I've worked as far afield as Northern Nigeria as a technologist (Infrastructure & Network Engineering), where reliable power is always an issue. Indeed, reliable energy is a problem endemic to many lesser developed nations across the globe.  Closer to home, many folks are looking to go off-grid to escape the rat-race but still want to stay connected to the wider world.

Since powering a Mac (my solution can be used to power any AC device) seemed of broader utility to a wider audience, figured I'd share my documentation on design considerations & physical connectivity to save others solving the same-very complex - problem. Lots of annotated pictures are included at end of post to visually detail the physical connectivity between the components.

SYSTEM OVERVIEW: I'll explain the system conceptually in (2) parts:

COLLECTION: Solar Panels sends Direct Current (DC) to a 12v battery (also DC) via a “Solar Controller” that regulates transfer of DC from panels to battery to ~12v.  Without a Solar Charge Controller the Solar Panels could create an over-voltage condition sending as much as 20v+ to a 12v battery.
DISTRIBUTION: On the other side of the battery an “AC Power Inverter” is connected that converts battery’s Direct Current (DC) to Alternating Current (AC) when connected end-user devices draw power.
POWER EQUILIBRIUM: The COLLECTION side of the system should ideally replace what is being drawn from battery on DISTRIBUTION side.  If more is drawn out than replaced, battery will start to drain to its' Depth of Discharge ("DoD) limit and the inverter your devices are connected to will cut-out.

CHOOSING SYSTEM COMPONENTS: Key considerations:

SOLAR PANELS: These convert sunlight to DC which is sent to a 12v battery (also DC) for storage. The Solar Panel’s nominal wattage is sum of all panels configured into in an array: ie, my 200 watt solar panels are actually an array of (4) x 50 watt solar panels.

SOLAR PANEL EFFICIENCY: you’ll see a figure such as “19.8” in the manufacturers specs.  So for my 200 watt panels, that would be the conversion of 1000 watt/m2.  Under ideal test conditions.  The Earth rotates and both duration of sunlight & intensity can vary with both season & geography. “200 watts” is nominal; effective wattage will be some degree less.
APPROPRIATE WATTAGE: Calculate your power requirements FIRST and THEN buy Solar Panels that will keep the battery topped-up at at least the same level devices are drawing power from the battery.  You can only know what panels you require after you’ve determined what devices you want to power with the Solar Power System ie, a 96 watt 2018 MacBook and a printer of X watts
WEIGHT: My 200 watt panels panels weigh 5.15 KGs. If I bought the 150 watt model- (3)x50watt- I could have reduced their weight by 25%. Keep wattage sizing of panels as close to your actual power requirements as possible to avoid killing your luggage weight allowance.
PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS: Check length & width measurements of any panels (fully folded) BEFORE buying to ensure they’ll fit in your suitcase!

SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER: This device sits between your solar panels and battery storing panel’s DC output. Controller regulates flow of electricity from panels to battery ensuring panels don’t send 20v to a 12v battery.

(2) Types:  “PWM” vs “MPPT”:  Ref: https://www.solar4rvs.com.au/buying/buyer-guides/choosing-the-right-solar-charge-controller-regulat/

PWM (“PULSE MODULATION WIDTH”):
MPPT (“Maximum Power Point Tracking”):

REDUNDANCY: If Controller fails, you’re out of the game.  They’re not expensive and very lightweight, so only a downside to not keeping a spare.
BATTERY COMPATIBILITY: Ensure battery to be connected to Solar Controller compatible with battery. Do NOT connect the Controller to any random battery without checking compatibility, or you could damage the Controller.  The Controller’s user manual should have have details about battery compatibility, providing codes for battery types that work with it. Batteries will be discussed in §3 “12v BATTERY”(only b00-b03). Use below list to interpret codes specified in the Controller’s manual if required:

b00: Lithium Battery
b01: Sealed Battery
b02: Gel Battery
b03: Flood
b04: Iron Lithium 4 strands
b05: Iron Lithium 5 Strands
b06: Lithium Ion 3 Strands
b07: Lithium Ion 4 Strands

BATTERY:  The 12v battery receives DC output from Solar Panels (via Solar Charge Controller) and also supplies an Inverter connected to it which converts battery’s DC power to AC for end-user devices; your MacBook.  You require a battery “vocabulary” when Googling to source an appropriate one, or you either won’t know what to search for, or won’t be able to interpret the results.

COMPATIBILITY WITH SOLAR CONTROLLER:  Read your Controller’s user manual to determine what battery to source. Using a battery which is NOT can potentially damage Controller!
BATTERY CAPACITY (Ah):  A battery’s capacity is described in terms of “Ah” (“Amp Hour”), ie, a 100 Ah battery theoretically can power a  1 amp device for 100 hours, or a 10 amp device for 10 hours. However, this is a nominal number and MUST be multiplied by battery's “Depth of Discharge” to determine practical capacity of the battery.
“DEPTH OF DISCHARGE” (“DoD”): Large 12v batteries are not designed to be fully drained like a flashlight’s batteries. DoD is the *USABLE capacity  of a battery’s Ah rating, ie, a 100 Ah battery with a DoD 50% means that for all practical purposes your inverter is connected to a 50Ah battery.  Forget the other 50Ah, you can’t use it...
BATTERY TYPES:

STARTING, LIGHTING, IGNITION “SLI”: Batteries designed to start a car and power its’ lights.  “STI” batteries NOT desirable for use with Solar Power Systems. Shallow Depth of Discharge cycles- around ~10%. Not very suitable for Solar Power Systems.
DEEP CYCLE: Ideal battery for Solar Power Systems.  Deep Cycle batteries are  designed to have a much greater DoD over a sustained period- usually around 50%- then cranking batteries which can have a DoD of as high as 70%.  Check both Amazon & Google “12v Deep Cycle Batteries” and you’ll see many shops selling them in the following flavours:

LEAD ACID BATTERY:  Although “CALCIUM” is a type of “LEAD ACID” battery, it’s found in “SLI” (cranking”) batteries and should be avoided.  You’d probably be better off using a cigarette lighter powered inverter to power your devices off the rental vehicle’s battery. (2) Types Lead Acid Batteries:

FLOODED: When the term “FLOODED” is seen in a Solar Controller’s user manual it’s referring to a “wet” Lead Acid Battery found in cars. Being “flooded”, not desirable for environments of extremes of hot & cold. Identified by both apertures to add water and a “sloshing” noise when moved.  Cheaper to buy & have excellent comparative useful life, but require maintenance.  Unless you’re willing to be bothered maintaining them, avoid Flooded batteries.
VALVE REGULATED LEAD ACID (“VRLA”): Unlike “Flooded” batteries which CAN’T be sealed because of the need to add water to them, VRLA batteries are referred to as “SEALED** because they require no/little maintenance. More expensive than “Flooded” batteries. (2) Types:

Absorbed Glass Mat (“AGM”)
GEL

LITHIUM ION BATTERY: More expensive than LEAD ACID batteries and only have a 3 year life- regardless of use.

SIZING BATTERIES: Let’s put it all together. Your goal is to ensure the battery remains level- putting in an amount equal to what the devices connected to the inverter are sucking out of it. You want to avoid- or delay- as much as possible more draw-down than top-up as if you slip down to the DoD max, the inverter will (hopefully) start beeping and just shutdown. Ideally, size the battery a bit larger than you require- unless you can guarantee tomorrow won’t be a cloudy day. Since the Battery is rated in Ah, and our panels and inverter watts, we need to convert watt hours (“Wh”) for the panels and devices drawing on the battery through the inverter into Ah.
Using an example of 200 watt Solar Panels charging the battery and (2) x 96 watt MacBook Pros (2018) drawing on that battery for a 1 hour period:
 Solar Panels: 200 Watts  x 1 hour = 200 Wh
. MacBook: 192 Watts  x 1 hour = 170 Wh.
Next convert Wh into Ah:
 Solar Panels: 200  Wh / 12.7 volts = 15.74 Ah (Power Collection)
.  MacBook:          192  Wh / 12.7 volts = 15.12 Ah (Power Distributed) (https://convert-formula.com/ah-wh)
.  If you had a 75 Ah cranking battery with a DoD of 10%, that’s just 7.5 Ah available for the two MacBooks.  And not even that! there’s about ~10% loss when the Inverter converts the DC from the battery to AC for the MacBooks!  Hopefully this underscores the importance of both using Deep Cycle batteries.
SOURCING BATTERY ABROAD: Identify sources that sell/rent DEEP CYCLE batteries types compatible with your Solar Controller BEFORE travelling, or risk spending 1 or more days searching for suitable batteries or failing altogether.  In the US or Europe sourcing a Deep Cycle battery should be possible, but the more remote your destination, the more challenging sourcing a battery for your Solar Power System in-country will be.

INVERTER:  Converts battery’s Direct Current (DC) to Alternating Current (AC) when drawn by devices connected to inverter.

TYPES:

PURE SINE WAVE:  Best voltage waveform output, works with all devices
MODIFIED SINE WAVE: Cheaper alternative than Pure Sign Wave, but CAN (not guaranteed) introduce interference into audio equipment, monitors & TVs.  Not recommended for devices with “high surge” startup power requirements.  Modified sine wave also might not work with power tools and/or battery chargers for cordless tools.  Finally, I’ve read many people are using modified sine wave inverters to power computers without problems; YMMV…

APPROPRIATE WATTAGE:  (2) things you need to consider when choosing a wattage.

INVERTER CONTINUOUS AC OUTPUT POWER:  If the inverter is “1000” watts and the continuous wattage is 1000 watts, theoretically you should be able to power 10 x 1000 watt devices (assuming the battery and solar panels can support that!).  However, I bought a 500 watt Modified Sine Wave Inverter (it was cheap) only to read in the user manual the *continuous, was just 400 watts; 20% less than then advertised.  Do your homework to avoid surprises. First determine your wattage requirements for the devices you’ll connect to it.
INVERTER SURGE POWER: Check surge power wattage of inverter you’re considering buying can additionally meet surge power demand to accommodate any devices being greedy on startup.
CALCULATION: Add the wattage of the devices that you want to power off the inverter; it’s simple addition.  ie, (4) x 96 watt MacBook Pros 2018 and (1) x 85 watt MacBook Pro (2014) equals 469 watts.  My “500” watt Modified Sine Wave inverter would be insufficient for these requirements… I’d recommend using a Pure Sine Wave over the Modified and sizing the wattage higher than you require.

