OS X MacBook remote login with higher resolution

VNC is an interesting beast on OS X. In Lion, OS X finally gained the possibility of having truly virtual sessions, meaning that they aren't displayed on the console. This is accomplished by enabling VNC, and logging in as a user that is not logged in at the console. That new user will have a private session to work in, and the console user will go uninterrupted.

If you're unsure of what I mean by "console", the console is the one and only session that a user directly attached to the computer via keyboard/mouse/monitor can use. That is commonly referred to as the "console" or "physical" session.

Note that on all previous versions of OS X, logging in as an allowed user could only put you on the console session, possibly colliding with a console user if they were actively working on the system at the same time.

On any other operating system, you can set up a private VNC session using almost any resolution you want, within a certain realm of feasibility. This is unfortunately yet to be the case on OS X. VNC still seems to hook into the physical capabilities of the system, perhaps this happens because the video card is used to render the desktop session even when you're using it remotely. Rendering the OS X animations is very intensive, so offloading them to the video card and freeing up general CPU time is an ideal situation for pretty much anybody.

So the answer? I don't believe you can. You can turn it down via the System Preferences like usual, but the highest resolution you'll get is that which is supported by your video card.


There are built-in resume templates in Pages. Select File > New from Template Chooser


What is the lightning bolt icon in iCal?

It means iCal is having difficulty sync-ing with iCloud, or google Calendar. Or some other calendar services that you have.


To use DiskAid with an iPod Shuffle you need to enable "disk use" within iTunes.

Plug your iPod shuffle into your PC or Mac.
Open iTunes.
Select your shuffle in the list on the left-hand side of the iTunes window.
Check the "Enable disk use" box under Options near the bottom of the Summary tab within iTunes.
Click Apply.

If you open DiskAid now, you should be able to use it with your shuffle.


How do I remove a shared photostream from only one device?

You don't have control to allow only a subset of the photo stream to come to a particular device.

Photostream takes photos from all devices that feed it, and as it's a store that Apple keeps online, if a particular device subscribes to the stream, it gets a cached copy of all messages.

You can take that device out of the stream temporarily or free up other space on the device to allow the stream contents to be cached locally.

In your specific case, you could exit that stream subscription to clear the space and then have the person that owns the stream re-send it to you once you've gotten space freed up on some or all devices that need to subscribe to your collective stream.


Delete Apple ID from your iOS devices
Now you need to remove your Apple ID from all of your iOS devices. You’ll need to follow these steps for each Apple iOS device (iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch) using your Apple ID:

Tap Settings.

Open iCloud.

Tap Delete Account.

Open iTunes & App Store.

Tap the Apple ID and Sign Out.

Click Music.

Click your Apple ID under Home Sharing and tap Sign out.

Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars and Sign Out.

Open a Message in settings tap Send and Receive.

Tap Apple ID and Sign Out.

Tap Game Centre, choose Apple ID and Sign Out.

Tap FaceTime and Apple ID and Sign Out.

How to get Apple to delete your account
The answer seems to be that you currently can’t get Apple to delete your accounts (or at least there is no permanent and automated way to do this.

What you can do, however, is edit your personal information to make it a little less personal. Once you’ve removed your Apple ID from all your devices you can change your name, address and other personal details

Follow these steps to change your Apple ID information:
Visit https://appleid.apple.com.

Click Manage your Apple ID.

Enter your name and tap Sign In.

Tap Edit next to your name.

Change your name and tap Save.

Tap Addresses in the sidebar to the left.

Tap Edit, change your address and tap Save.

Tap Phone Number, enter a new area code and number and tap Save.

Tap Sign Out in the top right corner.

You should now have removed your Apple ID from all your devices, and changed all of your permanent information. That Apple ID is now toasted. Remember that you won’t be able to access or use any purchases or apps connected to that Apple ID without authorizing it on your devices again.

source: macworld.co.uk


You can use URL Schemes to not only open an app but you can use it to open a playlist. example


You can do this simply with Preview. Open the first picture.

Choose Tools > Rectangular Selection.
Select the whole picture.
Copy the selection (choose Edit > Copy).
Choose Tools > Adjust Size.
Turn off the lock for proportional changes.
Select pixels as your unit.
Double the width of your picture.

At this point, you have your unscaled picture in the clipboard and a scaled version in Preview.

Insert (choose Edit > Paste) the picture from the clipboard and align it to the left edge.
Open your second picture in Preview, select everything, and copy it.
Switch to the first picture, paste the second picture and align it to the right edge.
Save your new picture. Done.


First of all I'd confirm that path. I believe the full path might be "/User/Jwan/studio_game". Type ls -al /User/Jwan/studio_game into a Terminal window and see if it lists your file.

Assuming that works, then within the Terminal you could use the following command to add that location to your PATH variable. Then open a new Terminal window (or a new tab within the existing one) and the change should have taken effect.

  echo export PATH='/User/Jwan/studio_game:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile

And just to explain that command...

echo says to write whatever follows to standard output.
export says you want to export a variable.
PATH is the name of the variable you want to export.
$PATH refers to the existing variable.
>> redirects standard output to a file. >> appends to the file if it exists, or creates it if it doesn't. > on its own would replace the file if it already existed.
~ represents your home folder which I assume is /Users/Jwan.
.bash_profile is a file that is loaded whenever you open a new Bash session that can be used to run various commands to set up variables the most common being the PATH variable.


Compilation error with Mojave: error: ‘_Atomic’ does not name a type

I encountered the same problem myself. The error is actually reported by g++, a C++ compiler. On MacOS 10.14.4, the header file <sys/ucred.h> uses the _Atomic keyword for C++, although it is only defined in the C standard. (I assume that Apple's compiler clang++ defines this keyword as extension to the C++ standard.)

The proper fix is to tell gcc to "fixinclude" the header file <sys/ucred.h>. This patch does this. This is a patch that needs to be applied to the source code of GCC 8.3.0 before building it.


What free software can I use to read any PDF file I want on my iPad?

Personally, I use iBooks for my PDF storage and viewing. It's already on my iPad to view iBooks I have bought, and you can send a PDF from any other application to it.

Having said that, Mobile Safari will also display PDFs if you follow a link to them.

I also use DropBox, which will display PDFs, amongst other file types. The bonus there is that you can then use DropBox on your Mac/PC/Linux to put the PDFs where you will be able to access them.


How can I open terminal windows in different desktops?

You can go to the new Space and right on the Terminal icon in Dock, then select New Window option there.

On macOS when you left click on an icon it activates the app and automatically switches to the Space where the app is opened.


Can't time capsule back-up to an external hard-drive?

I used Apple's Express Lane tech support. (Being as this was a brand new TimeCapsule, there was no fee.)

The tech told me that TC no longer supports backup to an external drive as of the 2nd Gen TC. He would not speculate as to why.

I can speculate that perhaps Apple wanted you to buy a bigger TC instead? Or perhaps (as was my experience) backing up to an external drive seemed to cause the TC to shut down (maybe overheated).

However, I can and did hook the drive directly to my USB port and I can back up that computer to it using Time Machine software (which is what I wanted to do anyway.)

Odd to answer my own question but this thread may provide an answer to the next guy.


newly installed python3 using brew failing when I try to run pipenv install

You can try below options:

brew install pipenv # if you have brew installed
pip3 install pipenv # if you don't have brew installed


NMEA GPS data from mobile hotspot -> Wifi-only iPad

You are most likely out of luck here. Essentially, you can not install any drivers on the iPad, and the handbook states on page 69 that...

  Drivers are needed to use either the "USB tethered mode" or "GPS over
  Wi-Fi" features.

This question mentions a jailbreak for iOS to use a bluetooth connection to pass GPS data into an non-3G iPad, but your hotspot does USB and WiFi only — and I personally would not advise to jailbreak for certain reasons.

The most promising approach to your question is this: If you do own/have access to an iPhone, you could try to tether the two via Personal Hotspot. The iPad might get the location from the phone — as described in this article. Let me know how this works.


Question 1. see this link for how to.

1- Try a Safe Boot (hold Shift during start up)- (it does do some level of repairs).

2- You can try repairing the disk, using the Disk Utility, start with cmd-r.

3- If that does not work you can try to repair the disk using the Command fsck- fy

To get there start in single user mode (cmd-s) and enter that command fsck -fy to find out if it can repair the disk.

Question 2-

you can use Target disk mode to recover files (you will need second Mac for that)


I have tried the following key combinations in an attempt to do this, to no effect:

Command+Return    ...+Space
Option+Return      ...+Space
Control+Return    ...+Space
Command+Shift+\  (The "Show All Tabs" Command on my Macbook)

This leads me to believe that it really is an oversight on Apple's part.

Kludge: Create An Automator Command to Simulate A Mouse Click

I used code that I found at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3708948 to put together the following AppleScripts:

Attempt 1: Didn't Work
I ran this code in an Applescript wrapped in an Automator Service mapped to "Command+Shift+Option+Control+Space", using the numbers I get from pressing "Command+Control+Shift+4" to get the address for the area (600 pixels horizontal from left, 300 pixels vertical from top), and it would work in normal Safari (pressing the key combination would make the mouse click at that pixel address), but it had no effect when the same key command was run in the "Show All Tabs" mode in Safari!

on run {input, parameters}
    tell application "System Events"
            tell process "Safari"
                click at {600, 300}
            end tell
        end tell

        return input
    end run

Attempt #2: Worked, but Not Feasible

I did get a key command working with the following Applescript wrapped in an Automator Service, but it took 5.125 seconds to complete:(

    on run {input, parameters}

    set x to 600
    set y to 150

    do shell script "
/usr/bin/python <<END
import sys
import time
from Quartz.CoreGraphics import *
def mouseEvent(type, posx, posy):
          theEvent = CGEventCreateMouseEvent(None, type, (posx,posy), kCGMouseButtonLeft)
          CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, theEvent)
def mousemove(posx,posy):
          mouseEvent(kCGEventMouseMoved, posx,posy);
def mouseclick(posx,posy):
          mouseEvent(kCGEventLeftMouseDown, posx,posy);
          mouseEvent(kCGEventLeftMouseUp, posx,posy);
ourEvent = CGEventCreate(None);
currentpos=CGEventGetLocation(ourEvent);             # Save current mouse position
mouseclick(" & x & "," & y & ");
mousemove(int(currentpos.x),int(currentpos.y));      # Restore mouse position
END"
    return input
end run


Why is my USB drive suddenly read-only and how can I make it read-write again?

