Create Network option missing under Wifi for P2P ad-hoc networking (I'm a developer using Xamarin build host)

Enable/tick "Show legacy networks and options" in...
System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi > Advanced > Wi-Fi (see image below)
...for the option to "Create Network..." to re-appear in the AirPort menu item.
See also: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mh11937/mac
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mchl98b9beb6/11.0/mac/11.0

PS/note: After pressing "OK", it's easy to miss the "Apply" button.


Download the Google Chrome app on the iPhone and sign in to your Google account in the Chrome app.  Then open the Gmail app (or any other Google app) and you should have an option to slide a switch and be logged in to your account in the Gmail app as well.  if you don't get that option try deleting and re downloading the Gmail app.

Problem seems to be between Safari and the Google login, in my case with two-factor enabled.


adding a pre owned macbook to support list

You'll most likely need to contact Apple to do this. Give 'em a call at 1-800-APL-CARE (1-800-275-2273) or use the Express Lane to speed up the process a bit.


How to run current mails from MacBook and access or search old mails from an external hard drive?

You can try the following approach.

First of all, show hidden files on your Mac by typing, on Terminal, the following command (substitute 'NO' to 'YES' if you want to re-hide files).:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Relaunch the Finder. Now, go to youraccount/Library/Mail, then enter the folder Vx, where x is a number corresponding to your Mail version.
Then, if you have an IMAP account (i.e., Gmail), enter the imap folder.

Accessing  all the listed folders, you can see all your emails, with extension .emlx. If you double-click on it, it will be opened a Mail windows, where you can read the email and perform any operation you want.

You can just copy the mails you are interested in a new folder, in your external drive, and open from there when you want, for example, to read or reply to one of them.


iPhone SE - force rebooting gets into a loop

I don't think this is related to plugging into the rental car.

I also have (had) an iPhone SE and it experienced the exact same problems.  I took it in and was told the sleep/wake button on top was bad.  The repair place told me they don't bother repairing these models anymore because the parts are very hard to find; this model has a bad problem with this type of button failure.  If you google it you'll see.

I ended-up going to Best Buy and they recycled it for free.  I think you're out of luck unless you can find a place to repair it.


What's the best way to move from an HDD to an SSD on a Mac Pro?

You can definitely do it. But you either can't use your home folder to store your data for the most part, or you have to figure out how to do some kind of voodoo.

What I did is not supported by Apple, but it works just fine. And you can take it in for repair under warranty no problem. So there's nothing to stop you from doing it.

I got the information I needed here:

http://www.ransom-note-typography.com/index.php/SSD_and_Your_Home_Directory

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/14/tuaw-tip-moving-your-home-folder-to-another-disk-or-moving-it/

Basically the idea is you copy your user folder to a big conventional drive. Then you install Lion on a new SSD and create a user account with the same name. I named the big drive "Users" and then put the Home folders in its root.

Go to Users& Groups in System Preferences. Right click on the account. Choose advanced options. For the Home directory field, there's a "Choose" button on the right. Click it and navigate to the copy of the account on the new User drive, and select it. Reboot. You will now be using the user account on the conventional drive. Your Desktop, Pictures, Music, Downloads, Documents, etc. folders are now on the big drive, but it's just like it's on the boot drive.

A big benefit here is that you can format your boot drive and reconnect it to the User drive, and not touch your files at all. And you can clone the User drive and it won't contain your system files. (Or your Applications which remain on the boot drive.)

If it's not clear, ask questions and I'll try to clarify.


The font file does not travel with the document. There is currently no way to "load" a font onto iOS.  If you want to use a font that is not installed by Apple, your only option is to represent the text as an image.

I occassionally do this for a font-critical headline but best practice dictates use of iOS compatible fonts in Keynote presentations intended for those devices.

I wouldn't even trust that iOS would (necessarily) default to Helvetica in the scenario you present.


iCal and Google Calendar creating double notifications

To avoid getting double email notifications for appointments, you can turn off the alerts for the Google Calendar on the Mac as described in the Calendar User Guide:

  Turn off alerts for a calendar

  In the Calendar app  on your Mac, Control-click the name of the calendar [your Google Account name] in the calendar list, then choose Get Info.

  If you don’t see the calendar list on the left, choose View > Show Calendar List.
  Select “Ignore alerts,” then click OK.

Note that this will turn off all alerts for Google Calendar that would be created on the Mac, that is, not only email notifications, but also notifications in the Notification Center.


How to rollback and override to a specific date within a Time Machine backup

I've found a solution. Just delete the undesired folders. Delete and recreate the "latest" alias to the desired date (folder named by date). Boom! Backup is available from that datetime.


Big Sur keyboard shortcut to select text

Testing in macOS Big Sur and macOS Catalina, the shiftoptionleft/right arrow keyboard shortcut highlights one word at a time.
By default shiftcommandleft/right arrow highlights from the cursor to the end/beginning of the line.


The only way I could get this to work is by creating a new service that looks up the word and than tells Dictionary.app to use the "all" filter.

Open /Applications/Automator.app and select the services template
in the top right part of the screen, you should see that the default input parameters Automator has selected ("Service receives selected text in any application") is just what you want
in the left hand search field, search for an Action called "Run Applescript" and drag it into your workflow
replace the part "(* Your script goes here *)" with the following Applescript, and than choose File->Save. Automator will ask you for a name for your new service (eg. "lookup in all dictionaries" and from that moment on, your service will be available in all applications.

set dictLocation to "dict:///" & input
open location dictLocation
 tell application "System Events" to tell process "Dictionary" to keystroke "0"    using command down

(optional) You might also want to define a shortcut for you new service by going into  "System Preferences">"Keyboard">"Keyboard Shortcuts">"Services", finding your Service in the list of Services, and double-clicking the whitespace next to it do define a global shortcut.


OSX 10.X App Compatibility Legality - Parallels

To provide an insight into the API level changes between OS X versions, Apple's What's New in OS X developer document is useful.

The deprecated framework and function lists can be extensive between 10.x releases:

  Deprecated Frameworks and APIs

  Periodically, Apple adds deprecation macros to APIs to indicate that those APIs should no longer be used in active development. When a deprecation occurs, it is not an immediate end of life for the specified API. Instead, it is the beginning of a grace period for transitioning from that API and to newer and more modern replacements. Deprecated APIs typically remain present and usable in the system for a reasonable time past the release in which they were deprecated. However, active development on them ceases, and the APIs receive only minor changes to accommodate security patches or to fix other critical bugs. Deprecated APIs may be removed entirely from a future version of the operating system.

  As a developer, avoid using deprecated APIs in your code as soon as possible. At a minimum, new code you write should never use deprecated APIs. And if your existing code uses deprecated APIs, update that code as soon as possible. Fortunately, the compiler generates warnings whenever it spots the use of a deprecated API in your code. You can use those warnings to track down and remove all references to those APIs.


Upgrading to Sierra on MacBook Pro opened macOS Utilities?

It seems like your Mac is booted into the Recovery partition. Shut it down and try to boot it normally - it may not have upgraded at all. Then try the install again. If you have updates for your question, edit your question to add them and then comment on this answer so I notice.

To answer a few of the other questions you had:

I would expect an error message to stick around, so you probably didn't miss one.
I doubt permissions would be an issue as you didn't see an error message.
If upgrading to Sierra was not supported, you probably wouldn't have been able to start the install.
You can almost certainly fix this yourself! Also, the Apple Store may not charge you for this, so it could certainly be worth stopping by.


The keyboard and trackpad on my MacBook Pro 3,1 stopped working. How to solve this problem?

For some possible solutions check out:

Solution 1

http://gigaom.com/apple/the-curious-case-of-the-missing-macbook-pro-keyboard-and-trackpad/

  If the warranty on your MacBook Pro is no longer valid, like mine,
  don’t worry. Simply take a small piece of paper, such as a Post-It,
  and fold it in half. Stick it over the spot on the ribbon cable. Then
  reinstall the removable battery. The battery should exert enough
  pressure on the piece of paper to keep the ribbon cable working.

  If your MacBook Pro is still under warranty, take it to an Apple
  service center. While Apple has not officially acknowledged that this
  is a widespread problem, it’s afflicted the machines of many owners,
  so surely it’s not unknown to them. Demonstrate the steps described
  above to whomever is helping you as letting him or her see the problem
  as it happens eliminates the guesswork and may help expedite the time
  needed for repairs.

Solution 2

http://jasonrobb.com/v2/2008/11/24/macbook-pro-unresponsive-keyboard-trackpad-solution/

  THE FIX? I rolled up a sticky note and placed it on top of the cable.
  When the battery is locked in place, it puts pressure on the cable,
  and makes the keyboard and trackpad functional.

Solution 3 (Apple)

Apple support forum dedicated solely to this issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1365569?start=270&tstart=0

  THE SOLUTION:

  This is a HARDWARE problem!

  After playing around with removing the battery and noticing that this
  often returned functionality to the keyboard I surmised that this had
  some sort of physical aspect. Sure enough, there is a section of
  copper colored tape/wiring exposed in the batter slot that is slightly
  bowed where it's smallest. When I depressed this with my finger tip on
  this portion to basically flatten it out flush against the housing; I
  found that all functionality was restored!


Are files saved to iCloud via 3rd party applications accessible from icloud.com web interface through browser?

You cannot access individual files on iCloud other than the ones made with the iWork suite and that are available on the iWork section of the icloud.com website.

When introducing iCloud, Steve Jobs mentioned that Apple did not think of this service as a big folder in the cloud--a direct contrast with Dropbox. I wrote about this before the launch of iCloud on this Ask Different answer. In short, iCloud is meant to be app-centric.

I would not be surprised if the iWork section of the icloud.com website went away once native iCloud support is added to Keynote, Numbers and Pages. Like it or not, this makes business sense, as it encourages app purchasing.

Hope this helps.


Bell causes entire screen to flash white

Since I don't have a broken audio card and VMs apparently don't work with a virtual sound device (pun not intended but it got one - maybe I made a mistake installing Soundflower) I can't really prove it, but the following should work:

Download Soundflower 2.0b2 (for 10.8, 10.9, 10.10)
or download Soundflower 1.6.3 (tested with 10.7)
or download and compile the Soundflower sources
Install Soundflower and reboot your Mac
Set the Soundflower device as default audio output for alerts/sound effects with the Audio-MIDI-Setup tool (found in /Applications/Utilities).


