Unable to access xampp files because of user permissions problem

Network Drive Limitation

You likely can not change the permissions of using the network shared drive, nfs, path. Instead use the approach below on the Mac involved, using the local paths.

Changing Permissions

You can grant yourself access to the daemon's files using the Finder's Get Info panel.

Within the Finder, select the folder you want access to;
Select File (menu) > Get Info;
Within Sharing & Permissions click the + and add your user account;
Within Sharing & Permissions click the cog and select Apply to enclosed items.

You may need to unlock the permissions settings using the Lock on the lower-right of the panel.

Command line approach

Alternatively, you can use the command line to change permissions, see Permissions for new files in shared directory. The command line approach is more capable and allows sudo to ensure you have permissions to make the change.

Locked files and chmod errors

See Why does chown report “Operation not permitted” on OS X?


Mac Pro 1,1 running any kind of latest version of macOS

It sounds like you have a mac pro 1,1 like mine with Quad core 2.66GHz processors.

It is correct about the 32 bit EFI on these systems but there is a workaround with a re-written bootloader for the MacPro 1,1 that will enable you to run El Capitan (last OS before Sierra) flawlessly on your Mac Pro. It even includes a script that will check and fix the bootloader each restart which means you can install system updates without having to repatch your system each time.

You will need a better video card. I suggest one with at least 1 GB of video RAM. There are a lot of PCIe graphics cards out there that will work in a MAC but they don't boot EFI which essentially means you will get a black screen during boot up until the boot has completed - then the video card will switch on. This is only an issue is you have to boot into a separate hard drive or a Bootcamp partition. You won't be able to see your selections once booting and holding down the OPTION key right after the chime. You will have to find a fully Mac Compatible video card if you want boot screen graphics.

To get El Capitan to install on a MacPro 1,1 you need several things:

an 8GB USB
a copy of the Mac App Store El Capitan installer
at least 12GB of RAM
a video card capable of running the latest OpenGL and with at least 512MB of video memory - 1 GB is better.
You will need to rebuild the installer to work with a MacPro 1,1 and to use the 32bit EFI translator. Instructions and the links for the downloads can be found here.

No Mac OS after Lion will install on a MAC PRO 1,1 without editing the original install file. Apple places checks in the installer so that it will only work with certain motherboards. Part of the tweak to the installer involves adding your system's board ID to the installer so it will pass a check and install. There are tools and instructions for how to rebuild the installer for Mountain Lion (uses MlPostFactor which is a "patched" install and not native - certain kernel level functions will fail such as "Bootcamp" also Little Snitch and Hands Off will not work) Mavericks, Yosemite and El Capitan.

El Capitan is about the easiest OS to modify because Captain Pike's Script automates the entire process. No real advanced knowledge or manual editing of system files is required. I followed the instructions, downloaded the script, let it do its thing and I have a flawless MacPro 1,1 running OS X El Capitan.

I also recommend adding an Airport Extreme wireless card and a Bluetooth card for your machine. I don't think you will find a Bluetooth card for the MacPro 1,1 that will work with OS X's "Handoff" feature but if you are using an iPhone you will want it to be able to sync with your Mac Pro without having to plug it in, so you will need the AirPort and the Bluetooth to get the most out of your Mac. They are easy to find, relatively easy to install and are fairly cheap. Instructions for how to perform these upgrades can be found here.

Incidentally El Capitan is the last OS so far that you can tweak to run on an old MacPro 1,1. If you are having trouble finding a Mac App Store copy of El Capitan, Google is your friend for finding torrents. Just make sure to include the words "pirate" and "MAS El Capitan torrent" in your search terms.


How do I set my Logitech harmony remote to control my Apple TV?

I believe the correct setting is found in the following location

Computer-> Media Center PC -> Apple -> Apple TV


Turns out it was Do Not Disturb option enabled, it comes with this behavior to drop on the first call. New iOS has it (moon icon) on a quick panel, I thought it was a Night Shift option so I enabled it by mistake.


What is the performance bottleneck when launching large applications on OS X?

Activity Monitor is a good starting point. At a minimum, you can determine whether your system is becoming CPU-bound when you start the large application. It can also show how system memory is being utilized and whether excessive swapping is taking place. An Apple KB notes:

  Tip: Page outs occur when the Mac has to write information from RAM to
  the hard drive (because RAM is full).  Adding more RAM may reduce page
  outs.

This Quora post has a reference to another good tool - the Shark utility from the Apple Developer Tool Suite:

  Shark from the Developer Tools suite (CHUD) provide even more powerful
  process inspection capabilities and organizes bottom-up and top-down
  trees of where your time goes for the entire space of function calls,
  and is even decent at explaining where the bottlenecks are, sometimes
  suggesting low-level optimizations.

Apple's Developer Library notes:

  Shark is an advanced tool for sampling or tracing a single application
  or all running applications. Like Instruments, Shark provides a set of
  powerful analysis tools with an easy-to-use interface to help you
  gather performance data. Shark helps you isolate problems quickly by
  providing a rich set of data-mining features and is an indispensable
  tool for finding performance bottlenecks. It provides optimization
  tips and help with analyzing assembly-level operations. Because it
  traces operations down at the kernel-level of the system, Shark can
  also provide you with tremendous insight about the behavior of your
  application relative to the rest of the system.

  Among the types of operations you can perform in Shark are the
  following:

  Statistical sampling of your application over a period of time
  System-level tracing
  Malloc tracing
  Static analysis
  L2 Cache profiling
  Processor bandwidth analysis
  Java code analysis

  In addition to basic sampling, Shark also offers the windowed time
  facility feature for several of its sampling options. The windowed
  time facility tells Shark to record and process a finite buffer of the
  most recently acquired samples. This feature lets Shark record data
  continuously and for long periods of time in the background. You can
  then direct Shark to stop sampling only after something interesting
  occurs in your code and to display the samples related to that
  interesting behavior. Thus, you can use this feature to determine what
  part of your program’s execution is interesting after it occurs.

  For a quick example of how to use Shark, see “Using Shark.” For
  detailed information about Shark, see Shark User Guide.

The page also lists a number of other tools in the developer tool suite that can be used to monitor your system's performance and hopefully pin down any potential bottlenecks before you buy the second SSD.


What does model name means for MacBook Pro?

The MR942 designator is most likely a partial Apple Manufacture Part Number, e.g.: MR942LL/A

From CDW, an Apple Authorized Reseller, in the image below see the yellow highlighted section.

According to Mactracker, a MacBook Pro with MR942 which they call it an Order Number, and which by the way is an incomplete Order Number, e.g. MR942LL/A, is a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) 2.6 GHz Space Gray, as shown in the yellow highlighted section of the image below.

Mactracker is probably mistakenly calling an Apple Manufacture Part Number an Order Number.

Looking on the box my MacBook Pro came in, this convention corresponds to what's labeled as "(1P) Part No.", albeit a different sequence nonetheless, it matches the pattern of ?????LL/A and as such MR942 is in all likelihood a partial Apple Manufacture Part Number.


One USB-port on MacBook Pro late 2011 doesn't work.

So, the first thing that different devices will tax the USB port differently. The Jaybird headphones likely requires less wattage than the iPhone to charge which is why the damaged port works for some devices but not others.

Given that you are not getting full power output and data transfer is not working it sounds like the connectors on the inside of the port are bad (as you alluded to in your question).

You did not state a year for your MacBook Pro but on pretty much all modern models the USB ports contacts reside embedded in a bit of plastic, and the actual connectors are soldered directly onto the main board. If you had skills with soldering etc you might be able to take the machine apart and fix the port, but this would void any warranty you may have.

My recommendation would be to take it into the Apple Store and have them take a look at it. I would guess you will need a new logic board. Apple will give you a price and you can decide from there if you want to:

Have Apple fix it
Take to a 3rd party to fix (cheaper but not Apple parts)
Try and fix it yourself
Buy a new machine
Live with the issue and just use the other ports

Hope this helps!


Why can't I move notes from my "On My iPhone" to iCloud?

Without using a Mac or iCloud.com, I think the best way is to simply copy and paste the contents of each note into a new note that is on iCloud. Thankfully, you only have four notes, so it's not too time intensive to do.


How can I make existing permissions apply to new files?

That Terminal command only aplies to existing files as you might have guessed. And there is no modification to it so that it will set the permissions of future files right. It doesn't work like that.

I think you might have a problem with your disk's ownership. Through your Mac's view, you don't owe that disk partition. You must set that right.

And if you ask why the Terminal command works when I don't owe the disk, it's because of that sudo keyword in front of it. sudo initiates the most privileged user in a UNIX/Linux system, which is the root user, that it can pretty much do whatever it wants. Even if you're the admin user, you can't do everything on your OS; you must switch to the root user. It's basically a safety system in place.

Anyway, in order to set your disk's ownership right,

open a Finder window,
right-click to your external drive,
select Get Info
at the bottom, there must be a Sharing & Permissions section. Check to see if you are listed there. Otherwise add yourself to the list.

Also, besides your current problem, why did you partitioned the SSD into two? You said you did it not to lose your data when you format the OS but when a new Mac OS comes, it's exchanged with the old one when all your personal data stays intact. Besides a Time Machine backup would be much safer if you don't want to lose your data.

Frankly, it's a personal choice and when you look at it as bits and bytes nothing really changes, but keeping the SSD as a whole would be much neater.


Logitech MX Ergo Scroll wheel doesn't work

I needed to give the Logitech Option Dameon the ability to control my computer in System Preferences -> Security&Privacy -> Accessibility -> Privacy


After upgrade to HighSierra Finder's Sidebar do not work anymore

Two things could be going on here:
1
First with the introduction of macOS High Sierra you can now synchronise your Desktop and Documents folders with iCloud Drive.
macOS does some screwy things with them as officially they are actually still in /Users/{username}/(Desktop|Documents) which you'd expect but Finder relocates them into iCloud Drive if you have this feature enabled, this could be why your old shortcuts aren't working.

