Automator-generated apps - Backwards compatibility

I don't know how backward-compatible they are, but you can also save scripts as applications from AppleScript Editor.

Another option might be to use Platypus.

  Platypus is a developer tool for the Mac OS X operating system. It creates native Mac OS X applications from interpreted scripts such as shell scripts or Perl, Ruby and Python programs. This is done by wrapping the script in an application bundle along with a native executable binary that runs the script.


Not possible, at least without serious hacking.

OS X supports changing folder and app icons through the "get info" pane (open "get info," click the icon to select it and copy or paste). You can copy an icon from one app or folder and paste it onto another.

However, when I tried this with a folder on my Mac, it did not affect the icon in the sidebar. It looks like the sidebar uses the type of the item to choose the icon, rather than using the icon in the info.


How to change the size of a Google Hangouts window in AppleScript?

This works for me with my actual Gmail information inserted at the two appropriate places in the script

tell application "Default knipolnnllmklapflnccelgolnpehhpl"
    activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    set theSBounds to {{405, 23}, {1037, 633}}
    set position of window "Google Hangouts - username@gmail.com" of application process "Google Chrome" to item 1 of theSBounds --replace username@gmail.com with your actual Gmail information
    set size of window "Google Hangouts - username@gmail.com" of application process "Google Chrome" to item 2 of theSBounds  --replace username@gmail.com with your actual Gmail information
end tell


How long should it take to update to iOS 10.3?

The update from iOS 10.2 to iOS 10.3 is a very large update under the hood, so it's not the typical update that is a quick download and quick restart. You'll likely need 10 minutes to check backup and 20-40 for the actual update (excluding download time of the update which depends on server load and network conditions).
You won't notice a ton of new features and changes like from iOS 6 to iOS 7, but the entire storage system that holds all your apps, photos, movies and files is changed to a newer filesystem format without losing any of your data. I believe the older devices skip this filesystem reformat (iPhone 5 for example) and they might be faster udpates.
The new APFS filesystem for 64 bit iOS hardware runs storage on iOS 10.3 instead of HFS+ which has been Apple's main format on both iOS and macOS for decades.

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1893 iOS 10.3 changes

For most people, I would recommend the following:

If you don't normally update your apps, postpone this upgrade for two or three days. Instead, go to the App Store and apply all updates. If you haven't checked if your backups are good, please go to iCloud settings or connect to iTunes and make sure your backup is complete and recent.

If you do have recent backups and have been updating your apps in the last week, you should plan for 30 minutes to apply this upgrade since it runs a conversion step when the device restarts.

For many people, it might be best to schedule the update for the evening when the device is plugged in to power and connected to WiFi. These timing allow 5 minutes to download the installer - that’s the shortest portion of this update.

My iPhone 7 (256 GB) took 28 minutes to update
My iPad Air 2 (64 GB) took 32 minutes to update


macOS High Sierra 10.13 briefly flashes screen content last seen before locking the screen when awaken

Yes - the frame buffer should be scrubbed / discarded as part of the sleep / lock process no matter how brief the render. I don't think it's a huge risk and can be mitigated as you say by logging out of the screen before locking or any number of other ways like timed lockouts.

I'd just log out or enable fast user switching and switch away from the screen instead of letting the screen saver lock.

Apple publishes a page with instructions on how to report issues. If this were a huge gap, I'd consider asking you to delete the thread, but I don't think this is "stop the planet" serious unless there's a way to abuse this "feature".

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201220

  Security and privacy researchers

  To report security or privacy issues that affect Apple products or web
  servers, please contact product-security@apple.com.


You can download an entire playlist with one click.

I just noticed that In your library: You can sort your music by "in the cloud" (the cloud logo). When you add the music which is only in the cloud to a playlist, iTunes will automatically download your added songs :-)


Searching for "change apple id appstore iphone" I stumbled into this page which shows how to do this on an iPhone.

Once you've signed out you can either sign in or create a new Apple ID.

  Log in to another Apple account that already exists by entering the appropriate login details at that screen, OR
  Create a new Apple ID by tapping on the “Create New Apple ID” button, which automatically logs in with the new Apple ID when
  finished

References

How to Change the Apple ID on iPhone, iPad, & iPod Touch


Can't send outgoing messages using Gmail via the Mail app

Your credentials are not working with gmail. See the suggested gmail help article for troubleshooting. Try logging in with a web browser on your computer first. It may be that 2 factor authentication is causing issues.


The problem is not enabling notes, the problem is that your icloud account is frozen until you validate it. If that prompt does not work, try signing in at https://appleid.apple.com or https://icloud.com and do it from there.


How To Handle Power Outages With Remote Macs?

You might want to consider replacing the MBA with a Mac Mini, perhaps a previously owned model from OWC which as some real inexpensive models. Your needs don't seem to require a superlative machine with lots of RAM & etc. The Mini should be able to provide the startup after power failure option because it is a desktop Mac.
For the problem of starting up the iMac in the circumstances you described, you should consider creating a series of Terminal pmset commands which wakes or restarts your Mac with a frequency you find amenable.
This example should attempt to wake from sleep or power on the Mac on an hourly basis every day:
pmset repeat wakeorpoweron MTWRFSU 01:00:00
pmset repeat wakeorpoweron MTWRFSU 02:00:00
pmset repeat wakeorpoweron MTWRFSU 03:00:00
.
.
.
pmset repeat wakeorpoweron MTWRFSU 24:00:00

If the Mac is already up and running, these commands have no effect. A wealth of information is found in man pmset.
The app Power Manager may also be helpful as it provides a GUI method for setting the same commands.
Disclaimer: I have no financial or other ties to the developers of Power Manager, nor in Other World Computing, Inc.


Could be drive or file damage.

I had something similar happen on my old classic. The 'fix' was to wipe & restore - which took a long time [24h maybe], but worked.

One thing I've noticed about the classic with the slide-lock switch, don't attempt to sync with it locked.


How do i fix my MacBook Pro 13 from malware attack?

Nothing you’ve described indicates malware...

On opening Safari it takes me to Yahoo...

Mine takes me to Bing. I have my home page and default search engine set to Bing, so this is normal. Check to see what yours are set to.

I have tried to clear extensions yet it doesn't work.

Which extensions? What doesn’t work, Safari or the extension?

Now I can't see any extensions under it's tab as well.

You just stated you tried to clear them out, if you did that, there won’t be any listed.
It’s very unlikely it’s malware.  If you are downloading and installing every piece of software you run into, then yes, you probably are infected in some way.
I personally use a Synology NAS with AV built into it.   As for AV, I actually don’t use on my "production" machine because I'm very, very particular about what gets installed.  However, with a new app, I will usually test it out on a VM with AV, or on an old “scrap” Mac and with APFS snapshots enabled. I take a snap before I make changes prior to installation.  If the application is malware, garbagewae, or spyware (i.e. a Font program that wants access to GPS and contacts) I roll back to a previous snapshot like it never happened.
Now, with all that said, there’s an AV company, I’ve got my eye on - PC Matic (yeah, those guys).  What I like is that they have a white/blacklist model.  If the app is not on the whitelist, it’s not going to run; even legit ones!  So, it really locks things down, but if you’re in a rush to do a  demo of some new software and have whitelisted it, you are up the proverbial creek.
Personally, I think  it might be a strong supplement to Gatekeeper; more testing needs to be done, though.


The first step in troubleshooting this problem is to boot into Safe Mode.

Shut your Mac down, and press the power button. As soon as you hear the startup sound, hold down the left Shift key. Keep holding it down until the spinning clock appears.

Starting up will take longer than normal because the Mac is performing some basic disk repair procedures.

Once startup is complete, and you are back to the Finder, reboot the Mac again.

If this does not solve the problem, it is time to try the next step.


Worthwhile replacing battery of 1st generation iPhone SE?

Generally, Apple supports iPhones for seven years—so going from the date it was discontinued in 2018, would give a window of support until 2025. Sometimes, due to specific hardware being able to run later versions of iOS, it may be possible to go beyond that point, but is a gamble.
If you're looking at extending the value, the $100 cost looks like a good deal—as long as you don't need the latest-and-greatest. Keep in mind, though, that the proliferation of 5G networks and changing carrier support may factor into your decision.


Issue when trying to convert the month number to word form in AppleScript (but only when that month contains 31 days)

Solution
Use the following stringForShellScript:
"date -v" & onlyTheMonth & "m -v" & onlyTheDay & "d -v" & onlyTheYear & "y +%"

Explanation
Interestingly enough, you need to shift the month before the day, but only if you’re going to shift the day to the 31st of the month.

-v30d -v2m will produce February just fine, but the 31st of the month causes date to bug out (up to the version that ships with macOS Sierra 10.12.4).

You can shift the year at any point in the command without any issue.

Side Notes

set onlyTheDay to (onlyTheDay as integer) as string will remove any leading 0s from a number string. It’s less error-prone than parsing a string. Performance is inconsequential in this case.
You have a leading space before date. Not that it matters—just pointing it out.


How to minimize all windows/applications to the dock?

⌥+⌘+M actually minimizes all windows of a current application, not just the current focused window (unless of course, the application you have running only has one non-minimized window.)

The easiest way to hide all active applications is to select the Finder/Desktop, and then "Hide Others." The keyboard shortcut is ⌥+⌘+H.

You can also simply hold ⌥ and ⌘ and click on the Desktop, or Finder on the Dock, or of course, simply use Expose and hit F11 (Or whatever you've rebound Hide-all to.)


Is there a way to evaluate OS X without purchasing Macintosh hardware?

You can't run Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware. It's not allowed by the EULA for OS X and it is technologically enforced by having key parts of the OS in the copyrighted hardware ROM installed in the Apple hardware.  Furthermore, all versions of OS X prior to Leopard and non-server versions of Leopard and Snow Leopard had architectural issues that prevented virtualization even if you wanted to hack something like VirtualBox or VMware to virtualize them in violation of the EULA and copyrights.