Who's "Fetching..." ?

I looks like it can't grab the correct perms/ACL. Have you tried setting up the perms again?
My guess is 'fetching' ought to be the _myname account, which my less than stunning grasp of nix perms leads me to believe is the system process working in your name.

ie it's lost the permission to work on your behalf.

At minimum, I'd guess setting everybody to read/write would at least be a workaround - as there's no ownership, how does it know it's working on your behalf or anyone else's?

[Someone with a better grasp of nix perms please comment/correct/append to this]


How can I force the Mac app store to re-install an application?

For Xcode, try to go to /Applications and move "Install Xcode" to trash.

I think Xcode is a special case, it doesn't get deleted when you delete it form launchpad.


I use Karabiner-Elements for this purpose. The W key on my keyboard is a bit finicky so I use Karabiner-Elements to get around this.

After installing Karabiner-Elements, create a new profile.

Then add mappings to this profile.

Finally, use the menu bar to switch between this profile and the default one.


iPhone Camera Roll has created .XMP files causing photo import crashes in Windows

As "TJ Luoma" points out in the comment, the XMP files are used to allow non-destructive editing. It's a great idea but it's a very new standard (?) from Adobe and is therefore not adopted properly by everyone yet.

http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp.html

The new Apple Photos app (due to come out in USA Spring 2015) syncs changes between devices using this XMP concept. That software should be able to read the files and edits properly.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac-software/release-date-for-mac-os-x-photos-app-3586301/

In the mean time, there's not much you can do. Perhaps Adobe have an open source solution. In my experience, the XMP files are not sent from the device (iPhone 5s tested). Therefore, iPhoto 9.6, "Image Capture" on the mac and Google Picasa all failed to read the photos properly.


Can't download (update) files in iCloud Drive over Cellular

Please see this image which shows you how to enable cellular data.

Source: http://www.imore.com/how-enable-or-disable-icloud-drive-syncing-over-cellular


Why is /Application/Utilies "empty" in macOS Catalina from Terminal but not Finder?

I don't know that anyone who knows the technical details of them can share them, because they are not known outside of Apple. But here's my attempt at some replies.

  What was the driving need to move things under /System?

Presumably it was part of Apple's desire to put some of the core system in the "read only" partition which is also new in Catalina.

  What is this witchcraft, if not hard links, making /Application exist?

I believe what you are seeing are "firm links" but you are correct that Apple has not released much information about firm links.

  Why is Finder showing content (apparently) from one place that's really under another?

Presumably because Apple knows people are used to finding them there, and thought it would be better to make them appear where people are used to finding them rather than putting them somewhere else.

  Is my ~/Application directory subject to such wizardy? (Is there something else I ought to be wary of?)

No. The only reason Apple is doing this is because of the read-only partition, which doesn't apply to your ~/Applications/ folder.


Simple text substitution in OS X using keyboard shortcut

The easiest way would be to use Autocorrect shortcuts:

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Text
Replace: [[[ with: résumé
(Make sure "correct spelling automatically" is checked)

The character combination [[[ is just an example. Everytime I type [[[ it's automatically replaced with résumé. This applies system wide. You can use any set of not often used character(s). It functions as a keyboard shortcut.


go to your project folder press right button and  compress your folder and upload your required mail.


How do I use the Time Machine command line interface to backup to an internal ip server?

To configure a client to backup to a remote server, you use the tmutil command, and the setdestination verb.

tmutil setdestination afp://user[:pass]@169.254.x.x/share

This also assumes that you have share already existing as an AFP share on your TimeMachine server.

TimeMachine from client-side doesn't really care much about the remote server, except to mount the AFP volume.


Complete mess with iMessages and SMS messages and different devices.....help

Use this apple self help tool to de-register your phone number from iMessage.  At that point Imessage will still work with an email address.  But you can't have it both ways, the problem you are encountering is that other phones ask the apple server if you are reachable by iMessage and if you are thats how the messages are routed.

You didn't ask, but you shouldn't need WIFI for iMessage to work correctly.  If it does not then likely you have changed carriers and kept the same number.  If that is the case, log out of iMessage on all devices, de-register the number with the above tool, and then re-log in, letting your number get registered.


Can I fix things so Archive Utility doesn't hang on all zip files?

It's related to the Apple Events bug in 10.8.2 that also makes revealing files in Finder stop working.

As a workaround, you can terminate the appleeventsd process with sudo killall appleeventsd sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd. (Without -KILL the process is sent a TERM signal and many processes stop responding as @myhd described.)


How to change boot camp partition if is set?

I am guessing your forte is not computers, this is not the best method, nor the fastest by any stretch; in fact it could possibly be the slowest way to do it. But it will work.

boot into windows
start migration assistant and copy all your settings and apps and docs to an external HD
Go back to osx
Delete w7 partition
run bootcamp assistant.
redownload the Windows Support files if you lost them (important)
choose new partiton size
reinstall windows
reinstall Windows support (apple drivers)
run migration assistant again and copy all your settings and apps and docs back.

There are other ways to do it (buying Paragon Partition Manager for instance) but this way its slow but free and almost impossible to screw up your computer.


How can I synchronize old notes with an email account on the iPhone?

Syncing the notes to your computer, then moving the notes to your email notes and letting it sync back to the phone would be the easiest.

Without syncing you could email each note to yourself by clicking the envelope icon at the bottom of each note. Then turn it into a note in your email account, of course this would take a long time but you wouldn't have to sync with your computer.


You are correct that your two first on-liners should be working according to bash process substitution semantics. In my testing (bash 3.2 on OS X 10.8.2), the second one does, while the first one does not.

In the case of your first one-liner, it looks like you may be running into one of the limitations of process substitution. Quoting the Wikipedia page on process substitution:

  Process substitution has some limitations: the “files” created are not seekable, which means the process reading or writing to the file cannot perform random access; it must read or write once from start to finish. Programs that explicitly check the type of a file before opening it may refuse to work with process substitution, because the “file” resulting from process substitution is not a regular file.

– if source is a command that has difficulties with this (at least in bash 3.2), that would explain its failure to work with process substitution.

The second one-liner possibly just looks like it fails because it executes the code in a subshell rather than sourcing it. If you are expecting it to set aliases and functions, this won’t work, as these do not carry over to the parent shell when defined in a subshell.

The third one-liner doesn’t work because source does not process stdin – only files (see bash man page).


How can I force all traffic for a single app through VPN / Proxy + Open Source? aka App Firewall?

I have looked into things like the built in app sandboxing via sandbox-exec which seems promising

sandbox-exec (deprecated, according to its man-page) is a utility of restriction framework with allow-deny semantics meaning it won't help you to change an app to bind a specific IP-address only (which later could be used together with Pf).

There's a similar post where it's been claimed to be solved with Network Kernel Extensions but source hasn't been shared.

  I just found TSocks which looks great

tsocks (even if was available) relies on LD_PRELOAD mechanism which isn't really bullet-proof because it's based on pre-loading of shared library which would further tamper libc calls. Of course, together with sandbox it could be more-or-less secured of leaks, but in general it's too much tinkering. Network Kernel Extensions look more promising, as to me.


How to get a value from a list with a string in AppleScript?

This would be my take on this:

set ipList to {"8.8.8.8", "8.8.8.6", "8.8.4.4"}
set Output1 to ""
set Output2 to ""
global Output1, Output2
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in ipList
    set this_item to item i of ipList
    my ipCheck(this_item, i)
end repeat

if Output1 is not "" or Output2 is not "" then
    display dialog (Output1 & Output2) buttons {"OK"} default button 1 with title "Resultaat"
end if

on ipCheck(IP_address, i)
    try
        set ping to do shell script ("ping -c 2 " & IP_address & "| head -2 | tail -1 |cut -d = -f 4")
        if ping contains "ms" then
            set Output1 to Output1 & return & "DNS" & i & "  UP"
        else if ping contains "timeout" then
            set Output2 to Output2 & return & "DNS" & i & " DOWN"
        end if
    end try
end ipCheck


Can't see Dropbox folder within localhost

Open Info window (Command+I) and check Shared Folder.


How can I choose to unrar with the default application?

There's no default application to handle .rar file on Mac OS X.

You might want to try The Unarchiver. It can open many format besides rar files.

Then once you installed it, open its preferences and select all the file format you want him to manage.


How to use an existing Apple ID to download free apps from App Store without using Credit Card?

As I commented - try setting your payment type to None in iTunes

Open iTunes, and go to the iTunes Store, then click on your account on the top right. It'll take you to your account page where you can change your type.


Disable bash command completion (bash v. 5.0.7(1))?

OK, turns out it's enabled be default so you have to disable it explicitly:

Add the following line to the ~/.inputrc file:

set disable-completion on


iPod Nano (6th Generation) Lyrics Support


I was having the same problem pretty regularly. I tried the usual tricks (stop backup, eject, mount, delete .inProgress files, stopping spotlight, changing the throttle priority (sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0). Sometimes, this works. Other times it doesn't and it keeps crawling along at a few MB per hour.

One additional trick, that works more frequently, is to force quit the backupd process directly from the Disk tab of Activity Monitor. Then tell it to start backup. This usually works for me. Heads up: this may be a terrible idea in other ways (e.g. maybe it could damage existing backups). In my experience, it hasn't so far.


Siri can do all kinds of things, like alter system settings, open applications, check storage on iCloud, and more. Here’s what OS X Daily has gathered up so far, though some of these double-over on iOS as well:

Put my computer to sleep
Activate the screen saver
Make the screen brighter
Make the screen dimmer
Is Bluetooth on?
Turn Bluetooth off / on
Lower the volume
Increase the volume
Show me privacy settings
Show me location settings
Show me network settings
What is my desktop wallpaper
I forgot my iTunes Password
How fast is my Mac?
How much memory does my Mac have?
How much free disk storage is available?
What is my Mac serial number?
What OS version is this?
How much iCloud storage do I have?
Open Mail application
Open Safari
Open Messages
Open the website for OSXDaily.com
Open the webpage (site name or site URL)
Send a message to (name) saying (message)
Open the Documents folder
Open the Pictures folder
Show me files named “screen shot”
Show me files from yesterday
Show me image files from last week
Show me documents from two days ago
Show me what I was working on yesterday
Show me my music
Play (song name) in iTunes
What song is playing?
Skip this song
Remind me to call (name) in 20 minutes
Show me pictures from last October
Show me my photos from Hawaii


Just wait. Sometime it can take awhile, due to the hundreds of people doing the same thing right now. Or you can restart it, if nothing else works.


