How to stop InternetSharing overwriting /etc/bootpd.plist

Source of the problem

By studying the processes spawned by InternetSharing (with the help of opensnoop and debugging shell scripts) I finally build a
way to circumvent this systematic and stupid overwriting of /etc/bootpd.plist.

InternetSharing creates a minimal /etc/bootpd.plist and then
spawns 2 processes:

/usr/libexec/bootpd
/usr/libexec/natpmpd

Solution

I replaced the original bootpd by a simple shell script in charge of
putting my source of /etc/bootpd.plist in place before firing the
original bootpd code. Of course most of these commands have to be
ran as root.

/usr/bin/sudo -s
cd /usr/libexec

# make a backup copy of the original binary bootpd
mv bootpd bootpd.orig

# create the shell script which will first install the wanted
# bootpd.plist and then fire the original bootpd with the
# correctly quoted original list of arguments "$@"
cat >bootpd <<eof
#!/bin/sh
cp /etc/bootpd.plist.src /etc/bootpd.plist
exec /usr/libexec/bootpd.orig "$@"
eof

# make this shell script executable
chmod 755 bootpd

cd /etc

# create the "source" bootpd.plist.src which will be copied every
# time by the above shell script and will cancel the copy made by
# "InternetSharing"
cat >bootpd.plist.src <<eof
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>allow</key>
    <array>
            <string>00:00:00:00:00:00</string>
            <string>...
    </array>
    <key>deny</key>
    <array>
            <string>...
    </array>
    <key>Subnets</key>
    <array>
            <dict>
                    <key>_creator</key>
                    <string>dan</string>
                    <key>allocate</key>
                    <true/>
                    <key>dhcp_router</key>
                    <string>10.0.2.1</string>
                    <key>lease_max</key>
                    <integer>86400</integer>
                    <key>lease_min</key>
                    <integer>86400</integer>
                    <key>name</key>
                    <string>10.0.2/24</string>
                    <key>net_address</key>
                    <string>10.0.2.0</string>
                    <key>net_mask</key>
                    <string>255.255.255.0</string>
                    <key>net_range</key>
                    <array>
                            <string>10.0.2.2</string>
                            <string>10.0.2.31</string>
                    </array>
            </dict>
    </array>
    <key>bootp_enabled</key>
    <false/>
    <key>detect_other_dhcp_server</key>
    <true/>
    <key>dhcp_enabled</key>
    <array>
            <string>en1</string>
    </array>
    <key>use_server_config_for_dhcp_options</key>
    <false/>
</dict>
</plist>
eof

The 2 arrays allow and deny let me define exactly which MAC
addresses I will accept within my shared network and which one I
will banish.

This protection is far from bullet proof, but is better than the
total lack of protection provided by InternetSharing on a WEP Fi-fi
network :).

Compatibility with OS upgrades

To avoid any trouble with any OS upgrade which might fix /usr/libexec/bootpd, here is the shell script I run before any OS upgrade:

/usr/bin/sudo -s
cd /usr/libexec

# reset into place the backup copy of the original binary bootpd
mv bootpd.orig bootpd

# go back to a safe working uid
exit

Compatibility with OS versions

This shell script is working on:

Lion
Mountain Lion
Mavericks
Yosemite

Attack survey

With the option -v passed to bootpd, I have a logging of MAC addresses
which attempted to request an IP address but were rejected.

To pass this option -v to bootpd I inserted it in my bootpd wrapper:

#!/bin/sh
cp /etc/bootpd.plist.src /etc/bootpd.plist
exec /usr/libexec/bootpd.orig -v "$@"


Symlinked MobileSync folder but still "not enough free space"

iTunes doesn't know you've symlinked the MobileSync folder, so still checks the normal disk for its free space. Make sure there's enough free space on the disk containing your home folder, even though that space won't be consumed because of the symlink.


How do i quickly silence all notifications except for ringer on an iPhone 6?

Actually, Do Not Disturb is indeed your solution as it blocks ALL notifications EXCEPT the calls which you specifically allow. It will block message notifications.

After you have configured the settings in Settings -> Do Not Disturb, all you need to do to enable it is swipe up from the bottom of the screen and tap the moon icon.

You can configure it to only allow certain contact groups, favorites, all callers, and/or repeated calls.


What does the Finder or browser icon marked "From Mac" in my Dock mean?

That is telling you there is a webpage (most likely) that was sent from another iDevice to this one.

When you click on it, it will open Firefox with the shared item.


Solution

You can use Apple iCloud's "My Photo Stream" to hold more than 10,000 photos.

You can easily continue to use iPhoto/Aperture/Photos.app so there's no need to learn any new app or to migrate data.

Upgrade Storage

The only limit is the total size of your photos and the storage you are paying for. 5 GB are free with every iCloud account.

See iCloud storage plans and pricing for more information on the pricing in your country.

Details

My Photo Stream does not limit the number of photos that you can upload. Keep in mind that Apple has a soft limit on how many photos you may upload per day:

  My Photo Stream upload limits

  The My Photo Stream limits below are based on anticipated upload
  patterns. These are the My Photo Stream upload limits:

  Uploads to My Photo Stream per hour: 1000 photos
  Uploads to My Photo Stream per day: 10,000 photos
  Uploads to My Photo Stream per month: 25,000 photos

  If
  you exceed one of these limits, your uploads to My Photo Stream will
  pause temporarily, and you might see a notification on your device.
  Your uploads will resume automatically when you no longer exceed the
  limit, such as in the following hour or on the following day.

Source: Apple


Is there an easy way to find the specification pages for old Apple Computers that have now been removed from the Apple Support pages?

I find Mactracker to be a very useful app for this. It's available for both macOS and iOS.

The app has technical details for almost all the hardware Apple has ever released all the way back to Apple 1.

Just a fan of the app.


Share internet connection from a PC to an iPhone through the USB cable

This works well for iOS 10 and macOS 10.12:

Can I share my iMac's internet to iPhone or iPad over USB??

You're not the first to ask this question. Searching with Google shows that it's been discussed here and here.

Unfortunately, iOS 9 and earlier do not support what you're describing.

You mention that you don't have a wireless card but perhaps you can share your internet connection wirelessly, through an Ad-Hoc network. I think that's the best way to go, honestly.

This doesn't work for internet:

  [PC] --->--(USB)--->--> [iOS Device]

But this probably would, since the iOS device doesn't care, for the most part, where the WiFi is coming from:

  [PC] --->--(WiFi)--->--> [iOS Device]

So, you might consider grabbing a wireless card for your PC. Alternatively, a jailbroken iPhone might be able to get more mileage with a  USB cable than a vanilla one would.


Hombrew is asking me for a version of Xcode the OS doesnt support

This may mean that you can't install pygtk through homebrew on Yosemite. You may still be able to compile from source, even with your version of Xcode.


How can I deactivate the speaker on the Airtags?

As it often happens, I was able to find out a good enough video tutorial on Youtube shortly after posting this question. In case the video gets deleted, here are the steps:

Open the battery cover
Carefully use a sharp tool (such as a box cutter) to lift over the edge of the internal plastic cover, then pop it open with a screwdriver
Remove the speaker magnet (pictured below) using a screwdriver
Put a bit of glue over the corners on top of the electronics board
Reattach the plastic cover and battery cover


The kernel task is special since it's an entire operating system / micro kernel based on Mach 3.0. It abstracts most of the core hardware, timing, message passing and memory handling.

What most people notice in Activity Monitor is that kernel_task accumulates all the CPU time for input/output (i/o) processing delays and calculations as well as scheduling overhead of processes and threads. Similarly - it accumulates all memory allocations that are not in the user space. On the 2014 and newer Macs, this task exists to throttle the CPU - when the temperatures in the processor are too warm, kernel task is assigned "no work" and shows high CPU busy to let the processor idle and not overheat the computer. This is most noticeable on the portable line - especially the MacBook without any sort of fan or blower to cool the processor. Apple warns of this to potential kernel programmers in "Why you should stay away from programming in the Kernel" that disabling cooling will cause permanent irreparable hardware damage.

  To summarize, kernel programming is an immense responsibility. You must be exceptionally careful to ensure that your code does not cause the system to crash, does not provide any unauthorized user access to someone else’s files or memory, does not introduce remote or local root exploits, and does not cause inadvertent data loss or corruption.

If you watch it after a reboot you will see it starts with minimal RAM and CPU needs and instead grows only when other programs run and need the system services.

To slim it down, shut off unneeded ports (WiFi, bluetooth, etc... ) as well as idle / unused programs. If things don't settle down, consider rebooting to ensure no task is stuck or leaking memory.  If you have programs doing real work, they will cause the kernel to use both memory and processor time - just watch as you start things to see which other programs are causing this behavior. It's rarely an issue with the kernel - even with badly performing programs - that can't be solved by logging out and back in again. The kernel_task cleans up well and generally takes care to only use the resources needed by the workload.


Changing macOS Calculator to degrees mode?

The Rad button in the lower left corner stands for Radians. That switches mode from degree to radians. In radian mode, the letters rad show up on the output screen.


How to mimic Home Key of Centos or windows in terminal of OSx?

Have you tried fn+left? I'm no CentOS expert, but this works for me exactly as the Home key does when I'm using an external keyboard.


Monitor not waking up after switching KVM input

While I do not have an answer to your problem, I can add a "me too" with having issues with KVM's and El Capitan. I have an ATEN CS1944 kvm that works just fine with everything up to and including Yosemite. When I convert machines to El Capitan the the KVM and the machines freak out when the kvm shifts focus away from the El Capitan machine and then ultimately requires a reboot of the affected machine to get things going again.

Tried numerous work arounds and tweaks with no success. Between this kvm issue and the other issues that arose with the converted machines not playing well as XSAN clients (kept randomly failing to auto-mount the xsan volumes) upon machine startup, I had to bite the bullet and fall back to Yosemite on the 2 converted machines that were attached to the KVM.

I guess it will be a wait for KVM firmware updates and or OS X patches / fixes to try again after the product matures a little more. Keeping the fingers crossed and continuing research for a fix.