If this isn't something you want you could disable this by going to System Preferences > iCloud > iCloud Drive and unchecking "Desktop & Documents Folders"
2
The system update didn't go quite to plan, this is the route of trouble shooting you've already been testing and the work you've done so far is perfect.
2a
Next steps assuming it's not just what I've said in option 1 above, would be to create a new user account, and see if that resolves the issues. If it does you can use the /Users/Shared folder to transfer all your files manually, but you will need to re-setup all your preferences and some software may have only been licensed in that user account, not across the system, but from what you've described you seem pretty technically competent and would be able to manage that, if not come back and we can give you further help.
2b
If that also didn't work you should backup your files manually, and perform a full system restore, there are instructions on Apple.com here:
macOS Sierra: Erase and reinstall macOS
The instructions are the same for High Sierra.


Applescript code to find path to Desktop picture in Desktop 2

This works for me:

tell application "System Events"
set tlst to a reference to every desktop
--set picture of item 1 of tlst to newtop  -- display 1
--set picture of item 2 of tlst to newtop -- display 2
set z to (picture of item 2 of tlst) as text
end tell
return z

The commented out lines are for setting desktop pic on one display or the other. newtop is obviously preset, or the result of

set newtop to choose file


macOS update closed all my applications?

You will normally be prompted to install updates as they are detected. However if you were away from your computer you may not see those notifications. Also if you delay them enough times they will eventually be installed for you. Lastly if the updates are detected overnight they may be installed right then as well. This is usually done sometime after 3 a.m.

You can go to  → System Preferences → App Store and uncheck the following:

Install app updates
Install macOS updates
Install system data files and security updates

This will keep macOS from installing updates, quitting apps and/or restarting your system without asking you first.

You will still be notified when updates become available, and offered the choice to install them.


How can I see traffic from shared Wifi (Macbook AirPort)?

tcpdump is a command-line utility to see the traffic on any network interface.  It is full-featured, but can require some serious reading of the man page.

Wireshark is a full-featured application that will allow you to see all such traffic.  It provides a GUI (X-windows based) into which you can specify filters on traffic and collect statistics.  See more info and download it at wireshark.org.  I find knowledge of Wireshark to be very, very helpful with lots of network tasks.


I have the exactly same issue.  It started to happen after my upgrade to High Sierra.  I own a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display.  I googled a bit and found that this happens mostly to MacBook Pro with Retina owners 2012- or 2013-version.

Resetting NVRAM/PRAM or SMC did not work for me but turning off automatic graphic switching as you suggested worked. I will have to turn it off until Apple got to fix this.


Can the iPhone 7 Plus battery be damaged by the use of an external battery charger?

I bought and used an external battery charger on mu iPhone 5s and believe that it did damage my phone's battery. I now get only a few hours of power before the phone is depleted. This happened directly after using the charger for a week.


I am pretty sure that the reason these symlinks changed was due to the homebrew updates announced in version 1.3.0:

  "The most significant change since 1.2.0 is that brew install python
  no longer installs a python binary without manual PATH additions and
  instead installs a python2 binary. This avoids overriding the system
  python binary by default when installing Python as a dependency. It
  also paves the way to eventually have python be Python 3.x."


Connect another mac as secondary display

No.
Unless explicitly mentioned in the official specifications for the machine, it can't.  For this machine it is https://support.apple.com/kb/sp649
You might find Synergy an interesting alternative as it allows you to use both machines at once.  https://symless.com/synergy


How to manage permissions of files owned by user "_unknown" in Mac OS 10.13.4?

I have found that 'chmod' is broken on 10.13.4, but 'cp', 'rm' and 'mv' are not.

That is, as a sudoer I can:

use 'cp' to copy the file (I now own the copy)
use 'rm' to remove the file with corrupted permissions
use 'mv' to rename my copy as the original
use 'chmod' and 'chown' to adjust ownership and permissions on the file.

It's a bit clumsy, but I can use a simple BASH script to fix one of these files, when I find it.


Is it mandatory to upload screenshots for all screensizes when submitting to the app Store?

From what I understand if you only upload 5.5inch and iPad, they'll just reject you outright. Currently, it looks like they require at least 4 and 3.5. If you indicate it's optimized for iPhone 6, it also requires a 4.7.

It looks like if it indicates that it runs on iPad you need both an iPad an iPad Pro.

Check out the requirements for yourself here: iTunes Connect Dev Guide

Remember, required/requirements means it's mandatory.


Logging onto Yosemite with FileVault enabled with no username displayed?

That is just how FileVault2 (introduced with 10.7) works.

You have a pre-defined set of "Enabled Users" that are allowed to decrypt the boot drive, and those are the users (just your account in this case) that get listed in the first boot screen. Since you have only one account the system deduced automatically that only your account would be the one to unlock the drive. Since the users are predefined, Apple felt it best to just display the accounts in a clickable list.

The reason for this is if you had multiple accounts on the computer, but only wanted a select few to be able to unlock the drive you could enable those specific users and make it so the others required additional authorization from an enabled user.

OS X also has a handy little helper in that OS X will pass the login info that you gave it during the boot drive unlock into the login window and bypass that screen so you don't have to type in your user/pass twice.

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT4790
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH18637


How do I get the American Flag back on my menu bar?

in the Language and Text, under Input source, you need to select one or more input sources; you also need to select Keyboard and Character Viewer on the top of the input source list.
As far as I know, the flag is displayed only when you select more than one input source; differently, the icon you see is a generic one.

This is the icon you see when just an input source is selected.

This is the icon you see when you selected two or more input sources; in this case, the selected input source is "Italian Pro."


How to hide specific shares in the sidebar from Finder?

Just drag the icon outside of the sidebar.


What is the frame rate of the 1080p HDMI output on an iPad 3rd Generation?

For HD video, Apple's page on the specifications for iPad 3rd Generation states (emphasis mine):

  Video formats supported: H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High Profile level 4.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;

So if it is capable of playing HD video up to 1080p at just 30fps, then all that an HDMI capture card with 60fps support can do is capture at 30fps (and maybe add interpolation frames to make it 60fps). Since there's no actual gain by doing this, a 1080p30 capture card should suffice.

On the apps side, according to benchmark tests by phonearena.com on the iPad 3rd Generation, it was able to go up to 60fps (depending on the test). But note that this is just graphics rendering frame rate, not video decoding or even video recording (the latter is just 30fps according to Apple's specifications page). Video encoding (converting the app's graphics to HD) cannot be better than the video decoding support of 30fps.

I do not know if the HDMI output would be at the same frame rate for apps and video.


The LCD and the digitiser are a single integrated piece and cannot be separated for repair. As Alex said above you would have to replace the entire lot.

This forum post over at iFixit a very popular iPhone/apple/computer repair blog and shop highlights the fact this cannot be done.

http://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/25507/Can+I+separate+the+glass+from+the+LCD+screen


When writing AppleScript in Automator, what is the significance of "input" and "parameters"?

I'll try to answer my own question, making use of the relevant documentation1 provided by @user3439894 in a comment on my question.

Where does the AppleScript code get these variables from?

input:

  The input parameter contains (in most instances) the output of the previous action in the workflow.

The data type of input is list.

To display the contents of input in Automator's corresponding "Results" pane for that specific action, simply use:

return input

parameters:

  The parameters parameter contains the settings made in the action’s user interface.

The data type of parameters is reco (i.e., a record object).

Here is an overview of the reco type2:

  This type is used as the type of the properties property for the item class, and the type of the with properties parameters of the duplicate and make commands.

To display the contents of parameters in Automator's corresponding "Results" pane for that specific action, simply use:

return parameters

What, specifically, does parameters contain?

I was curious what exactly is meant by, "settings made in the action’s user interface," so I took a look at the contents of parameters. I learned that, unlike input, parameters only contains information about that specific action, not any information regarding the preceding action.

By using the following line of code,

display dialog length of parameters

I also discovered that the number of properties in parameters for a "Run AppleScript" action in Automator is three.

They are:

|temporary items path|:

where |temporary items path| is followed by the file path of the temporary folder created to store temporary data that may be created by the currently running "Run AppleScript" action. This folder is necessarily created upon run, even if the code does not create any temporary data. After the "Run AppleScript" action has completed, this folder and its parent folder are immediately deleted.

Note that |temporary items path| differs from (path to temporary items).

return POSIX path of (path to temporary items) produces:

  "/private/var/folders/p9/q_5_fbld7qzdmz6htfqjcxhw0000gn/T/TemporaryItems/"

return |temporary items path| of parameters produces:

  "/var/folders/p9/q_5_fbld7qzdmz6htfqjcxhw0000gn/T/1BD6446F-5501-42E5-A002-29588DFF8BD8/1/com.apple.Automator.RunScript"

While both folders reside within the "T" folder, the difference between these two folders is that the |temporary items path| folder, as well as its parent folder, are deleted upon completion of the "Run AppleScript" action (i.e., this folder is action-specific), while the path to temporary items folder is never deleted and can be viewed even when the AppleScript is not running.

ignoresInput:

where ignoresInput is either true or false, depending on whether the "Ignore this action's input" box found in the Options tab beneath that action in Automator is either ticked or unchecked.

source:

where source contains the unabridged AppleScript code of that "Run AppleScript" action.

How does one read the contents of parameters within an AppleScript?

Since the type of parameters is not list, one cannot simply:

set firstParameter to item 1 of parameters

as this will produce an error. But, you can convert parameters to a list object:

set parametersInListFormat to (parameters as list)

Then, you'll be able to execute something like this:

set individualItemFrom_parametersInListFormat to ""

repeat with individualItemFrom_parametersInListFormat in parametersInListFormat
    display dialog individualItemFrom_parametersInListFormat
end repeat

Alternatively, you can skip the conversion to a list and read the contents of parameters simply like so1:

set item1 to |temporary items path| of parameters
set item2 to |ignoresInput| of parameters
set item3 to source of parameters

To where exactly does the AppleScript return the input to?