I would reset both your NVRAM and your SMC. See below for instructions.

Reset your NVRAM

Newer Macs use Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). It may be worth you resetting this. Here’s how to:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then press the commandoptionpr keys. You have to make sure you press these keys before the gray screen appears or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. mouse speed, time and date/timezone, etc).

Reset the SMC

Your computer's System Management Controller (SMC) can also be reset. To reset this on your particular MacBook Pro, here’s what you do:

Shut down your computer
Keep the 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.

After doing both these, let us know how you go.


Google showed that it is the case with 10.3 while Dropbox only support 10.4 and upwards.

Judging by the screenshot it is not your case so there is either a problem with zlib on your system or with permissions. Then either Disk Utility or booting from install disk and repair user permissions might help.

If nothing above try to remove Dropbox with a cleaner app and install anew.


Apps on two different iPads with same account

No, the two installations are independent of each other.


Recording audio (book) and creating useable chapters to send via email using Garageband. Help!

Yes, you should break it up so that you can solve both problems.

The easiest way to do this is to create another track and mute it.

Then you can use the ⌘ + T "Split" function at each chapter (if need)

Finally drag all the audio but the current chapter you are exporting into the muted track. (Use select all and then shift-click the chapter you want to leave behind to unselect just that one.)

Forgot to mention:

You will do one export for each chapter.

In my experience when you export this it won't have a lot of silence after the end of the chapter, but if it does there is a UI element (I don't know the name) but it is a purple triangle in the time line that you can drag to the end of the audio you want to export.

It will take a bit, but you can do it.

One last note: since it is spoken word, you can export it at a pretty low bit rate. I use the "Mono Podcast" all the time and it is fine.


You can use a Magic Trackpad with your iMac - that will let you perform all the same gestures as you use on your MacBook Air.

There are even neat accessories to make it one unit with your Apple Wireless Keyboard. The ones I know about are the Twelve South "Magic Wand" and the Henge "Clique".


Sometimes when you run some games that is not compatible with your iPhone, it will use more power than it can to the CPU and GPU and then it will crash. Try to verify if the game is compatible with iPhone 3GS


High Sierra Macs always connect to file server with AppleID, not the correct username/password

I see that this post is one year old but I noticed the same issue today.
Finally, I found out that the issue is related to the iCloud Keychain.

I created a fresh new account on my computer and connected to my server from this account : my server username was displayed.
Then I connected iCloud with my AppleID in the test account. After that, the server connection was still displaying my server username. After activating the iCloud Keychain service, there was still no issue.
But, after enabling the iCloud Keychain AND checking the "keep login in my keychain" option at the server login, the server connexion is now displaying my AppleID.

I think it's a bug in macOS but it's pretty annoying as you can no longer know which username is used for the connection.


Bootcamp on an external SSD while unintentional interrupt!

I wonder what really happens when my external SSD (with Windows
  installed on it using Bootcamp = Windows To Go) is disconnected while
  being booted to Windows.

What happens is the exact same thing if you disconnect an internal drive while booting - you potentially corrupt your system files crashing that boot volume.

Since you have an internal drive that you didn't boot from, it wouldn't be affected.

Wondering (curiosity) is good.  Set up a test (don't do with live data or a machine you depend on) and test out your scenario.


Changing User permissions - Seagate Hard Drive

Without a third-party utility like NTFS-3G, OS X can't write to NTFS formatted hard drives. Did you reformat the disk recently or reinstall OS X?


Garbled screen graphics after wake up Macbook from full battery drain

I have a 2008 15" MacBook Pro that does the same thing. Every time the battery drains, and I plug it back in, the screen will be completely distorted (but will go back to normal after reboot). Apple has replaced my logic board twice for this problem, and it still occurs. It's just an annoyance, as the laptop is still running great 7 years later. I wouldn't worry too much about it, unless it begins to happen while using the OS.


How do I run the guided tour for new users?

If you are in the Finder click on the Help menu item. One of the options is: "New to Mac? Tour the Basics". This will open a document and give you a tour of the Mac.


How to restart Bluetooth service from command line

On High Sierra, none of the command line options worked for me.  I was able to plug in a wired USB mouse and use the Shift + Option with Debug/Rest solution.

I tried the blueutil solution on my High Sierra, and it worked like a charm.  I regularly have Bluetooth on my 2015 MBPR with an Apple Magic Mouse hose up, and have to restart. Yeah, I could open the lid and use the track pad, but it's on the other side of the wall from my desk space.

You can install blueutil using Homebrew:

brew install blueutil

Or you can compile and install it by hand using:

cd ~/tmp/
git clone https://github.com/toy/blueutil.git
cd blueutil
make
make test
cp blueutil ~/bin/

Now run:

blueutil -p 0 && sleep 1 && blueutil -p 1


Where can I get a copy of Mountain Lion that I can resell with my Apple hardware?

It's not at all clear that Apple will endorse the transference of an App Store account and it's clear they don't endorse transferring parts of the purchase history. Legally, you might be able to get away with this in certain parts of the world, but it's clearly not something Apple is keen to point out how to accomplish this or has built in a "gift my license" functionality to their stores at present.

Why not include a gift card for the App Store in question or some other cash equivalent with the sale?


Creating charging switch on iPhone charger

There are these devices, but I'm not sure where you'll find one now. You could also use a non-powered USB hub.

But in all honesty, iPhone lithium ion batteries won't be too damaged by continual charging, it's not like to old days of NiCad (Nickel Cadmium) batteries.


Transferring Mail data from one MBP to an other

In Mail.app in the "Mailboxes" section on the left side, (where Sent and Junk folders are) look toward the bottom of all the folders; there should be Smart Mailboxes and below that On My Mac folders.

It seems that some people are finding that it's hidden after they've upgraded to OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

Next to "On My Mac" you should be a small "show/hide" as you hover over it with the mouse cursor. If you click on that hopefully you'll see those items once again.


The executables are named gcc-4.9 and not gcc
I fixed it by going to:

$>cd /usr/local/Cellar/gcc49/4.9.3/bin
$>ln -s gcc-4.9 gcc
$>ln -s g++-4.9 g++
$> cd ~
$>brew link gcc


The 'pairs' on a 3,1 are rather confusing & don't map how you would expect.

The common confusion is to think that 'a pair' is one stick in the same place on each riser - because that's how the machine shipped when new.

From Apple KB - Mac Pro (Mid 2012 and earlier): How to remove or install memory

If you have            Install

Two DIMMs              One on the top memory card and one on the bottom card
Four DIMMs             One pair on the top memory card and one pair on the bottom card
Six DIMMs              Two pairs on the top memory card and one pair on the bottom card
Eight DIMMs            Two pairs on the top memory card and two pairs on the bottom card

So, in essence you currently have 2 pairs of 1GB & 2 pairs of 4GB & you have them mapped to the best configuration for dual-channel memory.

There should be no difference if you mix the pairs to have 2x1 & 2x4 on each riser, so long as you keep each as a pair, next to each other, on any riser.


Looking for information about the inner workings of Back to My Mac

The inner workings of Back to My Mac as provided with the iCloud service (the implementation has changed since MobileMe) are described in RFC 6281


Upload a image to a website without downloading that image

Unfortunately, I think the short answer to your question is no, this is still not (reasonably) possible on macOS. The simplest approach still seems to be to download the image, upload it, and then delete it. This is probably the approach I would personally take. However…
If you are truly desperate to find a way to download a temporary file from the file dialog, there is technically a way to do it, although I don't think there's any practical use case for this approach. But, if as nothing else than a proof of concept, here's what I pieced together. (This will work without any additional setup on macOS Catalina and later; earlier versions will require a manual installation of Python 3.)
The basic premise of the approach is to use a file name as a URL input. That is, you enter the URL you want as the name of a file (which, thankfully, can be quite long on APFS) in a special location on disk, and a script will automatically temporarily download the correct resource from the web into the same directory for you to insert. (Note one important caveat: the URL must not contain any colons, since macOS can't handle those in file names. Crucially, this means you'll have to omit the http:// or https:// portion of URLs when typing/pasting them.)
Here's how to implement this:

Open System Preferences and go to Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access. Click the padlock in the lower left to unlock the pane. Then, in Finder, navigate to /usr/bin/, and drag the python3 icon into the list in System Preferences. Make sure the checkbox next to python3 is checked.

Save the following as com.badidea.url-file-watcher.plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents. Replace [PATH TO PYTHON SCRIPT] with the absolute path to the Python script you'll create later on (I put mine at /Users/[myusername]/Documents/fetchurl.py). Also replace [PATH TO WATCHED FOLDER] with a relative or absolute path to the folder where you'll put the "magic file" (I chose ~/Desktop/filefromurl/):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>url-file-watcher</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/python3</string>
        <string>[PATH TO PYTHON SCRIPT]</string>
    </array>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>[PATH TO WATCHED FOLDER]</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Create the Python file at the path you selected in step 2 (again, in my example, this would be at ~/Documents/fetchurl.py), and paste the following code:

import os
import time
from urllib.parse import urlparse, unquote
from urllib.request import urlretrieve
from pathlib import Path

def main():
  dir_path = os.path.expanduser('~/Desktop/filefromurl')
  files = os.listdir(dir_path)
  if '.DS_Store' in files:
    files.remove('.DS_Store')

  url_from_file = files[0].replace(':', '/')

  if url_from_file == 'url':
    return

  file_name = unquote(os.path.basename(urlparse(url_from_file).path))
  file_name.replace(':', '_')
  file_name.replace('/', ':')
  try:
    urlretrieve('https://' + url_from_file, os.path.join(dir_path, file_name))
  except:
    try:
      urlretrieve('http://' + url_from_file, os.path.join(dir_path, file_name))
    except:
      return
  os.remove(os.path.join(dir_path, files[0]))

  time.sleep(10)  # customize as desired -- # of seconds to wait before deleting temp file (can't use again until it's deleted)
  for file in os.listdir(dir_path):
    os.remove(os.path.join(dir_path, file))
  Path(os.path.join(dir_path, 'url')).touch()

main()

Create the "watched folder" you entered in step 2. (In my example, this is ~/Desktop/filefromurl.) Then open the Terminal and type touch [PATH TO WATCHED FOLDER]/url, replacing [PATH TO WATCHED FOLDER] with the relative or absolute path to your "watched folder" that you created. (So for me, this would be touch ~/Desktop/filefromurl/url.)