Good luck with resolution to your issue as well.


macOS app review process: Touch Bar functionality in metadata

At this stage, I'd advise you to submit a technical support incident. As a paid member of the Apple Developer Program, you are eligible for 2 technical support incidents in a year. It involves getting access to an engineer from Apple's development team and basically get code level assistance.

Requesting Technical Support

  A Technical Support Incident (TSI) is a request for code-level support for Apple frameworks, APIs, and tools, and is available to members of the Apple Developer Program, Apple Developer Enterprise Program, and MFi Program. Submit a TSI if you cannot fix a bug, have trouble implementing a specific technology, or have other questions about your code. Your incident will be assigned to a Developer Technical Support engineer who can help troubleshoot your code or investigate possible workarounds to fast-track your development. Support is provided in English via email, typically within three business days.

You can have an engineer look through the issue and advise you in what may be possibly causing trouble getting your app approved.


Can Library folder on iMac be moved to iCloud Drive?

No.

Firstly, relying on an internet connection to access preferences, caches, and other system/user 'working' files is likely to be problematic. As mentioned in the comments, iCloud is handled locally by a folder in the user Library, so having this itself in iCloud might be confusingly recursive.

It's worth checking whether all of that 96 Gb is necessary: it may include iPhone or iPad backups, which are frequent culprits for taking up space. Use an app like OmniDiskSweeper to search the library, sorted by size. That will show you what is taking the space, and you can then make a decision about whether it can be moved or deleted.


TeamViewer "FAILED TO establish the default connection to the WindowServer"

This should work (sudo privs required!)

Login with ssh on the remote Mac
Enter:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart  -activate -configure -access -on -privs -all -restart -agent

to enable remote management
open Screen Sharing locally (/System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/Screen Sharing.app)
Enter the IP of the remote Mac
Enter your remote user creds
Log in with your remote user creds at the login screen
Launch and configure TeamViewer

Depending on the security settings of the remote network (firewall etc.) you have to use the same tunnel/channel as the ssh connection.

The steps above only work for macOS up to High Sierra (10.13.6).

In macOS Mojave and later kickstart only works with managed devices and special profiles, if screen sharing wasn't enabled previously:

Use the kickstart command-line utility in macOS Mojave 10.14 and later

Eventually, you have to access the remote Mac personally and set up screen sharing in System Prefs > Sharing (to access it via VNC) or launch and configure TeamViewer.


Citing http://launchd.info:

~/Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchAgents are used for the currently logged in user.
/Library/LaunchDaemons is for running things as root ( or the user specified with the UserName key) when the machine boots.

The key (no pun intended), however, is that plists placed in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ must be owned by root:wheel and should be chmod 644.

So, just because nrpe creates a plist does not mean that it will run on boot without login.

I installed it via brew myself, and at the end it says:

To have launchd start nrpe at login:
  ln -sfv /usr/local/opt/nrpe/*.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents
Then to load nrpe now:
  launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.nrpe.plist

I would recommend that you do this, instead:

chmod 644 /usr/local/opt/nrpe/homebrew.mxcl.nrpe.plist

sudo chown root:wheel /usr/local/opt/nrpe/homebrew.mxcl.nrpe.plist

sudo ln /usr/local/opt/nrpe/homebrew.mxcl.nrpe.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/homebrew.mxcl.nrpe.plist

The first line makes sure that the permissions are correct.

The second line makes sure that the ownership is correct

The third/last line links the file from /usr/local/opt/nrpe/ to /Library/LaunchDaemons (note the absence of a ~ which is intentional).

Then you need to make sure that the file does not exist in ~/LaunchAgents, which would be confusing:

rm -f "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/homebrew.mxcl.nrpe.plist"

That will delete the file (if it exists).

Important

By placing the file in /Library/LaunchDaemons you will be telling nrpe to run as root. That may be OK, or it may be a very bad idea. I don't know the answer to that question. However, to be safe I would make it explicitly run as a user other than root unless I was absolutely sure. Also, I would use launchd's ability to log errors to see if it is running OK.

To do this you will need to edit the plist mentioned above. Here is the file as it is originally created, as of 2016/04/20:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>org.nrpe.agent</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/usr/local/bin/nrpe</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>/usr/local/etc/nrpe.cfg</string>
    <string>-d</string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
  <key>ServiceDescription</key>
  <string>Homebrew NRPE Agent</string>
  <key>Debug</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

and here is the version that I would recommend:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Debug</key>
    <true/>
    <key>GroupName</key>
    <string>staff</string>
    <key>InitGroups</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.nrpe.agent</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/nrpe</string>
        <string>-c</string>
        <string>/usr/local/etc/nrpe.cfg</string>
        <string>-d</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>ServiceDescription</key>
    <string>Homebrew NRPE Agent</string>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.nrpe.agent.stderr.log</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/tmp/org.nrpe.agent.stdout.log</string>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>INSERTUSERNAMEHERE</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Replace INSERTUSERNAMEHERE with the actual username of the user that you want nrpe to run as.

Deprecated

Note that according to LaunchControl (which is the best app out there for managing launchd plists) the Debug key is deprecated for OS X 10.10 and will be ignored.

Reboot

Once you have the file in place, the best way to test it will be to reboot the system and do NOT log in on console. Instead, after the boot process is complete, log in via ssh and make sure that the process is running, and check the two log files to see what, if anything, you see there.

I hope this helps.

ps - spend $10 on LaunchControl. It's a great app. There is no registration code so you don't have to pay for it, but you should because the developer trusts you to if you use the app.


There is none by default in OSX.  But you can make a ~/bin folder, then edit your ~/.profile and add

export PATH=$PATH:/Users/Yourname/bin

(Yourname of course being replaced by your username).

or (edited later according to below comment)

export PATH=$PATH:~/bin


I cannot change Game Centre Profile name

To log in to Game Center, you use your Apple ID email and password, not your Game Center nickname. Go to Settings > Game Center, tap your current nickname (under Game Center Profile) and then you should be able to edit it.


Name of a part inside 2012 MBP 15", below RAM slots, little pins to keep bottom cover from hitting electronics

I would call it (bar)-spacer and the part number seems to be 6813-1946 (or 6818-1946). Usually apple part numbers have the form 000-0000.

I searched for the part at powerbookmedic but it's not available there.


Can time capsule and airport express utility see my browsing history

In principle they can since it is the same as a public server.

However, if you are using the HTPPS mode then it will become difficult for them to encrypt it.


I think that is how moneywell works.

Every month or week depending on your salary period you allocate your income to buckets (which  think correspond to your jars) and then when you spend anything you take hat money from a bucket. If the bucket is positive you are in budget otherwise you had better work out where to cut your budget.

The buckets are your budget are are a different split to you accounts which show where all your money is saved etc.

See the video tutorials for more examples.


Is it normal for a MacBook Pro battery to regenerate itself?

There are a lot of possible explanations.  The indicator that reads battery status isn't a perfect measure.  I've seen that kind of behavior on mobile phones (uneven discharge followed by a "full charge" don't necessarily give a perfect indication of actual battery capacity).  Given that the difference you observed is around 150 mAh (out of 8755?), the difference is pretty low (less than 2%), I'd expect that to be within a margin of error for the tool.

It's also possible that the tool you're using to check capacity might be measuring total capacity by the time it took to charge the battery from a "low" state to the current state, and extrapolated max capacity from there.  That's an indirect measurement, and could be off by as much as a percent or two.

You're right, though, a LiPo battery doesn't really "improve" with age.


MacBook Air Wi-Fi is not working -- how can I troubleshoot the problem?

It sounds like that your network settings are corrupt.

Reset your wifi settings
Another option could be to reset the network and wifi settings.

a) In Macintosh HD/ Library / Preferences / SystemConfiguration

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

Move those files to the trash
Reboot your Mac
Reconnect to your wifi

b) Alternatively you can open SystemPreferences > Networks > select Wifi and delete it. In the second step re-add the wifi service again.

Upgrade to macOS
If possible try updating your Mac to the latest macOS version. Open the AppStore and download Mac Sierra.

Disable Third-Party Software
Do you use any kind of Firewall Apps e.g. Little Snitch. If so, temporarily disable them.


IOS 8.1.3 - Return to Inbox After Deleting

I kno. I want tha same thing. Don't think it can be done.


Has Apple solved the problem of new iPods not charging on old Bose docks?

The difference you're referring to is the ability to charge over the FireWire pins, which Apple removed from most iPods/iPhones several years ago.

However, as you've discovered, iPod Classics are still able to charge via FireWire. I expect this functionality could be removed at any revision, but for now, consider yourself lucky ;)


Track referrers and link them to actual purchases

The iTunes Affiliate Program will get you a bit closer to understanding the marketing of your book but unfortunately it's not a silver bullet.

1.) To see the clicks that are generated on links to your book those other properties will need to use YOUR affiliate links.  Anyone using their affiliate links or a raw iTunes / iBooks link won't provide you with any insight.

2.) You won't be able to attribute which clicks / referrers actually resulted in sales of your specific books.  iTunes reports back affiliate sales at a category level, not a product level.

3.) iTunes Affiliate links are only active for 24 hours (or until the user clicks another affiliate links).  Any purchases outside that window are lost.

There are, however, some services, like GeoRiot (Disclosure: I am a co-founder), who offer some attribution reporting for iTunes products.  Here is a blog post about a project we did to solve exactly the problem you are wondering about - Introducing the Relative Conversion Score for iTunes


Is it OK to put a sleeping MacBook pro (Mid 2015) in your backpack and carry around?

The mid-2015 model is only available with SSD. I.e. you do do not have a hard drive with moving parts to worry about.

It is therefore safe to carry the MacBook Pro in your backpack and carry it around.

Just be sensible: don't drop the backpack, don't sit on it, etc.


How to calculate the amount of space that iCloud Photo Library would take up?

Yes. You can start Photos app and turn off iCloud backed storage.

You can see that the Photos Library is not my System Photo Library

Then you can import all the photos you want locally and observe how much space it takes. I'm using DaisyDisk, but Finder can show you folder size as well. I have a small system library that I'm using to test out the cloud side of things (15k photos) while I do the heavy lifting on non-system Photo libraries.