The input of the current action is sent to the next action as that action's input.

More info on the return statement3:

  A return statement exits a handler and optionally returns a specified value. Execution continues at the place in the script where the handler was called.

  If a handler does not include a return statement, AppleScript returns the value returned by the last statement. If the last statement doesn’t return a value, AppleScript returns nothing.

  When AppleScript has finished executing a handler (that is, when it executes a return statement or the last statement in the handler), it passes control to the place in the script immediately after the place where the handler was called. If a handler call is part of an expression, AppleScript uses the value returned by the handler to evaluate the expression.

How might these variables be ideally employed in an AppleScript application/service?

Now that I better understand the positional parameters of input and parameters, it is easier for me to imagine their practical value.

input:

The value of input is conspicuous and the possibilities for its implementation are immeasurable.

One very basic application would be if you want to pass a string of text that a user enters in a dialog box via an "Ask for Text" action to the next action, a "Run AppleScript" action that writes this string to file. Here is what this might look like:

parameters:

Given that parameters is limited to that specific action and does not contain any data from previous actions, and the data that it does contain isn't necessarily relevant, it is much less useful and flexible  than input. I can visualize the need for |temporary items path|, but I am unable to do so for the other two properties.

Here is an example of how one might need to reference |temporary items path| in their AppleScript:

Say that one wanted an Automator application to display to the user the dimensions of a web image.

The user could use |temporary items path| as a location to store that image, so that the code could operate on it. Then, upon completion, since the user does not need or want the image saved to disk, the AppleScript would automatically delete that image (or, more specifically, the AppleScript would automatically delete the folder that contains the folder that contains that image).
Here is how this might be implemented:

on run {input, parameters}

    set theURLofImage to "https://cdn.sstatic.net/Sites/stackoverflow/company/img/logos/se/se-logo.png"
    set tempFolderThatIsAutomaticallyDeletedAfterRun to |temporary items path| of parameters
    set filename to "StackExchangeLogo.png"
    set fullFilepath to tempFolderThatIsAutomaticallyDeletedAfterRun & "/" & filename

    -- Saving image from internet to disk.
    -- From: http://stackoverflow.com/a/21491446/7138483
    do shell script "curl -f " & theURLofImage & " -o " & fullFilepath

    -- Figuring out the dimensions of the saved image.
    -- From: https://www.macosxautomation.com/applescript/imageevents/01.html
    try
        tell application "Image Events"
            launch
            set this_image to open fullFilepath
            -- Extract the properties record.
            set the props_rec to the properties of this_image
            -- Purge the open image data.
            close this_image
            -- Extract the property value from the record.
            copy (dimensions of props_rec) to {x, y}
            set the image_info to "Dimensions of " & filename & ": " & "" & x & " x " & y
        end tell
        display dialog image_info
    on error error_message
        display dialog error_message
    end try

    return input
end run

Also, one might want to monitor the size of the |temporary items path| folder, to impose a limitation, so that if its size surpasses a certain value, an error is presented to the user.

In terms of how |ignoresInput| might be used, one could change the |ignoresInput| setting mid-code, with the following line:

set |ignoresInput| of parameters to true

One might want to arrange their code so that if the input meets or does not meet some condition, then the input should be ignored. For example:

if item 1 of input > 10 then
        set |ignoresInput| of parameters to true
end if

But, even if one did want to make sure that the input was only utilized if its contents met some condition, one could accomplish this same effect without having to read or alter the |ignoresInput| value; instead, one could simply declare their own boolean value for this purpose. So, I still think that the applicability of the |ignoresInput| parameter is questionable.

Similarly, I can't think of any particularly compelling reasons why one would need to read or modify the source parameter of their AppleScript while it runs.

What else?

One area of confusion for me still exists.

I still don't understand why Apple, in its documentation, advises against not returning anything in an AppleScript1:

  The template code finally returns input as its output; your action should always return something as output, even if it what [sic] is given it as input.

What's the harm of removing the return statement from one's AppleScript, if one does not need it?

If someone familiar with AppleScript methodology can address this matter for me, please drop a comment.

It is possible that I am misinterpreting the sentence.

I am interpreting this sentence to mean:

"When writing your code, you should always make sure to include a return statement somewhere in your code."

But, the sentence could potentially mean instead:

"If you put a return statement in your code, that return statement is designed to always return something. If you don't assign anything to input, then the code will simply return the same input that it received."

The ambiguity revolves around the original intent of the word, should, and whether the should is meant to act as a recommendation for the user writing an AppleScript, or whether, by should, they meant will.

Sources for passages included in this answer:

1. Automator Programming Guide - The Structure of the on run Command Handler

2. Cocoa Scripting Guide - Built-in Support for Basic AppleScript Types

3. AppleScript Language Guide - Handler Reference


Save Bash shell history also when closing Terminal tab

This drove me crazy for months until I read through /etc/bashrc_Apple_Terminal. trap shell_session_update HUP fixed it for me. Terminal appears to send SIGHUP to the shell whenever a tab is closed or the entire Terminal app is closed via Cmd-Q.


Macbook 7.1 (mid-2010): upgrade from 10.8 to 10.12

Two solutions were kindly given by Allan, I chose the "easiest" one:

In recovery mode, access to Terminal
In /Volumes/"Macintosh HD"/System/Library/Extensions directory, remove Huawei .kext files (using rm -rf command) or other non-essential kext files. It appears that, for some reason, many users had issues with Huawei kext files...
After reboot, the installation was completed seamlessly, Sierra is finally installed.


In order to “wipe” the drive and reinstall, you need the original install disks.   The Early 2008 (White) MacBook did not support internet recovery at all.

Also, the highest supported OS is 10.7.5 (Lion) so if you intend to upgrade, keep this in mind.  These install DVDs are available on the secondary market (eBay).


How to know which one is used when charging a MacBook Pro with usb-c from multiple power adapters?

The one that has the most power is the one that does the charging

From Apple's support page Connect with Thunderbolt 3 on your new MacBook Pro (that was linked in the question), it states that

  If you connect multiple power supplies to your MacBook Pro, the one that provides the most power will be used, regardless of the order in
  which you connected them.

You need to check the specs of the power bank and the charger.  How many watts to each have.  To get this info, use the simple calculation:

Volts = Watts x Amps

If you power bank give you 5V at 2A it's capable of delivering 10W.  If your charger is capable of 12V at 5A then it's capable of delivering 60W.  The one with the most is charging your Mac.

Most likely, your power bank is nowhere close to an AC adapter - that's the one you should disconnect.


How to stop this icon from appearing on the taskbar?

That's the "handoff" feature. You can turn it off at: Settings > General > Handoff.

When you turn it off, that device can't send or receive handoffs. A little bit more info.

You could also use a different iCloud account on your phone/iPad if you wanted handoff to work between a Mac and one device but not both iOS devices, but more than one iCloud is a hassle, so disabling handoff entirely is much cleaner.


iCloud Photo Library on multiple devices: how to keep a centralized location for originals?

When you shoot something with the iPhone, it is full sized only if

It is recently clicked or opened.
It has not been uploaded to iCloud.

When iCloud gets the full size image, and iPhone gets low on storage, image is downsized.

When MacBook syncs the photos, it downloads the full size image and keeps it.

When iPad gets the photo, I don't know what happens in transition, but ultimately, it has only a thumbnail.


What size SSD would suffice for basic software-development / productivity?

A 128GB SSD would have enough room for what you list, with room to spare. A 256GB SSD, imho, would not cost that much more, and would give you more flexibility.

Be aware that the version of Xcode needed to develop for iOS 7 requires Mountain Lion, and ML may not support that machine. For learning or developing for iOS 6, Lion/Xcode 4 should be fine.


How to type a normal quotation mark without auto-substitution?

In OpenOffice and LibreOffice, you go to Format > AutoCorrect > AutoCorrect Options > Localized Options and uncheck the boxes for Replace under Single Quotes and Double Quotes.


How can I open a recent Pages file when I get the message "The required index.xml file is missing"

Just right click on the pages file you want to open, and it will give you the option to "open with" the new version of pages.


This link explains what you want very briefly, with this Apple doc doing a better job, and this older post really explaing.

/etc: Machine local system configuration, holds administrative, configuration, and other system files; Contains host-specific configuration files.
/opt: Has a very similar role to /usr/local and they seem interchangeable. However, from my experience working with other Linux/UNIX sysadmins, there seems to be a preference for /usr/local in BSD-based UNIX OSs.
/private: The Unix core: other directories are symbolic links to folders within here
/cores: When applications crash, they can save a lot of information about the state when they crashed here.

So you can delete the content of /cores, but you shouldn't remove the folder itself.


In recent versions of iOS you can request a desktop site in Mobile Safari.
Long-press/hold the reload control icon (see annotated screenshot below) in the address bar until a dialog pops up, then select "Request Desktop Site".

The user agent changes from iPhone OS (e.g. mobile OS) to Intel Mac OS X (e.g. desktop OS).

(Screenshots below show a German user agent check webpage, but you get the idea.)

Mobile Safari: "regular" iOS user agent

Mobile Safari: desktop Mac user agent after "Request Desktop Site"


Bluetooth keyboard causing wifi to freak out, in turn using all of my CPU and RAM?

Bluetooth and WiFi do use the same 2.4GHz1 frequency bands (as do many other things), so they could interfere relatively easily. It also doesn't help that there are a lot of networks in your area. However, I find it highly unlikely that the interference would cause you to lose your connection, given that the video shows a full 4 bars when you are connected.

Personally, I would suspect a hardware issue in this case. The Bluetooth and WiFi connections are most likely controlled by the same chip in your computer, so it may be malfunctioning only if both of its services are being used. Try reproducing the issue on someone else's wireless network, and take it in to an Apple Store if you can. If you cannot reproduce it on someone else's network, it may be that your router is picky with its connections, or something else completely.

1 802.11n does allow using a 5GHz band instead, so you could try that if your router and computer support it. It isn't very commonly used yet, so there is typically little interference there.