EFFICIENCY RATING: Percentage of DC input that is converted into AC output by inverter.  ie, an efficiency rating of 90% implies a 10% loss from the conversion.  So on the COLLECTION side of the system you need to factor this loss into your calculations sizing the Solar Panels & battery.
Inverter Cables Sizing: Although cables are packages with an inverter, If you need to buy longer ones, ensure you buy the correct gauge for your inverter’s wattage:
     General Recommendations:
     (Inverter Size/Cable Gauge)
 1000 Watts/#4
, 1500 Watts/#2
, 2000 Watts/#1/0
, 2500 Watts/#1/0
, 3000 Watts/#3/0

INSTALLATIONS INSTRUCTIONS: Physical Connectivity

PREPARATIONS:

Solar Panels: Closed (folded)
Inverter: Switched to the “Off” position
NEVER LET LIVE ELECTRIC LEADS TOUCH!!!!!

CONNECTION:

Connect SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER to BATTERY FIRST

NEGATIVE FIRST
Positive last

Connect SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER to SOLAR PANELS
Connect INVERTER to BATTERY

DISCONNECTION:

Disconnect INVERTER from BATTERY

POSITIVE FIRST
Negative Last

Disconnect SOLAR PANELS from SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER
Disconnect SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER from BATTERY LAST!!

The connections should look as follows:

That may seem a lot, but trust me: this is a huge subject and to condense all the key detail into this was a huge effort.  Hope it helps others trying to work off-grid tapping away happily on their MacBooks (or Min-Macs, iMacs, etc....).  I'll post the link to accompany this post which shows me charging my 85 watt MacBook 2014 using solar panels shortly.  Video is done, just have to render it and upload to YouTube, but thin connectivity at the 'mo.

UPDATE:

Having returned from the Omani Desert and sourcing a 5 meter extender cable to allow placing the battery and the inverter in the shade away from the solar panels, I've had a moment to pictorially document a more ideal configuration.

To avoid any ambiguity or confusion, everything is expressly labelled.

The Grounding Rod & cable for the inverter cost me the princely sum of £6.50:

If you still require further clarification, I've also created a companion video implementing my portable Solar Power solution in Oman which should fill in any questions about how confguring a portable solar power system-


Is it possible to order a replacement key?

I would try a local Apple Store or Mac repair shop. There's a good chance they have a few dead keyboards laying around that they'd be willing to give you a replacement key from.


Well, after trying other solutions of this and other threads to no avail, I stumbled upon this one-liner that did the trick for me:

$ sudo OPENSSL_INCLUDE=/usr/local/opt/openssl/include OPENSSL_LIB=/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT=1 perl -MCPAN -e "install Crypt::SSLeay"


Is it possible to configure wifi to disconnect more aggressively when the signal is weak?

There is a setting in iOS in Settings > General > Cellular -> Wi-Fi Assist, which uses the cellular data when wifi is bad.

However, this is on by default, so it may not be helping in your particular case.


MacBook Air won't start up, won't enter secure mode and repair in Disk Utility

It seems that you may be trying to fsck the wrong partition. You can use duskutil to find which disk is your boot disk

diskutil list

You're looking for something named usually "Macintosh HD" or "Yosemite". Try the fsck on that, and if you're still getting the "Resource busy" error, try to unmount it, either in the Disk Utility in recovery, or by using diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk# and trying again.

Hope this helps!


Can I force Safari to always show bookmark names, not webpage titles?

I have a similar workflow that I've used in Safari and I've used the Edit Name Feature to make it easier to move from one site to another.

If I bring up a chart of SSO in Stockcharts.com and create a Bookmark, the Bookmarks Toolbar Menu shows it as SSO - Stockcharts Workbench - Stockcharts.Com.

Then I "Show All Bookmarks", right-click (control click) edit the name SSO - Stockcharts Workbench - Stockcharts.Com to be just SSO.

This now appears as SSO on my bookmark toolbar list.  To switch to this bookmark, I can choose it under the Bookmarks menu or Bookmarks Toolbar.  What I usually do is use Cmd L which highlights the address bar, type SSO and Safari displays a short list of History and Bookmarks.  I scroll down to SSO under Bookmarks and hit "Enter" for my SSO chart.  This bypasses using the mouse and gets me right to the chart with just a few keystrokes.

As another example, I get to Apple with CMD L, AAPL, cursor down to AAPL site I want and hit Enter.

Here's a screenshot for AAPL with several bookmarked sites that include AAPL.

I like using Cmd L for two reasons.  I can move from one bookmark to another without needing to use my mouse or trackpad.  Plus the shortened SSO Name sits on my Bookmark Toolbar using much less space than if I added it to the Toolbar with the original bookmark title.


How to prevent browser from redirecting AT ALL using terminal

My parents have somehow got on my MacBook, and made it so that they
  can change any setting and view/modify my or their own internet
  traffic.

At a very minimum, this is a function called (Apple) Parental Controls and they are working exactly as designed.  There are also tons of other 3rd party control/monitoring applications that do exactly this.

  I believe all my internet traffic is being run through a homemade
  proxy which is how they achieve evil tyrant overlord status.

If all your network traffic is being run through a proxy/firewall/content gateway, you won't be able to bypass it especially if it's an all-in-one device like a pfSense gateway.

  Oh and my 2016 MacBook Pro thinks it's up to date and it's running OS
  is 10.3.3

It indicates it's up-to-date, because it is up to date.  There's nothing "non-standard" about your install of macOS.

  If someone could help me restore the MacBook to out of the box factory
  settings...

There are many tutorials on this site and on the web in general on how to restore macOS to factory settings.  However, I'm refraining from answering in this context because this is (appears to be) your parents' computer and network and there is one fundamental rule that we as professionals abide by:

Their Network = Their Rules

Whether it's your parents or a network admin at your place of work, going around them won't do anything to win their trust.


Mac OS X file system and tagging question

No, I don't think so.  Spotlight indexes files in order for quick searching.  Once indexed, a file is very quick to find, the part that takes time is the actual indexing.  I suppose you could argue that the act of moving a file might cause it to be re-indexed (now that it's in a new location), but I don't know enough about how Spotlight works to be sure.  Either way, the difference you would notice would be minimal.  Once the initial indexing is done, the time spent adjusting the indexes is not big.


Is the i7 2.3 Ghz CPU significantly faster than the 2.2 one?

Even in CPU-intensive tasks, the difference is going to be more of the "noticeable in synthetic benchmarks" variety, rather than "I see it in the real world" variety. I'd save the money and put it first towards an SSD option, then more RAM.

Processor speed is almost flat these days, so minor bumps aren't worth the money.

My very aging MacPro got a new lease on life when I replaced the boot disk with an SSD earlier this year. There's nothing better for improving perceived responsiveness.


Is there a keyboard shortcut to shut down OSX?

Cmd ⌘   Opt ⌥   Ctrl ⌃   Power ⌽  will perform a standard shutdown, asking to if you wish to save open documents first.

There's a list of OS X shortcuts at Apple KB Mac keyboard shortcuts


I've started using an application called DTerm in the last few weeks, and it could help to make this task relatively painless.

The point of DTerm is to provide a command line specific to where you are, and with context to the application you're in. While you're in the Finder, DTerm provides a command line in the current folder in the front-most/active window you're viewing.

I have an Applications folder in my Home Folder, and a symlink called bin pointing to it for compatibility's-sake.

Note how the folder icon carries the standard Applications icon, but has the shortcut arrow.

By invoking DTerm using a configured keyboard shortcut, I can immediately rename that folder.

There's three things going on here:

The input field which I've typed the command into.
The command line is expanded/returned for things like variables and globbing (using the * for matching files).
The empty field under the returned command is a static text field for output/errors. Neither of which occur when using the mv command, at least not in my invocation.

And then of course, I rename it back:

Best of all? DTerm is available completely free of charge. The link at the top of this post will take you to the author's website, and here is a DTerm Mac App Store Link.


Configuring XAMPP on macOS Sierra (version 10.12.6)

I think the problem is that you installed the XAMPP VM version that executes a virtual machine on macOS. Check on the XAMPP website and download the normal version.
Hope this is the case and that this info helps.


Is there a way to password protect individual apps?

Regarding your comment on Paul's answer, wanting to leave your computer for a moment: you have to lock your computer. Period.

Open System Preferences, click Security (top row, second to last option), under the "General" tab, check the box for "Require password [immediately] after sleep or screen saver begins".

Then, when you go to walk away from your computer;

Ctrl ⌃+Shift ⇧+Eject ⏏

(Additional notes: Click the above line.)

Lock your Mac. Walk away. Come back, enter your password to unlock it. Secured console.


Part of the 16GB is taken up by iOS. The system usage screen won't show a category for the OS itself because there's nothing you can do about it.

Your device is coming up on about five years old. Modern device will perform much better on a more resource intensive OS. You could try a restore but really I think it's just that the new features and technologies aren't well optimized or are simply too much for it.


The best way to resolve issues where a device is not connecting to iTunes is to uninstall and re-download iTunes. This has almost always worked for me and is also high on the list of things to do when troubleshooting this type of issue on Apple's website.

The list details are

Update iTunes
Restart iPhone
Recharge iPhone
Check USB connections
Restart Computer
Reinstall iTunes (Windows)
Resolve Software Conflicts

If all these steps fail Apple reccomends

Make an appointment with a Genius or Contact Apple Technical Support


If you want to automatically log in, you need to disable FileVault. A permanent work around would compromise your encryption entirely as described in this Support Article

You can use the fdesetup command to do a one time, immediate reboot and bypass the user log in step. This is designed for unattended reinstallations and works well in my experience if you need to restart and will be attending it physically so as not to lose control of your encrypted system.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202918


Prevent Safari from auto-completing a URL incorrectly?

One simple way is to use a keyboard shortcut to remove the incorrect auto entry.

Highlight the incorrect entry like the:

  plus.url.google.com

and pres fn+shift+delete


iCloud: How to rename a folder on macOS Sierra?

Try renaming your folders from the command line, by typing the following into Terminal:

cd ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs
mv "oldFolderName" "newFolderName"


Dock freezing and right click and expose doesn't work

Found this in SuperUser:

  It looks like your dock has died. If you can get into Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal, I think), try sudo killall Dock. This'll crash-close the Dock, and it should restart happily. If it doesn't, logout and back in again.


Actually that is pretty easy, and pretty easy to overlook.

Open a new finder window
Press ⌘ Command  ,
Click on the leftmost icon, "General"

Near the bottom there is a pop-up menu, "New Finder windows show:"
Select the location you want from that menu. You will note my Finder windows open with my Home folder, YMMV...