Once I'm happy with how albums and such work, I'll probably unify everything so that it fits within 200 GB of space that I'm budgeting for within iCloud.


Why my mails sent using Apple Mail have blank body in Outlook?

Looks like I found a solution. In the options screen, select Composing. Then, under When quoting text in replies or forwards select Include all of the original.


In Excel 2011, open a workbook,

Click on Format > Style and you get this window

In here click format again and you get this window

Pick the Date format you want,
or make a custom format in your case dd/mm/yyyy


Why is download speed not increased using an SSD?

Probably the bottleneck is not your disk but your network.

A SATA2 hdd disk usually supports write speeds of up to 250/300MB/s. It is unlikely that you can reach those download speeds.


How can I execute AppleScript from Textedit?

You can't execute AppleScript directly from TextEdit. Apple provides an AppleScript editor though in /Applications/Utilities/Script\ Editor.app which makes it easy to create and run AppleScript code.

Just navigate to /Applications/Utilities in Finder, run Script Editor and copy/paste your code into it.


One possibility: An additional Mac.

Pros:

Could do everything asked for.

Cons:

Expensive.
Power consuming.
To save some power, one would let it sleep. So everytime one wants to connect to the library, the Mac has to be waked up.
Setup not as easy as NAS.


I'm afraid that's impossible. Your hard drive is essentially not much different from an old record turntable: it has spinning disks and a 'head' that writes or reads the magnetic stripe at a point on the wheel.
There are many different mechanical parts that all contribute limitations to the maximum possible speed.
Furthermore: it's a sealed unit, made in a factory. If there was some easy 'tweak' to make it as fast as an SSD, the manufacturers would have done it.


Are loading times using a USB hard drive slower?

The external drive boots just fine to the login screen in 1-2 minutes.
  But then it becomes completely unresponsive for about 10-20 minutes
  after that (I can move the mouse around, but I can’t click or type
  anything).

10-20 minutes seems a bit long, but not far fetched; remember, you are actually connecting via USB 2.0 to a spinning hard drive. The White MacBook in 2009 came with a USB 2.0 port; even if you plug in a USB 3.0 drive, it will "fall back" to USB 2.0 speeds.

Maximum theoretical data transfer speeds:

USB 2.0 = 480 Mbit/s (60 MB/s)
USB 3.0 = 5 Gbit/s (625 MB/s)
USB 3.1 = 10 Gbit/s (1.21 GB/s)
SATA III = Up to 6 Gbit/s (750 MB/s)
SATA II  = Up to 3 Gbits/s (300 MB/s)

USB 2.0 is more than 10x slower than SATA III and 5x slower than SATA II (3Gbits/s or 300MB/s).  If you have lots of things being loaded, it's going to take some time.

  ...since the internal hard drive is broken (it no longer shows up during
  boot or in Disk Utility

Why not get a new hard drive?  You can use any SATA III drive as it's backward compatible to SATA II.  In fact personally, I am using a Samsung 850 EVO in a White 2007 that runs a dual boot of OS X Lion and FreeBSD.  Any SATA II or SATA III drive will work.

This is super easy to change out and only requires removing three screws in the battery compartment.  Ifixit.com has an excellent step by step tutorial.


Sending a .zip file from MacBook Pro desktop

Yes. That will work.

If it's too big to email, use a cloud service (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.) and email them the link.

Even if it's not too big for an attachment, you might consider sending them a link so they can download at their convenience, rather than having you 'push' the file into their inbox.


move grub from sd-card to win partition?

You can setup a grubless boot of Ubuntu which can be executed by the Mac boot loader, however the Mac Startup Manager will not detect such an arrangement. You would have to use a different boot manager such as rEFInd.
Another solution would be to install grub entirely on the SD card, leaving the EFI partition on the internal drive use by Windows. Or, create a second EFI partition on the internal drive, so the grub and Windows boot files will not overlap.
Moving Grub Boot Files to the SD Card
When installing Ubuntu on the SD card, an EFI partition should be created on this card. The Grub boot files should be installed in the EFI partition. The However, the Ubuntu installation software will install the Grub boot files on internal drive EFI partition instead. Below are instructions for moving these files to the EFI partition on the SD card.

Note: The steps below assume the device name for the SD card is /dev/sdb. If your device name is different, then make the appropriate substitutions when entering the commands.

Boot to Ubuntu.

Turn off automatic updates. Open "Software & Updates" and set "Automatically check for Updates:" to Never. See the image below.

Open a Terminal window.

Verify the first partition on the SD Card is FAT formatted. Enter following command.
sudo blkid /dev/sdb1

If the TYPE is not equal to vfat, then the first partition on the SD card is not an EFI Partition. If TYPE is equal to vfat, then record the UUID value and proceed with these instructions.

Move the Grub boot files to the SD Card. Enter the following commands.
cd ~
mkdir efi
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 efi
sudo mv /boot/efi/EFI/Boot efi/EFI/boot
sudo mv /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu efi/EFI/ubuntu
sudo umount /dev/sdb1
rmdir efi

Update the /etc/fstab file so Ubuntu will know the new location of the Grub boot files. Enter the following command.
sudo nano /etc/fstab

Find the line with the mount point /boot/efi. Replace the UUID value on this line with with the value recorded in step 4. Exit the editor and save the change.

The installation of Ubuntu replaced the bootx64 file that was first created by the Boot Camp installation. The following commands rectify this replacement. (The bootx64.efi and bootmgfw.efi files used by Windows are the same.)
sudo mkdir /boot/efi/EFI/Boot
sudo cp /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi

Restart the Mac and boot back to Ubuntu.

If necessary, restore automatic updates to the previous setting.


How do I get 2 Dell monitors to work with my MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)

If you want more than one monitor, you need to use two different connections, in your case Thunderbolt (Displayport) and some other connection, like HDMI or a dedicated Displayport connection. To do this you need a Thunderbolt 3 dock solution that supports this ability. There are many, such as Elgato, Belkin or CalDigit.

A recent (December 2018) Wirecutter review is a good place to start.


Are any of the USB ports on a Macbook Pro "always on"

Apple has a support document on this topic.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4049

To meet requests for additional power from these Apple peripherals and devices, some Apple computers and displays can provide up to 1100 mA at 5 V through the port to which the Apple peripheral or device is connected. This power is available under certain conditions:

An Apple peripheral device must be plugged directly into an Apple computer or display. Apple peripheral devices connected to hubs will not have access to extra power above the standard USB specification of 500 mA.
Your Apple computer or display must be powered on and must be awake. If your Apple computer or display is asleep, all ports will provide a maximum of 500 mA at 5 V. If your Apple computer or display is powered off, no power will be provided.
The port providing extra power is determined by the first Apple peripheral or device to connect to the Apple computer or display that requires power beyond 500 mA at 5 V. The remaining ports will continue to offer 500 mA at 5 V. Some Apple computer and displays may offer the ability to operate more than one USB port at 1100 mA at 5 V. On those computers, the second or third port is enabled when an appropriate device is connected.
An Apple computer started up to Windows via BootCamp will not provide extra power.


OS X Mavericks extra desktops (spaces) opening seemingly randomly

Try to use Command + arrows (left, right) to move between your spaces and you always will be in right place.


Double clicking the title bar of iTunes 11 does not minimize the window

This has been an annoying feature of iTunes 11. Other internet forums here and here, are already discussing the issue and as yet are without a solution. Imagine it's something that needs to be implemented by apple.


Homebrew asked me to move macports now it does not work

Disentangling messed up dot files and environment variables and paths might be a lot of work if you didn’t follow the recommended steps precisely or made subsequent changes. What about making a list of the homebrew packages you have (if any) then removing it entirely. Same with macports - don’t try to adapt it to run in a new place - remove it entirely after you know what packages you need.

Then make a brand new user account - install homebrew there cleanly with a default path and having cleaned up /opt before you made the new account.

This will quickly let you know if you have a system problem or it’s just the weight of all the changes made to get the previous software to run.

The alternative to this will be a lot of back and forth and you dumping a ton of data into the question or arranging remote access with someone skilled in picking apart bash/scripting errors and digging into the code and what brew doctor has to say about your setup that’s broken.


How do I enable Find My Mac in a Macbook Pro (Mid 2009) running OS X 10.7.2?

Here's a way to manually create the Recovery HD partition, but it seems complicated for a novice user.

If you don't feel sure about your self into doing this, then I suggest you to re-install Lion.


How can I view iTunes U videos via Home Sharing on iPad with iOS 6?

I could resolve the issue by removing the Podcasts and iTunes U apps from the iPad. Afterwards the shared items are visible in the Videos app.


To give a generalized answer, the larger the numbers, the better. However, some material may be optimized for 4:2:0.

Some Sony TVs are able to handle 4:4:4 (no subsampling) when enhanced mode is enabled, check if you can enable this for optimal signal.

Press the HOME button on the remote control
Select Settings
Select External inputs in the TV category
Select HDMI signal format and set to Enhanced format


You can use PlainText 2, it syncs with Dropbox (you can choose which folder to sync) and it let you choose which file extensions you want to sync.


Is there a tool to auto-restore network shares?

Sidekick by Oomph

I use an app called Sidekick.  It mounts my drives, printers and other network devices automatically.  I have multiple configs for multiple networks and it automatically mounts what I need based on the network it senses.


Stop El Capitan from asking to report to Apple every time I force quit an application

Using defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none really should disable it, just like using defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType crashreport should switch it back on.

However, if it's not working for you, you can try the following two commands:

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.ReportCrash.plist
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.ReportCrash.Root.plist

To undo the above change, you would use the same two commands, but replace unload with load in each.

Use a notification instead

Removing the Crash Reporter may be overkill for some users, so another option is to change this to a notification instead. To do this, use:

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType UseUNC 1

The advantage of this is you still get notified if an app has crashed, but you don't have to respond in any way (nothing to click on). To undo this change you would use the same entry but replace the 1 with a 0.


