Applescript "expected then but found identifier"

Before you try running a non-trivial script using osascript, first try compiling it (and running it, if feasible) in Script Editor.

When I compiled your script in Script Editor, it revealed that your script is trying to use the term custom title—a Terminal-specific term—without targeting Terminal, so the term isn't available. Extend your first line, tell … to …, into a tell block:

tell application "Terminal Latest"
    activate

    set allWindows to number of windows
    set newTab to true

    repeat with i from 1 to allWindows
        set allTabs to number of tabs of window i
        repeat with j from 1 to allTabs
            if custom title of tab j of window i contains "Hi" then
                set frontmost of window i to true
                set selected of tab j of window i to true
                set newTab to false
            end if
        end repeat
    end repeat
end tell

if newTab then
    tell application "System Events" to tell process "Terminal" to keystroke "t" using command down
    tell application "Terminal Latest"
        do script ("tabname $2") in selected tab of the front window
        set custom title of selected tab of the front window to "$2"
    end tell
end if

tell application "Terminal Latest" to do script ("$1") in selected tab of the front window

But you're going to find that this code still doesn't work, because you're trying to use shell variables $1 and $2 inside single-quoted strings, where the shell won't interpret them. So you'll also need to break up the quoting of those lines, e.g., in your osascript command arguments change

-e 'do script ("tabname $2") in selected tab of the front window'

to

-e 'do script "tabname '"$2"'" in selected tab of the front window'

[Untested.]

Also, the parentheses were unnecessary.

However, if you're storing this in a shebang script file, you don't need to use a shell to run osascript. You can change the first line to

#!/usr/bin/osascript

and then just put your AppleScript code after that, without the -e options, surrounding single-quoting or line-continuation backslashes.

Finally, since AppleScript supports the hash # comment character, you can edit, compile and run (as appropriate) osascript shebang scripts in Script Editor.

Update: A minute later I realized you want to pass command-line arguments to the script. So, you do want to use a shell to run osascript for your case. However, you can simplify things by using a Here document to place the script inline:

osascript<<EOF
    <your script here>
EOF

Variables/arguments will be expanded.


Mac OSX : How to password protect an .app or other folder from deleting/moving by user/admin/root

Disclaimer

This answer is not intended as security advice for regular users. Setting your Mac's securelevel to 1 could potentially cause certain software or hardware drivers to malfunction, so I advise doing your own due diligence and independent research and testing to determine whether there could be any undesirable consequences to performing these steps.

Section 5.4.2 of the below-linked article about BSD's features related to security restrictions on the super-user is a good place to start. http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/other/puis3rd/0596003234_puis3-chp-5-sect-4.html

In case that link breaks in the future, the most important section of the article lists the effects of setting kern.securelevel=1:

  Write access to the raw disk partitions is prohibited. (This forces
  all changes to the disk to go through the filesystem.)

  Raw access to the SCSI bus controller is prohibited.

  Files that have the immutable flag set cannot be changed. Files that
  have the append-only bit set can only be appended to, and not
  otherwise modified or deleted.

  The contents of IP packets cannot be logged.

  Raw I/O to the system console is prohibited.

  Raw writes to system memory or I/O device controllers from user
  programs are prohibited.

  Some access is denied to the Linux /proc filesystem.

  Additional kernel modules cannot be loaded.

  The system clock cannot be set backwards. In addition, it cannot be
  set forward more than a maximum of one second, and it can be set
  forward only once per second (effectively, the clock can be pushed at
  most to double time).

  This list is not comprehensive.

TLDR: setting kern.securelevel=1 could have more consequences than what's described in the below steps. Be careful.

That said, I have tested out these steps on a regular iMac with OS X 10.10.2 and did not notice any problems as a result. In the past, securelevel 1 was the default setting for OS X, and manpages in OS X 10.10 still indirectly indicate that 1 is the default setting (they say you must reboot in single user mode to remove schg, which requires securelevel 0).

However, in reality, securelevel 0 has been the default setting since OS X 10.5. When the online community learned that Apple quietly changed the default to 0, some sysadmins on Apple Discussions threads called it "unconscionable" of Apple to do this. I've also found some security guides online that say setting kern.securelevel=1 is an important step to take for securing your Mac. YMMV.

Answer Summary

As long as you set a firmware password on a Mac, you can make any file on that Mac unable to be deleted by anyone, just by using this simple Terminal command:

sudo chflags schg /path/to/file

Next make sure your Mac will always boot to securelevel 1 by doing:

sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf

Once in vi editor, type i to enter insert mode, then type kern.securelevel=1. Next hit enter, then colon, then type wq and hit enter.

Lastly in Terminal type:

sudo chflags schg /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo sysctl kern.securelevel=1

Now that securelevel is 1 and the schg flag is set, the file cannot be deleted unless the system is rebooted into single user mode.

If a firmware password has been set, you need that password to get into single user mode. Further you need it to get into target disk mode or change the startup disk.

With the schg flag set, even root cannot delete the file. Nobody can modify it from the Finder or Terminal. It will appear locked in the Finder, but the locked checkbox will always remain grayed out, no matter what, even with an admin password. In the Terminal, sudo rm /path/to/file will now fail, saying "Operation not permitted". Also, sudo SetFile -a l /path/to/file will fail with, "ERROR: Unexpected error. (-5000)". :D

To delete this file, someone will need to use the firmware password to reboot into single user mode, then unset the schg flag using this command:

sudo chflags noschg /path/to/file

After that it can be deleted.

UPDATE: Critical Extra Steps Necessary for Answer to Work

Update added Wed. 18 Mar. 2015 ~1:20 PM PDT: it came to my attention in the comments to this answer that someone with sudo access on the system could delete the protected file by renaming the /private/etc directory, then copying all its contents except the sysctl.conf file into a new /private/etc directory, and restarting. This would cause secure level to revert to zero.

To prevent this, after performing the above steps, you should also perform the following commands:

sudo chflags schg /private
sudo chflags -h schg /etc

The first command makes the /private directory and its subdirectories unable to be renamed. The second command makes the root-level symbolic link to /private/etc impossible to rename or delete. (The -h argument makes chflags act upon the symbolic link itself, instead of acting on the target of the symbolic link.)

Main Caveats

If you're on a Hackintosh or Mac Pro with an unofficial PC graphics card that has not been flashed with official Apple firmware or something functionally identical to that, this trick won't work. I am not sure if they can boot to single user mode, so if you establish the sysctl.conf file, and set it to schg, it may be like that forever. Which means any files set to schg can never be deleted.
There may be some physical ways to reset the firmware password by removing RAM or delete the file by removing the SSD/HDD and attaching to another computer.

Explanation of Answer

To set a firmware password for your Mac using the steps shown when you google, "how to set a firmware password on a mac". Briefly the steps are:

Reboot in recovery mode
Select Firmware Password Utility from the Utilities menu and set the password
...
PROFIT!

Explanation of Caveats

Note that on Macs with removable RAM, a hacker may be able to reset your firmware password by changing the amount of RAM, then clearing your PRAM a bunch of times. So on Macs like that, take appropriate physical security measures to prevent manual access to the computer's internal components.

Suffice it to say you must get to securelevel 0 for chflags noschg to work, and normally the only way to get back to securelevel 0 is to reboot in single user mode. Again this might be impossible if your Mac lacks Apple firmware. If you're paranoid/unsure, can see your current securelevel by typing sysctl kern.securelevel in Terminal; it should always be 1 after the steps have been followed unless you're in single user mode!

Further notes

As far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way around a firmware password (other than resetting it through the RAM removal trick) is to remove the primary hard disk or SSD from the computer in question, and access it from another computer using a SATA to USB adapter, or something similar. (Government agencies and/or Apple might have a secret, classified backdoor... but if they're after you, then you probably want to delete files, not prevent their deletion :D.)

So, technically speaking, setting schg only really solves your problem with 100% infallibility if you're on one if the newer Macs without replaceable RAM and without a replaceable hard drive (i.e. a Retina MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, etc.) and you set your EFI password, because those are the only Macs without removable RAM or a removeable SSD. (Of course if someone takes out your drive just to delete a file, again, you probably have worse problems, like, dude where's my hard drive?)

The 21.5" iMac's lack of "user-replaceable" RAM makes it a lot harder to circumvent the EFI password and steal RAM, which is probably why Apple made it that way, as it's intended heavily for use in schools where kids can and will circumvent any security measures :D (I know because in my day we used to hack right past AtEase on System 7 to play Marathon...)

On non-21.5" iMacs you can prevent the RAM-removal/firmware-password-reset trick by investing $40-50 in a Maclocks-brand lock for iMac. It goes into the security port and has a metal plate that covers up the power socket where the release for the RAM hatch is. With that physical lock in place, someone would need a diamond saw or similar to delete your schg-protected file... and if people are taking diamond saws to your computers then you have a lot worse problems to worry about than a file getting deleted, like, dude, where's my computer?


Map right shift key to behave like top arrow

I've not heard of Ukulele and it wasn't in the top ten search results on DuckDuckGo.  So, allow me to recommend another third-party piece of software, which is open-source, well-established, powerful, reasonably intuitive, and widely known and popular in its use with developers and "power users".

Karabiner Elements is stable in and updated for macOS Catalina.

Most keyboard mappings will be achieved using the GUI in a pretty straight-forward interface.  For complex mappings, there's a configuration file you can edit which uses JSON (Karabiner .json Reference Manual).

Yours are classified as simple modifications, e.g. ⇧ᴿ ⥱ ↑, so can be created straight in the GUI. Here's a screenshot series that shows how intuitive it is.


Is it possible to to replace MacBook Pro Touch Bar keyboard with a regular keyboard?

The cost in parts and labor makes this cost prohibitive. Better to sell yours and buy the one you want. Specifically, the top case holds the keyboard and the logic board is different as are other internals.

Anything is possible with several thousands of dollars (or more) of course but using an external keyboard might be the practical fix until you can get a swap for another Mac arranged.


Change the Apple login account for iPhone developer programme

You could try following Apple's instructions for changing the e-mail address associated with your AppleID.


Shortcut to create checklist on Notes (Mac)?

shift + command + L will start a checklist


Since wpsd and /usr/local/bin do not ship with OS X out of the box, you'd need to look at the creation date of the file and or check your backups to determine when the file arrived.