In the Terminal, run launchctl load ~/LaunchAgents/com.badidea.url-file-watcher.plist.

Now, when you want to upload a file in your browser, simply navigate to your "watched folder" (I would put it in your Finder sidebar for convenience) and then change the name of the url file to the URL you want to download (again, without http(s)://). After a moment, you'll see the downloaded file appear in the file browser, and you'll have ten seconds (the delay can be customized on line 30 of the Python script) to select and upload the file, after which time the temporary file will be automatically deleted and replaced with the placeholder url file for next time.

And just to prove it all (technically) works, here's a brief demonstration:


Amazon now has an official Amazon Instant Video app for the Xbox 360. It is available under Apps from the Xbox 360 dashboard.


The developer's twitter page said that Google has revoked access to Google Voice for GrowlVoice so they can no longer support the app.  It has since been removed from the App Store as well and I am also looking for an alternative to this wonderful application.


The command ⌘+tab ⇥ app switcher lives in Dock.app, as many other things do, like the desktop background, menu bar, Spaces, Exposé, and most obviously the Dock. So to fix this the easiest way would be to simply clear the Dock preferences using this Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) command:

defaults delete com.apple.dock; killall Dock

For anyone not familiar with the defaults command, it is used to set or remove preferences, most of the time hidden ones. This line simply uses the defaults command to delete the preferences associated with the bundle ID of com.apple.dock, which is just a unique identifier for Dock.app. If you want to be a little more technical and see if you can salvage your Dock's app order and Stacks, try running

defaults read com.apple.dock

and looking for anything suspicious or corrupted, and then use defaults delete on the offending key.


Checking if option is selected under System Preference on Mac

This usually indicates that the domain record needs cleanup and not that the Mac is broken.

Have you removed the binding, cleared up the machine record (deleting it) and then re-adding the mac?

You could script the removal and binding or script the check in AD, but the language and script for each would be better asked as a follow on question if needed.


Unable to delete files & folders from my USB drive

Your USB drive is formatted with NTFS file system. By default, macOS can only read a drive formatted with NTFS file system. It does not include drivers to write to NTFS filesystem.

To delete (technically writing, i.e. making changes) the files and folders on NTFS formatted drive, you'll need drivers for NTFS to be installed on your Mac.

If you wish to remove all the contents of the USB drive and use it on computers running macOS, Windows and any Linux distribution, it is recommended to format it with ExFAT or MS-DOS (FAT) file system by using Disk Utility app.


Unable to sign out of iCloud, sign in to App Store, or use iMessage. High Sierra

Finally was able to get this sorted. It turns out that deleting the Keychain through Keychain Access prefs is insufficient. I needed to go to ~/Library/Keychains, open the folder with the Keychain, and drag the contents to the trash (or to a folder on the Desktop). Logging out and back in solved everything.


How can I temporarily suspend some users, hiding them from the login screen?

This can be accomplished using a feature of the unix based login system that assigns a program to run on successfully login. Normally users in OSX have their shell defined as /bin/bash. The OS login window will actually make sure people have a usable shell before showing them on the login screen.

You can disable a user — revoking both their ability to login and their appearance in the login window user list — by changing the shell to /usr/bin/false.

The settings is found in System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> (Unlock the settings if necessary) -> Right click on a user -> Advanced options -> Login Shell.

Re-enabling the user is as simple as setting this back to /bin/bash.

Addendum: In later versions of OS-X, restoring users deactivated like this gets slightly more complicated.

Starting in 10.7, the users don't show up in the admin panel by default either. You can restore them manually by using the setting their shell using the standard Unix chsh command in a terminal:

sudo chsh <username> /bin/bash

Starting in 10.9, the chsh utility is also not available, but you can set the shell using the an OSX special utility in the terminal:

sudo chpass -s /bin/bash <username>


The first file you want to cat starts with a - so cat considers it to be an option. But as there is no option 2 (see the usage string) it throws an error.

Use one of

cat ./-2e-5_cas 0_cas > prova
cat -- -2e-5_cas 0_cas > prova

instead (the second is better for scripts etc).

PS: In general it is recommend to not use - as the first character of a filename to prevent exactly these issues.


How to save picture viewed in iOS Safari to Files (iCloud)

There are two ways to do this.

Save the image to your photos, then open the photos app and view the image. Tap the share button and select save to files.
Copy the image, open the files app and paste it (long press) into the selected folder.


Samba Troubles With My Mac - Password Never Accepted

I finally found the answer on the DD-WRT forums and it's annoyingly simple but I would never have guessed it in a million years.

The username has to be entered in UPPER CASE.  So while smb://share@192.168.1.1/public didn't work, smb://SHARE@192.168.1.1/public did!

Just wish I hadn't spent a day trying to get find that out!


What MAC address should I use for my Thunderbolt Ethernet on a MBPR?

When an interface self-assigns an IP it generally means the interface isn't getting any response from your router or DHCP server. This is a feature of OS X to let the machines build an adhoc network when they cannot determine the actual network they're on -- you can put a bunch of Macs on a dumb hub and almost get them to self-organize and function with this feature.

Your router and DHCP server are going to see the MAC address listed for the device in the Network Preferences pane. Go to System Preferences -> Network and click on your Thunderbolt interface. Click on the Advanced... button and then on the Hardware tab:

That's the MAC address that your interface is broadcasting on the network when it's trying to acquire an IP on your network from your DHCP server.


ditto didn't cut it, but rsync did.  It has a --link-dest option, that uses files in that folder as the base to link to for duplicates.  It's important that the source path for rsync end in /.

To prepare, in the location I'm going to store my copy, I create a symlink to the 1st archived folder I want to copy: ln -s -h -f /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/Backups.backupdb/Mini/2012-08-02-003832/Macintosh\ HD/Users/jerrybarrington/pathtothefolder/ /Volumes/MyBook\ /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/Last.

Then to copy: sudo rsync -a --delete --link-dest=/Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/Last/ /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/Backups.backupdb/Mini/2012-08-02-003832/Macintosh\ HD/Users/jerrybarrington/pathtothefolder/ /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/2012-08-02-003832/.

Lastly, update the symlink to point to the new copy: ln -s -h -f /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/2012-08-02-003832/ /Volumes/MyBook\ 2/CK2.backup/Last.

For each subsequent copy, repeat step 2, changing both instances of 2012-08-02-003832 to the next date I want, and then repeat step 3.

see http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/ for my inspiration.


I'd say just install java as normal. Afterwards go to

System Preferences → Java (bottom row) → Security

and uncheck "Enable Java content in the web browser".

That should do it, and I would very much expect it to remember the setting after an update.


The iPhone 5s Compass app reacts to a magnet.  This proves that it uses a magnetic sensor.


killall Dock - all active windows maximize and appear on Desktop

I know of no way to keep minimized windows from being restored when executing a killall Dock command, by any method.

The long workaround is to enumerate all application processes with visible windows and make a list of all minimized windows before executing killall Dock and then use the list to re-minimize afterwards. I seriously don't recommend doing that, but it's doable if you want to spend the time coding it.

That said, why not just use a method that doesn't require using killall Dock and immediately changes the wallpaper?

Here are two examples using AppleScript:

tell application "Finder" to set desktop picture to POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures/Milky Way.jpg"

Or:

tell application "Finder" to set desktop picture to alias "Macintosh HD:Library:Desktop Pictures:Sierra.jpg"

From the command line, e.g. in Terminal or shell based script:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to set desktop picture to POSIX file "/Library/Desktop Pictures/Milky Way.jpg"'

Any of these immediately changes the wallpaper without further need to do anything.


facebook birthdays does not sync with iOS calendar

I finally figured it out!! After following the steps that Bobby listed above, do the following:

Settings > Facebook > Enable "Contacts".
Open up the Calendar App > Select "Calendars" on the bottom > Select "Birthdays" under Facebook.

It took about 2 minutes for "Birthdays" to show up on my iPhone after enabling Contacts.


macOS Catalina update failing due to low disk space

My update failled mid-way and is stuck. Spend 7 hours at Apple store. Seems to do with purgeable storage. Catalina will only install if it has enough free storage. Purgeable memory does not count. To turn purgable storage to free storage disable iCloud and Time Machine backups among other techniques.


Macbook 16 turning off and on display rarely

For any power related issues with a Mac I would recommend you try one time an SMC reset: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295. As Apple puts it: “Resetting the system management controller (SMC) can resolve certain issues related to power, battery, and other features.”

If that procedure doesn’t fix your issue you might want to have Apple technicians run deeper tests on your hardware by booking a service appointment.


Not sure when it got added, but certainly in Safari 12 you can do this without any extensions. You need to enable the Safari Developer menu (tick in advanced settings).  Now you can select "Show Web Inspector" in the "Develop" menu which will open a window showing the page source.  Hover your cursor over the  tag and right click it. Then, select the "Capture screenshot" option and save when prompted.
If you only want a specific element, just right click on the appropriate bit of html.  If you are not sure, as you hover over the code the corresponding screen element is highlighted blue.
Of course, I'm now wondering if this could be apple scripted...


How can I install a single app from an unknown developer?

Very simply…

Right click it & select Open.

That will bypass Gatekeeper for that one app

See: OS X: About Gatekeeper


How do I have any privacy on my mini iPad?

I'm sorry about what sounds like a very unfortunate situation. I would enable strong passcodes and use two step authentication. On your iPad, go to preferences and set up a strong alpha-numerical password (not a 4 digit pin) for your device in general. Since it is a new device, Touch ID should make that a minimal burden.

Next, go to https://appleid.apple.com, and enable two step authentication on your Apple ID.