Well if it is not the state of you disk it could easily be just a different SSD vendor. Those figures you have provided are from testing SanDisk 128GB equipped ones.

Apple has many different vendors for same part and some SSD chipsets are faster at sequential than other. It might just be the case. Here is an article on similar discrepancy over 2013 and 2014 MBAs

  For many years, Apple has used different suppliers for the solid-state
  drives (SSDs) in its MacBook Air models, with drive performance
  varying among manufacturer brands. A recent study by Macworld
  demonstrated rather dramatic differences in SSD read and write speeds
  between tested 2013 and 2014 models, but at the time it was unclear
  whether the poorer performance for the 2014 models was still simply
  due to drive brand variances or if there was something specific to the
  2014 machines causing an overall degradation in performance.

If it is the case then what you can do is either sell it and find SanDisk equipped one or bring it back to Apple if you are in 14 days window (you would have to pay restocking fee though. No you can't claim that you are not getting performance you have paid for because Apple is only advertising its performance as “up to” figures)

On the other hand if you are not working with high def video on this machine and SSD I wouldn't bother since those sequential speeds are only good for that. And that tool is from company that is creating pricey tools for movie production btw.


The dictionary will NOT reset from turning off auto correct. (i.e. Settings > General > Keyboards > Auto Correct)

To reset the dictionary visit Settings > General > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary


What is the command to remove a container and reclaim the space?

The commands are given below.

sudo diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0s3
sudo diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
sudo diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0

The first command converts the undesired APFS container partition disk0s3 to a JHFS+ formatted partition. The second command converts the disk0s3 partition to free space. The third command expands the desired APFS container partition disk0s2 to consume the free space.

Below is an example. Your results may be sightly different.

Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         450.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         49.7 GB    disk0s3
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ sudo diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0s3
Started APFS operation on disk1
Deleting APFS Container with all of its APFS Volumes
Unmounting Volumes
Unmounting Volume "Recovery" on disk1s1
Deleting Volumes
Deleting Container
Wiping former APFS disks
Switching content types
Reformatting former APFS disks
Initialized /dev/rdisk0s3 as a 46 GB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
1 new disk created or changed due to APFS operation
Disk from APFS operation: disk0s3
Finished APFS operation on disk1
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         450.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Untitled                49.7 GB    disk0s3
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ sudo diskutil erasevolume free none disk0s3
Started erase on disk0s3 Untitled
Unmounting disk
Finished erase on disk0
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         450.0 GB   disk0s2
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ sudo diskutil apfs resizecontainer disk0s2 0
Started APFS operation
Aligning grow delta to 49,790,267,392 bytes and targeting a new physical store size of 499,790,266,368 bytes
Determined the maximum size for the targeted physical store of this APFS Container to be 499,789,236,224 bytes
Resizing APFS Container designated by APFS Container Reference disk2
The specific APFS Physical Store being resized is disk0s2
Verifying storage system
Performing fsck_apfs -n -x /dev/disk0s2
Checking volume
Checking the container superblock
Checking the space manager
Checking the object map
Checking the APFS volume superblock
Checking the object map
Checking the fsroot tree
Checking the snapshot metadata tree
Checking the extent ref tree
Checking the snapshots
Verifying allocated space
The volume /dev/disk0s2 appears to be OK
Storage system check exit code is 0
Growing APFS Physical Store disk0s2 from 449,999,998,976 to 499,790,266,368 bytes
Modifying partition map
Growing APFS data structures
Finished APFS operation
Marlin:~ davidanderson$ diskutil list disk0
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk2         499.8 GB   disk0s2
Marlin:~ davidanderson$


Why are cursor keys in Excel moving the viewport rather than the active cell?

This sounds like Scroll Lock is somehow activated on your copy of Excel. IF you have a large keyboard with an F14 key, ShiftF14 can turn on and off Scroll Lock. If you don't have such a keyboard, or access to such a keyboard, it gets more complicated.

Microsoft support posted this article about the various methods of deactivating Scroll Lock. They either involve connecting a keyboard with a F14 key or removing your Excel preferences file.


My wireguard install has broken and I'm unable to fix it

According to gdayhowyagoin on reddit , wireguard-go version 0.0.20210212 is the culprit. If you're using brew, you can see how they downgraded it, but if youre using macports, you can follow this:
git clone --single-branch https://github.com/macports/macports-ports.git
cd macports-ports
git checkout e01555c11df59855b73fd540accc778a41145bf8
cd net/wireguard-go
sudo port install

I hope this clears your issue.


What is Safari Service worker ? Would disabling it affect website performance?

Service Workers can be used by web sites to handle functionality such as:

Enabling Offline mode when you have no Internet connection
Receiving Push Notifications
Caching data files for faster load times
Synchronizing data in the background to provide streaming updates
Trigger data refreshes based on for example location changes

The impact of disabling the feature depends on the sites involved. Some would just continue working as normal, but perhaps work a tad slower - others would loose functionality, such as offline mode or push notifications - and again others would stop working completely as they insist on that feature working.


How to crash an application to produce Crash Report

It turns out that sending SIGKILL (kill -9) to an application is a bit too abrupt, the same goes for SIGTERM (kill -15). Instead, sending SIGQUIT (kill -3) worked, and SIGABRT (kill -6). The application I killed was Activity Monitor, but it should work with other macOS applications as well (The real macOS ones, that ship with OS, Console works and Safari as well). You just need to wait a couple of seconds if the application killed had big memory footprint, because it takes some time to produce the Crash Report.


How can I transfer my Microsoft Office Install to another Mac?

You can try to move the main folders to an external drive:

/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011
/Applications/Microsoft Messenger.app
/Applications/Microsoft Communicator.app
/Library/Application Support/Microsoft
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/Microsoft
/username/Documents/Microsoft-Userdata

Copy these Folders to the same path on your new system.


What is the difference between a tap and a click?

According to this article: Turning On Mac Touch-To-Click Support from the Command Line you have to enable the feature in the command line:

Enable the general tap-to-click behavior:

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

Enables tap-to-click for the Magic Mouse:

sudo defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1

Enable tap-to-click at the login and boot screens of OS X:

sudo defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 1

and reboot your Mac.

To disable all this enter in Terminal:

sudo defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad Clicking -bool false
sudo defaults -currentHost write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 0
sudo defaults write NSGlobalDomain com.apple.mouse.tapBehavior -int 0

and reboot again.


Looking at your output, there seems to be an extra space before grep in the error message. I assume this is coming from a still pressed Opt/Alt key after typing the pipe symbol (so you basically are typing Opt-Space instead of just Space). Try ps aux |grep foo (without a space between the pipe and the g).


Deleting files for freeing the disk space

Honestly delete nothing in those directories manually. You'll likely crash your system if it even lets you delete them. Stick with files in "userland." which would be at the path /Users/[YOURUSERNAME]/."

If you are running out of disk space (which is completely different from running out of memory) I would use a gui tool like Grand Perspective and then delete the files that you no longer need that occupy locations in your user directory.

I'm sure there are shell commands to list, recursively, files in specific directories in order of file size, but I don't know how to do that, preferring GUI tools that do the same thing.

If you are running out of memory in your MBA then the only choice you have (as all MBA memory is non-upgradable) is to see if you have a bunch of things running at startup (system preferences > users > [YOUR USERNAME] > login items) and remove some of them or just run fewer apps at the same time.


Installing El Capitan from a bootable DVD

I've created bootable DVDs (DVD+R DL, specifically) for Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan, and used them without any problems to install on various MacBook Pros. Thus, the OS X installer can't require write access to the installer's volume (as of 10.11.x anyway). Creating an El Capitan installation DVD is slightly different than previous, but a user 'tywebb13' on MacRumors is who I've followed each time I've created these DVD installers. He's posted the Terminal commands (including short explanations for each) to create a bootable El Capitan DVD (or just the ISO if you skip the last command).

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/el-capitan-bootable-dvd.1923931/page-2#post-22407115

NOTE: Some of the posts in that thread refer to installing them in virtual machines, which adds confusion. But 'tywebb13' is consistently focused on optical media installers for actual Apple hardware, and I've always followed his instructions to success.


Your workaround is the beginning of the right problem analysis.
Verify that the ACL on ~/Library/Preferences are correct.

Let's say your user name is BOB.
Within Terminal or xterm type:

$ cd ${HOME}/Library
$ ls -del Preferences
drwx------+ 9 BOB  staff  6324 Jul 31 14:10 Preferences
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: user:_spotlight inherited allow list,search,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit
$

If your ACL aren't exactly as above, and most notably completly empty,
check that your NFS server is correctly configured to manage ACL.

On your Mac which is the NFS client, check with the mount command that the noacl option isn't turned on.


What are these red/gray squares that appear on my Macbook Pro?

Finally found out what's wrong. I had been using a custom calibration for my monitors since their color temperature was different to each other. After resetting the calibration to default the issue is gone.


Is it normal for a new Mac to have less than 100% battery health?

This happens regularly and we don’t have issues with them at work and often see a pretty wide range of FCC numbers initially. The measurements are precise but not accurate over short time periods. I would track use every three months and if at the 11 month period get a second read by Apple. They will have service notes for the battery diagnostic when new and also at almost a year so that will tell very accurately what the overall lifespan is.
If you haven’t contacted AppleCare and had them run one remote battery diagnostic, do that late January after the rush of holiday help requests has died down. Unless it’s popping a warning or you can’t get reasonable life, there’s no rush to get the first scan done.
Here are some past posts on whether any one measurement is predictive and how to handle end of warranty situations.
I would use that battery hard for a week or two (empty to full) and you’ll know it’s performing or not without needing any special calibration steps that were used in the past.


How do you create a rEFInd boot manager USB disk?

Note: These instructions are for version 0.12.0 of rEFInd. If you download a different version, then make the appropriate substitutions for the version you are using.

