There is no portable ps program. The ps command available on linux is, as others have mentioned, from the "procps" package. The reason why this cannot be ported to OSX is because Linux and OSX kernels do not expose this information in the same way. Linux uses a pseudo-filesystem in /proc, whereas OSX uses the sysctl function. Other systems may use either mechanism but provide data in a different format, or may require programs like ps to read directly from the kernel's memory.

In general there is no standard for how process information is available to programs like ps and top; so the program has to be designed for a specific operating system. If there is a specific feature missing from the OSX ps, you'll have to find another program that can do it, or write one yourself (look at the sysctl manual, in particular KERN_PROC as a starting point), or modify the existing ps command to add the feature.

Alternately, if you can get what you need by parsing the output of the ps command itself, you may be able to write a portable program - the output with the -o option is reasonably reliable across platforms, particularly if you refer to the UNIX standard for the column names to use.


From macOS help:

If you have two Mac computers with FireWire or Thunderbolt ports, you can connect them so that one of them appears as an external hard disk on the other. This is called target disk mode.

Connect the two computers with a FireWire or Thunderbolt cable.

On the Mac you want to use as the disk in target disk mode, do one of the following:

If the computer is off, start it up while holding down the T key.
If the computer is on, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Startup Disk, then click Target Disk Mode.

When the computer has started up, a disk icon appears on the desktop of the other computer.

Transfer files by dragging them to and from the disk.

Eject the disk by dragging its icon to the Trash. While you drag, the Trash icon changes to an Eject icon.

On the Mac you used as a disk, push the power button to shut it down, then disconnect the cable.

The Apple Target Disk Mode support article is here.


How do I connect my MacBook Pro 15" (2011) to an HDTV?

You may want to check out Monoprice. They have a ton of adapters, cables and other accessories, which in my experience have all been of good quality, for much cheaper prices.

They have the specific MiniDisplayport or Thunderbolt to HDMI Adapter you need for under $7. They've got a pretty extensive collection of cheap HDMI cables to go along with it as well.


Purple dot near app which downloaded by iCloud sync

A blue dot before an apps' icon name means that it has not bee run yet (or it is a new version that has not been run).

An orange dot means that the app was downloaded as a beta as installed through Testflight.

The last is from this SO answer which also suggests the colours alter if on a different background.

Try a plain black or white background to see if the colour changes to one of these known ones.


Google Chrome for macOS: How to bypass "This type of file may harm your computer" and save file automatically

Google Chrome uses heuristics to determine if a file could be harmful and alerts you likewise. In such cases, user has to click on the keep button shown alongside the active download in the bottom toolbar, or navigate to the Downloads tab and click on keep button. This may have to be done for one or more active downloads.

Keeping security in mind, Google Chrome doesn't provide a setting which completely turn-off this behavior. One workaround this is to enable Chrome to ask you for the location to save the file.

Access Google Chrome Settings, via the Customise and control Google Chrome button located at the end of the address bar, or use the keyboard shortcut Command + ,. Scroll to the end and click on Advanced. Now under Downloads section, enable Ask where to save each file before downloading.

If you generally choose to save all the downloaded files to a particular location, this will necessitate an extra step where you'll have to confirm the download location.

However, this will benefit by you as browser will bring to your attention any download activity. You can choose to discard any unintended file and can choose to save them to a custom location directly.

Also, it's a good idea to always keep your browser up-to-date from security standpoint.


32-bit only screen savers in Mountain Lion?

I don't think you can do this. I believe that Mountain Lion is 64-bit only, since my old Mac Pro, which is technically 64-bit capable, but won't run Mountain Lion. Lion could be booted into 32-bit mode, but I don't think Mountain Lion can.


Can't connect to Internet in bash using Mac OS

I prefer to use the system configuration utility tool to test for reachability instead of using ping / host / nslookup or another proxy for determining if a network entity is or is not reachable.

scutil -r google.com
Reachable

The benefits of this are that if you have VPN connections, dial up, modem, or a routing conflict, this will actually test that you can reach the device and not just resolve the cached host name, etc... in my experience. (also, it's a lot harder to mess up the indirection, files, logic and you get a direct answer back in English)

Like all good command line tools, it returns 0 to let you know the answer it provides is confident and an error if you have problems testing reachability.

 -r [-W] { nodename | address | local-address remote-address }
     Check the network reachability of the specified host name, IP
     address, or a pair of local and remote IP addresses.  One or more of
     the following strings will be reported to standard output.

     Not Reachable         The specified nodename/address cannot be
                           reached using the current network configura-
                           tion.

     Reachable             The specified nodename/address can be reached
                           using the current network configuration.

     Transient Connection  The specified nodename/address can be reached
                           via a transient (e.g. PPP) connection.

     Connection Required   The specified nodename/address can be reached
                           using the current network configuration but a
                           connection must first be established.  As an
                           example, this status would be returned for a
                           dialup connection that was not currently active
                           but could handle network traffic for the target
                           system.

     Connection Automatic  The specified nodename/address can be reached
                           using the current network configuration but a
                           connection must first be established.  Any
                           traffic directed to the specified name/address
                           will initiate the connection.

     Local Address         The specified nodename/address is one associ-
                           ated with a network interface on the system.

     Directly Reachable Addresss
                           Network traffic to the specified node-
                           name/address will not go through a gateway but
                           is routed directly to one of the interfaces on
                           the system.

     The reachability can also be monitored by specifying the -W (watch)
     option.  This will result in the current status being reported as
     well as the status when/if the network configuration changes.

     A zero exit status will be returned when the reachability status is
     reported correctly.  A non-zero exit status will be returned if
     errors are detected with an error reported to standard error.

Since Apple's index of manual pages is a PITA to use, here's a hopefully more stable link to the entire manual page online: https://ss64.com/osx/scutil.html

As a bonus - here is another decent Q&A relating to scutil and checking resolution:
nslookup & dig fail; ping, traceroute, and scutil -r work


How do I run a binary program without showing the gear icon?

You will always see the gear in the menu bar if you are using Automator. If you want it to exit quickly, create a wrapper that forks off your android script into another process, and exits.

For example, you could run

  echo "/Users/xxx/Library/Android/sdk/tools/android avd" | /usr/bin/at now

(source for script is from this Apple Discussions page near the bottom)


Two computers. Three screens - one control?

Teleport is a free application specifically for this purpose. It allows you to use one machine as a "host" with one pair of a mouse and keyboard, and use it to control (over your local network) other machines just by moving your cursor to another computer (similar to how multiple displays work, except this time on separate machines). It also integrates the clipboards of the macs, allowing you to copy/paste between macs.


Way to copy-paste through airdrop with other people

Apple's Universal Clipboard only works with devices that are signed into the same account.  With AirDrop, it requires a piece of content - you can't just paste your clipboard into AirDrop. However, if you want to share things with other people, there are a few things you can do:

Shared Notebook like Notes or OneNote (I personally use OneNote).  Each person can have access to the same notebook and changes are instantaneous.

Send links and documents via Messaging.  iMessage, Skype, etc. all have the ability to share links, documents, etc.

 Built in "Share" feature.   For example, on Firefox (Safari and Chrome as well), you can share a webpage via the services you have configured in System Preferences → Extensions → Share Menu.  AirDrop is one of these item and as long as the other person has a compatible device, you can share your content via AirDrop.

Native sharing in Apps like Word, Excel, Pages, etc.  All of these Apps have supported sharing/collaboration natively for a long time.    Instead of one person having the file and opening, extracting the data you want, then creating a new file, instead, share the file in a common location where everyone has access.

Look at paid apps.  There are tools like Microsoft Sharepoint, Microsoft Teams, Slack.

Most of the paid applications (especially Sharepoint) will be overkill, but smaller products like Teams and Slack may be your next step as you grow.  The other items are free to use and with some creative IT structuring you can share things whether you're next to each other or halfway around the world apart.
My personal go-to is OneNote.  I share both entire notebooks and individual sections and/or pages. I share almost anything via those notebooks like links, documents, images, lists, web pages, etc.  And because it integrates with Microsoft To-Do that also integrates/syncs with Reminders, Outlook, Exchange, Calendar, etc. I have a simple platform for collaborating with others on my team.  I can assign and (accept assignment of) To-Dos for others right in the App, have the due dates pop up in both Reminders and Outlook and in the "notes" section of the To-Do, I can link a OneNote page with the content I need shared.
The best part - all of that is free.  With a little creativity, you can get a pretty good solution for what you're looking for.


Find duplicate images in iCloud Photo Library in Yosemite

I had the same problem as you. Here's what I did to remove the duplicates quickly and easily.

Export your entire photo library to a folder.
Close photos and create a new photos library. (No deleting until you know it worked)
Open that new empty library in photos and drag everything (using CMD+a in finder) in that exported folder to the Photos.app window.
During the import you will be prompted to choose what you want to have done for duplicate photos and it will show you the first two identical photos that it has found, select "skip" and "apply to all".
There you have a full library of purely unique photos.

Notes: Since you mentioned you have 5000 photos, the Mac will potentially become a little unresponsive while you're dragging them into the window. Be patient with it and let it do it's thing but it is working. (4,3000 photos was a little stuttery on my 2012 Mac mini i5 but it did work after being patient)

Photos may not be able to detect if it already has those photos in the library yet but doing it during the import has proven to be a reliable solution so just be prepared to do a massive import for now.


Why is the system dictionary not available from .pdf files containing text within Safari?

The program that draws the text needs to use one of Apple's standard SDK for drawing text for the shortcut dictionary to work. Since safari is handing the PDF over to Adobe to render - they apparently are not using a standard text field but have implemented their own code/class to do the drawing.

This is very common for web browsers like Chrome and other programs that desire to avoid being a Mac program and instead be more cross platform.

In your case, simply ditching the Acrobat plug in will restore the PDF handling using the native tools and your dictionary shortcuts will work again.
Simply delete the AdobePDFViewer.plugin from /Library/Internet Plug-ins.


How to delete App (files with cross sign) that cant delete from Application on Mac

The prohibitory symbol means the application will not run on your machine.