You could run the strings command against the file and see if that sheds any light on the process, but we might need to know more about how you install open source tools and/or add software to the system (or look at the whole dump) to know what the tool does.


It's meant for the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter for connecting a camera to your iOS device and importing photos. It's only supposed to appear when the camera adapter is connected.


How can I set up an Apple TV (4th gen) connection to a PPTP/L2TP VPN?

One way to do this is to use a router or Mac to connect to the VPN and then share that connection with the Apple TV.

Below is one example of how you could do this using a Mac. This should also give you the basic idea if you need to do something similar with a Windows machine or router1.

Share VPN from a Mac

Connect your Mac to the internet via ethernet cable (i.e. connect it to a router, modem, etc via ethernet)
Set up your VPN connection in System Preferences > Network (obviously you'll need the address and authentication details to do this)
Click on the Advanced... button
Ensure you tick the Send all traffic over VPN connection checkbox
You will also want to make sure that the two Disconnect options are not enabled
Click OK
Ensure you also tick the checkbox for Show VPN status in menu bar
Now go to System Preferences > Sharing
Highlight (but do not tick) the Internet Sharing service in the lefthand pane
On the righthand side, select the VPN connection you created at Step 2 from the Share your connection from drop-down menu
Now select the Wi-Fi port (i.e. tick the checkbox)
Click on the Wi-Fi Options... button
Give your new Wi-Fi network a name, password etc
Click OK
Now tick the Internet Sharing service in the lefthand pane

1 It's impossible to give you precise steps as routers vary significantly. However you would need to ensure your router is capable of doing this and will need to refer to its user guide.

NOTES:

You can also share a Wi-Fi connection via ethernet (although I suspect that's not practical in the case of a Mac > Apple TV.
If you can't connect your Mac to a router/modem via ethernet at Step 1, you could use a Ethernet to Wireless adapter instead. This just means the adapter is connecting to your usual Wi-Fi network and that you're connecting your Mac to the adapter via Ethernet.
Since you want this to be an always on connection, it'd mean your Mac will need to always remain on. It's also why Step 5 above is important. You may also need to adjust your System Preferences > Energy Saver settings.

Now, whenever your Mac is connected to the VPN, it will share the connection via Wi-Fi. This means you can connect any device to the new Wi-Fi network you created at Step 13 (such as your Apple TV).

Using the VPN connection

To make this work with your Apple TV:

On the Mac, click on the new VPN Status icon in the menu bar
Select the Connect option pertaining to the VPN connection created previously
Once the connection is established, your Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar will change to indicate your Mac is now sharing the VPN via Wi-Fi
Now go to your Apple TV and connect it to this Wi-Fi network


Why does RAID 1 "Mirroring not provide performance improvements"?

My guess would be that Apple prefers to have one drive handle only write processes as a backup and read/write from whichever one it considers the main drive. As to why this is, I have absolutely no clue. Seems kind of like a big oversight on their part. I've always kind of gotten the feeling that software RAID is pretty low on Apple's priority list.


How to enable screen saver for login screen?

To the best of my knowledge, it's not possible to trigger the screensaver from the lock screen. However, you could consider triggering the screensaver instead of going to the lock screen, then changing your security settings to lock your device in the background as soon as the screensaver triggers.

To do this, go to your Security & Privacy preferences in System Preferences, check the checkbox next to Require password [time interval] after sleep or screen saver begins, and select immediately from the dropdown (or 5 seconds if you want a little leeway—this setting dictates the length of time after the screensaver starts before you'll need to put in your password to unlock your computer). See the screenshot below:

Next, you'll simply need to add a shortcut to start the screensaver to your Touch Bar. As this CNET article explains, go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Customize Control Strip and drag the Screen Saver control to your Touch Bar's Control Strip. From now on, instead of locking your display, press the Screen Saver icon on the Touch Bar to both lock your device (i.e., prevent access without a password, but without showing the login screen) and start the screensaver.


Ways to extend lap top battery life on Mavericks

Disabling Notification Center or disabling those animations won't have any real effect.

The best way to increase battery life is to turn down the brightness of the display. If for example a MacBook Air is idle and the display is set to maximum brightness, the display consumes about three times as much energy as all other components. You can see power consumption information from http://www.apple.com/environment/reports/:

                     off    sleep  idle with display off  idle with display at maximum brightness
13-inch MacBook Air  0.26W  0.69W  1.6W                   6.0W
15-inch MacBook Pro  0.33W  1.09W  8.53W                  15.6W
15-inch retina MBP   0.30W  0.87W  not mentioned          17.2W

You can use top to find processes with the highest accumulated (-ca) CPU use:

top -ca -o cpu

You can see the average CPU use of processes over a longer period by for example adding this line to crontab:

* * * * * ps -eco '\%cpu= comm='|sed $'s/^ *//;s/ /\t/'>>~/Desktop/cpu

Then run this later:

awk -F$'\t' '{a[$2]+=$1}END{for(i in a)print a[i],i}' ~/Desktop/cpu|sort -rn


Adding photos to iPhone programmatically without iTunes

Apple expects you to use iCloud Photo Library. With that service you can login to the iCloud website on the Linux machine, click on Photos and then click on the "Upload" link to select images to upload. Your phone doesn't have to be connected to the Linux machine, just to the Internet via WiFi, and it will sync the new photos. I've done this myself and it does seem to work (not from a Linux machine, but with the Chrome browser).

The alternative would be to buy the camera connection kit or lightning to sd card adaptor and setup an sd card exactly the way it would look if it came from a camera, copying the images from the Linux machine. Note, I  haven't tried this but it should work as long as the directories on the sd card match how they would be constructed if they were created by a camera.


I believe it is "Checking for updates" icon for LibreOffice. It goes away whenever you close it, and whenever you click the icon with LibreOffice open, it brings up the "Check for updates" dialog.

I accidentally discovered that while trying to find out what it was!


I'd say a full format is almost never necessary, though the only thing you'll lose is time.

I've got an OS X install that I've migrated from computer A to computer B to computer C and back to B and upgraded from Tiger to Leopard to Snow Leopard (all upgrade-installs, no reformatting or anything) over the past 6 years and it works great.


How can I access an expanded directory listing when saving a new document?

I guess you have this savebox :

Just click on the arrow on the right.

The dialog will then expand to allow you to choose any destination.


I dropped my iPhone Xs into a hot dishwasher, will that damage the data on the iPhone?

No.  It doesn't damage the data, per se.

Heat, steam, and water may damage the physical phone, but it won't go in and start corrupting data.  The ones and zeros stored on the chip(s) aren't perishable.  When data gets corrupted, the whole file gets "damaged" to the point of being unusable; it won't lower the resolution to the point of being grainy.  This is not a photo on paper.

However, if you damage the phone in such a way that the phone is inoperable or the storage is damaged then the data becomes inaccessible.  If you sync your data to the cloud (iCloud, OneDrive, etc.) then your data remains accessible.

If/when you go to the Apple store for service, they will first check to see when your last backup was; even if you have iCloud.  If you don't, you'll be read the riot act and given a disclaimer and acknowledgement that they're not responsible for data loss.

This is why backups are so important.

While data can be sync'd to the cloud, it should not be considered backup.  Changes you make on one device get sent to the cloud storage and every other connected device.  A quick trip through the dishwasher won't change your data but if it hasn't sync'd or it wasn't set up, you could lose your data.

Grainy Photos

This is likey from your LCD being damaged.  If you want to confirm this, open the same photo on your computer or send it to a friend.  If it's clear there, your phone is damaged.


Why does restoring iPad not restore e-mail? Best way to fix?

I am assuming you made a non-encrypted Backup on iTunes, since you had to make a new code.

The Apple KB article About backups for iOS devices states:

  From your Mac or PC, you can make a backup of your device in iTunes. Syncing your device with your computer isn't the same as making a backup. An iTunes backup includes nearly all of your device's data and settings. An iTunes backup doesn't include:

  Content from the iTunes and App Stores, or PDFs downloaded directly to iBooks (You can back up this content using Transfer Purchases in iTunes.)
  Content synced from iTunes, like imported MP3s or CDs, videos, books, and photos
  Photos already stored in the cloud, like My Photo Stream, and iCloud Photo Library
  Touch ID settings
  Apple Pay information and settings
  Activity, Health, and Keychain data (To back up this content, you'll need to use Encrypted Backup in iTunes.)

I marked the points you are probably concerned about (your personal executive summary) :)
I am sorry to say you have to add them again from my perspective.


How does my just-booted and encrypted iPhone still receive messages before I decrypt it with the passcode?

Probably because you didn't just reboot it. All you did was turn on the screen.

Once you enter the passcode, some but not all of the data remains accessible until you turn the phone (not just the screen) off. To turn the phone off, press and hold the power button for 5 seconds until a "Slide to turn off" slider appears, and slide it.


Calendar stopped working properly on iPhone. How can I fix it?

You may be inadvertently saving the event to the wrong calendar. Often email accounts, such as Gmail automatically enable a calendar when being set up. If the event shows up only on your iPhone, and nowhere else, chances are your default calendar is set to something that you are not used to checking.

When you create an event, scroll down to where you can see the menu item "Calendar". Tap that, and choose one of your iCloud calendars. If the event then shows up on iCloud, and your computer, you have chosen the correct calendar.

If this is case, you will probably want to change your default calendar by opening your Settings.app, scrolling down and selecting "Mail, Contacts, and Calendar". At the bottom of this screen is a section titled "Calendars". Change the "Default Calendar" to reflect the one that worked correctly.


How can I replicate Windows End/Home key?

I used the following a lot.

⌘CMD+ꜛ: Home

⌘CMD+↓: End

⌘CMD+←: Beginning of Line

⌘CMD+→: End of Line

These I learned the other day from here - very handy for coding and writing, these are emacs bindings which work on Macs.

CTRL+A: beginning of line.

CTRL+E: end of line.

CTRL+U: delete from cursor to beginning of line.

CTRL+K: delete from cursor to end of line.

CTRL+W: erase word to the left.

CTRL+T: transpose characters around cursor.