The rEFInd Boot Manager: Getting rEFInd webpage has a link for A USB flash drive image file. The default is for the downloaded files to be placed in the folder ~/Downloads/refind-flashdrive-0.12.0. The contents of this folder is given below.
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff    35147 Mar 13  2020 COPYING.txt
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff     4891 Mar 13  2020 CREDITS.txt
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff     2204 Mar 13  2020 LICENSE.txt
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff   105344 Mar 13  2020 NEWS.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff     1719 Mar 13  2020 README-flashdrive.txt
-rw-r--r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff     2183 Mar 13  2020 SHELLS.txt
-rw-rw-r--@ 1 davidanderson  staff  7372800 Mar 13  2020 refind-flashdrive-0.12.0.img

Note: The downloaded file refind-flashdrive-0.12.0.zip is automatically unzipped`.

The instructions are in the file named README-flashdrive.txt. The contents is given below.
The .img file in this archive should be bootable on any EFI-based computer.
It launches the rEFInd boot manager, which in turn should be able to locate
boot loaders on the computer's EFI System Partition (ESP) or on other
partitions.

To use this disk image, you must copy it to a USB flash drive or similar
medium. Under Linux or Mac OS X, you can do this with dd as root, as in:

dd if=refind-flashdrive-{version}.img of=/dev/sdx

You must change {version} to the version number and set the target disk
(specified by "of=") correctly. BE VERY CAREFUL! If you set the output disk
incorrectly, you can seriously damage the data on your hard disk! (If this
happens, and if it's a GPT disk, you may be able to recover most of your
data by using GPT fdisk. See http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/repairing.html
for details.)

Be aware that the disk image file uses GPT, and the GPT data structures are
sized for the disk image, which is very small by today's standards. Thus,
the backup GPT data structures will be placed early on the disk. Most OSes
cope well with this, but you may want to correct the problem if you want to
use the disk for other purposes in the future. You can do this with the "e"
option on the experts' menu of gdisk (http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/). GNU
parted can also correct this problem; it will prompt you when you try to
view the partitions on the disk.

You can also install rEFInd from this disk image; however, it doesn't
contain an EFI/refind directory like the other installation files available
from the rEFInd Sourceforge page. Instead, you must copy the contents of
EFI/BOOT, and the rEFInd binary is called EFI/boot/bootx64.efi or
EFI/boot/bootia32.efi, depending on your architecture.

Steps to Create the Bootable Flash Drive

Insert a flash drive and use the Disk Utility to erase the flash drive. For name, enter MYREFIND. For format, enter MS-DOS (FAT). For scheme, enter Master Boot Record.

Open a Terminal application window and change the current working directory to where the image file resides. Below is the command to use when downloaded to the default location.
cd ~/Downloads/refind-flashdrive-0.12.0

Enter the command given below to get the identifier for the flash drive.
diskutil info MYREFIND | grep "Part of Whole"

In my case, the identifier was disk2. If you get a different identifier, then make the appropriate substitutions in the following steps.

Enter the command given below to unmount the flash drive.
 diskutil unmountdisk disk2

Enter the command given below to copy the image to the flash drive.
sudo dd if=refind-flashdrive-0.12.0.img of=/dev/disk2

(Optional) As explained in the README-flashdrive.txt file, the secondary (backup) GUID partition header and table are not stored at the end of the flash drive. If you have the gdisk command installed, then you can enter the command below to repair this problem. The GPT fdisk project home page can be found here.
sudo gdisk /dev/disk2

The gdisk command is interactive. Below are the correct commands to enter when prompted.
x
e
w
y


Which types of SSD are compatible with mac book pro mid-2012 (not retina)?

If your MacBook Pro is non-Retina : open both, take a look, if the storage connecter identical then you can switch between them.

If your MacBook Pro is Retina : simply NO :)


My iPhone cannot connect to the internet on cellular data and wifi

Check to see if you have a VPN connection set up. Settings > General > VPN.


Is it possible to do a wildcard search in spotlight in iOS 10.X?

They don't do wildcards, but flash would bring up anything that contains flash including flash at the beginning, end or middle of the word.  If you are talking about mid-wildcards like fl***light, then no, you cannot do that.


How can I force MacOS to make a binary conversion of filesizes in MB, GB...?

Unfortunately, you can't.  See this apple support document which explains that since 10.6 they started measuring storage capacity according to the decimal GB (Gigabyte) rather than binary GiB (Gibibyte) values.  This matches up with how hardware manufacturers measure the capacity of storage devices.  OS X 10.5 and earlier, along with iPhones, iPads and iPods still use binary measurements.


The formula for the right column of your aggregate table is:

=SUMIF(Data::A,A1,Data::B)

The parameters to SUMIF are:

The column of dates which you wish to group by.
The individual date you wish to output the sum of (i.e. the cell to the left).
The column which you are taking the sum of for the group.


What's Firefox's default browser helper plugin?

I did some digging and documented my findings.

The plug-in is used to produce the below dialog. It can be triggered by Apple from inside any other web browser. It is unclear when and where this is used.


Is there a way to temporarily enlarge the mouse pointer like Apple's "Shake to find" does?

There is way to increase the size of your cursor, but it will stay that size until you change it again. Maybe making the cursor a little bigger will help?

Go to System Preferences and click Accessibility. Then on the left click on Display. Click on the subsection called "Cursor", then use the slider to set the cursor size. You can also turn off the feature where your cursor expands when you shake it by unchecking the box.


Uncompressed panoramas on iPhone as of iOS 7.1.x

afc2add's successor, Apple File Conduit, provides the same (and more) functionality as it's predecessor, and supports iOS 7.1.x.


How can I change mouse button to work with Safari?

With BetterTouchTool you should be able to re-assign all the buttons as you wish for a particular program or system-wide.


Find files in Terminal by kind - not extension?

To search all files with a distinctive kind use the command:

mdfind 'kMDItemKind="Sound Designer II audio"'

If this is not sufficient you can also use the type code (yyyy below is a place holder only)

mdfind 'kMDItemFSTypeCode="yyyy"'

You should be able get an (unknown) type code of a Sound Designer II audio file by executing mdls "/path/to/Sound Designer II audio file" | grep kMDItemFSTypeCode


Creating power point presentation using iphone photos

Once you have inserted the pic in PowerPoint, use the Compress function where you can select the resolution, or keep the original.


Where did the "hide the toolbar" thingy go on OS X Lion?

I don't think there's a way to make the toolbar capsule widget thingy show up again.

However, if you want to hide the toolbar, you can right-click on the empty toolbar area and choose the "Hide Toolbar" option:

You can also go to the View menu and choose "Hide Toolbar" from there.  It may also have a keyboard shortcut of cmd-opt-t.


Resetting an AppleID password when you don't have access to an IOS device

Have her put the SIM card of the iPhone 7 into the iPhone 4s and then when the 4s asks her for the code, she can say "Didn't receive code" and then chose the option "Text me" and it will text her the code if that number is her trusted number and if the number is still active.

Then she can put that trusted number into her iPhone 4s. Once she does that she needs to go to www.appleid.apple.com and then sign into her account and then add a new trusted number. Also make sure that she is really signed into iCLoud on her Mac. You can click on the Apple Logo -> System Preferences -> iCloud and then see if it asks her to sign in or enter her password. If not, then she is signed in.

If she is in the setup process, she needs to setup the iPhone as new (Apps & Data screen), and then when it asks her to sign in, DON'T SIGN IN. Choose below it "Forgot password or don't have an Apple ID?". On the next page choose "Setup Later in Settings" and it will let her setup the iPhone without an Apple ID so she can get the code she needs.

Let me know if you have any questions!


What are the consequences of changing my Apple ID password?

Yes, if you change your password you will have to change the password on all your devices in order to have FaceTime working correctly.

The same for iCloud and the other services which are linked to your Apple ID.


Possible to save screen resolution settings and quickly switch between them?

I'm not 100% sure this is what you're after, but it's possible to check the "Show displays in menu bar" option in System Preferences -> Displays. This adds a menubar item which allows you to quickly switch between recently used resolutions

Alternatively, maybe something like Display Maestro or SwitchResX would help? These both seem to have the ability to display and switch between recently used resolutions.


iPhone 3G upgraded to iOS 4, does it now support multitasking?

Only iPhone 3GS and later support multitasking.  iPhone 3G does not, regardless of which version of iOS is installed, unless you jailbreak it.


To answer your question simply. No. Pages is great at what it does, but I've yet to find a way to get it to truly be WYSIWYG.


Safari only wants to connect to localhost via HTTPS

Actually, it looks like it was HSTS.

I followed the directions posted here:

Close Safari.
Delete the ~/Library/Cookies/HSTS.plist file.
Reopen Safari.

And now localhost sites are working correctly.


M1 Mac clean install, getting stuck at "Create a computer account"

paraphrasing @Remiks' answer (thanks Remiks - your writeup got me unstuck!). Remiks reports:
Apple Support shared a far easier fix using recovery tools
upsides over the published approach:

requires no 2nd machine or external drive
requires no new software (just the Mac OS already on your machine; no downloads of any kind)
works reliably (whereas Apple support warns configurator 2 is flakey)

Crazy idea, but should these become the official steps? Anyone aware of a situation actually requiring Configurator?
steps to follow:

shut down your computer
remove the computer from any iCloud accounts (thanks for the edit, @abbaf33f)
hold the power button until the "options" icon shows
select the "options" icon
when next screen loads, select menu item to launch terminal
in terminal type "resetpassword" and hit enter
when a reset password box appears, reveal a new menu by clicking somewhere off to the side of the reset password box (thanks for the edit, @brendan-duke!)
select "Recovery Utilities" then "erase Mac"; in new pop up confirm option to erase Mac
once erased, exit back to recover
reinstall the operating system
once installed, create the account.

Remiks' reported result matches mine: this fix works on the first try.
On the other hand, the official apple steps failed repeatedly for me, and two Apple Sr. Advisors warned me as they attempted to assist that the published instructions were unreliable (yep, they were also frustrated that the Apple-supplied steps failed try after try).


There are many graphical upgrades in iOS 7 that simply don't work on iPhone 4 because of the relative lack of processing/GPU power. See this Ars Technica article for a list of the features disabled on iPhone 4.

  What don't you get?