Does activating text forwarding between Apple devices forward old messages?

Text message forwarding only applies to messages sent and received when the option is active. This is not retrospective and does not copy prior messages over.

Apple keep delaying the introduction of Messages in the Cloud which will sync all message history. At the time of writing, this functionality is not available.


A vanilla solution is to hold option and click the plus icon (now transformed into ...) for adding a new rule. This will give a list of options, among which is the Any rule.
(You may need to delete the initial rule; the option click method only works on subsequent rules)

Screenshot:


Incomprehensible information in system diagnostic report

You are correct to find them incomprehensible - those are not plain text files but instead binary formatted files.

What you can do is focus on the high level task and see if you even need to look at those files in the first place. Usually there are easier options than reverse-engineering the binary format for debugging issues.


Web and outbound ssh stopped working but ping and other network services work

Fixed by removing old NetNanny extensions as suggested in
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2296455


Fusion Drive lost space after bootcamp-fail. resizeStack throws an error. What can I do?

Since I wasn't able to resize the stack and seemingly no one was able to help me, I decided to to this:

Make an image of the Fusion Drive Volume and save it onto an external hard drive
Delete the Fusion Drive
Rebuild the Fusion Drive
Install OS X to let it create the Recovery partition
Boot OS X, run Bootcamp Assistant
Run the Windows Installer WITH NO EXTERNAL DRIVES ATTACHED (!)
Restore the image to the Fusion Drive
Be happy after 10 hours of work

Not the best procedure to do but as this was the only thing that seemed to help, I did it.

For recreating the Fusion Drive I used this answer from klanomath:
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/168744/109455

I have a working setup with OS X El Capitan and Windows 10 now.


How to allow Siri to call only specific persons

There is no such an option for Siri.

But you can adjust Siri to call your "Mom" by sayin "call my mom" and Siri will ask who is your mom from contacts then you can set the name of mom.
Uncle, brother, sister, dad and etc. can be learned by Siri also.


MiniDisplay port to HDMI to optical 5.1 audio only has 2-channel output

According to Apple, the 2017 MacBook Air does not support audio over DisplayPort to HDMI devices.  It is only supported on models from 2010 through 2015.

Send audio and video to HDMI displays through Mini DisplayPort

It explains what you are seeing/experiencing with the audio settings.  It is detecting your HDMI device which is capable of 8.1 audio, but it simply cannot deliver it; thus all the settings are greyed out.

Now, when I have connected DisplayPort (or mDP) to a DisplayPort monitor with audio capabilities, they have always been stereo (left and right), never more than that.  This corroborates what you’re experiencing - only left and right channels available.  I currently don’t have an MBA to re-verify this, but this appears to be the case.

The 2018 MacBook Air (and on) with Thunderbolt 3 ports fully supports the HDMI 1.4b (minimum) spec with 8.1 audio.


The best way to do this would be using playlists. You can drag folders of songs directly into an iTunes playlist. If the songs in question are already part of your library, doing this will create duplicates, so I'd recommend deleting theses songs from iTunes before adding them to your playlist.


There is no connected camera message with built in FaceTime camera

From osxdaily:

Quit all open apps that may try to use the FaceTime camera
Open Terminal, found in the /Applications/Utilities directory in OS X
Enter the following command string exactly, then hit return:

sudo killall VDCAssistant

Enter the administrator password when requested, this is required to execute a command with superuser privileges as prefixed by sudo
Relaunch the app that was attempting to use the camera

Or... Use Activity Monitor, search for VDC and force quit it.


If you are just trying to share your internet connection, you can do this from System Preferences > Sharing > Internet Sharing

If that's not why you posted this and you still do it manually(see Eir Nym's post). Don't forget to:

    sudo sysctl -w net.inet.ip.forwarding=1


How can I combine multiple font files into one family?

If you're not afraid about command lines, I suggest you ttf2ttc. *.ttc files are TrueType fonts Collection


Changing my sound Output Device also changes my Play Sound Effects Through setting - should it?

This is how it’s supposed to work because when you disconnect a Bluetooth sound device, it no longer exists. When that happens everything goes back to the default of Internal Speakers
I just tried it. I had everything set to my headset and when I disconnected it, it no longer showed up as an output device.
There are some apps that remember by output settings so if and when I reconnect my headset it will automatically switch.  It seems that the safety setting is to make sure Notifications always plays and that’s done by the system always setting them back to Internal.
I also checked with my USB speakers by making sound effects go there and as long as those speakers were there even if Bluetooth was connected and disconnected, the notifications didn’t change to Internal.


This turned out to be a driver issue, related to having an incorrect version of Bootcamp installed. (This was a result of having moved my Win7 partition from the old machine via Winclone.

Uninstalling Bootcamp (in order to get the new version installed) was a bit of a pain. Whenever I tried to remove the Bootcamp Services app from the "Uninstall a Program" dialog in Win7, I received a message

  This version of Bootcamp is not intended for this computer model.

Finally, I used the Microsoft Uninstall Repair Tool, which modified something that let me uninstall the old version of the Bootcamp utilities.

I then ran the new Bootcamp\setup.exe that Bootcamp Assistant downloaded for this machine. Installation proceeded without a hitch, though it took ~10 minutes to complete. I then re-ran the "Windows Experience Index" assessment and got a respectable 7.2 for the SSD:

Surprisingly, still lower than the 7.9 I got on the mid-2012 15" Retina with 768GB SSD.

The WinSat command-line tool provided more insight:

with a read speed of 1181.8 MB/sec, and a write speed of 1019.66 MB/sec. This is roughly equivalent with what BlackMagic reports under OSX.

(Still, I'm wondering if Windows gives speeds > 1GB/sec a 7.2 of 7.9, what on earth do they consider to be a 7.9?)


My Photo Stream still uploads pictures after iCloud fills up?

Apple covers this in the FAQ on Photo Stream and iCloud photos. It’s towards the bottom :

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317

  Does My Photo Stream use my iCloud storage?

  No. The photos you upload to My Photo Stream don't count against your iCloud storage.


Put one of these snippets in your userChrome.css file, depending on your Firefox version:

Firefox 69

Toggle toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets to true in about:config as well as userChrome.css modification.

Firefox 29 (Australis)

.tabbrowser-tab[pinned][titlechanged]:not([selected="true"]) > .tab-stack > .tab-content {
  background-image: none !important;
}

Pre-29

#tabbrowser-tabs > .tabbrowser-tab > .tab-stack > .tab-background * {
    background: none !important;
}

Discovered by looking for [titlechanged] selectors in browser.css (chrome://browser/skin/browser.css).

https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1541233


How do you turn off the "Try the new Safari" notification?

You can get rid of it without giving in to Apple‘s desire for you to “Try Now”. Even if you click the button, they will ask you to change your default and may still ask again at a later time. I have explained it in much greater details on my blog but the gist of it are these three commands:

defaults write com.apple.coreservices.uiagent CSUIHasSafariBeenLaunched -bool YES
defaults write com.apple.coreservices.uiagent CSUIRecommendSafariNextNotificationDate -date 2050-01-01T00:00:00Z
defaults write com.apple.coreservices.uiagent CSUILastOSVersionWhereSafariRecommendationWasMade -float 10.99

You must log out and in again for the change to apply. You should actually do it immediately to prevent the system from reverting the changes.

I also cover how to stop Safari from prompting you to become the default every few days. (epimorphic touched on this briefly.) Interesting if you need to use Safari on occasions for site-compatibility, testing, or whatever reason. (Oddly enough, I have not heard any automated browsing test suite authors complaining about this yet.)


Why is Safari on iOS 10 not rendering some pages correctly?

It's happening to me as well after installing ios10 on my iPhone 6.  It randomly stops loading pages correctly.   The only way to fix it is to double tap the home button and close down safari or view it private mode.   But it's a temporary fix.


Create bookmark folders on iPhone or iPad?

Here's how you do it in iOS 4.1:

In Safari, hit the bookmarks icon
Press the "Edit" button in the lower left
In the lower right, a "New Folder" button appears. Press it.
Type in the name of the folder and hit "Done" on the keyboard.


need to reinstall mac os x but the command key is broken

You can force restart by holding the power button for a few seconds.

If the Option key works, hold that during restart. This will present you with a list of all valid bootable partitions.

If that doesn't work try plugging in an external keyboard.


Apple Numeric Keyboard can't render the at sign "@" on Mac Mini

I checked "US," then the checkbox beside "Danish" was enabled, then I unchecked it.


How to convert an epub package to regular epub?

FWIW, here's a shell command that works:

 cd my-broken.epub

 # iTunes/Books seems to add a file
 # 'iTunesMetadata.plist', and it produces a warning.
 # May also contain private data, so better delete it.

 rm iTunesMetadata.plist

 zip -X -r ../fixed.epub mimetype *

As far as I can tell, compression does not need to be deactivated (-0). epubcheck has no complaints. There might be differences between versions of the epub spec, however. My test was with an epub 3.0 file.


Can anyone interpret verbose shutdown messages?

It depends on each executable.

The closedown process sends a signal SIGTERM to each process and the process should then cleanup and shut itself down. This includes subprocesses and that appears to be most of the lines in your log - perhaps the parent does not shut its subprocesses down when it does, also see Unix zombie processes in wikipaedia

I would suggest that the original parent has not behaved 'properly' but probably does not matter unless there become many more zombie processes when the OS could run out of process handles.


How can I copy a file from a CD when Finder reports error code -36?

Error code -36

-36 (ioErr) (I/O error) is a file system error, it indicates that data cannot be sent or received by the operating system. Historically, errors of this type were bummers.

Finder: source and destination

Think not only of the source (the CD); think also of the destination.

The file

What is the one file that Finder can not copy?

The file system

What type of file system is the destination? The answer will be amongst results to the following command:

mount

A volume with file system type hfs should be good for most purposes.

Depending on what you wish to copy, other types of file system may be equally good.