Incidentally, while you can virtualize OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard Server as well as both versions of OS X Lion, the license still limits this to Apple Hardware.

VirtualBox supports virtualizing OS X Snow Leopard Server. You can find instructions for doing this here.  VMware Fusion supports virtualizing OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard Server as well as OS X Lion client and server versions.


Prevent other users from ejecting (or even seeing) my mounted disk images

To help make the mounted disk image less visible, you can run the SetFile command to make the volume's directory invisible. This will make the mounted disk image be less-obviously visible in the Finder sidebar for other users. Of course, this makes it less visible to you, too, but you can make an alias in the Finder to where the folder should be for you.

Run SetFile to make the mounted disk image image be invisible in the Finder:

SetFile -a V /Users/gabriele/MyDocs

Open the disk image location in the Finder:

open /Users/gabriele/MyDocs

Make an alias to make it easy for you to open the now-hidden MyDocs. Within the open Finder window, grab the folder icon in the top center where it says "MyDocs" and then drag that while holding down the Option+Command keys and release it on your Desktop, just not to /Users/gabriele, because you will need to rename the alias first, otherwise it will not let you copy it. So rename the dragged-off "MyDoc" to "MyDoc alias", then move it to /Users/gabriele or wherever you like. Now you should have the alias "MyDoc alias" to your hidden MyDoc directory, other users will not see it in the Finder sidebar.

Note: Xcode needs to be installed in order to use SetFile. Additionally, I had to relaunch the Finder on Lion for the mounted disk image to become invisible, try that if you can't get MyDoc to disappear.

Not sure how to prevent ejection, since anyone with access to Disk Utility, the mount command, etc. can see the path to it and un-mount it for you. However, making it invisible does lessen the need to make it un-ejectable, since it will not be in other users' faces in the Finder as an option to eject.


Boot Camp Partition Unavailable After Windows 10 Upgrade

Reason for that is that windows doesn't fully shut down and goes into hibernating mode where the partition is read only...
Go into the system setting of windows and uncheck the "fast restart" in the energy settings. Then fully shut down and it shows up.


Is there a macOS equivalent of the Windows assoc command?

Changing the file association for a single file or a set of files (AppleScript)

This script demonstrates first that the default application for some text file on my system was set to TextEdit.  Then it changes the file association for that particular file so it now opens with Atom.  Finally, it associates all text files on the desktop with the Atom application.

tell application "System Events"
    get the default application of the file "/path/to/some file.txt"
        --> alias "Macintosh HD:Applications:TextEdit.app:" of application "System Events"

    # Individual file:
    set the default application of the file "/path/to/some file.txt" to ¬
        the path to the application named "Atom"

    # A set of files:
    set the default application of every file of the desktop folder whose ¬
        name extension = "txt" to the path to the application "Atom"
end tell

Changing the file associations for all files of a given type (JXA)

Using JavaScript for Automation, you can implement Core Foundation functions in a way you cannot do with AppleScriptObjC, so as to interact with Launch Services at the system level and change the file association for a given file type.

Here, I've targetted plain text files (these have extension .txt by default), and switched the default application that responds to them to Atom:

ObjC.import('CoreServices');

var contentType = 'public.plain-text';
var bundleID = Application('Atom').id();

$.LSSetDefaultRoleHandlerForContentType(
            contentType,
            $.kLSRolesAll,
            bundleID
        );

The file type must be targeted by way of a Uniform Type Identifier.  These are special text strings that uniquely identify a given class or type of item.  The link will take you to a page that lists Apple's system-declared UTIs for all the likely file types that you'll be interested in.  Be careful not to simply choose the one that appears to match your needs at first glance, as UTIs are structured in a kind of inheritance tree.  Therefore, I could have lazily picked out public.text, which I saw first in the list, until on further reading, we learn that this UTI is a base type for all text, which would include HTML and RTF files.


Way to remove or minimize iPad/iPhone 4 glass scratches?

You might check out the resurfacing compounds from TDI Smart Technologies.  They seem to have come up with their own compound formula for removing scratches from Glass, Acrylic and even Gorilla Glass touch screen panels.  Here's their link...

TDI Smart Technologies - Glass, Acrylic, and Gorilla Glass Compounds

As far as a screen protector, I have always loved the screen protectors from Screenguardz.  Compared to the ones at Best Buy (forget which brand but they are stickier feeling), they are extremely smooth and the anti-glare is great in sunlight or other bright environments.  Here's their link...

ScreenGuardz

A little late here but I hope this helps someone that comes across this in the future.


There could be several issues:

Make sure your device is turned on

  The Magic Mouse and Magic Mouse 2 have a slide switch on the bottom of the device. Slide the switch to turn on the device. On the Magic Mouse, the green LED briefly lights up. On the Magic Mouse 2, green coloring is visible beneath the switch.

Make sure your  devices are setup with your Mac

See here how to set it up.

If you charge your mouse wiring a lightning cable then you can go to Bluetooth preferences to see the charge level.

Turn Bluetooth on

Go to the Apple menu -> System preferences and then Bluetooth on.

(Source)


What contributes to my iPhone iCloud backup size?

Per Apple, this is what is backed up:

Purchased music, movies, TV shows, apps, and books
Photos and videos in your Camera Roll
Device settings
App data
Home screen and app organization
iMessage, text (SMS), and MMS messages
Ringtones
Visual Voicemail

Things like purchased content, Messages.app, ringtones, and voicemails are not actually explicitly listed in the backup screens for you to see how much space will be used. This would account for the difference.


I cannot type the letter "c" on my iMac G5

This article from Mac World (for macOS 10.12.5, not Mac OS X 10.5.8) suggests that the key could have been set up to speak the selected text.

This would consistent with the "Funk" error noise each time I pressed the c key, because there was no text selected for it to read out! I tested this by selecting some text and, lo and behold, it read the text out.

The interface in macOS 10.12.5 is different enough that it's not clear where to find the settings from the article.

Open System Preferences and click "Speech".

Click "Text to Speech" in the tab bar and then, next to the "Speak selected text when the key is pressed" click the "Set Key..." button.

Chose a new key combination (mine was set to c1). I changed it to Option + Esc.

I can now type the c key!

1 It was actually set to Caps Lock + c. Why this was being triggered without Caps Lock being turned on or depressed I am unsure.


Can't change wallpaper for Secondary Desktop; I've already tried system preferences

On Mountain Lion, you have to open System preferences and drag the window to corresponding desktop at which you want to change the wallpaper. Then select background picture of choice.


If the affected apps have permission to use the camera, try to force the iPhone to restart: hold down the Home Button and the Power Button at the same time until you see the Apple logo (about 10 seconds).


Time/date not auto recognising my location for time zone after using a VPN

I hate to point out the obvious, but at least it is a temporary fix. Uncheck the "Set time zone automatically..." checkbox and manually set your time zone.


Why is Google maps (the built-in app) so slow on the iPhone 4?

From a MacRumors.com forum post:

  My problem: Typing on the Google Maps app was very slow, independent of network connection.

  My solution: Apparently there are issues with the GPS multitasking. I went to Settings > General > Location Services. Notice you can toggle the GPS for each app. Apps using the GPS have a purple arrow next to the ON/OFF switch. I turned location services off for every other app with the purple arrow. I went back to the Google Maps application and everything worked well.

  This might not work for everyone but it worked for me.


Where is the Apple Air Port Utility 'Use dynamic global hostname' option?

Apple seem to have removed/hidden some of the more advanced options from the Airport Utility interface in version 6 and this is likely one of them. Unless there's a workaround someone else can suggest to make such options visible again, on 10.7 (Lion), I've been getting around this by using the AirPort Utility 5.6 for Mac OS X Lion. You can find the Dynamic Global Hostname option by clicking Manual Setup > AirPort > Base Station tab > Edit - though I'm sure you already know that :)

Note that I have the AirPort Express 802.11n (2nd Generation) and the Airport Utility 5.6 does complain that

  This version of AirPort Utility doesn't support this AirPort wireless
  device and might improperly configure the device if you continue to
  use it

when you try to configure it. It seems to read all the information correctly but I would urge you to export your configuration first and/or not have anything you can't put back after a full reset, if things go wrong.


Is less(1) missing lesskey functionality?

The Lion build of less indeed comes with the lesskey feature disabled, as can be seen by the customized defines.h it is being built with (line #define USERFILE 0). This doesn't mean it's broken, just that someone decided to customize the build and disable this feature for whatever reason. Sadly they neglected to update the man page, which is why it's still referring to it.

If you want this feature, building your own less from source is just a matter of ./configure && make install (which puts it into /usr/local), and you might also want to get a more recent version while you're at it.


External display not recognized after waking from sleep until restarted

I still have the same issue on a macbook pro 15' 2018.
Unplugging and plugging again the screens helps without having to restart the whole thing... except that all open windows jump to the main screen.
.
///// EDIT solved the issue through an external thunderbolt dock
I am using the Thunderbolt 3 Dock of Glyph now. My external screen is connected to its Display Port port. After waking up the screens behave normally. When I take a break, I power off the external screen and power it on before waking up the computer. In the tips I got from Glyph, they do ask you to turn off Energy Saving options when connected to the dock, but it all seem to work fine,


Remove an automatic correction from the dictionary?

Yes, there is a workaround for this.

Navigate to Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Text Replacement

You can now add "munutes" as the phrase and shortcut.

This will ensure your spell check won't autocorrect "munutes" from now on.

I have had to do this for my actual name as well as some of my friends names as autocorrect isn't a fan of Irish names.


How can I restore macOS on a MacBook if all the data on the hard drive is wiped/corrupted?

So, first of all you need at least a 16 GB USB Drive.  Formatted as Mac OS Extended (use disk utility). And you need to open up the Mac App Store and download the macOS Mojave (or any version supported by your Mac) Installer.

Then follow this guide: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

After that you can eject your USB Drive.