How can I de-compress a source file on my basic MacBookAir (macOS Sierra Version 10.12.2)

You can find out the type of find using the file command in Terminal. In this case we get:

# file 1610.01410v2
1610.01410v2: POSIX tar archive (GNU)

So, you can open it up using tar, from the terminal:

tar xvf 1610.01410v2
x defectfcn.eps
x sepvol2ment.tex

Or, just rename it to 1610.01410v2.tar and let the Finder handle it.


Is there any way to develop iOS apps on a MacPro 2,1 in 2019?

No. I'm afraid you've bought yourself a boat anchor. Developing iOS applications requires you to run a current version of XCode, which in turn requires a current version of macOS.

The MacPro2,1 was produced between mid-2007 and early 2008; the processor in this machine does not support some instructions which are used in current versions of macOS. There is no known way of working around this, and hobbyist projects to enable the use of macOS on unsupported hardware have abandoned all attempts to provide support.


Confusion! when it says "iPhone 4S AT&T", does it mean that the 4S was locked to AT&T GSM & unlocked CDMA?

The only place to buy an unlocked iPhone is direct from Apple. Buying one from anywhere is a risky proposition. It may either not work as advertised, or worse yet, be a previously stolen phone.

Even though you are correct that the iPhone 4S has a chip that works on both GSM and CDMA networks, per Apple, the unlocked phones will only work on GSM networks.


To do a First Aid on your System Volume, you can try to mount/unlock it before, because il you have a crypted volume (Filevault) you can't do anything on before unlock it and give your admin password.


This actually ended up being a hardware issue. I took my iPhone 5 into an apple store and they said they have seen this happen many times. When I pressed on the right side of the button vs. the left side it seemed to work always. Strange coincidence it just started happening after the software update.

Apple immediately replaced my iPhone 5, no fuss.

Now everything works fine.


How do I open a new Terminal window ssh'ed to another machine from the command line?

There is a way to do this with

osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to do script "exec ssh localhost"'

Replace 'localhost' with the host name to which you wish to connect. You can include a username if the remote name is different from your local username, this would look like

rname@remotey.remote-face.org
\____/\_____/\______________/
 |     |      `- Domain name, you may be able to omit if on the same network as 'remotey'
 |     `- Remote hostname
 `- Specify remote login name followed by '@', can be omitted for same username

This suggestion is a variation on the top answer at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31524499/open-terminal-from-shell-and-execute-commands

Use exec ssh instead of ssh if you want the window to close after logging out. If you use the 'exec ssh' option and your window stays open, then check your Terminal preferences--under "Profiles" > "Shell" > "When the shell exits:" is probably set to "Don't close the window"


How can I get files on my iPad into my Dropbox?

I believe that whilst this capability is not included in the official dropbox app, it is possible to accomplish using GoodReader for iPad.

Open GoodReader on iPad and expand the section in the bottom right of the main screen which says "Connect to Servers"
Tap "Add"
Tap "Dropbox"
Enter your details and click add
Now tap the server you just added (I called it "Dropbox")
In the bottom right hand corner of the popover that just came up is a button saying upload. Tap it.
Select the files you want to upload and tap "Upload"

You will only need to do steps 5-7 the second time


Video Container for 1080p video for SD DVD (using Apple suite)

Just to get this 'answered' for anyone else who might come across this question.

There is no way to get 1080p or 1080i video onto a DVD. DVD's only support SD images (this goes for the disks themselfs, and the players).

You can however use BluRay to burn HD video, though this would require a BluRay burner and a BluRay player.

Have a look here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video


The recovery server could not be contacted while installing Mojave

Simple fix, connect the ethernet cable directly to your laptop(use usb-ethernet adapter) or pc and reinstall mac OS from the internet recovery mode= restart and hold command-option-R.


While Intel may produce versions of that processor that use an interchangeable socket, all Mac laptops (and almost all other laptops) have their CPUs soldered directly onto the logic board. This means it's effectively impossible to replace them, unless perhaps you have some high-grade industrial soldering knowledge and equipment. You can see this in iFixit's logic board replacement guide for your MacBook Pro.

In addition to that, I'm not aware of anywhere that you can buy individual Intel mobile CPUs. Because they're only used in laptops, they tend to only be sold to OEMs.


The Mail.app is scriptable, although AppleScript can be a little weird to work with. It wouldn't be hitting the reply button, but you can put a command in the Menu Bar under a Script Menu.

Much of the following comes from a discussions.apple.com thread (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4401380):

Open the Script Editor (in Utilities) and go into its preferences and check "Show Script menu in menu bar"

Then create a new script with something like this:

set myReply to "Thanks, I've received your email. If I have any questions about it I will contact you directly"

tell application "Mail"
    set theSelection to selection
    if theSelection is {} then return
    activate
    repeat with thisMessage in theSelection
        set theOutgoingMessage to reply thisMessage with opening window
        repeat until exists (window 1 whose name = "Re: " & subject of thisMessage)
        end repeat
        delay 0.1

        -- send gui scripting to handler to get it out of Mail tell block
        my guiScriptMail(myReply)
        send theOutgoingMessage -- This automatically sends the message!
    end repeat
end tell

on guiScriptMail(myReply)
    tell application "System Events"
        tell process "Mail"
            set frontmost to true
            -- keystroke "a" using {command down} -- ⌘A to select all
            keystroke myReply
        end tell
    end tell
end guiScriptMail

Then save this script to the Desktop. In the Script menu, go to "Open Scripts Folder" and select "Open User Scripts Folder". In the folder that open up (should be ~/Library/Scripts) create a folder named "Mail" - this will create a context sensitive menu in the Scripts menu, so that it will only show your script if you are in the Mail application.

Then you can select a message in Mail, and then select the script in the Script menu and your reply should be filled out and sent.

Again, AppleScript can be a little tricky and can fail or hang sometimes, but works well most of the time.


iPhone backup or sync issue "unknown error occurred (-50)"

I got this error just now. My Mac mini was connected to my LAN via WiFi and also via Ethernet. That was working ok, but I was trying to get the phone to sync via Wifi (still can't get that working).

Anyway, I pulled out the Ethernet cable. Plugged the phone in via USB and when I clicked Sync I got the (-50) error you describe.

My solution was to exit iTunes, and then launch it again. This was enough to get the phone syncing with no error.


Purchasing an iMac: when is the entry-level model insufficient?

It depends on what you / your girlfriend wants to do with the iMac. If it is really just used for internet and occasionally watching a movie and listening to music, then an 'entry level' iMac offers more than enough performance. IMHO even an iPad would provide enough performance…

We actually use our 5+yr old iMac (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.66GHz) as a media hub and it works just fine. It's connected to the TV and has a couple of external hard drives connected to it. And when it got a bit slow a couple of years ago we just added some memory, both RAM and HD, and that really helped a lot. Now it's basically never

Also all other apps like Photoshop etc. still work fine on that machine, but since we now have some faster machines in the house, the iMac is basically just used as a media hub.


What's the cause of GPU panics on macbook pro mid 2010?

Suggested problem tracing /and repair) steps (after each test the performances).

Some applications will force use the Nvidia card (without automatic switching).

Yes the ZOOM feature adds stress to the GPU.

Vacuum clean the inside of your Mac to improve cooling.
Google and Install gfxCardStatus, Leave on Dynamic Switching. From there it will Monitor and Alert you to what apps switch you to the Nvidia Graphic Card.
Also open the Activity monitor - Energy tab, where you can see when the Nvida card kicks in, and does it switch on/off irregularly.
Monitor your Console log for irregular (fast)GPU switching.
Do some hardware testing:

  GpuTest is a cross-platform (Windows, Linux and Max OS X) GPU stress
  test and OpenGL benchmark. GpuTest comes with several GPU tests
  including some popular ones from Windows'world (FurMark or TessMark).

worst case remove the Nvidia card, and go without it.


How do can I close all windows on Preview and OpenOffice, so they don't open again when I open Preview to see something else?

Firstly, to prevent it happening again, remember to close a document before you Quit, otherwise it will reopen on launch.

To clear the existing list, With both apps quit, go to
~/Library/Saved Application State/

& delete the two saved state folders, com.apple.Preview.savedState & the same for OpenOffice [I don't have the app so not certain of the name.]

Done.

Quick way to get there, if you're not sure…

From Finder, hit  Cmd ⌘   N  for New Window
Hit  Cmd ⌘   Shift ⇧   G  for Go…
Paste ~/Library/Saved Application State/ including the tilde ~


Infection (according to ClamXav) in "/private/var/db/PreviousSystemLogs.cpgz"?

I wouldn’t worry. You can safely ignore it. After looking up the CVE ID, the malware in question is only a threat to one running Windows; there’s no threat in an OS X environment. Here’s the description of the ID on CVE’s database:

  Heap-based buffer overflow in DirectPlay in DirectX 9.0 through 11.1 in Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2, R2, and R2 SP1, Windows 7 Gold and SP1, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2012 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted Office document, aka "DirectPlay Heap Overflow Vulnerability.

See also the accompanying list of the specific platforms affected.

Even good, non intrusive AV-software such as ClamXav is prone to false positives. If you want, you can still safely remove that file. It’s just an archived log. I would just tell ClamXav to ignore it.


Can Finder show dates including seconds?

Nothing has changed, except that the location within System Preference has had a name change.

You can do this as follows:

Got to Apple > System Preferences...
Select the Language & Region preference pane
Click the Advanced... button at bottom left
Select the Times tab
You'll see the Short format fields at top
Edit this field by dragging the 'Second' time element from the Time Elements area to the Short field (Note: You'll need to manually enter the colon (:) in between the mins and secs if you was it to be displayed as well)
Click on OK
Exit System Preferences

Now you'll have the seconds displayed in your Finder time stamps.


you could try downgrading to an older version of ios. you would need to put the device into what is called DFU mode or recovery mode, see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15qaTA4lQPc

you will also need to download the version of ios you want from here
https://ipsw.me/

once downloaded, put your device into dfu mode, open itunes, hold shift and click restore, browse to where you downloaded the firmware file and install it


Installing Adobe Reader without granting full administrative privileges

The 'Install Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.app' you downloaded is an online installer.

This means that the installer downloads Adobe Reader when you run the installer, such that the installer always installs the latest version, even if you run an older installer. This is why the installer is only ~2 MB, which is nowhere near enough to store Adobe Reader within, even compressed. Thus, there's no Adobe Reader inside that you can extract.