How can I charge my iPhone without waking up my MacBook Pro?

It has to do with connection activity on the USB data lines in a usb cable. For example, I have a Matias Tune Blocker connected to my Mac Pro. When I have the switch set to sync my iPhone, aka its acting as a regular USB data cable for for a USB device, the Mac Pro will wake from sleep as soon as the iPhone is connected.

However when I have the switch on the Tune Blocker set to charge only, eg only the USB power pins are enabled, the Mac Pro will not wake from sleep when the iPhone, etc is connected to the cable. So a solution to keep your mac a sleep when connecting your iPhone would be something like a Tune Blocker, or making a modified USB extension cable that cuts the Data wires for the device plugged into that extension cable.


Can I use tethering to share my iPhone's connection with my iPad?

iOS 4.3, available for free download on March 11, 2011, includes the Personal Hotspot feature introduced with the Verizon iPhone 4. You can get Internet access via 3G on the iPhone, then use your iPad via a WiFi connection to the phone to share the phone's Internet connection. It doesn't use Bluetooth, but it effectively works as well (better, in fact, since Personal Hotspot supports multiple connected devices and WiFi is faster than Bluetooth).

Here is a story from Macworld that discusses how the Personal Hotspot feature works. It's pitched to the feature on the Verizon iPhone, but it should apply to the GSM iPhone 4's running iOS 4.3 as well.


How to auto-adjust the resolution of a Windows 7 VM using VMware Fusion?

I'm using VMWare Fusion 5.0.3. With vmwaretools installed, it's very easy to change the resolution on the Windows VM:

go to Virtual Machine > Settings > Display
there is a checkbox Use full resolution for Retina display
uncheck it and the vm changes back to normal resolution.


Is the iBooks app sandboxed on Mavericks?

Yes it is sandboxed.

…so you should be fine to read books out of the Internet.


App Store: "To update this app, you need to accept it on the Account page"

While Simon's answer is correct, the reason this may be appearing for you is actually because you have those apps pre-installed. I ran into a similar situation just now. Despite already having those apps tied to my Apple ID, there's something about this having them pre-installed on my machine that breaks down.

Simply delete those apps. You'll be able to redownload and update them from that same "View My Account" page with no issues after that.

Tip: For those unable to reinstall (work computer, etc.) if you simply delete then "Move Back" from the trash you will achieve the same result.


How can I show multiple windows of a single app with a keyboard shortcut?

See "Expose". Activation keys are different on different laptops, so find the shortcuts under System Preferences>Keyboard. On my laptop:

F9 shows all windows
F10 shows all windows for the active app
F11 shows the desktop


External mic not working anymore on Macbook Air

I had the exact same problem on my MBP late 2015 (running Catalina 10.15.7) with a Rode Mic and a TRRS adapter. Everything was perfectly fine and during a live transmission the mic went dead. I had to quickly switch to my AirPods (awful sound compared to a external mic) to complete the transmission.
I tried ALL possible solutions documented on the web and Apple Support pages. MBP would just not recognize it anymore on the Sound properties.
I tried SMC reset, NVRAM reset, upgrade to last patch (I was one patch behind), upgrade to Big Ser (new OS).. nothing.
I decided to reinstall and restore from Time Machine, since I didn't have interest in running Bigsur yet. Voilà!!! Worked!
It seems the reinstall + Time Machine restore fixed something that was corrupted in the OS.


Music on iPhone/iPad grouped bizarrely despite being fine on iTunes

Found it!
There is an additional field in the data: “Work”.  It doesn’t appear in the “Edit info” box, but you can make it appear as a column in playlists and the like.
The misbehaving tracks had had “Work” values set; I deleted them, synced it across, and then they were showing up as expected.
Note that editing this field doesn’t seem to qualify as an “edit” for the sync to pick up automatically, so I had to modify something else to make it re-copy those files.  (I added a space to the end of the song name, synced, then removed the space and synced again.


Connecting MacBook air to a Samsung monitor using a thunderbolt

Yes you can use a Samsung or (almost) any monitor with a Mac.  You don't have to use Apple monitors.

What does "1028" mean?   What is the native resolution of the monitor?  For example it might be FHD 1920x1080 or 1280x1024 or 4K etc.   If you don't know then what is the make and model?

If possible, connect your monitor to another computer or to a TV device like a Roku, cable box, etc to see if the monitor works nicely with those or if it shows the same problems with any device, in which case it might be defective.

Go into System Preferences --> Displays and see that the resolution is set to "Default for Display".   The preferences tool may look like one of the following.   Note I have not chosen "Default for Display" for one of my monitors .... but you SHOULD choose it as a starting point to get the best results.


How does iOS 5 decide which home screen to put new icons on?

Screen A that you refer to is the original 'Apple' home screen. Your observation is correct. The only time an app will install on screen A is when it is already present (or moved by you) and you are updating to a newer version of the app.

All other new apps will be installed in the screen closest to what you define as Screen A when possible (i.e. if Screen B is already full, it will go to screen C and so forth). New apps will never get installed into folders (unless you update the app that is already within a folder)


Is there a way to cancel or disable the slow dock transition easter eggs?

There is a way!

Open Terminal.app

Then, type this and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.finder FXEnableSlowAnimation -bool false

To make it go on again, just change the false to true.

Edit:

It seems that there is no way to disable the Slow Animation special effects on shift-click.


How can I stop my old broken phone getting my text messages?

You can erase your older device.

Since you cannot access its settings, you can put it into recovery mode and restore it via iTunes.

That'll erase all the content off the iPhone and as long as you don't setup your Apple ID on the device, you shouldn't receive  iMessages anymore.


Is there a wireless double-earred earpiece for iPhone?

Are you talking about a bluetooth headset? To my knowledge, they are predominantly single ear because they are meant to substitute putting a phone up to your ear.

However, there does exist bluetooth stereo headsets that can handle music and make calls using their built in microphone. They aren't nearly as compact however, and likely not as battery efficient.

Take a look at the Plantronics BackBeat 906 Stereo Bluetooth Headphones Set if that is what you are in the market for.

Do give the guys at the store a break when you return the product. You are a rarity to request a stereo headset as 99% sold in stores today are single ear piece units.


To TRIM or not to TRIM on a non Apple installed SSD in Lion

I now know a bit more.

I see three options after reading a lot of forums, AnandTech and Wikipedia:

If I buy a Mac with a pre-installed SSD I'll get the power of TRIM for "free". The Apple supplied SSD are not the fastest on earth but they sure is way faster than your normal hard disk. Also, Apple uses well known more or less OEM.
Buy an aftermarket SSD, clone, install and go. You will loose the power of TRIM but the SSD is still way way faster that your hard disk.
Buy an aftermarket SSD, hack you kernel, run some kind of Trim Enabler for non Apple approved devices or what ever it takes, then clone, install and hopefully go.

If my mom, dad or average Joe were to buy a new Mac I would absolutely recommend #1.
I'd personally go with #1 or #3 if I were going to buy one for my self.

If my mom, dad or average Joe were to upgrade an existing Mac I would have to go with #2 as Apple currently doesn't sell any SSD online (not as far as I can see anyway) and I would not recommend #3 in any form or factor.
If I were to upgrade my own Mac I would start with #3 and revert to #2 in case of any problems.

I hope this didn't end up as a buyers guide as prohibited in the FAQ as I have not recommended any specific model or brand. My intentions is only to share some personal thoughts.

All in all, I will try TRIM for myself on my own SSD but I would not recommend anyone that doesn't understand the risk or are unable to fix any problems by them self.

Any thoughts ? Am I way off scale here ?


Have a look at ubar. It gives you similar style task-bar.

But if you really want to get benefit from macOS, check out these great tools: Launchbar, iStatmenus

For discovering other useful utilities, checkout Macupdate


I updated my phone using my husbands itunes acct. and now i've lost all of my contacts and pics and his are on my phone

If you have were using your account before syncing with your husbands account, you probably would have your contacts backed up to the iCloud - under your account.

If that is the case

Go to settings and
Turn off syncing contacts to the cloud.
Save (nonexistent) contacts on the phone.
Back out of settings
Go back in and turn syncing contacts to the Cloud back on...

Here's a test to perform - using a computer's browser, log into icloud.com (using your Apple ID) and go to the Contacts page.  If they are gone, then they are gone.


Secondary display turns off when I close the flap of my MacBook pro running on High Sierra

The mac has to be plugged in for it to still work with the lid closed.

If you have a USB-C power port, you may have to unplug the cord from both the MacBook and the brick, and then plug it in again. Sometimes it comes loose on one of the ends


how to check if a specific UI element is in focus apple script

This definitely works on my system running Alfred 3.  You may need to adjust the delay times but as they are now, this script works for me.

activate application "Alfred Preferences"
delay 1.5
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Alfred Preferences"
        click button "Features" of toolbar 1 of window "Alfred Preferences" of application process "Alfred Preferences" of application "System Events"
        delay 1
        set selected of row 3 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of window "Alfred Preferences" of application process "Alfred Preferences" of application "System Events" to true
        delay 1
        click button "Add Custom Search" of tab group 1 of window "Alfred Preferences" of application process "Alfred Preferences" of application "System Events"
    end tell
end tell


Why did my Command + V (to paste) suddenly stop working?

I had the same issue in Mac Excel 2011 I am still using.

-Right click on the Paste icon in toolbar, choose Properties...
-Next screen, click Keyboard... on right hand side
-In "Press new shortcut key", add command+v.

That worked, even though command+v was already in list of current keyboard keys for Paste function. Hope this helps


Why does Terminal not honor preferences?

If you click on "Escape sequence…" in that screenshot, you get to see the following:

What this doesn't tell you, though, is that this is normally taken care of in the file /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal, which is called from /etc/zshrc. There are several things that can prevent /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal from being called or which can override what it tries to do:

You are starting Zsh with zsh -d or zsh -f.
You have a file ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zshenv or ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zprofile in which you have setopt NO_rcs or setopt NO_globalrcs
The parameter $TERM_PROGRAM does not have the value Apple_Terminal.
Zsh does not have read access to /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal.
When /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal gets sourced, the parameter $INSIDE_EMACS is non-zero.
You define a function precmd sometime after /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal gets sourced, which then overrides the one defined by add-zsh-hook.