Finally, as I'm sure would be obvious, don't share your passwords with them, and you could always enable Airplane mode every night to prevent them from having access to it over night via the wifi.

Regarding your android, I would hope there are similar steps but don't know.


Does OS X Calendar (née iCal) support RDATE?

I have not run exhaustive tests but empirically I have concluded that Apple products do not implement the RDATE recurrence rule.

Apple products do appear to implement the RRULE but only a limited subset of this.  The extent to which the RRULE is supported might be deduced from the options available for setting recurring events in Apple apps.  It should be possible to support simple patterns (every day, every week, every 2 weeks, every month, every year) but probably not more complex patterns using BYMONTHDAY, BYYEARDAY, BYWEEKNO, BYMONTH, BYSETPOS.

I've noticed that Google Calendar might display a full recurrence set whereas an Apple device that is synced from that calendar will only show the first event.

I would welcome a more authoritative answer.


How do i unfreeze my iPhone 7 when it is stuck on the lock screen? What do I do?

According to this site, you press and hold the Power Button. While holding the Power button down, press and hold the volume down button. Continue holding these buttons until you see the Apple Logo after the power comes back on.  See image below.


On reboot system asking for keychain password for local items

Keychain password & login are only the same until you change one, then you need to change the other separately

Source: OS X: Keychain Access asks for keychain "login" after changing login password

  Note: This doesn't happen if you change your account password using Accounts preferences.
  If you want your default keychain to be unlocked automatically when you log in, synchronize your Keychain Access and account login passwords by doing this:

  Open Keychain Access (you can get to it by choosing Utilities from the Go menu in the Finder).
  From the Edit menu, choose Change Password for Keychain "login."
  Type the former password of the account that you are currently logged in to, then click OK.
  If you entered the correct password, a new window appears; enter the original password again in the Current Password field.
  In the New Password field, type the password that matches your current account password.
  Re-enter the newer password in the Verify field, then click OK.


Delete old users files on a secondhand Mac

You don't own any of the software on it & will not be able to update it.
You don't even own the OS & will not be able to update that either.
At some point, something will ask for the credentials of the original owner... & you won't know them.

Apple's policy is opposite to that of Microsoft. With Windows the OS & apps belong to the machine & changing the machine's owner is simple. With Apple, everything belongs to the original purchaser - tied to their Apple ID, & they can change machine, taking their purchases with them. They can't, however, give that software away, it is irrevocably tied to the original Apple ID. This includes the OS itself.

Your best course of action is to completely wipe the machine & start over.
As a new owner of a blank second-hand Mac, the new OS you install will now belong to you.

What to do before selling or giving away your Mac should already have been done by the previous owners - & frankly for a company to not wipe its old machines is really unsafe; who knows what sensitive information is still on there... or what spyware, viruses etc...

Start from Step 5 on that page & completely erase & reinstall the OS.


Will the hard link file consume the same size of origin file?

Basically the Finder is unaware of any hard links (at least when summing up file sizes), so each file/link just counts on its own. If you happen to have several hard links pointing to the same physical file in your selection, the calculated size will be bigger than the space used on disk.

Let's say you have a folder containing two hard links to the same file data:

If you run "Get Info" on the folder in Finder, you'll get the sum of both file sizes, even though they only use space on disk once:

So yes, Finder doubles the size (or multiplies it in cases with more than two hard links).

While it might seem easy to detect such situations within one folder, it's not so easy in cases where you sum up the size on a top folder of a deep folder hierarchy. Of course it would be possible to keep track of all physical files counted (which all have a unique id), but in practice the use of hard links is rare so it's probably just not worth the hassle. The only places I've found hard links on my Mac are

hard linked image files from migrating from iPhoto to Photos
Xcode documentation files
Terminfo and timezone definitions
Safari caches


Convert .docx to .epub with apple pages using command line

If you're not married to using Pages and are familiar with the Terminal, you can use Calibre (free and open source) rather easily to do this using their command line interface through the terminal:

ebook-convert myfile.docx myfile.epub

The only slight challenge is finding the ebook-convert script after installing Calibre; typically it's here:

/Applications/calibre.app/Contents/console.app/Contents/MacOS/ebook-convert


Terminal.app in itself makes the middle-button work as "paste". This is similar to how you would expect the middle-button to paste when using for example Linux.

So jitouch is not really triggering a special command or sending a non-standard event - it is really just sending the middle-button click event as usual. It is just Terminal.app that decides to interpret this as a request to paste from clipboard.


iPhone 7 and 7 Plus wallpapers in iOS 10

They are not available by default but you can find them online here.


Macbook Pro (Mid 2012) Not recognizing USB

You probably enabled a USB device filter in the VM and added the PNY flash drive. After configuring it like this the USB device is invisible for the host (also in Disk Utility). Choose the USB device in the VM settings -> Ports -> USB, hit the red minus-button and quit VirtualBox and the PNY will reappear.


Build keyboard shortcut for "minimize all windows of current app except the current window"

The following example AppleScript code will minimize all but the front window in Google Chrome:
tell application "System Events" to ¬
    set miniaturized of windows of application ¬
        "Google Chrome" whose index is not equal to 1 to true

Since you already have BetterTouchTool and assuming it can run AppleScript code or an AppleScript .scrpt file with a keyboard shortcut, that is probably the easiest way to go to trigger the code.
That said, my preferred method for running AppleScript scripts with a keyboard shortcut, is to use a third-party application named FastScripts, however you can also use Automator with a Run AppleScript action as a Service/Quick Action and assign it a keyboard shortcut in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services

The keyboard shortcut assigned to the Service/Quick Action needs to not conflict with a default keyboard shortcut for whichever application is frontmost at the time it's pressed, otherwise there may be unwanted behavior.

FastScripts can be run as a free app, up to 10 keyboard shortcuts, or upgraded for $24.95 USD to unlock unlimited keyboard shortcuts. I have no affiliation with Red Sweater Software, LLC, other then as a user of FastScripts.


On OS X Mavericks, why does it always say my memory used is like 99% of my total memory?

The screen grab is from Activity Monitor.
Most of the physical memory is used, if for nothing else, to cache data from the hard drive.

If you had included the right side of the table in the screen grab you would see entries like "File Cache" and "App Memory", etc. which add up to the number for "Memory Used" on the left side.


Depending on your mobile provider you could probably email-to-text. It's not very popular nowadays so most people have forgotten it exists but most providers have some kind of email address format that lets you send an email and it'll come up as a text on your phone.

For instance, AT&T's is your10digitmobilenumber@mms.att.net and T-Mobile's is your10digitmobilenumber@tmomail.net.

So if you had something like GMail you could setup a filter to auto-forward all GitHub notifications to one of these email-to-text gateways your provider has setup. It's not a push notification but it would serve the same purpose of notifying you each time you got a notification from GitHub.


As Tetsujin mentioned in the comments, Akamai is simply a content delivery service with servers & data centers around the world. The advantage to developers and companies is they get to access the closest server to your location for their ads or app content.

Many ad networks use Akamai to get their ads and apps that use analytic services use them to get/send their data.  I'm about 99% sure there's nothing for you to worry about regarding the connections. You ran Malwarebytes and it said it didn't notice a problem and that's good.


Transfer music to iPod touch with iTunes without disrupting existing music

You can't add new music to your iPod if you haven't synced your iPod with your iTunes before and yes, all your music would be deleted from your iPod and be replaced with the iTunes-library.
But what you can do is, you can use a software to copy all your music etc. to your Mac and than you can sync it with this Apple Mac. I used iMazing(formerly DiskAid) many times and it works great. Yes, it costs something, but it is worth the price and an awesome tool.
So:

Download iMazing or any other tool that allows you to transfer your iPod content to the mac without iTunes.
Sync your iPod with the iTunes which has this specific album you want.
Now all your music will be replaced with the iTunes library. But because you've copied your songs from the iPod to your mac/iTunes library before(Step 1) it will sync all your music back to your iPod.

That's it.


How do I create a keyboard shortcut to go to a specific folder?

Try this AppleScript:

tell application "Finder"
    activate
    set workFolder to (POSIX file "/Users/yourname/Documents/Work") as alias
    reveal workFolder
end tell

For some reason, the tilde doesn't work in the path, so you have to enter your home folder. Since you want to assign that to a shortcut, download FastScripts which enables you to assign shortcuts to AppleScripts.

Hope this helps!

UPDATE:

You can alternatively make an Automator service to run the Applescript.

Open Automator and select Service
On the left-side menu, select Utilities.
In Utilities, drag and drop the "Run Applescript" action into your workflow
Copy the applescript above into the "Run Applescript" action
Save


Microphone not working in Mac Mini after system update

Try deleting the following files...

From the root folder -

/Library/Preferences/Audio/com.apple.audio.DeviceSettings.plist

/Library/Preferences/Audio/com.apple.audio.SystemSettings.plist

From your Home folder -

/Library/Preferences/com.apple.audio.AudioMIDISetup.plist

It may be worth installing the current build of Onyx and clearing out the System and User caches before restarting your Mac. Hopefully your audio devices will be set back to their defaults and your mic will work again.


Turn iMessage off, hard reset your iDevice and then turn iMessage back on again and it will start working again! I've had this issue on more than one device, most recently after updating to iOS 6.


Cannot check for updates in Excel for Mac 2016

Don't know what is going on with your install of Office 2016 Mac but mine has that option under help.

If I launch Microsoft Autoupdate that way it shows me that the actual app is here:

/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0

You should be able to launch the Microsoft AutoUpdate.app manually from there.


Open terminal and run this command.
sudo fs_usage | grep hosts

Files that read / write / modify that should be logged clearly. Look at the last entry on the right for the program name. If you see nothing, in another window try these two commands. An edit implies a write to that file.
tail -2 /etc/hosts
cat /etc/hosts

As commented very clearly, if you can’t catch the change, you may have to set up a script to save the contents of the file periodically and then narrow down what can run during the time when it’s being messed with.


you can directly do an applescript to send an email and call it from automator:

   tell application "Mail"
      activate
      set newMessage to make new outgoing message with properties {account:"Account Detail", subject:"Mail Subject", content:"Content"}
      tell newMessage
        make new to recipient at end of to recipients with properties {address:theRecipient}
        set visible to true
      end tell
      send newMessage
    end tell

You would just need to get theRecipient from the input passed to the AppleScript action. Also, you need to replace the properties on the third line with details of your Mail account.

set theRecipient to (item 1 of input)

should do it.