I'd recommend either user128733 or CousinCocaine approach as seen here:

How to remove an icon from launchpad that does not appear in the Finder?

Application cleaner tend to be OK.  FYI: General mac cleaners are to be avoided.

https://nektony.com/how-to/delete-apps-from-launchpad


How to determine if my 2015 MacBook Pro can still handle current workloads?

I would look at three things

Time is money
List specific measurable benchmarks ( e.g. launch 4 specific apps each day and time them till usable, script a clean build of a representative app )
List specific app and OS requirements ( e.g. need N-2 and N+1 beta compatibility for Xcode SDK)

In the end, you’re appealing to your manager for funding and reasonableness of the “requirements” and not IT for a “blessing” of the age or benchmarks.
Consider that people are expensive to recruit and train and hardware is cheap. But it’s easy to measure hardware expenses, so that tends to get scrutinized over process (erase and install) or training.
Do some quick math on “Is it worth it?” and good luck!

In your case we would send you an identical Mac to your 2017 one that is erased and have you run your chosen tests. Most of our managed Macs need an erase every 2 years and developers tend to need erases much more often since they alter the system so heavily. They understandably complain bitterly when asked to clean (just like system admin do), which is why we send them a second kit to run tests so they aren’t forced to migrate but can do a good test on a clean system. It’s rarely the hardware slowing them down in my experience, but when it is it’s nice to have good data on a clean build so that the budget person doesn’t think the “spec” was made up or not backed by data and testing.


How can I type the “<” symbol via remote desktop with a Nordic keyboard?

Try going to System Preferences:Language & Text:Input Sources. Enable and display the keyboard viewer to get a better view of the next steps.

The first step to try is to turn on the U.S. keyboard.  This should cause shift+comma and shift+period to yield the desired characters, < and >, in place of ; and :.  You can switch between keyboard layouts either using the flag menu that will appear on the right of your menu bar, or by setting keyboard shortcuts.

If switching to the U.S. keyboard layout doesn't work, enable Unicode Hex Input to allow the entry of any Unicode characters by holding down option and typing the hex code point. <alt/option>003c yields < (LESS-THAN SIGN) and <alt/option>003e yields > (GREATER-THAN SIGN).  See http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0000.pdf for a table of common ASCII based Unicode characters. LESS-THAN SIGN and GREATER-THAN SIGN are the official Unicode names for the angle brackets.

For what it's worth, when I turn on, for example, a Swedish keyboard on my U.S. system, the key to the left of the number 1 offers < and >, as opposed to what I see in your picture.  Showing the keyboard viewer should help clarify what to expect.

From the other question you reference there is also the suggestion by @Tom Gewecke:

  Perhaps you could set up another keystroke to produce @ via system
  preferences/language & text/text/symbol and text substitution.


Can I access a voice memo file that's attached to an email stuck in my iPhone's outbox?

Although it is a commercial product, iExplorer, can access your iPhone's file system and retrieve almost anything. I believe it has a free trial mode, too.

I'm a satisfied, licensed customer, and have user iExplorer to recover important files otherwise unobtainable. It can even restore data from iTunes backups!


iTunes keeps restoring deleted playlists

Try Store -> "Update iTunes Match" to make sure the changes are synchronized.


Create a line separation for finder in the dock? (osx 10.10)

I've created a binary release for a project called Vertical Bar that lets you add as many vertical bars as you want to the macOS dock.

Project here:
https://github.com/afallon02/VerticalBar


Actually I asked after some success because I thought it would benefit everyone ;-)

Here is the complete process. Some links are missing because I don't have enough reputation to embed them all. Sorry about that.

High-level, we "just" need dislocker.

But to install it, there are some dependencies to resolve... we need:

"Fuse for OS X"

Simply download the .img on their site, open and run the .pkg installer

Xcode command-line developers tools

I'm not sure what's the generic answer.
Open a terminal, and type

xcode-select --install

If you get an error "-bash: xcode-select: command not found", you need to install Xcode from the App store, then start again this command.
If an alert windows popup asking if you want to install, click on "install" button.
If it prints error "xcode-select: error: command line tools are already installed, [...]", you're all set.

"Homebrew"

Following instruction on their website, type following in terminal:

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

If you get an error about Xcode tools not being installed whereas you did install it, then change the path to Xcode:

sudo xcode-select -switch /

and obviously dislocker !

Download ZIP (available in green button "Clone or Download" on the right)
Extract ZIP content
Open terminal and change directory to the dislocker-master directory
Compile and install dislocker:

brew install src/dislocker.rb

If you get an error about Xcode tools not being installed whereas you did install it, then change the path like this:

sudo xcode-select -switch /

Don't be desperate, it's now time to mount the USB stick !

But it's not gonna be trivial...

Identify the device of the USB stick, using Disk Utility:

Open Disk Utility and select the USB stick drive. Somewhere you should get something like "disk3s1". Replace this example with your actual value in following lines.
Keep Disk Utility open, it will be used in next steps

Eject the USB drive for example from Disk Utility (Unmount button)
Create a directory for the decrypted file

sudo mkdir /tmp/mydrive

Warning: this directory will have strange characteristics: it appears with "ls" but not with "ls -l" and not in the Finder wherever it is, moreover the content can't be listed, and trying to delete it often fails with strange error messages. That's why I put it in /tmp which is cleaned at every reboot.
Decrypt the USB stick with dislocker. If disk is "disk3s1" and the password is "MyPassword", the command will look like:

sudo dislocker-file -V /dev/disk3s1 -v -uMyPassword -r -- /tmp/mydrive

Add the disk image to Disk Utility and mount it

sudo hdiutil attach -imagekey diskimage-class=CRawDiskImage /tmp/mydrive/dislocker-file

Note: Don't try to list "/tmp/mydrive/dislocker-file" by yourself. Just assume it is there and write the path as is.

Hourray !!!, the new drive is there !

Because really nothing is easy, to clean-up you need to do the following:

Unmount the drive

For example from your friend Disk Utility, select its icon and click on "Unmount" button

Get rid of the image

From "Disk Utility", select the greyed drive, and from the menu "File" select "Eject".

Detach the fuse volume

sudo  hdiutil detach /tmp/mydrive/

Only now the directory /tmp/mydrive is a plain directory that can be deleted...

As you noticed the process is definitely complex and finally I just get a read-only drive.
I'm interested by any better answer.


Target Display iMac steals Thunderbolt when I unplug and won't give it back

A DisplayPort KVM would probably work. Have you tried using a DisplayPort cable instead of a thunderbolt one between the iMac and the Thunderbolt Display? It might be cheaper than a KVM which would guarantee you can switch inputs without the iMac taking control of the attached display.


Fastest way to migrate data from Late 2016 13" MacBook Pro to 2009 Mac Pro

You have three options to connect two Mac's together to transfer settings via Migration Assistant:

Ethernet
Firewire
Thunderbolt

There's no option to connect via USB.  Academically speaking, connecting via USB would be your slowest connection because it's only 480Mb/s (USB 2.0) versus Ethernet at 1Gb/s or Firewire 800 at 800Mb/s.  Thunderbolt isn't available on a 2009 Mac Pro

The easiest thing to do is to get a USBC to Ethernet Adapter and connect via the onboard Ethernet on the Mac Pro.  I recommend this over the Firewire for three reasons:

It's faster than Firewire
You probably already own a Ethernet cable; you would have to purchase a Firewire cable specifically for this
You are more likely to need the Ethernet adapter than you will a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter


How to call a specific subroutine of an AppleScript from another AppleScript?

AppleScript's load script

AppleScript's load script command will do what you want.

Example

On your Desktop, save a .scpt file containing the following saySomething handler:

on saySomething()
    say "hello"
end saySomething

Then within another script you can call saySomething:

set myOtherScript to load script (alias ((path to desktop folder as string) & "external.scpt"))
myOtherScript's saySomething()

The returned object from load script is a script object. Once loaded, the script object is treated as local and can have its local handles called, including with parameters.

See Can I put shared applescript code in a separate file and load it in various scripts? for more examples.


Today & Tomorrow Summaries re-add to Notifications on reboot.

It’s possible your Notification Center preference file is corrupted.

Open Finder, then press ⇧ shift ⌘ cmd G. In the popup textbox, type in ~/Library/Preferences.

Locate com.apple.notificationcenterui.plist and delete it. Restart your system and see if the issue persists. If it does, you can pull the file back out of the Trash and restart one more time.


'the 'grub-efi-amd64-signed' package failed to install into /target/' during Linux Mint installation on an iMac

Took me weeks, but finally solved it for my case.

My install would go well, but the installation of grub would fail with the same message because of corrupted data in the EFI partition.

Fastest fix was to run a windows chkdsk to fix the partition, then the next install went fine.


How do I disable the nagging to update to High Sierra?

There are two ways to do this. The first should just prevent the prompt to update to the newest OS while the second will disable the App Store from bothering you altogether to update anything.

The most recommended is to go to the App Store, select the Updates tab, right click on the update you wish to stop being bothered about, and select "Hide Update".

The alternative is to go to System Preferences, click on App Store, deselect "Automatically check for updates". This should prevent the App Store from bothering you about all available update.


OSX won't search deep enough on external drive

Have you tried rebuilding the Spotlight index?

This link to Apple support shows how to do it.

Apple Support: How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac


The answer is no, Safari doesn't cache pages - it does however cache elements that make up a page when the rules that the web server associates with each element allows caching.

You can see this on your specific pages by turning on the Develop menu in Safari Preferences:

As you can see from this picture, the page where your question is posted allows many items to be cached and the load time for those elements is in the 0.1-0.3ms range. The items that are not cached have longer load durations so perhaps the pages you are navigating either have few items with cache enabled or the overall page load time is dominated by non-cached layout and content.

If you want to cache content for offline reading, use the Reading List feature to store the page for offline use. That does more aggressively cache much of the most pages to allow reading of the page while totally offline at a later date. In your case, when Safari is online, it will check to see that the reading list version of the page is current, so it might not be exactly what you are seeking.