Right-click on your folder in Dock and choose "List" for "View content as".


Both shell- and AppleScripts can be used just about anywhere either is appropriate.

AppleScripts work better when talking to apps and user-level system facilities. (For instance, you can say tell app "iTunes" to play and it will, or tell app "Finder" to open the first file of the second window.)

Shell scripts (you referred to bash) work better when talking to low-level system objects and Unixy stuff.

They're both interoperable: you can call a shell command from AppleScript with do shell script "command here" and you can call AppleScript code from the shell with osascript -e "AppleScript". Further, there's quite a bit of overlap between the two (especially when it comes to file system operations).

There are certainly more resources for learning shell scripting online than AppleScript and it doesn't help that AppleScript has a reputation for being a "read-only" language (i.e., harder to write than read).

In any case, the most modern way to do scripting is with Automator, where you can use either shell- or AppleScripting (or both) along with pre-built modules from various apps you have installed.


Update from Mac OS X 10.6.8 to the newest version

Here's how Apple says you can upgrade via their macOS upgrade page.  You need to install an intermediate upgrade first.

Upgrading from OS X Snow Leopard

If you’re running Snow Leopard (10.6.8) and your Mac supports macOS Sierra, you will need to upgrade to El Capitan from the App Store first. Then you can update to Sierra.

Upgrading from OS X Leopard

If you’re running Leopard and would like to upgrade to macOS Sierra, first you’ll need to upgrade to OS X Snow Leopard. You can purchase OS X Snow Leopard from the Apple Online Store. Then upgrade to El Capitan as above, and then to Sierra.


The Secure Boot Chain is a succession of steps designed to check and verify the integrity of the iOS. As it ensures too that the iOS runs only on validated Apple device, I'd say that it has been like this since the beginning.


Troubleshooting a MacBook Pro that is not charging from power

It sounds to me like a hardware failure. I've seen a couple others fail. I would recommend taking it to the Genius bar - they may replace the power supply for free (don't bank on it though). I believe they replaced my brother's free.

Are there any other power supplies around that you could test? If not, it will be tested at the Apple store


According to Apple's Service FAQ:

  Apple accessories (including the power adapter and Apple iPhone cases) are also covered by Apple's One Year Limited Warranty. Online service might not be available through Apple for all accessories. Contact your carrier, Apple, or an Apple Authorized Service Provider for details.
  Read Apple’s One Year Limited Warranty for iPhone Accessories

Warranty coverage may vary depending on the country you are in, so please verify this for your country.


How can I tell Apple iCloud to forget or delete system configuration settings?

iCloud does not sync settings like mouse pointer speed. If these settings are appearing on a new system, it means you have implemented an alternative syncing method (inadvertently or not).


How do I pass the following error message in the Boot Camp Assistant: "Please format the USB drive as single FAT partition."?

After some trial and error, I finally figured out what the problem was and found a solution. Hopefully this will help those who come across this thread with the same problem.

The problem: Reformatting using Disk Utility did not create a child partition, but only formatted the whole drive as FAT. In Disk Utility one can derive this from the "Partition" button being greyed out when the USB drive is selected. In Terminal, the diskutil list command shows the USB drive having only one DeviceNode (labelled 0).

The solution: Reformatting the USB drive using diskutil in Terminal. This is the command line equivalent of Disk Utility, but unlike its GUI Counterpart, it creates a child partition, which in turn solves the error thrown by Boot Camp Assistant.

WARNING: Proceed with caution! If you have never used a command line interface before, you might want to ask a tech-savvy friend for help. I take no responsibility for the outcome of this. If you fry your hardware in the process, that's on you. Good luck!

Stepwise:

Open the Terminal application. You can find it by searching Spotlight for "Terminal" (sans quotes).
In Terminal, type diskutil list and hit enter.
Look at the results and determine the identifier of your target USB drive. It will look like this: /dev/diskX. If you have only one external drive connected, this should be easy to figure out (hint: behind the identifier it says (internal, ...) or (external, ...)).
Run the following command to reformat your USB drive: diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskX 1 MBR fat32 NAME 8G. Replace /dev/diskX with the identifier of your drive which you obtained in the previous step. Replace NAME with the name you want to give the partition (which essentially doesn't matter). Make it all CAPS to avoid problems. Replace 8 in 8G with the number of Gigabytes you want your partition to have. It's easiest to just go with the total size of your USB drive.
Wait for it to complete.
Verify the output. The end of the command's output should show the formatting of your drive. You should see two DeviceNodes: 0, of type FDisk_partition_scheme, and 1, of type DOS_FAT_32 and with the identifier diskXs1 where X is a digit corresponding to the identifier you found in step 3.
Run Boot Camp Assistant again and be happy because it finally works like a charm.


Why is the volume so low on a Mac Mini 2018 minijack output audio when to connected to a receiver?

This is because the jacks on the Mac are not line level inputs/outputs.

I wrote an answer to a question in a similar vane that addresses this in much more detail: Use 3.5mm jack as line in for a musical instrument

But, to summarize it here, the audio jack is putting out a signal in milivolts that enough to drive a simple microphone, a headset or some small speakers.  When you connect to the line input of a piece of AV equipment, it's expecting a much higher voltage - ~1.5V.  So, what you need is something that acts as a pre-amp.


You say you installed it using MacPorts but you tried to uninstall it using Homebrew? Homebrew has no knowledge that you installed it using MacPorts. Use MacPorts to uninstall:

port uninstall gprolog

If that's not the case, you can manually remove the following files instead:


MacBook discharging while plugged in under load

It is a known problem: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3069428
Someone has calculated the max wattage draw of a MBPr, but I can't find that a.t.m.


Where has dictation and speech gone on Sierra?

It's moved to the keyboard settings. Apple - System Preferences - Keyboard - Dictation.

I used the Search feature in System Preferences to find it. I didn't even know there was a search feature...


What is the difference between Home and Host drives on my windows Virtual Machine (Parallels)?

Though your Parallels tech support service has expired, they do have Parallels Desktop for Mac forums, where you can ask for help, and find previous answers.

In particular, I found a relevant answer for you by eiraf-kr in the Parallels Forums.

  A user's "Home" folder is a common feature of Unix-y OSes, such as Unix, BSD, Linux, and OSX (since it's built up from a BSD core). You won't find any "Home" folder in Windows -- the closest you get is C:\Documents and Settings[username]\ instead.

  When you share your "Home" folder from your host Mac to the guest Windows machine, I think there's an option to have Parallels map the shared folders to Windows drives. (I say "I think" because I'm not in front of my Mac at the moment.) They'll then show up as extra drives in Windows Explorer, such as K: or R:.

  If you don't opt to have Parallels map your shared folders, I believe they'll appear under Network Places in the locations pane on the left of an Explorer window (this is for XP; I assume Win7 has something similar). Alternately, you can type \psf\Home into the Explorer URL bar. You can then opt to manually map such network paths to Windows drives for easier access. I've mapped my "Home" folder to the Z: drive in Windows, for instance.


Why is Audacity 2.3.X not recording audio input on macOS Catalina, plus workaround

There is a work-around for this, and I wanted to share it here as yet another avenue to seeking this information.

1) Go to Applications > Utilities

2) Launch Terminal.app

3) in the Terminal dialog type the following command following command:
open /Applications/Audacity.app/Contents/MacOS/Audacity

This will open Audacity and then Terminal will actually ask for the correct permissions.

this assume that Audacity is stored in your Applications folder. If it is somewhere else, you will need to change the path in the above command:
open /*location of audacity*/Audacity.app/Contents/MacOS/Audacity

Since microphone access permissions granted in Mojave do not pass through to Catalina. Once you have granted this access in Catalina you should not be asked for it again when relaunching Audacity with this workaround method.


How to delete a trusted s/mime certificate for a contact in iOS7

You should be able to view and remove certificates or S/Mime if you go to:

Mail, Contacts and Calender
Go to your mail account
Click advanced
Uncheck S/Mime or remove the certificate

Please also check out this Official Apple Guide
By clicking the name in the Mail.App you should be able to revoke the certificate.

Check this image:


Changing default email color in Mail.app does not take effect

Apple doesn't yet offer the feature you want.  There are various workarounds like reusing a draft where you have set the color you want, creating custom stationery, composing your message as part of a sig set to your desired color, etc.


How do I identify adware when browsing Apple's App Store?

As far as I know, there is not an equivalent in the App Store.
If this is a feature you'd like to see implemented, go here to leave product feedback.


Why is Safari ignoring my /etc/hosts file?

I had a slightly different version of the same problem, and thought I'd mention what worked for me.

I develop websites.  To do that, I have a complete copy of each site running on my local network.  When I wish to work locally, I have always just added an entry for "example.com" to my local /etc/hosts file, and that has always overridden DNS, making it possible for me to access the local copy of the website in any browser, including Safari and Firefox.  I can work without affecting the actual live site, then upload changes when they're complete.

Recently, however, this technique stopped working for both Safari and Firefox, but not for Chrome, so for a while I was limited to using Chrome for local development.  I searched google and tried all the suggested fixes -- CR at the end of the hosts file, only one entry per line, various Firefox configuration changes using "about:config", etc.  Nothing worked.

Then I tried this simple thing:  in addition to putting the IPV4 version of the address in the /etc/hosts file, I also put the IPV6 version.

Before:

10.0.1.23       example.com

After:

10.0.1.23       example.com
0:0:0:0:0:FFFF:0A00:0117        example.com

As soon as I added the IPV6 entry, both Firefox and Safari started hitting the correct (local) server.

There are various websites that will translate IPV4 addresses to IPV6; just do a google search on "ipv4 to ipv6".


Can I use the same iTunes account on all my devices?

This is what the official Apple documentation says:

Your Apple ID can have up to 10 devices and computers (combined)
associated with it. Each computer must also be authorized using the
same Apple ID. Once a device or computer is associated with your Apple
ID, you cannot associate that device or computer with another Apple ID
for 90 days. You can view which devices or computers are currently
associated, remove unused devices or computers, and see how long
before they can be associated with a different Apple ID from the
Account Information page in iTunes on your computer.
Last Modified: November 14, 2011


Why do Apple Store insist on decrypting FileVault to run diagnostics?

In my experience they don't insist anything except you ensure you have a backup of the data should service erase it.

If they don't have your password, they can boot to another OS to test. If the issue is your software, they won't be able to advise - but even knowing you have OK hardware will help you then finish the troubleshooting.