Disk Utility

For copying a CD in its entirety – or for imaging a file system within a CD – Disk Utility is ideal.


How do I trim first and last few seconds of a mp4 using AppleScript?

tell application "QuickTime Player"
    set d to duration of document 1
    trim document 1 from 1 to (round d - 2)
end tell

Changes from above are highlighted bold.

If the file you want isn't open already, you need to open it with the ‘open’ function.

tell application "QuickTime Player"
    set doc to open alias "Mac SSD:Users:path:to:your:file"
    set d to duration of doc
    trim doc from 1 to (round d - 2)
end tell

These scripts perform the trim but don't save the file back automatically. You'll need to call ‘save’ if you want to save your changes, or use the GUI with your opened document.

You need to tell the application that provides the trim operation. Wrap your trim operation in a ‘tell application’ block, which in this case is to tell QuickTime Player.
The trim operation takes a document and start & end points. The document is not a file name, but a document open in QuickTime Player. document 1 refers to the first document open.

Rather than hardcoded start and end points, you can get the duration from the video and take 2 seconds off the end to be used as the end point. This is what the d variable is used for in the code above.


Test e-mail with previous version of iOS

The only way to test on a previous version of iOS on an iPad/iPhone/iPod is to actually restore a backup to the version or wipe out the existing version and install a previous version over it.

There's no app that will allow you to do what you're looking for because the devices just won't allow it.

It's rare that an iOS update itself will cause the stock mail app to stop working.  You didn't mention what mail app you were using so I can only assume it's Mail.

With Xcode, you can run various different iOS versions on the simulator only.  If that will work for you then that's your only chance at testing.


Why does my WLAN stop working when I plug in my HDTV?

Bit of a shot in the dark but have you tried a different cable?  Maybe the one you're using is damaged and is shorting something somewhere which is affecting the wireless antenna.  It is definitely a weird problem by the sounds of it but you could try a couple of tests by first using a different cable, then using a different TV with each cable and see if they all produce the same result.  If they do then it might be worth getting Apple to take a look at your DisplayPort socket if you're under warranty or a good repair shop.  I've seen weird things happen to computers with dodgy USB cables so there's a chance it's something like that.


How to change device name in Profile Manager

you can only change it if your devices are enrolled in supervised mode. use apple configurator 2 to enroll the device to MDM, then you can select the supervised mode option.

after it's successfully enrolled, you can then rename the devices via the profile manager.


Can the OS X Mail dock count be made to show all (not just unread) count of inbox?

DockStar solved the issue for me. It now has an update to support both Mavericks and Yosemite when it comes out. I only tested in on Mavericks though, works great.

The great thing for me was that I have exactly 4 inboxes, so I can add a badge for all of them.


Atom editor no longer opens from command line

Looks to me as though it's running

/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/app/atom.sh

but you should be able to edit your ~/.bash_config and add the line

alias atom="/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/MacOS/Atom"
then re-open terminal and you'll be able to launch atom by typing atom [filename], assuming your copy of Atom is installed in the /Applications folder


There appears to be a misunderstanding about what the "Day starts at" and "Day ends at" settings do in Mavericks. The underlying idea is that these are your work hours.

Back when it was still called iCal, this caused portions of days outside that range to be shaded, to show they were off-hours. Now, however, the only effect these settings have (from what I have been able to find) is that they are used to determine which address is the starting location, for estimating travel time to an event. During work hours, your "work" address is used, and during other hours, your "home" address is used.

This is overridden by Calendar if there is an event (with a location) within the three hours prior to an event's start time, in which case the starting location is assumed to be the prior event's location. If you don't have work and/or home addresses set in your contact card in Contacts, Calendar will use your computer's current location (if available).

Regardless of the "Day starts at" and "Day ends at" settings (and even prior to Mavericks), the entire day will always be shown.


Why is it that I can no longer access some folders in my old time machine backups and how can I get access?

Have you tried repairing the disk permissions via Disk Utility?

If that doesn't work, try enabling the root account, logging in, and attempting to access the files.

  Use the "System Administrator" account to access the files:

  navigate to the folder "/System/Library/CoreServices/" and open "Directory Utility.app"
  Click the padlock
  in the "Edit" menu, choose "Enable root user"
  from the Apple menu, choose "Log out"
  log in as "System Administrator" (or "root") and you will have access to the files in "/Users/Abby"


How can carrier limit hot spot connections

It's baked into the iOS as a configurable number and the carriers submit carrier profiles that contain their preferred limits.


There's no way to make a table name the result of a calculation. You will need to use a table cell and hide the table name. Sounds like a good idea for a feature request, though.


infection in ~Library/Application Support/Mobilesync/Backup/xxxxx

It does not mean that your Mac or iPhone is infected and you should not delete the file.

From Wikipedia:

  Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing emails may contain links to websites that are infected with malware. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one.

So ClamAV has found a spoofed email stored somewhere in your iPhone Backup. Unless you clicked on the the links in the email, that's no problem.

However, if you delete the file, you will break the backup of your iPhone.

The best solution is to either:

tell ClamAV not to scan the folder; or
tell iTunes to encrypt your iPhone backups so that ClamAV won't be able to scan them.


I'm not sure what is causing it, but it sounds like a hardware issue, or that the power outlet the machine is plugged into may be faulty.

You can try going to the Energy Saver preference pane and unchecking Start up automatically after a power failure. If the computer really is shutting down and restarting this may help you find out.

If it is shutting down, it may be:

Faulty power supply
Faulty power outlet or another electronic device complicating power in that outlet
Overheating


Why does my Apple Watch glow green sometimes?

It's taking your heart rate.
Per Apple:

"Blood is red because it reflects red light and absorbs green light. Apple Watch uses green LED lights paired with light‑sensitive photodiodes to detect the amount of blood flowing through your wrist at any given moment. When your heart beats, the blood flow in your wrist - and the green light absorption - is greater. Between beats, it's less. By flashing its LED lights hundreds of times per second, Apple Watch can calculate the number of times the heart beats each minute - your heart rate."

The green LED's actually are flashing hundreds of times each second so to you it looks like it's glowing, but it's not.


How do you change which program Google Chrome invokes on a Mac?

When a HTTPS site tries to open a URL scheme that Chrome itself cannot handle (and doesn't have special modals like tel:), Chrome prompts to always let a site handle that scheme.

Checking the box will mean that type of link will always open with that app.
There is an open bug regarding the inability to reverse this decision with plenty of discussion.

Issue 982341: No obvious way to undo "Always open these types of links" decision for External Protocols.

Chromium has a CL to add scheme settings but without any approvals:

https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/2204825

Per {protocol,site} external protocol prompt exemptions were added to
Chrome in M84. This is a simple implementation of proposed settings UI
to clear the relevasnt stored prefs data.

You can disable sites from becoming handlers using the option at chrome://settings/handlers, but that is only an on or off choice for the entire scheme handling system.


Can't add events to iPhone calendar which are more than 1 year in the future

I think it's some kind of glitch in your phone or settings are not correct.

I checked on my iPhone 5, which runs iOS v.9.2.1 and event was saved even 3 years further. It's doesn't depend is it 1 year ahead, or 1 day ahead.

Try to troubleshoot:

When you are in a Calendar App, click calendars button in the bottom, and make sure the proper calendar is selected with checkboxes.
Check if the settings of synchronization for calendars are correct. Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
Try placing event to some other, closer date, closer than one year, if it doesn't work - proceed further.
Try a Restart. Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds until the red "slide to power off" slider appears, and then slide the slider. Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until the Apple logo appears.
Try system update, check if there are newer versions of iOS Settings->General->Software update.
Resetting your settings. You can also try resetting all settings. Settings->General->Reset->Reset All Settings. You will have to enter all of your device settings again.


How to copy the "Local Items" Keychain to a new mac?

FYI: I just managed to get my keys to my new mac (this only works if you still have access to the old Mac and can boot it up):

(on the old mac) Remove your current user's password
Create a new keychain (without a password)
Copy all keys in "Local Items" to your new keychain
Copy the keychain to the new mac
(on the new mac) Remove your current user's password
Add the new keychain file
Copy all keys in the new keychain to "Local Items"
Delete the new keychain
Don't forget to set a password again after that

It's a bit annoying as you have to click "Allow" for EACH item in the keychain but well, it's the only thing I found that works.


What's a simple & reliable way to transfer & listen to mp3s on my iPhone?

If you don't use Apple Music I would suggest something like iMazing (satisfied user for over a year) or another iTunes alternative with music management option.

Another solution is using Infuse or VLC as a player instead of the native Music app, you can import songs with File Sharing in iTunes and it shouldn't be affected with the 'dotted circle' bug.


Can I upgrade my MacBookPro Model6.1 8GB (2x 4GB) to 16GB (2x 8GB)

Apple's specs for the Mid 2010 17" MacBook Pro state the maximum is 8GB.

OWC maintains a list of Macs that can accept more RAM than Apple's official numbers. Unfortunately the Mid 2010 MBP is not on that list. (Do not confuse it with the Mid 2010 13" MacBook.)


Yes. By doing an iCloud backup (not iTuens) you only preserve apps, data and most basic settings. Phone will look the same after you recover from an iCloud backup.

Doing the same but with local Itunes backup will preserve absolutely Everything.

To reinstall ios on the iPhone you can either connect it to Itunes and do the procedure from there or directly on phone by going:

Settings --> Generall --> Reset --> Erase all content and settings.

Unfortunately this is not documented anywhere so i can not reference it but from personal experience this is my knowledge.


How can I open port 8080 of Mac OS X Lion?

When you say that you disabled the firewall, do you mean the one in:
System Preferences > Security > Firewall, or the ipfwIP Firewall that you can access from the command line? Or perhaps both?

To check to see if you have ipfw rules, you can always go to the terminal and type in:

sudo ipfw list

You might also use nmap to check if the port is open from different places on your internal network. Of course, OS X doesn't comes with nmap by default, so you would have to try that from a Linux machine or use something like Fink or Macports to install it.

nmap -p 8080 host.domain.com

I hope this helps.