Then when you need to reinstall macOS you shutdown your computer. Then hold down the option key then press the power button while holding down the option key until you see a boot picker. Then insert your USB Drive you created above. Use the arrow keys to select it then press enter. Then click disk utility and select your internal ssd and click erase. Then quit disk utility and click install macOS and follow the guide there.

Now your on your way to a working macOS install. Enjoy!


Pairing Apple Watch to new iPhone without erasing

The watch backs up periodically, but you can’t easily get at the backups until you bring an unpaired watch to the phone containing the backups.

I don’t foresee this changing this fall 2019 but a cloud backup interface would be needed to do what you ask if the watch or another wearable was to stand without the iPhone to manage data and setup.

I’ve not seen any way to jailbreak a watch and repair it either which is what you’re looking to accomplish so until new information comes to light, you’re stuck with only one option.

Get an iPhone to recover whatever backup exists of the lost iPhone, then wipe the watch and repair. You certainly want to engage apple support in case they have any insight into how they plan to handle this situation or if we don’t know enough and there are other options.


Dell E2720HS flickering as external MacBook Pro monitor

Make sure that the HDMI adapter is compatible with MacBook. Some HDMI adapter isn't and makes your screen flicker.


Why does iCloud use storage even when i have deleted all my backups?

Seems like the same problem I've encountered. What helped me was:

  Create a backup again
  Wait until the storage space is updated
  Delete the backup

The solution for me was to update the "cache". Somehow when you are deleting to many things at the same time, iCloud isn't updating the storage.


Problem is solved after updating to iOS 11.


How to switch off mDNSResponder as it is draining my mobile data?

mDNSResponder handles DNS resolution in macOS. That means that when any other program running on the Mac wants to connect to an Internet server by name (e.g. Safari wanting to connect to www.apple.com), mDNSResponder is what does the research to turn that name into a numeric IP address so the program can actually connect to it.

This means three things: First, if you turn it off, your Mac will be unable to do very much on the Internet. Everything that uses DNS names will break, and that's basically everything that uses the Internet.

Second, it shouldn't be using that much actual data; lookups are pretty small, and in normal usage it won't do too huge a number of them. It might look like a lot if you're using something that shows cumulative usage, since mDNSResponder runs basically forever, so you'd see how much data it's used since the last time you restarted your Mac.

Third, the data that it does use isn't really its fault (so to speak). It's doing things (and generating traffic) because other programs are doing things that require it.

If you are seeing a large amount of traffic from mDNSResponder, there may be something else going on. I'd start with a malware scan, and if that doesn't solve it look into finding out what all that traffic is and what program is triggering it, and stop it at that level.


SD card not detected through a USB hub on a newer intel-based Mac

You won't see it in disk utils or finder until it is mounted. The primary causes of this are (in my experience):

Inadequate power in the USB-C hub. Typically, power needs to pass through the hub rather than the hub being a stub. (Sorry, couldn't resist the rhyme). I think I saw the hub plugged in by itself...
Now, that said, with nothing else, that shouldn't be a problem, but try it. It's quite common with USB hard drives that are USB powered.

Bad connection or damaged card. Check the card contacts, make sure they are clean and undamaged.

A corrupted card (or a card image that looks corrupted due to 1 or 2). Check to see if an fsck process is running on the card; this is done for 'dirty' disk images that aren't known to be cleanly ejected. It won't mount until that completes. If the process is hung, or dies repeatedly, then it's likely that it's having a hard time reading the card, again, see 1 and 2. If it's hung, kill it, and eject the card and try again.


Can I keep my iTunes library after I get an Apple Music subscription?

You can keep your iTunes music.  A subscription to Apple Music just provides you access to most of the music found in Apple's iTunes music store.  It will not replace any of the songs that are found in your library.  It is important to note that all of my songs were downloaded from the store itself.

If you are worried about your songs being deleted or overwritten, I would suggest that you back them up to an external HD or another folder on your computer.  Then if they are overwritten you can always get them back.

One thing to note though is that on all computers/iPhones/etc. besides the one you initially subscribed to Apple Music, any music downloaded as part of the subscription will come from Apple Music. In most cases this will be the same track as the one on the original computer, but if Apple's matching algorithm gets it wrong, you might get another version of the same track (e.g. live vs studio recording, or original releases vs. "best of" sampler).


Deploying a python application in OS X Server 2.0.23 (aka Mountain Lion Server)

Being more of a programming question, I asked it at Stackoverflow and got an reasonable answer to make it work.


How to troubleshoot NIS binding problems on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion?

Since NIS is a third party product - you should be able to follow any of the great troubleshooting guides on the internet and make headway to determine if this is a client or server issue.

My gold standard for a NIS guide is from IBM:

Troubleshooting NIS-Related Problems

From what you have posted in the question edits - it appears that ypwhich would be the next item to check to ensure the client OS is configured properly. If not, the network troubleshooting or a manual ypset may be needed. If to, you could use ypcat to see that the command line can call some of the maps you care to configure on the client side (hosts for example).


Here's what we know:

When Xcode 4.0 hit the store - it was $4.99 and ran on Snow Leopard
Xcode 4.1 hit the store July 20 (Lion launch day) for free but requires Lion. It replaces the prior version so that's effectively not for sale any longer.

Unless you feel someone that has a hand in pricing decisions from Apple will answer here, the rest is speculation.


Is there a way to restore the iPhone's oleophobic screen coating once it's worn off?

There is a product called Fusso oleophobic coating (available here), that promises to restore the oleophobic properties of your iPhone display (there is also a tablet version)

I personally haven't tried it, but the website ifixit.com, specialists on repairing Apple products, say that the product works really well.


In 10.7 Apple provides keyboard layouts for Colemak and 4 versions of Dvorak for your typing pleasure.  You can activate them in system preferences/language & text/input sources.

Best to go to system preferences/users and groups/login options and make sure the box is checked for "Show Input Menu on Login Page" if you activate additional layouts.


Apparently this is a chrome bug that's been around for some time and never seems to have been fixed.

Several bug reports are available but I haven't ever seen a fix or even a chrome extension that fixes it.  I think if the web server identifies the content or mime type correctly it might work, but looks like there's nothing you can do about that from the browser-side of things.

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=38213
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=39708&q=download%20filename%20extensions&colspec=ID%20Pri%20M%20Iteration%20ReleaseBlock%20Cr%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20OS%20Modified


After installing SSD in 2009 iMac I only see a black screen

Fixed it. The DisplayPort connector came undone.


How to delete leftover files from aborted migrations?

You could use OmniDiskSweeper (free to download and use) to search for and remove big folders. To find the problematic area fast, run it in parallel on both your macs (to see the differences) and start at the top level.

If you don't want to install additional software, you can start by running du -sg /* on both Macs, drilling down into the directories with the biggest difference and repeating du until you found the problematic files.


Educational discount at Apple Retail Stores?

Yes, you can get educational discounts at a physical Apple Store -- I have done it, though it has been a while ;-).

They require verification of your status which can generally be done with a student id.


What applications would be expected to setup a network interface "stf0" and "gif0"

Those are Tunnel-Interfaces. They are commonly used to provide IPv6- or VPN-Services. They are usually always active, but not connected unless you set up your system to use them.

You can determine if an interface is enabled but not active by observing its flags using ifconfig <interfacename> to not contain UP.

You can look up the definition for those interfaces on the terminal with man gif or man stf, respectively.


I'd say it's an issue with GOM Player subtitle renderer.

It's probably trying to open/read the subtitles but fails and this failure makes it impossible to play the video (it's probably a bug in GOM Player, since most player would just skip the subtitle and play the movie anyway).

I'd suggest you try another player, VLC is fine, Perian works great with QuickTime or MPlayerX which is free on the Mac App Store. And they all play subtitles, also.


Delete Application from iPhone 5.1 Simulator

Go to the iOS simulator menu and choose Reset Content and Settings...

Why this happens is harder, but it's just development and you are working with a simulator, not a real device. Sometimes it's faster to get out the broom and clean the floor to start freshly.

If you are curious, the simulator filesystem is stored in the following location:

  ~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/version

So if you want to poke around and delete things, you could try to exercise the phantom app, but I don't see you saving time by somehow editing the filesystem and hoping the simulator would work once it's broken in the manner you describe. The normal way to delete an app is to press the X and since that's broken, who knows what else is out of sync. Better to start fresh and not waste more time when the system says there is a problem with the simulator.


Trackpad (+ spotlight) semi-unresponsive, Mavericks on a 2010 MBP

If you physically cannot hear/feel the bottom of the trackpad actually click the switches on the right and/or left of the trackpad, then this is probably a hardware issue that only coincidentally occurred with the software update. I have experienced a large number of older MacBooks with failure-to-click issues that are the result of a bulging battery pushing on the back of the trackpad assembly.

A short-to-medium term solution is to use the "System Preferences" -> "Trackpad" controls to turn on "tap-to-click", but eventually the battery will need replacing. This will have the added benefit of giving you a longer time-between-needing-recharging compared to your four year old battery.


Install and print from two identical printers on iMac?

Dymo label drivers are quite picky and ask that you not connect the devices until the installer asks specifically for the device to be connected. I believe that is to prevent both queues going to the first device in the USB chain, but I don't have two to test with.

I would delete both printer definitions and start with the installer from here:

https://dymo.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/101/~/dymo-drivers-and-downloads#lw_mac

The read me has the following caution:

  NOTE: Do not connect the USB cable to your computer or USB hub until
  instructed to do so during the software installation. If you have a
  label printer already installed, disconnect the USB cable from your
  computer before running the installer and reconnect the cable when
  instructed to do so.

So you could try deleting only one queue and then disconnecting the printer that printed from the other queue and try setting up the second printer again.


I can't see my photos on my iPad mini from Windows 8

If your iPad mini jailbroken or not? Usually I would use iTunes for my photos and videos transferred to computer.