What you can do to debug:

Start a subshell without non-global config files and see if the bug happens there, too:
cd $(mktemp -d); HOME=$PWD ZDOTDIR=$PWD zsh

If the problem does not occur in this subshell, then that means the problem is somewhere in your non-global dotfiles. You can get a list of these files by doing
ls ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.z(log(in|out)|profile|sh(env|rc))(-^/)

Restart Zsh with exec zsh -vx and study the output from the beginning to see if /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal gets sourced and whether anything later overrides the precmd hook it sets up.


Why did the Sparrow dock icon stop bouncing on launch?

This is mentioned in the release notes for 1.0.1:

  Be aware that implementing the ‘Menu bar only’ mode breaks the usual bouncing behavior of the dock icon. We know no AppStore compliant workaround for the dock icon to behave properly when the ‘Menu bar only’ is implemented.


Is it possible the create a pkg that doesn't require root access (user & password prompt)

There's an option in PackageMaker.

You can still install into /Applications too, but the user would need to be in the admin group because the default permissions for /Applications are drwxrwxr-x+ 90 root  admin, so as long as the user is in admin then they'll have write permissions.


macOS - Safari function to prevent website appearing in history?

Since you do not wish to opt for Private browsing mode, you can choose to selective delete your browsing history. There are two approaches that you can take:

Clear only the recent browsing history instead of clearing all history. When you select Safari → Clear History... in the Menu bar, along with the option to clear all history you also get options to clear history for the last hour or for the current day.

You can select History → Show All History in the Menu bar, or press Command + y and selectively remove the websites by right clicking and selecting delete. This way, the website will no longer appear in history suggestion when someone else attempts to visit the same website.

However, unlike the former approach, this doesn't get rid of the cookies or login session of the website, but simply removes it from the recently visited list of websites. If you logged into a website that you removed from History, you'll still remain logged in.

Looking at your use-case, the latter option better suits your requirements. The website will not appear in history suggestion and your login session will persist. The only con is that you will have to repeatedly open History and manually remove the website(s).

Disclaimer: Do note that using these approaches may help in removing traces of browsing from your computer, but your employer/network administrator may still be logging data, recording your browsing activity. If such measures are in place in your company network, your browsing history may still be accessible to your employer (even if you browse in Private mode).


Delete specific Time Machine backup via GUI

To delete a specific backup enter Time Machine by selecting that option from the time machine icon in the menu bar. Once inside Time Machine, there will be a stack of windows. Click on the up arrow to the right of the window stack. This will start leafing thru the stack of backups with the dates shown in the top section of the windows. Run thru the stack until you get to the backup you want to remove. With the window for this backup at the front of the stack, click on the icon that looks like a gear located in the top part of the window below the date. One option that appears is to delete the backup. Choose that selection to delete that specific backup.


Setup didn't migrate much from Time Machine. Should I run Migration Assistant now?

I followed the recommendation from an Apple Support chat to run Migration Assistant. It succeeded in migrating the user account, apps, and docs.

I let it replace the user account that I had started setting up.

It required some follow-up steps like enabling the extensions for the anti-virus software and the network backup software.


Yes, this can be achieved with AppleScript and Automator.

The setting to automate is located in:

System Preferences > Accessibility > Display > Use Greyscale

The keyboard combination option + command + F5 also shows Accessibility options.

This Apple discussion, Keyboard shortcut for "Use grayscale", shows how to use AppleScript and Automator to create a menu bar item that toggles the Greyscale on/off.


Why do I have to drag my new apps into the application folder?

An application on a Mac is just a folder full of files with a .app extension. However, macOS hides this fact from you and displays the folder as a file with an icon. Now when you download something it's very uncomfortable to download multiple separate folders (without a download manager). Therefore this "App Folder" has to be put inside a single file somehow. This is  accomplished one of three ways:

Using a .zip file (a container that compresses its contents to save space)
Using a .dmg file (which is a flat file filesystem–as opposed to a hierarchical file system)
Make an installer (which, however, also has to be either in a .zip or .dmg because installers are folders on a mac, too)

Since most apps are self-contained and do not need anything outside of the app folder, an installer is not only overkill but also slower than just distributing the app folder.

You can obviously launch apps from wherever you want; it's only a custom or a recommendation to put them into /Applications as it easier for you to find it again and it works with multiple users.


mac save dialog not showing up for TextEdit/Word/Powerpoint/Excel

Step1: Open a textEdit and add some text into that (fig1)

Step2: press cmd+s and the following window will popup(fig2)

Step3: enter filename and specify the location to save (fig3)

Step4: press save button at the bottom of the window
Step5: Now this text document is saved and the - Edited in the
title is disappeared(fig4)

from now onwards when you want to save some text or documents you can press cmd+s and for conformation you can check whether - Edited is there in the title or not. If - Edited is still there means the document or whatever it is not saved.
Hope this helps.
By the way, i am using Mavericks hopes its the same with OS X Sierra


Replacing SuperDrive with secondary storage?

I can only give you an overview of my own personal experience with the process and hardware I used.  Alot of this is copy pasted from my posts on the thread related to this on macrumors.com.  Here goes:
I bought the ebay optical bay caddy linked here. Works great. Depending on your model, I would recommend using the "Optical Drive Replacement" guide on ifixit.com (here is the link to my particular model, the mid-2010 15in).  Once you remove the drive, you have to do a bit of ad-lib in order to install the caddy.
The only issue with this caddy is that two screw holes on the outside facing part of the macbook case do not have a matching hole on the caddy. So the caddy is held in place by one screw on the innermost side. The screw hole that DOES exist on the caddy is actually not part of the caddy at all. You remove a little bracket from the superdrive and use the 2 screws it was secured with to attach it to the caddy in the same position.
It seemed pretty wobbly to me so I just took 3 pieces of electrical tape, folded each one on top of itself once, and stuffed them into the spaces where the caddy had wiggle room between the other components and parts of the case. Problem solved... the enclosure doesn't move one bit inside the case. I think it might even dampen the noise a bit since it keeps the metal from contacting other metal bits.
So, the important bits about the superdrive replacement:

BACKUP YOUR DATA: probably the most important thing you can do before attempting this procedure

If possible move your User's directory to a separate volume before doing the upgrade:  this will make it easier to clone your data later on... for specifics see my question here

Follow an ifixit guide step by step and label your screws: i used one of those 2 week pill boxes and put labels on the days that corresponded the step number

use good screwdrivers:  I highly recommend the ifixit bit driver set as they all fit correctly and lessen the chance you will cause damage or strip your screws

put your boot drive in the original HDD spot: otherwise you may have issues with sleep and hibernation

make a bootable copy of your installation discs: put the OSX install DVD on a thumb drive or a partition so that you'll be able to boot from it in an emergency without reinstalling the SuperDrive (it may be possible to boot from the superdrive externally but I haven't tested this)

for info regarding installing your superdrive in an external enclosure, check out my answer to this question

PROS

You have the option of drastically increasing your storage space or using a SSD to dramatically speed up your OS X experience.

My system boots from the SSD in about 15 seconds including 3 programs launching and about 7 or 8 menubar apps

All of my data is located on my original 500GB HDD and is separated from my boot volume in case of OS or disk failure

did i mention it's lightning fast?? :P

CONS

have to cart around an external superdrive enclosure if you want to use cds or dvds

a HDD in the caddy is definitely noisier than a HDD in the original slot.  I have a feeling this could be mitigated by some noise dampening but I haven't really worried about it too much

you're pulling apart your MacBook so there is always some risk that you'll break something through user error


Why did the USB connector for the aluminium Apple keyboard have gaps on the plug?

If you are referring to the groove in one of the sides of the USB plug on the end of any wired Apple keyboard, it was designed to mate with the included USB extension cable. This extension cable was constructed with a guide inside the female end which allowed only the insertion of the cable from the keyboard -- it could not be used as a general USB extension. The male end of the extension cable was without a groove, so stringing two extension cables together was not possible, either. Thanks, Apple.

Keyboard USB connector:

And yes, I need to clean the cruft from my keyboard. I've been WFH for many hours a day for a few months and there just isn't time.


Can the Epson V700 be used with an Airport

You cannot scan over the network using the USB port of the airport express. It is only for printing.

Apple does not explicitly say that scanners are not supported, but it is not one of the official uses of the USB hub. I have not heard anyone being successful in this, and AFAIK there are no hacks/third party s/w to do this (like AirFoil for streaming audio).

I personally have tried, in vain. I have a HP all in one, but the Snow Leopard does not recognize the scanner functions. I have to physically connect the scanner for this to work.


How does the new iPad's A5X graphics processor affect PDF rendering speed?

I care a lot about PDFs because as a lawyer I have to review a lot of scanned documents. The performance of PDF rendering on the new iPad depends on the techniques used. For full-resolution rendering, it's a little slower, but software goes a long way. The overall experience depends on four factors:

1) Single-page rendering method
2) Zoom method
3) Caching
4) Pre-rendering

Explanation:

1) Single page rendering: some apps don't display anything until the whole page is rendered. Others render in a tiled fashion: some top to bottom, some in a spiral inside out. Some apps first render a low-res version of the page, then render the full-res version--again, by either of the two methods.

2) Zoom: Again, some apps render on the fly, while others zoom in on the pre-rendered image and pop in the re-rendered tiles or the whole view. The iPad handles vector rescaling (including text) superbly, but rasterized PDFs can't be scaled in real-time if they're in iPad-resolution territory.

3) Caching: some apps don't cache at all, so re-render each time you change the view (even if you're on the same page). Others only cache one page at a time. Still others cache three pages or more, so you can flip pages and zoom in smoothly without re-rendering.