MacOS dictionary look up stopped working

Found a quick fix. Just turning of Spotlight suggestions in Look up brought back the dictionary.

Not being able to click the button previously still seems like a bug to me though.


What software alternatives support streaming via AirPlay?

To date, there are no 3rd party software implementations of AirPlay. The spec itself is fully patented (though most of these patents relate to the hardware aspects of the system) and is essentially a proprietary standard unique to Apple (though several hardware vendors have announced hardware that will use the standard - XtremeMac, Denon). The current analysis of the protocol itself seems to indicate that it is a further evolution of the previous AirTunes protocol (which itself was built on top of Bonjour), so you are likely to see software implementations appear after developers have had more time to experiment with the protocol.


I had the same problem with a bunch of Apple apps. I restarted my computer a few times and they eventually went through. It has to be an issue on Apple's end because I had the issue on a brand new retina MacBook Pro with 10.8.2, and I don't muck around with any system stuff.


2 External monitors on 21,5 iMac Late 2009?

The late 2009 iMac uses Mini DisplayPort and not Thunderbolt, although they appear similar and share the same connector. The mDP technology included on the 2009 iMac does not support multiple displays.

In short, no. You will only be able to actually drive one monitor from the iMac, barring using a splitter. Such devices do exist but may not be able to provide you with a full dual-desktop experience (such as mirroring only, lower resolution, maximum display size limits, etc).

Source on Specs


Playing MPEG-2 videos in Quicktime
Perian massively extends the amount of  formats Quicktime can play. It's free.
Importing MPEG-2 in iMovie
I'm not aware of any solution to that. But Handbrake can help you convert that video to a format that works with iMovie (.avi).


How do I remove contacts on my sim card on iPhone?

iOS can't write to your SIM card, so you won't be able to do this on an iPhone. You have two options: find a friend with a phone that can write to SIM cards, install your SIM in their phone and erase it; or, just get a new SIM card from your carrier.


Deleting more than one song at one time on my iPhone?

You can do it by deleting albums, artists or compilations from the respective views. Swipe right on the item to get the Delete button and tap it to delete an entire album, an entire artist's works or an entire compilation. This still works only one (album or artist or compilation) at a time. There is no way to select multiple albums or artists or compilations for deletion.


How to show all results from a repeat loop in the Script Editor results pane

The immediate solution would be to use the Replies pane rather than the Results pane in Script Editor.  It will print a live result from each AppleScript command executed during the run of a script, whereas the Results pane only returns the overall result of the script's execution (which equates to the result of only the final command).

The final command in your script will be set cityName to city of json, and so the result of your script will be the value of cityName after it has been set to the value from the JSON record that pertains specifically to the last IP address in your list, i.e. "146.201.166.248".

So for a more comprehensive solution, you can edit your script slightly so that the last command will be one that returns what you actually want.  You can do this by first declaring a variable as an empty list, into which you would add an item of data in each iteration of your repeat loop.  After the repeat loop is complete, your final command would simply be a reference to that list so as to have AppleScript evaluate its contents and return the result:

set APIKey to "<your secret key>"
set URLRelativePath to "http://api.ipstack.com/"
set URLQueryString to "?access_key=" & the APIKey & "&fields=city"

set IPaddresses to {"104.137.108.23", "107.140.9.50", "146.201.166.248"}

set cityNames to {}

tell application "JSON Helper" to repeat with IPaddress in the IPaddresses
        fetch JSON from the URLRelativePath & the IPaddress & the URLQueryString
        set the end of cityNames to the contents of the result's city
        --OR: set the end of cityNames to the contents of {the IPaddress, the result's city}
end repeat

return the cityNames

This returns a list of all the city names (or a list of lists of IP address-city name pairs if you elect to use the line I commented out as an alternative).  To make this list into a single piece of text with one city per line, use the list that contains city names only; set the text item delimiters to linefeed; then coerce the list to text.  So, instead of return the cityNames, you would have:

set my text item delimiters to linefeed
return the cityNames as text


What does each cellular connectivity indicator mean?

The "o" means that you're on a 2G network. In Verizon's case, that would be 1xRTT. If you see it on an AT&T device, that means you're on GPRS.

Here's a screenshot from the iPad User Guide detailing what the various signal indicators mean:

"3G" means exactly the same thing on the 1st generation iPad as it does on the 3rd generation iPad. However, if you have AT&T, the 3rd generation iPad reports HSDPA+ as "4G". Since the 1st generation iPad is incapable of using HSDPA+, you will only ever see 3G or below on that device.


Open Terminal.app (Applications > Utilities) and type the following commands:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
killall Finder

To undo re-open Terminal.app and run

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE
killall Finder


There is a service disruption affecting the all iTunes stores. See Here

Wednesday, 14 October, 2015
All Store Services - Some users are affected
Users may be unable to access multiple services and stores or make purchases.

Next time this happens, check http://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/


How do I create a Windows-like Start Menu for the macOS Dock without 3rd party software?

You can add arbitrary folders to your Dock and these folders can contain other folders as well as aliases to apps in the /Applications folder.

Create a folder such as ~/Applications (macOS will automatically give the folder an icon if you use this location).
Add folders inside for the categories you wish.
Inside these folders, add aliases to the apps you wish.

To create an alias, right-click on the app and choose Make Alias.
Add this folder to your Dock by dragging the folder from Finder to the right side of the Dock separator line.
Right-click on the folder in your Dock and choose:

Sort By: Name
Display As: Folder
View Content As: Grid

Editing the contents of this folder will automatically update the contents of the folder in the Dock, so you don't need to remove it and add it when you make changes.

To add a Recent Applications stack to your Dock, run the following in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add \
  '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }' && killall Dock

To perform other actions from this menu, create an Automator application to shut down and add it to your folder.

The AppleScript in the screenshot is as follows:

tell application "System Events" to shut down

To sleep instead of shut down, replace ‘shut down’ with ‘sleep’. You can create many Automator applications to perform different actions.


Built-in GUI-based ASCII only editor for OS X

Any texteditor & textutil

Still intrigued by your problem I found the following solution. There is a Terminal app called textutil and it allows to convert richtext to plane text.

Edit and save your 'Rich' text anyway you want to (like in TextEdit).
Use the commandline textutil to convert your rich text to normal text

textutil richtext.rtf -convert txt

You can also pipe the textutil output through sed to replace smartquotes and do whatever your want with it

textutil richtext.rtf -convert txt -stdout | sed s/[”“]/'"'/g

Becomes:

Hello, this is rich Text with "smart" quotes


Is there a menu bar tool which will let me eject external drives easily?

Try Semulov - it is designed to eject volumes from the menu bar. The author has even made the source available on GitHub.


What would cause a CLI utility to ignore arguments except when invoked directly?

Maybe tree is defined as a function or alias in your .bashrc or .profile file?

Check output of \tree --version


How to auto select new screen when moving pointer from one monitor to another?

This is one of those paradigm shifts that really irritates Windows users & Mac users usually are just so used to it they either forget it happens, or prefer it because it's never 'dangerous' in that the first click can't accidentally trigger an action, it just foregrounds the app.
Of course, the other way round, Mac users are constantly clicking & actioning things on Windows when all they wanted to do was simply foreground the app ;)

There is an override behaviour which you may be able to use on occasions, but I know of no way to permanently change what is core behaviour on macOS.

If you hold  Cmd ⌘  as you click in a backgrounded app, you should be able to act on a button or element without bringing the app to the front.
Of course, if you need more than a simple click action, you will have to foreground the app eventually.

On the upside, you never have to foreground an app to scroll a window; merely hovering the cursor over it is sufficient to focus the scroll action.


It doesn't work this way.

You can add images by

going to the Photos app,
selecting the pictures you want to add
(I believe it's a button on the upper right of the screen to switch to selection mode),
and tap on Copy, once you selected them,
then you can go back to your mail, tap where you want to add them
and select Paste


I had the same problem as you few years ago.

You definitely have the sympthoms of bad sectors. If you can't backup with Time Machine I advise you to back your data from the finder by yourself and skipping the files that can't be read.

Edit : You won't be able to backup all your files. You can't retrieve the data stored on the dead sectors.


What happens to my purchased music if I cancelled my Apple Music subscription?

Your local iTunes library will stay the way it is—with or without an active Apple Music subscription.
If you subscribe but decide later on that you do ’t want to use Apple Music any longer, what will happen is that on other devices, that are not your main iTunes library device, you cannot stream songs any longer. Synchronising songs will still work as it did before Apple Music came out.
What you put into your iTunes library before subscribing to Apple Music will stay in there.

To quote iMore.com’s Apple Music FAQ:

What happens if I decide not to subscribe after the three month trial?
Any streaming music you've added to your library from the Apple Music catalog will no longer be playable; you'll stop having access to Connect content; you'll be skip-limited when listening to Apple Music radio stations; and unless you have iTunes Match enabled, you won't be able to stream your previously purchased and uploaded music to your devices, and any songs from your Mac's library that you've downloaded to other devices will be removed. (Your Mac's original iTunes library remains as-is.)


Simultaneous use of Airport Express and Time Capsule

You just extend the network created by one of the two devices. I.e. you start with the Time Capsule, making it create the WiFi. The AirPort Express then gets configured to just extend this network. If you've setup the Time Capsule to use the 5GHz band then yes, the Express will use that too.

It's effectively just one WiFi network (or two, if you count the 2.4GHz fallback for older/mobile devices) powered by both stations. All devices connected to that network have access to both stations and they will always get connected to the base station which is nearest. Here's this setting in the AirPort Utility:

When setting up a new network with the AirPort Utility you will be asked for this, so it's really easy and happens in two clicks/taps.

Apple also has a good support article on this:
Wi-Fi base stations: Setting up and configuring an extended wireless network


OS X Mail App - How to send an email at a specific date and time

There is a plugin for mail SendLater unfortunately it costs money. Maybe there are some similar free plugins.