Perhaps your frustration with the repair is coloring your recollection? It would take them 15 minutes to wipe your drive and test things and if you aren't in a position to fulfill that portion of the repair agreement that's causing the delay and both sides regret entering into the agreement that wasn't "by the book". Keep in mind if they have to take hours to work around your not having a backup - other customers are delayed in their repair and maybe that along with the high volume of repairs that happen at the end of the school year.

Perhaps the time quote was incorporating the backlog and not that your machine itself was taking that long on the test bench.


You can configure two locations in your network settings and then configure the proxy for your work location in the advanced settings.


Editing the master of a single slide in Keynote

It is the purpose of masters to make all slides look the same - you cannot ask to have masters and differently looking slides at the same time.

Copy the master, modify it and assign that one slide to the modified master.


How do I add cells together on OS X numbers app

The error at the bottom of your screenshot is from a previous entry. The Result bar does not update as you type—it updates when the cell contents changes. There's nothing wrong with that formula. Press Enter to enter the formula into the cell.

As for adding cells: whilst in formula edit mode, click the cell to insert its reference into the current cursor location, and use the standard syntax (something+something).


Issue with installation of FFMPEG and Homebrew due to low HDD size?

On my system the necessary Command Line Tools take up some 303.6MB (I am using macOS Sierra 10.12.3 on a 2012 AirBook). Also, for what it is worth /Applications/XCode.app is only ~6+GB on this same computer.

I don't know that this is a comprehensive storage requirement assessment, but...
~300MB for /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/
~125MB for /usr/local/Homebrew/
~_60MB for /usr/Cellar/ffmpeg/
~ 500MB Total Storage

STEP ONE:

To install Command Line Tools without the full Xcode install:

$ xcode-select --install

See also this step-by-step guide.

To uninstall simply delete the folder /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/

STEP TWO:

To install Homebrew:

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

When using Homebrew, it's good to run brew commands such as
brew update &
brew doctor
...prior to installations. See here for some brewing tips.

To uninstall Homebrew:

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"

  Download the uninstall script and run ./uninstall --help to view more uninstall options.

STEP THREE:

To install the most basic ffmpeg with Homebrew:

$ brew install ffmpeg

After installing ffmpeg confirm that ffplay, ffprobe and ffserver have successfully installed and are available in your command line by using, for example:

$ ffplay -version

If they are not all available, you may need to use the following brew command:

$ brew unlink ffmpeg && brew link ffmpeg

Some ffmpeg resources:
FFmpeg documentation: http://ffmpeg.org/documentation.html
An FFmpeg support forum - http://ffmpeg.gusari.org/
"FFmpeg Basics" by Frantisek Korbel

To uninstall ffmpeg with Homebrew:

$ brew uninstall ffmpeg


What is the maximum/optimized size of the OSX photos.app library?

So after some time (learning python on how to monitor and plot library size and disk usage) this is what I have observed regarding my first question. As written by @will-mallard and @bmike the optimizer targes for percentage free disk space. As shown below: the size of the picture library increases and decreases together with my disk usage. During those three days I did not use my mac book air for work. I only added pictures two times.

Over a longer time scale, one can see the reduction of picture library disc space over time while I was working on my macbook.

My followup question is now:
What triggers the optimization? At first I thought it is some kind of free space threshold. But as it is easily seen in the last plot, something at the 24th May triggered a reduction of library space. I am not sure what that was.


How do I install MacOS Sierra DMG to Bootable USB?

Here's what you need to do, you have two options:

Use Internet Recovery to install Yosemite, like you were doing earlier, and then either upgrade to macOS Sierra via the App Store or just download the macOS Sierra upgrade to create a macOS Sierra USB Installer from.
To create a macOS Sierra USB Installer you need a working Mac so you can download macOS Sierra from the App Store and with a blank USB stick run this command via Terminal. Make sure you first reformat the USB stick using Disk Utility to Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). Also rename the USB stick to: Untitled

Use the following command:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app --nointeraction

Then perform a clean install using the macOS Sierra USB Installer.


For plaintext tabs, you don't need to replace the entire TextEdit app to change it. I looked at the source code and it provides the simpler answer: Open the Terminal and type

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit "TabWidth" '4'

Where '4' is the number of spaces a tab should be.


Upgrade to Catalina erased all data, have backups but how to restore applications/software?

The Migration Assistant is the program on any Mac that allows you to transfer in or out data and applications. I would connect your backup drive and then start the assistant.
It will then show you the information from the most recent backup or if there are many backups and the system can’t tell which backup was on your Mac, you can choose from the many destinations that can be saved to one Time Machine drive.
You can bring in accounts, settings, applications or a mix of some or all of the above.
Here is Apple’s support article that I think does a good job of the overall design and intent of this process.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204350

Since Catalina has excellent support for containers, the old steps to reinvoke the assistant are a bit complicated. If you don’t have anything on your new system, erasing the content / reinstalling in an erase install might be much easier now that you are on Catalina.


Boot up error prohibitory sign flashing folder with question mark

Try an erase and install, instead of just reinstalling OS X.

Back up your files and boot into an external install media (not the Recovery HD).
Open Disk Utility, select the internal disk and repartition it to 1 partition.
Install OS X normally, then restore your files.


Automator service for encrypting or decrypting with openssl

Select the service template, change the input type to files, add a Run Shell Script action, select pass input as arguments, and paste this script:

pass() {
    osascript - "$1" <<END
    on run args
    tell app (path to frontmost application as text)
    text returned of (display dialog ("Enter password for " & item 1 of args) default answer "")
    end
    end
END
    [ $? != 0 ] && exit 0
}

for f in "$@"; do
    if [[ "$f" == *.enc ]]; then
        pass "$f" | openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -pass stdin -in "$f" -out "${f%.enc}"
    else
        pass "$f.enc" | openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -pass stdin -in "$f" -out "$f.enc"
    fi
done
exit 0

It doesn't show specific error messages, you have to run the service again if you enter a wrong password, and there is no way to use the same password for multiple files. It would be easier to just do it from a shell.


Can a Mac act as Bluetooth receiver for sound?

I found a solution using Airplay instead of Bluetooth, but I guess that is better anyway. The solutions is described in detail here

http://davidbo.livejournal.com/795.html

(page is added to Wayback Machine in case it disappears).


How can I use the keyword box to add keywords to a sequence of pictures without using the mouse?

The solution is actually quite simple.
Aperture => Commands => Customize

This brings up means to map any key to any command.

The desired command is "Add New Keyword"  It defaults to being mapped to command backtick, which I find awkward.  I remapped to Command K.  This overwrites a command used for stacks, but I don't use stacks much.

This allows me to go Command right arrow to select the next photo, then command-K to put the cursor in the bottom add keywords window.


Can't authenticate using SSH key when running script via launchd

So this is what I ended up doing to get it working. For my use case it is sufficient, but I don''t think it's the best solution. Hopefully someone (see @Allan's comments in OP) can come up with a more universal solution.

I added the -e option to my rsync statement which allows you to specify the exact ssh command used.

rsync -auvzP  -e "ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa_scripts" '/Volumes/Norman Data/me/Documents' me@example.com:backup/

The important part in there is ~/.ssh/id_rsa_scripts - I generated a secondary set of keys for that server, with this set having no passphrase. This is different from how I connect to that box via SSH by default and thus why it needed to be specified in the rsync command.

That was the only way I could get it to work when running unattended (as a Global Daemon). Although it is ok under my set of circumstances, a passphrase-less key is not the best idea in many situations, which is why this is not the ** best ** solution.

Hopefully someone can figure out a way to allow launchd to execute a script requiring SSH authentication using keys with a passphrase.


Mac app for automatically closing / opening certain apps according to profiles?

If you are willing to pay some money for it there is the excellent Keyboard Maestro which can do a lot of things. There you can close and open Apps easily.

If you do not want to spend money I suggest you take some time to learn Apple Script. This is a free scripting language provided by Apple. Alternatively you can use shell scripts but I am not so sure if you can easily check which apps are running or not.


You need to let us know how many times the light blinks, because they are diagnostic indicators. If it's blinking 3 times then pause, then 3 times again then it's an indication of a bad RAM. If it beeps 3 times, it's also an indication of bad ram.
However, if it blinks 5 times and pauses, then the battery might need diagnostics or replacing. So check.


How do a create an iPhoto Smart Album of ANY of the names X, Y or Z but only for the year 2013

It's not possible with iPhoto smart albums because you can't combine a conjunction with a disjunction in the same smart folder.  This would work, in a convoluted way, if iPhoto let you use a smart folder as an input, but unfortunately it doesn't (i.e., Album is MY_SMART_XYZ_ALBUM AND date is 2013).  iTunes can do this, but apparently not iPhoto.  Theoretically, it's possible to create "dumb" albums with smart contents in Automator, though.  It should also be possible to filter a conjunctive set of elements with a subsequent disjunctive criterion.  But I'm not sure how fast this would perform.


Macbook keeps rebooting on installation USB after trying to reinstall - EFI partition empty

Here I assume your internal drive is a single HDD or SSD. In other words, I assume you do not have a Fusion drive.

While booted to the USB installer, open a Terminal application window.

Enter the following commands to reinitialize your internal drive. Substitute the desired name for your installation volume for the name "Tommy".

diskutil  unmountdisk  disk0
gpt  destroy  /dev/disk0
gpt  create  /dev/disk0
diskutil  partitiondisk  disk0  apfs  "Tommy"  R

Exit the Terminal application and try installing macOS.


How to create a binary plist file from the command line on OS X?

You could also create an XML or old-style property list and convert it with plutil:

plutil -convert binary1 test.plist

It modifies files in place by default. You can specify a different output file with -o or print to stdout with -o -.


How to replace rather than add tags in MacOS?

A native solution:

Define a custom keyboard shortcut for the Finder.app in Settings > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts. Map the menu item “Tags…” to some keyboard shortcut, I used ⌘ CommandS.
Now, selecting any file and hitting ⌘ CommandS brings up a little window where you can enter your tags.

⌘ CommandA selects all existing tags, you can then write your new tags and confirm with enter.

This means you can replace all tags of a file with “Important” by typing ⌘ CommandS, ⌘ CommandA, “Important”, ⏎ Return, ⏎ Return.
The window also does completion of tags, so a (case-insensitive) unique prefix of the desired tag name is enough.


How to dock multiple screens in a single screen?