Mysterious early morning cellular data usage

It could be something like this secret (well, not so secret any more) program as detailed in the Wall Street Journal:

  Updated Nov. 13, 2014 8:22 p.m. ET

  WASHINGTON—The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands
  of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic
  cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is
  snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people
  familiar with the operations.

  The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional
  around 2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five
  metropolitan-area airports, with a flying range covering most of the
  U.S. population, according to people familiar with the program.

I've noticed the same thing myself, and I hear light planes flying over my greater NYC area home in the early morning several times a week. Because I'm a bit paranoid, I turn off my phone at night.


Disk utility on OSX and gParted both fail to format a drive

Two possible problems IMHO:

1) Faulty disk, bad blocks on it.
2) Corrupted GUID (usually mac disks aren't formatted with MBR)

Possible check/solutions:

1) How to check for bad blocks without formatting.
2) View my answer here.

However, if you can provide an exit error number while trying to format disk with disk utility it's easier to identify the exact origin of your issue.


NTFS-3G partition name contains increasing number

Using OSXFUSE with version 2.7 on the Mavericks this working.

Since I can not post more than 2 links, read a tutorial I posted and solved my problem in this link!

https://github.com/osxfuse/osxfuse/issues/119


Using postgres with launchd without constant issues

I wound up moving the postgres launchd plist to /Library/LaunchDaemons and adding a UserName key/value pair (postgres won't run as root).


I'd recommend iBooks Author. It's freely available on the Mac App Store.
The interface is pretty straight forward and you can drag/drop almost anything in it.

Check it out here: http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/


Speed up sleep (disable com.apple.powermanagement.darkwakelinger)

There's an (apparently undocumented) option in pmset to adjust the "dark wake linger" interval.

sudo pmset dwlinterval <seconds>

However, I would recommend against changing the default without a good reason.


Sudo command takes time to run after Sierra

After lot of reading and all, I found that AMPPS entry in sudoers file is culprit.

open sudoers file using sudo visudo command OR use some editor (take backup of sudoers file before making changes and also read guide to use "visodo" )

I commented 2 lines in my sudoers file and everything is fine now.

#%amit ALL= NOPASSWD: /Applications/AMPPS/Ampps.app
#%amit ALL= NOPASSWD: /Applications/AMPPS/ampps

Similar experience/solution has been shared by this blogger here,

You might not be having AMPPS on your machine so what worked for me, might not work for you.

Point to highlight is "There is something in there in your sudoers file which is causing issue, just find that line"


If you happen to have Find My Phone enabled on the device, you could try logging into iCloud or using the App from any other iOS device. This way you could, firstly, know the exact battery level and, secondly, you could trigger the locating feature which will help with the battery drainage.


Which encryption algorithm do external hard drives use?

They are encrypted with the AES encryption algorithm.
After you have encrypted the external disk, you can open Terminal and run this command to check the encryption:
diskutil cs list

It will show the disk, and then something like this in the output:

    Encryption Type:         AES-XTS

Here AES-XTS means that the main encryption algorithm is AES, and that the XTS block cipher mode is used.
The XTS block cipher mode is used primarily to prevent that identical blocks of data (for example "never used space") encrypts into the same encrypted value. This is done by actually having 2 AES keys and a process where the data is continuously "tweaked" specifically to avoid such a problem.
If you have chosen to format the drive as APFS and not HFS+, then it won't show up when running the above mentioned command. You can check if that is the case by running:
diskutil apfs list

This will show the disk as being APFS formatted. However, it won't show you which encryption type is being used on the drive.


Why does `g++ --version` say LLVM/clang?

In modern versions of macOS, g++ is just a little shim that points to the relevant part of clang in whichever version of Xcode you have installed.

Historically g++ was the C++ compiler that was part of the GCC compiler distribution, but Apple stopped distributing that with the operating system when they moved over to LLVM.

If you want to use the GCC distribution you can install it through homebrew.


Block all unknown numbers not in my Contacts from calling and messaging on my iPhone

Yes, albeit with some trade offs. See this link for some information. If you go to Settings, hit General > Do Not Disturb > Allow Calls From and select Contacts Only. This setting applies to SMS messages as well. Hopefully this is useful.


Edit a date value in plist from terminal

I'm surprised the original solution ever worked, but maybe the defaults command changed in recent versions. Try

defaults write com.test.name.plist TestAppFirstSeen "$(date +'%Y-%m-%d %l:%M:%S +0000')"

Also, %l gives you the hours between 1 and 12. If you want 1 to 24 use %H instead.


iPhone 3GS has color depth of 24-bit color or 18-bit color?

i found the answer, iPhone 3Gs use 24-bit Emulation color not the 24-bit true color.

  18-bit:  Almost all of the least expensive LCD displays (such as typical
  twisted nematic types) provide 18-bit color (64 × 64 × 64 = 262,144
  combinations) to achieve faster color transition times, and use either
  dithering or frame rate control to approximate 24-bit-per-pixel true
  color,[12] or throw away 6 bits of color information entirely. More
  expensive LCD displays (typically IPS) can display 24-bit or greater
  color depth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-bit_color#True_color_.2824-bit.29

Note: 18-bit color display was used either dithering or frame rate control to simulate 24 bit (16.76 million colors) per pixel true color; yielding sub-optimal color accuracy and often having poor viewing angles (http://techreport.com/review/23204/tr-summer-2012-system-guide/14)

So correct answer is 24-bit emulation color.


Prevent websites from taking over audio on iPhone?

If your device is jailbroken, you can install Don't Kill the Beat. This prevents apps other than Music.app from playing music. To allow an app to play music (e.g. a video in Safari), pause the music in Music.app manually yourself, such as with the Control Center.


How can I install Mountain Lion in a VMware Fusion VM?

You cannot install OS X Mountain Lion through the Recovery HD to VMWare Fusion. It doesn’t have the necessary files. An OS X Installer Image is required, which you can obtain from within the Install OS X Mountain Lion.app. It’s called Install ESD.dmg, and it worked for me, so it will most likely work for you.


TexMaker, permanent changing of the path

I edit the settings opening the program as administrator.


"Save-as" shortcut not working for anything

Follow this guide, you'll be able to track down a few more places that may be interfering.

System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts

This is the obvious one that you'd think of. However, you said you've checked and can't find anything, so we'll move on

System Preferences -> Dictation and Speech -> Text to Speech

It's unlikely, but possible that you bound "Speak selected text when the key is pressed" to something else (as I have.)

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist

If you can't find anything else take a look here and see if you spot anything that's using the keys you want unbound.


macbook pro making repetitive clicking noise

As previously mentioned, it's either the hard drive,but it sounds to me like something might be impeding one of your fans. I used to hear something similar with an older MBP I had and it was the fan on the GPU. Might be worth taking it into a qualified Apple dealer/service point.


What setup is needed to stay backed up and online after retiring the TimeCapsule?

You could certainly try backing up to a computer running a server version of the OS which allows for networked TM backups to it much like your Time Capsule.

You could also just get an Airport Extreme and roll your own Time Capsule equivalent.

You could try to nail the performance issues of you TC by attaching wired to see if things improve, and it may then prove simplest to just improve your Wireless capabilities by wiring a couple of cheap Airport Expresses to it, you could then even though a cheap switch on the end of one for faster backups if you have a large one.


How do I re-associate HTTP links with my browser in OS X?

Check the file associations for both HTTP & HTTPS, make sure both are set to Safari.

A simple way to do this would be using RCDefaultApp

 Answered as Community Wiki just so we don't have a dangling question when there's a perfectly good answer in the comments.


No, if you did not enable lost mode, the device's location history is not recorded.


How do push notifications work from a networking point of view?

WiFi networks use "beacons" to allow clients to enter power-saving mode, but still be notified regularly if there is any traffic waiting to be sent to them.

Before entering power-saving mode, a WiFi device checks how often beacons are sent from the AP (typically, every 100ms, so ten per second, but some APs will let you vary it) and then wakes up in time to receive it. This beacon tells the client if there is any traffic waiting to be sent to it. Thus, it can still spend most of it's time powered down, but occasionally wake up to see if there's any real work to do. If there isn't, it immediately goes back to sleep again. And therein lies the powersavng.

Good page on it here: http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/1492071/


Why is "Other" storage in iPhone 8 taking up over 50 GB?

Try resetting the phone.
Back it up first using iTunes (or the Finder on macOS Catalina.) And don't forget to give the backup a password so it saves your passwords.
Then go into Settings > General > Reset and erase all content and settings.
This will reset it to factory defaults and delete the caches and temporary files or whatever else is taking up that space.
Then restore the backup you just made and most, if not all, of that "other" storage being taken up should be reduced substantially.
If not you may want to look at Settings > General > iPhone Storage and see if you have a particular app that is holding on to a lot of storage space.


AirPort Express and Extreme Wi-Fi strength comparison

Alright, this is an easy catch here.

If you compare AirPort Express which has 2 built-in antennas , the AirPort Extreme has 6 built-in antennas. You should be able to do the math here and jump to the conclusion that the Extreme would have a better range and signal because of this fact.

To see the source, please click the back url below the Airport Extreme picture here.

Please check this comparison model provided by Apple.
The difference for you

Express max 300Mbps
Extreme max 1.3Gbps


Converting videos in the background using automator and handbrake

First, I'm assuming that you accidentally chopped the '/' character off the front of the path to Handbrake in your example. Second, when you say "hidden mode" you mean run in the background.

What happens if you run the command from the command line?

How do you know the command isn't running when you run it in background mode? Are you doing a "ps" command from the command line to see if it is running or not?

Have you tried adding ">>~/HB_log.txt 2>&1" just before the "&" command so that you get a log of both the output and the errors it might be putting out?

If only the first part of the name is being used then I assume that the quote characters around the name are being stripped - try escaping them with a '\'. Like so '\"/Users/abc/Desktop/TestVidDest/$(basename $f)\" ' and see what happens.

I also suspect that problems with the name might be upsetting the entire line and causing your problem.

I would actually write a shell script that you could test externally and then call your shell script from Automator.