  The slowest devices in Apple's lineup tend not to get every single feature that the newer ones get. Generally, this is either because the old hardware is incapable of supporting it or because the device's aging system-on-a-chip (SoC) isn't fast enough to provide a good experience. The iPhone 4 gets most of the features we highlighted in our massive iOS 7 review, but there's a long list of fine print attached. Let's run through not just the list of iOS 7 features it misses out on, but also the features from previous iOS versions that it isn't privy to. If the feature is on this list, it's missing from the iPhone 4.

  3D Flyover or turn-by-turn navigation in Maps.
  Panorama mode or Filters in the Camera app (filters can still be applied after-the- fact in the Photos app).
  AirPlay Mirroring.
  Siri.
  AirDrop.
  A number of the new graphical effects present on all other iOS 7 devices. These include translucency effects throughout the OS, live wallpapers, and the parallax effect used on the Home screen.


Just send the book via AirDrop to your iPad, then click share and after that select the Books app.


Change login info in Screen Sharing recents list

Credentials are stored in your keychain, which you can browse using Keychain Access.app in the Utilities folder of Applications.
Search for items named the hostname (or IP) of the device and delete the relevant password item.


Upgrade from iOS 12.4.1 to 12.4.7 on an iPhone 6s

You are apparently out of luck here. While it's possible to download an iOS firmware (a .ipsw file) and install it onto a device, as long as Apple is signing is, Apple typically stops signing an older release a few days after issuing an update. IPSW is a well regarded website that lets you download all the available firmwares for a device.

However, Apple has not built iOS 12.4.7 for the devices that support running iOS 13 or later. Thus, iOS 12.4.7 was never released in the first place for iPhone 6s.

So technically speaking, there is no way to obtain and/or install iOS 12.4.7 for an iPhone 6s. Your only way to get patched for this particular vulnerability is by installing iOS 13.5 on your iPhone 6s.


Short answer: because the "secured" address is not secure enough (or, more accurately, doesn't protect your privacy well enough). Specifically, it's still a long-term identifier for your computer until/unless you move it to a different network.
Long answer: When a host is configured via SLAAC, that provides a 64-bit prefix for the host's public IPv6 address(es); the host then has three main ways to choose suffix(es) to use in its public address(es):

It can derive its suffix from the interface's hardware (MAC) address using the modified EUI-64 format. Problem: any host you communicate with can trivially figure out your hardware address, which gives some info about your computer's manufacturer and maybe type. It also allows them to uniquely identify your computer not only over time but also as it moves around the Internet, since when you move to a different net the prefix will change, but your suffix will stay the same.

It can use a cryptographically generated ("secured") suffix. This does not leak information about your hardware, and will be different for each different network you use (removing your trackability between locations/networks), but still allows your computer to be uniquely identified within each of the networks it uses.

It can use a sequence of temporary addresses. Like secure addresses, these hide your hardware information and avoid trackability between locations, and also limits your identifiability while you're on a particular network.
For example, if a website gets hit from several different addresses from the same network on Monday, and then again on Tuesday, it can't tell (at least by the addresses) if it's the same or different computers on Monday vs. Tuesday, and if it's the same ones it can't tell which of Monday's client IPs corresponds to which of Tuesday's client IPs.

Note: I've listed these address types by security (/privacy) level, not chronologically. Apple started using temporary addresses in v10.7 (Mac OS X Lion), and cryptographically generated addresses replaced modified-EUI-64 in v10.12 (macOS Sierra).
Currently, macOS uses both cryptographically generated and temporary addresses, but prefers the temporary address for outgoing connections.


Allow users to update certain applications

We do this by using a management framework that basically has a sudo functionality that's controlled and logged centrally. If you don't want to create your own management framework, look for something like JAMF Software's Casper suite or an open-source framework like munki to manage patches and application installs. I don't know if munki handles the admin/standard user issue, but it's a place to start if you have no budget but can spend time learning if a tool might help you.

http://www.jamfsoftware.com/products/casper-suite/macosx/patch-management/

The Casper self-service portal idea allows normal users to pick from items that you have allowed self-updating and self-patching without needing any user on the receiving end of the patch/update to be an admin user.


Can each application have a separate merchant account?

We set up separate iTunes Connect accounts for the clients so that the client gets all of the info they need and also the money from Apple where applicable.

You would also need to set up Apple developer Accounts for each client (You get them to pay for their developer accounts) They can then add you to that dev account and you will be able to manage the provisioning, certificates and other things on their behalf but using your developer access account.

Apple documents this thoroughly here:

iTunes Connect Developer Guide


Without your recovery key - you're in a precarious state.

Apple lays out the steps to regenerate that from https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202649

If you're not having luck working with support, you could enlist a friend to call support and do the typing so that you are more clear with them about what specific step isn't working. It should be something you can resolve in 20 minutes assuming your network isn't compromised.

Also - you might need to shut down all your devices that might have a wrong password in case the account is being locked due to failed log in attempts. Keep in mind - Apple is trained to be suspicious of requests to unlock an account from a different country since you've enabled enhances security of two step authentication on your account.


Key commands for Next/Previous tab are...

Next =  Ctrl ⌃   Tab ⇥
Previous =  Ctrl ⌃   Shift ⇧   Tab ⇥

There's a free/donationware Safari extension that can force some subtly different behaviour on tabs, might be worth a look - LinkThing


iPhone 4 activation trouble, after iOS 6 beta installed

I had this issue, and was able to re-activate without losing anything.

do not backup this busted version
de-activate the "automatically sync when this device is connected"
in iTunes->preferences->devices
do a restore as a new phone to confirm your hardware's OK:

download the image you'll need (for example, http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=750 and scroll to the bottom, in the "6.0.0" items)
download it, and right-click or option-click on "Restore", select that ipsw file, and install a new phone (not a backup of your old phone)
this may take 40 minutes -- let it do its thing
you should end up with a very basic set of icons, so past SMS, no addressbook
confirm you have an activated phone by sending/receiving SMSs and calling or answering calls -- your hardware is OK, let's go restore a backup

restore the existing backup of your phone:

right-click or option-click on "Restore", select your ipsw file again, and choose to restore from a previous backup of your pre-busted phone
let it do its thing.  40-50 minutes, longer than above because it's restoring your previous apps, SMSs, addressbook, etc
when complete, you should have a functioning phone with all your addressbook and SMSs, but content (photos, music, videos) still need to be sync'd.

Step 3.2 requires that it'll let you restore -- if you keep getting the "check for a more recent version", try also DFU mode, and when it asks you to restore a software version, choose the IPSW file you downloaded in step 3a.

DFU can be done by:
 1. hold the power/lock button on top while holding the Home button on the front
 2. do for 10 seconds
 3. release the top/power/lock button while still holding the Home button
 4. do this for 10 seconds
 5. release the home button, so no buttons pressed
 6. the device will appear as "iPhone" in the devices (your old device may still appear for a few minutes) ready for a restore


Does Apple Remote Desktop connect to computers over the internet?

Yes it can use iCloud back to my Mac to locate remote Macs behind a NAT router. Also, if your network allows inbound network connections then that also would work over the Internet.

And no, ARD is not a service where a client runs on each Mac to tunnel out of more arbitrary network connections as Team Viewer, Citrix/GoToMeeting and other solutions that are designed to have the computer that is "to be controlled" initiate contact with the administrator.

For example, setting up the clients over Bonjour will not work if you then try to access the clients over the Internet.

Select the scanner.

Select the Network Address scanner type, and enter the public/BTMM IP address of the computer.

Yes, the client computer will need a "real Internet IP address" for this method to work, or the Back to my Mac address if enabled.

To find the Back to my Mac address, make sure that iCloud and Back to my Mac is enabled, then run the following command:

dns-sd -E

The final line shows the account number.

Use the following syntax for determining the address:

computername.number.members.btmm.icloud.com

You can find the computer name in System Preferences → Sharing.


ME864LL/A Logic Board swap from MF839LL/A

This is a definitive no. The board from the 2015 MBP does not fit the late 2013 MBP 13".


How does macOS High Sierra generate bold weights for its system font?

If you go to Apple Fonts you can download the SF Pro or SF Compact Fonts. When I download and open the SF Pro I got 30 .otf files for Text and Display fonts. I installed these using Font Book. This installed SF Text and SF Display. SF Text contains 16 variations ranging from Regular to Bold and including Semi-Bold, Heavy Italics, and Text Light among others.


How can I set up a system-wide key combination to toggle a specific System Preferences setting ("Tap to Click")?

Since you didn't say what version of macOS you are running, here is the AppleScript code I'd use to toggle the target checkbox under macOS High Sierra. It may need to be modified for macOS Mojave and later.

Also note that when assigning a global keyboard shortcut, it can not be one already assigned to any app that has focus when the keyboard shortcut is pressed.

You can use this code in a Run AppleScript action in an Automator Service.1

1 In macOS Mojave, and later, an Automator Service is called a Quick Action. There are also other minor nomenclature differences but they should be more obvious when comparing them to pre-macOS Mojave Automator workflows.

The keyboard shortcut can be assigned in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services

Example AppleScript code:

if running of application "System Preferences" then
    try
        tell application "System Preferences" to quit
    on error
        do shell script "killall 'System Preferences'"
    end try
end if

repeat while running of application "System Preferences" is true
    delay 0.1
end repeat

tell application "System Preferences" to ¬
    reveal pane id "com.apple.preference.trackpad"

tell application "System Events" to tell application process "System Preferences"
    repeat while not (exists window "Trackpad")
        delay 0.1
    end repeat
    tell tab group 1 of window "Trackpad"
        click radio button "Point & Click"
        repeat while value of radio button "Point & Click" is equal to 0
            delay 0.01
        end repeat
        click checkbox 3
    end tell
end tell

quit application "System Preferences"

Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any additional error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


the replacement is pf, see man pfctl. also, see man dnctl for traffic shaping purposes.

Apple's Network Link Conditioner utility (only available in their developer downloads section, behind a login) uses these two facilities to do its thing.


How do I change the Services sub component to not use Safari web browser

This appears to have been answered on stackoverflow already and on SuperUser even earlier.