The dock has two sides. One side of the dock is for running and not-running Apps. The other side holds the trash can and all folders, documents and minimized application windows.

I've uploaded some retina sized images with an obscenely large hello arrow to show the dividing line.

When your dock is on the bottom, look for this dark thin line.

When your dock is on a side, look for a light set of bars.


How to search through online сhеss games using AppleScript or Automator?

Thank you for trying to help me but someone has already done it. This question can be marked as solved. Here is his script (all credit goes to him):

set retiList to {}
set theStart to 84094500
set theEnd to 84094600
repeat with gameRef from theStart to theEnd
  set theScript to ("curl 'http://www.instantchess.com/?EXP=1&GPI=" & gameRef as string) & "'"
  set theSource to do shell script theScript
  if theSource contains "reti" then
   set end of retiList to gameRef
  end if
end repeat
retiList


You can enable "Show Invisibles" from View > Show Invisibles or ⌘ Command+⇧ Shift+I to see these "invisible" characters in Pages. These are invisibles that appear when the selection highlight goes over their area, and disappear when unhighlighted. For identification purposes they're usually colored blue.

To add a non-invisible paragraph symbol (or any other delimiter of your choice), ⌃ Control+⌘ Command+Space should bring up a "Characters" window, from which you can double-click on any character to add it to the current text field.

The characters under this window follow their Unicode specification, so some names might seem a little weird (e.g. "Place of Interest Sign" for "⌘").  The name for the Paragraph symbol is "Pilcrow".


After doing some research I found the answer.  You have to run this command:

SetFile -a e <filename>

In effect, this says "Set the file extension attribute (-a e) so that the extension is not hidden.  If the extension were not hidden and you wanted to hide it, you would substitute "E" for "e".

To see all of a file's attributes, run this command:

GetFileInfo <filename>

A description of all the attributes can be found here.


Is it possible to change the order of contextual menu items?

I don't think that it is possible to reorder Services in the context menu.

Here is the predefined order of Services in the contextual menu:

Local services (those available to all users).
The user's services.
Base system services.
Services that are loaded from the various applications that may have them.
Contextual menu plugins (located in the various /Library/Contextual Menu Items folders).

The Services in the context menu are sorted in reverse alphabetical order.

Apple is so strange sometimes.

I don't know if others are the same way, but my brain is not sharp enough to quickly, mentally run through the alphabet in reverse. It probably takes me three times as long to scan through a list to find what I want (when a list is in reverse alphabetical order).

I have one (admittedly unsatisfying) workaround to order one's Services
alphabetically.

In Finder, navigate to:

  /Users/Me/Library/Services/

This is where one's custom Services are necessarily saved.

Sort the files in reverse alphabetical order in Finder by clicking on the "Name" header. First, rename the file that starts with the letter in the alphabet that is closest to Z. Specifically, add spaces to the front of the Service name. For this Service in particular, the number of spaces that precede the name should be equivalent to the total number of custom Services in this folder, minus one.

Do this for all of your Services, adding one fewer space to the front of the filename as you progress, until you reach the file that starts with the letter in the alphabet that is closest to A. You can leave this file alone; the filename should contain no leading spaces. The more spaces that a filename begins with, the closer to the bottom of the context menu that that Service appears. You want this Service to appear in the very first slot. Thus, no space.

In short, one can use spaces as an informal way of manipulating the context menu's ordering of Services system-wide.

Once these updated titles appear in your context menu,*(see my below note) they will finally be in alphabetical order. The downside to this workaround, of course, is that now your context menu looks like the side profile of a staircase. Visually, it looks like each Service is nested within the previous Service, which may or may not bug you more than having your Services ordered in reverse.

Me? I would rather have the staircase.

*The process of how Service names are reflected in the context menu, in my experience, is haphazard. Sometimes, the Service title updates immediately after I change its filename in Finder. Other times, even after I restart my computer, the new name doesn't show up in the context menu.

I have found that the method that I describe here is the only 100% reliable way to have a new Service name reflected in the context menu.


afconvert: Difference between AAC formats: 'aac ' 'aace' 'aacf' 'aach' 'aacl' 'aacp' 'alac' 'paac'

The "names" stem from the four char values defined in the Software Development Kit for CoreAudio. Specifically, they are from the header CoreAudioTypes.h. You can find the documentation here.

enum {
kAudioFormatLinearPCM               = 'lpcm',
kAudioFormatAC3                     = 'ac-3',
kAudioFormat60958AC3                = 'cac3',
kAudioFormatAppleIMA4               = 'ima4',
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC                = 'aac ',
kAudioFormatMPEG4CELP               = 'celp',
kAudioFormatMPEG4HVXC               = 'hvxc',
kAudioFormatMPEG4TwinVQ             = 'twvq',
kAudioFormatMACE3                   = 'MAC3',
kAudioFormatMACE6                   = 'MAC6',
kAudioFormatULaw                    = 'ulaw',
kAudioFormatALaw                    = 'alaw',
kAudioFormatQDesign                 = 'QDMC',
kAudioFormatQDesign2                = 'QDM2',
kAudioFormatQUALCOMM                = 'Qclp',
kAudioFormatMPEGLayer1              = '.mp1',
kAudioFormatMPEGLayer2              = '.mp2',
kAudioFormatMPEGLayer3              = '.mp3',
kAudioFormatTimeCode                = 'time',
kAudioFormatMIDIStream              = 'midi',
kAudioFormatParameterValueStream    = 'apvs',
kAudioFormatAppleLossless           = 'alac'
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC_HE             = 'aach',
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC_LD             = 'aacl',
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC_ELD            = 'aace',
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC_ELD_SBR        = 'aacf',
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC_HE_V2          = 'aacp',
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC_Spatial        = 'aacs',
kAudioFormatAMR                     = 'samr',
kAudioFormatAudible                 = 'AUDB',
kAudioFormatiLBC                    = 'ilbc',
kAudioFormatDVIIntelIMA             = 0x6D730011,
kAudioFormatMicrosoftGSM            = 0x6D730031,
kAudioFormatAES3                    = 'aes3'
};


Can I hide the "All on My iPhone" option in iPhone's Contacts app?

Unless you manually go to that "All on My iPhone" section and add a contact, contacts would be created by default on the account you're viewing, i.e. Gmail. Just keep the Contacts app viewing only the Gmail contact list and you should be fine.

iOS5 now has a Default Account option under Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Contacts (section) (Credit to Peter for the update)


How to securely delete individual files (documents) on the iPhone?

This app in Cydia seems like it would do the trick (provided it works as advertised):

http://cydia.saurik.com/package/iwipe/

The app works by making a very large file that takes up all the free space in the user memory and writes zeros to all the bits. So to securely delete individual files, one would simply (insecurely) delete them (marking them as free space), and then wipe free space with the above app.


How can I merge two similar-but-not identical folders?

You can open Terminal and use one of the following (rsync would probably be the one for you if you want something that won't be completely lost if you halt the process):

The standard UNIX way

cp -R -v source/. destination

The geeky UNIX way (restartable)

rsync -vaEW source/ destination

The OSX "easy" way

ditto -V source destination

Source


How to create a blank RTF file in AppleScript inside current folder?

If you want to use the code in that linked answer, as is, and modify it to do exactly what it's presently doing with the exception of creating the RTF file at the location the Finder window is set to, via the .app added to the Toolbar in Finder, then change the following line of code:

Change:

set theCustomRichTextFilePathname to ((path to desktop) & customFilename & ".rtf") as string

To:

tell application "Finder"
    set theCustomRichTextFilePathname to ((folder of the front window as string) & customFilename & ".rtf") as string
end tell

Then save it as an AppleScript .app, not .scpt, and drag and drop it onto the Toolbar in Finder.

While that technically answers your question, nonetheless there's probably other code that may/will need to be modified, but that gets you started.


Protecting the palm-rest area of a MBP with a non-permanent cover

I love a clean mac and have seen all sorts of ones with all manner of paint, grease, and plain old skin oil and dirt. I would worry about the keyboard more than the palm rests. (the area with speaker perforations and the keyboard tray area)

I always start with plain water to clean, then move to either alcohol or a light detergent (very watery mix) with no colors or scents if possible. I use that all over the mac - but the aluminum area you indicated is both solid and not affected by much stronger cleaners. I have seen macs with nail polish and acrylic paints come clean in that area.

As long as your cloth is damp and not dripping, even cleaning the trackpad area won't introduce liquid to the battery bay. It's of course best to have the mac off, just in case there is a spill to avoid a short.


OSX Yosemite Can't disable four-finger swipe

I resolved this issue by keeping four-finger-swipe as the change spaces gesture, and using three-finger-swipe as my custom gesture instead.


Is there a way to use Siri with my Bluetooth?

Most wireless headsets use a double tap of the main button for voice commands (like Siri)

You are trying to use it like wired headphones that have the controller by trying with the hold of the main button

If it has a second button also try double pressing or holding it


Lion seems to use a lot more memory than Snow Leopard. I had to upgrade my 2 year old iMac from 4GB to 8GB of memory, and it still feels slow sometimes. You may want to avoid the Lion upgrade if you have less than 4GB of memory, and definitely if you have less than 2GB.


Under Usage my Messages shows 1.1GB Used but I don't see any messages. How can I find and delete them?

I got this tip from http://www.igeeksblog.com/how-to-clear-message-imessage-cache-on-iphone-ipad/

You’ll need:

iBackupbot (Download)
Your iPhone/iPad
PC/Mac running latest version of iTunes

Follow these steps:

Backup your iPhone or iPad through iTunes. (Connect your iDevice to
the PC/Mac, under the devices in iTunes, right click on your device
and click on Backup Now; alternatively, you can also use the Back Up
option from the Summary tab)
Open iBackupbot
From the sidepane, navigate to System Files > Mediadomain > Library >
SMS > Attachments
All the folders within Attachments are your Message cache containing
all photos, video and media that you sent/received. Clear them out.
At its best, delete all folders.
Click on “Restore” so your iPhone is now restored to this backup.

Obviously, it doesn’t end here. If you have an iCloud backup already, you might have to flush that too. Go to Settings → iCloud → Storage & Backup and clear out any backup that exists. You can create a new backup.


How to turn off fireworks on my phone after texting "Happy New Year" and any future shenanigans?

Go to Settings and then tap on Accessibility. in Accessibility go to Motion. The new pane that opens has a switch to turn off "Auto-Play Message Effects". Turn this off and that should solve your problem.