Wi-Fi Calling over Ethernet in Airplane Mode

It seems like this should work, but it doesn't. If you enter airplane mode while connected to Ethernet and attempt a call, you will receive this message:
"No Network Connection. Connect to a Wi-Fi network or disable airplane mode to place a call."
If you're on Verizon, a usable workaround is to download the Verizon Message+ iOS app. You can enable Calling within the app and it works to make and receive calls on your normal number. Texting also works, but it's standard SMS (no iMessage). Caveats: The app is meant for handling calls from another device and will tell you calling won't work properly on your primary device. This is normally true, but those problems are nullified while in airplane mode. Additionally, it will complain that WiFi is turned off, but happily works anyway with Ethernet.
One more note: iMessage through the Apple Message app should function in theory, but it doesn't work quite right. I can sometimes receive iMessages there, but not send.


Creating files in /tmp changes default group ownership? We are supposed to stop using /tmp?

I had the same experience when using /tmp but using $TMPDIR worked as expected:

$ touch "${TMPDIR}/tmp.txt"
$ ls -l "${TMPDIR}/tmp.txt"

-rw-r--r-- 1 luomat staff 0 Dec  3 08:46    /var/folders/8k/0bqq33mn439938qxp7j7c1fc0000gn/T//tmp.txt


Xcode problem with directory permissions

If you navigate to that folder from Finder, you can click Get Info and manage the permissions from the bottom of the window. You can navigate there by using the Go To Folder menu item in Finder or directly navigating their.


How to make sure that a memory card is compatible to my mac?

I would use something like Crucial's online configurator rather than the vague specs in a shop window.

That way you have a guarantee it will work.

Kingston & Corsair have the same kind of thing, but Crucial gives you the option of downloading an app to do all the work for you.


My iPad updates right away if I add or edit a note in gmail.  iPhone does not.  Only way I can get the iPhone to sync is to do a hard reset of the phone (waiting for the white Apple) and then restarting the notes app.


Best way to split large media files for sharing

Rather than going to the effort of splitting it then re-combining at the other end...

There are dozens of file-sending sites - I mean direct user-to-user not 'dodgy stuff off the interwebz'. I've used https://www.wetransfer.com before now, but Google has a whole lot more options under 'send large files free'


Prevent macOS Sierra from prompting for the password for other encrypted volume

You can edit /etc/fstab if you don't want a partition to mount on startup. I haven't tried personally but there's a writeup at Mac OS X Hints.

In short, get the UUID of the partition and add something like:

UUID=F0E430C1-5558-3BB3-9FA9-6904B663FEEA  none  hfs  rw,noauto


How to control fan speed in macOS Sierra?

I am a firm believer in avoiding software "hacks" to fix hardware issues.  To fix this problem, you need the sensor.  Unfortunately, as you have found out, your SSD doesn't support this connection.

However, OWC makes an digital inline temperature sensor.  Basically, it goes between the SATA power cable and the SATA power connector of your HDD/SSD.  The temp sensor goes on your drive.

The best part about this is that it's a "once-and-done" solution meaning future OS upgrades won't be susceptible to software incompatibility problems like you are experiencing now.

C|Net did an article on this exact problem and a review of this solution.


Upgrade iPhone 4G from iOS 4.1 to any iOS

You will have to plug your iPhone into a computer and update using iTunes to the latest iOS version. This will of course undo the jailbreak.


Aperture can't see certain files for importing

Aperture can't see ".JPG" but can see ".jpg" and ".jpeg". I just went through a similar arduous process, name changing ".JPG" to ".jpg" and then re-importing hundreds of files; Aperture was then able to see them.

Capture 1 Pro8 was able to see both extensions; as I just wasted an hour, this has pushed me over the edge to abandon Aperture forever, which hurts, as I have used it professionally for many years. I recently updated to El Capitan, too, and this squirrelly behaviour re. these extensions started then.


Why causes Chrome to make my Mac unresponsive?

This is the common problem which can be related to anything, like:

Chrome bugs,
network issues (check logs at chrome://net-internals/),
active extensions are slowing down web browser in general,
performance issues (either your machine is slow or you've too many tabs opened),
slow disk access, especially when your cache folder is huge with too many files.

E.g. you may consider moving your profile folder into quick access drive.

Here are few suggestions:

restart web browser (also kill all chrome processes),
run in Incognito mode, to see if this could be related to some slow extensions,
create a new profile with no extensions and see if that helps,
install addons which aims limit the page processing (e.g. OneTab, ad blockers),
run Chrome in different user data dir (--user-data-dir="<some_path>"),
run with --disable-hang-monitor to suppress hang monitor dialog,

  Suppresses hang monitor dialogs in renderer processes. This may allow slow unload handlers on a page to prevent the tab from closing, but the Task Manager can be used to terminate the offending process in this case.peter.sh

make sure Chrome uses GPU process to enhance performance (see: chrome://gpu/),
generate network log file at chrome://net-internals/ and report the issue at bugs.chromium.org.

Debug suggestions:

check: chrome://flags/
check debug network log file generated by chrome://net-internals/
run chrome://tracing/
see other internal Chrome pages at chrome://chrome-urls/.


I logged out of iCloud on my Apple TV and logged in again.
First nothing was different but after a few minutes there suddenly was a HomeKit section under Settings > Accounts > iCloud (not under Settings > iCloudas suggested by Apple here).

The automation tab in my Home app is now as expected.


Connection problems with Magic Mouse 2 while wifi is on (MBP2012)

Disabling the hotspot with an iphone seems like the only option. Had it running for a few months without any problems now.


Finder: Show/Hide hidden files with non-US keyboard

You can press command+fn+Shift+. to get it working on a non-QWERTY keyboard.


How to make the colors of the Mac more dull/faded?

Go to System Preferences -> Displays and click on the Color tab. You should see several different profiles on the left.  Select one you don't expect to use and select it and then select Open Profile on the right. I don't know what all the numbers mean but you could try trial and error to maybe get a color profile more to your liking.


How do I list iTunes apps by the account that purchased it?

You can try in Terminal.

$ for f in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Media/Mobile\ Applications/*.ipa ; \
  do (echo "$f" ; unzip -p "$f" "iTunesMetadata.plist" | \
  plutil -p - | egrep -i "\"(itemName|artistName|AppleID)\"" ) | \
  perl -e 'while (<>) { if (m!^/!) { chop; $fqn=$_; } if (m/"(.+)" => (".+")/) { $e{lc($1)}=$2; } } print "\"${fqn}\",$e{\"itemname\"},$e{\"artistname\"},$e{\"appleid\"}\n";'; \
done

Here is a blogpost where this action is explained.


Disable iOS messages in-app sounds/vibration

In the Settings App -> Notifications -> Facebook you can turn "sounds" off.

This will also turn off vibrations.

It will not distinguish between whether the app is currently running or not, it'll just always be off. If you want that, then you will have to send an email to facebook requesting they change how their app works.


Applescript Access Variables Through Run Script

For the variables to persist in the same scope, you have to run your whole variable switcharoos in the same run script command.

This demonstrates how to add variable to the text of the run script. It would return a list of results from the variables. However, this/your script doesn't work because you're assigning rand+1 to rand2+1, before the variable rand2+1 has been assigned. I do not know what it is you're trying to accomplish, so can't fix more of your script.
But, this answers your specific original question, syntax for adding variables into the text of a run script string.

repeat (random number from 0 to 5) times
    set rand2 to (ASCII character ((random number from 0 to 7) + 97))
    set rand to (ASCII character ((random number from 0 to 7) + 97))
    set switch to rand2

    set scriptText to ("set " & rand & "1 to " & rand2 & "1" & return & ¬
        "set " & rand2 & "1 to " & switch & "1" & return & ¬
        "set " & rand & "2 to " & rand2 & "2" & return & ¬
        "set " & rand2 & "2 to " & switch & "2" & return & ¬
        "return {" & rand & "1, " & rand2 & "1, " & rand & "2, " & rand2 & "2}")
    set theResult to run script scriptText
end repeat


xcode-select --install not available on update server

Xcode Command Line Tools can be downloaded directly from the Apple Developer site here as pointed out by this stackoverflow answer.
You could also just run my Xcode CLT install / bootstrap script if you're looking for a quick automated solution.


Magsafe2 not charging after repaired the wire

You’re getting the wrong voltage.  You should be seeing 3V not .5V.  Once connected to the Mac, it will sense the 3V then “request” the full 18V.

What you measured was the incoming power of the mains so you “know” that it’s getting AC in. The problem lots on the DC side of things (after the rectifier) where something has gone bad.

These voltages are listed on Pinoutguide.com and on Wikipedia (6.86V for MagSafe and 3V for MagSafe 2)

What’s wrong specifically?  You could have a blown capacitor, resistor or even an IC. You would need the schematics to see which line is sending the 3V and then make the diagnosis and repair. My thoughts are that something shorted with the damaged wire before you embarked on the repair.

It’s probably safer and cheaper to just replace charger and be done with it.


Transfer the Whatsapp Windows Phone Backup file to Iphone

Reading your WhatsApp chat history:

Go to http://inloop.github.io/sqlite-viewer/ and upload your message file. Select ZWAMESSAGE and press execute.

Restoring WhatsApp's chat history to iPhone

This method worked for me when migrating from WA for Android to WA for iPhone. This may not work with your WP backup of WA. If this should be the case, please leave a comment below.

Warning: Please create a separate backup of your iPhone before following the steps below.

Step by step instruction:

Make sure you have installed and configured WhatsApp on your iPhone.
Send someone a message. This will create the chat history file.
Connect your iPhone to a computer running iTunes.
Create a local, unencrypted backup of your iPhone.
Go to iTunes' settings and navigate to the tab "Devices"
Under "Device backups:" you should see your created backup. Right click on the backup entry and choose "Show in Finder" (or similar if you are running Windows).
Open the folder and navigate to "1b" (folder).
Find the file "1b6b187a1b60b9ae8b720c79e2c67f472bab09c0" and delete it.
Copy your Windows Phone's WhatsApp chat history file to the "1b" folder and rename it to "1b6b187a1b60b9ae8b720c79e2c67f472bab09c0".
In iTunes, navigate to your iPhone and select Restore. Select the just created backup and follow the instructions.