What you actually want is the offline installer, available to download from the Enterprise site:

https://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/

Select the version of OS X and your language, and you will be able to download the full installer of over 100 MB. Inside is your standard pkg that you can extract.


How can I systemwide check if a keyboard shortcut is in use or has been registered?

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print" ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist

Will do it for you. Then you can edit the individual keys from there.

The details are extracted from:
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57337941-263/tackling-keyboard-shortcut-woes-in-os-x/

You can modify the above file as per:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4850

However note the file is binary and you cannot use a text editor, you have to use the command defaults, or the command PlistBuddy.  defaults can be used if you know the individual keys you want to modify.  PlistBuddy is more user friendly.


Where can I find the gray linen texture that's used as the Lion login screen background?

Open System Preferences » Desktop and Screen Saver:
Click the "+" at the bottom left:
Press Command + Shift + G to bring up the "Go To Folder" menu, and paste in the path to the background image:

/System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Versions/C/Resources/NSTexturedFullScreenBackgroundColor.png

(Press Go, and then Return  when you see the NSTexturedFullScreenBackgroundColor.png file is selected)
You will now be back at the System Preferences window. Make sure that the drop-down selector is set to 'Tile'

Voilà!


Are there any physical differences between the Verizon and AT&T iPad (3rd generation)?

Yes, the two models are physically different. The radio is different.
As per Apple's website, the radio frequencies aren't the same. The verizon iPad supports Verizon LTE, and as per this post, AT&T 3G. However, the Verizon iPad does not support all LTE frequencies that the AT&T iPad does.
From Apple.com:

Wi-Fi + 4G for AT&T model: 4G LTE (700, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
Wi-Fi + 4G for Verizon model: 4G LTE (700 MHz); CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1900 MHz); UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

Notice that there are some differences between the listed frequencies. They're nearly the same, but not quite.
Edit:
To confirm, the difference is a hardware difference, not a software imposed limitation on AT&T LTE. From the Macrumors article:

The Verizon iPad hardware supports only the 700 MHz band for LTE to match the carrier's technology, while the GSM version sold for use on AT&T's network supports both the 700 MHz and 2100 MHz bands as used by that carrier.

If you're looking to travel internationally, go with the AT&T iPad. (I got the Verizon iPad because I wanted the free hotspot feature, which AT&T does not offer for free at this time.)


I blew hard in the SD card hub. Now it is working fine.


Making Microsoft Office Reminders get your attention

If you REALLY want to keep using Office you could sync office with reminders and iCal. But i'd recommend using iCal for this or if you're on office 2011 use the calendar in outlook instead of the reminder app.


How do I show All Files under the current folder?

MacOS used to come with a feature called "All My Files", which did indeed show you ... all your files. But it was removed in High Sierra -- quite probably because showing you 500,000 files (as the result of a live search query) in one window would cause significant slow down.

All My Files was replace with "Recent", which shows you all the files created or modified within 1 day. You can modify this search, or create your own Smart Folder.

Create a New Smart Folder in Finder's File menu.
Add criteria for "Created Date" and "Content Modified", both to be within some all-inclusive value, like "within the last 35 years".

You can then display the results in a list and sort by date.


Problems executing an osascript command via cron

I think I found the solution. As I mentioned in the above comments, I am using the GUI LaunchControl, I started the job once by hand with the menu Job -> Start and I got a little popup if R is allowed to access Reminders. I clicked yes and now it is working.

It looks like, this popup couldn't be displayed so I could never allow it.


How much RAM memory do I need for an OSX device?

I have the Mac Mini 2018, and I bought it with the 'default' 8GB of RAM. With several apps open, but just idling, it was at the 'top' of the Green memory pressure band, and loading it beyond that, either with 'work' or data, would start to bring it into the yellow band.

I regularly had about 2Gb of swap, and the same of compressed memory. Don't forget that the Intel Graphics unit takes 1.5 Gb straight away.

I've just installed 32 Gb of RAM (from Crucial, not Apple!), and the difference is palpable.


Google photos does a really good job of deduping!  I have loaded from multiple pc's, iPads & iPhone & not seen any duplicates!   I'm loving it!


Where can I find default Microsoft fonts Calibri, Cambria?

To find and install default Microsoft fonts on a Mac:

Navigate HERE in your browser.
Download the .ZIP file.
Unzip it (double-click it).
Open the folder that appears.
Select all the .TTF files inside the folder.
With the files selected, right-click.
From the pop-up menu, choose "open with → Font Book".
Click "Install Font" for each font.

Note: Changes to fonts take effect when an application is opened or a user logs in to the account or computer on which the changes occurred, see support.apple.com.


Outlook 2011 crashes when connecting to Exchange server

First, make sure that you're up-to-date with your Outlook updates.  The most recent version of Outlook is 14.3.2.

One relatively easy option would be to remove your Exchange account from Outlook, quit Outlook, quit the Database Daemon, and then launch Outlook and re-add your Exchange account.  Another option would be to create a new user account on your Mac and add your Exchange account to Outlook there.  In either case, this will tell you whether this is an issue with something on Exchange or if it's local to Outlook.

There are additional troubleshooting steps available in this Outlook:Mac KB article, but the steps above are where I would start because they're the easiest.


Errors while trying to install "wireless" with pip

One proper way to install pip and wireless in a dual Python environment (i.e. stock OS X Python 2.7 and brew's Python 3.6.1) is the get-pip.py method outlined here: How do I use pip 3 with Python 3.4?.

curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -o get-pip.py
sudo python get-pip.py
sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/pip2.7 /usr/local/bin/pip2 #usually not necessary because pip2 already exists
sudo python3 get-pip.py

Then depending where you want to install wireless either

sudo pip2 install wireless #installs to /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/wireless

or

sudo pip3 install wireless #installs to /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/wireless

or both.


How can I import mini-DV content onto a Mac?

Connect your camcorder and use iMovie HD to import the tape, then export using Share>Quicktime. It will create one file out of the tape.

Edit: In response to Sajee's comment below.

Choose Share>Quicktime>Compress movie for: Full Quality. As implied, there won't be any loss of quality.


Problem downloading software for the iPhone. Unknown error 1671

If you have a poor connection for whatever reason & the download keeps failing, then you can separate the two tasks, Download from Restore, by manually fetching the ipsw file from Apple's servers.

The links are all maintained on https://ipsw.me/signed - the actual files come directly from Apple & so are safe to download, the site merely lists the direct download locations.

If you are uncertain as to the correct file to download, then check the name against your previous ipsw file, which iTunes should have stored at
~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates/
with a file name, for example of iPhone8,1_9.3.2_13F69_Restore.ipsw
...then you look for the v9.3.2 of that particular device on ipsw.me [assuming your device is new enough to support iOS 9]

You then copy your new ipsw file to the same location as your old one, erase the old & go for the restore again. It will find the correct file & work from that.


Possible to access/restore past versions of Notes in iCloud?

Assuming you have 2 devices, let's say an iPhone and iPad, there is only one thing you can do:

delete something on your iPhone
as soon as you notice, enable airplane mode on your iPad
unlock iPad & open notes
copy note to somewhere else
turn off airplane mode
copy note back to notes

Other than that, there unfortunately doesn't seem to be anything you can do.


Electricity coming through screws, USB, and headphone jack on 2009 MacBook

If you are using a grounded plug and feel ground loop current you should either have the outlet serviced or the computer serviced.

It's normal (and safe) for ground loop current to exist and feel lightly tingly on Macs with ungrounded power supplies since there are spinning fans - especially inside the thermoplastic white Macs. It's also almost inconceivable that the low current DC voltage that a Mac battery and power adapter provide could be a safety risk, but it could be a sign of internal damage and worth having an expert check out the wall socket and or the Mac plus it's power adapter.

Since your comment reinforces the level of detail you are seeking, I would say that any Apple repair shop that received that Mac for repair might use a multimeter to see if they can sense an voltage on ground pins and/or the case. They might place a new DC in / magsafe board in and re-test to see if that's the cause. They would of course test with their adapter and then remove the components in the main unibody section to look for loose screws, scortch marks or other signs of burns or liquid damage to the components that might cause this abnormal current situation:

battery
rear vent
fan
optical drive
logic board

Once you've gone over these - hopefully you can visually see the problem or remove whatever is grounding current / voltage to the frame.


Yep, just as long as a SIM card is in there, you can use it to activate an iPhone. You won't get any cell service, but you could use it on Wi-Fi.


Is iPad Pro 10.5” (2017) only wifi or it needs to be wifi + cellular?

The iPad Pro, regardless of whether it's the 10.5" or 12.9" size, comes in two main configurations - one with Wi-Fi only and one with both Wi-Fi + Cellular.

The reason many of the sellers are pointing out that the model they're selling is Wi-Fi only is because that's the configuration they're selling.

For more detailed information I refer you to the specs provided on Apple's website. You'll see that there are details for both the Wi-Fi models and the Wi-Fi + Cellular models. For example, you'll see differences listed under Size and Weight and so on.


Terminal vs Shell vs Processes on ARM (Apple Silicon)

There's some mis-understandings about what each of the elements are...

Terminal - The terminal is just the utility that allows you to execute commands.  Think of it as a "window" into the system.  You can open a Terminal on a PowerPC Mac, then establish a connection to an a new M1 Mac that in turn connects to X11 desktop running on Linux on an Intel CPU.  In other words, the Terminal doesn't determine what environment you ultimately work in.  If you're on the new M1 Mac, the Terminal will be the native M1 compiled Terminal.

The shell is the environment in which you operate; it's the actual user interface.  You're probably familiar with Bash and Zsh (default shell since Catalina). This too will operate as the native compiled environment, so if you're on the M1 it will use the shell compiled for that platform.  The shell is just how you send commands to the OS to do things including run binaries.

Executing binaries depends on what that binary was compiled for.  We know that a Linux binary (even compiled on x86) won't run on macOS.  The binary has to be compatible or you need something that gives you that compatibility.  For example, FreeBSD has a Linux compatibility layer. This is where Rosetta comes in; to make Intel instructions compatible on Apple ARM.