A very good app that I currently use is Spectacle. It is not an official app of the App Store, but it is open source and it does perfectly what you are looking for.
Just download the app, open it and it's done. There are a lot of pre-defined shortcuts for dealing with the window size the way you like, like in this pic:

As you see, if you click on the "glasses" icon, you can see all the shortcuts to minimise, maximise or just change the size of the window.
Of course, these keys are fully customisable. I really like this app.


I would definitely use the EyeTV software. Now for the signal - over the air broadcast are great, but you have to triangulate the signal. So, if the nearest tower is on the opposite side of the building you're in, then the signal has to pass through the building before it gets to your antennae. I would look up the nearest tower on the web, get your Hybrid as close to that direction as you can, and/or add an actual antennae to the Hybrid - the device by itself is basically just a converter/tuner. I've also been able to plug in a cable or sat coax to it and gotten even better results. I'm still tweaking that setup.


Mac App Store app can't be uninstalled, won't finish installing

Seems to me you should contact apple support.

I can think of several diagnostics here.

Is it apple ID specific?
Is your DNS servers having trouble or not local enough so apple knows where you are and which CDN node to use? Make sure you use the ones from your ISP.
Lastly, you may want to test with another user account, and make sure the app store functions correctly there.
If you can get away with it, does it work in Safe Mode? (holding down shift at boot)
When you run a traceroute, is the latency really high? What about speed?
What OS are you using? Snow Leopard, Lion or Mountain Lion. Mountain Lion probably has a much more integrated app store, and it might work better for you. (major surgery though.)


You need to change set myNewList to "" to:

set myNewList to {}

Otherwise myNewList isn't an empty list, it's an empty string.


iPhone 6: battery replacement and display problem

When they replace the battery, they have to completely remove the display. If it is an iPhone 6, there actually isn't any adhesive between the display and the enclosure. It is possible to two screws at the bottom are loose, and when they put the display back on, they will tighten those. I would just mention the display problem when you drop it off for the battery. They should at least be able to tell if it's the screws or something more advanced.


Browse to https://web.whatsapp.com/. You should see something like the following, with a QR code at right:

Open WhatsApp on your phone
Go to Settings->WhatsApp Web/Desktop
Scan QR code with your phone


Is it possible to run Windows VM from bootable SSD?

Found the answer on the internets:

Adding a raw disk to a VirtualBox machine on OSX


I got the same issue with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite still.

I fixed this by simply changing the computer name of my mac running iTunes!

Go on your Mac to System Preferences -> Sharing and change the computer name.

Now the iTunes Library appears properly with Home Sharing and also by the 4 digit code.

Very strange, though.


How to migrate from Android 5.1 to iPhone 8?

Generally speaking, yes.

I imagine there is a minimum OS version on both Android and iOS but there is an officially supported (by Apple) method which they detail here. There is also an app "Move to iOS", that goes on the Android phone available in Google Play.


Is it advisable to sync Applications and User prefs between two Macs?

There are a number of ways to achieve this and probably twice as many traps. That said, I've had a lot of success using Mackup. It can backup your dot files, plist files, is customizable and can integrate with several cloud storage services or a local file server. I run this hourly as a cron job to make sure I'm always backing up. This works well on settings but not apps. You can find this at https://github.com/lra/mackup

You could also use Homebrew as a way of "synching" your applications. brew list > souceAppList on your iMac will list the applications installedthere. You could do the same on your MacBook and grep the difference to see what is missing. Something like:

targetApps="$(brew list)"
for checkThisApp in $(cat /some/path/to/sourceAppList); do
  if [[ "$checkThisApp" != "$(echo "$targetApps"|grep -o $checkThisApp)" ]]; then
    echo "$appCheck is not installed on this computer"  # to notify an app is missing
    brew install "$appCheck"                            # to force the app install
  fi
done


syspolicyd producing huge amount of read on disk

Same Macbook Pro 16 macOS 10.15.4 here.

That process verifies 3rd party software. When you open certain apps that process reads (and a lot, if the app is big). It happens to me for example when I open Photoshop 2020, it reads about 1GB.

You say you never turn it off? How much have your laptop been running? If you never power off your computer that read usage stats are not going to be wiped, so they will just keep growing, hence the huge number. If you poweroff so it starts from zero, how much syspolicyd reads in a 24h timespan?


While not automatic, you could setup separate iCloud accounts for each of you (but still use the same iTunes Store account so that you can access the music, movies, apps, etc. you have purchased) and then share a Photo Stream with each so that you can choose what you are sharing with each other.

That would be using Photo Stream. I'm not sure if there are better ways of doing it with some other apps.


Is iphone's mail App using predicitve autocomplete based on recent interactions?

We don't really get to craft the algorithms or set anything on autocorrect. Pretty much we can use it or not and we can clear the behavior it has learned based on how you type and start over.

Settings -> General -> Reset Keyboard Dictionary

Mail also can let you clear a bad contact using this nicely written guide from iMore on how to tap to clear a bad assumption. You have to do this one by one as far as I know.

https://www.imore.com/how-remove-recent-contacts-mail-app-iphone


Screensaver changes images too quickly – is there a way to adjust it?

Found the solution!

I followed these instructions and it worked for me!
http://wiki.daveking.com/index.php?title=Change_The_Slide_Duration_In_Screensaver_%22Ken_Burns%22_Slideshow


MacBook Pro screen resolution confiusion

Many many OS X versions ago, Apple rolled out "Resolution Independent UI" in order to ensure that UI elements were rendered consistently regardless of the DPI of the display. Prior to this, all displays were assumed to operate at 72 pixels per inch (ppi). Prior to that, if you wanted the main Mac menu bar to be 3/8" high, you would simply multiply 3/8 by 72 to set how tall the element is.

Why do I bring this up? Because with this foundation in place, Apple rolled out retina displays with DPIs approaching 300 ppi. Your display is one of these and indeed has a Fixed dpi of 2560x1600 (per specs). The underlying resolution independence ensures that the UI elements display at a consistent size across resolutions, screen sizes, and pixel densities.

In summary, from my understanding:

Your Screen's resolution is fixed at 2560x1600px (see note below)
Your "virtual" resolution is set in displays preferences, and you have it set to "look like" 1400x900
"Full Screen" screenshots (⌘-⇪-3) appear to capture in "native" display resolution. (see note below)
"Marquee" screenshots (⌘-⇪-4) appear to capture in "virtual" display resolution.

note: I cannot say where the 2880x1800 resolution comes from in your screenshot


Convert a partition from case-sensitive to case-insensitive

iPartition claims to be able to do this, although I haven't tried it (and it costs money).


Lauchd - Run task multiple times between time interval

You can print the StartCalendarInterval dictionaries with something like this: for h in {0..4}; do for m in {0,15,30,45}; do echo "<dict><key>Hour</key><integer>$h</integer><key>Minute</key><integer>$m</integer><key>Second</key><integer>0</integer></dict>"; done; done.

You could also run the script every 15 minutes but exit it depending on the time:

h=$(date +%-H)
m=$(date +%-M)
[[ $h -gt 4 || $h -eq 4 && $m -ne 0 ]] && exit

Or run EDITOR=nano crontab -e and add a line like */15 0-4 * * * ~/bin/script.


Yes, if you have separate user accounts (ie. there are two login options when you boot your machine), then each account can be associated with its own Apple ID for iCloud.

All preferences, documents and other customizations are individual to each user account. By default, Applications are shared (they get installed to /Applications), but you can install an application for just one user by installing it to the Applications directory within the users home directory.


This answer may come a bit late for you, but I was able to solve this problem by removing the Finder plist and restarting Finder. You can do this in Terminal by entering the following command:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist && killall -HUP Finder

Give that a shot and see how it works.


If I hold a letter, my keyboard stops working for that app

I cannot reproduce the issue on my end but it sounds like you may have an issue with an Accessibility feature, seeing as how it's happening in multiple applications. Have you tried toggling 'System
Preferences > Accessibility > Keyboard > Sticky Keys' (or Slow Keys) on and off and trying to reproduce the issue?

Second option might just be that your keyboard settings were somehow changed from the preset delays that you're used to. You could check 'System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard' and check the delay sliders. Setting the first one to 'Fast' and the second one to 'Short' should actually allow you to press and hold a non-alpha-numeric key for multiple entries (such as the punctuation keys or keys like =, +, -, _, etc.)

Note: The Mac keyboard does not allow you to press and hold letters because certain letters such as 'a' and 'e' trigger an accent menu to create characters such as 'à' or 'ē'.


How to transfer information on a shared iCloud account to a new individual one?

There's no real easy way to merge data from iCloud accounts. Your best bet is to contact AppleCare direct with that question.
Find your local number here: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT201232


Well, you're writing 'eye3D' instead of 'eyeD3', that's probably it.

You want:

sudo pip install eyeD3


High Sierra file sharing on Macs not working for Active Directory users

Check your Active Directory settings by following this article guide

https://support.apple.com/guide/directory-utility/welcome/mac

Type

  Directory Utility

in Spotlight to find and start it


Problem using F12 to get specific info on the screen

In Chrome, right-click anywhere on the page and select Inspect element. This will bring up that window on both Mac or Windows.

Alternatively,

For Windows:
Click on the menu (the little button on the top-right, with 3 orange horizontal lines in your screenshot). Click on Tools > Developer tools.
or
Click Ctrl+Shift+I

For Mac:
Click on View > Developer > Developer tools
or
Click command+option/alt+I

If you want the F keys to work more like Windows, follow these steps:

NOTE: After following these steps, I was still unable to bring up the Developer Tools using F12 on my Macbook.

Go to System Preferences. Click Keyboard. On the Keyboard tab, check Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys. You will now have to press the fn key to make the F keys do what they show in their pictures. For example, you will have to press fn+F11 and fn+F12 to turn up and down your speaker volume (or at least thats where the volume controls are on my Macbook).

In the same window, click on the Shortcuts tab. Uncheck any shortcuts that use F keys.

Your function keys should now behave more like Windows function keys, though not always exactly the same.


Resolution when connecting to a headless Mac Mini

I’m not sure how you could do this within macOS, but I know that every portable Mac I’ve owned since the PowerBook G4, as well as my current Mac mini, all run a tool called SwitchResX. It has saved me so many times in connecting to projectors, screens, etc. and in exactly the same situation you’re in where I wanted to have my MacBook Air screen resolution exactly matched by the Mac mini so that I had a full screen experience.

Go and have a look at SwitchResX over at http://www.madrau.com. There is a fully functional 10-day trial version, and €14 buys you a license. Well-worth the expense in my opinion!


