later, a subsequent verification completed with no mismatch. Disk Utility described volumes as apparently OK.

I could have ignored that mismatch as a one-off – maybe something transient. However, the previous day's observations – some of which are confidential (and unrelated to Apple) – made me believe that neither fsck_cs nor fsck_hfs would be capable of revealing the nature of the problem. (It's not clear what approach to scanning is taken when fsck_hfs is used with option -S, and so on.)

I decided to boot from Ultimate Boot CD 5.3.0 and use the most powerful test in HDAT2.

During use of HDAT2

After use of HDAT2

I booted from a different physical disk (external), and refrained from unlocking all Core Storage logical volumes on the affected disk (internal) – whilst I await replacement, I wish to minimise use of the drive.

Because Disk Utility can not display S.M.A.R.T. information for disks where Core Storage is used, I ran the nearest available alternative (SMART Utility, on trial) to gain an alternative view of the state of the SSHD. In this case, things seem perfectly clear; the disk is failing:

Reviews with Apple Disk Utility

Subsequent runs of Disk Utility, e.g. from Recovery OS 10.9.4, continue to describe the affected volumes as apparently OK.

Related

In a topic in MacRumors Forums: Disk Utility, checksums, fsck_cs cksum mismatches and disk/storage problems. Note:

  I should not treat Yosemite as a cause of storage-related problems of
  this type. …

Other parts of that Apple Support Communities topic are lost to me.

Update, 2014-12-12

Still using the same disk, checksum mismatches have been rare. A summary, maybe not comprehensive:

2014-07-01 22:18:42 +0100: Invalid Disk Label @ 132809609216: cksum mismatch
2014-10-02 13:01:37 +0100: Invalid Disk Label @ 133167747072: cksum mismatch
2014-10-07 09:41:43 +0100: Invalid Disk Label @ 133176135680: cksum mismatch
2014-11-08 04:13:17 +0000: Invalid Disk Label @ 133163552768: cksum mismatch
2014-11-13 18:25:07 +0000: Invalid Disk Label @ 133163552768: cksum mismatch
2014-12-02 09:02:58 +0000: Invalid Disk Label @ 133171941376: cksum mismatch

I no longer plan to replace the drive; I'll get a newer computer.


How does Back To My Mac work without UPnP or NAT-PMP?

You probably already read did-you-realize-apples-back-to-my-mac-mobileme-service-uses-ipv6 by now. It has some of the answers.
Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KAME_project
I don't know how much was changed since MobileMe became iCloud.

lsof -i:4500
Shows that the process 'racoon' is handling the tunnel. This port is also opened on the router.

I wonder what it does with mdsDirectory.db.
Also, it would be nice if BTMM worked also without tunneling and instead used native IPv6 when possible.


There is still a process from Hide.me running in the background. You need to quit that process first before you can remove the app.

Open Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities)
Select All Processes on the drop-down menu at the top of the window.
Select the process(es) associated with Hide.me in the list
Click Quit Process icon in the left corner of the window
Click Quit in the pop-up dialog box (if that doesn’t work, then try Force Quit).


Can't boot Windows 10 past loading animation under Bootcamp

Don't reinstall Windows just yet. Your boot files are fine, It wouldn't pass the first screen otherwise. The fact that you see the windows logo suggests the something (probably Docker, might be something else too) messed up your drivers.

Get into Windows safe mode and see if you can Uninstall Docker, if that doesn't work, check if you have a restore point to before the install.


Is it possible to shorten the time between uploading an ipa to iTunesConnect and it becoming available?

For TestFlight, there's nothing you can do.  However, after the first upload, and Apple's had a chance to do a cursory review, the availability will go much faster.

For submissions to the App Store, there's only 1 way to make this process go (a little bit) faster and that's to request an expedited review.  You would need to justify the quicker review time to Apple, although the rules are fairly lax.  You can do this several times a year but after a few of them Apple might not grant them.

Here's what Apple indicates are the valid reasons for this request:

  Expedited App Review

  If you face extenuating circumstances, you can request the review of
  your app to be expedited. These circumstances include fixing a
  critical bug in your app on the App Store or releasing your app to
  coincide with an event you are directly associated with.

  Urgent Bug Fix
  If you've submitted an update to fix a critical bug in
  your app on the App Store and you are requesting an expedited review,
  be sure to include the steps to reproduce the bug on the current
  version of your app.