Well, it's just an app framework, so depending on what your needs are it could be a savior so you don't have to spend any energy or money working on an app to a really bad piece of software.

I personally have held the line on flash and air and insisted that most apps run on iOS to avoid having to deal with those app frameworks, but not everyone can insist on that.

It wouldn't be less draconian and less secure to insist that developers sign their apps with a developer certificate and that you deny all prompts if you don't understand the security risks.

https://www.adobe.com/products/air/faq.html

  Applications deployed on Adobe AIR have powerful capabilities and access to local data, so this dialog box provides information about who built the application and allows you to decide whether to install it. If someone you trust developed the application and you would like to install it, then selecting Yes will allow the installation to proceed. If you do not recognize the developer or it is someone you do not trust, then you should not install the application.

Since Adobe doesn't even link to their security white paper from the FAQ, you can infer how invested they might be in having people learn about the security of that product. (You could equally give them a pass and ask for that link or search for it as well - It might not be intentional and Apple also has gaps in their web pages from time to time, so I’ll not pile on Adobe too much for one missing KB article link)

If that breaks the software, I would ask for a refund. You'd be well protected if your Mac doesn't allow non-app store / non-signed apps to run. Adobe is really clear, the air apps persist on your machine and are security risks just like all native apps that are not signed and don't work in a sandbox are.

Also, if you assume an educated user, always updating apps and plug in, never giving away admin password - I could see Air or Flash being a security neutral or managed risk. If you don't, I would avoid using them since you do need to learn, understand, manage the risk of more frameworks and letting flash (air) run on your Mac.


How do delete selective iCloud book copy?

Right Click > Delete
"Are you sure you want to delete this book from your Mac?"
Delete.

It's in the Trash.


There is, and it comes with macOS by default.

Little Snitch is an application firewall, that's a whole different story. It blocks applications from accessing the network.

Assuming you want to block ports and servers, just configure pf from the command line to do what you want. Start by reading through "man pfctl", or e.g. How to block abusive IP addresses with pf in OpenBSD?

If you want to have a GUI after all, you might want to check out the (free) IceFloor to configure pf.

To determine the ports yourself and preferably the server address that is sending or receiving data from your computer use the build in command "nettop".


Why is my 14 yr old listed as adult with my name on our account family sharing

First log in to Apple ID and update his birthday, name etc.

Second, log in to the organizer account and change the role for all accounts that are incorrect. If this is correct and still shows Adult, you can kick him from Family Sharing then invite him again as a non-adult. :) If you save their real birthdays, they will be picked up as minors/teenagers by their age (-18).

Check this post, for interest sake. :P

  Family Sharing and Apple ID for your child

At the bottom of Apple's support articles, there's a contact us link to get personalized support or you can start at http://apple.com/support


I had something like with with another update a few weeks ago. It is probably caused by their database records being slightly out-of-sync.

I ignored it for a couple days, and it went away.


Why does my Finder window close when I eject an external drive?

Before ejecting drive click on any other drive and then press eject, window stays open,


Cannot upgrade FROM High Serra 10.13.6 to Mojave 10.14.6?

If you have internet, you could boot to recovery and install the latest OS that your Mac is able to run (which is 10.14.6 right now). Power off your Mac and hold the following keys only right after you power on and until you see the Apple or the globe. You will need to connect to the internet (wired or wireless) for this to work.

Option-⌘-R

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

That will get you a free and clear installer that will run through the checks and if it fails, you will also have the ability to run Disk Utility from the installer to repair things if this is just a filesystem error causing the grief.

The Self Service app means you might be on an MDM managed application like with JAMF Pro, so if this is a work machine, be sure to check with your team to be sure there isn't a restriction preventing the upgrade.


How to reset Messages application settings in Mountain Lion?

Messages.app uses many files in various locations for storing information.
To completely start from scratch, all these files must be deleted.

Delete the preference files (there are many of these):

find ~/Library/Preferences -name "*iChat*" -delete

Delete caches:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Messages

Delete chat database:

rm -rf ~/Library/Messages

Remember to take a backup before deleting files.


How to access the Menu Mnemonics of an X11 Program within macOS

I just noticed a related question on this site:

How can I get the Alt key to work in an X11 application?

It will take some time to try this out .. will report back in couple of days.


How to get menu bar on both of my screens?

Mac OS X does not allow for this natively. However, there is a third-party tool called SecondBar that purports to do just this. I have not used this myself, but you might want to take a look.


Smart Playlist in iTunes for songs that contain lyrics

You can't do this with a smart playlist as Apple doesn't expose the lyric field there.

You can create an Applescript that creates a playlist. You'd then have to rerun the script to update the playlist. A track has a playlist field so you'd just check that.

Here's one example of such a script

tell application "iTunes"

    if exists playlist "No Lyrics" then
        delete playlist "No Lyrics"
    end if

    make new playlist with properties {name:"No Lyrics"}

   duplicate (every track of playlist 1 whose lyrics is equal to "") to playlist "No Lyrics"

end tell


Is it possible to use mini jack to lightning adapter for input?

No, unless you use a special adapter, the audio from the radio will be send over the audio output channel of the 2.5mm headphone jack, not the input channel. This means that your radio does not function as a microphone/aux input and you can't record the audio from the radio.


Can I create an iCloud account with a borrowed IOS5 device?

While you should be able to use an iOS 5 device to convert to iCloud, you can upgrade your MobileMe account to iCloud on a Snow Leopard machine at the following link:

https://www.me.com/move/


The default permissions/usr:grp/attr/SIP since 10.11.3 are 755, root:wheel, –, –:

ls -laOe@ /usr/local
total 0
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel  -                 136 29 Mai 20:37 . # ⇦ /usr/local
drwxr-xr-x@ 13 root  wheel  restricted,hidden 442 29 Mai 20:31 ..
    com.apple.FinderInfo     32
    com.apple.rootless    0
drwxr-xr-x   5 root  wheel  -                 170 29 Mai 20:37 bin
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel  -                 102 29 Mai 20:37 share


Is there any way to reliably get rid of the caches in com.apple.MediaLibrary safely?

I don't think you should have to worry about the disk space being used by this. macOS should be treating that sort of thing as "Purgable", so if you are ever running low on space, macOS would automatically be able to remove that data to give you operational space back. So as far as space you can use on the disk, you should be able to consider the space currently used by that as free.

If it's a real bother though, your last option could be modified a little for reliability, which may solve the problem, depending on the Mac you have.

Basically, you could get a USB drive or SD Card of adequate size (also taking into consideration likely future needs, so say 32GB, or maybe 64GB, depends how many photos you take) and have it permanently connected. Instead of a Symlink, you could use macOS's fstab to cause the drive to use the com.apple.iLifeMediaBrowser.ILPhotosTranscodeCache folder as it's mount point, both on boot and automatically when reconnected if it is ever removed while your system is running

A caveat of course, is that if your Mac is a portable, and you do take it places with you, this will be less convenient, since you still have to reconnect that drive every time you boot up. A Nifty Drive or JetDrive would solve this if it is a MacBook model with a SD slot and you don't use the slot... You can also get USB drives quite small now-a-days, think the size of a Logitech "Unified" wireless keyboard/mouse adapter, so you could safely leave that connected with a notebook, and it wouldn't be in the way on the back of a desktop, aside from of course having one less USB port.

Rough How-To

To do this, you would want to format the external drive/card to match the format of your internal drive.

With the newly created partition selected in Disk Utility, click the Info button (letter i in a circle) on the top right of the window, and then find the FileSystem UUID. Click on it, copy it with Command-V, and onwards to the Terminal!

In Terminal, you'll need to run the vifs command as root, using sudo.

vifs uses the vi text editor to modify fstab, after locking it so nothing damages it. If you don't know how to use vi for text editing, type :h and then the return key to get to the help text. It explains editing much better than I can

In short, use the arrow keys to get to the bottom empty line below the warning text about being careful with fstab, then type :i to enter insert mode, and type:

UUID=<Your Filesystem UUID Here> /Users/<Your Home Folder Here>/Library/Containers/com.apple.MediaLibraryService/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.iLifeMediaBrowser.ILPhotosTranscodeCache hfs   rw

Replace HFS with whatever filesystem you formatted it as.

Exit Insert Mode with the ESC key, and type :wq to write your changes and quit. If you want to quit and discard your changes, type :q! instead.

After this, eject the drive/card, delete the contents of the cache folder and then insert the drive again. Should mount to that location and macOS will start dumping the cache data there again.

The Upsides

Frees up space on internal drive permanently, while keeping that cache accessible for apps that may use it (you never know, you might just start)
Fails gracefully if you remove the drive/card, as macOS will just act like when you deleted the contents and re-create the cache. When you re-attach the drive, it will mount back to the original location again, where-as with a symlink you may need to create the symlink all over again (depends if it was a clean unmount, and what happens when macOS tries to write through a broken symlink I guess, I'm not sure if it will destroy the symlink and change it back to a normal folder or just stop with an error
Will always be mounted during startup, so it will be there from Boot to Shutdown for macOS to send data to
One external drive could be used for multiple caches, if there are others you want a similar space saving from, but you would need a partition per cache. If you're using APFS on the external drive, this won't be a problem, as all APFS Partitions share the total storage of their drive (I do this with my Plex server's Transcode cache and Mobile Sync cache to spare partitions on my DAS, cause they just get so gorram big!)

The Downsides

Not likely to be great if you use a NoteBook, unless you invest in a tiny USB drive or a form-fitted SD Card such as Nifty Drive or JetDrive
Requires more hardware you may need to purchase
Not 100% sure how macOS will react if you have a partially rebuilt cache in the library folder after the drive is disconnected, and then re-connect the drive/card and it mounts as the cache folder. My Plex caches haven't had a problem with that happening before since they don't re-populate when cleared until next time I'm watching/syncing something, but the macOS one might be interesting since it would start rebuilding straight away. Hopefully it would just delete what's in the cache at that point, or move it to the external drive/card. You might want to test that early on to see what happens
You lose a USB port or a SD Slot, which may or may not be an issue, that depends on your needs

Again, macOS should dump those caches automatically if you ever actually need the cache, so you probably don't HAVE to do any of this, but if you really really want the space back, that is how I've done it on mine (Plex doesn't mark it's caches as pursuable for macOS, so it's this or manually clear them every now and then for me...)