How to make Siri-initiated calls use Google Voice

Google needs to integrate Siri into their Google Voice app. Only if Google makes the integration you can use Siri with Google Voice. "Call Alice with Google Voice" is a good example.

Audio or video calling integration with Siri is possible since iOS 10 (September 2016). And for developers to build the integrations since June 2016.

So my best advice is, start asking Google to build this integration.


Where's the best place to download Ubuntu virtual machines?

The image file downloads for the latest version(s) of Ubuntu (including 14.04) are listed on Ubuntu's Release/Downloads page (searchable in Google).

Here's a guide on how to install the system from the ISO format, using VirtualBox (your tool of choice):

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/07/how-to-set-up-ubuntu-linux-on-a-mac-its-easy-and-free/

For the VirtualBox image (instead of ISO), go here (lists versions from 14-15):

http://www.osboxes.org/ubuntu/

As such, it goes without saying that you should use the original source whenever possible.

Good day to you!


What do the various USB 'current' labels under macOS System Report mean?

The USB section of the System Report actually provides data for each of the USB devices connected to your Mac.

The information you're asking about relates to each of those devices. More specifically:

Current Available is the standard amount of power (in milliamps) provided by the specific USB port
Current Required is the amount of power (in milliamps) needed by whatever you have plugged into that USB port - if nothing, it should display 0 (i.e. zero)
Extra Operating Current refers to a special feature that Apple Macs support in relation to other Apple devices whereby under the right circumstances they can provide additional power (i.e. above the standard amount) to those connected devices. The right circumstances are as follows:

The Mac must be running and booted into macOS (i.e. not booted into another operating system)
The Mac must be awake (i.e. not in sleep mode)
The connected device must be manufactured by Apple (I'm not aware of an exhaustive list anywhere, but typically the device is an iPod, iPhone or iPad)
The connected device actually requires the extra power for some reason (i.e. the Mac does not provide the extra power unless the device actually requires it)

As far as the maximum power output available, this depends. By default the USB 3 ports of your iMac (the ones you're referring to as USB-A) offer up to 900mA. However, for this to occur you must be using a USB 3 cable. If a USB 2 cable is being used it will limit the available power current to 500mA. And, as mentioned above, the amount of power offered in the case of some connected Apple devices can exceed these figures under the right circumstances.

As for the Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports, these can supply 15W of power per port to external devices. They can even be used for charging MacBooks (although they're not intended for that purpose and it's not something I'd recommend, plus the rate of charge will be quite slow).

[UPDATE]

Below is some further reading from Apple's website that you may find relevant:

If a Mac accessory needs more power or is using too much power
Using USB devices with your Mac
About the external features and ports on iMac computers introduced in 2017 or later


How do I prevent iWork apps from restoring windows from the previous session?

Judging from Apple Discussion threads (a quick search turned up these three threads on the first page of results alone), the global Resume switch does not seem to consistently stop applications from saving and restoring Saved State information.

If you only want to disable Resume selectively for iWork, you may be best served by something like RestoreMeNot or TinkerTool, which has a dedicated tab for granularly managing Resume besides its other tweaking features.

If you want to completely disable the Resume feature, Mac OS X Hints outlines a procedure to do so. I can’t judge on it, nor recommend it, as it is altogether too hackish for my taste – the editor’s label “proceed at your own risk” applies.


Time Machine - How does one convert Backups.backupdb to a backupbundle?

While I haven't tried this personally, I recently came across a workaround posted on the MacRumors forums that claims it should work:

There is a work around to do this. Attach the drive to the router
(assuming it supports Time Machine) then start a backup to the disk
using Time Machine. Give it a couple minutes to get started, then stop
it and disconnect.
Now attach the drive to the Mac over USB. Look in Finder and you will
see a sparse bundle with the partial Backups.backupdb file there. Just
delete that file and empty the trash.
Now turn on Time Machine and do a full backup. When it is done you
will have the full Backups.backupdb on the drive. Just move that from
the root of the drive into the sparse bundle. Now connect it back to
the router and turn TM back on. It will pick up where it left off with
incremental backups going forward.

Another variation on this method creates a local Samba file share mount on the USB drive as a workaround. Full details in the linked answer, but a summary snippet follows:

sudo ifconfig lo0 alias 127.0.0.2/32
Plug your usb drive, then via System Preferences / Sharing add a smb share to a folder time-machine-macbook in the drive time-machine-usb Then, add a destination backup (Time Machine will see it as a network share)
sudo tmutil setdestination -a "smb://user:password@127.0.0.2/time-machine-macbook"

If there is a simpler/more direct way to do it though, that would be awesome to know! I was thinking maybe something in the tmutil command line program may be able to do it, but haven't yet tried.
According to Apple's Disk Utility User Guide, it appears possible to manually create a sparsebundle disk image:

In the Disk Utility app  on your Mac, choose File > New Image > Blank Image
Enter a filename for the disk image, add tags if necessary, then
choose where to save it.
In the Name field, enter the name for the disk image.
In the Size field, enter a size for the disk image.
Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose the format for the disk:

I believe for Time Machine you will need to choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) (reference)

To encrypt the disk image, click the Encryption pop-up menu, then
choose an encryption option.
Click the Partitions pop-up menu, then choose a partition layout.
Click the Image Format pop-up menu, then choose an option:

Sparse bundle disk image: Same as a sparse disk image (below), but the
directory data for the image is stored differently. Uses the
.sparsebundle file extension.
Sparse disk image: Creates an expandable file that shrinks and grows
as needed. No additional space is used. Uses the .sparseimage file
extension.

Click Save, then click Done.
Disk Utility creates the disk image file where you saved it in the
Finder and mounts its disk icon on your desktop and in the Finder
sidebar.
In the Finder, copy your files to the mounted disk image, then eject
it.

Edit Note: macOS Catalina appears to use the extension backupbundle instead of sparsebundle, but it seems that this file is still mountable in the same ways as previously.


Display problems in El Capitan on screen sharing

I think I've got the solution. Apart from enabling dark menu and dock all you have to do is to turn on "Increase contrast" option. See below:


How to monitor network traffic on a router from a Mac?

Put a switch which can have ports configured in "span" mode so you can sniff all the traffic, (an old hub will also do the same job) between the router and the base station.

Plug in your laptop, install wireshark and sniff all the traffic.  Then analyse.

The other tool I use is MRTG, but you will need to set up SNMP on the Airport or the "spanned" switch, and monitor for a few days.

You can definitely use SNMP with an Airport extreme as documented here.


Is this impossible to install XP using BootCamp on Lion?

In Bootcamp: You can bypass it by putting in a Windows7 disk and format the drive for the Windows installation.
After that you just restart, press alt to bring up the boot menu and put in your Windows XP CD to install.

One way that should work aswell(havent tested) is if you just create a new empty FAT-partition and then go to step 2.


Automator & AppleScript: How do I import the texts of Notes and Reminders as PDFs and RTFs?

Another way to export notes is to move them to an email account first. For example:

Move notes to a Gmail account in Notes.app
Move the notes to some other folder in Gmail's web interface
Select the notes in Mail.app and save them as rich text or plain text

Here is another AppleScript for exporting notes as RTF:

set i to 1
tell application "Notes"
    repeat with n in notes
        do shell script "printf %s " & quoted form of (get body of n) & " | textutil -inputencoding UTF-8 -format html -convert rtf -stdin -output /tmp/" & i & ".rtf"
    set i to i + 1
    end repeat
end tell

It doesn't keep images, and it doesn't work with notes that are longer than getconf ARG_MAX. -inputencoding UTF-8 is required for preserving U+100 and characters above it.


One of the apps (and its data) doesn't restore from iCloud. How to fix?

My specific situation was that initially I tried a backup version that was too late to contain the app required. Once I switched to an earlier backup, the app was there and successfully restored with all its data.


No ringing for FaceTime, no alert sound for iMessage

I have been having the same problem.
I won't know if it works 'till someone calls - but I have just found in Settings>Do Not Disturb>Allow Calls From, change to EVERYONE.


Clean up the InstallerSandboxes directory

I've originally added the question because I didn't have enough space to update XCode. I ended up removing then reinstalling it. But things have gotten worse, last time I uninstalled it and then I got the error that I can't reinstall it because there isn't enough space. So desperate times call for desperate measures, I have deleted the 4 directories mentioned in the question which gave me 30GB extra space. I did it with sudo an mc and mc reported it deleted around 1400000 files, it's ridiculous! So then I could reinstall XCode and it seems to be working without problems.
Edit:
To free up additional space go to About This Mac > Storage > Manage > Developer. In there XCode Caches was 15Gb on my computer. You can delete it and the next time XCode runs it will recreate some of it but only a couple GBs.


Can all Mac executables be copied between machines?

No

If the application requires an installer, it needs to be installed on each machine. This includes pre-MAS (Mac App Store) iWorks and Microsoft Office 2011 for example.

Only applications that were not downloaded from the MAS and explicitly specify installation by copying the executable can be copied between machines.

Applications purchased through MAS can be copied between machines as long as the user logging into MAS on the target machine is the same user that originally purchased the application.


Mail.app does not sync Junk folder with Gmail

In your IMAP folders, do you still have the junk folder inside the GMAIL folder ? If so, you should select it, and the choose "use as -> junk" in the mailbox folder.


How do I turn a Safari Webarchive file into a folder?

Is there any currently available software that can convert a Safari
  webarchive file into a more standard format?

If you are comfortable with command line, there is a tool textutil on Mac OS for converting webarchive file to txt, html, rtf, rtfd, doc, docx, wordml, or odt.

Example:
textutil -convert html /Users/USERNAME/NAME.webarchive

For converting webarchive file to pdf, try "Wondershare PDF Editor for Mac". http://www.wondershare.com/pdf/how-to-convert-webarchive-to-pdf.html


The port between the Ethernet port and the Thunderbolt port is a FireWire 800 port.

On the MacBook Pro 2011 17" the Thunderbolt port supports up to two Thunderbolt displays.

As to using the FireWire port to support a display I do not know for sure other then this article essentially says no.

  USB and Firewire for two or more displays?

  Apple famously championed the Firewire standard a few years ago but
  you simply can’t attach a monitor via Firewire. Firewire can receive
  video signals from the likes of digital video cameras but isn’t
  designed to output them.


macOS: tccd often crashes and locks up the system for a minute; how to diagnose?