4) Pre-rendering: a few apps will pre-render the next page. One app, described below, pre-renders the whole document.

iBooks and the Amazon Kindle app render large PDFs pretty efficiently. iBooks caches three pages, while Kindle's cache seems to depend on page size. Kindle pre-renders the next page while you're on the preceding page. However, neither support PDF markup. (Kindle also doesn't support rotation

One app, just called "PDF" (by Smalltalk Consulting) pre-renders the entire PDF so that most of the subsequent work is done by the GPU. You set the rendering resolution. The default "2x" gives you around 150dpi, "4x" around 300 dpi, etc. It slows down once you get past 4.5x, but that resolution is sufficient for most applications. This is the best app I've found to scroll quickly through large PDFs. However, it doesn't render markup and doesn't support any markup tools of its own.

In short, the new iPad cannot speed through a 600dpi PDF the way a quad-core i7 with 12GB of RAM can. But it can display and handle large PDF files the way they were meant to be--with the right software.

Goodreader has the best performance of any PDF viewer I've tried, followed by PDF Expert. Certain techniques that worked on the old iPad just don't fly on the new one, so some apps perform very poorly. (Adobe's own Reader is one of these.) Other apps, like iPDF, are promising, but still don't have full Retina support. (Several apps only take advantage of the Retina display when zoomed in, but double the pixels when viewing the whole page.)

To answer the original question and the follow-up: rendering is done by the CPU, display and manipulation (scrolling, zooming) is done by the GPU. The CPU converts the text portions using the text rendering engine and the graphical portions using a bitmap engine. (It's possible that the iPad's text rendering engine is handled by the GPU.)

The CPU on the new iPad is not significantly faster. PDF rendering methods that are CPU-heavy are even slower on the new iPad because the CPU has to do significantly more work to render at the higher resolution. But rendering methods that get data to the GPU quickly perform great. The more rendering work done in the background, the better. A well-designed PDF rendering engine will use idle time to generate image data that's ready for the GPU. An engine that renders "on the fly" (what I called "in real time") will choke.

"Pre-rendering the entire PDF" means that instead of each page being converted to an image as you scroll through, the whole PDF is rendered and loaded into memory as an image. This takes more RAM but results in faster performance when scrolling and zooming. It takes 5-30 seconds (or more) to pre-render the whole file. Also, when zooming in, the image does not re-scale. (Text portions of the PDF won't be crisp if you zoom in.) Google Docs basically does this with PDFs if you want to see what I'm talking about.


How to determine what the repair people did to fix my MacBook?

I work at an Apple Authorized Service Provider, and the fact that they won't tell you what they did means it was probably just an SMC reset that took two seconds. From Apple Support:

  The System Management Controller (SMC) is responsible for many
  low-level functions on Intel-based Macs. These functions include:

  Responding to presses of the power button

I'm guessing they didn't tell you this because all it takes to reset the SMC is holding down 3 keys and the power button at the same time while plugged in, and you'd possibly argue about having to pay them. It seems pretty shady of them, because we have machines come in needing a simple SMC reset all the time, and most of the time we waive labor charges, but for them to not even tell you that that's what they did doesn't make a lot of sense.


Repeatedly "trying to add a new helper tool" on each restart for same application(s)

Try changing the ownership of Atom.app. In my case, Atom.app was found in /Applications, and ownership was:

  drwxr-xr-x   3 1699963712  365896978    102 Dec  8 12:48 Atom.app

I ran the following command:

  sudo chown -R $USER:wheel /Applications/Atom.app

In my case, any program with ownership of root or the numeric code listed above would have a popup a few seconds after opening. Changing ownership of the .app directory corrected the behavior and I don't see it anymore.

I found the information at this site.


How can I use system commands in Google Now Voice Actions?

I'm not sure if this will work on iPhone 4 because it does not have Siri but there is a new Jailbreak tweak called googiri which allows Google Now to invoke Siri actions. To use Siri actions inside the Google Now app, You can prefix "Siri" keyword before talking. It works well on devices with Siri enabled already.


Maybe I don't get the question right but:

You may open such an application URL in almost any available application with text fields or text boxes: highlight the URL (sometimes even only parts of it - at least the scheme and the first character after the :// (e.g. airmail://m - are sufficient to open the application), right-click and choose "Open URL". And yes, it's of course also working in the Chrome/Safari Omnibar: Just enter the URL and hit the "Enter" key.

In Evernote you have even two ways to open it:

You may paste the URL(s) in a note and by choosing the whole URL or parts of it the context menu offers "Open URL"
If you have only one application URL in your note, you may add the URL to the "Note info" (red circle) and then you'll get a clickable link with the "scheme specific part" of the URL or only parts of the "scheme specific part" - here "message" (blue circle).

In the Terminal you have several ways to open the URL:

highlight the whole URL or parts of it and the context menu offers "Open URL"
highlight the whole URL and command & double click it
enter open URL
(e.g. open airmail://message?mail=myAccount&messageid=etPan.55ba060a....)
(OK, the interaction between Terminal and Airmail2 uncovers a glitch, because Airmail2 opens if closed, gets to the front and the message is chosen, but the GUI is not visible.)


Does Photos get confused when tagging a person whose face is not visible?

In a sense, yes.  Photos uses facial recognition algorithms that improve their accuracy through acquiring more data with which to reliably match a person’s face.  This is why you are asked to mark wrong matches as well as correct ones, as this all helps the software produce more reliable results.

Tagging a person with no face will feed false data to the algorithm, which will then believe it should start searching for faces that look more like an elbow, or something.

The application itself during the earlier stages of tagging alerts you with a recommendation only to tag faces that are clear, and to avoid even blurry, out-of-focus faces, or faces that are turned to the side.

I, personally, ignore those two particular rules, and at the end, it is your decision how you choose to tag photos.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing what you’re doing if you’re content to match more photos manually than relying on the facial recognition engine to do it for you.

Addendum: One idea I can think of as an alternative means to tag people in photos without compromising the facial recognition effectiveness would be to use keywords, i.e. to create one keyword per person comprising a first and last name.  This will have the benefit of making the photos searchable by a person’s name in a similar fashion to searching for a face.


That's actually a feature, albeit a very poorly documented one.

The Apple Wireless Keyboard refuses attempts to be overtaken by a different host without a deliberate disconnect, physical access by the user, a very long timeout or a manual reset.

Your keyboard model is that of "October 2009", the manual can be found here: https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1208/en_US/Apple_Wireless_Keyboard_2009_UG.pdf

Page 6 states that you should disconnect (not unpair) your keyboard before connecting (or pairing) it to another computer.

Once the keyboard is no longer in a 'connected' state, it will happily reconnect to any device it has previously been paired to.

So in order to resolve your problem, you should either take your keyboard back to the computer it believes to be connected to (and explicitly disconnect it there) or try the following in order to disconnect it manually:

open the "Keyboard" pane in "System Preferences" and choose "Set Up Bluetooth Keyboard..." (or search for devices via the "Bluetooth" pane as an alternative),
power off your keyboard by pressing and holding the power button (on its side),
release the power button after the indicator light goes out (your keyboard is now in standby mode),
press and hold the (same) power button for as long as it takes for your keyboard to be successfully connected by your target computer (the indicator light will blink during the course of this step).

In case you release the power button too early, i.e. without fully establishing a connection, the keyboard will simply fall back into the mode it was before – still connected to the other computer, safe from being overtaken. :)


In 10.6, you should be able to disable them by unchecking them in the Keyboard->Keyboard Shortcuts->Services list in System Preferences. For previous versions of OS X, there's a handy little app called Service Scrubber.

Hunting down and deleting services for apps you've already deleted can be troublesome; there are some detailed hints and tips in this article. Summary: find all the Info.plist files on your system that contain "NSServices", using a terminal command like:

find / -name "Info.plist" -exec grep -l "NSServices" {} \;

and (carefully) edit the suspect Info.plist files by hand.


How to access Keychain of my user from cron?

Read the --help of the command that you intended to use:

$ security delete-generic-password --help
delete-generic-password: illegal option -- -
Usage: delete-generic-password [-a account] [-s service] [options...] [keychain...]
    -a  Match "account" string
    -c  Match "creator" (four-character code)
    -C  Match "type" (four-character code)
    -D  Match "kind" string
    -G  Match "value" string (generic attribute)
    -j  Match "comment" string
    -l  Match "label" string
    -s  Match "service" string
If no keychains are specified to search, the default search list is used.
        Delete a generic password item.

so the solution is:

* * * * * security delete-internet-password -l 'git-codecommit.us-east-1.amazonaws.com' '/Users/vitaly-zdanevich/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db'

last arg string - is it the path to the Keychain db.


How to search by coordinates in Apple Maps?

Well it seems that Maps only want decimals : 45.196000, 5.765600

Too bad it isn't as flexible as GMaps.


When do processes run under root by default?

The setuid bit could be set on an executable.

When the setuid or setgid attributes are set on an executable file, then any users able to execute the file will automatically execute the file with the privileges of the file's owner (commonly root)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setuid
If setuid is applied and the binary is owned by root (and on macOS the entire directory hierarchy to that file is also owned by root), then the binary executes as root regardless of the current user.
You can find all setuid & root binaries using
find /path/to/search -user root -perm -4000


How to remove an accidentally dropped file shortcut icon from Finder toolbar?

Hold down ⌘ Command
Click file and drag it out


Mac Keychain problems after deleting .AppleSetupDone

As @Tetsujin pointed out your question a a wall of text and is difficult to read.

Although you reset your user password/created a new one the Keychain is encrypted using the old password.

Take a look a the following articles, they should solve your problem.

Reset Keychain Password
If you keep getting prompted to enter your keychain password

Also take a look at this AskDifferent answer describing some possible fixes.

How do I delete or fix my Keychain after changing my password?

If none of these work, please edit your question to clarify your issue.


I am sharing my iMac's ethernet connection as a WiFi hotspot. Who is connected?

arp -a
gives a list of connected interfaces on the same network.

en1 is Wi-Fi
en0 is Ethernet (on the Macbook Air this is Wi-Fi)

How to use
Type this command in the Terminal located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app. To learn more about this command, type man arp in the terminal.


Can I use my regular 3.5 mm earphones with an iPhone?

Yes, you can use any earphones with a 3.5mm audio jack. I'm surprised you did not just try it out :)

I thought I'd add some additional background information I just read about in a report on yet another Apple-Samsung patent case, Apple holds a patent on an audio jack which has the circuitry to detect the type of headphones plugged in, and I can only assume this is what they actually use in their iPhones.