Is there technical reasoning behind Animoji being exclusive to iPhone X?

My understanding is that Animoji requires ARKit. Since the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus rear camera supports this, it could be possible in theory to use these cameras to create Animoji. However, using a rear camera would be problematic at best, since you wouldn't be able to see yourself as you're creating the Animoji. And since ARKit is not supported on any front facing camera except for the one on the iPhone X, it is further problematic using the software on any other current model of iPhone.

It's also possible that since Face ID itself is not required while you're creating the Animoji, that the process may still use the map of your face initially created by Face ID when it's set up (this is pure speculation on my behalf). If that is the case, then creating Animoji on an iPhone 8 / 8 Plus would not be possible - at least not to the quality we see on the iPhone X.


How many hard drives are in this Mac mini?

You have one drive.
Your diskutil list command tells you everything you need to know:  there's only one entry that has a "physical" characteristic to it and it's disk0.
When you boot into Recovery, there are many RAM disks that get created and in your case they are disk1 through disk19.  If you notice on each identifier, it describes it as a "disk image" as in the example below:
/dev/disk1 (disk image):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        +2.1 GB     disk1
   1:                  Apple_HFS OS X Base System        2.0 GB     disk1s1

What you want to look for is anything that says "internal, physical" because if the seller assured you "there are two hard drives," you would have (in a Mac mini) two identifier with "internal, physical" descriptors like that of disk0:
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

What the seller showed you was a (Bootcamp) partition.  When booted, the partitions appear to the OS as their own separate drives.


Folder of second hdd unaccessible for other users

On this second HDD, Get Info on the drive, and at the bottom, authenticate by clicking the lock button, then click the Ignore ownership on this volume checkbox.


How do I activate an iPhone 3Gs without iTunes or WiFi?

The only way you can activate your iPhone is using a sim-card. You don't have to connect to iTunes or WiFi.

It will show you alerts whether you want to upgrade or not, you can simply decline these.


Looking for advice setting up a new Mac Mini with Lion Server

Although written for 10.5, this guide by Daniel Cuthbert (PDF) is fairly comprehensive and largely still applies to Lion.

Closing off screen sharing and tunneling it (if you need it at all) through SSH is probably a good idea.

Standard rules apply:

Only open absolutely necessary ports to the outside world
Keep your software up to date
Disable any unused services & Apache modules
Disable any listeners you don't need, rebind those you do need to localhost only if they're not needed outside (lsof -i is your friend)
Check that your firewall is really working as expected (nmap from an outside host)

Mac specific things:

Make sure the console is password protected, locks if you're using screensharing and doesn't auto-login on startup
You may want to enable verbose boot messages by default, it'll make debugging easier in case things go bad: sudo nvram boot-args="-v"


The system management controller is responsible for reading battery voltages and reporting it to the operating system. You could reset that one time to see if it made a difference. When the output voltage of the battery shifts like that, it's a sign of failure within the battery.

Getting the machine serviced would be the way to fix that if it's not the SMC.


Is it possible to buy an iPhone from Apple without a plan?

You can buy a contract-free iPhone directly from Apple. Just click on "Or get an iPhone unlocked and contract-free":


Just enter the company name and omit the first and last name of the representative. Put the numbers under category Work or Main. You can have more than one entry in any particular category, unlike Android.


Connect to remote TeamViewer computer desktop via MacOS terminal command line

To connect to Teamviewer through the command line in MacOS, pass the arguments as follow (substitute xxxxxxxx with the target id, and yyyy with the target password:

/Applications/TeamViewer.app/Contents/MacOS/TeamViewer -i xxxxxxxx -P yyyy -ac 1

  -ac options:

  0: full access
  1: confirm all
  2: view and show
  3: custom
  9: undefined

The first time you run the command, you may be asked to allow the Terminal in your System Preferences > Security. (as well as TeamViewer itself). Just follow and enter the command again.


In Catalina, Apple made ZSH the default shell, however, macOS retained the (now deprecated) Bash.

There's some misconceptions that need to be cleared up:

ZSH is the default for shell for new users in Catalina, however, for existing users, the Bash shell remains the users' current shell.

Bash is not deprecated in any way. It is still current and the version that ships with macOS is perfectly fine.  The reason that Bash is "so old" is because of the GPL license version.  Apple switched to ZSH for this same reason.

Is there any official word out there regarding this? At the very least (...and FWIW), any anecdotal experience coming from beta installations?

There's no "official word" on something that's not even projected to happen.  As for anecdotal evidence, I cite cron;  it has been deprecated since Snow Leopard in favor of launchd. We're in Catalina now an cron is still around and fully functional.
It's also important to note that there is a difference between deprecated and no longer supported.

cron is deprecated meaning that while still supported, there's no more development on it and admins/users should start migrating to the new tool(s) (launchd).
AFP is no longer supported for file sharing.  You can use it as a client (connect to an old server with AFP support), but you cannot share a folder from Mojave/Catalina with AFP.

Just because Apple makes a move to support a more modern technology, doesn't mean they are going resect it from their base code so it's not longer available in future versions.


Hotkeys don't work in zsh when $TERM is set to screen-256color

Seems like I finally found an answer! Or rather a workaround, since I'm still not sure what exactly is going wrong.

Explicitly configuring the key binds for word navigation fixed the issue for me:

bindkey "^[f" forward-word
bindkey "^[b" backward-word

Maybe zsh is using different keybindings based on $TERM.


Finally figured it out.  I had an expired set of "AirWatch" MDM profiles on it that were blocking the camera.  Removed those and the camera came back!


macOS Sierra slow to accept password at login

Today I've received my Macbook from warranty due to same problem and they have replaced I/O Board. Issue has been fixed.


Migrate Data To New SSD Drive Without USB to SATA Cable

I used an external 2.5" USB case. As @Richard suggested above, I also use Carbon Copy Cloner.


Screenshot file much larger dimensionally than original

Screenshots taken on a Retina display will be twice the size as screenshots taken on a non-Retina display.

Most software such as Preview will compensate for this, however I'm unfamiliar with Paint X and doubt it is correctly showing the image rather than the image being 'wrong'. Try using software optimised for a Retina display.

If you want take screenshots for non-Retina displays, you can use RetinaCapture. Note that these screenshots at 100% on Retina displays in software optimised for Retina will be smaller than real size.


Diff between diskutility and finder on free space

The reason is probably that you have local snapshots of time machine backups (http://support.apple.com/en-us/ht4878). The difference is that the Finder calculates the free space you can use (the backups would be deleted if necessary). They are stored at /.MobileBackups (at least that's what it has been in Mavericks iirc) if you want to have a look and verify how much space it is consuming.

Other possible causes:

some people claim that if you have disk encryption enabled those
values may differ
maybe Disk Utility was opened before you removed
some files and didn't refresh?


In my experience, if you're on a dual-GPU MacBook Pro and running 15 Flash sites, quick battery drainage is almost expected. Even if you installed something like ClickToPlugin, which replaces YouTube's Flash app with QuickTime and is more efficient, the computer should still be fairly warm or borderline hot.

You should use something like gfxCardStatus to verify whether any of the open apps are forcing a switching to the Nvidia GPU. If there is one issue that is often associated with high temperatures and fast battery drainage, this would be it. Try closing the affected app and see if things improve, and then try figuring out a way to avoid the GPU switch (which may entail replacing the app by another one which is better behaved with respect to GPU switching).


250GB of hidden space on macbook pro 13"

My guess is the software did subtraction to show you the value of "hidden space" and the only thing going on is that the operating system user that ran the tool doesn't have read permission in some directories where files are stored and cannot show you a breakdown of those files. Basically, it added up all the files it could count, totaled their size (161.5 GB), noticed that the disk says there is only 86.85 GB free and told you that the balance of 250.8 GB was hidden space.

You can test this by opening terminal and pasting this one command:

du -sg /Users/*

This tells the system to calculate the disk usage in gigabytes of each user folder (and the shared folder). This is part of the way that the system protects one users files from being read by another user. Watch for errors showing places you do not have read permission.

You can also see this effect in finder by turning on View -> Show View Options and clicking "Calculate all sizes"

I have three users on this computer and when I use Finder or the program What Size (it shares some common functionality with Daisy Disk and also has a version on the app store as well as a more powerful version that ships separately) the normal measurement cannot see in folders where my "user" has no permission to go.

When I toggle the measurement as a user or as the admin / you can see in the second screen that the accounts starting with a and r have at least 250 folders and about 1000 files each. In this case, they don't occupy much space, but in your case, 250 GB of files are stored in locations where your tool cannot measure them.

Hopefully this helps explain why the tool is showing you hidden files. If you have multiple users on that Mac, perhaps running the tool once for each and looking in the /Users folder, you can locate where the space is being used. If you do not have multiple user accounts, you will have to see if Daisy Disk has the ability to run in admin mode or use the terminal to calculate disk usage where you can run the command as the "root user" by adding a sudo and typing your account's password to let the system grant access to those normally non-readable files.

Mac:~ me$ sudo du -sg /Users/*
Password:
39  /Users/Shared
1   /Users/aaa
132 /Users/mmm
1   /Users/rrr


2-factor authentification not available for the AppleID to turn on

Go to Manage your Apple ID website, login with your Apple ID and scroll down to Security section. You'll find the option to setup 2 Factor Authentication for your account.


Can AppleScript get folder contents with file extension exclusion?

Try this :

tell application "Finder"
    set theFiles to files in folder (choose folder) whose name does not end with ".bat"
    reveal theFiles
end tell


Default screen saver after timed log out

System Preferences > Desktop and Screen Saver. Many to choose from.

Note: You won't find the fff. screensavers in your list. They're old and I'm not sure they work.