Does `ps` command on MacOS have permission for non-admin user?

ps -A shows all processes, regardless of user. From the man page:

  -A Display information about other users' processes, including those without controlling terminals.


MacBook Pro shows not charging when plugged in

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

  If you're experiencing issues with any of these, you might
  need to reset the SMC.

  Power, including the power button and power to
  the USB ports
  Battery and charging
  Fans and other thermal-management features
  Indicators or sensors such as status indicator lights (sleep
  status, battery charging status, and others), the sudden motion
  sensor, the ambient light sensor, and keyboard backlighting
  ...

How to reset SMC:

Shut down your Mac.
Press and hold all of these keys:

Shift (left)
Control  (left)
Option (Alt)  (left)

While holding all three keys, press and hold the power button too.
Keep holding all four keys for 10 seconds.
Release all keys, then press the power button to turn on your Mac.


Setting Server to login.icq.com and Port to 5190, unchecking SSL in Server Settings tab should help.

Add:

Enter only the first eight characters of your password, leaving off any extras.  This consistently worked for me.  I use OSX 10.9 Mavericks and Messages.

Some have had results leaving the last character off their password.


What are some Weather Widgets I can use?

Living earth is quite cool. Don't know if it's a widget. Works on ipad, iphone and mac.

  Enjoy a stunning live 3D simulation of our planet with global weather, forecasts and world clock for cities around the world. View live global cloud patterns, hurricanes and tropical storms. Explore and experience amazing weather dynamics on our planet with real-time 3D weather maps and typhoon and hurricane tracking. Living Earth is the best and most beautiful World Clock, Weather and Alarm available for your iPhone and iPad!


Restore Firefox & Thunderbird user data from Time Machine

The User Data folders for Firefox and Thunderbird are:

/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/Firefox
/Users/$USER/Library/Thunderbird

You might also want to migrate the .plist files for them as well:

/Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.firefox.plist
/Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.thunderbird.plist

Make sure the applications are close before migrating the folders/files.


How do I get Time Machine to work during Power Nap

According to the Apple support doc, using Time Machine to back up in Power Nap requires the laptop to be plugged in:

  When your portable Mac is connected to a power source, it also downloads software updates, makes backups with Time Machine, performs Spotlight indexing, and can continue Mac App Store downloads.  It also updates Help Center.


Operating at 5GHz means that (in the margin - there are other factors) 802.11ac will penetrate walls, ceilings, floors less well than 802.11n at 2.4GHz.

The AirPort Utility allows you to setup a separate Network Name for the 5GHz frequency (Wireless Tab / Click Wireless Options). This means that you can explicitly select whether to connect a device via n/2.4GHz or ac/5GHz.

If you do this you can use /System/Library/CoreServices/Wireless Diagnostics  (via Option+Click on WiFi) described here: How to troubleshoot 802.11ac bandwidth problems (note don't continue with the default assistant - select Utilities from the Window menu) to examine the relative performance of ac/n from different locations.

In my case I observed that with clear line of sight ac reported a Tx Rate of 867 Mbps compared to 145 Mbps for n. In contrast, several rooms away ac dropped off to the extent that n had better performance.

Reverting the changes above (so both 2.4GHz and 5GHz have the same network name) and repeating the tests, saw the connection automatically switch from ac to n as signal dropped off.

In contrast, I've not (yet) seen an automatic switch from n to ac at a location where powering Wifi off/on gets (and holds) the ac connection.

While less than perfect in terms of "just doing the right thing", this is perhaps understandable - triggering a switch when quality drops below some threshold rather than continuously looking for a "better" connection when what you've got (albeit n rather than ac) is rated as "excellent". Of course this is an OS X behaviour ... perhaps Mavericks will address it?


Launch console application in iTerm on boot

Create a script which will run Your app. Something like:

#!/bin/bash
/path/to/executable

Save it, change this to be executable with chmod +x in Terminal or iTerm2 app. Right click on this file and choose Get Info, select the prefered app which will open it (in Your case iTerm2 app). Open Preferences.app, go to Users and Groups -> Login and add Your script there. With this once You login Your script will be opened in iTerm2 app.


Why might the App Store draw variable-type strings in place of actual values?

This issue resolved itself after that single update.
I did reboot once without updating, and the glitch persisted past that boot, but after the update in question was done and the laptop rebooted, there was no recurrence.

As for the likelihood of a corrupted installer dmg, @KevinChen points out that "there is a lot of checksumming that goes on when you open DMGs and apps, so corruption seems unlikely"


Colorware clearly states that their customization voids Apple's warranty:

  ColorWare Inc. replaces all existing Apple Inc. warranty policies and procedures with a ColorWare Inc. warranty, the documentation for which is included with all products purchased from ColorWare Inc.

More detailed information is available at ColorWare's warranty page, where they specify that they cover "workmanship defects and non-accidental hardware failures". While this sounds similar to Apple's warranty, it would be difficult to expect similar quality of service, especially outside of the United States.


Copy highlighted text and replace it using AppleScript

This might do the trick:

on run
    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "c" using command down
    end tell

    tell application "Finder"
        set x to the clipboard
        set x to "Today " & x & " a sunny day"
        set the clipboard to x
    end tell

    tell application "System Events"
        keystroke "v" using command down
    end tell
end run

Though it might be better to write the script without using the clipboard (i.e., without copying and pasting), but that requires involvement of the application(s) you are working with, and you did not tell us which ones they are.


I found the solution :

we need to 'create' right click on trackpad first. This is done by Preferences>Trackpad> Point&Click> Secondary click> click in bottom right corner
once step one is done, go to xcode. hover the mouse over the view for which you wish to create an action or outlet, do not tap, press right click on the trackpad with one hand and drag the view with other hand (without tapping).

That's all is required.


How to store Mac documents in the iCloud?

You cannot treat iCloud as some sort of internet filesystem like Dropbox.  The only way to place data into the iCloud system is via an iCloud enabled app.  There is no generic way to access your iCloud files except via the application that put the files there in the first place.

So, in order to use iCloud, use iCloud enabled apps.  Use the same apps on 2 or more Macs, and that is how you share docs/data.

I'm not sure when the Mac iWork apps will get iCloud, I suspect in the next version which is now sorely overdue.


Change default font in Word Office for Mac 2011

To permanently change the font formatting for all new documents use the following procedures.

On the Format menu, click Font.
Make all of the desired changes in the Font dialog box.
Click Default.
When prompted with the following, click Yes:

Do you want to change the default font to < list of changes>? This change will affect all new documents based on the NORMAL template.
Hold down the SHIFT key while clicking on the File menu, and click
Save All.

Word will not prompt you to save the changes to the Normal.dot unless you have the option "Prompt to Save Normal template" selected on the Save tab of the Preferences dialog box (on the Tools menu, click Preferences).


Try to use dd:

dd bs=4M if=path_to_iso of=path_to_usb && sync

Replace path_to_iso and path_to_usb with appropriate paths.


21.5 inch retina iMac used as external monitor

Yes, in the sense you can share the screen over a internet connection. There will be a noticeable small delay as information is exchanged over the internet connection. What you would normally see on the iMac is the same as seen on the Mac Book Pro. The displays would mirror each other. If you had an actually external monitor connected to the Mac Book Pro and you are not mirroring the displays, then what you would see on the single iMac display is what is shown on both the internal and external Mac Book Pro displays. So in this case, the iMac would mirror both the internal and external Mac Book Pro displays.

No, in the sense of an actual external monitor. There is no input jack on the iMac like you would find on an actual external monitor.

Other than this, I do think it is possible for you to buy another computer.


headset plugged in via Y-adapter and extension cable stopped working

Based on this statement in your question:

  The (bad) solution was plugging in my headset directly to the build in
  3.5mm port.

This tells me you didn't have good results going directly from headset to iMac audio plug.

  Directly plugged in headset sound far worse then over the previous
  setup. According to my friends, which here me everyday via TeamSpeak.

Which is confirmed by this statement.

  Testing the long extension cable and the Y-adapter I came to the conclusion both work fine. It is very unlikely that on both cables the mic channel broke at the same time.

This is absolutely correct.  Cables will last a long time if you don't abuse them.  You would know if your cable was giving you trouble and you didn't indicate it here.

Unfortunately, your iMac audio port may be bad.

Your audio cable plugging into the back of your iMac looks something similar to the image below.  Each one of the contacts is a "spring loaded" contact that pushes against the plug.   In effect, it is a mechanical component and prone to failure at some point.   Alternatively, you may have a bad solder joint on the audio jack's connection to the logic board.  It's impossible to know unless you have it diagnosed by a technician.

After doing some searches around the Internet, it seems the the audio port for the iMac 27 (2013) is still separate from the logic board, but for whatever reason it's not availabe in the aftermarket yet.

Looking at the the back of the iMac, we see it's to the left of the SD card reader.

However, looking at the logic board, it's not physically attached:

(images courtesy of ifixit.com)

This gives me hope that you can have it replaced by Apple or an Authorized Service Center.  Hopefully, soon, it will be available for order on the secondary market because this is a very easy DIY project.

The other options is that you could switch over to USB and/or Bluetooth headsets.  Going USB would probably be the easiest way to go.

You mentioned that you have it connected to a stereo.  I am personally using Behringer UCA202 Audio Interface to hook my iMac up to my Bose Wave Radio.


Backing up an iPhone without the use of a cloud service or a computer

iOS only supports backup to a computer running iTunes or to iCloud.

If your aim is to keep everything on servers you control yourself you might use an NextCloud installation (with disk encryption) and use the Files app (or native NextCloud apps) to manage your data. That way you at least won't use your data in case your phone gets lost or stolen.


This appears to work in the updated version I am running now.


How can I know if my MacBook pro supports 8 gb or not?