  Time-Sensitive Event
  For apps associated with an event, we recommend
  you plan and schedule the release of your app in iTunes Connect.
  However, if your app is still in review and the launch of your event
  is quickly approaching, you can request to have your app review
  expedited. When submitting your request, it's important to include the
  event, date of the event, and your app's association with the event.

  Please Note: Expedited reviews are granted on a limited basis and we
  cannot guarantee that every request will be expedited. Sign in to
  request an expedited review.


How often does Power Nap check for updates or back up?

Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Photo Stream, Find My Mac, and iCloud Documents are checked every hour.
Time Machine backups are attempted hourly until a successful backup has been completed.
Software Updates are checked daily.
Mac App Store downloads are checked once a week.

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5394


Can I use an Xbox 360 controller with the 4th Gen Apple TV (2015)?

No, you can't connect an Xbox controller to an Apple TV at this point.


How can I take videos on iMovie without them saving to my camera roll?

In a sense the basis of your question is in error.

While iMovie is saving videos to your camera roll, this isn't using any extra space on your iPhone. That's why you get the error you're getting after deleting the files - because that's where iMovie is trying to access the video from.

Basically, what happens is the video is saved to your camera roll, but project specific info is saved within iMovie. Once you have totally finished a project, you can export/share/save the final version and after that you can delete the video you took from your camera roll (if you want).

If you like, you can actually prove this to yourself by doing a simple test:

Go to Settings > General > Storage & iCloud usage
In the Storage section, tap on Manage Storage
Wait for the list of apps to appear (this may take a while if you have lots of apps).
Tap on iMovie (likely to be in your top 10)
Take a note of how much space is used up by Documents & Data
Now go to your actual iMovie app and take a 30s video
Go to your Camera roll and try to email this video to yourself
You should get a warning saying that this attachment may be too large to email. This message will give you the size of the video. Take a note of this.
Cancel the attempt to email the video.
Repeat the first 5 steps.
You should note that while your iMovie Documents & Data have grown a little, it will not have grown by anywhere near the size of the actual video itself. The reason this has grown is because it's storing project info, not because it's storing the video again.

Hopefully this little test will put your mind at ease.

Don't forget to delete your test video.


Help. Question about run application on IOS 5.1

Every iOS version is backwards compatible, so yes.

But if you are not including any iOS 5 features, you should target a lower iOS version in Xcode , so users with old devices can run it too. Example: the iPhone 3G can only be updated to run iOS 4.2.


I would file a ticket with Apple.  It needs to be addressed, and Apple is very good about following up.

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


This definitely is a screen issue with the backlighting failing. Your only option will be to replace the screen.


Why can't I restore apps to iPhone 5 from 4s?

I had the same issue (I use iTunes on Windows 7). I Bought a new iPhone 5 and used the Backup / Restore method to move my stuff from the old iPhone 4S to the new one. The process only restored all the Apple apps, plus Contacts, Phone Calls, and Messages. When I tried to backup again - hoping it would restore the rest - it went through a restore process in iTunes (for about 5 minutes) and then I got the message that my iPhone will restart but never did (I had to restart it manually).

What I also noticed was that, when I retried, the Backup seemed to be very quick.

I called Apple Support who said that there is a problem with the Backup process. I would be able to restore my Apps via the Purchased Apps process but I would lose all my user data (such as games progress). I was extremely frustrated because I use my iPhone and iPad as tools, not game devices.

I went to the App Store on the iPhone and started downloading some of the Purchased apps from the what seemed to be the iCloud. To my surprise, all app data was there (eg. WhatsApp chats, and The Vault data). I am not sure how this works because I never deliberatelly setup app backup on the cloud, but I suspect that the "Documents and Data" == "On" setting on Settings --> iCloud does exactly that, and in return does not include this information on the PC backup.

All seems fine now (at least for the apps for which I care and tried). The issue I still have is this uncertainty on what exactly is my iPhone doing and where is my stuff at any point in time.


Demonstrating iOS in-development application

The most common way of doing this is through TestFlight, and you will need an Apple Developer Account.

Setup your customer as either an external or internal user.  Upload the app to TestFlight.  The customer will be able to download the app and test it but it will not be available for the general public.