All you need is the location of the iPhone backup and it's easy to restore your new iPhone from the backup. Here are the locations for different operating systems:

Mac: (user)/library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/
Windows Vista/7: \Users\(user name)\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\
Windows XP: \Documents and Settings\(user name)\Application Data\Apple Computer\MobileSync\Backup\


How to Use Keyboard Shortcut ⌘; when ; doesn't exist as a single key?

On an English keyboard, it's the key to the right of L. Sometimes the position is mapped, rather than the actual character. Maybe worth a shot, though I can't test here.

BTW, Adobe uses its own key-mapper - towards the bottom of the Edit Menu on Photoshop [I don't use Illustrator] - so you could check &/or change it in there...


The current partition map of your internal HDD looks like this:

    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         PMBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2         32         Pri GPT table
       34  488722422
488722456  488050672      3  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
976773128          7
976773135         32         Sec GPT table
976773167          1         Sec GPT header

The partition with the index 3 is your APFS container container disk1 housing HDD, HDD - Données, and other APFS volumes.

Before removing the EFI partition (index 1/disk0s1) it looked like this (with a giant gap between the EFI and the APFS container):

    start       size  index  contents
        0          1         PMBR
        1          1         Pri GPT header
        2         32         Pri GPT table
       34          6
       40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
   409640  488312816
488722456  488050672      3  GPT part - 7C3457EF-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
976773128          7
976773135         32         Sec GPT table
976773167          1         Sec GPT header

You can't expand a partition to lower block numbers (i.e. moving the first block of the container (index 3) from block 488722456 to block 409640).

The partition with the index number 2 resided in the empty space and was removed earlier.

  I removed 1 container but fail to recover the space that was used by this extra container

I recommend to get an external drive, set it up as Time Machine backup drive and backup your internal drive.

Then format the internal drive (booted to Internet macOS Recovery) to GPT/APFS, install macOS Catalina and migrate your user data from the Time Machine backup to the internal drive.


Extracting text notes from an iOS 5 backup file?

Ok I did it with iPhone Back Extractor. Lucky me the first note was that I needed

Download the free edition here: http://www.iphonebackupextractor.com/free-download/

It will locate automatically your backup folder otherwise you can select it manually, then select what you want to extract.

So, download the app, run it and then select your backup, if it has not been already found by the application itself. Then, the simplest way is to click the blue number next to 'Notes' in the available data section. You can also extract your Notes to .HTML format using the 'Extract' menu and choosing 'Notes as HTML'. You can do that for contacts, photos, calendar, location data, call history and so on.


Clam shell mode without external display, keyboard, mouse

Not natively, but you can use an app like InsomniaX to prevent the device from sleeping when the lid is closed.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/22211/insomniax


Mobile responsive Website loaded into an App for review

Oh it will get rejected, no matter how fancy or how good you want to cover it. If the app is mostly just web, you will get rejected. I didn't even have a web browser involved and it got rejected for "not entertaining enough" but it had to do with medical, so idk.

Try adding tabs (UITabBarController) for different sections, eg. about, contact, etc. with pages designed specifically for this "app" without links so the client can't go off track. For example About tab will show about.html without links. (still think it will be rejected)

Or simply just make an API to load these stuff programmatically?


is an iPhone bought in the US compatible with Germany?

Yes, the service coverage of Apple products is worldwide. Though having AppleCare+ will save you some money because you may only have to pay for shipment of parts, etc. Refer to section 6.2 here.
Yes, as all Apple products come with standard power adapters and they're compatible anywhere voltage-wise, you may just have to use a universal power adapter in Europe. Otherwise, you can just use the USB to Lightning cable and use your own power adapter there in Germany.
See answer above.


Automounting nfs share fails with err=2, RPC: Timed out

Your Arch Linux distribution probably contains an NFSv4 server. The NFSv4 server requires a base directory (e.g. /srv/nfs4).

Any additional share has to be a subdirectory (e.g. /srv/nfs4/home_tmp). So move the server-side /home_tmp to the base directory.

The file /etc/exports looks like this then:

/srv/nfsv4 192.168.0.0/26(rw,fsid=0,insecure,no_subtree_check,async)
/srv/nfsv4/home_tmp 192.168.0.0/26(rw,nohide,insecure,no_subtree_check,async)

(only tested with async but should also work with sync)

Reload the file with exportfs -arv on the server.

Your client-side file /etc/auto_nfs has to be changed also:

/home_tmp -fstype=nfs,vers=3,rw,resvport,tcp,soft,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192,noatime,timeo=900,retrans=3 192.168.0.2:/srv/nfsv4/home_tmp

Finally enter sudo automount -vc in the client's shell to "refresh" the mounted share.

To set up networked home directories for OS X users some directory integration is required or at least recommended (e.g. LDAP or AD). For Linux servers I've found a pretty old how-to:
Automount OS X Home Directories Using OpenLDAP and Linux. I don't know if the approach still works well with newer macOS versions. An updated how-to would require a new question here or at Server Fault.


How to make a custom keyboard shortcut WITH NO MODIFIER

You can do this with Keyboard Maestro's Device Key trigger:

Device Key
The macro can be executed when the key is pressed, released or periodically while it is held down. The trigger can also optionally be restricted to when certain modifier keys are pressed.

Device Key triggers can be combined with a macro group restricting to a certain application.


If the laptop is brand new then it should be covered under warranty by Apple for at least 12 months. I would definitely recommend getting in touch with them. You can lookup whether you're covered by warranty by entering in the laptop serial number here.

Even visit an Apple Store if there is one nearby you, they are usually more than happy to help.

Even though this is technically physical damage, it's due to no fault of your own, so it needs to be fixed.

I would also open a case with the seller through eBay, although they state they do not accept returns, if the dent wasn't photographed as part of the ad, or if it happened during shipping, it should be covered under the general eBay/PayPal returns policy.


AppleScript app not responding force close

Any time an application does something like a execute a tight loop or perform a shell script that doesn't return, the user interface gets blocked because the app is not allowing the system time to process events.  In this case an NSTask can be used, since it runs in the background, and the application is just used to start and stop it.

The following needs to be saved as a stay-open application - the shell script is launched and terminated with the app:

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use framework "Foundation"
use scripting additions

property task : missing value -- keep track of the NSTask

on run -- example
    tell current application's NSTask's alloc()'s init()
        set my task to it
        its setLaunchPath:"/bin/sh"
        its setArguments:{"-c", "/usr/bin/caffeinate -di"}
        tell it to |launch|()
    end tell
end run

on quit
    if task's isRunning then tell task to terminate()
    continue quit
end quit


You can with the iPad Camera Connection Kit, but in a very limited manner. You can import photos or videos on an external drive to the Photos app, if you set up the file structure to emulate a USB-connected camera - I believe you need a folder in the root directory named DCIM with the photo and video files within named DCIM_1234.jpg (or .mp4, etc. as appropriate).

You may find this article useful: CNet: Secrets of the iPad Camera Connection Kit


iOS Messages not repeating alert notifications

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210393#132

iOS update 13.2 fixes this issue.


Swp memory no longer being used Macbook Pro Mid 2015

The default macOS setup has a dynamic swap size. This means that even though htop displays "0K/0K" it doesn't mean that the total swap capacity is 0, or that swap is disabled. It just means that right now, there's no need for swapping (and that is a good thing).

If later memory usage means that swapping is necessary, the operating system automatically increases swap capacity. This is ofcourse limited by the amount of free disk space on your computer.


Is iTunes the only way to interface with an iPhone on a PC?

I know of no other solution to sync the handheld device.

If you want to get files on and off the device, you may be able to find tools/apps to help you. I've had to resort to a tool to get some audio and video content off of an iPod once that was loaded on someone else's machine; when you associate an iPod with a new machine, iTunes really wants to zap the contents, and I assume that may also be true with iPhone.

Also, the way some of that content is stored on the device may not be what you'd expect (files in a file system), it's more like cryptically named blocks of data in a database. But there are tools that can help you deal with the problem.


What exactly is included when I backup my iPhone 4 using iTunes?

Apple has a great article enumerating what gets backed up for each level of iOS.

iTunes: About iOS backups

Pay close attention to the section titled iTunes will back up the following information and note that by setting a passcode, Apple backs up more of your device's keychain. Also this article covers using iTunes and iCloud to back up since each has strengths and weaknesses in terms of backing up an iOS device.

In terms of the things you enumerate - all are backed up except the one you didn't want (the OS itself and firmware for the device).

I would encourage you to also sync contacts (and other data) so you have a second backup (or even the ability to make a third backup of the synced data) since losing contacts is an event that is very painful to recover.


The App Store purchased items are tied to Apple ID per country.

If you have an Apple ID under registered under my.appleid@icloud.com in US, everything you’ve purchased is only available when you’ve switched to US App Store.
If you use the same Apple ID and switch country to Hong Kong, you won’t be able to download all the apps and musics you’ve purchased in US App Store unless you switch back to US App Store first.
You can, however, download the apps from the US App Store before switching to HK App Store where you can buy an apps from the there separately. The apps bought from HK App Store is only available when your Apple ID’s country has been set in Hong Kong.

For the sake of simplicity, never switch an Apple ID to other regions unless you decide to move to the destination country permanently.


You can use the following Python script which can tell you which app is currently on focus:

#!/usr/bin/python
# Prints current window focus.
# See: https://apple.stackexchange.com/q/169277
from AppKit import NSWorkspace
import time
workspace = NSWorkspace.sharedWorkspace()
active_app = workspace.activeApplication()['NSApplicationName']
print('Active focus: ' + active_app)
while True:
    time.sleep(1)
    prev_app = active_app
    active_app = workspace.activeApplication()['NSApplicationName']
    if prev_app != active_app:
        print('Focus changed to: ' + active_app)

It will print active application which has the focus and any change every second.

Related script: Identify which app or process is stealing focus on OSX at Gist

Usage:

Save above script into get_active_focus.py file.
Assign execution attributes by: chmod +x get_active_focus.py command.
Run it as: ./get_active_focus.py.