This is your mac: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP544

4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 memory; two SO-DIMM slots support up to 8GB

A cool trick in case you want to find more about it is you can type your serial number right into the support search on the apple site and it will bring up your model and specification article. Take a look: http://support.apple.com/specs/#w89253hx64c


CMD + Tab from fullscreen app switches to wrong application

Force quit Preview, since it has a bad habit of running in the background, like text edit and others. Only Terminal, Finder and Safari should only be seen with cmd+tab pressed in full screen view....good luck


Creating the same, double applications for iOS permitted?

Apple can reject apps which are duplicates:

  2.11
  Apps that duplicate Apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them, such as fart, burp, flashlight, and Kama Sutra Apps

Source: Apple App Store Review Guidelines

You should only create one app and spend your efforts promoting this app. Furthermore, if you seek to make apps that appeal to users with clear functionality, Apple's interests and your interests will align. In the case where you are looking to ride hot search terms, unless your apps are really what you are seeding in the search terms - trying to work the system shouldn't work in the long run.


El Capitan Outgoing Mail server problems

It seems that the solution is to delete all accounts (hoping you have no pop accounts) and recreate them, but not in Mail; go to System Preferences>Internet Acccounts to delete and recreate the accounts. When you recreate one, you have the choice to choose email account only (scroll down to Add another count (not sure of the english, I translate from french) and clic on it.
Of course, work with Mail closed.
The account you create there are created in Mail.When you finish to recreate all your accounts, reopen mail, et voilà!


Change the default zoom level for new documents in Excel 2016 for Mac

There is a lot of confusion around how to do this, not just because it's changed from Excel 2011 to Excel 2016, but also because the process has even changed during Excel 2016's lifecycle.

I've also seen a number of different ways people have used to achieve a totally customised default workbook.

In the interests of providing alternatives, I thought I'd share my preferred method as well:

On your Mac create a new folder called "xlstart". You can create this folder anywhere, but I prefer doing it within the Documents folder.
Launch Excel
Go to Preferences > General > At startup
For open all files in set the xlstart folder you created at Step 1 as the path
Exit preferences
Open a new workbook and customise your Zoom setting to 150%.
While you're at it, you can also customise a whole heap of other attributes if you like
Save the workbook as an Excel template, making sure you use the name "workbook", and make sure it's saved in the xlstart folder you created at Step 1. (Note: when saving the file, if Excel has placed the .xltx extension at the end of the file name, then manually remove the .xltx extension before saving)
Quit Excel
Launch Excel

You should now find the default workbook has all the customisations you made at Steps 6 & 7.


Does the permissions popup for Push Notification in iOS refer to both local and remote (APNs) notifications?

Yes, preferences under Settings / Notifications work too for Local notifications.

Apple's Documentation states that:

  [The user] can also selectively enable or disable push notification types (that is, icon badging, alert messages, and sounds) for specific applications.

Which is not exactly clarifying, but, I've just tested it with a small App which only has Local Notifications and, disabling all possibilities do disable Notifications.

Bear in mind too, that an App which only has Local Notifications will be shown too among the Notification's Settings, which makes no sense if those settings won't affect that App.


How to stop Apple Watch from unlocking a Mac with lid closed

This seems to be fixed in the current versions of MacOS and WatchOS.


Move complete Lion installation to another physical drive

I believe that simply copying the files manually won't be enough. I'd use SuperDuper for getting a "true" clone of the old drive.


If I connect an Ethernet cable, will my Mac automatically select the fastest route for local network traffic?

You want to make sure that your Mac's ethernet device is before the wifi device in the system's network service order. In System Preferences, Go to Network; under the device listing, click the 'gear' icon and select 'Set Service Order.' Drag 'Ethernet' to the top. Per my understanding, all traffic will attempt to be routed through the top-most device, and will only be routed through devices lower in the chain should the above route(s) be unavailable.


Two software options (for both Mac and Windows). Both turn your work computer into an Airplay destination, so you can stream audio directly from your iPhone to your computer. This lets you play music from your iPhone without worrying about syncing, copying songs, etc.

On the Mac, there's the open source app called Airmac. And on Windows, you can try the application Shairport. Both do the same thing, and turn your computer into an Airplay destination.

Once you have turned on one of these apps, start playing a song from your iPhone. If everything is on the same network, you should see the Airplay icon (shown here in the lower right, the rectangle + triangle). Tap that, you should see your computer listed, tap that, and then your phone will stream the iTunes audio to your computer.


How to fix an iPod Classic with a bad hard drive?

You can try to diagnose if the disk has a problem with the diagnostic mode.

To enter the diagnostic mode, press the folowing key for 5 seconds when the apple logo appears after a reset :

"back"
"select"

In the diagnotic mode, you can navigate in the menus with the back/next keys and launch a bunch of test, inluding hard drive tests.

If the tests shows a disk problem, the solution is to change the disk. Buying a second-hand ipod disk from someone who breack his screen won't normaly be very expensive.


Virtual Machine support for DirectX 11 (Windows 10) hosted on OS X

Answer: Not likely to happen.

After years of pestering, January 2018 Parallels posted a formal statement and explanation regarding DirectX 11:

http://blog.parallels.com/2017/12/04/directx-and-parallels-desktop-13/

  Why isn’t DirectX 11 supported in Parallels Desktop?

  One of the mandatory DX11 features is called “compute shaders.” The
  name “shaders” usually refers to graphical functions that calculate
  the appropriate color and brightness for an image, but “compute
  shaders” are quite different. Compute shaders help the programmer to
  more easily take full advantage of the many processors on today’s
  graphics cards, primarily by broadening shader capabilities beyond
  pure graphics to more general calculations, which can be done on a
  graphics chip.

  Parallels implements DirectX emulation by translating it to the
  equivalent OpenGL function, since OpenGL is implemented in the macOS®.
  Unfortunately, the version of OpenGL in the macOS does not have
  compute shaders. There is nothing for Parallels Desktop to map DirectX
  shaders to in the OpenGL framework in the macOS.

  The macOS does support another style of compute shaders in the OpenCL
  framework. (Don’t let the similarity in the names “OpenGL” and
  “OpenCL” make you think they’re similar. They aren’t. In fact, they
  are competing “standards.”) Unfortunately, however, OpenCL on Mac
  isn’t as robust and doesn’t cooperate well with OpenGL.

  Besides compute shaders, there are other features missing in OpenGL on
  macOS, which means there are additional “feature parity holes” with
  DirectX. There’s simply not enough functionality to translate DX11 to
  in the functions available in the macOS.

  Apple® started pushing its own Metal API recently, which is universal
  for Mac computers. Only time will tell if Metal will give the
  Parallels Desktop programmers what they need to support DirectX 11.
  Stay tuned, but don’t get your hopes up for any major change in the
  near future....


Finder temporary freeze when copying to network drive (Mavericks)

First of all, let's try to verify that OS X is using SMB2 for your shared drive.

Can you connect via Finder to your NAS share drive? Then open a Terminal (type terminal in Launchpad) and execute the command mount without any parameters, like this:

mount

This should output you several lines, one of which should be about your shared drive and how OS X is opening it (using SMB, AFP, NFS, etc.). Can you confirm that OS X is mounting it as SMB (or SMB2 if it shows that level of information)?

This is to confirm which protocol is effectively used.

Once the protocol is confirmed, try via the command line to copy a file > 250 MB. For this use the command rsync to show the progress, here is an example assuming you have in your home directory a big file named big_file.ext and the shared drive on your NAS is called share:

rsync --progress big_file.ext /Volumes/share

Do you have the same behaviour? Can you describe it better now?

Finally, it seems you are not alone and people are proposing workarounds while Apple is preparing (hopefully) a fix: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5467191

In addition, try updating your Synology OS to the latest version. DSM 4.3-3810 has the following changelog entry: "Enhanced the compatibility of SMB 2 with Mac OS X 10.9"


How to connect iPhone with MacBook using AirDrop?

Sometimes you need to turn off and back on AirDrop on both the Mac and the iPhone, while at it you should do the same for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, that should solve the problem, it works every time for me.


Converting Unmanaged to Managed devices in iOS 7 OTA

If all you care about is enrollment - you should be fine. OTA supervision isn't yet being provided according to all the information I've seen as of late October 2013.

There is great confusion out there as Apple did promote the idea that OTA Supervision was coming with iOS 7. That feature was dropped from the public list of features about a week before release and there is no official word if or when it may come back.

There is a difference between iOS supervision and iOS MDM enrollment. The latter item is easy - most all MDM can enroll devices over the air on iOS 6 and that ability continues on iOS 7.

Over the air supervision is not possible on iOS 6 and requires Apple Configurator to supervise devices before you choose to enroll them into MDM.

Over the air supervision is not possible on iOS 7.0.2 and even the
"streamlined MDM enrollment" that is still listed is either not working or waiting on the MDM providers to update their software to take advantage of those new settings.

I would expect by late November, there would be good indications that we will or will not get OTA Supervision with iOS 7 this fall as well as which MDM providers (if any) work with the "streamlined" enrollment methods.

And a footnote, there are several reports that a bug in iOS 7 upgrade has caused a portion (but even a portion of 7,000 iPads could run into a hundred devices) where supervised iOS 6 devices were removed from supervision as part of the upgrade process to iOS 7. Anyone affected should contact AppleCare for assistance if you don't want to simple re-supervise the devices.


Cannot erase HD partition - Could not find partition to expand, first partition on the disk?

I would suggest to proceed as follows:

Stop Time Machine,
Migrate your backups from: Time Machine - … to Free. If required,
refer to this Apple technical note: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5096
Suppress your now useless Tine Machine - … partition.

⇒ Free should now use your full disk
Rename your Free partition to something more practical.
Restart Time Machine and tell it to make the backup where you want.


Switching Organizations in Apple Developer Center

I have an Apple ID for my multiple work accounts.  When I sign in, I see:

I'm not sure why you aren't seeing it, if you have two teams on the same Apple ID.


How to uninstall Java SE 6 on OS X 10.11?