This process will import your old chat history into WA on the iPhone. You may need to re-register your phone number with WA.

Please let me know if it worked for you.


How to determine original location of file that is currently in the Trash?

Data containing a file's original location before being placed in the Trash is keep in the .DS_Store file in the ~/.Trash folder.

Since the trash folder is hidden it can not normally be found using the finder application.  The easiest way to find this file is by using the Terminal and entering the following commands.

$cd ~/.Trash
$open -e .DS_Store

This will open the file in TextEdit.  From there you should be able to quickly search for the file by its name and its original path.

Its seems that files in .DS_Store follow the pattern of:

FILE_NAME ptbLustr ORIGINAL_PATH_TO_FILE

Note spaces are added just for readability.


Can I replace my old hard drive with a formatted one from my old windows laptop

My own experience is with PCs, but most of this advice should be helpful.

When replacing a hard drive, there are a lot of considerations to consider. You didn't say, so I'm assuming your Mac is not a laptop. If so, you need to examine if the placement of connectors is in the same location. Size is incredibly important for laptops, and most do NOT have a lot of room to play around. Check YouTube for how to open and install it properly. Don't go with the first one - check a couple out before you open up your Mac. And pay attention to safety tips.

You do say that the hard drives are the same brand. The next thing, though is to check the models. If there is a lot of time between the two HDs, the Mac may or may not be able to communicate with the controller board on the HD.

Most HD manufacturers list what they are compatible with. Like with Western Digital, the brand, are are several types - Caviars, Raptors, etc. Presumably, though, if the HD from the PC is older, this might not be an issue.

Hard drives have a power connector, a data cable, and there may be jumpers on it to set. If it is close to the same model, set the jumpers to match. Some motherboards require setting slave / master options on the hard drive.

If this is your first time opening up a machine, (1) UNPLUG the power cable from computer; and (2) Watch out for static electricity. A handy way to ground yourself is to touch the frame. Remember, AC out of the wall can hurt like the dickens. The power unit converts that to direct current (DC).

* I will say this to others who read this - working on PCs and Macs are fine, and you proceed at your own risk to your hardware. But only qualified techs should attempt to do anything with monitors; messing with them can be fatal to you. It only takes 1 amp to kill you. *

Recommend not working on a carpeted area, as you can build static as your feet move around. If you do have to work on a carpet, take off your shoes and socks. Touch the frame often, as it doesn't take much to damage the more fragile components. Most modern PCs and Macs are pretty hardy inside, but there are limits. As I recall, Apple/Macs are pretty easy to disconnect parts. So you are lucky there.

Another tip. After disconnecting the power, wait 60 seconds before touching parts or components. Modern computers use high refresh rates instead of steady power flow, and it takes that long for all the power through the system to dissipate. The power to your system will NOT go away if you have it turned off. Since the mid2000's, modern motherboards keep a low charge running through it, for things like remote startups and such. Some computers have NIC lights, and that can be an indicator for you.

UNPLUG it, and wait 60 seconds before opening up the machine. Touch the frame to dissipate any electric charge you might have built up.

So, in summary, see if the manufacturer lists the hard drive as compatible with Macs (it should be; it might just need to be formatted for the Mac to use it first). Check YouTube - enter model of Mac and hard drive. Someone may have done your exact setup, or one close enough to help.

If the PC is older than the Mac, again, it SHOULD be able to talk, but I recommend checking the mfg list to make sure. No sense taking it out if it's not. Lastly, pay attention to connectors and jumpers.

I like a good, multi-head screwdriver. NON-magnetic! Magnetic screwdrivers are handy around cars. They are probable death to computer innards. Jeweler screwdrivers can get the real tiny screws...

Anyway, hope this helps. Good luck! And be safe!


Can I build an OS X Image with preinstalled software? (Or, please help me move back one OS X version.)

Migration Assistant (in Applications/Utilities/ ) can restore programs and personal file data from a time machine backup.  I don't know if it would handle xcode or not.  Pretty much anything else in the /Applications/ folder it will re-install, though.  There might be some version conflicts with software that doesn't run in 10.7, etc.


What versions of OS X are affected by Heartbleed?

No versions of OS X are affected (nor is iOS affected). Only installing a third party app or modification would result in a Mac or OS X program having that vulnerability / bug in OpenSSL version 1.0.x

Apple deprecated OpenSSL on OS X in December of 2012 if not earlier. No version of OpenSSL that is vulnerable to CVE-2014-0160 (a.k.a the Heartbleed Bug)

Apple provides several alternate application interfaces that provide SSL to Mac developers and has this to say about OpenSSL:

  OpenSSL does not provide a stable API from version to version. For this reason, although OS X provides OpenSSL libraries, the OpenSSL libraries in OS X are deprecated, and OpenSSL has never been provided as part of iOS. Use of the OS X OpenSSL libraries by apps is strongly discouraged.

Specifically, the latest version of OpenSSL shipped by Apple is OpenSSL 0.9.8y 5 Feb 2013 which does not appear to have the bug from newer versions of OpenSSL back ported to the code for Apple's version of the library.

The PDF of this documentation has some clearly written advice for developers and some sections that's useful for professionals or the security minded user as well.

OpenSSL for Mac Developers and PDF version of Apple's Cryptographic Services Guide

Considering this, the only remaining issue would be additional software that were built against OpenSSL, e.g. several in Homebrew (brew update followed by brew upgrade) or MacPorts (port self update followed by port upgrade openssl) to update to the patched 1.x version of openSSL.

Also, you could use mdfind/mdls to check on files named openssl in case you have other applications that bundle that library as Apple recommends rather than depending on the "safe" version Apple still ships with OS X.

for ff in `mdfind kMDItemFSName = "openssl"`; do echo "#### $ff"; mdls $ff | grep kMDItemKind; done


iOS 7 update not shown in Software Update

If it's running iOS 6 it's a 3Gs, not 3G, as the iPhone 3G is not supported by iOS 6. Either way, neither device is supported by iOS 7, so you can't update to iOS 7.


IPhone 6s Apps are not being shown in iTunes on Windows 10

If all you're wanting to do is clear space on your iPhone and you want to know how much space each app takes up, you can do this all directly from your iPhone as follows:

Go to Settings
Swipe up and tap on General
Tap on Storage & iCloud Usage
Under the Storage heading (not the iCloud heading), tap on Manage Storage
Give your iPhone a little time to calculate how much space each of your apps is taking up
When finished they'll al be listed from largest to smallest

Now you can tap on any 3rd party app to see a breakdown of its data usage or to actually delete the app altogether.

In the case of Apple's iOS apps, tapping on them will give you various options depending on the app.


Can I block incoming calls using wildcard patterns?

WideProtect is a pretty simple app for exactly this purpose
https://itunes.apple.com/app/wideprotect/id1171024059

It allows for specifying a wildcard pattern to block numbers, like 609-***-****. At the minimum it requires the first three digits so you should be able to block entire states with this.


Shutdown keyboard shortcut on MacBook Pro with Touchbar

Unfortunately it's not an option. There is an option for a sleep command, but there is nothing for Shut Down or Restart. Modifier/command keys on the sleep button don't work either.


Can I lock iCloud System Preference pane?

A simple solution for this problem is to have a separate user account on your Mac. You log into iCloud with your Apple ID in that user account which you'll also be using for setting up and accessing Find My iPhone/Find My Mac.

Note: You need not be logged into the user account for Find My Mac to track your Mac.

Once setup, you can simply enable only Find My Mac for that account (or enable/disable whatever iCloud features you want).


How to develop an an automator for looking up words in Google dictionary

Solution A: It's already built into macOS. Select any text using right click (ctrl) and Choose "Look up Hi".

Solution B: If you are looking for a custom Automator workflow to set a search url, take a look at codesnik answer here

Solution C: You can easily create your search hotkeys, using third party tool Alfred


iPhone 8 - Calendar lost items from early 2020

Check
Settings > Calendar > Sync
There are options to sync back from 2 weeks to 6 months, or 'all events'.


How to stop a YouTube process running in Chrome?

You can open Task Manager, under Window on the Chrome.app menu bar, and see a list of all running processes inside Google Chrome.

You can see Task Name, Memory, CPU, Network and Process ID for each task running at the moment.

At the bottom of the Task Manager Window you can end the Task you selected by pressing End Process.

[EDIT]

If you are on Windows the Task Manager window is accessible via the Shift + Esc shortcut.


Make a bootable Lion disk for fresh start

Yes. I've done this before multiple times.

Pay attention to the following during the installation:

Enter Disk Utility to format the disk.
In the tab select partition. Then click on option and select: Format as GUID

Otherwise the drive won't be bootable.


How can I retroactively import files into my Itunes library?

If you go to File -> Library -> Organise Library you'll get a pop up asking if you'd like to Consolidate Library, that'll move all the files into the iTunes music folder.

Apple Support Document on how to do it.


How to fix a hanging Logic Pro 9.1.5 on Snow Leopard?

I looked at your hang log (also called a sample). I have some experience reading samples for Mac OS X apps, and with Logic Pro 8. Unfortunately, I can't determine the problem from your log file.

If this problem is fully reproducible, it sounds like a bug. There may be nothing you can do aside from work on a different project or a new project within Logic. If you haven't already, report this to Apple via http://bugreport.apple.com/ .


How to know which Apple ID is used to lock iPad if the display is dead?

Unfortunately, it is likely that your nephew temporarily used someone else's Apple ID in order to gain access to purchases that the other user had made.  My son did this on his device, against my rules.  If this happened, then that other person may have initiated the lock.  Since you have an invoice, proving ownership and the device is only a month old, I would encourage you to use the 1-year AppleCare that came with your device.  Here is the AppleCare contact page for Saudi Arabia.

Please let me know if this information is helpful for you.  Did you by chance register your device with Apple, when you made the purchase?  If so, then Apple will have a record of that action, as well.

Cheers,
Byron


How do I make Safari, Chrome, Mail, and other applications all use different SOCKS proxies

You need a program like Proxycap. You can configure it like this.