Rosetta is the tool or "layer" that allows you to run x86_64 instructions on the ARM chip.  So, if you want to execute a widget that is only available on x86_64, you would run that on Rosetta.
So, using your example, you would run the universal binary of iTerm2 (native to ARM)  to use the universal binary Zsh shell that was compiled on ARM to either launch the universal binary tool natively compiled on ARM or the x86_64 tool compiled under Intel via Rosetta.
From the comments:

I wonder why Homebrew team are suggesting to open terminal under Rosetta?

Doing some related research on MacPorts, there are many, many ports that do not yet support compiling under ARM; Bash is one of them and I've included the Port Health page for reference.  See below:

They will tell you to open Terminal (or iTerm2) under Rosetta to ensure you're initializing an x86_x64 environment.

If a binary includes both arm64 and x86_64 instructions, the user can tell the system to launch the app using Rosetta translation from the app’s Get Info window in the Finder. For example, a user might enable Rosetta translation to allow the app to run older plug-ins that don’t yet support the arm64 architecture.

So, Terminal (or iTerm2) will be universal (runs natively under ARM) but the environment will be able to support the x86_64 instruction set.


Sorry but that isn't possible on an iPad.  Each application/game has the option/ability to allow the background music to continue or to stop it and use its own audio.

You would have to ask the developer of each application to add an option to allow the background music to continue instead of interrupting.  Good luck with that. ;)


You have a few options:
Option #1

Take it to the Apple store and have them fix the lock button.
Take your iPhone back home, and run iTunes on a friend's computer.

Option #2

Take it to the Apple store and have them do everything for you.

Option #3

Go to the Apple store and get your lock button fixed.
Get a real computer that supports iTunes in some way or another and use that.

Option #4

Go to the Apple store and get a real iPhone - one that actually supports modern software.

In reality, you've got no good options.  You need to go to the Apple store one way or another.  Sorry bro, welcome to 2016.


I think the confusion may be in this dialog:

Unchecking it works for the current restart but the next time it comes up its checked. It has a default state which doesn't seem to have a control in system preferences and may be getting mixed up with this related but different control:

No doubt others here will know more about this than I do but I understand how a new user might be confused.


How to open a folder in Finder by a single mouse click? (using Icon view)

I agree with you on double click.  I bought a multi-key mouse.  I assign a key to double click. Not a perfect or free solution, but better.


How can I use my iPhone 3Gs on T-Mobile?

Tethered jailbreak is available for IOS 5, see Jailbreak iOS 5 5.0/5.0.1 on iPhone 4 iPod Touch iPad with Redsn0w and of course blog.iphone-dev.org.


Question mark on finder's side bar -- could it be malware?

No. A question mark is the usual symbol for a link to a file that no longer exists or cannot be found.
Malware is designed to go unnoticed.


How can one save iTerm2 hotkey-window settings (size/dimensions, computer monitor/display, and relative display position)?

When I changed the iTerm2 preferences Hotkey Window -> Window -> Style = No Title Bar (see annotated screenshot below) it started doing what I want.

I believe the original setting was Full-Width [something...]. When I change the Style setting back to a Full-Width setting, it gets wonky again, namely it starts stretching the Hotkey Window to a full width of the screen. Makes sense.

What makes less sense to me is why Full-Width was set for this Hotkey-Window profile which I had not used previously. This suggests it might (?) be a default setting. If so, I'm not sure why the iTerm2 developers/managers want it this way, it seems like it would cause confusion for other newbies like me in the same scenario.


In VMware you have to connect the iPhone as a USB device to the guest virtual machine.

This is usually done from the VMware menu item VM => Removable Devices, where you can select your iPhone. The actual naming of the menu depends on which version of VMware you're using (i.e. VMware Workstation on Windows, VMware Fusion on macOS, or whatever).


Personally I'd forget the dmg format, buy a decent sized usb drive and retrieve as much as you can by just dragging and dropping from any CDs you can mount. Time enough when you have retrieved all your data to wonder about how to compress it. Even if a CD is full it can only store 700mb so it would take a load of CDs to fill a terabyte drive. Then, when you have all your data saved, make another copy and store that offsite somewhere as a backup.


Unable to prevent APFS partition from mounting automatically in Mojave (10.14.5)

"Educated" guess:

In your case FileVault unlocking is managed by the preboot APFS volume (disk1s2).

Your specific APFS container configuration implies that preboot manages booting to macOS 10.14.5 as well as macOS 10.15 beta.

At this boot stage disk1s1's /etc/fstab is probably not yet involved and thus entries won't work.

If you really want to disable disk1s6/disk1s7, you probably have to rename one of the two folders with UUID names (one for macOS 10.14.5 and the other for macOS 10.15 beta) in preboot. The folder names correspond with the APFS boot volume UUIDs you get with diskutil ap list.

You have to rename the one which is identical with the UUID of macOS 10.15 beta's boot volume.

Not tested - absolutely not recommended!

BTW: I tried to find some kernel flag to add to /Volumes/Preboot/[UUID]/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist to prevent FV unlocking but failed.


Need help creating Automator Service to perform similar tasks to a residual uninstall

I do not have FontLab Studio installed however for the purpose of providing a solution to your situation, under OS X El Capitan 10.11.5, I did the following:

In a Terminal at /private/var/db/BootCaches, using sudo, mkdir and touch I created a directory named 34D6C504-2F5B-416F-9C91-0C9D019BF446 and in that directory a file named app.com.fontlab.studio5.playlist.
In Finder, in my Home folder's Library > Saved Application State folder, I duplicated a folder and renamed the copy to: "com.fontlab.studio5.savedState"

In doing so this replicated the target locations and files with appropriate privileges to then test the following AppleScript application on.

In Script Editor I used the following code to create the Reset FontLab Studio.app and saved it in the Applications folder of the Macintosh HD and then dragged it to the Dock so as to have it readily available to click on.

try
    do shell script "rm -r \"$HOME/Library/Saved Application State/com.fontlab.studio5.savedState\" /private/var/db/BootCaches/*/app.com.fontlab.studio5.playlist" with administrator privileges
end try

When I click on the Reset FontLab Studio Dock Tile it showed the password dialog box, as shown below, for me to type in my password. I typed in my password and pressed enter. That's it, the app did what it was programmed to do.

Notes:

As this code is tested I'd suggest copying and pasting it as is into Script Editor and then saving it as an application of whatever name you desire.
$HOME is being used because ~ can/will at times error out in AppleScript and or Automator, depending on its specific use. Normally ~ is expanded to the value of Environment Variable of HOME and thus I typically use $HOME over ~ to avoid errors that it can/will generate at times.
The substitution of * for 34D6C504-2F5B-416F-9C91-0C9D019BF446 is intensional, so as to accommodate the possible name change.
The try command is used so as to avoid an error if you run the Reset FontLab Studio app again before the target files are recreated and or if one or the other doesn't exist, it still deletes the other.
/var is a symbolic link to /private/var however I prefer using the absolute path over the symlink in cases such as this.
The use of the rm command is inherently dangerous, especially when used with elevated privileges and or wildcards, so to that end make absolutely sure there are no typos in your command line and that the targets are the intended targets.  This is why I tested my code before posting it.  You can also preface the rm command with echo, e.g echo rm ... and then review the output in the Script Editor's Events/Results pane and then remove echo before saving the script.

The image below it to show syntactical highlighting and to see the full command line of the do shell script command

If you're the only user of the computer and you like not to have to type in your password when the Reset FontLab Studio app runs, then modify the do shell script command using the following syntax:

do shell script "command" user name "me" password "mypassword" with administrator privileges

Example:

do shell script "rm -r \"$HOME/Library/Saved Application State/com.fontlab.studio5.savedState\" /private/var/db/BootCaches/*/app.com.fontlab.studio5.playlist" user name "me" password "mypassword" with administrator privileges

Note that when the script's code is saved the value of user name and password are saved in readable text within the application bundle's "main.script" binary file. So use this method at your own risk as it is considered to be a security risk storing user names and passwords that are stored in an unencrypted manner.


Calling emergency numbers is prohibited in Siri to prevent accidental calls being made. You need to use the Phone app manually or the Emergency dialer on the lock screen to make calls to emergency numbers.

However, in some locations, you can say something similar to 'call the police' and this will succeed as I believe Siri is more accurately able to understand what you are saying.


Right click (or control + click ) on an adjacent column header letter.  For example "Column D".

Then select Unhide from the dialog.


How do I extend the lifespan of my MacBook's battery (2015 Retina Model)

As Allendar's comment said, read the documentation and help.  I suspect it will say something along the lines that you should connect the charger whenever power is available, and avoid a deep discharge.  These days I suspect the software will protect you as well.

By deep discharge I mean to keep running the computer from battery power beyond the limit recommended for best battery life.

Get the computer to show the battery status in the menu bar, keep an eye on it, and act accordingly.  Especially if it says the battery needs to be serviced - when this happens, get the computer looked at as soon as you can.

I have a 2009 MacBook I am still using, and the biggest problem I ever had with it was when its first battery started to fail.  The computer warned me about it (via the status in the menu bar) but I, wanting to save money, ignored the warnings.  Eventually the battery truly failed, swelling up and causing hardware trouble.


Can I force Safari to show the toolbar in login windows?

Use the 1Password autofill keyboard shortcut Command + \ to fill the login information.

You don’t need the toolbar visible in order to invoke 1Password. Heck, you can even get rid of the 1Password extension from the Safari toolbar and work solely with this keyboard shortcut.

This keyboard shortcut is set by default by 1Password.


For the next call, the notification should appear again. But I don't think you can get the window back for the current call as the notification is gone.
If your MacBook sports a touch bar, you can end a call, switch to video or muting using it. It's not possible to dial numbers though ("Select 1 for department A, Select 2 for department B").
Don't forget to provide Apple feedback on this. Even though this issue is around for a few years, hopefully they'll find a better solution than the current notification.
https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbook.html


Monitor Internet traffic flowing via my MacBook?

You might want to look at the terminal command tcpdump as it will show all the traffic passing over your network. You have to run it via sudo but it should give you what you want.

sudo tcpdump -vv -i en0

Should show everything over your ethernet port.


Image dims when viewing in full screen in iphoto on thunderbolt monitor

I am seeing the same thing here with a MBA on the TB display. All fine on MBA display, and thumbnails on TB, but once you zoom up the photos on the TB display they become 'darker'.