How are text messages (SMS) sent to an iPhone received in a Mac?

The setting "Text Message Forwarding" on your iPhone uploads/broadcasts all text messages to all verified devices through iCloud.

Your iPhone needs data for this, obviously. Your carrier has nothing do to with this.

All devices need to be logged in to iCloud using the same Apple ID for this to work. Also, you need to verify each device as you enable them in your iPhone's settings.

This setting is part of Apple's Continuity feature set.


How to set up Time Machine backup for two macOS disks with third data disk?

Time Machine backups are organized by machine directory, then by snapshot (date&time), and only then by backup source (see the section on "backup structure" in the man page for tmutil). I might be wrong, but I would expect your Sierra and Mavericks installations to be considered separate "machines", even though they are running on the same physical machine. I'm not sure whether Time Machine is smart enough to realize that the backup sources for these two "machines" are the same, and to use hard links between them to avoid each machine directory to include completely separate copies.

I think the simplest thing to do would be to set Time Machine on Sierra to backup all volumes except the SSD with Mavericks, while setting Time Machine on Mavericks to only backup the Mavericks volume. Or some variation on this of course, like backing up everything using Sierra and turning Time Machine on Mavericks off.


Will my A1549 iPhone work in Japan & Philippines?

Even if LTE doesn't work where you are traveling, the iPhone 6 model A1549 will work on the following 2G/3G/4G network frequencies.

UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)
LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29)

Your phone is unlocked, so any carrier's SIM card will work and you can connect to WiFi to download the latest carrier settings that will properly configure the radio for all deployed cell towers and frequencies that the handset can communicate with.

So, your question basically boils down to picking a price point and picking a specific carrier with coverage where you actually will be traveling. The good news is you can get a cheap SIM or two and then pick the one that works best to reload data and minutes once you know more about the conditions on the ground when you arrive.

My experience is the specifications are very conservative and you end up getting better/faster/more LTE coverage than is advertised as every carrier that can support iPhones gets more revenue from travelers even if the handsets in that country are sold primarily the device that speaks all the frequencies of the A1549 as well as it's own. I would love to be in on the marketing and engineering talks that led up to choosing models, but can only guess being on the outside of Apple.


Network broadcast/multicast not sent by iPhone in personal hotspot mode

Quick-and-dirty workaround

I also ran into the same problem when developing an iPhone app that uses a UDP multicast message to discover devices on the network. Apparently the iPhone blocks multicast messages in personal hotspot mode.

However, iPhone seems to use the 172.20.10.0/28 subnet for devices on the personal hotspot network. This means that there are just 16 possible addresses. Of these, 172.20.10.0 is apparently not used, 172.20.10.1 is the iPhone itself, and sending messages to 172.20.10.15 fails with a 'not permitted' error. This means that only the following 13 addresses can be used by clients:  172.20.10.2, 172.20.10.3, ..., 172.20.10.14.

So my work-around is pretty simple: instead of sending broadcast messages only to to 224.0.0.0, I also send them to all the other possible addresses in the subnet (172.20.10.2 - 172.20.10.14).

Of course, to be future-proof in a production app you should probably check the list of network interfaces, check the IP and subnet, etc., but for my personal use this method is sufficient.


Getting Beach ball when selecting "open with" on context menu

Usually, you can stop the startup disk from spinning down by going to System Preferences > Energy Saver, then unchecking "Put the hard disks to sleep when possible". However, whilst this is certainly true for the startup disk, whether this is adhered to by external drives seems to be wholly dependant on the drive itself.

This page has more information, including a description of your problem, but also says

  Second, some non-startup drives simply ignore the setting of Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible and spin down on their own schedule. This appears to be a function of either the drive itself or, in the case of external drives, the firmware or chipset employed in the drive's enclosure. In such a case the drive's Standby behavior cannot be changed. One can contact the manufacturer of the drive or enclosure to see if a firmware update is available to improve its cooperation with Mac OS X power management.

The only other way I can think of around this, if the above doesn't work, is forcibly keeping the drive awake. To do this you could simply set up a script to touch a file on the external drive at fixed intervals.


It is probably a bug that needs to be fixed by the developer of the app.

Try using the knowledge base:
http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/?CMP=ILCFooter_HelpFAQ

OR

Try contacting Comcast about the issue:

1-800-XFINITY


Generate PDF with table of contents from Microsoft Word on Mac OS X

Word:Mac uses OS X's built-in PDF creator.  Word for Windows either uses Adobe's PDF creator or its own (depending on which version of Word for Windows you're using), which is why the functionality is different between the two applications.  OS X's built-in PDF creator doesn't do what you want.

If you have a license for Adobe Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader, but the full Acrobat), you can use Adobe's PDF creator.

Another option which others have reported having success with (and which doesn't require an expensive Acrobat license) is this:

Save your Word document to your computer.
Upload your Word document to Google Drive. Do NOT convert it to another format when you upload.
Get the OpenAsPDF app. Its a Google Drive App.
Open your Word document with OpenAsPDF app.
Use the Save As dialogue to save back to your computer.
Before saving, change the extension to .pdf.


Can I upgrade the memory in a MacBook Pro 2019?

The memory in the 2019 MBP (two Thunderbolt 3 ports) is soldered to the motherboard, and is not user-upgradeable.


I don't think that this is an issue with your network or your device. I have the same behavior on all my 5 iOS devices and so does everybody else I talked about this topic.

I guess the slowness comes from within Apple's datacenter(s). Checking for updates is a "bigger" process I guess (checking your apps, asking the database, etc.) than "just" downloading, which is pretty simple (establishing a connection, download the data). I just guess that checking for updates just needs some more web service requests than downloading. And since this is done by millions of users, the queue may take a while until your request is processed.

So my answer is: I think you can do nothing about it.


How can I create an installer for individual files?

In my case, this was it:

The installer was working as it should, but it was placing my files into

Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/...

instead of

Macintosh HD/users/<username>/Library/Application Support/...

now I just need to modify the destination to point to the correct folder.


The issue is likely due to the fact that the build of Snow Leopard you're using is incorrect and thus does not have the necessary drivers for your iMac. If it's a Mid 2011 or even Mid 2010 model, the reference release of Snow Leopard (10.6.3) was release before these models and does not have what is needed to use the hardware in your iMac.

If your iMac was purchased before or on Lion launch day, it should have come with some gray disks that will have the correct build of Snow Leopard on them. If you purchased your machine a few weeks after Lion launch, you may not have these disks.

If you don't' have these disks, I would suggest making an appointment at your local Genius Bar. Both Apple Stores I worked in always had reference releases of all major OS releases within the past 5 years, including a universal Snow Leopard build. They should be able to do a quick NetRestore and downgrade you to Snow Leopard (you will lost all files if they do it this way, so have a good backup!).

Hope this helps...good luck.


Why do I have to type in my Apple ID password over and over again for free apps or reviews in App Store when I have a touch ID?

All indications are that Touch ID can only be used for purchases. The grey message below the toggle in Settings indicates that as well.

You may not have much choice but to remember and type your password when writing reviews.


Not without jailbreaking. With a jailbreak, there are several options for doing this though.

The one that comes to mind immediately is Winterboard, which isn't relegated just to keyboards, but theming the entire OS.

There is also Color Keyboard, which changes the look and feel of the iOS keyboard (although it is iPhone only).


Change display arrangement in OS X/macOS programmatically

Sorry for the late answer. You can use displayplacer to set profiles for both of your arrangements. Save the profiles in a script or use something like BetterTouchTool for a hotkey to change your monitor layout.

https://github.com/jakehilborn/displayplacer


macOS Catalina: Whenever I attempt to take screen-capture via Terminal, I only get image of naked desktop background

Your terminal needs access to record the screen. Namely, System Preferences -> Security and Privacy -> Privacy -> Screen Recording and check the box for your terminal. This fix worked for me on 10.15.7.


Went to the genius bar and the genius booted from an external volume and was able to see both Catalina partitions as volumes. From here it was as simple as moving the "Users 1" folder to the trash and emptying the trash. This can most likely be accomplish through target disk mode as well.


Terminal app can access folders that it isn't allowed

My first question is: why would you do that to your terminal.app?
To answer your question. Terminal.app is automatically granted Full Disk Access by default and it does not show up in the Full Disk Access tab on the Security Pane.
You can see this by running the following in your term:
sudo sqlite3 /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db 'select * from access'
I hope it answers your question.


How can I search for meeting invites in Microsoft Outlook for Mac

The "Raw Query" search option can be used for this purpose.  Just search use the following raw query:

com_microsoft_outlook_has_reminder == 1

From what I have been able to determine, the raw query field uses the Spotlight file metadata query expression syntax.  I haven't found an authoritative source that states this, but various online posts and manual testing confirms this to be the case.

As mentioned in this gist, it looks like the list of raw query options can be found in the following file within the Microsoft Outlook app:

/Applications/Microsoft Outlook.app/Contents/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Outlook Spotlight Importer.mdimporter/Contents/Resources/schema.xml

Based on the name and list of attributes, it looks like the com.microsoft.outlook15.message type is the one that applies to email messages.