The "search with google" entry is added by safari and therefore cannot be edited.  So the solution is to disable that one, create your own service using automator, and then assign the appropriate shortcut key that will take precedence over the built-in disabled one.  This is actually what I was going to suggest until I found that someone else had already gone through it.

I've copied/pasted answer from SO here.

Instructions:

Open Automator and choose Service as the type
Add a "Run Shell Script" action by dragging it to the right pane

Add script

open "http://www.google.com/search?q=$(ruby -rcgi -e 'print CGI.escape $<.read.chomp')"

Adjust the TLD as needed for your country specific Google page. ex: http://www.google.co.in/search?q=

A comment to the SO answer suggests - instead of "Run shell script" you can also use "Run javascript", use script function run(input, parameters) { return "google.com/search?q=" + encodeURI(input) }, and stack additional action "Internet > Open webpages" underneath. It could work faster. Also see SU answer
Save the service as "Search Google"
Activate the service in System Preferences and optionally assign a keyboard shortcut. Once activated, "Search Google" will appear in the context menu


Deleted photos from phone when transfering to macbook, how to get back on phone?

When plugging your iPhone into your MacBook, in iTunes when accessing your phone, you should be able to select 'Photos' from the Settings tab on the left, then press Sync Photos, then choose the photo folder that you want to sync back into your iPhone. Then press Apply.

Note: before choosing the folder, you need to create a separate folder containing all the pictures that you want to sync back.


Lion Mail.app messages marking themselves as read

This is strange. Are you sure he is not clicking on those mails in his phone? Or somebody else having access to it. Change the password for the email and check again, if this continues then the problem would be either in his phone or imac.

Try with password change and we will see how it goes.


still unable to find google drive on the sidebar of mac

Click the Google Drive icon in your menu bar.

Select "Open Google Drive folder"

Drag the icon from the top of that new window to your Sidebar.

Done.


Is there a way to disable Genius updates in iTunes?

According to this Apple iTunes page:

  To turn off Genius, select Turn Off Genius from the Store menu. Once
  you turn off Genius, iTunes will no longer send information about your
  iTunes library to Apple.

This About.com page also notes:

  If you want to completely turn off the Genius features, not just hide
  them, simply go to the Store menu in iTunes and choose "Turn off
  Genius."

I've confirmed that it can be turned off in the iTunes instance on my MBP.


OS 10.13.3 IKEv2 VPN automatically disconnects

Turns out it was not an issue with OS X but with my IKEv2 VPN Provider - its certificate has expired.

Too bad the OS X does not state that anywhere and just instantly disconnects you, without giving any message. Even a simple text box with "There is an issue with your VPN server. Certificate has expired. " would be sufficient.


LaunchAgents zip/tar not working in plist?

From man launchd.plist
ProgramArguments <array of strings>
This key maps to the second argument of execvp(3) and specifies the argument vector to be passed
to the job when a process is spawned. This key is required in the absence of the Program key.
IMPORTANT: Many people are confused by this key. Please read execvp(3) very carefully!

So you need to use
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/usr/bin/zip</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>zip</string>
        <string>/Users/username/Backup/test.zip</string>
        <string>/Users/username/Documents/*.pdf</string>
    </array>

It still won't work though because launchd doesn't expand wildcards and zip doesn't either. It's easier to use launchd to start a shell script which does all the work then.


Problem solved.   Did a hard reset while I was signed out of youtube fixed the problem.  Working again whether signed in or not.


How to automate Caps Lock Delay Removal in macOS MacBook Pro?

I don't have a script but I just fixed this a few minutes ago on my Macbook Pro. Here are the steps I took:

Go to System Preferences > Accessibility > scroll down to keyboard > look for checkbox Enable Slow Keys (If it is not ticked go ahead and tick it) > Go to Options... directly across from it.

Then move the Acceptance Delay all the way to Short.

Hit OK and you're done. No more CAPS LOCK delay.

*Edit: Another post mentioned that this will make your Backspace take a little longer than usual to delete individual characters when holding the button down.


You can kill the ssh process like others with

kill -9 $PID

You can find ssh session process ID with

pgrep ssh


Cannot sync Google Drive between MacBook and iPhone app

Just clicking on Search drive in the app was sufficient to jiggle something loose and sync cloud -> iphone.

I noticed one glitch. The iPhone Drive app was failing to display bar.txt which IS on cloud (I added it yesterday), but instead was still displaying a foo.pdf file that longer exists on the cloud (which was showing up even before I asked the question), and bizarrely clicking on foo.pdf actually shows the contents of bar.txt.

Reinstalling the Drive App resolves this.

EDIT: I can recreate the problem as follows:
 - On my MacBook I copy X.txt to ~/google-drive
 - Observe that the cloud icon in the tray does sync animation
 - Observe that X.txt does not appear on Drive app
 - Drive App -> Search drive for X.txt
 - Now it is visible


How can I disable Photos Agent on High Sierra (10.13.4)?

From personal experience, I can say that letting it finish once (it processes photos in the Photos app) makes it end forever.

But you can speed up that process by removing iCloud photos syncing.


Syncing Apple Music between iPhone and iPad

All you need to do is turn on "iCloud Music Library" and all of your playlists, saved songs etc. will be distributed to all of your devices (including PC, Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad (and soon to be android and Apple TV))

To do this, on iDevices go to Settings>Music>iCloud Music Library.


How do programs access ~/Library/Mail under OSX 10.14 (Mojave)

Full Disk Access

Add your application or tool to the Full Disk Access list within System Preferences > Security & Privacy.

This is related to the new macOS Privacy Protections in 10.14, aka Mojave.

If you want programs launched from Terminal to be able to access ~/Library/Mail, you will need to add them to the Full Disk Access list (below). I originally added Terminal and still couldn't access the folder. It turns out that I use iTerm2, and not Terminal. That had to be added also.


how do I create a signature on yosemite? preview does not offer that option

Go to the Tools menu > Annotate > Signature > Manage Signatures and use the "Create Signature" button at the bottom.


How to find out devices associated as iMessage client with my apple ID

Itunes > Itunes Store > Click on email id after logging in (i.e. view account) > Manage Devices

That should get you a list of devices, that you have your appleid enabled on. You can check those device settings to see if iMessage is enabled and if yes, under what ID.


Mass Load of Keyboard/Text mappings in Mavericks

The settings are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist in the NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems array in 10.9 and in the NSUserReplacementItems array in 10.8 and earlier. The format of the array has not changed, so the commands below should work in 10.8 and earlier versions of OS X if you replace NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems with NSUserReplacementItems.

Print the current settings:

defaults read -g NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems

Add one setting:

defaults write -g NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems -array-add '{on=1;replace=cmd;with="⌘";}'

Replace all settings:

defaults write -g NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems '(
{on=1;replace=cmd;with="⌘";},
{on=1;replace=opt;with="⌥";}
)'

Print the current settings as XML:

defaults read -g NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems | plutil -convert xml1 - -o -

Replace all settings:

amp() { local x=${1//&/&amp; }; x=${x//</&lt; }; printf %s "${x//>/&gt; }"; }
out='<array>'
while IFS= read -r l; do
  out+="<dict><key>on</key><integer>1</integer><key>replace</key><string>$(amp "${l%% *}")</string><key>with</key><string>$(amp "${l#* }")</string></dict>"
done <<< 'cmd ⌘
opt ⌥'
defaults write -g NSUserDictionaryReplacementItems "$out</array>"

You can apply changes made with defaults by quitting and reopening applications.


Resizing and moving OSX partitions in Disk Utility

I recommend downloading a copy of GParted from here: http://gparted.org/download.php

Then either:

Burn that iso file to a CD and then boot from the CD.
Or, create a new partition on your disk, use Disk Utility to Restore from the iso file to the new partition, set that partition as the startup disk, and finally boot into GParted.

GParted is the king of partitioning tools.


Page Up / Page Down shortcut keys with moving keyboard cursor

I found that if I do:

FN + Option + Up Arrow

or

FN + Option + Down Arrow

this does move the keyboard cursor a page up or down. It's still a bit clunkier than how things work on Windows, but it does solve the problem.


Any way to map extra mouse buttons to keyboard shortcuts?

While not perfect (can't make application specific macros, and doesn't detect every button on my mouse) https://www.usboverdrive.com does exactly what I want and can trigger keyboard shortcuts with the mouse buttons I wanted to use.


Panic report for Macbook Pro (retina 15-inch late 2013) macOS Mojave 10.14.6

Same problem here with macOS 10.12.6 (16G2136) Sierra. The culprit is Wacom driver. Update it or report to Wacom to fix it if already updated.


Using of mfind in general case : with or without extension for substring of a filename, even with a number

You are using mdfind correctly, but apparently there is a problem with your Spotlight indexes.

I attempted to reproduce the behaviour you observed, but it seems to work fine for me. In fact I got exactly the same results as user3439894.  First I created a sample file having the same name as your file.

touch GCph_WL_FoM_154.46_AND_SIMPLE_SUM_GCsp_XC_AVEC_NO-ZCUT_FoM_571.35.py

Then I tried two different search commands. Both of them produced exactly one result: the file created above.

mdfind '154.46'
mdfind -name '154.46'

I also tried your third search command, but it yielded nothing because the search term was incorrect. Here it is again, fixed, with * asterisks for wildcard globbing.

mdfind 'kMDItemFSName == "*154.46*"'

This is the answer to the question you asked originally. If you want a different answer, please edit your post to focus on one question.


Syncing Contacts to iOS on Mac OS X 10.6

According to http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/mac.html iCloud requires 10.7.5 or later.

Since iCloud encrypts data between the client and the server, you won't find third party options. I would get whatever software you need on 10.6 upgraded and then upgrade the OS or set up virtualization to run 10.6 from within a newer OS if iCloud data sync is needed.

Perhaps you could find a different cloud sync between to that's likely more work and aisle than the above.


iOS apps cannot be downloaded or updated

This is a widespread issue affecting many iOS devices (with the exceptions of international stores). Apple has yet to respond/fix this bug.

update It appears that Apple has resolved the issue. You can now download iTunes media normally.