If I export the photos out of iPhoto and display them in Preview/quicklook, they don't go darker. It is only iPhoto that is rendering the images with some colour profile.

I couldn't find an answer but a restart of the computer fixed the issue.

Using iPhoto 9.5.1 running OS 10.9.4 on MacBookAir5,2.


How to make the login window display list of users and name and password?

As you have discovered, the choices are:

A list of users with their icon

--OR--

A name and password box

What you see at school is the "other" user - user info is stored on a network server, the complete list is both unreachable and potentially far too long to simply scroll through.

It's certainly possible, just get the "Server" application from the App Store and set up your own machine as a server.


For Apple's "free" apps, such as Numbers, I've had success doing the following:

Leave Numbers.app in the /Applications folder
Start App Store, and check for updates.  This should show an update for Numbers, but do not try to update it yet.
Move Numbers.app/Contents/_MASReceipt/receipt to your Desktop
Go back to the App Store, and update Numbers

This will download the new version, and create a new receipt file, with your new ownership credentials.

NOTE: This may not work if your second set of credentials is not already authorized to download Numbers via a different Mac, etc.


Backing up to an Airport Timecapsule over non-Airport WiFi

The answer is Yes, it can do that but needs to be set up first.

Here are detailed instructions.

In summary:

Connect your Mac to TC via Ethernet to set it up.

Now Disable the wireless functions of the Time Capsule and, Set your Time Capsule to Bridge Mode.--Update the configuration.

Next: use an Ethernet cable to connect one of your router’s LAN ports to your Time Capsule’s WAN port.


Can i send an email from me.com with an email using a different domain?

On a Mac, in the reply message, notice that the From: line has the down-pointing triangle that indicates that it's a menu. Clicking on it reveals a menu of all the email addresses you have configured. Select the one you want. The response will be sent through the SMTP server you have associated with the account corresponding to that email address.

On the iPhone, the reply message has a consolidated Cc/Bcc/From: field. (You have to swipe down to see it, because it's originally scrolled off the top.) Tap on that to expand it into separate CC, BCC, and From fields. Tap on the From: field, and note that a scrolling list appears at the bottom of the screen, with all your email addresses the iPhone knows about. Select the one you want to use.


What does the undocumented switch, `-t`, do for the `mdutil` utility?

My educated guess is that mdutil -t /path/to returns the TRUE absolute path of a file or folder.
For example:

$ diskutil -t /this/is/a/real/path
/this/is/a/real/path

When creating a symlink

$ cd /this/is/a
$ ln -s /this/is/a/real/path /this/is/a/symlink
$ mdutil -t /this/is/a/symlink
/this/is/a/real/path

And when using a relative path

$ cd /this/is/a
$ mdutil -t real/path
/this/is/a/real/path

This behavior is almost identical without using the -t flag, except for the trailing : after the pathname.

$ mdutil /this/is/a/real/path
/this/is/a/real/path:

But when using a non existing path with -t, it gives a message and not an error.

$ mdutil -t /this/is/a/nonexisting/path
Unable to resolve path

$ mdutil /this/is/a/nonexisting/path
Error: invalid path `/this/is/a/nonexisting/path'.


I use PowerPhotos from FatCatSoftware to merge my libraries. I've merged more than 12 libraries and 500 GB of photos.


Quickly create/edit keyboard shortcuts for menu items

Here's the AppleScript for it:

on run

tell application "System Events"
    set theActiveApp to name of 1st process whose frontmost is true
end tell

set theApplicationID to id of application theActiveApp
set theMenuItem to text returned of (display dialog "Enter menu item name" default answer "Example: New Window")
set theShortcut to text returned of (display dialog "Enter shortcut (use these: ⌘=@,  ⌥=~,  ⇧=$,  ^=^)" default answer "Example: @$1")

do shell script "defaults write " & quoted form of theApplicationID & " NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add " & quoted form of (quote & theMenuItem & quote) & " " & quoted form of (quote & theShortcut & quote)

end run

So, it gets the current application's identifier and then adds your menu item name and shortcut as required. You can even click the application's menu bar without the popup going away!

However, note that this is merely a rudimentary version of what you wanted; it only adds entries. If you make a mistake, that's yours to manually fix (and it might not appear in System Preferences). Also, lastly, it did not seem to work in Automator or Script Editor, but worked fine for the Finder. As for the former two, it adds the entries but for some reason they don't show up in System Preferences and can't be used, even after restarting the app. I don't know why but hey, at least it's something ;)


Looking just at the big parts

You shouldn't touch anything in /private, as these are files used by OSX.
Removing unneeded drivers from /Library/Printers shouldn't pose a problem (I only have the Canon drivers for the model I'm actually using in there)
.../iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications contains all the apps you've ever purchased. You can, if you want to, delete those which you are not using anymore (and reload them again if necessary), but anything installed in your phone will most probably get resynced on the next sync
In .../Library/iTunes there might be some old iPhone updates left in iPhone Software Update which can be removed without problems
.../Library/Developer/Shared contains the Xcode and Development documentation, which can be managed via Xcode directly (or you just remove it and use the web-based version)

I wouldn't bother with the smaller stuff (including iDVD and iPhoto).


When I click on my terminal, strange characters appear

You have somehow activated the terminal's mouse tracking mode. This is usually used by terminal applications which accept mouse input (like vim), which can interpret these character sequences as mouse events. The shell does not support mouse input, so it displays these sequences directly.

You can turn off mouse tracking mode by running the reset command in the terminal.


What size should a background image be for Apple Configurator to place it on iOS devices?

Your probably best of if you crop the photos yourself. Here are the pixel counts that work best for each screen size:

iOS devices: display sizes

320×480 pixels : iPhone (1st generation), iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (1st–3rd generation)
640×960 pixels : iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (4th generation)
640×1136 pixels : iPhone 5/5s/5c, iPod touch (5th generation) Retina display
1024×768 pixels : iPad, iPad 2, iPad mini (non-retina)
2048×1536 pixels : iPad Air, retina iPad mini and iPad (3rd–4th generation), all of which have Retina display

Automate resizing using Automator

Automator let’s you easily crop images. See my screenshot below for explanation and just click the actions together.

You can automate resizing the photos with Automator, if you don’t demand to choose an extract of your photo.

Rember to use “crop images” with “scale before crop: Scale to Short Side”:

After finishing your workflow you could add a thousands images and let your Mac do the work. You will be prompted to select your images (see first action).

Just adapt the sizes for your corresponding device. You could also merge this into one workflow. Just duplicate the last three steps and change the suffix (_iphone5) in action “Add text”.

Here is an example image* went through my Automator workflow.

Original:

Result:

Resizing using an application

You could use the free app Ensoul Wallpapers from the Mac App Store. This let’s you choose an image extract.

The maker of another app (deko) documents the sub-pixel shifts that parallax changes can have at http://dekoapp.com/parallax/

I hope my answer helps you with your problem concerning your image size and how to resize them. Unfortunately, I do not see an option to set a background image in Apple Configurator (Version 3.5 (289)).

* image by interfacelift.com


How to move iMovie projects from iPhone to a computer for storage?

Unlike music and photos there (seems to be, IMHO) is no built-in sync option for iMovie. You may need to use a program like iExplorer to get the actual project files off the IOS device but once you have them there is no guarantee that they will be usable in any application (Mac or Windows).

If you tap the share button in iMovie you can then save the final project as a movie file right to the camera roll which will then sync to your PC the next time you sync your device. But from your question it seems that you want a backup of all of the individual files contained in each iMovie project.

I would bet that a backup of your iPhone contains all of those files but never having actually used iMovie on an IOS device I can't say so authoritatively. But again an application like iExplorer will let you (ahem...) explore the backups on your PC to verify and extract those files.


Wi-Fi always requires manual choice to select desired network

Go to System Preferences → Network → Wi-Fi → Advanced… and remove the network from the list of preferred networks.


How to Use BTsync's file sharing by Bluetooth?

This feature request is now active in their development.
However, it can take some years to get it because of limited resources in their development. I will let you know when I get more pieces of information about the issue. There are some tickets which has to be solved before such a feature can be implemented.


How to deploy a .pkg with Profile Manager

mdmctl is part of the open source MDM, MicroMDM. As far as my research has gone, Profile Manager does not support the InstallApplication MDM command that enables an admin to deploy packages to clients. If you have mdmctl, then you may have MicroMDM setup already, and you should reference their documentation for deploying apps. See https://github.com/micromdm/micromdm/wiki/Quickstart.

If you are just looking to deploy Microsoft Office 2019, you could "purchase" the apps for free using VPP and Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager as a DEP solution. Once you've purchased the apps through the DEP portal, and assuming you've tied Profile Manager to your DEP account, you can then push the apps out. Apple documents what MDMs need to deploy apps, but their own Profile Manager does not support this functionality. I found this page in hopes of getting Profile Manager to deploy a munki package, but I still haven't found anything indicating that it is possible.

DEP Starter Page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204142
Office 2019 in App Store: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/microsoft-office-and-the-mac-app-store-ad2293a8-f5aa-4652-ae3f-83dda906d748


The first thing I'd recommend you try is resetting your MBP's System Management Controller (SMC).

Resetting the SMC

To reset the SMC on your particular MBP follow these steps:

Shut down your MBP
Unplug the power cable from your Mac
For 10 seconds, press and hold at the same time the shiftcontroloption keys (on the left side of the built-in keyboard) and the power button
After 10 seconds let go of all keys and the power button
Plug in the power cable
Turn your MBP back on with the power button

Once you've done this I'd fully charge your MBP and then test to see if the same behaviour returns.


quick to install and set up FTP server on homebrew for OSX

As of writing, brew search ftp returns the following FTP servers:

pure-ftpd
vsftpd
proftpd

Based on their websites, pure-ftpd appears to be your best choice for easy installation.

pure-ftpd

  Beginners can install a Pure-FTPd server in 5 minutes. It can be as simple as installing the package, typing pure-ftpd & and… that’s all. You already have a running server, and clients can start to connect.

So for the two step, install and set to start each boot commands:

brew install pure-ftpd
brew services start pure-ftpd

vsftpd

  vsftpd is a GPL licensed FTP server for UNIX systems, including Linux. It is secure and extremely fast. It is stable.