<type name="com.microsoft.outlook15.message">
    <allattrs>
        kMDItemTitle
        com_microsoft_outlook_recordID
        kMDItemContentCreationDate
        com_microsoft_outlook_messageSent
        com_microsoft_outlook_messageReceived
        com_microsoft_outlook_priority
        com_microsoft_outlook_flag
        com_microsoft_outlook_unread
        kMDItemContentModificationDate
        kMDItemCoverage
        kMDItemKeywords
        kMDItemProjects
        com_microsoft_outlook_has_text_content
        kMDItemTextContent
        kMDItemAuthors
        kMDItemRecipients
        com_microsoft_outlook_folderID
        com_microsoft_outlook_junkLikelihood
        com_microsoft_outlook_size
        com_microsoft_outlook_newsAccountID
        com_microsoft_outlook_accountID
        com_microsoft_outlook_repliedTo
        com_microsoft_outlook_forwarded
        com_microsoft_outlook_redirected
        com_microsoft_outlook_toRecipients
        com_microsoft_outlook_toEmailAddresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_ccRecipients
        com_microsoft_outlook_ccEmailAddresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_bccRecipients
        com_microsoft_outlook_bccEmailAddresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_attachments
        com_microsoft_outlook_has_attachments
        com_microsoft_outlook_has_mentioned_me
        com_microsoft_outlook_projects
        com_microsoft_outlook_categories
        com_microsoft_outlook_primaryCategory
        com_microsoft_outlook_flagged
        com_microsoft_outlook_author_email_addresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_recpient_email_addresses
        com_microsoft_outlook_isFromMailingList

        com_microsoft_outlook_hasStartDate
        com_microsoft_outlook_startDate
        com_microsoft_outlook_hasDueDate
        kMDItemDueDate
        com_microsoft_outlook_has_reminder
        com_microsoft_outlook_completed
        com_microsoft_outlook_completedDate

    </allattrs>
    <displayattrs>
        kMDItemContentCreationDate
        kMDItemAuthors
        kMDItemRecipients
        kMDItemCoverage
        kMDItemContentModificationDate
    </displayattrs>
</type>


Permission of external disk under Mac OS

OS X can't write to NTFS natively - you'll need to install a package like MacFuse/NTFS-3G or Tuxera NTFS to write to NTFS partitions.

From the BootCamp Apple Support KB:

  During installation, the Microsoft Windows installer asks me to format
  the Windows partition using NTFS or FAT. Which should I use?

  If the partition is 32 GB or smaller, you can use either FAT or NTFS.
  If it's larger than 32 GB, or you are installing Microsoft Vista, then
  you can only format it using NTFS. Mac OS X can read and write FAT
  volumes, but only read NTFS volumes. Refer to the Microsoft Windows
  documentation if you are not sure which best suits your needs.


Recover deleted folder from user/library

The answer from CleanMyMac is that it permanently destroys this, I tested two file recovery software options and neither found the old library fodlers


If you want to print pictures and photos, you can use Epson iPrint (there are similar apps from other printer manufacturers, e.g. Canon iEPP, HP iPrint Photo 2.0, Kodak Pic Flick or Lexmark LexPrint). For printing PDFs or other documents, the already mentioned "print n share", "Print Bureau" (both from eurosmartz) or Air Sharing Pro from Avatron could be useful.


Can I revert Mail.app to handle notifications in the pre-10.9.2 way?

Unfortunately this does not work out of the box. But there is a nice and free plugin called Herald which gives you this exact feature back, and many more on top.

(See Version 4.0.8 (Mac OS X 10.9) by clicking on "Old Versions").

Please close your Mail.app before installing.


Why does Skype 5.7 on Lion require Adobe Flash?

I am running Skype 5.7 on a Mac without Flash installed. It does not complain about its absence. The 'Home' screen initially showed a blank box which was clearly a Flash video with a demo for something. That has now disappeared. It looks like Skype will use Flash if its installed but it is not required.


CLI options do not work if passed at the end of command

This is because apple zsh shell version. To install zsh version with that behaviour, you have to install homebrew. You can easily to it by typing the following:

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

Once installed, install the zsh formulae:

brew install zsh

Then you have to replace your shell with zsh provided by homebrew:

chsh -s /usr/local/bin/zsh

After that you should be able to test your zsh version and use command arguments like you want.


How to check if iPhone is sharing Wi-Fi network or Cellular data via hotspot?

Regardless of how you connect to your iPhone acting a a personal hotspot, whether it be via WiFi or tethered via cable, you are sharing the cellular data connection.
So, using your example, where your iPhone is initially connected to the corporate WiFi and then you enable the Personal Hotspot feature, you will disconnect from the corporate WiFi and a private (NAT) network will be created with a gateway configured through your cellular network.  Whether you use WiFi or connect via USB, this network will be created
From Apple Support:

A Personal Hotspot lets you share the cellular data connection of your iPhone or iPad (Wi-Fi + Cellular) when you don't have access to a Wi-Fi network.

Why is this the case?  Your iPhone can only connect to a single WiFi network at any given time.  The Personal Hotspot is designed to provide a WiFi signal where you don't have one.  This configuration cannot be changed.

Finding your Gateway....
If you want to see which connection you’re using (which has priority) for the Internet you just need to get the IP addresses of you adapters and run a trace route to see the path.
(Values below are from my iMac; en0 is wired, en1 is WiFi connected to hotspot.  Your values will differ.)
$ ifconfig en0 | egrep -iw inet
inet 192.168.1.54 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255

$ ifconfig en1 | grep -iw inet
inet 172.20.10.3 netmask 0xfffffff0 broadcast 172.20.10.15

$ traceroute apple.com | head -n 1
 1  pfsense (192.168.1.1)  0.481 ms  0.312 ms  0.329 ms

You will get a output telling you which gateway is being used for Internet traffic.  In my case, it's showing me that I'm going through my en0 or wired network adapter.
You could use the netstat -rn command to get your default gateway, but I've found that you can have multiple gateways.
$ netstat -rn | egrep default
 default            192.168.1.1        UGSc          125      109     en0
 default            172.20.10.1        UGScI           7        0     en1

This is why I like to use traceroute to actually (and quickly) "see" where the traffic is going.
Measuring Bandwidth....
The only way to measure bandwidth is to use a utility (service) like vnStat.  It's available via MacPorts or Homebrew.  The system, by default is not measuring bandwidth usage so you'll need a service that gets loaded at boot (or at the users request) to begin logging this data.
A sample output (assuming 2 interfaces) would look like the following:
(with 2 interfaces)
$ vnstat
                      rx      /      tx      /     total    /   estimated
 Internet (eth1):
       2018-09     31.90 GiB  /   28.05 GiB  /   59.95 GiB
       2018-10    281.04 MiB  /   99.45 MiB  /  380.49 MiB  /   12.05 GiB
     yesterday      1.23 GiB  /  473.23 MiB  /    1.69 GiB
         today    281.04 MiB  /   99.45 MiB  /  380.49 MiB  /     397 MiB

 Local (eth0):
       2018-09     25.13 GiB  /  116.94 GiB  /  142.07 GiB
       2018-10    234.75 MiB  /    5.03 GiB  /    5.26 GiB  /  170.76 GiB
     yesterday    520.55 MiB  /    2.21 GiB  /    2.72 GiB
         today    234.75 MiB  /    5.03 GiB  /    5.26 GiB  /    5.51 GiB


Faced same issue and found it is with Exchange server's user account settings. Initially Active Directory's authentication is successful but unable to retrieve emails. Issue sorted when went into exchange user account and Inherit AD permissions for my user account. Ola!


Connecting to a device console using screen shows no output

Since I couldn't get this working on my mac after multiple days, I decided to try my luck with a Debian 9 VM running in VMware Fusion within this mac. As soon as I made the device available within Debian VM, it was automatically detected and an associated tty* device was created:
# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0e0f:000b VMware, Inc.
...
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port
...
$ ll /dev/ttyU*
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 Dec 29 14:30 /dev/ttyUSB0

Unlike /dev/tty.usbserial within macOS which was open for group others, device /dev/ttyUSB0 wasn't. So, I started screen with sudo:
$ sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 9600

And voila, it worked, as per the following screenshot!

I guess this is still a workaround. Checking the screen status (Ctrl-a + Ctrl-i (macos), Ctrl-a + i (Linux)), the latter had CD in brackets, implying signal CD was in effect:

That is the only significant difference that I could spot. Hope this helps others.


Not enough storage space to update iPad mini

Since iOS 9 is smaller in file size than iOS 7, you can just delete a few songs or podcasts or apps, whatever is taking up space, then install iOS 9, then re-download whatever you deleted. This can be a bit faster than restoring from backup, although it is still a good idea to back up your iPad!


BootCamp The startup disk does not have enough space to be partitioned

The free space required by the Boot Camp Assistant to install Windows is larger than what is actually required. One question where this is documented is Mojave bootcamp assistant limits partition size. The answer to this question was to use the Disk Utility to create a partition for Windows, then install Windows the same way as any ordinary PC owner. The Boot Camp Assistant was only used to download the Windows Support Software.

Other space issues related to installing Windows are documented in the accepted answer to the question: Installing Windows on MBP 2015 (Mojave) Using Boot Camp, Error: Not enough space!.


Can you install Google Chrome on an iOS Device

You can now install Google Chrome on an iOS Device.

Do note that it does not use the Chrome Rendering engine, but uses the Safari webkit. The "killer feature" though is that it has syncing with your Google Account.


Good free audio converter for OS X Lion?

Get ffmpeg via Homebrew, which can convert a lot of audio/video formats.

Converting your audio files then basically is done by running the following in Terminal

ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -b:a 128k output.mp3

ffmpeg is usually able to deduce input/output format from the file suffix.

To run this over a bunch of files, cd to the top folder containing the audio files and run

find . -type f -print0 |
    xargs -0 -I '{}' bash -c 'f="{}"; ffmpeg -i "$f" -b:a "${f%.*}.128.mp3"'

This will create files ending in .128.mp3 for all audio files found (and throw a lot of ffmpeg errors for non-audio files in the same folders).


iPhone screenshots have wrong date info on PC

I'll start by saying that the file extension itself has nothing to do with the time metadata alterations for your photos.
Now to address the problem at hand: it depends on how you exported your photos. If you copied the files over to your PC using Windows Explorer (which I suspect you did) then Windows will not reliably preserve the original time/date metadata of your photos. As you mentioned yourself, Windows isn't even consistent in the fashion in which it alters the time metadata. If you're copying just one file, the metadata should be correct. Other times, if you're doing a bulk copy, not only will Windows sometimes change the time metadata for certain files, but it'll also change the filename for certain files. Why this happens, I don't know.
I haven't used iTunes in a while (I use iMazing instead to manage my iPhone – you should check it out if you're interested in an alternative to iTunes) but I do believe that if you import your photos and videos via iTunes, then all your files' metadata will be correctly preserved and handled.

You can also try uploading the screenshots to a cloud service (Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud, etc.) and then downloading them onto your computer. There shouldn't be any reason for the upload process to alter any of the files' time metadata.


Apple Watch iOS 3 control center does not show unlock symbol any longer

Did you get the os version 3.1.1?