OK, I figured it out.  It's a new escape sequence ("~v" for changing the logging level) in the latest version of ssh.  I fixed it by changing the escape character.


Macbook Pro 5400RPM / 7200RPM and the effect on battery life

In general there is very little difference in power consumption between 5400 and 7200rpm drives. You'll need to check manufacturer specs for the drive you have in mind, as they vary, and a newer 7200 may even use less than an older 5400. But in the overall scheme of your MacBook pro, the differences are so small as to have a very negligible effect - possibly a few minutes in worst case.

The benefits in performance will definitely out-weigh the power issues.

That said, when I tried a 7200 in my previous MBP (Late 08 Unibody), I ended up putting the stock 5400 back in as I'd gotten used to almost silent/vibration free use of the machine, and the newer drive was noisier and vibrated a little bit more - now it's all relative, it was still better than my Dell work laptop, but I ended up putting it in a case and using it as an external backup drive.


Mac Pro in reboot loop after installing NVIDIA Display Driver in Windows 8.1 Boot Camp

As it turns out, once I replaced the GT 120 video card with the GTX 980, I was able to install Boot Camp software with no problems whatsoever. For some reason, there was a compatibility issue with the Predator and GT 120 in Windows.


bind application to file of particular names(rather than suffix)

There is no way to do this, you can change the application opened on a per instance basis using the standard methods, however this will not apply to all other files of the same name.

There are two workarounds, but those do involve a slightly more user movements, click->mouse move ->click) instead of double-click

TextWrangler adds an menu item to the right click (ctrl-left click) menu for all files to "Open File in TextWrangler"
Drag the files into the TextWrangler app (or a shortcut) to open the files directly.


Either connect it to iTunes or to a powersource


Are there any good iPad games for kids to learn numbers?

You can try Numberland (App Store). It's available in 3 languages: English, French and Spanish. It won a Parents' Choice award in Fall 2011.

Check out the video demo.


Best way to create icons (buttons) in Finder toolbar matching OSX feel?

It seems that there remains no official support to add your own buttons to the Finder, despite applications like Dropbox implementing this. The hack is possible (but very complicated) and some instructions can be found here: How to write OS X Finder plugin.

Instead I settled for a screenshot (cmd-shift-4) of one of the existing buttons and edited it into my own icon using an image manipulation program such as GIMP and convert it to a .icns file. The downside is that this means that the button is static and has no animation when it is clicked, and when the window is out of focus things look a bit weird. The icons have to be square.

Here is the template image that I made for anyone else who wants to create their own icons:

and they can be assigned to an app by overwriting /Contents/Resources/applet.icns

Drag the app to the toolbar (holding cmd-alt for Mavericks) and then reboot to make the new icon visible.


Respringing after updating Mobile Substrate in Cydia bricked my phone?

I had the same exact problem today. I didn't want to update to iOS 7 either, but after so many hours on google, this seemed the only way to make my phone useful again. I followed this http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1808 and although it made me have to lose my familiarity with iOS 6 (RIP), my phone is useful again.


How much free disk space do I need to install Lion, and how much will I lose by upgrading?

According to http://www.apple.com/support/lion/installrecovery/ you only need 7G of free space.

Amazingly small amount of space considering the download is 3.6G itself.

Many are reporting gaining back between 5 and 10 GB of space as Lion is more compact than Snow Leopard.


How to mirror a first screen on the second and keep the highest resolution on the first screen?

In order to access Mac OS interface from another screen, go to System Preferences > Displays > Arrangement and take a look at the blue rectangles that represent the screens you currently have connected. One of them should have a white bar at the top, drag this bar to the screen that you want to access the OS interface from. That way you can keep the higher resolution, and access the interface. Unfortunately, if you mirror a display, it will take the lowest resolution because it cannot "create" the pixels required on the lower resolution screen in order to show a Mirrored display. If you want to keep the higher resolution, you have to extend the displays.


You can click on the small thumb at the bottom to expand the scrubbing tool.


Using an iMac 27" as an external monitor for a PC

According to Apple KB : Use your iMac as a display with Target Display Mode you could use Mini Display Port cables for the 2009 & 2010 models, but later models would appear to require Thunderbolt.


What is the file path to an iCloud Drive file?

If you go to the Files app, you'll notice that there is a folder located at the root of your iCloud Drive called Shortcuts. You must move your file from /Sounds/Foo.mp3 to /Shortcuts/Sounds/Foo.mp3, it appears that the Shortcuts app cannot read files that aren't located inside the /Shortcuts/ folder.


XCode 4.2 will run on Snow Leopard and it has ARC support.

Go to Apple Developer Downloads and search for XCode 4.2 for Snow Leopard, it will show up there, at least if you're a registered iOS developer.

Any newer XCode version than 4.2 is not supported by Apple on Snow Leopard, so I suspect you may have problems even if you'd manage to install it.


Is there a way to limit how frequently you can start an application?

You can do this using AppleScript :

1. Open AppleScript Editor

2. Paste following code:

property appName : "Mail"
property minSecsBetweenLaunches : 600 -- seconds
property checkEvery : 5 -- seconds

-- DO NOT MODIFY AFTER THIS LINE IF NOT SURE --

property lastSeenOpen : ""
property lastMailState : ""

on run
    idle
end run

on idle
    my check()
    return checkEvery -- check every n seconds
end idle

on check()
    tell application "Finder" to set processes_names to name of processes
    if (lastMailState is "") then
        -- First run
        set lastMailState to (processes_names contains appName)
        if lastMailState then
            set lastSeenOpen to current date
        end if
    else
        if (processes_names contains appName) then
            if (lastMailState is false) then
                -- App just started
                set lastMailState to true
                if (lastSeenOpen is not "") then
                    -- Already been launched, check if launch allowed
                    set timeLeft to minSecsBetweenLaunches - ((current date) - lastSeenOpen)
                    if (timeLeft > 0) then
                        tell application appName to quit
                        activate
                        display dialog "Wait " & timeLeft & " sec. before opening " & appName & " again."
                    end if
                end if
            end if
            set lastSeenOpen to current date
        else
            if (lastMailState is true) then
                -- App just quit
                set lastMailState to false
            end if
        end if
    end if
end check

3. Adjust settings

The 3 first lines of the script can be edited to fit your needs. By default, check every 5 seconds if Mail has not been seen open since 10 min (which is 600 seconds).

4. Create the app

File menu > Export

Choose app name & destination
select to export as Application
check "stay open..."

5. Hide from dock

In the Finder, find the app you just exported, then right-click on it, and select "Show package content". Then open "Info.plist" of the "Contents" folder in TextEdit, and, before the last </dict> of the file, paste:

<key>LSBackgroundOnly</key>
<string>1</string>

For info, after edit, end of my file looks like :

[...]
        <string>event log</string>
    </dict>
    <key>LSBackgroundOnly</key>
    <string>1</string>
</dict>
</plist>

And save it of course.

6. Set your app as startup item

System Preferences > Users > ...


Keyboard Maestro can type text per hotkey:


This would be trivial with either suggested VM software.

Make an encrypted sparse disk image large enough to hold the guest storage and then build your VM once you’ve mounted the secure disk image.

By controlling the encryption passphrase of that store, other admins can only delete the container, not mount and read it.


iPhone 4S restarting 20x a day since iOS 8.4.1 was installed

If this popped up right after an OS upgrade than I would wipe the phone and restore from backup:

Backup phone in iTunes
In Settings > General > Reset: erase all content and settings
Once that is done restore from backup

My guess is that a file got damaged during the upgrade and restoring it may fix it.


You can use Mouse Rate which is written in java and therefore runs on OS X, Windows and Linux .

The source is on github.


Permission denied rm a symlink I own on OSX 10

Only users with write access to a directory can remove its content. In your case you can check with ls -ld /usr/local/bin who the owner of this directory is. And than either switch to this user or use sudo rm /usr/local/bin/npm to remove the link.


How can I type the pound/hash (#) symbol on a British keyboard when in Terminal?

That is the real pound symbol ;)

The hashtag one # is opt/3 on a British keyboard layout.
If you want the US layout, you'll have to swap to US English.


The similarities between these three applications is that they all show "Updating..." in the title bar when sending/receiving data. Maybe something related to sync services or Calendar Agent? It might help to reset sync services.

Issues that are only occurring within your user account (and not others) are most likely related to preferences or other data inside of that account. A great place to start is the ~/Library/Preferences folder. Performing a split-half search on the contents of that directory is a good way to attack the issues. If the problem doesn't lie within the Preferences folder, there's a good chance that it's in ~/Library somewhere (Calendars?).

If you're lucky, the upgrade to Mavericks won't use the same functionality (i.e., won't read the corrupt preferences)...However, you may still experience the issues in that OS if you install over the top of your current user environment.


I have a very similar issue on my 2012 retina display MacBook Pro.  Since the latest update 10.9.4 there has been a delay in the volume adjustments for both the speakers and headphone jack when using the volume buttons on the keyboard. The delay is of 3 or 4 seconds. I can bypass this delay using the volume adjustment on my menu bar at the top right of my screen.


Mac OS Software for Creating Video Presentations

One product that I’ve used with good results is OpenShot Video Editor. It’s open source and cross platform (Mac, Windows, Linux) and best of all free.

I don’t know about incorporating actual Power Point presentations because the software includes its own mechanisms for transitions, but I was able to include images created (exported) from Power Point into the video.


Wisdom of storing help files in user directory

Here are several cases where having documentation in the user home folder make sense:

Each user of the Xcode program has different bookmarks, needs, choices of what to download
Backup situations where only user files are preserved (common in corporate situations where they image and deploy apps systematically and therefore skip backing up files that come from the standard deployment process).
Networked home folders where you work from more than one Mac would cause another location to fail.

Gatekeeper and other code signing / security checking technology makes it poor form to store added content (or content that updates outside the normal app update process) in /Applications. /Users/Shared is not a good place to store things since it breaks under the network home folder use case. Thus ~ is left as the least bad place to store this content.