Can't synchronize books with my iPod touch

In some cases, books/pfd's fail to sync with iTunes.

A common way to solve this is with a hard-reset of the iPod Touch. You can do so by pressing the home- and power button for 10-15 second. You can release the buttons once the iPod is shut down.

Preforming this reset will have no effect on your settings and data on the iPod.

When this does not help, iTunes normally gives an error. You could search the web with the error code or place it here. Mayby other people had the same error and figured out how to solve it.


Please backup all your data. Example: with Time Machine or similar Software (if you not use Time Machine).

All steps are complete in itself. If any of these works you don't need the other steps.

Step 1: Appstore

Open the Appstore and choose from the Menu Store the option to show your Account. You need your AppleID password to access to your account.
If you have access to your account, click on the button reset all warnings.
Log out from the Appstore and close the app. Start Appstore again
Log in to your AppleID by using the option from the Store menu.
Test if the update process works.

Step 2: Using Terminal

Open your Terminal. Choosing from the Finder Menu Go To.. the Option Utilities. Start the Terminal.app
Type or insert the following command in your Terminal and hit Enter.

softwareupdate -i -a

If this not work or you got an error use the following command.

    sudo softwareupdate -i -a

Test whether AppStore updates work.

Step 3: The Hard Way

Reset PRAM
To Reset PRAM, restart the Mac and hold the keys CMD+Option (Alt)+P+R simultaneously during startup. Hold down the keys until you hear the second sound output.

Move the following files to the trash or on your Desktop. Close the AppStore before using the following instructions.

Click on the Finder Desktop and press the keys CMD+Shift+G.
Insert the following Line in the window and press Enter.

~/Library/Preferences/

Delete the following files (if exists)

com.apple.appstore.plist
com.apple.storeagent.plist

Restart your mac and test if works.

Step 4: Use Debug menu

Close App Store with CMD+Q
Open Terminal and insert the following Command:

defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool true
Open App Store and choose from the Debug Menu Show download Folder
Close App Store and move the Download folder to the trash.
Restart your mac (this is important), empty the trash and try if app store works.


This is not your just your memory. In response to your question that feature requires the jail broken platform "Cydia". The specific feature is called Graffiti and you need 2 or more languages enabled on your device's keyboard for it to work, once you have that hold the globe icon on you're keyboard for it to work.
For more info I found this site and I think it explains best here's the link Hope it helps :)

http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-compose-texts-or-imessages-on-iphone-with-drawings-handwriting-and-sketches/


Changing the default folder for opening a new Finder tab or window in macOS High Sierra?

Finder menu > Preferences... or  Cmd ⌘   [comma] ,  > General

New Finder windows show:


OS X unknown ghost text expansion automatically!

I think I've found the solution to your problem because I was experiencing something similar but with another string of text.  Are you using Dash?  It's an awesome tool but I didn't realise what it's snippet feature was doing.  If you have a snippet called "pi" then whenever that phrase is typed globally across your mac while ever Dash is running, it will substitute it with what is in your snippet.  See from the author's page here about a hint to put a ` on the end of snippets to avoid this accidentally occuring.

https://kapeli.com/dash_guide#snippets

Hope this helps!


Graphics performance on MacBook Pro 15 / 2015

First, can I trust this source?  Any way to cross-check?

Everymac.com should be considered a trusted source.  This can be cross checked by looking at two sources:

Apple website; tech specs of 2015 MBP will tell you it uses an Intel Iris integrated graphics chipset
Info about Integrated video on Intel based Mac computers; also on Apple's website.

Basically, Intel Pro Graphics (integrated graphics) uses shared memory of up to 1.5GB of system RAM.  There's no dedicated GPU.

  Second, is the dedicated graphics card required if I only need to run
  SolidWorks occasionally?

Do you need it?  No, it's not required.  You may find that the performance (lack of) is something you can live with if you are only using it occasionally.

  I don't need so much SSD space, and wouldn't like paying for
  high-performance graphics unless I really need it.

One factor you need to be cognizant of is that these models are completely un-upgradeable.  The best advice that I can give (which I personally live by) is purchase for what you think you will need tomorrow not what you need today.  Further, if the performance for what you want to do today is marginal at best, it's not going to get any better in the future.

Keep in mind that the phrase, "Gee, my graphics is just too responsive" and "I wish I didn't have so much storage" was uttered by no one, ever.


Disk Utility First Aid Fails on Time Machine Disk

Time Machine makes extensive use of hard (as opposed to symbolic) links (for eg "this folder is the same as yesterday's backup").  See eg http://www.baligu.com/pondini/TM/Works.html.

I thought the issue with copying backup history was that many copy tools won't see the hard links, so you end up with multiple copies rather than links and run out of space, hence your recollections about doing a block level copy instead.

But now I look it up, apparently Finder can copy a Backups.backupdb folder correctly.  See eg http://www.baligu.com/pondini/TM/18.html (which is sadly a little out of date), and Apple's current documentation https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202380.

The message in your first screen shot says "You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk". So perhaps you will be able to follow the instructions above to copy your Backups.backupdb folder (containing your backup history) to a different drive.


How to transfer iPhoto slide show to view on PC from iPhone

Fastest way is to save (Export) your slide show as QuickTime.mov file.

Use or download QuickTime for your PC.


The problem appeared to be that Safari didn't support downloading the PDF from the popup provided by the website (in my case 1Password with its Emergency Kit PDF). Instead I had to use CMD + S or use the File menu in the Menu Bar to save the PDF.

1Password informed me "That is expected behavior — Safari doesn't fully support downloading the PDF from the popup we provide." One is supposed to press command-S or "File > Save As" when I reached out to them.


Outlook 2016 shared calendar doesn't show appointments

Outlook 2011 users must be granted "Reviewer" access to another person's calendar to be able open that calendar and view details. If a user sets permission levels only to allow free/busy or free/busy limited details, an Outlook 2011 user will not be able to see any details of the shared calendar.

PC users must grant "full details" to the Outlook 2011 user. Mac users must grant the "Reviewer" role to Outlook 2011 users.

Basic free/busy time viewing is only viewable via the Outlook 2011 Scheduling Assistant feature, or via OWA. (Note: Outlook 2011 users who have a "Reviewer" role may also be able to select another users name within the Send As / From drop down menu. Unless you have explicit permissions to Create Items within the selected users mailbox, Exchange will not allow you to send on the behalf of that person).

Above is true for Outlook 2016


iWork '09 Numbers: How to set the default language of the document

According to what you've done in Pages, I assume that you want to change the language of the document cells in numbers.  What you did in Pages changed the language of the document, not the application.
Changing the language of document cells
Edit > Spelling > Spelling...

Changing the language of the applications
This is not possible from within pages. As of iWork '09 the used language follows the set language defined under System Preferences → Language & Text.
However, you can start applications in a custom language via Language Switcher (works in Lion). But even with this tool you cannot set the language in which an applications starts permanently. You have to start it via Language Switcher every time.


Is it still possible to get @icloud.com email address?

The steps seem strange, but first you must create your appleid using a non Apple address (note that if you already have an @icloud, @mac, or @me email address that email address is already an Apple ID)

Once your Apple ID has been created, on the device go to Settings > iCloud and flip the mail switch on, you will be prompted there to create your @icloud.com email address.

Alternatively, you can go to setting and go to mail. From there, add account and choose iCloud. If you choose "create Apple ID" at this screen, for whatever reason, it will allow you to create an "@icloud.com" email.

source Apple kb


What does Apple Hardware Test error "4HDD/11/40000004:SATA(0,0)" mean?

A quick web search for that error indicates that it is a hard drive error. Some have suggested being able to boot from the disk in either Safe Mode or Target Disk Mode from the system install disk, mainly to get needed content off before a complete failure if it hasn't happened yet. Either way, you need a new hard drive.


How to set a folder view as default for all folders in Finder?

As bmike mentioned, the default settings are not used for folders that have folder-specific settings saved in a .DS_Store file. You can just delete .DS_Store files though:

sudo find / -name .DS_Store -delete; killall Finder


Listing Homebrew installed XQuartz on OS X El Capitan

No - you shouldn't expect to see a cask when you type brew list - instead use brew cask list to check for XQuartz and other cask-only installs.


This has been bugging me for years, most specifically with This American Life and To The Best of Our Knowledge.

The tag that's causing them to be separated is not available via iTunes -- you need an extended tag editor. On the Mac, I used ID3 Editor.

Instructions specifically for ID3 editor:

• Open a "good" podcast file (you can drag it straight from iTunes onto the ID3 Editor icon in the dock to open).

• Click on the Podcast tab. Look for the field called Feed (It may have a different name if you're using different tag editing software). Copy the Feed field contents.

• Open your "bad" podcast files, paste/replace the "good" Feed info into the Feed field (they should be different - mine were) and click Update.

• Last important step is that you have to delete the "bad" files from iTunes and reimport them. If you right click or control click the file in iTunes before deleting, and select "Show in Finder," the enclosing folder will open. If you sort by date modified, all the podcast you just updated should be at the top, if they're in the same folder. Then you can delete all the bad ones, and drag them back into iTunes. Whey they're re-imported, they should now be grouped with the "good" podcast.


One option would be the manual selection of apps for each device.

So instead of syncing all apps with all devices, you could select here which apps to install/remove from each device


iPhone App Update from a Development Point of View

All an update will do is reset the star rating for the application if it an .x release (for example, 1.0 to 1.1).

But to take the question and answer a big step further (one that falls well outside the scope of this forum), you cannot rely solely on the App Store to market your app. All of the rules for online marketing still apply.


What version of Apple TV is required for a HomePod mini stereo pair to work?

Unfortunately, Home Theatre Audio does not currently work with HomePod mini (just HomePod). It also seems to require Apple TV 4K. The benefit of this feature is that you can set your Apple TV audio output to permanently use the HomePod pair.
But you should be able to (manually) Airplay to a pair of HomePod Mini’s with an Apple TV that supports tvOS 14 (an assumption, based on its support of being an audio hub): this would mean Apple TV HD or Apple TV 4K.
If you’re buying a new Apple TV and you’re interested in using your HomePod Mini’s as your permanent tv speakers, I would suggest getting the Apple TV 4K with the assumption that Apple will eventually add Home Theatre Audio support for the HomePod Mini’s.