It seems that with 3.1.1 the "problem" is considered a "feature", i.e. was intentionally removed (see http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/12/14/watchos-3-1-1-disables-lock-feature-in-control-center-here-are-four-workarounds/ )

The article also lists various workarounds, the best seems to be disabling wrist detection (Settings → General → Wrist Detection)

The others are

Use Water-Lock instead
Lock your watch via Workout app


If you hold a key down (like n) you should get a popup menu with accented versions (like ñ). Also the usual option deadkeys (option n, then n) should work.

An example of a custom layout someone has made for this is at

http://djelibeibi.unex.es/dvorak/

http://djelibeibi.unex.es/dvorak/ES%20Dvorak.keylayout

It is pretty easy to make your own with Ukelele:

http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele


Need help finding a specific folder for a friend

Most likely ~/Library/Application Support/Cockatrice

~ denotes the user's home directory. This should exist in their sidebar already, labeled with their name.
Library is hidden on Mac OS X Lion and above. The easiest way is have the Finder active, hold the option key (⌥) and click the 'Go' menu. This will reveal the 'Library' folder that you can select.

The rest of the paths should be able to be accessed normally.


iPhone 4s doesn't support AirDrop. You need an iPhone 5 or newer.


What are the domains of the iTunes & Software Update CDNs?

The domain names are from a1.phobos.apple.com to a1999.phobos.apple.com.  These domains are for downloading from the App Store or the iTunes Store.


How to hide notification center button in Mountain Lion?

I had the same problem yesterday, and found this tool called Bartender. It is paid software.

On my Mac, running Mountain Lion, the icon is gone but the other notification functionality remains.


Screen Blacks Out After Fans Run at Maximum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXso8KFG78M

see post from tommyjames 337 half way down the page

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/126496/Graphic+card+overheating,+CPU+fan+in+full+speed,+then+black+screen

"Okay you guys! After months and months of trying, I have found the true solution to the overheating graphics card. I was right with my initial hypothesis. It was indeed the heat sink.

I was mislead for months because the heat sink I purchased initially to test my theory was also malfunctioning in the exact same way. But after isolating literally EVERY part in the iMac, buying a new logic board, and purchasing 5 new graphics cards (without heat sinks) to no avail, I finally decided it must actually be the heat sink, and it absolutely is."


How can I modify the default date format for "moments" in photos?

Check your format in System Preferences -> Language & Region -> Advanced... -> Dates and modify there by drag and drop the dates fields as you wish. These correspond to your locale settings. Note the format (YYYY-MM-DD) is not old, it is just the ISO standard today.


Found a workaround! By saving the image to Files, and then re-importing it to Photos, the length gets cropped to your desired one.


Stuck during High Sierra installation and now no startup disk found

I used the image to create an USB installer stick of macOS High Sierra and reinstalling the OS solved my problem.


It looks like the best way to copy the camera data without importing it is to use the disk utility to image the SD card.  Later on it can be mounted and normal camera import utilities will work and capture all the related metadata not stored in the MTS files.


In Xcode, how can I utilize new UI APIs for Yosemite, but then revert to older ones for older OS'?

You'll need to figure out at runtime if method/class is available. Here's Apple guide about "SDK Based Development".

In Your case It'll look like this:

if ([NSVisualEffectView class])
{
    // OS X 10.10 code here.
}
else
{
    // OS X < 10.10 code here.
}


Screen Artifacts at Shut Down when using scaled display on 15" rMBP mid 2015 running Sierra 10.12.5

macOS has gotten a lot more quirky over the past few years. I've noticed many graphical glitches, myself. This is especially visible before the OS is fully loaded and also when it shuts down or sleep/wake events are in transition.

I wouldn't worry about it, personally.


Install and boot Windows from USB hard drive?

As far as I know Microsoft lock their Operating Systems so that you cannot run them directly from an external storage device. Microsoft say something about it not being a 'primary means of storage.' More like them making an attempt at stopping people running multiple computers of on copy of the OS, as allowing them to install it on any storage would allow people to make loads of copies. Hence, Linux does not have this problem. I personally do not do much gaming, and have never needed Windows on my MacBook Pro, so have not dabbled in the whole 'Windows on my Mac' thing. If you really do have a problem with sticking Windows on the MBP's Hard drive and booting either natively or through virtualisation, then the following links may help, although the guides are designed for XP and I have no idea if they will work on 7.

Prepping the install CD (scroll down)

Installing

As I said, I cannot guarantee this will work for 7. I hope, however that I have helped in some way.


How to fix an iPhone 4S with disabled iCloud settings?

Why is it grey out?
In Settings-General-Restrictions(password required)-Accounts
(Current Value:Don't Allow Changes)

If the value is Don't Allow Changes,the icloud in Settings will be disabled automatically.

To enable Settings>icloud
Go to:Settings-General-Restrictions(password required)-Accounts
Select "Allow Changes"


How do I make a FaceTime call in macOS for contacts marked, "Siri Found in Apps"?

This is likely a bug.

As long as there’s a phone number available, you should be able to make a call.  If this is working everywhere as you indicate except via Siri, then it’s a bug.  The best course of action is to report it to Apple: https://apple.com/feedback


A problem with the Telegram app- online status

Previous versions of Telegram used to linger on changing one's status from online to last seen just now for about 5-10 minutes. (Not documented, just my observation.) But I think they've fixed this in the latest version. Please update Telegram on all your devices and check if this problem still exists.


How to jump to 'input' bar in a website dictionary with shortcut in Chrome?

For me, these sites seem to load with the cursor already in the search field. However, if this isn't your experience, I would press the Tab key on your keyboard as this will move the cursor for you.


How to stop AutoMounter from trying Network Shares on High Sierra?

Sorry, I am a giant doofus. I thought AutoMounter was part of MacOS when in fact it was a utility I had installed a while back and didn't configure well. I was confusing it for auto_mount. I guess it's not that far-fetched. Still, kind of embarrassing.


How to determine which app is running on the Touch Bar in MBP?

BetterTouchTool app could take control of your Touch bar.

Disable or remove it.


How can I install IOS3 to my old iPhone3G?

The erase operation is easy.

settings app, general, reset, erase all content and settings

Breaking Apple's software update mechanism to put an older iOS on the device is going to cost time to gain expertise and even if you invested hours learning how jail breaking works, you might not be able to revert the OS. Running a jailbreak on more current OS and hardware is easier, but still something quite technical. Going that far back is less likely to succeed if reading the how-to isn't giving you a clear picture how to start to jailbreak your device in question.

I would do the easy and get her a wiped device on the OS that iTunes will support rather than needing to keep jail breaking it if the user chooses to update things.


What is pingsender and why does it wants to connect to?

pingsender is a component of Firefox used by Mozilla for telemetry.

  The ping sender is a minimalistic program whose sole purpose is to deliver a telemetry ping.

https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/toolkit/components/telemetry/docs/internals/pingsender.rst


Re-enabling virtual iPad keyboard with paired Bluetooth keyboard

This solution just works on an Ipad. when the soft keyboard disappears just press and hold the down arrow on the bottom right of the screen and the soft keyboard will be back.


Is there something like a "hidden mode"?

You could use something like GhostTile for this. It is paid app though. It allows you hide applications from Dock, Cmd+Tab, Force Quit Applications, etc. You can configure system-wide shortcut key to make the hidden apps visible.


Deleted .aae files and my photos are gone, how to restore, Help Please

Download another Photo Editor from the iTunes store.  Open it and give it access to your photos.  It will recognize the unedited photos that were seemingly not there before.  This worked when I did the same thing to my .aae files.


How to run unix script in login screen before user logs in?

Launchd and LoginWindow

You can use launchd to run your script when the Login Window appears. Within your launchd job ticket, include the key pair:

<key>LimitLoadToSessionType</key>
<string>LoginWindow</string>

Save your launchd job ticket, .plist, file in the folder: /Library/LaunchAgents/.


Unable to start Dropbox due to permission errors

Are you an administrator? If you are, try Chown and Chmod

Type the following into Terminal:

sudo chown -R yourUsername /Users/yourusername/Dropbox

sudo chmod -R 700 /Users/yourusername/Dropbox

If that doesn't work I'd run diskutil repairPermissions /

If those don't work, I would reinstall Dropbox.


Saving online videos (e.g. YouTube) and moving them to iPad for later offline viewing?

Safari and Chrome
I had no luck getting any extensions working. YouTube intercepts right clicks on video and shows a youtube context menu instead of the native context menu and thereby blocking the download button.
Firefox
Download YouTube Videos as MP4 and FLV 1.3.8 is an extensions which is compatible with Firefox 11 (as of march 2012). It shows a download button below the Youtube video area.

The download format is .mp4 which is fine to use on an iPad.
Still, if you want to convert the downloaded video for your mobile devices, you can use a simple tool like the MiroVideoConverter, which is available in the Mac App Store for free.


Probably something went wrong wiping the disk. You can't properly erase/repartition a disk the OS X booted from. Additionally it seems that you don't have a proper Recovery HD.

I recommend either to create a bootable installer thumb drive with the Lion installer or booting to Internet Recovery Mode by pressing altcmdR while booting, formatting the internal disk and restoring OS X. Not all Macs boot to IRM though.

To create a bootable thumb drive you need the Lion installer app, a second Mac and a USB thumb drive (8 GB or more)


Why is third monitor always mirroring one of my other two?

The problem with your setup does not have to do with the resolution, as others have hypothesized. The problem is that the dock you're using is not supported on macOS for a 3-display configuration.

In practice, the HP Thunderbolt docks require MST-support for multiple displays from the system before they can enable 3 separate displays connected to the dock. MST is not supported on macOS for this purpose(in contrast to Windows), as thus it simply won't work.

You can connect two of the displays to the dock (as you have already figured out). The third display you'll need to connect directly to the MacBook Pro in order to get it as a separate display.


How do I prevent my Mac from resetting the software update download every time i resume it?

Download the OS X 10.10.5 combo update. Combo updates contain all previous updates.


Preview auto-open of PNG files after being downloaded from Safari

This might be related to a preference in Safari rather than Preview.

Open Safari, then Preferences, then go to the General tab. If the option to 'Open "safe" files after downloading' is checked, uncheck it and that may stop Preview opening the downloaded image automatically.