Output:

$ ./get_active_focus.py
Active focus: Terminal
Focus changed to: Google Chrome

Once you found the affected application, consider uninstalling or killing it (if possible).


Is Apple Keyring data stored locally-only on devices?

As Mike Scott wrote, depending on your iCloud backup.

See "Set up iCloud Keychain".

See "Keychain data protection" on page 20 of the "iOS Security Guide" for how the keychain works, how it protects access to keychain items so they are only available when the phone is unlocked, using the secure enclave processor.


Fixed! Just as it came, it went. There is Paragon NTFS/Disk Utility background to this issue mentioned in a comment above, that might come into play here.
What little I did was figure out there were still Paragon NTFS files in the computer. This is well documented online, the command below should point you to the locations.
sudo rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/Paragon Software/"
sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.paragon-software.installer.plist
sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.paragon-software.ntfs.loader.plist
sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.paragon-software.ntfsd.plist
sudo rm /Library/LaunchAgents/com.paragon-software.ntfs.notification-agent.plist
sudo rm -rf /Library/Filesystems/ufsd_NTFS.fs/
sudo rm -rf /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.paragon-software.installer
sudo rm -rf /Library/Extensions/ufsd_NTFS.kext/
sudo rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/ParagonNTFS.prefPane

I then left the computer running overnight copying files with Finder as an emergency preccaution to at least save the files.
Today, I restarted the computer (which I had already done once before without results), and after it took longer than usual to boot, everything was working again.
Guess you can add it to the long history of people having trouble using NTFS on macOS. Tuxera, Paragon, something always comes up sooner or later.

Alternatively, things I was gonna try today. I read someone saying that you can fix the Partition Table by booting to an external macOS drive and adding a new partition to the drive with problems, which "overwrites the partition map" back to normal. I also thought about booting into Safe Mode and seeing if it was recognized there, and physically reconnecting the SATA port of the drive.


1.What are "Scan requests":
The scan requests are the system (the airportd dameon) scanning for available WiFi networks.
The precedure maybe runs like this:

Application send a request to airportd
ScanManager receive broadcast scan request from airportd
ScanManager initialize scan
ScanManager return scan results to airportd

("scan cache updated" will show due to a fresh scan result)

2.Possible Cause:

Shown in the picture,Google Chrome may trigger the scan frequently.Close chrome and QUIT chrome should stop this "annoying" loop.

3.Link quality:
Since it doesn't change a lot in the log,No need to worry about if your battery life does not seem to be suffering


I have a mid-2010 15” MBP in which the NVIDIA GPU on the original  motherboard failed, around 2014. Apple replaced the motherboard twice under their Extension Repair program, each failing after about 6 months. I put the MBP away in storage until about a month ago when I found this solution by user LangLangC: GPU problem - Boot Hangs on Grey Screen which is for a 2011 MBP using a AMD Radeon GPU, but it is the same problem, poor thermal design.
To make it work you need to specify the NVIDIA kext files rather than the AMD kext. There are several kext files; search for GeForce*kext and NVDA*kext. I wasn’t certain which were relevant to the GPU so I moved all these using the directions in the post. Follow the instructions of @LangLangC - they work!!!
I have my 2010 MBP running well now using only the internal Intel GPU. One caveat is that it cannot support an external monitor. So don’t waste money on a replacement motherboard, just follow the detailed instructions in the post. Tedious but only costs time.


How to tell why macOS thinks that a certificate is revoked?

I tried crlrefresh rp and also manually deleting the OCSP cache with sudo rm /var/db/crls/*cache.db as documented by GlobalSign.

However, the cache seems to be in a different location on macOS 10.12 Sierra. The following command worked for me and resolved the problem:

$ sqlite3 ~/Library/Keychains/*/ocspcache.sqlite3 'DELETE FROM responses WHERE responderURI LIKE "%http://%.globalsign.com/%";'

I also tried deleting the whole database, but it does not seem to come back automatically.

If unsure, better just restore ~/Library/Keychains/*/ocspcache.sqlite3* (including -shm and -wal) from a backup before the OCSP servers started to give wrong replies, for example from yesterday.


try to run 'exiftool' from applescript but get 'command not found'

Run

which exiftool

or

type exiftool

and use that path instead of exiftool in the script.

For e.g. if I was using git in Automator, I'd do this.

/usr/bin/git pull

Modify this for exiftool usage.


Is there a way to monitor which disks are spun down in a Mac Pro?

I'm afraid this isn't made possible by the S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) system that is used to provide details of Hard Drive operation, I was hoping to find a SMART attribute that details the current 'park' status, but it seems that there simply isn't one, and as this is a low level activity that is fully handled by the drive itself without any OS input I cannot see a way of ever retrieving the status as the value isn't available in the first place.


How do I shut off a USB fan automatically when the Mac goes to sleep?

To expand on the accepted answer, on some desktops, hibernatemode 1 is not available, see the manual page for what's available, go to terminal:

$ man pmset

(q to exit the man page, or esc, then q key)

Scroll way down to "SAFE SLEEP ARGUMENTS", it'll list which hibernatemode is available on your system, my old iMac says 0, 3, 25

I set it mine to 25 (write RAM contents to disk, then full power down). Originally devices like USB hubs won't power off when the system is in sleep mode, now it does.

However doing this will make sleeping and waking much slower. I'm still trying to see if I like this, now I close almost all open apps before putting system to sleep to minimize disk activity. Not totally sure if I like this, might be easier to unplug that USB hub.


How do I make an iPad app free for certain users?

I guess you'll be limited to the 50 (?) promo code you can generate per each version of your iPad app. Sorry.


I believe it works well since there is a system to version and track every single install and the script can do math to determine the space that it frees up. This is clearly needed if the versions get bumped several times a month and you have dozens of packages installed that get updated regularly. Basically, you're keeping multiple copies of the entire program and everything needed to link to / run / compile the package in many cases.

  Why it uses that space is also up to what packages you install and how often they change and what percentage of changes you download / cache / install.

It's an elegant solution so that you can cache the download for machines that have network constraints and when you uninstall the binary or libraries - the cached download remains until you call the brew cleanup only when they need space back urgently - others that have fast network and need space can clean up after every single install if they choose.


What does "Remove Alerts / Attachments / Reminders" mean in iCal?

Attachment removal should be obvious to most - but I have no good explanation for why Alerts and Reminders are called out distinctly when to iCal they are one and the same concept.

Removing attachments means you won't download any files attached to the event and have them stored locally within iCal (and on the file system). I suppose you could be safer, too if a calendar contained a malicious or malformed attachment.

Removing alerts / reminders means your mac won't interrupt you if warnings are set for a specific event (in relation to the start time). Leaving these enabled gives me great unease since reminders are very powerful on Mac OS X.

You can open arbitrary files (including presumably an attachment assuming you can guess my short name or if wildcards are not sanitized in the process of accepting an event), applications, schedule an email to be sent by your mac without user intervention. If the person who makes an event added an email reminder to a specific event, imagine a case where 30 people accept that meeting to their personal calendar. At the designated time, the email address that was supposed to get a mail from the initial event would instead get one email each from every machine that was running as the alarm moment passes.

I imagine several Apple engineers have thought this through to ensure that I can't start a file sharing service on someone else's machine though a calendar reminder. On the surface, you are allowing someone else to operate any file, script that is already on your mac as well as let them send their canned email on your behalf should you leave your mac running.


If I open "Expose & Spaces" preference panel,  I see an option to select the "fn" key to different Expose actions.  This is on 10.6.


Cannot open Facebook and WhatsApp after updating to iOS 11.2.6

I would consider doing a wipe and restore.

Basically you backup the phone, then go into Setting > General > Reset and "Erase all content and settings."

Once your phone has wiped itself and is at the setup screen, plug it back into your computer, run iTunes and restore the phone from the backup you just made.

That should allow you to then install and use apps that are currently broken.


Maintain allocation of windows to spaces on restart and external monitor unplugging

After some experimentation, I've been able to keep all windows in the proper spaces across unplug/replug by adding 1 extra blank space on my laptop screen.
While plugged in to external monitor, I have #1 on monitor and #2 & 3 on the laptop (call these 1a, 2a, 3a).  #2a is kept blank.
Upon unplugging, there is some merging and rearranging of the Spaces happening:

1a + 2a -> 1b   (This is why I left 2a blank)
3a -> 2b

End result when unplugged is my original stuff which was separated is still separated, I just don't have the extra blank display.
There's probably some way to extrapolate this merging behavior with more than 3 displays.


terminal script for renaming folders in a specific scheme

First off, I have to say that the example bash code used in this answer, shown further below, is by no means robust, however it does get the job done!

With the following as a representative sample of the hierarchical structure of directories:

.
├── ABCD
├── EFGH
├── IJKL
├── MNOP
│   ├── A Most Violent Year (2014) 1180 20150807Lov
│   ├── A Most Wanted Man (2014) 1146
│   ├── A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) 0432
│   ├── A Perfect Getaway (2009) 0433
│   └── ¡NO! (2012) 0939
├── QRST
├── UVWX
└── YZ

Then after running the example bash code saved as a bash script, and run from within the directory containing the hierarchical structure show above, the results for the directories will be as shown below, and being as the stated desired output based on the representative sample of the hierarchical structure of directories shown above:

.
├── ABCD
├── EFGH
├── IJKL
├── MNOP
│   ├── (0432) A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
│   ├── (0433) A Perfect Geatway (2009)
│   ├── (0939) ¡NO! (2012)
│   ├── (1146) A Most Wanted Man (2014)
│   └── (1180) A Most Violent Year (2014) 20150807Lov
├── QRST
├── UVWX
└── YZ

To use the example bash code, In Terminal cd to the directory containing the ABCD, EFGH, etc. directories and run the following commands:

touch rendir; nano rendir

In nano copy and paste the example bash code, show below, into the rendir file and then press Control+X and then Y and then Enter.

Next:

chmod u+x rendir

Now that it's executable, run it by typing:

./rendir

Then press Enter to run it.