I have nothing constructive to add at this point, other than to say I have what looks to be the exact same symptoms.  Same version of MacOS, same one minute hangs (mouse moves, screen frozen, iStat Menu CPU history shows 0% for over a minute), been happening for several months and just found the reportcrashs for tccd.  Mine occur in groups of 1 to 4 several times a week. Crash reports identical to yours.
I have not been able to find any rhyme or reason as to when they occur.
I'll post back here if I figure out anything and will watch to see if you make progress.
Thanks, Dale


Quicksilver goes straight to text-entry mode

If I recall, there's a QS trigger called something like "Command Window In Text Mode."  Go to Quicksilver>Triggers>Quicksilver, I think, and look at what triggers are enabled.

Another possibility is that you have the "Spacebar Behavior" set to "Switch to text mode" in Quicksilver>Preferences>Command, and this is getting triggered when you use cmd-space.  It shouldn't matter, but it's worth a look.


In OS X, is it better to put apps in /Applications or in ~/Applications?

What no-one seems to have pointed out so far is that /Applications are usable by everybody & ~/Applications are only for that user.

Some installers will ask if you want to install for this user or for everybody. That's how it can differentiate.

That will be one of the reasons Steam installs to there, as it's a per user license.

Apple's app licensing, though 'per ID' doesn't prevent all a machine's users from accessing apps purchased under another user account, so everything else usually goes in /Applications by default.

Of course, if you're the machine's sole user, the distinction becomes moot.


TeamViewer QuickSupport - Scam Damage Assessment

I'm a regular licensed TeamViewer user and frequently lament the security inherent in the iPhone OS. In your case, it's a good thing. The phone app is for remote control in which the phone owner is controlling the other computer. The "allow" button doesn't work, because the remote scammer can't penetrate the iPhone. Additionally, when the connection is PC to PC, there are flags which appear during file transfer.
Unless passwords and login information was provided via voice, no OneDrive access is likely and certainly no spyware installed on an iPhone.


What are the tools and/or advantages of developing your app with a Apple Developer Program account?

There's no need to pay for a developer license to use Xcode, compile and run things in the simulator and even to install your software on your devices (macOS, tvOS, watchOS, iOS) for testing and even use as long as you're putting your personal code on your personal devices.

When you do need to pay is when you want one of any of these:

Professional Apple Support / code level incidents from Apple Developer Technical Support
Verified code signing certificate that let you sign code to run on other computers (whether you use the App Store or not to distribute)
iCloud data storage services (sync, core data, cloud data, cloud preferences) for your applications.
Presence on the various App Stores to take payments and list your applications publicly under Apple's sales presence on the official stores.
TestFlight beta testing services where others in addition to you can test pre-release versions of your software.

Go without the paid access until you need one or more of the above services. See this link for more details - https://help.apple.com/developer-account/#/dev7a05c5ce1


Can a Macbook Air mid-2011 boot without any SSD installed?

You don't need an internal drive for a MacBook Air (any Mac for that matter) to boot; you can boot off an external drive.

You also don't need a battery to turn on a MacBook (plain, Air or Pro).  Plugging in the MagSafe will just show an amber led, not green.

It doesn't turn on because there's something more serious wrong with it.  It's most likely, the SSD was removed for two reasons:

Salvage the user's data
sell on the secondary market

There are many logic board repair services available, you may want to check them out because it's most likely a logic board issue.


How do I enable/disable push notifications for an app on iOS 7?

There is an "include" and a "do not include" section in Notification Center.

Tap "edit" at top right corner of the Notification Center. This allows you to drag apps around in the Notification Center.

Hold the app you want to stop push notifications from, by the lines on the right hand side to its name, and drag it into "do not include" section. It will automatically close all banner settings for the app, and voila! You are good to go.


iTunes starts playing music automatically when watching Apple TV

Your remote is detected by both machines at the same time. They obviously do not know to whom the command is addressed, therefore this happens.

You have two choices:

Disable infrared remote reception on your Mac. On your Mac, go to 'System Preferences' and then 'Security & Privacy'. Select the 'Advanced' button in the lower right corner. Check the box that says "Disable remote control infrared receiver" and click "OK'. Apple documentation.
Pair your remote with a particular device. To pair a remote with your Mac, follow instructions above and select the 'Pair' button to the right of the 'Disable remote' checkbox. To pair a remote with your Apple TV, go to 'Settings' > 'general' > 'remotes' from the AppleTV main menu, and then choose 'Pair Apple Remote'. You can pair 2 different remotes with each machine, but you won't be able to pair one remote with both machines. Apple documentation.


Is it possible that some hacker is logged in to my computer?

Nope. Both of those are you.

console is where you've logged in (likely on startup), and the GUI started up.

s000 is the first shell you opened, the Terminal window itself. If you look at the WHAT column, it shows the last command run in that shell (w), which you just did.

So it's the same user (you), logged into two sessions, one for the OS X GUI, and once in that shell in the Terminal window.


Mac as wi-fi hotspot: how many devices can connect?

On OSX Yosemite (beta 10.10.3), on MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012), today (2015-04-28), I've connected 15 different devices (Android, iOS, Win, OSX) via WiFi hotspot (sharing internet via Ethernet), and reported very low decline in internet bandwith with each new device connected.


Why isn't my external monitor's native resolution available in Display Preferences?

The problem would appear to be one that has been around for some time, at least two years according to everything I've found for example MacRumors Forum.

SwitchResX provides a way to force a monitor into a mode that the drivers says it doesn't support.


A little off-topic, but I hardly ever launch Applications from the Finder.

They are either in the Dock, or you can get to them with Spotlight (or your favorite alternative app launcher).


How to 'reconnect' an Apple pencil 2 to iPad pro?

Attaching Apple Pencil to the side of your iPad should connect it to your iPad. If that doesn’t work, Apple have some other steps you can try:

If your Apple Pencil won't pair with your iPad

Make sure to center your Apple Pencil (2nd generation) on the magnetic connector on the right edge of the iPad. For an Apple Pencil (1st generation), remove the cap and plug your Apple Pencil into the Lightning connector on your iPad.
Restart your iPad, then try to pair again.
Go to Settings > Bluetooth and make sure that Bluetooth is turned on.
On the same screen, look under My Devices for your Apple Pencil. If you see it, tap i. Then tap Forget this Device.
Connect your Apple Pencil in to your iPad and tap the Pair button when it appears after a few seconds.
If you don't see the Pair button, wait for one minute while your Apple Pencil charges. Then try connecting your Apple Pencil again and wait until you see the Pair button.
If you still don’t see the Pair button, contact Apple Support.

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT205236#pair-help


Is there a way to copy the HTML out of an Outlook email?

the problem here is that styled text in Outlook is not always sent as HTML.
But you can find out easily enough.
(Note this works on Outlook 2016. other versions might be different.)
Hold down the ⌥ Option key on your keyboard and click on the message in Outlook's message list that you want to see the source for and select "Show Source" from the menu that pops-up.
If it was sent as HTML you will see the HTML code. But a lot of people use what outlook calls "Rich Text" which embeds the email as an '.rtf" document. Which is fine as far as it goes as Rich Text Format is a standard that most word processors can read and write (like the macOS textedit.app).
So some (if not many or most) of your emails won't be in HTML format at all.


Cannot select Bluetooth device from Sound Output

I will add the answer.

Looking through discussions.apple.com, as usual, yields bad advice: reset, reformat, disk cleanup. Essentially do a bunch of random nonsense until the problem sorts itself out.

Before you do anything overly-complex or even irreversible. I recommend you try what I call the monkey's gambit:

Unpair
Forget Device
Pair
Repeat steps 1, 2, 3 a lot

(Look through comments for specific instructions)

Even when it seems like it's doing nothing, keep doing it. It took me 4 or 5 tries. I was nearly convinced it was the hardware, but then all of a sudden I'm back to listening to mediocre music on a pretty good bluetooth speaker.

This might have been expedited if I rebooted my computer, but I really didn't feel like doing that.

TL;DR please do not reformat or reset your computer without running the monkey's gambit for a while; it might save you a more major headache.

To be fair, this worked for me, but it is entirely possible your system is in a state where this will not help it. I do feel compelled, however, to claim that if you can see the device connected in the bluetooth menulet then it is probably not a hardware problem.


Public Wifi spot + "Not trusted" = Danger?

This is happening usually because the router itself is doing some sort of proxy or authentication. You would usually see something like this in a public area where you need to 'log in' to get access.

iOS (and I think the Mac too) goes to look for a known file on one of Apple's servers. If that file doesn't exist (which basically means it can't reach it), it knows there must be some go-between first. It then will display this sheet, usually asking you to log in or accept the terms.

If the location is legitimate, I usually have no issue doing this. For example, businesses or restaurants that advertise free wifi service. I know the place I see this the most is at a grocery store I frequent. You must first click 'agree' on a form before moving on.

Also, the reason the cert is invalid is because until you 'authenticate', that router usually tries to forward all requests to its internal page. So, if you had an HTTPS connection open on apple.com, the device complains because apple.com is now resolving to that local router.


Customize the Boot Camp Drive Icon in Lion

Will Candybar work for you? It allows you to change icons, but I'm not sure about drive icons. Lemme know if it works for you.

Ok, according to this article, you can:

Paste your icon (in the Get Info window) onto a USB thumb drive formatted as FAT32.
The name of the drive doesn't matter.
Launch Windows through Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop, or VMware Fusion.
Open the thumb drive in Windows.
Select Folder Options… from the Tools menu, and set it to show invisible files.
Copy the two files .VolumeIcon.icns and ._[cr]File, where [cr] is a carriage return, to the NTFS drive.

According to the article, that'll work.


In a Terminal type man nvram and press: enter

You'll see that the -p option states:

  Print all of the firmware variables.

Therefore whatever it prints, is what's stored in NVRAM.

There should not be any hidden variables, however the output for some variables may not be in what's generally considered as human readable format.


iTunes starts playing music without explanation

First step would be to turn off the IR receiver and BlueTooth.

The infra-red receiver can be disabled in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General > Advanced. BlueTooth in System Preferences > BlueTooth.

You might also try cleaning out the headphone port (gently) with a toothpick and some rubbing alcohol and plugging in a set of headphones.

All of this is to make sure that some extraneous hardware input isn't causing the problem.

If that doesn't fix it then run Activity Monitor and kill the process iTunes Helper and see what happens. If it's something in the System then iTunes Helper will rerun when the problem occurs. If it's a problem with iTunes Helper then killing it should stop the problem. Of course iTunes Helper will rerun when you reboot or run iTunes manually but you will at least get more information.