ProFTPD

  ProFTPD grew out of the desire to have a secure and configurable FTP server, and out of a significant admiration of the Apache web server.


Next to "Favorites", if you hover over it, you should see an arrow you can click to expand the section. It must've been inadvertently clicked, since it's not new to Big Sur.


What non-Apple external monitors are currently recognized as 2 pixels per point?

Since Retina is an Apple trademark, the "official" answer is no third-party display gets that recognition.

According to wikipedia, all Mac that are marketed with Retina displays have a pixel density of 220 PPI or thereabouts, so you could make an argument that any external display that's IPS and at least 220 pixels per inch would be in the "Retina class".

The iMacs are slightly less than 220 PPI:

Retina 4K iMac - 21.5-inch diagonal - 4096 × 2304 pixels
Retina 5K iMac - 27.0-inch diagonal - 5120 × 2880 pixels

Apple markets color depth, lack of distortion, wide viewing angle in addition to pixel density sufficient for a normal viewing distance to make things non-pixelated to the average sighted person. You may or may not care about those other metrics when shopping, but pixels are easiest to count so I'd start there.

You can also read Apple's documentation on what is required to drive these high pixel count displays:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202856


Shared calendars over multiple OS X Servers

I found out that this basically is not possible. To compensate I have added a user on each of the systems which basically only has a calendar with whom I share the calendar appointments. In the calendar Mac app I then add these additional accounts.


Is there a terminal app that can record commands?

Terminal.app (the default macOS terminal application) can be scripted using AppleScript but a better option may be iTerm2, which can be scripted using Python (AppleScript is also supported but it's deprecated).

If you'd like to save ssh sessions your most portable option is to use the OpenSSH client configuration file (typically named ~/.ssh/config). Using it you can configure per connection settings like key, username, etc.


Connect my 2015 Macbook Pro to my 2019 iMac as an external monitor

Some newer iMac models cannot be used as external monitor for another Mac.

Use your iMac as a display with Target Display Mode - System Requirements

  iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) and later iMac models can't be used as Target Display Mode displays.


iphone podcast app deletes played episodes even if "delete" option is off

I figured this out.  There's a global "Delete Played Episodes" option in the Settings app under Podcasts.  Rather than being a default setting, that is overridden by specific settings per podcast (as one would expect), this is a gobal override that renders totally ineffective any per-podcast settings.  With no indication anywhere inside the podcast player app that this is the case.

If you're going to make it a global override, the least you can do is make the player UI gray-out the setting on the individual podcasts to inform the user that changing it there will have no effect.

This is clearly a bug but I doubt I'd get anyone at Apple to listen.


Short Answer

Yes, but you need a USB display adapter (any DisplayLink adapter, like this one should do) for your MacBook Air, the iMac can’t do passthrough.

Longer Answer

The 2009 iMacs don’t have Thunderbolt, only mini-Displayport. Even the later iMacs with Thunderbolt can’t do passthrough with their second Thunderbolt ports. Therefore you need a second display connection on the source Mac. Since the MBA only has one, you’ll need to use a USB-based adapter. There are many options, pretty much all of them using the DisplayLink technology. It works well for 2D stuff, but don’t expect to do any gaming or other 3D work on it.


When playing a podcast, a single tap in the album art area toggles the top bar on and off. The top bar shows position in the podcast, has an email icon on the left and a rewind 30 seconds icon in the middle. The icon on the right toggles between 1x, 2x and 1/2x speeds, so check that this is set to 1x. The icons on this bar are different for music tracks than for podcasts (repeat, genius and shuffle).

It's possible the ipod has got into 2x speed mode. I had this the other day, and either toggling the speed mode or pausing and playing again solved it, don't remember which.

Edit: today I had this problem. It seemed that the fast foward button was down, because the pause button was behaving oddly with this weeks "PC Pro" podcast, and the x1 x2 button didn't fix it. Strangley, clicking the home button until the spotlight search appeared seemed to be a temporary fix. Then playing with the transport buttons fixed it completely.


iPhone pauses or plays songs when the headphone plug moves

It happens because a quick jog of the plug causes a short interruption in line level.  It's the same with headphones -- Apple or otherwise -- that include a play/pause button (usually place on the cable itself, where it splits to go to each ear).  That button functions in exactly the same way, by momentarily interrupting line-level on the phone's cables.  iTunes starts playing because it assumes the interruption from plug movement (or a dirty plug) is a play/pause signal.  As a simple demonstration, start iTunes playing something and wiggle the phones jack, same conditions as make iTunes launch and play, only if it's already playing this will make it pause.


Here is a terminal command

find . -type d -empty

And if you want to delete these files :

find . -type d -empty -delete


VirtualBox No Internet Win7 Host, OS X Guest

In Virtual box try changing the connection mode to NAT instead of Bridge.

If NAT works than there is some issue with DHCP Server or Router that assigns the IP address to your network.


I found an article on Lifehacker about this issue: How to sync an iPhone with two (or more) Computers.

  Plug your iPhone into a variety of
  computers, yours or other people's,
  and you'll find that your phone and
  iTunes want to wipe everything clean
  and start over, every single time.
  Andrew Grant at the Shiny Things blog
  shows how to edit your iTunes Music
  Library XML file to sync your phone
  (or iPod touch) with different
  systems. That means you can, say,
  auto-grab just your music from your
  Mac at home, but grab Contacts and
  Calendars from your work PC. The guide
  requires very little hacking, and
  Grant provides links to simple text
  and hex editors to get the job done.


There is, unfortunately, no way to transfer apps between Apple IDs. The closest thing you can do is switch between the Apple IDs on your personal iPad. You will have to use your work Apple ID to download the apps. First you will have to login using your work Apple ID (Settings.app -> iTunes & App Stores -> Account) on your iPad then redownload whatever you want on your personal iPad.

Please understand one important thing that once there is an app update, or if they change your work Apple ID's email or password, you will have a problem in the future.

I suggest that you redownload all the apps using your own Apple ID.


Mail app is multiplying mails when saving them

Got it !

The problem is that "Show in imap" about drafts was unchecked on gmail.

If you go to Settings->Labels and check "Show in IMAP" for the "Drafts" system label after selecting "Enable IMAP" from the Settings->Forwarding and POP/IMAP menu then it worked for me.

Finally.


What information is accessible through iCloud? Can the administrator on my home PC access these files?

Assuming your talking about Windows and the other user has administrator rights:

There are tools that may allow the Windows administrator account (which has access to all files on the computer) to view locally stored backups and extract them. This will only be possible if the data is actually on this computer, and not encrypted.

If you are sure that is not the case –because you only backup to iCloud– this person will need your Apple ID and password to access your iCloud data. This information may be stored in your session (recorded by Chrome for instance) but it is encrypted with a key associated with your Windows password, so not accessible to the administrator.

If the administrator changed or knew your Windows user password he could have accessed your session and pretty much all of your data. You will notice on the first case because he will have asked you to recreate it, or use a new one. It does not seem possible for the administrator to see your stored password, only to reset it.

Finally, someone could have installed a keylogger or some other form of monitoring on this computer, and all the information entered could be retrieved.

On the other hand iMessage is encrypted end to end according to Apple and others, but probably available to Apple or someone with access to Apple's servers (see this answer on Information Security SE). Sniffing your traffic on the local network and extracting iMessage from there does not seem to be a feasible attack vector.

To keep this from happening:

Change your Apple ID password. Check your recovery email and security answers to see if it any of them have been changed.

If you use the PC to access iCloud

Change your Windows user password.
Don't store passwords on your Windows user session (browsers mainly). At least not your iCloud password or the passwords of the email accounts associated to it.
If you suspect a keylogger or other monitoring tools, stop entering information associated to iCloud on this computer.


How to use 3 monitors on MacBook Pro that does not have a graphics card

Officially Apple only supports two external displays on this model.

More specifically, it supports an HDMI-compatible device, including 4K, while using one Thunderbolt display or it can support up to two Thunderbolt displays.

In terms of external resolution this model supports up to 3840 x 2160 pixels at 30Hz or 4096 x 2160 pixels at 24Hz via HDMI and up to 3840 x 2160 pixels at 60Hz via Thunderbolt.

You could investigate external graphics card options, but I would suggest living with the two displays instead. However here are some resources that may help you decide:

https://bizon-tech.com/us/bizonbox2s-egpu.html/
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/MBP_ThunderBoltVideoCard.htm
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-build-an-external-gpu-for-4k-video-editing-vr-and-gaming/


Why is it that after moving my cursor around really fast for half a second, my cursor becomes huge?

Go to System Preferences -> Accessibility and uncheck 'Shake mouse pointer to locate'


The command sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/ubuntu/ntfsDisc/sda.hfs.dmg doesn't create a mountable dmg file!

Your "sda" - which is the complete /dev/disk0 translated to OS X naming conventions - probably contains several partition tables (1st and 2nd GUIDpt/MBR), free space and several file systems on the different partitions (sda1-sda4?).

So sda.hfs.dmg neither contains a valid file system (parts of the file could be extracted to contain one though) nor does it behave like a typical dmg. Instead it's a raw (data) file.

Example: Whenever I have to backup a rescue thumb drive containing OS X (or save the content because I need the thumb drive for other purposes) I execute:

dd if=/dev/disk4 of=/Users/user/backup/OSXRescue.raw bs=1m

Besides the main partition this "raw" file also contains 3 partition tables (1st and 2nd GUIDpt/MBR), some "unallocated" space, an EFI and a Recovery HD partition. The file has the same size as the thumb drive and but is not mountable because it doesn't contain a real and consistent file system as expected by diskutil or hdiutil.

To restore this OSXRescue.raw to the same thumb drive I have to execute

dd if=/Users/user/backup/OSXRescue.raw of=/dev/disk4 bs=1m

This should restore an exact copy of the content of the rescue thumb drive (even the remnants of deleted files which don't occur in the file system(s) of the original thumb drive).

I may also use another drive (with at least the same size as the original thumb drive) to restore the full content of the rescue thumb drive to it. The result is fully bootable. The previous content of the external drive will be overwritten though!

To rescue your .tex file you have to dd the "raw" file to a real hard drive. This will restore the original partitions and you should be able to modify the wrong partition type of partition 2 (diskXs2), then mount the HFS+ partition and examine it with a data recovery tool.