Of course, there's a bit more to it than what I just listed but it's not very difficult and you can upload the app multiple times (after each bug fix or app change) and the customer will be automatically notified to download the new version.  When you're ready to push it out to the public, you can do that.

Go here for more info on how to use it.


How to open the next message in the currently selected mailbox in mail.app

I found navigating email in a thread incredibly frustrating especially for long email that have hundreds of lines of quoted text, and was trying to find the answer to this.

So here goes:

first highlight an email in a thread: click next to the title, the email borders should be highlighted
use the right/left arrow buttons to go to the next/previous email in this thread


How do I copy the content of a whole disk on OSX 10.3

cp -a is just a shortcut for cp -pPR, these options are available in the 10.3 version of cp already. So you can copy the content of your disk with

cp -pPR /old/path /Volumes/new/path

You can also avoid using Terminal altogether and just drag the top folder you want to keep onto the external drive in Finder.


Cannot partition internal SSD High Sierra

No room

The answer is in your screenshot.

Macintosh HD is too full and as a result partitioning the drive would result in a partition too small.

First Screenshot:
“This volume can’t be split because the resulting volumes would be too small”

You need to clear out some space on Macintosh HD by deleting some files. This may help with that, but please know 256GB computer is very small and is not meant to be partitioned to run two OS’s. Can it be done? Yes, but you are basically going to me limited to a couple files on each OS.

I would just suggest installing macOS Mojave on a partition on an external drive (such as the one in your screenshot).


Youtube videos will not play under OSX 10.6.8

I am going with your comment that says:

  Youtube says my version of Safari is no longer supported.

YouTube is (if they haven't finished already) migrating from Flash to HTML5.  If you can't view videos, this is the reason.

What you need to do, is get a browser that will support HTML5.  TenFourFox is the the browser that will solve this problem for you.  It is a port of a recent FireFox build to older versions of OS X

I personally have used this browser on an XServe G4 with 10.5 and I am able to view YouTube videos.


Volume too sometimes jumps to 90% when I connect my headphones to my iPhone

iPhones remember the volume settings for different sound outputs. ie. if you have the iPhone speakers, and a set of plugged in headphones, and a set of bluetooth headphones, and a wireless speaker the phone will remember the volume of each of them. When you connect the relevant device the volume is set to where you left it.

In this case you're connecting your headphones and it's setting back to where you left it.

In addition, Sony have a Headphones Connect app that can you can use to set presets for different scenarios. Do you have that app configured?


Why does hiding the Finder toolbar cause so many side effects?

As to your second question of "why does the Finder behave this way?", I will hazard a guess that it mimics the decades-long traditional behavior of Finder windows.  This was how Finder windows worked in Mac OS through version 9.

In earlier versions of OS X, there was a button in the top right corner of windows that toggled between the "old" Finder window behavior and the "new" (toolbar) behavior.

The button was removed in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, but you get the same results by hiding the toolbar.


How to resolve the "unable to install update" error for OTA iOS updates?

if you download updates very soon after Apple releases them, they can sometimes get corrupted because the server is sending you the individual packages at the same time as it it send them to many other people. You may just need to wait a while and try again.


Is it possible to connect my iPhone 3G via Bluetooth to both OS on my MacBook?

The bluetooth connection is maintained by the OS (Windows or Mac OS X) so as soon as you restart, the connection is lost and you have to re-establish it.


The cheapest and reliable way to unlock iphone 5?

The reliable way is to get the carrier to unlock it. In the US - this means

Verizon's are sold unlocked in the US whether you have a contract or not.
AT&T's are locked, but they have a process to get it unlocked once your contract is fulfilled.
Sprint's situation is unclear.
T-Mobile's are reported to be sold unlocked in 2013 when they start selling iPhone.

Cheapest depends heavily on your specific contract details and if you want to risk paying a third party to do something the cell carriers do not like. You could always look for a jailbreak and circumvent the lock, but between paying off your contract early or selling your locked phone and buying one that is legitimately unlocked is an easy, and simply about time and money now that unlocked iPhones are mainstream in the US. I suggest dealing locally in selling and buying an iPhone - connect on craigslist or wherever and meet in an Apple store so that you can check the serial number - be safe in a public space, etc...


best way to backup a jailbroken iphone 3gs?

Have you checked out pkgbackup on cydia? It has worked for me.


what is the "get" button on the apple tv 4?