Can I obtain the web browsing history from my in-app browsers on iOS and iPadOS?

There is currently (as of iOS 14) no way to view browser history if it's done within an app.  Developers use Apple's SFSafariViewController class and it doesn't expose this option to developers.
In addition to not being able to view history, in-app browsers can't provide access to autofill data or website data.


As of OS X El Capitan (10.11), this functionality is built in to the operating system. Go to System Preferences > General  and turn on "Automatically hide and show the menu bar."

Here is how it works:


Deprecated “natd” and “ipfw” in El Capitan

I figured it and it seems sharing VPN connection in El Capitan is so much easier than it seems.

In Preferences -> Network click on + and add a VPN (PPTP or L2TP)

In Preferences -> Sharing

Select (do not check yet), from the Share your connection from choose VPN connection previously created.
From To computers using select Wi-Fi if you connect your computer to internet with Ethernet cable or select Ethernet if you connect your computer to internet with Wi-Fi.
You can change Wi-Fi Options from bottom left button.
Now Check the Internet Sharing from the left menu, and click Start
Every time you connect the VPN a network will be created and lets you connect to it with any device and use the VPN on you Mac.


What is invalid internal_flags (0x28000) warning?

The reason you cannot find it is that there's no single flag with a value of 0x28000 - rather that is the value of internal_flags, which is a combination of multiple flags.
In particular 0x28000 corresponds to a combination of:
0x20000 = INODE_FAST_PROMOTE
0x08000 = INODE_NO_RSRC_FORK
INODE_FAST_PROMOTE means that the inode is scheduled for promotion from slow storage to fast storage. I.e. the next time the operating system reads in this inode, it is supposed to be promoted.
INODE_NO_RSRC_FORK means that the inode does not have a resource fork.
Why this combination is illegal depends on the state of your system, which you haven't specified. For example INODE_FAST_PROMOTE is only valid on a Fusion drive, and particularly it is only valid on an inode stored on the slow drive in the Fusion drive.
This particular warning could come from various causes depending on your specific system - for example:
A) You have a Fusion drive and this inode was migrated from the slow drive to the fast drive without removing the flag. It would be an operating system bug.
B) You haven't got a Fusion drive and this inode was tagged for promotion anyways. That would be an operating system bug.
C) A hardware error occured with the drive, interfaces, or other place that caused this particular bit to flip inadvertenly.
So to sum it up: If this is the only warning you have, and you experience no other problems - I would take care to ensure that you have working backups, and then disregard it.
If this is only one of many warnings, and you have experienced that more and more warnings are given - I would highly suspect that the drive is about to fail and needs replacement.
If you absolutely want to get rid of the warning, I would suggest taking a full backup - reformat the drive - and restore the backup.


Check your System Preferences -> Security pane, on the General tab, to make sure that the IR remote functionality on your machine isn't disable. If it isn't disabled try pairing the remote with the machine by clicking the Pair... button and following the on screen prompt.


How to record iPhone/iPad screen on macOS?

Requirements

iPhone/ iPad running iOS8 (Lightning port ONLY)
Mac running OS X 10.10 Yosemite

How to Record iPhone/iPad Screen on OS X Yosemite

Connect the iPhone/iPad to Mac via USB
Open the QuickTime Player on the Mac
Select File > New Movie Recording

Quicktime will default select iSight camera, click on the arrow alongside the record button to select the iPhone/iPad.
Click on the record button to record the iPhone/iPad Screen


How to sort the special characters menu?

You may be able to do this by customizing the Accent Menu/Character Picker as described in this earlier answer here:


Was the FileMerge application removed from OS X 10.7.3?

With Xcode 4.3, Apple has moved the content of /Developer to the usual places for applications etc. Filemerge is accessible by starting Xcode and then accessing Xcode -> Open Developer Tool. If it's not listed there, select "More Developer Tools" to install it.

Physically it's part of Xcode.app (Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/FileMerge.app) and can be executed stand-alone by inspecting the package content of Xcode.app. If you really need it outside of Xcode often, you can also create an alias/symlink to start it directly (or just drag it into the Dock).


how to configure shared iPad for Apple Business Manager?

I am giving the answer to my question because I get the answer from discussions.apple.com which I also asked on discussions.apple.com
there I got the answer.

So the answer is till now it's not possible. it's only available for Apple School Manager


My photos disappeared after reprogramming my iPhone 4

Since you don't have a backup, you will want to put the phone in airplane mode and stop using the device. Then see what companies do data recovery from iPhones.

It is trickier than recovering data from a hard drive since SSD/flash storage allocates things differently than a sector based disk does. Also, the passcode and pairing procedure make mounting the raw storage harder.

You should expect to pay some $$ for the service. The specific model of iOS and hardware will increase or decrease the cost as will your location in the world and if you need quick service vs sending it off to a lower cost location for the recovery work.


Go to Settings -> iTunes & App Store -> [your Apple ID] -> View Apple ID.

Change the Country/Region (below Payment Information).

Select your region, agree to terms, and you're done.


Slide links not working when exporting as PDF from Keynote

I had the same problem. I put the link to a slide on items that were grouped together. If I ungrouped the items (I had text inside a circle) and just selected the text and added the link to that, then when I exported to PDF the links worked.


Download 4 apps at a time during restore from iCloud backup?

This is normal behavior that you can't change. I don't know why, I guess it's just the way Apple wanted it to work.


Most recent backup not available when attempting to restore iPhone

You can only restore a backup onto an iPhone, iPad, iPod or WATCH that is running the same, or a more recent version of its operating system.

If your latest backup isn’t showing up as an option when attempting to restore your iPhone, first set it up as new, and update to the latest version of iOS. Then try another Restore. Your backup should show up then.


Distribute macOS build of a SwiftUI app using Sign In with Apple

Sadly it seems like it's an issue with Apple's tooling. See also https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/129263.

Nothing to do but remove Sign In with Apple (not an option for me), or simply wait for Apple to fix this :(


If you change your command to start rsync -rvh ... to rsync -avh ... you should have more success.

The way you have the command just now rsync isn't copying over date stamps. The files in MobArchive will have their Create, Modify and Access times set to the time they are created in MobArchive. So every time rsync does a compare the date stamps in Archive and MobArchive will not match and it'll copy over everything again.

The "a" option (aka "archive" mode) is the equivalent of "-rlptgoD" which does a number of things including preserving timestamps.


voice reading web pages (news articles) on the iPhone and Mac

Have you tried the service "Add to iTunes as a spoken track"? You can easily assign a keyboard shortcut to it an then manage the tracks with iTunes.

I found this tutorial on youtube.


Alternative to AlwaysAppendSearchDomains on Yosemite?

I found the answer as I posted this:

To enable mDNSResponder, edit /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist and remove the lines

<key>Disabled</key>
<true/>

Then add -AlwaysAppendSearchDomains to the arguments list further down in the same file:

<string>_mdnsresponder</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
    <string>/usr/sbin/mDNSResponder</string>
    <string>-AlwaysAppendSearchDomains</string>
</array>

Finally run

$ sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist
$ sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

You can then verify mDNSResponder is running:

$ ps ax | grep -i dns | grep -v grep
10456   ??  Ss     0:00.44 /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder -AlwaysAppendSearchDomains

Subdomains of search domains can then be resolved.


How to close / remove the "upgrade OSX" notification ?

Open App Store in System Preferences

Tell it not to bother you (uncheck all)


It will work on KT (they even sold the 3GS which wasn't CDMA), and possibly others.

He may need to get the IMEI registered with the network before the SIM will work in it though as they are very protective over their networks (this was true up until 2010 at least, although they may have become more relaxed on this since then).


The App Store needs to find that your AppleID has "purchased" Numbers.  There are two ways to do this and they have already been covered in some detail in Old version (macOS Sierra) for Pages, Keynote and Numbers, iWork
Just needs a little adjustment for Yosemite rather than Sierra.
The way covered in detail is to install a pre-App Store version of Numbers and then the App Store will let you upgrade.
This is also described here and this is for Yosemite.
The second method is to install the current Numbers on another Mac (with macOS 10.15 or 11) using your App ID.  Then the App Store will then let you go backwards to an older version on your Yosemite Mac.


Is it ok to keep an iPad plugged into a MacBook Pro all the time?

every few weeks (3 or 4), disconnect the iPad and use it until you have about 50-75% battery left, then charge/connect it again and your battery will not suffer at all.


Continue screen recording even after screen turns off

No
There are no options for screen recording in the settings app. You also get a little notification that the recording has been stopped after you set the device to sleep.

If you own a Mac you could use QuickTime player to record the screen. Connect your device to the Mac with a cable then open QuickTime Player, right click on the icon in dock, select new recording and set the input to your mobile device (small arrow next to the red record-button). Then click record. It will continue the recording even though you set the mobile device to sleep.


Apps on iPhone lockscreen: how to remove them, i.e. Starbucks

It may be because you added as a passbook pass. If it only shows up when you are near the store, that's the reason. Go to the Starbucks app, click Stores at the top, click the store you are at, and hit the X near the passbook option.

(You can also delete the pass directly in Passbook.)


If you get to the cmd-r screen there you should have the restore option.

Since your system froze, probably the best is to use restore the os x.

Your system has the Internet restore option.

In order to reinstall OS X, you need to be connected to the Internet over an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network. The Wi-Fi menu is in the upper-right corner of the screen. Click the icon to select from available Wi-Fi networks. Choose your preferred network name and, if needed, enter a username and/or password.

Now to the bad news: you probably had a disk error. It is big enough to also screw up your osx boot sector. Try holding the option key to see if it comes with the boot option. Since you do have access to the disk utility use it to try to repair your disk.

Now to the good news: Since your computer is probably still under warranty if above fails bring it in for repair.


Can't delete music from iOS device in iTunes

This is likely because iTunes is automatically syncing your music.