Example bash code:

#!/bin/bash

find -E . -type d -regex '.* [0-9]{4}$' > /tmp/foo

while read -r l; do
    p="$(dirname "$l")"
    d="$(basename "$l")"
    n="$(awk '{print "("$NF")"}'<<<"$d")"
    f="$(awk '{$NF=""; sub(/ $/, "", $0); print $0}'<<<"$d")"
    echo mv "$l" "$p/$n $f"
done</tmp/foo

find -E . -type d -regex '.* [0-9]{4} .*$' > /tmp/foo

while read -r l; do
    p="$(dirname "$l")"
    d="$(basename "$l")"
    n="$(awk '{print "("$(NF - 1)")"}'<<<"$d")"
    f="$(awk '{$(NF - 1)=""; print $0}'<<<"$d" | awk 'sub(/  /," ")')"
    echo mv "$l" "$p/$n $f"
done</tmp/foo

rm /tmp/foo

Note that as coded, it will output the mv commands that would be executed if echo wasn't there. After testing and examining the output to see that the mv commands are properly formed, you can the edit rendir (nano rendir) and remove the two occurrences of echo, saving the file, again using (Control+X and then Y and then Enter) and executing it again.

At this point you should have the desired output as shown in the second tree hierarchical structure of directories shown above. This example bash code does not account for any deviation from what was expressed in the OP and comments to the OP.

NOTE: You should never run code without first being properly backed up and or testing the code on a sample copy of the originals.

If I knew awk better I'd imagine that an awk program could be written to manipulate the input string to the desired output string in a single calling of awk, but I don't know awk well enough to achieve that.

Note: The example bash code is just that and does not employ any error handling and is meant only to show one of many ways accomplish a task. The onus is always upon the User to add/use appropriate error handling as needed/wanted.


I can't update my Mac software to the latest version - Error occurred (102)

Launch Terminal and type the following command if
 you are running macOS Sierra:

 open `getconf DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR`/com.apple.appstore

Move all the files and folders out of com.apple.appstore. Then relaunch Mac App Store.

You can delete all the files and folders later if Mac App Store works well.


Can I make a retina iPad display websites at full resolution?

I believe this could be a problem with how sites are interpreting the User-Agent string and are assuming that it's an older iPad / mobile device.

Try using the Google Chrome browser and it's "Request Desktop Version" feature.

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/chrome/id535886823


Can the transparencyd daemon traffic be dropped without adverse effects?

Since the questions was asked I have systematically blocked all the transparencyd traffic, and have not experienced any adverse side effects.


Ordering prints other than through iphoto

Phanfare have an iPhoto plugin

http://www.phanfare.com/apps.aspx#Iphoto

So you can export to them directly from iPhoto.


What memory to buy for macbook pro 17" early 2011?

As long as the technical specifications (DDR speed, clock, physical size) line up to what Apple lists for your model MBP, you should be fine.

To answer your second question, that isn't possible. MBPs (along with every laptop I have ever opened up) contain only two RAM slots.


I turned off "Allow simultaneous downloads" and now it is consistently downloading without a problem.


Is there a problem with GeForce 750M performance on gaming?

Intel is making big improvements in the Integrated Graphics performances.

They are actually taking a portion of the Nvida market in doing that.

To Intel, the Nvidia is just a parasite, so if they can do better with the iGPU performance, ppl wont need it.

Intel will be introducing next gen CPU with some powerful iGPU in 2015.

There is no official benchmarking for the Iris Pro vs G750 but as usual the performance is highly game type dependent.

As you have discovered for the League of Legends it looks like the Iris is actually doing better then G750.

There are some games where the G750 is doing better, like Startcraf2 and Heaven.

see this report for more.


Apple did not supply EFI mode Window drivers for your Mac. Therefore, there is no point pursuing an EFI install of Windows. In the later versions of macOS (including High Sierra), the Boot Camp Assistant can be used to download the Windows Support Software for 64 bit installs of Windows on your Mac. At the time of this writing, this download should be the same as downloading Boot Camp Support Software 5.1.5621.

Editing Bootcamp's Info.plist as solution is a myth. What you end up with is a installer for a different Mac. In other words, the installer usually will not even boot on the Mac used to create it.

Triple booting from your primary internal disk is not only possible, but has been documented at Ask Different, Super User and Ask Ubuntu. Of course, you have not specified which operating systems you wish include in your desired triple boot. For your Mac, the best course is to boot any Windows operating systems in legacy BIOS mode and all others in EFI mode.

The rEFInd boot manager is useful tool, but is usually not required to boot an operating system on newer Mac computers. The Apple Boot Manager usually is capable of booting any Mac compatible operating system, provided the operating system is installed in a way compatible with the Apple Boot Manager. For some operating systems, this may require you to modify some boot files' location and name after installation. On the other hand, rEFInd can often be used to avoid these types of modifications.

While GPT disks can have more than 4 partitions, the legacy mode BIOS booting of Windows allows only 4 partitions to be visible to Windows. Although, making more than 4 partitions visible to Windows is theoretically possible, I do not know of anyone every trying to do so. Also, there is no requirement that the first 4 GPT partitions be the ones visible to Windows.

I can provide the current disk configuration from a 2007 iMac as an example of a Mac computer with more than two operating systems installed. Below is the output from diskutil list.

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:       Microsoft Basic Data Shark                   202.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data Shark2                  202.0 GB   disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data SHARK3                  50.0 GB    disk0s4
   5:                  Apple_HFS Steelhead               245.1 GB   disk0s5
   6:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s6
   7:                  Apple_HFS Ubuntu                  199.2 MB   disk0s7
   8:                 Linux Swap                         4.3 GB     disk0s8
   9:           Linux Filesystem                         93.9 GB    disk0s9
  10:                  Apple_HFS Steelhead2              198.9 GB   disk0s10
  11:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s11
  12:                        EFI REFIND                  134.2 MB   disk0s12

This Mac has the following bootable partitions which can be selected from the Startup Manager.

Shark which has a BIOS bootable version of 64 bit Windows 10 installed. Windows is aware of the EFI partition by can not access the partition. Windows does have access to the Shark (NTFS), Shark2 (NTFS) and SHARK3 (FAT32) partitions. Note: Occasionally, I have had a dual legacy BIOS boot of Windows using both Stark and Shark2, but currently this is not the case.
Steelhead which has Yosemite installed.
Recovery HD (immediately after Steelhead) which is the Yosemite recovery partition.
Ubuntu which has rEFInd installed. The boot manager rEFInd is configured to silently boot the Ubuntu operation system. This is an older version of Ubuntu which requires either a modification of the installation or the use of rEFInd in order to boot on Mac computers. I believe the current version of Ubuntu no longer requires any modifications or the use of rEFInd.
Steelhead2 which has El Capitan installed.
Recovery HD (immediately after Steelhead2) which is the El Capitan recovery partition.
REFIND which has rEFInd installed. This version of rEFInd is configure to allow the selection of the same boot options as the Startup Manager (which the exception of itself).


Windows Server 2012 (or 2008) on a Mac mini

Yes it can. But it would be better if you first format the disk in OS X as any type you wish, then format it in Windows as NTFS.


Blank temperature in iOS 8 Weather app (showing just underscores)

If the blank temperature is associated with a page that also has a blank city, then the problem might be that you have not allowed the Weather app to "always" access location data.

You can check the setting by going to "Settings" --> "Privacy" --> "Location Services".


find, tar, awk, and sed are not included in coreutils:

brew install coreutils findutils gnu-tar gawk gnu-sed

You can use brew search gnu to search for other formulas where the name contains gnu.

Formulas for other commands that are not installed by default:

brew install ack aspell dos2unix exiftool ffmpeg ghostscript iftop imagemagick lame multimarkdown netcat pandoc parallel pidof poppler pstree recode rename sox ssh-copy-id tmux tree watch wget xmlstarlet

I tried running compgen -c on Ubuntu and OS X VMs and running this:

comm -23 <(sort ubuntu) <(sort osx) | parallel -P10 brew info {} \> /dev/null 2\>\&1 \&\& echo {} | sort -u | tr '\n' ' '

There were surprisingly few formulas, but the formula names don't always match command names:

_lzma apg arping aspell dash dnsmasq dpkg duplicity enchant fribidi gcc gettext ghostscript gpg gs lesspipe logrotate lzma lzmainfo mawk mtools mtr netcat ntfs-3g pdftohtml pidof pkg-config pstree rename ssh-copy-id unlzma usbmuxd watch wget xz


Windows 7 only seeing some Pictures on iPhone

If on the iPhone you choose to optimize storage of your iCloud Photo Library, then only some of your photos are stored in full resolution on your iPhone. That explains why you can only see a subset of the files from the Windows Explorer.

The rest of the photos are stored in high-resolution in your iCloud account only. You can access them at www.icloud.com from your Windows computer.


MBP Connected to WiFi but won't connect to Web

I've asked some questions to help debug as a comment, but this is what I would try:

1) Turn off all extensions in Safari (Safari menu -> Preferences -> Extensions)

2) Rule out DNS issues - try to ping a site. Open Terminal (in Applications -> Utilities). Type in:

ping google.com

You should get something like:

⇒  ping google.com PING google.com (173.194.43.39): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 173.194.43.39: icmp_seq=0 ttl=251 time=7.462 ms
64 bytes from 173.194.43.39: icmp_seq=1 ttl=251 time=6.895 ms
64 bytes from 173.194.43.39: icmp_seq=2 ttl=251 time=7.991 ms

So, take the IP (173.194.43.39), might be different for you, and put that into Safari, see if that works.

You can also just try the IP above as well. If Safari works with the IP, then the issue is DNS.

3) Using Terminal again, try curl:

curl www.google.com

If you get a lot of code back, it's fine, and your issue is purely Safari.

4) Try a different WiFi network
5) Try a different device on your WiFi network
6) Try a different browser if you have one


Fix Mavericks vertical scrolling lock? (jerky scrolling, accidental safari back)

Please do NOT accept this answer as the correct one. Leave this question open for as long as it takes to get a proper solution. I don't want the bounty.