If you want to remove Java 6... From How to properly uninstall Java 6 on OSX?, do the following:

  Remove the "system" JVM installed and maintained by Software Update

% sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk

  Remove any Java Developer Previews

% sudo rm -rf /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0*.jdk

  Do NOT remove any content in the JavaVM.framework. Those items are
  required by Java 7, 8, 9+ as well as Java SE 6. No modern version of
  OS X has a Java JDK inside there anyway.


After further experimentation I found that if I create a Bluetooth connection (pair) between iPhone/iPad it stays connected throughout screen locks etc.


Well, some of these questions (your bullet list including "why 5 servers") are a little difficult to answer, time synchronization is quite the rabbit hole. The old parable about the man with one clock knowing what time it is but the man with two never being sure...

One server is an obvious "truechimer" always because there's nothing to invalidate it. Two servers is the "worst possible configuration" according to the NTP authors since it will never know which one is "more" correct. Once you get to three servers NTP can begin to mark clocks as "falsetickers" based on some internal metrics - those will show up with a status of 'x' when you run ntpq -p on the system. More information about what the columns and status indicators are for that command is available on ntp.org.

To get back to the issue at hand, a few notes:

placing the line pool us.pool.ntp.org iburst in your /etc/ntp.conf file will automatically add four stratum 2 ntp servers from the ntp pool to your time server list. These use DNS round-robin rotation to spread out load. If you are not in the US, there are other pools you can use.
you can't do the pool configuration line from the System Preferences GUI; you could, however, put the following in which would have the same effect: 0.us.pool.ntp.org, 1.us.pool.ntp.org, 2.us.pool.ntp.org, 3.us.pool.ntp.org.
in selecting time servers yourself, you should always ensure you select "stratum 2" or higher servers (best practice online is to only go to stratum 1 servers if you are serving time to dozens of machines locally). you'll also want to check policies in the public time server list before altering the default minpoll/maxpoll with public servers, some administrators do not want you to change from the defaults (this can place a higher load on their public servers). The best approach is to just use the NTP pool servers.
I am also seeing a substantial change in time quality since upgrading to Mavericks. I have just added more servers as you did to see if that solves the issue, but something definitely changed. I have a stratum 1 server on my local network and the clock on my iMac drifts all over the place whereas prior to the Mavericks upgrade it didn't.


Permissions errors when using launchd to run rsync between local drive and afp network drive

I figured out the problem. It is Apple's new permissions system. I had to give rsync full disk access under System Preferences > Security and Privacy > Full Disk Access > +. If you can't find rsync, crack open a terminal and do which rsync. It is probably at /usr/bin/rsync.


It turned out the problem was Skype. I have this running all the time and when you turn on your bt headphones it tries out the microphone as if it was in a call before ending the call. The problem goes away if you don't have Skype running. Alternatively, you can connect your headphones with skype open and then switch to its sound settings end switch things back to internal speakers & microphone. It seems to persist these settings even when you disconnect/reconnect the headphones after that.


Bootcamp: Windows installer couldn't find drivers. I placed them on the installer USB. Where should they go?

Just following up. I unmounted the .ISO file, deleted the windows partition and re-created the USB drive... Seems to have worked this time. Gonna chalk the issue up to an anomaly.

Like @DavidAnderson pointed out in the question comments, users with a Retina MacBook Pro 15 inch should use This version of the support software, not the one I linked in the original question.

Cheers.


Can I select a clip in imovie by specifying the start and end time? (rather than dragging mouse)

There is Handbrake that does exactly that, in fact one can define the start and end point in several ways.
Just a user though.


Apparently not. Its is meant to ask for your password for your own safety, so no one except you can buy Apps.

It will remember your password for 15 minutes, though.


How can I change my Apple ID password on my iPad 2?

Go to settings > iTunes & App Stores > Apple ID: Select sign out, that will clear your stored password...Then you can enter the proper information.


Where is running terminal program scrollback located

I don't believe so with Snow Leopard. Unless someone knows a backroots way of getting it, and the HDD is journal formatted. I know that Lion does a good job of restoring sessions in its native applications, or at least keeping them logged. I am afraid though that you may be out of luck on that one.


How can get an applescript to add itself to the open at login menu automatically

Add it to the login items (like you mentioned.) Note that (to accomplish this easily) you have to save it as an application bundle.

Using this guide, you can automate the process.

tell application "System Events"
    -- Adding a login item for the current user
    make new login item at end of login items with properties {path:"/Applications/**{YOUR APP HERE}**", hidden:false}
end tell`


Anything in Mac OS to interfere with using a disk through a USB hub?

I have 4 USB 3 drives plugged into my MBP via a powered USB 3 hub and two of them have multiple partitions and different filesystems and all work just fine however the Modbook Pro does not yet support OS X 10.10, so that may be an issue.

From Modbook Support Center:

  YOSEMITE UPDATE

  OS X Yosemite Not Currently Supported on the Modbook Pro The newest
  version of the OS X operating system, Yosemite (OS X 10.10), is not
  fully supported on the Modbook Pro.

  We do not recommend upgrading your Modbook Pro to Yosemite at this
  time. (Both OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and 10.9 Mavericks are supported
  on the Modbook Pro.)

  An update to the Modbook Pro System Software and the Modbook Pro Pen
  Tablet Software offering compatibility with Yosemite and other
  features will be available in the near future. Check back here
  occasionally for updates.


Apple Pay: is card holder name stored on Apple servers?

The cardholder name is not stored on Apple's servers when using Apple Pay.

Apple Pay works according to the "EMV Payment Tokenisation Specification", which you can download from here:

https://www.emvco.com/emv-technologies/payment-tokenisation/

The document is technical in nature, but describes exactly how the system works.

In simpler terms the system works like this: When you add a credit card to Apple Pay, your device generates a set of cryptographic keys - one public and one private. The private key is kept only in the secure element of your device. The public key along with your credit card number (the so called "PAN") is sent to Apple.

Apple needs the credit card number in order to determine whom to forward the information to - i.e. VISA, MasterCard, etc. The card number and public key is then forwarded to for example VISA, and they will send back an encrypted response to Apple. The encrypted response uses the public key generated on your device so that it is not readable by Apple.

At this point Apple discards your credit card number (it is not stored) and forwards the encrypted response to the device. The device is able to decrypt and read the response.

The response primarily contains a new credit card number generated for you. The credit card number looks like an ordinary credit card number, but it is both different from your real credit card number, and it is not usable for ordinary transactions. It can only be used as part of an Apple Pay transaction, where the cryptographic keys provide the additional security. This is the method used to ensure that the merchant doesn't see your actual credit card number.

As you can see in the specification, the cardholder's name is not transferred in the process. It is not sent by your device, and as the response from for example VISA is encrypted and unreadably by Apple, even should it have contained the name  (which it doesn't) - it isn't readable by Apple.

You can see in the specification which types of additional information it is possible to send.

However, there are a few minor details to the above general answer:

1) Your Apple Pay is linked with your Apple-ID. This means that Apple has access to the name registered to the Apple ID - if this is identifical to the cardholder's name, which it would be in most cases, Apple defacto knows the name.

2) In the case of Apple Pay Cash, Apple reserves the right to request and store your name on their servers. As described here:

https://support.apple.com/da-dk/HT203027

3) There is a (very low) risk that Apple isn't actually following the standards, and actually your credit card number is not discarded or they somehow in an illegal way gets access to your cardholder's name. This would be illegal and it would be breaking agreements with payment processors. Also payment processors have certification processes in place to ensure that the involved parties adhere to the standard. In short, if this would be the case, it would be a huge scandal ruining Apple's reputation in the payment industry and elsewhere. I think it is extremely unlikely.


How do I add the Gmail app to my sharing options (i.e. from photos)?

The coders at Gmail need to add it, it's not a user option, I'm afraid.

If Google add it, then it has to go past Apple's reviewers, to check it's as safe as they think it is.  Sandboxing is pretty tight under iOS.

The feature you want is not impossible, it just needs to be implemented at source, not added by the user.

The end result is no-one needs an anti-virus scanner on an iDevice ;)

Try reporting it on the Gmail feature requests page


iTunes Store - Use My Credit Card Not Store Credit For A Gifted Item

Quote from Apple's Support page about Gifting...

  "When you purchase an iTunes Gift, you must have a valid credit card
  on file; you can't purchase an iTunes Gift with store credit..."

  - http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht2736

So to simplify..

Apple charges the gifted item straight to your credit/debit card. NOT the credit on your account.


Windows 7 Client to OSX Server 5 (Password Error)

I assume the OS X Server is not integrated in your AD environment. Then all credentials (user name/password) have to be set up on the OS X Server - at least as network account. Additionally all OS X Server shares have to be set up properly.

Then you have to enter the IP address and the name of the share (e.g. \\10.10.1.12\Data-User1).

The proper credentials in the Windows Security dialog are then: the user name and the user password (e.g. User1 and Passw0rd).

server\User1 only works if the OS X server is part of Active Directory and has the fully qualified domain name server.sld.tld (or in your case server.unionsupply.net).

server.local is no domain name but a qualified mDNS name in the link-local domain .local. This isn't intergrated in a common DNS environment.


Getting a text file with list of installed apps on iPhone or iPad?

If your device is not jailbroken, there isn't much you can do to get a list, without doing some writing. That being said, there are many iDevice managers (such as iFunbox) that provide an easy interface.

To see all of the apps on your phone with iFunbox:

Open iFunbox.

Connect your iOS device to your computer with a USB cable.
Select "Managing App Data" from the toolbar along the top of the window.

Scroll down to the "All My Apps" section.

Here. you find a nice grid of all the installed apps on your device.


Homebrew - Upgrading software in /usr/bin

Don't replace, modify or rename the system tools in /usr/bin. There are a number of reasons why this is a bad thing, and you can search for the specific reasons, but to be simple, don't edit the system versions.

Homebrew knows this, and that's why it stores the tools in /usr/local/bin. This version is used instead of the system version since Homebrew requests that its directory be before the system path in the $PATH variable.