When you automatically sync music, you manage what songs you have on your device by going to the music tab, and selecting which playlists/artists/genres/albums to sync or not sync.
The fix:
To manually manage music, click the Summary tab, scroll to close to the bottom, and in the Options area, there will be an option to Manually manage music and videos. Select this option, and you should be able to delete songs and such from the "On this iPhone" tab.


Can't find public network if here's an other, password protected one

Well, as a workaround, I went to Network preferences -> Advanced , then clicked on the + button and added a new wifi hotspot named Starbucks, without security.
Clicked Ok, then Apply et voilà, MPB connected..


Optimal keyboard shortcut for keyboard layout switching on OS X?

I use ctrl + ⌥ + space. It's typeable via left hand, doesn't collide with the search window shortcut (as ⌥ + ⌘ + space does) and I haven't found any other overlap yet.


OS X Yosemite Server won't create websites

Well, now I feel a bit silly. I was remotely administering the server using server.app on another computer within the local network. Everything worked straight away as soon as I tried the same process on the server itself using Screen Sharing.

I'm not sure why this is a problem, but it looks like remote administration using the Server.app doesn't work for everything!


SD card shows up as Internal in Disk Utility

You cannot back it up if the partition information is damaged. You first need to repair the damage. Sounds like it is the root/boot disk, which means you don't want to try using it.

Yes you can boot your damaged Mac into Target disk mode by pressing the T key right after powering it on. Then plug it into another Mac. The damaged disk will appear as a drive on the good Mac. Run diskutil to repair your damaged disk.


How can I get my 3rd party SSD to boot El Capitan?

You could try using bless to verify whether the disk is recognised as bootable and to potentially bless the disk to make it bootable.

If you can boot into Single User Mode (hold down command-S while booting) or launch terminal from an installer disk you can run bless

First I would try to establish if the drive is bootable or is flagged as the boot drive all by using

bless --info /Volumes/yourSSDdrive The state of your drive's blessed system folder

bless --info The state of the current boot drive's blessed system folder

bless --getBoot The current actual logical boot volume (e.g. /dev/disk1 )

If you find your drive is not blessed, you can bless it yourself with

bless --folder "/Volumes/yourSSDdrive/System/Library/CoreServices" --bootinfo --bootefi

See the man page for more details:
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man8/bless.8.html


How to watch a movie I rented on my Macbook on my iPad?

From the same support document:

If you rented the movie on your computer, but want to watch it on an iOS device, connect the devices and sync using USB. When you move a rented movie from your computer, it will disappear from your computer’s iTunes library. You can move the movie between devices as often as you want, but you can only have it on one device at a time.
If you rented the movie on your iOS device or Apple TV, you can’t move it to any other device.
To watch an HD movie, you need to play it on a supported device: your computer, iPhone 4 or later, iPad, iPod touch (4th generation or later), or TV using Apple TV.


Does the iPhone 8 have any sort of water resistance or waterproof manufacturing?

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus is not waterproof — no smartphone is and in a break with past iPhones, Apple now designs for an IP67 rating for dust and water-resistance. You can read more about how IP ratings work here.

In a nutshell, as far as water is concerned, an IP rating of 67 means your iPhone 8 can be fully submerged in up to 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes without being damaged.

So, will an iPhone 8 die if it takes a brief dip in water that’s deeper than 1 metre? No.

Will it survive for over a half hour or so in about 5cm (2") of water? Yes.

What this all means is that an iPhone 8 (that isn’t cracked or otherwise compromised) will survive a water accident that caused significant damage and function degradation to older iPhone hardware.

Steam

In terms of steam, no, it's not officially rated against that criteria (from memory it'd need to have an IP rating of 69 for that).

However, if you're just talking about leaving it on the bathroom bench while you have a shower, then it'll be fine1 assuming it's not going to be in there for a prolonged period of time and that the steam isn't produced from extremely high heat.

1. Based on the fact I have two teenage daughters who have used iPods and iPhones like this for years (and they don't even have an IP rating)!


How long does text stay in Spotlight Search?

Every time you reopen (to look at it) it the timer starts anew.

If you leave it closed, it will expire (refresh) after 5-10 minutes as I measured.


Could files downloaded from Youtube and Tumblr harm Mac?

Well there are two points to this.

A.) there is a question of whether or not the files themselves contain any malicious code, which is hypothetically possible, but not likely. Owlswipe's comment is not correct in saying you cannot download files from YouTube, you can do so both through YouTube Red, as well as downloader extensions (which by the way are not illegal).

All a YouTube downloader extension does is use a program (often times wget, or something similar) to make a copy of the video file that is referenced in the html for that video's page. While it is possible for a downloader extension to infect that video file, it is quite unlikely for it to happen in practice. As far as files from Tumblr go you can probably safely assume the majority of posters on Tumblr do not have the knowledge how, or a reason to inject malware into a picture they are posting. Also seeing as both of these sites use HTTPS (Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol) it would not be possible for someone else to slip malware into either the file as you were downloading it or the page when you were connecting. Though there is always technically the possibility that their severs could be hijacked, it is very unlikely that it happened during the specific time you were downloading files. Which brings me to the second point.

B.) Macs run macOS, which is built on Unix. Unix is very secure, and generally hard to infect with malware. While this does not mean you should stop caring about keeping your computer safe (because it is still possible for a Mac to get infected), as long as you don't enter your password into random prompts saying a program you didn't launch wants to modify your system you should be fine. Typically it is only Windows that is vulnerable to the type of attacks used by malware that is contained in an image or video file, and it is because of the way Windows handles both security access and multimedia with a connected system.

All in all your Mac should be fine if you move your older files to it. Unless you know for sure that someone had hijacked the YouTube or Tumblr servers on the day you downloaded the files, you don't realistically need to worry about it getting infected by them. With that said always be careful when running programs you download from the internet, even on a Mac, as it is easier for malware in a program to infect any system than it is for malware in a video or image file.


recover partial backup data from a (potentially damaged) Time Machine disk

The best thing to do, to avoid major data loss, is to:

copy personal files and folders from the TM disk image (they do not have symlinks, so no problem whatsoever). Obviously choose the latest backup.
from the TM disk image write down on a piece of paper an entire list of all the apps in the Application folder and reinstall them from scratch (depending on what the app is, it might not be self-contained, therefore it might include some symlinks and/or preferences)

Even if you can successfully restore from the TM, you must reinstall from scratch utilities like

Garageband/Logic additional instruments (if you have installed some)
Java
Adobe Flash Player/Shockwave Player
Microsoft Silverlight
XCode Command Line Tools


What filesystem should I use to share across Mac (Yosemite) and Linux?

You can use exFAT but you may have to install the packages on Linux.  Probably along the lines of:

sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

This has the benefit of read/write in Windows as well.


Addressbook resolution for International Callers

Make sure they are in the Address Book on your iPhone. The ID will resolve itself via the Address Book if the Caller ID itself can't be resolved. The caveat is that this is an entirely manual process on your part. I get phone calls from the UK here in the US, I've never gotten Caller ID to resolve on its own, but as long as the number and name is in the Address Book, then I know who is calling.

There is probably a jailbroken-phone method, but I don't know anything about that to provide a reasonable answer.

UPDATE per your comment: The format of the number received and the number in your phone has to match. I have the impression the OS is looking at the numbers with a simple string comparison, so it's an all-or-nothing scenario. I had a problem with this until I copied and pasted the numbers in the call log into the Address Book entry, then everything eventually worked out fine. Sometimes I get the odd formatting (I'm guessing it depends on which carrier's calling card was used), but now I have a tidy collection for each entry on valid phone numbers. It's still manual, and it's still a hassle to maintain at first, but it was the only way I saw around the problem.


My iPhone won't pair to my August EP650R headphones

Go to settings -> Bluetooth and make sure the switch is turned on:

Then make sure the headphones are in a range of up to 10 metres and in a state to be paired to the phone.

If this doesn’t work try:

Turning Bluetooth on and off on both the phone and the device
Resetting the device and restarting the phone
Contacting the device manufacturer


These instructions come from the Microsoft site.

Install HomeBrew:

(Paste into Terminal.)

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

Update homebrew:

brew update

Install OpenSSL:

Source

brew install openssl
ln -s /usr/local/opt/openssl/lib/libcrypto.1.0.0.dylib /usr/local/lib/
ln -s /usr/local/opt/openssl/lib/libssl.1.0.0.dylib /usr/local/lib/

Finally install .NET core, download here:


How do I back up my old iPhone 4 onto a new Mac?

All you need to do is plug in your iPhone 4 into the Mac, and depending on your setup, iTunes should start backing it up. The Mac isn't actually a requirement here, if you set up the iPhone 4 with iTunes on a PC, you can do the same there.

When you get your iPhone 4S, and plug it into the computer, it will ask you if you would like to set up the phone as a new phone, or use a backup from a previous device, like the iPhone 4. Say yes - to use the backup - and it should set up the 4S just like your 4.

With iOS 5, iCloud actually will do part of this for you as well. If your iPhone 4 is already backing up to iCloud (instead of iTunes), when you set up iCloud on the 4S, it may ask you if you want to set it up using the previous backup. This is exactly how I migrated my wife's iPhone 4 to a 4S when she got it.


If you have the option of buying new printers, you can buy a portable Bluetooth printer for them to use. Using Bluetooth you're no longer dependent on any WiFi, and the iPad can use its WiFi to connect to a guest network for internet access or anything you like.

Using a Bluetooth printer is possible because you have an in-house built app. The app would require slight tweaking to support the printer.

For example you could use the HP PJ-763MFI Bluetooth printer which is created for use over Bluetooth with iOS:

https://www.brother.co.uk/mobile-printers/pocket-jet/pj-763mfi

The HP printer support A4/letter size paper.

Another option for smaller paper sizes are the popular Zebra printers that are certified for use over Bluetooth with iOS:

https://www.zebra.com/us/en/products/printers/mobile/mz-series.html

You can also find similar printers from Star and others.