What you're seeing is the listing of the Netflix app in the App Store.

Click on the Netflix app (press the touch surface till it clicks) you have highlighted in your screen shot. This will take you to the app page for the Netflix app and there will be a get button on that page. Click on "Get".


How apps are organised in developer page in the App Store

All apps published under a single developer account are shown individually on the developer App Store page by default.

Additional action is required to organise and sell apps under a bundle.

To learn more about apps and games bundle, refer to the Apple Developer web page: App and Game Bundles.


How to debug kernel panic on macOS Catalina, as Catalina is on Read-only File system

Followed https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2004/tn2118.html

Disabled sip on host/developer machine then ran  sudo mount -uw /.
Panic dumps from target machine got uploaded to developer machine, as expected.


Why can't I delete iCalendar account subscription?

Calendars that are part of your Google account cannot in general be deleted from within Calendar.app. To delete the calendar, go to https://calendar.google.com/ (or in your case possibly https://www.focuster.com/ ) and manipulate your calendar subscriptons there.

Different pieces of software interact with Google calendars using a variety of protocols - Exchanage ActiveSync, CalDAV, http, and maybe others. Some of these protocols do not support all the calendars visible in your Google account, or need to be configured to show calendars beyond those listed as "My Calendars" in the Google web interface.

Information about using Apple's Calendar.app in macOS or iOS with Google Calendars is here:
https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/99358

Using the controls at https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect you can select the calendars that are visible to Calendar.app - this would allow you to turn off the syncing of calendars you do not want to see (like the "Focuster" one mentioned) without needing to delete them entirely from your Google Calendar account.

It is possible that a system like Focuster will recreate their calender if deleted or turn it back on for syncing if it is turned off, so you may have to manipulate it through their system rather than just using the Google controls.


Mystery Sound on my Macbook - Triggers every 3-5 Minutes!

wow yup thank you @Ian C. there was a scheduled crontab. I used crontab -l to list all schedueled tasks and crontab -r to remove them

thanks!


Is there an Air Video app, but for photos?

I developed ImageBank for iOS to do exactly this - streams photos from your PC/Mac to your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.  It's universal so it works natively on the iPad, and it even works over 3G.

There's a free version too if you want to try it out:
ImageBank Lite

It's only US $0.99 to buy or upgrade from the free version.


Unknown error (-41) - file transfer using vpn

We had this on upgrade to Yosemite. For us it was fixed by deleting the VPN service from Network Preference and putting it in fresh with all the same details. I assume it flushes some corrupt cache or something.


How do I rename desktops in Mountain Lion?

If an application is in full screen mode in a given space, that space will have the application's name under it when it is displayed via Mission Control (and you put your mouse cursor over the desktop). Otherwise, I do not believe that there is a way to rename them.


With the advancements in iOS, a variety of apps are now available that makes it possible to provide remote assistance (just like in Desktops). A couple example os such apps are:

Zoho Assist: Remote Support for iOS Devices.
TeamViewer QuickSupport.


Is this dust inside Retina Display on my Macbook Pro 13 inch?

Judging by your photo's this is not dust but the anti-reflective coating peeling of the screen.
As jksoegaard correctly states in the comments, apple has an extended warranty in place for this issue.
This article tells you more about it, and here it is mentioned on apple's forum.

You should contact your nearest apple service provider, they are very likely to replace your display for free.


Accessibility missing from the Privacy tab

Your version of macOS predates this setting. You don’t have any restrictions to grant as they are not in place.

Can you validate your macOS version (or perhaps it’s still called OS X) from About this Mac and also cross reference the driver software version and requirement?

If in the end it’s not working, we might need a follow on question documenting the versions for someone to help. Since there are dozens of macos versions and many dozens of accessories that have tablet form, it’s not likely there’s a single solution for all cases you report of the hardware not working.

Nothing is likely wrong other than perhaps the wrong version of OS or wrong instructions being followed for the install.


The open(1) command can do it:

/usr/bin/open /full/path/to/OF.sparseimage


Should I reinstall the OS after restoring from time machine?

Though any Mac OS install includes all the bits needed to run most modern Macs, it's generally helpful to build a fresh install with a new computer and processor. I find it's best to do a fresh install (erasing the drive) and then migrate the user from the Time Machine backup. The user migration process is amazingly thorough.