I made a quick app which hacks together some basic vertical-only scroll lock support. It basically tells the system to ignore small horizontal movements when scrolling in a mostly vertical direction.

You can download the app from http://kapeli.com/ScrollLock.zip. The source code of the app is available at https://github.com/Kapeli/Mavericks-Scroll-Lock.

I have no idea how well it works, only barely tested it, but it will prevent horizontal movement when your scroll


When sharing calendars on iCloud, how do I show other people that I'm occupied, but not why?

The availability picker on Lion (when it even works) only shows the binary status with your busy times blocked.

The CalDAV request to show busy times just shows that you are busy, not why.

If you don't share private events (or keep that secure with a password to subscribe), your event details are as secure as anything on a web server with controls before you can retrieve the data. (not perfect security, but not wide open to anyone)


About 'Remote Login' how to logout that?

Thanks all guys!

I just solved it by myself HeHe!
I think is simple error that I don't know Terminal.app too much.
The cause of problem is I command this

ssh <username>@<hostname_trough_remote_login>

and I didn't know how to logout, so It's just simple way to logout. use

exit

It's solved. (first I used logout)


When external speakers are plugged in to headphone jack of Macbook Pro (with Lion), output destination randomly switches

It sounds like a hardware problem in the jack. If you can put pressure on the external part of the plug and change it: cause static or breakup it's probably a hardware problem in the jack.

If you had said you only tried one set of headphones then I'd have said it's probably a problem in the headphone plug but if it's multiple phones and speakers then it's probably the jack.

There's a sensor in that jack that monitors if something's in it or not to switch off the internal speakers. The if there's continuous sound, just switching from internal to external the problem may be that sensor. If the sound cuts out from both internal and external once in a while it's probably the jack.

If the MacBook Pro is still under warranty I'd have Apple look at it, they'll swap motherboard to make it right if it's a hardware problem at no cost to you.


How do I rename a file in git that differs by case only?

As asked and answered on stackoverflow, there's an easier way to do this that doesn't involve making a new file system in a disk image file:

Move your existing file aside, commit that move, then move it back using the case you'd like it to maintain and commit. Done.

Example:

mv foo foo2
git add -A
git commit -m "renaming"
mv foo2 FOO
git add -A
git commit --amend -m "renamed foo to FOO"


One a malicious individual has physical access to the hardware, any protection becomes meaningless, security-wise.

If an attacker had the time and resources, they could circumvent any UI-based security by removing (de-soldering) the flash from the logic board, connecting it to another system, and reading any data off them. Only full-disk encryption would block that, but, given physical access and/or time, that's defeatable, too.


iMessage displaying conversation threads out of order on iPhone

My children sometimes change the date / time on my phone so that they can trick certain games that they play on it.  Then, my messages no longer sort correctly.  I just fixed my phone by setting the date and time to update automatically.


What is the latest version of Safari that runs on PowerPC (PPC)?

This depends on the OS you're running.

Leopard: Safari 5.0.6
Tiger: Safari 4.1.3

Newer Macs can use...

Snow Leopard/Lion: Safari 5.1.4


How do I use MacOS Terminal or other app to format an MBR FAT32 SD card as a 0x0C partition, rather that 0x0B?

Your fdisk invocation should have already partitioned it as type 12. You can press the Ignore button and verify via Terminal that that's the case, then simply eject the disk from your computer and use it wherever you intend to use it.
If you intend to use this drive on your Mac, you will need to format and mount it after running fdisk:
sudo newfs_msdos /dev/disk3s1
sudo mkdir /Volumes/FLASH
sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk3s1 /Volumes/FLASH

Here FLASH is an arbitrary volume name that I chose for sample purposes; feel free to choose your own.
As a clarifying point, the s1 portion of /dev/disk3s1 targets the first partition of disk3. If you were to specify just disk3 instead, the newfs_msdos command would overwrite the partition table.


"Sync only checked songs and videos" was un-ticked.

When an iOS device is connected to iTunes, under the device's Summary tab, the Options section has a checkbox Named "Sync only checked songs and videos"; this option enforces the removal of music that is not set to sync if it has been synced to the device in the past.

Ticking the box and then syncing removed the offending album.


Just for grins and giggles...

Did you verify that your cable and network port are good?

First thing to try is moving your connection from whatever port on the switch it is on to another.  Sometimes a port on the switch just may be bad.

You will also want to verify the cable.  If you have access to another computer or a laptop, remove the patch cable from your iMac and plug it into the laptop.  If the problem persists, then you will need to solve that issue before doing more diagnostics on your iMac.

Once you have verified that the connection from the switch to your iMac is good, then I would proceed with diagnosing the hardware, then the software on the iMac.


Can I set the "Exercise" goal for my Apple Watch Activity app?

No there is no way to accomplish this.

From Apple - Apple Watch

  You close the Exercise ring when you reach the globally recommended 30 minutes of exercise per day. And you don’t even have to do it all at once, which means you’re more likely to fit it into your day.

From all searches I have performed I have not found any possible way to change it and the above quote suggests that 30 minutes is the amount Apple has fixed on (the call it "recommended").


Use web page as (refreshable) wallpaper in iOS 8

This is not possible without a jailbreak due to iOS restrictions.


Trying to find what driver my printer is currently using on OS X

In Safari, enter the address (without quotes) "localhost:631" to view your CUPS administration page.  The tabs along the top are fairly self explanatory.

Administration > Manage Printers > Select the printer.  This will show you the driver that it is currently set to use.

If you instead receive a message that the web interface is currently disabled you will need to first enter this line into Terminal and press return.

cupsctl WebInterface=yes


Where is a full (complete) list of defaults domains and parameters?

Here is the list of all defaults parameters that [I think] you are looking for.

Here is the link I got it from.

Looks something like this, but a lot longer :) :

  NSBundleIdentifier = "com.apple.Stickies"; NSBundlePath =
  "/Applications/Stickies.app"; NSKeyEquivalent = { English = Y; default
  = Y; };
                      NSMenuItem =                     { English = "Make New Sticky Note"; default = "Make Sticky"; };
                      NSMessage = makeStickyFromTextService;
                      NSPortName = Stickies;
                      NSSendTypes =                     ( NSStringPboardType, NSRTFPboardType, NSRTFDPboardType);
                      NSUUID = <8d4e24fb c97345b3 89d26400 baabea39>;
                                              },

If The Above Is Not Sufficient

Try searching for what you want here. It is a database of hidden, secret settings for NSGlobalDomain.


How do I split Fusion drive on Mojave / APFS?

I did this earlier today on an iMac.
Boot to a Mojave USB boot installer.
Then Utilities → Terminal.
The commands are along the lines of:

diskutil apfs list

Then make note of the “virtual disk” that is the “Fusion Drive”. This is made up the PCI Flash and the other spinning drive. You can see how the text output of the drive structure is hierarchical.

Let’s say that virtual container disk is identified as “disk0”

diskutil apfs deletecontainer disk0

This command will split your fusion drive, and leave you with two new drives to format via Disk Utility (which you can run in the same USB Booted environment you’re already in).

Format them (the SSD and the other drive) as whatever you want.

I recently did this prior to replacing the slow spinning disk that comprised the 1TB of my Fusion Drive. Replaced that with a 500GB SSD which is SATA3. Installed Mojave onto the 24GB PCI “Blade” Flash and formatted the other SSD.

I then store User home folder on the larger SSD, and macOS and other apps run off the faster PCI-based SSD.


How Do I remove video playback on my iPhone 7 completely?

Turn on Screen Time in Settings and you could allow the apps you want or need and keep the ones you don't want out.
Also in Screen Time settings under Content & Privacy Restrictions you can turn off or restrick settings. You can choose to not allow apps. You can choose Don't allow Movies and scroll down to the bottom and turn off Show movies in the Cloud.


Can I backup or mirror an IMAP mailbox on Mac OS X?

If you're comfortable using Unix tools, a few applications spring to mind:

OfflineIMAP
imapsync
Mailsync

imapsync isn't open source but the others are. You may also find this Ask Different thread useful.


On board / internal display works intermittently / randomly

I see you tried resetting the NVRAM (PRAM), but have you tried resetting your SMC?

For your model, the steps to do this are:

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

Let us know if this makes any difference.


Archive Upload Failed due to error -22421

It's Apple's servers issues. You should try again and again...


Simple solution to create a zip for Windows users without __MACOSX or any other "period" hidden folders

Without having to use terminal,
you could try Folderwasher, which is an app that creats a zip without the .DS_store file. You can drop the folder onto the application and it compresses it.

Alternatively, you could try Keka, which also has an option to exclude the .DS_store file. Open Keka, click on zip, and check Exclude Mac OS X resource forks and drop what you want to compress on the Keka window.

There are other questions related to this topic:

Compressing folders on a mac, without the .DS_Store on Superuser
Compress without .DS_Store and __MACOSX on AskDifferent


Yes. If you disable iCloud Photo Library on your iPhone, photos will no longer be uploaded or removed from iCloud as per your actions on your phone. The iCloud backup for your phone will update, but that obviously doesn't affect the other devices.

Either way, it would be good to understand and have in place backup procedures. One is that the iPhone saves "deleted" photos for 39 days. After you delete photos from your iPhone I recommend that you check your iPad to make sure they aren't deleted there. Second, it would be good to backup all of your photos to a computer.


Can I edit the "Open with..." menu in Apple Mail / Finder?

You can remove entries from the CFBundleDocumentTypes dictionaries in Info.plist files, but it is not very practical.

For example DVD Player won't be listed as a supported application for .dvdmedia files if you:

Run sudo nano /Applications/DVD\ Player.app/Contents/Info.plist and remove the entry for dvdmedia.
Run /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -f /Applications/DVD\ Player.app/.
Quit and relaunch Finder.

Sandboxed applications like TextEdit and Chess have crashed on launch since 10.8 if their Info.plist has been modified. Changes to Info.plist files might also get reverted by updates.