Run brew doctor and you'll probably get a message like this:

  Warning: /usr/bin occurs before /usr/local/bin This means that system-provided programs will be used instead of those provided by Homebrew. The following tools exist at both paths:

easy_install
easy_install-2.6

  Consider amending your PATH so that /usr/local/bin is ahead of /usr/bin in your PATH.

To fix this, either add this to your profile:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

…or add /usr/local/bin to the top of /etc/paths, such as:

/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/sbin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin


How to keep apps open in full screen OS X 10.9

Most OS X apps will open in the last state they were in before quitting. So if you quit an application on fullscreen mode it should open in full screen mode when you launch the app again.

In the case of Chrome you will need to tick the "Continue where you left off" option on the startup section of settings.

Hope this helps!


Notification window at certain time with traffic jams from work to home

This sounds like the Google Now feature.  If you have chrome installed and running, you can click the alarm-bell-like icon in your menu bar to configure it.
From Google's support page:

How Google Now works in Chrome
If you use Google Now on your mobile device, you can see certain Now
cards on your desktop computer if you're signed into Chrome, including
weather, sports scores, commute traffic, and event reminders cards.
Some of these cards may be based on the location of your mobile
device. Learn how to sign into Chrome
To see these cards, open the Chrome Notifications Center by clicking
the bell icon  in the system tray on the lower right corner of your
computer screen (on Windows) or in the menu bar on the upper right of
your computer screen (on Mac).

Emphasis added.
Below is a screen shot showing where the bell is on my menubar (YMMV).


What Math/Calculator software is available for the iPod touch?

The best calculators for iOS:

Wolfram Alpha
PCalc
Calcbot
Soulver


First, You should get your iPhone repaired.

Next, you should be able to set up the phone by itself.

If you would rather do it on the computer, use iTunes.


Photostream screensaver on apple tv3 and ios 10.x?

So, at some point, Settings->iCloud->iCloud Photos Settings got a new option: iCloud Photo Sharing. I'm pretty sure enabling this is what allowed me to select my photos as before.


How to increase speed between changing photos in Photos/iPhoto?

Turns out my question was not fully researched.
Swipe takes some transition time which I do not know how to modify but using arrow keys gives instantaneous transition.


Is it possible for an iPad - or any iOS product - to get a virus?

Yes, security vulnerabilities that would allow people to hack or infect Macs and iOS products do exist, though they're not exploited very often.

Pwn2Own is an annual contest where competitors try to hack into machines to win them as prizes. Both Macs and iOS products are hacked most years.

Here is one more story about an exploit that was patched:

  Friday, Apple released an update to its mobile operating system (iOS 4.3.4) which patches a couple of vulnerabilities that left a door open for malware infections on the iPad, 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS.

  Apple's update describes the CoreGraphics vulnerability as "A buffer overflow…in FreeType's handling of TrueType fonts. Viewing a maliciously crafted PDF file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution."

  [...]

  This update comes on the heels of an alert from German IT group BSI, which warned of an unpatched vulnerability that would "allow attackers to gain access to the entire system with administrative privileges."

Apple does "verify" any software for their App Stores, but developers have been known to sneak in features without Apple's testers seeing them, so don't expect this to entirely protect you.


What replaces x86 intrinsics for C when Apple ditches Intel CPUs for their own chips?

Intel Intrinsics are really just a library that provides easier access to a number of Intel instructions sets - such as SSE (Streaming SIMD Extensions), AVX, etc. - for C programmers. The goal is to be able to utilise these instruction sets for parallelisation, etc. without having to do low-level assembly programming by hand.

The ARM platform has similar instruction sets that serve many of the same purposes. For example NEON is the ARM alternative to SSE on Intel. NEON gives you SIMD instructions that you can leverage to increase parallelisation.

And similar to the Intel Intrinsics, you have the ARM Compiler Intrinsics, that serves the same purpose. You can include "arm_neon.h" in your C program to be able to use NEON instructions with a C interface without having to resort to low-level assembly programming.

It is worth noting however, that the instructions available on Intel and ARM are not identical. So similar to "ordinary programs", you cannot use SIMD instructions for Intel on ARM (or vice versa) directly. In practice, software programmers often use software libraries with ready-made higher level operations that are able to take advantage of both Intel instructions as well as ARM instructions. A good example is the "Simd" image processing library (https://github.com/ermig1979/Simd) which offers high level operations that have seperate, optimized implementations for SSE, AVX, VMX, VSX and NEON (i.e. Intel, PowerPC and ARM).

As far as I can see, the growth in new parallisation features is very high on both Intel and ARM platforms - it is essential to providing next generation performance for some users. On newer ARM chips you have access to for example the SVE instruction set (Scalable Vector Extensions, which is essentially an even better SIMD instruction set for 64-bit ARM processors). There's no inherent advantage to either the Intel or ARM platforms in terms of providing new and enhanced SIMD instruction sets for programmers in the future.

Apple's own processors (in for example iPhones and iPads) have had the NEON instruction set for many years. The A5 CPUs and later also have the Advanced NEON set. The newer A11 CPUs have the SVE instructions, and the very latest A12 CPUs add SIMD support for complex numbers on top of that.


What does a 'dotted-line' cloud icon in the iCloud file browser represent?

A dotted-lined iCloud icon means that it is waiting to be uploaded (or it is currently uploading). Although this KB article applies to iTunes Match, it might help you understand this icon better: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4124

As for Byword's syncing issues, if it is not finished uploading, it won't be accessible by your iPhone. Are the subsequent documents also plain-text? This Byword support FAQ says that Byword's iOS app currently does not support RTF files (rich-text).


Reload all fonts without restarting an app

Someone may have a better solution, but here's an explanation and potential workaround.

The problem you're having is that you're editing a font already loaded by your applications. In other words, while macOS has been able to dynamically add fonts to application menus since the onset of Font Book (although it often didn't work well until Mac OS X Leopard was released in 2007), it's not able to trigger the fact that the font itself has changed.

My best guess at a workaround is to just use Font Book to Disable the font and then to Enable it again. This should force all your open applications to register the change because the font has been enabled again.

As an aside, you may find this page of interest to you: Font Management in macOS and OS X.


Is it possible to force a specific program to remain in memory after closing it?

MacOS's memory management is quite sophisticated, and it generally does try to keep as much stuff in memory as possible. If Alfred is still running, then it will be in memory.

If you have quit Alfred, then it might still be retained in memory, which is why it is faster to load next time. However, the OS will clear the quit app from memory, if the memory is needed for something else. So you might experience slowness somewhere else if you don't let the OS clear the quit app.

Recommendations for improving speed:

Leave Alfred running all the time. If it's slow to come to foreground sometimes, even when its been running in the background, then that's not a memory issue, but something else: possibly related the slowness of the HDD.
Get more RAM, if possible. You don't say what model of Mac and how much RAM.
Replace the HDD with an SSD.


What can be done when the headphones won't stay seated in an iPhone?

@Gerry was right: there was dust or lint in the jack that was preventing the headphones from fully seating. I couldn't see it, but I used the end of a floss pick to clean it out and that fixed it. The headphones stay in so snugly now that I can actually lift the phone by pulling on them (not that I would do that normally; I just wanted to confirm it really worked!).

Amazing that just a little bit of dust could make all the difference. I'm just relieved that the phone itself wasn't damaged somehow since it's out of warranty.


Adding airport extreme to existing network breaks wifi

After spending a lot of time trying to solve this issue with no success, I unplugged everything and went away for summer holiday. Came back a few weeks later and plugged everything back again and now it works.
Yeah, it has worked for over a month.


Accessing certain files on external HD without entire backup from External HD

If you made your backup using Time Machine, you can restore files from a specific data by selecting the file and then clicking the restore button.

Enter Time Machine

First we need to enter Time Machine. We can do this in 2 ways:
1. Click the Time Machine icon in the menu bar (it's located in top right corner) and choose "Enter Time Machine"
2. Open Time Machine from the Applications folder.

Restoring a file

Once we've entered the Time Machine, browse for the file(s) that you want to be restored. You can choose a different backup time from the right side of the screen.

When you selected a file, you can press the space button to have a preview of the file.

Once you are sure you have the correct file(s), click the "Restore" button in the bottom of the screen.

Source: Apple Support


Is it possible to reset an old iPhone but keep the operating system with all updates?

Yes, and that's the default behavior when resetting an iPhone (or any iOS/iPadOS device).

When you reset an iPhone to its factory settings, the OS updates installed are retained. Or to put it in a simpler manner, when factory resetting an iPhone (or an iOS device), it is not reset to the version of OS with which it shipped, but the latest installed version of OS is retained.

On the other hand, with the Apple's signing process, it's technically not possible to roll back to older supported version(s) of iOS after update (and after Apple stops signing the older version(s)).

For an iPhone 4, iOS 7.1.2, is the current latest support version, and you have it installed, you can't go past it to an older supported version (iPhone 4 originally shipped with iOS 4.0).


Installation of a .pkg file is nowhere to be seen

The package contains some files to be installed somewhere in the file system, not necessarily in ~/Library/Application Support

A simple way to find out where files installed by the package will go in the file system is to use the suspicious package QuickLook plugin. Note that install script in the package might still alter the filesystem in other ways.


Which backups does Time Machine keep or delete?

For hourly backups Timemachine does indeed only keep the "first" backup of the day. This  is a "Daily" backup.

Backups are automatically deleted after a backup is performed and the storage of old backups is set according to this schedule.

Daily backups are deleted after a month except for the first of each week which is a "weekly" backup.

Weekly backups are deleted as space is required, then one or more of the oldest "Weeklies" will be deleted.


This issue now appears to be resolved; previewing documents on ML 10.8.2 now show the PDF's rendered correctly.

I'm not overly sure when this was resolved (it may well be something that was fixed in 10.8.0), but it looks like Apple has implemented a work around for the bad font embedding from Word generated PDF's

The updated PDf you posted is as shown, and works fine under ML.  I've included the URL bar to show it's the right file.