Preview hangs when opening any image or pdf

Probably resetting Preview by deleting its configuration from ~/Library could solve that problem.

cd ~/Library
rm Caches/com.apple.Preview \
   Containers/com.apple.Preview \
   Preferences/com.apple.Preview.LSSharedFileList.plist\
   Preferences/com.apple.Preview.SandboxedPersistentURLs.LSSharedFileList.plist \
   "Saved Application State"/com.apple.Preview.savedState

Restart Preview and test.


The difference between 6945rpm & 7065rmp might just be the noise in the measurement - these are both basically saying "7000 rpm".

Perhaps one of the thermal sensors isn't attached/set properly (although this would be unusual for a brand new computer), so it always runs at maximum fan speed just to be safe (which might be nominally 7000rpm in your case).

Since it's brand new I'd take it back and ask the Apple Store to check it.

Update:

I found out after years that DropBox (along with some other progs) would caused my fans to blaze.
Perhaps because I was syncing a massive work DBox drive, it was always computing at max power.

I quit DropBox and the fans start to slow down to a reasonable level. Quitting would DropBox drop the CPU temp and fan speed within ~15-30 sec, although quitting other programs (such as MS Office apps, NetFlix in a browser window) sometimes had some effect if DropBox was already closed.  Since I wanted DBox syncing on, and this indicated that the fans were just blazing due to actual CPU usage (not some hardware problem), I would just learn to live with it (or quit DBox when I wanted a quieter computer).


There could be several reasons for this as far as I can tell, but my solution, after hours of research was rebuilding the iTunes library.

You might be able to check if this will actually work by addig some new music to your library and then trying to sync it to your device.

If becomes available (black instead of gray in the Music section), then this might work for you.

The steps for rebuilding your library are pretty simple, described here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201561

Basically:

Close iTunes
Go to your iTunes Music folder
Move the itunes library xml to a different location (e.g. desktop)
Delete the .itl file (the actual library information)
Reopen iTunes and import the moved xml (Import Playlist)


The best way to do this is to create a launchd .plist, copy it to ~/Library/LaunchAgents and let the system handle it for you.

Sample .plist:

<?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>com.user.startMySQL</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
          <string>mysql.server</string>
          <string>start</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

I prefer to use the file naming convention com.user.<name of function>.plist when naming them so I can easily identify what is loaded and what is not.

Next, you need to load this .plist as root so it runs as root

$ sudo launchctl load com.user.startMySQL.plist

To verify that it has loaded you can issue the command sudo launchctl list and the command mysql to initiate a connection to the MySQL service.

Please note that this is just a simple example - you may wish to create a script to check to see if mysqld is already running before launching it.


Unable to remove Windows partition on Boot Camp partition

I found that the only way to remove a bootcamp partition and make it a fully MacOS partition is to wipe the drive and reinstall macOS. Bootcamp utility says it can remove the bootcamp partition and resize the MacOS partition,  but it doesn't work. Please tell me if anyone has gotten it to work.


I believe the package Cydia package adv-cmds contains a copy of PS


How to run chromium-browser from the command line?

To open Chromium from the CLI use

open -a chromium
open -a /Applications/Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium
open /Applications/Chromium.app (or the respective path to Chromium.app)
/Applications/Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium #usually with some errors  (e.g. "Error in event handler..." or some adm_helpers.cc/service_manager.cc errors)

Comprehensive list of command line switches:

List of Chromium Command Line Switches


What is the best way to test Metal - MBPr late 2012

As yet there aren't any games from the big dev companies utilising Metal, although companies like Blizzard are testing support and will update theirs accordingly in the 'next 6 months'

Those running 10.11 El Capitan can check whether their GPU supports Metal with this app:
Metal Capability Test App


Suggestions on what to do with an old Power Mac G4?

My idea, you could try to run a server on it for back-up purposes or website hosting maybe? I don't know if you're interested in that part at all.. If it's a big power waste, you'd better get rid of it and buy a replacement instead of wasting the cash on power :)

Trashing it is the last option left IMO.


Using too much of Hotspot hurts the iPad?

Should I stop doing that?

The only reason you may want to stop is to avoid going over your cellular data limit (if any).

  Will it hurt my iPad?

No, this wont "hurt" your iPad, however it's a process that requires the iPad to work a bit harder than normal, meaning you can expect these while you are using the hotspot:

Shorter battery life for the iPad
Slower Performance on the iPad
Slower internet speeds than usual for all devices


Iterm2 Issue: "INSERT" not showing in VIM

That was the issue of the colour. I have previously changed the background colour to white Hence, it was not showing. I have changed the colour of the "BOLD" text to black and now I am able to see the --- INSERT --- and the bold text on the TOP.

Also, I have deleted all of the setting to check.

Ref: http://iterm2.com/faq.html

defaults delete com.googlecode.iterm2


Running two external 4k displays over thunderbolt to HDMI MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)

Yes you can for the MacBook Pro (Retina, Late 2013) and later

If you use a 60Hz Multi Stream Transport display with the MacBook Pro with AMD Radeon R9 M370X graphics card only one additional Thunderbolt display is supported.

You can use 4K displays and Ultra HD TVs at the following resolutions and refresh rates via the built-in HDMI port of your Mac:

3840 x 2160 at 30Hz
4096 x 2160 at 24Hz (mirroring is not supported at this resolution)

Check out this page from Apple  https://support.apple.com/kb/sp690?locale=en_GB

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206587


Windows 10 won't install in EFI Boot mode when hybrid partitions are present on Mac-Pro 5.1?

A Windows 10 installation in EFI mode is incompatible with hybrid partitions. A solution would be to install both Windows XP and Windows 10 in BIOS mode.


Ctrl + Up/Down to scroll through Terminal.app window

Check the "View" menu.

optioncommandPage Up and optioncommandPage Down scroll the window a single line.


How do I find the sha256 hash of text on a Mac?

You can echo the text and pipe it to shasum. You'll want to use the -a 256 option to calculate sha256:

Thanks to JMY1000 in the comments: Since echo adds a newline by default, -n should probably be added in order to get the proper shasum of the text without this newline.

echo -n "simple text" | shasum -a 256

If you want to get the hash value for a text which is already open in an editor, copy it to the clipboard and run

pbpaste | shasum -a 256


I want to change to hot key(s) for spaces

In System Preferences, open Exposé and Spaces, and go to the Spaces tab. Click the menu by "To switch between spaces:" and choose the second option.


My contacts are disappearing on their own

In my personal experience, the issue might be an iCloud syncing problem or somehow the main group in your Contacts app has been unselected.
To check to see if all of your Contact groups are selected, open the Contacts app and tap on the groups button on the top left corner.  You should see a checkmark next to the groups that are selected.
If this is not the issue, then you might want to go to iCloud.com to see if your contacts are at least stored on the cloud.
To answer your last question, yes there is a chance that something malicious could be occurring but it is very improbable unless someone managed to hack your Apple ID.


Chess OS X Catalina Game Connected but Moves not Updating

I am seeing the same thing. I have been testing this out locally with two computers and two gamecenter accounts (both on High Sierra).  I see one game that says "Black to Move", while the other says "White To Move".

I have found one way to force an update is to go to the menu and choose Game -> Close, and then Game -> New -> GameCenter -> Start, and then it will show existing game center games, and you can choose to have your turn. Pretty annoying though.


How do I configure Gmail in Mail.app to sync the mail messages with multiple clients?

You can configure Gmail as IMAP account type. That will sync your mail messages between multiple mail clients.

That leaves open your request to not retrieve all 3Gb of mail when first configuring the program. There I haven't got an answer only a possible workaround. Many mail clients limit their download sizes when they are on low bandwidth connections. You could try to limit your bandwidth, for exmample to 8 kbps, with these terminal commands when having Gmail configured to use secure imap:

$ sudo ipfw pipe 1 config bw 8kbit/s #create reduced bandwidth pipe
$ sudo ipfw add pipe 1 src-port imaps #sent traffic from imaps thru pipe

As Gmail is not offering an Exchange server, only ActiveSync compatible, you will never get an exact similar experience with Gmail.


You appear to be having the same issue discussed in this Stack Exchange answer from a few years ago.

Re-download Safari using the link in this support article, and try re-installing it. Note that Apple appears to be winding down Safari for Windows.


Trying to compile thttpd 2.27 on Mac OS X 10.11

You have at least two options:

Install MacPorts. Install thttpd with this command:

sudo port install thttpd

I am not using MacPorts and this is untested.
Download config.sub.diff and config.guess.diff and put them into thttpd source directory. Execute these commands to patch the config files:

patch -R < config.sub.diff
patch -R < config.guess.diff
./configure
make

It will compile the source. You may now consider to install compiled binary.

[Original source of diff files is here.]


Using timed access control in airport extreme base station

When you've altered the times, click the '+' button so a second line appears, then click 'Done'.


What protocol does iOS use to sync Notes to a server

You can host your own notes if you run an IMAP server. There are additional details in knowledge base article HT4191. A great IMAP server is Dovecot.


How do I restore a previous version of my ssh keypair files?

Note: I actually think your browser SSL errors are not at all related to the fact that your generated a new keypair for ssh use in your ~/.ssh directory. Browsers don't use these keys, only ssh uses these keys (and things that are based around libssh).

But if you want to restore the previous version of your keypair here are the two ways you can do it....

Assuming you followed step 2 in that github document, you can just restore your backed-up keys:

cd ~/.ssh
rm id_rsa*
cp key_backup/* .

That will delete the new keys you created and then restore your old keys.

If you didn't backup your original keys according to that document you can try to use Time Machine to find the previous version of your keys and restore them.

First open a Finder window and then hit Cmd-Shift-G to bring up the Go To box. In the box type: ~/.ssh and press the Go button.

Switch to column view so you can see the details of the files in the ~/.ssh directory and note the Date Modified time on the id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files.

Now enter Time Machine by clicking on the Time Machine icon in the upper right hand corner of the menu bar and selecting 'Enter Time Machine':

Step backwards in time until you find the point where Date Modified time stamps on those two files change. That should be the previous version of those files. Select the id_rsa and id_rsa.pub files from this point in time and restore them overtop of the existing files.