You may be able to mount the HFS+ part of the raw file in OS X similar to this Linux how-to with on-board tools or after installing additional tools (probably with Homebrew). I didn't test this though.


you can check in App Analytics section in iTunes-connect.
checked attached screenshot.


Start the recording using the MIDI piano keyboard?

If you have any other buttons available on your keyboard, you can use the GarageRemote software to program them as transport controls for GarageBand. Instructions for M-Audio Axiom series keyboards are available here. I'm not sure about programming an actual keyboard key.


Does the SIP still protect against other operating systems?

No, System Integrity Protection is not active when you are running other operating systems or when you mount the hard drive in another computer.
There are other protection mechanisms (such as Secure Boot and T2 disk encryption) on modern Macs that protect your system from booting "malicious" (i.e. infected) operating systems, and from the disk being simply mounted on a different computer.


Find out type of VPN connections in network preference

Each kind will look slightly different in the Network System Preference Pane. Your "Home" connection appears to be PPTP. See below images for reference...


You cannot view your Photo Stream pictures directly on iCloud.com. In order to do this you need to create a new Photo Stream from you iPad, iPhone or Mac (using iPhoto or Aperture).

Here's a guide for doing so. In order to make it public on iCloud.com, make sure you flip the "Public Website" switch.


It might not be possible:

  Taking a look at the source code for ls, it uses strcoll to sort
  the filenames, and so should respect LC_COLLATE.

  Some postings online suggest that the locales in BSD (and Darwin/OS X)
  are somewhat broken compared to those in Linux. I wrote a quick
  sorting program of my own which explicitly set it's locale and tested
  it using both the en_US.UTF-8 and C locales on my machine (Mac OS
  10.6.3) and a university machine (Linux, FC11?). While sorting works as expected on the linux machine, ("a B c" vs "B a c"), the mac always
  sorts them as "B a c".

Source: http://ask.metafilter.com/130292/CaseInsensitive-LS-on-Mac-OS-X

ORIGINAL ANSWER

This command does not sort dot files, but shows additional directory listings

ls -f1

I got close to this:

.
..
.stuff
foo
Foobar
MyStuff
test.txt


Why Mac App Store shows open button below the macOS sierra installer icon in the product page?

Check your /Applications folder for the 'Install macOS Sierra" file. It is usually deleted at the conclusion of the OS installation but you may have still it and the AppStore is seeing it.


What is LPSS Serial Adapter in my network tab

The LPSS adapters are related to a chip feature on the new 2016 MacBook Pros.  I found these interfaces present immediately after setting up a new 15-inch 2016 Touch Bar model out of the box (before plugging in any peripherals or installing any drivers).

The following patent filing for the "low power subsystem" describes an interface through which a "secondary" processor can provide access to the system's memory while the primary processor is powered down:

  The subsystem acts independently of the CPU, which would not be able to perform the necessary functions during low power mode. The subsystem allows the notebook to perform several functions while in the low power mode, such as, for example, act like a travel assistant for the user, provide entertainment, and make electronic purchases.


Find your device Product ID and Vendor ID from System Information.app in the Utilities folder.

Run the following

/System/L*/Priv*/MobileD*/V*/A/reenumerate_ios_devices vendorid productid

Replace ‘vendorid’ with your Vendor ID and ‘productid’ with your Product ID.


How can I remove/turn off shadows in macOS 10.14

The previous answers in your links all involve using SIMBL -- which is a third-party app that performs a variety of system 'hacks' or extensions. That (and the absence of any known defaults write key, suggests that removing shadows is not something that Apple have provided.


Powerpoint 2011 - Selection of Shapes does not work anymore

Delete the preference file com.microsoft.Powerpoint.plist from your Preferences folder (in your Library folder, hidden in 10.7 onwards - accessible from the Finder menu bar by selecting Go and holding the Option key). This has cured a multitude of strange behaviours at work, it's definitely worth a shot.


Whenever you encounter a problem with Mail.app, the first step is to rebuild culprit mailboxes.

  When you rebuild mailboxes for IMAP or Exchange accounts, messages and attachments stored on your computer are discarded, and then downloaded again from the mail server to your Mac. Your mailbox appears empty until the download is complete.

It is a similar fix to clearing your browser cache when you encounter website problems.


block "GET - On the App Store" link ads in Mobile Safari

I’m afraid the answer is you can’t block them, at least not through a setting in iOS or a Content Blocker extension for Safari. There are patches available for jailbroken devices though.

These ads are shown through the “Smart App Banners” feature of Safari. As far as I know, there is no setting in iOS to turn them off. Because of the way Safari Content Blocker extensions work, I also don’t think they can block the HTML tag that tells Safari to display the ad.

I might just be wrong, but other sources (see: blog post, reddit thread) also indicate these banners can’t be easily disabled.

At least Safari does seem to remember that you don’t want to see an ad for a particular app (or on a particular site, I’m not sure) if you close the banner using the “⨯” button on the left.


How to move a local copy of my mailbox to a new IMAP server?

The first idea I had:

Can you just forward the emails to the new account?
But that means some data is not right like the sender and the recipient.

So my other attempt:

To repeat your situation I used a software which blocks the Internet connection. And I was able to create a .mbox file. (the screenshot was taken later so the iCloud account is online again)

In mail app I imported the .mbox file as a local import.
Then I selected the mail and clicked move to and moved it to my other mail account.

I hope I could repeat your situation well, if not please tell me which steps not work for you. Maybe my answer is completely not working for you.
I think there are much cleaner ways to do your task with python scripts (like this, or that), but I think this solution is the easiest.


Some hotkeys not working for certain apps

Nothing is being hijacked.  To make an app full screen or to make text larger, it must be supported by the application.  This holds true for not only shortcuts, but text substitution as well.

A quick search of the Mac Keyboard Shortcuts for the Full Screen shortcut says this:

  Control-Command-F: Use the app in full screen, if supported by the app.


Cloning a Windows machine and import into Boot Camp

This question on Super User may be of assistance.

It looks like you should be able to do a standard Bootcamp install of Windows, then use the system restore feature to clone your existing setup over to the Bootcamp install.

It's not as straightforward as directly cloning from your PC, but it should still save a fair bit of time vs. doing a full re-install with patches, etc., particularly if you use a USB drive for the install (which Bootcamp can help you with, given an Windows Installer ISO and a USB drive).


Any way to change the location of Time Machine local backups (./MobileBackups) to another drive?

I couldn't find any way of modifying the path /.MobileBackups, but you can create a folder on your HDD and then symlink it to /.MobileBackups:

Open Applications>Utilities>Terminal.

Now you will have to type several commands. Press return after every command for it to execute. When asked, type your password.
The snapshots folder has complex permissions. The simplest way to preserve them is to copy the existing folder to the new location on your HDD:

sudo rsync -ahvHE /.MobileBackups /Volumes/HDD/

(replace /Volumes/HDD with the path to your HDD.)

rsync options are:

-a: archive mode (recursive; copy symlinks as symlinks; preserve permissions, times, owner, group, device files, sockets and fifos)
-h: output result in human-readable format
-v: verbose, that is, show what the command is doing
-H: preserve hardlinks
-E: copy extended attributes like resource forks and ACLs

Disable local snapshots (this will delete /.MobileBackups and its contents):

sudo tmutil disablelocal
Create symlink:

sudo ln -s /Volumes/HDD/.MobileBackups /.MobileBackups

(replace /Volumes/HDD with the path to your HDD.)
Enable local snapshots:

sudo tmutil enablelocal
Create a local snapshot:

sudo tmutil snapshot
If you see a new snapshot dated "now":

ls -l /Volumes/HDD/.MobileBackups/Computer/
(...)
drwxr-xr-x@ 3 root  wheel  102 Jan 28 09:05 2013-01-28-090534

you're done!

If something went wrong or is not working as expected, revert to the original configuration:

Disable local snapshots:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

This will delete the symlink /.MobileBackups. Should that not be the case, delete it with:

sudo rm /.MobileBackups
Enable local snapshots:

sudo tmutil enablelocal
Delete alternative snapshot folder on your HDD:

sudo rm -rf /Volumes/HDD/.MobileBackups

(rm -rf is a dangerous command that won't ask for confirmation before deleting the folder. Make sure the path is correct!)


How to protect my Mac from reseting the admin password

FileVault crypts all data on the boot volume. Someone with a physical access to your Mac can boot from the recovery partition but has no easy access to your private data.

The drawback is that even you can't recover your data if you loose your credentials.

Another option is to set a firmware password. This doesn't encrypt the hard drive, but prevents users from booting into a special mode that can be used to reset or bypass a password (typically Single-User, Recovery, or Target Disk mode).

Setup FileVault
Setup Firmware Password


Macbook pro keyboard randomly freezes after upgrading to Catalina

Let me explain what i'm having, I'm Macbook pro early 2015 user, and i updated to macOS Catalina 5 days ago, on the first day the keyboard was working fine, but they keyboard started freezing at random times (Only the power key works, others don't work).

So later i resetted the PRAM, SMC, NVRAM and it doesn't solve anything.

So i decided to downgrade to macOS Mojave, after downgrading the issue still continue as i was faced in the catalina also.
Then i decided to replug the battery and i did that also along with re plugging the track pad flex connector. but nothing is fixed.

Later i was digging for a solution for this issue over the internet. I found that there is a common issue with the 2015 models, and the touchpad flex is causing this issue, and after replacing it will get rid of this issue, so i decided to go with replacing it.

If you like you can downgrade to Mojave and recheck the issue still continues incase you want to be sure. I've posted this issue on multiple forums, and if theres a fix ill inform you for sure.

Thanks,


I suspect the output of the travel adaptor is too low.

I admit that I've had several iPads from that era, and on occasion ignored Apple's guidance (they would list groupings that would work, but didn't have a "don't do this list of combinations).

But .7 is pretty low. If the model is using lightning (iPad original (4th gen) and iPad Mini (original)?) then you might want to check the both sides of the connector for lint or material that is interfering with the connection. (This was a big improvement over iPod/style, but it is more prone to contact problems over the lifetime of the unit).

There's a very good discussion about iPads and charging here ->
Can I use my iPhone charger with my iPad?